Today, following news of AOL and NSI's teamup, Steve Case has made an official public announcement:
"Thank you all for being here today. I am officialling taking over the internet. All non-aol approved websites will lose their domain names effective immediately. My new address will be the White House as I've sued the governments of the world out of existance for all their.gov sites (which I own) and other infringements upon my legal rights. My new title will be 'The King: Lord Case, May He Live For A Thousand Years'. That is all, thank you."
Bill Gates and his new company, LinuxSoft, declined to comment. In unrelated news, The two Microsoft halves continue a long and ugly legal battle to untie Windows and decide who gets what. Unfortunately, the current judge was found dead today of what looks like a self-inflicted knife wound.
-Elendale (no longer will I flame AOL mindlessly, I will now make fun of them with fake news posts)
Is it just me, or are as many people responding to Signal 11 posts as respond to Katz stories? The responses seem to have the same content... Cut these guys some slack, they just have a strong opinion;)
-Elendale (of course, this particular post is BS and deserves to be labeled: TROLL)
The difference between someone holding Linus liable as opposed to M$ when their server crashes is (imho) quite obvious. With Linux, you can fix the problem. If it is causing reccuring crashes, just do some work on the program and make it 'better'. Now for those of you who say this isn't for everyone, would YOU trust an ISP that can't fix a software glitch? With the NT box, the only thing you can do is go whine to Bill about buggy products (or switch to a real OS). The point is that there is no way to make NT good enough to use if the next version has more downtime than uptime. Can't sue, can't fix it yourself.
-Elendale (wait a sec, that would kill closed source! Maybe it is worth a shot)
Heh. This is a good point. Most people think that 'its just video game music, who would actually want to listen to that stuff anyway?' Actually, comparing some video game MP3s i've got to some movie soundtracks laying around, i know which one would drive me crazy. Of course, when its a choice between Exdeath/Zeromus techno remix/One Wing Angel or listening to the soundtrack for Titanic it isn't that hard a decision.
-Elendale (Of course, the signal-to-noise ratio of music out there is very poor...)
Or whoever will compile the list. I would really (and I mean really) like to see the answer to this one:) Wanna throw it in even though it is 'offtopic'?
-Elendale (Can think of one humorous reply to the question...)
They're participating in online discussions, and subjecting themselves to a slashdot interview.
LOL. Subjecting themselves to an interview... sounds like real torture, huh? Actually we should give them a hand. We start flaming and they respond... Hmm...
-Elendale (Still think Katz is jumping on the bandwagon here, but that's beside the point)
Is it Metallica or those who own them (or at least their contracts) getting Napster to block that large number of accounts. I really think it is their producers because Metallica has typically been a very pro-fan band. Unfortunately, they are one of the only bands in the buisiness who could tell the higher-ups to "fsck off" and get away with it...
But at least its getting attention now. A few people have mentioned that AOL is useful, indeed necessary, for the new growth of the net. However, as one of my friends (who works PR at an ISP) noted: Once an AOLer, always an AOLer. It's brainwash and dangerous stuff. Farenheit (sp?) 451 seems like AOL's inspiration, but they're on the wrong side! What happens when 50% of the internet (or whatever number AOL spouts now-a-days) cannot tell the difference between a web browser and an ISP?
Do you use AOL? Oh, you're one of those Netscape users, huh?
AOL is designed in such a way that users find it difficult to leave for 'real' ISPs. Like the transition to Linux from that other OS, AOLers are frightened by what AOL portrays as a 'difficult to use, big, scary, pr0n filled world where anyone can get plans to blow half the world apart or home-build napalm.' Problem with that is, much of the net's less pleasing content is hosted by AOL. I have to admit that my opinion is extremely biased (I was forced to use that pile of *expletive* for a while and I still have nightmares about logging in) but AOhelL is about as dangerous as a rabid dog on crack. I wonder if I actually had content there...
-Elendale (thinks he's posted this to every AOL story now...)
Young computer programmer sued by Hasbro over IP infringement.
A man who goes by the handle 'Elendale' has been undergoing a lengthy lawsuit by Hasbro due to the proliferation of a computer game he recently re-wrote called 'Pong'. This game is owned by Hasbro who acquired the rights to it just recently. Hasbro's lawyers commented "This kid broke the law by distributing Pong through the net without paying Hasbro its IP fees, we must destroy this evil threat to humanity with extreme prejiduce. Oh, and we need a raise from $1000 to $1150 an hour." Elendale was quoted as saying "This is just a warning from Hasbro. Soon they will charge royalties for everything, from D&D to the most basic game of 'tag'." He is also attempting to negotiate out of court unsuccessfully. Hasbro will settle for nothing less than $150,000 and his soul. Next on the news, Microsoft head Bill Gates seen grovelling at Steve Case's door. The Department of Justice thinks this is a ploy to give Bill sympathy, but is currently performing an in-depth investigation.
-Elendale (Now that i think about it that might just work... hmm...)
They're marked 'mine' because the evil slime of AOL has crept into mozilla. This evil, nasty, ugly thing causes programmers to turn into marketing monsters and do stupid things... such as thinking if they marked everything as 'mine' the user would feel like it was theirs. Completely fails and only makes it look like a crippled kids toy. Blah. Is this the intended market? I hope not.
-Elendale (There, that wasn't to bad. I got it out of my system:))
Is not filled with altruistic message boards urging you to 'free your code'. The last time the world was as free as the net, we all liked our meat raw. That said, I think that telemarketing is one of the most irritating things on the planet. Well, maybe not that high, but pretty annoying none-the-less. How many times have you sat down for a meal only to have your phone light up like a christmas tree? Ring ring... Hello? No, I don't want to make a contribution to the 'poor shirtless people who might be living in Africa but we think are living somewhere in France' foundation. Goodbye. Ring ring... Hello? I already have your platinum, titanium core, diamond edge, member, VIP, preffered customer, only-deals credit card. Goodbye. Ring ring... Worst part is the only way to stop it is to tell the person to go away! How much good does that do? IMHO, telephone spam is worse than e-mail spam. E-mail spam is usually very recognizable and once they get into their pitch you can close up that e-mail quick. Most telemarketers will call you back in 10-15 minutes, or whenever you have meals; whichever is less convenient. At least the net has one thing going for it.
-Elendale (And yes, I know about caller ID. Why should I pay for something to protect me from annoying people?)
And what about people like my wife, who can't coexist with machines? She's a brilliant lady with a Master's degree in Geography, but computers and technology simply go bad in her presence. Don't write such off to inexperience or ineptitude; some people simply aren't "machine compatible."
I think this is an important lesson. Whereas computers begin to bomb whenever your wife is near, I am unable to do geography/history for the life of me. It's not that I lack the skills, inclination, or what-have-you, I am simply unable to do geography. This is something that many educational systems have failed to recognize. A few years ago, people began to yell about something called 'multiple intelligence' which, BTW, I highly agree with. The problem is that none of the teachers had any time/money to go back and learn about the theory and ended up with a lame 'ok, now we'll draw a picture for all those visual learners'. We (as a nation) should work on getting the basics before we try to give everyone a computer
On a side note: companies would be unable to claim their product, X, is better than competing product, Y, unless of course they actually were. If open-source benchmarking standards were implemented then everyone who uses them to compare would have to actually put the correct numbers in instead of distorting them (as any fool could look up the reports themselves for proof). This still doesn't stop things like Apple's built-in photoshop that boosts their benchmarks, OTOH photoshop does run faster on a mac...
You're forgetting the best game for the PSX: the easter-egg Lords of Lunar game. Kinda like pong, but 8 player *drool* My friends and I have spent hundreds of hours on that thing and its still not boring:)
-Elendale (amazing how it's better than most of the real games...)
Ok guys, lets clean it up. Sending mail bombs/frying the servers is not going to address the problem and will probably encourage Pinkerton. Slashdot needs to hang on to what credibility it has!
-Elendale (Is it just me, or did Katz sound a bit... defeated?)
At the end of my physics course last year I managed to stay up for 72 hours straight... Oh, never mind... I also spent ~$80 on coke (the drinking kind fool) and completely emptied my supply. I can't really remember anything after that though...
Toaster wiring is easy, standardized, and effecient (well, sorta-kinda). Fuel injection is a bit more complex, but if you called up Billy Bob Random the local auto mechanic he would probably be happy to explain it to you. I agree the point isn't that EVERYONE needs to know exactly what goes on underneath it all, but SOMEONE does...
-Elendale (Why waste time learning/ When ignorance is immediate? -Hobbes)
That may be a bit off the wall, but so is this article. Who is slashdot or even ourselves to judge the 22 million people who appreciate AOL for the simplicity it offers
Simplicity I can appreciate. After all, there's a reason why programmers are so rare: it's a damn hard job! But simplicity is not what AOL offers. It's conformity and ignorance. The AOL service does nothing to even attempt to educate those who use it (ever seen an AOL site dedicated to education on such things as static vs. dynamic IP? Using POP mail? etc.). I had to use AOL for a while and my real complaint (other than the fact that they won't buy enough hardware to handle their customers. Right on the CD it says "availability may be limited, especially at peak times") is that the simplicity comes in the form of being limited to what they want you to see. Most people don't know a real website when they see one. Oh well, I'll quit ranting now...
Companies like AOL, M$, etc. will never be happy until they control EVERYTHING. Down to the last warez site, every last bit of information is stamped 'property of AOL'. The fact that M$ can control the computer industry just by controlling the desktop is frightening. What happens when someone can buy an AOL life? Here's a scenario:
You wake up in the morning when your AOL radio starts piping AOL news into your ears (at an unchangable 7:10 everywhere). You get out of bed and put put on your AOL clothing (one size fits all, or else) and eat your AOL breakfast. Your AOL car is already on in your garage (clothes take 15 minutes to put on, breakfast 11 minutes to eat. At least that's what AOL says) and it automatically filled the gas tank last night ($3.49 US/gallon). You drive down the AOL road (your car can't drive anywhere else) to your job at AOL.
What's scary is this already happens (albeit, with only information). Information is more valuable than anything these days, so what happens when one person controls it all? Just a thought.
-Elendale (call me paranoid, but I think my scenario isn't that far out...)
Only 3?!?!?!? HOW are they going to fit the whole story in only THREE movies?! Three movies per book would be better, but I'm thinking 12 movies would still have a hard time covering the whole thing...
-Elendale (And thus the problem with book-to-movie rears it's ugly head...)
I would say when you ask a computer "who are you?" and it can give a logical response when you ask "now prove it." Alternatively, or perhaps in addition, emotions are a big part of sentience (IMHO) and if I can anger a computer by installing NT on it (a`la User Friendly's Erwin) then I'll say its alive:)
-Elendale (Also, in order to be intelligent it has to have a will to LEARN! Note that this disqualifies about 75% of the human race)
Hmm, I just thought of something else. If Apple opens up OSX, will someone port it to PCs? Wouldn't that be ironic if Windoze started losing share to OSX...
-Elendale (does his best 'maniacal villain laugh')
I guess they didn't really 'open up' so to speak... They DID allow someone else to use their stuff. It would be similar (IMHO) to M$ saying 'Here, you can prodcue Windows-type OSes now.' My bad...
-Elendale (Why is this story red? Is it my computer or Slashdot?)
Slashdot Mirror
"Thank you all for being here today. I am officialling taking over the internet. All non-aol approved websites will lose their domain names effective immediately. My new address will be the White House as I've sued the governments of the world out of existance for all their .gov sites (which I own) and other infringements upon my legal rights. My new title will be 'The King: Lord Case, May He Live For A Thousand Years'. That is all, thank you."
Bill Gates and his new company, LinuxSoft, declined to comment.In unrelated news, The two Microsoft halves continue a long and ugly legal battle to untie Windows and decide who gets what. Unfortunately, the current judge was found dead today of what looks like a self-inflicted knife wound.
-Elendale (no longer will I flame AOL mindlessly, I will now make fun of them with fake news posts)
-Elendale (of course, this particular post is BS and deserves to be labeled: TROLL)
-Elendale (Of course, my parents are about as computer literate as my cat...)
-Elendale (wait a sec, that would kill closed source! Maybe it is worth a shot)
-Elendale (*grumble*)
Actually, comparing some video game MP3s i've got to some movie soundtracks laying around, i know which one would drive me crazy. Of course, when its a choice between Exdeath/Zeromus techno remix/One Wing Angel or listening to the soundtrack for Titanic it isn't that hard a decision.
-Elendale (Of course, the signal-to-noise ratio of music out there is very poor...)
-Elendale (Can think of one humorous reply to the question...)
LOL. Subjecting themselves to an interview... sounds like real torture, huh? Actually we should give them a hand. We start flaming and they respond... Hmm...
-Elendale (Still think Katz is jumping on the bandwagon here, but that's beside the point)-Elendale (Still likes Metallica)
Do you use AOL? Oh, you're one of those Netscape users, huh?
AOL is designed in such a way that users find it difficult to leave for 'real' ISPs. Like the transition to Linux from that other OS, AOLers are frightened by what AOL portrays as a 'difficult to use, big, scary, pr0n filled world where anyone can get plans to blow half the world apart or home-build napalm.' Problem with that is, much of the net's less pleasing content is hosted by AOL. I have to admit that my opinion is extremely biased (I was forced to use that pile of *expletive* for a while and I still have nightmares about logging in) but AOhelL is about as dangerous as a rabid dog on crack. I wonder if I actually had content there...-Elendale (thinks he's posted this to every AOL story now...)
A man who goes by the handle 'Elendale' has been undergoing a lengthy lawsuit by Hasbro due to the proliferation of a computer game he recently re-wrote called 'Pong'. This game is owned by Hasbro who acquired the rights to it just recently. Hasbro's lawyers commented "This kid broke the law by distributing Pong through the net without paying Hasbro its IP fees, we must destroy this evil threat to humanity with extreme prejiduce. Oh, and we need a raise from $1000 to $1150 an hour."
Elendale was quoted as saying "This is just a warning from Hasbro. Soon they will charge royalties for everything, from D&D to the most basic game of 'tag'." He is also attempting to negotiate out of court unsuccessfully. Hasbro will settle for nothing less than $150,000 and his soul. Next on the news, Microsoft head Bill Gates seen grovelling at Steve Case's door. The Department of Justice thinks this is a ploy to give Bill sympathy, but is currently performing an in-depth investigation.
-Elendale (Now that i think about it that might just work... hmm...)
-Elendale (There, that wasn't to bad. I got it out of my system :))
-Elendale (And yes, I know about caller ID. Why should I pay for something to protect me from annoying people?)
I think this is an important lesson. Whereas computers begin to bomb whenever your wife is near, I am unable to do geography/history for the life of me. It's not that I lack the skills, inclination, or what-have-you, I am simply unable to do geography. This is something that many educational systems have failed to recognize. A few years ago, people began to yell about something called 'multiple intelligence' which, BTW, I highly agree with. The problem is that none of the teachers had any time/money to go back and learn about the theory and ended up with a lame 'ok, now we'll draw a picture for all those visual learners'. We (as a nation) should work on getting the basics before we try to give everyone a computer
-Elendale (waiting for the offtopics to fly)
-Elendale (all for it)
-Elendale (amazing how it's better than most of the real games...)
-Elendale (Is it just me, or did Katz sound a bit... defeated?)
-Elendale (in fact, I think I'm still tired)
-Elendale (Why waste time learning/ When ignorance is immediate? -Hobbes)
Simplicity I can appreciate. After all, there's a reason why programmers are so rare: it's a damn hard job! But simplicity is not what AOL offers. It's conformity and ignorance. The AOL service does nothing to even attempt to educate those who use it (ever seen an AOL site dedicated to education on such things as static vs. dynamic IP? Using POP mail? etc.).
I had to use AOL for a while and my real complaint (other than the fact that they won't buy enough hardware to handle their customers. Right on the CD it says "availability may be limited, especially at peak times") is that the simplicity comes in the form of being limited to what they want you to see. Most people don't know a real website when they see one. Oh well, I'll quit ranting now...
-Elendale (frustrated)
You wake up in the morning when your AOL radio starts piping AOL news into your ears (at an unchangable 7:10 everywhere). You get out of bed and put put on your AOL clothing (one size fits all, or else) and eat your AOL breakfast. Your AOL car is already on in your garage (clothes take 15 minutes to put on, breakfast 11 minutes to eat. At least that's what AOL says) and it automatically filled the gas tank last night ($3.49 US/gallon). You drive down the AOL road (your car can't drive anywhere else) to your job at AOL.
What's scary is this already happens (albeit, with only information). Information is more valuable than anything these days, so what happens when one person controls it all? Just a thought.-Elendale (call me paranoid, but I think my scenario isn't that far out...)
-Elendale (And thus the problem with book-to-movie rears it's ugly head...)
-Elendale (Also, in order to be intelligent it has to have a will to LEARN! Note that this disqualifies about 75% of the human race)
-Elendale (does his best 'maniacal villain laugh')
-Elendale (Why is this story red? Is it my computer or Slashdot?)