When I noticed the story about
Secret Cyber Court
my first though was:
"Good that I didn't sent my tax relief
to EFF, Mr. Gilmore is unsane".
Then I realized that it's another Gilmore
and thought - "well, maybe I should donate
to EFF, they are good guys and will fight
against cybercourts".
Give IBM a break. Unlike British Telecom, IBM has never sued anybody over trivial things (to my best knowlegde). IBM would look really stupid if they ever try. But they won't.
Re:Gnome 2.0 is not ready for much of anything.(Ra
on
No GNOME For Solaris 9
·
· Score: 2
Please don't compare GNOME 2.0
(unstable developers only prerelease)
with StarOffice 5.2 (official
closed-source release).
If you want stability, use stable
releases. If you want cutting edge
features, fix things that don't work
for you and contribute fixes back
to the developers instead of bashing
the project on SlashDot.
Re:Sun, why not KDE, for the last time?
on
No GNOME For Solaris 9
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Because KDE is based on a GPLed Qt, whereas
GNOME uses only LGPLed libraries. Many vendors
of Solaris software will never open their code
for various reasons. Sun doesn't want to see
them using a GUI library different from the one
that Sun makes standard, neither does
Sun want to help Trolltech rip Solaris
developers.
Almost all companies made bad HD models
at some point. First it was Maxtor, then
Western Digital, now it's IBM. I'll not be
surprised if it will be e.g. Seagate tomorrow.
The problem is that good testing requires
months, which is unacceptable on the
consumer market with growing demands, tough
competition and clueless users.
For Joe Sixpack, the drive size is like
processor frequency - the only measure
of its "quality" (possibly along with the
brand name). You cannot compete against
a 40G drive with a 20G drive just by saying
that the model has gone through a rigorous
1-year long test and has shown good results.
I tried GNU/Hurd about a year ago.
The filesystem support is quite stable,
so it probably won't wipe your data.
It's stable enough to compile serious
stuff (e.g. gcc).
It's not stable if you start playing
hard (killing processes, running "ls -lR/",
using too much RAM).
It's very slow. It feels 3 times slower
than GNU/Linux. Color isn't supported on
the console. Needless to say that there
were no sound drivers when I tried it,
not to mention USB.
On the other side, I think that GNU/Hurd
with its microkernel design is much better
suited to handle modern hardware for
on single-user systems. If only they had
more qualified developers with enough
time.
You probably didn't check the CNN link. "FSF office" would not have the second meaning, unlike "Microsoft office". Still I would expect some jokes to appear.
Regarding "the affected people's familes". You still have "better" chances to be killed by a shark than by anthrax (if you live in the United States; it may be different in Afghanistan). Anthrax is just another scare made up by the media, just like sharks, evil Gary Condit etc. Soon it will be forgotten. I would avoid jokes about sharks in presence of people whose relatives were killed by sharks. I would avoid jokes about anthrax in front of people who lost their loved ones from that disease. Still it doesn't make those jokes inappropriate on a site for computer geeks from all over the world.
Daryll chimes in with: "Buy a DVD-ROM rather than an ordinary CD-ROM. Typically the
transfer rates are just as good if not better because the base DVD rotational speed is
higher to begin with."
While meditating on Daryll's remarks I realized that a DVD is a must-have for another
reason: any true dream system for a Linux hacker must include the ability to violate the
anti-fair-use clauses of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by running DeCSS on a daily
basis, even if (like me) the hacker is basically uninterested in DVDs per se. It's
ethically imperative.
I liked this part. Buying hardware to fulfill a moral obligation to participate
in civil disobedience.
My original post was complete drivel (especialy about CO2-hungry plants), but it was posted early. The existing moderation system promotes early replies. One doesn't even have to think to repare bad karma - it's insanely cheap.
I'm afraid that displaying the guidelines won't make people think.
On the other hand, enforcing the -1 threshold for moderation (or introducing a special "moderation mode") would increase quality of moderation. There is no reason why already moderated comments should be more visible to another moderator.
You cant compare an upgraded and constantly patched linux box to a default Win2k installation.
I don't understand what you are rererring to. The Gartner report discourage using IIS on maintained systems. It is not about default installations.
The guy just holds a contest. You can do the same with a Windows box. It won't mean that you are comparing patched Windows with the default Linux installation. It will only mean that you are testing how stable patched Windows can be.
Too bad that a lot of slashdot moderators sympatize to M$ so much that they moderate up very weak arguments that just please them.
Correct. By the way, there used to be a question "Have you metamoderated today?" on the homepage, but it's gone since the slashcode upgrade. I'm guilty of not metamoderating after that happened.
Your post prompted me to go to http://slashdot.org/metamod.pl
directly. I had to metamod half (!!!) of moderations as unfair, some of them "offtopic" and "troll" moderations for germane comments.
I believe that the link should be restored, or better yet, added to the chain of links that starts with "faq" and ends with "hof". If it's not time to metamoderate, the system could tell how much time I should wait.
Better wireless connectivity means more telecommuting jobs. This means less driving. Less CO2 in the air. Good for people (adults). Good for mooses. Bad for plants that need CO2. Bad for children in Maine, who don't see anything except their town and the the computer monitor. Many families in Maine visit Boston just one or two times a year, let alone New York or Washington.
That's ecology - you fix one thing and break another.
At least you
will be attacked for a reason.
And the reason is not
because your country is the best
democracy in the world, as some
of your compatriots believe.
Let me guess where you live. It must be the United States of America. If that's correct please read on.
Ask yourself the following question: is the main reason why people in other countries don't like Americans because Americans have a better democracy? Re-read your comment. Now ask yourself the same question again. Compare the answers.
I think that you are American and don't know why people from other countries don't like you. Believe me, it's not because you enjoy freedom that other countries don't have, it's because you call other people morons. Very simple.
Your post looks very convincing for those who haven't read the "article". Except mentioning "the strongest man in Great Britain". Just "a man with a sledge hammer" would be fine.
By the way, it's a really good and appropriate troll for this troll story. I don't know how to moderate good trolls. Maybe "underrated"?
Modern Big Bad Wolves don't care about your
fat and bones. They care that you die
a horrible death and that your friends
are scared. Guess which house will be
the first.
I agree that there is nothing trollish
in the original comment.
But what do you expect from moderators?
They are the same people who read
SlashDot and post comments. Whatever
algorithm is used to
distribute moderation points, it can be
abused by trolls.
Try reading read this story at -1.
Most comments are
offtopic or real
trolls. I'm sure that more than half
or the comments to this story were
made by people with no Perl programming
experience at all.
This story is just too hard to
understand for an average SlashDot
user. Almost every on-topic comment has
been moderated up (or down, as in this
case) because they are rare compared to
the noise.
An average moderator is probably a bit
smarter than an average comment poster,
but not much.
What bothers me is that moderators are
not forced to moderate at -1 threshold.
The moderator guidelines recommend
it, but the system doesn't enforce it.
The guidelines also ask to concentrate
on promoting, not demoting. But I believe
that some moderators read the story at
+2 and demote comments
that they don't understand. Yet they
almost don't see the real trolls to
compare. Neither do they see good comments at +1.
Please distinguish between enabling features by default and enabling services by default.
Expecting a service to have holes (especially in the default install) is reasonable. But if a feature is believed likely to be broken, it shouldn't be in the release at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Now I'm in doubt again.
Seriously, I think M$ has a good excuse not to read e-mails from anybody but their partners.
Give IBM a break. Unlike British Telecom, IBM has never sued anybody over trivial things (to my best knowlegde). IBM would look really stupid if they ever try. But they won't.
If you want stability, use stable releases. If you want cutting edge features, fix things that don't work for you and contribute fixes back to the developers instead of bashing the project on SlashDot.
Because KDE is based on a GPLed Qt, whereas GNOME uses only LGPLed libraries. Many vendors of Solaris software will never open their code for various reasons. Sun doesn't want to see them using a GUI library different from the one that Sun makes standard, neither does Sun want to help Trolltech rip Solaris developers.
The problem is that good testing requires months, which is unacceptable on the consumer market with growing demands, tough competition and clueless users.
For Joe Sixpack, the drive size is like processor frequency - the only measure of its "quality" (possibly along with the brand name). You cannot compete against a 40G drive with a 20G drive just by saying that the model has gone through a rigorous 1-year long test and has shown good results.
On the other side, I think that GNU/Hurd with its microkernel design is much better suited to handle modern hardware for on single-user systems. If only they had more qualified developers with enough time.
Debian haber utilizado un nombre mejor para la distribucion.
Regarding "the affected people's familes". You still have "better" chances to be killed by a shark than by anthrax (if you live in the United States; it may be different in Afghanistan). Anthrax is just another scare made up by the media, just like sharks, evil Gary Condit etc. Soon it will be forgotten. I would avoid jokes about sharks in presence of people whose relatives were killed by sharks. I would avoid jokes about anthrax in front of people who lost their loved ones from that disease. Still it doesn't make those jokes inappropriate on a site for computer geeks from all over the world.
My original post was complete drivel (especialy about CO2-hungry plants), but it was posted early. The existing moderation system promotes early replies. One doesn't even have to think to repare bad karma - it's insanely cheap.
I'm afraid that displaying the guidelines won't make people think.
On the other hand, enforcing the -1 threshold for moderation (or introducing a special "moderation mode") would increase quality of moderation. There is no reason why already moderated comments should be more visible to another moderator.
The guy just holds a contest. You can do the same with a Windows box. It won't mean that you are comparing patched Windows with the default Linux installation. It will only mean that you are testing how stable patched Windows can be.
Too bad that a lot of slashdot moderators sympatize to M$ so much that they moderate up very weak arguments that just please them.
Your post prompted me to go to http://slashdot.org/metamod.pl directly. I had to metamod half (!!!) of moderations as unfair, some of them "offtopic" and "troll" moderations for germane comments.
I believe that the link should be restored, or better yet, added to the chain of links that starts with "faq" and ends with "hof". If it's not time to metamoderate, the system could tell how much time I should wait.
That's ecology - you fix one thing and break another.
Thanks for your time.
I think that you are American and don't know why people from other countries don't like you. Believe me, it's not because you enjoy freedom that other countries don't have, it's because you call other people morons. Very simple.
Maybe Terrorist ID's should have a distinctive color (say, orange) to attract attention of security personnel.
By the way, it's a really good and appropriate troll for this troll story. I don't know how to moderate good trolls. Maybe "underrated"?
Modern Big Bad Wolves don't care about your fat and bones. They care that you die a horrible death and that your friends are scared. Guess which house will be the first.
208.48.26.212 www.nytimes.com
But what do you expect from moderators? They are the same people who read SlashDot and post comments. Whatever algorithm is used to distribute moderation points, it can be abused by trolls.
Try reading read this story at -1. Most comments are offtopic or real trolls. I'm sure that more than half or the comments to this story were made by people with no Perl programming experience at all.
This story is just too hard to understand for an average SlashDot user. Almost every on-topic comment has been moderated up (or down, as in this case) because they are rare compared to the noise.
An average moderator is probably a bit smarter than an average comment poster, but not much.
What bothers me is that moderators are not forced to moderate at -1 threshold. The moderator guidelines recommend it, but the system doesn't enforce it.
The guidelines also ask to concentrate on promoting, not demoting. But I believe that some moderators read the story at +2 and demote comments that they don't understand. Yet they almost don't see the real trolls to compare. Neither do they see good comments at +1.
Expecting a service to have holes (especially in the default install) is reasonable. But if a feature is believed likely to be broken, it shouldn't be in the release at all.