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Slashback: Authors, Innards, Boson 116

Posted by timothy from the moving-out-is-hard-to-do dept.
Slashback brings you tonight updates and amplifications on the Treo portable drive, recent Higgs Boson findings, finding LDP documentation authors, and more.
Author! Author! (Uhh ... author?) Providing a timely update to the Debian / LDP licensing snafu A user writes: "The LDP requests people (even if they are not LDP authors)who are reading this message to forward it to their respective LUG mailing lists. Maybe some of the 'unreachable authors' are still in those LUG lists."

Yup. Sure looks prime to me, yessir. Cesaro writes: "BBC is reporting that the largest prime number yet found has been verified. This number is 4,053,946 digits and took them almost 2 years to find on the GIMPS distributed system. More information can be had here"

This punishment may have to be let out for certain crimes. A semi-anonymous reader wrote to point out that implications of the recent Windows virus Goner may have broader implications than were previously clear. "With word that the new 'Goner' email virus was quickly spreading across the globe, 41 U.S. states and six European countries today announced that anyone caught creating or purposefully distributing a computer virus will be prosecuted under hate crime statutes for intentionally targeting 'people of stupidity.'

The trouble with sounding too good to be true ... Greg Titus writes "As a followup to yesterday's story about the Treo MP3 player (touted as iPod competition) ... Check out the Treo web site this morning (http://www.treoplayer.com/): 'Due to issues beyond Hy-Tek Manufacturing and e.Digital Corporation's control, Hy-Tek has discontinued production of the current Treo design.'"

Getting at the guts of a Linn. thegadgetman, in a fit of "blatant bit of self-promotion" with some more information about the technology that runs the recently-featured (and incredible looking) Linn KiVOR.

"The Linn KiVOR is the first of an ever increasing number of companies adopting our XiVA software for powering the next-generation of media appliances. Built from the start to run on Linux (now running 2.4 series kernel) XiVA blends hard disk technology, advanced software design and embedded Internet technology to provide amazing features.

As well as OEMing our technology, we have our own range of hard-disk audio products - our SoundServers. The M1000 is a range that goes up to 16 outputs and 3 hard-disk, and our S1000 range includes intuitive TV interface and a range up to 3 outputs. All the current products feature professional quality audio cards from Midiman. All these feature the XiVA-Link protocol which has been adopted by many of the major Home Automation controllers (AMX, Crestron etc), and is used by our XiVA-Producer PC application for meta-data editing and MP3 transfer. We also have software for automatic generation of Pronto CCF files, and an application that turns a Visor (with IR booster) into a graphical remote control that contains a listing of all the albums on the server.

Our recently launched XiVA-Net portal is the exciting new Internet based entertainment service from Imerge! It is dedicated to delivering entertainment to the new wave of internet-connected AV products. It will enable you to find out more about the music and artists you love as well as thousands you have not yet had the chance to listen to. XiVA-Net will allow you to buy music, book concert tickets and get the latest music news and gossip from the comfort of your living room. see our web-sites (http://www.imerge.co.uk http://xiva-net.com and http://www.xiva.com) for full details"

Are there no sections? Can they not delve? Since many people have submitted this story, please note that an interesting story on the Higgs Boson, or, perhaps better said, on the lack of Higgs Boson ran in the science section, and is worth checking out.
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Slashback: Authors, Innards, Boson More

Slashback: Authors, Innards, Boson

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  • No, not 'no Higgs boson' (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Just 'not found at 115GeV'. Besides, the article was in New Scientist, not exactly the epitome of scientific journals.
    • Right. A good number of physicists never expected to see the Higgs until the LHC comes online. In fact, it is the prime motivation for such an expensive project.

      There's still a good chance that the Higgs will be found, and if it isn't, even at LHC energies, that in itself will be an interesting result.

      • Right. A good number of physicists never expected to see the Higgs until the LHC comes online. In fact, it is the prime motivation for such an expensive project.

        Yes and no. Until recently nobody had any idea what the Higgs mass was beyond 'more than LEP, HERA, Tevatron can deliver'.

        The LHC has been in design for over 15 years. When the project started the Higgs theory was not even the leading contender.

        Contrary to many people's belief, experimentalists don't build the experiments to test the theories of the theoreticians. Its more like have tunnel, will use it, what is there that is kewl to look at in that energy range? The design of the LHC is intended to give the greatest probability of finding the Higgs without boring a new tunnel. But it is not a one trick pony and if Peter Higg's theory was demolished tommorow there would be plenty of other stuff to do with it. After all if the Higgs is not there then the Standard model is still broken, still fails to explain gravity and still is 100% in compliance with all experimental observations on the sub-atomic scale. So there is something else to find.

        One of the main issues that is missed by the reporters is that there is no 'Higgs Particle', there is a Higgs field type thingie wich if it exisits is manifested in at least one particle. Chances are that there will be multiple generations of Higgs particles, just as there are six quarks etc. Well thats the story I got from Cashmore and Rubia,

    • Btw, the full article [newscientist.com] noted that other possible levels up to 115Gev were tried. It was originally predicted at 80GeV, but nothing was seen there. If the Higgs doesn't exist, or looks somewhat different (i.e., much higher mass) than the prediction then a lot of people have some serious rethinking to do.

      New Scientist [newscientist.com] isn't Nature [nature.com], it is just a scientific newspaper rather than a journal. It is also cheaper and has a much wider circulation. You may want to wait for the full paper in Nature, but as a non-particle physicist, I'm quite happy with New Scientist's summary for the moment.

      • Re:No, not 'no Higgs boson' (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        New Scientist is gossipy and frequently wrong. In principle Higgs can have any mass, but for it to be useful to the SUSY (supersymmetry) theories it absolutely must be in the range about 100 - 200 GeV.

        Excluding up to 115 GeV (if you can rely on this result) does rule out many supersymmetric models. The long life of the proton (which is stable as far as we can tell) also ruled out many SUSY models. All SUSY models must have a Higgs with mass below 200 GeV, so this is the most efficient way to attack SUSY.

        If CDF does not find Higgs by the time LHC comes online, SUSY will look much more doubtful than it does now. If LHC does not find the Higgs, that will probably wrap it up for SUSY.

        (I am not for or against SUSY, I am just interested in efficiently learning about the universe we live in.)
      • If the Higgs doesn't exist, or looks somewhat different (i.e., much higher mass)


        IANAPP, but how can something which is the explanation of why particles have mass have a mass itself?

  • The Treo information page at edigitalstore and their order page says *nothing* about this. Is it for real, or just a decently made hoax?

    Anyone have any updates at all?

    Here's the original link [edigital-store.com].

    And I wanted one for chanukah, too. :(

  • Treo (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 06, 2001 @08:28PM (#2668355)
    Let's see. A good 80% of the posters (not counting the iPod astroturfers) on that topic were unimpressed with the Treo. It has half the capacity, 1/10th the download speed, and a terrible UI.

    Is it any wonder that they discontinued it? Perhaps submitting the article to /. was their way of gauging customer response. The poor man's market research. :-)

    • Cheaper Portable Music Player (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 06, 2001 @08:45PM (#2668440)

      This is not a troll, off topic, or flamebait.

      If anyone is looking for a cheaper portable music player, check out the iPod LC. [mac.com]
      • can I just say, I have a iPod LC, and it's great. I proudly showed it off at work, and had the entire office looked on in wonder. Its use of a mix of normal batterys and solar power is a god send, well it would be if I did not work nights, which combinned with the solar recharger [maplin.co.uk] from maplin I can safly ignore the red letters from ePower. And I can duel boot from it! Its masive 500Mb harddisk is partitioned with both MacOS and PPCLinux! And I don't need any fancy-paints connector like USB or Firewire, plugs right into my Mac's IDE chain! Mlk

    • Re:Treo (Score:2, Informative)

      by spudnic ( 32107 )
      Possible, but what I read said it had twice the hard drive capacity as the iPod, not half.

      .

    • Re:Treo (Score:5, Informative)

      by jonnythan ( 79727 ) on Thursday December 06, 2001 @09:31PM (#2668606)
      TWICE the capacity, HALF the price.

      • Seems to me that the Treo has(had) more of everything that the iPod has.

        More than twice the size.
        More than twice the weight.
        More than twice the difficulty in using.
        More than twice the storage capacity.
        More than half the price.
        More than one thirty-fourth the transfer speed!!!

        Mighty impressive. Apple has more than inpressed me these past few months. I tried a firewire iBook at circuit city and was convinced that it was time to make the transition from x86. I'm waiting for the G4 iBook and G5 Desktop before iBuy into Apple.

  • Sums it all up... (Score:5, Funny)

    by powerlinekid ( 442532 ) on Thursday December 06, 2001 @08:29PM (#2668363)
    "My virus wasn't targeting stupid computer users specifically, just anyone using Microsoft's Outlook Express or AOL," he said. "Oh... damn."
    Haha... that all most made my coffee come out my nose.

  • Treo (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That Treo announcement was for their old Treo product. This new product (the Treo 10) has been announced long after that message was put up. I have recieved confirmation of this by eDigital on the Treoplayer mailing list at Yahoo groups. It should still be coming out.
  • Since these guys used the Handspring Treo name with different letter accented [slashdot.org] maybe the replacement will be called Ipód
  • AMX [amx.com] and Crestron [crestron.com] could be called "Home Automation" if you don't mind dropping $10k to control your VCR and TV...


    That's why we [axiomdesign.com] only have filthy rich clients.

  • Catch-22 (Score:2, Funny)

    by GearheadX ( 414240 )
    Should we be relieved or terrified that 'stupid people' are being given specific protection under the law now?

  • Something Fishy Treo? (Score:4, Informative)

    by CritterNYC ( 190163 ) on Thursday December 06, 2001 @08:50PM (#2668452) Homepage
    The treoplayer.com website is registered to an individual and he is the only contact. Its some dude with an earthlink email address. Check it out [netsol.com]. There is no mention of the discontinuation at the manufacturer or distributors websites. Plus, the layout of the treoplayer.com site is amateurish at best. Me thinks Slashdot has been had.
    • I wouldn't consider this fishy. By the looks of things the US entity is a distributorship taken on by an entrepreneur, who wanted to secure the domain while waiting for the paperwork to clear for the new business. I've done this myself in the past, in one case the company in question went public. Only then did we spend the time to transfer the domain.
  • Can you imagine the happiness, then the happiness turn to horror as the server crashes 5 minutes before it gives the actual answer(its count got so high it rolled back to 42).
  • Hey! Isn't prime number research prosecutable under the DMCA? They should shut those pirates down! A whole network of people trying to hack DVDs!

    What follows is my favorite prime number, wihch fun unzipping properties [slashdot.org]:

    485650789657397829309841894694286137707442087351 35 79240196520736 68698513401047237446968797439926117510973777701027 44752804905883 13840375497099879096539552270117121570259746669932 40226834596619 60603485174249773584685188556745702571254749996482 19418465571008 41190862597169479707991520048667099759235960613207 25973797993618 86063169144735883002453369727818139147979555133999 49394882899846 91783610018259789010316019618350343448956870538452 08538045842415 65482488933380474758711283395989685223254460840897 11197712769412 07958624405471613210050064598201769617718094781136 22002723448272 24932325954723468800292777649790614812984042834572 01463489685471 69082354737835661972186224969431622716663939055430 24156473292485 52489912257394665486271404821171381243882177176029 84125524464744 50558346281448833563190272531959043928387376407391 68912579240550 15620889787163375999107887084908159097548019285768 45198859630532 38234905580920329996032344711407760198471635311617 13078576084862 23637028357010496125956818467859653331007701799161 46744725492728 33486916000647585917462781212690073518309241530106 30289329566584 36620008004767789679843820907976198594936463093805 86336721469695 97502796877120572499666698056145338207412031593377 03099491527469 18356593762102220068126798273445760938020304479122 77498091795593 83871210005887666892584487004707725524970604446521 27130404321182 61010359118647666296385849508744849737347686142088 0529443
  • Why complain about the Treo? I got my 20 Gg MP3 player at http://www.archos.com/ [archos.com]. It works fantastic.....I have 4 gigs of songs, more than I could ever need, as well as a backup of all my important files, like my resume!!!!! A USB connector and cig-lighter power lets this thing go from work to car so I can listen to tunes on the ride home. Has anyone else got this as well?

  • Grr. It's a joke. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EllF ( 205050 ) on Thursday December 06, 2001 @09:03PM (#2668505) Homepage
    Really. Go look at that "hate crime against stupid people" link. It's from SatireWire - come on, guys. Read the disclaimer: "All stories are fictional and satirical and should not in any way be construed as fact."

    Oops.

  • Read before you react (Score:3, Informative)

    by Comrade Pikachu ( 467844 ) on Thursday December 06, 2001 @09:06PM (#2668517) Homepage
    That virus hate crime thing is satire, as in: "It's funny. Laugh".

  • TREO (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't believe it for a second. Does anyone actually own one of these? Looks like a complete sham to me. Trying to steal some thunder b/c apple, as usual, came out with a device that blows everyone elses design away.

    Regardless, i thought this thing looked unlikely in the first place -- now even more so. If someone actually has a working unit in their possession, i will retract my disbelief, but will redouble my dislike for inferior copycats...

  • Some detective work... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by corky6921 ( 240602 ) on Thursday December 06, 2001 @09:15PM (#2668550) Homepage
    ...on TreoPlayer.com reveals some interesting facts:

    Check out the source code. Lovely ol' Frontpage inserted an author meta tag with the name "Jerzy Bilyk".

    Here is where it gets interesting. Run a Google search on "Jerzy Bilyk", and you come up with this page [google.com] (Google cache used because the original doesn't exist anymore). It lists a "Bilyk, Jerzy" as having a supended license (among other crimes.) The police department is in Plano, IL.

    Now here's the really interesting part: a WHOIS [netsol.com] on treoplayer.com shows a John Bastion as owning the domain. His address? Sugar Grove, IL: about 12 miles from Plano. (Mapquest proves it [mapquest.com]).

    I think, from this, we can safely declare one golden rule: if you're going to do a hoax and submit it to Slashdot, don't freakin' use Frontpage! :D

    P.S. I'm available as a consultant if anyone from Slashdot would like to hire an editor/story checker. ;)

    • Re:Some detective work... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Speare ( 84249 ) on Thursday December 06, 2001 @09:56PM (#2668693) Homepage Journal

      The Plano, Il., police page you listed was very informative. I love reading log sheets like this for small town police units. The infractions seem so petty compared to the big stuff you see on the mainstream news.

      The township name of Sandwich Il. seems somewhat unfortunate with the title "Female Juvenile Sandwich" halfway down the page, though. I'm sure a few people had to double-take to read that properly.

    • See http://www.edig.com [edig.com] for the company e.Digital's website. By way of confirmation of your post, there is nothing at all there to indicate that they are discontinuing anything. So your hoax conclusion seems fully justified.
    • If this was an intent to defraud people by floating a bogus MP3 player that one-upped the iPod, why would he be selling a 6 GB drive with a USB connection? The speed of the FireWire connection on the iPod is one of its main selling features, and is the one feature it has that no other MP3 player on the market has. And the Treo has a USB 1.1 connection at that.

      Granted, most PC's don't have a FireWire port, but I think I would have at least said it had a combo USB/FireWire port.
  • As we all know, attempting to determine the mass of the Higgs boson is what causes Type 13 planets to collapse [sadgeezer.com]
    to the size of a pea. (Scroll about halfway down the page for the reference, then see here [gte.net] for an explanation of the reference to fans.)
  • It seems to have been created with Microsoft Frontpage. Check out the source.

    Ah ha! So Microsoft Frontpage was used to build the hoax! Another terrible reason to hate a terrible company... (just joking :))

    No, really, it appears to be false in many ways. Disregard it completely.
  • That Treo homepage has been up for more than a year. It previously had information about the Treo and was linked to by other technology and music sites. Probably at least a month ago, the site posted the message you now see, which was no surprise because the Treo was scheduled to come out in Fall 2000. Obviously eDigital has decided to pick a different manufacturer than Hy-Tek and go ahead with the production of the Treo 10. Hy-Tek did claim to be based in Illinois on the old site and seem to be legitimate from all I've seen. Maybe they just picked a shady webmaster.
  • You've got it totally out of chronological order with the Treo. First of all, the treo is available, advertised, and making its way to my home scheduled to arrive today. Hy-tek has been pushing the release of the Treo for over a year, in the process angering many people waiting for it. The message on treoplayer.com was put there a couple of months ago, and rumor has it eDigital has decided taking matters into its own hands. Either way, it's selling and in stock at eDigital's online store. CNet's also planning to place a review for it on computers.com next week.

    On a related note, the Classic XP3 player sold by circuit city uses the same base design as the true, and sports a few extra features like recording and extended battery life. I read a few reports of problems with it though, usually due to the fact the case is made out of plastic instead of aluminum like the Treo.

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