[Slashdot-mailer] Slashdot Daily Report (11/30/2000)
David Jacoby
jacoby@ecn.purdue.edu
Thu, 30 Nov 2000 11:00:02 -0500 (EST)
Slashdot Daily Report ( http://slashdot.org/ )
News for Nerds. Stuff That Matters.
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Turing Machine Implemented in Life
A articles article from the "you-gotta-be-kidding" department
sent by CmdrTaco
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/29/148202
PixelJuice writes "Paul Rendell has implemented a
Turing Machine in Life here. Perverted, but still
kind of impressive. The site also contains a few
useful links to Turing Machine principles and Life
components." Normally I save this sort of stuff
for the quickies, but this is to out there. I
can't believe this works... but wow. (CT:Link
seems to have gond thud. But thanks for the hate
mail reminding me not to forget the letter v. I
never knew a single letter deserved so many 4
letter words. Makes me love this job oh so much)
--------------------
Yahoo Offering Encrypted Email
A articles article from the "screwing-with-carniore" department
sent by CmdrTaco
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/29/1414228
James Salsman writes "Now that Yahoo delivers
encrypted email, I would sure like to know what
the Slashdot fray thinks of that, especially in
light of Carnivore's vulnerability to some forms
of encryption (but not this one?)." michael adds:
You might also want to check out Cyber-Rights.net,
which is a UK civil liberties group offering
encrypted email through a deal with Hushmail.
--------------------
The Origin Of The Shell
A articles article from the "massachusetts-seafood-remainders" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/29/1650224
davecb writes: "Louis Pouzin, the inventor of
datagrams, just contributed an article to
Multicians.org on the creation of the first shell,
"runcom," on CTSS and later Multics." Multicians
is one of the coolest sites I've seen -- if you
think the odd Atari 2600 is retro, look out. They
also provided information on the Multics scheduler
a little while ago.
--------------------
Money For Nothin' From The SDMI Hacking Contest
A articles article from the "maybe-get-a-blister-on-your-thumb" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/29/1719247
OS24Ever points to this CNN story, writing: "SDMI
is announcing that they are paying two hackers
$5000 each for breaking the encryption on their
watermarking technology." And as the article
points out, conspicuously ignoring the fact that
independent researchers have broken four of the
watermarking schemes without getting taking part
in the official contest.
--------------------
IBM Appoints Chief Privacy Officer
A articles article from the "now-thats-a-wierd-thing-to-do" department
sent by CmdrTaco
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/29/1819255
Chibi writes "IBM has taken a step in what many
would consider the right direction, as they have
created a new position of 'Chief Privacy Officer.'
They are looking at the position to be more
policy-focused than technology-focused, and have
appointed a lawyer to the postion."
--------------------
Possible Crusoe and Recall?
A articles article from the "oh-this-isn't-gonna-be-pretty" department
sent by CmdrTaco
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/29/2011233
vadim writes "Crusoe may have a bug as reported
on yahoo." Not much there except that NEC is
considering a recall because of a "Chip
Failure-Paper" (huh?). It doesn't say what the
problem is, but it mentions that Sony has also
started looking into it.
--------------------
The Oldest Known Life Keeps Getting Older
A science article from the "theories-and-evidence" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/29/2058256
Porfiry writes: "Remnants of organic matter in
ancient soil more than 2.6 billion years old may
be the earliest known evidence for terrestrial
life, according to a team of Penn State
astrobiologists. 'Our work shows that the organic
matter in this soil very probably represents
remnants of microbial mats that developed on the
soil surface between 2.6 and 2.7 billion years
ago,' says Dr. Hiroshi Ohmoto, professor of
geochemistry and director of The Penn State
Astrobiology Center. 'This places the development
of terrestrial biomass more than 1.4 billion years
earlier than previously reported.'"
--------------------
Programmers work 47 days per year
A articles article from the "less-code-fewer-bugs" department
sent by sengan
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/29/2035245
According to a new study from the consulting firm
Software Productivity Research, software
programmers spend 47 days a year developing or
enhancing software applications. The rest of the
time is spent testing, fixing bugs, and working on
projects that will later be cancelled. This might
be deemed poetic justice, given that users avoid
using more that 10% of application's functionality
for fear that something will break. On the other
hand this could be seen as good news for newer
projects: add fewer features but get them right.
Eg: a light-weight word-processor that imports
foreign formats correctly, but only has the
features most people use. What do you think? Can
anyone corroborate the article's statement that
90% of nonprofit organizations in the U.S. cannot
afford to maintain more than 15 networked
computers?
--------------------
Akira on DVD? It Might Happen
A articles article from the "i've-still-never-seen-that-one" department
sent by CmdrTaco
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/29/1426228
Xunker writes "I was mooching around, looking for
infomation on the mother of all anime films,
Akira, when I found an interesting tidbit
pertaining to it's release on DVD. The gist of it
being that Pioneer got the rights to it after MGM
let them slip, and the word on the wire is that
they're redubbing it in preparation for a
re-release on DVD in 2001! Finally anime newbies
like myself can see what all the fuss is about!"
--------------------
IBM will not support FreeBSD (or Linux) on ThinkPads
A bsd article from the "double-speak" department
sent by BSD-Pat
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/29/1855248
BSD Today has this story about IBM refusing to
deal with the fact that FreeBSD will not boot on
their laptops. The actual service page is on IBM's
support site. IBM does support Linux on the A20m
though, but only OpenLinux. Is it my imagination
or does this seem strange for a company that seems
to understand the Open Source idea? Update: Seems
that the problem is a BIOS issue where IBM used
partition type a5 (or 165) for their suspend
partition, this was reserved for
386BSD/FreeBSD/NetBSD. (NetBSD has since started
using a9.) Here's a list of partition IDs as well
as an explanation.
--------------------
IBM Will not Support FreeBSD on ThinkPads
A bsd article from the "double-speak" department
sent by BSD-Pat
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/29/1855248
BSD Today has this story about IBM refusing to
deal with the fact that FreeBSD will not boot on
their laptops. The actual service page is on IBM's
support site. IBM does support Linux on the A20m
though, but only OpenLinux. Is it my imagination
or does this seem strange for a company that seems
to understand the Open Source idea? Update: Seems
that the problem is a BIOS issue where IBM used
partition type a5 (or 165) for their suspend
partition, this was reserved for
386BSD/FreeBSD/NetBSD. (NetBSD has since started
using a9.) Here's a list of partition IDs as well
as an explanation.
--------------------
IBM Won't Support FreeBSD on ThinkPads
A bsd article from the "double-speak-and-double-speak" department
sent by BSD-Pat
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/29/1855248
BSD Today has this story about IBM refusing to
deal with the fact that FreeBSD will not boot on
their laptops. The actual service page is on IBM's
support site. IBM does support Linux on the A20m
though, but only OpenLinux. Is it my imagination
or does this seem strange for a company that seems
to understand the Open Source idea? Update: Seems
that the problem is a BIOS issue where IBM used
partition type a5 (or 165) for their suspend
partition, this was reserved for
386BSD/FreeBSD/NetBSD. (NetBSD has since started
using a9.) Here's a list of partition IDs as well
as an explanation.
--------------------
Transmeta Confirms Recall
A articles article from the "what-a-bad-day" department
sent by CmdrTaco
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/30/0231207
jbischof was the first to tell us that Transmeta
has confirmed that they are recalling Crusoe, as
we mentioned earlier. The statements says it's
fewer then 300 NEC laptops, so it's not that huge
of a deal after all. Of course the egg-on-face
factor is still high.
--------------------
Euro Software Patents: stay of execution
A yro article from the "try-try-again" department
sent by michael
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/29/1756211
Mr. Adequate writes: "The European Patent Office
finished its diplomatic conference in Munich
today. According to the press release, the
non-patentability of software will remain
unchanged for another year. Then the fun starts
again. In the meantime, European Slashdotters
could do worse than to voice their concerns to
their EU representatives, sign the petition, and
of course support the fledgling FSF Europe." The
process certainly didn't rule out software
patents, just said they're still thinking about
it.
--------------------
Pentium 4 Recalled By Some U.S. Stores
A articles article from the "stuff-happens" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/30/0450244
An unnamed correspondent directs your attention
to this article in the Australian PC World. It
reads in part: "Consumers trying to purchase
computer systems loaded with the Pentium 4 chip at
Best Buy outlets in Houston; Jacksonville; Fort
Wayne; and Hawthorne, were each told that Pentium
4 systems had been recalled from store shelves due
to issues such as excessive heat and inadequate
performance, sources said."
--------------------
NASA To Contact Its Oldest Spacecraft
A articles article from the "don't-build-'em-like-they-used-ta" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/30/101226
BugBBQ writes: "This is very "Space:1999
UltraProbe" kinda-kool... NASA will attempt to
contact its oldest spacecraft, Pioneer-6, launched
in 1965! (yikes! that's the year I was born for
crying out loud! which I'm sure I did at the
time)). p.s.: Anyone who gets the Space:1999 ref
is welcome to e-mail me" This bird has been
spinning through space for a long time.
--------------------
What Do You Think Of The Delux DVD?
A askslashdot article from the "the-anti-mpaa-dvd-player?" department
sent by Cliff
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/29/098206
A suspicious (yet anxious) Anonymous Coward asks:
"I've been researching a DVD player to buy myself
for Christmas and am having a very hard time
satisfying all of my requirements. Most of my
requirements are to do with not wanting to support
the MPAA and not throwing any money their way. I'm
looking for the most anti-industry DVD player out
there. I have no problem spending the money, but I
sure as hell want my money to go to the good
people. I have read the reviews of APEX 600A, and
the Infinity and while these players have my
requirements (Play MP3 CDR, region-free, toggle
for Macrovision) their reviews seem to have a
negative side to them that is offset by the geek
factor. What I have found is what appears to be
the godsend of home entertainment...it's called
the Delux DVD."
--------------------
Linux to Fragment?
A articles article from the "standard-suit-speak" department
sent by CmdrTaco
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/30/146224
King_B writes "news.com has an article in which
Sun's COO Ed Zander addresses the competition. One
point to note is his prophecy concerning the
eventual fragmentation of linux into
non-compatible vendor-specific linuces. " Doesn't
really say anything new, but nothing else seems to
be happening today *grin*. People have been
preaching about fragmenting Linux for years but it
hasn't happened. And even if it did, I somehow
doubt it would matter all that much. But it still
gives COOs something to talk about I guess.
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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?