Slashback: Hawash, Monomania, Rocketships

Tonight's Slashback arrives with updates on disappeared Intel contractor Mike Hawash, free Baen books, a new link for comparing space ship sizes, and more. Read on below for the details.

Yes, charges are nice after six weeks of unexplained incarceration. purdue_thor writes "The various news agencies (CNN, FoxNews) are reporting that after being held for six weeks, software engineer Mike Hawash has finally been charged. His detainment as a material witness and subsequent incarceration without formal charges was discussed previously on /. Friends of Mike Hawash have created a website to publicize his case and have released a statement regarding the charges."

Randolpho adds "The Free Mike Hawash website has released the following affidavit (PDF file) received from the Federal Terrorism Task Force. The affidavit states that Hawash traveled to China in 2001 with several co-conspirators 'in an attempt to enter Afghanistan to fight against United States forces.'"

This just in from the cork-topped bottle. danny writes "One of the disadvantages of living in Australia is that my review copies arrive late. But my review of Google Hacks may be of interest, even after honestpuck's earlier review."

Free as in books. Author John F.X. Sundman writes: "PDFs of the complete Acts of the Apostles and Cheap Complex Devices are available for free download from wetmachine.com under the Creative Commons license."

And Robotech_Master writes "Remember the Honor Harrington CD-ROM, which Baen packaged with its most recent Honor Harrington book? The one that included over three dozen e-books and came with explicit permission to copy and share but not sell?

Well, Baen's done it again. The new CD comes with the fourth book in John Ringo's Aldenata trilogy, Hell's Faire . It includes still more free e-books, mp3s, and even a D20 Aldenata roleplaying game in electronic form. The book hits the stands this month, and the ISO is already available on-line. (Scarywater guy, please take note. :) Download it, burn it, give it to your friends...or buy the book and support one of the most Internet-clueful publishers out there today."

Free as in "you pay money." An anonymous reader submits "The original Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, was first a book, then a radio series. Adams edited both. All 7 hrs and 30 minutes of the Radio series have been released by the BBC in MP3 CD format. If you only caught the TV series this is a must."

I wish more audio books would arrive like this (compressed, so as to occupy fewer disks), though I'd choose a better method of audio compression ;) If you want to hear the HHGttG, though, a few minutes on Google will probably turn up some fan sites with recordings from the BBC broadcasts. (innocent whistling)

Yeah, but there's no Epcot Center. Sacarino writes "Las Vegas is *almost* on par with Disney now. The regularly-updated Monorail Society website has tons of pictures of the progress. Vegas' monorails are the same type as Disney's (Bombardier Mark VI), only with inwardly opening doors... slick! Also mentions the old MGM-Bally's monorail that's getting absorbed into the new automated network."

Is this what Microsoft thinks of viral licensing? Vagary writes "One of my friends just got a Microsoft router and asked me to check the security features for it. The ping denial doesn't work, which is good because a port scan found some pretty interesting things, including this string in the TCP/IP fingerprint: 'i586-pc-linux-gnu'. Does that mean Microsoft must provide Linux source to purchasers of this product?"

Can anyone confirm, deny or explain this interesting claim?

Click here to discuss the size of a fictional spacecraft ... photozz writes "The infamously slashdotted site comparing the relative sizes of several hundred starships from various Sci-Fi series has been mirrored to a somewhat more robust server. So cool. It's in draggable format, so you can put King Kong on top of Deep Space 9 and re-create a dream I had last night......."

Comments

Security features

[Anonymous Coward]

One of my friends just got a Microsoft router and asked me to check the security features for it.

Hey, just post the ip here on slashdot, and we can give it a REAL security check for you :-).

Draggable?

[zzzmarcus]

You'll find you can't drag the buildings/ships/monsters in the browser who was forced to change their logo at the request of a certain GODZILLA who just happens to appear in the comparison.

Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

Psshaw, Hawash

[scrod]

An AMD engineer would never have done anything like that.

Monorail!

[Eric Smith]

[Barney] What about us braindead slobs?
[Lyle] You'll be given cushy jobs!
...
[Crowd] Monorail! Monorail!

--Simpsons episode 9F10

Re:You've completely misinterpreted the fingerprin

[DNS-and-BIND]

Even if they did, you could sue them, and win, and you still wouldn't get anything. MS lost against the U.S. government, for Chrissake, and didn't suffer one bit.

Since the U.S. defeated Iraq, and MS defeated the U.S., I think we can safely draw the conclusion that Microsoft is a tougher, more ruthless enemy than Saddam Hussein.

Re:The New American Gulag Archipelago

[bobbozzo]

All your rights are belong to U.S.!
-- John Ashcroft

Re:Spaceship comparisons

[Scutter]

our moon, for reference, is 3500km

That's not a moon, it's a space station.

Re:The New American Gulag Archipelago

[Randolpho]

Associated? Good Lord, what a heinous crime! We must execute him at once! Everyone knows that associating with criminals turns you into one!

You know... every one of his neighbors is a terrorist co-conspirator. Don't forget his coworkers. They've all associated with him.

And it's only a few steps until Kevin Bacon is locked up.