Slashback: Galileo, Backlight, Tariffs

Slashback tonight brings you several updates and amplifications on everything from Java in phones and a GPS system in Europe, to the future of Internet audio streaming and (related) near-unbelievable proposed tariffs on nearly anything that will hold data (in Canada). Read on below for the details.

The man is not often wrong. Doc Searls writes: "I wrote a piece piece at the Linux Journal site that you might want to check out. The very first comment is 'This needs to be Slashdotted.' I agree. And not because I'm looking for attention. I want to *call* attention to the CARP Report, which will kill Webcasting with fees. It's a big deal, and I don't see anybody else talking about it. Yet. And we need to."

Would you say that these are more 'puppies," "babies," or "mommas"? Vladimir Vuksan writes: "There are already hundreds of so called Java midlets that will presumably execute on these Nokia puppies or any other Java enabled browser. Check out http://midlet.org/jsp/index.jsp"

Too bad I can't get the entire Economist free just by reading the ads. FortKnox writes: "ZDNet is running a story about generic "Ad-Free Subscription Services" being used on the internet today. The review of these services is from the 'Ad Space Buyer' and how marketing execs are not keen on the idea. Something interesting to read, seeing Slashdot is testing the services."

How about a countersuit for strong-arm tactics? iosphere writes "According to an article on Wired, the judge in BT's case issued a ruling that questions whether or not the technology that was patented is really analogous to todays definition of a hyperlink. She questions how the patent, which was written with only a single computer terminal in mind, can apply to the internet as we know it now."

Update: 03/15 00:31 GMT by T : arget writes with a few more data points: "An article at News.com suggests that Prodigy has won a TKO in the first round. Another story at ZDNet is more neutral, but quotes an expert saying that prior art will 'come back to haunt BT's efforts.' Both articles agree that motions for summary judgement and probably a ruling will come soon."

Portable Monopoly kylus writes "Roughly a month after it was last mentioned here, the Gameboy Advance light project over at Portable Monopoly takes another step closer to fruition. While the official release date is in May, the group will begin accepting preorders on Friday, March 15th for the $35 light kit, which has been officially named 'Afterburner.' In addition to this news, they've provided some video captures of the product in action."

Remember, as reader Vito puts it, that's Portable Monopoly's warranty-voiding, solder-requiring, tech-support-suiciding Gameboy Advance internal lighting kit. :) Your own risk, et cetera.

This goes beyond disputes about how to spell "meter." meehawl writes with an update on the European Union's plans for a GPS workalike system, which we had previously reported had been scrapped.

"So after the Pentagon removed GPS's Selective Availability, the maximum GPS accuracy is typically within 10 to 20 meters. Differential GPS can reduce this to minute levels, very useful for calling in airstrikes and pinpointing installations, and so on.

So it's probably no surprise that the the European Union's plans to build their own GPS system, the Galileo Project, met such stern resistance from the U.S., with Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz asking EU defence ministers not to go ahead, saying it could complicate US satellite-assisted warfare and furthermore could be more easily used by anti-US military forces.

The EU has has now rejected the latest message from the U.S., a State Department exhortation to forgo development. Interestingly, the latest rebuff was framed as an anti-monopoly stance, that competition in satellite navigation would be good for business.

Apparently, Osama is responsible for this latest rebirth of the European space industry.

Perhaps more worryingly, in a related development a UK company was awarded the "Skynet 5" military communications system contract. Don't these people watch movies at all?"

The principle of the thing. Boone^ writes "It's been well covered, but The Tech Report has written a nice little article going through the finer points of the proposed levy and why there should be more people than just Canadians lobbying against it."

Perhaps some more apprentices will emerge from the woodwork? pynchin writes "Kyle Sallee, creator of Sorcerer GNU Linux has just announced on #sorcerer that he will no longer be involved with SGL. Some disgruntled SGL users forked the distro a few days ago -- see www.lunar-penguin.com for details."

Comments

The Fuck$lashdotNow Report #1 -- Nested Mode

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the first issue of The FuckSlashdotNow Report, and more installments will hopefully be written on a regular basis. Thanks for reading, friends, and keep watching the skies! Permission is granted to reproduce this message in any form, as long as the entire message is kept intact, from the **BEGIN** to the *EOT*

ISSUE 1

With the announcement of Slashdot subscriptions, the question becomes "what is the most fucking effective way to fuck Slashdot out of as much fucking money as fucking possible?"

Nested mode.

Nested mode draws a monumental amount of bandwidth compared to Threaded mode, with fewer page views (for subscribers) or banner ads (for non-subscribers)

Let's say that the first page of comments on a heavily-discussed story in threaded mode is 100KB in size. A person reading that story will read some of the sub-level replies to those comments comments, but not all, so let's say he pulls perhaps 200KB of bandwidth maximum, and it will cost him many page views/banner ads. Now, someone viewing that same page in nested mode is entirely likely to pull 500-1000KB, with only a single page view or banner ad. More cost to Slashdot, less income to Slashdot, therefore less PROFIT for Slashdot.

This goes without saying, but we also need to set our thresholds to -1 (yours IS already set to -1, right?), set our "max comment size" to very high (so that gigantic garbage comments display in full), as well as setting "Limit" very high aslo. Crapflooders need to focus more on posting replies to high-rated or early-posted comments instead of (or in addition to) posting top-level comments, because many people don't bother visiting the second page of comments when there's more than one. And we all need to use unkbuster, of course.

Let's summarize:

Threaded mode:

Less bandwidth (small cost for Slashdot)

More page views/ads (large income for Slashdot)

small cost + large income = PROFIT

Nested mode:

More bandwidth (large cost for Slashdot)

Less page views/ads (small income for Slashdot)

large cost + small income = FUCKED

Now, the question becomes, can we cost them more money by subscribing, or by not subscribing? I'd be more than happy to throw $50 at Slashdot if by creative page-loading I could cause it to cost them $100 -- I'd be out $50, but so would they, so I think it'd be worth it. It would definitely do more for the world than throwing $50 at those gay starving African children in Africa. But can we cost them more money by subscribing or by not subscribing?

Most large-scale bandwidth providers charge a few dollars or so per gigabyte. Let's be generous, and say that Slashdot pays $5 per gigabyte. With subscriptions, you pay $5 for 1000 pageviews. Unless your 1000 pageviews average 1.024MB each, Slashdot isn't meeting expenses, they're making a profit. Subscribers will not only be paying their own way, they'll be subsidizing non-subscribers. Slashdot is lying to subscribers, and it's important that potential subscribers know this.

So basically, if you subscribe to Slashdot it's harder to fuck them than if you don't subscribe. So don't subscribe. And encourage your friends not to subscribe

Although this particular message is aimed at trolls / crapflooders / culture jammers / anarchists / discordianists / etc, it's important that we recruit the "normal users" to this crusade without them even knowing what our true purpose is -- just educate them that they'll get better value for their money if they use nested mode (much fewer pageviews than threaded mode, thus their subscription lasts longer), without pointing out to them that this'll also spike Slashdot's bandwidth usage.

In short, encourage subscribes to use NESTED MODE and to lower their thresholds to cut down on the pageviews they spend (actually to increase Slashdot's bandwidth usage)

Once subscribers realize that they can cut their page views down to a fraction by always using only nested mode, Slashdot's bandwidth usage will start to rise and they'll be forced to use larger and more intrusive advertisements to generate more income or make the site even crappier to drive people away to reduce expenses, or both. More intrusive ads will lead to more people joinining the FuckSlashdotNow campaign, or to quit Slashdot, or to merely Junkbuster the ads, fucking Slashdot's income stream further.

Summary:

Trolls / crapflooders / culture jammers / etc / should do this:

1. Junkbuster

2. Use Nested mode, -1 threshold

3. Set max comment size very high.

4. Not subscribe

5. Load as many pages as possible

6. Consume as much bandwidth as possible

7 Load as few advertisements as possible

8. Recruit others to the cause

9. Re-post this message to every thread

10. Rate this comment up whenever you see it posted

11. Stay tuned for more updates.

We should (covertly) encourage non-subscribing normal users to do the following:

1. Not subscribe, because it's not a good value for their money.

2. Use Junkbuster to block banner ads.

We should (covertly) encourage subscribing normal users to do the following:

1. Use Nested mode for the duration of their subscription, so that they'll spend fewer pageviews and get better value for their money.

2. Not resubscribe.

Thanks for reading this first issue of The FuckSlashdotNow Report! I'm currently soliticing ideas for upcoming issues; please e-mail me (e-mail address is in profile) with any comments or suggestions!

ur VARY aprctd fr rdng ths msg, pls fix thx!!!

*EOT*

Near FP

[Anonymous Coward]

This near first post is dedicated to Nick Rosen. RIP, man...

Pi Day Pi Day Pi Day Pi Day Pi Day

[Anonymous Coward]

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375 10582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706 79821480865132823066470938446095505822317253594081 28481117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381 96442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190 91456485669234603486104543266482133936072602491412 73724587006606315588174881520920962829254091715364 36789259036001133053054882046652138414695194151160 94330572703657595919530921861173819326117931051185 48074462379962749567351885752724891227938183011949 12983367336244065664308602139494639522473719070217 98609437027705392171762931767523846748184676694051 32000568127145263560827785771342757789609173637178 72146844090122495343014654958537105079227968925892 35420199561121290219608640344181598136297747713099 60518707211349999998372978049951059731732816096318 59502445945534690830264252230825334468503526193118 81710100031378387528865875332083814206171776691473 03598253490428755468731159562863882353787593751957 78185778053217122680661300192787661119590921642019 89380952572010654858632788659361533818279682303019 52035301852968995773622599413891249721775283479131 51557485724245415069595082953311686172785588907509 83817546374649393192550604009277016711390098488240 12858361603563707660104710181942955596198946767837 44944825537977472684710404753464620804668425906949 12933136770289891521047521620569660240580381501935 11253382430035587640247496473263914199272604269922 79678235478163600934172164121992458631503028618297 45557067498385054945885869269956909272107975093029 55321165344987202755960236480665499119881834797753 56636980742654252786255181841757

Re:Pi Day Pi Day Pi Day Pi Day Pi Day

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats it? come on, dont make me pull out my 54MB txt file of pi :)

WOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Happy Pi Day everybody!

The votes != the stances

[baptiste]

This JSR stuff is bizarre. I cannot believe Caldera voted against Apache while stating "Caldera agrees with a lot of the concerns expressed by Apache. We would like to see more to be done to protect the interests of open source providers." What gives? If they supported Apache's position, why did they vote to approve?

And the fact that Sun voted Yes with no comment speaks volumes.

Re:Java will save us.

[DirtyTroll]

I shit on your spiky haircut and urinate in your mocha latte, Javaboy.

However, Java is a buzzword, so I commend you. You are +1 insightful. Thanks for posting.

This Just In...

[Tim Macinta]

This would have been appropriate for the Slashback section as well, but it was probably published too recently to have made it in, so I will bring it up...

AOL has now actually begun testing the use of Mozilla (Gecko to be specific) as part of its software. There are articles on this at http://news.com.com/2100-1023-860710.html and http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=2 169.

Go Mozilla!