Slashdot Mirror
Build an Open-Source Electric Car In About One Hour
First time accepted submitter joe5 writes "Like what Elon Musk has done and want to go all Etsy and build your own electric car? That's apparently now possible now thanks to the OSVehicle Tabby — dubbed the first "Open source vehicle" (memo: it may be cool, but it ain't the first). The OSV guys are taking pre-orders for the Tabby starter kit, with both the two-seater or four-seater configurations going for €500. Then you click to add options. (Note: seats is an "option" so that's the level of luxury you are dealing with here.) When the transaction's complete, OSV sends the parts to your home and you can download the plans and start building. Since the Tabby is open source, OSVehicle will also look to a community of owners and tinkerers for suggestions and recommendations."
that the motto for Slashdot should be changed from the beloved "News for nerds, stuff that matters" to "FUCK YOU, THAT'S WHY"
Brave Sir Robin ran away. ("No!") Bravely ran away away. ("I didn't!")
It still looks like ass though. It blends well with Metro UI at least............
Why don't we make our own Slashdot (with blackjack & hookers)? What IP is there in the site that we couldn't take with us? Could we take the moderation system (it's the only thing I can think of on Slashdot that's good and that no other site does as well)? I can't code for toffee but I'd be happy to make coffee & buy pizza for those who did.
Perhaps we should just fork slashdot and name it Plusdot. I have a sneaking suspicion that we could get a big company like Rackspace to sponsor the servers for the project.
Spread the word by mentioning this in every article's comments.
Here is Dice's "Contact Us" page. Everybody be sure to call them tomorrow using whatever numbers from that page you can get to ring. Tell every darn receptionist in every darn one of Dice's holdings, along with anyone you can get them to connect you to, that the Slashdot beta is terrible and you won't shut up until it goes away. Fax them a well-illustrated complaint or two or three. Send them a choice letter via snail mail, along with whatever memorabilia you wish.
They keep soliciting our feedback, they can get our feedback, right where it counts.
The most obvious contact points are:
Dice Holdings Inc.
1040 Avenue of the Americas, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10018
T: 212-725-6550
F: 212-725-6559
Slashdot
594 Howard St Suite 300
San Francisco, CA 94105
Tel: +1-877-433-5638
www.slashdot.com
Will you will actually leave if Beta is implemented?
A) Yes.
B) I'm already working on a Slashdot alternative/competitor.
C) I'm not even here now. I left when it was clear user feedback would be ignored.
D) Rage has limited my response to a constant and inarticulate, "Fuck Beta." Ask me nothing more.
E) I'll say I will but force of habit will prevent it.
F) No.
G) Ever notice how there are no longer any Cowboy Neal options? Guess what made Cowboy Neal leave.
So on an earlier thread I mentioned starting a kickstarter to buy Slashdot off of Dice. Many of us love the community here and would hate to see it killed off due the the incompetence of some Dice MBAs. I have no idea what a good number to start such a kickstarter at would be so I started by looking at the latest Dice quarterly report. I still haven't found numbers that are particularly helpful but I did come across a few interesting things that might help explain their seemingly inexplicable actions.
From the Operating Segment Results section:
"Corporate & Other segment revenues decreased 9% year-over-year to $4.3 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2013 from the comparable 2012 period, due primarily to the financial results at Slashdot Media."
From the recent Recent Developments section:
"Slashdot Media was acquired to provide content and services that are important to technology professionals in their everyday work lives and to leverage that reach into the global technology community benefiting user engagement on the Dice.com site. The expected benefits have started to be realized at Dice.com. However, advertising revenue has declined over the past year and there is no improvement expected in the future financial performance of Slashdot Media's underlying advertising business. Therefore, $7.2 million of intangible assets and $6.3 million of goodwill related to Slashdot Media were reduced to zero."
It seems they valued the goodwill of us Slashdot users at $13.5 million USD! Unfortunately it looks like they've already written that off?
Also, for Slashdotters who like to Slashdot things:
Investor & Media Contact:
Jennifer Bewley
Vice-President, Investor Relations & Corporate Communications
Dice Holdings, Inc.
212-448-4181
IR@dice.com
Oh, and a couple of their bigwigs will be at a conference in San Francisco in a couple of days:
On Monday, February 10, 2014, Mr. Durney and Mr. Roberts will participate at the Stifel Technology, Internet & Media Conference 2014 to be held in San Francisco. The fireside chat will be held at 2:45 PM Pacific time/5:45 PM Eastern time and will be webcast live from the Company's website.
Maybe a few of us would like to participate in that fireside chat, eh?
Cheers,
Greg
After reading all the up-roar about beta I had to check it out.
Yup. It sucks.