Reader Aaron Gifford contributed this review of Shadow of the Hegemon, by the prolific Orson Scott Card. (What? An author with the "ability to make smart characters actually act and behave intelligently"? The sky is falling!) Given the movie plans in the works from Card, it's great to see the bookshelf expand with possible sequel material, too.

Here is the eighth part in our continuing reprint of the columns Jon Katz wrote following the killings at Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado. Below are more of the many charged comments that the story drew.

This is the seventh in our continuing reprint of Jon Katz' series beginning with his column "Voices From the Hellmouth," which serves to illustrate how deeply problems can lurk even under apparent normality.

Happy New Year! Lots worse things to be doing (at least in the snowbound regions) than talking movies. How do you think this holiday movie season is shaping up? I've seen three outstanding ones so far: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and Unbreakable. WARNING: Some plots are briefly summarized below -- for those movies I just named and and in reviews of Cast Away, State and Main, What Women Want, Finding Forrester, Proof Of Life and All The Pretty Horses. No endings are given away. (I haven't yet seen the much-ballyhooed Traffic or the Nosferatu-inspired Shadows Of the Vampire, about which we can jaw over the next couple of Sundays).

Hmmm... seems quite a few people (judging from email I've gotten) have figured out that this week's interview guest, Clinton Ebadi, is the 'unknown_lamer' who frequents irc.openprojects.net, not that this was a great secret or anything. Anyway, Clinton has a pretty good sense of humor about himself and this whole thing, and I think it shows through clearly in his answers (below) to your questions.

While you might have just finished your third round of egg-nog, it's time to use the old noggin. Some of you may remember last Christmas' chess puzzle - well, I've been talking to Fredric Friedel again - check out more details below - or jump to the puzzle itself but read the setup below.

Below is part seven in our continuing reprint of John Katz's columns about the events in Littleton, Colorado, and the reaction that the columns and that tragedy generated.

micantos writes "Check this out! Apparently somebody is claiming they've done the unprecedented, recorded the first "perfect" Pitfall game. Personally I liked Pitfall II a lot more... finding that damn Quickclaw was fun..."

Below is another sampling of the email and comments that Jon Katz inspired with his "Voices From The Hellmouth" series about the events that rocked Littleton, Colorado.

Here are more selections from the flood of comments that followed Jon Katz' series about Voices from the Hellmouth. See Part One to see the words which started this outpouring.

Jon's Hellmouth series stands as one of the most important things that have ever appeared on Slashdot. When the dust settled following its original posting, we started talking about ways to get its message to those outside of the Slashdot community. Read on to see what we decided, what happened, and finally the first chapter of the Hellmouth book.

Okay, here (as a refreshing break from all the political stuff) is what amounts to one of the most lucid primers on software development management I've ever seen, contained in NEdit leader Mark Edel's answers to your questions. If you ever expect to lead an Open Source project (or a closed source one, for that matter), you need to read this from start to finish, possibly even print out a copy and read it over and over. Great stuff!

A technical book with personality? Chromatic claims just that in his review of Linux Graphics Programming with SVGAlib. If you're a graphics guru, or are looking for a book that describes a lot of the low level functions that put pretty pictures on your screen, this one sounds like one you should at least consider.

In Take 1 of this two-part series, I described some of the current technology in wearable computing as seen at ISWC 2000, this year's just-finished iteration of the International Symposium on Wearable Computers, from head-mounted displays to intelligent jackets. In this round, a little more speculation about where the future of wearability lies, with a peek in the door at some of the things being done in top university labs. What forces will shape the future of wearable computing? Hint: GeForce 2's are still hard to carry, and there's never enough power.

Recently you asked Indrema founder John Gildred about the Linux-based console system his company plans to introduce. Here's what he has to say about its hackability, strategy, developers and more -- thanks for the in-depth answers, John.

Over the next few years, says a new book, the sales of software and video game consoles could top $17 billion. Video games already generate more revenue than films. Video games are becoming one of the world's most popular entertainment forms, affecting TV, education, Hollywood, even the Pentagon and the way we view and conduct high-tech, game-like, remote-control military conflicts.

Junks Jerzey writes: "SIGGRAPH's Computer Graphics has an interesting article titled Are Virtual Worlds Worth It? which looks at the ever increasing complexity of 3D game worlds, and how such complexity is often at odds with the whole point of games (i.e. fun gameplay). There's a lot of good video game history in there as well (remember Jumpman and Miner 2049'er?). This was printed in the May issue of CG which just went online recently." Though this piece gets into some technical information about gaming worlds and the design process (as well as the audience of today's games), it starts with the simple question: "Are computer games any more fun now than they were 10 years ago?"

Arkoth writes: "Sci-fi Newswire posted that Lucasfilm has ordered two fansites to pull authentic- looking storyboards off their sites. What used to be a fun game of bringing in rumors and secret images is now starting to become more serious when Lucasfilm ordered two Web sites, NaboOnline and Aldera.net, to pull two storyboards that looked authentic from their Web sites. Looks like George is getting out the big lightsaber and slashing leaks from his movie, which is 23 months from release."

Anonymous Coward writes " Just giving ya the heads up that over @ the ILL Clan's site. They've released their latest Quake II machinima piece entitled Hardly Workin'. Very impressive stuff. Directed by their group lead, ILL Robinson (who's an Emmy award winner, btw), it looks like this Machinima stuff is actually becoming a medium of its own. The convergence of filmmaking, animation & game development all rolled into one! Its fun to watch & even more impressive that it was all created in the Quake II engine. "

With a planned move to San Francisco next summer, last week saw San Jose's last Linux World Expo, at least for now. The future as always is stubbornly uncertain, but it's impressive that the serendipitous combination of Free tools (from GNU) and a Free kernel (from Linus) has inspired enough interest and prosperity to excite a larger group of people each year. If you've not had the chance to attend one of these expositions, we hope this article will give you a flavor of what it's like. Note: Here are a few pictures from the floor (Day 1 & Day 2) contributed by Sensei^); do you have any cool shots to link to in comments?