Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot During War?
Seen Dairen writes "How would Slashdot function during a war or comparable crisis? Would it help people distribute critical information? Would it help people keep in touch with their friends and enemies? Would it help to prevent a war? So far it seems no person in extreme need has submitted to Slashdot, but if they do, how would we respond?"
Slashdot during wartime, The talking heads
Heard of a website that is loaded with people,
modd'ed up and ready to go
Heard of some other sites, on the super highway,
a place where nobody knows
The sound of goatsex, off in the distance,
I'm getting used to it now
Lived on slashdot, lived on kuro5hin,
I've lived all over this placea
This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
this ain't no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey,
I ain't got time for that now
Transmit the kernal, to the receiver,
hope for an update some day
I got three slashdot accounts, a couple of emails,
you don't even know my real name
High on a hillside, linux is loading,
everything's ready to roll
I sleep in the daytime, I code at nightime,
I might not ever get done
This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
this ain't no fooling around
He ain't no Hemos, or RMS,
he ain't got time for that now
Heard about kuro5hin? Heard about freshmeat?
Heard about latest kernals?
You oughta know not to mod down to zero
somebody might see do that
I got some cable, some kernal updates,
to last a couple of days
But I ain't got no slashdot, ain't got no
news for nerds, ain't got no weblog to read
Why stay at slashdot? Why go to freshmeat?
Gonna be different this time
Can't use cryptography, can't send a news story,
I can't write nothing at all
This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
this ain't no fooling around
I'd like to read slashdot, I'd love to mod you
I ain't got no time for that now
Trouble in the code, got through the segfault,
we blended with the crowd
We got computers, we're tapping pohne lines,
I know that ain't allowed
We dress like students, we dress like housewives,
or in a suit and a tie
I changed my post stule, so many times now,
I don't know how i type!
You make me shiver, I feel so tender,
we make a pretty good team
Don't get exhausted, I'll do some modding,
you ought to get some sleep
Get your mod points, follow directions,
then you should change your email address
Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day,
whatever you think is best
Burned all my notebooks, what good are
notebooks? They won't help me survive
My linux is crashing, burns like a furnace,
the crashing keeps me alive
Try to stay healthy, physical fitness,
don't want to catch no virus
Try to be careful, don't take no chances,
you better watch what you say on slashdot
"Slashdot is the single most important english site on the internet"?
You're kidding, right?
I admit that slashdot has been my homepage for a very long time, but it is not, was not, has never been, and never will be "the single most important english site on the internet".
For starters, I could make the argument that sites like Freshmeat or Linux Today are at least as important as Slashdot, and perhaps moreso.
Then, we could go from there to actual sites in The Real World(tm) that cover topics such as: Current Weather, World Events, and... heck, even Technology.
And then we have the Meta Sites, such as Google: the duct tape of the Internet, without which we could find very little.
And then, you go on to say that the stories that are picked on Slashdot are redundant or boring. Gosh, I guess that rules out the rest of the Internet, then!
...except for this "Kuro5hin" site, which somehow isn't "the single most important english site on the internet", despite being possibly more diverse or colorful than slashdot?
However, even if you can't make an argument, at least someone found you Insightful. I just hope *they* aren't planning on posting, and enlightening us all with *their* newfound insight, TOO...
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
First saw 'em in the late 50's or so when my dad took us aboard Seymour Johnson one summer when he was reserve training. I admit they're a little strange looking when parked, with the wings looking like something out of a Salvador Dali painting.
C-130's must be smaller than I thought, or carriers bigger.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
*Of course fighters like the P-51 my dad flew can't help but outshine bombers in the looks department.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Now there's an idea. In the event of war, send Katz to report from wherever the fighting is the fiercest and the lead's a-flyin' :-)
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
... that would be useful.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
The question of how well Slashdot would continue to work depends on the scale of war.
If this was a nuclear war, the commercial Internet would surprisingly go down pretty quickly--the detonation of several megaton-yield nukes at high-altitude over the USA and the ground destruction of critical communications backbone facilities would stop all commercial Internet traffic--I don't think commercial server farms are capable of withstanding the EMP burst.
Now, military communications would likely survive, since they are designed to operate even in high radiation/EMP environments.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
A friend of mine studied to get his HAM license. Just before passing his exam, one of his mentors pulled him aside, and quietly told him: "Now, that you'll be licensed, you have to realize that in case of war, they gonna come out and lock you away, and confiscate all your gear".
He did not bother taking the exam.
--
I would listen very carefully, as would the NSA. Actually, Taco et al would probably be drafted, and made to use this forum as an info gathering device as well as a disinformation channel.
I for one would either be in the theater fighting a meatspace battle, or in my bedroom hacking the enemy.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
If slashdot ever starts covering socially significant topics, they'll have to change their slogan to "Stuff that matters, nerds that don't."
--Shoeboy
During wartime, wouldn't we have bigger things to worry about than our daily Slashdot fixes?
IMO, Slashdot is the single most important english site on the internet, except when silly stories [ like this one ] are published so people can speculate about an event that will likely never happen. /. don't allow more color and diversity.
This shouldn't be debated when I know so many quality reader submissions are being sumarily dismissed without a second thought. Story selections are becoming a real problem lately - alot of stories are either redundant or boring -and I can see a mass exodus to kuro5hin if the editors of
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
The source of all the trolling, goatse.cx, AYBABTU, etc. is all coming from this website. Go and slashdot 'em, people.
--------------------------
I got some groceries, some peanut butter
to last a couple of days.
True story...
When I worked at CSC subcontracting for lockheed, the naval display systems for aegis battleships and cruisers ran HP-UX
Um... you have only to look here - http://www.indymedia.org/ - to realize that /. is, in fact, less than useful when it comes to the reporting and publicizing of armed conflict or serious issues such as nuclear weapons, the environment and so forth. Indymedia is about the only useful news sites on the web- the only real issue is that their updates are less regular and a little more.... focused.
Odds are that if somepleace like Korea gets nuked, you'll get the news from Indymedia.org, and a lengthy diatribe about how much [company X. movie X, processor X] sucks/rules from the slashdot editors, who wouldn't even notice until the submission line became clogged with nothing else.
Considering the number of wars that have happened during slashdot's history, and the number still happening now, I think we can conclude that for the next few wars at least, slashdot would be no help at all, and would be largely unaffected by it.
Or were you referring to a war affecting the slashdot editors? Geez, if someone invaded Jon Katz' territory we'd never hear the end of it...
War in the United States ain't gonna happen any time in the forseeable future. Nobody's going to invade the country with the world's most bloated millitary budget, and the likelihood of revolution of any kind, second amendment or no second amendment, is as close to zero as it's possible to be. (If the well-trained militia were really going to overthrow the government for being tyrranical, it'd have happened by now.)
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
I can't believe how many people fell for this April Fool's joke.
So. You're new here, are you?
--
Someone you trust is one of us.
Sorry that was Stanford University, not "Standord".
--Matt
Serious Security flaw in US Anti-Missle Defence System
by Hemos
Will the War Delay Kernel Release?
by CmdrTaco
War is Targetted at Geeks Like Me and You by JohnKatz
Slashdot could win back peace just by slashdotting the servers of the Strategic Command on both sides...
You'd expect that they'd start a poll asking how certain aspects of the war should be conducted such as whether or not all-out sanctions should be imposed on Think Geek products or whether the B-52's should drop Binary encoded message T-Shirts on the enemy - how do you spell "We are gonna loose" in Binary?
Perhaps there should be a poll on how many Cowboy Neal clones would be neccesary to ensure victory ( or is one enough?:)
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
They'd talk about GPS, and how it's used for missle tracking.
And email their congressmen to get GPS turned back on in war zones.
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i propose that we send Katz to do coverage directly from the front line ;-)
(then again, he'd probably survive the war and do a 10 part-er on the relationship between "smart" bombs and social inadequalities in Zimbobwe).
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
slashdot would go on posting things that it found newsworthy (ware related or otherwise) and 10% of geeks would continue reading the site.
any questions?
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
You get the idea.
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Slashdot Post:
Subject: Help us please!
Comment: We have no food or water left! The Canadiens have overrun us! We are in a small data center with a T1 and two laptops, please helps us!
modded -1 Offtopic
Reply Post
Subject: Re Help us please!
Comment: click here for help goatse.cx
modded - 1 Troll
Reply Post
Subject: Re Help us please!
Comment: Have you tried using
#!/usr/bin/perl -w?
use food;
M$ Sucks!
modded +4 Insightful
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This
How would Slashdot function during a war or comparable crisis?
About as well or badly as it does now, factored by as well as it is able to given whatever conditions are imposed on it and on the internet by the said war.
Would it help people distribute critical information?
Very doubtful that anyone would chose /. above other websiate and/or internet facilities.
Would it help people keep in touch with their friends and enemies?
Same answer. I'm not about to communicate with my sister via /. - I'll write her an email. Duh.
Would it help to prevent a war?
No. Good grief.
So far it seems no person in extreme need has submitted to Slashdot, but if they do, how would we respond?
We only know that no such submission has been published. Possibly this is because the /. crew do not want /. turned into a FAQ for newbies and the lame. How would we respond? Heterogeneously, as normal.
By the way, could I take this opportunity to troll by saying your president *really* *really* sucks over the Kyoto thing.
Define "April Fool's joke". Are we talking about an Ask Slashdot that's so unbelieveably stupid, inane, or silly that there's no way it could be taken seriously?
If so, I'd like to point out the following non-April 1st "Ask Slashdot" entries:
Given that the "Slashdot during War" AskSlashdot is less absurd than some of the "legitimate" AskSlashdot's and could (potentially) serve as a catalyst for worthwhile discussion, the question becomes just who pulled a prank on whom?
Or, to put it more simply, is trolling trolls really trolling? How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Who is John Galt? What's keeping Godot? If a tree falls in the woods, will it knock out my Internet connection?
you should probably be aware that "dropping" acid does not mean setting it on the floor.
You do know that the AV-8B Harrier is VSTOL, that is can take off like a conventional aircraft, without using its vectored thrust systems. Also, it can take off vertically from rough fields prepared with steel runway mesh and from the decks of LHDs. So there's no reason that it can't take off conventionally from a highway or vertically from a highway or field prepared with steel mesh.
Landing conventionally on a highway is also within the Harrier's operational envelope.
Maj. Kong.
--
Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.
BUFF = Big Ugly Fat Fucker.
Flown them for years, when they were almost old as I was (last one off the line was 1962).
Real name is the "Stratofortress", a/k/a "Aluminum Overcast".
Maj. Kong
--
Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.
Bullshit
Ever seen a B-52H son? Big ugly fat fucker, with a wingspan that would need a 20-lane highway. Ever been to an Air Force Base? Those runways are specially reinforced concrete twenty feet thick.
With 6,000 airports and thousands of square miles of dry lake beds out west, you don't need to land on highways.
True, the Interstate highways were an Eisenhower Administration project built with civil defense and military mobility in mind (the 12' 6" minimum overpass height were supposed to accomodate troop and missile carriers), based on the German Autobahn.
And yes, there are plenty of European nations (Sweden, Finland, Germany, UK, Russia) that use their highways as emergency staging areas for military aircraft. But these are always small fighters and fighter/bombers, smaller than anything in the USAF inventory. You might be able to pull it off with the A-10 or a USMC Harrier, maybe even a C-130 (which landed on a carrier deck once -- the test pilot got the DFC for that one), but that's about it.
Now, if you want to talk paranoia, take a look at all of the armory buildings that were built in the late-1800s and early-1900s, when the urban gentry felt threatened by rioting immigrants and bomb-throwing anarchists. The machine guns in those armories were meant to mow down rioters, something that happened a number of times (Haymarket riots, Bonus Army, Pullman strike).
Maj. Kong, USAF (ret.)
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Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.
All your base are belong to U.S.
"pr0n": An anagram of "porn," possibly indicating the use of pornography. - www.microsoft.com
A war, Slashdot would be posting articles on it every 15 minutes, hell they'd have to make their own war page. But in a war, we would be a vital source because we could hack the enemy with hardly any possible legal resutition, hell it was wartime, we were helping our country!
We hold a lot more power than some of you think. We're the ones that can destroy the enemy's computer systems, but then again, we can do that to our own nation as well..cuts two ways
Slashdot Hypocrisy at work?
I posted and all I got was this stupid sig
If war hits Slashdot should just continue to function normally. Sometimes in war it's convenient to spread mis- and dis-information to the enemy, something Slashdot has proven itself good at.
That, and get Jon Katz to write a few essays to bore the enemy into submission.
--
Someone you trust is one of us.
...and/or flame amongst yourselves. Anyone else noticed this trend?
"All I do is eat and poop!" -- Bean
Slashdot During War?
I can't believe how many people fell for this April Fool's joke.
I read /. in Bosnia regularly. Seems just the thing to remind me what home was and what was important beyond the minefields. It also kept me up to date on what the IT industry was up to.
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.
During a war, slashdot would bitch about how hard it is to get RAM through trade embargoes.
They would use cryptography, and get arrested. And their user base would bitch about it.
They'd talk about GPS, and how it's used for missle tracking.
In short, it would help the war effort exactly not one iota, and still waste the time of our geeks overseas.
But you knew that, right?
/. would more than likely report which Linux distro is running on US Military hardware.
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
"...no person in extreme need has submitted to Slashdot, but if they do, how would we respond?"
:(
Pop quiz, hotshots:
HHHHEEEEELLLLLLLPPPPPPP MMMMMMMEEEEEEE!!!!!!!
ESR just broke into my house. He's naked, covered in jelly and holding a gun along with a copy of ESR's Love Tips
What will you do?
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
I built the first site for the North Korean famine (www.northkorea.org) over some years with a past Newsweek editor in Japan. I've had some time to think about how to converge people on sites and solve problems.
Actually since the Kobe quake I've thought about how to make systems that could help focus responses to a web thread and help people solve problems. Slashdot might be better than nothing, though it lacks an editor who can continually digest and udpate info to provide a quick to consult page. On the web people tend to surf away and away from a given site, so while Slashdot is great for gathering a mass of people, you still are going to need a link at the top to someone's page. That someone will have to be a superhuman or have a lot of helpers to manage the information flood and remain of interest.
It seems there are a number of interesting components that could be useful in this case if they are not built monolithically, I'm thinking of sourceforge and open directory type collaborative services like dmoz.org.
There are a lot of other problems though, and one big one which it seems the people here might have a chance at solving, which is the political angle. It's everyone's business when there is a war, and lots of people may not want some information to be posted. There is also disinformation and the danger of getting people hurt.
In the North Korea project, we had a bank account closed in the U.S. and I kept my name off the board since I was worried about being able to travel. But the biggest reason and perhaps the only reason why it succeeded (we raised a quarter million dollars in food, medicine, clothing, and other items) is that it was masterminded by an ace journalist named Bernie Krisher who felt something had to be done, did it, documented it, and demonstrated integrity to people through the site. He pulled his contacts and he risked his life (just because he is elderly.. and still more active and energetic when it counts than most twenty-year olds) one of the trips he ended up hospitalized there. The story got out through the site's news items, essays, photo and video reports, faxes from the government of North Korea, and info about newspaper appearances around the world which were also very important.
I thought of using the web in the Kobe quake to help organize volunteers to assemble needed materials, but the fact is one manic person can do more than a CGI program. If you can somehow gather twenty manic networking people and filter everyone's energy through that you got something big. I say this because in the Kobe quake my own contribution was just to mirror a site on the beleaguered system that was still up in Kobe, and to direct people to a fantastic frequently updated site that everyone from student to megacorporation looked when it was the most important.
Where was the site? Standord University. A student there had the objectivity of five thousand miles and some incredible energy because before other companies took up the slack, and while the government was paralyzed, this guy was probably the most important communications channel.
You also will need to consider how to get people in and out. More information could be had from Eastern European linux people who have plenty of experience in this area. Even in a highly industrialized area you are likely to discover problems getting people physically in and out of the area. And the groups which can move freely may be highly politicized themselves. I think you will have a lot more luck if you try to be extremely focussed and selective about what you are trying to do and what you say you can do. In the end though if someone depends on your website, your ass is going to be on the line! Literally!
by FPTroll (kissmy@trollbutt.com)on Sunday April 01, @07:03 CST (#5)
(User #987765 Info)
First shot! Ow dammit, that was my foot!
Germanys past Performance... (Score:2 Funny)
by Gazundheit (sneeze@germanyr0x0rs.com)on Sunday April 01, @07:30 CST (#22)
(User #666666 Info)
Didn't Germany do rather well in the last big war?
Help!!! (Score:-1 Flamebait)
by unknown_soldier (unknown@soldieroffortune.com)on Sunday April 01, @07:45 CST (#37)
(User #425112 Info)
Help! Help! The guys with the anti-personnel flamethrowers are here!
Imagine ... (Score:4 Insightful)
by PortmanFan (biggestfan@Ilovenatalieportman.com)on Sunday April 01, @07:41 CST (#44)
(User #133755 Info)
We could really end this war if every guy had their own beowolf cluster of cloned Natalie Portmans who would serve them fresh, hot grits for breakfast.