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...there's always the Furby-O-Death.
/.

Sluggy Freelance!

Nanites are biologicaly nanomachines that can make you stronger, more flexible, report data on your body, or kill you. They can be "killed off" from a master switch or by watching to much Golden Girls

Sluggy Freelance!

Nanites are biologicaly nanomachines that can make you stronger, more flexible, report data on your body, or kill you. They can be "killed off" from a master switch or by watching to much Golden Girls

I enjoyed the billboards and the comics... but we know the candywraper and symphony thing were around some time ago.
BTW sluggy is catching up again.
-Daniel

Was it a short, kinda roundish guy, covered in white fur and had large, floppy ears? He also has an affinity for using a switchblade.

Yeah, I think this is the guy.

No, Chuck's an archangel. And not very good at Quake.

--

Don't know if anyone's still reading this stuff, but here's a Sluggy comic that has PETA in it. It's pretty funny too. Here it is.

Don't know if anyone's still reading this stuff, but here's a Sluggy comic that has PETA in it. It's pretty funny too. Here it is.

Have a read...

• Sluggy #970906
• Sluggy #970913
• Sluggy #991125

Pete's a genius, and his artwork has improved over the years.

Bill, sluggy fan.

Have a read...

• Sluggy #970906
• Sluggy #970913
• Sluggy #991125

Pete's a genius, and his artwork has improved over the years.

Bill, sluggy fan.

Have a read...

• Sluggy #970906
• Sluggy #970913
• Sluggy #991125

Pete's a genius, and his artwork has improved over the years.

Bill, sluggy fan.

I feel awfully lonely advocating this, but check out the Ad-Free Internet site. Curiously, the best discussion of it is on the Sluggy Freelance site.

There are lots of folks who run small sites, costing them $45/month or so, but they can serve only a very limited clientele. Either they're honed to razor sharpness in who they appeal to, or they're not well known, or they're just not so hot. But, once a hot site gets noticed, and everybody and her brother start hitting it, the costs go up rapidly. Much as we like to pretend otherwise, the Internet is not free---we're mostly just freeloaders.

Folks with popular sites, unless they're independently wealthy, must have some source of income from the site to support it, be it banner ads, a sugar-daddy corporation, sales of mugs and hats, or whatever.

I don't know about you, but I need a lot fewer mugs than there are good websites out there.

AFI's idea is to make it easy for sites and surfers to transfer cash in small amounts, paying for the one without costing the other very much, while protecting privacy and editorial independence. Think about it---if your site doesn't have to sell ads, it doesn't have to worry about advertisers (or owning corporations) being uncomfortable with the commentary.

Wake up! If we don't grow up and get used to paying for what we get, someone else will, and we'll get what they want!

I'm willing to pay for a good artist to write comics, or for Ars Technica to do unbiased reviews for me, or for a ton of other sites. It's only fair, and with the tens (hundreds?) of millions of surfers, none of us need pay much to get what we want. Unless we continue to insist it be fed to us at no (obvious, cash) cost. Then we will end up with the WWA (World-Wide AOL).

Now that I think about it, I sort of wish I could put a tipjar on some of my Themestream articles, like the one about Jon Katz, but I think that might be a violation of contract or something. But at least they pay me a dime a hit, and they don't seem to have any banner ads so far (I imagine they might add them once they get out of their trial period, though). (That's another way individual authors, at least, could make money off the web, I suppose...)

Another interesting new model built on similar ground to the Street Performers' Protocol is the Storytellers' Bowl, which is going to accept PayPal and publish stories on a supported-by-patron-donation basis. I'm really looking forward to its launch.

And by the way, for whoever wrote the copy quoted in the story blurb--Junkbuster isn't new; it's been around for several years at least.
--

... you take lots of Lego, and then build some mad invention out of it. Not even Technic. Just Lego. End up with some mad dimensional flux agitator or something.

First off, let me save a lot of quoting and redundant responses by asking this: Where do you get off assuming that just because the poster you responded to doesn't like User Friendly that they are a Windows bigot? You are demonstrating first-hand the poster's assertions about User Friendly's problem being with it's fans, and you're giving fellow Linux users a bad reputation, especially with that "burn in NT hell" line.

A bit of jealousy perhaps? We never hear about "Suprise, Suprise. With the sale of new distributions Linus is once again bringing his sub-standard kernel to the universe". Why is that? Is it because he makes no money off of Linux and Illiad does? Money != bad.

That's a total non-issue. Comic strip artists like Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance do not have this issue because they handle marketing in a tasteful manner, unlike Illiad's crass "branding" web site. Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbes fame once wrote an article in his 10th anniversary special book about how marketing in the manner Illiad is doing devalues and cheapens the art of the strip. Illiad can only hope to be half the comic strip artist that Bill Watterson was.

Audiences can not be commodized, product can.

Ah, but is that really true? Illiad has a fanatically loyal following of techie fans. Illiad is selling the ability for companies like SuSE to target and market to his audience by using his branded characters. In effect, Illiad is selling his audience to interested companies. Of course, this is just dithering about semantics, so I'll leave it at that.

First of all, since when has CARTOONS been considered art? It's COMEDY, by definition it's going to be formulaic, get over it. If you're looking for high-brow technical humor read some April 1st RFCs or something.

My, my. It's a sad commentary when a fan of an artistic media doesn't even recognize it as art. Perhaps your satisfaction with sit-com style formulae has stagnated your appreciation of what truly innovative and creative artwork and comedy should be.

Once again, I refer to Bill Watterson's 10th anniversary Calvin and Hobbes book on issues of the artform of comics. The essay there, which delves into the history of the artform before it became wedged into its current limited panel layout and forced schtick format is very educational.

The rich and gentle satire of politics and day to day living, Pogo, and it's modern day successor, Ozy and Millie, certainly qualify as a some of the best of the 20th century. Who can deny that the Sandman series of graphic novels are art? Certainly not the people who awarded it the Hugo award for Science Fiction and Fantasy. Perhaps you should pick up the latest offering, The Dream Hunters, which features a return of Neil Gaiman's strong evocative writing with Yoshitaka Amano's etherial, otherworldy artwork narrating the tale. Then you may still attempt to deny to the world that comics are art.

Just because User Friendly and many syndicated sellouts like Garfield and Dilbert seem increasingly incapable of producing art and non-formulaic humor as their profits from merchandising increase, don't assume that comics cannot be art. You are only appreciating the most bastardised version of it.

And this would prove what? You might has well have said "The first person that compares Tux to MS Bob gets a sticker"

That makes absolutely no sense. It's obvious you aren't familiar with the character Opus from Bloom Count or you'd be able to see the ways in which the Dust Puppy and he share many, many similar personality traits. The Dust Puppy is at best a tribute to and at worst a rip-off of Opus.

Jezus...what did they do to you to rip your sense of humour out so completely?

Perhaps, he just doesn't think that all comedy by definition should be formulaic as you do. Making fun of something can be funny. Making fun of someone making fun of something rarely is.

The keys to comedy are spontaneity, creativity, timing, and relevance to the audience. In the world of comic strips, #1 and #3 are usually handled in the layout and pacing of when certain lines happen, with the comedic twist almost always happening in the last panel. User Friendly well appreciates its market and has #4 well in hand.

It's #2, creativity, that User Friendly is sometimes seen as lacking in. This is much the same as Odie getting punted off a table by Garfield or Dilbert's boss saying something really stupid. They're running gags that have been run into the ground. Since you think all humor should be formulaic, you probably don't have an appreciation for the importance of this. However, those of us who do see the complete lack of creativity in a spoof of a spoof.

Do some exploring. There are plenty of good web comics that break the formulaic mold. I read about 30 or so of them a day. It shouldn't be hard to find one to match your tastes that is better than UF.

What exactly did you intend to mod him down for? Expressing a valid opinion? I don't remember that one being on the moderation options. What you are admitting is that you were planning on abusing your moderator points to damage someone whose opinion you disagreed with.

What's this about him having to sellout to keep his people paid? I mean, cry me a river. Just look at Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance fame, and he does employ a staff of people to help him run the site and his business. I don't think he's having a problem getting by on banner ads, t-shirts, and book sales. The 30 or so other web cartoonist I read as part of my day don't seem to be having any trouble supporting theirselves economically. When you get as big as Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance, David Simpson of Ozy and Millie, Bill Holbrook of Kevin and Kell, or Scott Kurtz of PVP, book sales and ad banners seem to be more than enough to keep yourself solvent. That doesn't even count the many popular artists who don't have anything beyond banner ads to sponsor themselves, such as Zach Stroum of Etherlife, Gabriel and Tycho Brahe of Penny Arcade, and Maritza Campos of College Roomies from Hell! -- all of whom are either college students or fully employed and do their strips as hobbies.

While I still find User Friendly mostly funny and still read it regularly, I lost a lot of respect for Illiad when I came across UF Media. The image he puts for on the site is one of someone whoring themselves out to corporate sponsorship. Illiad doesn't seem content with just selling t-shirts and books directly. He is actively calling to have his characters used as logos to curry favor with his fans for companies like SuSE. He wants the airline commercial spots, the suction cup animals, and co-branded food that syndicated sell-outs like Garfield have engendered.

I think this strip from Penny Arcade illustrates the opinions that many of us have for his ethics and credibility, in spite of or along with our opinions of his work on its own. It hurts his credibility because corporate sponsorship and co-branding are often the vicious monetary cycle that keeps comics going in newspapers long after they stopped being funny or original and sometimes even long after the creator of the strip has died. It's that we object to.

P.S. Slashdot readers should hopefully get a kick out of this strip. Just a friendly reminder for when talking to people who don't read Slashdot.

What exactly did you intend to mod him down for? Expressing a valid opinion? I don't remember that one being on the moderation options. What you are admitting is that you were planning on abusing your moderator points to damage someone whose opinion you disagreed with.

What's this about him having to sellout to keep his people paid? I mean, cry me a river. Just look at Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance fame, and he does employ a staff of people to help him run the site and his business. I don't think he's having a problem getting by on banner ads, t-shirts, and book sales. The 30 or so other web cartoonist I read as part of my day don't seem to be having any trouble supporting theirselves economically. When you get as big as Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance, David Simpson of Ozy and Millie, Bill Holbrook of Kevin and Kell, or Scott Kurtz of PVP, book sales and ad banners seem to be more than enough to keep yourself solvent. That doesn't even count the many popular artists who don't have anything beyond banner ads to sponsor themselves, such as Zach Stroum of Etherlife, Gabriel and Tycho Brahe of Penny Arcade, and Maritza Campos of College Roomies from Hell! -- all of whom are either college students or fully employed and do their strips as hobbies.

While I still find User Friendly mostly funny and still read it regularly, I lost a lot of respect for Illiad when I came across UF Media. The image he puts for on the site is one of someone whoring themselves out to corporate sponsorship. Illiad doesn't seem content with just selling t-shirts and books directly. He is actively calling to have his characters used as logos to curry favor with his fans for companies like SuSE. He wants the airline commercial spots, the suction cup animals, and co-branded food that syndicated sell-outs like Garfield have engendered.

I think this strip from Penny Arcade illustrates the opinions that many of us have for his ethics and credibility, in spite of or along with our opinions of his work on its own. It hurts his credibility because corporate sponsorship and co-branding are often the vicious monetary cycle that keeps comics going in newspapers long after they stopped being funny or original and sometimes even long after the creator of the strip has died. It's that we object to.

P.S. Slashdot readers should hopefully get a kick out of this strip. Just a friendly reminder for when talking to people who don't read Slashdot.

What is the deal with the pasting of Signal11's User Info in the comments of every story?

More On-the-Current-Topic though, I was always a sluggy diehard and knew of no other decent online comics until I was visiting a friend as he was catching up with old UF strips.

Note: I am still a sluggy diehard, I'm even eating with Pete at DragonCon. Every once on a while, though, I remember the dust puppy and go back for some user friendly love.

Washington Post:

The site is, in no small part, an online clubhouse for Microsoft haters; news items about the firm are accompanied by a small picture of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates as a Borg, one of the human-machine chimeras from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" who say, "Resistance is futile -- you will be assimilated."

The Washington Post makes me sick with their pro-MS slant to everything, and their tech writers in their business section are -horrible-. Fast forward is *occasionally* worth reading, but that's it. Thank god they really only run tech stuff once a week..

That got me to thinking this morning as I bought my paper.. wouldn't it be cool to have a print version of what's going on/what had happened in the web the previous day? I would certainly plunk down a quarter to get some slashdot headlines, the register headlines, some article blurbs, security stuff, recent security holes, penny-arcade, sluggy, and friend bear on the comics page, some 20 page editorials by Jon Katz :)..

I find print format a lot more friendly to read for longer periods, and it's nice to have something to read on the metro (not all of us have laptops, and even if I did, the paper is a more efficent way of reading all this I think.)

I agree

The truth is we would be better off lissening to less pollished, but more varied music. Artists *almost* produce a LOT of this less polished music in the form of practicing, jaming, goofing arround with the mixes, and live preformances. I'm talking about a whole wave of "disposable music" that could be produced allongside the more serious studio mixes.

Now, why would an artistgo to the extra work to prouce al lthis disposable music? One reason is that there will be too much of it to pirate. If people want this stuff they will need to pay for it because the pirates can not keep up (and a pirate who can keep up is big enough to sue). An even better reason is: it keeps people comming back for more!

Now, you are correct that if artists released all their music (jams, etc) at once that would be too much for a pirate site to keep up with. But why would a pirate site want to do so? The pirate site only needs to keep the 3 or 4 (or for a really good group say 10) tracks that are actually worth listening too. I don't care how much you love a band, except for a few special CDs, *no one* loves every track on a CD.

A good way to sell all this stuff is to put some of it up for free download for a limited period of time

I'm sure you realize once its free once its free forever on pirate sites.

, but allow fan club members to download any past song at anytime.. and charge like $20 for a yerly fan club membership. This is money directly into the artists pocket just for giving their true fans access to all this stuff.

So one fan pays the $20 and the rest copy it from him. Not to mention the problems of server security, the book keeping of running the club. The record companies will be running this fan club, this doesn't break their evil grasp.

The musicians don't just need to sell mp3s. Just look at the internet commics like sluggy.com. They appear to do fine by (a) making people come back to their site every day and (b) pushing merchandise on their viewers. An internet musician could do the same thing on a weakly basis. They could sell things like CDs, hats, shirts, etc. Actually, they could make a killing by selling lots of shorter production run CDs (say let people vote on the best of the disposable music) or mp3 CDs of a large amount of the disposable music.

Pete (author of sluggy freelance (worship the comic)) is a very unique individual. He's been workin' on that thing for two and a half years and is currently barely making a profit. And this is (acording to Web 100 (??? a listing of the most popular 100 foo. Sluggy's been number one more than any other comic on their list (User Friendly is the runner up))) Making a comic that appears daily is also a bit different from having new music on daily (as you sugest). The problem is that if piracy grows (which you've stated you want it to do) then there will be no need to buy any music made publicly avalible. It will all be on line for the taking.

We have all seen how crazy people get about some bands. I don't think there is any question the bands would make a killing off this shit. Especially, if they get things printed themselves.

You previously argued against the "one hit wonders" that the music industry creates but now you are infavor of hype bands. You can't have it both ways. The industry creates mass infatuation with artists.

The catch to all of this is you need to give away enough music to get people interested. There are all kinds of oppertunities for people to charge bands to upload the bands music to large numbers of pirate mp3s site as promotion.

Ok, I'm confused. A pirate site takes music with out asking. A site that is taking money from artists for their music is lawful (and a very natural progression of the free sites we have now). I am infavor of this. What I am against is third parties stealing from the artists and placing music on web sites with out the artist's permission.

There is one last opertunity for a band to make money by giving away music. Advertising! I would not be surprised to find equipment manufacturs giving good bands equipment just to say "mixed on a Sony BlaBla" at the end of the promotional songs.

If you really think abot the buisness oppertunities you will se that there is plenty of room for an internet savey artist to do MUCH better then an industry artist.

Consider the success of internet companies that have tried to duplicate pre-existing services. Even if they do it for free and use Adds for revenue, they generally are not very successful. I'm talking about the difference between Pete Abrams (Sluggy) and Scott Adams (Dilbert). Scott is making a heck of a lot more money from his profession, I can assure you. Main reason, because people buy dilbert books, its the only way to get a comilation. Sluggy is avalible online, there is no need to buy Pete's books.

The only real problem with the internet is that the small artists will need to know how to build a web site since web work could be very expencive. Especially, for someone who has no idea if they will make it or not. Conversly, an artist who is web savey could make themselves a big name with essentially no outlay of capitol.. just a lot of time.

see above.

note: I distinguish between promotional songs which are intended to float arround the internet and get people to visit the artists site and regular songs which are intended to be downloaded from the artists site.

With piracy there is no difference. In your previous post you talked about the community needing to work harder, "more piracy." If that is really what you want then there is no difference between a promotional song and a regular song. The artist's wishes are ignored.

Another problem with dilbert is that it often just isn't funny.....

Now, Sluggy Freelance, there's a truely funny comic that isn't very comercialised (apart from the t-shirts)...
--

Also, go take a look at Sluggy freelance. Bun-bun also has some information on what to do abo^Wto telemarketers.

Your Rights Online: Senator McCain Proposes Ban on Interplanetary Space Porn.

I think this is one bill that no one could justifiably support... evryone knows how cool scantily-clad sci-fi chicks are!

Sluggy goes to outer space...

I know the post above me already said it, but let's not forget Sluggy Freelance! It is, in my opinion, the best damn comic to come along in _any_ medium, in a loooong time. Three cheers to Mr. Abrams!

--

I think the difference is that most of the best comics these days are being put up on the web, and the artists aren't getting paid for it (at least not much...)

See Goats, Sluggy Freelance, User Friendly (though that one's not restricted to the web..)

there are a lot of other "hobby" strips out there - ComicSites lists bajillions of them.

Of course, I miss Bloom County, Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, the Far Side..... But so do we all..

You forgot all the bad publicity from when Bun-Bun dressed up as Pikachu.

Pax.

No kidding. What if it turns out that woolly mammoths eat people? Not that that'd stop some foolish megacorps from making lots of them...

No kidding. What if it turns out that woolly mammoths eat people? Not that that'd stop some foolish megacorps from making lots of them...

I couldn't help but think while watching this X-files about the obvious Sluggy Freelance / Goats parallels as of late. Compare: Cannibals Anonymous and brains4zombies.com.

When I first saw Tughouse, I thought it was kind of funny, even though the art sucks. However, I changed my mind quickly when I found the link to Sluggy Freelance and realized that Tughouse blatantly ripped off all its funny ideas from there. Think about it: evil housepet that plots against its owner, demons are often involved, etc. The whole "trip to Hell" storyline, for example, is taken directly from Sluggy's first Dimension of Pain story. Not to mention the demonic summonings at the beginning of the strip's run, the reactions when a woman entered the strip... I could go on. My advice to the Tughouse author: get some ideas of your own, man! Sluggy's good, but don't plagiarize, for cring out loud.

I was there. I even got up and spoke on top of the bus at the end of the march. I also saw Nick from Zeta and Vic from CIA. We were there. All of CIA's staff were on the march too. Antony Healey from healey.com.au (I'm going to stop the href's 8-) and his staff, um, a few guys from OzEmail (which surprised me), Scott Golby from ar.com.au and his staff. There were lots of us. I was the guy in the white Mazda 929 with the 'THEWWW' licence plates 8-)
I do agree that the hippy-bus was a bit lame 8-)
Comics:
Sluggy.com - Poing!

Re:I am an Australian ISP.
by Python (python@freedom.gmsociety.org.NOSPAM-) on Wednesday September 01, @11:10PM EDT (#)
(User Info) http://freedom.gmsociety.org

I, personally, am reasonably bitter towards the US in this. Whilst you were having grief with your CDA, people -all around the world- were turning their pages black, and protesting quite vocally. Yet, when our moronic government brought this legislation up, which is -much much- worse than the CDA, you quite happily ignored us.
A total of 3 posts to /., and that was about it.

As far as what the IIA have done, I thank them. They've turned this legislation around, from something that would have totally destroyed the internet in australia, to something we're barely going to notice.

So what are you bitter about again? It sounds like you're quite happy with your censorship. Maybe the lack of response in the US of A has been because people like yourself have said "Well, its not going to be that bad". Make your bed, and sleep in it mate.

I do apologise if I've come across as liking it. If you read more of my posts further down, I was one of the most vocal people in sydney about this, I was intervied for 'Time' magazine, was quoted in several IT magazines, and did 2 radio interviews.

I hate it. But no matter how much I hate it, I'm not going to put myself up for AU$25,000 fines per day. Sorry, if I make that much in a YEAR, I'll be amazed.

The tone of my post was that 'Well, it's not as bad as it could have been.' I do agree with another post (I haven't been watching names, apologies 8-) who pointed out that email isn't explicitly excluded. That's definatley wrong, and should be fixed for Version 6. Hopefully.

When I say 'something we're barely going to notice' I mean it's going to be a matter of, when you ring me up, my staff are going to ask (something along the lines of -- I'm making this up now):
'The Australian government requires me to ask if you have filtering technology installed on the PC you are going to be using to access the net. We do not need to verify that you are, we just need you to tell us you are'

Something, basically, that makes them aware that they are -lying- because of the stupid laws our government has enacted. I don't -want- my customers to have censorware on their PC's. The internet is far too valuable a resource to censor.

--Rob

[And, to the other poster, yeah, sluggy is -very- cool 8-)]





Comics:
Sluggy.com - Poing!

One of the main problems in .au is the "She'll be right, mate" mentality. The concept is, basically, if you ignore it, it'll go away. Unfortunately, with our little puppet of a Prime Minister, and his scheming cohorts, this isn't going to happen. We had a 'reasonable' show of people at our protests, and whilst the Sydney one was happening, our PM was on a popular talkback radio station saying 'They don't know what middle australia want' -- Well, to be precise, what middle Australia want is bloody RAIN.
This is the same prime minister who -refuses- to apologise (that's it, apologise) to a generation of Aboriginals who were stolen from their families by the government of the time (with, I should point out, assistance from the catholic church).
If they hadn't taken all our guns away, revolution would be on the cards.

Red Stars, anyone?

--Rob
Comics:
Sluggy.com - Poing!

Here is the -exact- wording from the draft code of conduct - available at http://www.iia.net.au/Code5.html

12B.4 The preceding Clause shall have no application in respect of the supply of Internet access services by an ISP to the following classes of users:


(a) commercial users who already have in place some form of Content filtering or control, whether by means of firewall technology or otherwise, such as is likely to make the use of the measures listed in the Schedule unnecessary or redundant;
(b) schools, educational or other institutional users similarly protected; or

(c) any other user who has advised their ISP that he or she already has installed and has operational a Content filtering or other control measure listed in Schedule 1 of this Code.

Advised. Not 'proved'. Advised.

--Rob


Comics:
Sluggy.com - Poing!

Woah. Censorship is not a potential revenue stream. When we sign up customers, we're not going to take their money until they answer yes to 'Do you have filtering software installed on your computer'. We're also -not- going to make them prove it.
I, personally, am -violently- anti-censorship, and I was actually the guy who had the 'Australia - Global Village Idiot' sign made for the Sydney protest (seen in numerous shots). I don't want to make money from this. I just want it to go away. It's a stupid concept, from the ground up.
And yes, this never made it to the front page. Yet another reason for my anti-US rant above.. They don't realise that their government is going to come out and say 'Look, it worked in Australia', and foist the same thing on them...

We've got to protect the children!

*snarl*

--Rob

Comics:
Sluggy.com - Poing!

And I should point out that the above article is -incorrect-. You do NOT have to guarantee that you're using a filter. You just have to tell us that you are. We're not under any obligation to check.

The major bad thing with this document is that it requires us to ensure that all our customers are over 18 years old, or have parental approval.

Personally, I think that this isn't anywhere as bad as it could have been, thanks to the IIA's attempt to soothe this.

I, personally, am reasonably bitter towards the US in this. Whilst you were having grief with your CDA, people -all around the world- were turning their pages black, and protesting quite vocally. Yet, when our moronic government brought this legislation up, which is -much much- worse than the CDA, you quite happily ignored us. A total of 3 posts to /., and that was about it.

As far as what the IIA have done, I thank them. They've turned this legislation around, from something that would have totally destroyed the internet in australia, to something we're barely going to notice.

--Rob

Comics:
Sluggy.com - Poing!

A lot of places are using the LinuxDirector -- Very similar (and, actually, much superior) to the Cisco LocalDirector.. I -believe- the web page is down, but you can find links to it on freshmeat, or, email me for more information.
I, personally, use it for a hi-av proxy cluster. If one goes down, my users never know.
Comics:
Sluggy.com - Poing!

My wife and I went to the Open Caption version of X files when it came to town, neither of us were impressed, the open caption part was sort of cool..

Oz is very cool. SG1 kicks ass, "MacGuyver in Space!!!!"

Sex in the city annoys me, I'm not sure why.

--
Bun-Bun Rules!
90% of day read /.

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This page was generated by a Swarm of Psycho Chickens for justo (2858).

Slashdot Load Testing (Continues) Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon August 30, 02:13 PM EDT
from the ain't-this-fun? dept.
Fixed so far:

• Dropped http MaxClients down to 75
• increased mysql max_connections to to 250

( Read More... | 190 of 190 comments )

Help Test Our New Server! Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon August 30, 12:51 PM EDT
from the load-testing-is-cool dept.
So here it is: A mirror of Slashdot (as of a week or so ago). It exists now for testing: So feel free to post comments and help test the new load balancer. For the curious, the new system has 3 http machines (P2s) and one mysql box (a dual P2) with a load balancer trying to keep everyone all equally busy. And its about time: the old setup has been really stressed out trying to keep up with everyone. Anyway, don't get to attached to any of your comments here, when we're satisfied that the new setup is stable, I'm gonna mirror over Slashdot and make the final switcheroo.

( Read More... | 335 of 335 comments )

Interview: Mandrake Answers Posted by Roblimo on Fri August 20, 12:00 PM EDT
from the x-leads-to-enlightenment dept.
Monday a whole bunch of people had questions for Mandrake, one of the heavies behind Enlightenment. Slashdot Moderators picked the best ones. We forwarded them, unedited, to Mandrake on Tuesday. His (excellent) answers appear below.

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Geeks in the Space: The Attack of 5 Posted by Hemos on Thu August 19, 04:10 AM EDT
from the more-stuff-to-listen-to dept.
Well, we've done it again. Yes, Geeks in Space, Episode 5 has been released. In it, we lament the lack of good news, talk about anti-matter, and the hiring of hacks by companies. You can also become...educated in my long-term plan for the hostile takeover of a certain Redmond-based company.

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Apple announces Darwin 0.3 Posted by Hemos on Thu August 19, 12:24 AM EDT
from the more-to-download dept.
J. FoxGlov writes "Macintouch reports that v0.3 of Darwin, the open-source foundation for Mac OS X Server is available on Apple's Public Source site. Apple Developer Connection members can get it on CD for $29. Check Public Source for more about the Darwin SDK and the new Darwin. "

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Microsoft's New Audio Format Cracked Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 05:23 PM EDT
from the secure-this-buddy dept.
Barcode (JPB) was one of the first to send us the word from Wired that the new audio format Microsoft introduced (Two days ago), supposed to be a secure format (resricting playback) has already been cracked. Dimension Music first carried the news-and what a name the crack has *grin*.

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Find your Star Wars Twin Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 05:16 PM EDT
from the what-freud-really-wanted-to-do dept.
The_Monk writes "Ever wanted to know your Star Wars twin? Now this incredibly important information can be verified. It placed me the likes of Astro Mech Droids, 'Tarkin, and R2-D2. " Ahem-as the lost twin of Lando (extraversion), I have a Cloud City I'd like to sell someone. But I'm about as agreeable as Boba, always a bonus.

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Now Police Can 'See' Through Walls Posted by Roblimo on Wed August 18, 12:40 PM EDT
from the move-along-there's-nothing-to-see-here dept.
Bram writes "Just found an article about another way to invade privacy." He's talking about hand-held radar systems police can use to detect breathing, beating hearts or other motion through walls and other obstacles. Sounds like a declassified version of the Ground Support Radar [GSR] units we used years ago in the Army. I can see why police would want them, and I can also see why Bram considers them a privacy threat. Depends on how they're used, I suppose.

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FreeType posts patent warning Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 11:53 AM EDT
from the i-want-my-verdonna dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "According to the the FreeType web page, there have been some new concerns raised about Apple's patents on TrueType. I hope this doesn't affect the planned TrueType support in XF86 4. " It appears that they are still checking into the issue, but I'd really like TrueType support. A lot. Let's hope Apple responds nicely.

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Microsoft to "publish code" to Instant Messenger Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 09:49 AM EDT
from the want-more-market-share dept.
VFVTHUNTER writes "According to this article at cnet, MS, in an attempt to gain a share of AOL's Instant Messenger Service Market, announced today it is going to publish the protocol to its own messenger service. " It's important to note it's NOT the source code, just the protocol.

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Be News

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Features The latest installment of Geeks in Space is up at The Sync. We talk about the Red Hat IPO, crazy naming schemes, and much more.

Perhaps you are seeking Jon Katz's series of articles related to recent events in Colorado. These articles include Voices from the Hellmouth, More Stories from the Hellmouth or The Price of Being Different,

With all the hype about the recent MindCraft Linux/NT benchmarks, you might be interested in reading ESR's Response to the Mindcraft Fiasco

For something different, try reading my little essay Thoughts from the Furnace about the internet, and flame.

Update: 05/03 01:48 by CT : Past Features

Mozilla.org

PerLDAP v1.4 Released

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Feature: Is Open Source for Windows Less Important?

Interview: Ask Alan Cox

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Star Office to become Open Source?

Palm Gameboy Emulator update & screens

Linuxnewbie.org

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Securing The Home Linux System: Updated

Glibc2 Slackware is here!

Segfault.org: South Park Story

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Molecular-based logic gates

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Interview with Borland Sr. Product Mgr

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Playstation 2 Outperforms Everything? (240)

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NASA collecting anti-matter with giant ballon (109)

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Hey, don't be bagging out the Invisible Pink Unicorn! It's been a great source of comfort whenever I start to think there could be a God, and TIPU pops into my head and I suddenly realise what a load of bullshit it all is. (Religions in general)
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When you're -truly- speaking globally, why don't you just say 'In Q4'? The fourth Quarter. Then there's -never- any confusion with seasons. Whoever thought of using seasons as a timeframe should be shot. Seasons are for -farmers-.


Comics:
Sluggy.com - It rocks my nads.

Pfft. What a bunch of wankers. If you're going to use 's, at least learn how to use them.
I'm actually mildly concerned that people may even contemplate for more than a nanosecond giving you money.
Your web page doesn't even say who you -are-.. That's enough to turn anyone with a clue off.
Comics:
Sluggy.com - It rocks my nads.

I'll get excited when Adam Warren (Dirty Pair, some Gen13) and Matt Wagner (Mage?, Grendel, Dark Knight Returns) make the jump. Sluggy Freelance and Japanese Beetle can keep me occupied 'till then.

Howdy! Things have been going good for Sluggy right now. It's not making me enough money to survive, but it IS making money. I am close to making a living doing this! Picture that! I could make a living doing Sluggy Freelance FREE on the Internet! How nifty is that?

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Note: That's the wrong URL. The real one is:
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or, you can just click Here.

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Comics:
Sluggy.com - It rocks my nads.

PLUS you will receive a website submit pro porgram and everything needed to professionally market your site via Email: 69 million E@ddresses and 1 fully licensed mass Email program on CD.

Yes, most people don't know that you can run any browser on top of AOL. But you don't get better performance by doing it. By running an external browser, you bypass AOL's cache servers. Considering that AOL's cache servers have a very good cache hit rate, and every test, including Inverse Technologies tests, show that the cache servers at AOL make it one of the fastest places to get a web page by a wide margin.

You filter out Slashdot's ads? You don't know what you're missing. I still chuckle whenever I see the "Someday the sun will fail" banner. Now that's quality entertainment!

And I've heard nothing but good things about Andover over the months, so I don't see any reason to believe they'll screw things up. Especially if their only influence on the page itself is the banner ads. I'll be happy as long as they don't dump a ton of javascript or whatever up there, or turn it over to Flycast or some other generic banner server that'll put up any old junk. If I've got to see banners, they as well be targetted and about something I'm interested in.

Side rant: Flycast is really pissing me off lately. Whenever their servers fail, and they seem to do it a lot, you get forwarded away from the site you're trying to look at so you can see an ever-so-interesting 500 error page instead. Gawd, I hope Pete Abrams (plug)dumps them.

I did.. It was ignored.
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