Slashdot Mirror
Updated Slashdot Advertising Policy
In response to increased advertiser demand, we have decided that we will post one story
a day paid for directly by our advertisers. These paid "Slashvertisements" will appear daily amidst the normal stories you read here. Our first Slashvertisement
is for our sister site, ThinkGeek ,
stuff for smart masses. From Linus' Autobiography
to
42" Plasma Screens and Caffeine Products Galore, ThinkGeek has everything you need, except love. But enough of their gift certificates could bribe your way to that too! And check out
their current exciting specials!. Also at the request of our advertisers, anonymous posting has been disabled. If you
are interested in reaching quality demographics using Slashvertisements for your company, or just have
questions about the new ad policy, email Hemos.
Let's have a close look at the costs involved when running a Linux system.
An important factor in Linux' cost is its maintenance. Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.
Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly. Other unix file systems are much more tolerant towards unexpected crashes. An example is the FreeBSD file system, which with soft updates enabled, performance-wise blows EXT2FS out of the water, and doesn't have the negative drawback of extreme data loss in case of a system breakdown.
According to Linux advocates, an alternative to EXT2FS would be ReiserFS. Unfortunately, ReiserFS is still in beta stage. This means it is not intended for production use (although according to many Linux advocates this shouldn't be a problem, which makes me wonder how (little) valuable they find your data).
The other proposed 'solution', EXT3FS, is nothing more than an ugly hack to put journaling into the file system. All the drawbacks of the ancient EXT2FS file system remain in EXT3FS, for the sake of 'forward- and backward compatibility'. This is interesting, considering that the DOS heritage in the Windows 9x/ME series was considered a very bad thing by the Linux community, even though it provided what could be called one of the best examples of compatibility, ever. When it's about Linux, compatibility constraints don't seem to be that much of a problem for Linux advocates.
Back to Linux' cost. Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally. Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems".
The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost. The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coded tools which have low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification. On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
I could go on and on and on, but the conclusion is clear. Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
Please, please stop! :)
Anonymous posting has been disabled due to advertiser's request? Are you insane?!?
Part of the beauty of slashdot is the ability to post your view without getting lambasted for it. I'm not a 'fp!' or 'you're a retard, Taco' kind of AC when I do, but sometimes I think things need to be said without my name attached.
Oh, and I guess you can't bash corporations anymore like you did. What's next, eliminating any poster who isn't in keeping with the various advertisers? God, shut slashdot down before subjecting it to this.
Will you be able to immediately discern what are the paid stories -- will they be flagged as such -- or will you have to guess what's an ad and what's an honest opinion?
I am the Lorvax, I speak for the machines.
will have a field day with this. And he'll actually believe this and all the other stories today.
Watch out for his upcoming corporatism-gone-amok rant.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
If you get DDJ, read the Swaine's Flames column on Slashdot's New Business Model.
Best Slashdot Co
You've shown how this wouldn't matter anyway. .
Happy 4/1. :)
"But enough of their gift certificates could bribe your way to that too!" Down the toilet...
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
And I thought I was safe from ever reading the words "Feminine Itching" on /.
:)
Well, it was a good ride while it lasted.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
Subscribers will no longer see advertisements on the pages -- just "advertorials". Nice.
rOD.
Rod Begbie done this, and he's not
I haven't had my coffee yet, so that is how long it took me to figure it out....
About time we had real ads, not these wimpy little banner ads and stuff. Go Slashdot!
Oh, uh, April 1st? Nevermind.
If *I* was slashdot and planning on implementing a major and obviously controversial new policy, I don't think I'd pick April 1st as the day to roll it out ;)
:)
The question will be, how many poor suckers will swallow the bait
Stuart.
I was wondering when they were gonna finally say something about the lack of anonymous posting on April Fools.
/. hive mentality...No, never...Not me...
Not that I'd EVER post anonymously when I post against the
look at the calendar before you go off half-cocked.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
...it were a Microsoft advertisement.
Something tells me that Hemos is going to be wondering where the big influx of flamemail came from.
Christopher N Emmick
A good man, a better nerd.
Ahh, the joys of April 1 on Slashdot: where the stories ARE the trolls! Nice one guys. heheh
:-)
I do have to feel sorry for Hemos, though: hopefully his spam filter is on full-blast to catch the flak from this story. Wonder how he's going to pay CmdrTaco back? Perhaps with a story about selling Karma points with CmdrTaco's email address as the contact?
(note to the people who haven't gotten it: look at a calendar)
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
It's about time Slashdot stopped sucking up to the nerds crowd and joined industry-standard practices of obfuscating advertisements as news stories. Watch out USA Today!
I for one would love to see more Slashvertisements here since the banner ads explain so little abvout the product I might be clicking through on. Now, when are you going to begin implementing opt-out "Valued Partner" marketing programs?
;-)
Bush signed the Kyoto Agreement and is personally pleging 20 thousand to the wildlife federation in Alaska
but I can't tell what I'm more amused by!
1. The anonymous button really is missing.
2. CmdrTaco posted Hemos' email so that's where all the flames will go.
3. Anticipating how Hemos will get back @ CmdrTaco. (Note to Hemos: don't disappoint your loyal fans!)
[o]_O
I'm shocked. I thought slashdot has been doing this for ages.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Wow, they even turned off Anonymous posting for this story! The slashdot editors sure are having fun today :)
Scary thing is, even with today being April Fool's Day, I almost took this story seriously. With how many ads we constantly have shoved down our throats by websites, slashvertisements really don't seem too far off.
CmdrTaco, that was cruel. :) I salute you. Poor Hemos, I'm sure what 90% of his email is going to be today...
It's the worst Slash-dot
day of the year!
With geeks belly-aching
and everyone telling you
"a-hundred to one!"
It's the worst Slash-dot
day of the year!
There'll crapping and trolling
With dumb jokes a-flowing
And avian-I-P!
With a thousand and one posts
Reminding our hosts
It's 'oh four 'oh one!
It's the worst Slash-dot
Day of the year!
You'll think we're in hell
When you can't really tell
You gulliable nerd!
It's the worst Slash-dot
Day of the year!
Why bother.
So...are these adverstories going to be labelled as such, or are we pulling a Yahoo! here?
Triv
What, like Hemos wouldn't recommend an overpriced case sold at ThinkGeek in an article about budget systems?
HEY, WTF, the anonymous posting IS GONE!
This will be the LAST POST I will put to Slashdot until the no-a/c policy is revoked.
:-)
Or until April fool's day is over.
Whichever comes last.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
I was all like "No way!", but then I realised it was a joke and thought "Whoah, you are some far out tricksters, man! They're just such crazy and unpredictable guys, I'm so priviliged to be a direct witness of their wit!"
In years to come people will be like, "Gee, so you were actually there when they pulled that famous stunt?" and I'd be all like "Yeah, man, I was one of the originals, saw it first hand, it was hilarious"
God you should have seen my face when I realised you guys were just yanking us. Man.
How fucking funny can you be?
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
Not bad for an April fools, but i thought Microsofts' "Tech Ed" joke was much funnier:
:)
(See front page of microsoft.com or goto: http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/teched/)
PS. Nice touch actually disabling anon posting
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
that this is redundant, but..
I can't help but think of this as selling out hardcore. Before I get blasted with the usual "if you like slashdot, you should be willing to pay for it", I'm used to *NOT * having to pay for it. I don't like paying for things that used to be free. I understand the state of the net economy, etc. etc - that doesn't mean that this won't suck.
BTW, if this is an AFD thing, then, good job.
"I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them." -Isaac Asimov
Buh-bye, Slashdot; I'll miss you.
Giving advertisers an easy way to gather email addresses from their stories really and truly sucks rocks. Way to go.
*buckle*
Dave
sPh
The good news is that the advertorial stories will be served by an IIS server under Windows 2000.
That will keep us from seeing them too often.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Weakest? Nah - the story combined with the removal of anonymous posting? Hilarious!
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
CmdrTaco posted this. He then references at the end 'if you have questions, email hemos'.
Gee, that's odd. You don't announce something and then say 'if you have questions, email someone else'. heh
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
Of course, don't forget to read the thinkgeek emails! Here you will discover how truly difficult it is to decide what to do on the weekends... have a pizza party? A fash party? Go to the mall with all of your friends? Have a sleepover and call boys on the phone?
In short, if you haven't checked out thinkgeek, you don't know what you're missing!
sulli
RTFJ.
Advertise with a story on Slashdot! Have hundreds of thousand of people read peoples opinions about why your company sucks and why your product sucks.
Even given bad quaility service? Advertise with a story on Slashdot! You'll have every instance of bad quaility service recounted in detail.
Does your product ever break? Bits fall off? Advertise with a story on Slashdot! Etc etc.
is redundant!
Best Slashdot Co
This story was an interesting way to show how few people read the story!
Read what is being advertised! Then decide if it is serious.
Bush's education improvements were
Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday April 02, @11:13AM
from the tightening-our-belts dept.
Well, folks, it started as an April fools joke, but we got such a positive response by companies such as Microsoft, eeger to spread FUD throughout the slashdot community, that we have decided to implement this new advertising strategy imediately. Thank you for your cooperation. Any converns should be addressed to me directly.
--CmdrTaco
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Really now cmdrtaco. You guys have taken this April 1st thing too far.
Amazingly covered in the last slashdot story posted!
"And like that
I visited The Open Directory Project , which had Microsoft pasted everywhere and a notice that it had changed name to The Microsoft Directory Project and Gates Open Directory (GOD).
My first thought was "Hey, all those hours I've done for free and now Gates will get rich on it".
It even has a clippy (or what ever it is that the annoying paperclip from the office apps is called).
TC - My Photos..
No returns on a $5,999 (their "special" price) Sony Plasma Screen "due to the cost of this piece"?
...
Is the item itself an April Fools joke, then?
Linus' autobiography was at least real.
I can't help but think this faux advertising is going to result in at least a few sales, therefore being the only April Fools joke I can think of that's not really an April Fools joke at all
It feels a bit like perverting the whole meaning of April Fools.
Oops.
D
Their Caffeine candy sampler really helped me out on late-night coding on my latest project. Especially the penguin mints. I have lots of their t-shirts in my wardrobe. I bought mousepads and desktoppers from there. My office is plastered with posters. I am a true fan. Good to see initiatives like this on slashdot.
(Oh, and a happy april fool to you all)
YRO, Spam, and Privacy articles brought to you by the folks responsible for the X2 wireless camera.
April Fool's day alwyas sees a flurry of interest in a "retract my last post" feature for Slashdot. This would enable people to pull posts after coming to the embarassing realization that they've just been trolled by CmdrTaco.
I always thought that those ZDNet editors were pretty funny. The same guy who told us all to convert to MAC OS X last week will come back with a new article and tell us all how great Windows is then he comes back with another article and tell us how Solaris is amazing.
I don't know about you guys, but I don't want Slashdot to become that dumb. Unfortunately, everyone has a price, ironically we've even seen MS ads on Slashdot.
Does that mean they've stopped selling "Sandra: The tech support doll"?
Realizing that this may NOT be an April Fools joke, please clarify and expand on the new policy regarding AC postings. Which advertiser(s) requested it?
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
I can see it now: a new deal - 100 mod points, $100 - protect your interests and your articles! Yes, here at Craaaazzzzzzyyyy Taco's, everything must go, go, go!!
And if you become our sponsor right now you'll get this fabulous one time only special bonus, auto-unmoddable-fp's for a month!!!
Yes, come to Slashdotland and memebomb the geeks!
Slashdot: Stuff for sale. Stuff that's modded.
They've been thinking about trying the no-AC idea for awhile now...What better way to test it out than to put it in as a big joke on 4/1?
No one can justifiably get mad, but they still get to test out if there are less posts, view the overall quality of posts, and generally assess the pros and cons of the idea.
points at neutron2000 "Haaa-haaaa"
;)
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The scary thing is, any other day I would believe you would do this.
In fact, I'm sure you will at some point.
I'm afriad that this just isn't outragous enough for 4/1 ...... now if it had been a MS ad...
.... but now we've all reformed and learned to love the bomb.
...
Especially on April 1
... i didnt catch the fact that its april 1 today at first...
:)
:) One way to weed out the not-so-quick users :)
but then i read the part where i'm supposed to email Hemos... and its posted by CmdrTaco...
This sounds suspicously like geeks in space when ur supposed to email The Pope 1024 copies of 0
I'll be Hemos is getting KILLED by ppl who dont get it
In a related story, VA Software (LNUX) reaches a new high.
Hmmm, advertisements mixed in with the stories and disguised as stories? Perhaps /. has become a testing grounds for some kind of newspeak? This could be Orwellian in scope! Head to high ground, everyone!
Happy pagan new year... I mean April Fool's Day.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
I amazed that there are so many people here who actually believe this.. Man, even geeks are suckers. Either way, since according to Taco, noone reads the posts, looks like a good number of people are going to believe this, and Hemos is gonna get flamed like crazy.
:)
I have to say I feel bad for the guy as he seems like a nice guy. Had a problem with one of the ads breaking NS4.7.x and he took care of it right away. Oh well, I have to admit, it is pretty funny
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
Thus spake Paul:
There you go...
Unselfish actions pay back better
You actually had me going there for five minutes you bastards. I had to look twice, think about it, then realise hey, it's april fool's.
Now I think I'll go call my mother and tell her I'm pregnant out of wedlock. That should turn a few hairs grey.
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo - H. G. Wells
Mmmmm.... MacOS for Pentium4... I would *so* buy a copy. Too bad this is an april fool's joke.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
he he .. April Fools, right? he he (nervous laughter as I switch over to K5) :-)
CmdrTaco, you rock! (today is April 1st right?)
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
You will easily be able to spot the ads because the ads don't have spelling mistakes in them.
Somewhere in the heavens... they are waiting.
If $username reply = true and sid=02/04/01/1452256
Then set $rtbl= true
D'oh!
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
I post a ton of shit anonymously because I either don't want my employer to know some of the shit I post, or I post information that I don't want traced back to me for some reason or another. I can pretty much gaurantee that the quality of slashdot is going to go down significantly. And while I can certainly make another account, it's a pain in the ass and I don't want to.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
Even better companies could pay for their rivals site (if its NT/XP based of course) to be a front page story. So that said site could be slashdotted.
They could always claim "We just wondered what the load balancing was on your site, so we gave you some free load testing..."
Dear god I hope so..... otherwise I'll have to expand my policy of not buying from intrusive ads.... no way will anyone take this bs, good thing it isn't true.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
I suggested a similar idea.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
This appears to extend to ALL articles. No AC Posting at all?
Gosh, with this kind of intrusive adverstising, who in their right mind would use this site!?! It would be almost as bad as visitting Disney World.
...Oh, point taken, carry on. I'll post when I get back from the Maelstrom!
I think Slashvertisements might not be a bad idea if you could get vendors to pay for the ad space.
/. readership knows these are advertisements, what's wrong with ads in this format? Magazine have been doing it for years, multi-page advertisements (appropriately labelled at the page edge). Why can't Slashdot? If it could work financially, I'd say go for it.
Of course, you'd have to modify the Slashcode to allow certain features for these articles that others don't have:
- Allow for disabled A/C posting
- give the vendor some kind of moderator power to suppress negative comments (you know they wouldnt buy the ad space otherwise)
- throw in a few other concessions maybe.
As long as the
One con I've noticed is that the number of posts with +1 bonus has about quadrupled...
That's why you need to learn the secret of browsing at +3 or +4, so many people have had the +1 bonus for so long that I feel it became useless. Maybe the scale needs to be adjusted though, everyone posts at 1 or 2, then the top end could be 6 or 7, low end should be -1 or -2.
What?
can anyone else see ThinkGeek sending Taco a Plasma Screen? Not that they bought the advert, but still...
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Update your resume that is, because net ads do not work.
I have never bought something from a net ad. I most likely never will. I use pricewatch to check prices. Look at the site decide if they are to be trusted. "Does ssl work etc" Then place my order.
I order Pizza online from the one company that takes orders here.
I will not buy clothes online.
Groceryworks like service is not available here.
Good luck with your new jobs. And no I do not want to supersize that.
Get a free ipod.
seeing as how I have moderator points today, can I moderate this
mod minus one
for you this time --
no sense of rhythm
and no sense of rhyme
Oh wait, I just posted to this thread, never mind.
Someone you trust is one of us.
I'd say Slashdot was more a wrong than a right. ;-)
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Today it's an April Fool's day joke.
In a year they will run 3 or 4 of these a day.
'Slashvertisement: Windows XP for Embedded Systems'
...
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these
... To be a true Microsoft embedded system it will have to crash in the pico second time frame.
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
Questions: Will we be able to post comments in slashvertisements as with normal news stories? Will they be clearly marked as ads? If so, they could actually be sort of fun - we could post rebuttals to the ads, make jokes about them, etc. The only problem would be if the editors modded down such posts in order to unfairly present the impression that slashdotters all love the product being advertised.
I have to say, I'm not going to miss the anonymous cowards. The only thing that troubles me, though, is that they are not being banned to make slashdot better. They are being banned because the advertisers want to see - probably - who is saying what, so they can market to them better.
Are the new changes going to keep me from reading slashdot? No, of course not - but I can't avoid thinking we're losing a little bit of specialness here.
One last thought: if the advertisers are paying to post stories, might they also pay to keep stories about why their products are bad from being posted? And will Taco say no to that?
I'm the stranger...posting to
I am a sucker - I actually forgot this was April Fool's day, and posted an honest response to the story. I am an idiot. Happy April Fool's Day, everyone!
I'm the stranger...posting to
It's funny, but I have found that I only really visit 'community' sites where it is still possible to post anonymously. It just says a lot about the management that they aren't total control freaks. (Killing ACs would be bait-and-switch in my mind.)
--
Power to the Peaceful
Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday April 01, @12:13PM
from the tightening-our-belts dept.
Ok, this has GOT to be an april's fools article kinda thing...
This has GOT to be...
Please say its an april fools, pretty please?
You can't take the sky from me...
A few ideas they should consider: each time you use a +1 point, your karma goes down by 1. And each time a +1 bonused post gets modded down you lose 2 karma points. Hopefully this would deter people from wasting them.
It is not a coincidence that this was posted on April 1st, or that anonymous posting is disabled on the same article on the same day.
This better be a April 1st joke ... it better be
In response to increased advertiser demand, we have decided that we will post one story a day paid for directly by our advertisers. These paid "Slashvertisements" will appear daily amidst the normal stories you read here.
Hmm. Okay, maybe I can handle this.
Our first Slashvertisement is for our sister site, ThinkGeek , stuff for smart masses. From Linus' Autobiography to 42" Plasma Screens and Caffeine Products Galore, ThinkGeek has everything you need, except love. But enough of their gift certificates could bribe your way to that too! And check out their current exciting specials!.
Come on. Don't just paste the ad copy into the story. Make it sound interesting.
Also at the request of our advertisers, anonymous posting has been disabled.
Okay, that's bullshit. Slashdot is NOT Slashdot without ACs and the ability to post anonymously. Lots of good information has been posted anonymously, including people posting information we find really interesting that could cost them their job.
If you are interested in reaching quality demographics using Slashvertisements for your company, or just have questions about the new ad policy, email Hemos.
Slashdot has now completely sold out. Period.
No ACs, and advertisements mixed in with real articles. Without even so much as an "Advertisement" icon (or, therefore, a way to filter them out).
Rusty, I'm coming back. Sorry for ever doubting you.
If you didn't pick up on the sarcasm, then I either didn't soak it with enough, or you're the one who bought it -- wait for it -- hook, line, and sinker. :)