Slashdot Mirror

I think my favourite of the images shown was this one.

Not got a NeXT machine meself, but that did make me wish I had...

By adulthood, Mendeleev's periodic table of the elements is firmly planted in a typical mind either as a tool for study or proof of mystical forces at work in nature. There are alternative structures: some clever and others using alternate media, extensions to the table providing nuclear structure, fermi surfaces, and line spectra.

Still others are extraordinarily cross-thematic, merging chemistry with comic books, poetry or haiku. But only the grouping-nature of the columns is retained in rejected elements, condiments and beer. Eventually the elements and the periodic qualities have been lost entirely, reducing the periodic table to a design template for topical lists of funk and rock music, comedy and TV shows, famous mathematicians and presidents, even SGI products. Soon a complete breakdown of the scientific aspect yields no similarity to the original, becoming a glorified table, a marketing tool, or hype itself. There is mounting evidence of a conspiracy.

Splish-splash. Please, come into the memepool... The water is warm.

This is an urban myth. It keeps getting bandied back and forth. I always wonder if people
ever bother to look up the facts. I guess not.

Hell, there was even a Slashdot story about this myth.

Here's another link for you if you want to know: Urban Legends.

.

...or the content has gotten stupid. Ads and spam don't bother me at all. The problem is the content- there isn't any. For awhile, the best and timliest content was on the web. Now it's been displaced by meaningless advertorial drivel.

blah, blah, blah. There is a ton of interesting content, and more being produced all the time. Enough to support an entire web genre of link-centric blogs like this one and that one.

memepool
Need To Know
Weird Ass Shit

still around... there is plenty of fun to be had looking for stuff off the beaten-path. I like surfing for the inane and useless stuff.

http://www.atlanet.org/cjfacts/other/mcdonald.ht

Thanks to memepool for this one.

Note that I'm NOT saying that I disagree with the Kazaa decision. I just thought that it was an interesting read. I'll be modded down for OT, I suppose. Oh well.

The kimchi, as you might guess, glowed a pleasant yellow as it gave off a rather unpleasant vapor. (The Dustbuster and carbon filter system was not sufficient to keep up with the smell.) Then Dan Jackson noticed the oscilloscope trace. The lower trace showed the voltage across the kimchi. It was running at about 140 V RMS. Then he saw the upper trace. The upper trace showed current pulses of about 4 amperes in amplitude. Dan called out "Hey! The kimchi is acting as a rectifier!"

Talk about your shameless rips... (and shameless plugs for a lesser known, but cool website)

I like Google; it weeds out most of the spam -- unlike AltaVista. It isn't perfect, though. I once searched for prostate milking, after reading this. The search results were quite interesting: It brought up hundreds of, apparently fake, headlines ("Located here! Prostate Milking") and domain names ("childhood-disease.accurate-health.com/prostate-m ilking.html"); it in fact still does, even though a month has passed since. Many of the links don't work, but some redirect you to other sites (this one amazingly owned by Novartis, a supposedly "respectable" biotechnology company). Question: How do they do this?

This article is beginning to look like something I'd see on memepool.

Brought to you courtesy of the clearly-a-sarky-observation-piece dept and can't-be-arsed-to-copy-the-colour-scheme-or-layout dept.

faux instructions

1. Surround yourself with a handful of Slashdot-aware friends.
2. Surround yourself with a variety of alcoholic beverages.
3. Familiarise yourself with things to slur when sufficiently intoxicated. These may include - but are not limited to: "Whaaaassssup!" and "I regret to inform you, ossifer, that my alcohol may contain trace amounts of blood".
4. Gather friends around a large monitor.
5. Familiarise yourself with the observations set out below, and decide among yourself which drinks to down, and when.
6. Load a web-browser, and visit Slashdot. Open up an article on practically any subject; display preferences set to 'flat, threshold 1, oldest first'.
7. Scroll down the page, slow enough so that even the booziest of observers has enough time to read and comprehend each post. As per the pre-arranged rules, consume a beverage of your choice.
8. CMP state,#bladdered : BNE stage_7

1. Read the observations listed below.
2. Depending on whether you agree with them or not, either nod sagely and concur, "True, true" or scowl angrily and accuse the author of smoking crack.

Drink a quantity of alcoholic substance and/or nod solemnly whenever...

• A poor analogy is constructed, embellished and never refuted, especially when it relates to the politics of MP3s, the feasibility of designing accessible websites, the ramifications of gun laws or the relative advantages/disadvantages of Intellectual Property.
• A large number of words in an article are unnecessarily hyperlinked, thus causing the hapless (yet curious) reader to place the mouse pointer over each and every one, in the hope that at least one of them might be in any way interesting.
• Someone says "Ummmm... you did read the article, didn't you?"
  • ...but they probably didn't read it themselves.
• An informative article is moderated as 'insightful', or vice versa.
• Someone claims that their post consists solely of the cold harsh facts of truth, while the opponent has to resort to name-calling, FUD or other such beastly tactics.
• The pre-emptive plea: "I'll probably get moderated down for saying this..." which of course gets moderated up.
  • ...they were posting anonymously to "protect their karma".
• The 'Slashdot mentality' is described and 'rebelled' against, to the author's karmic advantage.
  • ...they are effectively moderated up simply for voicing an opinion which is (or claims to be...) 'radically different'
  • ...plausible examples of the 'groupthink conformity' are mentioned (e.g. pro-Linux, pro-Open Source, anti-Microsoft, anti-spam, pro-Libertarian, anti-censorship, pro-Napster etc).
  • ...implausible examples are mentioned ("I'll probably get moderated down for voicing this opinion in what is clearly a predominantly anti-taildocking forum")
  • ...the author talks of 'Slashbots', 'Sheepdot' or other such anti-Slashdot rhetoric ("Open Source, Closed Minds... we are Slashdot")
  • ...a clearly inflammatory post is saved from a rightful (Score: -1, Flamebait) with the cautionary "this isn't a troll, I'm just pointing out the facts" or better still, the unconvincing "this isn't a troll - I don't even know what a troll is."
  • ...the score makes it clear that Slashdot moderators are becoming more sympathetic to pro-Microsoft posts than pro-Linux ones.
• A poster recognizes a troll and comprehends the futility in replying to such, but does so anyway with the resignation, "I know I'm not supposed to reply to trolls, but..."
• A poster is accused of being a troll despite being not even remotely inflammatory or controversial.
• After being berated for posting an insensitive, illogical or offensive post, the author caves in and posts, "*sheesh* it was only a joke! Evidentally you have no sense of humour!"
• Ignoring the numerous replies to a "It's funny. Laugh" article that clearly demonstrate that the posters have indeed found it to be amusing, someone suggests that everyone is taking it "waaaaay too seriously."
• Something is criticized as being "cool" or "trendy".
• A posting ends with the author saying, "eh, whatever", "go figure" or "*shrug*".
• Someone utilises any of the following terms or phrases: zealot, jihadist, sheeple, hysterical, misguided, whine, apologists, "funny, isn't it, how...".

That's a neat idea. It's been done before, though. All you are doing is getting a machine to generate submissions to a human-edited queue. When I say *all you are doing*, I don't mean to disparage the idea. It's neat. You could certainly get rich if you have $25,000 for a patent application

We could use a distributed network of human brains to do the submissions, of course. The AI you are suggesting probably won't do well against them. AIs are bad at humour. That one, you can't patent anyway. here, there and here again are clear examples of prior art.

However, the key point of the Google competition is obvious. They're bypassing the recruitment agents. Google are going to have to sift through a small number of attempts. I doubt they'll get 500 entries that need a human to look at them. Maybe 100 of them will come from really clever people. Google will try to hire them. Maybe they'll get 25. Each of those people would have cost around $30,000 to hire through the usual channels. Who wins here? The only losers are the employment agencies.

I have a bunch of ideas to try. Unfortunately, my employment contract forbids me from entering. (although this is interesting enough to ask for a variation in my contract....)

And personally, I think the combination of 30-year old Nixie tubes and modern PIC16F84 microcontrolers is simultaneously creepy and wonderful.

Or it was when it was on memepool about a week and a half ago anyway.

I say the same thing to this as I do to that. There are still plenty of cool sites put up by random people. You still have to look for them [snip]

1. Surround yourself with a handful of Slashdot-aware friends.
2. Surround yourself with a variety of alcoholic beverages.
3. Familiarise yourself with things to slur when sufficiently intoxicated. These may include - but are not limited to: "Whaaaassssup!" and "I regret to inform you, ossifer, that my alcohol may contain trace amounts of blood".
4. Gather friends around a large monitor.
5. Familiarise yourself with the observations set out below, and decide among yourself which drinks to down, and when.
6. Load a web-browser, and visit Slashdot. Open up an article on practically any subject; display preferences set to 'flat, threshold 1, oldest first'.
7. Scroll down the page, slow enough so that even the booziest of observers has enough time to read and comprehend each post. As per the pre-arranged rules, consume a beverage of your choice.
8. CMP state,#bladdered : BNE stage_7

1. Read the observations listed below.
2. Depending on whether you agree with them or not, either nod sagely and concur, "True, true" or scowl angrily and accuse the author of smoking crack.

Drink a quantity of alcoholic substance and/or nod solemnly whenever...

• A poor analogy is constructed, embellished and never refuted, especially when it relates to the politics of MP3s, the feasibility of designing accessible websites, the ramifications of gun laws or the relative advantages/disadvantages of Intellectual Property.
• A large number of words in an article are unnecessarily hyperlinked, thus causing the hapless (yet curious) reader to place the mouse pointer over each and every one, in the hope that at least one of them might be in any way interesting.
• Someone says "Ummmm... you did read the article, didn't you?"
  • ...but they probably didn't read it themselves.
• An informative article is moderated as 'insightful', or vice versa.
• Someone claims that their post consists solely of the cold harsh facts of truth, while the opponent has to resort to name-calling, FUD or other such beastly tactics.
• The pre-emptive plea: "I'll probably get moderated down for saying this..." which of course gets moderated up.
  • ...they were posting anonymously to "protect their karma".
• The 'Slashdot mentality' is described and 'rebelled' against, to the author's karmic advantage.
  • ...they are effectively moderated up simply for voicing an opinion which is (or claims to be...) 'radically different'
  • ...plausible examples of the 'groupthink conformity' are mentioned (e.g. pro-Linux, pro-Open Source, anti-Microsoft, anti-spam, pro-Libertarian, anti-censorship, pro-Napster etc).
  • ...implausible examples are mentioned ("I'll probably get moderated down for voicing this opinion in what is clearly a predominantly anti-taildocking forum")
  • ...the author talks of 'Slashbots', 'Sheepdot' or other such anti-Slashdot rhetoric ("Open Source, Closed Minds... we are Slashdot")
  • ...a clearly inflammatory post is saved from a rightful (Score: -1, Flamebait) with the cautionary "this isn't a troll, I'm just pointing out the facts" or better still, the unconvincing "this isn't a troll - I don't even know what a troll is."
  • ...the score makes it clear that Slashdot moderators are becoming more sympathetic to pro-Microsoft posts than pro-Linux ones.
• A poster recognizes a troll and comprehends the futility in replying to such, but does so anyway with the resignation, "I know I'm not supposed to reply to trolls, but..."
• A poster is accused of being a troll despite being not even remotely inflammatory or controversial.
• After being berated for posting an insensitive, illogical or offensive post, the author caves in and posts, "*sheesh* it was only a joke! Evidentally you have no sense of humour!"
• Ignoring the numerous replies to a "It's funny. Laugh" article that clearly demonstrate that the posters have indeed found it to be amusing, someone suggests that everyone is taking it "waaaaay too seriously."
• Something is criticized as being "cool" or "trendy".
• A posting ends with the author saying, "eh, whatever", "go figure" or "*shrug*".
• Someone utilises any of the following terms or phrases: zealot, jihadist, sheeple, hysterical, misguided, whine, apologists, "funny, isn't it, how...".

If you're going to reply, you should reply to my comment, not your own. While I enjoy talking to myself as much as the next Slashbot, I would prefer if you actually replied properly. Now, if I wanted to read a bunch of links that are irrelevant to the topic at hand, I'd go to Memepool.

P.S. This is all a game. Watch me get my karma back up to 50 the next time I post a silly anti-Microsoft knee-jerk reaction.

Welcome to weblogs.

Yes, open source as a hobbyist development model can and will persist long into the future, and I'm sure that there will be fun and exciting products as a result of it.
That said, now that the heady, greedy days of the dot com boom are long behind us, it's high time to re-evaluate the position. Money isn't growing on trees and being plucked from the asses of VCs star-struck by that beautiful three-letter phrase (IPO, IPO, IPO!) so much that they can overlook that little thing called "a business plan."
Internet advertising is the redheaded stepchild of the marketing family. Old media ads have no need to justify themselves with inanities like "click-through"; they know their demographic and their real estate is mindshare, that precious commodity which they assume that they're purchasing with their ad dollars, regardless of whether or not this purchase translates into a product purchase immediately or down the road. The internet is a fickle bastard: people gravitate towards the warez model of "buy none, get one free" and so there's the propensity towards stealing everything we can. To wit: the inevitable linking to archives.nytimes.com anytime they've got an article up because registration is such a chore, but if you were to ask the average Slashdotter how they feel about someone using "their" resources without registration (think Anonymous Cowards here), one would instead getsthe impression that merely providing a name and e-mail address is as simple as could be. Hmm. To wit: proxies, ad-killing bots and specialized hosts files that insure that our precious bandwidth isn't eaten up by ancillary ads that might keep the sites afloat, but then again if we don't click on them and buy something might not even if we do see them. Hmm.
Ah, open source. Communism reborn, and who can hate that? Not the watered down Leninism that the Soviet Union ran through in short order, but honest-to-goodness communism. Take what you need, give what you have. Beautiful. A touching sentiment.
Also impossible to be a commercially viable entity when human nature comes into play. If we can get our content ad-free we will, even though it means economic hardship and possibly the closing of the sites we visit and love (or love to hate, as the case may be) and if we can get our software cost-free, without the dirty stigma of clicking through porno banners to find the 3rd word of the 4th paragraph to get entry to L33t b0b'5 h0u53 0f w4r3z, all the better. I whip up a weekend project that is derivative but I'm proud of and off to Freshmeat with you! Maybe even Sourceforge! Take it! Share it!
I'll pour a few hundred hours of blood, sweat and tears into it! Shiny new! Everyone wants it! It's hot!
But how do I parlay it into a commercial venture when everyone can get it for free and fix it up as they want? Hmm.
Open source is a lovely idea with lofty goals, and as long as talented, motivated, intelligent programmers buy into it, it will generate impressive results. Unfortunately, there's a very finite number of talented, motivated, intelligent, ascetic programmers out there who will buy into it.
OSDN's changing business strategies faster than you can say "we're a B2B play now!" (read: brushed up that resume yet?). If bigger ads or a subscription service to a website who doesn't give a whit about the quality of its journalism and doesn't know the meaning of the word "editing", relying on constantly inflammatory agitprop to woo its readership are the order of the day, then I'll just stick with Ars Technica, The Register and memepool (topical, informative, and normally journalistically objective sites), thanks. Slashdot's been a fun little ride, and like many other things, peer moderation was a sexy little idea, just unfortunate in that it pretty much disintegrated into ugly mob rule groupthink. Scene, not herd.

Yes, open source as a hobbyist development model can and will persist long into the future, and I'm sure that there will be fun and exciting products as a result of it.
That said, now that the heady, greedy days of the dot com boom are long behind us, it's high time to re-evaluate the position. Money isn't growing on trees and being plucked from the asses of VCs star-struck by that beautiful three-letter phrase (IPO, IPO, IPO!) so much that they can overlook that little thing called "a business plan."
Internet advertising is the redheaded stepchild of the marketing family. Old media ads have no need to justify themselves with inanities like "click-through"; they know their demographic and their real estate is mindshare, that precious commodity which they assume that they're purchasing with their ad dollars, regardless of whether or not this purchase translates into a product purchase immediately or down the road. The internet is a fickle bastard: people gravitate towards the warez model of "buy none, get one free" and so there's the propensity towards stealing everything we can. To wit: the inevitable linking to archives.nytimes.com anytime they've got an article up because registration is such a chore, but if you were to ask the average Slashdotter how they feel about someone using "their" resources without registration (think Anonymous Cowards here), one would instead getsthe impression that merely providing a name and e-mail address is as simple as could be. Hmm. To wit: proxies, ad-killing bots and specialized hosts files that insure that our precious bandwidth isn't eaten up by ancillary ads that might keep the sites afloat, but then again if we don't click on them and buy something might not even if we do see them. Hmm.
Ah, open source. Communism reborn, and who can hate that? Not the watered down Leninism that the Soviet Union ran through in short order, but honest-to-goodness communism. Take what you need, give what you have. Beautiful. A touching sentiment.
Also impossible to be a commercially viable entity when human nature comes into play. If we can get our content ad-free we will, even though it means economic hardship and possibly the closing of the sites we visit and love (or love to hate, as the case may be) and if we can get our software cost-free, without the dirty stigma of clicking through porno banners to find the 3rd word of the 4th paragraph to get entry to L33t b0b'5 h0u53 0f w4r3z, all the better. I whip up a weekend project that is derivative but I'm proud of and off to Freshmeat with you! Maybe even Sourceforge! Take it! Share it!
I'll pour a few hundred hours of blood, sweat and tears into it! Shiny new! Everyone wants it! It's hot!
But how do I parlay it into a commercial venture when everyone can get it for free and fix it up as they want? Hmm.
Open source is a lovely idea with lofty goals, and as long as talented, motivated, intelligent programmers buy into it, it will generate impressive results. Unfortunately, there's a very finite number of talented, motivated, intelligent, ascetic programmers out there who will buy into it.
OSDN's changing business strategies faster than you can say "we're a B2B play now!" (read: brushed up that resume yet?). If bigger ads or a subscription service to a website who doesn't give a whit about the quality of its journalism and doesn't know the meaning of the word "editing", relying on constantly inflammatory agitprop to woo its readership are the order of the day, then I'll just stick with Ars Technica, The Register and memepool (topical, informative, and normally journalistically objective sites), thanks. Slashdot's been a fun little ride, and like many other things, peer moderation was a sexy little idea, just unfortunate in that it pretty much disintegrated into ugly mob rule groupthink. Scene, not herd.

I swear, about 5 stories a week on slashdot are straight from memepool.com and the submitters never credit the site.

Yes, open source as a hobbyist development model can and will persist long into the future, and I'm sure that there will be fun and exciting products as a result of it.
That said, now that the heady, greedy days of the dot com boom are long behind us, it's high time to re-evaluate the position. Money isn't growing on trees and being plucked from the asses of VCs star-struck by that beautiful three-letter phrase (IPO, IPO, IPO!) so much that they can overlook that little thing called "a business plan."
Internet advertising is the redheaded stepchild of the marketing family. Old media ads have no need to justify themselves with inanities like "click-through"; they know their demographic and their real estate is mindshare, that precious commodity which they assume that they're purchasing with their ad dollars, regardless of whether or not this purchase translates into a product purchase immediately or down the road. The internet is a fickle bastard: people gravitate towards the warez model of "buy none, get one free" and so there's the propensity towards stealing everything we can. To wit: the inevitable linking to archives.nytimes.com anytime they've got an article up because registration is such a chore, but if you were to ask the average Slashdotter how they feel about someone using "their" resources without registration (think Anonymous Cowards here), one would instead getsthe impression that merely providing a name and e-mail address is as simple as could be. Hmm. To wit: proxies, ad-killing bots and specialized hosts files that insure that our precious bandwidth isn't eaten up by ancillary ads that might keep the sites afloat, but then again if we don't click on them and buy something might not even if we do see them. Hmm.
Ah, open source. Communism reborn, and who can hate that? Not the watered down Leninism that the Soviet Union ran through in short order, but honest-to-goodness communism. Take what you need, give what you have. Beautiful. A touching sentiment.
Also impossible to be a commercially viable entity when human nature comes into play. If we can get our content ad-free we will, even though it means economic hardship and possibly the closing of the sites we visit and love (or love to hate, as the case may be) and if we can get our software cost-free, without the dirty stigma of clicking through porno banners to find the 3rd word of the 4th paragraph to get entry to L33t b0b'5 h0u53 0f w4r3z, all the better. I whip up a weekend project that is derivative but I'm proud of and off to Freshmeat with you! Maybe even Sourceforge! Take it! Share it!
I'll pour a few hundred hours of blood, sweat and tears into it! Shiny new! Everyone wants it! It's hot!
But how do I parlay it into a commercial venture when everyone can get it for free and fix it up as they want? Hmm.
Open source is a lovely idea with lofty goals, and as long as talented, motivated, intelligent programmers buy into it, it will generate impressive results. Unfortunately, there's a very finite number of talented, motivated, intelligent, ascetic programmers out there who will buy into it.
OSDN's changing business strategies faster than you can say "we're a B2B play now!" (read: brushed up that resume yet?). If bigger ads or a subscription service to a website who doesn't give a whit about the quality of its journalism and doesn't know the meaning of the word "editing", relying on constantly inflammatory agitprop to woo its readership are the order of the day, then I'll just stick with Ars Technica, The Register and memepool (topical, informative, and normally journalistically objective sites), thanks. Slashdot's been a fun little ride, and like many other things, peer moderation was a sexy little idea, just unfortunate in that it pretty much disintegrated into ugly mob rule groupthink. Scene, not herd.

after I launch it/me into space with a trebuchet

Thanks to memepool's links, you can Buy a nice trebuchet for only $89 !!!

Yes, open source as a hobbyist development model can and will persist long into the future, and I'm sure that there will be fun and exciting products as a result of it.
That said, now that the heady, greedy days of the dot com boom are long behind us, it's high time to re-evaluate the position. Money isn't growing on trees and being plucked from the asses of VCs star-struck by that beautiful three-letter phrase (IPO, IPO, IPO!) so much that they can overlook that little thing called "a business plan."
Internet advertising is the redheaded stepchild of the marketing family. Old media ads have no need to justify themselves with inanities like "click-through"; they know their demographic and their real estate is mindshare, that precious commodity which they assume that they're purchasing with their ad dollars, regardless of whether or not this purchase translates into a product purchase immediately or down the road. The internet is a fickle bastard: people gravitate towards the warez model of "buy none, get one free" and so there's the propensity towards stealing everything we can. To wit: the inevitable linking to archives.nytimes.com anytime they've got an article up because registration is such a chore, but if you were to ask the average Slashdotter how they feel about someone using "their" resources without registration (think Anonymous Cowards here), one would instead getsthe impression that merely providing a name and e-mail address is as simple as could be. Hmm. To wit: proxies, ad-killing bots and specialized hosts files that insure that our precious bandwidth isn't eaten up by ancillary ads that might keep the sites afloat, but then again if we don't click on them and buy something might not even if we do see them. Hmm.
Ah, open source. Communism reborn, and who can hate that? Not the watered down Leninism that the Soviet Union ran through in short order, but honest-to-goodness communism. Take what you need, give what you have. Beautiful. A touching sentiment.
Also impossible to be a commercially viable entity when human nature comes into play. If we can get our content ad-free we will, even though it means economic hardship and possibly the closing of the sites we visit and love (or love to hate, as the case may be) and if we can get our software cost-free, without the dirty stigma of clicking through porno banners to find the 3rd word of the 4th paragraph to get entry to L33t b0b'5 h0u53 0f w4r3z, all the better. I whip up a weekend project that is derivative but I'm proud of and off to Freshmeat with you! Maybe even Sourceforge! Take it! Share it!
I'll pour a few hundred hours of blood, sweat and tears into it! Shiny new! Everyone wants it! It's hot!
But how do I parlay it into a commercial venture when everyone can get it for free and fix it up as they want? Hmm.
Open source is a lovely idea with lofty goals, and as long as talented, motivated, intelligent programmers buy into it, it will generate impressive results. Unfortunately, there's a very finite number of talented, motivated, intelligent, ascetic programmers out there who will buy into it.
OSDN's changing business strategies faster than you can say "we're a B2B play now!" (read: brushed up that resume yet?). If bigger ads or a subscription service to a website who doesn't give a whit about the quality of its journalism and doesn't know the meaning of the word "editing", relying on constantly inflammatory agitprop to woo its readership are the order of the day, then I'll just stick with Ars Technica, The Register and memepool (topical, informative, and normally journalistically objective sites), thanks. Slashdot's been a fun little ride, and like many other things, peer moderation was a sexy little idea, just unfortunate in that it pretty much disintegrated into ugly mob rule groupthink. Scene, not herd.

Yes, open source as a hobbyist development model can and will persist long into the future, and I'm sure that there will be fun and exciting products as a result of it.
That said, now that the heady, greedy days of the dot com boom are long behind us, it's high time to re-evaluate the position. Money isn't growing on trees and being plucked from the asses of VCs star-struck by that beautiful three-letter phrase (IPO, IPO, IPO!) so much that they can overlook that little thing called "a business plan."
Internet advertising is the redheaded stepchild of the marketing family. Old media ads have no need to justify themselves with inanities like "click-through"; they know their demographic and their real estate is mindshare, that precious commodity which they assume that they're purchasing with their ad dollars, regardless of whether or not this purchase translates into a product purchase immediately or down the road. The internet is a fickle bastard: people gravitate towards the warez model of "buy none, get one free" and so there's the propensity towards stealing everything we can. To wit: the inevitable linking to archives.nytimes.com anytime they've got an article up because registration is such a chore, but if you were to ask the average Slashdotter how they feel about someone using "their" resources without registration (think Anonymous Cowards here), one would instead getsthe impression that merely providing a name and e-mail address is as simple as could be. Hmm. To wit: proxies, ad-killing bots and specialized hosts files that insure that our precious bandwidth isn't eaten up by ancillary ads that might keep the sites afloat, but then again if we don't click on them and buy something might not even if we do see them. Hmm.
Ah, open source. Communism reborn, and who can hate that? Not the watered down Leninism that the Soviet Union ran through in short order, but honest-to-goodness communism. Take what you need, give what you have. Beautiful. A touching sentiment.
Also impossible to be a commercially viable entity when human nature comes into play. If we can get our content ad-free we will, even though it means economic hardship and possibly the closing of the sites we visit and love (or love to hate, as the case may be) and if we can get our software cost-free, without the dirty stigma of clicking through porno banners to find the 3rd word of the 4th paragraph to get entry to L33t b0b'5 h0u53 0f w4r3z, all the better. I whip up a weekend project that is derivative but I'm proud of and off to Freshmeat with you! Maybe even Sourceforge! Take it! Share it!
I'll pour a few hundred hours of blood, sweat and tears into it! Shiny new! Everyone wants it! It's hot!
But how do I parlay it into a commercial venture when everyone can get it for free and fix it up as they want? Hmm.
Open source is a lovely idea with lofty goals, and as long as talented, motivated, intelligent programmers buy into it, it will generate impressive results. Unfortunately, there's a very finite number of talented, motivated, intelligent, ascetic programmers out there who will buy into it.
OSDN's changing business strategies faster than you can say "we're a B2B play now!" (read: brushed up that resume yet?). If bigger ads or a subscription service to a website who doesn't give a whit about the quality of its journalism and doesn't know the meaning of the word "editing", relying on constantly inflammatory agitprop to woo its readership are the order of the day, then I'll just stick with Ars Technica, The Register and memepool (topical, informative, and normally journalistically objective sites), thanks. Slashdot's been a fun little ride, and like many other things, peer moderation was a sexy little idea, just unfortunate in that it pretty much disintegrated into ugly mob rule groupthink. Scene, not herd.

Yes, open source as a hobbyist development model can and will persist long into the future, and I'm sure that there will be fun and exciting products as a result of it.
That said, now that the heady, greedy days of the dot com boom are long behind us, it's high time to re-evaluate the position. Money isn't growing on trees and being plucked from the asses of VCs star-struck by that beautiful three-letter phrase (IPO, IPO, IPO!) so much that they can overlook that little thing called "a business plan."
Internet advertising is the redheaded stepchild of the marketing family. Old media ads have no need to justify themselves with inanities like "click-through"; they know their demographic and their real estate is mindshare, that precious commodity which they assume that they're purchasing with their ad dollars, regardless of whether or not this purchase translates into a product purchase immediately or down the road. The internet is a fickle bastard: people gravitate towards the warez model of "buy none, get one free" and so there's the propensity towards stealing everything we can. To wit: the inevitable linking to archives.nytimes.com anytime they've got an article up because registration is such a chore, whereas from the threads further up, one gets the impression that merely providing a name and e-mail address is as simple as could be. Hmm. To wit: proxies, ad-killing bots and specialized hosts files that insure that our precious bandwidth isn't eaten up by ancillary ads that might keep the sites afloat, but then again if we don't click on them and buy something might not even if we do see them. Hmm.
Ah, open source. Communism reborn, and who can hate that? Not the watered down Leninism that the Soviet Union ran through in short order, but honest-to-goodness communism. Take what you need, give what you have. Beautiful. A touching sentiment.
Also impossible to be a commercially viable entity when human nature comes into play. If we can get our content ad-free we will, even though it means economic hardship and possibly the closing of the sites we visit and love (or love to hate, as the case may be) and if we can get our software cost-free, without the dirty stigma of clicking through porno banners to find the 3rd word of the 4th paragraph to get entry to L33t b0b'5 h0u53 0f w4r3z, all the better. I whip up a weekend project that is derivative but I'm proud of and off to Freshmeat with you! Maybe even Sourceforge! Take it! Share it!
I'll pour a few hundred hours of blood, sweat and tears into it! Shiny new! Everyone wants it! It's hot!
But how do I parlay it into a commercial venture when everyone can get it for free and fix it up as they want? Hmm.
Open source is a lovely idea with lofty goals, and as long as talented, motivated, intelligent programmers buy into it, it will generate impressive results. Unfortunately, there's a very finite number of talented, motivated, intelligent, ascetic programmers out there who will buy into it.
OSDN's changing business strategies faster than you can say "we're a B2B play now!" (read: brushed up that resume yet?). If bigger ads or a subscription service to a website who doesn't give a whit about the quality of its journalism and doesn't know the meaning of the word "editing", relying on constantly inflammatory agitprop to woo its readership are the order of the day, then I'll just stick with Ars Technica and memepool (both topical, informative, and normally journalistically objective), thanks. Slashdot's been a fun little ride, and like many other things, peer moderation was a sexy little idea, just unfortunate in that it pretty much disintegrated into ugly mob rule groupthink. Scene, not herd.

Japanese artists Sachiko Kodama and Minako Takeno did an art piece displayed at SIGGRAPH using ferrofluids. Memepool had some links about this back in august.

LS

Looks like Wil's got a bit of time on his hands these days. Here's his screenplay, shamelessly lifted from memepool. Enjoy.

(Damn the subject line sounds a bit... well, dirty!)

For a daily dose of quickies, hit: Memepool.com Most of the time it's better than what Slashdot's quickies were back when they posted them :-)

The correct link for memepool is http://www.memepool.com/, not .org.

if you want quickies, do what i do-- go to memepool.

• In 1993, the population of the net was a small fraction of what it is today. Analyzing shifts in usage by looking at percentages is misleading (not that the article even analyzes any shifts, since it only cites present-day usage statistics). If on day 1 there are 100 people on the net and 80% of them browse small ad-free private sites, and on day 2 there are 1000 people on the net and 30% of them browse those same sites, that's a huge increase in usage of those independent sites.
• In 1993, today's top commercial sites didn't exist, or were radically different than they are today, and there weren't really any equivalents. So of course people weren't using them then.
• Related to the first point, the demographics of Web users are very different today than a decade ago. It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows a thing about book purchase patterns or musical tastes or TV viewing habits that people in the net's initial demographic of college-educated techie types enjoy different things than people who aren't in that group. Now the initial users are vastly outnumbered by the newcomers. Big deal. Doesn't necessarily mean those initial users have changed their habits (though some doubtless have). It was never a realistic expectation that people with vastly different interests and backgrounds would log onto the net and instantly become just like the uber-nerds who were already there.

From where I sit -- just look at Memepool -- the democratic, chaotic net is still alive and well. And my ad-free site from '93 is still around and still has no ads, even if 10 others have sprung up nearby.

Geez, someone needs to tell these guys about blogs. A few quick trips to Memepool and BoingBoing should be enough to convince anyone that the web is still a pretty eclectic and loony place to be.

ripping off memepool. Oh well, at least I felt a little guilty even if I didn't credit my source either.

Via memepool, I've discovered another online comic: Little Gamers. Topics include: Final Fantasy, LAN Parties, and Japanese sake. Give it a look.

People are submitting what they saw on "The Screensavers" last nite?

1.) http://www.goatse.cx
2.) http://www.memepool.com
3.) the refresh button while I'm at Slashdot

It's that whole meme thing. Gutenberg is a meme. Kinda like Judge Reinhold.

Karma whoring??? For Great Justice.

Well, considering that it was posted to memepool YESTERDAY and the "poster" on Slashot even ripped off the final pun of that article, I'd say the odds had nothing to do with it. I notice a lot of memepool articles are reposted here, often verbatim. The Slashdot editors should be more careful about reviwing submissions to make sure they aren't just ripping off content from other websites. It just makes Slashdot look bad.

Well, considering that it was posted to memepool YESTERDAY and the "poster" on Slashot even ripped off the final pun of that article, I'd say the odds had nothing to do with it. I notice a lot of memepool articles are reposted here, often verbatim. The Slashdot editors should be more careful about reviwing submissions to make sure they aren't just ripping off content from other websites. It just makes Slashdot look bad.

What are the odds that a story appears on both slashdot and memepool at the same time? Talk about a cross-over hit!

Yet again Slashdot is a day late and a buck short. You guys should start reading memepool more often. They featured this story on January 16th -- where the hell were you?

Yet again Slashdot is a day late and a buck short. You guys should start reading memepool more often. They featured this story on January 16th -- where the hell were you?

I found http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volum e6/v6i4/postal-6-4.html on Memepool. It details just what you can get away with when (ab)using the USPS.
--

Also found urinal.net via memepool

Yeah, what's holding up our semi-daily :Cue:Cat story? It's almost lunchtime on a Monday morning and we haven't had a chance to mock Digital Convergence yet.

hey, check it out, man, meeptool featured the Battlin' Siezure Robots! what next, goatse.cx?!!! heh heh heh.

You know what's really cool? That someone actually credited Memepool for a link. Check back through the quickies and you'll notice that entire chunks of Memepool turn up.


It's an uncommon courtesy for folks to attribute their links.

- technik
(not affilliated with memepool)

Does anyone here also frequent www.memepool.com? If not, then do.

This story was posted there last Thursday.