Cable & Wireless Optus revealed last week it would be ready to deliver rental software applications online to small businesses before the end of the year, says a story at www.afr.com.au.

From Saturday (yesterday), a Slashdot discussion about hardware and (Linux) software being used to create the upcoming Lord Of The Rings movie. (Big file – dialup modem users beware!)

Anandtech story from Aug. 23 describes the evolution of Anand’s servers from the site’s humble beginning on Geocities to the current set of AMD-powered boxes housed at a data center in Pittsburgh.

The place has been plagued by reputation-ruining spy and security scandals. Officials say most of the top-end physicists there are at or near retirement age and young blood isn’t there to replace them. And it’s even worse on the computer side; Los Alamos can’t find new IT people and is losing many of those it already has to dot-com startups that pay better. Washington Post story at MSNBC.

Silicon Valley has some of the world’s highest demand for DSL service, but according to sv.com, Pacific Bell is more effective at marketing this service than at actually installing it in customers’ homes and offices.

IGN previews Sea Dogs, a 3D Caribbean pirate sim. The game is being developed by Microprose, the same company that created “Pirates,” a game ranked #3 in the IGN listing of the top 25 games of all time.

Counter Strike beta 7 has been released to the Internet at large. This add on for Half-Life greatly enchances the multiplayer experience with terrorist/counter terrorist scenarios, incredibly detailed weapons models, and new methods of cooperative team play.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a subpoena in order to track the source of a falsified report claiming that Emulex had lower profits than expected. This caused a drop in the stock of 50% to 55$ a share, which then ralied back up to within 7$ of the original price when the report was found to be fraudulent.

Dan Gilmore of the Mercury News strongly speaks out against the recent decisions by the WIPO in resolving domain name disputes, the RIAA vs. Napster case, and the MPAA vs. everyone who linked to DeCSS case. He argues that free expression is being unnecessarily stiffled by overly inclusive rulings in these matters.

ZDNet is reporting that techgroups are filing briefs to support Napster’s side in the ongoing court battle between Napster and the RIAA. The groups are quick to point out, however, that they mean to stop possible loss of consumer rights, and do not directly support Napster.