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Well, obviously they don't get millions of new users per month. Probably it's in the thousands.

Probably the main reason Opera has become popular recently is a couple of high profile news articles, e.g. USA Today, Time.com, and most especially the notorious MSN incident last fall when Opera accused Microsoft of locking their browser out of MSN, a fight which received international attention and greatly boosted general interest in Opera.

The browser was always aimed at mainstream users (what other kind are there?) but it's appealed to a kind of power user because of its many extra features such as keyboard shortcuts and tabbed browsing. These are not power features per se, just that sophisticated users tend to be early adopters of innovative products.

I'm sorry, but the CLIT has disbanded. Time has the story here.

The new Eminem album, "The Eminem Show", was due to be released 6/4/2002. The record label changed the release date to 5/28/2002 after it learned the album was pirated weeks before the release! Eminem's comment on the whole thing was, "Whoever put my s___ on the Internet, I want to meet that motherf_____ and beat the s___ out of him."

Time Time, not free :(

He is not very fond of people downloading his mp3's 3 weeks before he was planning on releasing the album. After what he said, makes him a prime suspect... but do you blame him? I would be pissed too. However, I wouldn't pay 30 cents for a cdr of all his albums.

How about some historical examples to bolster Michael's claim.

What many of the hard-core groups such as the ACLU and the EFF fear is a return to the days of COINTELPRO when the FBI (with the cooperation of the CIA) used it's vast powers to spy on Americans. And to discredit any political group outside of the mainstream. One noteable target was Dr. Martin Luther King. To quote from the Church Commission's report:

"The FBI collected information about Dr. King's plans and activities through an extensive surveillance program, employing nearly every intelligence-gathering technique at the Bureau's disposal. Wiretaps, which were initially approved by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, were maintained on Dr. King's home telephone from October 1963 until mid-1965; the SCLC headquarter's telephones were covered by wiretaps for an even longer period. Phones in the homes and offices of some of Dr. King's close advisers were also wiretapped. The FBI has acknowledged 16 occasions on which microphones were hidden in Dr. King's hotel and motel rooms in an "attempt" to obtain information about the "private activities of King and his advisers" for use to "completely discredit" them. " [My Emphasis]

The FBI sought to influence universities to withhold honorary degrees from Dr. King. Attempts were made to prevent the publication of articles favorable to Dr. King and to find "friendly" news sources that would print unfavorable articles. The FBI offered to play for reporters tape recordings allegedly made from microphone surveillance of Dr. King's hotel rooms.

The above quotes are from the final report of the Church Committee (see also Here), a congressional committee set up to investigate the FBI's abuses of power. Out of this investigation arose many of the restrictions that Bush, Ashcroft, and Co. are overturning. These changes and the arguments for them have received opposition from longtime FBI members:

"I feel that certain facts, including the following, have, up to now, been omitted, downplayed, glossed over and/or mis-characterized in an effort to avoid or minimize personal and/or institutional embarrassment on the part of the FBI and/or perhaps even for improper political reasons..."

"Several prominent FBI alumni also blasted Ashcroft's cast-a-wide-net approach to the terrorism investigation, which led to the detention of some 1,200 people, only a dozen of them suspected of having any links with Al Qaeda. The mass arrests were part of a fundamental shift in the bureau's strategy. In the past, the FBI would identify suspected terrorists, move to forestall any immediate threat of violence, then watch the suspects in hopes of cracking an entire cell. Ashcroft's approach, the critics noted, might jeopardize the kinds of investigations that had prevented previous attacks. "We used good investigative techniques and lawful techniques," warned Reagan-era FBI director William Webster, "and we did it without all the suggestion that we are going to jump all over people's private lives."..."

This is what people (quite rightly) fear and what we should be striving against. This is what Prompted Emmanuel Goldstein (editor of 2600) to devote his editorial in the most recent issue to a call to arms against such governance. This is a serious issue and the note that Michael Struck was just right. The FBI stated that carnivore will never collect the wrong information Yet we have admissions of the opposite (see here). In the light of all of this, can you really say that he is wrong?

As always you can contact the ACLU for more.

For some fun side-reading see:

• Amnesty International's 2002 report on the U.S.A.
• NYC Indymedia
• The San Francisco Chronicle
• And, The Register

This conclusion is even more baffling in light of Colleen Rowler's memo and the now infamous "Pheonix" memo. It seems to me that the information gathering was rather effective, just poorly coordinated. The connections leading to 9/11 could have been made if the FBI had merely Googled their own information!

Lew Platt, Hewlett-Packard's former CEO, was not a management wonder, but Ms. Fiorina is worse. She just cannot handle the job. She does not have sufficient technical background, for example. At present, one of the most common reasons for corporate failure is thinking that a good salesperson with little technical understanding can manage a high-tech company.

Ms. Fiorina's bad judgement at her previous job didn't become apparent until after she was already working for HP. When you work at that level, however, failure is successful. This [undated] Time Magazine story says she is worth $2.2 Billion dollars: Carly Fiorina, Makeover Artist. $2.2 Billion!

Ms. Fiorina was previously at Lucent. A January 12, 2002, Detroit News article, New chief for Lucent [Patricia Russo] is exception to numerous departures, tells of Lucent's problems. A lot of Lucent stories are filled with positive spin, but obviously something is very wrong. Apparently Ms. Fiorina led Lucent to overspend seriously on investment in communications. Again apparently, the new debt has crippled the company, making it a difficult place to work.

The September, 2001, BBC News article, Profile: HP's Carly Fiorina, mentions an interesting fact: "... she has consolidated her power, now holding down the jobs of chief executive, president and chairwoman - the only woman to control all three top jobs at a major tech firm." Maybe someone who merely wants to have all three top jobs should be considered incompetent.

The BBC News article also says, "A Business Week cover story in February [2001] concluded that she was 'gambling with Silicon Valley's proudest legacy' - and that was before she unveiled an 89% profits slump..."

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The future isn't what it used to be. Take Tomorrowland. When it opened in 1955 as one of the five original sections of Disneyland, Walt Disney himself appeared on the live opening-day telecast and promised "a step into the future with constructive predictions about things to come." He may have been a dull public speaker, but in envisioning "the world of 1987," as it was at one point conceived, he did offer up such astounding attractions as TWA's Rocket to the Moon and Monsanto's all-plastic House of the Future ("Hardly a natural material appears anywhere"). We now know that people still live in wood and brick houses; and that even if TWA did fly to the moon, no one would go because the service would be ghastly; and that if Disney could have given 1950s parkgoers a genuine look at the future, the most amazing thing about 1987 would have been the presidency of Ronald Reagan, ...

Where's my flying car?

But then again, we do have Soma, err, Slashdot :-)

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Great, another game to get hung up on. Time has an article on the addiction angle of all these MMORPGs.

otherwise they are just normal people. FBI employees around 30 000 people. A little city. I bet they use the database for criminal purposes hundreds of times every day.

A clip from here:
" The Webster commission is expected to recommend limiting highly sensitive files to those with a strong need-to-know -- "role-based access," in FBI jargon. "

'Expected to recommend...' exactly what is the procedure currently?!?! These systems and their databases are extremely scary.

I think that 12 million is a bit of an underestimate. Try 100 million and you would be a bit closer to the mark. If it were only 12 million children, it wouldn't become the world's largest economy. Of course, India could still take that badge.

Is it just me, or does Carly Fiorina look disturbingly like Carmela Soprano?

Autism? Hmm... If you ask me, my best guess is that you have Asperger's Syndrome, like just about every other one of us here... Also known as the "Geek Syndrome", it's explored in detail in a relatively recent issue of Time: May 6th Issue

Just to point out, on the 7th frame, the text reads like this:
For a battle scene in the Chateau Reeves was trained to use martial arts weaponry
Nice Spell check, are they Slashdot Editors?

Kids(I'm looking at you, HP), kids(I'm looking at you, Compaq), didn't we learn anything from the AOL/Time Warner Fiasco?

I guess not.

Let's see how they're doing in a year's time.

The reason I say that (and I thought this was newsworthy) is because Lucas' actions and the public perception he attempts to display are so out of wack. On the one hand he's attempting a damage control campaign to placate fans by claiming that their criticisms of The Phantom Menace have been taken on board, while at the same time dissing them. From a recent Time cover story:

Lucas blames the anti-Jar Jar sentiment on "37-year-old guys who spend all their time on the Internet. But you have to remember that when we did The Empire Strikes Back, some people hated C-3PO. When we did Jedi, they just loathed the Ewoks. There was no Internet to jazz it up, but there was the same conversation. Fans are very opinionated, and that's good. But I can't make a movie for fans." Nonetheless, Jar Jar has a far less prominent role this time. In movie theaters you will hear a cheer from Binks-ophobes when, as he launches into an anecdote, Padme cursorily cuts him off.

Lucas is continually at the forefront of discussing how liberating digital technologies will be to filmmakers; the problem is his actions belie a complete ignorance and arrogance that denies there can be any other effect than making it cheaper for him to make his films in his own weird way. He seems to be totally unaware of the effect the universe he created has had on millions of imaginations; or if he is, he wants to control that in a manner that suits him. Thus fandom is a thing which can be used to promotional effect and to make his hardcore constitiuency feel that he adores them... But when he slips in caveats to a contest that he's controlling in order to limit how that can be expressed he's really saying, "You can use those new technologies, just as long as you don't do it how I want you to." He's opened up a can of worms and seems totally oblivious that he's done so.

I'm a paid, working filmmaker. My first film is coming out this fall. I would never make a fan fiction film; I prefer to make my own. But I do feel that as cultural artifacts (and in my opinion very cheesy ones at that) some of the fan made Star Wars films are impressive enough and show such hard work with limited resources that they deserve some genuine praise and are sterling examples of exactly what doors digital filmmaking are going to open.

God, if I had a dollar for every genuine working filmmaker I know of my generation who wasn't influenced or their imagination fired by the original Star Wars, I'd be funding my own damn movies. Under those auspices I believe that given the line Lucas likes to spout he ought to pay attention to them. After all, he continually revises the continuity of his own universe when it suits his franchises and spin offs into other media to make more money. He allowed and has even admitted to letting the marketing tie ins to The Phantom Menace run rampant. Read this even better Newsweek story. Does Lucas play through all the video games made from his Empire to ensure quality control of continuity? I seriously doubt it. In other words, it's fine to do this as long as he's making some money off of it, or it's unenforceable since he lost the Starballz suit.

if it follows the basic trend from the first 3, The first one is more light hearted, introducing characters. The second one is dark, and deepens the plot. The third one will release the darkness, but show the light at the end of the tunnel. *shrug*

Time had a lot about SW last week (mild to medium spoilers). In the interview there, Lucas says he's concerned that people will be upset by the third one because it is so dark.

great quote from this time magazine article.

el diablo the hack himself says, "Fans are very opinionated, and that's good. But I can't make a movie for fans."

hey thanks george. i put your god damn kids through school asshole. along with paying for all your yarmulkes bitch.

"He's not a stupid man. He doesn't want to hurt the franchise." There's evidence to back that up.

And from this article:

Lucas blames the anti-Jar Jar sentiment on "37-year-old guys who spend all their time on the Internet. But you have to remember that when we did The Empire Strikes Back, some people hated C-3PO. When we did Jedi, they just loathed the Ewoks. There was no Internet to jazz it up, but there was the same conversation. Fans are very opinionated, and that's good. But I can't make a movie for fans."

Well, any evidence they *did* have may have just been negated...

If you really must revisit this movie, I highly suggest you do so by finding yourself a copy of The Phantom Edit. It's not perfect either, but it gives a sense of how hard it wouldn't have been for Lucas to make the original not suck.

There's a quote from Lucas in the Time Magazine SWII article (hey, surprise, they got all the major news mags!) which really struck me:

"I said, 'They're gonna hate this. They're gonna get really upset that I have a 9-year-old as the hero.' But what can I do? That's the story. I can't make him 15. The whole story is about where he came from, who is he? You had to start in the beginning."

It's pretty obvious that he still doesn't get it. I don't know anyone who complained about a kid being the hero -- a few who complained about the chosen kid's acting ability, and a bunch more who complained about the cutesyness, but this was the first I've heard the idea that the problem is that audiences can't cope with the idea of a child hero. Note to George: um, ex-squeeeze me, there are a few other issues.

I really enjoyed this story on time.com but didn't feel like dealing with submitting it and having it summarily rejected.

I really enjoyed this story on time.com but didn't feel like dealing with submitting it and having it summarily rejected.

Much nicer and more Lucas-centric piece on Attack of the Clones at time.

I think this Lucas quote says it best:


"There's only one issue for a filmmaker," he says. "Will this make its money back so I can make the next one?"


From a Time Magazine article.

I'm an honorable businessman. I got dis business down in chicago. Wit dis money I make, I'm creating a loddof, watcha call it, jobs... yea, jobs. On toppadat, I also pay the state and da feds.. sometimes underda table. So in oder words, I'm generating a lot of revenue for da country. Wit dis Ness (or here for an update) mess, you got dis business set back some fiddy years. Do you really want to set us back 50 years and undo all the progress we made? The eco-system that we have created with our blood and sweat? People are working together day and night and the supply chain management is flawless. We have efficiency you don't see in any other industry. We also have the best dedication among any group of organized labor. They are ready to give their life for the good of da business. You want to dismantle us just because we rob banks and supply the alcohol that the consumer wants? Since when is it a crime to supply what the people want. This is what the consumer are telling us -- 'give us more alcohol'. The consumer also wants some redistribution of wealth so we bundled that together as well. We rob banks and give the money to the working class (as long as they're working for us.) People also wants protection. Why have the police as a seperate entity just to provide the protection. We bundled that together too -- just pay us the protection fee. So you see yo 'onor. We are just putting together dis package that the consumer wants. We bundle all these features together and give the consumer what they want. With everyting integreted into one big package, they just have one, how shall i say this, neighborhood representative to talk to for all their daily needs: booze, protection, etc..If you dismantle us we won't be able to function like one large organized business. It will take us years to rebuild this empire. Many more people will have to be killed in the process. Whadabbout all the 'little' people that drive trucks everynight to bring you the booze. In short, yor 'onor, we are one big happy family. We bring people what they want in one big package. It took us years to build this empire. Besides I just gave some money and R&D promise to provide for compition to Steve Jobs' Apple. Don't break us up.

You dissappoint me fredo. (oops.. wrong movie) you dissappoint me yor 'onor.

Sincerely,

Bill Gates

Seriously tho, the similarities about the business/empire and how they are evolving are scary. Bill Gates must be the digital gangsta'. He needs to get a wireless divice shooting bits and bytes all over the place disrupting standard protocol ala Kerberos. let's call it the 'tommy PDA'. wouldn't it be funny when you start hearing .. 'in the news.. Bill Gates is wanted by the feds for questioning for the drive by rebooting.'

Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Letter, June 1998
Shell, April 1999
Time, January 2000
National Hydrogen Association, Spring 2000
Red Herring, July 2000
Fast Company, October 2000
ENN, December 2000
BBC, December 2001
etc.

Well, at least the Koreans have us beat in some respects. They've got Offline Player Killing!

It's like Lain all over again

The time article can be found here

Which is the attitude I was critcizing, the Us vs Them attitude between technology haves and have nots.

This is very easily seen in comedy pages about tech support horror stories, Like Computer Stupidities. This is evidence of what happens when geek culture separates from the culture of those around it.

Note: in the USA "Working Stiffs" is a generic slang for people who work for a living, vs those born to money, and is a common enough term, and is not usually confused with the dead, except for moments of humor or irony.

People who recognize the term realize it is a term of respect.

That reminds me a lot of the cool "Food Cooling System" that Time magazine named one of the best inventions of 2001. Put them both together and you almost have a kitchen! :)

In fact, the term "insanity" is a legal term, not a medical term. It's used as a legal definition for a person who has a mental illness that prevents him/her from being able to distinguish right from wrong, or from being able to understand the consequences of the criminal actions he/she had performed. The exact definition varies from state to state, and from nation to nation.

So, Heckenkamp may well be schizophrenic. He may be -- to use a highly technical term -- nutty as a fruit cake. But that doesn't help him in the least. A jury would have to find that his mental illness was so severe that he was incapable of knowing that his criminal actions were wrong, and I highly doubt that's going to happen.

On top to that, if Mr. Heckenkamp is trying for an "insanity" defence, he then opens himself up to a whole slew of legal mess. The judge can order him to have a representing attorney, and the prosecution can have his mental health examined, and admitted as evidence in the trial. It's very difficult to fake mental illness; psychiatrists can generally spot the pretenders.

Add to that the fact that the insanity defence rarely succeeds, and Mr. Heckenkamp's options grow increasingly dim.

The most he can hope for, if he's attempting some form of "insanity" defence, is for the judge to rule him incompetent to stand trial, in which case he'd be remanded to a mental-health hospital until such time as he was found competent.

So far, it appears that the only incompetence Heckenkamp has is his gross misunderstanding of the American legal system.

Burt Rutan envisons a Space Tourism venture that works partly as a raffle. The company would create three new astronauts every week. One of those will have paid big money. The other two will have paid a reasonable $x,000 (it was $5000 in 1996).

The spacecraft has three seats. You can guarantee a seat by paying $100,000+ for a ticket. Otherwise you pay $5,000 for a chance. For a chance for a seat on each flight 10 people pay $5,000.

For each weekly flight all eleven go the training site in the Carribean. They are instructed in the three crew positions on the spacecraft. At the end of the fourth day of training the 10 candidates draw straws. Two of them get seats in the spacecraft. The other 8 have gotten a very nice Carribean vacation for $5,000.

The two and the $100,000 passenger get seats on the spacecraft launched on the Proteus for an Alan Shepard style 15 minute sub-orbital flight that lands in the same Carribean. The flight includes ten minutes of free weightlessness.

Rutan's vision was the commercial application of his entry for the X-Prize. The X-Prize competition is dormant because it never got a sponsor for the $1 Million prize.

Clinton was not impeached.

Wrong. Impeachment means that the House votes to send the case for a trial in the Senate. Just like a grand jury. He was impeached, but the Senate voted to not try him.

The rest of your comments are simple flambait.

But am I the only /.'er that will miss this "commercial" on TV, so I can watch the 9|11 CBS special with the camcorder footage inside the world trade center on the 11th? It's commercial-free for two hours, and I think it's going to be a much more meaningful way of spending time with TV tonight(I mean, aren't we the ones that always trashes TV for the "lame" sitcoms and "stupid" filler, that's always on?)

The problem with this is that ever since the cold war era and afterwards, the greatest deterrent against the use of nuclear weapons is the fact of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). Knowing this and the idiocy behinds the huge arms race, there was a feeling of peace in that your enemy would not use nuclear weapons against use and you wouldn't use it against them. It was at an equilibrium (maybe not an ideal one, but still maintain stability in the world)

Now with this new release, other countries are not so sure that the US will be holding back on the use of nuclear weapons. The only smart thing that they can do knowing this news is to build up their current stockpile and for those that don't have it, acquire it. The result of this is that it leads to greater instability in the world

Let's think about it this way. Let's just say for example if "Australia" comes out tomorrow and announce that the US is a great terrorist nation and a part of the "Axis of Badpeople" and that at some point later on, the US has to be dealt accordingly. Do you think the US is going to sit back and wait until "Australia" attacks? No, the US will attack "Australia" preemptively because you pretty much know a battle is coming, why wait for the enemy to attack you.

In my personal opinion, the current administration has done a great amount of damage to the world in terms of lodging it off of the fragile stability that it once was. Just to name a few events, the refusal to sign the Kyoto Pact, the refusal of signing the ban on Biological Weapons and Chemical Warfare, the withdrawal from the ARMS Control treaty with Russia, etc. I mean, how can the US morally attack countries like Iraq for producing Chemical weapons if the US is also producing (or "researching") Biological warfare. [Again, I'm in no way defending Iraq or any other nation..but it's just something to think about]

Yes, September 11th was an horrible event. I live only 5 miles away from the WTC and unfortunately watched it happen. But what I find even more horrendous is the fact that the administration is using this as a scapegoat to attack people that were not directly involved, and along the way kill innocent civilians and/or detain the thousands of innocent people in this country

Again, I am in no way condoning what was done on September 11th. But it is times like this that we have to step back and make sure that the people that are leading the nation are doing the right thing, and not just blindly follow like sheeps. That is what the core part of democracy is: the power of the people. Throughout history, we have seen situation where entire nations blindly followed the policies of its leaders (take WWII or Communism for example)

If anyone remembers the "Millenium" series on CNN, they had a blurb about Zheng He and the junks he used in his travels.

Here's a link: Millenium

For more information, even more in depth, go to Time Magazine's special that ran a while back.

The one thing to note about both of the links above is that they were created before Gavin Menzies' research. However, it was never known how far and exactly where Zheng He went because his ships and any documents of his travels were burned upon returning from his journey in light of the increasingly isolationist government. The only evidence of travel lies in records of his visit in certain places, and secondary evidence like Menzies' map theory.

Time Europe article titled The Amazing Vikings. It was part of a feature Time did two years ago.

In addition to going to America 500 years before Columbus, they also did trades all the way down in Irak and formed the worlds oldest parliament.

And it seems they did mushrooms to go beserk. Cool guys.

The article that Time recently did about the Segway answers many (if not all of your worries.

Reinventing the Wheel
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1 86660,00.html

To avoid confusion, I've responded to each of your points with quotes pulled directly from the article.

Imagine riding this thing during the lunch hour in a crowded downtown area (pick the city of your choice). And you obviously have to ride it on the sidewalk. But it would not be faster (if not slower) than walking, since you wouldn't be moving faster than the rest of the people. It pretty much defeats its purpose in the suburbs or in the industrial parks.

[Kamen] wants his machine taken seriously, as a serious solution to serious problems. That anxiety was one of the reasons he and his team decided to concentrate at first on major corporations, universities and government agencies--large, solid, established institutions--rather than dive straight into the consumer marketplace.

The second problem, as one of the previous posts mentioned, is what happens when you suddenly hit something (more likely someone). The thing might be self balancing, but I've felt what happens when one of your rollerblades gets stuck in a groove.

Especially gratifying to Kamen was the reaction of Andy Grove, the chairman of Intel and, unlike so many Silicon Valley boosters, a bone-deep skeptic. Perched tentatively on the machine, the 65-year-old Grove was rolling slowly along when Doerr ambled over and pushed him in the chest. When the Segway kept him from losing his balance, Grove emitted a distinctly un-Grove-like giggle. "The machine is gorgeous," he said later. "I'm no good at balancing; it would take me a hundred years to learn to snowboard. This took me less than five minutes."

Third, think of its battery life (I presume it is battery powered)

This last piece is from the Segway Product Specifications
http://www.segway.com/consumer/segway/product_spec ifications.html

When most transportation companies talk about range, they reference it under optimal conditions--no wind, flat terrain, and so forth. While Segway HT's maximum range with NiMH batteries is approximately 17 miles (28 km), we expect you'll be able to travel about 11 miles (17 km) on a single battery charge--accounting for variations in terrain and other factors. This is far more than the distance we expect the average user will travel on a Segway HT in one day.

What's wrong? Your agent can't land you another Time gig?

To go along with your foot-powered laptop, you might want to check out the Freecharge windup generator due out for Motorola cellphones this quarter. It won a Time Product of the Year citation.

"many people chose to vote with their pocket book."

It sure would be nice if I had a pocket book I could vote with. Except these are the real voters. Enron is a classic example. They got their guy elected, set the US's energy policy and placed their executives into positions where they could do the most good for big oil. This is not new and it's not going to stop. Moron defending big business. Brainwashed into thinking that they are on your side.

Anybody know what the battery life is on this thing?

Not great

The Slashdot Story Submission System or Four-S (pronounced "force") is a closely guarded Slashdot secret. As much as Slashdot claims to be anti-patent, in their well-known hypocritical nature, they have a patent pending for their story submission system. It is this very system's precision and robustness that explains why slashdot is so popular yet other similar slashcode sites get less hits than the average AOL user's personal homepage.

Like the formula to Coca-Cola, KFC's secret recipe, and the chemical structure of SPAM, the workings of the Four-S system was the question keeping me awake at night. After weeks of saving my allowance, obtaining a fake ID and making a few trips to the seedier parts of town, I finally had everything I needed to discover the truth behind one of mankind's greatest mysteries.

Thanks to a life-size inflatable tux doll and a keg of mediocre quality lukewarm beer, I had little trouble coaxing the secrets of the Four-S system out of Rob Malda. Between mugs of beer and unspeakable acts against nature (and vinyl inflatable dolls), in his drunken slurred speech, he explained the most intimate details of the four-s system.

R.M.: Well... Hey, you're kinda cute. Wanna see a cool trick I can do with a taco?

Me: Umm, I think I know what you have in mind - it won't work. When I was mowing a lawn last summer, I had an unfortunate accident and was involuntarily castrated. How that would effect the outcome of your trick should be self explanatory.

R.M.: Damn, that sucks. Hey, since you've taken yourself out of the gene pool, did you win a Darwin award?

Me: Did you win a Queer of the Year award? All fags like you should be given a Darwin award for taking themselves out of the gene pool. One more comment about my lack of balls and I'm deflating Tux!

R.M.: No, not Tux! I'm SO sorry! How can I make it up to you?

Me: The Four-S system. Tell me about it.

R.M.: Never. I'll take it to my grave.

Me: Damnit Rob, tell me or I'll shove my withered scrotum in your face. It's so nasty BME, Stileproject AND Steakandchese refused to post the picture!

R.M.: You make a compelling case, but no.

ME: Damn you, I'm so mad I don't feel like typing A HREF= anymore! Now you're gonna pay!

At this point I pull down my pants.

R.M: OH LORD OF ALL THINGS HOLY!!! I'M BLIND! OH THE AGONY! FOR GREAT JUSTICE, PUT YOUR PANTS BACK ON!

ME: Not until you tell me about the Four-S!

R.M.: Okay you win, I'll talk, I'll talk. Just put your pants back on.

ME: I don't trust you. Tell me about the Four-S first!

R.M.: Sigh. Okay, the Four-S. Most people think the Four-S stands for "Slashdot Story Submission System", they're wrong - it's just the public codename. It really is an acronym for the four steps involved in story selection. Scratch paper, spin, semen, shredder - That's what the Four-S really means.

During the first step, the "scratch paper" stage, hardworking monks here at Slashdot HQ carefully transcribe each story submission on to a piece of environmentally friendly recycled paper. For the "spin" step, these pieces of paper are then placed in a Kenmore dryer (set to air dry only, heat caused us to lose a whole day's worth of submissions once when the paper burst into flames!) for 5 minutes for a good randomizing effect. Now ready for the "semen" stage, one of the Slashdot editing crew opens the dryer door and proceeds to masturbate into the dryer. Whichever lucky paper happens to catch the wad of jism will be posted to the main page of Slashdot and then placed in the shredder. The reason for shredding a successfully submitted story is simple, if it's shredded, we can be sure we won't see the dried semen on it and accidentally post it again. Since we can only masturbate so many times in one day, you can understand why we're only able to post so many stories in one day - and why so many are rejected. This is exactly why the Four-S system is so much more versatile than other story submission systems.

Me: Wow, that explains a lot. So how did you come up with the Four-S anyway?

R.M.: I was up late one night trying to write a script to randomly pick story submissions, but everyone at Slashdot HQ kept complaining it wasn't random enough. After debating for hours, my throat was becoming sore and I was starting to go hoarse. In frustration, I finally yelled, "Well how do you propose I make it more random, use the for..(cough)..se?" At that moment, the idea dawned on me.

Me: Why am I not surprised?

R.M.: Now that you have this information, you have entered a circle of trust. Promise me you won't tell a soul about what I have told you today!

Me: (With fingers crossed) Sure, I promise.

The Slashdot Story Submission System or Four-S (pronounced "force") is a closely guarded Slashdot secret. As much as Slashdot claims to be anti-patent, in their well-known hypocritical nature, they have a patent pending for their story submission system. It is this very system's precision and robustness that explains why slashdot is so popular yet other similar slashcode sites get less hits than the average AOL user's personal homepage.

Like the formula to Coca-Cola, KFC's secret recipe, and the chemical structure of SPAM, the workings of the Four-S system was the question keeping me awake at night. After weeks of saving my allowance, obtaining a fake ID and making a few trips to the seedier parts of town, I finally had everything I needed to discover the truth behind one of mankind's greatest mysteries.

Thanks to a life-size inflatable tux doll and a keg of mediocre quality lukewarm beer, I had little trouble coaxing the secrets of the Four-S system out of Rob Malda. Between mugs of beer and unspeakable acts against nature (and vinyl inflatable dolls), in his drunken slurred speech, he explained the most intimate details of the four-s system.

R.M.: Well... Hey, you're kinda cute. Wanna see a cool trick I can do with a taco?

Me: Umm, I think I know what you have in mind - it won't work. When I was mowing a lawn last summer, I had an unfortunate accident and was involuntarily castrated. How that would effect the outcome of your trick should be self explanatory.

R.M.: Damn, that sucks. Hey, since you've taken yourself out of the gene pool, did you win a Darwin award?

Me: Did you win a Queer of the Year award? All fags like you should be given a Darwin award for taking themselves out of the gene pool. One more comment about my lack of balls and I'm deflating Tux!

R.M.: No, not Tux! I'm SO sorry! How can I make it up to you?

Me: The Four-S system. Tell me about it.

R.M.: Never. I'll take it to my grave.

Me: Damnit Rob, tell me or I'll shove my withered scrotum in your face. It's so nasty BME, Stileproject AND Steakandchese refused to post the picture!

R.M.: You make a compelling case, but no.

ME: Damn you, I'm so mad I don't feel like typing A HREF= anymore! Now you're gonna pay!

At this point I pull down my pants.

R.M: OH LORD OF ALL THINGS HOLY!!! I'M BLIND! OH THE AGONY! FOR GREAT JUSTICE, PUT YOUR PANTS BACK ON!

ME: Not until you tell me about the Four-S!

R.M.: Okay you win, I'll talk, I'll talk. Just put your pants back on.

ME: I don't trust you. Tell me about the Four-S first!

R.M.: Sigh. Okay, the Four-S. Most people think the Four-S stands for "Slashdot Story Submission System", they're wrong - it's just the public codename. It really is an acronym for the four steps involved in story selection. Scratch paper, spin, semen, shredder - That's what the Four-S really means.

During the first step, the "scratch paper" stage, hardworking monks here at Slashdot HQ carefully transcribe each story submission on to a piece of environmentally friendly recycled paper. For the "spin" step, these pieces of paper are then placed in a Kenmore dryer (set to air dry only, heat caused us to lose a whole day's worth of submissions once when the paper burst into flames!) for 5 minutes for a good randomizing effect. Now ready for the "semen" stage, one of the Slashdot editing crew opens the dryer door and proceeds to masturbate into the dryer. Whichever lucky paper happens to catch the wad of jism will be posted to the main page of Slashdot and then placed in the shredder. The reason for shredding a successfully submitted story is simple, if it's shredded, we can be sure we won't see the dried semen on it and accidentally post it again. Since we can only masturbate so many times in one day, you can understand why we're only able to post so many stories in one day - and why so many are rejected. This is exactly why the Four-S system is so much more versatile than other story submission systems.

Me: Wow, that explains a lot. So how did you come up with the Four-S anyway?

R.M.: I was up late one night trying to write a script to randomly pick story submissions, but everyone at Slashdot HQ kept complaining it wasn't random enough. After debating for hours, my throat was becoming sore and I was starting to go hoarse. In frustration, I finally yelled, "Well how do you propose I make it more random, use the for..(cough)..se?" At that moment, the idea dawned on me.

Me: Why am I not surprised?

R.M.: Now that you have this information, you have entered a circle of trust. Promise me you won't tell a soul about what I have told you today!

Me: (With fingers crossed) Sure, I promise.

The Slashdot Story Submission System or Four-S (pronounced "force") is a closely guarded Slashdot secret. As much as Slashdot claims to be anti-patent, in their well-known hypocritical nature, they have a patent pending for their story submission system. It is this very system's precision and robustness that explains why slashdot is so popular yet other similar slashcode sites get less hits that the average AOL user's personal homepage.

Like the formula to Coca-Cola, KFC's secret recipe, and the chemical structure of SPAM, the workings of the Four-S system was the question keeping me awake at night. After weeks of saving my allowance, obtaining a fake ID and making a few trips to the seedier parts of town, I finally had everything I needed to discover the truth behind one of mankind's greatest mysteries.

Thanks to a life-size inflatable tux doll and a keg of mediocre quality lukewarm beer, I had little trouble coaxing the secrets of the Four-S system out of Rob Malda. Between mugs of beer and unspeakable acts against nature (and vinyl inflatable dolls), in his drunken slurred speech, he explained the most intimate details of the four-s system.

R.M.: Well... Hey, your kinda cute. Wanna see a cool trick I can do with a taco?

Me: Umm, I think I know what you have in mind - it won't work. When I was mowing a lawn last summer, I had an unfortunate accident and was involuntarily castrated. How that would effect the outcome of your trick should be self explanatory.

R.M.: Damn, that sucks. Hey, since you've taken yourself out of the gene pool, did you win a Darwin award?

Me: Did you win a Queer of the Year award? All fags like you should be given a Darwin award for taking themselves out of the gene pool. One more comment about my lack of balls and I'm deflating Tux!

R.M.: No, not Tux! I'm SO sorry! How can I make it up to you?

Me: The Four-S system. Tell me about it.

R.M.: Never. I'll take it to my grave.

Me: Damnit Rob, tell me or I'll shove my withered scrotum in your face. It's so nasty BME, Stileproject AND Steakandchese refused to post the picture!

R.M.: You make a compelling case, but no.

ME: Damn you, I'm so mad I don't feel like typing A HREF= anymore! Now you're gonna pay!

At this point I pull down my pants.

R.M: OH LORD OF ALL THINGS HOLY!!! I'M BLIND! OH THE AGONY! FOR GREAT JUSTICE, PUT YOUR PANTS BACK ON!

ME: Not until you tell me about the Four-S!

R.M.: Okay you win, I'll talk, I'll talk. Just put your pants back on.

ME: I don't trust you. Tell me about the Four-S first!

R.M.: Sigh. Okay, the Four-S. Most people think the Four-S stands for "Slashdot Story Submission System", they're wrong - it's just the public codename. It really is an acronym for the four steps involved in story selection. Scratch paper, spin, semen, shredder - That's what the Four-S really means.

During the first step, the "scratch paper" stage, hardworking monks here at Slashdot HQ carefully transcribe each story submission on to a piece of environmentally friendly recycled paper. For the "spin" step, these pieces of paper are then placed in a Kenmore dryer (set to air dry only, heat caused us to lose a whole day's worth of submissions once when the paper burst into flames!) for 5 minutes for a good randomizing effect. Now ready for the "semen" stage, one of the Slashdot editing crew opens the dryer door and proceeds to masturbate into the dryer. Whichever lucky paper happens to catch the wad of jism will be posted to the main page of Slashdot and then placed in the shredder. The reason for shredding a successfully submitted story is simple, if it's shredded, we can be sure we won't see the dried semen on it and accidentally post it again. Since we can only masturbate so many times in one day, you can understand why we're only able to post so many stories in one day - and why so many are rejected. This is exactly why the Four-S system is so much more versatile than other story submission systems.

Me: Wow, that explains a lot. So how did you come up with the Four-S anyway?

R.M.: I was up late one night trying to write a script to randomly pick story submissions, but everyone at Slashdot HQ kept complaining it wasn't random enough. After debating for hours, my throat was becoming sore and I was starting to go hoarse. In frustration, I finally yelled, "Well how do you propose I make it more random, use the for..(cough)..se?" At that moment, the idea dawned on me.

Me: Why am I not surprised?

R.M.: Now that you have this information, you have entered a circle of trust. Promise me you won't tell a soul about what I have told you today!

Me: (With fingers crossed) Sure, I promise.

The Slashdot Story Submission System or Four-S (pronounced "force") is a closely guarded Slashdot secret. As much as Slashdot claims to be anti-patent, in their well-known hypocritical nature, they have a patent pending for their story submission system. It is this very system's precision and robustness that explains why slashdot is so popular yet other similar slashcode sites get less hits that the average AOL user's personal homepage.

Like the formula to Coca-Cola, KFC's secret recipe, and the chemical structure of SPAM, the workings of the Four-S system was the question keeping me awake at night. After weeks of saving my allowance, obtaining a fake ID and making a few trips to the seedier parts of town, I finally had everything I needed to discover the truth behind one of mankind's greatest mysteries.

Thanks to a life-size inflatable tux doll and a keg of mediocre quality lukewarm beer, I had little trouble coaxing the secrets of the Four-S system out of Rob Malda. Between mugs of beer and unspeakable acts against nature (and vinyl inflatable dolls), in his drunken slurred speech, he explained the most intimate details of the four-s system.

R.M.: Well... Hey, your kinda cute. Wanna see a cool trick I can do with a taco?

Me: Umm, I think I know what you have in mind - it won't work. When I was mowing a lawn last summer, I had an unfortunate accident and was involuntarily castrated. How that would effect the outcome of your trick should be self explanatory.

R.M.: Damn, that sucks. Hey, since you've taken yourself out of the gene pool, did you win a Darwin award?

Me: Did you win a Queer of the Year award? All fags like you should be given a Darwin award for taking themselves out of the gene pool. One more comment about my lack of balls and I'm deflating Tux!

R.M.: No, not Tux! I'm SO sorry! How can I make it up to you?

Me: The Four-S system. Tell me about it.

R.M.: Never. I'll take it to my grave.

Me: Damnit Rob, tell me or I'll shove my withered scrotum in your face. It's so nasty BME, Stileproject AND Steakandchese refused to post the picture!

R.M.: You make a compelling case, but no.

ME: Damn you, I'm so mad I don't feel like typing A HREF= anymore! Now you're gonna pay!

At this point I pull down my pants.

R.M: OH LORD OF ALL THINGS HOLY!!! I'M BLIND! OH THE AGONY! FOR GREAT JUSTICE, PUT YOUR PANTS BACK ON!

ME: Not until you tell me about the Four-S!

R.M.: Okay you win, I'll talk, I'll talk. Just put your pants back on.

ME: I don't trust you. Tell me about the Four-S first!

R.M.: Sigh. Okay, the Four-S. Most people think the Four-S stands for "Slashdot Story Submission System", they're wrong - it's just the public codename. It really is an acronym for the four steps involved in story selection. Scratch paper, spin, semen, shredder - That's what the Four-S really means.

During the first step, the "scratch paper" stage, hardworking monks here at Slashdot HQ carefully transcribe each story submission on to a piece of environmentally friendly recycled paper. For the "spin" step, these pieces of paper are then placed in a Kenmore dryer (set to air dry only, heat caused us to lose a whole day's worth of submissions once when the paper burst into flames!) for 5 minutes for a good randomizing effect. Now ready for the "semen" stage, one of the Slashdot editing crew opens the dryer door and proceeds to masturbate into the dryer. Whichever lucky paper happens to catch the wad of jism will be posted to the main page of Slashdot and then placed in the shredder. The reason for shredding a successfully submitted story is simple, if it's shredded, we can be sure we won't see the dried semen on it and accidentally post it again. Since we can only masturbate so many times in one day, you can understand why we're only able to post so many stories in one day - and why so many are rejected. This is exactly why the Four-S system is so much more versatile than other story submission systems.

Me: Wow, that explains a lot. So how did you come up with the Four-S anyway?

R.M.: I was up late one night trying to write a script to randomly pick story submissions, but everyone at Slashdot HQ kept complaining it wasn't random enough. After debating for hours, my throat was becoming sore and I was starting to go hoarse. In frustration, I finally yelled, "Well how do you propose I make it more random, use the for..(cough)..se?" At that moment, the idea dawned on me.

Me: Why am I not surprised?

R.M.: Now that you have this information, you have entered a circle of trust. Promise me you won't tell a soul about what I have told you today!

Me: (With fingers crossed) Sure, I promise.

The Slashdot Story Submission System or Four-S (pronounced "force") is a closely guarded Slashdot secret. As much as Slashdot claims to be anti-patent, in their well-known hypocritical nature, they have a patent pending for their story submission system. It is this very system's precision and robustness that explains why slashdot is so popular yet other similar slashcode sites get less hits that the average AOL user's personal homepage.

Like the formula to Coca-Cola, KFC's secret recipe, and the chemical structure of SPAM, the workings of the Four-S system was the question keeping me awake at night. After weeks of saving my allowance, obtaining a fake ID and making a few trips to the seedier parts of town, I finally had everything I needed to discover the truth behind one of mankind's greatest mysteries.

Thanks to a life-size inflatable tux doll and a keg of mediocre quality lukewarm beer, I had little trouble coaxing the secrets of the Four-S system out of Rob Malda. Between mugs of beer and unspeakable acts against nature (and vinyl inflatable dolls), in his drunken slurred speech, he explained the most intimate details of the four-s system.

R.M.: Well... Hey, your kinda cute. Wanna see a cool trick I can do with a taco?

Me: Umm, I think I know what you have in mind - it won't work. When I was mowing a lawn last summer, I had an unfortunate accident and was involuntarily castrated. How that would effect the outcome of your trick should be self explanatory.

R.M.: Damn, that sucks. Hey, since you've taken yourself out of the gene pool, did you win a Darwin award?

Me: Did you win a Queer of the Year award? All fags like you should be given a Darwin award for taking themselves out of the gene pool. One more comment about my lack of balls and I'm deflating Tux!

R.M.: No, not Tux! I'm SO sorry! How can I make it up to you?

Me: The Four-S system. Tell me about it.

R.M.: Never. I'll take it to my grave.

Me: Damnit Rob, tell me or I'll shove my withered scrotum in your face. It's so nasty BME, Stileproject AND Steakandchese refused to post the picture!

R.M.: You make a compelling case, but no.

ME: Damn you, I'm so mad I don't feel like typing A HREF= anymore! Now you're gonna pay!

At this point I pull down my pants.

R.M: OH LORD OF ALL THINGS HOLY!!! I'M BLIND! OH THE AGONY! FOR GREAT JUSTICE, PUT YOUR PANTS BACK ON!

ME: Not until you tell me about the Four-S!

R.M.: Okay you win, I'll talk, I'll talk. Just put your pants back on.

ME: I don't trust you. Tell me about the Four-S first!

R.M.: Sigh. Okay, the Four-S. Most people think the Four-S stands for "Slashdot Story Submission System", they're wrong - it's just the public codename. It really is an acronym for the four steps involved in story selection. Scratch paper, spin, semen, shredder - That's what the Four-S really means.

During the first step, the "scratch paper" stage, hardworking monks here at Slashdot HQ carefully transcribe each story submission on to a piece of environmentally friendly recycled paper. For the "spin" step, these pieces of paper are then placed in a Kenmore dryer (set to air dry only, heat caused us to lose a whole day's worth of submissions once when the paper burst into flames!) for 5 minutes for a good randomizing effect. Now ready for the "semen" stage, one of the Slashdot editing crew opens the dryer door and proceeds to masturbate into the dryer. Whichever lucky paper happens to catch the wad of jism will be posted to the main page of Slashdot and then placed in the shredder. The reason for shredding a successfully submitted story is simple, if it's shredded, we can be sure we won't see the dried semen on it and accidentally post it again. Since we can only masturbate so many times in one day, you can understand why we're only able to post so many stories in one day - and why so many are rejected. This is exactly why the Four-S system is so much more versatile than other story submission systems.

Me: Wow, that explains a lot. So how did you come up with the Four-S anyway?

R.M.: I was up late one night trying to write a script to randomly pick story submissions, but everyone at Slashdot HQ kept complaining it wasn't random enough. After debating for hours, my throat was becoming sore and I was starting to go hoarse. In frustration, I finally yelled, "Well how do you propose I make it more random, use the for..(cough)..se?" At that moment, the idea dawned on me.

Me: Why am I not surprised?

R.M.: Now that you have this information, you have entered a circle of trust. Promise me you won't tell a soul about what I have told you today!

Me: (With fingers crossed) Sure, I promise.

The Slashdot Story Submission System or Four-S (pronounced "force") is a closely guarded Slashdot secret. As much as Slashdot claims to be anti-patent, in their well-known hypocritical nature, they have a patent pending for their story submission system. It is this very system's precision and robustness that explains why slashdot is so popular yet other similar slashcode sites get less hits that the average AOL user's personal homepage.

Like the formula to Coca-Cola, KFC's secret recipe, and the chemical structure of SPAM, the workings of the Four-S system was the question keeping me awake at night. After weeks of saving my allowance, obtaining a fake ID and making a few trips to the seedier parts of town, I finally had everything I needed to discover the truth behind one of mankind's greatest mysteries.

Thanks to a life-size inflatable tux doll and a keg of mediocre quality lukewarm beer, I had little trouble coaxing the secrets of the Four-S system out of Rob Malda. Between mugs of beer and unspeakable acts against nature (and vinyl inflatable dolls), in his drunken slurred speech, he explained the most intimate details of the four-s system.

R.M.: Well... Hey, your kinda cute. Wanna see a cool trick I can do with a taco?

Me: Umm, I think I know what you have in mind - it won't work. When I was mowing a lawn last summer, I had an unfortunate accident and was involuntarily castrated. How that would effect the outcome of your trick should be self explanatory.

R.M.: Damn, that sucks. Hey, since you've taken yourself out of the gene pool, did you win a Darwin award?

Me: Did you win a Queer of the Year award? All fags like you should be given a Darwin award for taking themselves out of the gene pool. One more comment about my lack of balls and I'm deflating Tux!

R.M.: No, not Tux! I'm SO sorry! How can I make it up to you?

Me: The Four-S system. Tell me about it.

R.M.: Never. I'll take it to my grave.

Me: Damnit Rob, tell me or I'll shove my withered scrotum in your face. It's so nasty BME, Stileproject AND Steakandchese refused to post the picture!

R.M.: You make a compelling case, but no.

ME: Damn you, I'm so mad I don't feel like typing A HREF= anymore! Now you're gonna pay!

At this point I pull down my pants.

R.M: OH LORD OF ALL THINGS HOLY!!! I'M BLIND! OH THE AGONY! FOR GREAT JUSTICE, PUT YOUR PANTS BACK ON!

ME: Not until you tell me about the Four-S!

R.M.: Okay you win, I'll talk, I'll talk. Just put your pants back on.

ME: I don't trust you. Tell me about the Four-S first!

R.M.: Sigh. Okay, the Four-S. Most people think the Four-S stands for "Slashdot Story Submission System", they're wrong - it's just the public codename. It really is an acronym for the four steps involved in story selection. Scratch paper, spin, semen, shredder - That's what the Four-S really means.

During the first step, the "scratch paper" stage, hardworking monks here at Slashdot HQ carefully transcribe each story submission on to a piece of environmentally friendly recycled paper. For the "spin" step, these pieces of paper are then placed in a Kenmore dryer (set to air dry only, heat caused us to lose a whole day's worth of submissions once when the paper burst into flames!) for 5 minutes for a good randomizing effect. Now ready for the "semen" stage, one of the Slashdot editing crew opens the dryer door and proceeds to masturbate into the dryer. Whichever lucky paper happens to catch the wad of jism will be posted to the main page of Slashdot and then placed in the shredder. The reason for shredding a successfully submitted story is simple, if it's shredded, we can be sure we won't see the dried semen on it and accidentally post it again. Since we can only masturbate so many times in one day, you can understand why we're only able to post so many stories in one day - and why so many are rejected. This is exactly why the Four-S system is so much more versatile than other story submission systems.

Me: Wow, that explains a lot. So how did you come up with the Four-S anyway?

R.M.: I was up late one night trying to write a script to randomly pick story submissions, but everyone at Slashdot HQ kept complaining it wasn't random enough. After debating for hours, my throat was becoming sore and I was starting to go hoarse. In frustration, I finally yelled, "Well how do you propose I make it more random, use the for..(cough)..se?" At that moment, the idea dawned on me.

Me: Why am I not surprised?

R.M.: Now that you have this information, you have entered a circle of trust. Promise me you won't tell a soul about what I have told you today!

Me: (With fingers crossed) Sure, I promise.

this was posted for the humor fact that he is broke as hell now, he used to buy such things like toys.

Mac OSX isn't making the kind of surge they had hoped for. Pre-sales of the new iMac are low (although the machines are really cool!), and with so little market share to work with, Apple's fate is sealed.

Even Time's review was less than glorious, and had a very ominous feel to it.

Too bad, too. I kind of like the fruity little buggers.

--SC