Once you have those back, you can get by quite fine with the [TT] and [/TT] tags to get nice code... (of course, those should be angle- not square-brackets there).
Before the &xxx; tags were mangled, I used to be able to submit quite passable-looking code to Slashdot. -- - Sean
Go back and re-read the article again. Wired changed some of the contents -- apparently some of the stuff in it was just conjecture, and a retraction has been made of a few points. Specifically:
The paid links will not be indistinguishable from the regular search results. They will apparently be clearly marked as paid links.
They (Altavista) have no plans to "quietly" introduce these changes -- they are being up-front about the whole deal.
Looks to me like someone jumped the gun a bit there. Not so bad after all... -- - Sean
At the risk of getting a hundred "it's already been done!" responses, I suggest a "favourite/best/most popular search engine" poll. I'm pretty sure it/has/ been done already, but I think that was a while ago, and things have changed since. I'd really like to know, since I use InfoSeek (out of habit more than anything else), and to be frank, it sucks. But I don't know what a good one to switch to would be... -- - Sean
Not only that, but I recall reading somewhere else (not on this page though, so it may be misinformation) that theater-rentings were to be explicitly forbidden. -- - Sean
Actually, with Office 2000 documents supposedly based on XML, we can finally start writing Open Source apps that read/write MSOffice files with a high degree of fidelity.
Sure... and you actually believe that micros~1 is gonna just base O2K on XML without a "little" bit of "embrace and extend" behind the scenes??
Wow! You're an optimist if I ever met one!:-) -- - Sean
Good waiters have command-line completion: "Let's see... fish, you said? Well we have..."
Not analogous at all. Perhaps it would be if available commands were along the lines of 'file-copy', 'file-move', 'file-link-create', 'file-delete', 'directory-make', 'directory-remove' and so on...
If this were the case, then a user could type 'file [tab]' and it would respond with a list of available file operations.
This would be analogous to the restaurant-goer saying 'fish' and getting a list of different fish dishes (arg -- tongue-twister!) available.
As it is, though, the user has to be able to type (for example), 'mk [tab]' to get a list including 'mkdir' and so on. What is there that indicates to the new user that 'mk' has anything to do with creating directories? (Ok... bad example -- mkdir exists in DOS also -- but you know what I mean).
This is more analogous to the diner going into the restaurant and saying 'cala' to get a list of dishes that might include 'calamari'. Not terribly useful unless he/she already knew that calamari was available.
If you look at it from the point of a new user who hasn't a clue what to do once confronted with a command-line, it is exactly like the diner going into a restaurant and being confronted with a waiter that expects them to 'know' what they want and what is on the menu and how much it costs, etc.
Sure, sure, the new user can type 'man [command]'. Again, not terribly useful unless they already know what the command is. That's useful when you know a command and want to find out what it does, but not when you have a procedure in mind, but want to find out how to do it.
Info is a great utility in this regard. How many newbies will instantly type 'info' to find out what commands are available? Obviously, only the ones who know about info. I didn't; not until I had been using Linux for a week or more. Granted, I already knew a lot of what commands were available (prior experience with Unix), but a lot of newbies won't.
If you aren't going to hand the diner a menu, at least let them know where one can be found. Perhaps the first n times the user logs in, they should be presented with a message to the effect of, "Type 'info' for a list of available commands." or some such. Or maybe have a little 'help' bar always sitting on the top row of the CLI screen (even one that can be mouse-activated) that informs the user of 'man', 'info', 'startx' and a few others. (obviously, you should be able to easily turn this off via a conf file setting in/etc.)
That simple change would be a vast improvement over the existing setup. If you aren't going to hand the customer a menu, at least point out where they can find a pile of them themselves. And it shouldn't be too far away! -- - Sean
I will never forget the time I was on IRC recently, and was helping someone with PPP setup. He told me that the last time he had configured it in X, so he didn't know how to do it from the command line. It cracked me up.
I actually had a similar experience. Although from the point-of-view of your friend.
Prior to Linux, most of my experience was with Irix -- so I was used to doing things through the GUI. When I finally got around to installing Linux on my PC, I kept on trying to setup my net access through linuxconf, and assorted GUI equivalents -- I had absolutely no idea what pppd was, nor even that it existed, and could not figure out why it wouldn't work. I finally enlisted the help of a friend, whose first comment was to the order of, "Huh? You haven't even run 'man pppd' yet!"
And that's in NT. Under X, I only have 29, and even those are accessed via GNOME drawers.
(BTW: somewhat offtopic, but... does anyone know how to configure the GNOME panel / Enlightenment so that the drawers automagically slide out on top of any existing windows? It's always annoying opening the drawers, then having to rollup any existing windows so that I can get at the launchers that are obscured by said windows.) -- - Sean
Where'd you get that? Was it just straight off the linux.de homepage (that's where I got the bit above from)?
Somewhere in the Jargon file (too lazy to find the exact reference right now) it says something about a popular past-time being to type your name in to TECO as a command and see what it comes up with...
The equivalent past-time for the 90's should be to do the same with babelfish... that was just too funny!! -- - Sean
Ok... here's a human translation (admittedly by someone not quite fluent in German):
We were requested recently by a well-known company with a similar slogan to our popular sub-title, "Where do you want to go tomorrow?" to remove it. Until we can finally clarify the legal situation we are fulfilling this request.
How the legal process appears to deal with this parody, however, is not yet quite clear. More to follow? -- - Sean
Source code is not functional. In order to be "functional" something must be done to it. A specific process must be applied, namely compiling or interpreting. Much in the same way that a recipe for a cake does not become a cake until someone puts the flour, sugar, eggs, etc together and puts them into the oven and waits an hour. If you don't have the compiler or interpreter on your system then you simply have a non functional text file.
Ummm... I, for one, have never quite understood the distinction between source code and machine code.
Yes, yes, I know the difference! And yes, I know what a compiler is, yada yada yada. But where do we draw the line?
Why only at the point of it being directly executable? Let me clarify:
And why the distinction? As far as I'm concerned, machine code is simply another form of source code, with the sole exception that it can be executed as-is. I sometimes work on machines that don't have a monitor, as we know it. They have a 4x6 key numeric/functional keypad, a Z-80 microprocessor and a 6-character LED display. In that case, there is no such thing as "source code" -- it simply doesn't make sense. The machine code/executable is the source code -- and I (or anyone who also works with it) is just as able to read it directly as they are able to read ANSI C.
Given this environment, the simple fact that "source code" cannot be executed directly means little in the overall definition -- as far as I'm concerned, machine code has just as much claim to the name.
And IMHO, this all renders the argument that source code is not a device because it is necessary to translate it into one (ie: compile it) moot.
Note that I'm not arguing here one way or another as to whether or not it is a device, it is speech, it is/should be free of restriction, and so on. I'm simply arguing that that particular argument makes no sense. -- - Sean
(Preamble: this is somewhat off-topic... just a thought or 2 that popped into my head unbidden while reading the above post.)
However if sombody dropped ten million copies of the plans over NYC by airplane, it's dubious if the courts would uphold prosecuting anybody but those involved in the air drop.
...and then what?
Or, let me put it another way... suppose that someone writes a virus -- similar to the Melissa virus of a couple of weeks ago. Except that instead of containing a list of porn sites (IIRC, that is the "document" that Melissa was carried on), it contained a number of forbidden-to-export cryptography algorithms (in C or something). And let us suppose further that it infected many more machines than the original Melissa actually did -- many of which were outside North America.
Granted, the original perpetrator would probably be caught, and incarcerated, but then what? Once those algorithms were knowingly "out there," would the US gov't insist on maintaining its ridiculous stance on cryptography exportation?
This is perhaps more pertinent than the "10 million leaflets over NYC" situation -- very few people would have the prerequisite knowledge to do anything with the nuclear weapon instructions. But it would be much easier to propogate those cryptography algorithms around (already outside the US and hence at this stage perfectly legal) until they reached someone (or more than one) who would have a use for them...
Like I said, then what?
Anyway... just some food for thought...
(Ass-covering P.S.: Note that I'm not suggesting anybody actually do this -- just a hypothetical what-if:-) -- - Sean
Hmm, not a bad idea. Perhaps some sort of filter based personal setting. Posts by certain people, subject lines, etc, could automatically start at what you want, then add/subtract points appropriately.
Damn! I don't know why no-one thought of this before... it's so blindingly obvious (and simple)!
This is the perfect solution... in combination with the existing system... in that people should be able to "pre-modify" the moderation points of any article based on the poster.
Therefore people who don't particularly like/want to hear about Bruce Perens (for example -- it happens to be a good one) can set his particular modification to, say, -3.
So. By default, Mr. Perens has a score of 4. Someone who doesn't particularly want to read his stuff can add -3 to that, making a default of 1. And, of course, set their threshold to 2, or something. So an "average" Perens article wouldn't show up. If Bruce has said something "really" worthwhile, it would be moderated up, and get a 5. Add -3 and you get 2, which would show up. (Note I'm not conscientiously ragging on Bruce; I just happened to read a post complaining about him recently, and it's still on my mind).
On the other hand, someone who doesn't particularly mind Bruce could just leave his modification at default (0), so an "average" Bruce post would be 4 + 0 = 4, a good one would be 5, and so on (as things are now).
In theory, someone who really likes him, could assign a + modifier, so he would always get scores of 6, 7, whatever (for that person). Pretty much guaranteeing that that person would always catch Mr. Perens' posts. This would still apply if Bruce made a quick, "off-the-cuff" remark, that got demoted to 1, but 1 + 3 (for example) would still be 4, and still be seen.
Now, this system would automagically apply to anyone. The same would happen if people did/didn't like my posts (which I believe default to 2 at the moment), or (and here's the beauty of it), our old favourites, the Anonymous Cowards!
That last point, I think is a godsend... hopefully it will put to rest once and for all the "AC's should/shouldn't be allowed to post" argument. A solution was tried with automatically demoting AC posts to 0, of course, but I still see the occasional "that's like censorship!" claim, and also the occasional "They shouldn't post at all!" one.
But, if the viewer was allowed to set their own preference, those who wanted to see AC's should leave their modifier at zero (ie: 1 + 0 = 1 = default), those who like the system as-is modify to -1 (1 + -1 = 0 = as it is now), and those who don't want to see AC posts at all (unless they're really good ones) modify to -3 or something (a 1 + -3 = -2 post will never get seen if the threshold can't be below -1).
Of course, still leave the moderations in place (note I distinguish between moderation and modification). That would indicate how good/bad a post was compared to other posts by that same person. But the modification (done on a personal, not a global, level) would determine whether a "default" post by that person would show up.
(I guess this is sort of like multi-dimansional moderation, as suggested by someone else... just thought of that now...)
And of course, as you mentioned, the same thing could be applied to subject lines, helping out with alleviating the old "First Post!" syndrome, among others.
Anyway... I'm sure this would all create a hell of a lot of work for poor Rob, but hey... you can handle it, right Rob? And of course... "there is nothing that Perl cannot do! Nothing!"... hehe.
Anyway, yes... I think this is a brilliant idea. Simple, elegant, and would do the job! -- - Sean
For me, the most disappointing part of the movie (don't get me wrong; the movie as a whole totally rocked. But.) was when Laurence said something to the effect of "You think that the year is 1999, when in reality, it's probably closer to 2199."
What I was kinda hoping for, and what woulda been very cool is if time as we know it didn't exist at all! Or... the world "as we know it" never existed.
That would mean that this whole thing is a total farce. That "we" (as humans) were not merely living out our collective past, but living out a total lie. Maybe "we" existed in some form that would be totally unrecognizable to a human.
When Neo first woke up in his little "bubble" with more such cells going on and on into infinity, I was totally freaked out. The thought that this could be the "real" universe, and all the universe had ever been, and all the universe would ever be, all but blew my mind.
When Morpheus explained that that was just the universe "now" (ie: the year 2199, or whatever), it was a big letdown.
Besides, if time also goes on inside the Matrix, then what happens when "matrix time" reaches the mid-21st century, or whenever the point is that the machines take over? Do we then have a Matrix inside the Matrix?
Hmmm... maybe the Matrix as we saw already was inside another Matrix... that would be cool!
(Oh... BTW: The best way to see it is on an IMAX screen...:-)
Anyway... just a bit of nonsensical rambling on my part... pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! -- - Sean
Anyway, I have a user account so people will know who's posting in the first place. That's the whole point, or at least so I thought.
Agreed. I like people to know "who" I am. My nick, SeanNi, is the same one I use every single time. Anyone who wants can click on my "User Info" link and look at other posts I have made. They can then form their own opinions about whether or not I am worth reading, and they know (or have a better handle on) my biases when they do read my posts.
Better parsing and interpretation makes for better dissemination of useful content. (not to mention more convoluted verbiage:-)
If I was unable to post and moderate at the same time, I would probably end up creating a second account, such as "SeanNi2 (same as SeanNi)" or some such thing and posting that way. I would definitely not want to do that, though. It feels much too much like "cheating".
But it is a moot point, since as I have mentioned elsewhere, the way things currently stand, I do not want to be a moderator. -- - Sean
Your argument is good in theory, but not in practice.
When picking, for example, a juror for a trial, the "pickers" (whoever they are; sorry, I don't know the American judicial system that well) are fairly certain that they know what will and will not be relevant in the trial. For example, if there is a trial of a murderer, they can be fairly sure (at least well above 50%) that the proceedings will not involve methods of apple picking. Therefore they can choose jurors who are not knowledgeable about the murder, and therefore impartial. They don't have to worry about how much knowledge the juror does or does not have about the methods of apple picking.
Unfortunately, the same does not apply to Slashdot forums. As anyone who's read them very much knows, the chances of a forum in response to an article on ESR of going off into some completely unexpected direction (for example, methods of apple picking, to belabour a point) are quite good.
Within any one forum, the threads can become quite splintered and evolve into many sub-discussions. Moderating one of these should have no effect on whether or not you can post to another.
I definitely agree with the post you responded to that moderator/poster limitations should apply by thread, not forum. I am a fairly active poster on Slashdot; usually posting in the region of 50-60 posts per week, sometimes more, sometimes less. Often, these posts are quick, off-the-cuff comments that could be omitted without much consequence. However, every now and then I post something that I put a fair amount of thought into, and honestly believe is "worth" posting. This one, for example.
At the same time, I often see a post that consists entirely of "Rob is a flaming communist asshole!" or some such drivel. I would definitely like the ability to moderate those ones down into oblivion. (Can you tell that I'm not currently a moderator?:-)
Anyway, I honestly can't see why or how this should be affected by the fact that I posted something else in the same forum.
There is also the other side of the coin; moderating comments upward. There are two issues here: partiality and knowledge. While I agree that a moderator should be impartial to the comments they moderate, that does not mean they should not be knowledgeable. I don't have time to go through every article on the Slashdot main page. How do I decide which ones to read through? Obviously, the ones that interest me. And as a general rule, those subjects that interest me are usually the ones that I know most about. Partial or not, I think it makes sense that a moderator should have some knowledge, or understanding of the topic they are moderating comments on. Perhaps not in terms of demoting the "Rob is a flaming communist asshole!"-type comments, but certainly in promoting the ones that have good technical content.
But it is these same subjects, the ones about which I have the most knowledge, that I would be the most interested, and qualified, to post on. Slashdot tends to deal with very technical discussions, not a "simple" guilty-or-innocent decision. (Yes, I know it's not that simple, but still does not require the same level of technical knowledge to discuss the issue; where it does, people are brought in to explain the terms, etc. for the laymen.)
Keep in mind another area where technical knowledge is useful. Nomination selection for the Academy Awards. The voters are picked from other directors, actors, technicians and the like. They all work in the film industry. And while they will all vote on the movies, actors and so on from all categories, this is not true of the initial selection. When picking the '5 selected movies' in any category (ie: the 5 options for 'Best Picture'), the academy members are only allowed to have a say in the selections for their own discipline. In other words, a director only has a say in choosing the 5 films that will be up for "Best Director". Why? Simple. Because of the technical knowledge of the field which is necessary, and which non-directors simply don't have.
I happen to think that this is directly translatable to moderation of Slashdot forums.
But most tantamount, please don't restrict the abilities of moderators simply for the sake of restricting their abilities. I can think of no good reason to do this, especially when dealing with an area that is so integral to Slashdot, the posting of comments.
I know that if this is the situation that remains, I for one would have no interst in becoming a moderator. I am, for the time being, setting my preference to "I don't want to be a moderator". And yes, I meet all the criteria for being one. -- - Sean
1. Far right wing economically. (government should keep out of economic matters entirely; privatize gov't (crown) corporations. 2. Far left wing socially (money priorities should be education, health and social/welfare). 3. Anti-libertarian in matters of personal estate (a little bit of censorship can be a good thing; not all things should be private). 4. Small government in essence (cut spending (and taxation!) entirely except for social stuff mentioned in pt. 2).
Aside from the fact that some of my views would raise eyebrows here at Slashdot:-) where would I go? My views often conflict with one another, and I usually pick the "winner" on a case-by-case basis. There is no way that I could be easily represented on the sort of poll that Slashdot usually has. -- - Sean
This is just like Orson Welles and the invasion from Mars. People take it seriously.
Umm... you're talking here about one of the greatest and funniest parodies of all time. Did people take it seriously? Yes! That's what made it so brilliant! He fooled a lot of people... and that takes talent!
This whole UF/BeD/SegF thing was pretty damn good, too! -- - Sean
Slashdot Mirror
Hey Rob, we need a <CODE> tag here!
No, we need < and , etc to work again.
Once you have those back, you can get by quite fine with the [TT] and [/TT] tags to get nice code... (of course, those should be angle- not square-brackets there).
Before the &xxx; tags were mangled, I used to be able to submit quite passable-looking code to Slashdot.
--
- Sean
Looks to me like someone jumped the gun a bit there. Not so bad after all...
--
- Sean
At the risk of getting a hundred "it's already been done!" responses, I suggest a "favourite/best/most popular search engine" poll. I'm pretty sure it /has/ been done already, but I think that was a while ago, and things have changed since. I'd really like to know, since I use InfoSeek (out of habit more than anything else), and to be frank, it sucks. But I don't know what a good one to switch to would be...
--
- Sean
It's on the 19th.
Not only that, but I recall reading somewhere else (not on this page though, so it may be misinformation) that theater-rentings were to be explicitly forbidden.
--
- Sean
hat's why I have the LiteStep shell replacement on my Win95 (gag) machine at work. ;)
:-( ...)
Oh yeah! Between LiteStep for the GUI and CygWin for the CLI, I almost have my NT machine at work running with an acceptable UI!
(...Unfortunately, I still have to use Visual Basic
--
- Sean
Actually, with Office 2000 documents supposedly based on XML, we can finally start writing Open Source apps that read/write MSOffice files with a high degree of fidelity.
:-)
Sure... and you actually believe that micros~1 is gonna just base O2K on XML without a "little" bit of "embrace and extend" behind the scenes??
Wow! You're an optimist if I ever met one!
--
- Sean
Apache.
--
- Sean
And if you don't know where something is, there's always "locate"...
sigh -- and how many newbies are gonna know of the existance of "locate"?
Not arguing that the CLI is bad -- but it needs improvement for the newbie...
--
- Sean
Good waiters have command-line completion:
/etc.)
"Let's see... fish, you said? Well we have..."
Not analogous at all. Perhaps it would be if available commands were along the lines of 'file-copy', 'file-move', 'file-link-create', 'file-delete', 'directory-make', 'directory-remove' and so on...
If this were the case, then a user could type 'file [tab]' and it would respond with a list of available file operations.
This would be analogous to the restaurant-goer saying 'fish' and getting a list of different fish dishes (arg -- tongue-twister!) available.
As it is, though, the user has to be able to type (for example), 'mk [tab]' to get a list including 'mkdir' and so on. What is there that indicates to the new user that 'mk' has anything to do with creating directories? (Ok... bad example -- mkdir exists in DOS also -- but you know what I mean).
This is more analogous to the diner going into the restaurant and saying 'cala' to get a list of dishes that might include 'calamari'. Not terribly useful unless he/she already knew that calamari was available.
If you look at it from the point of a new user who hasn't a clue what to do once confronted with a command-line, it is exactly like the diner going into a restaurant and being confronted with a waiter that expects them to 'know' what they want and what is on the menu and how much it costs, etc.
Sure, sure, the new user can type 'man [command]'. Again, not terribly useful unless they already know what the command is. That's useful when you know a command and want to find out what it does, but not when you have a procedure in mind, but want to find out how to do it.
Info is a great utility in this regard. How many newbies will instantly type 'info' to find out what commands are available? Obviously, only the ones who know about info. I didn't; not until I had been using Linux for a week or more. Granted, I already knew a lot of what commands were available (prior experience with Unix), but a lot of newbies won't.
If you aren't going to hand the diner a menu, at least let them know where one can be found. Perhaps the first n times the user logs in, they should be presented with a message to the effect of, "Type 'info' for a list of available commands." or some such. Or maybe have a little 'help' bar always sitting on the top row of the CLI screen (even one that can be mouse-activated) that informs the user of 'man', 'info', 'startx' and a few others. (obviously, you should be able to easily turn this off via a conf file setting in
That simple change would be a vast improvement over the existing setup. If you aren't going to hand the customer a menu, at least point out where they can find a pile of them themselves. And it shouldn't be too far away!
--
- Sean
I will never forget the time I was on IRC recently, and was helping someone with PPP setup. He told me that the last time he had configured it in X, so he didn't know how to do it from the command line. It cracked me up.
I actually had a similar experience. Although from the point-of-view of your friend.
Prior to Linux, most of my experience was with Irix -- so I was used to doing things through the GUI. When I finally got around to installing Linux on my PC, I kept on trying to setup my net access through linuxconf, and assorted GUI equivalents -- I had absolutely no idea what pppd was, nor even that it existed, and could not figure out why it wouldn't work. I finally enlisted the help of a friend, whose first comment was to the order of, "Huh? You haven't even run 'man pppd' yet!"
"Umm... no... what's pppd?"
--
- Sean
83 desktop icons!
...but then, I'm just weird...
And that's in NT. Under X, I only have 29, and even those are accessed via GNOME drawers.
(BTW: somewhat offtopic, but... does anyone know how to configure the GNOME panel / Enlightenment so that the drawers automagically slide out on top of any existing windows? It's always annoying opening the drawers, then having to rollup any existing windows so that I can get at the launchers that are obscured by said windows.)
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- Sean
ROFL!
Where'd you get that? Was it just straight off the linux.de homepage (that's where I got the bit above from)?
Somewhere in the Jargon file (too lazy to find the exact reference right now) it says something about a popular past-time being to type your name in to TECO as a command and see what it comes up with...
The equivalent past-time for the 90's should be to do the same with babelfish... that was just too funny!!
--
- Sean
Ow! Babelfish sure mangled that one!
Ok... here's a human translation (admittedly by someone not quite fluent in German):
We were requested recently by a well-known company with a similar slogan to our popular sub-title, "Where do you want to go tomorrow?" to remove it. Until we can finally clarify the legal situation we are fulfilling this request.
How the legal process appears to deal with this parody, however, is not yet quite clear. More to follow?
--
- Sean
Source code is not functional. In order to be "functional" something must be done to it. A specific process must be applied, namely compiling or interpreting. Much in the same way that a recipe for a cake does not become a cake until someone puts the flour, sugar, eggs, etc together and puts them into the oven and waits an hour. If you don't have the compiler or interpreter on your system then you simply have a non functional text file.
Ummm... I, for one, have never quite understood the distinction between source code and machine code.
Yes, yes, I know the difference! And yes, I know what a compiler is, yada yada yada. But where do we draw the line?
Why only at the point of it being directly executable? Let me clarify:
printf( "hello, world\n" ); -- Source code.
(defun foo (x y) if((< x y) bar(x y))) -- Source code.
mov ax,ah -- Source code
53 2a 16 b9 a4 ff f0 00 -- Oops! Machine code!
And why the distinction? As far as I'm concerned, machine code is simply another form of source code, with the sole exception that it can be executed as-is. I sometimes work on machines that don't have a monitor, as we know it. They have a 4x6 key numeric/functional keypad, a Z-80 microprocessor and a 6-character LED display. In that case, there is no such thing as "source code" -- it simply doesn't make sense. The machine code/executable is the source code -- and I (or anyone who also works with it) is just as able to read it directly as they are able to read ANSI C.
Given this environment, the simple fact that "source code" cannot be executed directly means little in the overall definition -- as far as I'm concerned, machine code has just as much claim to the name.
And IMHO, this all renders the argument that source code is not a device because it is necessary to translate it into one (ie: compile it) moot.
Note that I'm not arguing here one way or another as to whether or not it is a device, it is speech, it is/should be free of restriction, and so on. I'm simply arguing that that particular argument makes no sense.
--
- Sean
(Preamble: this is somewhat off-topic... just a thought or 2 that popped into my head unbidden while reading the above post.)
...and then what?
:-)
However if sombody dropped ten million copies of the plans over NYC by airplane, it's dubious if the courts would uphold prosecuting anybody but those involved in the air drop.
Or, let me put it another way... suppose that someone writes a virus -- similar to the Melissa virus of a couple of weeks ago. Except that instead of containing a list of porn sites (IIRC, that is the "document" that Melissa was carried on), it contained a number of forbidden-to-export cryptography algorithms (in C or something). And let us suppose further that it infected many more machines than the original Melissa actually did -- many of which were outside North America.
Granted, the original perpetrator would probably be caught, and incarcerated, but then what? Once those algorithms were knowingly "out there," would the US gov't insist on maintaining its ridiculous stance on cryptography exportation?
This is perhaps more pertinent than the "10 million leaflets over NYC" situation -- very few people would have the prerequisite knowledge to do anything with the nuclear weapon instructions. But it would be much easier to propogate those cryptography algorithms around (already outside the US and hence at this stage perfectly legal) until they reached someone (or more than one) who would have a use for them...
Like I said, then what?
Anyway... just some food for thought...
(Ass-covering P.S.: Note that I'm not suggesting anybody actually do this -- just a hypothetical what-if
--
- Sean
Hmm, not a bad idea. Perhaps some sort of filter based personal setting. Posts by certain people, subject lines, etc, could automatically start at what you want, then add/subtract points appropriately.
Damn! I don't know why no-one thought of this before... it's so blindingly obvious (and simple)!
This is the perfect solution... in combination with the existing system... in that people should be able to "pre-modify" the moderation points of any article based on the poster.
Therefore people who don't particularly like/want to hear about Bruce Perens (for example -- it happens to be a good one) can set his particular modification to, say, -3.
So. By default, Mr. Perens has a score of 4. Someone who doesn't particularly want to read his stuff can add -3 to that, making a default of 1. And, of course, set their threshold to 2, or something. So an "average" Perens article wouldn't show up. If Bruce has said something "really" worthwhile, it would be moderated up, and get a 5. Add -3 and you get 2, which would show up. (Note I'm not conscientiously ragging on Bruce; I just happened to read a post complaining about him recently, and it's still on my mind).
On the other hand, someone who doesn't particularly mind Bruce could just leave his modification at default (0), so an "average" Bruce post would be 4 + 0 = 4, a good one would be 5, and so on (as things are now).
In theory, someone who really likes him, could assign a + modifier, so he would always get scores of 6, 7, whatever (for that person). Pretty much guaranteeing that that person would always catch Mr. Perens' posts. This would still apply if Bruce made a quick, "off-the-cuff" remark, that got demoted to 1, but 1 + 3 (for example) would still be 4, and still be seen.
Now, this system would automagically apply to anyone. The same would happen if people did/didn't like my posts (which I believe default to 2 at the moment), or (and here's the beauty of it), our old favourites, the Anonymous Cowards!
That last point, I think is a godsend... hopefully it will put to rest once and for all the "AC's should/shouldn't be allowed to post" argument. A solution was tried with automatically demoting AC posts to 0, of course, but I still see the occasional "that's like censorship!" claim, and also the occasional "They shouldn't post at all!" one.
But, if the viewer was allowed to set their own preference, those who wanted to see AC's should leave their modifier at zero (ie: 1 + 0 = 1 = default), those who like the system as-is modify to -1 (1 + -1 = 0 = as it is now), and those who don't want to see AC posts at all (unless they're really good ones) modify to -3 or something (a 1 + -3 = -2 post will never get seen if the threshold can't be below -1).
Of course, still leave the moderations in place (note I distinguish between moderation and modification). That would indicate how good/bad a post was compared to other posts by that same person. But the modification (done on a personal, not a global, level) would determine whether a "default" post by that person would show up.
(I guess this is sort of like multi-dimansional moderation, as suggested by someone else... just thought of that now...)
And of course, as you mentioned, the same thing could be applied to subject lines, helping out with alleviating the old "First Post!" syndrome, among others.
Anyway... I'm sure this would all create a hell of a lot of work for poor Rob, but hey... you can handle it, right Rob? And of course... "there is nothing that Perl cannot do! Nothing!"... hehe.
Anyway, yes... I think this is a brilliant idea. Simple, elegant, and would do the job!
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- Sean
I've been getting it sporadically for the last couple weeks or so (ever since Rob started adding the moderation changes).
I've been trying to find some pettern, so I can figure out what might be causing it. No identifiable pattern yet, though.
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- Sean
The thing took several minutes (ie: about 5 to 10) per page on my system here at work -- with bandwidth coming out the ying-yang.
Go figure...
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- Sean
The Matrix didn't go far enough.
For me, the most disappointing part of the movie (don't get me wrong; the movie as a whole totally rocked. But.) was when Laurence said something to the effect of "You think that the year is 1999, when in reality, it's probably closer to 2199."
What I was kinda hoping for, and what woulda been very cool is if time as we know it didn't exist at all! Or... the world "as we know it" never existed.
That would mean that this whole thing is a total farce. That "we" (as humans) were not merely living out our collective past, but living out a total lie. Maybe "we" existed in some form that would be totally unrecognizable to a human.
When Neo first woke up in his little "bubble" with more such cells going on and on into infinity, I was totally freaked out. The thought that this could be the "real" universe, and all the universe had ever been, and all the universe would ever be, all but blew my mind.
When Morpheus explained that that was just the universe "now" (ie: the year 2199, or whatever), it was a big letdown.
Besides, if time also goes on inside the Matrix, then what happens when "matrix time" reaches the mid-21st century, or whenever the point is that the machines take over? Do we then have a Matrix inside the Matrix?
Hmmm... maybe the Matrix as we saw already was inside another Matrix... that would be cool!
(Oh... BTW: The best way to see it is on an IMAX screen...:-)
Anyway... just a bit of nonsensical rambling on my part... pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
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- Sean
Anyway, I have a user account so people will know who's posting in the first place. That's the whole point, or at least so I thought.
:-)
Agreed. I like people to know "who" I am. My nick, SeanNi, is the same one I use every single time. Anyone who wants can click on my "User Info" link and look at other posts I have made. They can then form their own opinions about whether or not I am worth reading, and they know (or have a better handle on) my biases when they do read my posts.
Better parsing and interpretation makes for better dissemination of useful content. (not to mention more convoluted verbiage
If I was unable to post and moderate at the same time, I would probably end up creating a second account, such as "SeanNi2 (same as SeanNi)" or some such thing and posting that way. I would definitely not want to do that, though. It feels much too much like "cheating".
But it is a moot point, since as I have mentioned elsewhere, the way things currently stand, I do not want to be a moderator.
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- Sean
Your argument is good in theory, but not in practice.
:-)
When picking, for example, a juror for a trial, the "pickers" (whoever they are; sorry, I don't know the American judicial system that well) are fairly certain that they know what will and will not be relevant in the trial. For example, if there is a trial of a murderer, they can be fairly sure (at least well above 50%) that the proceedings will not involve methods of apple picking. Therefore they can choose jurors who are not knowledgeable about the murder, and therefore impartial. They don't have to worry about how much knowledge the juror does or does not have about the methods of apple picking.
Unfortunately, the same does not apply to Slashdot forums. As anyone who's read them very much knows, the chances of a forum in response to an article on ESR of going off into some completely unexpected direction (for example, methods of apple picking, to belabour a point) are quite good.
Within any one forum, the threads can become quite splintered and evolve into many sub-discussions. Moderating one of these should have no effect on whether or not you can post to another.
I definitely agree with the post you responded to that moderator/poster limitations should apply by thread, not forum. I am a fairly active poster on Slashdot; usually posting in the region of 50-60 posts per week, sometimes more, sometimes less. Often, these posts are quick, off-the-cuff comments that could be omitted without much consequence. However, every now and then I post something that I put a fair amount of thought into, and honestly believe is "worth" posting. This one, for example.
At the same time, I often see a post that consists entirely of "Rob is a flaming communist asshole!" or some such drivel. I would definitely like the ability to moderate those ones down into oblivion. (Can you tell that I'm not currently a moderator?
Anyway, I honestly can't see why or how this should be affected by the fact that I posted something else in the same forum.
There is also the other side of the coin; moderating comments upward. There are two issues here: partiality and knowledge. While I agree that a moderator should be impartial to the comments they moderate, that does not mean they should not be knowledgeable. I don't have time to go through every article on the Slashdot main page. How do I decide which ones to read through? Obviously, the ones that interest me. And as a general rule, those subjects that interest me are usually the ones that I know most about. Partial or not, I think it makes sense that a moderator should have some knowledge, or understanding of the topic they are moderating comments on. Perhaps not in terms of demoting the "Rob is a flaming communist asshole!"-type comments, but certainly in promoting the ones that have good technical content.
But it is these same subjects, the ones about which I have the most knowledge, that I would be the most interested, and qualified, to post on. Slashdot tends to deal with very technical discussions, not a "simple" guilty-or-innocent decision. (Yes, I know it's not that simple, but still does not require the same level of technical knowledge to discuss the issue; where it does, people are brought in to explain the terms, etc. for the laymen.)
Keep in mind another area where technical knowledge is useful. Nomination selection for the Academy Awards. The voters are picked from other directors, actors, technicians and the like. They all work in the film industry. And while they will all vote on the movies, actors and so on from all categories, this is not true of the initial selection. When picking the '5 selected movies' in any category (ie: the 5 options for 'Best Picture'), the academy members are only allowed to have a say in the selections for their own discipline. In other words, a director only has a say in choosing the 5 films that will be up for "Best Director". Why? Simple. Because of the technical knowledge of the field which is necessary, and which non-directors simply don't have.
I happen to think that this is directly translatable to moderation of Slashdot forums.
But most tantamount, please don't restrict the abilities of moderators simply for the sake of restricting their abilities. I can think of no good reason to do this, especially when dealing with an area that is so integral to Slashdot, the posting of comments.
I know that if this is the situation that remains, I for one would have no interst in becoming a moderator. I am, for the time being, setting my preference to "I don't want to be a moderator". And yes, I meet all the criteria for being one.
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- Sean
Wouldn't work for people like myself.
:-) where would I go? My views often conflict with one another, and I usually pick the "winner" on a case-by-case basis. There is no way that I could be easily represented on the sort of poll that Slashdot usually has.
1. Far right wing economically. (government should keep out of economic matters entirely; privatize gov't (crown) corporations.
2. Far left wing socially (money priorities should be education, health and social/welfare).
3. Anti-libertarian in matters of personal estate (a little bit of censorship can be a good thing; not all things should be private).
4. Small government in essence (cut spending (and taxation!) entirely except for social stuff mentioned in pt. 2).
Aside from the fact that some of my views would raise eyebrows here at Slashdot
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- Sean
This is just like Orson Welles and the invasion from Mars. People take it seriously.
Umm... you're talking here about one of the greatest and funniest parodies of all time. Did people take it seriously? Yes! That's what made it so brilliant! He fooled a lot of people... and that takes talent!
This whole UF/BeD/SegF thing was pretty damn good, too!
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- Sean
"It is finished not when I have nothing more to add, but when I have nothing more to take away."
(And yes, I'm paraphrasing, and no, I can't remember who originally said it. Source, anyone?)
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- Sean
hehe...
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- Sean