I don't envy your position; nobody likes being a spokesman in front of an angry mob. Thank you for keeping things calm.
Here's the situation: you've got an old codebase which you'd like to get rid of, and an old userbase which you'd like to keep. Unfortunately they're part and parcel, and it's sounding like divorcing the two isn't much of an option. The question thus comes down to which is more important.
If I may ask: has anyone in the userbase specifically requested that classic view support be dropped?
I'm not talking about those who have asked for updates and added functionality, or the corporate personnel who are driven toward new shininess for some reason. Their suggestions and desires ought to be considered! But enhancements don't need to come at the expense of existing systems.
Now we're not idiots here; we recognize that keeping classic mode may very well require a few small modifications in order to maintain compatibility with this new revision. But these would be a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of effort expended so far, and should be well worth it to maintain a satisfied and contributing user base.
What are your thoughts? Have any contradicting user suggestions been made? Has a cost analysis been done? Or is it simply a few people with power in a closed room saying, "Let's make a change to get with The Future!(c)" Without evidence to the contrary, it feels like the latter, which makes everyone all the more butt-hurt.
I've been here awhile, and have watched Slashdot go through a lot. Every time there's been a major change, a significant section of the user base has left and eventually been replaced. (The significance has not always been in terms of sheer numbers, but more often in longevity, character, personality and other less tangible demographics.)
I'm sure it will "survive" beta in the same way, which makes me sad. More pillars of the Slashdot community will leave, to be replaced with shills, trolls and youths who simply don't have the history to carry on anymore.
There are (at least) two things Dice fails to understand:
1.) 1,000,000 users != 1,000,000 users. Every UID is different, and when someone leaves, you can't simply "undo" that by getting another person to sign up.
2.) We don't want change. We're happy not being reddit, or 4chan, or (ugh) web 2.0, or whatever social media site or crap technology is the current buzzword this week. We're Slashdot. We come here because it's an old and familiar community. If you change too much, it's no longer familiar and we leave. Or if too many people leave, it's no longer a community and people stop coming back.
Please, I seriously recommend you keep the old UI codebase around for those of us who use classic mode. It's not going to kill your servers and we've been here long enough to deserve this little concession. Remember, each of us are a vital part of the conversations that happen here, and it is the comments that make Slashdot. Don't force us old-timers away with unnecessary change. Thank you.
Mod parent up. This comment could be applied far beyond this UI discussion.
The "insignificant but essential changes" justification is especially prevalent when said changes are being mandated rather than made optional, as in a government/citizen or employer/employee relationship. It is often paired with lines such as, "you'll come to like it!" or, "be a team player!"
Also, new technologies are highly overrated. 98% of them will go by the wayside in a few years, and you don't want to waste your time becoming an expert in the newest square wheel.
Understand now that your learning ability will not last forever, and there will always be someone coming in after you that management will see as more valuable later on because they know #Whizbang 20x6 and you don't. So when that day comes, and come it will, what skills do you want to have?
As the parent said, soft skills are helpful, as are business and management. These can be useful to you because they age gracefully and migrate well between fields. If that's the sort of thing you want to be doing when you're "older", great. If not, what is?
I personally am enjoying learning older technologies, such as Spencerian handwriting, astronomy and land navigation, cooking well with simple ingredients, and other things that have been around for a very long time. I'm not doing it to help my career, but to make me happy. The fact that I'm happy probably shows in my daily life at work, which may help my career, but that's a side benefit. I'm mostly looking forward to having fun stuff to do if and when I can afford to quit working with computers for a living.
Scientists Glue Sensors To 5,000 Bees In a Bid To Better Understand Them
See, this is why we need better documentation. I'm not sure why the scientists thought the bees would help (perhaps division of labor/hive mind or something?) but really, if the OEMs had made proper documentation for the sensors easily available, none of this would have been necessary.
I was just wondering: aside from more general laws against inciting to actual violence, what are the repercussions against lawyers for taking intentional actions to incite unlawful behavior, especially for the purpose of business?
Surely practitioners of the law have an ethical obligation, if not a legal one, to NOT incite unlawful behavior. Whether inciting others to do something unlawful so that they can represent them, or inciting an unlawful act against themselves (such as assault, vandalism or restriction of freedoms,) the point is the same.
It seems like this ought to be grounds for disbarment, at the very least. I don't know how much disbarment would affect them since they could represent themselves regardless of their actual licensed status, but any step towards shutting their twisted business model down would be a good thing as I see it.
I second this, very much. "Community, not commodity" is a wonderfully concise way of looking at it.
Many of us are tired of being gone over with a fine-toothed comb any time we venture online or in public. We submit when we feel we have to, for the purposes of maintaining contact with distant family members, or accessing information that is required for our jobs, or when we are forced to use goverment-"secured" means of travel.
The reason we come HERE, rather than going to some other site, is to get away from all the PII-tracking, big corporation, big brother insanity that is going on out there. We don't WANT integration to Facebook. We don't want to tweet our comments. We don't want job offers that are "relevent" to the things we say or look at, whether here or elsewhere on the internet. We don't want to sign in with our real names. We just want to come here and be left in peace to discuss things with each other, as we always have.
Granted, Slashdot is noisy, ridiculous, and slow sometimes. But this is how we've made it. We know each other and we recognize outsiders. We have our own memes and we have our own values. We don't want changes. Just keep the site up and leave us be, and we'll stay. Try to take over and remake the place, and we'll likely be forced to leave.
It was hard enough seeing Rob leave, but I understand his decision and totally support him in it. After 13+ years of being here, I decided that I would keep on here as long as I could to keep the community alive. I don't want to say goodbye, but at such time as there's no community left, there will be no more reason for me to stay.
I'm very happy for you, Rob, and wish you the very best in your future endeavors. Try not to give in to the siren call of wanting to work on another "small project." Enjoy your family time! That's stuff that matters!
P.S. It's been great seeing all the old farts chiming in here. It's like an old-timey convention. I wish they could have put the original UI back for slashdot for this story.:-)
yesterday we read about Akamai, apparently origin of 15-30% of the web traffic. Google's service seems to be similar to Akamai's offering, but free of cost.
Tomorrow Akamai, the day after tomorrow the world?
My thoughts exactly. Akamai will be pretty threatened by this, but I'm not sure what they can do about it other than offer superior service.
I wonder if Google will try to buy them out, though -- Akamai has lost about half of its stock value over the past three quarters for some reason.
Such a move would definitely cause alarm, though. I personally would not feel comfortable concentrating so much of the internet in one company. Single points of failure are bad.
While I have no wish to demean their efforts, this approach still seems somewhat brutal to me. I'm no neurologist, but isn't this still a rather macro-level view of things, with the cutting process still causing damage to the fine structures they want to study?
It seems likely to me that future scientists will look back at this in not too long with stifled laugher and perhaps a little shock at the approach.
Yeah, they've only focused on the "fun stuff." Or rather, it sounds more like their purpose was "Facebook's so annoying to use. Let's make one that works like we want!" without really caring about the backend stuff. Maybe they assume that the "open source community" will do all the backend stuff for them -- even though they're the ones getting paid?
Or possibly, that they are smart enough to recognize that having "something" to show possible investors (and more importantly, current investors) is worth a great deal more than a framework that can't be demonstrated.
Don't get me wrong -- I really, *really* hope that the security model gets implemented well in Diaspora, and they don't get destracted by "ooh, shiny!" syndrome. But expecting them to go to folks who have given them money -- people who likely know even less about security than these college students -- and say, "This mystery code will work, it's really better, we just can't demonstrate it," is unreasonable.
Prototype first, then refine. Bugs happen, just fix them and move on. It looks like they're on their way to me. If you (or others) think you can fix these bugs or fundamental flaws in their security model, talk to them. You might just find yourself a job at a potentially big startup.
A peltier gets cold on one side and hot on the other. Where are you going to put the hot side, since you're trying to put the thing in the middle of a block of silicon?
Easy -- just put two peltiers together, hot sides facing each other. Problem solved!;-)
That's one small museum dedicated entirely to bad art that relatively few people know about. It in no way reflects the cultural attitude towards art preservation.
Yes, you're absolutely right. But I thought it was important to note the effort to document the "bad" art, however small.
Negative examples are powerful, whether they be in art, history, programming, or any other branch of human endeavor or record keeping. If we "forget it and remember the stuff worth remembering", then we are doomed to repeat it.
But we don't put terrible paintings in museums (modern art notwithstanding) to "gives context to the goodness". We forget it and remember the stuff worth remembering.
And it does indeed "give context to the goodness." By seeing negative examples, we can better appreciate what it is about "good" art that we enjoy. Plus, it gives one the chance to wince, laugh and point at an art exhibit, without feeling like you're breaking social rules. It's quite refreshing, and the art truly is terrible.*
* Not as terrible as Boxbot though. (Inside joke for fans of Gunnerkrigg Court)
The bad part is that now I have the voice of that machine stuck in my head, doing its strange variations on the word. Also, I need coffee.
Same here, except my coffee pot just broke (seriously) -- so now I have a deranged voice saying COFFEE over and over in my head, and I have no way to appease it!! This is not cool.
At the risk of sounding sentimental, what keeps me coming back to slashdot is the people. Granted, lots of new folks keep showing up here, but they tend to leave for more popular sites like Digg and Reddit. I'm fine with that; the Eternal September can just roll on by.
I'm not in as much of a hurry as I once was, and a day or two isn't going to kill me. Plus, time does wonders for weeding out the interesting from the merely sensational. This story might not be the best example of that, but even when it's not "stuff that matters," if it is somehow related to nerds and we've had a few days to hear and think about it, then the discussion here is likely to be more insightful.
Or not.:-)
Either way, it's nice to come by here and see some long-standing friends whom I've never met personally. Whether the discussion of the day is logical disourse, blatant fanboyism, heated rhetoric, well-earned snarkery, complaining about editors, or just lighthearted BS about whatever rabbit trail we've found ourselves on, I know I am in for an enjoyable time.
So sit back, read, laugh, be challenged, challenge someone else, troll if you must, meme if you can, respect your elders, respect your youngsters, relax and have a good time.
Wait, something like this could work to everyone's advantage:
1.) Set up a company hosting all music and movies to be shared. Encode said files with an identical MD5 checksum, to be used later.
For irony, perhaps use 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0.
The checksum will be used as evidence because checksums are very hard to fake. 2.) Everybody grab whatever they want. 3.) The RIAA/MPAA sues the company for $1.5 trillion, or whatever large number they'd like to come up with. 4.) Said company is found guilty (checksums prove it, and besides, they admit it) but they can't pay, and fold. 5.) The RIAA/MPAA can't come after you, since they've already been awarded damages covering the infringement. 6.) PROFIT!
(If you haven't figured it out yet, this is meant to be funny and I am not a lawyer. Laugh already!)
I personally know cops and other law enforcement that see the constitution only as some kind of barrier to their fun. I didn't elect these thugs and I don't need them to protect me.
And I personally know cops and other law enforcement that work hard to help keep our society safe, regardless of the risk to themselves. What's your point?
I did not elect the police either, but I am very glad they are around. If my 4-year old son is lost or in danger, he knows he can ask a police officer for help. If I am driving too fast, I deserve to get a ticket -- and if I flip my car, it is likely there will be a trooper, cop or sheriff there in minutes, calling in aid and trying to rescue me.
Police aren't there to protect you. They come after you've already been assaulted and robbed or otherwise violated and investigate. Usually they take your report, file it, and never think about it again. Unless it's a murder or other forcible felony, you're never going to hear another word about it.
You make a valid point about many investigations and reports ending up without activity, but this is a comment more on the nature of our society and the inability of the police to follow every lead than anything else. In order to "solve every crime", which is obviously impossible, the police force would have to be huge -- and I imagine you would have some serious complaints about that! I would as well. But your point about the police not being there to protect you, or that they never think about the crimes they see once they've filed their reports, is ridiculous.
Do you like the media calling all tech-savvy people "hackers", and then misdefining that as "super-genius young male loner-types who break into systems for fun or money"? Is that you? Then why do you proceed to take the same approach to law-enforcement, painting them all with a negative brush that applies to a very few?
We rightly hold law enforcement officers to high standards because of the authorities that they have been given, and because of this I think we should be allowed to record them whenever they are performing their public duties. If nothing else, this is ought to fall under the heading of public accountability used elsewhere. There's nothing special about video recording; it is simply the best method for auditing a primarily physical job.
As has been pointed out, you might find people will respect your opinions more when you voice them with less vitriol and hyperbole and more reason. There is a difference between being heard and being listened to.
Slashdot Mirror
I think Randall was onto something; (e^pi) - pi = 20 in actual reality, and the rounding error is just a result of our being in a simulation.
I don't envy your position; nobody likes being a spokesman in front of an angry mob. Thank you for keeping things calm.
Here's the situation: you've got an old codebase which you'd like to get rid of, and an old userbase which you'd like to keep. Unfortunately they're part and parcel, and it's sounding like divorcing the two isn't much of an option. The question thus comes down to which is more important.
If I may ask: has anyone in the userbase specifically requested that classic view support be dropped?
I'm not talking about those who have asked for updates and added functionality, or the corporate personnel who are driven toward new shininess for some reason. Their suggestions and desires ought to be considered! But enhancements don't need to come at the expense of existing systems.
Now we're not idiots here; we recognize that keeping classic mode may very well require a few small modifications in order to maintain compatibility with this new revision. But these would be a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of effort expended so far, and should be well worth it to maintain a satisfied and contributing user base.
What are your thoughts? Have any contradicting user suggestions been made? Has a cost analysis been done? Or is it simply a few people with power in a closed room saying, "Let's make a change to get with The Future!(c)" Without evidence to the contrary, it feels like the latter, which makes everyone all the more butt-hurt.
I've been here awhile, and have watched Slashdot go through a lot. Every time there's been a major change, a significant section of the user base has left and eventually been replaced. (The significance has not always been in terms of sheer numbers, but more often in longevity, character, personality and other less tangible demographics.)
I'm sure it will "survive" beta in the same way, which makes me sad. More pillars of the Slashdot community will leave, to be replaced with shills, trolls and youths who simply don't have the history to carry on anymore.
There are (at least) two things Dice fails to understand:
1.) 1,000,000 users != 1,000,000 users. Every UID is different, and when someone leaves, you can't simply "undo" that by getting another person to sign up.
2.) We don't want change. We're happy not being reddit, or 4chan, or (ugh) web 2.0, or whatever social media site or crap technology is the current buzzword this week. We're Slashdot. We come here because it's an old and familiar community. If you change too much, it's no longer familiar and we leave. Or if too many people leave, it's no longer a community and people stop coming back.
Please, I seriously recommend you keep the old UI codebase around for those of us who use classic mode. It's not going to kill your servers and we've been here long enough to deserve this little concession. Remember, each of us are a vital part of the conversations that happen here, and it is the comments that make Slashdot. Don't force us old-timers away with unnecessary change. Thank you.
Mod parent up. This comment could be applied far beyond this UI discussion.
The "insignificant but essential changes" justification is especially prevalent when said changes are being mandated rather than made optional, as in a government/citizen or employer/employee relationship. It is often paired with lines such as, "you'll come to like it!" or, "be a team player!"
These are good points.
Also, new technologies are highly overrated. 98% of them will go by the wayside in a few years, and you don't want to waste your time becoming an expert in the newest square wheel.
Understand now that your learning ability will not last forever, and there will always be someone coming in after you that management will see as more valuable later on because they know #Whizbang 20x6 and you don't. So when that day comes, and come it will, what skills do you want to have?
As the parent said, soft skills are helpful, as are business and management. These can be useful to you because they age gracefully and migrate well between fields. If that's the sort of thing you want to be doing when you're "older", great. If not, what is?
I personally am enjoying learning older technologies, such as Spencerian handwriting, astronomy and land navigation, cooking well with simple ingredients, and other things that have been around for a very long time. I'm not doing it to help my career, but to make me happy. The fact that I'm happy probably shows in my daily life at work, which may help my career, but that's a side benefit. I'm mostly looking forward to having fun stuff to do if and when I can afford to quit working with computers for a living.
Scientists Glue Sensors To 5,000 Bees In a Bid To Better Understand Them
See, this is why we need better documentation. I'm not sure why the scientists thought the bees would help (perhaps division of labor/hive mind or something?) but really, if the OEMs had made proper documentation for the sensors easily available, none of this would have been necessary.
Before you even think of going to college you need to go to elementary, my dear Watson.
I was just wondering: aside from more general laws against inciting to actual violence, what are the repercussions against lawyers for taking intentional actions to incite unlawful behavior, especially for the purpose of business?
Surely practitioners of the law have an ethical obligation, if not a legal one, to NOT incite unlawful behavior. Whether inciting others to do something unlawful so that they can represent them, or inciting an unlawful act against themselves (such as assault, vandalism or restriction of freedoms,) the point is the same.
It seems like this ought to be grounds for disbarment, at the very least. I don't know how much disbarment would affect them since they could represent themselves regardless of their actual licensed status, but any step towards shutting their twisted business model down would be a good thing as I see it.
I second this, very much. "Community, not commodity" is a wonderfully concise way of looking at it.
Many of us are tired of being gone over with a fine-toothed comb any time we venture online or in public. We submit when we feel we have to, for the purposes of maintaining contact with distant family members, or accessing information that is required for our jobs, or when we are forced to use goverment-"secured" means of travel.
The reason we come HERE, rather than going to some other site, is to get away from all the PII-tracking, big corporation, big brother insanity that is going on out there. We don't WANT integration to Facebook. We don't want to tweet our comments. We don't want job offers that are "relevent" to the things we say or look at, whether here or elsewhere on the internet. We don't want to sign in with our real names. We just want to come here and be left in peace to discuss things with each other, as we always have.
Granted, Slashdot is noisy, ridiculous, and slow sometimes. But this is how we've made it. We know each other and we recognize outsiders. We have our own memes and we have our own values. We don't want changes. Just keep the site up and leave us be, and we'll stay. Try to take over and remake the place, and we'll likely be forced to leave.
It was hard enough seeing Rob leave, but I understand his decision and totally support him in it. After 13+ years of being here, I decided that I would keep on here as long as I could to keep the community alive. I don't want to say goodbye, but at such time as there's no community left, there will be no more reason for me to stay.
TSA: What Color is your Shirt
Man 1: Blue...no, Yellow!
TSA: (Flips a switch)
Man 1: AAAaaaggghhhh!!!.... (flies off bridge)
I'm very happy for you, Rob, and wish you the very best in your future endeavors. Try not to give in to the siren call of wanting to work on another "small project." Enjoy your family time! That's stuff that matters!
P.S. It's been great seeing all the old farts chiming in here. It's like an old-timey convention. I wish they could have put the original UI back for slashdot for this story. :-)
yesterday we read about Akamai, apparently origin of 15-30% of the web traffic. Google's service seems to be similar to Akamai's offering, but free of cost.
Tomorrow Akamai, the day after tomorrow the world?
My thoughts exactly. Akamai will be pretty threatened by this, but I'm not sure what they can do about it other than offer superior service.
I wonder if Google will try to buy them out, though -- Akamai has lost about half of its stock value over the past three quarters for some reason.
Such a move would definitely cause alarm, though. I personally would not feel comfortable concentrating so much of the internet in one company. Single points of failure are bad.
ISS doesn't deserve a romantic end.
Oh, but it will have one, provided the tyrannosaurs are ready by then. :-)
While I have no wish to demean their efforts, this approach still seems somewhat brutal to me. I'm no neurologist, but isn't this still a rather macro-level view of things, with the cutting process still causing damage to the fine structures they want to study?
It seems likely to me that future scientists will look back at this in not too long with stifled laugher and perhaps a little shock at the approach.
I learnt English on the internet and programming. Now I'm programming at a bank.
I read that and my inner monologue immediately thought, "Now I'm on a horse."
Yeah, they've only focused on the "fun stuff." Or rather, it sounds more like their purpose was "Facebook's so annoying to use. Let's make one that works like we want!" without really caring about the backend stuff. Maybe they assume that the "open source community" will do all the backend stuff for them -- even though they're the ones getting paid?
Or possibly, that they are smart enough to recognize that having "something" to show possible investors (and more importantly, current investors) is worth a great deal more than a framework that can't be demonstrated.
Don't get me wrong -- I really, *really* hope that the security model gets implemented well in Diaspora, and they don't get destracted by "ooh, shiny!" syndrome. But expecting them to go to folks who have given them money -- people who likely know even less about security than these college students -- and say, "This mystery code will work, it's really better, we just can't demonstrate it," is unreasonable.
Prototype first, then refine. Bugs happen, just fix them and move on. It looks like they're on their way to me. If you (or others) think you can fix these bugs or fundamental flaws in their security model, talk to them. You might just find yourself a job at a potentially big startup.
I'd have modded you up, had you not posted AC. That was a perfectly applicable reference! For those not familiar, here is a quick explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concepts_in_the_Ender's_Game_series#Fantasy_Game
A peltier gets cold on one side and hot on the other. Where are you going to put the hot side, since you're trying to put the thing in the middle of a block of silicon?
Easy -- just put two peltiers together, hot sides facing each other. Problem solved! ;-)
That's one small museum dedicated entirely to bad art that relatively few people know about. It in no way reflects the cultural attitude towards art preservation.
Yes, you're absolutely right. But I thought it was important to note the effort to document the "bad" art, however small.
Negative examples are powerful, whether they be in art, history, programming, or any other branch of human endeavor or record keeping. If we "forget it and remember the stuff worth remembering", then we are doomed to repeat it.
But we don't put terrible paintings in museums (modern art notwithstanding) to "gives context to the goodness". We forget it and remember the stuff worth remembering.
Actually, we do.
And it does indeed "give context to the goodness." By seeing negative examples, we can better appreciate what it is about "good" art that we enjoy. Plus, it gives one the chance to wince, laugh and point at an art exhibit, without feeling like you're breaking social rules. It's quite refreshing, and the art truly is terrible.*
* Not as terrible as Boxbot though. (Inside joke for fans of Gunnerkrigg Court)
The bad part is that now I have the voice of that machine stuck in my head, doing its strange variations on the word. Also, I need coffee.
Same here, except my coffee pot just broke (seriously) -- so now I have a deranged voice saying COFFEE over and over in my head, and I have no way to appease it!! This is not cool.
My hat's off to you, sir. A first post that was relevant and funny -- very well done!
At the risk of sounding sentimental, what keeps me coming back to slashdot is the people. Granted, lots of new folks keep showing up here, but they tend to leave for more popular sites like Digg and Reddit. I'm fine with that; the Eternal September can just roll on by.
I'm not in as much of a hurry as I once was, and a day or two isn't going to kill me. Plus, time does wonders for weeding out the interesting from the merely sensational. This story might not be the best example of that, but even when it's not "stuff that matters," if it is somehow related to nerds and we've had a few days to hear and think about it, then the discussion here is likely to be more insightful.
Or not. :-)
Either way, it's nice to come by here and see some long-standing friends whom I've never met personally. Whether the discussion of the day is logical disourse, blatant fanboyism, heated rhetoric, well-earned snarkery, complaining about editors, or just lighthearted BS about whatever rabbit trail we've found ourselves on, I know I am in for an enjoyable time.
So sit back, read, laugh, be challenged, challenge someone else, troll if you must, meme if you can, respect your elders, respect your youngsters, relax and have a good time.
Wait, something like this could work to everyone's advantage:
1.) Set up a company hosting all music and movies to be shared. Encode said files with an identical MD5 checksum, to be used later.
For irony, perhaps use 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0.
The checksum will be used as evidence because checksums are very hard to fake.
2.) Everybody grab whatever they want.
3.) The RIAA/MPAA sues the company for $1.5 trillion, or whatever large number they'd like to come up with.
4.) Said company is found guilty (checksums prove it, and besides, they admit it) but they can't pay, and fold.
5.) The RIAA/MPAA can't come after you, since they've already been awarded damages covering the infringement.
6.) PROFIT!
(If you haven't figured it out yet, this is meant to be funny and I am not a lawyer. Laugh already!)
I personally know cops and other law enforcement that see the constitution only as some kind of barrier to their fun. I didn't elect these thugs and I don't need them to protect me.
And I personally know cops and other law enforcement that work hard to help keep our society safe, regardless of the risk to themselves. What's your point?
I did not elect the police either, but I am very glad they are around. If my 4-year old son is lost or in danger, he knows he can ask a police officer for help. If I am driving too fast, I deserve to get a ticket -- and if I flip my car, it is likely there will be a trooper, cop or sheriff there in minutes, calling in aid and trying to rescue me.
Police aren't there to protect you. They come after you've already been assaulted and robbed or otherwise violated and investigate. Usually they take your report, file it, and never think about it again. Unless it's a murder or other forcible felony, you're never going to hear another word about it.
You make a valid point about many investigations and reports ending up without activity, but this is a comment more on the nature of our society and the inability of the police to follow every lead than anything else. In order to "solve every crime", which is obviously impossible, the police force would have to be huge -- and I imagine you would have some serious complaints about that! I would as well. But your point about the police not being there to protect you, or that they never think about the crimes they see once they've filed their reports, is ridiculous.
Do you like the media calling all tech-savvy people "hackers", and then misdefining that as "super-genius young male loner-types who break into systems for fun or money"? Is that you? Then why do you proceed to take the same approach to law-enforcement, painting them all with a negative brush that applies to a very few?
We rightly hold law enforcement officers to high standards because of the authorities that they have been given, and because of this I think we should be allowed to record them whenever they are performing their public duties. If nothing else, this is ought to fall under the heading of public accountability used elsewhere. There's nothing special about video recording; it is simply the best method for auditing a primarily physical job.
As has been pointed out, you might find people will respect your opinions more when you voice them with less vitriol and hyperbole and more reason. There is a difference between being heard and being listened to.