Someone should really make a game in javascript or something called "whack a pop-up window", where it pops up windows in random spots on your screen and it's your job to close them before they disappear. I would, but I can't figure out how to get around some newer browsers that ask you if you want to let the window close itself. So annoying. Any ideas?
I read some time ago that the company Kodak- and this according to a spokesman- got its name from gibberish. Apparently, you could not get a trademark for a term already in use- i.e., anything that was a recognized word in any language. So, since fandom was in the dictionary since 1903 (according to the article), how could they claim the rights to the trademark?
There was an article on Yahoo today that joined the throng of P4 critics: "No Pentium under my Christmas tree". Makes some good points about the problem with using Mhz alone to gauge speed these days (probably why Apple has a hard time selling its processors as "fast" anymore). Also points out where the problems will be with the P4 gaining acceptance in the market.
Last time I heard the South lost the civil war...
Well, although it's recently been amended to "too close to call";) , actually the war did NOT settle this. The south was decimated and lost, but nowhere in the endless victory speeches did the North say "there goes nullification"- ostensibly they entered the war to end slavery. Their excuse. So theoretically- I'm not saying it would work if it ever got any media attention because suddenly everyone would whine- a state could revive the dread doctrine again. Now, as for the matter of the ruling of the supreme court being firmly entrenched in law? As the FL ruling came out, Gore lawyers were already pointing out other precedents that applied to opp effect, and so I reiterare- you're nuts if you really think this ruling is encased in stone, or that the law will in fact be taken so narrowly. So read the ruling yourself, THEN post about just how entrenched in law it is. You can have your soapbox back now.
States rights do not include the ability to violate federal law.
You're a political scientist? First of all the civil war was fought over the idea that states could violate federal law (nullification doctrine) since, according to Bush et al, states give up a lot of their power for the federal government to exist in the first place, and although the war was settled, the issue never really was. Now, on to the matter of the court. It didn't really overstep its bounds at all- it did not override the legislature but instead pointed out that under existing, preset florida law, the certification deadline COULD be extended as needed. Hence there's no surprise that "SCOTUS" (as in supreme court of the united states, not "beam me up scotus") sent the Florida ruling back- it said that the REASONS were weak. Nothing about the ruling being unconstitutional. I realize it's hard to be objective, but please: It's hard enough getting accurate information about politics on Slashdot (not that I try) without having to worry about people whose only news comes from Bush's campaign hq. For these and other political points, why not watch some of the roundtable discussions they have? CNN has a pretty good one, though the name evades me now- Hardball on MSNBC also raises a lot of points and it's fun to figure out whether the host is a democrat or a republican on any given day. That said, please TRY to remain objective if you're going to feign knowledge. There's a precedent for every point out there and I'm not surprised by the ambiguity of the ruling.
BTW, I'm not a political scientist. I just know what I'm saying.
"I know I'll get modded down for saying this, but..." There... can I have more Karma now? Besides, it isn't as bad as the people who have 4, Troll- times like this that I wish people who were modded down had to suffer the consequences, not get ranked higher than legitimate posters. Was that Offtopic? Er, anyway, well, it's hard to say whether linux will really give way to bsd. It has much more name recognition that could help it with gaining market share. The big drawback, though, is the fact that most people have their "linux install horror story" from the first time. Seems the technical aspects would have to soften if Linux were to ever really challenge M$ in the open market (there, I said something about the topic. Happy now?). Could you imagine someone who's never used a computer before wandering into root? I don't even want to...
As far as if OSX were to be ported to an x86... there was an article on Yahoo some time ago speculating about the close ties between Apple and Oracle and the fact that Apple might just be able to rewrite osx for other platforms w/o too much trouble. I imagine that they've since deleted the article from their servers, but it did raise some questions.
If NSI has really decided to play censor, can someone please explain to me how FC came into being? I'm sure you know which site I'm referring to- the one that gleefully tosses about the F word at every possible chance. Granted, it also has a URL for the more delicate souls, but still- if there really is censorship, how could FC be FC?
If you use gopher exclusively... how did this post end up on Slashdot? Slashdot could never have taken off under Gopher... it LINKS TO OTHER SITES! Hence it gets its news. Hmm.
Posted by cmdrtaco Wed November 22, 05:11 PM from the "ah but is it open source" dept:
Not to be outdone by Autogen, Microsoft founder and chief software architect Bill Gates today announced plans for "one of our most innovative products yet." Although few details were given at the press conference, he mentioned that this new product, dubbed "Microsoft Genome", would be "loosely based upon human dna, exhibiting a surprising level of standards compliance. However, in the fine Microsoft tradition, we have introduced a number of innovations that we think will really have the public excited. You know, just some minor improvements to the codebase." Analysts expect a release date about nine months from now.
"Alternative revenue models"? Have you ever heard of GoTo, which bases its rankings not on relevance but on advertising budgets? Then there are many other search engines which are also starting to charge for "preferred rankings". Wall Street is pushing companies to try and make money asap, and it makes sense that they charge businesses that want to promote themselves. Besides, it's cheaper than GoTo (eck) and doesn't swindle customers by showing the company with the highest advertising budget rather than the most relevant. Not that it isn't a moot point for google users...
Considering that the majority of web users have gotten used to seeing 3-letter tld's, this should be pretty amusing. More of note is how specific any given tld is-.aero? Yeah, that'll benefit MAYBE 1% of web users, never mind that the other 99% might have expected the traditional three letters. I still would have liked to see a.web since.net never caught on and at least.web might have some added publicity, and maybe a.k12- I'll never forget when my hs tried to register for a.org domain name and found that THEY were being cybersquatted on, by a student! (remember, only colleges and universities can have.edu for reasons beyond me... whoops). Well, it'll be interesting... assuming that most sites don't immediately go out and protect their backs by buying all the new variations too (slashdot.(dot).info.aero, anyone?). What next,.specialinterest?
Although making the whois database public does present some ethical problems, there are advantages to knowing who owns a domain name- especially in the ever-popular field of cybersquatting. Anyone else remember that article a while back about typosquatting? The only reason that the victims were able to make a major case against the company that did it was that they were able to search the whois database and realized that at least some of the contact info matched up in different domain names that were being registered, even while the squatters insisted the companies weren't the same. So what's more important- privacy or shameless business moves by typosquatters? No, wait... let me rephrase that...
I'm surprised to see when people talk about "standards compliance" as being key... yes, it's important to have pages that work across browsers, but it is nice to see some changes. Does anyone else remember back when Netscape shamlessly manipulated the html standard of the time to introduce those renegade "tables"? That turned out to be a major step for browsers everywhere. Today, it is true that there's less innovation except by proprietary companies in the "dotcom gold rush", but then, how much more innovation do we need? Can anyone think of some good standardized features that the web still needs but lacks (even in Mozilla)?
Actually, these so-called "faithless electors" HAVE struck before... unfortunately I can't remember when the race was (sometime in the 1800's, and it may have happened +1 times), but they did change their vote from what the popular vote was. Since then, a few states have changed the laws to penalize faithless electors, but not many. Don't believe me? Grab (another) cup of coffee and turn on CNN etc sometime- it's been brought up a few times as a possibility, though not in its historical context..
I'm surprised that Gov. Bush forgot to respond to the asteroid question. Well, what he meant to say was "I favor a strong missile defense system- the best offense is a good defense". Yup. Together, we'll nuke the asteroid belt!
Why is it that so many people continually urge others to "Vote Nader in close states"? This seems to be a recurring trend, which is why I'm just making this a new thread altogether, but... Let's say you do want to vote Nader, because a) you know what his campaign stands for and b) you like the liberal influence in his campaign. Now, let's say you and a few hundred people of like mind on/. live on the same state, and you do vote Nader, instead of the closest ideologically with a shot at winning, Gore (Trolls, please hold your fire about the 1-party system.) But wait! Bush, who you despise, wins your state by a slim margin because you and a few hundred buddies voted Nader instead of Gore! Oops! Now repeat this across a few other states and all you have is the candidate whose ideals are FARTHER from your ideals than how you voted. Which is fine by Bush, of course. So just consider that before you do go and pull the lever and remember that at least in theory this applies to the Bush campaign just as much as it threatens Gore.
I find it interesting to see that the/. community is vexed by Gore and Bush ignoring them. If you wonder why,take a look at the boards: about half the posters agree that they'll DEFINITELY vote Browne (or Nader- we all know their ideals are JUST SO CLOSE!) for reasons unknown to themselves (granted, a few have reasons for voting that way, but the majority just don't like the major parties and don't care if Bozo the clown wins- so long as he's pro-tech!). Sorry, but if you don't agree read the comments a little more closely. The other half, meanwhile, either does not want to vote or isn't registered. So while Bush and Gore are fighting for control of large states and for the undecided voters, do you really think they'll divert valuable resources from their campaigns to answer people who, statistically, vote as often as tin cans do? Sadly, unless this changes- or unless people step back and start being just a little more undecided- of course most campaigns will ignore them!
"I work hard and have to basically give money to one who doesn't
The fact of the matter is that the government needs money to run. Don't want big government? Well, what about the national defense libertarians want? Who pays for that? If you tax the poor at the same rate as you do the rich, you're going to have a higher rate to pay for a tenth of what the government does. But wait! How will the poor be able to eat? After all, taking away a chunk of their already small income will leave them with much less- and the govt wouldn't be able to afford those homeless shelters it supports now... But wait! By taxing the rich more, the govt gets the money for services that EVERYONE seems to want, and yet, come next election day, no one has starved to death! Do you really think that anyone on the Forbes 500 is going to notice $50 million here or there? I doubt it.
"Add in some racism, take out some technophobia, and you basically have a good copy of the Nazi party platform"
Well... they're both on paper- I'm guessing that would be the only thing left of the Nazi platform, though...
And by the way, if Americans are even half as rational as some of the trolls i've seen posting, then I'm all for socialism too!
Actually, you still have to be careful. This is a close election where no candidate has any clear statistical lead- or of they do it evaporates by the next day. The fact of the matter is that even if your state isn't a swing state now, it could very well be undecided by election day (Nov. 7th). Now, for all of you who are hoping to vote for the alterative candidates, let's consider a scenario:
Let's say that the only person you hate more than Al Gore (besides Bill Gates) is George Bush, but you like Ralph Nader, and so vote for him. Let's say that what many fear will happen does, and Nader pulls enough votes away from Gore so that even your liberal home state goes to Bush. Guess what? Repeat this a few times, and George Bush is your president! This could go the same way with Buchanan (I won't mention Browne because, like it or not, most polls exlude him and their numbers add up to 100% anyway) hurting Bush- so next time you think you're sending a strong message to the "dominant abusive parties", keep in mind: They're laughing all the way to the ballot box.
Slashdot Mirror
Someone should really make a game in javascript or something called "whack a pop-up window", where it pops up windows in random spots on your screen and it's your job to close them before they disappear. I would, but I can't figure out how to get around some newer browsers that ask you if you want to let the window close itself. So annoying. Any ideas?
I read some time ago that the company Kodak- and this according to a spokesman- got its name from gibberish. Apparently, you could not get a trademark for a term already in use- i.e., anything that was a recognized word in any language. So, since fandom was in the dictionary since 1903 (according to the article), how could they claim the rights to the trademark?
There was an article on Yahoo today that joined the throng of P4 critics: "No Pentium under my Christmas tree". Makes some good points about the problem with using Mhz alone to gauge speed these days (probably why Apple has a hard time selling its processors as "fast" anymore). Also points out where the problems will be with the P4 gaining acceptance in the market.
Ever wonder why all EULAs look the same? Try the EULA Generator and find out!
WHAT?! CmdrTaco wasn't on the list! Someone should really have a talk with those people...
Are you sure that it's the REAL Bruce Perens? I think that the one in the article has Slashdot Id #3873- he must be an imposter...
Last time I heard the South lost the civil war... ;) , actually the war did NOT settle this. The south was decimated and lost, but nowhere in the endless victory speeches did the North say "there goes nullification"- ostensibly they entered the war to end slavery. Their excuse. So theoretically- I'm not saying it would work if it ever got any media attention because suddenly everyone would whine- a state could revive the dread doctrine again. Now, as for the matter of the ruling of the supreme court being firmly entrenched in law? As the FL ruling came out, Gore lawyers were already pointing out other precedents that applied to opp effect, and so I reiterare- you're nuts if you really think this ruling is encased in stone, or that the law will in fact be taken so narrowly. So read the ruling yourself, THEN post about just how entrenched in law it is. You can have your soapbox back now.
Well, although it's recently been amended to "too close to call"
States rights do not include the ability to violate federal law.
You're a political scientist? First of all the civil war was fought over the idea that states could violate federal law (nullification doctrine) since, according to Bush et al, states give up a lot of their power for the federal government to exist in the first place, and although the war was settled, the issue never really was. Now, on to the matter of the court. It didn't really overstep its bounds at all- it did not override the legislature but instead pointed out that under existing, preset florida law, the certification deadline COULD be extended as needed. Hence there's no surprise that "SCOTUS" (as in supreme court of the united states, not "beam me up scotus") sent the Florida ruling back- it said that the REASONS were weak. Nothing about the ruling being unconstitutional. I realize it's hard to be objective, but please: It's hard enough getting accurate information about politics on Slashdot (not that I try) without having to worry about people whose only news comes from Bush's campaign hq. For these and other political points, why not watch some of the roundtable discussions they have? CNN has a pretty good one, though the name evades me now- Hardball on MSNBC also raises a lot of points and it's fun to figure out whether the host is a democrat or a republican on any given day. That said, please TRY to remain objective if you're going to feign knowledge. There's a precedent for every point out there and I'm not surprised by the ambiguity of the ruling.
BTW, I'm not a political scientist. I just know what I'm saying.
"I know I'll get modded down for saying this, but..." There... can I have more Karma now? Besides, it isn't as bad as the people who have 4, Troll- times like this that I wish people who were modded down had to suffer the consequences, not get ranked higher than legitimate posters. Was that Offtopic? Er, anyway, well, it's hard to say whether linux will really give way to bsd. It has much more name recognition that could help it with gaining market share. The big drawback, though, is the fact that most people have their "linux install horror story" from the first time. Seems the technical aspects would have to soften if Linux were to ever really challenge M$ in the open market (there, I said something about the topic. Happy now?). Could you imagine someone who's never used a computer before wandering into root? I don't even want to...
As far as if OSX were to be ported to an x86... there was an article on Yahoo some time ago speculating about the close ties between Apple and Oracle and the fact that Apple might just be able to rewrite osx for other platforms w/o too much trouble. I imagine that they've since deleted the article from their servers, but it did raise some questions.
If NSI has really decided to play censor, can someone please explain to me how FC came into being? I'm sure you know which site I'm referring to- the one that gleefully tosses about the F word at every possible chance. Granted, it also has a URL for the more delicate souls, but still- if there really is censorship, how could FC be FC?
If you use gopher exclusively... how did this post end up on Slashdot? Slashdot could never have taken off under Gopher... it LINKS TO OTHER SITES! Hence it gets its news. Hmm.
from the "ah but is it open source" dept:
Not to be outdone by Autogen, Microsoft founder and chief software architect Bill Gates today announced plans for "one of our most innovative products yet." Although few details were given at the press conference, he mentioned that this new product, dubbed "Microsoft Genome", would be "loosely based upon human dna, exhibiting a surprising level of standards compliance. However, in the fine Microsoft tradition, we have introduced a number of innovations that we think will really have the public excited. You know, just some minor improvements to the codebase." Analysts expect a release date about nine months from now.
Because... we have nukes and you don't. You were saying?
"Alternative revenue models"? Have you ever heard of GoTo, which bases its rankings not on relevance but on advertising budgets? Then there are many other search engines which are also starting to charge for "preferred rankings". Wall Street is pushing companies to try and make money asap, and it makes sense that they charge businesses that want to promote themselves. Besides, it's cheaper than GoTo (eck) and doesn't swindle customers by showing the company with the highest advertising budget rather than the most relevant. Not that it isn't a moot point for google users...
Considering that the majority of web users have gotten used to seeing 3-letter tld's, this should be pretty amusing. More of note is how specific any given tld is- .aero? Yeah, that'll benefit MAYBE 1% of web users, never mind that the other 99% might have expected the traditional three letters. I still would have liked to see a .web since .net never caught on and at least .web might have some added publicity, and maybe a .k12- I'll never forget when my hs tried to register for a .org domain name and found that THEY were being cybersquatted on, by a student! (remember, only colleges and universities can have .edu for reasons beyond me... whoops). Well, it'll be interesting... assuming that most sites don't immediately go out and protect their backs by buying all the new variations too (slashdot.(dot).info.aero, anyone?). What next, .specialinterest?
Although making the whois database public does present some ethical problems, there are advantages to knowing who owns a domain name- especially in the ever-popular field of cybersquatting. Anyone else remember that article a while back about typosquatting? The only reason that the victims were able to make a major case against the company that did it was that they were able to search the whois database and realized that at least some of the contact info matched up in different domain names that were being registered, even while the squatters insisted the companies weren't the same. So what's more important- privacy or shameless business moves by typosquatters? No, wait... let me rephrase that...
I'm surprised to see when people talk about "standards compliance" as being key... yes, it's important to have pages that work across browsers, but it is nice to see some changes. Does anyone else remember back when Netscape shamlessly manipulated the html standard of the time to introduce those renegade "tables"? That turned out to be a major step for browsers everywhere. Today, it is true that there's less innovation except by proprietary companies in the "dotcom gold rush", but then, how much more innovation do we need? Can anyone think of some good standardized features that the web still needs but lacks (even in Mozilla)?
Actually, these so-called "faithless electors" HAVE struck before... unfortunately I can't remember when the race was (sometime in the 1800's, and it may have happened +1 times), but they did change their vote from what the popular vote was. Since then, a few states have changed the laws to penalize faithless electors, but not many. Don't believe me? Grab (another) cup of coffee and turn on CNN etc sometime- it's been brought up a few times as a possibility, though not in its historical context..
I'm surprised that Gov. Bush forgot to respond to the asteroid question. Well, what he meant to say was "I favor a strong missile defense system- the best offense is a good defense". Yup. Together, we'll nuke the asteroid belt!
Why is it that so many people continually urge others to "Vote Nader in close states"? This seems to be a recurring trend, which is why I'm just making this a new thread altogether, but... Let's say you do want to vote Nader, because a) you know what his campaign stands for and b) you like the liberal influence in his campaign. Now, let's say you and a few hundred people of like mind on /. live on the same state, and you do vote Nader, instead of the closest ideologically with a shot at winning, Gore (Trolls, please hold your fire about the 1-party system.) But wait! Bush, who you despise, wins your state by a slim margin because you and a few hundred buddies voted Nader instead of Gore! Oops! Now repeat this across a few other states and all you have is the candidate whose ideals are FARTHER from your ideals than how you voted. Which is fine by Bush, of course. So just consider that before you do go and pull the lever and remember that at least in theory this applies to the Bush campaign just as much as it threatens Gore.
I find it interesting to see that the /. community is vexed by Gore and Bush ignoring them. If you wonder why,take a look at the boards: about half the posters agree that they'll DEFINITELY vote Browne (or Nader- we all know their ideals are JUST SO CLOSE!) for reasons unknown to themselves (granted, a few have reasons for voting that way, but the majority just don't like the major parties and don't care if Bozo the clown wins- so long as he's pro-tech!). Sorry, but if you don't agree read the comments a little more closely. The other half, meanwhile, either does not want to vote or isn't registered. So while Bush and Gore are fighting for control of large states and for the undecided voters, do you really think they'll divert valuable resources from their campaigns to answer people who, statistically, vote as often as tin cans do? Sadly, unless this changes- or unless people step back and start being just a little more undecided- of course most campaigns will ignore them!
"I work hard and have to basically give money to one who doesn't
The fact of the matter is that the government needs money to run. Don't want big government? Well, what about the national defense libertarians want? Who pays for that? If you tax the poor at the same rate as you do the rich, you're going to have a higher rate to pay for a tenth of what the government does. But wait! How will the poor be able to eat? After all, taking away a chunk of their already small income will leave them with much less- and the govt wouldn't be able to afford those homeless shelters it supports now... But wait! By taxing the rich more, the govt gets the money for services that EVERYONE seems to want, and yet, come next election day, no one has starved to death! Do you really think that anyone on the Forbes 500 is going to notice $50 million here or there? I doubt it.
"Add in some racism, take out some technophobia, and you basically have a good copy of the Nazi party platform"
Well... they're both on paper- I'm guessing that would be the only thing left of the Nazi platform, though...
And by the way, if Americans are even half as rational as some of the trolls i've seen posting, then I'm all for socialism too!
Actually, you still have to be careful. This is a close election where no candidate has any clear statistical lead- or of they do it evaporates by the next day. The fact of the matter is that even if your state isn't a swing state now, it could very well be undecided by election day (Nov. 7th). Now, for all of you who are hoping to vote for the alterative candidates, let's consider a scenario:
Let's say that the only person you hate more than Al Gore (besides Bill Gates) is George Bush, but you like Ralph Nader, and so vote for him. Let's say that what many fear will happen does, and Nader pulls enough votes away from Gore so that even your liberal home state goes to Bush. Guess what? Repeat this a few times, and George Bush is your president! This could go the same way with Buchanan (I won't mention Browne because, like it or not, most polls exlude him and their numbers add up to 100% anyway) hurting Bush- so next time you think you're sending a strong message to the "dominant abusive parties", keep in mind: They're laughing all the way to the ballot box.