NiceGeek asks: "Is there any interest in a 'Geek' bar? After reading a comment in a recent story on Slashdot, I started thinking about a 'geek hangout' type bar. Basically, beer, music, classic arcade and console games and maybe classic network games like Doom and Quake. One advantage to the 'classic' theme would be reduced overhead. I already possess a lot of classic consoles/games and older stand-up systems are pretty cheap also. I would also consider adding a 'cyber-cafe' for broadband access. I have several other ideas but would like to see if there is any interest." It's an interesting idea, but are there any other things that you think such an endeavor would need? NTN Trivia consoles would be a nice addition (it would fit in well with the other things listed). I have fond memories of playing NTN with friends when it was available at a local hangout.

An AC sent in this link about Linux use in the world of special effects and animation. There are one or two errors in the story that make it clear the writer isn't that familiar with Linux, but it's still a good article about the digital effects world taking advantage of a free-beer operating system that runs on commodity hardware.

If you remember our Guiness Beer Really Sucks story, you'll recall that WIPO's rule has been "no sucks domains." There's a three-part test and if you pass any of the parts you're in the clear, but one of the silly gotchas about test number three is that Xsucks.com has repeatedly been ruled "identical or confusingly similar" to trademarkX. This makes no sense, of course. But the strange thing is that WIPO on Monday reversed itself. In one of the rare decisions awarded to the domain holder, the arbitration panel said that the owner of LockheedMartinSucks.com could keep his domain, because it was not confusingly similar to LockheedMartin.com. Um. What?

This is a "double header" interview. Our guests are Jimmy Wales of the recently-started Nupedia open content encyclopedia project and Michael S. Hart of Project Gutenberg, which Hart started in 1971. The two projects are very different -- Nupedia is creating an encyclopedia, while PG is creating an open-ended database of public domain and out-of-copyright texts -- but they are similar in that both projects' primary goal is free (beer and speech) access to information. Post questions (one per post, please) below for Wales and/or Hart about their creations (or any related topic). We'll send 10 of the highest-moderated questions to them tomorrow, and will publish their answers as soon as they get them back to us.

Matthew Moyle-Croft wrote to us regarding a very important development concerning the consumption of beer in space. I'm going to sleep easier knowing this *grin*. Update: 12/22 06:07 AM by T : Thanks to alert reader toad (who was not drinking within sight) for the updated URL.

A computer that Madonna might approve of, ubiquitous boxes delivering Internet acccess all over paradise (and why not everywhere?), and some more insight about Moore's Law and Intel's tiny new transistors, from the horse's mouth. Read more below, in this edition of Slashback.

Here you go: straight answers to your questions from Theo de Raadt of OpenBSD. Read, enjoy, and comment away. (Theo might even check in with a comment or two of his own if he has time -- although he's been awfully busy lately, so please don't hold it against him if he can't, okay?)

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.

You've got to give Linux-Mandrake publisher Mandrakesoft credit; their distribution deal with MacMillan Software is spreading their latest release to places Linux has never gone before, including Wal-Mart and other major retail chain stores.

I'm working on a story about WIPO and how it takes domains away from their owners. But today's example is egregious enough that I'm just going ahead and telling you about it now. Some guy who was annoyed with Guinness beer registered a slew of domain names like guinness-really-sucks.com. Guinness paid WIPO their $2000 and took them all away. Why? Because "guinness-really-sucks" is "identical or confusingly similar to" their trademark on the word "Guinness." Excuse me?

Lets start this off with some eyecandy from Mdog. Hi res pics of coronal loops meet Rob's First Rule of Art. Wow. Not enough eye candy? tradica noted that Pixar's new movie 'Monsters Inc.' now has trailers available even the the movie won't be out for a year. Course since Jobs is @ pixar, no surprise that I can't watch the clip. Instead of food for your retinas, Nerf97A4 sent in recipes that will never be used on Iron Chef since they all involve cooking with twinkies in some form or another. Deep fried Twinkies? Makes me shudder... maybe instead you should look at jedigeek fouund an online store called CyberCandy which allows you to buy candy from around the world. funferal noticed that a OECD have publshed their Privacy Statement Generator. Ant noted one wizard that that probably doesn't exist in Word. alecto sent us a fun link where you can read 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall which has code snippets to generate the song in languages from APL to zsh. PhadeRunner sent us Mr. T vs. The Matrix. and FlameSnyper sent The Matrix and Ghost in The Shell. One is slightly more serious then the other. An anonymous reader documented filling a cubicle with packing peanuts in case your boss is out of time and you need some help. Speaking of bosses, Need a weapon? WD_40 aims you at a site where you can learn how to create your own spud gun. Course you could do it the old fashioned way: pimp showed us a site dedicated to electrocuting common household stuff. Like, for example, a furby. While on the subject of electricity, loose_change sent in several links about Power meters and how they aren't exactly the best in user interface. A competition followed to try to make a better on. The winner is definitely less hostile ;) CresentCityRon sent in something you don't want to electrocute: apparently MIT students are working on Geek Porn which is pretty much what is sounds like. School officials aren't so happy about it.

john napiorkowski asks: "I do a lot of voice recording and have been using realaudio, which distributes 'free beer' tools for the job. However, I am greatly concerned by this reliance on such a proprietary tool; is there an open standard, free software replacement available? I have tried MP3, but it doesn't sound remotely as good as realaudio for voice recording at very high compression levels. Fifteen minutes of voice compressed with realaudio is under a meg and sounds almost exactly like the original, while MP3 sounds very poor to get the file that size."

Well, I join slashdot (aka the "sinister Andover keiretsu") full-time today. It seems worthy of a story, although I'll limit it to the YRO section since those have been my traditional stomping grounds. There's no real news below, just some rambling and question-asking, but I hope it will be interesting nonetheless.

Elvis Maximus writes: "Wired News is running an interesting piece on the inroads Linux is making in Africa. The article focuses on the advantages of the 'free beer' nature of Linux, which is good, but neglects the fact that open source empowers people in developing countries to solve their own specific problems. Worth a look." Ironically, if commerical software vendors are vigilant, the advantages of Free alternatives will only be more evident. But licensing isn't as pressing an issue, maybe, when getting access at all isn't easy for most Africans.

Yes, it's been a long, hot (and rainy) summer, but it's over now. Things are finally getting back to normal, including Slashdot Interviews, which return with answers to 10 chosen readers' questions from often-slashodotted PBS Pundit Robert X. Cringely.

RevAaron asks: "With Java, and now C#, we're seeing the same (then revolutionary) concepts and features that Smalltalk had over twenty years ago. With open source versions like Squeak and GNU Smalltalk, not to mention numerous other versions, most of which have an free (as in beer) version available, why hasn't the open source world adopted it to a larger extent? It boggles the mind that the open source community hasn't picked it up, even with almost all of the source of the entire Smalltalk system available to developers, even with the commercial implementations. Is it simply a case of 'once a C coder, always a C coder,' with languages like C++ and Java being used by virtue of their Algol-derived syntax?" The choice of language of most developers is a queer thing indeed. I'm still surprised that COBOL has lasted for as long as it has. So if anyone has any insight as to why Smalltalk use isn't more widespread, please share.

paulywog asks: "I've used a fair number of non-Free (Beer) scientific plotting packages during college and as an engineer -- including Matlab, SigmaPlot and DeltaGraph, Excel (ick), SAS, my trusty HP 48G, among others. Lately, I've been looking for OSS resources that can provide similar features. Part of the reason is that there are some features that I've wanted, but never been able to get out the other software. One feature in particular: shade the area between two curves or shade the region outlined by error bars on this plot. I'd like to hear what experience other scientists and engineers have with OSS plotting packages in terms of ease of use, power, and flexibility."

Welcome to another episode of Slashback, since stories keep popping up in parts rather than in neat, hermetic, well-encapsulated little packages. So read this -- it's like going to the demolition derby. You want to see the slip-ups, the revisions, the torture of correction, but without having beer poured on you by strangers. Read on if you'd like (at the very least) to know more about the the British Columbia law which relegated naughty (violent) video games to the back of the arcade.

The fight to keep standards Open and Free is raging in the audio compression business. With mp3 tearing up bandwidth and the court system, Christopher Montgomery and the rest of the Ogg Vorbis team are working hard to ensure that the mp3 format has a Free alternative in their system, which seems to outperform mp3 everywhere it counts. I got the opportunity to pull Chris away from development just long enough to tell us exactly what's going on, and to answer some questions about the process and the product necessary to take on mp3.

Interested in a free domain for your open-source project? Huh, are ya? "Too bad, sucker," says the .cx registrar. On the other hand, you can drink beer (or sarsparilla) and talk tech with folks smarter than your average bear, create poetry using such fine poetic-sounding things as "Python" and "Java," and even let other people know the names of those who you would call Spammers. Read on, if the gist is really not enough.