[Slashdot-mailer] Slashdot Daily Report (11/9/2000)
David Jacoby
jacoby@ecn.purdue.edu
Thu, 9 Nov 2000 11:00:03 -0500 (EST)
Slashdot Daily Report ( http://slashdot.org/ )
News for Nerds. Stuff That Matters.
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Volcano Cowboys
A books article from the "that's-"volcano-cowboy-neal"-to-you-bub" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/10/20/1418237
Not every nerd career takes place entirely behind
a flickering CRT. Ellen Knowlton Wilson takes a
peek here at a book which exposes one of the
hotter fields for those with a nose for sulfur,
feet like leather, and a penchant for scientific
danger: studying volcanos. [TABLE NOT SHOWN]
--------------------
JWZ On Music Over The Internet
A articles article from the "what-needs-to-happen" department
sent by Hemos
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/08/1448214
kchayer writes "JWZ[?]'s current obsession
includes an audio webcast. Recently he added to
the site a description of what it takes to
broadcast music over the Internet. Makes for an
interesting read, and a good summary of the DPRA,
DMCA, their relationship with the RIAA, and other
issues involving music copyright and the recording
industry in general. His summary at the end says
it best: "What's going on here is that the music
industry establishment are absolutely terrified of
the internet...and are trying to[?] force things
to continue to be done as if turn-of-the-century
technology was all we had to work with.""
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The LEP Collider Will Be Closed Down
A science article from the "so-long-farewell" department
sent by Hemos
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/08/1459223
mukund writes "The Large Electron-Positron (LEP)
collider will be dismantled soon, as this article
on BBC News reports. The LEP is the world's
largest particle collider and is built inside a
27km long tunnel. The collider has been used to
confirm the existence of the Higgs particle
unsuccessfully. A new project to build another
larger collider is on the way. The article says,
"According to commentators, whoever finds the
Higgs first will probably win a Nobel Prize.""
--------------------
Can the BSA Investigate Your office for Piracy?
A articles article from the "something-to-think-about" department
sent by CmdrTaco
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/08/1646226
Kool Moe was the first of several to note that
the BSA is sending letters to companies saying
they're offering a 'software truce' until December
1st... From the letter: "If your company takes
steps to be sure they're fully compliant with all
software licenses, the BSA will not fine you
should they find you were not compliant previous
to this date. If not, all bets are off and if the
BSA finds you in violation, you could "face
penalities totaling hundreds of thousands of
dollars." The question is of course, can the BSA
just come into your office and look? Is this a
scare tactic? I'm definitely no expert since
almost all of my stuff is free.
--------------------
Intellectual Property Issues In College?
A askslashdot article from the "stuff-to-think-about" department
sent by Cliff
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/07/1746235
An Anonymous Coward with PhD prospects asks:
"Next week several people from our computer
science department will be meeting with the
intellectual property lawyers who represent my
university. The intent of the meeting is to get
their opinions on various topics like: work for
hire, UCITA, taking grad theses and selling them,
and so on, and to grill them on the same. Many of
us feel that we should have the right to GPL any
code we produce, but the university makes lots of
money off of licensing. They argue that code
written by a school employee (and this usually
includes grad students) is a work for hire and
that the school should retain ownership and
control. What do /. people think and can you all
come up with other questions that I should ask?"
--------------------
Pentium 4 And Brookdale Update
A articles article from the "but-yeah-you-might-be-1st-on-your-block" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/08/1628259
ravedaddy writes: "With the Pentium 4 in mail
order stores now (before Intel's release date),
[Sharky Extreme] felt it was time to give an
update on the status of Intel's next generation
chip as well as a look at some more information on
Intel's upcoming SDR and DDR chipsets (Brookdale)
for the Pentium 4." Key words: "Don't be foolish
and buy now. You can't actually buy a Pentium 4
motherboard yet, so you won't be able to use a
Pentium 4 right away, anyway."
--------------------
SDMI Officially Reports on SDMI Hack
A articles article from the "what's-the-frequency-kenneth" department
sent by Hemos
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/08/210245
A reader sent us the press release that the
Secure Digital Music Initiative folks have put
regarding the hack SDMI challenge. They are
stating that three out of the five were not
cracked, contrary to earlier reports, and that of
the two that were cracked, one was not a
replicable event. Meanwhile, Salon has continued
their coverage of the whole shebang.
--------------------
Keyless Keyboard
A articles article from the "yes-bob-it's-unique" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/08/2248210
Nos. writes: "Keybowl has developed a keyless
keyboard. Instead of using your fingers, as we're
all used to, you use your hands and arms while
reducing wrist motion. According to their research
it suggests this is much better at reducing
repetitive strain injuries as well as being easier
to use for disabled persons. I'd be happy just
knowing I couldn't drop any more crumbs between
the keys!" As an official keyboard fanatic /
inquisitor, I like to see unusual ideas like this.
As it is, keyboards can mostly be pegged something
from "horrible" to "terrible." Also, check out the
comparison page at this site, which has a fairly
non-judgmental rundown of many of the other
ergonomic keyboards out there, from Kinesis to
Bat.
--------------------
PCI Card Lets You Watch HDTV (And Save To Disk)
A articles article from the "at-long-last-victory" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/09/067217
computer_chacham writes: "Telemann has introduced
the first available PCI card for $400 that shows
full HDTV resolution on your computer. It also is
able to directly take the MPEG-2 HDTV signal, and
store it directly on your hard drive. (About 7.7
Gigs/hour, but still ...) It is also able to
output to a TV. They have a press release, and a
product page. And e-town has a description too."
Ready-or-not, if you watch the boob tube, you'll
soon be watching HDTV -- compared to buying a new
TV set, a card like this seems like a smart idea,
especially at the cost of storage today and
tomorrow. What are the odds it'll ship with
support for any Free OSes?
--------------------
Time's Up For Virgin Connect Webplayer
A articles article from the "slut!" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/09/0626255
R forwarded to us e-mail from Virgin Connect,
outlining that company's discontinuation of
service for all the Virgin Connect Webplayers,
effective the 15th of this month. They're offering
gift certificates to Virginmega.com as a sort of
booby prize to participants in the "charter member
program." If you have one of these devices, be
advised:"Internet Appliance Network will terminate
your charter membership and shut down the service
as of midnight 11/15/00. Effective as of that
date, you are no longer bound by the terms of the
Member Agreement. We will send you a letter via
U.S. mail within the next 7-10 business days that
includes instructions for returning your Webplayer
and a prepaid UPS shipping label, so you can
return the device free of charge. Your Webplayer
cannot be re-configured to work with another ISP."
Actually, since all sorts of things can be
reconfigured to work as stand-alone systems, I
wonder about that. Anyone had any success
converting a Webplayer ala i-opener?
--------------------
What if there Was No Copyright Law?
A askslashdot article from the "stuff-to-think-about" department
sent by Cliff
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/06/228222
Snocone asks: "It seems lately that a whole lot
of the discussion on Slashdot centers around
copyright law. Napster, DeCSS, the GPL; in all of
these discussions the fundamental power over which
there is a struggle derives from the law of
copyright. And in all these cases, the fundamental
existence of copyright is hardly ever questioned.
However, copyright is not a law of nature. Such
force as it has is a product of international
treaty, specifically the Berne Convention and
related treaties of the World Intellectual
Property Organization. And there are nations which
are not signatories to the Berne Convention; a
complete list of contracting parties can be found
here. Note that as of July 19, 2000, there were
only 146 signatories. Just to pick a few A's,
Afghanistan, Andorra, and Angola are not included.
What, exactly, would the RIAA be able to do about
it if Napster had been bright enough to set up its
servers at napster.ao in Luanda? What would
Microsoft be able to do about ftp.freewindows.af
in Kabul?"
--------------------
What If There Was No Copyright Law?
A askslashdot article from the "stuff-to-think-about" department
sent by Cliff
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/06/228222
Snocone asks: "It seems lately that a whole lot
of the discussion on Slashdot centers around
copyright law. Napster, DeCSS, the GPL; in all of
these discussions the fundamental power over which
there is a struggle derives from the law of
copyright. And in all these cases, the fundamental
existence of copyright is hardly ever questioned.
However, copyright is not a law of nature. Such
force as it has is a product of international
treaty, specifically the Berne Convention and
related treaties of the World Intellectual
Property Organization. And there are nations which
are not signatories to the Berne Convention; a
complete list of contracting parties can be found
here. Note that as of July 19, 2000, there were
only 146 signatories. Just to pick a few A's,
Afghanistan, Andorra, and Angola are not included.
What, exactly, would the RIAA be able to do about
it if Napster had been bright enough to set up its
servers at napster.ao in Luanda? What would
Microsoft be able to do about ftp.freewindows.af
in Kabul?"
--------------------
Linus Confirms 2.4 In December
A articles article from the "good-things-coming" department
sent by Hemos
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/09/1253238
Lothsahn was the first to write to us about the
latest statement from Linus regarding the Linux
2.4 Kernel release date. His statement say that he
knows of no major showstoppers, and that he's
asking the major devel houses to deploy the test
kernels internally and start bug testing. Early
Decemeber, hopefully for a release.
--------------------
Ian Murdock On 'Pure' Vs. 'Commercial' Debian
A articles article from the "sparks-for-the-tindet" department
sent by Hemos
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/09/1257206
Netsnipe writes: "Shortly after the release of
Progeny Debian Beta 1, I wrote an article on
DebianPlanet called "Blurring the Line Between
Pure Debian and its Commercial Variants"
questioning the standing of commercial variants of
Debian among the many purists to Debian's
non-commercial principles who would find it
hard-pressed to stray from mainstream Debian. The
article's accompanying poll illustrated that an
overwhelming 58% of respondents would not use a
commercial variant of Debian as opposed to 32% who
would. Ian Murdock, a former founding member of
Debian GNU/Linux and now the founder and CEO of
Progeny Linux Systems has written an interesting
reply to my article where he defends Progeny
despite its commercial leanings and explains how
he feels it stands within the Debian scene. "
--------------------
Statistics, Elections, Frusteration
A articles article from the "will-this-never-end?" department
sent by CmdrTaco
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/09/1350223
The word is that the Florida recount will be
completed later today (before 5 EST). In the
meantime, a couple of interesting bits related to
math (which seems much more appropriate to
Slashdot ;) The big one is of course the 'Voting
Irregularity' in Palm Beach where supposedly
thousands of seniors voted for Buchanan due to a
badly designed ballot. this report (unfortunately,
its a PDF) breaks down the returns on various
counties and pretty much proves that something was
wrong. Any math folks out there interested in
doing their own take on the numbers? bwoodard sent
in a mathamatical argument for the electoral
college written by MIT Prof, Alan Natapof.
Hopefully we'll have more word later today.
--------------------
The info is Rob Malda's
The code is mine
MOTD: -----------------------------------
I am no longer associated with Purdue, except for being a former
student, former employee, and active member of the Linux Users Group.
As such, I'll either be moving this service to another server or
killing it entirely. Your input is requested as to what you'd like.
Then again, when was the last time I changed the MOTD? And when was
last time it was read?