Alice, over at Kotaku, has a post up looking at what Second Life means to the Web 2.0 crowd. Cory Ondrejka gave a presentation at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference about what 2L is about, and dropped some interesting statistics on the audience. From the article: "Here's Cory's killer factoid, just announced here: Over 70% of Second Life residents have created an artifact - from scratch - in this past week. That's one crazy level of output. To give you a bit of perspective, that's approximately 23,000 human hours of play-work per day. Cory points out that this would cost Linden Labs over $400m a year to produce centrally, clearly not a viable business prospect. "

Slashdot tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including some favorable results from the University of Wisconsin's Mac OS X Challenge, skeptics investigate cold fusion claims, more on DoD web filtering, AT&T cuts 10,000 jobs after BellSouth merger, more child-proofing efforts for MySpace, Why Windows Vista Will Suck: a rebuttal, Harvard Professor punished for reporting bugs, Assemblyman Biondi backpedals on NJ anonymous posting bill, and a followup on Chinese TLDs -- Read on for details.

RX8 writes "Analyst Michael Greeson takes a look at Apple's new products, the Mac Mini (Intel based) and iPod Hi-Fi and explains why they were over-hyped and how that can damage Apple. Michael explains that when you are 'an industry innovator - when your products fall short of being truly original, your own success becomes your worst enemy.'" Update: 03/04 00:07 GMT by Z : As many posters have pointed out, the article here has little to do with the synopsis. This article is mostly about the design for the mac mini and its remote, which is a fairly interesting topic. Mea culpa, folks.

Rondrin writes "CNN has an article detailing a $9 billion loophole in the tax code to spur synthetic fuel development. Unfortunately, spraying coal with pine tar qualifies. From the article: 'The wording is so bland and buried so deep within a 324-page budget document that almost no one would notice that a multibillion-dollar scam is going on. Not the members of Congress voting for it and certainly not the taxpayers who will get fleeced by it. And that is exactly the idea.'"

louismg writes "This week, Barron's is suggesting that with Steve Jobs on board as the number one shareholder of Disney, following Pixar's acquisition, that Disney is ripe for the plucking for an acquisition by Apple. But look at the numbers. Apple has a $60 billion market cap, and Disney's is over $50 billion. Apple's cash on hand is in the $10 billion range. Wouldn't a Disney acquisition eliminate the possibility of working with NBC's shows on iTunes, or working with Viacom/MTV? It would seem the conflicts and competition would outweigh a purchase of Disney - Pixar or not."

Fennie writes "Designtechnica has published their 2006 Best of Web 2.0 list. Some of the sites include Flickr.com, Vimeo.com and Writeboard.com. From the piece: 'The next generation of the web is here! With new kinds of desktop-like applications being released left and right, how will you know where to go and what to use? That's why we're here: To show you the best of Web 2.0 sites that you can get the most out of. No matter the task, video, audio, or photos, we have a site that works great for what you want to do and uses all the great features of Web 2.0 technology.'"

slashnutt writes to tell us Yahoo News is reporting that Microsoft accidentally released information about Windows Vista earlier than originally planned. From the article: "Microsoft disclosed information about a plan to release eight different editions of the new operating system on a company help page that was under development. The company has not made any official statements about the different versions of Windows Vista it plans to offer. The company has since taken down the Web site and declined to confirm the information and said it will offer more details about the Vista launch, targeted for the second half of 2006, in the coming weeks. Microsoft spokesman said in a statement 'This page has since been removed as it was posted prematurely and was for testing purposes only.'"

An anonymous reader writes "An article by James Boyle in the FT argues that we are (slowly) moving towards a 'cultural environmentalism' that tries to protect the public domain in the way that the environmental movement tries to protect the natural ecology. Apparently there will be a (free) conference at Stanford on the subject soon, organized by Larry Lessig's Center there."

Ant writes to tell us that Wired has an interesting look at the current standards of writing and the general decline of spelling and grammar in today's "comic book generation." The author blames many of the problems on instant or near-instant communications stating that the slang developed is essentially eroding our ability to formulate coherent thoughts in writing when called upon to do so.

massivefoot writes to tell us New Scientist is reporting that researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have released a new software suite, GeneDesign, that helps to simplify the steps in designing artificial DNA. From the article: "These key steps include translating proteins and amino acids - the building blocks which make proteins - backwards into a DNA sequence. Or the software can manipulate simulated DNA "codons" which can code for an amino acid. DNA codons are made of sets of three nucleotides - the fundamental molecules which link together to form a DNA chain."

AWhiteFlame writes "Cnet is reporting that a research report issued by Merrill Lynch suggests that the Sony PlayStation 3's American release may be postponed until 2007. From the article: 'The analyst firm proposed the idea that high costs and Sony's decision to use an 'ambitious new processor architecture--the Cell' is making it look like the company might not be able to meet its goal of getting the PS3 out in the U.S. this year.' Sony did not immediately respond to a request for comment." The official report (pdf) would also seem to indicate that the console will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $900 when it launches.

An anonymous reader writes "In one of the most blatant and frightening statements made on privacy, the Associated Press reports that Houston's police chief wants surveillance cameras in apartment buildings and even private homes. Chief Harold Hurtt wants building permits to require cameras in shopping malls and large apartment complexes. He also wants them in private homes if the homeowner has called the police repeatedly. So, if you're in Houston, don't call the cops too much, or they might install a camera the next time they show up. And what does Hurtt have to say about privacy concerns? 'I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?'"