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Try these articles on Particle Physics
-----------------------

Mike's Particle Physics column on Kuro5hin explains particle physics quite well for the layman. Unfortunately, K5 is slower than balls atm, so I can't give you a direct link (search for 'particle physics' and you should get all, like 5, articles).

[snip]
from the american-goal:-100%-of-danish-electricity-from-oil dept.

How about having one from the sick-of-michaels-libertarian-diatribes-on-the-fron t-page dept.?

This comment will get modded to hell, so I'll make it worth my while (and hey, I've got the karma, so plug your ears and go for it, faith Slashdot sheep).

Michael is a pollutant in the Slashdot community. In addition to his other crimes and personal problems, Michael routinely mischaracterizes arguments, uses completely flawed logic, and routinely attacks and slanders those who disagree with him.

Michael posts both under his name and under the pseudonym of jellicle. His posts are easily identified by the thoughtless hysteria that denotes most fundamentalist propaganda and rhetoric.

I've made several calls for Andover/VA to fire Michael. A good appeal would be to Roblimo. But one thing is clear: Micahel Sims needs to go. This article's head is just another example of why.

• Lameness filters (It blocks a lot of legitmate posts)
  
• Unnessary posting delays. Hasnt taco learned to touch type? A lot of posts are typed in less than 20 seconds and it is a ANNOYING DELAY! 2 minute ban? Come on, so some are faster then others, big deal, some people have more to say than others
  
• Broken moderation system, The whole point is to sort the gems from the crap, yet a lot of posts designed to make a LIVELY DISCUSSION are MODERATED as flamebait! Come on, not everyone likes X, but just because some one bashes it dosent mean its Flamebait. Flame bait is more useful for DIRECT INSULTS and not legitmate discussions.
  

• Crapfloods, a meaningless flood of random letters or text, which the lameness filter does a crappy job at trying to stop, besides trolls have written tools using the opensource slashcode to generate crapfloods which bypass the filter
• Links to offensive websites, the most common one is known a http://www.goatse.cx, a awful site which shows a bleeding anus being stretched on the front page. Trolls sneak these links in by posting messages that look legitimate, but infact are sneaky redirects to the site. Common examples include rd.yahoo.com, www.linux-kernel.tk, goatsex.cjb.net, and googles "Im feeling lucky".
• Trying to break slashdot, this is actually a good thing, as it helps test slashdot for bugs. Famous examples include the goatse.cx javascript pop-up, the pagewidening post and the browser crashing post!
  

its massive, its complex, its very very very hard for a novice to build, its only available from CVS at this time.

Yeah, I noticed, I tried to compile it some time ago. And inspired me to complain loudly about audio program interfaces. I'll never become a musician until a direct brain-to-CD interface is perfected (but I bet THEY wouldn't like such inventions). =)

Anyway, congrats to ardour folks if the 1.0 is coming up. There's just one thing I need to complain about: The documentation. At least with Blender, there was a printed manual and it's sitting right here in my shelf...

Sci-Fi cancells Farscape (MLP)
By yanisa
Sat Sep 7th, 2002 at 05:46:41 AM CST

Sci-Fi network shocks viewers: Farscape, its flagship series, has been cancelled.

Fanbase reacts; join them!

-

In a surprise chat yesterday night, David Kemper, Richard Manning and Ben Browder announced Sci-Fi network's decision to cancel Farscape, critically acclaimed and much beloved SF series, now in its fourth season.

Although Sci-Fi has previously contracted for two more seasons of Farscape, they have now excercised an out-clause. This was made known to the creators and cast only after they have finished filming the last episode of Season 4, which means that they have had no chance of even finishing the story. Farscape will thus end with a cliffhanger and unfinished story threads.

Needles to say, the fanbase is in an uproar and the cast is shocked.

And not suprisingly, Dilbert has seen it coming.

If you like Farscape and would like to see it go on, add your voice to the enraged masses.

-

Sci-Fi cancells Farscape (MLP)
By yanisa
Sat Sep 7th, 2002 at 05:46:41 AM CST

Sci-Fi network shocks viewers: Farscape, its flagship series, has been cancelled.

Fanbase reacts; join them!

-

In a surprise chat yesterday night, David Kemper, Richard Manning and Ben Browder announced Sci-Fi network's decision to cancel Farscape, critically acclaimed and much beloved SF series, now in its fourth season.

Although Sci-Fi has previously contracted for two more seasons of Farscape, they have now excercised an out-clause. This was made known to the creators and cast only after they have finished filming the last episode of Season 4, which means that they have had no chance of even finishing the story. Farscape will thus end with a cliffhanger and unfinished story threads.

Needles to say, the fanbase is in an uproar and the cast is shocked.

And not suprisingly, Dilbert has seen it coming.

If you like Farscape and would like to see it go on, add your voice to the enraged masses.

-

Sci-Fi cancells Farscape (MLP)
By yanisa
Sat Sep 7th, 2002 at 05:46:41 AM CST

Sci-Fi network shocks viewers: Farscape, its flagship series, has been cancelled.

Fanbase reacts; join them!

-

In a surprise chat yesterday night, David Kemper, Richard Manning and Ben Browder announced Sci-Fi network's decision to cancel Farscape, critically acclaimed and much beloved SF series, now in its fourth season.

Although Sci-Fi has previously contracted for two more seasons of Farscape, they have now excercised an out-clause. This was made known to the creators and cast only after they have finished filming the last episode of Season 4, which means that they have had no chance of even finishing the story. Farscape will thus end with a cliffhanger and unfinished story threads.

Needles to say, the fanbase is in an uproar and the cast is shocked.

And not suprisingly, Dilbert has seen it coming.

If you like Farscape and would like to see it go on, add your voice to the enraged masses.

-

Something already has.

17 records out of 10 million? This is ICANN "making hay" to look like they're sticking up for the little guy and a blatant public relations move after they went ahead and pushed through WLS despite an overwhelming vote against it by pretty much everyone ...except for the gTLDs (ie, .COM and .NET, which, amazingly enough, Verisign controls.).

ICANN is so in bed with Verisign it's not even funny. This is a nudge-nudge wink-wink arrangement between them so ICANN can look like they're doing their job and Verisign takes a black eye that nobody will remember in a year so that WLS happens.

Do not be fooled.

Sorry, I'm just kind of obsessed that a country would outlaw electronic gaming of any kind. Wow.

China owns Taiwan. You two are both correct.

You're too fucking serious dude. Its called scroll down the page, and it works wonders for whiny fucks like you.

If slashdot's quality is waning, why not go somewhere else?.

Actions speak louder than words.

• Lameness filters (It blocks a lot of legitmate posts)
  
• Unnessary posting delays. Hasnt taco learned to touch type? A lot of posts are typed in less than 20 seconds and it is a ANNOYING DELAY! 2 minute ban? Come on, so some are faster then others, big deal, some people have more to say than others
  
• Broken moderation system, The whole point is to sort the gems from the crap, yet a lot of posts designed to make a LIVELY DISCUSSION are MODERATED as flamebait! Come on, not everyone likes X, but just because some one bashes it dosent mean its Flamebait. Flame bait is more useful for DIRECT INSULTS and not legitmate discussions.
  

• Crapfloods, a meaningless flood of random letters or text, which the lameness filter does a crappy job at trying to stop, besides trolls have written tools using the opensource slashcode to generate crapfloods which bypass the filter
• Links to offensive websites, the most common one is known a http://www.goatse.cx, a awful site which shows a bleeding anus being stretched on the front page. Trolls sneak these links in by posting messages that look legitimate, but infact are sneaky redirects to the site. Common examples include rd.yahoo.com, www.linux-kernel.tk, goatsex.cjb.net, and googles "Im feeling lucky".
• Trying to break slashdot, this is actually a good thing, as it helps test slashdot for bugs. Famous examples include the goatse.cx javascript pop-up, the pagewidening post and the browser crashing post!
  

Come on...if you're using Linux, what's the big deal about command line installation? Yeah, I know - make it appealing to the masses, blah, blah, blah.

ha ha ha, welcome to Why Linux isn't Used on the Desktop 101.

This reminds me of point 3 on this excellent Linux Zealot putdown on the other site

Or, like in RoboCop II, maybe a shock generator? Or like in South Africa, those anti-car-jacking under-car flamethrowers?

Granted, where I live the machine owner would still need to place it somewhere with some security, as we have a problem with vandals, I saw a spraypainted BMW on Sunday, (What's up with tagging? The uncontested modus of announcing "I'm the least secure person on my block"?) this in a fairly expensive neighborhood (I think it's mostly rich kids who fsck things up, but that's a whole different can of worms) How secure are such monstrosities, which can't defend themselves, in Japan? Seems like Munich would be another place you could put something like this without coming back in 24 hours and finding it defaced and/or robbed.

1. A free fixed point decoder has been announced.

   Supposedly the Ogg-on-a-Chip Project has a workable hardware design. I've not heard of anyone planning to build these tho.

2. With version 1.0 out now, Vorbis is pretty solid for decoding. Ongoing development is expected to not break decoding functionality.

3. Legal complications remain embarrassingly unresolved.

Speech for the Deaf, Sight for the Blind, now all we need is Sex for the Ugly and I'll be all set.

Yup. k5 had it first.

The article can be found here.

A couple of weeks ago I was in a used bookstore, and happened across a copy of Robert Monroe's Far Journeys, which spends a few words on the subject of time travel. Mr. Monroe was one of the first people to write about Out of Body Experiences in western society. To make what could be a very long post much shorter - time travel is real, it can be experienced - you just need to learn how to leave your physical body behind. OOBE's are just another way to hack your wetware. To quote the K5 story, "... anything is possible, when you have root access to your mind's /dev/."

It seems your question is a bit badly researched before "Ask Slashdot", but anyhow..

I have personal experience with the following :

- eZ Publish (PHP, *nix, MySQL/PgSQL based)
- Slashcode (Perl, *nix, MySQL based)
- PHP Nuke (PHP, MySQL based)

I wouldnt recommend PHP Nuke, but have little experience with the forks off it.. (Check Freshmeat.net as someone suggested).

eZ Publish is the closest I have seen a complete GPL CMS (Content Management Solution), and integrating some of the addons or buying the desktop edition makes it very easy to use!Highly recommended, and now comes in an easy to install Debian package too ! :) (As of woody, apt-cache search ezpublish and then apt-get install the package ..)

Slashcode is possibly one of the better weblogs, although you should possibly check these too, if that is the kind of website you need :

- Scoop
- Drupal

For non "LAMP", based on Tcl and the AOLServer webserver, check out OpenACS, which is reportedly very feature rich.

I do not have personal experience with either Scoop, Drupal or OpenACS, but several sites use them and produce great sites with them.

Good luck !

Um... The reason I said "we" is pretty straightforward: The grandparent poster did. I was trying to make a counterpoint to what he said. You're right, I should have pointed out the mistake in refering to /.ers as a single group. I always hate it when I read other people making the same "we" mistake.

Also, there is very good (some would say perfect) rationale for a specific duration of copyright. Creation of a copyrighted work is a capital expense. It produces a continuing return on that expense. The present value of that return in the future diminishes for each year into the future that you project.

The present value of the return on investment in year 50 is something like $0.02 per $1000 invested. It's been a while since I've been hanging out with an intelligent enough MBA to do this math, so I can't back up that number at all right now. Sorry.

This means that *no* one would *ever* invest more time/money in a copyrighted work so that it will be more valuable in year 50. The only reason that we give artists the ability to restrict distrobution of their work is to give them a monetary reason to produce art. Now. It does not necessarily follow that we should pay artists more for work that they have already produced. Whether or not you would defend a 90 year copyright, would you defend the extension of copyrights for works that have already been produced?

Anyway. At some point in the future, the expected ROI for the rest of perpetuity is guaranteed to be less than the initial cost of producing the artwork. From my calculations with my Wharton MBA friend, this occured, believe it or not, IIRC, around year 20. A good example is the movie Gone with the Wind. It is incredibly valuable right now to its copyright owner. However, when they produced the movie, the potential value of the movie in the year 2002 was not a motivator. Thus the gov't should not give them such a long copyright.

I would not push for a 20 year copyright, however, because it'd be pretty politically stupid. 20 years feels really short to people who imagine (for some reason) that copyright for perpetuity is a natural right. So, I'd push for something like 50 years. In a perfect world, copyright would end when it could no longer provide a reason for artists to produce art. Between 20 and 30 years.

A copyright that lasts for 90 years and prohibits fair use will lead otherwise law abiding citizens to violate the law. That doesn't help content providers at all. Read what Macaulay had to say about it in 1841.

Also. You've got mouths to feed. Is that the government's problem? In 1920, buggy whip experts had mouths to feed too. The government doesn't owe you anything because you have mouths to feed. Figure out an argument for why 90 years of copyright will help you or your children. *That* would change my mind.

As for needing a more efficient soap box than /. ... Well, that was exactly my point. Political activism on /. is pretty worthless. However, there might be a very few /. readers that are imaginative/skilled enough coders that they could destroy copyright in a couple of weeks of work. I'm not trying to say that I would prefer to live in a world without copyright. I'm trying to say that if content providers want to take away fair use, I want to take away their copyright.

Please do respond. I've always wanted to talk about this with someone who depended on copyright. I want society to figure out a more efficient and fair way to give you money for your art.

If you don't like it, go to Kuro5hin. Otherwise, quit whining. I am fine with, and sometimes even like the bad posting. It means they aren't anal retentive (like you, obviously -- Obligatory Flamebait) and make mistakes. Holy shit, you mean people make mistakes? If I wanted perfect grammar, I'll go to a news site. I want stuff that interests me, so I couldn't care much less whether or not they grammar-checked the post. IT'S NOT THE FRIGGING POINT. So get off your doped-up horse and try bitching about something important to people who can do something about that important thing, instead of bitching for the sake of being arrogant.

Actually, what is remarkable is how little the issues have changed. It's a bit of tough going, but if you read Lord Macaulay's speech on copyright extension (which I posted a few months ago over on K5), you'll find that the lines of argument have hardly budged in a hundred and sixty years).

What seems novel to us is that recordings of performance can be cheaply and perfectly copied. However, when applied to books, this has really been true since the invention of the printing press. Then, as now, commercial interests asserted the rather dubious proposition that highly restrictive copyright laws were in the interests of creative people. Then, as now, the truth was that copyright law needed to strike a balance between the need to compensate authors and freedom of expression.

What is new is that we now have larger classes of people with the leisure to enjoy art and culture. Because of this there is a new entertainment industry with unprecedented power and influence. The stakes, for the industry and the public, are higher than they have ever been.

Have a look at how The Register ISP doesn't let you link to some stories on The Register.

In answer to the mealy mouthed reply from The Register that they won't enforce that policy, I can only say: then don't have that policy.

The famous website The Register prohibits linking to its stories... Seems to be only from their own ISP, but I have no time to investigate further.

Link to the Kuro5hin article

• Lameness filters (It blocks a lot of legitmate posts)
  
• Unnessary posting delays. Hasnt taco learned to touch type? A lot of posts are typed in less than 20 seconds and it is a ANNOYING DELAY! 2 minute ban? Come on, so some are faster then others, big deal, some people have more to say than others
  
• Broken moderation system, The whole point is to sort the gems from the crap, yet a lot of posts designed to make a LIVELY DISCUSSION are MODERATED as flamebait! Come on, not everyone likes X, but just because some one bashes it dosent mean its Flamebait. Flame bait is more useful for DIRECT INSULTS and not legitmate discussions.
  

• Crapfloods, a meaningless flood of random letters or text, which the lameness filter does a crappy job at trying to stop, besides trolls have written tools using the opensource slashcode to generate crapfloods which bypass the filter
• Links to offensive websites, the most common one is known a http://www.goatse.cx, a awful site which shows a bleeding anus being stretched on the front page. Trolls sneak these links in by posting messages that look legitimate, but infact are sneaky redirects to the site. Common examples include rd.yahoo.com, www.linux-kernel.tk, goatsex.cjb.net, and googles "Im feeling lucky".
• Trying to break slashdot, this is actually a good thing, as it helps test slashdot for bugs. Famous examples include the goatse.cx javascript pop-up, the pagewidening post and the browser crashing post!
  

Can we start having an option to moderate stories down? Rate them 0 to 10. That way you can browse at whatever you want (either get them all or get only the top)?

If you want that, you know where to find it. In my opinion, that's a bug, not a feature. You only have to look at the moronic articles that moderated up to see what happens when the lunatics run the asylum.

I like Slashdot just the way it is, thanks, flaws and all. I don't want to see it turn into another socialist mutual masturbation society.

Discussion on Kuro5hin.

You're about as impressive as those guys who run around spouting about the advantages of the v-tec system in their 10 year old 4 cyl stock Honda (which they senselessly red-line daily).

There have been some excellent articles and discussion on this subject over the past few months over at kuro5hin:

• How to lose weight
• How to Start Lifting Weights, part 1 and part 2

I've found the articles very informative and well-written. They include references to more information (books, web sites).

As a side note, I find the topic of this Ask Slashdot a little funny. Geeks aren't some separate species; they're humans, and can eat and exercise the same way as all of the other humans. :)

--Bruce

There have been some excellent articles and discussion on this subject over the past few months over at kuro5hin:

• How to lose weight
• How to Start Lifting Weights, part 1 and part 2

I've found the articles very informative and well-written. They include references to more information (books, web sites).

As a side note, I find the topic of this Ask Slashdot a little funny. Geeks aren't some separate species; they're humans, and can eat and exercise the same way as all of the other humans. :)

--Bruce

There have been some excellent articles and discussion on this subject over the past few months over at kuro5hin:

• How to lose weight
• How to Start Lifting Weights, part 1 and part 2

I've found the articles very informative and well-written. They include references to more information (books, web sites).

As a side note, I find the topic of this Ask Slashdot a little funny. Geeks aren't some separate species; they're humans, and can eat and exercise the same way as all of the other humans. :)

--Bruce

There have been some excellent articles and discussion on this subject over the past few months over at kuro5hin:

• How to lose weight
• How to Start Lifting Weights, part 1 and part 2

I've found the articles very informative and well-written. They include references to more information (books, web sites).

As a side note, I find the topic of this Ask Slashdot a little funny. Geeks aren't some separate species; they're humans, and can eat and exercise the same way as all of the other humans. :)

--Bruce

• Lameness filters (It blocks a lot of legitmate posts)
  
• Unnessary posting delays. Hasnt taco learned to touch type? A lot of posts are typed in less than 20 seconds and it is a ANNOYING DELAY! 2 minute ban? Come on, so some are faster then others, big deal, some people have more to say than others
  
• Broken moderation system, The whole point is to sort the gems from the crap, yet a lot of posts designed to make a LIVELY DISCUSSION are MODERATED as flamebait! Come on, not everyone likes X, but just because some one bashes it dosent mean its Flamebait. Flame bait is more useful for DIRECT INSULTS and not legitmate discussions.
  

• Crapfloods, a meaningless flood of random letters or text, which the lameness filter does a crappy job at trying to stop, besides trolls have written tools using the opensource slashcode to generate crapfloods which bypass the filter
• Links to offensive websites, the most common one is known a http://www.goatse.cx, a awful site which shows a bleeding anus being stretched on the front page. Trolls sneak these links in by posting messages that look legitimate, but infact are sneaky redirects to the site. Common examples include rd.yahoo.com, www.linux-kernel.tk, goatsex.cjb.net, and googles "Im feeling lucky".
• Trying to break slashdot, this is actually a good thing, as it helps test slashdot for bugs. Famous examples include the goatse.cx javascript pop-up, the pagewidening post and the browser crashing post!
  

They did.

Personally I think advertisers should give up on the graphics and go back to basics: Kuro5hin textads are unobtrusive but actually quite effective (I read them a lot more than fashy graphics or popups - and the 'haiku' opportunities are endless). The web isn't like a broadcast medium, it's driven by the user, not the broadcaster; ad agencies need to re-think their approach.

Second, if you want to see how to have ads on a web site without pissing everyone off check out kuro5hin. No popups and no images in the ads. They are easily spotted yet don't distract the reader from the rest of the page. At the choice of the advertiser you can even discuss the ad. Simple ad creation lets people quickly design and submit their copy (no waiting for someone to create an image). IMO it's advertising that is very acceptable.

Banner ads are a bad idea; popups much, much worse. Let's admit to our mistake and stop using them.

Advertising on the net is annoying but a necessary evil. But at the current rate banner/popup ads will be all you can see in you web browser. Something has to change.

pherris

Second, if you want to see how to have ads on a web site without pissing everyone off check out kuro5hin. No popups and no images in the ads. They are easily spotted yet don't distract the reader from the rest of the page. At the choice of the advertiser you can even discuss the ad. Simple ad creation lets people quickly design and submit their copy (no waiting for someone to create an image). IMO it's advertising that is very acceptable.

Banner ads are a bad idea; popups much, much worse. Let's admit to our mistake and stop using them.

Advertising on the net is annoying but a necessary evil. But at the current rate banner/popup ads will be all you can see in you web browser. Something has to change.

pherris

In to build Ogg Vorbis support into hardware players a decoder implementation that uses integer math is required. The current Xiph implementation uses floating point math, which most hardware decoders do not have. The main impediment to writing an integer math version of the decoder was, until recently, the lack of a good Vorbis specification. See Rob Leslie's complaint from April 2002 (commented here ).

Since the specification is now available, building an integer implementation should now be feasible and hardware implementations may be forthcoming. Is anyone working on this?

There was an article on Kuro5hin about a year ago dealing specifically with blackjack card counting, and it really is a fantastic read. It discusses the types of people that you find at the average casino, and it doesn't paint a pretty picture.

The travel channel special is just the beginning though: There have been documentaries discussing the fact that the mega media companies, many of whom own one or more huge casinos in Las Vegas, imbue movies with pleasant impressions of casinos regularly: Seldom do you see a casino image that is row upon row of sad, lonely elderly people mechanically pulling the lever for hours on end, wearing diapers not because of incontinence but rather just to avoid having to leave their lucky slot machine (because a win is always just one pull away, right?). Instead it's playboys and girls: Brad Pitt/Jennifer Aniston types winning big.

• A Casino Odyssey, part 1
• A Casino Odyssey, part 2
• A Casino Odyssey, part 3
• A Casino Odyssey, part 4

• A Casino Odyssey, part 1
• A Casino Odyssey, part 2
• A Casino Odyssey, part 3
• A Casino Odyssey, part 4

• A Casino Odyssey, part 1
• A Casino Odyssey, part 2
• A Casino Odyssey, part 3
• A Casino Odyssey, part 4

• A Casino Odyssey, part 1
• A Casino Odyssey, part 2
• A Casino Odyssey, part 3
• A Casino Odyssey, part 4

As an aside, Microsoft doesn't own the rights to Internet Explorer

Running out of phone numbers, bar-codes, melodies, and trademarks. I suddenly feel like the work has become a whole lot smaller, Thank godzilla we'll never run out of bugs!

Okay Mr. Whineypants, There, happy?

As for this particular issue of the dead scientists, there's been no good evidence either way, and so it hasn't appeared at all in my blog.

Perhaps that's where the mysterious noises are coming from.