Slashdot Mirror
AMD Buys Pre-VIA Cyrix Media-GX Division
An anonymous reader writes "A long time ago, in what feels like a different universe, Cyrix created the first sub-$1000 PC based on a 2 chip solution called the Media-GX. Soon after National Semiconductor bought Cyrix, keeping the Media-GX team and selling the 686MX team to VIA.
In the meantime, the Media-GX team have created the a series of single chip PCs, and a totally new CPU, the GX2. Now National Semiconductor is
selling the division to AMD, which should give it a higher profile and better fab technology again."
Reader jlouderb reminds us of National Semiconductor's Device Girls promotion, "a lame take-off on the Spice Girls," and points to coverage at eWeek of the purchase.
Section 1 - Trolling techniques
There are techniques used by successful trolls to elicit the maximum amount of responses from unthinking /.ers. This section is dedicated to explaining
how to use these in the course of your trolls. Remember though, a great troll
can break any or all of these and still be successful...
* Timing
Because you're posting as an AC, your troll will generally be ignored in favour of posters using their accounts, and so getting in early is essential. A good guideline is to get into the first 20 posts, so that people reading the article will see the troll before it is swamped out. One way of increasing the speed with which you get your troll into play is to prepare them beforehand, and then quickly customise them for the current article. This is easier than it sounds since /. typically repeats stories with small variations and runs lots of similar
stories.
Note that this is why Jon Katz stories are pretty worthless as trolling material - by the time you've found the article and prepared a troll there's already 50+ posts on it, most of them flaming Jon Katz anyway :)
* Exposure
Once you've got your troll in, you need people to actually read it. You also want replies - /.ers are more likely to read your troll if it starts a large
thread. You also want to remember that some people have set their comment thresholds
to values higher than 0 - to get the attention of these you either want to get
your post moderated up (see Style, below) or get a reply which gets moderated
up to 4 or 5, in which case your troll becomes visible to all.
* Accounts
An alternative to the time-honoured tradition of AC trolling is that of creating a troll account. This gives you the advantage of posting at 1 rather than 0, and slashbots are more likely to take you seriously, especially if you at least sound reasonable. If you do this, try to avoid posting stuff where it is obvious you're a troll under the account - post it anoymously instead - some slightly more canny readers actually check your user info before they reply. Not many though :)
The ultimate goal of the troll account is to secure the +1 bonus, which is currently received once you hit 26 points of Karma. To get there, employ the techniques of karma whoring that we see every day on /. and watch the karma
roll in. And of course once you get the +1 bonus, the world is your oyster in
terms of /. Posts made at a default of 2 hit even those people with the threshold
of 2, are more likely to get moderated up even further if they are at all coherent,
and people tend to lose their critical thinking abilities in the face of the
+1 bonus. Milk it for all it's worth.
* Layout
To get people reading it a troll needs to be easily readable. Make sure you break it down into easily digestible paragraphs, use HTML tags where appropriate (but always make sure you close them properly) and use whitespace appropriately.
* Size
Generally a troll shouldn't be too short, otherwise it'll get lost in the crowd. A workable minimum is a couple of medium paragraphs. Conversely, it shouldn't be too long, or no-one will bother to read it. Keep it to a happy medium.
* Spelling
Whilst spelling is important if you want the troll to be taken seriously, key spelling mistakes can draw out the spelling zealots, especially if you mis-spell the name of a venerated /. hero, like Linus Torveldes or Richard Strawlman (thanks
dmg). Related to this is the use of the wrong word, explaining an acronym as
being something it isn't or making a word into an acronym even when it isn't.
* Subject
The trollers are out in force today it seems.
Let's see: AC posts goatse link and gets modded +2 Informative!!! Now one must ask, are the trolls the problem with Slashdot or is it moderators that don't even read the comment befpre moderating?
Am I the only one who thought of "Device Girls" as those unenlightened females who prefer various mechanical devices over us virile geeks?
Nope.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Cheney seeks asylum in France by Nov. 2004 120.00 +2.30
Blair hosts Do You Want To Be A Millionaire by Jan. 2004 98.65 -3.05
G. W. Bush indicted for tax fraud by Oct. 2003 111.45 +0.34
Saddam Hussein disovered in Cheney's bunker by Sept. 2004 99.00 +0.89
Cheney seeks asymlum in Afghanistan by Sept. 2004 101.23 -0.67
Rumsfeld plays Dr. Strangelove in Dr. Strangelove II 100.00 -0.93