Slashdot Mirror
Priest Brews in Washing Machine
An anonymous writer sends in this story about a priest who has made a brewery out of his washing machine. See his website for recipes and pictures.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Ok, this whole modding thing has gone too far...
First post?
Did I? Could I?
second
I have friends who were once tremendously productive programmers, until they started reading $lashdot. Then, the endless stream of links, updated a dozen times a day no less (so you don't go once a day to get your fix; instead, you keep a window open and hit reload every twenty minutes or so), steadily seduced them, until they eventually became babbling idiots, dribbling saliva from the corners of their mouths, ranting on the forums about the relative merits of Karma Whores and Anonymous Cowards. Can there be any doubt that this website is anything other than a nefarious ploy to destroy Linux by undermining the productivity of its developers? And is there any organization that would like to destroy Linux more than Microsoft? (Well, maybe the Santa Cruz Operation...) Is it any coincidence that just as the Feds were working out Microsoft's sentence, Microsoft sued $lashdot, resulting in a firestorm of geek ire that totally overshadowed the monopoly ruling?
#8. Screaming 14-year-old boys attempting to prove to each other that they are more 3133t than j00.
Need I say more?
#7. Technical opinions refereed by popular vote means lousy technical opinions.
Before the Internet, a certain breed of deconstructionists had a lot of fun telling everybody that "privileging of dominant paradigms" was wrecking the world. The Internet has taught us that privileging certain views is absolutely crucial to avoid drowning in the ravings of idiots. On $lashdot, many articles discuss technical issues---but comments are refereed by popular vote, and even though the populace of $lashdot readers knows somewhat more than your average set of people off the street, they still tend to promote (as in "moderate up") a lot of technical nonsense. Reading $lashdot can therefore often be worse than useless, especially to young and budding programmers: it can give you exactly the wrong idea about the technical issues it raises.
The pre-Internet publishing world had magazines, newspapers, and journals with editors. Respectable publications hired qualified editors. Those qualified editors were educated enough to make intelligent decisions about the quality of content. The $lashdot model removes the editors and substitutes popular vote, and the result (unfortunately) is that the quality level becomes incredibly inconsistent. It was an interesting experiment; it didn't work, not for $lashdot (though it might work in some other population of users). Too bad. Now, it's time to quit.
#6. Community myth that Linux is technically superior to any other operating system in the known universe.
People who do operating systems research, of course, think this is a joke. Dissent from this view in $lashdot, however, and you'd better be wearing your asbestos fatigues.
#5. Butt-ugly visual design.
Of course, this one's a matter of taste. However, in my analysis, the visual elements of the $lashdot site are basically hopelessly confused and wrong. From the cryptic links in the left margin, to the drop-shadowed graphics (hello, digital design cliche circa 1994?), to the offensively lousy color scheme (let's use circuit board green, because it's "News for Nerds", right?) I can't find much to like about the design of $lashdot.
#4. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to any and all articles that vaguely criticize Linux in any way.
Blowhards (like the flock of irresponsible columnists over at the Windows-boosterism rag InfoWorld) have had tons of fun taking advantage of this tendency to drive hits to their site. On any given day, $lashdot readers are treated to another link to another column by another self-proclaimed pundit declaring that Linux is (pick one) unreliable, not scalable, not user-friendly, doomed, piracy-inducing, foul-smelling, or un-American. And irony was that the editors of $lashdot are falling right into the pundits' trap: inciting the $lashdot community is the one surefire way to drive up your hit count and hence your revenue from ad banners. Did the $lashdot editors ever wise up? Not that I ever saw. Given how tiresome the endless pro-Linux jihad had become by the time I quit, I have very little desire to go back and find out whether that's changed.
#3. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to bogus pseudoscience articles by crackpots.
At the time I quit, the editors were posting links to theories of alternate consciousness, unified theories of the universe made up by people in their garages, and the like at a rate of two or three a week. And the number was only increasing. If I want to read articles that promote totally bogus pseudoscience, I'll open up the Village Voice. We don't need another webzine filling that role.
#2. Editorial/comment system pretends to be democratic but in reality most content remains firmly in the iron clasp of the editors.
The above problems with editorial could be solved if stories could be moderated as well as comments, or if editors paid attention to negative feedback about the posting of certain articles. However, the editorial staff, while pretending to be ideology-free selectors of any "interesting" content, in fact exert tremendous power over the content of the site, because they are the only ones who can select top-level links. They have furthermore demonstrated, for all the reasons above, that they cannot use this power wisely.
In fact, if you think about it, the links on $lashdot are easily an order of magnitude less interesting, on average, than those of Suck, Hotwired, or FEED---all of which are run by smart editors with good taste (and two of which are dead---thus proving that only the good die young). If you've read any of these webzines, you'll probably agree. Rob and Hemos simply don't compare, as editors, to Stephen Johnson or Joey Anuff.
So, really, it's time to ask yourself: why should I read $lashdot? Because it targets my demographic? That's a silly reason. So why not quit today?
#1. Two words: Jon Katz.
Every community has its resident gasbag. The difference between $lashdot and other communities is that they have the means to kick their village idiot off his soapbox, but they lack the will. If Jon Katz is not the single worst writer for any webzine, anywhere on the planet, alive today, then I am a penguin. His writing manages to be endlessly meandering and verbose, and simultaneously utterly content-free.
Notice, by the way, that I have not said a word about his technical acumen. It's not necessary to. Katz (who, like all opportunists, likes to paint himself as an innocent victim whenever he's criticized) makes a big deal about how there are "technical snobs" in the Linux user population who blast him for not being a technical genius. To tell the truth, Katz's inability to install even recent Linux distributions (which are arguably as easy to install as MacOS or Windows) on a run-of-the-mill x86 PC does testify to his general cluelessness. However, Katz is not a programmer or sysadmin; he's a writer. He must stand or fall based on the quality of his writing. And his writing is totally the pits. He would never have gotten published anywhere but $lashdot; even WIRED, cheerleaders of all things "digital" and "decentralized", finally got tired of his babbling and let him go. The cheesiest, most blatantly pandering "Hookers Who Read Proust" article on Salon.com displays more literary skill than the finest Katz screed ever to see the light of day.
To make things worse, Katz is also a shameless opportunist who regularly uses $lashdot to promote his books. And the $lashdot admins go right along with it. You can't criticize someone for their taste in friends, but you can criticize them for continuing in a relentless and blind nepotism that destroys the quality of the site.
No single factor wase more pivotal in driving me away from $lashdot than Jon Katz. Even when I registered for an account and filtered Katz out, still he made it into news items not labeled Jon Katz---presumably to promote sales of his book. What other webzine displays such a blatant disrespect for its readers?
But then again, Katz's pandering, one-note "Ich bin ein Geek" spiel may be exactly what the $lashdot audience deserves.
Simply put, it's time to quit $lashdot, once and for all.
Troll 54 of 208 from the annals of the Troll Library .
All they need is another conveniently timed terrorist attack, and the gestapo will be even more powerful.
R eportID=502&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0
t ory_01_020703_Doc_1.pdf s 2.html
http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/report.asp?
http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/downloads/S
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_lewi
Section 501, "Expatriation of Terrorists": This provision, the drafters say, would establish that an American citizen could be expatriated "if, with the intent to relinquish his nationality, he becomes a member of, or provides material support to, a group that the United Stated has designated as a 'terrorist organization'." But whereas a citizen formerly had to state his intent to relinquish his citizenship, the new law affirms that his intent can be "inferred from conduct." Thus, engaging in the lawful activities of a group designated as a "terrorist organization" by the Attorney General could be presumptive grounds for expatriation.
MOYERS: Do you see any protection in here against potential abuse?
LEWIS: I don't think there's very much -- there's a lot more authority and power for government. There's less oversight and information about what government is doing. That's the headline and that's the theme. And the safeguards seem to be pretty minimal to me.
MOYERS: I just go through here, you know? "Will give the Attorney General the unchecked power to deport any foreigner?"
LEWIS: Right.
the one.
real beer makes priests!
... brewerys make washing machines out of YOU.
Where washing machines brew priests!
...The washing machines make brew out of priests.
Because I had too.
First Post
-Troll
First Post!
Nuke Israel!
Washing machine brew priest!
My geek girlfriend is on my red hot rod right now. She just told me to type "cunt pussy cunt" into Slashdot because while she was riding she realized the site was FUCKING BROKEN. And then I told her to shut up because she was breaking my fucking rhythem. But I did get a chance to type this post with one pussy juice soaked hand. So... wassup?
:) booyah
hmm?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
to make your clothes smell like a bum's after you use it
Hells yeah!!!
Howdy! I'm cool!
What kind of stupid link is this? How about some interesting news instead. (more links)
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Another fp? Go ZX!
One more crippling0 7a/0107a.htm"> failing dead last</A>. htm">Kreskin</A> to predict *BSD's
bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD
market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of
all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states
that <B>*BSD has lost more market share</b>, this news serves to reinforce what we've
known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by
<a href="http://www.samag.com/documents/s=1148/sam01
in the recent <I>Sys Admin</I> comprehensive networking test.<P> You don't need to
be a <A href="http://www.amazingkreskin.com/photo_gallery
future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't
be any future at all for *BSD because <b>*BSD is dying</b>. Things are looking very
bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red
ink flows like a river of blood.<P> FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having
lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time
FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point
more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: <b>FreeBSD is dying</b>. <p> Let's
keep to the facts and look at the numbers. <p> OpenBSD leader Theo states that there
are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of
OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are
about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume
of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put
FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 =
36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts. <p>
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, <b>FreeBSD went out
of business</b> and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. <b>Now BSDI
is also dead</b>, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house. <p> All major
surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and
its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will
be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle
could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead. <p>
<b>Fact: *BSD is dying</b>
I hear the word "cult" all the time. What is a cult?
Here is a simple test to tell if a group is a cult or not. Ask yourself these questions about the group:
Does the group use tricks, lies or excuses to get members and to keep them?
Does the group say that it is "better than all other groups", and is it organised so that people can't complain, discuss, vote, criticize, or change the group?
Does the group claim that the founder knows all the answers, and tolerates no discussion or questioning of his or her teachings?
Does the group say that nothing is more important than to get more money, people or anything else into the group, and that this is more important than honesty or friendship or families, maybe because it is such an emergency that the world must be saved right away?
Is the money collected used only a few "special people instead of for the members or the general population?
If you answered "yes" to all these questions, then the group is definitely a cult.
People who study groups have looked at scientology and answered "yes" everytime. See why:
it pretends to be a self-help group, and doesn't tell the actual price of the services; the "personality test" is a trick because the result is always that you need help - and of course, "scientology can help you". An honest group would tell you this before the test;
scientologists say they are superior to the rest of the world, and calls the rest "raw meat" or "wogs" instead of simply "non-scientologists";
everything must be done exactly as LRH said/wrote. Discussion is "verbal tech" and gets you sent to "ethics", which means you are in trouble;
to get money, power or revenge scientology creates fake organisations (called "front groups" by critics) that lie about what they really want and do; and LRH said that "suppressive persons" can be "tricked, lied to and destroyed";
the money that scientology gets is used to attack enemies, through lawsuits, dirty tricks or lies. The staff members live in terrible conditions.
As you see, that makes scientology a "cult".
What little I know of Russian, I picked up from Tom Clancy novels...but between that and all of the "In Soviet Russia" jokes people post, that's a fairly off-color sig you're using...funny, but definitely not kulturniy.
(Note to moderators: Yes, this was offtopic. Bite me.)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.