Slashdot Mirror

2008-10-31 - http://valleywag.gawker.com/5072392/tesla-ceo-admits-the-companys-running-out-of-cash

2009-01-30 - http://valleywag.gawker.com/5143089/why-teslas-elon-musk-could-be-the-new-preston-tucker

2009-02-26 - http://gawker.com/5160624/teslas-motormouth-marketer-dodged-deposit-dilemma

2009-03-26 - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/technology/start-ups/27tesla.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=tesla&st=cse

Gawker is reporting that a meeting is being held to discuss this. I would be surprised if he's fired. Nonetheless, he's popular and would likely land elsewhere.

http://gawker.com/5199586/pirated-wolverine-review-puts-fox-newsers-job-on-the-line

You can tell from this photo that the difference is no only in the SIZE of the screen.

This summary is laughably inaccurate, biased, and sensational.

I hate to agree with this, but I do. I'd like to add that the article is equally inaccurate, biased, and sensational, and was submitted to /. by the article's author.

The /. editor should've seen Big Red Flags all over this one. Even if he is completely oblivious to the story, the glaring math error, the concept of a public-domain monopoly, and... and all the stupid should have been warning signs.

Thank you for the link to the agreement itself. The blog post linked in the summary links in turn, and apparantly by accident, to a useful, if biased, article that includes the email from the Authors Guild regarding the settlement.

http://gawker.com/5160659/facebooks-get+rich+quick-scheme
(Read the links in TFA)

And here's a website that purports to have the e-mail from facebook outlining what is acceptable.
http://www.toomuchvodka.com/facebook-lifts-its-advertising-restrictions-a-lot.html

IQ Tests - including offers where user has to enter mobile #
Work from home and other Biz Ops - be careful with re-occurring billing
Quizzes - including offers where user has to enter mobile #
Free Offers - "Get your FREE laptop by filling out two sponsored offers"
Dating Ads - no longer need to be targeted at one sex or "interested in" unless it is targeted at a specific sexuality i.e. "looking for a girlfriend" must be targeted at people interested in women. User still has to be listed as single.
Ringtone Downloads - There are restrictions around this that will be posted to the advertising site shortly.

Allowing advertisers to essentially shit in the pool just smacks of desperation.

Simple solution, add a built-in LED book light to the device.
It's a LED so it is low power. It's even lower power when you consider it will only be used in a dark environment where not much light is needed. And it's off when there's enough external lighting.

Good; except - where are you going to put that light? Remember, those things are thin, and the screen is almost right there at the surface. There is very little space to put the LEDs into. In fact, Sony had tried - and look at how ugly the result looks. Quite an eye strainer, too - too bright at the edges, too dim in the middle, and overall very uneven. But I don't see how they could do any better.

Now there are some third-party gadgets which attach to the book and give enough light to read properly - but those are noticeably larger, so you probably wouldn't want to have them attached to the book all the time.

I can only hope to compose such a strange and wonderful resignation some day.

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5017424/stewart-butterfields-bizarre-resignation-letter-to-yahoo

A smooth line from the Seattle thrift store t-shirt roundup:

"Think your iPhone is cool? Let me show you a thing or two about Windows Mobile."

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5144493/the-shirts-off-of-microsofts-back

It gets worse - the article references a previous link here: http://gawker.com/5130701/microsoft-ad-and-product-advertised-could-both-conceivably-make-you-want-to-kill-your-family

Funny how a microoft ad for a vista-only product shows it running on a mac ... (check out the window decorations on the dialog it's eithr a mac or linux with the osx look-n-feel).

This product should be on EVERYONE's Christmas shopping list - give it to the kids of people you hate.

Anyone remember "Band-in-a-Box" back from the DOS days? It was better. This is so cheezy Kraft is suing for damage to their Cheeze Whiz brand.

This link has a little fun at W's expense, but doesn't quite state that he didn't use email at all.

More interesting, and IMHO more realistic, is that the President really can't use e-mail for much at all. National security pretty much dictates that. Remember, there are few email clients that aren't easily compromised or subverted to deliver malware. The Pentagon can't keep the bad stuff out. The White House must adhere to an even higher standard of information security. Archiving is a somewhat different discussion.

But the allegation that Obama will be the *first* President to make full use of Internet communication is a little bit of the general hysteria and history-bending that is going on, and predictably so. Let's just remember that despite our fondest wishes, the truth is what it is, not what we wanted it to be.

So the only people who bought Vista were forced to buy it or are uneducated idiots?
or as the F/OSS leader says.. windows is a drug.

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5075219/olpc-teaches-children-to-smoke-windows

man you f/oss lunatics really need some medical assistance... all this trolling has damaged your brain. Maybe stallman will have "I trolled MS" on his grave. I'm sure the FOSS smelly hippies will do his bidding..

There's strong opposition to ads in the Wikipedia community. More important, though, is that Wales' attempt to run a wiki-based business is a flop.

Wikia, which was Jimbo Wales' attempt to monetize the Wikipedia concept, didn't really go anywhere. Wikia ended up as a free hosting service for fancruft, with wikis for Star [Wars|Trek|Gate|Craft] and such. There's also a "human powered search engine" on Wikia. They wanted to take on Google. The end result was a site with 1/10 the traffic of "ask.com". Wikia's current reach is about 0.2%. Wikia's traffic is dropping; Alexa says they peaked in May 2008, and they're down to half that. Wikia had a layoff in October.

As an ad-supported service, Wikia's demographic is terrible. The user base lives in their parents basement. So they can't even get much ad revenue from the users they have. Wikia had a big chunk of venture capital when they started, but that's running out. They overexpanded, with offices in New York, San Francisco, and Poland. Wales wanted to get a private jet; by now, he probably has to fly coach.

So that's what an ad-supported wiki run by Wales looks like.

That's still no excuse for a single story to fail so blatantly in providing adequate context.

And this isn't the only instance of one-sided reporting; the contrast of the pieces that happily repeated rumors and insinuations regarding McCain's relationship with a former lobbyist and McCain's wife's past with their refusal to pursue or even acknowledge John Edwards's affair until he did because they don't want to dignify rumors and insinuations is pretty telling in my opinion.

More recently, there's also their refusal to acknowledge any potential conflict of interest in their reporting on Caroline Kennedy's attempts to get herself appointed to the Senate.

I'm not saying that the NY Times (or old media in general) doesn't have a useful role to play, but if you think it's the role of impartial presenter of facts, that horse has already left the barn...

Also, since many newspapers are little more than repackaged AP and Reuters news, looking at the NY Times for guidance - I don't know what their value proposition is supposed to be.

This ignores the point of the article - that the bedrock, actual "sources" of news such as the NYT are also in dire financial straits. Once they are gone (and by that I don't mean "cease to exist," merely that the quality nosedives because there are fewer investigative journalist slots) then all the secondary news sources you decry - and their readers - will be high and dry. The blogs and forums are just cud-chewers. Somebody still has to do the interviews and take the photos for them to ruminate over.

... to believe you're being persecuted & suppressed--just look at Tom Cruise.

Actually, if you look at how Scientology treats its members (especially the really valuable or potentially embarrassing ones), in all likelihood Tom Cruise is being persecuted & suppressed.

The exception accounts for rituals of religious faith, for example.

Remember, it's fashionable to be a nutcase, to claim people are out to get you, to believe you're being persecuted & suppressed--just look at Tom Cruise.

It's been pointed out before but the internet is a very real, very powerful, very double-edged communications tool.

Science, of course! H211 LLC uses many of its jets for NASA-sponsored experiments, since they operate primarily out of Moffett field, a NASA-controlled airstrip that's conveniently located right next to Google's Mountain View HQ. The jet was acquired to carry scientific instruments that could not be rigged up to Boeing 757/767 and Gulfstream jets the company already operates, some of which were used to monitor the re-entry of the ESA's Jules Verne satellite.

asus m50vn has same specs of the new macbookpro and only a $1450 price tag!
asus m70vn is even better and still under $2000...

Thanks to gizmodo for pointing that out in here:
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/10/MBP_Compare_Large.jpg

Also, the Macbook screen sucks: http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/10/IMG_4649.jpg

Are there any laptops that don't suffer from terrible vertical viewing angles? I think that the problem isn't specific to the Macbook.

Macbook = Consumer laptop
Macbook Pro = Better than consumer laptop

If you need to do particular work, you buy the tool best associated to do the job.

I wouldn't hammer a nail in with a screwdriver.
I wouldn't buy a point-and-shoot POS over a SLR if I was a newspaper photographer.
I wouldn't get a Macbook if I needed to do any kind of video editing.

Also, the Macbook screen sucks: http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/10/IMG_4649.jpg

We don't allow this sort of behavior to go unpunished in a civilized society.

Should not we also punish people, who helped this dimwit publicize his exploit? Gawker still hosts his screen-shots, you know — because it is "news-worthy"...

Well, some investors have already practiced at this sort of thing.

A fool and his money are very quickly parted. I mean really sheeples, lay off the triple shot espresso. Stock markets aren't supposed to be a first person shooter.

One of the e-mails was entitled: "Draft letter to Governor Schwartzenegger / Container Tax". Another was "Fw: veep talking pts". There's also an e-mail between Palin and Sean Parnell regarding Sean's campaign for Congress. Parnell is the Lt. Governor of Alaska.

Anonymous wasn't smart enough to download all the e-mails but what do you think was in that draft letter e-mail?! No one is accusing her of anything wrong only because there is ACTUAL proof because Anonymous didn't download the messages, and because it's slimy to use stolen info to attack your political foes. But if you asked her under oath, Palin would probably have to admit that she's using her personal e-mail for at least some work-related e-mails.

One of the e-mails was entitled: "Draft letter to Governor Schwartzenegger / Container Tax". Another was "Fw: veep talking pts". There's also an e-mail between Palin and Sean Parnell regarding Sean's campaign for Congress. Parnell is the Lt. Governor of Alaska.

Anonymous wasn't smart enough to download all the e-mails but what do you think was in that draft letter e-mail?! No one is accusing her of anything wrong only because there is ACTUAL proof because Anonymous didn't download the messages, and because it's slimy to use stolen info to attack your political foes. But if you asked her under oath, Palin would probably have to admit that she's using her personal e-mail for at least some work-related e-mails.

http://gawker.com/5051193/sarah-palins-personal-email-account-hacked and http://gawker.com/5051193/sarah-palins-personal-email-account-hacked are (for how long?) online.

Though it's not much, really, no mail to Putin discussing international relationships as neighbours, no nuclear codes (yet?), just the INCONSCIOUSNESS of using an unencrypted mail account to discuss public affairs...

http://gawker.com/5051193/sarah-palins-personal-email-account-hacked and http://gawker.com/5051193/sarah-palins-personal-email-account-hacked are (for how long?) online.

Though it's not much, really, no mail to Putin discussing international relationships as neighbours, no nuclear codes (yet?), just the INCONSCIOUSNESS of using an unencrypted mail account to discuss public affairs...

If she has nothing to hide

From the law — she does not. From Gawker — we all do.

which calls them evidence that the GOP vice presidential candidate has improperly used private email

Oh, yes, right. Whatever excuses can be found to (try to) justify publishing illegally-obtained materials...

That the other site carrying these is Gawker ought to tell you, how low Obama's fans are willing to stoop.

McCain, they said, is unqualified, because he is not using e-mail (never mind, that his repeatedly-broken hands make typing painful for him). And Sarah Palin is unfit because she has a personal e-mail account (with pictures of her children)?

Sorry, I don't believe this "change". So much so, one would be excused for suspecting, an anti-Obama provocateur has done this...

Plus Gawker called a phone number in one of the emails which went to Bristol Palin's voicemail:

http://gawker.com/5051249/bristol-palins-voicemail

Given that he's actually inside the distortion field, for all we know he could just be a horse. Or a broom.

Or dead! I kid, I kid!!

FoxNews agrees

Well, color me skeptical, homer. Even for Fox News that seems a bit over the top. Do you have any other references to that image? Otherwise, I've got to believe that's photoshopped.

FoxNews agrees

towards Sony is making me feel dirty.

Don't worry, Microsoft just announced they are doing this too.

"For the record, we also do that, so consider this an official announcement. All the instruments from Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour, and Rock Revolution will be cross-compatible."

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/full/~3/369409662/microsoft-+-all-our-instruments-cross+compatible-too

Scientology has, IMO, pushed a little hard on the legal end.

Their recent attempt to have Gawker Media remove an edited interview of Tom Cruise failed. Gawker's direct response was to cite fair use. See the thread on Gawker.com from January 15th: "Tom Cruise Indoctrination Video." There are follow-ups on Chilling Effects for the Cease and Desist Letter. Gawker's response to it...etc. etc. Basically, you can still see the thing.

Then some people on 4chan seem to have started the whole Anonymous protests as a direct result of Scientology's attempts to silence Gawker. Those protests have waned recently, but were a definite sign that people do notice this stuff and take it seriously.

The definition of Fair Use is a legal one; yes, the pocketbook factor will always limit the direct legal rights you theoretically have, but if you can get a million people in masks out into the streets....

Here are some of the blogs I read:

Joel on Software
Introversion - an indie games company
The Old New Thing - Raymond Chen of Microsoft
The Daily WTF - how not to code
The Consumerist
FAIL Blog
Not Always Right - for people who [used to] work in retail

What would happen if every single Windows box in the entire world simultaneously lost all network connectivity?

Something like this, I would imagine... ^_^

In lieu of her absence, perhaps this will suffice:

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/resources/2008/02/songs-1.jpg

This is the one with Tom Cruise, right?

I have not seen the video but I find it quite humorous when some organization's materials for training/brainwashing are leaked and it makes headlines. I.E. Scientology, RIAA, etc. What would even be funnier if the RIAA took the same position the Church of Scientology did and tried to repress this video.

Repression of information is the first sign of a flawed ideology. As we've seen in many court cases in which they've shut down systems, the RIAA is against any kind of information sharing via P2P software and therefore has a flawed ideology.

Tom is a scientologist and a big promoter of the cause. There was much news recently about this video:

http://gawker.com/5002269/the-cruise-indoctrination-video-scientology-tried-to-suppress

The issue is not his films, but this video. To quote the site:

"When you're a Scientologist, and you drive by an accident, you know you have to do something about it, because you know you're the only one who can really help... We are the way to happiness. We can bring peace and unite cultures."

Smells like teen crap to me. I also did some reading about their beliefs, and it is gibberish.

Hubbard's death had little impact upon the "Church" because, by the end of his life, Hubbard wasn't really running the show anymore. If what I've read is to be believed, Hubbard was a drug addled fool sailing about aimlessly, while the more lucid, higher standing members of the "religion" kept the ball rolling (and the money rolling in).

In other words, Hubbard had a successor, whether he liked it (or was even aware of it) or not.

/me claps his hands, laughs like a maniac, and makes a strange pshewwwwww sound.

The video that they forced off of YouTube can, thanks to Gawker, be found here.

As a non-scientologist, this is scary. Possibly the most scary part of it is the editing. I have no problem with people having convictions but when he talks about "fightin' the fight" and "people needing them" and "people depending on them" ... I get a little frightened that people around me think like that. You may be able to argue that it's little different than Christianity or Islam but what I really fear are the people who are part of Sea Org or offshore from the states and may have given up their rights as a civilian & American to have some sort of special standing in this group.

Whatever the case, I will not ever affiliate myself with a Scientologist and after reading Have You Lived Before This Life, I will do everything in my power to convince those that I know and love to avoid Scientology.

The thing that concerns me about Scientology is that after reading some books by Hubbard about it, I have found very little criticism of it. A book & some articles with the most notable one being Time Magazine. It seems like such an easy target. It takes seconds to find books criticizing Catholics or Muslims ... why are there so few publications attacking Scientology? There is definitely something scary about a very powerful organization and if they have people dumping money into them, I do not doubt they are capable of silencing anyone (unfortunately, even Slashdot).

No, you're not the only one (someone else in this story's comments had the same problem), but you're in a minority. Try the raw FLV: http://cache.gawker.com/assets/video/xwing_launch_gawker.flv

It wasn't a security hole that allowed someone to blackmail Miss New Jersey. The real danger of these networking sites are dumbasses who post embarassing pictures and blogs about themselves IN THE OPEN, not anything a hacker needs to dig for.

At its peak in early 2001, right before the beginning of the end, Enron had a market cap of $48B USD. While that's big by normal people's standards, it's only enough to have gotten them to #77 on the top-100 list at the time. (Source, from April 2001.) Enron employed 21,000 people prior to its collapse.

Microsoft, during the same period, was #2 at $370B, and today it's still $281B, almost six times larger than Enron was; Microsoft employs 71,000, or about 3.5 times as many people. Given that Enron's collapse is frequently described using words like "unprecedented" and "disastrous," and led directly to the one of the biggest changes in corporate securities law since the 1930s (Sarbanes-Oxley), not to mention the dismantlement of one of the nation's largest accounting forms (Arthur Anderson), a Congressional investigation, and jail time for most of the people responsible (except for Kenneth Lay, who had the good fortune to die first, to much applause), and speculation that its long-term effects would be greater than 9/11, I'm not sure I'd be so blasé.

Rating the Jack Valenti Obits
from Gawker

The nation has now had a weekend to mourn the passing of Jack Valenti, man who made possible the groundbreaking cultural artifact known as the special unrated DVD version of Turistas . Yet, beyond such obvious accomplishments, there's still so much more to know about the MPAA chief/L.B.J. confidante/ Napster destroyer. Happily, on a dreary Sunday evening like this, there's no better family activity than reading the week's obituaries! But how do we know which ones will be appropriate for the kids? Alphanumeric codes, obviously! The following obits have been submitted for review to the Gawker Weekend Rating Board; out of respect, we are following the brilliant, equivocally definite guidelines set forth on the M.P.A.A. website.

—

New York Times:
Jack Valenti, 85, Confidant of a President and Stars, Dies

• Key Concerns:

  Mr. Valenti, a bantam 5-foot-7 who forever looked up to the towering Johnson, picked fights with critical Johnson biographers like Robert Caro and Robert Dallek.

  So he banned screeners altogether. A storm of protest ensued -- loudest of all from the major studios' own specialty divisions, which rely heavily on awards attention to publicize their films -- and the policy was overturned by a federal judge, who said it ran afoul of antitrust laws.

  A voracious reader, he devoured everything by Macaulay, Churchill and Gibbon, and his speaking and writing style would mix his native twang with the rhetorical flourishes of his heroes in a brew of cliché, cornpone, compelling phrases and clunkers that one critic called "a kind of Texas baroque."

  Mr. Valenti spent more time socially with the president than any other aide, often bringing along his wife and their toddler daughter, Courtenay Lynda, a Johnson favorite.

• Comments:
  The level of violence in this obituary is not what concerns us so much as its contextual basis. "Picking fights" is a form of social discourse that we feel many, though not all, parents may object to. It is obvious, however, that "a brew of cliché, cornpone, compelling phrases and clunkers" makes impossible a G-rating, which of course allows for only "some snippets of language [to] go beyond polite conversation." The dilemma here is whether the Times deserves a PG or a PG-13. Ultimately, despite the absence of drug use or graphic sexing, the highly untraditional domestic structure of Man, Wife, President of the United States, and Toddler Who is Said President's "Favorite" almost certainly eclipses the baseline community standards of all extant communities.

• Final Rating: PG-13 Parents Strongly Cautioned
  for pugnacity, use of non-Standard American English Dialect and reminders of the Gulf of Tonkin involving young children.

—

Los Angeles Times:
Jack Valenti, 85; former Hollywood lobbyist pioneered film ratings system

• Key Concerns:

  In public, his Texas-accented eloquence was reminisce

Rating the Jack Valenti Obits
from Gawker

The nation has now had a weekend to mourn the passing of Jack Valenti, man who made possible the groundbreaking cultural artifact known as the special unrated DVD version of Turistas . Yet, beyond such obvious accomplishments, there's still so much more to know about the MPAA chief/L.B.J. confidante/ Napster destroyer. Happily, on a dreary Sunday evening like this, there's no better family activity than reading the week's obituaries! But how do we know which ones will be appropriate for the kids? Alphanumeric codes, obviously! The following obits have been submitted for review to the Gawker Weekend Rating Board; out of respect, we are following the brilliant, equivocally definite guidelines set forth on the M.P.A.A. website.

—

New York Times:
Jack Valenti, 85, Confidant of a President and Stars, Dies

• Key Concerns:

  Mr. Valenti, a bantam 5-foot-7 who forever looked up to the towering Johnson, picked fights with critical Johnson biographers like Robert Caro and Robert Dallek.

  So he banned screeners altogether. A storm of protest ensued -- loudest of all from the major studios' own specialty divisions, which rely heavily on awards attention to publicize their films -- and the policy was overturned by a federal judge, who said it ran afoul of antitrust laws.

  A voracious reader, he devoured everything by Macaulay, Churchill and Gibbon, and his speaking and writing style would mix his native twang with the rhetorical flourishes of his heroes in a brew of cliché, cornpone, compelling phrases and clunkers that one critic called "a kind of Texas baroque."

  Mr. Valenti spent more time socially with the president than any other aide, often bringing along his wife and their toddler daughter, Courtenay Lynda, a Johnson favorite.

• Comments:
  The level of violence in this obituary is not what concerns us so much as its contextual basis. "Picking fights" is a form of social discourse that we feel many, though not all, parents may object to. It is obvious, however, that "a brew of cliché, cornpone, compelling phrases and clunkers" makes impossible a G-rating, which of course allows for only "some snippets of language [to] go beyond polite conversation." The dilemma here is whether the Times deserves a PG or a PG-13. Ultimately, despite the absence of drug use or graphic sexing, the highly untraditional domestic structure of Man, Wife, President of the United States, and Toddler Who is Said President's "Favorite" almost certainly eclipses the baseline community standards of all extant communities.

• Final Rating: PG-13 Parents Strongly Cautioned
  for pugnacity, use of non-Standard American English Dialect and reminders of the Gulf of Tonkin involving young children.

—

Los Angeles Times:
Jack Valenti, 85; former Hollywood lobbyist pioneered film ratings system

• Key Concerns:

  In public, his Texas-accented eloquence was reminisce

Rating the Jack Valenti Obits
from Gawker

The nation has now had a weekend to mourn the passing of Jack Valenti, man who made possible the groundbreaking cultural artifact known as the special unrated DVD version of Turistas . Yet, beyond such obvious accomplishments, there's still so much more to know about the MPAA chief/L.B.J. confidante/ Napster destroyer. Happily, on a dreary Sunday evening like this, there's no better family activity than reading the week's obituaries! But how do we know which ones will be appropriate for the kids? Alphanumeric codes, obviously! The following obits have been submitted for review to the Gawker Weekend Rating Board; out of respect, we are following the brilliant, equivocally definite guidelines set forth on the M.P.A.A. website.

—

New York Times:
Jack Valenti, 85, Confidant of a President and Stars, Dies

• Key Concerns:

  Mr. Valenti, a bantam 5-foot-7 who forever looked up to the towering Johnson, picked fights with critical Johnson biographers like Robert Caro and Robert Dallek.

  So he banned screeners altogether. A storm of protest ensued -- loudest of all from the major studios' own specialty divisions, which rely heavily on awards attention to publicize their films -- and the policy was overturned by a federal judge, who said it ran afoul of antitrust laws.

  A voracious reader, he devoured everything by Macaulay, Churchill and Gibbon, and his speaking and writing style would mix his native twang with the rhetorical flourishes of his heroes in a brew of cliché, cornpone, compelling phrases and clunkers that one critic called "a kind of Texas baroque."

  Mr. Valenti spent more time socially with the president than any other aide, often bringing along his wife and their toddler daughter, Courtenay Lynda, a Johnson favorite.

• Comments:
  The level of violence in this obituary is not what concerns us so much as its contextual basis. "Picking fights" is a form of social discourse that we feel many, though not all, parents may object to. It is obvious, however, that "a brew of cliché, cornpone, compelling phrases and clunkers" makes impossible a G-rating, which of course allows for only "some snippets of language [to] go beyond polite conversation." The dilemma here is whether the Times deserves a PG or a PG-13. Ultimately, despite the absence of drug use or graphic sexing, the highly untraditional domestic structure of Man, Wife, President of the United States, and Toddler Who is Said President's "Favorite" almost certainly eclipses the baseline community standards of all extant communities.

• Final Rating: PG-13 Parents Strongly Cautioned
  for pugnacity, use of non-Standard American English Dialect and reminders of the Gulf of Tonkin involving young children.

—

Los Angeles Times:
Jack Valenti, 85; former Hollywood lobbyist pioneered film ratings system

• Key Concerns:

  In public, his Texas-accented eloquence was reminisce

Rating the Jack Valenti Obits
from Gawker

The nation has now had a weekend to mourn the passing of Jack Valenti, man who made possible the groundbreaking cultural artifact known as the special unrated DVD version of Turistas . Yet, beyond such obvious accomplishments, there's still so much more to know about the MPAA chief/L.B.J. confidante/ Napster destroyer. Happily, on a dreary Sunday evening like this, there's no better family activity than reading the week's obituaries! But how do we know which ones will be appropriate for the kids? Alphanumeric codes, obviously! The following obits have been submitted for review to the Gawker Weekend Rating Board; out of respect, we are following the brilliant, equivocally definite guidelines set forth on the M.P.A.A. website.

—

New York Times:
Jack Valenti, 85, Confidant of a President and Stars, Dies

• Key Concerns:

  Mr. Valenti, a bantam 5-foot-7 who forever looked up to the towering Johnson, picked fights with critical Johnson biographers like Robert Caro and Robert Dallek.

  So he banned screeners altogether. A storm of protest ensued -- loudest of all from the major studios' own specialty divisions, which rely heavily on awards attention to publicize their films -- and the policy was overturned by a federal judge, who said it ran afoul of antitrust laws.

  A voracious reader, he devoured everything by Macaulay, Churchill and Gibbon, and his speaking and writing style would mix his native twang with the rhetorical flourishes of his heroes in a brew of cliché, cornpone, compelling phrases and clunkers that one critic called "a kind of Texas baroque."

  Mr. Valenti spent more time socially with the president than any other aide, often bringing along his wife and their toddler daughter, Courtenay Lynda, a Johnson favorite.

• Comments:
  The level of violence in this obituary is not what concerns us so much as its contextual basis. "Picking fights" is a form of social discourse that we feel many, though not all, parents may object to. It is obvious, however, that "a brew of cliché, cornpone, compelling phrases and clunkers" makes impossible a G-rating, which of course allows for only "some snippets of language [to] go beyond polite conversation." The dilemma here is whether the Times deserves a PG or a PG-13. Ultimately, despite the absence of drug use or graphic sexing, the highly untraditional domestic structure of Man, Wife, President of the United States, and Toddler Who is Said President's "Favorite" almost certainly eclipses the baseline community standards of all extant communities.

• Final Rating: PG-13 Parents Strongly Cautioned
  for pugnacity, use of non-Standard American English Dialect and reminders of the Gulf of Tonkin involving young children.

—

Los Angeles Times:
Jack Valenti, 85; former Hollywood lobbyist pioneered film ratings system

• Key Concerns:

  In public, his Texas-accented eloquence was reminisce

Still, it was a web poll and the bulk of my other points are still valid

The BULK? What bulk? Here are your points from your original post:
* The contest was between exactly two companies - Hallibutron and the RIAA. Those were your choices if you participated in this survey. The RIAA won by 3.8%. Wal-mart or none of the above were not choices.
* The 'survey' was done by The Consumerist. Sounds impressive, eh? Like The Economist magazine, perhaps? No, not really. It's basically some shitty blog. Hint: their web page currently has ads for 'Replica Rolex Watches Rolex, Cartier, Gucci, Brietling Only $189!!'
* So, this poll was a web poll. Hardly what we'd expect from a true 'Most hated company in America' type deal.
* See it for yourself here [consumerist.com].

So out of these four bullets, one simply states that this was a web poll, ok true, but not exactly insightful. The last point is not a point at all, just a link to your source. The first point you already admitted was wrong, leaving only your second point as anything that could fall under your term of "bulk" and I would hardly call a single valid point bulk by any stretch.
In addition the consumerist website is not some tiny fly-by-night blog, it's been around for a while and they are the slashdot of constomer service issues and are part of Gawker Media which handles other such blogs as Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Kotaku, and Lifehacker just to name a few. While these may be niche blogs in that they have a sharp focus, they are by no means somebody's part time basement run website. In March 2007 the Consumerist received over 5 million visitors, and they have consistently had over 500,000 visitors per month for the past 12 months, and over 1 million visitors/month for the last 6.
As for the SINGLE advertisement you chose to judge the quality of the page, (ignoring other advertisers such as the prominent T-Mobile ad) the replica watch company is not selling counterfit goods, it sells replicas, clearly marked in both their URL and product page, so it is not an ad from a scammer. Also considering the nature of the consumerist blog, I would certainly think that they vet companies before accepting ads from them.

So in short, you overreacted and shot down a completely legitmate site which ran a survey over a period of weeks that reached a very large audience. Is it a scientific poll? No, but it's also not some two-bit blogger ranting about poll results culled from a handful of readers. Kudos on you for posting a semi-retraction but your "bulk" of remaining points is essential naught.

And nevermind that one of their top stories is Gawker Responds To Lycos' Aluminum Foil Sword Rattling... about their response to a legal threat from Lycos...

And nevermind that half their ads say Gawker Artists on them...

You're an idiot if you think they try to hide they're published by Gawker.