Wired News has an enjoyable report of the Linuxbierwanderung (Linux Beer Hike). It sounds like it was a wonderful event, and you can't beat the admission (free)! I almost feel stupid for missing out on this, even if I don't drink. As a bonus, they even got to see the eclipse.

So if you're in the Bay Area tonight, you definitely need to show up tonight at the Park Side Hall (across the street from the conference hall) at 7:30 (until 10) for the Slashdot/Freshmeat/Andover shindig. Free beer, and loud music (from San "Single White Female" Mehat), good times shall be had or your money back! You're all invited. It ought to be a rip roarin' good time. At least, after Guinness #3 ;)

Andover.Net is springing for a party for Slashdot readers at LinuxWorld next week Tuesday. The shindig will be held at the Park Side Hall accross the street from the conference center immediately following Linus' keynote. Tunes will be provided by VAs San "NeTTwerk" Mehat, and the Beer will be provided by Andover. (Let me just say that it is super wierd throwing your own bash at a conference instead of just leaching off everyone else's, but hey, free beer, right?).

So like so many Slashdot readers, I got one of those x10 starter kits that allow remote controlling your lights. Who knew that this was addictive? Since installing the starter kit, I learned that magnavox makes clones of the lamp modules. So I bought a motion detector, a pack of those, and an x10 capable light switch. Now my bathroom detects when I enter and turns the lights on (this is great because I'm almost blind without my glasses, and the morons who designed the duplex decided that a light switch isn't necessary anywhere near the door between my room and the bathroom) plus my Lava Lamps are now controllable via remote controls.

The next step is of course computer access. Maybe a gnome panel applet. Or a CGI application (Control-Taco's-Lava-Lamps.com?). It's really all down hill from here. I mean, they sell security cameras. My receiver has a spare RCA video input just waiting. Soon I'll never need to leave my couch- I'll just sit in all my paranoid splendor in complete control of my environment eating corn chips ^[?] , drinking beer ^[?] and hacking perl ^[?] . Probably ought to wait until I get better bandwidth than 56k before I go ahead and donate my legs to science.

Slothy writes "The old ansi group (and modern art group of all media formats), iCE (Insane Creators Enterprise), has unveiled our new web site. The new site allows you to search through all the art we've released since 1992, and it's viewable online. And for the icing on the cake, we're giving away some free (libre) software to go with the free (beer) art. Our code to convert ANSIs to hi-resolution images is released under the GPL. Drop by and find some old ansis you may have loved or see some modern work that's truly eye-popping. " Rob and I were talking with one of these boys at LinuxExpo and thinking about the BBS days of yore. This is making me so nostalgic, I might cry.

Paul wrote in to point us to the GNU Jobs Page. ^BR wrote in to say that the may issue of Daemon News is out for your BSDies out there, and CaVi wrote in to say that the Linux Gazette is out (sorry that these took so long to announce... moving was a bitch). Bitscape sent us a Salon story about Coding in Vampire Mode. Mikesch noted that www.palmcolors.com is selling colored Palm Pilots rsn. Looking for new backgrounds? President John F. Kennedy wrote in to tell us that the Volume 7 of Propoganda is up. And for those who are curious, he actually did send me beer! robert@budzynski.ddns.org sent us this art gallery with fodder and dayeight sent us a photomosaic picture for you Lara Craft Perverts out there. HighJack noted that the latest version of JWZs X Screensaver distribution contains a new one that looks like those funky falling charachters from The Matrix. And finally for some crazy fun stuff, dave sent us hilarious proof that Star Trek is Satanic, and chrisd sent us one of the best ebay auction items in recent memory. Psst-this is Hemos. It was Rob's birthday on May 10-he thinks he escaped. E-mail him and tell him how much you love him.

ldspartan writes "A small company called TelePizza has created a Pizza Vending Machine. Now all we need is one on every street corner. " I believe anything that achieves "Vending Machine" status is essential. We've got candy, cigarettes, mountain dew, even fruit and sandwiches. Pizza rounds it out nicely, but how long before whiskey joins the pack? I'd settle for a beer in a movie theater. I gotta move to amsterdam.

In "EDtv",the much-hyped movie about media hype, Director Ron Howard blinks. He gives us a mellow sit-com instead of a biting film about the dread and eerily relevant convergency of media, technology and voyeurism. "The Truman Show" never looked braver or better. "EDtv" is too creepy to be funny.

I've attached a summary of the major changes and bug fixes below. These are regarding Nested Mode, Anonymous Posting, Highlight Thresholds, and Login Problems. Also some comments about moderation. If any of these things are on your mind, read on.

b12arr0 sent us a link to a quick little GNOME article. An anonymous reader wrote in to say that GNUStep.org has had a major makeover. Nice to see that project still alive and kicking. chrisd wrote in to say that VA has made its first acquisition: ElectricLichen, possibly best known to most of us as the Beer Hike guys. OGL wrote in to give us the heads up to Linux Game Tome for info about a a work-in-progress video game starring Tux in a 3D environment. The screenshots alone are unbelievably cool. Brian Gue wrote in to tell us of a new a beer called Fubar. Why not fubeer? snorkel sent us a link to yet-another-dancing-animal-page. This is the Cow Dance Finally Vik Olliver wrote in with the most impressive Linux Fan act I've seen (narrowly edging out the dude at LWCE with the Tux hairdo). It is of course, Husband and Wife matching Tux Tatoos. My largely tux based fashion sense pales by comparison.

VinceV sent us a link to a new site he's started up called Control-Escape.com which aims to be a help site for novice linux users making the migration from those less known alternative OSs from Redmond. jedgar wrote in to announce the Feb. Edition of DaemonNews and FreeBSD 'zine, and Squeezer wrote in to say that the feb. issue of Ext2 is out. (Mention one, ya gotta mention 9 more. Sheesh *grin*) Several other folks wrote in to note that The GNOME Project has released 0.99.5. Justin Clarke wrote in to show us Rioport.com which is Diamond's new site to connect Rio owners with legal MP3s. danmil noted another Slashdot reference in the mainstream- this one is in a NY times story. Now we have a few funny bits not for the Moral and Pure: the_gimp sent us a link to what is probably the most amusing patent in recent memory. Glad that's patented. Don't want that technology uncontrolled. Somewhat related, behhl sent us a site that was bound to happen- AdultLinux. You can guess what it's for. And lastly, for the strangest bit of the day, Hans sent us a link to Furniture Porn. Fear. And hide your children.

Doc Technical, one of our highly trained book reviewers, has submitted for us Marjorie Flack, Kurt Wiese's book The Story about Ping. A rare technical manual, this is one of the few computer books in the field in which the illustrator is as important as the author. To truly understand the glories of Ping, click below to read more. Yes, we know it's on Amazon. They stole it from us. Or Doc provided it to them.

Sleepy asks : "Are there any open source beer brewing applications available? There are a couple of commercial apps available for Windows, and one for the MacOS, but I haven't found anything which includes the source. I am teaching myself Java programming and would love to learn on a "real" program. I have a "healthy" interest in brewing so this is an especially interesting app. If there is no such thing, yet, would anyone like to team up and write one? I'd prefer to use Java as it's what I'm already learning, and is fairly portable."

Kristin DeAngelis sent me some interesting mail covering some of the hoop-la surronding LinuxWorldExpo. One of the big things to note is that pre-reg time has been extended to Feb. 1-head over to LinuxWorldExpo for more information. And if you're coming head over to booth 1143 to see our smiling mugs, and we'd like to thank Kit Cosper of Linux-HW for sending Rob and I out there-buy stuff and make him happy.

Ladies and Gentleman its that time again. Grab the shot glasses, or the champagne or a beer or a can of jolt and drink to Linux v2.2. Take that drink when you type 'make zImage' (or bzImage if you are so moved) and remember all the hackers that made it happen.

Martin Hock writes " This guy, Steve Gibson, who is phat enough to write everything in assembly language, but not phat enough to run Linux, has created a nifty freeware (beer, not speech) program for Windoze called Free & Clear that demos the way Microsoft's ClearType "may" work by employing color fringing. Only interesting if you have a color LCD display, or possibly if you have an extremely precise aperture grill. On my Libretto, it's pretty funky fresh. He claims that it works with Virtual PC, but I'd be impressed if someone got it to work under Wine, because we all know how much X loves fonts... I've given it a quick spin with the Non-Emulator myself and it looks trashy. " Is anyone up to porting this bugger? The page is excellent because it explains all sorts of interesting things about the technology in question, including the fact that it has been around for 22 years longer than Microsoft seems to want us to believe.

When I put out my call for Geek Christmas Gift ideas, I had no idea what I was in for. But after the storm of email that followed was washed away, I was left with a list of toys that any geek would be excited to give or get this year for whatever holiday it is you celebrate this time of year. Hit the link below and read the list if you're curious.

Well I did this last year, and the among the best things I got was a gigantic floppy disk, and a box full of dead hard drives. It was just so much fun that I figured I ought to try again this year. If you have cool geek stuff: beer, strange hardware, posters, or anything else that a geek might like as a strange Christmas present, mail it to the address I've posted at the end of this article. I'm gonna post pictures of the coolest stuff. You could even consider this a combo Christmas/Graduation present since my last class is next week thursday *grin*. Now back to the news (Bracing myself for the flames: "This isn't News!")

Jim Gleason writes "Does the idea of hiking the castle-laden hills, caves and medieval hamlets of the German countryside appeal to you? Does the thought of excellent beer preserve your good mood for days? Do you think that Linux rules? Well, Electric Lichen L.L.C. is organizing a week-long trip called Linuxbierwanderung, "The Linux Beer Hike." Scheduled for August 1999, Linux users will hike the hills of northern Bavaria to learn Linux on their laptop computers and visit the local brewpubs. Experts in Linux and the Bavarian outdoors will teach classes to the hikers during the day and enjoy the local pub scene in the evening. " People can subscribe to the mailing list via the Web Page which is also archived. Linux, Beer, and Nature. 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

the ISDN line is working. We moved to a different neighborhood just so we could get some bandwidth. Between ISDN line problems (courtesy of the mutants at the telco) and ISP problems, and router config problems (courtesy of everyone and their brother that looked at our router and failed miserably) it was a long painful journey. But a journey that has ended with a house with its own subnet and finally a phone line that doesn't need to be dialed out 24/7. Life is good. Gimme a beer, I've earned it.