Slashdot Mirror

Of course you should always take American Spectator articles with a grain of salt.

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called "alternative sexuality," which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

Linus Torvalds is an anagram of SLIT ANUS OR VD "L", clearly referring to himself by the first initial.

Richard M Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual "movement" is an anagram of MANS CRAM THRILL AD.

Alan Cox is barely an anagram of ANAL COX which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, [Buy At Amazon] is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for SECONDARY RIM and CORD IN MY ARSE. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

As far as Richard "Master" Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following:

RMS: "I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance," he says. "It's about being able to question conventional wisdom," he asserts. "I believe in love, but not monogamy," he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about "flaming," who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of Corrupting the Innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

"I've got a rare kidney disease," I told her. "I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?"

is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, jon??????? and letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as "Slashdot's resident Gasbag." Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux "Sauce Code", a "Gasbag" is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, "piss-pipe"), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering together their postings and publishing them en masse to further his twisted and manipulative journalistic agenda.

Sick, disgusting antichristian perverts, the lot of them.

In addition, many of the Linux distributions (a distribution is the most common way to spread the faggots' wares) are run by faggot groups. The Slackware distro is named after the Slack-wear fags wear to allow easy access to the anus for sexual purposes. Furthermore, Slackware is a close anagram of CLAW ARSE, a reference to the homosexual practise of anal fisting. The Mandrake product is run by a group of French faggot satanists, and is named after the faggot nickname for the vibrator. It was also chosen because it is an anagram for DARK AMEN and RAM NAKED, which is what they do.

Another "distro," (abbrieviated as such because it sounds a bit like "Disco," which is where homosexuals preyed on young boys in the 1970's), is Debian, an anagram of IN A BED, which could be considered innocent enough (after all, a bed is both where we sleep and pray), until we realise what other names Debian uses to describe their foul wares. "Woody" is obvious enough, being a term for the erect male penis, glistening with precum. But far sicker is the phrase "Frozen Potato" that they use. This filthy term, again found in the secret homosexual "Sauce Code," refers to the solo homosexual practice of defecating into a clear polythene bag, shaping the turd into a crude approximation of the male phallus, then leaving it in the freezer overnight until it becomes solid. The practitioner then proceeds to push the frozen "potato" up his own rectum, squeezing it in and out until his tight young balls erupt in a screaming orgasm.

And Red Hat is secret homo slang for the tip of a penis that is soaked in blood from a freshly violated underage ringpiece.

To summarise: Linux is gay. "Slash - Dot" is the graphical description of the space between a young boy's scrotum and anus. And BeOS is for hermaphrodites and disabled "stumpers."

Feedback:

What worries me is how much you know about what gay people do. I'm scared I actually read this whole thing. I think this post is a good example of the negative effects of Internet usage on people. This person obviously has no social life anymore and had to result to writing something as stupid as this. And actually take the time to do it too. Although... I think it was satire.. blah.. it's early. - Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Well, the only reason I know all about this is because I had the misfortune to read the Linux "Sauce code" once. Although publicised as the computer code needed to get Linux up and running on a computer (and haven't you always been worried about the phrase "Monolithic Kernel"?), this foul document is actually a detailed and graphic description of every conceivable degrading perversion known to the human race, as well as a few of the major animal species. It has shocked and disturbed me, to the point of needing to shock and disturb the common man to WARN them of the impending homo-calypse which threatens to engulf our planet.

You must work for the government. Trying to post the most obscene stuff in hopes that Slashdot won't be able to continue or something, due to legal woes. If i ever see your ugly face, I'm going to stick my fireplace poker up your ass, after it's nice and hot, to weld shut that nasty gaping hole of yours. - Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Doesn't it give you a hard on to imagine your thick strong poker ramming it's way up my most sacred of sphincters? You're beyond help, my friend, as the only thing you can imagine is the foul penetrative violation of another man. Are you sure you're not Eric Raymond? The government, being populated by limp-wristed liberals, could never stem the sickening tide of homosexual child molesting Linux advocacy. Hell, they've given NAMBLA free reign for years!

You really should post this logged in. i wish i could remember jebus's password, cuz i'd give it to you. - mighty jebus, Slashdot

Thank you for your kind words of support. However, this document shall only ever be posted anonymously. This is because the "Open Sauce" movement is a sham, proposing homoerotic cults of hero worshipping in the name of freedom. I speak for the common man. For any man who prefers the warm, enveloping velvet folds of a woman's vagina to the tight puckered ringpiece of a child. These men, being common, decent folk, don't have a say in the political hypocrisy that is Slashdot culture. I am the unknown liberator.

ROLF LAMO i hate linux FAGGOTS - Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

We shouldn't hate them, we should pity them for the misguided fools they are... Fanatical Linux zeal-outs need to be herded into camps for re-education and subsequent rehabilitation into normal heterosexual society. This re-education shall be achieved by forcing them to watch repeats of "Baywatch" until the very mention of Pamela Anderson causes them to fill their pants with healthy heterosexual jism.

Actually, that's not at all how scrotal inflation works. I understand it involves injecting sterile saline solution into the scrotum. I've never tried this, but you can read how to do it safely in case you're interested.

(Before you moderate this down, ask yourself honestly -- who are the real crazies -- people who do scrotal inflation, or people who pay $1000+ for a game console?) - double_h, Slashdot

Well, it just goes to show that even the holy Linux "sauce code" is riddled with bugs that need fixing. (The irony of Jon Katz not even being able to inflate his scrotum correctly has not been lost on me.) The Linux pervert elite already acknowledge this, with their queer slogan: "Given enough arms, all rectums are shallow." And anyway, the PS2 sucks major cock and isn't worth the money. Intellivision forever!

dude did u used to post on msnbc's nt bulletin board? now that u are doing anti-gay posts u also need to start in with anti-black stuff too. c u in church - Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

For one thing, whilst Linux is a cavalcade of queer propaganda masquerading as the future of computing, NT is used by people who think nothing better of encasing their genitals in quick setting plaster then going to see a really dirty porno film, enjoying the restriction enforced onto them. Remember, a wasted arousal is a sin in the eyes of the Catholic church. Clearly, the only god-fearing Christian operating system in existence is CP/M - The Christian Program Monitor. All computer users should immediately ask their local pastor to install this fine OS onto their systems. It is the only route to salvation.

Secondly, this message is for every man. Computers know no colour. Not only that, but one of the finest websites in the world is maintained by A Black Man. Now fuck off you racist donkey felcher.

And don't forget that slashdot was written in Perl, which is just too close to "Pearl Necklace" for comfort.... oh wait; that's something all you heterosexuals do.... I can't help but wonder how much faster the trolls could do First-Posts on this site if it were redone in PHP... I could hand-type dynamic HTML pages faster than Perl can do them. - phee, Slashdot

Although there is nothing unholy about the fine heterosexual act of ejaculating between a woman's breasts, squirting one's load up towards her neck and chin area, it should be noted that PERL (standing for Pansies Entering Rectums Locally) is also close to "Pearl Monocle", "Pearl Nosering", and the ubiquitous "Pearl Enema".

One scary thing about Perl is that it contains hidden homosexual messages. Take the following code: LWP::Simple - It looks innocuous enough, doesn't it? But look at the line closely. There are two colons next to each other! As Larry "Balls to the" Wall would openly admit in the Perl Documentation, Perl was designed from the ground up to indoctrinate it's programmers into performing unnatural sexual acts - having two colons so closely together is clearly a reference to the perverse sickening act of "colon kissing," whereby two homosexual queers spread their buttocks wide, pressing their filthy torn sphincters together. They then share small round objects like marbles or golfballs by passing them from one rectum to another using muscle contraction alone. This is also referred to in programming circles as "Parameter Passing".

And PHP stands for Perverted Homosexual Penetration. Didn't you know?

Thank you for your valuable input on this. I am sure you will be never forgotten. BTW: Did I mention that this could be useful in terraforming Mars? Mars rulaa. - Eimernase, Slashdot

Well, I don't know about terraforming Mars, but I DO know that homosexual Linux Advocates have been probing Uranus for years.

That's inspiring. Keep up the good work, AC. May God in his wisdom grant you the strength to bring the plain honest truth to this community, and make it pure again. Yours, Cerberus. - Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

*sniff* That brings a tear to my eye. Thank you once more for your kind support. I have taken faith in the knowledge that I am doing the Good Lord's work, but it is encouraging to know that I am helping out the common man here.

However, I should be cautious about revealing your name 'Cerebus' on such a filthy den of depravity as Slashdot. It is a well known fact that the 'Kerberos' documentation from Microsoft is a detailed manual describing, in intimate, exacting detail, how to sexually penetrate a variety of unwilling canine animals; be they domesticated, wild, or mythical. Slashdot posters have taken great pleasure in illegally spreading this documentation far and wide, treating it as an "extension" to the Linux "Sauce Code," for the sake of "interoperability." (The slang term they use for unconsensual intercourse - their favorite kind.)

In fact, sick twisted Linux deviants are known to have LAN parties, (Love of Anal Naughtiness, needless to say.), wherein they entice a stray dog, known as the "Samba Server," into their homes. Up to four of these filth-sodden blasphemers against nature take turns to plunge their erect, throbbing, uncircumcised members, conkers-deep, into the recturm, mouth, and other fleshy orifices of the poor animal. Eventually, the "Samba Server" collapses due to "overload," and needs to be "rebooted." (i.e. Kicked out into the street, and left to fend for itself.) Many Linux users boast about their "uptime" in such situations.

Inspiring stuff! If only all trolls were this quality! - Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

If only indeed. You can help our brave cause by voting this message up as often as possible. I recommend +1 Underrated, as that will protect your precious Karma in Metamoderation. Only then can we break through the glass ceiling of Homosexual Slashdot Culture. Is it any wonder that the new version of Slashcode has been christened Bender???

IMPORTANT: This message needs to be heard (Not HURD, which is an acronym for Huge Unclean Rectal Dilator) across the whole community, so it has been released into the Public Domain. You know, that licence that we all had before those homoerotic crypto-fascists came out with the GPL (Gay Penetration License, according to geekacronyms.org) that is no more than an excuse to see who's got the biggest feces-encrusted cock. I would have put this up on Freshmeat, but that name is KNOWN to be a euphemism for the tight rump of a young boy.

Come to think of it, the whole concept of "Source Control" unnerves me, because it sounds a bit like "Sauce Control," which is a description of the homosexual practice of holding the base of the cock shaft tightly upon the point of ejaculation, thus causing a build up of semenal fluid that is only released upon entry into an incision made into the base of the receiver's scrotum. And "Open Sauce" is the act of ejaculating into another mans face or perhaps a biscuit to be shared later. Obviously, "Closed Sauce" is the only Christian thing to do, as evidenced by the fact that it is what Cathedrals are all about.

Contributors: (although not to the eternal game of "soggy biscuit" that open "sauce" development has become) Anonymous Coward, phee, Anonymous Coward, mighty jebus, double_h, Anonymous Coward, Eimernase, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Jon Katz, Anonymous Coward. Further contributions are welcome.

ANUX - A full Linux distribution... UP YOUR ASS!

The result? They get to keep most of the advertising cash they recieve.

the requisite link

Personally, if it's a service that's important to me, I'd rather know they're using a business model that a) will last and b) will reward them for providing good service. An ad-supported service is at the mercy of the advertisers. If they don't do well, then the site goes under. (Not to mention, that if you're beholden to the advertisers, you suddenly have a vested interest in not hosting content the advertisers don't like.)

But beyond that, an ad-supported site makes more money when it's better at getting ads in your face. It only needs to provide good enough service to keep eyeballs there. If they need to keep my $20/month or whatever, they're more motivated to make sure the thing works well.

Bottom line... I hope some of the sites I use -- including Yahoo -- start making more money directly off users and rely less on advertising. The only question is whether it will work. It'll be interesting to see how Salon's experiment works out.

Cheers,
Dave

You'll note that AFTRA did not start requiring this until AFTER the American Association of Advertising Agencies started requiring its members to pay additional for their ads being simulcast on the internet. Ultimately, the radio stations are to blame for what's happened to them, due to their own greed. However, as Clear Channel and its ilk are wont to do, they'll pass the screwing on to you! "Damn AFTRA for saying that if you get paid twice for an artist's work that the artist should get paid twice as well. It's all the artists that are making us shut off your internet broadcast, not the radio stations trying to get something for nothing, rather than pay the artists their cut."

Fucking radio corporations. For the record, the reason that you don't hear anything decent on the radio anymore is, for a large part, due to the fact that approximately 90% of radio stations are owned by three companies. For an excellent article on the subjct of why radio currently sucks, check out Pay for Play on Salon.

You'll note that AFTRA did not start requiring this until AFTER the American Association of Advertising Agencies started requiring its members to pay additional for their ads being simulcast on the internet. Ultimately, the radio stations are to blame for what's happened to them, due to their own greed. However, as Clear Channel and its ilk are wont to do, they'll pass the screwing on to you! "Damn AFTRA for saying that if you get paid twice for an artist's work that the artist should get paid twice as well. It's all the artists that are making us shut off your internet broadcast, not the radio stations trying to get something for nothing, rather than pay the artists their cut."

Fucking radio corporations. For the record, the reason that you don't hear anything decent on the radio anymore is, for a large part, due to the fact that approximately 90% of radio stations are owned by three companies. For an excellent article on the subjct of why radio currently sucks, check out Pay for Play on Salon.

I'm guessing the parent is either a troll or a joke, since I am fairly sure that Anne Marie was an escort who advertised on the internet for $12,000 "dates" (she's no longer operating). I'm not sure how that is not considered exploitation of women (though certainly at a much more lucrative rate). Of course I could be totally off-base about who she is (in which case I apologize in advance), but I am pretty sure I have seen that info posted here in the past.

Unfortunately, you need Quicktime to view this ad. Feh!

Here's a direct link to the Salon RealPlayer version (which I've just watched on Linux).

You can dowload a Linux version of RealPlayer Basic from here. Well, hopefully you can, assuming I've got the link right.

Pete.

No, even China's ambassador admits the collision took place in international airspace.

Your point that neither the American nor the Chinese statements represent the full truth is probably accurate.

However, the rest of your post is filled by pure speculation on your part. It seems there are at least four sides to this story: the American one, the Chinese one, mks113's unsupported speculations, and the truth. (And no, I don't pretend to have the truth.)

The American plane was flying in an area that the Americans claim is International airspace. The Chinese claim that it was Chinese airspace.

Even the Chinese ambassador to the U.S. admits that the incident took place in international airspace, according to this report.

Heh, I was going to write a cutesy post about how the speed of light had been exceeded by three hundred times in a lab in New Jersey, then I find http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2000/08/03/lig ht/index.html, a post on Salon.com about how the scientist's results had been misrepresented by the media.

On the other hand I did find this http://www.neci.nj.nec.com/homepages/lwan/demo.htm from the New Jersey lab.

Heh, I was going to write a cutesy post about how the speed of light had been exceeded by three hundred times in a lab in New Jersey, then I find http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2000/08/03/lig ht/index.html, a post on Salon.com about how the scientist's results had been misrepresented by the media.

On the other hand I did find this http://www.neci.nj.nec.com/homepages/lwan/demo.htm from the New Jersey lab.

The story that Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet has been thoroughly debunked by Phil Agre in http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/2000/RRE.Al.Gore. and.the.Inte.html and rebutted further later
That meme was a creation of Declan McCullagh, a "reporter" for Wired News who is a fanatical Libertarian so extreme that he managed to have a chapter of a book using him as a poster-boy for Libertarian ideologues If you think I'm just flaming, this aspect of his fabricated story being a Liberatarian hit-piece was extensively discussed in a debunking by Salon

After Declan McCullagh was repeatedly taken to task for his hatchet-job, over more than year, by everyone who was there, from Dave Farber to Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf he finally grudgingly retracted

But people still repeat it, because urban legends never die.

Pretty much it seems like their mantra is 'Everyone has a right to be heard, as long as we agree with you.'

The left is looking more and more like the facist right.

Umm, not a fact. Even Salon says so.

it is the right that is ideological and the left that has become the natural party of government in most of the democratic world

Assuming you can tell them apart any more. In the UK, for example, Blair is far more a child of Thatcher than Hague. And I'm thankful for it. Can you imagine the Winter of Discontent if socialist dinosaurs like Prescott ran the country?

Back on topic, remember that neither the Daily Mail nor the Guardian are in the business of news, they're in the business of supporting the existing opinions of the right and left respectively.

Seriously though MS probably read this Salon article six days before the /. story. Or this Register story with a somewhat similar headline posted earlier on the 3rd. I know this is an important issue so I'm not knocking the poster, but a few useful links in the original story would have helped.

And while it may be unpopular to say this here, MS's Privacy Policy is pretty good compared to others. It's a lot more specific and informative than a lot of other privacy policies carrying the TRUSTe mark ... There's other TRUSTe certified sites out there that have worse policies. Whether having a better TRUSTe privacy policy actually does anything is another q., though.

My 0.02.

fff

David Brin wrote a very good article for Salon.

Amongst other things, the article looked at how Darth Vader, despite ordering the deaths of billions of people, is completely forgiven and welcomed into Jedi heaven because -- wait for it -- he saved the life of his son Luke S.

--
Repton.
--
Repton.

David Brin wrote a very good article for Salon.

Amongst other things, the article looked at how Darth Vader, despite ordering the deaths of billions of people, is completely forgiven and welcomed into Jedi heaven because -- wait for it -- he saved the life of his son Luke S.

--
Repton.
--
Repton.

Hehe.. Forget the lack of English skills in IT people; it's much, much worse than that. These people are everywhere, and it looks like they're finding support. Watch out!

While its easy to dismiss the whole site based on the front page, you'd really be missing something: the films. "Rear Entry: An Unauthorized Expedition into Amazon.com" was produced and realised by John Tynes (the famed game designer and author of the recent Salon article on Wizards of the Coast linked Monday on /.) is well worth seeing and received quite considerable media attention. The soon-to-be released "Barely Legal: Amazon.com Employees On the Record & Off the Leash" seems off to a good start too. You can grab the trailers for both here. (.mov only, sorry).

-Earthling

Either you have lots of inside information, or your choc full of BS. Hmm. Not hard to tell this one.

Maybe it's neither, AC.

As reported on Salon (and other outlets):

"Users ... are improving their experience by providing information about their tastes without linking ... to a name or address or other sensitive data that might endanger them (especially since they are exchanging pirated music)," wrote Parker in one exchange.

Napster's online promotional pitches from the early days (i.e. fall of '99) should also be of interest ... and that "Napster virtually guarantees you'll find the music you want, when you want it and you can forget about wading through page after page of unknown artists."

I stand by my opinion that another generic file swapping service (or even a mp3 swapping service) would stand a better chance of surviving the legal challenges. The way Napster technically works is nearly perfect for this sort of defense, but it appears that they shot themselves in the foot with internal e-mail.

Now I don't claim to know that DSL is slow. I have no idea, I've never had it at my house. But cable ain't slow. My cable modem provider has put a 12MB file for download at their central site. This download is directly at the other end of the cable infrastructure, so downloading this file is a good test of the cable infrastructure. Armed with linux (as the only OS in my household thank you very much) I set up a cron job to download this file every 30 minutes and report the results.

During the first 21 months or so, I got between 600 and 700 kBytes/s (i.e. 4.8 - 5.6 Mbits/s). Then at about 21 months, roadrunner installed a bandwidth cap, and since then I've gotten between 240 kBytes/s (1.9 Mbits/s) and 260 kBytes/s (2.0 Mbits/s).

After almost 30 months of continuous testing, I have NEVER seen the alleged slow downs that are supposed to come because the cable infrastructure is shared. And it isn't for lack of subscribers in my neighborhood! There are 4 people that I know have it on my culdesac alone!

Now, of course, it's a whole different ball of wax when I try to go to the Internet in general. There I get wildly fluctuating speed variations. (As you would expect) But across the cable infrastructure, I can floor it whenever I want, at any time of day.

My conclusion? I don't know if DSL is slow or not but what Simson Garfinkle said in his salon article is 100% on the money.

And the stuff that the DSL providers tell you about speed is just hogwash. And I'm pretty sure that all the stuff that they tell you about security is also crap.. although I can't really prove that it's crap.

The only thing that I don't like about cable modem is the lack of competition. I wish there was someone else out there other than roadrunner. Cuz they suck. Their mail server is slow, their response to problems is terrible. I'd love to be able to threaten them with switching to another provider. But hey, what's a monopoly if you don't get to stick it to someone!

I have friends that get 7mbps in boston. Your maximum speed relys on what service you have, how much you pay, and (mostly) how close you are to your service's routing station.

I've seen DSL get as fast as 7mbps while cable modems get as fast as a T1 (or in some cases, slightly faster - I have a friend who beta-tested it years ago).

The real difference is that Cable modems are variable speeds, a lot like a shared T1, while DSL is guaranteed throughput at the speed you pay for. If you pay for 128kbps, you get it (anything slower is the other side's fault). There are different types of DSL as well, differing on max speed and upstream (server) speed. DSLreports.com has a good review of DSL speeds, stating "A T1 has long been the favourite line to host a corporate server on, and the top SDSL speed is the same as a T1, and the top ADSL speeds are a lot faster than T1"

Slashdot had an article a while ago that pointed at a good dsl vs cable overview at salon.com.

It seems that there are two copy-protection scemes. One is to mess with the Table of Contents, so that CD-ROM burners get confused on track length, CD-time, etc, while simplistic CD readers ignore CD-ROM table of contents. The second way is to intentionally add small errors to the track. The CD reader skips over the errors, while the CD-ROM reader trys to re-read the area, attempting to solve the disparity between the data and the error-correcting data. Since the disparity is intentional, it never suceeds, and determines that the disk is corrupt.

It seems it is taking advantages of ambiguities in the Red Book standard, to confuse CD-ROM readers expecting the CD-ROM (Yellow Book)standard. This means that reader based on the Yellow Book standard (some with skip-protection, all laptop and desktop readers, etc) will be unable to read the CDs, while straight Red Rook readers will be able to read them.

The solution, it seems, is to have a CD-ROM driver that ignores error-correction, emulating a "dumb" CD reader.

It seems that there are two copy-protection scemes. One is to mess with the Table of Contents, so that CD-ROM burners get confused on track length, CD-time, etc, while simplistic CD readers ignore CD-ROM table of contents. The second way is to intentionally add small errors to the track. The CD reader skips over the errors, while the CD-ROM reader trys to re-read the area, attempting to solve the disparity between the data and the error-correcting data. Since the disparity is intentional, it never suceeds, and determines that the disk is corrupt.

It seems it is taking advantages of ambiguities in the Red Book standard, to confuse CD-ROM readers expecting the CD-ROM (Yellow Book)standard. This means that reader based on the Yellow Book standard (some with skip-protection, all laptop and desktop readers, etc) will be unable to read the CDs, while straight Red Rook readers will be able to read them.

The solution, it seems, is to have a CD-ROM driver that ignores error-correction, emulating a "dumb" CD reader.

Please ponder for a moment this controversy.

Why did Microsoft make a proprietary version of Kerberos?

Why did Microsoft threaten Slashdot? Did you experience any hard feelings when arranging this interview? Is this an attempt to butter up Slashdot?

Does your personal opinion vary from the Microsoft party line? Care to share it?

The answer would be an unqualified no. The big record companies have plenty of chances to expose themselves to independent music. They don't do it now. This would just be like the slush pile at a publishing house. They'd ignore it more steadfastly than before. Go to Salon and read this article for more edification. The opportunity already exists and is not taken. Independent records do exist and are made. They are not, however, marketed at all. Putting the shit online will solve nothing and make the recording industry an unstoppable monolith. For a truly independent artist such as myself, this system would be a disaster.

"It is always possible that somebody somewhere will break the protection," concedes William H. Whitmore Jr., SunComm's vice president of marketing... "But it will be far too difficult for the average user."

I'm baffled how this scheme will slow down ripping more than slightly. It sounds like it won't stop programs like CloneCD and Exact Copy. So people will just have to use different ripping software.

Sony (owner of several major record labels) has finally thrown in the towel and started selling an in-dash MP3 CD player. If copy protection takes off, I wonder what Sony will tell people who buy these MP3 players and then find they can't rip Sony copy-protected CD's to play in them.

Of course, as both MSNBC and Salon point out, the article was originally written at Inside.com (or use their printer friendly version).

If you go check out the Salon article, you'll find some more info on how this works.

I actually think this is kind of funny. The proposed schemes mostly work by expoiting differences int the redbook(cd audio) and yellowbook(cd-rom) standards, making it impossible to play these CDs in most cd-rom drives.

Well guess what you twits, I buy quite a few cds but I hardly ever use them in a stero style cd player. Basically what they're going to do is make it so I can't play them in my desktop, I can't play them in my laptop, I can't rip them and play them in my rio and they may not work in the high end player I've been thinking about buying. Even some car cd players may have problems.

So I'm supposed to pay 20 bucks for a cd I can only play in my $200 bookshelf system that sounds terrible and my 5 year old discman (which I can't find). Oh goody, I'm gonna go buy lots of these things.

idiots

Hence, the technology, as it now stands, only frustrates the casual pirate, not the hardcore fair use maven. Also, N.B., the same article can be found on Salon, and in point of fact actually comes from Inside.

Read the Salon article. There, much better.

The vast majority of artists don't get signed by the cartel that comprises the RIAA. Those fortunate enough to get the labels' contracts (they are binding and non-negotiable) often find themselves a few years down the road owing money to the label. Courtney Love wrote a surprisingly coherent article on the subject a while back. There are even more detailed accounts if you look around a little bit.

You'll note that the artists agitating against Napster and 'piracy' are mostly at the top, members of the very exclusive club of recording-industry success stories. The truth is, the vast majority of artists would be better off if there were an alternative to the record labels. Maybe knocking the RIAA on its ass will open the industry up a little bit, even if it does mean that artists' ways of making money will have to change.

This article from Salon in 1998 talks about the Tampax site doing exactly what the poster was talking about.

MIT has some research on some kind of electric ink - it looks like an ordinary paper but you can light [the equivalent of] pixels. Last I heard, they only had greyscale.

A few links:
Salon article
E-Ink
More info should be available at www.media.mit.edu, but it seems to be down for the moment.

The title of this Salon article pretty much says it all. Ashcroft on school shootings: Video games are part of the problem.

I'm glad I voted for Gore....

Salon had an article on astro-turf fan sites, with a particular focus on Blair Witch. It was here. It talks about web buzz and Ain't it Cool News and how that stuff impacts movies.

In part it reads:
"The "Blair Witch Project" fan sites deploy similarly suspicious language. The creators of The Blair Witch Project Fanatic's Guide, for example, tell site visitors, "We're just very dedicated fans," and until recently offered suggestions on how other fans might help promote the movie: "Buy TBWP Stock at the Hollywood Stock Exchange! Rank TBWP at the Internet Movie Database! Rank TBWP at Ain't It Cool News!"

But the creators of the site, Abigail Marceluk and Eric Alan Ivins, seem to be more than average fans. They appeared in the Sci-Fi Channel special "Curse of the Blair Witch," and the Rough Cut site links them to the film's back story: "A bit of trivia: Abigail and Eric are the two anthropology students who discover the three film students' 'lost' footage."

And Some people strongly suspected that the Blair Witch Project fan sites were faked precisely to create buzz. There was an earlier story on /., even.

They can certainly make the layout of their site unfriendly to ad-filtering programs. These new ads are enormous. If they tweak their layout enough, they can make the pages unpleasant to read without serious re-working. I think their plan (and the $30) is a little too ambitious, though. I love Salon, but I think this is going to hurt them.

...ironicly straight from Salon.

http://www.salon.com/letters/editor/2001/03/20/pre mium/index.html

There's a similar story on salon.com here.

"Now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb."

There's a similar story on salon.com here.

"Now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb."

Not really big news anymore. http://www.salon.com/politics/wire/2001/03/19/emai l/index.html.

I'm not sure if Jon gets the movie or not. He calls the romance "silly", but it shows that heroes aren't necessarily ruthless killers. Vasliy talks about killing people when he can see their faces up close and it haunts him. This is meant to be a contrast to Major Konig who kills without second thought and who seems to have no emotions (although Ed Harris was excellent in the role).
Here's the review off of Salon. It's a much more complete and thoughtful review.

. . . ah, here it is.
--

Songs don't make it big because they are good, the make it because they are promoted. Technology has addressed everything else the RIAA does, with the promotion piece solved they'd go the way of the Dodo.

Actually the RIAA (the member corporations, really) don't even do promotion. They pay other people to do that. The business model of a major record label resembles that of the worst dot-coms in existence, only record companies are subsidized by taxpayers.

...believe it or not.
They sell servers with a SourceForge environment preinstalled. This is very useful for corporations in managing internal projects.

That meant that the people working on SourceForge were not affected by the recent VA Linux layoffs.
According to this Salon article at least.

There are also other webbased collaboration sites, such as collab.net, mentioned in the article.

i think it'd be naive for anyone to think that ...at the very least, some things wouldn't change when andover took over. they have a bottom like to be accountable to, and i'm okay with that. what i resent is slashdot (and the people who make it what it is) utterly squandering the most often read geek site in existance.

next to every !@#$ing story about the DMCA (or anything else that limits our rights) should be a primer on why the law is bad/stupid/unenforcable. my grandmother doesn't give a rat's ass that the MPAA incorrectly calls CSS a copy control mechanism, but she might very well care that someone could publish a digital book that the author doesn't allow a woman to read (and circumventing that control will give you 2nd degree murder-like prison times).

every time a story comes out about an utterly absurd law should have a link to the original documents. it should have a link to the zipcode lookup (for the extra 4 digits) so everyone can easily find their senator and a way to contact them. it should have links to local groups that you can help in getting organized. in short, every damned story that involves a limiting of our rights should look a lot like this page.

i did some research on the dmca a few months back and it took me 4 days to nail down just a reasonable amount of data. people aren't apathetic, they're too foobin' busy. add to that people sneaking legislation under the radar so that nobody is the wiser, now you have a system that is not only overwhelming but invisible.

so i'm sorry that it took this to get slashdot to rally the troops. pardon me for taking the obvious shot, but here's something that the founders of slashdot might want to reread. they have an obligation and they're pissing it away.

first they came for the communists, and i didn't speak up, because i wasn't a communist. then they came for the jews, and i didn't speak up, because i wasn't a jew. then they came for the catholics, and i didn't speak up, because i was a protestant. then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me" - rev. martin niemoller, 1945

My .02,

It's nice to see that some jerks may do hard time for that, but it would be even nicer if they are punished becaause of the actual act of spamming.

Aparently legislators only get involved when business are hurt, but not when we, as individuals have to deal with this pest.

I fear this is not really a victory for the anti-spam league (although it might send a strong message to spam-wannabes). On a sidenote: Salon ran a story a year ago, in which Janelle Brown actually tried to get rich quick, lose 90 pounds in a week or sign up for the greatest pr0n available TOTALLY FREEEEE!!!

The ironic thing is, that she had a really hard time actually contacting the seller and purchasing all those goodies...

It's nice to see that some jerks may do hard time for that, but it would be even nicer if they are punished becaause of the actual act of spamming.

Aparently legislators only get involved when business are hurt, but not when we, as individuals have to deal with this pest.

I fear this is not really a victory for the anti-spam league (although it might send a strong message to spam-wannabes). On a sidenote: Salon ran a story a year ago, in which Janelle Brown actually tried to get rich quick, lose 90 pounds in a week or sign up for the greatest pr0n available TOTALLY FREEEEE!!!

The ironic thing is, that she had a really hard time actually contacting the seller and purchasing all those goodies...