First off, I'm amazed that it's still possible to view the mechanical hit-counter at all. But it is. Perhaps Verizon DSL isn't that bad after all. (Or perhaps a sympathetic Verizon admin upped his bandwidth.:-)
Anyway, the MHC made it "hit home" for the first time how truly powerful Slashdot's influence really is. We all know that Slashdot readers can take down a webserver within minutes, but something about seeing the MHC go up 100 hits every five seconds at 12AM EST is really awe-inspiring.
Sources
1. Google.com When I searched for "bill gates nazi", I was hoping to find the rather amusing and widely distributed illustration in which Bill Gates' (the rich white guy) head had been superimposed upon Adolf Hitler's body. Instead, I found the photographic composition linked to above, which I think better fits my description of Gates as a "geek god".
2. Bill's Gates. The proprieter of this fine establishment (which sells a fine assortment of fences, gates, and vibrating plastic dildoes) provided a very interesting anecdote about his dog, Muffy. He also provided a delicious Red Bull/Citron cocktail, which proved essential in completing this research paper.
3. Slashdot.org. Specifically, the post to which I am responding, which provided the picture of the other Mr Gates, whom I think bears resemblence to the character "Bubba" from Forrest Gump.
A copy of this paper may be downloaded in PDF format for a small fee at this address.
The average American drinks more coffee and pop than he does water. Water -- you know, the stuff that makes up some 98% of your body? The stuff you need to live? Damn fools. Little wonder there's so much obesity and ill health.]
Hmmm, let's look at the list of ingredients in soda and coffee... yep, the first thing listed is water. That probably explains why soda and coffee are, um, wet. Did you have a point, or were you just looking for an excuse to be Health Nazi?
For what this thing will cost, you could probably buy a night with any woman on the planet.
Or you could save your money, get drunk and bang Sarcasta like the rest if us. Take the money you saved and invest in RISC hardware, or plastic surgery. (You can always find a use for plastic surgery. When in doubt, add five inches to your penis.)
Hi, Slashdot, my name is Vinnie Vendor, and I have a product to sell. I'd like to advertise this New and Amazing product on your front page, under the guise of being News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters. We both get something out of the deal: I get free publicity, and you get pageviews for your dying site. (And looking at VA's stock price tells me that you need those pageviews, TacoBoy! Ha! Ha!)
Please respond quickly or I will take my offer to kuro5hin. Unfortunately, I do not think they will accept. Darn their scruples and lack of commercial filth!
Yours truly, Vinnie Vendor Director of Lies^H^H^H^HMarketing
Evil, Inc.
Yeah, but this is news related to the Mythical and Mystical Inter-net, to which the Slashdot editors owe their riches. (Well, okay, VA stock isn't worth is the paper it's printed on now, but Rob was rich six months ago.)
Anyhoo, because of this, I'm often amazed that Slashdot lacks entire sections dedicated to new Geocities sites, AOL Buddy Lists, and DNS entries.
Then maybe I'm just lucky. The last time I was using it (on a Blade 1k with 256MG RAM), it started in three or four seconds, and worked beautifully the entire time. It was faster in all respects, and didn't have the awful widget bugs that Netscape 6 does.
I was also impressed with the fact that Microsoft included a CDE "action" (.dt file) and icon set.
Oh, fuck off. Everything installs in "/usr/local/microsoft". Each user has a single config file in their home directory. If you want to uninstall, delete the config file and the directory. A hell of a lot simpler than most uninstalled applications on Windows or UNIX, I might add.
Netscape 4 sucks ass. Netscape 6 is actually worse. I know, I didn't think they could make Netscape worse, but six is slower, uses more memory, and the widgets/menus/everything is buggy as hell. And is still doesn't fucking support three-year-old W3C standards!
IE5 is the fastest, cleanest, most standards-compliant browser available for UNIX. Fucking sad but true.
You mean Intel's International Trio of Gay Blue Men? Yeah, they're pretty fucked up. My question is, how much acid do you have to do before they go away?
Me pregunto si estos ordenadores utilizan "GNOME: El Tablero del escritorio Mejicano"? Diseñado por un mejicano, la voluntad de GNOME hace la sensación española en el país. La dimensión de una variable de su "taskbar" y "start menu" a la configuración española, y usar al mismo "window manager" que el Senorita Robin Malda dará la gente española a una sensación de la superioridad unrivaled desde entonces cuando él primero envió a su ejército a Méjico, para perseguir y para esclavizar a los indígenas. Quizás Miguel "Yo Quiero GNOME Desktop" de Icazza que la voluntad incluso se corone el rey de España!
This is so true. A $40 ATI Xpert98 will, amazingly, give you a brighter and crisper desktop than nVidia's latest and greatest. This problem has been around for at least a couple years too.
Incidentally, the Xpert98 is the card I recommend to people wanting to build cheap x86 Unix-workalike boxes, because in addition to its crisp 2D and low price, it also boasts excellent support in XFree86.
ATI, despite their failings, will probably always lead nVidia in this area. I got another SUN workstation a few weeks ago, and its Riva chipset is very bright and crisp. (Offtopic: In fact, possibly too bright... when viewing large fields of white, I seem to hear a high-pitched whirring/humming coming from the case. It's not the monitor or other interference, and it's bugging me. It's not the annoying sound so much as I'm worried that there's something wrong with the chip.)
IIRC Number Nine cards had legendary 2D and were very popular for x86 UNIX and Unix-workalike boxes, but I think they went out of business a year or two ago.
The Nomad and Lynx sold very poorly. The Virtual Boy did even worse -- I'd be amazed if they sold one. The Game Gear was mildly successful but was never as popular as the Game Bou due to its higher cost, lower battery life, and lack of good games. I say this as a former Game Gear owner... there were some awesome games (such as Sonic 2 and Mortal Kombat) but they couldn't keep good games coming out consistently.
Game Boy was successful because of its games and its steadily dropping price. It may have also had something to do with the fact that the Game Boy never tried to do too much. Each new version has built slowly and steadily upon its predecessor, while maintaining backwards compatability. The Game Boy Pocket had a smaller chassis and a much sharper/clearer screen. The Game Boy Color added a faster processor and basic color support. The GBA is their biggest leap forward yet, but unless it completely sucks, I think Nintendo has the name recognition to pull it off. (And hell, it's about the only name recognition Nintendo has left.)
Anyway, I think that 90% is actually a bit low. Six or seven years ago, they probably had 60-70% of the market. Today, I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo has 99% of the handheld market. Their few competitors have dropped off the face of the earth, and they keep on releasing more popular games. (Donkey Kong, Pokemon series, et cetera. I don't play GB anymore but my 12-year-old brother is a GB nut and I can tell what's popular from what he and his friends play.)
No. "Donkey Kong" was named such because the Japanese developers found the word "donkey" as a synonym for "foolish" in their crappy Japanese/English thesaurus. No joke.
Slashdot Mirror
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Anyway, the MHC made it "hit home" for the first time how truly powerful Slashdot's influence really is. We all know that Slashdot readers can take down a webserver within minutes, but something about seeing the MHC go up 100 hits every five seconds at 12AM EST is really awe-inspiring.
They don't call it SlashDDoS for nothing. :-)
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Sources
1. Google.com When I searched for "bill gates nazi", I was hoping to find the rather amusing and widely distributed illustration in which Bill Gates' (the rich white guy) head had been superimposed upon Adolf Hitler's body. Instead, I found the photographic composition linked to above, which I think better fits my description of Gates as a "geek god".
2. Bill's Gates. The proprieter of this fine establishment (which sells a fine assortment of fences, gates, and vibrating plastic dildoes) provided a very interesting anecdote about his dog, Muffy. He also provided a delicious Red Bull/Citron cocktail, which proved essential in completing this research paper.
3. Slashdot.org. Specifically, the post to which I am responding, which provided the picture of the other Mr Gates, whom I think bears resemblence to the character "Bubba" from Forrest Gump.
A copy of this paper may be downloaded in PDF format for a small fee at this address.
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Or you could save your money, get drunk and bang Sarcasta like the rest if us. Take the money you saved and invest in RISC hardware, or plastic surgery. (You can always find a use for plastic surgery. When in doubt, add five inches to your penis.)
Remember: even Windex won't get semen off an LCD.
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Please respond quickly or I will take my offer to kuro5hin. Unfortunately, I do not think they will accept. Darn their scruples and lack of commercial filth!
Yours truly,
Vinnie Vendor
Director of Lies^H^H^H^HMarketing
Evil, Inc.
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Anyhoo, because of this, I'm often amazed that Slashdot lacks entire sections dedicated to new Geocities sites, AOL Buddy Lists, and DNS entries.
Incidentally, I agree with you completely.
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I was also impressed with the fact that Microsoft included a CDE "action" (.dt file) and icon set.
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Netscape 4 sucks ass. Netscape 6 is actually worse. I know, I didn't think they could make Netscape worse, but six is slower, uses more memory, and the widgets/menus/everything is buggy as hell. And is still doesn't fucking support three-year-old W3C standards!
IE5 is the fastest, cleanest, most standards-compliant browser available for UNIX. Fucking sad but true.
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Incidentally, the Xpert98 is the card I recommend to people wanting to build cheap x86 Unix-workalike boxes, because in addition to its crisp 2D and low price, it also boasts excellent support in XFree86.
ATI, despite their failings, will probably always lead nVidia in this area. I got another SUN workstation a few weeks ago, and its Riva chipset is very bright and crisp. (Offtopic: In fact, possibly too bright... when viewing large fields of white, I seem to hear a high-pitched whirring/humming coming from the case. It's not the monitor or other interference, and it's bugging me. It's not the annoying sound so much as I'm worried that there's something wrong with the chip.)
IIRC Number Nine cards had legendary 2D and were very popular for x86 UNIX and Unix-workalike boxes, but I think they went out of business a year or two ago.
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Game Boy was successful because of its games and its steadily dropping price. It may have also had something to do with the fact that the Game Boy never tried to do too much. Each new version has built slowly and steadily upon its predecessor, while maintaining backwards compatability. The Game Boy Pocket had a smaller chassis and a much sharper/clearer screen. The Game Boy Color added a faster processor and basic color support. The GBA is their biggest leap forward yet, but unless it completely sucks, I think Nintendo has the name recognition to pull it off. (And hell, it's about the only name recognition Nintendo has left.)
Anyway, I think that 90% is actually a bit low. Six or seven years ago, they probably had 60-70% of the market. Today, I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo has 99% of the handheld market. Their few competitors have dropped off the face of the earth, and they keep on releasing more popular games. (Donkey Kong, Pokemon series, et cetera. I don't play GB anymore but my 12-year-old brother is a GB nut and I can tell what's popular from what he and his friends play.)
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Hell yeah. Little bitches won't piss on the floor once The_Messenger's holding a BFG to their tiny little pixelated heads.
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