linderdm writes: "It looks like, once again, we have been subject to misinformation concerning Episode II. According to the Official Star Wars Web site, Kenny Baker will indeed be returning to act in Episode II, making him and Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), the only two actors to appear in all of the Star Wars movies to date." Good to hear that the old bit was just a nasty rumor.

I'm here at Ottawa Linux Symposium, and I took the Quickies to the crowd and let them pick some of today's Quickies. Hope you like them. CitizenC told us to check out The Kama Sutra of Winnie the Pooh. Scary. alpha264 wrote in about a pegboard computer." Darkness Productions told us that Spaz Labs was back." Phrogman shared a huge collection of Space Images now available on Spaceref.com. kbolton told us to look at streaming anime for free. scampbell said that Yamaha Paper Craft has updated their rare-animal paper sculpture collection to include the Yellow-eyed Penguin. _endgame mentioned that voting has begun for the Freenet Logo." An anonymous coward wrote in about the Men of Sieg Hall calendar. I included that one for Telsa. cdlu wrote (from about ten feet away) about this thing that creates much annoyance from the console. MURL said that Christopher Lee has been cast in the role of a charismatic separatist in Episode II. And finally, I just wanted to mention that Dave Taylor from that company stopped by just to make sure that he wasn't mentioned in the Quickies. Teehee.

Ozten asks: "I am currently looking at GSP and trying to convince the big e-commerce company that I work for that Open Source technology doesn't mean more maintenance than large packages on the market, such as Blue Martini or IBM Websphere. I am looking for facts and firepower on GNU Server Pages, but info is sparse except for bit mechanics and its links. You would think that with a high profile site like the Star Wars Shop using GSP, it would get more notice. Any other facts out there? GSP seems like the best free software since gnu-SlicedBread, where is the hype?" Actually, I would like more facts than hype. With production sites using this technology, I would be interested in hearing how well the things have held up, in addition to any advantages and disadvantages over popular solutions like ASP.

|GopheR| writes "Mr. George changed his mind and is planning to release episode 1 on DVD before 2005? If The digital bits rumormill is right, then he probably did change his mind. " Note that they don't really have a date set, and Lucas hasn't said he *won't* release DVDs... just that it'll be years before they do. To bad. I own two copies of the original trilogy on VHS (Original and Special edition) but I've sworn off video. I woulda bought the DVD the day it came out, but I won't spend a penny on VHS.

In a world splitting increasingly into real and virtual geographies, who owns ideas? The free music wars are just the first in a series of political, cultural and legal struggles that are putting the very idea of copyright and intellectual property on the table for the first time. Read more.

at0m writes "Here is an announcement on starwars.com denouncing the myths and rumors regarding casting speculations. It is in response to some bogus articles written about the casting process. A starwars.com newsletter also indicated that the first steps are being taken to begin creating Episode II."

Geckoman writes "Amazon.com has The Phantom Menace available for presales in both widescreen and pan-and-scan. If you're boycotting Amazon, then you can also find it at Reel.com among other places."

Anonymous Coward writes "Producer Rick McCallum answers the question, "So many fans want Episode I and then the Classic Trilogy on DVD. It doesn't make sense to us that you aren't going to release at least Episode I. What's going on?" at the official Star Wars site. " The answer is fairly predictable-Lucas hopes to do "something special" and doesn't have the time right now. I like the use of the word "exploit" in the answer - kinda what the VHS - DVD switch feels like.

Troed pointed us to final, official word that Lucas has opted not to release TPM on DVD. This is a poor move for many reasons: SW fans are gonna often be techies with DVD players. Besides that, nearly every movie released these days comes out on DVD and VHS. I can think of only 2 reasons: He might be afraid of piracy, but lets be honest, but I think he really is doing this so he can wait a year and release the DVD and sell it all again. I have stopped by VHS, and I'm pretty bummed: I would have bought this DVD the day it was released. I feel like I'm being extorted: I've been a pretty loyal fan both in terms of time, and buying SW Stuff (I even have a Darth Maul Lightsaber!) but this really hurts.

You have got to read this story. Menoyoda writes "There was a Star Wars holiday special in the 70s that George Lucas would as soon have tossed down a memory hole. But someone, somewhere, taped it and this review was written about it. It involves the holiday antics of the Chewbacca family. Happy Holidays! " This is without a doubt one of the funniest things I have ever read. I am afraid of this footage. I'm gonna have to track down a copy. Nothing can be this bad.

danimal wrote with news for the Star Wars buffs: From the NewsAskew site comes the tidbit that Star Wars Episode I DVD will be coming out in April of 2000. It's a tip from an anonymous source, but the official announcement is supposed to be coming Jan. 4 from the Lucas man himself. The announcement is midway down the NewsAskew page.

The_Monk writes "Ever wanted to know your Star Wars twin? Now this incredibly important information can be verified. It placed me the likes of Astro Mech Droids, 'Tarkin, and R2-D2. " Ahem-as the lost twin of Lando (extraversion), I have a Cloud City I'd like to sell someone. But I'm about as agreeable as Boba, always a bonus.

whosebob asks: "I've recently been hired to build a high-end video server system for use in an educational environment. In order to calm management's fears over compatability and support, the server (quad 500MHz/512K cache PIII Xeons) will be running NT 4.0 (I can hear the catcalls already). Given the educational setting and thus the constant search for cost-cutting measures, it would be fantastic to abandon Microsoft for Linux. But as a comparative novice in the Linux OS world, I need to know if it can make full use of my hardware (64-bit PCI bus, TBs of storage) and whether or not anyone has developed the necessary drivers for the fibre-channel interface. Any pertinent information, suggestions, advice, corrections, etc. will be greatly appreciated." There's more. Hit the link.

himi writes "After his articles on what was wrong with the Star Wars movies were linked here, David Brin's mailbox got flooded - as per usual. He's posted an interesting reply to most of the points raised in those emails. It's a good read, even if you don't agree with him. "

Andreas Pour sent linkage to a page where you can get the KDE mascot in T-shirt form (half the profits go to KDE). Hubert Figuiere sent us pictures from the Paris LinuxExpo if you weren't in France. Brian sent us How Stuff Works. Its actually not bad. cpfeifer wrote in to send us some spoofed book covers including Taking Down the Internet in 30mins for Dummies and IP Spoofing for Dummies. More here. An anonymous reader sent us Prozac Pez if you've been having a rough day. Dwonis sent us a point-form description of Geeks, Twits and Nerds, and the differences between them. aspodf wrote in to show us what happens when Red Meat and Star Wars come together at last. CowboyNeal sent us a link to Career Path which has a Personality Quiz that tells if you are a Jedi Master, or a Sith Lord. I think Neal ended up an Ewok *grin*.

The hype machine keeps on rolling: jarv writes "CNN has an article where George Lucas talks about how the Star Wars hype has gotten out of hand. " and an anonymous reader sent us a link to an article over at DVD resource where Lucas talks about DVD Star Wars and how it looks like it'll be a loooong time before we see it. Lastly jkottke wrote in to tell us that the Fray is running a thing about Star Wars memories. There's some good stuff there... my first Star Wars memory is seeing Jedi with my Dad- its the first movie I remember seeing on the silver screen. Then there was watching SW blipped out on HBO, watching Empire and being scared so bad that I had to be reminded that I had already seen Jedi, so Darth couldn't kill Luke. And more recently, watching the trilogy almost every weekend for 2 straight years with Dave while doing homework in our dorm room.

Boy its Star Wars Hype Monday here as Jim Hall writes "I found the Star Wars Ep. 1 TV commercials They are spoiler-free! But they are very cool. " VH1 is supposedly gonna air Duel of the Fates (the Star Wars video) 6 consecutive times at 6pm EST, so get your VCR ready. I'ce heard the track already- its not the best track on the soundtrack, but its pretty sweet.

peterjm sent us a link to a CNN article about the prequel trailer threatening networks as people keep emailing that 25 meg file around. I'm also hearing rumors that Menace tickets will be sold a week early, and not held off until the last minute as originally planned. Can anyone confirm this? This might help matters for those of us planning on being out of town that week.

Frostking writes "According to the homepage of the Xanim author, Apple has prohibited Sorenson, the makers of the codec used in the Starwars clips among other things, to license the codec to anybody else, including Mark Podlipec the Xanim author. "

Patrick Berry writes "The Star Wars Online Shop has new Episode I posters for sale. It looks like the 'teaser' posters are gone forever but these may stick around a while longer. " The teaser poster scam bummed me out. I wanted the picture with Anakin & Darth's shadow so bad, but all I got was a cheesy 8.5x11 drawn poster of Star Wars. Not even prequel related. But I did see the trailer B last night. It was much better than the first one. A bit of a glimpse into the plot, and most of the fx were much smoother. Plus comments about Jedi's coming in pairs (Emporer & Darth, Obi-Wan & Luke, and presumably in the prequel, Anakin & Obi-Wan). Some great Jedi fighting shots too. I'm just to stoked. Guess I'll have to order the poster.