From a press release at LinuxPR: “From August 9th until August 12th, the campus of the University of Twente will feature a congress that is unique in its kind: Hackers at Large, or HAL 2001. The congress expects to receive thousands of guests from all over the world and from many different disciplines to debate issues ranging from advanced technical issues regarding some obscure aspect of the Internet to easy-to-understand lectures on some of the dangers of the information society, as well as many, many other topics. But more than debate, the guests at HAL2001 take ample time to get on-line, relax, build and discuss cool stuff, and engage in good old analog interfacing.”

“On Monday February 26th Linux.com Live! held an IRC event titled “Commercial Linux Games: Where are they?” At this event we got to see and talk with two companies who have soon to be released games coming to our favorite platform. Representatives of BioWare and Creature Labs, showed up to discuss their Linux ports of NeverWinter Nights and Creatures 3 respectively.” Read the transcripts of the IRC discussion.

When you install OS X on March 24, Apple wants you to focus on what you will eventually have, not what you’ve actually purchased on that day. Think of the possibility of playing DVDs on your Mac in the future, not the icky reality that OS X won’t, initially, support this feature. Story at ZDNet.

From Slashdot: “Tjp($)pjT writes “A Canadian company which bought Iridium for roughly a quarter of a cent on the dollar has scheduled the re-opening of the service. Rescued from a blazing death of dropping all 66 sats and their spares out of orbit to burn up on reentry, the 5 BILLION dollar system was purchased on the block for 25 million. The US Government contracted with the service for unlimited air time for 20,000 phones for two years with other options. More can be read here.””

From the Los Angeles Times: “Imagine a cheap, light computer made largely of paper. Imagine complicated electronic circuits woven into fabric that could easily monitor a hospital patient’s condition. Imagine a profound change in the design of electronic gizmos, which might soon be freed from the tyranny of the circuit board and the silicon chip. That’s a lot to ask from one little invention. But a new cellular phone, which could be available to consumers before the end of the year, holds such promise.”

“Microsoft should have sent the Open Source community a big box of candy and dozens of roses. Open Source software has been the epicenter of some of the greatest innovations of our industry — namely, the Internet. And these innovations have benefited Microsoft handsomely. Sound ridiculous? Let me explain.” Read Michael Tiemann’s full commentary at ZDNet.

This week’s edition of the Linux Advisory Watch is now available at LinuxSecurity.com.

Zack Brown posts this week’s summary of discussions on the linux-kernel mailing list.

From The Register: “Microsoft’s plan to providing Windows XP (aka Whistler) with interface themes (aka skins) may be knocked on the head by Apple, which has patented desktop themes. The patent, granted on 13 February from an application made way back in May 1998, covers “systems and methods for providing a user with increased flexibility and control over the appearance and behaviour of objects on a user interface are described.”

AllLinuxDevices’ Bojan Smojver describes how to configure a Compaq Aero handheld PC for use with Linux: “Basically, in just a few hours, I’ve achieved excellent connectivity of Linux and PocketPC, thanks to a few documents and free downloads. I still can’t sync Tasks and other items stored in the proprietary database format, but most of the stuff I need works. And, for once, it’s really reliable and fast.”