Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Google, Prince, Bayesian
Please confirm, over. After reports that the People's Republic of China was blocking access to Google, an anonymous reader writes: "I'm working in China, and for the last 3 days Google and some other sites were not accessible. But since even sending SMS to europe didn't work I don't think it was censoring, more like routing problems of some sort. Anyway, Google is back and reports of slashdot blocking are also overrated :)"
Cradle of Democracy, or Regular Cradle? Many readers have written to point out that, just like they promised to in March, the government of Greece has gone ahead and banned electronic games. xlurker, for instance, writes "In an unbelievable move the Greek government has banned all public play of computer games with enactment of law 3037/2002. An english translation of it can be read here. This has been reported in the Greek newspaper Kathimerini and recently confirmed in detail at the German Heise site (Google translation). The law encompasses all appliances that play games, as ludicrous this sounds, it spans from cells ph ones and computers to gameboys and consoles. Greek internet cafes are protesting and international gaming events are being cancelled and relocate d. The bill was passed as a last ditch effort by the government to combat gambling. Thousands of Greek citizens have protested the blanket anti-gaming law. Online petitions can be found here and at the Greek Net Cafe site."
Welcome to your new email account. In addition to the Bayesian spam filter for Qmail mentioned in a previous Slashback, an anonymous reader writes "An article here talked about using statistical methods to classify spam (and perhaps other mail) automatically. A real implementation of this has been released (currently beta) here that acts as a POP3 proxy and works with any mail client. It inserts an X-Text-Classification: header in each mail message containing a classification of the mail into any of a number of classes that the user defines. The code is mostly Perl and an LGPL library so although the current version is for Windows it will work on other platforms and the author is asking for suggestions and testers."
Yes, I'd like to be paid in unlucky-pop-star weights, please. 21mhz writes "Reuters reports: Russia's space agency has scrapped 'N Sync singer Lance Bass's plans to join an October space mission after the U.S. pop star failed to meet payment deadlines. More details from AP. The guys that do real stuff at ISS will get an extra cargo package the weight of the unlucky pop singer."
And Lo, eleven shall have been selected, and it is so. AmateurHuman writes "After two delays, Wizards of the Coast, the makers of Dungeons & Dragons, have announced that the first stage of the New Fantasy Setting Search is completed. Eleven out of 11,000 entries were selected. Good job to those lucky eleven!"
Slashdot is not responsible for the content of external links. ttyp writes "We've all seen Janis Ian's opinions about P2P and the RIAA but, man, does Prince take it to a new level! Check out the artist's commentary A Nation of Thieves wherein Prince wonders, 'How long, however, b4 a critical mass of established artists realize that it is in their best interests, both artistically and commercially, 2 leave the system 4 good? How long b4 a critical mass of young aspiring artists become aware of the enslaving aspects of the system and r careful not 2 get involved in it without a maximum of precautions? And how long b4 a critical mass of art lovers get 2gether 2 provide these artists with a real, valuable, legitimate, truthfully enthusiastic alternative audience that completes the process of rendering the xisting system artistically irrelevant?' Also check out the links to other commentaries on this page."
Wow, didn't know he wrote like that, Prince is one l33t d00d! I totally agree with the message behind it, but that is an incredibly annoying way of writing.
How long b4 a critical mass uv peepil beegin 2 loose all sines of b-ing able 2 spel and t8ke the pop moozik w/ them?
--
Promoting critical thinking since 1994.
Honestly, which fool did he hire as his PR manager?
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
It looks as though the entire essay was filtered through a 14 year old girl chatting on an IM. It's almost painful.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
"Reuters reports: Russia's space agency has scrapped 'N Sync singer Lance Bass's plans to join an October space mission after the U.S. pop star failed to meet payment deadlines."
Watch Lance get himself into AOTC: $-5
Watch Lance get rejected by Lucas: $5000
Watch Lance get on space mission: $-10000
Watch Lance's VISA bounce: priceless!
For everything else there's MasterCard.
Clearly, Prince continued partying like it was 1999, ignoring the impending Y2K bug, and failed to update his computer systems, causing them to automagically translate his messages into l33tspeak! And to think, people said the Y2K bug was overblown...
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
The guys that do real stuff at ISS will get an extra cargo package the weight of the unlucky pop singer.
Lance Bass' weight is currently estimated at just under 30 pounds, without hair gel and not including ego.
-- Nerds on toast in the new millenium
If I ever download a prince song I hereby promise to kill myself in the most disgusting manner possible. So now everyone is happy.
I think the changing of his name to that stupid symbol was a preemptive strike to make his songs hard to download on gnutella. Or a pathetic cry for help. One of those.
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
Dr3@m !f u c@n @ n3tw0rk
@ c0nn3ct10n 0f 'putt3r2 1n p33r
Mu21c tr@d3 4 fr33
T43y f33l t43 s0und
T43 s0und 0f MP3
40w c@n u l3@v3 m3 p1ngl322
@ g33k 1n @ w0rld t4@t bl0ws
M@yb3 1'm t00 us3d 2 p@nd3r1ng
M@yb3 1t'2 my p0t2 2 sl0w
M@yb3 H177@ry'2 l1k3 my g1rl
24e's n3v3r s@t12f13d
W4y d0 u 2cr3@m w43n u r3@d t412
T412 12 w4@t 1t 20und2 7143
W43n 3ng7124 t3@c43rs cry
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Do they realize that in order to use most of their computers, they'll now have to separate Solitaire from all MS operating systems? Seeing as how long it took the US to split IE from the system, Greece doesn't stand a chance!