Slashdot Mirror

"It's" means "it is"; "its" means "belonging to it". There is no such word as "its'" (note the final apostrophe). "Their" means "belonging to them"; "there" means "in that place"; "they're" means "they are". The apostrophe ("'") does not mean, "Warning! S approaching!" It is used to denote possession in the case of a proper noun (e.g. "Eric's" but not "their's") or to indicate missing letters (e.g. "can't" for "can not"). In the case of a plural proper noun (and, some people say, any proper noun ending with "s"; I disagree), the apostrophe goes after the "s" (e.g. "The two Marys' last names were the same, so you never knew whose article you were reading."); otherwise, an apostrophe should not appear at the very end of a word. Capitals should not be used randomly to emphasise a point. While there are various exceptions (e.g. "the Company" in a legal contract, because it's just a short form of a proper noun; but "the company formed in 1891" when referring to an already-mentioned company), the best general rule is that initial words of sentences, the first person singular pronoun "I", initials, and proper nouns (i.e. somebody's name) get a capital. Nothing else does. If a word does not fit one of those categories, don't capitalise: it's better to omit them than to Add Capitals for no Apparent Reason. You see what I mean. I'll use the term "proposition" loosely, here: each sentence expresses one proposition. There are ways around that rule; this sentence has two propositions. (The second proposition came after the semicolon.) In general, though, there is no harm in writing with short sentences. Each can be separated by a period. Avoid, at all costs, the comma-splice: don't stick together two otherwise-independent sentences by using a comma.

I'm glad I could be of service to the /. community.

Drakantus is right - the other ones we try to keep an eye out for. If there's not something in the mainstream media, then write a review! Compare and contrast! Write a user guide!

You say this now but Slashdot has never acted like it's interested in lengthy user submissions. I've stopped bothering when my last attempt at an editorial sat in the submission queue for about week and I had to mail you guys about it only to be told someone would get around to reading it "soon". That's why my stories go on kuro5hin because I know they'll get read and I'll get feedback.

As for short submissions, I've basically stopped those as well after this story where you editted all the coherence out of my submission and made me sound like a raving zealot instead of maintaining the original theme of the submission.

Quite frankly I don't understand why with the authors slashdot has no one writes anything longer than a paragraph about a submission. Is reading submissions that much work that we can't get the kind of review, comparison, or user guide that you've just suggested?

Because of that, a lot of the money is going to be made by old-line companies with a lot of cash and the patience to weather bad economic times, like IBM and (if I can do anything about it) HP.

Is that why you advised them against Open Sourcing OpenMail even though it would be a great addition to the repository of Open Source software?

I agree with your suggestions to them but I would like to hear it from the horse's mouth (so to speak).

I respectfully disagree. I just read an article on K5 which I totally agree with.

In a nutshell, sloppy writing tends to indicate sloppy thinking. This leads to disorganized thoughts being put down in a barely coherent manner. Comments which have been thoughtfully written and given a 5-second review are the ones which I take more seriously.

Likewise, when I'm hiring somebody, I toss their cover letter and resume in the can if I catch a mistake. Why, you ask, would I care about spelling and grammar for a programming position? Because if they didn't take the time to check their work then I feel that they will produce sloppy results if I hire them. The one time I relaxed this requirement of mine I was quickly proven right.

I didn't even care so much that their own writing was so sloppy. They could just as easily have taken the effort to have it corrected by somebody else and would have, and then their resume wouldn't be in my fine paper recycling box, but instead perhaps in the "interview" pile. That they didn't know how to spell is of no consequence. I only cared that they take the time to do it right, and perhaps get the resources they need to do that. That way I know they'll make an excellent programmer.

Let's face it. Nobody is going to understand you or take you seriously if you can't get your thoughts across in writing. Content can only be king if people can read it.

I respectfully disagree. I just read an article on K5 which I totally agree with.

In a nutshell, sloppy writing tends to indicate sloppy thinking. This leads to disorganized thoughts being put down in a barely coherent manner. Comments which have been thoughtfully written and given a 5-second review are the ones which I take more seriously.

Likewise, when I'm hiring somebody, I toss their cover letter and resume in the can if I catch a mistake. Why, you ask, would I care about spelling and grammar for a programming position? Because if they didn't take the time to check their work then I feel that they will produce sloppy results if I hire them. The one time I relaxed this requirement of mine I was quickly proven right.

I didn't even care so much that their own writing was so sloppy. They could just as easily have taken the effort to have it corrected by somebody else and would have, and then their resume wouldn't be in my fine paper recycling box, but instead perhaps in the "interview" pile. That they didn't know how to spell is of no consequence. I only cared that they take the time to do it right, and perhaps get the resources they need to do that. That way I know they'll make an excellent programmer.

Let's face it. Nobody is going to understand you or take you seriously if you can't get your thoughts across in writing. Content can only be king if people can read it.

Is inside the organization. The money is in providing portals to an organization. A portal for an organization would have some combo of hotmail for mail, kuro5hin for news, and other apps running on zope. Those portals are a way of putting a front end on the organization's intranet.

What is more troublesome than the kinds of errors I list above, however, is the general terrible writing online. Even supposed professionals -- Jon Katz springs immediately to mind -- frequently post long-winded, repetitive, confused pieces which, in the worst cases, contradict themselves. Frequently, the rhetorical flourish is deployed at the expense of clear, well-reasoned paragraphs designed to lead the reader inexorably from premise to conclusion. There is little worse in the world than prose dressed up in empty jargon, useless "well-that's-the-way-I-feel" rants, and irrelevant paragraphs. Words mean things, and it isn't enough just to type some in, if one wants to write something that will convince, or edify, or even describe.

I had the exact same thing happen to me years ago in DOS; I assumed that 'fdisk' was like 'format', which is what I was looking for to format a disk...

Yes, reading documentation is essential. I guess understanding it is, too. And that first time it happens to you, it's always a learning experience.

By the way, my Linux distribution has nothing like a format command, except maybe the various mkfs.* commands, like mke2fs.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

Seth Finkelstein of the Censorware Project comments on Michael's hypocrisy and abuses of power:

http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=comments&sid=2001/3/5/ 44551/24522&cid=81#81

They have several servers up in Seattle and host interactive news and discussion-sites all over the world, and go down sometimes. They get back up very quickly and are responsive to user complaints.

The best way to help them is to contribute funds, equipment and expertise. They are very committed to Open Source philosophy and a few of their chief technical experts are active on Slashdot and Kuro5hin.

What does 'Kuro5hin' mean, anyway?

A few seconds in Kuro5hin's FAQ gave the answer .

Kuro5hin has an interesting piece on the economics of ad revenues. The bottom line is banner revenues can be sufficient for profit potential if you play your cards right. Popular sites like slashdot have a high enough CPM to stay more than just afloat. I'm surprised Yahoo hasn't been able to say the same.

Part of big impact of New Media is that is lets ordinary users influence the New Media, to a much greater extent than a letter to an editor.

This ranges from wide ranging discussion boards like Tabletalk at Salon to an almost completely user generated and modified site like K5.

So what do the owners/administrators of such a user generated site owe the users? What can the users expect in ways of making the site usuable and contentful, with a high signal to noise ratio, without censoring users? Can the users expected to be banned for proposing unpopular viewpoints? Can the users expect to own their accounts, or is it more of a licesing of accounts thing?

It's such utter bullshit that it gives real developers a bad name. I mean of course I'm not going to accept data from the client, unless it's What and How many. It's so utterly obvious.

First, it was stupid business models. Now it's idiotic software. No wonder there was a DotCom implosion. (Not that we didn't see it coming or anything... it's just so frustrating)
-- kwashiorkor --
Leaps in Logic
should not be confused with

While I personally agree with your sentiment, this is, by and large, a site about computer technology and the like. If you want to see articles about social issues in general, go visit Kuro5hin.

The tech divide is important to many; just b/c it's subject is not directly life threatening does not mean it holds no value as a discussion piece.

--

Anyone interested in the topic may also want to read the thread over at K5. Considering how much connection there is between the /. and k5 communities, avoiding redundancy between the two would be greatly appreciated.

Anyone interested in the topic may also want to read the thread over at K5. Considering how much connection there is between the /. and k5 communities, avoiding redundancy between the two would be greatly appreciated.

Jesus hates you. :-)

--
There is no K5 cabal.

I find it hard to read the comments where any story regarding RMS is concerned. I would be the last person to proclaim that "Slashdot sucks!" but there are definitely some topics that are guaranteed to produce little else but torrents of incoherent abuse.

As the author of this story on K5 said of his Slashdot experience:

"...it was picked up by Slashdot and my network connection and server were pretty much useless for 24 hours as over 200,000 hits logged up. ... I had hoped that the Slashdot article might produce interesting ideas; instead, RMS' affiliation with goat.cx and the communist party were discussed."

I find all the venomous, mindless, jingoistic, capitalistic raving that accompanies the slightest mention of RMS really disturbing. I can't believe the amount of people who appear to spend the day poised in front of their computer, ready to defend the American way from the insidious attacks of creeping socialism. They never tire of their repetitiveness. They're not bothered by being incessantly off-topic. This is the land of the free, home of the brave, goddammit! There's no place for dissenting opinions here, so we gotta shout them down from a position of secure anonymity!

I can only hope it's the product of a very few unwell individuals who lack the courage to write their names on a toilet wall, and not representative of the attidude of a significant portion of the American public.

Why can't we moderate stories?

Because you logged onto the wrong web site. Nest time, instead of typing slashdot.org into your browser, try www.kuro5hin.org instead. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to moderate stories.

All your hallucinogen are belong to us.

I dunno, Kuro5hin does pretty well using that model.

We'll be adding a "friends list" RSN, that will let you know when people you've marked to watch have posted a new diary. It ought to help with the insta-scroll.

and the IRC channel is somewhat boring to me, and lacking varied discussion.

What? You mean sex, computers sex, sex, sex, and computers isn't enough variety for you?

--
There is no K5 cabal.

I can't quite picture a superconducting semiconductor in my head. Would such a chip just have superconducting interconnections? How does it work?

There are several ways of using superconductors to build integrated circuits. Using superconducting interconnects would reduce RC time constant delays, but not by a vast amount (the transistors provide most of the resistance).

The most promising approaches use devices other than transistors to perform switching. My favourite method was described in IEEE Spectrum a while back (kuro5hin article here: http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory&sid=2000/ 12/10/0925/1544 )

• Why would you want every lamer in the world to have access to your innermost secrets? Why would you want to expose yourself to that sort of voyeurism? At least when you keep a deadtree journal, you know who has access to it (at least until you die). When it's online, even access logs aren't much help.
  
• You're opening youself up to cries of plagiarism, either by others or by you yourself (as you discover how others have plagiarized your work).
  
• You're leaving an enormous e-papertrail for police and criminals alike to hunt you down and cause you anguish.
  
• You're opening yourself up to pangs of self delusion and false pursuit of grandeur. Journals are an inherently narcissistic endeavor, labeling anyone who keeps one as a fool who cannot keep his mouth shut or who insists that others might find his experiences somehow relevant or helpful.
  
• Ultimately, journals are an ill-advised use of resources and bandwidth. How many more enlightened endeavors could we pursue with all the diskspace and bandwidth that is currently devoted to online journals? Sites like kuro5hin.org waste far more space on users' diaries then they'll ever spend on actual useful articles and discussions.

-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!

I am a big fan of distributed computing, heck I wrote an article about it on K5, and have always wondered what the XML-RPC payoff is.

From what I can tell, XML-RPC is a way to replace the binary protocols that current distributed systems use (e.g. Corba's IIOP or DCOM's ORPC) with an XML based one. So when an object needs perform a remote method call, instead of just sending it's arguments in a compact efficient binary packet, it builds an XML string which has to be parsed on the other end. So with XML RPC, remote method calls now need the addition of an XML parser to their current bag of tricks.

On the surface it seems that this makes it easier to perform distributed computing since any shmuck can use an XML parser and call a few functions. But it means that an extra layer of abstraction has been added to operations that should be performed rather quickly for the dubious benefit of compatibility across platforms (which is yet to be realized) which seems to be more jumping on the XML hype bandwagon than reality. My biggest issue is that for XML-RPC to support things that are the biggest issues of distributed computing (e.g. keeping track of state) would add so much bloat to the XML parsing, string building, etc process for making a remote call as to make it unfeasible.

Anyone see any errors in this thinking?


Finagle's First Law

I don't know why rusty named Scoop Scoop, but I do know that Slashcode isn't alone in getting support emails for PHPSlash :p

Consider this email regardling PHPNuke:
"Subject: The best nuked site Ive never seen
To: Kuro5hin.org Help
Dear Sirs of Kuro5hin,

Im journalist and Im new to PHP nuke.
Ive been visiting many nuked sites and yours is the VERY best.

I wonder if you could send my your theme files, not to use or copy it in my
site, I dont have a site, just to learn to develope a good theme.

Thank you very much, and sorry about my english.

Best regards, .."
--

If your valentine is a woman, try the
orgasm device.

You will have more time for all-night coding sessions.

If you are worrried about the device substituting you, you could add some crypto so that it only runs under the proper authorization.
__

Kuro5hin had that too, and only 362 days ago! :p
--

and slashdot.org for stuff of interest and insight.

That would be kuro5hin.

This is also useful for sites which need money to fight plummeting stock value and possible legal action over IPO irregularities.

I recently wrote a short story on kuro5hin about a related issue: what happens to us when we don't need memory at all, since we can get all required information from the web. The article can be found here.

On Slashdot:
Anonymous Coward will never be a moderator. From what I've read in the FAQ: Create an account, stay on about a year, browse an average amount, make sure "Willing to moderate" is checked, and keep your karma above +10, and you may get moderator points about once a month.

On Kuro5hin:
Create an account; bang, you're already a moderator with unlimited points. And you can moderate the stories also.

On Everything:
Create an account, write about 30 or so good write-ups, and you'll get 10 mod points per day. Continue adding content to the database and you'll get more mod points.

I think in the long term open source will fail.

The problem is that things are getting more and more complicated - very soon, things like SMTP will be obsolete, and only groupware like Exchange will be viable - simply because it's more productive for a company to have groupware.

There isn't the money in open source to be able to afford to produce things like this - because there's no revenue in giving things away, companies can't afford the programmers to produce the complicated products of the future.

Even Netscape, bankrolled by one of the world's largest companies, AOL, can't keep up, via open source, with expensive protocols like XSL and so on.

There's just not enough money.

However, that comes a stage down the line.

For the moment, companies are happy to except vanilla products like Apache and qmail, which do something simple, but do it efficiently.

For these products, open source is viable - there is none of the strategic problems involved with say co-ordinating an open-source GUI, which only a commercial company, with control over its staff can do.

This will take a while though - the first thing to happen will be the death of consumer open source. I posted an article on this to Kuro5hin, and although the poll died, the majority of people agreed with my conclusion that open source isn't viable for consumer software.

I invite you to read my arguments, which, briefly summarised are as follows:

no direction - there's no-one who can find what the focus groups want and then enforce it

no money - you can't afford to compete if you don't have enough money to do so]

a mistaken belief as to the ability of users. Open source relies on a hobbyist's views of computing, which states that everyone knows how to program - false; modern programs are exceptionally complicated and most users are not programmers.

no innovation. Because there's no money for r+d, there's little innovation and open source plays catchup all the time. Furthermore, there's no incentive for improvement - open source doesn't have to make improvements like MS does - they don't have to make qmail v6 much better than v5 ytto get people to upgrade as MS would with Outlook 2002 vs 2000.

I think in the long term open source will fail.

The problem is that things are getting more and more complicated - very soon, things like SMTP will be obsolete, and only groupware like Exchange will be viable - simply because it's more productive for a company to have groupware.

There isn't the money in open source to be able to afford to produce things like this - because there's no revenue in giving things away, companies can't afford the programmers to produce the complicated products of the future.

Even Netscape, bankrolled by one of the world's largest companies, AOL, can't keep up, via open source, with expensive protocols like XSL and so on.

There's just not enough money.

However, that comes a stage down the line.

For the moment, companies are happy to except vanilla products like Apache and qmail, which do something simple, but do it efficiently.

For these products, open source is viable - there is none of the strategic problems involved with say co-ordinating an open-source GUI, which only a commercial company, with control over its staff can do.

This will take a while though - the first thing to happen will be the death of consumer open source. I posted an article on this to Kuro5hin, and although the poll died, the majority of people agreed with my conclusion that open source isn't viable for consumer software.

I invite you to read my arguments, which, briefly summarised are as follows:

no direction - there's no-one who can find what the focus groups want and then enforce it

no money - you can't afford to compete if you don't have enough money to do so]

a mistaken belief as to the ability of users. Open source relies on a hobbyist's views of computing, which states that everyone knows how to program - false; modern programs are exceptionally complicated and most users are not programmers.

no innovation. Because there's no money for r+d, there's little innovation and open source plays catchup all the time. Furthermore, there's no incentive for improvement - open source doesn't have to make improvements like MS does - they don't have to make qmail v6 much better than v5 ytto get people to upgrade as MS would with Outlook 2002 vs 2000.

This is a detailed account of my experience with Linuxgruven...
Including a response by the CEO.

I AM a Fundamentalist Christian. I AM NOT a Hatemonger (Christianity, properly observed, leaves no room for hate: rather, it's Jesus first and everything else as it is appropriate--Galatians 5:1,13,14).

I DO NOT believe in filtering software. It is the responsibility of PARENTS to monitor their children's entertainments. MONITOR, I said, not surreptitiously log or track, and not abdicate parental responsibility to an inert mechanism which the parents can neither understand nor control, because TRUST and ACCOUNTABILITY are cornerstones of the parent/child relationship. If there is a bogey-man on the Web, on the TV, or on the CD, then the parents have the duty to be INVOLVED ENOUGH in their children's lives to confront the offensive influence, and even *gasp* COMMUNICATE their moral convictions in an age-appropriate manner. That being said, my wife and I watch TV and movies with our children, play video games with them, and surf the Web with them, as well as the more conventional family activity stuff.

I had several peers who grew up in no-alcohol Baptist homes with the simple mantra of "I forbid it" only to run off to college and be some of the wildest partying, hardest drinking folks on campus. Many of you know people who fit that description as well. Autocracy and arbitrary barriers are only as effective as the despot's arms are long. Children can learn to appreciate their parent's morals and convictions only if those beliefs are shared in a sincere and loving family setting. Even then, embracing those moral convictions are ultimately a free-will decision on the part of the children.

kuro5hin has this to say in last week's article "Breeding Licenses" :

"The basic premise of these failings of the American parents is not that the average American is not 'good parenting' material, but that they do not spend enough time with their children. They would rather have restrictive laws governing what their children watch on TV and at the theatres, rating systems on video games, and software to help keep their children from downloading naughty things from the internet."

Although parental involvement is not the crux of this article, the same involvement issues relate to teachers, and by extension, librarians. Part of the responbility of being the classroom authority is being the proctor of classroom materials and equipment.

Is there a need for censorship on the Web? That is an open question which cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no" for, while I have been the primary source of computer and Internet knowledge for my children and assume the same is true for most /.ers, there are many parents who are not as techno-savvy as the typical /. technophile, or even computer literate at all. They need and deserve help, and I feel that the best way to implement that help is through server-side age verification for pr0n sites. That way, people who wish to access such sites get to, and people who prefer not to access them aren't missing anything, but reliance on filters which are fallible at best and disastrously inept at worst is like trying to keep burglars out of one's house with a chair wedged under the front doorknob.

See there? I said all that without damning anybody for choosing to ogle pr0n or engage in any other "sinful" behavior. That falls under the topic of "ordering one's life" and that's another conversation altogether.

Well, since everyone is getting into this thread, I guess I'll jump in with my 2 cents. I really have been meaning to pose this question to my uncle who has turned down nomination for Bishop of Grand Rapids.
The statement that God is beyond our understanding is the crux of this debate. Every scientific breakthrough can be interpreted by the religious as more evidence that God is beyond us because we haven't found Him yet. But the non-religious use it as evidence against God because, well, He's not "there."
Do I "belive in one God, etc.?" Yes. Do I believe that we are not alone in the universe? Yes. Do I see a contradiction? No, because if God is beyond our thinking, then isn't is possible that He gave us the Bible because that was all we could understand or all that pertains to us?

Anyway, IHBT, IDC (I don't care) Anyone want to continue this over there?

I had a feeling you were going to say that.

We do not need wireless access
Unless, of course, you live in an area without wired access. If you live on the wrong side of the freeway in some areas it can cost thousands of dollars to get a phone line strung just 1/2 mile (1 kilometer). If cell phones are available there they are a much less costly solution. I know, different type of wireless, but it needs to be discussed, maybe I'll post it to K5.

All right. This discussion is over, due to invocation of Godwin's Law.

Godwin's Law prov. [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely- recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.
From the Jargon File

I know this won't work, since I'm invoking it directly, but I'm using this to make the case for generalizing Godwin's Law to cover weblogs such as /. and k5.

...this is the second story today that was posted @ Kuro5hin first. What does this mean? ::shrug::

Dissention from the collective childhood warm-fuzzy remeniscence earns a "Troll" rating?

I think partly the trouble is some people, including moderators, don't know what "troll means". I can't find it defined anywhere on in the Slashdot faq, though it does appear in the faq for kuro5hin.

The Jargon File defines "troll" as "to utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the post itself." A key part of this definition is that the poster pretends to be serious about a subject but in fact is trying to attract flames.

From references in comments, I'd guess that many people on Slashdot understand something else by the term, though I'm not sure what. The fact that Slashdot's faq describes anti-troll filters (when from the description they seem to be describing anti-spam filters) seems to imply that the confusion is occasionally present even in the minds of the administrators.

M

Dissention from the collective childhood warm-fuzzy remeniscence earns a "Troll" rating?

I think partly the trouble is some people, including moderators, don't know what "troll means". I can't find it defined anywhere on in the Slashdot faq, though it does appear in the faq for kuro5hin.

The Jargon File defines "troll" as "to utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the post itself." A key part of this definition is that the poster pretends to be serious about a subject but in fact is trying to attract flames.

From references in comments, I'd guess that many people on Slashdot understand something else by the term, though I'm not sure what. The fact that Slashdot's faq describes anti-troll filters (when from the description they seem to be describing anti-spam filters) seems to imply that the confusion is occasionally present even in the minds of the administrators.

M

if only there were article moderation... if only there were article moderation... if only there were article moderation...

There's no place like Kuro5hin... There's no place like Kuro5hin... There's no place like Kuro5hin...

...where YOU choose the stories!

if only there were article moderation... if only there were article moderation... if only there were article moderation...

There's no place like Kuro5hin... There's no place like Kuro5hin... There's no place like Kuro5hin...

...where YOU choose the stories!

if only there were article moderation... if only there were article moderation... if only there were article moderation...

There's no place like Kuro5hin... There's no place like Kuro5hin... There's no place like Kuro5hin...

...where YOU choose the stories!

OR WILL I?

DNS Cache is much cleaner than BIND and it's easier to get good results. Although a well-tuned BIND is still faster.

-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!

This is exactly why I moved over to Kuro5hin
Besides, Inoshiro is cute.

nonexistent editorial skills

You think you have better? Visit Kuro5hin, where YOU choose the stories!