EGSonikku writes: "Although it may seem a bit odd, according to this msnbc.com story NATO and its member countries are developing so called 'green weapons' that produce similar effects to standard weaponry, without using chemicals that could be hazardous to the environment and the soldiers using them. Good to know that we can bomb each other without hurting the butterflies now, eh?" Heh -- it's the environmental bit shift of the neutron bomb -- "Kill the people, preserve the industry" becomes "Kill the people, preserve the land."

MrPeach writes: "In a move unsurprising to those of us who have had interactions with their so-called customer support, AT&T Broadband and Excite@Home are indefinitely filtering all incoming traffic on http port 80 for residential customers. They could have cut access to those running compromised servers, but instead chose to deny the ability to run a web server to all subscribers to their service. DSL anyone?" DSL won't save you. Verizon is apparently also blocking port 80 for their DSL customers, in addition to blocking outgoing port 25 and requiring use of Verizon's SMTP servers to send email. Verizon is also cheerfully paying fines for screwing over their competitors - the fines will be much less than the extra profit they can squeeze out once their competition is gone.

Paintthemoon writes: "The deal of the week: ATT & AOL are in talks to merge their cable systems, with each company owning shares of the other but AOL being in control of the joint venture. Coming on the heels of the AOL-TimeWarner-Amazon announcement, this just shows the further consolidation of broadband & information systems."

nil0lab asks: "I want to use keystrokes to switch between various systems and go from workspace to workspace within each system with another set of keystrokes." By using a combination of VNC, SSH and the right window manager, nil0lab wants to be able to look at any desktop on his network. Sounds cool, and I bet there are a lot of us who could put a trick like this to use. nil0lab has a partial solution, however there are still issues that need to be solved, and this is where he needs your help.

temuchin writes: "Looks like AT&T officially announced their version of the Internet Payphone - the PP2000i. Slashdot ran a story about BT introducing a version of their own back in the summer of '99 (as reported by the BBC), but this seems to be a bit more ambitious to me, as many of them are already installed and in use. You can find more stats on the phones themselves here. I guess we'll see how it goes."

michael_cain asks: "Sometime in the past few years, I read an online essay with the thesis that most of the software developments that people today regard as innovations were initially developed on UNIX using C. For example, the first graphical Web browser (Mosaic) and most early Web servers (CERN, NCSA) were initially UNIX apps written in C (or C++, a derivative). I've tried the search engines but have been unable to come up with the essay that I remember (lots of other interesting things, of course). So a question for the collective memory of the Slashdot community -- do you know this essay? Do you have a link to it?" Such an essay would be an interesting read. Do you agree or disagree with the topic, however? If not, what do you think are important innovations, and did they originate from Unix and C?

Starting the show off with some cool do-it-yourselfer sorta projects: Diederik Meijer submitted the The Silicon Graphics Refrigerator Project (or: How To Turn a $175.000 High-End SGI Challenge DM Server into a Fridge). Next up, mdaughtrey built a Mechanical Hit Counter jrbx1 sent us a link to an in-dash Atari 2600. Even coolor is that the dash its in is attached to a 1978 volkswagon ;) rednax sent us a review of a kit for adding neon to your PC. If you're not skilled enough to hack how it works, at least you can pretend you're cool and hack how it looks! I Nothing is more dangerous then glewtion's link to a story about a sculpture in england that that worries people since the heat it generates cook fry a bird mid-air. Oh, and I lied: even more dangerous then art is amasci's link to making pet ball-lightning. In your microwave, duh. If you've got some spare time, MxTxL submitted something that we've been seeing more of, email games. This one is battlemail, which apparently is glorified addictive paper rock scissors. f you were an Anime character, here's some helpful hints to keep in mind. Hieronymus Coward sent us a bit about The Drew Carrey Show featuring a 2 minute segment based on the sims. I wonder if they will use the vibromatic bed, actually the next expansion comes out soon (today?) so I probably am gonna have to resurrect my neighborhood sometime soon. Thirsty? Dipfan sent in a story about Coke wanting to put soda fountain style coke in every house right next to the water dispenser. Got Carbonated Milk? Finally for a little random product plugging, Rustin H. Wright found a place selling penguin crossing signs. Finally, anotherone noted that you can use Google in full swedish bork bork chef glory.

regen writes "I found a very interesting document while doing some research for work. This Customs Declaration has to be one of the strangest ever filled out. It is the declaration filled out by the crew of Apollo 11 for bringing Moon rocks into the United States. A news article by Independent News confirms that this document is real."

dedair writes "From the people who brought you VNC, AT&T labs has been working on an ultrasonic location system that they use in their labs in Cambridge, Engalnd. It turns a whole building into a virtual computing center. No matter where you are in the building, your phone calls can be forwarded to you and with the use of VNC, your desktop is always in front of you. Pretty cool stuff with more details at their website."

David Korn answers! You asked the questions a little while ago, and now David Korn has kindly responded with answers (some lengthy, some pithy, all appreciated) to queries about the eponymous shell, the famous Microsoft/Korn story (in short -- yep, it's like you've heard), and proper Unix behavior. He even made his son Adam write one of the answers.

David Korn is the author of the famous Korn shell, ksh, which deserves consideration next to the ubiquitous bash. Quote (regarding the AT&T research group he's part of): "We don't write anything in Perl anymore, because [ksh93] has all the functionality built in." He's also an AT&T fellow, and heads up the UWIN project, which "provides a mechanism for building and running UNIX applications on Windows NT, Windows 98, and Windows 95 with few, if any, changes necessary." This is the software that allowed some crazy folks to run GNOME on Windows several weeks back as well. (And is available for no-cost personal use.) This is the same David Korn you may remember from this picture. I met him at a recent NYLUG meeting when he spoke about the Advanced Software Technologies collection of tools, now Open Source, and he graciously agreed to field questions in the usual Slashdot interview style. So please leave your questions in the space below --1 question per comment, please -- and Korn will get back to you with answers in the near future.

If the iPAQ looks nice, the Yopy looks sexy, the Agenda intrigues you, and a V-Tech Helio running Pocket Linux looks interesting to you ... then you may enjoy this sweep of the available Palmtop GUIs with an emphasis on Free ones, written by reader 1010011010.

Amigori writes "Gamepro has this article about the upcoming Indrema console. Its a basic article, but it does a decent job of explaining the system in an easy to read way." Talks about how they are expecting hackers to take apart the box (unlike the ZapStation: I asked about this at ALS and was told that they are doing stupid things like encrypting their file system, despite the fact that it is super cool and runs Linux and screams "Hack me Hack me!" and hackers would just love to rip that thing apart and make it better. The next generation of Linux devices is going to be interesting: the ones you can hack (Tivo and Indrema) and the ones you can't (may they see the light)

David Hansen asks: "I want to see what problems other Slashdot users have had with @Home restricting their service. We all know that they block the SMB ports, and probably for good reason. But did you know that they won't let you access certain other machines on the @Home network? And why don't they mention any of this in their acceptable use policy? My mother and father are both @Home subscribers in the same city (different subnets). I have Linux boxes acting as firewalls in both places which cannot ping or otherwise contact each other. I can ping them both from an outside location. I discovered this and the SMB thing the hard way. What else doesn't @Home want us to do? Do other ISPs do this also? BTW, I can reach @Home users who are in other cities." I've noticed that ISPs have been filtering lots of ports in the event that users will put up servers. Do you feel that ISPs should make a list of ports that they filter available to their customers?

Kyle writes: "According to this story on Wired, most of the new TLDs selected by ICANN will be restricted. For example, .biz will sport a $2000 price tag with an annual $150 fee, and will be limited to verifiable, legitimate businesses with specific commercial intent. The .pro TLD will be used exclusively by certified "professionals," including doctors, lawyers, etc. If the point is to introduce competition for .com, ICANN might have missed the target. Might this exclusivity limit the popularity of new domains? If almost no one is allowed to use them, the general consumer will likely be unaware that they exist, and continue in their .com'ocentric mindset." Problem is, who says what's bona fide? Would officious rules like this allow eccentric, personal Web-museums (like the online LED Museum) into.museum?

Effugas writes: "Thank Memepool for pointing everyone towards The LED Museum, an absolute geek haven if there ever was one. The Museum archives, tests, and describes the multitude of LED types out there, from Ultraviolet to Turquoise to Infrared--and, most amazingly, true full color LEDs! Apparently, I wasn't the only tech drooling over the possibilities that these devices could be put to use towards: Color Kinetics threw 75 of 'em into a spotlight can and added a surprisingly versatile digital controller with external interfaces. The result: A 16.7 Million Color Programmable Spotlight, for $500US." This is an incredible site; I look forward to when the full color LEDs (and that spotlight - Yow!) are a lot cheaper. And unaccountably, Effugas has linked that "A" to something awful.

cprael writes "AT&T has decided that anyone using their broadband network is their customer, and any online merchant that sells them something owes AT&T a cut of the pie. They are apparently planning to charge for both delivery of the customer, and for the value of any goods/services bought by those customers. Article on Yahoo News." See also a CNN story on the same subject. Hey, it's just like the phone company takes a cut every time you phone in an order from a catalog... oh wait, they don't.

The NYT tells us about Gore's latest campaign commercial, which tells us that Gore will "fight violence and pornography on the Internet, helping parents block out what children shouldn't see." zhensel comments: "I was aware of Lieberman's previous efforts at censoring, but this seems a little bit ridiculous. Should we expect a government provided net filter for families? A government requirement that sites rate their content? I don't see how a president could accomplish this." There are many ways; the problem is that most parents don't need censorware, and they especially don't need the government pushing it on them. The NYT today has an above-the-fold, front-page story in which parents say censorship of films, music, and the internet is Their Job, Not Politicians'.

joseph writes: "This article on C|Net announces Publius, a system similar to Freenet, meant to battle censorship on the Internet. What makes this approach interesting is its backing from AT&T Labs. Of particular interest in the article are the safeguards against the common opposition to such projects, like their use for piracy. Publius features no search utility and a maximum file size of 100k."

Tei'ehm Teuw writes "From an article on CNN - The Federal Communications Commission Monday approved AT&T Corp.'s proposed $54 billion bid to buy cable television company MediaOne Group Inc. This will pave the road for servises like Roadrunner to be tenatively available in 30 percent of the US market. The FCC denied AT&T's position that the 30 percent ownership rule did not apply to its proposed merger with MediaOne and is forcing them to reduce the overall cable assets across the new empire. This is both good and bad, good because broadband access is more widespread, but bat because the monopoly of old seems to be making a comeback. " It seems that the FCC is requiring AT&T to give up MediaOne's stake in Time Warner, and/or 11.2 million other cable subscribers, so that they control under 30% of the cable market. However, I've seen a lot of these Stop AT&T billboards where I live.