Slashdot Mirror

This refers to Alexa but it's close enough.

Now: Bitcoin Plunge Reveals Possible Vulnerabilities In Crazy Imaginary Internet Money

That's a very weird Onion article....possibly the weirdest I've ever seen from them yet. The sarcasm in the article is almost undetectable.

This whole situation reminds me of the old Onion article, AOL Acquires Time-Warner In Largest-Ever Expenditure Of Pretend Internet Money. The AOL-Time Warner merger was the peak in the Dot Com boom insanity, en route to it transitioning to a bust. Now: Bitcoin Plunge Reveals Possible Vulnerabilities In Crazy Imaginary Internet Money

The amount of money people are dumping into coins is just absurd. I was just checking, and Dogecoin now has a market cap of $754 - more than the combined GDPs of Tualu, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and Palau. For a joke.

This whole situation reminds me of the old Onion article, AOL Acquires Time-Warner In Largest-Ever Expenditure Of Pretend Internet Money. The AOL-Time Warner merger was the peak in the Dot Com boom insanity, en route to it transitioning to a bust. Now: Bitcoin Plunge Reveals Possible Vulnerabilities In Crazy Imaginary Internet Money

The amount of money people are dumping into coins is just absurd. I was just checking, and Dogecoin now has a market cap of $754 - more than the combined GDPs of Tualu, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and Palau. For a joke.

that's based on the Onion parady of the multi-blade razor offerings

https://www.theonion.com/fuck-...

This may have revealed potential vulnerabilities in crazy imaginary internet money.

https://www.theonion.com/bitco...

What a ridiculous perspective. Reminds me of a gag from The Onion: Oh, sure, if you're going to compare us to first-world countries, we're definitely not going to come out looking so good.

Wow, are you this guy?

Elon Musk Says He's Not God

Have we gone full Onion?

If it isn't a topic of interest for you, why do you keep talking about it on a technology message board, even though people keep telling you it's really creepy the way you keep talking about it? Why not just stop?

Child brides in the United States are American as apple pie.
You keep saying this, why do you feel the need to have a "sound bite" about the subject of child marriage in the first place?

Nobody here is saying you are actually trying to buy a child bride. Ultimately we don't know you, and nothing you've said indicates that you actually plan to go through with this. If an elderly, morbidly obese man who didn't speak Spanish showed up in a Mexican village looking for a child bride, I imagine it is much more likely you would end up beaten & robbed than that you would leave with a child bride.

It is really weird/creepy that you keep talking about it on Slashdot, and apparently you talk about it with co-workers as well. For most people, child marriage and its feasibility is not a subject that they would ever bring up with co-workers or strangers, except perhaps in the most abstract. If somebody they knew talked about "bang for retirement buck" and "sweet young thing" they would never talk to them in any sort of social context, ever again.

https://www.theonion.com/study...

A decade and a half ago? Maybe he's this guy.

An unfortunate fact of human nature is that when people make up their mind about something, they tend not to change it -- even when confronted with facts to the contrary. "It's very unscientific,"

Or maybe they're just not unbelievable pussies! “You know, I think I’ve come around to your way of seeing things,” the weakling said, reportedly reassessing his viewpoint to accommodate new information like an unbelievable pussy instead of doubling down on his previously held belief like a real man."

Good links, you might also be interested in this creimer-related article.

what exactly are they hoping to learn? This sort of thing has been going on for ages and we've done fuck all about it.

Exactly. The Onion is supposed to be satire, but sometimes it is disturbingly close to real news.

https://www.theonion.com/natio...

So presumably they could repair one of these.

For a moment...just a brief second.... I thought I was reading an article on 'The Onion'

Or maybe they were just annoyed that you came off as the latest form of this guy: https://www.theonion.com/area-... [theonion.com]

Sure, cars, TVs and being vegetarian are all the sort of thing that people do feel a need to tell others about. http://grrlpowercomic.com/archives/664 is relevant.

It's great that you get by just fine without a car. But not everyone can or wants to. Perhaps his job requires him to work odd hours which would make other options impossible or less desirable. Perhaps he works on call and needs to respond quickly without being at the mercy of uber or zip car availability. Maybe his life is just so busy that the extra 5 minutes you take for granted here and there makes it less realistic for him. There's a multitude of other reasons.

Sure, those are valid reasons! And it is easy to add to that list. If for example one has kids it is pretty much impossible to function without a car. The person in question however is an academic who works at the same university as I do and doesn't live that far from campus.

The simple fact that you engaged in such a conversation with them and challenged them about their commitment level suggest to me that you're probably at least as interested in signalling as they are.

This is the problem with emphasis on "virtue signaling" in a nutshell; it simply assumes that people don't have some minimal level of actually caring about results. So any conversation or action must be about signaling rather than actually trying to be helpful.

I had a conversation a few days ago where someone more or less proudly talked about how they were so careful to turn off lights; I attempted to tell them that if they cared about their energy use, there were a lot of other things they could do. They were completely incredulous that anyone could do any of them (e.g. not own a car, even though my wife and I don't own a car in the same city that this person lives in and it works fine), and got a little irate. When I mentioned that about half the things on the list were things that we actually did, they got very upset. My conclusion is that the person cared more about signaling "I save energy" then actually saving energy. And one when someone out-signaled them, got upset. Part of their mind seemed to have trouble with the idea that one could be taking a course of action to be genuinely helpful in an optimal fashion.

Or maybe they were just annoyed that you came off as the latest form of this guy:
https://www.theonion.com/area-...

It's great that you get by just fine without a car. But not everyone can or wants to. Perhaps his job requires him to work odd hours which would make other options impossible or less desirable. Perhaps he works on call and needs to respond quickly without being at the mercy of uber or zip car availability. Maybe his life is just so busy that the extra 5 minutes you take for granted here and there makes it less realistic for him. There's a multitude of other reasons.

Likewise, you mention not using a dryer. Again, great for some people. My mom always did it when I was young. I personally can't stand the rougher feeling of line dried clothing/towels. Line drying undeniably takes more effort than simply throwing the bundle of clothes in the dryer.

The simple fact that you engaged in such a conversation with them and challenged them about their commitment level suggest to me that you're probably at least as interested in signalling as they are.

Requisite link

Not as bad as child molesters

http://www.theonion.com/video/...

Ahead of its time. June 16, 1999, re: the Sony Aibo:

"Crude, mechanical simulations of love and affection prepare children for adult world."

http://www.theonion.com/graphi...

I bet the Russians did this. They're hacking our Alexas and using them for sonic DoS attacks.

Hmm. That might explain this story.

This one is gold.
http://www.theonion.com/articl...

> I also don't watch TV. Full stop. .... I'll watch South Park or Archer once in a while

So, you watch TV.

Also, obligatory Onion link.

I myself have no Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

Well la de da for you.
Some of us want to live in the modern world and have a social life.

Where do you live? Somewhere poor? I just can't believe many people in the Bay Area have 40" TVs, I haven't seen anybody with a principle TV that small in like a decade.

Yes I know, Slashdotters don't even own a TV.

News to me.

Exactly. I don't even own a television.

It's a (rather appropriate) variation of this well-known Onion article.

As for the original article, it came out before Gillette launched the Fusion razor which *did* have five blades. The fact that the parody became a reality doesn't make it any less ridiculous; on the contrary, it shows that Gillette's razor blades have become so ludicrous and marketing-led that no-one above the age of sixteen should be able to take them seriously any more...

I mean, I thought the fifth blade on the back for "hard to reach areas" seemed like a good idea for a few seconds until I realised the obvious point that they were only "hard to reach" because the shaving head itself had become so ridiculously bulky.

Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television

I don't think The Onion buys advertising on facebook but even if they did I would take issue because anyone who doesn't know it is satire deserves what they get. Although there was that whole razor blade war thing so they are probably more accurate in predictions than other news sources.

What about sites like The Onion or Ironic Times?

Hey grandpa! TV now is better than it's ever been, there's no way a person could possibly keep up with every good show.

If you don't watch TV, fine. If you don't eat at Taco Bell, don't tell us whether Enchiritos are delicious or no.

Voluntary psychometric testing: an advertiser's wet dream.

The Onion was right: the cartel of advertising companies that run the internet are far more effective than any 1984-esque government surveillance could have been.

Imagine if government agents knocked on your door and asked you to take a voluntary psychological assessment. Wouldn't you be a bit weirded out? Now an advertising company that also runs (and reads) your e-mail and decides what you see when you search the internet - that company is asking you for a voluntary psych profile.

Don't quit your day job...

Find The Thing You're Most Passionate About, Then Do It On Nights And Weekends For The Rest Of Your Life.

It was those graphics that essentially got me to stop watching commercial TV.

Oh, yeah? Well, I don't even own a television.

Surely by now someone someone should have posted a link to this: http://www.theonion.com/articl...

Slashdot, I'm very disappointed in you.

I'd like to believe journalists would confirm their stories before publishing, but in this day and age its first to publish and to hell with the truth. If they are wrong, they go back and change the article since they don't have to print a retraction statement.

Maybe we should demand that all news articles are made WORM and any outfit that changes the news after its printed should be treated like The Onion. Fun to watch but the credibility of a politician up for reelection.

Put another aloe strip on that fucker, too. That's right. Five blades, two strips, and make the second one lather. You heard me—the second strip lathers. It's a whole new way to think about shaving. Don't question it. Don't say a word. Just key the music, and call the chorus girls, because we're on the edge—the razor's edge—and I feel like dancing.

http://www.theonion.com/blogpo...

in his long-lost short story Le Telephon-Photographique

http://www.theonion.com/articl...

"Rudeness becomes ubiquitous, as the device's infuriating notification-chimes invade every corner of public life," McGraw said. "When the ethically bereft begin transmitting images obtained under questionable circumstances, espionage becomes so prevalent as to threaten the integrity of the French populace."

(or at least the Onion was on to this 13 year ago)

LOL, next thing you'll be telling us you don't even own a TV.

For someone to not like music is just weird. There are so many different styles of music and it's all so easily accessible now, including all of the indie stuff. Someone who doesn't like music is analogous to someone who doesn't like the beach. Or someone who doesn't like love. It's just fucking weird.

Just find the thing you enjoy doing more than anything else, your one true passion, and do it for the rest of your life on nights and weekends when you’re exhausted and cranky and just want to go to bed.

Agree that the LRA is way under-reported, but

there is no doubt the overwhelming majority of terrorists are Christian

Uh. Citation needed.

Every time there's a terrorist incident in the west, we all politely wait to find out the ideology behind it, and it almost invariably turns out to be jihadism. I'm British. This shit seems to happen every other week now, and it's never Christian extremism that motivates it. The closest we've seen is a Muslim-hating nutter, but as far as we know he wasn't motivated by his own religion (if he even had one), but by a mad hatred of all muslims.

I'll also leave you with this extremely NSFW submission from The Onion, which makes the point rather nicely.

In the West, no-one gets killed for making fun of Christianity.

Except that, at least in some cases, the price and life-cycle cost of refrigerators and AC goes down with energy-efficient standards. In particular, look at the kinks in figure 1.

But of course the senior author on this paper was involved in a pretty big scandal so maybe we shouldn't take the results too seriously. But at least he responded to the allegations.

Nope. Never seen it. I;m at the point where tv, the internet, pretty much everything "virtual" is a poor value in return for time invested.

...says the guy reading and posting on Slashdot. Also, you come across like this guy:

http://www.theonion.com/articl...

Biden should run in 2020. The Onion articles would be epic. This country needs to laugh again.

Wait, I thought Trump was going to be comedy gold for comedians and late night TV hosts? The Onion articles on Uncle Joe were pretty epic though. :-D

This is the same HP that hasn't come up with a hit since the bubble jet printer, people. The same HP that pushed a cloud computing solution that was so pig-fucking awful that The Onion mocked them about it. I worked at HP at the time, and I really have to think that The Onion had someone on the inside...because their parody was unbelievably on target. "We have 4G, 5G, 6G...we have all the Gs. We have app." That's literally as bad as what some of the people at HP were about it...it defied belief. This is the same HP that came up with a small microchip that could hold information and push it to your phone...but alas, as good as it sounded to have them talk about it, the phone's receiver had to stay within an inch of the thing, and the data transfer rate was literally as bad as a modem from the late 80s. This is the same HP that couldn't come within billions of dollars of precision as they tried to evaluate the price of another company they bought...and then effectively sued themselves when they realized that they fucked up on the offer they'd made, had accepted, and consummated. HP had to state on their SEC filings that flight of talented people had become a major impediment to their achieving their business goals...starting several years ago. And it hasn't gotten better since. These are stupid motherfucking people.

Oh, in more recent news, this is the same HP whose business-grade laptops (since we're talking HPE here, really) had a keylogger built into the audio driver.

So yeah...I doubt that this "machine" is all that. I'm curious...have they ever actually managed to CONNECT it to 160 terabytes of RAM at once, or is this a theoretical capability? Because they lie like a rug about this kind of silly detail. I can't help but notice that those 160 TB all have to be in a "single bank of memory." Wow, that must be one long-ass DIMM!

The next logical step was leaked by The Onion. The MacBook wheel is the epitome of user interface. Nothing else comes close.

... the AI from the future showed up, to team up with Golden Age AI.