Asmor asks: "I'm currently a CS major/math minor in college, who's strongly considering a role reversal. I like working with computers as a hobby, but I'm not so sure it's what I'd want to do for a living. On the other hand, I love math, especially in its pure and abstract forms. I would like to get a doctorate some day, but ideally I'd like to find a job as soon as I get my bachelor's. I've expressed this interest to important people in my life (like my parents and such) and the general consensus is that there aren't any jobs for math majors. I can't really disagree. Aside from teaching it, something I'm not sure I'd want to do, I can't think of any jobs for math majors. So, what options are out there for me if I did decide to switch? Would my future consist of high school math classes? Also, how much work is involved?"

OS Jobs asks: "The startup I work at is looking for an IT maven to design and run a large cluster (1000s) of Linux machines. We are fully plugged into the open source philosophy and would like to build this cluster using only open source tools. We have advertised at most of the regular places including Monster, various LUGs, and so forth. In response to our ads we see people with industrial experience who know every proprietary product in existence, but almost none who are steeped in open source development. So my question to the Slashdot community is: Where should open-source conscious employers advertise their open-source friendly jobs?"

isabotage3 writes to tell us that Boston, MA is toying with a somewhat unique approach to their version of the city-wide low-cost wireless network. Rather than put the network in the hands of a private organization under contract the city may allow a non-profit group to run the show. From the article: "Although Boston's strategy depends on the willingness of foundations and businesses to come forward with cash donations, officials believe having an existing or newly formed nonprofit in charge is the best way to ensure the project meets its civic goals and steers clear of special interests."

technocraft asks: "I've been searching for an online service to backup data from my Linux file server and have come up with nothing. For many users, Carbonite looks to be a great solution: Affordable, with 'unlimited' capacity. Unfortunately for me, you can only backup from Windows XP and explicitly NOT from external drives or network mapped drives (like my file server)." Is anyone aware of an online backup services without these restrictions?

Engadget is reporting that dreams of a personal jet pack may not be quite as distant as you might think. Skywalker Jets, created by Rick Herron boasts a 90-pound jet pack capable of propelling a 200-pound pilot through the air for about five minutes without the hassle of charred lower extremities. The production model, which he hopes to run past the FAA soon for approval, will only cost you somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000 — so start saving your pennies.

Linux.com's Stefan Vrabie has a look at the state of Transgaming's Cedega, which some claim to be the best current offering for running Windows games under Linux. While it may be better than nothing, the author still puts this solidly under the "plug and pray" column with the biggest drawback being the amount of fiddling required to make it work. From the article: "Cedega may not be the answer to games under Linux, but it's better than not being able to play at all, until gaming companies notice Linux users as a market and release games for Linux." Linux.com and Slashdot.org are both owned by OSTG.

New Breeze writes "Has this ever happened to you? Just when you need to make a phone call, the bars of reception are scant to none. But Graeme, who writes a blog called 'Earth: Mostly Harmless,' gives us hope. Succeeding where most would quit, he chronicled his ingenuity in a post titled 'How I got mobile phone reception where there was no signal.'" Update: 08/01 14:31 GMT by T : Note: Credit for this story belongs to Mike Yamamoto, who wrote it for CNET's News.com.

superdan2k writes "A federal court judge dropped the bomb on Minnesota's pending gaming law that would have fined minors for purchasing games with the mature or adults-only ratings. The lawsuit against the legislation was brought by video game manufacturers who claimed that it infringed on free speech. The judge agreed, and the ruling said that the state had failed to prove that graphic video games were harmful to children."

fooby12 writes "According to the Univeristy of Toronto instant messaging does not hurt the grammar of the people who use it. From the article: "With 80% of Canadian teenagers using instant messaging and adopting its unique linguistic shorthand, many teachers and parents are concerned about the medium's potential to corrupt kids' grammar. But instant messaging doesn't deserve its bad reputation as a spoiler of syntax, suggests a new study from the University of Toronto.""

Sebastian Bergmann writes "PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development. The interpreter that executes programs written in the PHP programming language has been designed from the ground up to be easily embeddable (for instance into the Apache Web Server) and extendable. This extensibility is one of the reasons why PHP became the favourite "glue" of the Web: functionality from existing third-party libraries (database clients or image manipulation toolkits, for instance) can be made available through PHP with the ease of use you expect from a scripting language." Read the rest of Sebastian's review.

Several hundred readers commented on yesterday's Slashdot post about citizens arrested for photographing police either in public or in the photographer's own property. Read on for some of the comments which defined the conversation in today's Backslash summary.

simoniker writes "Following some rampant media speculation over the weekend, the ESA trade organization has released an official statement on the future of the E3 game trade show, revealing that it is not cancelled outright, but is rather 'evolving into a more intimate event focused on targeted, personalized meetings and activities.' E3 2007 will still take place in Los Angeles next year, according to the ESA's Doug Lowenstein, but 'will not feature the large trade show environment of previous years.'" Which is to say, it's not really E3 anymore.

Tyler Too writes "With six different versions of Vista due once it ships, figuring out an upgrade path can be confusing. Microsoft has tried to clear things up with a 4x6 matrix laying out your options. 'In short, users of XP Home can do an upgrade install to any of the four Vista versions. However, XP Pro users can only perform upgrade installs to Business or Ultimate.' And if you're not running a 32-bit version Windows XP, there's no upgrade path for you at all."

Andrew Nagy writes "I noticed recently (as did many other MacBook owners) that the palmrests and general surface of my white MacBook was beginning to yellow. I don't really find it a big deal, but thought I'd check out what Apple was doing about it. They now have a page in their support section dedicated to this issue, but since it just tells you to contact Apple support, I did. I took mine in to the nearest store, and after attempting (and failing) to clean the surface he told me they could order a new surface and replace it in the store... all covered for free under the warranty."

IamTheRealMike writes "Vinod Khosla, venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun, has a new obsession these days. Ethanol is the fuel touted by many as an alternative to dwindling oil stocks, but is it all it's cracked up to be? Whilst Khosla is an avid supporter of ethanol as an alternative fuel (video link) his optimistic views have been rigourously challenged by Robert Rapier, an oil industry insider who is also engaged in a quest to discover alternatives. Recently the two debated via phone the merits of an ethanol economy, and Mr Rapier has now written up a report of the debate. What will be powering our cars 10 years from now?"