Are you reading the same/. I am? The signal/noise here is already much worse than, say, comp.lang.c++.</i>
When not moderating, I read at a threshhold of 0, ordered w/highest scores first, and I have to say, considering the number of participants here, I don't get much crap until the very end, and there I'm less meticulous anyway.
In other words, the shit does sink to the bottom fairly quickly.
One reason fewer and fewer people are using usenet is that it's easily spammed.
What do you propose to do when slashdot joins the thousand of other usenet topics that are slammed with junk?
Idea: Make the newsgroups read-only. I'm no NNTP expert, but could it be possible to have stuff originating from the web posted to the newsgroup, but disallow posts originating on usenet? But then, how could on-the-fly moderation be reflected?
Maybe just have a slashdot archive on usenet. Let people come here if they want to post something.
I still remember the joys of typing BASIC programs from some book chock-full of games like King, Queen, Wumpus, poker, etc. "Basic Games" and "Basic Games II" were huge at my school.
Space Invaders was cool cuz it used those alternate characters (and inverse characters) and looked KINDA like the real game.
My friend in 5th grade wrote a cool car-driving game. Amazed the class. But that, the TRS-80, and the TI-99 were my first exposures to computers.
Then the Apple II came to town and everything changed.
by simply increasing the voltage, you can experience ultra-real sensations when you're hit by one of those lightning-bolt guns in Quake 3. -------------------
Because this is going to be a Windows-sponsored media "event" - that means a lot of money dumped by M$, and a lot of media coverage, and a lot of attention from the public. That's EXACTLY the time Linux should be presented as an alternative, and the media, many of whom will be looking for balanced coverage (Don't think I'm giving them too much credit-- in this case "balanced coverage" is also more interesting than just reporting what they've been spoonfed) will be more than happy to present another OS-option, especially considering that the mainstream media already knows about Linux.
This will work if we're unified in our message and we have some good spokespeople who can show how/why Linux is better than Win2k. Waiting a week or two will totally miss the wave.
It's free publicity folks-- and to those of you who say "who cares, Linux isn't about marketshare, it's not supposed to be a replacement for Windows, it's about the ART, man...." Uh.... suuure. Coulda fooled me.
1. Where's your source? 2. In all those pro-IE articles where they actually DO identify the source, it always seems to be some kind of bizzare subsection of users, like "business users who are forced to use IE at work" based on some tiny sample like 100 people. 3. Netscape used to dominate with an even higher percentage (say, 1995). If IE didn't give up, then, why should Netscape/Mozilla/AOL/Time-Warner now?
Skins will allow Mozilla to look "right" for the OS it's running on, and if I've been understanding the newsgroups right (see netscape.public.mozilla.ui on news server @ news.mozilla.org), there's something called XBL which will help with the look-and-feel part of the OS... This is all kinda new, I think XBL landed in the tree like this week, so...
Incidentally, for those who hate the current UI, there's an "alternate UI" that's been developed, and you can check it out on the same newsgroup. W -------------------
this would really put a lot of power in the hands of normal people-- video is replacing print (or at least supplimenting it) as a primary means of self-expression and giving a free editing system to the people means taking power away from the media giants and select few who have the $ to purchase such equipment.
I mean, if we're going to have a million TV stations on the internet running out of people's homes, we have to have a way for those people to edit their shows, right?
Avid (makers of $100K non-linear editor systems) better watch its ass. I knew this kind of thing was an inevitability, but didn't realize it would be available so soon.
Here are some other links to similar projects:
http://www.geocities. com/ResearchTriangle/Facility/6309/index.html - the Free Film Project Freefilm.linuxbox.com - not up yet, but coming
Of course the big players now in this industry are Avid (with the Media Composer, Film composer, Digidesign (Protools), etc.), Media 100, and Adobe (who has Premiere 5.x). If this actually exists, man, that would be great!
The XUL language allows you to create/define new buttons and looks as part of Mozilla's theme feature.
So you can totally overhaul the look of the browser and add buttons that do all kinds of funky things, including what you describe. And it won't require any "real" programming skills-- XUL is a combination of XML, Javascript and CSS.
Once you create the button, it'll work on all platforms too! Check out http://www3.sympatico.ca/ndeakin/mozilla/xultu/con tents.html for an XUL tutorial on building UIs.
PHANTOM MENACE-- the stuff that originated on Film (most of it) was kinda crappy. Why? the combination of film grain + the square digital pixels looked annoying. But I'll say this-- it was the FILM GRAIN that really bothered me-- dancing and shimmering everywhere. You really noticed it. Not to mention the film itself sucked my ass. The best thing was the blue of the sky. It really popped off the screen.
TARZAN-- Entirely animated (computer, but traditional cell-style) THIS WAS INCREDIBLE. I didn't notice the pixelization, except during terribly bright scenes, but this was the first movie I saw w/o any kind of grain at all (It went straight to digital, without any intermediate film). It was INCREDIBLE.
TOY STORY 2-- GREAT as well. This movie I saw twice. Once in digital in Burbank and then again in regular ol' film. Big difference.
Even cinematographer friends of mine have to agree that it's INCREDIBLE and I don't see any reason why it won't be the de facto standard in another 5-10 years. Cheaper, nicer-looking, and easier.
As a sysop circa 1985, I can say I do miss some of it, but then again, what was a young 14 year old like me doing on bbs's in 1985 when I shoulda been out meeting people in real life?
I dunno, the "GT" parties were fun. It was fun to customize GBBS in MACOS (anyone remember ProTalk? How about an online text-video game called Turbo Run?)
Ah well...overall the Internet is better. It's BBSing plus a lot more
For all we know, the SETI distributed find-the-aliens project could have a little "rider" in it to help out our friends at No Such Agency. I mean, that program just cranks out numbers and the response isn't "found the key!" it's "Nope, no aliens found yet." Uh... ok... Guess I better keep running this until we do.
In fact, who knows what the hell any of the non-open source distributed programs are doing?
Wait a second... Who knows what ANY non open source program is REALLY doing?
Hubbard later claimed to have been spying on the OTO for US Naval Intelligence, which, if true, would suggest that he was not a serious student.
Yeah sure. He also claimed to be the youngest boyscout, a war hero who cured his own blindness, a nuclear physicist, an explorer, a philosopher, etc. etc.
If you're running one of the nightly builds for the first time in a while, you should make sure to kill the preferences files and rebuild a new profile... At least, it made a world of difference for me- Suddenly the bookmarks were working, menus were acting normal, and the thing stopped crashing.
Another example is wanton slaughter of innocent civilians, especially children.
I know this is gonna be a controversial question-- but why is it worse to slaughter a civilian vs. a soldier? An adult vs. a child?
I mean, assuming all human lives are equally valuable, which admittedly not everyone will agree to, I don't get why people think it's more tragic for a baby to die than say, a 70 year old man or a soldier.
Zona Research showing Netscape trailing Microsoft Internet Explorer by some 20 percent.
is a total misinterpretation of Zona's findings. Zona was only testing corporate users who use their browsers at work. Zona used a total of 160 or so respondants. Zona provides no margin of error that I could find.
This study has been touted in at least three ZDnet articles now as "proof" of IE's lead over Netscape. ZDNet articles have also claimed that the Zona study declares IE a winner, which it doesn't. *AND* Zona lists Microsoft as one of its "key clients" on its web page!
this is either deliberate or incompetant. Either way it's result is to generate unsubstantiated FUD. The actual study is here: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,1018 042,00.html The results are much different from what I've seen in articles such as the ZDnet for today's news and Jesse Berst's article here: http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_4076.h tml
Note- this is a "reprint" of something I wrote at mozillazine.
From Jessie Burst's ZDNet totally uniformed article this week Why the Browser War is Over" at http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_4076.h tml, (which incidentally claimed at one point that mozilla would not support XML and then erased this assertion without comment):
Now it appears Netscape's browser won't survive. Zona Research is the latest to declare IE victor with survey results showing 64% of corporations picked IE over Navigator."
Let's pick out the lunacy of this:
1. When Netscape controlled 75% of the browser in '96, did Microsoft say the browser war was "over"? I don't think so. But apparently, to Berst, a 64% lead means "victory" now.
2. But it *DOESN'T* to Zona research. The study cited did claim it was the "end of an era" but not the era Berst is hoping for! Zona didn't say anything about the war ending between Netscape and IE. In fact, its saying that the war has NARROWED into a two-browser competition (they make an analogy to the cola wars which are an ongoing two-brand competition). (See http://www.zonaresearch.com/info/pre ss/99-nov08.htm for Zona's ACTUAL conclusions about the browser war.)
3. The study interviewed a grand total of 236 *CORPORATE* respondants, according to the press release at http://www.zonaresearch.co m/browserstudy/1999/nov99/index.htm They were asked about the browser they used "at work" (see http://www.zonaresearc h.com/browserstudy/1999/nov99/chart1_sm.gif) Note that this study tells us _nothing_ about non-corporate or individual usage.
4. To give you an idea of how this survey was conducted, "approximately 300 corporate IT professionals" (if 236 is approximately 300) from "a variety of market segments" were asked if they used a browser, and if so, what they'd downloaded lately. (See http://www.zonaresearch.co m/browserstudy/1999/nov99/index.htm) Looking at the bottom of the graph at http://www.zonaresearch.com/browserstudy/1999/nov9 9/index.htm, unless I'm interpreting it incorrectly, the browser questions had N=172 -- only 172 respondants to this question? So the 64% victory comes from the PRACTICES (not necessarily PREFERENCES) of 172 corporate user's AT WORK. Great.
5. Of those surveyed in Oct 1999, NINE said they were still using IE 3.x. Compare with FOURTEEN claimed to be using Netscape Navigator 5.x!! (See http://www.zonaresearc h.com/browserstudy/1999/nov99/chart2_sm.gif.) Fourteen people (6% of N=232)using a PRE-ALPHA product of Mozilla at work? That's weird.
6. The people interviewed "are selected from the IntelliQuest Technology Panel." (See http://www.zonaresearch.com/p roducts/products.htm#reports which are 32,000 people on some list I guess. Who are these people? I'm not in any way a survey expert but don't usually they say these people are phoned at random and there's such-and-such a margin of error..? Maybe someone out there knows (?)
7. According to the survey, 69% of users are REQUIRED or ENCOURAGED to use IE by their jobs (See http://www.zonaresearc h.com/browserstudy/1999/nov99/chart4_sm.gif) But only 64% do, suggesting that 5% are intentionally violating their work's mandate to use IE! And indeed, 31% of companies say to employees "use Netscape" but 5% more (36%) do! (See chart at http://www.zonaresearch.com/info/pre ss/99-nov08.htm - Looks like Microsoft's well known practices are squeezing corporations to use IE, but the users know better:)
8. Zona's list of "key clients" includes... surprise surprise... MICROSOFT! (See http://www.zonaresearch.com/info/clients.h tm
Hmmmmmm......someone leave the spin cycle on for too long?
I think it's important to note that the reason perceptions about IE "winning the war" are so important now to M$ is that it's self-fulfilling-- the notion that IE has "won" will encourage more people to use IE, thus more firmly establishing it as a standard which in turn causes more people to use it.
That's why it's so important to fight these attempts to declare a "winner" -- because some policymaker at some company who's on the fence on what browser to use is going to read it and go "oh, looks like I'd better go with IE which won the war rather than that non-XML supporting Netscape which is being ditched by AOL. Who wants those headaches?"
Losing the spin war is losing the browser war. We must get back control and get the truth out whenever bogus articles like this come out!
Slashdot Mirror
Are you reading the same /. I am? The signal/noise here is already much worse than, say, comp.lang.c++.</i>
When not moderating, I read at a threshhold of 0, ordered w/highest scores first, and I have to say, considering the number of participants here, I don't get much crap until the very end, and there I'm less meticulous anyway.
In other words, the shit does sink to the bottom fairly quickly.
TMO anyway,
W
-------------------
One reason fewer and fewer people are using usenet is that it's easily spammed.
What do you propose to do when slashdot joins the thousand of other usenet topics that are slammed with junk?
Idea: Make the newsgroups read-only. I'm no NNTP expert, but could it be possible to have stuff originating from the web posted to the newsgroup, but disallow posts originating on usenet? But then, how could on-the-fly moderation be reflected?
Maybe just have a slashdot archive on usenet. Let people come here if they want to post something.
Dunno..
W
-------------------
Yes, we had some in 5th grade.
I still remember the joys of typing BASIC programs from some book chock-full of games like King, Queen, Wumpus, poker, etc. "Basic Games" and "Basic Games II" were huge at my school.
Space Invaders was cool cuz it used those alternate characters (and inverse characters) and looked KINDA like the real game.
My friend in 5th grade wrote a cool car-driving game. Amazed the class. But that, the TRS-80, and the TI-99 were my first exposures to computers.
Then the Apple II came to town and everything changed.
W
-------------------
The same bozo linking to that dumb-ass don knotts page.
But seriously, couldn't some kind of proxy be set up to get around this kind of a block?
W
-------------------
by simply increasing the voltage, you can experience ultra-real sensations when you're hit by one of those lightning-bolt guns in Quake 3.
-------------------
Ah, the famous "brain-in-a-vat" theory... (See Plato's shadows on the cave wall, or better yet "The Matrix".)
Holodeck off!
W
-------------------
There's nobody getting rich writing software that I know of.
How time have changed...
W
-------------------
Because this is going to be a Windows-sponsored media "event" - that means a lot of money dumped by M$, and a lot of media coverage, and a lot of attention from the public. That's EXACTLY the time Linux should be presented as an alternative, and the media, many of whom will be looking for balanced coverage (Don't think I'm giving them too much credit-- in this case "balanced coverage" is also more interesting than just reporting what they've been spoonfed) will be more than happy to present another OS-option, especially considering that the mainstream media already knows about Linux.
This will work if we're unified in our message and we have some good spokespeople who can show how/why Linux is better than Win2k. Waiting a week or two will totally miss the wave.
It's free publicity folks-- and to those of you who say "who cares, Linux isn't about marketshare, it's not supposed to be a replacement for Windows, it's about the ART, man...." Uh.... suuure. Coulda fooled me.
W
-------------------
Kinda giving Lara Croft a run for her money, dontcha think?
Kinda takes CBS's digital superimposition of their logo over NBC's in Times Square to a whole new level.. now it's the background, AND the newscaster!
I think we'll be in trouble when she starts broadcasting "I can feel my mind going, Dave" and singing "Daisy."
W
-------------------
1. Where's your source?
2. In all those pro-IE articles where they actually DO identify the source, it always seems to be some kind of bizzare subsection of users, like "business users who are forced to use IE at work" based on some tiny sample like 100 people.
3. Netscape used to dominate with an even higher percentage (say, 1995). If IE didn't give up, then, why should Netscape/Mozilla/AOL/Time-Warner now?
W
-------------------
Skins will allow Mozilla to look "right" for the OS it's running on, and if I've been understanding the newsgroups right (see netscape.public.mozilla.ui on news server @ news.mozilla.org), there's something called XBL which will help with the look-and-feel part of the OS... This is all kinda new, I think XBL landed in the tree like this week, so...
Incidentally, for those who hate the current UI, there's an "alternate UI" that's been developed, and you can check it out on the same newsgroup.
W
-------------------
In mentioning the 'big players' I neglected to mention that Apple's "Final Cut Pro" and "iMovie" software are big. And microsoft's jumping in too...
But Avid is definitely the biggest fish of them all these days.
W
-------------------
I mean, if we're going to have a million TV stations on the internet running out of people's homes, we have to have a way for those people to edit their shows, right?
Avid (makers of $100K non-linear editor systems) better watch its ass. I knew this kind of thing was an inevitability, but didn't realize it would be available so soon.
Here are some other links to similar projects:
http://www.geocities. com/ResearchTriangle/Facility/6309/index.html - the Free Film Project
Freefilm.linuxbox.com - not up yet, but coming
Of course the big players now in this industry are Avid (with the Media Composer, Film composer, Digidesign (Protools), etc.), Media 100, and Adobe (who has Premiere 5.x). If this actually exists, man, that would be great!
W
-------------------
So you can totally overhaul the look of the browser and add buttons that do all kinds of funky things, including what you describe. And it won't require any "real" programming skills-- XUL is a combination of XML, Javascript and CSS.
Once you create the button, it'll work on all platforms too! Check out http://www3.sympatico.ca/ndeakin/mozilla/xultu/con tents.html for an XUL tutorial on building UIs.
W
-------------------
TARZAN-- Entirely animated (computer, but traditional cell-style) THIS WAS INCREDIBLE. I didn't notice the pixelization, except during terribly bright scenes, but this was the first movie I saw w/o any kind of grain at all (It went straight to digital, without any intermediate film). It was INCREDIBLE.
TOY STORY 2-- GREAT as well. This movie I saw twice. Once in digital in Burbank and then again in regular ol' film. Big difference.
Even cinematographer friends of mine have to agree that it's INCREDIBLE and I don't see any reason why it won't be the de facto standard in another 5-10 years. Cheaper, nicer-looking, and easier.
W
-------------------
As a sysop circa 1985, I can say I do miss some of it, but then again, what was a young 14 year old like me doing on bbs's in 1985 when I shoulda been out meeting people in real life?
I dunno, the "GT" parties were fun. It was fun to customize GBBS in MACOS (anyone remember ProTalk? How about an online text-video game called Turbo Run?)
Ah well...overall the Internet is better. It's BBSing plus a lot more
W
-------------------
For all we know, the SETI distributed find-the-aliens project could have a little "rider" in it to help out our friends at No Such Agency. I mean, that program just cranks out numbers and the response isn't "found the key!" it's "Nope, no aliens found yet." Uh... ok... Guess I better keep running this until we do.
In fact, who knows what the hell any of the non-open source distributed programs are doing?
Wait a second... Who knows what ANY non open source program is REALLY doing?
Ah!
W
-------------------
Hubbard later claimed to have been spying on the OTO for US Naval Intelligence, which, if true, would suggest that he was not a serious student.
Yeah sure. He also claimed to be the youngest boyscout, a war hero who cured his own blindness, a nuclear physicist, an explorer, a philosopher, etc. etc.
Whatever.
-------------------
Not that this thread needs too many more replies, but I should point out that I patented innovation, so 90% of your perspiration profits belong to me.
W
-------------------
If you're running one of the nightly builds for the first time in a while, you should make sure to kill the preferences files and rebuild a new profile... At least, it made a world of difference for me- Suddenly the bookmarks were working, menus were acting normal, and the thing stopped crashing.
W
-------------------
http://www.mindspring.net/aboutms/mslo gotrans.gif
-------------------
Another example is wanton slaughter of innocent civilians, especially children.
I know this is gonna be a controversial question-- but why is it worse to slaughter a civilian vs. a soldier? An adult vs. a child?
I mean, assuming all human lives are equally valuable, which admittedly not everyone will agree to, I don't get why people think it's more tragic for a baby to die than say, a 70 year old man or a soldier.
Women and children first... (why?)
W
-------------------
Sorry, this is the right address for the Zona study:
http://www.zonaresearch.com/browserstudy
You'll see how the results have been totally warped to sound like an IE marketshare victory.
W
-------------------
I'm sorry but quotes such as:
8 042,00.html The results are much different from what I've seen in articles such as the ZDnet for today's news and Jesse Berst's article here: http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_4076.h tml
Zona Research showing Netscape trailing Microsoft Internet Explorer by some 20 percent.
is a total misinterpretation of Zona's findings. Zona was only testing corporate users who use their browsers at work. Zona used a total of 160 or so respondants. Zona provides no margin of error that I could find.
This study has been touted in at least three ZDnet articles now as "proof" of IE's lead over Netscape. ZDNet articles have also claimed that the Zona study declares IE a winner, which it doesn't. *AND* Zona lists Microsoft as one of its "key clients" on its web page!
this is either deliberate or incompetant. Either way it's result is to generate unsubstantiated FUD.
The actual study is here: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,101
W
-------------------
From Jessie Burst's ZDNet totally uniformed article this week Why the Browser War is Over" at http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_4076.h tml, (which incidentally claimed at one point that mozilla would not support XML and then erased this assertion without comment):
Now it appears Netscape's browser won't survive. Zona Research is the latest to declare IE victor with survey results showing 64% of corporations picked IE over Navigator."
Let's pick out the lunacy of this:
1. When Netscape controlled 75% of the browser in '96, did Microsoft say the browser war was "over"? I don't think so. But apparently, to Berst, a 64% lead means "victory" now.
2. But it *DOESN'T* to Zona research. The study cited did claim it was the "end of an era" but not the era Berst is hoping for! Zona didn't say anything about the war ending between Netscape and IE. In fact, its saying that the war has NARROWED into a two-browser competition (they make an analogy to the cola wars which are an ongoing two-brand competition). (See http://www.zonaresearch.com/info/pre ss/99-nov08.htm for Zona's ACTUAL conclusions about the browser war.)
3. The study interviewed a grand total of 236 *CORPORATE* respondants, according to the press release at http://www.zonaresearch.co m/browserstudy/1999/nov99/index.htm They were asked about the browser they used "at work" (see http://www.zonaresearc h.com/browserstudy/1999/nov99/chart1_sm.gif) Note that this study tells us _nothing_ about non-corporate or individual usage.
4. To give you an idea of how this survey was conducted, "approximately 300 corporate IT professionals" (if 236 is approximately 300) from "a variety of market segments" were asked if they used a browser, and if so, what they'd downloaded lately. (See http://www.zonaresearch.co m/browserstudy/1999/nov99/index.htm) Looking at the bottom of the graph at http://www.zonaresearch.com/browserstudy/1999/nov9 9/index.htm, unless I'm interpreting it incorrectly, the browser questions had N=172 -- only 172 respondants to this question? So the 64% victory comes from the PRACTICES (not necessarily PREFERENCES) of 172 corporate user's AT WORK. Great.
5. Of those surveyed in Oct 1999, NINE said they were still using IE 3.x. Compare with FOURTEEN claimed to be using Netscape Navigator 5.x!! (See http://www.zonaresearc h.com/browserstudy/1999/nov99/chart2_sm.gif.) Fourteen people (6% of N=232)using a PRE-ALPHA product of Mozilla at work? That's weird.
6. The people interviewed "are selected from the IntelliQuest Technology Panel." (See http://www.zonaresearch.com/p roducts/products.htm#reports which are 32,000 people on some list I guess. Who are these people? I'm not in any way a survey expert but don't usually they say these people are phoned at random and there's such-and-such a margin of error..? Maybe someone out there knows (?)
7. According to the survey, 69% of users are REQUIRED or ENCOURAGED to use IE by their jobs (See http://www.zonaresearc h.com/browserstudy/1999/nov99/chart4_sm.gif) But only 64% do, suggesting that 5% are intentionally violating their work's mandate to use IE! And indeed, 31% of companies say to employees "use Netscape" but 5% more (36%) do! (See chart at http://www.zonaresearch.com/info/pre ss/99-nov08.htm - Looks like Microsoft's well known practices are squeezing corporations to use IE, but the users know better :)
8. Zona's list of "key clients" includes... surprise surprise... MICROSOFT! (See http://www.zonaresearch.com/info/clients.h tm
Hmmmmmm......someone leave the spin cycle on for too long?
I think it's important to note that the reason perceptions about IE "winning the war" are so important now to M$ is that it's self-fulfilling-- the notion that IE has "won" will encourage more people to use IE, thus more firmly establishing it as a standard which in turn causes more people to use it.
That's why it's so important to fight these attempts to declare a "winner" -- because some policymaker at some company who's on the fence on what browser to use is going to read it and go "oh, looks like I'd better go with IE which won the war rather than that non-XML supporting Netscape which is being ditched by AOL. Who wants those headaches?"
Losing the spin war is losing the browser war. We must get back control and get the truth out whenever bogus articles like this come out!
W
-------------------