[Slashdot-mailer] Slashdot Daily Report (11/10/2000)
David Jacoby
jacoby@ecn.purdue.edu
Fri, 10 Nov 2000 11:00:02 -0500 (EST)
Slashdot Daily Report ( http://slashdot.org/ )
News for Nerds. Stuff That Matters.
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Statistics, Elections, Frustration
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 mathematical argument for the electoral
college written by MIT Prof, Alan Natapof.
Hopefully we'll have more word later today.
Update: 11/09 01:55 PM EDT by C:For those of you
interested in seeing why there is such controversy
over the Palm Beach County ballot, you can take a
look at the ballot to see for yourself if it might
be a bit unintuitive. If you'd like more food for
thought, you can check out this article which
talks a bit about the usability issues behind the
ballot's design.
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Practical Issues In Database Management
A books article from the "zen-and-the-art-of-row-based-locking" department
sent by michael
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/10/17/2345227
Fabian Pascal has written this work on issues
that come up in database administration and
recommendations for solving them. It's not really
a practical guide, despite the title, but probably
many administrators would benefit from reading the
book and keeping it handy somewhere. Yes, I mean
you, the one who's got a copy of Filemaker Pro at
home and thinks he knows it all. [TABLE NOT SHOWN]
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Judge: eBay Not Liable For Bootleg Recordings
A articles article from the "interesting-twist-on-the-cda" department
sent by Hemos
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/09/159231
Millennium writes: "San Francisco Superior Court
Judge Stuart Pollack has ruled that eBay is not
liable for bootleg music sold on its site. The
interesting thing about this ruling: Judge Pollack
based his opinion on the CDA, of all things."
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Analysis: Henhouse buys Fox
A features article from the "-the-napster-bertelsmann-wedding--(Part-One)" department
sent by JonKatz
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/04/2111212
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TiVo Hacked to Include Ethernet
A articles article from the "now-thats-a-hack" department
sent by CmdrTaco
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/09/1715248
snmcbride writes "Bob Edwards, Paul Mackerras,
and Andrew Tridgell have hacked a 3com ISA network
card into a Phillips TiVo. They've used a custom
adapter to connect the ISA card to TiVo's
proprietary bus. This will likely be the largest
hack since adding more storage space to the TiVo
became easy. A lot of people now have broadband at
home, and it would be nice to pull TiVo's data via
DSL or Cable." Here's a more direct link since
Tivo's forums have bogged a bit.
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Sun's (un)official response to .NET
A articles article from the "the-battle-continues" department
sent by Hemos
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/09/1815249
siliconghetto writes "Sun decided that to post a
response to .NET on it's Java home page. According
to Madhu Siddalingaiah, "Microsoft is spinning
[.Net] as innovative new platform but what they're
really doing is giving developers an updated set
of handcuffs." "
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The Docking Station Meets The MP3 Player
A articles article from the "appropriate-technology" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/09/164200
crazyj writes: "SSI America announced that they
are shipping the new Neo 35 MP3 Player which can
hold up to 81GB of MP3s. The device, which comes
with multiple docking stations (for car, home and
PC), can use any 3.5" IDE hard drive, and can even
be purchased without a drive if you wish to add
your own. The PC dock connects to the IDE bus, so
hopefully (but the FAQ deosn't say for sure) it
will work with Windows, Linux and Macs. A USB dock
is available as well. Finally, I can get my whole
MP3 collection into my car!" About $300 gets you
player, sans disk -- not cheap, but perhaps the
flexibility is worth it.
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Strategic Commander Controller for RTS
A articles article from the "that-looks-pretty-nifty" department
sent by CmdrTaco
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/09/211240
limpbizkit sent in a review of strategic
commander, a new controller designed especially
for real-time strategy games (StarCraft, Red
Alert, etc). Yeah, it's made by Microsoft, but
they have a history of making excellent input
devices. The controller puts a lot of buttons on
the mouse, and I gotta say I'm pretty curious.
Wonder how long before we have X11 drivers ...
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Strategic Commander Controller For RTS
A articles article from the "that-looks-pretty-nifty" department
sent by CmdrTaco
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/09/211240
limpbizkit sent in a review of strategic
commander, a new controller designed especially
for real-time strategy games (StarCraft, Red
Alert, etc). Yeah, it's made by Microsoft, but
they have a history of making excellent input
devices. The controller puts a lot of buttons on
the mouse, and I gotta say I'm pretty curious.
Wonder how long before we have X11 drivers ...
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Slashback: Armada, Coverage, Slap
A articles article from the "no-ducks-at-1-800-327-8264-" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/09/1653245
The ongoing Slashback assault on previous stories
here reveals that (among other things) 1) Maybe
Compaq's Transmeta plans are at least slightly
more up in the air than previously claimed; 2)
Hasbro has again been unable to nab a clue(.com);
3) Hope still springs eternal that you won't have
to give your address and DNA sample to RadioShack
in order to use some nice (but high-ping)
satellite bandwidth. Read on. It's not that we're
abandoning Crusoe -- oh, no! Gorilla_Man writes:
"ZDNet's e-week has posted "this story about
Compaq denying recent reports that it ditched
Transmeta's chips." In truth, the claims of the
Compaq spokesbeings here still don't sound like an
endorsement of Transmeta, more like a
clarification of where in the process of designing
the upcoming Armadas thoughts of Transmeta stopped
manifesting themselves. Perhaps the larger player
can wake up Mr. Brayne? biggaloot writes: "Just
heard from the attorney for Clue Computing that
the U.S. District Court in Boston upheld the
earlier Clue victory against toy giant Hasbro in
the dispute over clue.com. A victory for the small
domain name owner... if you can get to court with
these cases and hang in there, I think your
chances of success are much better than with the
problematic Universal Dispute Resolution Policy."
See Clue Computing site's rundown of events to see
court documents, including the latest swat from
the appeals court. There may be some truly
exploitive domain-name grabs in the world (and
Yes, "I'll know it when I see it") but this case
isn't one of them. Trying to claim proprietary
rights to common words like "table," "childhood"
or "clue" is too absurd to consider seriously --
thanks to their four years of bullying, I'm
willing to concede that Hasbro may have some minor
claim to "clueless.com," though. Just don't sue
anyone over it. Oh, and you can find Hasbro's
toll-free consumer line number on that site as
well; I just spoke (politely, I hope) to
"Veronica," who'd never heard of this dispute, but
promised to pass on my objections to the right
Hasbroids. You can roll at least part of your own.
As the possibility for full-time satellite
wireless coverage gets closer, the niggly details
start to get more important. dBle writes in with
word that the Starband-provided coverage under the
joint RadioShack/MSN flag will not actually
require purchasing a Compaq from RadioShack. He
writes: "Turns out that there is a external USB
version. This will support Win98/98SE/2000/ME.
Furthermore, users may use their own PC (not
having to purchase the RatShack model). ...
StarBand's site lists speeds as 500kb up and 150kb
down, though they don't hesitate to point out
their goal of providing service of 1500/50Kb
during peak usage hours. Still, this continental
US-wide service is an interesting possibility for
those of us who would like more speed than
56k/ISDN can provide. Also, this could be a viable
solution for rural businesses/schools." If
Starband wants to sell to the famous "early
adopters," shouldn't they release enough specs at
least to make this a kernel rev or two from Linux
support? Ah, that's better. Galvatron writes:
"After writing to AOL's customer service
complaining about the lack of a homepage feature
in 6.0, as reported earlier. This is the letter I
recieved from AOL in response, which calls the
CNET article "an hoax" (sic). After downloading
the new version, I confirmed that AOL 6.0 in fact
does allow changing one's homepage. So was it
misinformation, or deliberate slandering on CNET's
part?"
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The Star Wars Trilogy Storyline -- In Legos
A articles article from the "dear-lord" department
sent by Hemos
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/09/1752256
-homb- writes: "This Japanese Star Wars fanatic
has done a series of 180 pictures telling the
whole story of the Star Wars Trilogy, illustrated
entirely in Legos. Even the massive explosion of
the Death Star is there. It took him 155 weeks to
make it. One episode a year!"
--------------------
Enlist, Boot Up, Change Fewer Batteries
A articles article from the "son-can-you-send-us-8-billion-of-these-asap?" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/09/206251
BigBragger writes: "Upside has an article
declaring that ViA will begin using the Crusoe
chip in the wearable computers it currently
designs for the US Army. Crusoe will debut in the
next version. There's hope for a Transmeta PC yet,
but will I have to enlist to get one?" WillSeattle
points to C|Net's story on the same thing and adds
harshly: "Soldier, when was the last time you
compiled this kernel! You are a disgrace to the
uniform! Give me 10,000 lines of code, pronto!"
--------------------
Netscape 6.0 Released
A articles article from the "or-you-could-wear-a-sexy-nightly" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/10/052256
Dave writes: "The first non-beta release of
Netscape 6.0 has made its way onto the Netscape
FTP server. The Windows, Linux and Mac versions
are currently available. The version in the
directory pointed to is a network installer. If
you want to download all the files in one go then
go into the 'sea' directory. However, for a more
cutting edge browser then grab the latest nightly
builds from Mozilla.org, the Mozillazine builds
page tells you which nightly builds are worth
downloading." And Mozilla doesn't draw the same
standards-compliance critiques as Netscape 6.0
does, either.
--------------------
Authentication via Geographical Location?
A askslashdot article from the "where-am-I-now?" department
sent by Cliff
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/06/2246237
RudeDude asks: " While reading Cryptonomicon I
became a bit paranoid about encryption and digital
signatures but it has me thinking a bit as well.
I'm trying to visualize a way to prove my physical
location in a cryptographically strong way and I
can't think of one. My digital signature proves
who I am, but wouldn't it be nice if I could also
give proof of my physical location at a given time
stamp? I've thought of only a few things that
would be very hardware dependent, etc. but what I
really think would be cool would be something that
is as strong as digital signatures. Some sort of
GPS/MD5 signature that a third party could confirm
so that it would be impossible to spoof my
location. " This question has been asked a bit by
people looking to restrict services to various
countries, but currently one can't be sure if the
IP a person is using is really the location from
which the connection is being made. Would a system
like the one described above be a possible answer?
--------------------
Internet Usage Records Accessible Under FOI Laws
A yro article from the "data-shadow" department
sent by michael
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/10/1311205
thehawk writes: "In what could be a landmark
decision in the area of online privacy rights, a
New Hampshire court granted the father of a public
school student the right to obtain Internet usage
records of all students who used computers and Web
access supplied by the school district. The
district was also ordered not to withhold records
that may be requested in the future and was forced
to pay plaintiff's attorney's fees...." The New
York Times also has a story on this.
--------------------
ICANN Meetings
A yro article from the "keep-an-eye-on-'em" department
sent by michael
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/10/28/1715220
ICANN's next meeting will be Nov. 13-16, 2000, in
Marina del Rey, CA. The Internet Democracy Project
is conducting a meeting of At Large members on the
morning of Sunday, Nov. 12, same location, so you
don't have work as an excuse to miss it! The new
At Large directors will be speaking at the
meeting. Following that, the Berkman Center will
have its own meeting examining intellectual
property and the proposed new TLDs, and they've
helpfully provided a set of background materials
if you're not quite current with the issues. Note
that ICANN "updated" their bylaws to prevent the
newly elected directors from actually taking part
in the ICANN Board meeting next week - they won't
take office until just after all the new decisions
about TLDs, etc., which will be made by the
unelected directors, so it is very, very important
to have some public participation since there
aren't any public advocates on the board.
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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?