oh the irony! asks: "The way the current legal/political/economic climate favors corporations and industry associations like the MPAA and RIAA in questions of intellectual property and copyright troubles me. But it has occurred to me that these tools could be used against the RIAA etc. The RIAA says peer to peer services like Napster were illegal because one person buys a CD and rips it so that a person who doesn't own it can listen to it. So...what if a Corporation buys a CD? Specifically, a corporation is legally a person and can own intellectual property as well as other property. If people are members of a corporation they can then legally use the corporation's property. I am not a lawyer but maybe Slashdot readers could tell me if my idea is legally possible or workable. It would be poetic justice to use Click through licenses and corporate law against the bad guys." Read on for more details on "The Idea".

bertok asks: "I have several spindles of CD-Rs of various brands that I use at home and work, and some of them have a very strong almond odour when opened. Does anyone know what causes that? I know that Hydrogen Cyanide has a distinctive almond odour, but so does a range of other organic chemicals. Can any Slashdot readers with a chemistry background enlighten us as to the possible source of the smell?"

Makin Waves asks: "Skeptics are very good at 'disproving' things that can't be proven in the first place, so, how about offering me a reasonable, rational explanation for all the cattle mutilations in Argentina instead? (200 at last count). A decent explanation must include the following...Where did all the blood go? What portable instrument does the cauterized cuts? Why won't scavengers touch the dead bodies? Why are there no tracks or blood around the bodies? Why do they take tissues that have a lot of nerves? Last but not least, if not aliens....then Who, Why and How? A Google search will get you all the info you need. For the lazy, this place has a lot of stories. C'mon skeptics, put your money where your mouth is. Maybe it was 'auto-suggestion' eh?"

miradu asks: "With the nation in such a serious mood in such dire times, what are we supposed to do for humor? April Fool's Day is just around the corner, but that's only for one day! Sites like The Onion will always be around to poke fun at things, but what are some other smaller sites that are writing some good satire/parodies of the current situations? I need to laugh!"

George Wright asks: "One of the missing links to make PPC Linux more complete is the lack of a MacroMedia Flash plugin. Several people have been caught out by this, but someone has (finally) decided to petition for it. For those people that don't know what Flash is, check it out here. How about some support?"

williwilli asks: "Musicians face a multitude of challenges in this day and age, yet there are a number of musicians also trying to work towards the future. One constant challenge in almost any profession in money. With CPU's continuing to advance at a rapid rate, many musicians are finding computer-based software synthesis to be much more cost effective than traditional hardware synthesizers. While some musicians are using portable systems, the lack of expandibility limits the systems capabilities in terms of synthesis, multitrack recording, etc. While one could always throw more computers at the problem, many users will no doubt find a rackmount system provides much more capability and expandibility. As such, what insights might the Slashdot crowd be able to provide towards building your own rack? Is shockmounting necessary? Are parts readily available, or are there any 'open-source' CAD files out there? Are there music-specific materials, designs, or tips to recommend or avoid?" Would rackmounts for a mobile musician really differ so greatly from rackmounts made for a small server cluster?

JBoelke asks : "I currently teach science fiction at the high-school level, this is my first semester teaching the course and I have been shocked by the lack of resources available. The reference book I am using for story selection is Groking the Future, which was made in the 1970's. It has been rather difficult to get the selections of stories recommended. I did not take a science fiction literature course in college and I was wondering if anyone from the of Slashdot community had, and could recommend provide me with contact address of the professor and University, so I could ask for their curriculum? I know these books may be more complicated for high-school students but I can modify the curriculum." Similar to this thread from 2000, this question focuses more on the curriculum aspect, rather than book recommendations. While I'm sure recommendations not mentioned in the previous thread would be appreciated, actual lesson structure ideas would be better.

FWMiller asks: "Yea, about 5 years I was skilled at a wonderful network game called Netrek. This game was really a sport, requiring not only arcade skills but strategic thinking and extremely well developed team play. Today I was thinking of trying to play again and to my dismay, the entire sport, which used to encompass hundreds of simultaneous players and games has all but disappeared! Does anyone out there have any idea if we witnessed the extinction of one of my favorite graduate school pastimes?" It seems that the home site of Netrek is alive and well, but the metaserver, which showed current active games, is not. Is anyone still playing? Will the Metaserver be replaced or is there some current or future alternative?

dubious9 asks: "Today I was refactoring a parser of mine to use a better implementation of a string searching algorithm. I went to the internet trying to find a good code repository where I might have a chance to find an implementation of a good algorithm, but a cursory glance turned out no clear winners. SourceForge was the best that I could find. Where is the best online repository/library of common and reusable code snippets?" We've tackled this subject a once or twice over the years, is SourceForge really the best answer or are there other options?

KlaatuVN asks: "My younger siblings are asking for ways to learn to program. If I remember correctly, when I was younger I started programming by writing games like 'Lemonade Stand' in BASIC for the Commodore 64. Short of finding a Commodore 64 emulator and digging up some old BASIC programming books somewhere, what do you think is a good way of teaching children to program? I'm not trying to start a 'language war', but that does enter into it. Should I start with a scripting language? What, O Wise Slashdot Readers, are your opinions?" When I was just starting out in computers, I remember LOGO being a big help in teaching me the logic skills I would eventually use as a programmer. I know LOGO is still around, but it would be interesting to note if there are other similar projects like it. What tools, and programs would you use to teach programming skills to interested youngsters?

Devil's BSD asks: "My school is planning to add remote desktop access so that people can easily access a school computer from home. However, with the financial situation in our Kentucky being what it is, using Citrix Metaframe for Unix/XP and buying all the software licenses necessary will be extremely hard. And with the state department of education (ironically named KDE) very pro-Microsoft, VNC is out of the question. Is there a free or low cost Citrix-like software suite that can give access to a remote desktop and compress the datastream to be able to work on a 56k modem like Citrix's ICA does?"

atomicretro asks: "Basically I'm on a quest for a silent PC, so I am looking to take my ATX power supply unit, external. I was simply wondering if anyone else had tried this with any success, or any commercial companies sold them. Silence is required as this PC is being used in my dorm room, and it's hard to sleep next to a whining PC. I've got the sound levels pretty much down to a minimum by adding various silent PC parts, but a separate power supply would be pretty cool. Any help or ideas accepted!" There was a similar question that was posted about two years ago, and it would be interesting to note if anyone in the market was listening.