Damn. I'm a Cat Person.

Its official. I'm a cat person. After years of shunning the felines, I've finally accepted them. Kathleen had 3 kittens and a very small apartment. So I took one off of her hands with the understanding that if he pissed me off, or my alergies took off, he could return to her place... well his name is Matrix (named a year before the movie came out, but nobody believes that :( and he's the cutest little brown cat. Very naughty. But I find myself petting him and hugging him. Its amazing how the little rascal manages to just dissipate the stress of work in just a few minutes of petting and playing. For years I was skeptical of 'Cat People' but I'm glad I gave it a shot... a heart attack at 25 was seeming pretty likely for awhile there...
The Internet

What Will The Internet Of The Future Be Like? 165

kayser_soze asks: "I am curious as to what you guys at Slashdot think of the way the Internet as a whole will develop in the near, and not-so-near future. Personally, I always imagine something akin to the ideas William Gibson has written about in his books: a global matrix of information to which all have access. How do other people envision the Internet to come? What technologies do you guys see becoming prevalent, what things will become obsolete, and what are the most far-fetched things you can imagine will happen?"
Graphics

Jeffrey Zeldman Bites Back 162

We got a lot of (shall we say) slightly impertinent questions for Web Standards Project co-founder Jeffrey Zeldman, but that's okay. He reads Slashdot and knows the nature of the beast, and he's hard-core enough to give as good as he gets. So set your humor module to high, then sit back and enjoy Mr. Zeldman's (appropriately impertinent) answers to the 12 questions we forwarded to him.
Slashdot.org

Introducing The New Slashdot Setup 306

At the request of countless users, we're happy to finally present a summary of the new setup over at Exodus. It's the result of over 6 months of work from a lot of people, so shadouts to Adam, Kurt, and Scoop, Team P:Pudge, PatG & Pater for the code, and Martin BSD-Pat and Liz for getting the hardware and co-loc taken care of. Now hit the link below and see what these guys did:

The Slashdot DDoS: What Happened? 367

What follows this introduction is a rough summary of the crazy hell that we endured with the intermittant DDoS[?] attacks we experienced last Thursday through Saturday. I'm sorry it took this long to put this together and tell you what happened, but as these things go, we were too busy trying to solve the problem to waste time talking about it. Big thanks to Andover.Net's Netops PatL, Martin and Liz, as well as Slashcode-wranglers PatG, Chris, Marc, Kurt and CowboyNeal, plus scoop (from freshmeat) and others who chimed in along the way. Tomorrow is part2: A good description of how the new Slashdot @ Exodus works.
Quickies

Totally 31337 Quickies 155

bigstripes sent us a couple of websites that game chairs: The RocknRide and the Simcraft for people for whom strapping a subwoofer to your chest just isn't enough. Curious what the MST3k guys are doing? bill notes that most of the guys are working on a website Timmy Bighands, although Joel is doing his own thing. QuasEye sent us a link to a review of The Matrix: The Musical. I need footage of this, but it sounds frightening beyond measure. Frank Martini pointed us to a VinylVideo who are hawking a kit that lets your old record player play video. Sun Tzu pointed us to a list of milestones in a programmers life, while jamesoutlaw sent in a site that caricatures common discussion group personalities in Usenet ... and surprisingly enough Many of the stereotypes apply just as well to Slashdot. Schmam notes that Stevie Case, one of the designers for Quake II, now working with Ion Storm, famous for being Romero's GF, and for beating him at Quake, as well as being hot ... well she's in playboy, but you're only allowed to read the article or else I'm telling your mom. Hey, its nice to note that Slashdot took 2 People's Voice Webby Awards one in the Print & Zines and the other in Community. I'm not exactly sure what it proves tho (besides the fact that you guys like us enough to fill out a form) but thanks to those who voted us. May peace and prosperity follow you (and may the Webbies not sell your e-mail address to people bent on selling you toner). And now for the strang(er) part of the quickies, HelLfiRe leads us towards The Stinkymeat Project which is, well, a photo documentary of a plate of rotting meat. Read only on a settled stomach. Richard Stevens sent us an Amazingly Strange cartoon strip: This guy draws inane pictures based on the idiotic titles people send him. If you want something slightly better drawn, mkoscica sent us plif which is really twisted, but funny.
Science

Jordan Pollack Answers AI And IP Questions 196

Professor Pollack put a lot of time and thought into answering your questions, and it shows. What follows is a "deeper than we expected" series of comments about Artificial Intelligence and intellectual property distribution from one of the acknowledged leaders in both fields.
Movies

Oscar and Interactivity 150

Sunday night's Oscarcast may have been the usual long, boring and self-congratulatory affair. But there were distinct signs that interactivity -- which is about content, not just the means of delivery -- is beginning to creep into even this arrogant culture. Read more.
Movies

Oscar Wrapup (American Beauty and The Matrix win) 294

RobertPearse noted that the winners are on CNN. No surprise that American Beauty cleaned up (I watched it again on saturday: Wow). But The Matrix took Editing, Sound and FX (Edging out Phantom Menace). Sleepy Hollow took Art Direction. Update by nik: "Not a lot of people know that" many of the effects for The Matrix were generated on FreeBSD systems.
The Internet

LonelyNet (Part Two) 193

The responses were amazing to last week's LonelyNet Column about a Stanford University report which found that Internet use promotes isolation and loneliness. You speak for yourselves a lot better than anybody speaks for you. "What's going on?" asked many about the study. They also asked that the conversation continue, so it will. Read more:

Excerpt From "Geeks" 162

If you click the read-more link below you will be treated to an excerpt from our own Jon Katz's new book Geeks. Regular readers know my aversion to paper books, but I've read this one, and it's worth your while. Katz explores Geek culture by following a couple of geek kids from Idaho to Chicago. It's a true story, and Jesse and Eric are Slashdot regulars. We don't feel right writing a review of the book since we'd be sadly biased, so read this chapter, and make up your own minds about it... but I hope you enjoy it. This is a story that I think many of us will understand.
News

William Gibson Interview @ AICN 100

Well, the slashdot crew is all out killing time and brain cells giving away the Beanie Awards at LinuxWorld (Best Real Propeller Beanie: Jay Sulzberger of the NYLUG). Look for the chock-full-of-fun wrap-up tomorrow, but in the meantime, forge5 writes "Ain't It Cool News has an excellent article on Alexandra DuPont interviewing William "FREAKING" Gibson. They talk about The Matrix, his books, and his X-Files episode. Check it out! "
United States

Citizen Case, DVD-CCA, Napster, and MP3 296

Three organizations -- Microsoft, the WTO, and the AOL/Time-Warner incubus -- are revealing symbols of cultural and technological life at the beginning of the 21st century. They are also warnings. Corporatism is spawning a series of serious legal assaults on the open nature of the Net. These incursions directly challenge open source values, both technological and cultural. For some context, consider the organization soon to be headed by Citizen Case, our new national corporatist leader and spokesperson. Read below for more on this increasingly troubling problem and to offer some possible solutions.
Movies

The Matrix Movie Now in a College Course 287

koolade writes "It looks like The Matrix meant a lot to some people at the University of Washington in Seattle, since an introductory philosophy class is now being offered based on the movie. You can read about it here."
It's funny.  Laugh.

Geek Matrix Parody 110

jarv writes "While idle, a friend messaged me with the URL to an incredibly funny (geared towards us geeks of course) Matrix parody. It's not quite complete, one page is added each day. It's worth it. Go...read...laugh." We're posting this in case there's a Slashdot reader who hasn't seen (and submitted) it yet. It's been all over IRC for the last week.
Technology

Cool Matrix Filming Techniques 155

webword writes "Here's how those cool scenes from the Matrix were filmed (go here). Not that I want actually buy one of these cool cameras, but I hunted around to find out how to get one and how much they cost. You can get one here. This brings up a quick question: How are people keeping up with the latest and greatest filming techniques?" What? An advance in cinematography that doesn't involve a farm of Linux machines?
Perl

Mastering Algorithms with Perl 225

John Regehr sent us an excellent review of Mastering Algorithims with Perl, another O'Reilly & Associates effort. Written by Jon Orwant, Jarkko Hietaniemi, and John Macdonald, this is a book designed to take your Perl to a new level of wizardery.
News

What is Science Fiction? 26

ParadoXIII asks: "I would like to know what the /. community defines as science fiction. What separates it from fantasy or from regular stories? Where and when did the genre originate? What are the goals and purposes of its writers (if any)?" We've probably gone over this in several scattered articles from Star Wars to The Matrix, but I think it still deserves a dedicated discussion. In short, I define Science Fiction as: "fiction in which the characters react to fictional developments of science". But maybe you all think that's too generic. Thoughts?
The Media

Visual Effects Companies in NY and Elsewhere 123

Meghan Eckman asks: "I am wondering what Visual Effects companies there are which strive to bring filmmaking up to the cutting edge of technology. Particularly, I am interested in the visual effects similar to those used in 'The Matrix' (such as the virtual camera set-up). I am a fourth year University student with Linux, programming, and digital media experience, but with a strong desire to go into the filmmaking industry, particularly in New York. I'd like to combine my technical and media skills to create stunning visual effects for the next generation of filmmaking. Where should I look?"
IBM

IBM Selling 20" 2048x1536 LCD 158

starman97 writes "IBM will show a new 20.8 inch LCD active matrix display that boasts 2048x1536 pixels at Comdex this fall in Las Vegas " One word: Yum. A slightly related question: what is the maximum size for a portable computer screen? I would say 20" is a bit out there, but there are 15 and 16 inch laptop screens. Larger LCDs with larger production volumes will mean someone is gonna test the waters sooner or later.

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