Media hotshots and junkies were breathing heavily last week after Salon and CBS.com announced layoffs and APBNews.com had a near-death experience. These and other new media "setbacks" prompted some gleeful, almost poignant predictions that old media might return from the grave. Don't put any money on it. The media war of the future isn't between "old" and "new" media, already meaningless terms, but between Open and Closed media.

After being purchased from Amiga earlier this year, former marketing execs Bill McEwen and Fleecy Moss are back on the road to building Amiga into the multi-platform, multimedia-savvy company that the fans have been begging for. Well known for being an on-again, off-again brand name, it looks as though things may have settled down long enough for the new team to make a difference.

The Net is killing off lines everywhere -- at banks, movie theaters, college bookstores. But government, one of the least progressive sectors of public life, is the last great frontier waiting to be digitized. And a lucrative one. Government collects more than $450 billion each year in fees and permits, most of which could be paid online. Imagine getting permits, licenses, renewals and deeds online. The Net can provide greater convenience, lower costs and digital democracy to citizens. And no lines.

(Warning: some of the plot line, such as it is, is given away here, but not the ending). The animated sci-fi flic "Titan A.E." is dumb and muddled, despite some entertaining moments and neat special effects. This genre -- at least the Hollywood part -- is becoming dangerously unimaginative and predictable. Almost anyone reading could lay out the plot line without seeing a single scene. Shaft, which clobbered "Titan" at the box office this weekend, is more fun.

There's not much point in further trashing Battlefield Earth, the sci-fi movie that is stinking up the galaxy. The real challenge is to see whether anybody has anything sincerely good to say about this nightmare of a film. If you do, you can win a cheap but useful prize. (Read More).

A few years ago, the pen-and-pencil game "Shadowrun" would have seemed an especially geeky fantasy. In the Corporate Republic, it looms much larger, both a warning and a prophesy. Many of us are Shadowrunners now, many more are going to be in the 21st century. Fifth in a series. (Read More).

The idea drives the intelligentsia nuts, but it's becoming clearer all the time that culture isn't being destroyed online but re-invented here. This sensibility is behind a new Web site that takes the culture of gaming as seriously as it deserves to be. (Read More)

Last month, a 16-year-old old Utah teenager published vulgar and offensive comments about some of his classmates and school administrators on a Web site. His computer was seized by police, his files and e-mail extracted and analyzed; he was jailed in a juvenile detention center and then sent out of the state. Local officials say they may charge him with criminal libel. Copyright and patent lawsuits online, make some room. Here comes libel (Read More).

The Digital Divas are devoted to helping women get together to learn from each other in the world of Web design. More than that, the Divas organize Grey Day, an annual effort to spotlight the dangers of unlicensed copyright use and plagiarism on the Web. And, oh yes -- it appears that Microsoft has stolen their trademark.

You may have read about Geekcorps before on Slashdot. They're a bunch of good people doing a bunch of cool things, and it was high time we wrote something about them so that everyone can know what's going on. Click 'Read More' below to read about Geekcorps, and how you can help them push back the digital divide in developing countries.

The Internet and its distinctive architecture have created a freer culture than we have ever had before -- or even imagined. The next few years will decide whether the Net will be made to conform to existing laws and values, or whether society will recognize it as a new kind of realm. The fighting has started. (Read More).

Universal Access to computing and the Net is edging closer to reality. One company after another is now offering computing equipment and Net access to new employees. enRamp announced last week that it's offering a program to provide complete technology benefits to associates and their families. This is definitely a great moral (and business) idea whose time is coming. (Read More).

Click below to read our lawyer's formal response to Microsoft's request that we remove readers' comments about their version of Kerberos from Slashdot.

Remember Michael Chaney? He's the Nashville-based Linux consultant who saved Microsoft's Hotmail service from a Christmas 1999 outage by kindly paying a $35 NSI registration fee for them. Michael has always humbly maintained that this little act of bacon-saving was more of a Slashdot thing than a personal act on his part. Now, in the same spirit of generosity, Michael has some suggestions for the World's Largest Software Company about how to back gracefully away from its most recent attempt to keep its proprietary Kerberos Protocol extensions secret while still appearing to "publish" them.

Individualism is the only response to corporatism. But it's lousy work with few rewards, rarely bringing promotion, wealth, or even much chance of success. Mostly, you just tick people off. Online, you might increasingly run afoul of corporatist laws and DMCA-citing lawyers. You do get to hang out with other grumpy, discontented people. Second in a series. (Read More).

I spent some of yesterday and part of today (Saturday) on the phone with our law firm's intellectual property specialist dicussing Microsoft's attempt to get us to remove reader posts about Kerberos. We're lucky to have a lawyer who "gets it." We're also lucky to have gotten some very favorable press about all of this.

I've written a lot of stories for Slashdot, but until yesterday's Microsoft news, I've never been inspired to write an editorial. I wrote this for people who are coming to Slashdot for the first time from media outlets, but regular Slashdot readers and comment posters may enjoy it, as well. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Irrational Exuberance -- a provocative, even scary new book by Yale economist Robert J. Shiller -- is sending shock waves through Wall Street. Shiller argues that the techno-fueled stock-market boom is based on emotion, rumor, pyschology and herd instincts (like excitement about the Net), rather than on any rational facts or data -- and that it can't last. In fact, he writes, technology may be driving the market mad. If he's right, the market has to fall, and technology companies will be among those most significantly affected. (Read More).

Welcome to The Corporate Republic, a new kind of social entity that transcends geographic boundaries and is exerting growing control over technology, work, privacy, creativity, media, law, entertainment, politics and commerce. Everywhere, individuals and indvidualism and free choice and speech are under the gun and on the run. First of a series. (Read More).

Metallica has every right to fight for its interests. But the unleashing of lawyers on more than 330,000 Napster users -- many of them kids -- who allegedly downloaded the band's music last week is an outrage, a punitive and thoughtless assault on privacy and freedom. . It's time to bite back against this corporatist band. They've made some great music, but Napster contributes a lot more to the world than they do. Take note: P.S. Tomorrow, Slashdot will be taking questions for a Metallica interview. (Read More.)