Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Sale, Secrecy, Lasers
That's a lot of Molsen. Bigger R writes contributes this link to a story in the Calgary Herald with more detail on the sale of Corel's Linux division which was mentioned in vague terms the other day. It's going to a company called Xandros, in exchange for cash and equity, so Corel will still have at least some interest in the continued success of Linux, or at least its distro. A snippet: "Xandros Corp. president Michael Bego, who started the Ottawa company recently in preparation for the deal announced Wednesday, is also a shareowner in Linux Global Partners, a privately held New York venture firm that put up $10 million US to start Xandros."
Small, cheap and fun are all good words. An Anonymous Coward writes "There's an announcement of the winners of the embedded linux journal's design contest over at linuxdevices.com. Cool projects -- voting system, digital audio workstation, solar racing vehicle, GizmoCopter Project, and Hacking BigMouth Billy Bass. Follow the urls for the projects which are given in the announcement to learn about each project. Oh, and the prize for winning each category? An all expense paid trip to Costa Rica. Dang, why didn't I enter?"
Stuff that's hard to read. John Sokol writes with an update on the Cayley-Purser Algorithm mentioned here before.
"This story went through some time back about a 16-year-old girl outdoing RSA, but it lacked any discussion of the actual algorithm. This link is her paper that she now has posted on the net. It seems reasonable. Maybe someone here can find a flaw in it?"
Roll 'em. Slide100 writes: "It seems that there is more to the desktop rover that was posted about on Tuesday.
The marketing manager sent me a PDF file that explains some more - apparently, they just don't have the time to update the website.
Each rover comes with a cable that plugs into the transmitter and software to allow control of the rover from your computer (or through TCP/IP).
Additionally, each rover has 'Laser Tag' as an integral part of the vehicle. 10 hits (including sound effects) and your rover is disabled 'till the next match See it here. BTW - I have nothing to do with the company, I just think its very cool."
It's funny. I've sent in several submissions over time, and certainly, not ALL of them deserved a singular entry, and one of them most certainly did (The short lived media explosion of the Kent State 'bust of a Starcraft Clan for "hate" crimes').
Just yesterday, I pointed out that the epoch timestamp tacks on another digit next week or so, and that didn't even make the Slashback. I'd bet a case of beer with CmdrTaco and Cowperson Niel that somewhere, there will be a y2k-esque software failure because some twit only packed an int(9) epoch date field.
No one seemed to care when I submitted an article about content protection plans for ATA hard drives, even though I thought it was interesting.
Slashdot is no longer news for nerds. It's fodder for the unwashed masses who are stunned and amazed by shiny things and anything to firm up the belief that Microsoft is bad, and Linux is Good, no matter what the truth may be.
I don't mean to get off on a rant here, but I'm increasingly disillusioned by the portal of interest that Slashdot used to be. You can hardly call this 'news' of any journalistic stripe when it lacks any kind of clear detachment from a specific point of view, and behaves more like a pack of screaming frat boys with pocket calculators.
I'm pretty much a daily reader, and I occasionally submit something that other people like myself would find interesting. Rejected. 9 for 10. The one piece I've had accepted wound up in a Slashback, with very little mention. It's funny though, considering the content, since you, the foaming-at-the-mouth, Damn-The-Man Slashdot populace, actually took the time to potentially make a situation worse for a Kent State student by sending crap emails and even a few phone calls 'in support' of the accused. I spent three days playing journalist and digging up facts to present a clarified story that apparantly wasn't interesting enough for Slashdot once it wasn't a clear oppression of the geeked. Shenanigans, I say!
It's enough that the rampant Anonymous Cowards don't have the nerve, integrity, or sheer balls to attach a name to their drivel, but I guess that's for the best. I don't want to know who you are, because your opinion generally isn't worth the price of admission. You guys sit and bitch about Katz, who takes the time to present a clear view that anyone can read, whether you like it or not, and the courage to put his name on it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not sitting here with my Microsoft polo biting my thumb at the DoJ, but I'm also not sporting my Linux fanaticism like a bad tupee and sniggering down my nose at anyone who thinks you're talking about algebra when you use 'x' by itself as a term. I used to really dig my daily Slashdot read, but now it's all I can do to just gloss over the front page before skipping straight to Freshmeat to keep up with what's really going on.
In closing, Katz, we who could be central characters of 'Geeks', salute you. To the news acceptance squad, thanks for the rejections. It's just like high school, and I'm still not good enough. CmdrTaco and founding crew, my condolences on the lobotomization of your site.
(Yes, I put my name to this, because it's MY voice, and people are damn well gonna know it.)
- billn
- billn