The poster is German. I think he can be forgiven for a less-than-perfect command of English punctuation.
Welcome to the Internet, where not everybody is American.
A more stinging indictment...
on
Monsanto and PCBs
·
· Score: 2, Informative
...can be found in Toxic Sludge is Good For You, a fine investigation into the Public Relations industry and the evils it protects. Monsanto is covered in great detail.
I have a PC. I can make it do all these things, plus whatever the hell else I want. I fear the idea of do-it-all appliances; they spell the death of the all-purpose PC.
Everything you wanted in a computer, but without the freedom!
As a Computer Science-cum-Comparative Literature major, I've dealt with this problem before. Basically, no photographic image (nor audio recording, for that matter), can be trusted the way it was seventy years ago. For thousands of years, seeing has been believing for the human race (optical illusions excluded).
My personal conclusion is that the seeing part doesn't matter - it's the believing that's the problem. For hundreds of years, humans saw the stars and believed they were at the center of the universe, the most important thing out there. Now, we know how insignificant we are.
My answer to this particular problem (digitally altering video in realtime):
can tell you, the really good stuff that will come from nanotech are:
a) undersea colonies of telepathic "drummers" involved in massive gynocentric orgies b) free mattresses from public matter compilers c) that cool intelligent paper d) sailor moon-style armies e) skull guns
You could probably consider "half the state flocking to Best Buy to get their free toys" a mass hack - a bunch of people exploit a rebate loophole defraud Microsoft of $400 each.
Has anyone looked around on the 'net for a Perl script that will get the rebate automatically? Some Oregon skr1pt k1dd13s can't figure how to do it manually.
Or to look at it another way, suppose a large proportion of games didn't work on the P3 due to an FPU/MMX bug, and it was proven to be intels fault, are you sure your average consumer wouldn't know? It would almost definately get big-time news coverage.
True, but the point is that it hasn't. The Pentium bug passed without the average user knowing about it, and a big bug could happen for AMD as easily as it could Intel. Right now, Intel is the big name in processors for average users.
I think a lot of Slashdotters tend to forget that there are people outside of Slashdot who buy computers. Your average home user, for example, has never heard of AMD, but ask them about Intel, and they'll tell you about funky television ads.
Ask them what the Intel Pentium Bug is all about, or the F0 0F bug, and they won't have any idea what you're talking about.
Average consumers, and even business consumers, are influenced by advertising, and not by technical performance. I know it's an American tradition (and even more a Linux tradition) to root for the underdog, but remember that Microsoft still has ~85% market share as far as operating systems go. That's due to the same people who would buy and Intel processor because they saw them on TV.
AMD will never be as successful as Intel (not within this lifetime, anyway), for the simple reason that people generally have a vague distrust of anything that doesn't dominate the market (Microsoft being a notable exception).
like i said, he didn't die, so it doesn't count. i remember one other nominee from a few years back that didn't die, though. it was the guy who tied a bunch of balloons to a lawn chair and floated away, only to drift over the pacific ocean, necessitating a helicopter rescue...
This wouldn't count for a Darwin, because the guy didn't die, but what about that Dutch scientist who stared at the sun for 14 minutes before going permanently blind, just to find out how long people could stand to stare at the sun?
a) i was just reading the posting guidelines, and at some point, one of our venerable admins (i think it was cmdrtaco) said something like, "humor is appreciated, be funny, we all like to laugh, there isn't enough humor in the world," etc. i post the above comment (about the commandos), and suddenly i'm a troll, or whatever.
b) there's another comment on this story with subject line "linux drivers save lives!" and text "okay, no they don't, but sign the petition anyway," or something like that. this comment got a "funny" designation.
i don't know what's funnier: one moderator's lack of a sense of humor, or the other moderator's stupid sense of humor.
i can't wait for this comment to become flaimbait. i think i'm going to set my threshold at -1 from now on.
...the linux community might have to get a bit more drastic. i say, send elite ('leet?) squads of geek commandos out to firebomb offices and garrotte executives.
This looks good... It's encouraging to see companies that traditionally have had nothing to do with the community/movement considering open source alternatives.
Inprise used to be Borland, which was a favorite of MS-DOS/Windows programmers everywhere. As we all know, companies that devote themselves almost exclusively to MS-based products have traditionally been far from the open source mindset, as open source has traditionally been associated with Linux et al.
I like it when those traditions are abandoned. The software industry is teeming with neophobes.
I find any Slashdot coverage of DOS issues vaguely ironic, as the Slashdot effect is probably responsible for more DOS attacks on web servers than any other person/group/effect. It's especially funny because the targets of these attacks are supposedly sites of interest to the attackers. It's kind of like one of the web-defacement groups DOS-ing attrition.org, or something.
That's not to say that I'm going to stop participating in the daily massive distributed DOS attempts. No one ever said the Internet was a republic.
Or, Apple could have released this patch to look good. PR is extremely important, especially in tech industries. When computer-illiterate people want answers to tech questions, they usually ask their "resident geek" - a kid who knows what he's talking about. If that kid reads Slashdot (as any self-respecting resident geek should), his answer to "Is Apple security-conscious?" will probably have a lot to do with the stories he sees here and elsewhere. Eventually, every software company in the world is going to figure out that if they look good to Slashdot, they'll be more successful. Hopefully, that will mean actual improvements in quality. So, yeah, maybe this is a Good Thing.
Slashdot Mirror
The poster is German. I think he can be forgiven for a less-than-perfect command of English punctuation.
Welcome to the Internet, where not everybody is American.
...can be found in Toxic Sludge is Good For You, a fine investigation into the Public Relations industry and the evils it protects. Monsanto is covered in great detail.
George W. Bush & Microsoft: TWO GREAT TASTES THAT TASTE GREAT TOGETHER!
I have a PC. I can make it do all these things, plus whatever the hell else I want. I fear the idea of do-it-all appliances; they spell the death of the all-purpose PC.
Everything you wanted in a computer, but without the freedom!
If the competitive model of the Japanese space program has so much to offer NASA, why haven't the Japanese landed on the moon?
U.S.A. RULES!!!
As a Computer Science-cum-Comparative Literature major, I've dealt with this problem before. Basically, no photographic image (nor audio recording, for that matter), can be trusted the way it was seventy years ago. For thousands of years, seeing has been believing for the human race (optical illusions excluded).
My personal conclusion is that the seeing part doesn't matter - it's the believing that's the problem. For hundreds of years, humans saw the stars and believed they were at the center of the universe, the most important thing out there. Now, we know how insignificant we are.
My answer to this particular problem (digitally altering video in realtime):
STOP WATCHING TELEVISION.
heh.
- The Diamond Age
can tell you, the really good stuff that will come from nanotech are:a) undersea colonies of telepathic "drummers" involved in massive gynocentric orgies
b) free mattresses from public matter compilers
c) that cool intelligent paper
d) sailor moon-style armies
e) skull guns
should have used the preview button. i always ignore the best advice.
Well, people, for one. Elephants, for another. Even penguins. No two penguins are exactly alike.
Wow. Now there's a good springboard for an extended metaphor. "No two penguins are exactly alike. Run Linux for evolutionary viability."
Seriously, though, what about evolving operating systems? Wouldn't that make some sense? Software DNA?
You could probably consider "half the state flocking to Best Buy to get their free toys" a mass hack - a bunch of people exploit a rebate loophole defraud Microsoft of $400 each.
Has anyone looked around on the 'net for a Perl script that will get the rebate automatically? Some Oregon skr1pt k1dd13s can't figure how to do it manually.
Or to look at it another way, suppose a large proportion of games didn't work on the P3 due to an FPU/MMX bug, and it was proven to be intels fault, are you sure your average consumer wouldn't know? It would almost definately get big-time news coverage.
True, but the point is that it hasn't. The Pentium bug passed without the average user knowing about it, and a big bug could happen for AMD as easily as it could Intel. Right now, Intel is the big name in processors for average users.
I think a lot of Slashdotters tend to forget that there are people outside of Slashdot who buy computers. Your average home user, for example, has never heard of AMD, but ask them about Intel, and they'll tell you about funky television ads.
Ask them what the Intel Pentium Bug is all about, or the F0 0F bug, and they won't have any idea what you're talking about.
Average consumers, and even business consumers, are influenced by advertising, and not by technical performance. I know it's an American tradition (and even more a Linux tradition) to root for the underdog, but remember that Microsoft still has ~85% market share as far as operating systems go. That's due to the same people who would buy and Intel processor because they saw them on TV.
AMD will never be as successful as Intel (not within this lifetime, anyway), for the simple reason that people generally have a vague distrust of anything that doesn't dominate the market (Microsoft being a notable exception).
like i said, he didn't die, so it doesn't count. i remember one other nominee from a few years back that didn't die, though. it was the guy who tied a bunch of balloons to a lawn chair and floated away, only to drift over the pacific ocean, necessitating a helicopter rescue...
This wouldn't count for a Darwin, because the guy didn't die, but what about that Dutch scientist who stared at the sun for 14 minutes before going permanently blind, just to find out how long people could stand to stare at the sun?
a) i was just reading the posting guidelines, and at some point, one of our venerable admins (i think it was cmdrtaco) said something like, "humor is appreciated, be funny, we all like to laugh, there isn't enough humor in the world," etc. i post the above comment (about the commandos), and suddenly i'm a troll, or whatever.
b) there's another comment on this story with subject line "linux drivers save lives!" and text "okay, no they don't, but sign the petition anyway," or something like that. this comment got a "funny" designation.
i don't know what's funnier: one moderator's lack of a sense of humor, or the other moderator's stupid sense of humor.
i can't wait for this comment to become flaimbait. i think i'm going to set my threshold at -1 from now on.
This looks good... It's encouraging to see companies that traditionally have had nothing to do with the community/movement considering open source alternatives.
Inprise used to be Borland, which was a favorite of MS-DOS/Windows programmers everywhere. As we all know, companies that devote themselves almost exclusively to MS-based products have traditionally been far from the open source mindset, as open source has traditionally been associated with Linux et al.
I like it when those traditions are abandoned. The software industry is teeming with neophobes.
I find any Slashdot coverage of DOS issues vaguely ironic, as the Slashdot effect is probably responsible for more DOS attacks on web servers than any other person/group/effect. It's especially funny because the targets of these attacks are supposedly sites of interest to the attackers. It's kind of like one of the web-defacement groups DOS-ing attrition.org, or something.
That's not to say that I'm going to stop participating in the daily massive distributed DOS attempts. No one ever said the Internet was a republic.
Or, Apple could have released this patch to look good. PR is extremely important, especially in tech industries. When computer-illiterate people want answers to tech questions, they usually ask their "resident geek" - a kid who knows what he's talking about. If that kid reads Slashdot (as any self-respecting resident geek should), his answer to "Is Apple security-conscious?" will probably have a lot to do with the stories he sees here and elsewhere. Eventually, every software company in the world is going to figure out that if they look good to Slashdot, they'll be more successful. Hopefully, that will mean actual improvements in quality. So, yeah, maybe this is a Good Thing.
We just need wearable supermodels.