Slashdot Mirror

Long story short is people on the Youtube platform, who have built an ongoing living and income can be destroyed at the drop of a hat, due to algorithm changes and censorship.

This is true, the 'adpocalypse' has indeed made a huge dents in the income of many youtubers. But keep in mind that's what's behind this: the advertisers themselves.

Google is an advertising company that happens to own a video platform and a search engine and a bunch of other stuff to help spread those ads, but at the core of the revenue is ads. What's happened with Youtube is that they got instantly scared when they lost advertisers because companies that are strict about their imagine do not want to be affiliated with content that they deem damaging to their brand. This is why they apparently chose to be extra-paranoid and demonetize everything that's could be perceived as 'problematic', but not by themselves or even the consumers but the advertisers. That's who their paying customer is, and that's who they care the most about.

Behind all of this is a conflict between the way advertising has traditionally been done and the way it's evolved online. If I buy ad-space on a tv-network or a newspaper, I have a good amount of control over what kind of content my ads are shown. However online the targeting is done based on the audience and not the content itself. So instead of saying: 'I want this ad to run for 3 weeks in this timeslot" companies can now say: 'I want to show this ads to men aged 20-35 who're interested in X, Y and Z." This is obviously better in the sense that it allows for a more fine-grained targeting of the campaign, but the tradeoff is that it surrenders all control of the content the ads are played next to. A person in your target demographic might be watching music videos and cute cat videos or they might be watching some radical political content and this is scaring the marketing people who want to protect their brand and avoid 'Coca-cola advertising next to ISIS videos' -'scandals'. This is in fact close to what started the so called 'Adpocalypse' last year: a bunch of big.brand advertisers got spooked because their ads were being run over racist content. Quoting from the link:

The YouTube Adpocalypse is a site-wide term emerging from the March-May 2017 advertiser boycott on YouTube.

The boycott arose from advertisements being played on the video, "Chief Keef dancing to Alabama N*gger", and other extremist content, leading to the UK Government, Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, Johnson & Johnson, and many major brands pulling their advertisements from YouTube.

Know what that meant? Revenues dropping across the board, money being lost. And with big brands like these, we're talking about more than just a few bucks.

This is why it has to be understood that this problem is not Google/Youtube-specific, it's advertiser specific. Obviously Google or any online platform would like to run as much ads on whatever content that they could, because more ads=more money. If you think the guys over at Youtube are excited about decreasing monetization think again. But the customer is always right, and if the hand that feeds you says either you do something about policing the kind of content the ads are getting played next to or you lose their business, what do you think they're going to do? A competing service on its own will not help because it will run into the same problem once it becomes big enough: if you want your platform to be profitable and ad-supported, you're going to have to kiss the ring of the advertisers or see them take their business elsewhere.

Before advertisers start trusting consumers to understand that they have not hand-picked the videos that the ads are played next to, this will not change. In the meanwhile, what Youtube could at least do is give the advertiser the choice of opting-in to the algorithm. There are plenty of companies out th

Maybe the ancestors of the octopi later became the Thermians. The resemblance is certainly striking: http://galaxyquest.wikia.com/w...

The network is the computer.

- John Burdette Gage (1996)

Really? He lost to Douglas Adams by about 15 years......the successor to Deep Thought was the Earth.

Whoosh!

Will anybody speak for the Calamari?

I'd speak for the Mon Calamari, but I suspect it's a trap.

I keep picturing time cards from Spongebob Squarepants.

"3 hours later"

Yeah, Caterpillar, where's my P-5000 Work Loader ?

Anything bigger uses big diesel tugs that are built like tanks.

Sometime *literally* like tanks (Aliens)
(or the soviet reversal thereof).

http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki...

You are completely missing the points.

1. Quantity != Quality.

McDonald's serves BILLIONS. Does that mean they serve gourmet food? No, just cheap, popular, crap.

2. Avatar was a formulaic, rip-off of "Dances with Wolves" in space, which Cameron even admitted.

Yes, exactly, it is very much like that. You see the same theme in "At Play in the Fields of the Lord" and also "The Emerald Forest," which maybe thematically isn't that connected but it did have that clash of civilizations or of cultures. That was another reference point for me. There was some beautiful stuff in that film. I just gathered all this stuff in and then you look at it through the lens of science fiction and it comes out looking very different but is still recognizable in a universal story way. It's almost comfortable for the audience â" "I know what kind of tale this is." They're not just sitting there scratching their heads, they're enjoying it and being taken along. And we still have turns and surprises in it, too, things you don't see coming. But the idea that you feel like you are in a classic story, a story that could have been shaped by Rudyard Kipling or Edgar Rice Burroughs.

"Going native" is not a new thing. i.e. Pocahontas and Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest which shares themes with Avatar has been done for ages, and will continue to be done in the future.

The GP is just pointing out he found Avatar far too derivative -- probably because he remembers these other movies.

Personally, I'm still going to enjoy the visuals of Avatar on my BluRay regardless of how formulaic and copy-cat it was. But I'm also not going to bury my head in the sand saying it was "original". I will recognize that it snuck in the out-of-body experience (OBE) and consciousness transference in a accessible way. The joke about unobtanium was a good social commentary and parody of how we have become dependent on oil. Avatar has some deeper themes if one so wishes to pursue:

* Avatar: A Multi-Dimensional Pop Parable for Ascension
* The Theology of Avatar

Was Avatar well executed? Yup.
Was Avatar original? Nope.
Was Avatar good? Good is relative to what the view has already seen.
WHY was Avatar popular? Ah, now THIS is probably the better question to ask but that is a discussion for another day.

I see it as a lot more important to make a good story than to actually "fulfill a quota" of actors and their cultural background.

Just look at Heimdall in Thor that has a black actor while nothing in the mythology states that - and some of the mythology even view the opposite. Nothing wrong with the actor himself, but it's still a bit annoying from the perspective of the background story and mythology.

If the story used don't say anything about race for a character, then be my guest and throw in the best qualified actor for that role regardless of skin color. Just don't make it awkwardly obvious that it's a forced cast.

What about this mechanic?
Best mechanic in the verse!

Many of these thousands of games on Steam are fake games, tossed together in a weekend using unmodified or barely modified parts from Unity's Asset Store in an attempt to make money from Steam trading cards. Some reviewers refer to these as asset flips.

Go watch GATTACA, or the Star Trek episodes that talk about Eugenics Wars, specifically Doctor Bashir, I Presume IIRC.

The danger is that it might become a slippery slope:

1. Only the rich will be able to afford,

2. It could lead to reverse discrimination and job profiling,

i.e. I'm sorry, your Johnny wasn't born with _X_, he isn't allowed to do _Y_

3. Loss of genetic diversity.

Show me ANY tech that man hasn't abused the fuck out? And while that isn't reason enough we need to proceed with caution instead a naive "full steam ahead".

Go read Eugenics for more details.

Go watch GATTACA, or the Star Trek episodes that talk about Eugenics Wars, specifically Doctor Bashir, I Presume IIRC.

The danger is that it might become a slippery slope:

1. Only the rich will be able to afford,

2. It could lead to reverse discrimination and job profiling,

i.e. I'm sorry, your Johnny wasn't born with _X_, he isn't allowed to do _Y_

3. Loss of genetic diversity.

Show me ANY tech that man hasn't abused the fuck out? And while that isn't reason enough we need to proceed with caution instead a naive "full steam ahead".

Go read Eugenics for more details.

Can someone please come up with some alternative to Flat/Material design that can become the hot new trend? Unless it involves just a pure white screen where you have to have previously memorized an invisible design layout it can't help but be better than what the industry is moving towards now.

Okay. How about the all black on black color scheme in Disaster Area's stunt ship:

"It's the wild colour scheme that freaks me," said Zaphod whose love affair with this ship had lasted almost three minutes into the flight, "Every time you try to operate on of these weird black controls that are labelled in black on a black background, a little black light lights up black to let you know you've done it. What is this? Some kind of galactic hyperhearse?"

The walls of the swaying cabin were also black, the ceiling was black, the seats - which were rudimentary since the only important trip this ship was designed for was supposed to be unmanned - were black, the control panel was black, the instruments were black, the little screws that held them in place were black, the thin tufted nylon floor covering was black, and when they had lifted up a corner of it they had discovered that the foam underlay also was black.

"Perhaps whoever designed it had eyes that responded to different wavelengths," offered Trillian.

"Or didn't have much imagination," muttered Arthur.

You DO realize this isn't a binary choice, right?

* Indent with tabs; align with spaces * Elastic Tabstops * Smart Tabs

= Smart Tabs =

Emacs: * https://github.com/jcsalomon/s...

Vim: * https://www.vim.org/scripts/sc... * http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Inde...

So, you're telling me that, insead of simply using spaces and getting it all correct, I should use tabs, and where tabs break down *then* use spaces?

You DO realize this isn't a binary choice, right?

* Indent with tabs; align with spaces
* Elastic Tabstops
* Smart Tabs

= Smart Tabs =

Emacs:
* https://github.com/jcsalomon/s...

Vim:
* https://www.vim.org/scripts/sc...
* http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Inde...

WHAT?

... by Stephan Pasta.

Can't wait for someone to plagiarize Stephan's comic so he can sue them, claiming copypasta.

[ P.S. Love you Elly Elephant ]

Man, I'm watching Mr Robot these days, and Cambridge Analytica looks more and more to me like a real-life version of E Corp... http://mrrobot.wikia.com/wiki/...

And seriously, TEN YEARS to write a compiler? If he has a grammar (and if he doesn't, he has NOTHING) then just slap it into a parser generator such as Bison, and connect that to the gcc backend, or an existing parse tree interpreter, and you're done. That is a couple of weekends.

Even faster if you hook it all up to the logic circuits of a Bambleweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain and an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian Motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea).

And seriously, TEN YEARS to write a compiler? If he has a grammar (and if he doesn't, he has NOTHING) then just slap it into a parser generator such as Bison, and connect that to the gcc backend, or an existing parse tree interpreter, and you're done. That is a couple of weekends.

Even faster if you hook it all up to the logic circuits of a Bambleweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain and an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian Motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea).

...In the next stage the system uses the phenotype information shown in the video combined with the 99.9999% shared genetic information between all humans to create a nearly exact genome for the person. ...In the final step the AI system uses your likes, preferences, cookie trails and other information gleaned from your online life to fill in the life experience portion and recreate your personality.

This all allows the marketers to then pinpoint your exact weaknesses to advertising so that you BUY, BUY, BUY, BUY!!!!

You've got two different Futurama episodes mashed together there. Seriously, do yourself a favor and brush up on our religious texts.

he develops the mathematics to predict the future based on large-scale statistical analysis.

that's not quite correct: the pioneer of psychohistory is R Giskard:
http://asimov.wikia.com/wiki/R...

Asimov's stories are *really* complicated and absolutely amazing, whilst at the same time being drier than frozen CO2 and consequently at times an awesome pain in the ass to read.

I finished reading the trilogy a week or so ago. There is no feasible way to take what was five hundred or so years of conflict and intrigue, and all the attendant characters, and make it into a two-hour movie. Nor even a three-hour movie.

now that you've read those, can i also recommend the books that were written by authors under the direction of the Asimov Estate? Roger Allen McBride, and Greg Bear. "I, Caliban" and "Foundation and Chaos". also, can i recommend "The End of Eternity", you will see why when you read them. also, "The Robots of Dawn" (paying special attention to Giskard - http://asimov.wikia.com/wiki/R... - who later featured indirectly in "Robots and Empire")

the primary reason is this: i see it again and again, stupid stupid politicians and even high-profile people like elon musk being total idiots, recommending that the "Three Laws be put into Law" or "Sent Into Space". anyone who TRULY UNDERSTANDS the Three Laws knows that they are DEEPLY FLAWED.

Asimov spent a LIFETIME EXPLAINING WHY.

it boils down to the fact that the robots were incapable - literally - of permitting humans to take risk. they had no imagination and no free will (a facet explored in the "I, Caliban" series with the "New Law" robots, which *did* have some modicum of free will).

Giskard was the first Robot with a Zeroth Law, "Thou shalt not allow HUMANITY through action or inaction to come to harm". He "imprinted" that - and his telepathic ability - onto R Daneel, who over the next thirty THOUSAND years became the hidden background character that (as described in "The End of Eternity") caused Earth to become mildy radioactive, forcing humans into space, where, unfortunately, due to the Robots, they populated 50 worlds.... and stopped.

The Foundation Series then jumps forward thirty thousand years, to cover an epic fight for human survival, where it is only AFTER Asimov died and other authors were permitted to "fill in the gaps" (Foundation and Chaos by Greg Bear) do we find out what was really going on.

So, when you say "would not fit into a four hour film".... I would be genuinely extremely surprised if the full depth and breadth of Asimov's work would be able to fit into anything less than a 200-series show of an hour each.

I am.. blown away that people believe that the three laws are a good idea. completely astounded.

For the American and British out there yes the 3:10 mark of the Googz video is actually how we speak. And if you don't know what a Maccas is http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Fi...

Sun Probe

I loved that show when I was a kid.

Hm, I have reservations about this probe-- sounds familiar

Skunk Works != Product

(No Disrespect to CMU or it's Alumni intended)

Why am I having flashbacks to "The IT Crowd" now?
Flaming bras anyone?

Yeah don't forget about Unnatural Selection which is one of the more flagrant magic teleporter deus ex machinas.

Also notable that Pulaski is one of the few characters who's vocally afraid of teleporters. Of course, she would have died without the teleporter curing her, so at least it's not like she committed consciousness-suicide to go visit a spa for shore leave or something.

Perhaps we're talking about President Reginald J. Priest.

That's what the Heisenberg compensator are for: http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/...

... physicists find the idea absurd and unreal because there's no way you can transport matter and its quantum state without first destroying it and then recreating it perfectly, due to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.

It's been established that ST transporters have Heisenberg compensators, so checkmate actual physicists.

Once again, Microsoft gets no respect. Maybe they need to make commercials or something, showing Cortana is a woman.

I for one welcome our new clones of Bob overlords...

http://bobiverse.wikia.com/wik...

In the interest of PC, the Greendale Human Being http://communityshow.wikia.com...

If we're going to approach it from a cultural or ethnic point of view, I can guarantee you that we'll never arrive at a satisfactory solution. We could make like Noah and pick 2 of each, we'd either end up with a photo of a huge group of people, or some small rare ethnic groups will complain that they weren't included. Not to mention the handicapped, midgets, or same-sex couples. And who gets to stand in the center? Perhaps we could use a picture of the 4 major races, something like this little beaut'

I think something like the Voyager plaque is pretty good for the purpose, even though the people are a bit on the white side, and it's of course the Patriarchy that gets to say 'hi'. All stuff we can fix... as long as we don't end up sending the Greendale Human Being to represent us.

... the smart, AI-driven robot also figures that it's "not a fun job -- it's hot, it's greasy, it's dirty.", too. Going to have a robotic Sponge-bob hash slinging slasher on your hands.

Depends what you mean by 'social justice' really. Heinlein was a libertarian who believed in free love and equality between both genders and all races.

Heinlein actually despised the idea (except for him getting as much nookie as he wanted), and ended up coming up with inane contortions that basically had him masturbating over his nigh-immortal mother in one of his last books.

You obviously didn't know him very well.

On the other hand the left said the book was crypto fascist because the society in Starship Troopers is a stratocracy where only veterans can vote. It's not even clear if Heinlein actually thinks that stratocracy is a good thing, or if it's more like something humanity got forced into.

Heinlein is dead. So it would be thought, not thinks. The Neo-Fascists who are slavishly in love with everything they can regurgitate of Starship Troopers and who were fervently disappointed with Verhoeven's blatantly satirical version, however, remain alive and whining.

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and sequels seems in some ways to be a critique of Starship Troopers - the eponymous hero wipes out the bugs without knowing he was doing it and then spends the rest of series trying to atone for it. On the other hand Orson Scott Card opposed gay marriage and is religious so the left said the book was in part a justification of Western expansion and genocide

If you actually read the books it's clear that the human/Formic war which resulted in near xenocide of the Formics was a caused by a couple of unfortunate misunderstandings on both sides - neither the humans nor the other side was even an entity which could be communicated with.

http://enderverse.wikia.com/wi...

Actually, you got it wrong, the problem was that they could have communicated, making it all the more tragic. However, the actual opposition to Orson Scott Card is based on his personal acts and mannerisms, including attempts to force his discriminatory and oppressive views upon the public, not this book in particular. Though he does have others where they come out far more blatantly, and of course, there's plenty of people who despise the blatant cash-grab of the Shadow novels.

BTW, none of your allegations actually related to the content of the Wikipedia page which you linked, and it hasn't even been edited since 13 Feb 2018 at this point, so you can't even be forgiven for being undermined by a revision. Obviously you don't want to make much of an effort to understand people's actual criticisms and concerns.

Depends what you mean by 'social justice' really. Heinlein was a libertarian who believed in free love and equality between both genders and all races. On the other hand the left said the book was crypto fascist because the society in Starship Troopers is a stratocracy where only veterans can vote. It's not even clear if Heinlein actually thinks that stratocracy is a good thing, or if it's more like something humanity got forced into.

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and sequels seems in some ways to be a critique of Starship Troopers - the eponymous hero wipes out the bugs without knowing he was doing it and then spends the rest of series trying to atone for it. On the other hand Orson Scott Card opposed gay marriage and is religious so the left said the book was in part a justification of Western expansion and genocide

If you actually read the books it's clear that the human/Formic war which resulted in near xenocide of the Formics was a caused by a couple of unfortunate misunderstandings on both sides - neither the humans nor the other side was even an entity which could be communicated with.

http://enderverse.wikia.com/wi...

The writing of the short novel The Hive Queen showed that the Formics, once they realized that humans were sentient, deeply regretted their actions in the First and Second Formic Wars and decided not to send another colonization fleet to Earth. Their inability to communicate with the humans led to their utter destruction in the Third Invasion. This simple book slowly began to change public opinion, as they began to see the Formics as tragic creatures and see Ender Wiggin as a heinous mass-murderer, the Xenocide.

As Napoleon said with a wry chuckle on his return from Moscow. "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley"

The Culture is a post scarcity, post capitalist society. The problem is that post capitalist societies are much more likely to end up with a whole lot of scarcity. Still the books are worth reading - they're not just dry ideological lectures. E.g. look at Excession

It's ambiguous whether the ITG was right to intervene in the Affront's culture. Certainly the Excession seems to regard both The Culture and The Affront as being insufficiently enlightened to be worth contacting. And consider this

http://theculture.wikia.com/wi...

Genar-Hofoen returns to the Affront, having been rewarded by being physically transformed into a member of the Affront species (whose company he finds more stimulating than that of the Culture's people).

The Affront seemed pretty loathsome to me

http://theculture.wikia.com/wi...

Affront society is described as being "a never-ending, self-perpetuating holocaust of pain and misery", where the strong prey upon weaker species and individuals. Among the Affront's technological accomplishments is an aptitude for genetic engineering, which they developed long before spaceflight. They use this skill almost exclusively on 'prey species', which tend to be changed so as to provide greater sport (and opportunity for sadism) during the communal hunts forming a major part of the Affront culture. Some examples of these changes include altering game animals to experience heightened levels of fear when recognizing the silhouette of an Affronter, or altering beasts of burden to panic when their masters are excited and thus induce them to pull vehicles faster. One of the few changes to their own species was the redesign of their females to make sex painful for them, a choice exemplary of the reasons they are considered abhorrent by the Culture. "Progress through Pain" i

Depends what you mean by 'social justice' really. Heinlein was a libertarian who believed in free love and equality between both genders and all races. On the other hand the left said the book was crypto fascist because the society in Starship Troopers is a stratocracy where only veterans can vote. It's not even clear if Heinlein actually thinks that stratocracy is a good thing, or if it's more like something humanity got forced into.

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and sequels seems in some ways to be a critique of Starship Troopers - the eponymous hero wipes out the bugs without knowing he was doing it and then spends the rest of series trying to atone for it. On the other hand Orson Scott Card opposed gay marriage and is religious so the left said the book was in part a justification of Western expansion and genocide

If you actually read the books it's clear that the human/Formic war which resulted in near xenocide of the Formics was a caused by a couple of unfortunate misunderstandings on both sides - neither the humans nor the other side was even an entity which could be communicated with.

http://enderverse.wikia.com/wi...

The writing of the short novel The Hive Queen showed that the Formics, once they realized that humans were sentient, deeply regretted their actions in the First and Second Formic Wars and decided not to send another colonization fleet to Earth. Their inability to communicate with the humans led to their utter destruction in the Third Invasion. This simple book slowly began to change public opinion, as they began to see the Formics as tragic creatures and see Ender Wiggin as a heinous mass-murderer, the Xenocide.

As Napoleon said with a wry chuckle on his return from Moscow. "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley"

The Culture is a post scarcity, post capitalist society. The problem is that post capitalist societies are much more likely to end up with a whole lot of scarcity. Still the books are worth reading - they're not just dry ideological lectures. E.g. look at Excession

It's ambiguous whether the ITG was right to intervene in the Affront's culture. Certainly the Excession seems to regard both The Culture and The Affront as being insufficiently enlightened to be worth contacting. And consider this

http://theculture.wikia.com/wi...

Genar-Hofoen returns to the Affront, having been rewarded by being physically transformed into a member of the Affront species (whose company he finds more stimulating than that of the Culture's people).

The Affront seemed pretty loathsome to me

http://theculture.wikia.com/wi...

Affront society is described as being "a never-ending, self-perpetuating holocaust of pain and misery", where the strong prey upon weaker species and individuals. Among the Affront's technological accomplishments is an aptitude for genetic engineering, which they developed long before spaceflight. They use this skill almost exclusively on 'prey species', which tend to be changed so as to provide greater sport (and opportunity for sadism) during the communal hunts forming a major part of the Affront culture. Some examples of these changes include altering game animals to experience heightened levels of fear when recognizing the silhouette of an Affronter, or altering beasts of burden to panic when their masters are excited and thus induce them to pull vehicles faster. One of the few changes to their own species was the redesign of their females to make sex painful for them, a choice exemplary of the reasons they are considered abhorrent by the Culture. "Progress through Pain" i

Depends what you mean by 'social justice' really. Heinlein was a libertarian who believed in free love and equality between both genders and all races. On the other hand the left said the book was crypto fascist because the society in Starship Troopers is a stratocracy where only veterans can vote. It's not even clear if Heinlein actually thinks that stratocracy is a good thing, or if it's more like something humanity got forced into.

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and sequels seems in some ways to be a critique of Starship Troopers - the eponymous hero wipes out the bugs without knowing he was doing it and then spends the rest of series trying to atone for it. On the other hand Orson Scott Card opposed gay marriage and is religious so the left said the book was in part a justification of Western expansion and genocide

If you actually read the books it's clear that the human/Formic war which resulted in near xenocide of the Formics was a caused by a couple of unfortunate misunderstandings on both sides - neither the humans nor the other side was even an entity which could be communicated with.

http://enderverse.wikia.com/wi...

The writing of the short novel The Hive Queen showed that the Formics, once they realized that humans were sentient, deeply regretted their actions in the First and Second Formic Wars and decided not to send another colonization fleet to Earth. Their inability to communicate with the humans led to their utter destruction in the Third Invasion. This simple book slowly began to change public opinion, as they began to see the Formics as tragic creatures and see Ender Wiggin as a heinous mass-murderer, the Xenocide.

As Napoleon said with a wry chuckle on his return from Moscow. "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley"

The Culture is a post scarcity, post capitalist society. The problem is that post capitalist societies are much more likely to end up with a whole lot of scarcity. Still the books are worth reading - they're not just dry ideological lectures. E.g. look at Excession

It's ambiguous whether the ITG was right to intervene in the Affront's culture. Certainly the Excession seems to regard both The Culture and The Affront as being insufficiently enlightened to be worth contacting. And consider this

http://theculture.wikia.com/wi...

Genar-Hofoen returns to the Affront, having been rewarded by being physically transformed into a member of the Affront species (whose company he finds more stimulating than that of the Culture's people).

The Affront seemed pretty loathsome to me

http://theculture.wikia.com/wi...

Affront society is described as being "a never-ending, self-perpetuating holocaust of pain and misery", where the strong prey upon weaker species and individuals. Among the Affront's technological accomplishments is an aptitude for genetic engineering, which they developed long before spaceflight. They use this skill almost exclusively on 'prey species', which tend to be changed so as to provide greater sport (and opportunity for sadism) during the communal hunts forming a major part of the Affront culture. Some examples of these changes include altering game animals to experience heightened levels of fear when recognizing the silhouette of an Affronter, or altering beasts of burden to panic when their masters are excited and thus induce them to pull vehicles faster. One of the few changes to their own species was the redesign of their females to make sex painful for them, a choice exemplary of the reasons they are considered abhorrent by the Culture. "Progress through Pain" i

Wait...

So you're saying that in the movie set in a reality whereby a woman possesses Psionic Energy Manipulation; a boy gets bitten by a spider and can climb walls; a man can pick up and throw a car when he gets angry; and both magic and time travel exist - the *real* problem is that an African country is ahead of the rest of the world?

Not happy with reverse cuttural appropriation?

Anne Dickison set her LinkedIn to private in the past half hour or so, so I've done the world the service of mirroring it on PasteBin:

https://pastebin.com/4eDQ99xe

It's not surprising she's made it private, as it indicates not a single technical accomplishment over a 15+ year career. Indeed, you have to wonder how she is credited as "author" of the new code of conduct, when it's copied nearly verbatim from the Geek Feminisim Wiki. And since it's copied nearly verbatim, you also have to wonder what actual work Anne did during the entire year of 2017 -- a Q4 2016 report states she had been "overseeing the efforts to rewrite the Project's Code of Conduct to help make this a safe, inclusive, and welcoming community."

Um, the books aren't canon. You heretic.

Doesn't the last DVD patent expire in less than a week (Feb 14, I think)? http://www.osnews.com/story/24... http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wi... Or does VLC already ignore all those because it's based in France? Maybe VLC is already set, and it's just a Handbrake update to look forward to sometime after Wednesday.

That was just an English translation of "Hrairoo". Another possible translation is "Little Thousand". I'm guessing "Little Many" would work too.

http://watershipdown.wikia.com...

This has been your pointlessly pedantic and detailed serious response to a joke, I hope you have enjoyed.

http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki...

I know I'm a bad person for wanting to see the blood, but where are the fireworks?? I mean this is supposed to be the biggest, baddest, least-detectable, most-exploitable thing since rpc.statd and Sendmail! C'MON you Chinese commie pinko robot exploit h0x0xr army! Hit me with everything you got! To quote an old sage, "I'll tell you what you cocksucker. You try to hit me and I will kill you. Don't try to hit me."

Seriously though, has this not been the shit-talker-est set of exploits of the century? Where's the fire folks? In. The. Wild. They are already being reported and they don't seem to be doing 4/5ths of 5/8ths of fuck all. Oh, noes! They are going to dump my ring buffer! Call the president! Holy fuck! If it's that bad then do it through OpenSSH on an OpenBSD host or I call bullshit.

I, for one, am glad he is helping out with our Alien Problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Flam...