srogers

On a related note, there's a new sub-reddit called SomebodyMakeThis. (a sub-reddit being a user created subsection of the link aggregator Reddit)

http://www.reddit.com/r/SomebodyMakeThis/

Probably the same way I watch Guardian football highlights.

I like to think this was a joint effort between the patent office and "inventor" to undermine the legitimacy of software patents.

ATI recently released a Linux version of their Catalyst Control Center. I had a fairly smooth experience on Lenny Debian with the ATI Radeon X1550.

As far as technical details in fiction are concerned, I think they can enhance a story when they are described in a way that lets non-technical users image a system that at least has roughly the right inputs and outputs. I find that Charles Stross does this very well, particularly in Accelerando, Atrocity Archives, and Jennifer Morgue.

From Atrocity Archives: "he'll have to enlist GCHQ and a scanning tunneling microscope to find it under all the 0xDEADBEEF spammed across the hard disk platters."

Even without fully knowing about these concepts, you still get a rich picture of of a hard-drive wipe (hopefully the reader is savvy enough not to imagine anything too bovine).

What this pretty much boils down to is the popular fiction writing mantra "show, don't tell".