Anddd....receiving the Slashie for "Worst Car Analogy of the Year"...
Q'est-ce que c'est... You did not like this car analogy? I thought it was magnifique. It speaks to the very heart of the matter, using an analogy of cars to present a compelling example of such complete distortion of the issues that one able to accept the completely bent version of the facts could not help but agree - though it is likely they would have in the first place...
most (95%) of my queries are "This table/index. Number 5 please."
Admirable! Despite the strong desire for efficiency, you still have the prudence to phrase you queries politely.
Well, the database gets all sulky if it doesn't hear the magic word on a regular basis... So it's really in one's own best interests to be polite.'); DROP TABLE stories;--
Meh. No offense, but I didn't think your "Shirley" joke was funny in the first place. It works just fine in written form because everyone knows it already and it got its humour from the original, not the written version.
No offense taken. Anybody who's gonna take a crack at being funny has to be willing to accept that sometimes it doesn't work out.:) I'm only funny sometimes - I can live with that.
Personally I don't think homonym-based jokes work at all well in text... By their nature they rely on ambiguity that doesn't exist in text. Sometimes it's a real drag, 'cause I like those kinds of jokes.
I'll admit that's not perfect. I believe this is a sound that would phonetically be marked with a "schwa". There are rigorous phonetics systems that do exist and can cover cases like this - for the purposes of outlining the proposed campaign to secure the prosperity of the written form of the "Shirley" joke (on a system that doesn't support Unicode) I've had to make do with the regular Latin character set.
I figure in a generation or two we might be able to iron out these regional differences
We've had radio for a hundred years and TV for almost eighty. If you were right we'd already have gotten rid of regional and cultural differences.
Well, no, because we haven't made a concerted effort (paired with violent and rigorous enforcement) to eliminate deviations from the established standard. Rather, we've allowed these deviations to flourish through pop culture, where their novelty earns them respect...
Of course, some will resist these changes
Some meaning "almost everybody".
Well, of course there will be substantial resistance. It just sounds nicer if one describes it as "some" resistance. But, as I said, I feel that the threat of nuclear weapons will be adequate to quell any large-scale opposition to this important change.
If the "o" makes the same sound in "ouvr" as it does in "ov", then "ouvr" is next-to-impossible to pronounce (not to mention doesn't sound like it's supposed to).
If this is a phonetic system, the "o" has to always make the same sound.
Well, in any case, "o" doesn't appear in the word "Shirley" so the prosperity of the Shirley joke in written form is unaffected.
(In retrospect, it is possible that "av" would be a better spelling of "of" - despite my earlier statement that people who use this pronunciation would be detained and forcibly re-educated under the new system...)
If you want to be really realistic about what sort of phonetic system a vastly powerful, phonetics-system-crusading mad regime would choose to force standardization of English spellings, then probably they would use something more rigorous. But something with a bunch of Unicode characters wouldn't really work on Slashdot for the purposes of this discussion...:)
Though, I have to say - my original Shirley Joke comment here probably would have been funnier if it had been done up in full IPA or something...
No, because then how do you distinguish between the sounds in "of" and "over"?
Long and short "o" sounds...
of = "ov" over = "ouvr"
If we wanted to get really fancy we could introduce the schwa into the spelling system (to be more realistic for a moment - in reality a mad crusade to reform spelling would probably just adopt an existing, rigorous system of phonetics... I'm just working with basic latin characters 'cause it's easy for the purposes of this discussion...) but really, it's just as easy to leave it out.
but you still haven't covered several other vowel sounds:
AA = [a]pe Ih = [i]gloo II = [i]vory, [ey]es Uh = [o]f, [a]ffect, [u]nder
Simple enough.
ape = "eip" (long "e" sound, terminating in "p") igloo = "iglu" (straightforward, don't see the problem...) ivory = "aivori", eyes = "aiz" (the "long I" is really just "a" transitioning into "i") of = "ov", affect = "afekt", under = "andr"
People who pronounced "of" with an "a" sound would be escorted to re-education facilities for treatment... Their cases would be studied by re-education specialists, and if necessary they would be implanted with a small device which monitors their speech and delivers electric shocks when words are mispronounced... Priority cases would receive a version that uses a camera and OCR system to monitor their writing, as well.
Thus, the prosperity of the written form of the "Shirley" joke would be assured.
I mean, Wheeljack must have had some kind of computer failure if he thought it was a good idea to give the most physically powerful Autobots the most feeble brains available...
And, really, he could have skipped the whole transformation thing. It was quite awesome enough having a big metal dinosaur tromping around kicking ass...
It wasn't a joke, it was a popular culture reference. I'd imagine that you're neither popular nor cultured; that would explain your total failure to 'get it'.
Dude, what are you talking about?
It's a joke and a pop culture reference. I get it. I've seen "Airplane". I use this joke myself more than is really appropriate.
But every time a cherry of an opportunity for a "Don't call me Shirley" joke appears in text the opportunity is wasted by the fact that the difference in spelling pretty much kills the joke. It's as if, by the simple act of presenting the joke in written form, the entire funny part of it has been extracted and painstakingly explained at length.
This is why I advocate a violent campaign to force all English speakers to adopt a truly phonetic system of spelling and standardized pronunciation: when this is accomplished, we will be able to use the "Shirley" joke in written form without it being blunted by the fact that the spelling is different. This will also mean that the book adaptation of "Airplane!" can finally be published!
Inglish speekurz shood standardaiz on a striktly phonetik sistem ov speling wurdz
Ok, is it spelled "kaw" (New England), Kower (south) Kore (midwest), Kwa (Nwoo Yawk)?
Is it window, winder, or windah?
And you spelled "uv" rong. See how this is such an incredibly BAD idea?
I did not spell "uv" wrong. The five vowels:
A E I O U
Take the following sounds:
Ah Eh EE Oh OO
This is in accordance with the usage of the vowels in other European languages, such as Spanish or Italian. Thus, the word "of" would be spelled "ov". "uv" would rhyme with "move"
Admittedly, some work would need to be done to refine the phonetic spelling system and to promote adoption and education of the new system. I figure in a generation or two we might be able to iron out these regional differences. Of course, some will resist these changes: if we can get the NSA involved to monitor SMS and internet usage and introduce FCC regulations requiring broadcasters and recording artists to always spell and pronounce things correctly, and institute a new bureau of ruthless and violent enforcement, it should be doable. The back-catalogue of music and literature will have to be either destroyed or republished, and owning old editions will have to be criminalized. It'd probably be a good idea to identify uncooperative parents and separate them from their children, so we can properly institutionalize them using the new system.
Oh, and we'll have to invade England, I think - this nonsense about English English being the authoritative version has got to stop. If we play our political cards right and keep anybody else from getting involved it should be a fairly straightforward war without too much loss of life. We may have to use a few tactical nuclear weapons, but I think once we've established a willingness to use them (say, on a minor city) the Brits will know we mean business. One Britain is down I think it should be relatively easy to make Canada fall in line. Australians and New Zealanders might be a bit of a challenge since they're so well known for their weird accents - we could institute a temporary cultural embargo, that should prevent contamination until we're ready to deal with them.
In the end it'll all be worth it, though, 'cause we'll be able to use the "Don't call me Shirley" joke in writing and it will work properly. Really, all manner of homonym-based jokes will finally be open to use in writing. It will usher in a new golden age of literature.
People, do you not see the basic problem with using this joke in written format? Without a doubt this is a serious flaw in the English language: we are unable to use the "Don't call me Shirley" joke in written form because, while the words "Shirley" and "surely" are homonyms, the spelling is clearly different...
Ai propoz a simpl fix for this problem: Inglish speekurz shood standardaiz on a striktly phonetik sistem ov speling wurdz. Thas, thi standard "Shirley" jok wud bi exekyutid thus: "Shirly yu kant bi sirius?" "Ai em. And dont kal mi Shirly."
The levy isn't paid to big music. It's paid to SOCAN, which in turn distributes the tariff to its members based on need. That indy band, if it's a member of SOCAN, will probably be getting more than they pay into the levy out of it.
That is one fucked-up acronym right there...
"Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers of Canada" = SOCAN...Huh? Shouldn't it be SOCAMPOC? What is SOCAN? "Society Of (composers, authors, and music publishers of) CANada"? "Society Of Composers, Authors, (and music publishers) of Ncanada"? Couldn't any society in and of Canada be called SOCAN?
Where I live the gas taxes are supposed to pay for the roads but any new freeway is setup as a toll road.
Where's that gas tax money going again?
Well, see, they need to pay for the construction and ongoing maintenance and operation of that toll booth, and they need to build the road bigger to handle all the backed-up traffic waiting to pay the toll...
You said "shell access is something only a small percentage of people need". Well, what do they use instead? A GUI, with a menu system and a file browser? A shell will do nothing that the file browser would not also be capable of. This is true whether you are local to the machine or not.
With all the various different interfaces we have today, shell access is something only a small percentage of people need. Even those you could likely limit down to a few administrators, some programmers, and possibly a few special cases.
Right. And most machines don't run code from outside, like, oh, javascript?, flash?, java?....
Javascript, flash, and java (on the web, I mean) are all run in environments that implement their own forms of protection. It would, therefore, be very difficult from one of these environments to do something like a null pointer exploit.
With all the various different interfaces we have today, shell access is something only a small percentage of people need. Even those you could likely limit down to a few administrators, some programmers, and possibly a few special cases.
Here's the thing, though: a shell doesn't actually grant you any power that you don't already have. It is an interface through which you can run programs, nothing more. Most window systems have a "run command" dialog, file managers that let you explore the whole filesystem and run whatever you like, and any number of programs installed which might allow users to run any program on the system they have access to - in this environment, disallowing use of the shell is meaningless. It doesn't limit what the users can do, it just makes the interface worse.
A server that provides shared web hosting is a good example of why this kind of usage needs to be safe. Individual users can benefit from using the shell - but even if you were to block shell access, these users need to run PHP, Python, or Ruby, which would grant them the same ability to run programs... It's not so bad if a user on a system like this causes a small amount of trouble (like running a fork-bomb or otherwise grinding the system to a halt) - people will be upset, but the offender has more to lose than to gain in a case like that. But if a user can escalate themselves to root, they can sabotage other users' content, they can take over the system and do whatever they want, etc. This is a much more dangerous capability.
Linus's comment: "That does not look like a kernel problem to me at all. He's running a setuid program that allows the user to specify its own modules. And then you people are surprised he gets local root?"
Sounds reasonable to me.
Well, here's the thing... For the exploit to work you need either mmap_min_addr to be 0, or you need your process to have CAP_SYS_RAWIO. In other words, if you were running on a system that had mmap_min_addr set to 0, you could run this exploit without already having root authority. Wine needs this, apparently...
The workaround for mmap_min_addr (by exploiting dangerous SUID code in Pulse) was just icing on the cake.
Yeah, apparently if you're well-behaved they give you a checkbox that lets you turn the ads off... It's odd, though, 'cause I never saw any ads here in the first place.
Hm, you think this "ABP" thing in my browser window could have anything to do with it?
I bet you spell Microsoft with a dollar sign as well.
No, I prefer to use actual words when I talk about how shitty Microsoft is.:)
Though I guess it should be noted that if you simply pronounce "Mac OS X" phonetically and fuck with the timing, you still don't get "Mac O Sucks" - it's more like "Mac O Sex"
Just imagine the amount of bashers if the news would had read;
Windows 7 is causing outrage and frustration, with early adopters wishing they'd stuck with previous versions of the Windows. Blank and flickering screens, failure to recognize hard drives, defaulting to the old kernel, and failure to get encryption running are taking their toll, as early adopters turn to the web for answers and log fresh bug reports in Windows forums.
People would be bashing Slashdot and its editors for following "Slashdot groupthink" (that is, adhering to the traditional preferences of the local culture) by saying something negative about Microsoft! Poor, defenseless, put-upon Microsoft!
I don't get it. Slashdot is, at least by reputation, composed largely of people who support Linux, right? And yet, here we have an unflinching look at a case where a new release of one of the best current distributions has resulted in a lot of problems... And it hasn't been particularly sugar-coated or downplayed... It seems to me we're dealing ourselves a healthy dose of reality here.
Koala stings can be very nasty! If you've been stung by a koala, it's critically important that you draw out as much of the venom as possible and call an ambulance to take you to the emergency room as soon as you can. Don't make the mistake of trying to drive there on your own! Without the ambulance's emergency flashers it could take too long, and there is a very real danger that the venom's psychotropic effects will kick in before you can arrive - if that happens you could wind up causing a very serious traffic accident.
Slashdot Mirror
Anddd....receiving the Slashie for "Worst Car Analogy of the Year"...
Q'est-ce que c'est... You did not like this car analogy? I thought it was magnifique. It speaks to the very heart of the matter, using an analogy of cars to present a compelling example of such complete distortion of the issues that one able to accept the completely bent version of the facts could not help but agree - though it is likely they would have in the first place...
most (95%) of my queries are "This table/index. Number 5 please."
Admirable! Despite the strong desire for efficiency, you still have the prudence to phrase you queries politely.
Well, the database gets all sulky if it doesn't hear the magic word on a regular basis... So it's really in one's own best interests to be polite.'); DROP TABLE stories;--
while the words "Shirley" and "surely" are homonyms, the spelling is clearly different
Thus, they are homophones, not homonyms.
Aw, damn it, you're right... I am embarrassed to have gotten that wrong. That pretty much ruins the "Add homonym attack" joke, too...
Meh. No offense, but I didn't think your "Shirley" joke was funny in the first place. It works just fine in written form because everyone knows it already and it got its humour from the original, not the written version.
No offense taken. Anybody who's gonna take a crack at being funny has to be willing to accept that sometimes it doesn't work out. :) I'm only funny sometimes - I can live with that.
Personally I don't think homonym-based jokes work at all well in text... By their nature they rely on ambiguity that doesn't exist in text. Sometimes it's a real drag, 'cause I like those kinds of jokes.
Then spell "duh" using Spanish phonetics.
duh = "da" - or maybe just "d"
I'll admit that's not perfect. I believe this is a sound that would phonetically be marked with a "schwa". There are rigorous phonetics systems that do exist and can cover cases like this - for the purposes of outlining the proposed campaign to secure the prosperity of the written form of the "Shirley" joke (on a system that doesn't support Unicode) I've had to make do with the regular Latin character set.
I figure in a generation or two we might be able to iron out these regional differences
We've had radio for a hundred years and TV for almost eighty. If you were right we'd already have gotten rid of regional and cultural differences.
Well, no, because we haven't made a concerted effort (paired with violent and rigorous enforcement) to eliminate deviations from the established standard. Rather, we've allowed these deviations to flourish through pop culture, where their novelty earns them respect...
Of course, some will resist these changes
Some meaning "almost everybody".
Well, of course there will be substantial resistance. It just sounds nicer if one describes it as "some" resistance. But, as I said, I feel that the threat of nuclear weapons will be adequate to quell any large-scale opposition to this important change.
Humorous comment!
<MST3K>thank you!</MST3K>
of = "ov"
over = "ouvr"
If the "o" makes the same sound in "ouvr" as it does in "ov", then "ouvr" is next-to-impossible to pronounce (not to mention doesn't sound like it's supposed to).
If this is a phonetic system, the "o" has to always make the same sound.
Well, in any case, "o" doesn't appear in the word "Shirley" so the prosperity of the Shirley joke in written form is unaffected.
(In retrospect, it is possible that "av" would be a better spelling of "of" - despite my earlier statement that people who use this pronunciation would be detained and forcibly re-educated under the new system...)
If you want to be really realistic about what sort of phonetic system a vastly powerful, phonetics-system-crusading mad regime would choose to force standardization of English spellings, then probably they would use something more rigorous. But something with a bunch of Unicode characters wouldn't really work on Slashdot for the purposes of this discussion... :)
Though, I have to say - my original Shirley Joke comment here probably would have been funnier if it had been done up in full IPA or something...
No, because then how do you distinguish between the sounds in "of" and "over"?
Long and short "o" sounds...
of = "ov"
over = "ouvr"
If we wanted to get really fancy we could introduce the schwa into the spelling system (to be more realistic for a moment - in reality a mad crusade to reform spelling would probably just adopt an existing, rigorous system of phonetics... I'm just working with basic latin characters 'cause it's easy for the purposes of this discussion...) but really, it's just as easy to leave it out.
but you still haven't covered several other vowel sounds:
AA = [a]pe
Ih = [i]gloo
II = [i]vory, [ey]es
Uh = [o]f, [a]ffect, [u]nder
Simple enough.
ape = "eip" (long "e" sound, terminating in "p")
igloo = "iglu" (straightforward, don't see the problem...)
ivory = "aivori", eyes = "aiz" (the "long I" is really just "a" transitioning into "i")
of = "ov", affect = "afekt", under = "andr"
People who pronounced "of" with an "a" sound would be escorted to re-education facilities for treatment... Their cases would be studied by re-education specialists, and if necessary they would be implanted with a small device which monitors their speech and delivers electric shocks when words are mispronounced... Priority cases would receive a version that uses a camera and OCR system to monitor their writing, as well.
Thus, the prosperity of the written form of the "Shirley" joke would be assured.
I mean, Wheeljack must have had some kind of computer failure if he thought it was a good idea to give the most physically powerful Autobots the most feeble brains available...
And, really, he could have skipped the whole transformation thing. It was quite awesome enough having a big metal dinosaur tromping around kicking ass...
It wasn't a joke, it was a popular culture reference. I'd imagine that you're neither popular nor cultured; that would explain your total failure to 'get it'.
Dude, what are you talking about?
It's a joke and a pop culture reference. I get it. I've seen "Airplane". I use this joke myself more than is really appropriate.
But every time a cherry of an opportunity for a "Don't call me Shirley" joke appears in text the opportunity is wasted by the fact that the difference in spelling pretty much kills the joke. It's as if, by the simple act of presenting the joke in written form, the entire funny part of it has been extracted and painstakingly explained at length.
This is why I advocate a violent campaign to force all English speakers to adopt a truly phonetic system of spelling and standardized pronunciation: when this is accomplished, we will be able to use the "Shirley" joke in written form without it being blunted by the fact that the spelling is different. This will also mean that the book adaptation of "Airplane!" can finally be published!
Inglish speekurz shood standardaiz on a striktly phonetik sistem ov speling wurdz
Ok, is it spelled "kaw" (New England), Kower (south) Kore (midwest), Kwa (Nwoo Yawk)?
Is it window, winder, or windah?
And you spelled "uv" rong. See how this is such an incredibly BAD idea?
I did not spell "uv" wrong. The five vowels:
A E I O U
Take the following sounds:
Ah Eh EE Oh OO
This is in accordance with the usage of the vowels in other European languages, such as Spanish or Italian. Thus, the word "of" would be spelled "ov". "uv" would rhyme with "move"
Admittedly, some work would need to be done to refine the phonetic spelling system and to promote adoption and education of the new system. I figure in a generation or two we might be able to iron out these regional differences. Of course, some will resist these changes: if we can get the NSA involved to monitor SMS and internet usage and introduce FCC regulations requiring broadcasters and recording artists to always spell and pronounce things correctly, and institute a new bureau of ruthless and violent enforcement, it should be doable. The back-catalogue of music and literature will have to be either destroyed or republished, and owning old editions will have to be criminalized. It'd probably be a good idea to identify uncooperative parents and separate them from their children, so we can properly institutionalize them using the new system.
Oh, and we'll have to invade England, I think - this nonsense about English English being the authoritative version has got to stop. If we play our political cards right and keep anybody else from getting involved it should be a fairly straightforward war without too much loss of life. We may have to use a few tactical nuclear weapons, but I think once we've established a willingness to use them (say, on a minor city) the Brits will know we mean business. One Britain is down I think it should be relatively easy to make Canada fall in line. Australians and New Zealanders might be a bit of a challenge since they're so well known for their weird accents - we could institute a temporary cultural embargo, that should prevent contamination until we're ready to deal with them.
In the end it'll all be worth it, though, 'cause we'll be able to use the "Don't call me Shirley" joke in writing and it will work properly. Really, all manner of homonym-based jokes will finally be open to use in writing. It will usher in a new golden age of literature.
Surely you can't be serious?
I am. And don't call me Shirley.
People, do you not see the basic problem with using this joke in written format? Without a doubt this is a serious flaw in the English language: we are unable to use the "Don't call me Shirley" joke in written form because, while the words "Shirley" and "surely" are homonyms, the spelling is clearly different...
Ai propoz a simpl fix for this problem: Inglish speekurz shood standardaiz on a striktly phonetik sistem ov speling wurdz. Thas, thi standard "Shirley" jok wud bi exekyutid thus:
"Shirly yu kant bi sirius?"
"Ai em. And dont kal mi Shirly."
Ther, problem solvd.
The levy isn't paid to big music. It's paid to SOCAN, which in turn distributes the tariff to its members based on need. That indy band, if it's a member of SOCAN, will probably be getting more than they pay into the levy out of it.
That is one fucked-up acronym right there...
"Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers of Canada" = SOCAN ...Huh? Shouldn't it be SOCAMPOC? What is SOCAN? "Society Of (composers, authors, and music publishers of) CANada"? "Society Of Composers, Authors, (and music publishers) of Ncanada"? Couldn't any society in and of Canada be called SOCAN?
Where I live the gas taxes are supposed to pay for the roads but any new freeway is setup as a toll road.
Where's that gas tax money going again?
Well, see, they need to pay for the construction and ongoing maintenance and operation of that toll booth, and they need to build the road bigger to handle all the backed-up traffic waiting to pay the toll...
Last music CD I bought: Can't remember
Who recorded that?
You said "shell access is something only a small percentage of people need". Well, what do they use instead? A GUI, with a menu system and a file browser? A shell will do nothing that the file browser would not also be capable of. This is true whether you are local to the machine or not.
Heh, touche. :)
With all the various different interfaces we have today, shell access is something only a small percentage of people need. Even those you could likely limit down to a few administrators, some programmers, and possibly a few special cases.
Right. And most machines don't run code from outside, like, oh, javascript?, flash?, java?....
Javascript, flash, and java (on the web, I mean) are all run in environments that implement their own forms of protection. It would, therefore, be very difficult from one of these environments to do something like a null pointer exploit.
With all the various different interfaces we have today, shell access is something only a small percentage of people need. Even those you could likely limit down to a few administrators, some programmers, and possibly a few special cases.
Here's the thing, though: a shell doesn't actually grant you any power that you don't already have. It is an interface through which you can run programs, nothing more. Most window systems have a "run command" dialog, file managers that let you explore the whole filesystem and run whatever you like, and any number of programs installed which might allow users to run any program on the system they have access to - in this environment, disallowing use of the shell is meaningless. It doesn't limit what the users can do, it just makes the interface worse.
A server that provides shared web hosting is a good example of why this kind of usage needs to be safe. Individual users can benefit from using the shell - but even if you were to block shell access, these users need to run PHP, Python, or Ruby, which would grant them the same ability to run programs... It's not so bad if a user on a system like this causes a small amount of trouble (like running a fork-bomb or otherwise grinding the system to a halt) - people will be upset, but the offender has more to lose than to gain in a case like that. But if a user can escalate themselves to root, they can sabotage other users' content, they can take over the system and do whatever they want, etc. This is a much more dangerous capability.
Linus's comment:
"That does not look like a kernel problem to me at all. He's running a setuid program that allows the user to specify its own modules. And then you people are surprised he gets local root?"
Sounds reasonable to me.
Well, here's the thing... For the exploit to work you need either mmap_min_addr to be 0, or you need your process to have CAP_SYS_RAWIO. In other words, if you were running on a system that had mmap_min_addr set to 0, you could run this exploit without already having root authority. Wine needs this, apparently...
The workaround for mmap_min_addr (by exploiting dangerous SUID code in Pulse) was just icing on the cake.
They have advertising on slashdot?
Yeah, apparently if you're well-behaved they give you a checkbox that lets you turn the ads off... It's odd, though, 'cause I never saw any ads here in the first place.
Hm, you think this "ABP" thing in my browser window could have anything to do with it?
They _are_ masturbating monkeys..
No, no... They're apes - show some respect...
How? Thanks.
Well, if you were to allow all user-space processes to access raw sockets, then the system might start to feel exposed and self-conscious...
I bet you spell Microsoft with a dollar sign as well.
No, I prefer to use actual words when I talk about how shitty Microsoft is. :)
Though I guess it should be noted that if you simply pronounce "Mac OS X" phonetically and fuck with the timing, you still don't get "Mac O Sucks" - it's more like "Mac O Sex"
Just imagine the amount of bashers if the news would had read;
Windows 7 is causing outrage and frustration, with early adopters wishing they'd stuck with previous versions of the Windows. Blank and flickering screens, failure to recognize hard drives, defaulting to the old kernel, and failure to get encryption running are taking their toll, as early adopters turn to the web for answers and log fresh bug reports in Windows forums.
People would be bashing Slashdot and its editors for following "Slashdot groupthink" (that is, adhering to the traditional preferences of the local culture) by saying something negative about Microsoft! Poor, defenseless, put-upon Microsoft!
I don't get it. Slashdot is, at least by reputation, composed largely of people who support Linux, right? And yet, here we have an unflinching look at a case where a new release of one of the best current distributions has resulted in a lot of problems... And it hasn't been particularly sugar-coated or downplayed... It seems to me we're dealing ourselves a healthy dose of reality here.
Koala stings can be very nasty! If you've been stung by a koala, it's critically important that you draw out as much of the venom as possible and call an ambulance to take you to the emergency room as soon as you can. Don't make the mistake of trying to drive there on your own! Without the ambulance's emergency flashers it could take too long, and there is a very real danger that the venom's psychotropic effects will kick in before you can arrive - if that happens you could wind up causing a very serious traffic accident.