Warren Ellis, creator of Transmet and countless other excellent comics has answered your questions. Click below fearless reader and face the man responsible for countless graphic novels. And check out Artbomb.net or his blog. And pick up Orbiter, a 100-page sf graphic novel, came out in hardback two weeks ago from DC Vertigo, and hopefully available at a comic shop near you! Enough with the plugs, lets get to the juice:

An anonymous reader writes "X-bit labs has posted very interesting editorial called "Chess Championship: Humans vs. Computer". During the last 10 years computers penetrated into various spheres of human life. In this article guys try to find out how well computers can play chess and if it would be correct to say that artificial intelligence is superior to human mind. Interesting read."

Gentu writes "Adam Scheinberg writes an interesting editorial explaining what he would do if he was a developer and he had a Linux distribution. His suggestions are pretty radical, and in places resembles of what Apple had done to MacOSX with the help of BSD as the underlying technology. But if this is what it takes to get Linux into the next level, it might worth the consideration."

Geert Poels writes "Kiki the Nanobot was the deserved winner of the uDevGames Mac Game Programming Competition. Entrants had to submit their game along with its source code. Provided with open source licenses like MIT, GPL, ... and written using OpenGL, some games will prove a fairly easy port. The source code to the 41 entries have been prepared and are being made available for download. Last week, GameSpy made a round-up of '02 Mac gaming by publishing a 2-page editorial 2002: The Year of the Mac Gamer."

ginormous writes "Philip Taubman's new book, Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage is perhaps the most exciting book ever written about the Eisenhower administration. (Did you know the Eisenhower administration was exciting?) It traces the story of how aerial reconnaissance developed from conventional planes (modified bombers and such) outfitted with cameras through the high-altitude, high-speed U-2 and SR-71 planes and the Corona satellite." Read on for more on this book.

Slashback tonight brings you a boatload of updates and amplification to previous Slashdot stories, including: the outcome of the RIAA-driven administrative crackdown on file trading at the U.S. Naval Academy, the legal status of ambiguously labeled Microsoft "gimme" software, more information on the insecurities of Blackboard's card-based payment system, and more. Read on for the details!

Spintronic writes "This is old news here but others might be interested. There was a small riot here a few weeks ago due to the early exit of a certain basketball team. Because of riots years ago of a much larger magnitude and the black eye this is giving the university, the cops (local and campus I believe) are out looking to make examples. In their zeal they tried to get all the unaired footage and photos from the local media, who refused to comply. Not to let it go, they went on to seize hard drives from students who took digital photos that night. Here's info from the student nespaper, and here's an editorial."

scubacuda writes "Akash Kapur of CircleID has written an editorial, Why ICANN Needs Fresh Blood: A Deeper View . Kapur writes, "ICANN was born amid the heady days of Internet euphoria. Its early promise to be the world's first global democracy (not to mention an entirely new form of governance) was a product of that euphoria. But like so many dot-coms, ICANN quickly succumbed to the hubris of its own vision. If ICANN has been a troubled organization from the start, then that is in no small measure because it over-promised at the start....What's needed is fresh blood -- new personalities, and new ideas to break the ideological impasse." Kapur lists cancelled at-large elections, the authoritarianism and secrecy of ICANN discussion, and the narrowing possibility that ICANN could represent a new model of governance as indicators that global democracy has failed."

bsadler writes "There is a pretty interesting article on the psychology of a programmer over at devx. It includes some suggestions that a manager might take into account when dealing with programmers. Maybe my boss will finally give me my own office."

Wee writes "Linux Server Hacks is not a book which will teach you system administration. In fact, if you aren't already familiar with how to set up and run Linux, this book will likely confuse you. It is also not a book which will teach you how to break into Linux servers. The word 'hack' in this case is not a pejorative. What LSH will do is show you how to fully tweak that Linux box you already run. It will show you new (and possibly better) ways to do the things you already do. The book will probably not make you a better admin, but it will almost certainly save you some time or give you at least one 'Why didn't I ever think of that?' head-scratcher." Read on for the rest of Wee's review.

scubacuda writes "In the Forbes editorial, Fact and Comment , Steve Forbes voices his support for Lessig and the Eldred case: 'Maybe Congress should just be done with it and declare that a copyright is forever....Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig has proposed a sensible compromise..."[I]f Congress is listening to the frustration that the court's decision has created, [paying to maintain copyright extensions] would be a simple and effective way for the First Branch to respond." He's absolutely right.'"

Slashback brings updates on Salon's quest for money, Miguel de Icaza's thoughts on the most recent KDE vs. GNOME critique, bad news for anyone who wants a cute Windows-free laptop from Lindows.com, and more -- read on for more details.

*no comment* writes "Literally "garbage patent" that is, Apple was rewarded a patent for the "Garbage" icon in Mac OS X. The patent documents can be found at the USPTO by clicking here. More on this and other Apple patents are in this article over at the macobserver."

A reader writes: " Automation Access has a long editorial on the future of Microsoft, based on trends which are already in full motion. None of this is new or surprising, but seeing it all together in one article is well worthwhile."

PhxBlue writes "The St. Petersburg (FL) Times wrote an editorial this morning lambasting a patent system which allows patents for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and swinging sideways. It has some background on how the patent system became as FUBARed as it is, citing rulings by the Supreme Court in 1980 and by the federal patent appeals court in 1998; but more importantly, it brings the faults with the US patent process to a more public eye."

lwbecker2 asks: "Warren Harrison has written a thought-provoking editorial piece on The Software Developer as Movie Icon. He explores the fact that new entrants to Computer Science curriculum are typically clueless about what 'real' developers actually do. While researching the issue of why this is the case, he determined that some potential CS degree seekers are forming opinions from portrayals in movies and cinema. He describes what he asserts to be inaccurate portrayals of developers in War Games, TRON, and The Net, and asks for input and opinions on 'the impact of the cinema and television on new software developers' expectations, as well as learn of any films that do a better job of portraying our profession...' I am sure Slashdot readers have some input on this, and I am curious if people believe _any_ movie has acurately portrayed software developers?"

Licensed2Hack writes "Janis Ian, who provided this slashdot interview last September, has written this editorial in the Los Angeles Times. Janis says, "After I first posted downloadable music, my merchandise sales went up 300%. They're still double what they were before the MP3s went online." And the RIAA's stated goal in preventing this type of activity with their lawsuit against Verizon is to increase sales..."

Slashback with updates and amplifications on Apple's stance on DRM, EasyInternetCafe's court battle over CD burning, a copyright law being drafted after Lessig's own heart, the lawyer vs. eBay saga, and VoIP calling with Linux. Read on below for the details.

CyPlasm asks: "MSN Careers had this article posted the other day that asked about a "Lifetime Career in IT: Is It Possible?" Does the average Slashdot reader think they will retire (with a pension, benefits, etc) after a long and successful career in IT?"

Todd AvErth writes "Judge Motz recently ordered Microsoft to distribute Sun's JVM with every Windows product. Salon decided to pipe up about it with an editorial musing about whether or not it's too late. Most of it isn't all that interesting, but some of the comments from Ximian developer, Miguel de Icaza point to the advantage of being able to compile from multiple languages. Anyone know of any projects to compile JVM bytecode from other languages?" Update: 01/23 16:00 GMT by M : Comments were disallowed when this story was originally posted; fixed now. My mistake (although KDE3's stupid mouseover-activates-form-elements user interface, now finally fixed in the latest versions, has to take some blame too).