I'm heading South today to try an experiment in non-technical open source writing. The subject is Orlando and the tragedy of technology, woven through Disney's imagined worlds and some of the other bizarre places there. The idea is going to be a magazine article, but I'm wondering if it might be a book as well. I could use some help.

On the Net, the notion that Microsoft is predatory and monopolistic is old news, but this was sure a stunner to most Americans, who've been reading all those adoring profiles for more than a decade. Judge Jackson's findings of fact drew big headlines and flooded the talk shows all weekend. Microsoft's fat stockholders won't have a happy day today either, as brokers and analysts weigh in after a busy weekend of reading. As one said on CNN yesterday: the judge's report isn't pretty.

As soon as Judge Jackson's decision was available for download (from this mirror site, among others), I was on the phone with Washington DC attorney Don Weightman, who often serves as the informal "Slashdot legal interpreter" on federal law, especially for antitrust and regulatory matters. Click below for a transcript of the phone conversation Don and I had as we read the decision together. Don makes some great points!

Quite a number of people have been writing to us about Dave Whitinger's column that ran on LinuxToday and was sent over here as well. Dave's contention is the browser compatibility is a crucial battle for the success of Linux - and things don't look so good. Click below to read the column, and contribute your thoughts.

Here's a true Hellmouth Halloween Horror Story: A Texas seventh-grader wrote -- at his teacher's request -- a "scary" story in which two classmates and his teacher were shot (the latter accidentally). He got a 100 on the story, and was thrown in jail for nearly a week on suspicion of making terroristic threats.

Kurt The Pope, most notable for his recent reviews of CodeWarrior and Code Fusion has taken time to play in a slightly different IDE ^[?] - Railroad Tycoon II Gold, by Loki. Click below for the skinny.

Most of my friends work either directly on the Internet or in some sort of Internet-related computer field. The Internet is the economic engine driving the curent "long boom" wave of American prosperity, and that wave is starting to spread all over the world. But now and then I wonder if this is such a good thing, and if we might all be better off if the Internet wasn't such an economic juggernaut. (Click Below for more idle speculation.)

Andrew Smith has written an excellent little feature on something so obvious that we usually don't give it a second thought: Server naming conventions. Since all my old machines are named after charachters from The Little Mermaid, and all the new Slashdot boxes use boring naming conventions like 'Linux360' (not for long tho!) I can understand this one. Its worth a read.

Princess Monoke, a wonderful anime film, was reviewed for us by frohike / Dan Potter. The film, done by Studio Ghibli / Hayao Miyazaki is currently coming to the US, and is popular in Japan under the name Mononoke Hime, directed by Hayao Miyazaki, with "translation" assistance by Neil Gaiman, of The Sandman and other literary undertakings. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie - click below to get the lowdown.

Even though violence among the young is dropping sharply, a federal law enforcement agency and a private threat-evaluation security firm have teamed up to develop a software program that will be tested in 20 schools around the country in December. Mosaic-2000 will look for "troubled" kids. Geek students are sounding the alarm at this mind-boggling over-reaction and unthinking deployment of technology as a safety -- and profit-making --tool in education. The price of being different is going up again.

Last week "The War In Heaven," the world's first Christian action game, went on sale, opening a whole new chapter in the never-ending struggle between technology and the self-proclaimed forces of morality.

"How do I find a woman like her?" I often get asked this question by young computer dudes who meet my lovely wife, Debbie, and wonder how an old ugly guy like me managed to get hold of such a wonderful woman while smarter, studlier young guys (like them) seem to strike out with every female they meet. These lonely youngsters all seem to think I must have a set of magic rules for attracting females. And guess what? I do. Click "Read More" and I'll share them with you.

Steven Young writes "As an intellectual property attorney, and a regular Slashdot reader, I would like to share a few of my thoughts regarding patent issues, especially as they relate to programmers. Although patents (for better or worse) are playing an ever-expanding role in the software field, many programmers do not know much about them." (Full story below.)

Two weeks ago, Jane's Intelligence Review presented media with a new, radically improved information model for the 21st Century. Will they pay attention?

Richard Bean wrote this piece about a chess match on MSN's Gaming Zone between ultragrandmaster Gary Kasparov and the entire rest of the world, with "the world's" moves being decided by online vote. But something went wrong after move #50, by move #58 MSN changed the rules so that only Windows users could vote on moves, and murmured complaints from disgruntled participants and observers about unfair move-selections and ballot-box stuffing (which MSN had originally claimed was impossible) rose to an online roar. Click below to read the full story.

Kurt has returned, continuing his reviews of Linux IDE ^[?] environments. After reviewing Code Fusion, he's reviewed Metrowerks CodeWarrior (for Suse). The full text of the review is below.

One of America's most enduring and self-deluded myths about itself is that it's a free, thus morally superior country. It's not, as last weeks' feature on Princeton Bioethicist Peter Singer made clear. This society is riddled with unapproachable taboos. But technology is changing that, making some of our self-inflated notions of ourselves actually come true.

John R. Zedlewski has contributed an excellent feature entitled 'Free Software and the Innovators Dilema'. Talks a lot about how industries tend to shift, and what happens when a new low end/low cost technology wrecks the margins. Its worth a read. Check it out.

A lot of people (even Jon Katz) have been telling me I should write a Slashdot feature myself now and then. Fine. I'm in a strange mood today, and a lot of strange thoughts have been buzzing through my head this week, so here goes. My first "observation of the week" is that the word "suits" is no longer viable to describe managers in tech companies. We need a more accurate term, and I have one for you. (More below.)

Lawrence Person writes "With Neil Stephenson and Bruce Sterling hot topics of interest here on Slashdot, I thought my "Notes Toward a Postcyberpunk Manifesto" might help add to /.'s SF debate. This originally appeared last year in an issue of Nova Express, the Hugo-nominated small press SF magazine I edit. However, though it's been translated into Portugese, it's never appeared on the web before. It discusses exactly why original cyberpunk works like Neuromancer were important, and why the work people like Stephenson, Sterling, Egan, Macleod, etc. are doing right now should more properly be thought of as postcyberpunk.