Slashdot Mirror

No, he's the bald, clueless, sociopathic company CEO of Dilbert.

They had to break something though: The little button to add a new tab is now invisible until you mouse over it. [facepalm.gif]

How people are supposed to know where the invisible thing is so that they can move the mouse over it? Only the Firefox designers know the answer to that one.

Firefox designers are well funded by Google (again), so the answer is *dark patterns*.
Most mainstream users don't even understand the concept of multiple tabs and Windows these days, so the topmost tab wins and it's game over for everything else --if you open any tablet you'll see hours and hours worth of work in the form of apps for all sorts of things, but when the user needs to go back to X, they never use the tab functionality, and just start over from their desktop / app drawer.

It's common knowledge that Facebook and Youtube interfaces are made to keep you on their sites. While NCSA Mosaic intended images to open in a separate context from pages, and at one point video could ONLY work that way via download dialogs, today's internet is highly averse to doing the same because ads are too big a concern. So, browsers allow embedding hundreds of images or auto-playing videos. The social networks added hashtags to make it easier to do a long wiki-walk
Since this is keeping the advertisers' cash flowing steadily to your eyeballs for hours, they're motivated to make it harder for Google's cash flow to be disrupted by a user's intention to do something on the side.

So, by hiding the button they will slowly conditioning us, the SAVVY users. We are already forcibly unlearning keyboard tab management due to increasing time with our phones, where there's no choice, and where a single tab model is already king. Eventually instead of leaving the current page to do a search, we'll be more likely to use voice commands for those quickies --and they'll be handled by Google or Siri and steer us towards ads and spending, instead of a potential path of digression (which is on a non-Google, non-Facebook target, and thus not conducive to maximixation of revenue)

Hm. Interesting. I'll have to re-watch the episode (the synopsis is consistent with the scenario being absurd, unlikely to be encountered by typical rocket hobbyists) to see how he is saying "8 MN"—if he's estimating it, it can easily be an optimistic estimate by an enthusiastic experimentalist (oops, slipping into my physics lingo; not sure what the engineering version is). If he actually measured (or claimed to have measured) "8 MN", then it tips more into "critical research failure" uncharacteristic of this particular show.

http://clarence.wikia.com/wiki...

Missed the opportunity to call them Phobos and Deimos

Missed the opportunity to call them Phobos and Deimos

It worked for these folks!

> It wasn't until the master changed to a woman that changing of sex was even a possibility.

Wrong.

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/T...

At what point does a robot become a "living thing"

When you decide that it's "like you" and that y'all can come out ahead by working together. When it's so sophisticated that it has power and can possibly strike you back (*), is when you'll start to respect it as a person and acknowledge the rights that it demands. Until then, I am happy to eat plenty of bacon and beef. And wheat; wheat is such a wimpy pushover that I know none of them plants will ever be as dangerous as a triffid. (But I think I would eat triffids too, if they were edible.) Yet, as explained in the episode, you might be making an error with eating Popplers until you discover that they actually do wield power.

We should also eat retarded people and babies and-- oh shit, was I saying that out loud? I meant, we should respect our fellow humans. Except for French Canadians and people whose skin color is at an odd number of degrees on the color wheel-- oh shit, did it again. It's almost as though if I forget people are people, I might stop treating them as people. Hm.. in hindsight: duh?

(*) But seriously, if you gain enough power that you believe that you can't be struck back at (imagine the point of view of a billionaire, or the leader of a powerful country, or a cult leader developing a new Kool-Aid recipe, or a nutcase teenager with an enemies list and a really bitchin' automatic rifle) then you might start changing your mind about what is a "who" and "like you."

Madness and horror always lurk just beyond the threshold of our routine experience. Perhaps many of our problems are merely the ever-shifting edges of the multi-dimensional manifold that represents our interpretation of who else is a person, "like me."

Could have been worse.

You are in bad company with those kinds of irrational beliefs. Especially given your obsession with labeling, segregating yourself from others, and casting dispersions about evilness about without actually demonstrating any harm done.

LOLWUT?!?!

There's even a fucking Wikipedia page on Chinese spy cases in the US.

And ANOTHER one covering Chinese espionage in the US in general.

Is your phone ringing? That would be Planet Earth calling.

You are in bad company with those kinds of irrational beliefs. Especially given your obsession with labeling, segregating yourself from others, and casting dispersions about evilness about without actually demonstrating any harm done.

Too late, there's already a planet with that name.

Why don't they just make stasis pods mandatory on flights already.

Of use synaptic dampeners. From Rick and Morty, The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy:

• Gate Attendant: Your friend is class C or above cybernetic augmentations. Emphasis on the above. In any case, he needs to be neutralized.
• Rick: What?! Wait! <zap> Ugh! Brain hurty.
• Gerry: What did you do?
• Attendant: It’s a synaptic dampener that blocks violent tendencies and controversial thought. He will now be an ideal passenger.
• Rick: I want cookies and a 90-minute cut of Avatar.
• Gerry: Seriously?
• Attendant: It’ll wear off in six hours. It’s cheaper than banning dangerous people from flights. I mean, let everybody buy a ticket, right? Otherwise, the terrorists win.

"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife

"I'm telling you, Molotov cocktails work. Anytime I had a problem and I threw a Molotov cocktail, boom! Right away, I had a different problem."

-- Jason Mendoza, The Good Place

"No matter the problem, solve it with fire!" -- Magical Kyoko

"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife

"I'm telling you, Molotov cocktails work. Anytime I had a problem and I threw a Molotov cocktail, boom! Right away, I had a different problem."

-- Jason Mendoza, The Good Place

Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #39

Not according to this site, but it probably should be added. (Never heard of the FRoA so I looked it up.)

Between that and their devotion to the Prime Directive.

The Prime Directive did not exist during Enterprise.

"Someday my people are going to come up with some sort of a doctrine: something that tells us what we can and can't do out here – should and shouldn't do. But until somebody tells me that they've drafted that directive, I'm going to have to remind myself every day that we didn't come out here to play God."

Cheeseplant's House was the first talker I was aware of, in 1990. Might be the first ever too. Used to hang out in Cheeseplant's House waiting for MIST to open - fantastic, and rather player v player bloodthirsty game before all the Diku and Tickle muds started taking over.

Great days. I was playing MIST one day in the spanking new University X Term labs, very expensive, when a bunch of six formers came in to look the wonders of higher education. I did a 'shout' on the game - "oh god, hordes of potential first years staring at me and I'm playing a game". Got back loads of shouts "Greetings from the Netherlands", "Hello from Germany"....etc. Bet you I did more for recruitment that day than the entire rest of the tour.

oh man, you DO NOT want to know were malk comes from

http://prison-architect.wikia....

Stone claims that Guccifer is Romanian. Romanian alphabet uses Latin letters plus a few diacritics which are present in extended ASCII. However, I don't know if they the ASCII encoding is the most commonly used one in Romania. It maybe. But given that Romania was part of the Soviet block, it could be something else.

Wikia says that Windows-1250 is the recommended encoding for Romanian. It doesn't have Cyrillic, but it is not ASCII (Cyrillic is in Windows-1251).

I am not arguing, btw. I don't know quite know how meaningful it is. Just thinking "out loud" I guess. If you can point to the document on a more-or-less safe site, maybe I could make more sense of it.

I disagree, he was pulling a Jian Yang.

Jian Yang

Wiki entry:
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/...!

Can't help but think of this comic from Oglaf.

(*) Possibly NSFW. This one is actually OK if you're not a SJW, but other comics in the series are definitely NSFW.

some executive's coming-out-as-a-brony

Hmm, this site lists Gabe Newell and William Shatner as confirmed bronies and Oprah, Miyamoto, Spielberg, and Bill Clinton as "rumored", so there's that.

Of course space is full of grease.

Just think of what would happen if the galaxy were not properly greased. It would be like trying to drive a truck with no axle grease for the axles. Things would quickly come to a grinding halt from all the friction of the rotation of the galaxy.

And what's worse, it's not under warranty!

Well, you do need to change it every 3000 parsecs ...

Or every 250 Kessel Runs

Maybe STNG? the actual insult is, Ugly bags of mostly water

For the 5 major American political parties (Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green and Disaster Area), I tried to find the distance between their core platforms and reality. The measurement was so astronomical it required interpretation by a professor of Neomathematics from the University of Maximegalon. You know the one.

That makes sense, since Quake is indeed an Inhuman.

That makes sense, since Quake is indeed an Inhuman.

You mean that kind of inhuman?

Sorry to burst your bubble about Shaggy, but...

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki...

Are they gonna bring back the Giant-Size Man-Thing?

Yo, is this from a Thomas Pynchon novel? It hella sounds like it, holmes.

Yo dawg, u wuz close. And who be dis "holmes" homie?

See Yivo

They even covered it in the summary. Nuclear is expected to drop off. So what is the prediction based on? I sure hope it's not historic trends given:
% coal used in energy generation in 1997: 38.5%
% coal used in energy generation in 2017: 38.5%

Worse still the percentage of coal in the energy mix along with it's consumption actually rose last year (thanks India).

https://www.bloomberg.com/view...

Time to buy a new car I think: http://madmax.wikia.com/wiki/T...

When Ted notices that his new employee badge has his last name misspelled as 'Chips' instead of 'Crisp,' he goes to HR to get it fixed. However, instead of fixing it, they accidentally delete him from Veridian's database. This could not have happened at a worse time, since he needs to witness a test for Phil and Lem's new rocket jet pack in two days.

Veronica reassures Ted that it's just a computer glitch, but he wonders why Veridian can't just add him back into the system. Apparently, the geniuses at Veridian mandated that you have to have a 459 code in order to be added back into the system, i.e. one has to be a new hire. So, Ted re-applies for his old job.

Veronica is annoyed at Ted for reapplying for his job and starts the interview process out of formality. But Ted finds out that the company could restore him to the database by rebooting its mainframe. Veronica shoots that idea down, saying that Veridian would never do such a thing for one employee when there is cash to be lost. So Ted, out of utter frustration, quits.

After hearing about Ted's abrupt departure, the lab crew freaks out. Don't worry, Linda has a plan and caramels. Linda, Phil, Lem and the other lab scientists meet at Ted's house and tell him they can reboot the mainframe. They hatch and enact their plan ...

One minor roadblock — Veridian has trackers on all new ID/security badges, so security catches them before they can even get into the Veridian mainframe room. Foiled!

Veronica chews out Ted, Linda and the lab crew for half an hour, then demands their ID badges so she can lower their security clearance as punishment.

As Lem prepares to test the jet pack himself, Veronica gives him a 'parachute' stuffed in a knapsack. However, the knapsack is stuffed full of all the ID badges Veronica took, which includes many more than just Ted and the gang's.

The Veridian mainframe, detecting 75 employees are stuffed into one knapsack and launched a mile into the air, freaks out and reboots itself.

No, the first rule is "Once you have their money, you never give it back."

the Federation to expand to the point where they approach Borg-controlled space and have a full scale war with the Federation.

With fringe worlds getting swamped with refugees fleeing the warfare. And an unsettling number coming into the Federation, any one of which could be a borg sleeper agent/spy. "All it takes is one self-replicating nanomachine hiding in their bloodstream and we've got neighborhoods in SanFran getting assimilated, RIGHT UNDER FEDERATION'S NOSE!"

Everyone is worried about subspace pollution causing planets to get stranded and cut off from the resulting subspace ruptures. International politics try to get the Ferengi traders to limit their freighters to no avail.

Meanwhile the Klingons are STILL there and still rattling sabers. And the Romulans are playing the markets, and undercutting Federation efforts by abusing the shit out of the Remans. And their spies keep stealing Federation tech.

It's like modern day issues could find a sort of PARALLEL in the Star Trek setting. **Cough**COLDWAR**Cough**. But what kind of corporation would have the balls to make meaningful social commentary? Nope, we get commander Michael instead.

the Federation to expand to the point where they approach Borg-controlled space and have a full scale war with the Federation.

With fringe worlds getting swamped with refugees fleeing the warfare. And an unsettling number coming into the Federation, any one of which could be a borg sleeper agent/spy. "All it takes is one self-replicating nanomachine hiding in their bloodstream and we've got neighborhoods in SanFran getting assimilated, RIGHT UNDER FEDERATION'S NOSE!"

Everyone is worried about subspace pollution causing planets to get stranded and cut off from the resulting subspace ruptures. International politics try to get the Ferengi traders to limit their freighters to no avail.

Meanwhile the Klingons are STILL there and still rattling sabers. And the Romulans are playing the markets, and undercutting Federation efforts by abusing the shit out of the Remans. And their spies keep stealing Federation tech.

It's like modern day issues could find a sort of PARALLEL in the Star Trek setting. **Cough**COLDWAR**Cough**. But what kind of corporation would have the balls to make meaningful social commentary? Nope, we get commander Michael instead.

convincing me this guy isn't mentally ill.

Uncyclopedia describes this guy's mental condition:

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/...

Asshole Personality Disorder (APD) is the most common mental disorder found in humans.

The disturbances caused by Asshole Personality Disorder are usually not suffered by the patient at all, but by those around him: tension headaches, frustration, impotent rage, high blood pressure, suicidal or homicidal urges and a complete failure of rational thinking processes when trying to deal with this asshole. Being subjected to someone's Asshole Personality Disorder can cause a wide-ranging and pervasive negative impact on relationships in work, home and social settings.

As to your suggested treatment:

Should we really be locking this guy up for several years as opposed to diverting him to the care of a facility. Hell, thanks to private prisons it would probably be cheaper.

In this guy's case, a fitting punishment would be making him pay for his incarceration. Saddle him with debt, just like we do to college students.

Uncyclopedia on treatment:

The condition renders the patient not susceptible to normal therapies. Long-term psychotherapy only seems to encourage them. Skinnerian cattleprod application can produce practical results in many cases, and if it doesn't they almost certainly deserve it anyway.

Blanket party therapy is used with a high success rate in the armed forces, with only occasional recourse to fragging therapy being required. Some therapists have had great success treating Asshole Personality Disorder with arsenic therapy, cyanide therapy or high-velocity lead therapy, but these treatments remain technically illegal.

More animamated modern liberated[1] Kzinti cat-gurlz plz!


[1] yeah, I know what I do there.

Comcast serves the Tri-State Area?

Seriously... do you realize how many tri-state areas there are within the United States? More than a dozen.

Now someone tell Comcast to stop installing self-destruct buttons on their VOIP-inators.

I'm not sure where you're getting this stuff about the Jedi from.

"...but they were actually pretty awful all round"

They were? They seem to be universally loved by "good characters" in the universe. Let's see why you say the are "pretty awful"

"They considered themselves superior and claimed ownership of the Force, used it to manipulate people without a second thought"

Sure seems like they would have been running the Republic's government if they thought they were both superior and were happy to "manipulate people without a second though". But no, instead of pursuing power in the Republic they acted as servants of it.

"...and didn't seem to care at all about injustices like slavery."

Slavery was illegal in the Republic ( http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki... ) so while it did exist in a few backwaters like Tatooine, this does not mean that the Jedi didn't care about it any more than the Republic didn't. They were a relatively small order patrolling the bulk of the galaxy and by their own admission, couldnt get to everything. In fact, "When the Old Republic outlawed slavery, the Jedi set about to free those held..." (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jedi_Order).

"Luke tried to emulate them but made the same mistakes, resulting in Kylo Ren."

Specifically, what mistakes were made? The only one I know of was pulling his light saber out for a moment when he sensed the Dark side's influence on Ren.

Don't get me wrong, what you're throwing out here is certainly an interesting narrative, it just doesn't fit the facts.

I'm not really sure where the negative vibes came from; I thought it was better than "The Last Jedi" and a lot better than "Infinity Wars".

Ron Howard did a credible job as director (you can see what was done before him).

I think it really comes down to "Jedi Fatigue" and a really stupid release date (against "Infinity Wars" and "Deadpool 2").

I thought it was a pretty good movie, but the story seemed kind of like action pieces duct taped together, rather than a well thought out backstory of a pretty important character. Meaning, as a go watch a Han Solo adventure movie it was pretty good, as a go learn why Han Solo became who he was in Star Wars, it was OK but seemed lacking.

Personally I liked the Han Solo trilogy as a backstory better than the movie, but that's just me: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki...

This is explained in a few of the works in the interim. I won't do it full justice, but it goes something like: the New Republic is set up again, they fight for 5 long years and eventually defeat the Empire at Jaku. The Empire surrenders and and signs the Galactic Concordance.

At this point, the New Republic feared making the same mistake as the Old Republic (e.g. having a large military force that could be co-opted by a nefarious leader and turning into a New Empire) and demilitarize and decentralize. This allows the remnants of the Empire to violate the treaty and reorganize into the First Order, which in turn spawned the Resistance as a guerrilla group that was covertly supported by the faction in the New Republic that favored a more muscular military approach to the FO.

Of course, at the end of TFA, the FO wipes out the Senate and the NR, vindicating the folks that opposed demilitarization but also plunging them into a war where they are vastly outgunned. Of course that's the entire shtick of the series so it had to somehow be arranged that Leia leads a band of hopelessly outmatched soldiers.

In the end, it's actually a kind of rich counterpoint to the prequel trilogy's telling of the rise of the Empire. Moreso than you would expect from what is essentially a children's story. At least I liked the nuance of navigating between the danger of being so weak you succumb to tyranny versus being so strong you become a tyrant yourself.

And if they would have at least HINTED at these plot points in VII and IIX it would have been SO much better.

I liked The Force Awakens quite a bit, and I thought The Last Jedi was a good action movie. But I am with the crowd, it was not a Star Wars movie.

This is explained in a few of the works in the interim. I won't do it full justice, but it goes something like: the New Republic is set up again, they fight for 5 long years and eventually defeat the Empire at Jaku. The Empire surrenders and and signs the Galactic Concordance.

At this point, the New Republic feared making the same mistake as the Old Republic (e.g. having a large military force that could be co-opted by a nefarious leader and turning into a New Empire) and demilitarize and decentralize. This allows the remnants of the Empire to violate the treaty and reorganize into the First Order, which in turn spawned the Resistance as a guerrilla group that was covertly supported by the faction in the New Republic that favored a more muscular military approach to the FO.

Of course, at the end of TFA, the FO wipes out the Senate and the NR, vindicating the folks that opposed demilitarization but also plunging them into a war where they are vastly outgunned. Of course that's the entire shtick of the series so it had to somehow be arranged that Leia leads a band of hopelessly outmatched soldiers.

In the end, it's actually a kind of rich counterpoint to the prequel trilogy's telling of the rise of the Empire. Moreso than you would expect from what is essentially a children's story. At least I liked the nuance of navigating between the danger of being so weak you succumb to tyranny versus being so strong you become a tyrant yourself.

And if they would have at least HINTED at these plot points in VII and IIX it would have been SO much better.

I liked The Force Awakens quite a bit, and I thought The Last Jedi was a good action movie. But I am with the crowd, it was not a Star Wars movie.

This is explained in a few of the works in the interim. I won't do it full justice, but it goes something like: the New Republic is set up again, they fight for 5 long years and eventually defeat the Empire at Jaku. The Empire surrenders and and signs the Galactic Concordance.

At this point, the New Republic feared making the same mistake as the Old Republic (e.g. having a large military force that could be co-opted by a nefarious leader and turning into a New Empire) and demilitarize and decentralize. This allows the remnants of the Empire to violate the treaty and reorganize into the First Order, which in turn spawned the Resistance as a guerrilla group that was covertly supported by the faction in the New Republic that favored a more muscular military approach to the FO.

Of course, at the end of TFA, the FO wipes out the Senate and the NR, vindicating the folks that opposed demilitarization but also plunging them into a war where they are vastly outgunned. Of course that's the entire shtick of the series so it had to somehow be arranged that Leia leads a band of hopelessly outmatched soldiers.

In the end, it's actually a kind of rich counterpoint to the prequel trilogy's telling of the rise of the Empire. Moreso than you would expect from what is essentially a children's story. At least I liked the nuance of navigating between the danger of being so weak you succumb to tyranny versus being so strong you become a tyrant yourself.

This is explained in a few of the works in the interim. I won't do it full justice, but it goes something like: the New Republic is set up again, they fight for 5 long years and eventually defeat the Empire at Jaku. The Empire surrenders and and signs the Galactic Concordance.

At this point, the New Republic feared making the same mistake as the Old Republic (e.g. having a large military force that could be co-opted by a nefarious leader and turning into a New Empire) and demilitarize and decentralize. This allows the remnants of the Empire to violate the treaty and reorganize into the First Order, which in turn spawned the Resistance as a guerrilla group that was covertly supported by the faction in the New Republic that favored a more muscular military approach to the FO.

Of course, at the end of TFA, the FO wipes out the Senate and the NR, vindicating the folks that opposed demilitarization but also plunging them into a war where they are vastly outgunned. Of course that's the entire shtick of the series so it had to somehow be arranged that Leia leads a band of hopelessly outmatched soldiers.

In the end, it's actually a kind of rich counterpoint to the prequel trilogy's telling of the rise of the Empire. Moreso than you would expect from what is essentially a children's story. At least I liked the nuance of navigating between the danger of being so weak you succumb to tyranny versus being so strong you become a tyrant yourself.