Slashdot Mirror
FreeBSD 5.0 Developer Preview #1 Released
An Anonymous Coward writes: "The FreeBSD developers just announced the release of an official snapshot of the upcoming FreeBSD 5.0 which should be expected in November. Time to try out amazing new feature like background fsck, FFS snapshots, KSC, devfs, SMPng and many more. Check the Release Notes for detailed information." Read on for a list of ISO mirrors, too.
Thanks to AEtherSPOON, you can spare the main servers and use one of these FTP mirrors to grab the ISO:
local: 5.0-DP1-install.iso remote: 5.0-DP1-install.iso
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for '5.0-DP1-install.iso' (675971072 bytes).
644 MB 00:00 ETA 226 Transfer complete.
675971072 bytes received in 2569.77 seconds (256.88 KB/s)
Cable Rules!
Hey, I've already died twice. No biggie.
I like Tara too, and not just because she's the most interesting Lesbian to appear on prime time for quite a while. But she's doomed. It's all Amber's fault. Amber is multi-talented and sexy. Especially sexy when she's singing or incanting. But she isn't sexy in a Hollywood way. No character played by her can survive for long.
Please replace "an unfairly maligned jerk" with "a fairly thouroughly maligned jerk" in my grandparentparent post. Bed is a poor substitute for Slashdot, but despite the nasty aftertaste, bed leaves less of a hang over.
I would be willing to forgive Tara if she relented in contribution to the virus (read: pollution) of emotional radicalization propeganda, better known as "Soap Operas". I understand that many young and foolish actresses can get caught up in it, just as many naive talents get stuck in pornography, or even prostitution. Unfortunately, the product of the Soap Opera is far more insidious than pornography, and that makes it more dangerous to human society. Please, at least graduate to a weekly cable TV series if broadcast TV is out of your reach. Even pornography would be a more honest living. But take responsibility for your actions, and GET OUT of the hysteria glamourization industry.
Please, consider Sarah Michelle Gellar a role model. She escaped, and is a very productive part of the entertainment of the human race. Soaps are not even "romantically morbid", they are proactively morbid.
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As I see it, Slashdot is useful for entertaining and occasionially enlightening information and opinion. I depend on moderation for topics that I find marginally interesting, but for precious few topics I am willing to trudge through all 300 posts looking for the gems that might get overlooked that relate to significant interests of mine. I am willing to participate in moderation to serve others that find similar value from Slashdot, with the understanding that those who come before me can provide a similar service.
In this light, I find that "overrated", and especially "underrated" can be valueable, as not all posts fall into easily defined categoties of usefulness, but one shold still be able to say "Hey, you really should have a look at this!" On the other hand, I strongly feel that "offtopic" is a damaging moderation, if only that it serves as double duty against "crapfloods" and similar classes of senseless babble. Sometimes poor topics, like poor grapes, can produce the finest wines in offtopics posts that have more value than the topic from whence they were born. I truly wish that a distinct CRAPFLOOD-style mod were implemented to complement the overused "offtopic" moderation. It would provide much greater value than the "insightful/informative/interesting" triumvrate. Thus, if I were feeling uninspired, I could remove the penalty from OFFTOPIC for a more diverse, less rigidly structed Slashdor experience. When time becomes valueable once again, I can restore the offtopic penalty. Even better, I could assign a double penaly to CRAPFLOOD - I would never do that to TROLL as I would miss out on some oo Slashdot's best posts.
TROLLs are posts that engourage responses, and as such have value, even if they tend to be inflammatory or offtopic. BSD is Dead should be handled by REDUNDANT. Screenwidening posts and garbage characters could easily be caught by the CRAPFLOOD label, which would allow a realaxation in the "lameness filter" resulting in less frustration for posters. If these measures were implemented properly and used successfully, I might not be against removing OVERRATED. UNDERRATED is important as long as TROLL carries a penalty.
The less I know about soaps, the less I retch. I was kidding when I pretended that I knew who she was, as an intro to my over the top soap-style dramatization ("slipped SMP into their drink"). I was referring to how Sarah is no longer in a daytime soap, so I no longer hold hostility to her, and forgive her for her shady past. I hope that Amber is not held back for not being emaciated if she is talented, but I was really bluffing about the whole thing. Really, I'm sorry for bringing any of this up.
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I hope you aren't insinuating that I fit into the category you caracterized in your last paragraph; earlier in this thread you complimented one of my posts! I won't pretend that I don't enjoy a slight thrill or even validation when one of my posts is modded up to 5, but that is not at all why I use Slashdot. Sometimes I feel compelled to post useful info to to correct misinformation about subject that I feel fairly knowledgeable about. Enough knowledgeable people use slashdot that occasionally I find surprising posts that enlighten me, broadening my horizons, or at least provide new directions for further research. The Moderation system is a valueable part of this system. I don't care about my personal karma; I care that useful or just interesting posts stand out from inane crap or abusive noise. I don't mean MY posts, I mean other posts, so that I can see them when I browse at +2, +3, or +4, depending on how piqued my interest in the subject is. Unless I am intimately interested in a topic or moderating, I'm not willing to slog through at -1 just to find the hidden gem that hasn't been revealed. I actually depend on the moderation system to work for me.
I am sorry that my post wasn't clear... what was is that made it hard to uderstand? was it just too long? I have been accused of being too "long winded" on slashdot in the past. If that's the case, just stop reading here, thanks.
I don't see slashdot as a concise news site. I guess I treat it as a collection of perspectives, but with a lower bar for entry than, e.g., Kuroshin - and IMHO, Slashdot scales better. I don't dislike OFFTOPIC because I don't want to lose my precious karma, I already have my +1 bonus, as you can see, and if I really cared, I could post anonymously to protect my little stash. I dislike OFFTOPIC when it obscures somebody else's post that I find interesting. The very nature of the beast is that the discussion will stray from the story - On today's Star Wars article, there was a post describing how Pulp Fiction is a blatant Rip-off of a previous Japanese movie. This is completely off-topic, but that is not a bad thing - I find this more interesting than the original story. Now I have to rent "City on Fire" to see the jewel heist that is only alluded to in Resevoir Dogs, and I am looking forward to this. This illustrates my point that OFFTOPIC is against the spirit of the site, and OFFTOPIC could be destigmatized by introducing another tag - one which more accurately describe content free posts.
You claimed that your earlier post was marked OFFTOPIC twice, and rightly so. I am not going to argue against that, of course it was offtopic. But you posted it in the first place, and my eye was caught by the gruesome visage of the phrase soap opera. This compelled me to post, but I was not the only one - obviously many people were interested enough in your post to respond. Responses to your post were moderated up as interesting. Don't you get it yet?!? Obviously, your off topic post was valueable.
The dillema here is that many posts in this thread are both "offtopic" and valueable, which introduces a double standard. Similarly there are mony "trolls" that deservingly reach level 5 moderation. I usually want to see those "interesting" posts that are "offtopic" or "trolls", while sometimes I don't. The answer is another moderation category, which can distinguish posts that are clearly "content free" as opposed to just containing content that is "inflammatory" or "digressive".
Do you understand? Your post was OFFTOPIC, sure, but it is also valueable to at least 13 posters, two moderators, and yourself - not for "karma", but for discussion! I LIKE OFFTOPIC POSTS when I am looking to kill time. That is where I find the value in Slashdot - in the community and their communication.
Check out your preferences. The only "upmods" and "downmods" are OVERRATED and UNDERRATED. Everything else is configurable. That is why descriptive mods are a great idea. I can have FUNNY be a downmod if I am looking for pertinent information, while neutralizing REDUNDANT penalties and double raising INFORMATIVE and INSIGHTFUL. If I am looking to entertain myself with diverse perspectives, I can raise FLAMEBAIT, TROLL and OFFTOPIC - unless these are being used to negate FP and nonsequiter racist diatribes. Perhaps OVERRATED would be best for these style posts, but even you called for the elimination of that tag. Some tag along the lines of "useless, content-free, noise, crapflood" would solve this problem nicely.