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$5.80 A GALLON??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What socialist HELL HOLE do you live in?????

Just $5.80/gallon? Here in Norway the gas price is closer to 8 USD pr. gallon (or rather, 16.65 NOK/l)

Here, 37% of new cars sold in March 2018 were electric vehicles. In addition, about 27% were hybrids.

It's not hard finding the problem, it's hard finding a solution. Would you eat apples if you knew some were poisoned? I'm guessing probably not. Would you take in Syrian refugees when you know the IS has undercover jihadists among them? So far, Europe says yes. But there were eight terrorists in Paris and the IS has many hundreds preparing for waves of terror. People are going to be furious with Muslims, somebody's going to seek revenge. Sure it's playing right into their hands, but standing around looking weak and helpless while their reign of terror expands is not an option either. And there's only so many times you can keep saying our way of life will go on before it goes hollow as people rightfully fear for their lives.

And the other part are the non-terrorists that come to our country, regardless of that they come from a place with little tolerance for other religions, democracy, freedom of speech, equality, sexual freedom and so on. Many of them will be extremely traditional and opposed to our values, even if they won't be aggressive about it they won't integrate. And if they were relatively few, well we could always deal with a small minority. But >1% of the population in one year all from one culture like Sweden and Germany has done is far too much to handle. But hey I understand they go nowhere better to go and if we let them come they will. But magically the other Muslim countries like Saudi-Arabia don't take any, why do we have to bear the weight of the world?

Even Germany that has gone to extreme measures to bend over backwards and be anti-bigoted with their history and all is now starting to close down and say this is too much. The greatest burden is going to come on the welfare system, it's supposed to cover for the relatively few that fall through the cracks of normal society not deal with a mass influx of people that come with very little education or means to take care of themselves. What it costs today in emergency measures is only a small fraction of what it'll cost in total, but once they're here and settled well you're quite stuck with the bill for decades to come. So economics, culture and terror I think we'll pay dearly for our bad conscience.

Norway has declined his application on formal grounds:
http://www.dagbladet.no/2013/07/02/nyheter/politikk/snowden/27999533/ (article in Norwegian language).

According to Norwegian law you have to actually be on Norwegian territory (an embassy would do) to apply for asylum. Since the application was sent to the embassy in Moscow by fax it was denied.

I think most of Europe has similar laws and will deny his application for the same reason.

We do this: http://gfx.dagbladet.no/labrador/180/180193/18019346/jpg/active/978x.jpg

I'm not in the -slightest- kidding. Fine gear for taking your 1-year-old to the metal-concert.

Can't comment on the decibel-levels as I've not attended any North-American metal-concerts.

This already happens once in a while with banks. Basically all transfers by accident gets sent to the same account. So after a few hours, that person is quite rich.
Of course, they have routines for catching this, because they know it will happen, so when they catch it after a few hours, and correct it.

Example: Norwegian man was Norways richest man for about 1 hour., Google translated version

Well, Dr. Cerf, you're the one who said "IP on Everything."

http://gfx.dagbladet.no/pub/artikkel/5/51/518/518800/ip_on_everything_1195570027.jpg

Something like this could even happen by accident. God forbid someone rummage through your cache after you spend an hour browsing /b/. Do you know what was in all of those thumbnails that you scrolled past? Do you even WANT to know? ;)

In my socialist utopia country Norway, there was actually a court ruling that found a man who had child pornography in his browser cache not guilty. The reason was that he did not download them (but he did in fact confess to have purchased them intentionally) and that regular people should not be expected to know that the browser caches images from the web. In effect, the ruling actually means it is legal to surf child pornography in Norway. I don't have any English links about this, but any norwegians reading this post can check out this DB article: http://www.dagbladet.no/dinside/2003/07/05/372987.html

This links leads to a page with a video of an ambulance helicopter that was coated in a fine layer of ash in Norway today. It flew during a small windows of opportunity where the air cleared to pick up a patient in Sweden. The link is in Norwegian, but the video is, obviously, visual.

The interesting part is at ~00:30 where he shows of the ash (requires Flash): http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/04/18/nyheter/innenriks/aske/vulkan/flyforbud/11335687/

Makes me think that a large passenger jet flying long routes and sucking in a whole load of air on the trip might be at risk of engine failure as they say.

Try dagbladet again.

In case it drops of the first page before you get there, this was the picture.

Try dagbladet again.

In case it drops of the first page before you get there, this was the picture.

According to this article (in Norwegian); John Espen Lien (senior spokesperson for the Norwegian Defence Operations Headquarters; loosely translated) has confirmed that they had been informed about a Russian missile launch in the Barents Sea at the time of the light phenomena. Lien said this was most likely caused by the missile launch; though he couldn't confirm that at this time; but investigations are under way.

..or so the theory goes. Norway's largest newspapers all did stories on this earlier today. Here is from one of them: Vg.no, and here is another dagbladet.no.

The first image from vg is taken with a long shutter time (or long exposure, or what the english expression is) on a tripod.
americans might consider these newspapers NSFW. Most norwegian ads contain a fair amount of tits and ass. just sayin'.

According to this thorough article in norwegian (since norwegian scientists are involved), there is a lot of secrecy involved, so that results from Planck will not be released to the public before 2013 or 2014:

http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/05/14/nyheter/vitenskap/forskning/astronomi/verdensrommet/6203165/

(Briefly mentioned also, in this blog: http://planckmission.wordpress.com/ )

Sorry, no proper translation from norwegian to english available:

http://tinyurl.com/orlkmu

In short, it says that because of competition between the scientists, there will be strict regulations and that scientist who forget to log out of their PC ("turn their monitor off") or bring any data off the premises, will be excluded from further studies and further monitoring of the Planck observatory.

Which I find strange, since there is only one Planck observatory like there is only one Hubble telescope, and there were no secrecy around the images released from it.

If one scientist give up his or her data, so that other scientists can get advantages which might make them "win the competition", why exclude scientists who "volunteer" information?

This, I don't understand, do they expect to find proof of alien presence? :-)

The Brit Richard Dawkins seems to waste a fair bit of time fighting something which doesn't concern him, then. Fact is, there are a whole bunch of creationist nutjobs in England as well, and they use pretty much the same tools as their American counterparts, just not as vocally -- perhaps due to the stronger democratic traditions in the U.S.

The fact that you haven't heard something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. In fact, just a couple of days ago, there was an article in a Norwegian newspaper making the exact same point as this one, against the term "Darwinism" (or "darwinisme" in Norwegian), and for the same reasons.

I think you deserve the "d'oh"

No I don't, but damn if I can find a good english source for it:
"Nesten halvparten av den yngste aldersgruppen har drevet med fildeling av musikk eller filmer over nettet."
"Near half of the youngest age group has been doing file sharing of music or movies over the net."
http://www.ssb.no/vis/emner/10/03/ikthus/main.html

"I aldersgruppen 16-24 år oppgir (..) 47 prosent sier de har utvekslet film og musikk gjennom fildeling."
"In the age group 16-24 years 47 percent say they have exchanged movies and music through file sharing."
http://www.klikk.no/teknologi/nyemedier/article332320.ece

This is quoting a different study of 12-29 year olds:
"56,1 prosent av de spurte i Pandoraundersøkelsen laster ned musikk fra fildelingsnettverk."
"56,1 percent of the participants in the "Pandora" study downloads music from file sharing networks."
http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/2005/11/10/448948.html

Why I'm even bothering to dig all this up for an AC is beyond me...

Not my words but an article in our second biggest newspaper, title: "Just when you thought the record companies had learned...", sub-header: "...they release memory cards as new music format" and it's getting bashed to hell and back. I don't know any norwegian-to-english robot translator, but for those who understand Norwegian you should read it here. Usually the mainstream press put a positive spin on things based on some bullshit press release - this has to be one of the worst slaughters of a product I've seen in a while.

A polar bear was apparently sighted in Norway two years ago http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2006/05/19/466637.html I for one welcome our new white (and furry) overlords!

As a Norwegian, I can only say that you are completely unaware of the things that go on in my home country. There are essentially two Norways, one internal and one external, and the external one is the one that's presented to tourists and the outside world.

For example, there was the case when the ruling and massive Labour party had written false "letters to the editor". Essentially, what they did was write things like 'I am a single mother and I hope for the sake of my three children that the opposition's policies will never be implemented because they would fill my life with so much pain. My youngest daughter cried when I told her what might happen'. Or, a bit more advanced, writing arguments that purport to be in favour of the opposition, but very poorly worded, and then they "refute" them in a reply with their own brilliance. Noone has ever been criticised, "fired" or in any way had their politics influenced by this, and it stayed in the (local only) media for all of a week.

Norwegian article: http://www.bt.no/lokalt/bergen/article393005.ece
Translated title: "Knows about false letters to the editor in the newspapers. Former Labour party member Audun Holme says he is aware that fictitious letters to the editor under the direction of the Labour party has reached the newspaper columns". Incidentally, this happened in Sweden as well, though there the secretary (who had done all of this independently and without anyone's knowledge, of course) just had to resign.

And oh, there was the case when the biggest newspaper and TV organisation (A-Pressen) in Norway was going to get a new chairperson, and a panel had been set down to judge between the selection of candidates according to how they scored on a set of formal criteria. The head of the panel had assessed one person as 'weak' or 'very weak' on four out of six criteria. Shortly after this, however, the Prime Minister (Jens Stoltenberg) and Foreign Minister (Jonas Gahr Støre) went on a private home visit to the head of the panel, and argued very warmly for the person in question, praising his personal qualities. They say they were simply going as private individuals to provide a personal character reference, of course.
http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kommentarer/article2193377.ece

And oh, there was the case when the military and defense advisor of a supporting party to the ruling and massive labour party (incidentially, the Socialist Left), sat at a luxury restaurant in Oslo (the one where a full night costs ~$400 p.p. sans wine) and discussed airplanes. Effectively there is an ongoing evaluation of fighter airplanes in Norway, whereby the Eurofighter competes with the Joint Strike Fighter. This evaluation is supposed to be assessed by a strictly neutral objectives as to efficiency and performance. A journalist present however heard the politican in deep discussion with two advisors for the Swedish billionaire Wallenberg family, and the politician promised that, not only would the Swedish JAS Gripen airplanes also be considered, they had actually as much as won the contract already!

"I like this fucking bad!" is the headline, quoted. Some exchanges are,

Paper: We saw you at Statholdergaarden yesterday evening and wonder what you were doing there?
Advisor: (laughter) You see, I don't think I have any reason to say who I have dinner with.
Paper: No?
Advisor: Nei, do you think so? Who did you have dinner with last night?
Paper: A colleague.
Advisor: Oh yes. At the Statholdergaarden. Who paid for you?
Paper: We did ourselves.
Advisor: You did? You make that kind of money in Dagbladet ('the daily times')?
Paper: The question to you was, what were _you_ doing there?
Advisor: But dearie you, I really have no intention of telling you.
http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2007/08/30/510484.html

HEADING: Wants web censorship in Norway

IMAGE CAPTION: HAIR-RAISING: Technologist Svein Willassen thinks that government blocking of Internet is plain censorship, and at odds with the principles of freedom and freedom of speech on Internet. Photo: TORBJØRN GRØNNING

GREY BOX ON RIGHT SIDE: Facts

The computer crime committee
January 11th 2002, the government, by royal decree, appointed a committee to investigate law amendments against computer crime (The computer crime committee).

Today, the computer crime committee consists of district stipendiary magistrate (sorenskriver) Knut Rønning (head of committee), deputy director Christina Christensen from the Ministry of Transport and Communication (Samferdselsdepartementet ), consultant Hanne Gulbrandsen from The Data Inspectorate (Datatilsynet), lawyer Birthe Taraldset from Bergen Banking AS, public prosecutor (statsadvokat) Jenny Sellæg and PhD student (doktorgradsstipendiat) Svein Willassen from Department of Telematics at NUST (NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology).

The computer crime committee has worked strenuously with a general study of the penal code (straffeloven) and the penal code process (straffeprosessloven) to discover needs for further law amendments.

The law proposal
The minority proposal is being pushed by the head of committee, district stipendiary magistrate Knut Rønning and the Ministry of Transport and Communication by Christina Christensen.

They think an provision for Internet filtering should be amended to the penal code. The minority want it to be possible to filter web pages that are in violation of Norwegian law.

It is the Internet service providers that shall be required to shut down the pages. The suggested law amendment says:

"The service provider can be required to block access to certain places on Internet for their users if the contents might lead to stronger punishment than fines in Norway."

The primary proposal wants the prosecution to request blocking of web pages in the judiciary.

An ordinary court of law (tingretten) shall determine whether there is just cause for filtering. If it is, the Internet service provider is required to block the web site for Norwegian users.

An alternative proposal is that the Norwegian Media Authority (Medietilsynet) decides which web sites to block. If anyone appeal the decision, it can be brought to court.

INTRODUCTION:

Law proposal to stop file sharing, porn and gambling.

ARTICLE: by Jostein Ihlebæk
Monday 2007-02-12, 09:45 AM
updated 10:05 AM

Today, the Computer crime committee will submit a proposal that will require Internet service providers to block web sites with illegal contents.

Plain censorship and an assault on freedom of speech, says critics.

In violation of Norwegian law
One of the most inflammatory issues in the study is the provision for the government to intervene and block some web pages for Norwegian users.

The Ministry of Transport and Communication by Christina Christensen and district stipendiary magistrate Knut Rønning, believe Internet services providers should be required to block web sites that contain material in violation of Norwegian law, and will push a minority suggestion for this to be amended in the penal code.

This could leave Norway with one of the most stern Internet laws in the western world.

- Plain censorship
- This is a hair-raising proposal, says PhD student Svein Willassen at NUST. He is a member of The computer crime committee on behalf of technologists.

- The proposal can be compared with the Chinese net censorship, says Willa

According to Norwegian media coverage, the USGS did detect a small quake meassuring 3.6 in the Ricther scale at 10:36. Accosiated press confirms: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061009/ap_on_re_as/ko reas_nuclear;_ylt=AhG0IQHL7EsN.2wrCEu.et6s0NUE;_yl u=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

Norwegian coverage:
http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2006/10/09/479140. html

Due to the complete lack of pictures in the source article, here's some for your appetite...

Anna Konda in action (JPEG, 844x453)

Close-up of a segment (JPEG, 280x210)

One of Norway's largest daily newspapers Dagbladet was first published on the web, March 8th 1995, beaten only by two days to be the first Norwegian newspapers on the web. First out was the rather insignificant Bronnoysund Avis. (A preemptive sorry to anyone from Bronnoysund reading this thinking I'm an insensitive clod!)

"Aldri er det tatt opp dinosaurer i så dype borehull noen gang før. Dette er nåla i høystakken ganger 10. Å vinne i lotto er dagligdags i forhold, sier dinosaurforsker Jørn Hurum ved Naturhistoriske museer." -- http://www.dagbladet.no/magasinet/2006/04/21/46416 0.html

"Never before have dinosaurs been dug up in so deep drillholes. This is finding the needle in the haystack times ten. Winning the lottery is a normal days event in comparison, says dinosaur scientist Jørn Hurum from Nature Historic Museums (Norway)."

Oh, and dead iraqies were shown on US tv just lying around. Is showing dead westerners so much worse? And why is the US media censored from showing coffins of dead US soldiers coming home? Free speech?

a) turn green

Done.

Actually, at the end of the video you see the guy turn off the console with the power button on the remote.

No? Then look here:
http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/2005/09/16/443527.h tml

The Video (tm). Requires flash, and can be played back instantly.

Video

http://media.cube.ign.com/articles/651/651334/vids _1.html http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/2005/09/16/443527.h tml

I WANT ONE!

Here's a video clip: http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/2005/09/16/443527.h tml

While it's impossible to tell whether this move will work for nintendo, it can definitely be said that it opens interaction possibilities that just aren't possible with either console or PC gaming (which is what Microsoft and Sony have been promising). What's more, it was accomplished without getting sucked into the graphics/cpu arms race.

It's certainly different. Whether it's "Virtual Boy" different or "Nintendo DS" different remains to be seen.

.. I mean, even thought it's nighttime over here and all, slashdot is actually reporting something before it's picked up on the major norwegian outlets ( vg blabla aftenpoften klassekampen dagsavisa

Interesting. Same shit happened to us here in Norway. We started up a parody of Dagbladet (Norway's biggest internet newspaper) called Vagbladet with a logo similar to theirs: It used approximately (but not exactly) the same color and font. They immediately sent their lawyers at us, demanding that we change our name AND our logo. Didn't require us to take the site down, though. We folded. Our lawyer adviced us not to, but we did anyway. So we didn't risk a lot of $$$ and were still able to continue making fun of them.

Say what you want, but pranks and happenings such as these really spice up the students days and I love reading about them. We used to do similar pranks when I was studying, several made it to the news. Our favourites included installing elevator music in the elevators, bashing the Faculty of Engineering Science and Technology students (we were electronics) and their train (they had one train, we had one on tracks that actually works). One night we made two "full size" garden gnomes out of paper mache and placed them on two readily available points. We made the news in several newspapers for that. See the pics here http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/2004/06/24/401413.h tml?i=1 16 pictures total.

main stream press keep their daily schedule of reporting fairly amazingly trivial and non-important 'news

I call bullshit! The new INFOSOC compatible copyright law, made to comply with EEA, has been very well covered in the mainstream media in Norway. Just because it's not on the front page every day, ot's not equal to bad coverage. All the large papers have done several stories on the law. Like the ones here, here, here, here, here and here.

main stream press keep their daily schedule of reporting fairly amazingly trivial and non-important 'news

I call bullshit! The new INFOSOC compatible copyright law, made to comply with EEA, has been very well covered in the mainstream media in Norway. Just because it's not on the front page every day, ot's not equal to bad coverage. All the large papers have done several stories on the law. Like the ones here, here, here, here, here and here.

Quite true, and the media doesn't help, often calling all forms of digital music on the internet MP3. A case in point is this article from a major Norwegian newspaper which offers links to WMAs as "MP3": http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/2005/02/09/422926.h tml

You can find more information about Pondus somewhere.

In its round-up of the threat the Internet Storm Center bluntly stated that users should if possible "use a browser other then MS Internet Explorer until the current vulnerabilities in MSIE are patched."

and then goes on with links to other browsers in the margin. Not very prominent, but it is a start.

I found this from mainstream Norwegian paper Dagbladet that runs a story on the frontpage entitled "Warns against Internet Explorer".

clicky, unfortunately in Norwegian but I think most will understand it anyway. More great Pondus comics (these in english) here.

Kjella

Howza Slarshbots!
It's Robo "CmdrTaco(01) Madla here again. You know, I think about improving Slashdort all the time. Even when I'm asleep, I'm always thinking. And yesterday, when I was artfully arranging Chrysantheums in a vase for the rest of the admin boys at slashdort [slashdot.org], I was struck by a sudden worry. Not about my heterosexuality - that is not in question.

Google is good at the moment, but what if it became evil? What if it started redirecting people away from my beloved Open Source, and towards propriety software such as Micro$haft Winblows(!!)? The time is ripe to start an open source search engine.

After this penetrating insight, I realised I already possessed all the tools at my disposal to make an open source search engine in Slashdot. Here's how I envisage it would work. I'm hazy about the details, but at its heart, Google is just a collection of text files, am I right? When you type in a term, Google looks up the terms text file, which contains all the websites that contain that term. So if you look up "aardvark" Google opens aardvark.txt and displays the information. That's how it is so fast.

Slashdot is a huge text displaying resource! If I was to create a public, unpassworded account called "Aardvark", then with the help of you, our loyal Slarshborts, we could write the URL in a list in the account everytime we find the word aardvark in a page. Then just reading "aardvark"s journal will give you up to the minute search results for aardvark instantly! Let's face it, slashdot readers could be considered the largest spidering engine out there!

I've already skimmed through Webster's Dictionary, and I've created accounts from "Aardvark" to "Arsehole" for starters. I've also had to eject some squatters who were already using those names, but who cares? So get going! We'll keep an eye on people entering the URLs, and for every ten thousand we confirm as accurate via Google, we'll add a point to your karma!

In 4 weeks, I estimate Slashdot will be THE premier search engine for the masses. I'm getting jamie to hack together a simple interface for searches, even simpler i.e. better, than googles. It's just a grey box for text input on a white page. He's having a bit of trouble.

Til next time, remember to add URLs to journals,

Your friendly overseer,
Rab "CmdrTaco(01)" Maldo


Note to moderators: If a troll with mod points succeeds into moderating this to -1, please use what mod points you have to rectify the situation. I will be keeping a close eye on mod and meta mod to identify "team players". For every "Interesting" or "Insightful" mod, you can make one (1) post to my fantastic journal __________________________________________________

Howza Slarshbots!
It's Robo "CmdrTaco(01) Madla here again. You know, I think about improving Slashdort all the time. Even when I'm asleep, I'm always thinking. And yesterday, when I was artfully arranging Chrysantheums in a vase for the rest of the admin boys at slashdort [slashdot.org], I was struck by a sudden worry. Not about my heterosexuality - that is not in question.

Google is good at the moment, but what if it became evil? What if it started redirecting people away from my beloved Open Source, and towards propriety software such as Micro$haft Winblows(!!)? The time is ripe to start an open source search engine.

After this penetrating insight, I realised I already possessed all the tools at my disposal to make an open source search engine in Slashdot. Here's how I envisage it would work. I'm hazy about the details, but at its heart, Google is just a collection of text files, am I right? When you type in a term, Google looks up the terms text file, which contains all the websites that contain that term. So if you look up "aardvark" Google opens aardvark.txt and displays the information. That's how it is so fast.

Slashdot is a huge text displaying resource! If I was to create a public, unpassworded account called "Aardvark", then with the help of you, our loyal Slarshborts, we could write the URL in a list in the account everytime we find the word aardvark in a page. Then just reading "aardvark"s journal will give you up to the minute search results for aardvark instantly! Let's face it, slashdot readers could be considered the largest spidering engine out there!

I've already skimmed through Webster's Dictionary, and I've created accounts from "Aardvark" to "Arsehole" for starters. I've also had to eject some squatters who were already using those names, but who cares? So get going! We'll keep an eye on people entering the URLs, and for every ten thousand we confirm as accurate via Google, we'll add a point to your karma!

In 4 weeks, I estimate Slashdot will be THE premier search engine for the masses. I'm getting jamie to hack together a simple interface for searches, even simpler i.e. better, than googles. It's just a grey box for text input on a white page. He's having a bit of trouble.

Til next time, remember to add URLs to journals,

Your friendly overseer,
Rab "CmdrTaco(01)" Maldo


Note to moderators: If a troll with mod points succeeds into moderating this to -1, please use what mod points you have to rectify the situation. I will be keeping a close eye on mod and meta mod to identify "team players". For every "Interesting" or "Insightful" mod, you can make one (1) post to my fantastic journal __________________________________________________

Hi folks! Rob "CmdrTaco (01)" Malda here, admin of Slashdot: News for Nerds, Struff that matters.

You know, in my free time I think a lot about neat stuff I could talk to you guys about. Just the other day I was at my arts hobby class, putting the final touches on the male model's shiny left buttock, when I again had a great and simple thought. I could use this space to answer some of my mailbag! I get asked a lot of questions about myself in my role as admin of such a popular bookmark website. To answer 80% of them - NO, I am NOT gay. I have no idea why the trolls say I am. THEY WRITE THOSE STORIES THEMSELVES.

Of the other 20% the most popular question asked by any surviving old timers is "Do you ever regret selling out to VA Software?" Now, this was answered in the FAQ, but I think I can give you a much more satisfying reply here.

Basically, the answer is yes. I do regret selling out to VA Software. But not because we've all become corporate whores and I have to wear a tie to work, or that the whole attitude of the site has been commercialised, or because we've done our best to stamp out (with your invaluable sheepmod help) anything amusing, innovative or fresh on Slashdot. No, I should have accepted the better offer we got.

As most of you know, this site used to be called Chips and Dips. At around the same time as we got the offer from the OSDN we had a cast iron offer from Doritos. After mulling over the terms, I decided to take the site down the Open Source/ IT route, rather than snack news. As well as the hardware that VA Software included in the offer, I just saw the whole sector as more promising of growth than corn based snacks. How wrong was I?

As more and more IT jobs get outsourced, basically all I'm left with is a website full of sore, imbittered losers with no money. It's beginning to look like I'll have to learn Bengali, Tamil and Hindi just to keep my job. I've already registered Slashraj.org just in case.

Basically, the whole open source scene is losing steam. I'm getting very depressed. We're having to stuff our main pages with nonsense about porting Linux on anything, X boxes, sewing machines, jesus even those shitty iPod things. Thank god for the excruciating annoyingness of Michael, who can turn the simplest article into a full on 1000 post flamefest via inept editorialism. Hiring him was a stroke of genius.

Anyway, catch you later, Slashbots!

Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda.


P.S. This post is released under the "copyleft" system, like those other Open Source big shots do. I am not being pretentious and self important to release it as such, whatever Michael says.

Hi folks! Rob "CmdrTaco (01)" Malda here, admin of Slashdot: News for Nerds, Struff that matters.

You know, in my free time I think a lot about neat stuff I could talk to you guys about. Just the other day I was at my arts hobby class, putting the final touches on the male model's shiny left buttock, when I again had a great and simple thought. I could use this space to answer some of my mailbag! I get asked a lot of questions about myself in my role as admin of such a popular bookmark website. To answer 80% of them - NO, I am NOT gay. I have no idea why the trolls say I am. THEY WRITE THOSE STORIES THEMSELVES.

Of the other 20% the most popular question asked by any surviving old timers is "Do you ever regret selling out to VA Software?" Now, this was answered in the FAQ, but I think I can give you a much more satisfying reply here.

Basically, the answer is yes. I do regret selling out to VA Software. But not because we've all become corporate whores and I have to wear a tie to work, or that the whole attitude of the site has been commercialised, or because we've done our best to stamp out (with your invaluable sheepmod help) anything amusing, innovative or fresh on Slashdot. No, I should have accepted the better offer we got.

As most of you know, this site used to be called Chips and Dips. At around the same time as we got the offer from the OSDN we had a cast iron offer from Doritos. After mulling over the terms, I decided to take the site down the Open Source/ IT route, rather than snack news. As well as the hardware that VA Software included in the offer, I just saw the whole sector as more promising of growth than corn based snacks. How wrong was I?

As more and more IT jobs get outsourced, basically all I'm left with is a website full of sore, imbittered losers with no money. It's beginning to look like I'll have to learn Bengali, Tamil and Hindi just to keep my job. I've already registered Slashraj.org just in case.

Basically, the whole open source scene is losing steam. I'm getting very depressed. We're having to stuff our main pages with nonsense about porting Linux on anything, X boxes, sewing machines, jesus even those shitty iPod things. Thank god for the excruciating annoyingness of Michael, who can turn the simplest article into a full on 1000 post flamefest via inept editorialism. Hiring him was a stroke of genius.

Anyway, catch you later, Slashbots!

Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda.


P.S. This post is released under the "copyleft" system, like those other Open Source big shots do. I am not being pretentious and self important to release it as such, whatever Michael says.

Hi, it's me, Rob "CmdrTaco (01)" Malda, admin of popular bookmark Slashdort: News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.

Once again I have the opportunity to tell you all about another great idea I had for improving your slarshdot experiences. I was rereading some troll posted gay porn, to try to discern clues as to its origin, when I germinated the seed of an idea that spurted forth from my mind. Reading gay porn doesn't mean you are gay. It was for research, and the fact I am not ashamed in reading such things underlines the fact that I have nothing to hide on the heterosexuality front.

Many of you are frankly zealots. You have a particular OS, which you rigorously defend against any slurs, justified or not. I'm not complaining. It's the constant repetition and pointless bickering that has made me such a rich man. But I noticed that this is also seen in your moderation.

An opposing viewpoint is modded down and meta-modded down too just because you don't agree with it. Hell, you even seem to alert your other zealot friends so they get in on the act and mod the post down too! This led to my idea.

I'm basically adding another box to your preferences - "Zealotry". It will have 3 options - Linux, Apple, and BSD. After clicking an option in the box, a customised lameness filter will kick in whenever an opposing viewpoint to yours is identified. It will change whatever the "troll" said to "Yeah, Linux/Apple/BSD kicks ass! Anyone who says different is an idiot!! ;-)".

I tested this out on our "subscriber pioneer" accounts and it worked wonderfully, except the new comment got moderated up to +5 insightful too much. We're working on toning it down a bit, or adding in something controversial or off topic such as "And also I hate cats" to make mods a bit more unsure.

Anyway, let me know how this grabs you. I think it'll be very popular. You can let me know what you think in my fantastic journal, where you can post anything you like, as long as you have shown in the past you agree with absolutely everything I say.

Til then, slashbots,

Rob "CmdrTarco (01)" Malda, signing out!


Note - to the person who keeps modding my comments offtopic. Watch it pal. I am the bad ass and will not tolerate dissent on my site. If it's you again Michael, FOAD.

Hi, it's me, Rob "CmdrTaco (01)" Malda, admin of popular bookmark Slashdort: News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.

Once again I have the opportunity to tell you all about another great idea I had for improving your slarshdot experiences. I was rereading some troll posted gay porn, to try to discern clues as to its origin, when I germinated the seed of an idea that spurted forth from my mind. Reading gay porn doesn't mean you are gay. It was for research, and the fact I am not ashamed in reading such things underlines the fact that I have nothing to hide on the heterosexuality front.

Many of you are frankly zealots. You have a particular OS, which you rigorously defend against any slurs, justified or not. I'm not complaining. It's the constant repetition and pointless bickering that has made me such a rich man. But I noticed that this is also seen in your moderation.

An opposing viewpoint is modded down and meta-modded down too just because you don't agree with it. Hell, you even seem to alert your other zealot friends so they get in on the act and mod the post down too! This led to my idea.

I'm basically adding another box to your preferences - "Zealotry". It will have 3 options - Linux, Apple, and BSD. After clicking an option in the box, a customised lameness filter will kick in whenever an opposing viewpoint to yours is identified. It will change whatever the "troll" said to "Yeah, Linux/Apple/BSD kicks ass! Anyone who says different is an idiot!! ;-)".

I tested this out on our "subscriber pioneer" accounts and it worked wonderfully, except the new comment got moderated up to +5 insightful too much. We're working on toning it down a bit, or adding in something controversial or off topic such as "And also I hate cats" to make mods a bit more unsure.

Anyway, let me know how this grabs you. I think it'll be very popular. You can let me know what you think in my fantastic journal, where you can post anything you like, as long as you have shown in the past you agree with absolutely everything I say.

Til then, slashbots,

Rob "CmdrTarco (01)" Malda, signing out!


Note - to the person who keeps modding my comments offtopic. Watch it pal. I am the bad ass and will not tolerate dissent on my site. If it's you again Michael, FOAD.

Hi, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda here, admin of slashdort "News for Nerds - Stuff that matters."

I normally post in the quiet haven of my journal, where I can block out unfriendly voices and just listen to the ass kissers, so you may be surprised to find me posting here, in the rough and tumble world of Slarshdot! Well, let me just say, it's not by choice! I avoid this awful place like the plague!! And by the way -I'm not gay.

But I need to tell you, the widest possible audience, about an exciting new opportunity opening up. Many of you have been around here a long time, as you can see from your low UID. (Those, that is, that survived the "Night of The Long Bitchslaps", that is!!). Some of you are new. Many of you haven't found that special someone, like I have. In fact most of you. But there are some, out there who have families, families who do not read Slashdort.

Maybe it's the foul language. Maybe it's because of those offensive trolls. (I am NOT gay). But probably they are driven away by the inane babbling of the mob, and appallingly poor moderation by halfwits. Anyway, that doesn't matter. The other day, when I was baking a sponge cake, I came up with a promising proposal. I've thought it through, and with the almost unanimous approval of the editorial staff (stfu Michael) and the posters to my journal, I've decided to implement "SlashTot - For the little ones". The slogan will be "News for Tots. Stuff about rabbits."

Basically it's a Slashdot for kids! It looks a bit like normal Slashdot, but has a big smiley sun with rays coming out of it permanently stuck up in the top right hand corner of the screen. And we've had years of experience of talking down to our audience, so we think we'll be able to make things understandable for the 12-16 age range we're aiming at. 12-16 year olds love rabbits, so we're replacing all the usual icons with pictures of them. We'll keep the normal technology news though, it's all we can do to keep up as it is, trawling through the user submissions and cut and pasting across, so it would be just too hard to have dedicated SlashTot articles, at least until the 12-14 year olds start writing their own we can just cut and paste across. Everything will be filtered at +5 so there's no worry about your darlings reading words like fuckass, bitchpus or bumcunt.

Imagine the whole family being able to have conversations about their Slash(d/t)ot experience of the day! The playful banter. Little Johnny asking why there is still a BSD section. Young Britney wants to talk about the SCO group. The whole family can LOL together.

Yes, this will be a significant step forward. You can now sign up your little ones for a subscriber account, just look for the new option in your preferences. Well, check it out, at $1 a month, it's very reasonable. Anyway, thanks for taking the time, catch you later!!

Rab "CmdrTaco(01)" Maldo.


Tip: Open link, right click and select "save as" to keep a local copy.

Hi, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda here, admin of slashdort "News for Nerds - Stuff that matters."

I normally post in the quiet haven of my journal, where I can block out unfriendly voices and just listen to the ass kissers, so you may be surprised to find me posting here, in the rough and tumble world of Slarshdot! Well, let me just say, it's not by choice! I avoid this awful place like the plague!! And by the way -I'm not gay.

But I need to tell you, the widest possible audience, about an exciting new opportunity opening up. Many of you have been around here a long time, as you can see from your low UID. (Those, that is, that survived the "Night of The Long Bitchslaps", that is!!). Some of you are new. Many of you haven't found that special someone, like I have. In fact most of you. But there are some, out there who have families, families who do not read Slashdort.

Maybe it's the foul language. Maybe it's because of those offensive trolls. (I am NOT gay). But probably they are driven away by the inane babbling of the mob, and appallingly poor moderation by halfwits. Anyway, that doesn't matter. The other day, when I was baking a sponge cake, I came up with a promising proposal. I've thought it through, and with the almost unanimous approval of the editorial staff (stfu Michael) and the posters to my journal, I've decided to implement "SlashTot - For the little ones". The slogan will be "News for Tots. Stuff about rabbits."

Basically it's a Slashdot for kids! It looks a bit like normal Slashdot, but has a big smiley sun with rays coming out of it permanently stuck up in the top right hand corner of the screen. And we've had years of experience of talking down to our audience, so we think we'll be able to make things understandable for the 12-16 age range we're aiming at. 12-16 year olds love rabbits, so we're replacing all the usual icons with pictures of them. We'll keep the normal technology news though, it's all we can do to keep up as it is, trawling through the user submissions and cut and pasting across, so it would be just too hard to have dedicated SlashTot articles, at least until the 12-14 year olds start writing their own we can just cut and paste across. Everything will be filtered at +5 so there's no worry about your darlings reading words like fuckass, bitchpus or bumcunt.

Imagine the whole family being able to have conversations about their Slash(d/t)ot experience of the day! The playful banter. Little Johnny asking why there is still a BSD section. Young Britney wants to talk about the SCO group. The whole family can LOL together.

Yes, this will be a significant step forward. You can now sign up your little ones for a subscriber account, just look for the new option in your preferences. Well, check it out, at $1 a month, it's very reasonable. Anyway, thanks for taking the time, catch you later!!

Rab "CmdrTaco(01)" Maldo.


Tip: Open link, right click and select "save as" to keep a local copy.

Hi, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda here, admin of slashdort "News for Nerds - Stuff that matters."

I normally post in the quiet haven of my journal, where I can block out unfriendly voices and just listen to the ass kissers, so you may be surprised to find me posting here, in the rough and tumble world of Slarshdot! Well, let me just say, it's not by choice! I avoid this awful place like the plague!! And by the way -I'm not gay.

But I need to tell you, the widest possible audience, about an exciting new opportunity opening up. Many of you have been around here a long time, as you can see from your low UID. (Those, that is, that survived the "Night of The Long Bitchslaps", that is!!). Some of you are new. Many of you haven't found that special someone, like I have. In fact most of you. But there are some, out there who have families, families who do not read Slashdort.

Maybe it's the foul language. Maybe it's because of those offensive trolls. (I am NOT gay). But probably they are driven away by the inane babbling of the mob, and appallingly poor moderation by halfwits. Anyway, that doesn't matter. The other day, when I was baking a sponge cake, I came up with a promising proposal. I've thought it through, and with the almost unanimous approval of the editorial staff (stfu Michael) and the posters to my journal, I've decided to implement "SlashTot - For the little ones". The slogan will be "News for Tots. Stuff about rabbits."

Basically it's a Slashdot for kids! It looks a bit like normal Slashdot, but has a big smiley sun with rays coming out of it permanently stuck up in the top right hand corner of the screen. And we've had years of experience of talking down to our audience, so we think we'll be able to make things understandable for the 12-16 age range we're aiming at. 12-16 year olds love rabbits, so we're replacing all the usual icons with pictures of them. We'll keep the normal technology news though, it's all we can do to keep up as it is, trawling through the user submissions and cut and pasting across, so it would be just too hard to have dedicated SlashTot articles, at least until the 12-14 year olds start writing their own we can just cut and paste across. Everything will be filtered at +5 so there's no worry about your darlings reading words like fuckass, bitchpus or bumcunt.

Imagine the whole family being able to have conversations about their Slash(d/t)ot experience of the day! The playful banter. Little Johnny asking why there is still a BSD section. Young Britney wants to talk about the SCO group. The whole family can LOL together.

Yes, this will be a significant step forward. You can now sign up your little ones for a subscriber account, just look for the new option in your preferences. Well, check it out, at $1 a month, it's very reasonable. Anyway, thanks for taking the time, catch you later!!

Rab "CmdrTaco(01)" Maldo.


Tip: Open link, right click and select "save as" to keep a local copy.

Then they go on with very positive reviews of different free software packages, before concluding with a link to a very positive review of SuSE Personal 9.0.

Not bad at all. A lot of people will see this...

Then they go on with very positive reviews of different free software packages, before concluding with a link to a very positive review of SuSE Personal 9.0.

Not bad at all. A lot of people will see this...