Did Netscape sneak native support for PNG graphics of version 4.6 of their browser? I don’t remember it working before.

Geeks will appreciate: Patterns for Scripted Languages.

All of the finalists for the ArsDigita prize are under 18 years old. Some of their work is really very impressive. I’m particularly fond of Escalation.

I wonder what’s up with the Mozilla status report this week? It only has news about the Editor.

The Wired Republic is a web log covering open source topics. Props to them for including the Geocities header on the page and avoiding the annoying advertising popup.

Declan McCullagh sent a message to the Politech mailing list the other day reporting that Congress has decreed that all NASA web sites will include an anti-drug message. Thanks for the pointless laws, guys. Maybe they should go back and impeach Bill Clinton again to distract them from their usual mischief. (I haven’t been able to find a news story covering this yet.)

Speaking of crackers, everyone knows it’s not nice to brag. Well, everyone except for the issuers of press release. If this isn’t an invitation for more trouble, I don’t know what is.

Sun claims Kevin Mitnick inflicted 80 million dollars damage to the company when he stole the source code to Solaris (Sun’s flagship operating system). Now it turns out that Sun is giving away the same source code to certain parties for $100. This is amazingly similar to the Craig Neidorf (better known to Phrack readers as Knight Lightning) case from a few years ago, in which BellSouth accused Neidorf of publishing some E911 system documentation worth $80,000. In trial, the defense presented proof that more extensive documentation could be ordered from BellSouth for $13 by any member of the public who knew where to get the catalog. At that point, the case against Neidorf fell apart. It will be interesting to see whether the outcome is any different here. (By the way, Mike Godwin, the author of the EFF article I linked to, has left the EFF. In many ways, this marks the end of an era.)

InfoWorld has an interesting article about factors in the industry that are eroding Microsoft’s strength. I find the section about Microsoft’s licensing terms getting worse before they get better to be the most interesting part of the article. Is Microsoft really going to split IIS and Windows NT? Boy, I hope so. I hope they start charging a lot for the ASP engine too.

I haven’t seen the Star Wars movie yet. I’m not supposed to go see it until I finish the book, but I may give in and go see it next weekend. If you’re keeping score at home, two webloggers have given the movie positive reviews, and one has given it a negative review (that I’ve seen). I haven’t actually read any of the reviews yet, because I don’t want to be exposed to any potential spoilers. As most of America will have seen it before Monday, every day I hold out exposes me to greater risk.