Bash the hell out of 'em. It's a European tradition, and it's about time the Americans joined the fun.
How can you take seriously a country that, on one hand, maintains itself as the birth of modern European democracy and on the other hand enforces censorship on this level?
You can accuse people of "viciousness", "cruelty" and "lying" but the fact is that college students routinely get failed, suspended or even expelled over the failure to mark even a sentence or two as quoted text.
Wow! You managed to get an affectation of naivety and gross hyperbole all in one sentence!
Are your seriously trying to put forth that the "visiousness", "cruelty", and "lying" that Katz is referring to is in any way similar to what professors and administration subject students to, even when they are disciplined for plagiarizing? And, although Katz faux pas may (and let me again stress, may) be qualified as plagiarism, it is certainly not the level of dishonesty that would cause a student to fail his course (unless the professor is a real ass), and it is no where near the level of deceit that would justify an expulsion or suspension.
I have only been coming to Slashdot for about 6 months, and I have rarely seen the type of abuse other/.ers heap on Katz. The attacks he puts up with every time he contributes an article is just wrong. The people who perpetrate these attacks strike me as the wannabee jocks of the Tech world. They are the ones who feel justified in damning and torturing anyone who will not conform to their way of thinking. They display a vulgar pack mentality in which, not only do they not feel regret for their dehumanizing behavior, they somehow feel pleasurably justified in perpetuating it.
Finally, what is surprising to me (and perhaps here I am revealing my own level of naivety) is that a group who, by-and-large accept the branding of "geek" or "nerd" (and all that those labels entail) would stand by and allow these "jocks" so much power in influencing the slashdot community.
Where's the relevance?
on
Death March
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· Score: 1
Browsing the posts so far I have seen (1) People who think DM projects suck and (2) People who think DM projects are the only way to get a project done (for the record, I am in this camp)
I know there are a few programmers who have found a company that they like enough to have decided to make a career-commitment to (
If you are in a job that you don't like you do have the option of leaving for greener pastures.
If, by your use of the word, you mean to hide your "real" or "legal" identity then, yes, we are all, for the most part, anonymous posters on Slashdot. I think your obfuscating the issue of anonymity, however.
You do not know anything about me on a personal level. You don't know my age, sex, height, hair color, etc.al. But those details aren't exactly necessary in a forum like Slashdot. Ideas/Thoughts/Beliefs are really what are of utmost importance around here.
So do you really need my email address (it is ignatiusst@yahoo.RemoveSPAM.com)? By having the user-id that I post under, you have a valid point-of-reference. You now have a history (albeit a small history) to bring to your reading of any future post of mine you may run across.
There is no such point-of-reference when you post anonymously. I think (and here I am giving a highly biased opinion with little reasoning to back it up) that if you are going to be a speaker on any public forum in which you put forth contentious opinions, the reader(s) should be given a basis for judging you.
Let me use your post as an example (and I do not do so because the liking/disliking of Jon Katz is a pivotal issue, but because it is conveniently close at hand and to the point). This may be your first Katz bashing, or you may bash him on a regular basis. In past posts, you may have given valid personal reasons for your dislike of Katz. You might even just be bashing him because it's the fun thing to do. The point is there is no frame of reference for me (or any other reader) to judge your intended message. And, perhaps that is your intention. If so, I think you are doing a dis-service to the idea of a virtual community.
I think Katz has an important role to play in our forum. Maybe you need to take a look at your own attitude.. You attempt to isolate an individual with ridicule and criticism because he thinks differently from you and your "kind". So tell me, how are you any different from the jocks and preps in high school/college? Should all geeks and nerds fit into a predefined mold?
You don't even have the decency (or respect for this forum) to criticize openly. Instead, you hide behind a veil of anonymity and defend your statements by trying to include all of us/.ers with an ubiquitous "We". Well, not me, okay?
It is generally accepted that the global economy is fueled by technology which, it might come as a surprise to you, is created and administered by "hackers" (ie:/. readers). We certainly have the money and, I think anyway, we have the potential to have a powerful voice.
Given this situation, all of the hackers whose hackles have been stirred over this story should take a good look around.
Are you doing anything about it (I mean, of course, other than complaining)? Are you organizing/participating in a technology labor movement? Are you funding special interest groups to look after "hacker's" rights?
No? Then live with it (I won't tell you to quit complaining). Live with government telling you what you can or can not do. Live with government restricting your rights in favor of the rights of those people/interest groups who are willing to organize and fund lobbying groups.
That's just the way things are, folks. No one listens to a bunch of geeks living on the fringes of the social norm. You want a voice? Make one for yourself. Spend a little money. Organize and fight back. Oh, yeah.. Complain a lot. I know we can do at least this...
We all know the government sucks (if you have any doubts, read the comments on this story), but let's at least give credit where credit is due.
The Census Bureau is trying to keep the grubbers in congress from getting the information. No, I don't think they will be able to stop the bastards, but at least they understand they made the US people a promise, and are willing to fight (however ineffectually)to see that the promise isn't broken.
/. can start reposting stories in different languages. No more re-hashing the same headline in English. Now, we can get re-hashed headlines in German, French, Italian, etc. This way, even when we see the same headlines over-and-over, we can run it through babblefish for a new interpretation every time!
Keep up the good work, Hemos! You'll go far with that kind of go-getter attitude. Well, that is if the world's atmosphere doesn't turn to an acid soup and kill us all (--- Moderators, note obligatory remark on the actual topic at hand!).
Explain to your students that they don't have to love that fat geek with the strange body-odor, as long as they stay married long enough to get the green card, everything will be fine...:)
Analyst predicted (if I remember right) $0.45/share earnings...Thursday, Apple announced $0.33 to $0.35/earnings.
This was a really nasty shock to the capital markets community.. You could relate it to how you would feel if you were to wake up tomorrow and find out that Linus Torvalds has admitted that NT is the superior OS.. We would all go nuts...
Right now, two of my co-workers are mocking me because I bought a plain-vanillia cell phone last month from at&t. This month, both of them went to the same store and bought a service plan (for the same $29.95/month that I pay) that gives them unlimited access time to selected internet sites.
English won't be the language of the 'net. It will certainly be a language, but ignoring Spanish, Mandarin, and Hindi(?) won't make them go away.
Most of the posts that I am reading on this topic just plain worry me. It seems like a lot of people here are very sensitive to the possibility of English losing its pre-eminence on the internet. Some attack the very idea as absurd while others have long arguments (complete with documentation) on why Mandarin/Spanish/Hindi will never supplant English.
My question, I guess, is: "What does it matter?"
Assuming (let's say for the sake of argument) Spanish becomes the dominant language on the internet. This won't happen overnight. A change like that would take years before it even became noticeable. How would this affect me when (if) it does occur, though? No, I don't speak Spanish. I speak English, and pretty poorly, too, I should add. Am I going to have to learn Spanish? Probably not (that isn't to say that I shouldn't learn Spanish). By the time this theoretical shift takes place, I am going to be (theoretically, of course) too set in my ways to give a damn and too near retirement to care. Should I make sure my children learn Spanish/Mandarin/Hindi? Well, sure.
And perhaps that's the rub. I suppose many of us don't like to call into question (or have the question called for us) the idea of our culture's supremacy. For some people, the very idea that he/she (or his/her child) should have to learn a language other than English is an affront to his/her cultural identity.
The world changes, and all the wailing and gnashing of teeth won't make it stop.
Isn't this the second article in as many weeks that refers to the libertarians as "selfish"?
What's that all about? I have many philosophical differences with the libertarians, but I have never regarded them as selfish...
Cybergeek libertarians need to start defending themselves against this sort of yellow-journalism. It makes you look bad, and it reflects poorly on those of us (geeks, that is) who choose to reject the libertarian point of view.
What the fuck is so wrong with a parent that he would allow his child unsupervised access to a library?
Come on, now. We aren't just talking about the library. We are talking about schools, too. You may as well ask what the f*** are schools doing allowing unsupervised access to the internet, but what does that change? Would you rather a teacher monitor you or a piece of software?
If you're a narrow minded censor...
I am neither a narrow minded censor nor a narrow minded libertarian. Your unwillingness to look at anything but your own interest seems to indicate you are in the later camp. Narrow-mindedness, from conservatives and liberals alike, is equally repugnant.
So we (that is, parents) should physically monitor our children 24/7? Perhaps video cameras following children around? No.. I see what your saying now. Lower/middle class people who can't afford to keep one adult chained to a child at all times should be forbidden to have childern.
Parental monitoring of a child to the degree necessitated by your suggestion seems to me to be more draconian than filtering objectionable material from the library/schools computers.
Is it really so bad to tell a grown man he can only have milk because the baby can't chew steak?
Perhaps you are suggesting we give the baby the choice to eat steak so the man, too, can eat it? Should we lay the steak-knife by the plate and let the baby choose whether or not to use it?
Try to look at this from a parent's perspective. Should an 10 year-old be given free reign to puruse hard-core pornography? Should a pervert not be weeded out of the chat line when he/she starts making sexual suggestions to that same 10 year-old? Does that 10 year-old have the necessary facilities to make judgements that will protect him/her? Is it really bad to limit these internet access if it will protect a child?
Infringement on our rights sucks, but there are worse things.
Well meaning universities under the auspices of full disclosure are turning out armies of free thinkers. This has lead to the decadence and subversion of our nation's moral fibre...
Be honest, CmdrTaco, you just posted this to piss us all off, didn't you?:)
Your right, I misspoke. What I am trying to put across is that Napster is not just profiting from piracy, but that Napster is making an industry out of pirating. That, to me, is corporate greed at its worst...
Yeah, in not paying for a song/CD, I am not incurring an expense and therefore profiting. What I (and any other individual) am not doing is creating an industry that facilitates illegal activity in order for me and my shareholders to get wealthy.
I do find Napster odious. I have, admittedly, a shaky position on my pirating for individual pleasure vs. Napster's pirating for corporate wealth. Where then does the individual differ from the company?
So that they could make a few bucks, Napster has introduced a legitimate legal threat to the free exchange of information and ideas. For years, I (and I think most of us here at/.) have talked and dreamed about the free exchange of information and ideas over the internet. Enter Napster (and other profit-oriented organizations). Napster has taken this concept of free information exchange and put a price tag on it. The result: A lawsuit that could very well lead to a Supreme Court decision restricting the free exchange of information and ideas.
What can I say? Damn Napster and every other greedy profit-taker out there who has changed the internet from a beautiful ideal to a sordid instrument of commericalism. If they are going to drag the internet down, I want to sit back and watch 'em drag it down on their own house.
Slashdot Mirror
May I suggest you take the "moebius" reference a little less literally.. that's probably how he intended it.
Is it just me, or does gollum sound like yoda.. especially when he comes back from getting water and finds sam tending a fire.
But seriously.. Thanks for posting something that shows the real spirit of the holidays!
How can you take seriously a country that, on one hand, maintains itself as the birth of modern European democracy and on the other hand enforces censorship on this level?
Wow! You managed to get an affectation of naivety and gross hyperbole all in one sentence!
Are your seriously trying to put forth that the "visiousness", "cruelty", and "lying" that Katz is referring to is in any way similar to what professors and administration subject students to, even when they are disciplined for plagiarizing? And, although Katz faux pas may (and let me again stress, may ) be qualified as plagiarism, it is certainly not the level of dishonesty that would cause a student to fail his course (unless the professor is a real ass), and it is no where near the level of deceit that would justify an expulsion or suspension.
I have only been coming to Slashdot for about 6 months, and I have rarely seen the type of abuse other /.ers heap on Katz. The attacks he puts up with every time he contributes an article is just wrong. The people who perpetrate these attacks strike me as the wannabee jocks of the Tech world. They are the ones who feel justified in damning and torturing anyone who will not conform to their way of thinking. They display a vulgar pack mentality in which, not only do they not feel regret for their dehumanizing behavior, they somehow feel pleasurably justified in perpetuating it.
Finally, what is surprising to me (and perhaps here I am revealing my own level of naivety) is that a group who, by-and-large accept the branding of "geek" or "nerd" (and all that those labels entail) would stand by and allow these "jocks" so much power in influencing the slashdot community.
I know there are a few programmers who have found a company that they like enough to have decided to make a career-commitment to ( If you are in a job that you don't like you do have the option of leaving for greener pastures.
You do not know anything about me on a personal level. You don't know my age, sex, height, hair color, etc.al. But those details aren't exactly necessary in a forum like Slashdot. Ideas/Thoughts/Beliefs are really what are of utmost importance around here.
So do you really need my email address (it is ignatiusst@yahoo.RemoveSPAM.com)? By having the user-id that I post under, you have a valid point-of-reference. You now have a history (albeit a small history) to bring to your reading of any future post of mine you may run across.
There is no such point-of-reference when you post anonymously. I think (and here I am giving a highly biased opinion with little reasoning to back it up) that if you are going to be a speaker on any public forum in which you put forth contentious opinions, the reader(s) should be given a basis for judging you.
Let me use your post as an example (and I do not do so because the liking/disliking of Jon Katz is a pivotal issue, but because it is conveniently close at hand and to the point). This may be your first Katz bashing, or you may bash him on a regular basis. In past posts, you may have given valid personal reasons for your dislike of Katz. You might even just be bashing him because it's the fun thing to do. The point is there is no frame of reference for me (or any other reader) to judge your intended message. And, perhaps that is your intention. If so, I think you are doing a dis-service to the idea of a virtual community.
I think Katz has an important role to play in our forum. Maybe you need to take a look at your own attitude.. You attempt to isolate an individual with ridicule and criticism because he thinks differently from you and your "kind". So tell me, how are you any different from the jocks and preps in high school/college? Should all geeks and nerds fit into a predefined mold?
You don't even have the decency (or respect for this forum) to criticize openly. Instead, you hide behind a veil of anonymity and defend your statements by trying to include all of us /.ers with an ubiquitous "We". Well, not me, okay?
Oh, yeah... and we all know how important it is to keep out any corrupting influence from all that important detail in the presentation layer...
Given this situation, all of the hackers whose hackles have been stirred over this story should take a good look around.
Are you doing anything about it (I mean, of course, other than complaining)? Are you organizing/participating in a technology labor movement? Are you funding special interest groups to look after "hacker's" rights?
No? Then live with it (I won't tell you to quit complaining). Live with government telling you what you can or can not do. Live with government restricting your rights in favor of the rights of those people/interest groups who are willing to organize and fund lobbying groups.
That's just the way things are, folks. No one listens to a bunch of geeks living on the fringes of the social norm. You want a voice? Make one for yourself. Spend a little money. Organize and fight back. Oh, yeah.. Complain a lot. I know we can do at least this...
No one lives in St. Louis
The Census Bureau is trying to keep the grubbers in congress from getting the information. No, I don't think they will be able to stop the bastards, but at least they understand they made the US people a promise, and are willing to fight (however ineffectually)to see that the promise isn't broken.
Keep up the good work, Hemos! You'll go far with that kind of go-getter attitude. Well, that is if the world's atmosphere doesn't turn to an acid soup and kill us all (--- Moderators, note obligatory remark on the actual topic at hand!).
Why would anyone want to get married?
Explain to your students that they don't have to love that fat geek with the strange body-odor, as long as they stay married long enough to get the green card, everything will be fine... :)
Analyst predicted (if I remember right) $0.45/share earnings...Thursday, Apple announced $0.33 to $0.35/earnings.
This was a really nasty shock to the capital markets community.. You could relate it to how you would feel if you were to wake up tomorrow and find out that Linus Torvalds has admitted that NT is the superior OS.. We would all go nuts...
Right now, two of my co-workers are mocking me because I bought a plain-vanillia cell phone last month from at&t. This month, both of them went to the same store and bought a service plan (for the same $29.95/month that I pay) that gives them unlimited access time to selected internet sites.
Most of the posts that I am reading on this topic just plain worry me. It seems like a lot of people here are very sensitive to the possibility of English losing its pre-eminence on the internet. Some attack the very idea as absurd while others have long arguments (complete with documentation) on why Mandarin/Spanish/Hindi will never supplant English.
My question, I guess, is: "What does it matter?"
Assuming (let's say for the sake of argument) Spanish becomes the dominant language on the internet. This won't happen overnight. A change like that would take years before it even became noticeable. How would this affect me when (if) it does occur, though? No, I don't speak Spanish. I speak English, and pretty poorly, too, I should add. Am I going to have to learn Spanish? Probably not (that isn't to say that I shouldn't learn Spanish). By the time this theoretical shift takes place, I am going to be (theoretically, of course) too set in my ways to give a damn and too near retirement to care. Should I make sure my children learn Spanish/Mandarin/Hindi? Well, sure.
And perhaps that's the rub. I suppose many of us don't like to call into question (or have the question called for us) the idea of our culture's supremacy. For some people, the very idea that he/she (or his/her child) should have to learn a language other than English is an affront to his/her cultural identity.
The world changes, and all the wailing and gnashing of teeth won't make it stop.
What's that all about? I have many philosophical differences with the libertarians, but I have never regarded them as selfish...
Cybergeek libertarians need to start defending themselves against this sort of yellow-journalism. It makes you look bad, and it reflects poorly on those of us (geeks, that is) who choose to reject the libertarian point of view.
How should I reply to that? Would it matter to simpletons like you whether I say yes or no?
Still, it is ironic that you criticize my use of freespeech to defend your position that freespeech in any form should not be restricted.
Come on, now. We aren't just talking about the library. We are talking about schools, too. You may as well ask what the f*** are schools doing allowing unsupervised access to the internet, but what does that change? Would you rather a teacher monitor you or a piece of software?
If you're a narrow minded censor...
I am neither a narrow minded censor nor a narrow minded libertarian. Your unwillingness to look at anything but your own interest seems to indicate you are in the later camp. Narrow-mindedness, from conservatives and liberals alike, is equally repugnant.
Parental monitoring of a child to the degree necessitated by your suggestion seems to me to be more draconian than filtering objectionable material from the library/schools computers.
Is it really so bad to tell a grown man he can only have milk because the baby can't chew steak?
Perhaps you are suggesting we give the baby the choice to eat steak so the man, too, can eat it? Should we lay the steak-knife by the plate and let the baby choose whether or not to use it?
Infringement on our rights sucks, but there are worse things.
Be honest, CmdrTaco, you just posted this to piss us all off, didn't you? :)
Yeah, in not paying for a song/CD, I am not incurring an expense and therefore profiting. What I (and any other individual) am not doing is creating an industry that facilitates illegal activity in order for me and my shareholders to get wealthy.
I do find Napster odious. I have, admittedly, a shaky position on my pirating for individual pleasure vs. Napster's pirating for corporate wealth. Where then does the individual differ from the company?
So that they could make a few bucks, Napster has introduced a legitimate legal threat to the free exchange of information and ideas. For years, I (and I think most of us here at /.) have talked and dreamed about the free exchange of information and ideas over the internet. Enter Napster (and other profit-oriented organizations). Napster has taken this concept of free information exchange and put a price tag on it. The result: A lawsuit that could very well lead to a Supreme Court decision restricting the free exchange of information and ideas.
What can I say? Damn Napster and every other greedy profit-taker out there who has changed the internet from a beautiful ideal to a sordid instrument of commericalism. If they are going to drag the internet down, I want to sit back and watch 'em drag it down on their own house.