Robotech_Master writes "For a long time, A Fire Upon the Deep has been one of my favorite books. Combining interesting technological prognostication, fascinating concepts, amusing characters, and an enthralling story, this novel brings together science fiction and present-day science fact in a deeply compelling read. For a long time, this book had been available in electronic form from Palm Digital Media, and it was the first e-book I ever bought for my Palm PDA. Recently a new 'special edition' of the book was published electronically, containing the annotations that had previously only been available on the 1993 Hugo/Nebula CDROM, and I knew I had to make the purchase--and then, since I couldn't dig up any other mention of it on Slashdot, review it." Robotech Master warns that his (lengthy) review below of the updated version "contains some minor spoilers for plot, but not for ending."

These are LinuxWorld columnist Nick Petreley's answers to your questions about the (somewhat controversial) Evans Data Survey he helped analyze that shows Linux is taking more market share from Windows than from Unix.

Max Tardiveau writes "I just finished Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness. It is an enjoyable book, written engagingly by an interesting character -- the kind of book that makes you think twice about certain things (for instance, the fact that you're not dead: is that really because you're so darn good, or does dumb luck play a part?) Although written all the way back in 2001, this book is more relevant than ever, since one of its major topics is the impact of unpredictable events on markets, insurance, and our perception of life in general. In fact, Taleb makes a living from unforeseen events; these days, that seems like a rather cunning niche." Read on for the rest of his review of this book.

Kevin Mitnick has been crazy-busy with media tours and book promotion stuff, and apologizes for taking so long to answer your questions. But answer he has, at length and in detail, with a brief intro at the start to correct a story in which he says he was misquoted. He has some other things on which he wants to set the record straight, too. Lots of them. Strong stuff here.

Responding to your questions today in finestkind all-lowercase form is Cathy Rogers, former co-host (the technical term is "presenter") of Scrapheap Challenge and Junkyard Wars, now presiding over a brand-new show, Full Metal Challenge.

Okay, here are Alicebot inventor Dr. Richard Wallace's answers to your questions. You're about to enter a world that contains interesting thoughts on A.I., a bit of marijuana advocacy, a courtroom drama, tales of academic politics and infighting, personal ranting, discussion of the nature of mental illness, and comments about the state of American society and the world in general. Yes, all this in one interview so long and strong we had to break it up into three parts to make it fit on our pages. This is an amazing work, well worth reading all the way to the end.

Ex-Amazon.com wage slave Mike Daisey asks in one fantasy e-mail to his then-boss Jeff Bezos: "Would it have been so hard to build a cool and quirky bookstore instead of a soulless virtual megamall? You were afraid: afraid to define the company, afraid the stock would drop, afraid not to feed the monster. What you sacrifice reveals what you value, and you're a fool if you think the world will forgive you in the end." Prescient stuff. 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com , Daisey's hilarious, heartbreaking and surprisingly powerful recounting of life inside what may be the world's strangest, most ephemeral company -- a symbol of all that was exciting, misguided, and ultimately misunderstood about business online during the mad years. It's also one of the best books ever written about the Net, an unsparing, even brutal indictment not only of hubris, but of media and, of course, the corporate-spawned hype that shapes so much of American life.

This set of interview responses from Linux hacker Alan Cox is overtly political, in line with the questions we asked him on May 6th. Alan doesn't just talk about problems here but proposes sensible solutions for them. Very nice. Thanks, Alan.

As you know, we sent questions out to Bruce Campbell a few weeks ago, and his answer are below. Please note that Bruce didn't have time to reply to all of them via email as he was pretty busy, so he called and dictated answers. I've done the best I can to convey his answers below. Thanks to Bruce for the interview! Also, if you haven't picked up his book yet, you should. It is in it's 8th printing, so it's been doing well.

Lifter writes "A hacker named Adrian Lamo had access for three weeks to the web-based content control system for Yahoo!'s news section, according to a story at SecurityFocus. He tinkered with a couple of stories without anyone noticing, then edited an August Reuters story about Dmitry Sklyarov, so that it said that Dmitry's program raised "the haunting specter of inner-city minorities with unrestricted access to literature, and through literature, hope." He also added a quote by John Ashcroft,"They shall not overcome. Whoever told them that the truth shall set them free was obviously and grossly unfamiliar with federal law." Funny stuff in itself, but the SecurityFocus story explores the harm that could come from a trusted news site being easily hacked in these times."

Minutes into Jurassic Park III, the movie I'd planned to review, I lost it. It was obvious we'd all seen this movie before, only in better-written, more vivid and original form. The bottom line is that dinosaurs keep getting smarter, while screenwriters are getting dumber. Anybody dumb enough to get on that island again deserves what he gets. The raptors are getting as familiar and menacing as Mickey Mouse. So I bolited, skipped illegally across the hallways of the megaplex to write a weekly wrap-up instead. I saw Legally Blonde, Score, and the big romantic comedy of the summer, America's Sweethearts. The latter, despite the great cast, is a near-total disaster. What can you say about a week in which the most entertaining movie was Legally Blonde? Hang on for Planet of the Apes next Friday.

Before the treacherous attack on Pearl Harbor, we were a pretty, innocent, and simple folk. We all looked like Ben Affleck, Josh Hartness, or Kate Beckinsale. Sure, we had our faults. We drank a bit and were awkward with the girls. There was racism and stuff; there was complacency, and dumb, technologically ignorant admirals who should have been sounding the klaxons long before the Japanese attacked. After all, the Japanese did everything but ring up Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House and announce they were coming. But hey, the countryside was gorgeous and lush, and we were all playing catch or golf or lounging around the beautiful Honolulu beaches. After the attack, well, you know ... coming of age, loss of innocence. We became an ugly, crowded, smelly, complicated country, losing our sepia tones and contending with social problems and divisions, with TV and bad airline service, with the Net and all that. SPOILAGE WARNING. (Read more.)

What started as something that looked simple -- a "double" interview with Michael Hart of the huge and venerable Project Gutenberg and Jimmy Wales of the brand-new Nupedia open content encyclopedia project -- turned into a series of interesting dissertations on the nature of copyright and online publishing, among other things. You may want to bookmark the page below and return to it a few times to grasp all that both gentlemen (especially Michael Hart) had to say.

After several years of reader requests, we finally cornered CowboyNeal long enough to do a Slashdot interview. Questions were posted last week. Today we brush aside the mask (or at least the hat) and get a glimpse of the real Jon Pater (aka CowboyNeal).

Would you believe a book review written by someone who calls himself "bs" about a book called The Truth? Believe it. Terry Pratchet is hard to pin down -- is this humor? Unadulterated absurdity? Clever satire? More real than real? Whatever it is, it's The Truth.

If you need to escape Hype Sunday, or even if you don't, go see Shadow Of The Vampire.The odd and the slightly twisted will go nuts over this film by E. Elias Merhige. William Dafoe is astounding as the vampire Count Orlock, and John Malkovich is his wonderful icky and obsessive self as the director whose only moral value is getting his film made at any cost. Spoilage warning: plot is discussed, no endings. A brief and useful Nosferatu primer is included, free of charge.

If a movie could have ADD, Snatch would be it. An eye popping, furiously-paced melange of graphics, jump cuts and freeze-frames, it's a black-humored (very black-humored) look at the underside of London, as experienced by an exotic band of thugs, promoters, thieves, gypies and hustlers. Warning: Plot is discussed but nothing is given away. Please add your own reviews, as usual.

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.

Russell Pavlicek, Linux and Open Source evangelist, has written an impassioned little book that purports to explain to the non-geek world in particular why they should care about the Open Source movement and the success of OS systems like Linux and FreeBSD. Know what? He delivers.

The ongoing Slashback assault on previous stories here reveals that (among other things) 1) Maybe Compaq's Transmeta plans are at least slightly more up in the air than previously claimed; 2) Hasbro has again been unable to nab a clue(.com); 3) Hope still springs eternal that you won't have to give your address and DNA sample to RadioShack in order to use some nice (but high-ping) satellite bandwidth. Read on.