"The Beach" is director Danny Boyle's first major movie since the darkly comic and powerful "Trainspotting" a few years back. It's not a happy comparison. "The Beach" is a gorgeous mess, a fantasy/adventure in part about escaping technology. [Warning: I don't give the ending away, but I do discuss the plot] Read more for my review and to post your own.

David Brin, famous for works such as The Transparent Society, as well as his work in science fiction, sent us a recent essay. Entitled "Giordano Bruno After 400 Years: A Pain in the Neck Who Would be Treasured Today", the piece is about Giordano Bruno (No - really?) a forgotten hero of the Renaissance era. Click below to read more.

A Stanford University study released Tuesdy found that the Net is causing Americans to spend less time with friends and family. The more time spent on the Net, says the study, the more isolated we are. Is this so? You don't have to be described by pundits, academics and journalists. You can speak for yourselves here:Update: 02/17 04:30 by H :Oh, check out the story about dogs and people on Wired today - it's hilarious.

If you're a regular Slashdot reader, you've heard about UCITA by now. You have probably also gathered that many prominent spokespeople for the open source and free software communities, most notably Richard Stallman, don't like it. UCITA already passed in Virginia, but the governor hasn't yet signed it into law. Here in Maryland, where I live, UCITA is still under consideration. I'm working hard to block it, and I'm not alone. But this story is not as much about Virginia and Maryland as it is about the way UCITA is being "sold" to state legislatures all over the U.S. and how you can work effectively in your state to keep it from becoming the Law of the Land.

If you're reading this, you're probably what economists call a "Knowledge Worker," a major element of the new, techno-driven workplace. The government says your average work week is 32.9 hours, and employers enthusiastically agree. Nuts. Thanks to laptops, cellphones, palm pilots and wireless modems, you're probably working nearly all the time, part of every day and night. How many hours do you really work? Post below and read more.

Here's a Valentine's Day gift to you all (smooch!), my shortest column ever: As the Internet enters its second era, it appears to be evolving into a series of distinctly separate, different continents and sub-continents. (Continued below)

Ford's announcement last week that it was giving away computers, color monitors and Net access to each of its 350,000 world-wide employees and their families didn't make as much news as the cracking of Yahoo and AOL. But it deserves more attention. It was ground-breaking, technological history in the making. If this idea spreads, it could take the Net and the Web to completely new levels, and upend stereotypes (many advanced by yours truly) about greedy corporatism. Computer companies, schools and governments ought to be mortified that they didn't think of it first. Read more.

The Software Patent Institute is often acronymed down to SPI, which is usually the popular three-letter-acronym for Software in the Public Interest. Modern times can certainly be confusing. While Software in the Public Interest is an organization devoted to free software, the Software Patent Institute is an entirely different organization, providing free use of their software technology patent database on the Web.

The first generation Internet promoted certain concepts of freedom that didn't exist elsewhere. This wasn't by accident. Internet protocols were designed to be open and accessible. As the Net enters its second generation, growing numbers worry whether it can stay as free. Net architecture becomes critical. Programmers are no longer technicians working on the margins, but are the principal designers of the world's most ascendant culture, the ones who will determine its future. So here's a series on that topic alternating between columns, your e-mail and your posts on Threads -- as long, short and useful a discussion as you want it to be.

Kurt Gray is one of Andover.net's coolest people and most senior employees. He's a programmer and long-time Slashdot reader. Indeed, Kurt was the one who originally suggested that Andover should buy Slashdot. Now Kurt (along with the rest of us) will be working for the merged VA Linux/Andover combination . Today, in a rare public appearance, Kurt shares his thoughts on Andover's rapid growth and changes, the VA Linux buyout, and the notes he took during VA Linux CEO Larry Augustin's speech yesterday at Linux World. (Click below to read.)

Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas once wrote that the right to be left alone is the beginning of all freedom. That's bad news, because privacy as we've come to understand the idea is over, and tracking software -- now widely deployed on the Web and in businesses from banking to supermarkets -- helped to kill it.

This week, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) joined China and the music industry, all simultaneously making doomed efforts to stick their fingers in the digital dike. The Net has destroyed the very idea of censorship, but it looks like there are going to be some casualties before that reality sets in.

"The localisation of Linux to Indian languages can spark off a revolution that reaches down to the grassroots levels of the country," writes Prof. Venkatesh Hariharan. Read the rest of his informative essay Below .

Brian Martin has written a piece on Communal Instinct. It talks a little about the concepts of Open Source, working together, innovation, and communication. There's a lot in there and I think it's worth a read.

Andy Armstrong has written us a pretty interesting, but somewhat technical piece of Just in Time, computer generated assembly language, profiling, and more. Its a pretty interesting little bit that ought to give you a lot to talk about.

Three organizations -- Microsoft, the WTO, and the AOL/Time-Warner incubus -- are revealing symbols of cultural and technological life at the beginning of the 21st century. They are also warnings. Corporatism is spawning a series of serious legal assaults on the open nature of the Net. These incursions directly challenge open source values, both technological and cultural. For some context, consider the organization soon to be headed by Citizen Case, our new national corporatist leader and spokesperson. Read below for more on this increasingly troubling problem and to offer some possible solutions.

This is an interview with a young programmer and entrepreneur named Bill Gates, originally taped and transcribed in 1980. In it, Gates says, "There's nobody getting rich writing software that I know of." Gates also works hard to defend the idea of copyrighting software stored on magnetic media - mostly tape, back then - which the government didn't accept at the time, and talks at length about how no one will ever write software if they can't make money at it, why it's bad to share programs freely with friends, and generally makes it clear that 20 years ago Bill Gates was already well on his way to becoming what he is today. (More below -- including a special Slashdot audio bonus!)

The Internet has provided individuals with more freedom than they have ever had to express themselves. This is great. But not surprisingly, many people are abusing, thus endangering, their new power. The idea of taking responsibility for one's words has not taken hold. (More below.)

Online, hostile environments are driving almost every social group other than techno-savvy young white men away from coherent public discussion of technology. These men are invariably smart and skilled, but almost unable to communicate civilly or tolerate disagreement or difference. Are we breeding communities of impulsive and creative jerks?

E-communities mirror those in the outside world. As they grow, they face the same tensions, pressures, political differences. At the moment, hostile environments are a growing problem as newcomers flood onto the Web. This is the first of a three-part series about hostility on the Net and how it affects the rest of society. (More below.)