concerned-about-employment asks: "What's the unemployment rate in the IT industry currently? Years ago I heard it was 8-9% but with so many jobs going offshore and the general unemployment rate rising, could it be even higher than before? Has it really broken 10% as some people say? That would mean 1 out of every 10 IT workers is out of a job. Personally though, from the perspective of a recent college graduate, it looks like 20% from here." How does the actual national unemployment rate in IT compare to the number of IT professionals that you know who are currently out of work?

bccomm asks: "Here on Slashdot, we continually hear about new successes in bringing free software closer to the desktop. What about schools? I am a student and was once asked to redo an entire presentation because I had used Prosper instead of PowerPoint. The explanation I received from him was 'the curriculum says I'm supposed to teach Word, PowerPoint, etc, not word processing and presentations.' How is this for irony: presentation has to be about volunteer work/hobbies, and I chose to show that my computer runs a daily NetBSD snapshot. I think it just lost some effectiveness. Is anyone else bothered by this?"

Barry asks: "Driving home last night I was listening to a particularly goofy AM talk station. Just before the syndicated UFO talk show 'Strange Days... Indeed' came on, the discussion turned to the Mars Rovers and George Bush's newfound love of space exploration. The interesting thought was that a large number of American political leaders were about to join Bush in endorsing a new manned space program because it would generate 'millions of jobs'. Given that manufacturing jobs are being shipped offshore, and high tech jobs are following, this almost made sense. A primarily unemployed population could mean big trouble. So I am wondering how many people were employed during the height of NASA's glory days, and what kind of economic impact would we expect if a similar program - a Mars mission for example - were launched today?"

cavac asks: "I've been searching for detailed info on how the high gain antennas on the Mars Rovers work, but did not find much useful information except that they DO work. I've been wondering: they are disc-shaped and are approximately the size of a CD. They somehow reassemble parabolic antennas but actually aren't, are they? Anyway, how much use would a parabolic antenna that size have? When I first saw them, they reminded me of the old antennas[*] (enclosed in plastic) used on vacuum tube based radio projects[*]. So, what's really inside the Mars Rovers high gain antennas? Note: Links marked with [*] are german language but the pictures should be self explaining."

Anonymous Coward asks: "Dragon Natural Speaking dropped hands free computer operation support back in version 3. My quadriplegic friend recently upgraded his computer and it came with Windows XP. His old Dragon Natural Speaking will not work on Windows XP. Does anyone know of any complete voice activated computer control for Windows XP or Linux?"

DonGar asks: "We've been hearing how IPv6 will save the world, and we've been hearing about how it will never happen. But can anyone give us real world results about what heppens after they convert? In particular, I'm wondering about small networks (home and/or small business). What ISP support commonly exists, and how much does it really matter? How many people are using ONLY IPv6, instead of both IPv4 and IPv6. What devices/applications/OS's cause the most problems with this? What things work, what breaks, and how much work is it to do the conversion? How hard is it to run things like web and email servers that need to reachable from anywhere? From a real world perspective, what do we need to know that isn't mentioned here?"

Bifurcati asks: "My friend and I, both from Australia, are going to the US for a two month trip (combining both work and pleasure!) and I'm faced with a bit of a dilemma with my much loved mobile phone. It isn't tri-band, so won't work in the U.S., and, additionally, roaming rates are horrendous. I really appreciate the comfort of having a phone, particularly for working out meetings with my friend, so I was thinking of getting a pre-paid mobile over there (with a new number) which I can use and then sell off the phone when I get back. What's the best (read, in part at least, cheapest) company and phone deal? Anyone else had experience doing this? I'm going to both the East and West coast. Any help much appreciated!"

Milo_Mindbender asks: "Where the heck can you find shoes that let you handle the ten or more hours a day of continuous walking computer trade shows require and won't set off the airport metal detectors? I used to go for hiking boots, but can't find a pair that don't buzz, even after I've stripped off every other particle of metal. I'm getting tired of trial and error (and blisters/sore feet when I go to CES, SIGGRAPH...etc). Does anyone have any suggestions?"

An anonymous reader asks: "It seems at my university the military has their fingers in much of the computer science research happening on campus: sensors, intelligent agents, autonomous vehicles, supercomputing. Is this the case at other schools around the US? How about outside of the US? How is the military shaping the current state of CS research? What areas of research atrophy because the funding goes to investigating military applications of new technology?"

rcn asks: "I am looking at online backup solutions for a variety of small and medium sized businesses. I read the most recent Slashdot discussion on online backup but there wasn't much talk about specific providers. The DIY methods of online backup (i.e. backup to a server in another office) aren't really practical in these cases. Security is more important than cost. They want their data secure under a mountain or 3000 miles away. I am overwhelmed by the variety of choices but am looking at Iron Mountain, LiveVault, and SwapDrive. Does anyone have experience with these providers, or others like them? What do pricing structures look like in the 30 to 100 gig range? How easy do they make it to manage backups? Can you backup from more than one machine to the same account?"

worm eater asks: "About four years ago I became interested in trying to discover art sites on the Internet. Not sites that deal with art, but sites that are art. After many hours of searching, I stumbled on a few that I enjoyed: jodi.org (although this one currently appears to just have a cool little downloadable screen-distorting program for Mac OS 9) so you might want to try, a few of these groundbreaking and sites. [Note: Beware of <BLINK&gt tags!] Recently, my interest in this genre of art has been reignited. What is your favorite piece of net.art?"