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Apple Deprecating Quicktime For Windows, Micro Trends Urges Users To Uninstall (trendmicro.com)
harryjohnston writes: Usually when a vendor deprecates a software product and stops releasing security updates, they provide some sort of advance notice that they're intending to do so. The least we would expect is for them to announce an unexpected end-of-life themselves. However, Trend Micro released a security advisory today describing two zero-day vulnerabilities for Quicktime for Windows, and according to them, Apple told Trend Micro -- but apparently nobody else -- that they have deprecated Quicktime for Windows and will not be releasing a patch. The Register has an article on the announcement. Apple did not respond to their request for comment.
I've done my share of trolling, and I'll defend it. Proper trolling isn't a whole lot different from satire. There are a lot of people here who don't think for themselves, have horrible biases, and make Slashdot a lot less interesting to read. There's a definite anti-US bias in many of the comments. Rather than actually considering whether something is good or bad, right or wrong, people will accept when Europe does certain things but not when the US does. People are quick to criticize Microsoft for anything and everything, without considering whether MS is doing some good or bad, or even whether or not something is factually correct. There's a blatant bias against law enforcement, even when they follow the Constitution and get warrants to investigate a particular suspect with probable cause that's very real. There's also a bias in favor of piracy, because copyright must be bad when the movie studios and recording industry uses it, but not when it's used to enforce the GPL. We live in a world where there are shades of gray rather than clear good and bad. The article summaries and comments on Slashdot frequently don't reflect those things.
When I troll, I try to counter that bias with satire that makes people stop and think. Trolling and satire are very much related; both rely on absurdity to achieve their effects. When people actually have to stop, argue with someone, defend their position, and not merely partake in the groupthink, well, I think that's a good thing. People need to put aside their biases and actually think for themselves.
I think there's been a downward trend in the quality of stories and posts, long before the current ownership took over. There used to be a lot of intelligent, well thought out discussion that took place on Slashdot. That is in decline, and has been for some time. Slashdot used to have a lot more comments and, presumably, a lot more mod points in circulation. The editors would spend some time using their unlimited mod points to send the true crap to -1. The remaining mod points would mostly go to modding up truly interesting posts. You could rely on the moderation system to highlight which comments were worth reading and discussing. I don't see as many truly insightful comments being modded up anymore. And I don't care to wade through 40 "Republicans hate us and want us to die" comments from a single jackass that are still at 0 to find the gems that haven't been modded up yet.
There's a lot of stuff that's been lost, too. Users frequently submitted their own features and book reviews to Slashdot. Inteviews were another common feature. Some of the people being interviewed would hang around and comment in those stories. Those are long gone.
Just my opinion...