There was no editing on this. It's a submission from Nerval's Lobster, the account used to push [Business Intelligence|Cloud|Datacenter] articles (pronounced "paid content") as regular user-submitted articles. The summary links to two things:
Slashdot's own "Datacenter" article
A paywalled Wiley (publisher of technical books) Online Library article
Usually Nerval's Lobster promotes self-described tech-writer-gun-for-hire/Slashdot "editor" Nick Kolakowski's work. In this case, the author of the Slashdot content is Kevin Fogarty, who recently brought us such gems as thinly-disguised press releases for Cumulus Networks, Enterasys, and Heavy Reading, all of which use curiously-similar ambiguous stock photos from Shutterstock...
My guess: the people behind the article (which we can't read) paid for it to be summarized and posted on Slashdot so they could pursue further funding by claiming their work has been "featured" (legitimized) on Slashdot.
This has been going on for some time now with Nerval's Lobster. Many people have learned not to feed the troll (don't post comments on Nerval's Lobster submissions), but if you're just joining us, welcome! And try not to feed the troll.
I wonder why California felt the Bitcoin Foundation was in violation of the law, which states that the following entities are exempt from this licensing requirement:
An operator of a payment system to the extent that it provides processing, clearing, or settlement services, between or among persons excluded by this section, in connection with wire transfers, credit card transactions, debit card transactions, stored value transactions, automated clearing house transfers, or similar funds transfers, to the extent of its operation as such a provider.
If they're going to claim that the Bitcoin Foundation is engaged in the business of money transmission, wouldn't it be because they consider them to be the "operator of a payment system" as described in the law? Which would appear to exempt them from the licensing requirement.
people who cannot comprehend the difference between a priavte corporation, with your consent, sharing your information, and government agencies obtaining your email without warrant, are...
It seems you're right in that there is a difference between Facebook and the NSA. The NSA's system has a far cleaner track record. If only the NSA would let us join their social network we'd live in a safer world.
How long will you live? The Cookie will tell you! Subscription $10/Mt
At first I thought it was a sarcastic commentary about Facebook browser cookies having more information about you than they should, and having to pay to get the information out of them. Or perhaps the existence of Facebook cookies in your browser telling advertisers something about your intelligence, like users of IE versus Chrome. Then I noticed the fortune cookie drawing next to it. And I thought capchas were nearing sentience when they began to exhibit a sense of contextual humor.
If they could make planes that ran on time like Swiss trains, they might be on to something. Then again, it would be natural for a Swiss engineer to be frustrated with the inefficiencies of air travel and wonder why planes couldn't be more like trains... so that may be where this thinking comes from.
TFA says the idea is to be able to attach multiple modules to a plane, whether they are passengers or cargo, instead of behind a locomotive. It's my understanding that cargo flights have to be carefully balanced with loads strapped in place so they won't shift, whereas that's not a necessity on a train. This would add some complexity to the idea, but would be made more complex by the fact that you would have to know what position that cargo module was going to be in (left/center/right) and properly balance the module against whatever was going to be in the other modules. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's not as simple as bolting a rail car to the underbelly of an airplane.
He knew better than to buy the home, too. He was renting it and moved out a month ago. If he had bought it, the Feds would have seized it. The NSA opened a new operations center in Hawaii last year (it even has an optical data pipe disguised as a rainbow) and is probably looking for local land to store all the bits they've collected so far.
They will be $35 each, and there will be one in every household, unless they fail to meet their milestone of supplying 100,000 units by March 31. They expect to get a jump on this by procuring unused parts from the failed Aakash project.
As soon as the media announced the guy's name yesterday I went looking to find out who he is/how legitimate he sounds. People typically leave a lot of info out in the open about themselves before they suddenly became famous. Then again, an NSA employee would have covered his online presence pretty well. One of my first very simple hits was this:
Edward H Snowden
(Age 65+) Retired Porn Star @
State of California Dept. of Adult Films & Education
I figured the guy is probably legitimate then. That info is enough to make anyone want to stop looking, and makes him sound pretty "spooky." Of course, the NSA knows where to find him anyway, so he's probably SOL.
Doesn't stop some dumbass author from writing an article, or an editor who can't distinguishing between Windows desktop OS and Windows Server, from "predicting"/praying for the death of Microsoft via their lynx browsers.
Synerg1y, what you're seeing is a troll who is paid by slashdot to post insubstantial stories with provocative headlines that will drive page views.
Everything "Nerval's Lobster" submits is posted by the editors, and every submission links to a slashdot "Business Intelligence/Datacenter/Cloud" article, nearly always written by "Slashdot editor" Nick Kolakowski.
I'venotedthis numerous times, as have others, and the readership's gradual recognition that Nerval's Lobster submissions are trolling for pageviews has resulted in a significant drop in the number of comments on stories submitted by him. As a result, he has started posting throwaway links to random stuff (like the blog posting in this case) in addition to his own content to make the self-promotion less obvious.
Bottom line: Don't feed the troll. Don't comment on stories "submitted" by Nerval's Lobster.
To those who say "we should feed the troll, because slashdot must be in danger of failing if the editors are pushing this": I remind you of the Nerval's Lobster issue to praise slashdot, not to bury it. The evil that trolls do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their posts. So let it not be with slashdot.
Find an eccentric millionaire who is building a theme park on an island off Costa Rica related to your specialty
Agree to visit and endorse the park on the condition that said millionaire fund your operation for three years
Ensure funds are in your account before you get on the helcopter
Pack a large tranquilizer gun, laser pointer and sat phone
???
Non-Profit!!!
(most of this stuff should be obvious, but the laser pointer is included to help you pass the time making dinosaurs chase after the little red light while you wait to be rescued)
Even if the FDA or whoever in the US says this stuff is okay to eat the are, of course, going to want to determine that for themselves.
Just because the FDA approves something doesn't mean you want to put it in your mouth. Take Olestra for instance. The FDA had been hesitant to approve it for years because of concerns about side-effects, loss of fat-soluble vitamins and unknown long-term health effects. They gave in to pressure and approved it one day before the patent expired, automatically extending the patent by two years. I thought Olestra disappeared about 10 years ago with "WOW" Chips, but it turns out it's still in Lays Light and Pringles Light chips... the FDA just stopped requiring the anal leakage warning label.
Seems you got that wrong. They are fine for human consumption but some Luddites are worried that their god didn't create the crops so they won't buy them or eat them. So they starve with plenty of food available.
You misunderstand. The problem is that technophiles, Luddites, atheists, zealots and everyone in between are worried they will be compelled to worship and pay tithes to this new god Monsanto if they buy or eat Monsanto's grain. Whether they already have a god or not, that's a lot of commitment to ask for eating some bread.
Others see Monsanto more like the fictional crime lord Lao Che (who trades Indiana Jones a diamond for the ashes of the emperor of the first Manchu Dynasty and then poisons Jones's drink so he can "sell" him the antidote in exchange for the diamond), concerned that if they buy and eat Monsanto Che's poison grain, they will be compelled to buy and eat Monsanto Che's antidote for the rest of their lives.
Still others see Monsanto as a biological patent troll. Monsanto releases its identifiable GMO wheat into the wild, it spreads naturally and mixes with natural un-patented wheat, and then Monsanto sues everyone who has a trace of their Monsanto wheat in their wheat. It's sort of like using a crop duster to spray liquified radioactive shit all over other people's farms and then claiming they stole your fertilizer because their crops are radioactive. Not only is it disingenuous, but the edibility of the innocent farmers' crops is now questionable.
If you have one ant trekking across your kitchen to steal food, contaminating what it doesn't steal, you may not notice it. But if you have a swarm of ants trekking across the floor, you are more likely to notice them and take appropriate action. Unless you are a government agency, in which case you send a diplomat to tell the ants that if they don't stop you are going to get really slightly theatrically concerned, and the process of trying to figure out how to make a face that properly conveys that will make you annoyed at them.
The real question is which of the following is going to happen first:
The Chinese hackers attack the Iranian hackers before they draw attention to targets the Chinese want. If you're a spy infiltrating an installation and you come across some amateur spy who is also infiltrating, you kill the spy and hide the body in a ventilation shaft before he gets caught and the place gets locked down.
The Iranian hackers accidentally disable the systems that are giving the Chinese access to U.S. secrets.
I'm going to start an organization called ICANN, which is a shortening of "I CAN Nick any name I want" and sue ICANN for icann.org. They can change their flippin' name to ICANNT for all I care.
When to comes to offering warm yet visually efficient lighting, LEDs have a long way to go.
What would visually-efficient lighting look like? Would it not be so time consuming to watch?
As far as warmth goes, there are plenty of options for warm LED light bulbs right now:
Warm = 2700K
Bright White = 3000K
Daylight = 5000K
I have two of these 2700K bulbs installed in the ceiling fan here in my living room. I have no complaints about the light they provide, and the cost savings are significant. A warm bulb is not what you want in every situation... warm is good in a relaxing environment like the living room or bedroom, but in the kitchen and bathroom I have 5000K (Daylight) LED bulbs.
As far as them having "a long way to go," that sounds like what someone would say if they were trying to sell us some "new" unspecified kind of LED that they are only able to claim is better because not enough people have LED bulbs now to know they don't suck. Perfectly happy with mine. The only thing the manufacturers need to do now is bring the price down to drive wider adoption. Tell me this "new LED technology" will do that and you have my attention.
You're paying for the luxury of what appears to be the world's first high-end video card with a built-in speaker. Nvidia finally reached the point where the polygons their products could produce exceeded the nominal human capacity to perceive them, so now they've added the ability to hear the extra polygons you can't see, as ultra-soothing HD Brown noise! The only side effect is that it reduces your available gaming time by increasing the number of bathroom breaks you need to take.
Were you that overly-excited guy going from door to door in the dorms, announcing, "We're having a LAN party! Unplug your computer and bring it down to the 4th floor lounge!" To which I replied, "why don't I just stay here... I'm already connected."
I always felt like the point of having a LAN was so you could be far enough away that I couldn't hear you shrilly giggling about the ginormous zerg rush you were preparing to unleash upon me.
And if you look at benrothke's page on slashdot, you'll notice that he only has one comment and many submitted book reviews. His one comment:
Thank you for the comments. In my haste to get this review out, I was not as diligent in proofreading as I should have. With that, you are correct that information is their enemy. I hope my grammatical errors in the review don’t get in the way of Mr. Wrights important message. Thanks again.
That sounds like an apology to the author for making mistakes in the review, and he bends over backwards to call the author Mr. Wright and his book an "important message." Why was he in such a hurry to get the review out? Did the publisher give him a deadline?
He's definitely copying and pasting reviews written elsewhere. Check this submission out from January 27th:
In its first week, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Beliefwas #3 on the New York Times Best Sellers list and will likely be #1 soon. The fact that the book is in print is somewhat miraculous given the voracious appetite Scientology has for litigation.
The reviewer's Web site and LinkedIn profile both state "I review and recommend books on digital security, privacy and other relevant issues and write a monthly book review on topics of information security and privacy for Security Management magazine and Slashdot."
There's a theme in his reviews of either saying that the book is a must-read for _____, or suggesting that the only people who won't get a lot out of the book are people who don't understand how much they need it: "For the reader who may be indifferent to their need for change, the book may not be of full value to then." And "The only negative thing about the book is the over the top title, which I think detracts from the important message that is pervasive in it."
So if they ban it in soap, will people start washing their hands with Colgate's Total toothpaste? I'm sure there are already people who rub Colgate's "Optic White" in their eyes to whiten their vision.
Personally, I find the thought that we put that stuff in our mouths every day much more worrying than the use in soaps.
Perhaps you just need a brand in a shinier box? I suggest you try the new Crest 4D White toothpaste. It has every bit as much fluoride as 3D White, but comes in a new extra-shiny with sparklies box. Those matte boxes will make your teeth rot.
The day that Slashdot finally became a gossip mag has arrived.
I'd say it's becoming more like the techie version of the Howard Stern Show. McAfee is just one of the premier members of The Wack Pack, like High Pitch Erik. People are fascinated by train wrecks:
CrackAfee (John McAfee)
Crazy Lauren Guy (Lauren Weinstein) The name informs people up front to take Lauren's submissions with a grain of salt, and heads off all the uninformed incorrect gender-specific pronouns that inevitably get applied to him
Nick the Troll Prostitute (Nerval's Lobster) The name informs people up front that Nerval's Lobster is actually Nick Kolakowski, slashdot "editor" and self-described "literary gun for hire" who writes brief provocative opinion pieces (often about stories we've already discussed) and sells them to generate page views by pushing slashdotters' buttons (he's a paid troll)
I'm just surprised they didn't go with "McAfee's Home Set A Belize" for the headline.
The AC is right about the Orwellian two minutes hate. As soon as I read the headline I knew it would have been submitted by Nerval's Lobster and link to a slashdot/topic/cloud or slashdot/topic/bi opinion piece by Nick Kolakowski.
The headline evokes childish playground antics
The headline is about a news story we already covered yesterday
The headline takes the position that big company buying little company will ruin it, but provocatively flips it around to get a rise out of Slashdotters who will inevitably argue against it
Aspreviouslynoted, "Slashdot Editor" Nick Kolakowski is once again promoting his own "Business Intelligence/Cloud" opinion pieces under the guise of the fake user Nerval's Lobster. He's simply trolling for pageviews, as he does just about every weekday... but this one is particularly shameless, as he's writing something almost no one will believe about a story we discussed yesterday. It's almost like his day consists of reading the comments of slashdot stories to see what deeply-seated opinions he can play off the next day to justify his job.
Don't feed the troll. Don't comment on stories "submitted" by Nerval's Lobster.
Disclaimer: I am a former Washington Post journalist
First of all, TFA is at The Washington Times. That alone makes its credibility dubious. The Washington Times was founded by Sun Myung Moon (crazy "Unification Church" cult leader) who stated that the purpose of the "newspaper" was to be "the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world." Moon was convicted that same year of filing false federal income tax returns and conspiracy and served 13 months in prison. The Times has long been known as a conservative shill (although it has a decent sports section) that had to be financially supported by Moon's "church" to survive. Moon spent nearly $2 billion of his followers' money over 20 years to keep the paper afloat.
Second, The Washington Times article doesn't even claim to have done any reporting on its own... it cites some article from UPI that isn't readily available on UPI's home page or even by searching UPI for "IRS." Ultimately found the "article" here. It's a 9-paragraph blog posting. UPI was once a respectable news agency like AP or Reuters, but its relevance diminished to the point where it was bought out in 2000 by... you guessed it: Sun Myung Moon. UPI's White House correspondent retired the next day after 57 years with the organization. These days UPI doesn't even have a White House correspondent, and its finances have gotten so bad that it relies on free articles contributed by college students.
The UPI blog posting cites a Courthouse News Service article: John Doe Company sued 15 John Doe IRS agents in Superior Court. The plaintiff's attorney alleges that the records affected may include those of "politically controversial members of the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild, and prominent citizens in the world of entertainment, business and government, from all walks of life." He goes on to complain that the unnamed IRS agents "decided to use John Doe Company's media system to watch basketball, ordering pizza and Coca-Cola, to take in part of the NCAA tournament," but "Plaintiff's attorney Robert E. Barnes declined to elaborate on the complaint's allegations, saying he will have more information 'in a few months.'"
Why publish a story no one can verify, since all you can say for now is that that unnamed people at the IRS are illegally snooping on unnamed politically controversial people through an unnamed medical firm? Because it helps fuel the fire driving the current Republican party line of "the IRS is evil and Obama is responsible." Because some ignorant blogger might pick it up and run with it, thinking that The Washington Times and UPI are real news organizations, and not even bother to look for the source of this story. Great job Timothy.
It's the next episode in MacFarlane's Star Wars remake series. Remember, at the beginning of Blue Harvest Peter said "let's start with part four." He then went on to do parts five and six, so now he's going back to do part one to explain how it all began, only on a grander scale, possibly with Tom Hanks voicing a long-eared character with a pull string who is like the Forrest Gump of the universe. It will require RealPlayer 7 to watch.
Slashdot Mirror
Usually Nerval's Lobster promotes self-described tech-writer-gun-for-hire/Slashdot "editor" Nick Kolakowski's work. In this case, the author of the Slashdot content is Kevin Fogarty, who recently brought us such gems as thinly-disguised press releases for Cumulus Networks, Enterasys, and Heavy Reading, all of which use curiously-similar ambiguous stock photos from Shutterstock... My guess: the people behind the article (which we can't read) paid for it to be summarized and posted on Slashdot so they could pursue further funding by claiming their work has been "featured" (legitimized) on Slashdot.
This has been going on for some time now with Nerval's Lobster. Many people have learned not to feed the troll (don't post comments on Nerval's Lobster submissions), but if you're just joining us, welcome! And try not to feed the troll.
An operator of a payment system to the extent that it provides processing, clearing, or settlement services, between or among persons excluded by this section, in connection with wire transfers, credit card transactions, debit card transactions, stored value transactions, automated clearing house transfers, or similar funds transfers, to the extent of its operation as such a provider.
If they're going to claim that the Bitcoin Foundation is engaged in the business of money transmission, wouldn't it be because they consider them to be the "operator of a payment system" as described in the law? Which would appear to exempt them from the licensing requirement.
people, at least not that i know of.
people who cannot comprehend the difference between a priavte corporation, with your consent, sharing your information, and government agencies obtaining your email without warrant, are...
Facebook use leads to Arrest
5/26/13 In Britain, Police Arrest Twitter and Facebook Users If They Make Anti-Muslim Statements
Facebook use leads to Imprisonment
5/25/13 Jailed for Facebook Comments, Marine Sues
Facebook use leads to Rape
5/28/13 Facebook Rape Joke Prompts 15 Companies to Pull Ads
Facebook use leads to Killing
2/09/12 Facebook "Defriending" Led to Double Murder, Police Say
It seems you're right in that there is a difference between Facebook and the NSA. The NSA's system has a far cleaner track record. If only the NSA would let us join their social network we'd live in a safer world.
How long will you live? The Cookie will tell you!
Subscription $10/Mt
At first I thought it was a sarcastic commentary about Facebook browser cookies having more information about you than they should, and having to pay to get the information out of them. Or perhaps the existence of Facebook cookies in your browser telling advertisers something about your intelligence, like users of IE versus Chrome. Then I noticed the fortune cookie drawing next to it. And I thought capchas were nearing sentience when they began to exhibit a sense of contextual humor.
If they could make planes that ran on time like Swiss trains, they might be on to something. Then again, it would be natural for a Swiss engineer to be frustrated with the inefficiencies of air travel and wonder why planes couldn't be more like trains... so that may be where this thinking comes from.
TFA says the idea is to be able to attach multiple modules to a plane, whether they are passengers or cargo, instead of behind a locomotive. It's my understanding that cargo flights have to be carefully balanced with loads strapped in place so they won't shift, whereas that's not a necessity on a train. This would add some complexity to the idea, but would be made more complex by the fact that you would have to know what position that cargo module was going to be in (left/center/right) and properly balance the module against whatever was going to be in the other modules. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's not as simple as bolting a rail car to the underbelly of an airplane.
Home in Hawaii.
He knew better than to buy the home, too. He was renting it and moved out a month ago. If he had bought it, the Feds would have seized it. The NSA opened a new operations center in Hawaii last year (it even has an optical data pipe disguised as a rainbow) and is probably looking for local land to store all the bits they've collected so far.
They will be $35 each, and there will be one in every household, unless they fail to meet their milestone of supplying 100,000 units by March 31. They expect to get a jump on this by procuring unused parts from the failed Aakash project.
Edward H Snowden
(Age 65+) Retired Porn Star @
State of California Dept. of Adult
Films & Education
I figured the guy is probably legitimate then. That info is enough to make anyone want to stop looking, and makes him sound pretty "spooky." Of course, the NSA knows where to find him anyway, so he's probably SOL.
Consumer MS has been declining for a while now.
Doesn't stop some dumbass author from writing an article, or an editor who can't distinguishing between Windows desktop OS and Windows Server, from "predicting"/praying for the death of Microsoft via their lynx browsers.
Synerg1y, what you're seeing is a troll who is paid by slashdot to post insubstantial stories with provocative headlines that will drive page views. Everything "Nerval's Lobster" submits is posted by the editors, and every submission links to a slashdot "Business Intelligence/Datacenter/Cloud" article, nearly always written by "Slashdot editor" Nick Kolakowski.
I've noted this numerous times, as have others, and the readership's gradual recognition that Nerval's Lobster submissions are trolling for pageviews has resulted in a significant drop in the number of comments on stories submitted by him. As a result, he has started posting throwaway links to random stuff (like the blog posting in this case) in addition to his own content to make the self-promotion less obvious.
Bottom line: Don't feed the troll. Don't comment on stories "submitted" by Nerval's Lobster.
To those who say "we should feed the troll, because slashdot must be in danger of failing if the editors are pushing this": I remind you of the Nerval's Lobster issue to praise slashdot, not to bury it. The evil that trolls do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their posts. So let it not be with slashdot.
(most of this stuff should be obvious, but the laser pointer is included to help you pass the time making dinosaurs chase after the little red light while you wait to be rescued)
Even if the FDA or whoever in the US says this stuff is okay to eat the are, of course, going to want to determine that for themselves.
Just because the FDA approves something doesn't mean you want to put it in your mouth. Take Olestra for instance. The FDA had been hesitant to approve it for years because of concerns about side-effects, loss of fat-soluble vitamins and unknown long-term health effects. They gave in to pressure and approved it one day before the patent expired, automatically extending the patent by two years. I thought Olestra disappeared about 10 years ago with "WOW" Chips, but it turns out it's still in Lays Light and Pringles Light chips... the FDA just stopped requiring the anal leakage warning label.
Seems you got that wrong. They are fine for human consumption but some Luddites are worried that their god didn't create the crops so they won't buy them or eat them. So they starve with plenty of food available.
You misunderstand. The problem is that technophiles, Luddites, atheists, zealots and everyone in between are worried they will be compelled to worship and pay tithes to this new god Monsanto if they buy or eat Monsanto's grain. Whether they already have a god or not, that's a lot of commitment to ask for eating some bread.
Others see Monsanto more like the fictional crime lord Lao Che (who trades Indiana Jones a diamond for the ashes of the emperor of the first Manchu Dynasty and then poisons Jones's drink so he can "sell" him the antidote in exchange for the diamond), concerned that if they buy and eat Monsanto Che's poison grain, they will be compelled to buy and eat Monsanto Che's antidote for the rest of their lives.
Still others see Monsanto as a biological patent troll. Monsanto releases its identifiable GMO wheat into the wild, it spreads naturally and mixes with natural un-patented wheat, and then Monsanto sues everyone who has a trace of their Monsanto wheat in their wheat. It's sort of like using a crop duster to spray liquified radioactive shit all over other people's farms and then claiming they stole your fertilizer because their crops are radioactive. Not only is it disingenuous, but the edibility of the innocent farmers' crops is now questionable.
The real question is which of the following is going to happen first:
Why hasn't someone made a sitcom about this yet?
I'm going to start an organization called ICANN, which is a shortening of "I CAN Nick any name I want" and sue ICANN for icann.org. They can change their flippin' name to ICANNT for all I care.
When to comes to offering warm yet visually efficient lighting, LEDs have a long way to go.
What would visually-efficient lighting look like? Would it not be so time consuming to watch?
As far as warmth goes, there are plenty of options for warm LED light bulbs right now:
I have two of these 2700K bulbs installed in the ceiling fan here in my living room. I have no complaints about the light they provide, and the cost savings are significant. A warm bulb is not what you want in every situation... warm is good in a relaxing environment like the living room or bedroom, but in the kitchen and bathroom I have 5000K (Daylight) LED bulbs.
As far as them having "a long way to go," that sounds like what someone would say if they were trying to sell us some "new" unspecified kind of LED that they are only able to claim is better because not enough people have LED bulbs now to know they don't suck. Perfectly happy with mine. The only thing the manufacturers need to do now is bring the price down to drive wider adoption. Tell me this "new LED technology" will do that and you have my attention.
You're paying for the luxury of what appears to be the world's first high-end video card with a built-in speaker. Nvidia finally reached the point where the polygons their products could produce exceeded the nominal human capacity to perceive them, so now they've added the ability to hear the extra polygons you can't see, as ultra-soothing HD Brown noise! The only side effect is that it reduces your available gaming time by increasing the number of bathroom breaks you need to take.
LAN parties never made much sense to me.
Were you that overly-excited guy going from door to door in the dorms, announcing, "We're having a LAN party! Unplug your computer and bring it down to the 4th floor lounge!" To which I replied, "why don't I just stay here... I'm already connected."
I always felt like the point of having a LAN was so you could be far enough away that I couldn't hear you shrilly giggling about the ginormous zerg rush you were preparing to unleash upon me.
Thank you for the comments. In my haste to get this review out, I was not as diligent in proofreading as I should have. With that, you are correct that information is their enemy. I hope my grammatical errors in the review don’t get in the way of Mr. Wrights important message. Thanks again.
That sounds like an apology to the author for making mistakes in the review, and he bends over backwards to call the author Mr. Wright and his book an "important message." Why was he in such a hurry to get the review out? Did the publisher give him a deadline?
He's definitely copying and pasting reviews written elsewhere. Check this submission out from January 27th:
"Untitled documentol{margin:0;padding:0}.c5{max-width:468pt;background-color:#ffffff;padding:72pt 72pt 72pt 72pt}.c0{color:#1155cc;font-size:12pt;text-decoration:underline}.c3{color:inherit;text-decoration:inherit}.c2{text-align:justify;direction:ltr}.c4{height:11pt;direction:ltr}.c1{font-size:12pt}.c7{font-style:italic}.c8{height:11pt}.c6{direction:ltr}.title{padding-top:24pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#000000;font-size:36pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:bold;padding-bottom:6pt}.subtitle{padding-top:18pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666666;font-style:italic;font-size:24pt;font-family:"Georgia";padding-bottom:4pt}li{color:#000000;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Arial"}p{color:#000000;font-size:11pt;margin:0;font-family:"Arial"}h1{padding-top:24pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#000000;font-size:18pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:bold;padding-bottom:6pt}h2{padding-top:18pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#000000;font-size:14pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:bold;padding-bottom:4pt}h3{padding-top:14pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666666;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:bold;padding-bottom:4pt}h4{padding-top:12pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666666;font-style:italic;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Arial";padding-bottom:2pt}h5{padding-top:11pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666666;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:bold;padding-bottom:2pt}h6{padding-top:10pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666666;font-style:italic;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Arial";padding-bottom:2pt}
In its first week, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Beliefwas #3 on the New York Times Best Sellers list and will likely be #1 soon. The fact that the book is in print is somewhat miraculous given the voracious appetite Scientology has for litigation.
And this from January 21:
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The reviewer's Web site and LinkedIn profile both state "I review and recommend books on digital security, privacy and other relevant issues and write a monthly book review on topics of information security and privacy for Security Management magazine and Slashdot."
The reviewer reviews IT books on Amazon like clockwork, almost always 7 or 8 days between reviews, which are always positive, written like marketing material and always give 4 or 5 stars:
May 20, 2013 Locked Down: Information Security for Lawyers 5 Stars
May 13, 2013 The Plateau Effect: Getting from Stuck to Success 4 Stars
May 7, 2013 Secure Coding in C and C++ (2nd Edition) (SEI Series in Software Engineering) 5 Stars
May 1, 2013 Cybersecurity: Public Sector Threats and Responses (Public Administration and Public Policy) 4 Stars
April 22, 2013 Applied Information Security: A Hands-on Approach 4 Stars
April 15, 2013 The Death of the Internet 5 Stars
April 8, 2013 Applied Cyber Security and the Smart Grid: Implementing Security Controls into the Modern Power Infrastructure 4 Stars
March 28, 2013 Introduction to Computer Networks and Cybersecurity 4 Stars
March 20, 2013 Managing Risk and Information Security: Protect to Enable 4 Stars
(362 Reviews total)
There's a theme in his reviews of either saying that the book is a must-read for _____, or suggesting that the only people who won't get a lot out of the book are people who don't understand how much they need it: "For the reader who may be indifferent to their need for change, the book may not be of full value to then." And "The only negative thing about the book is the over the top title, which I think detracts from the important message that is pervasive in it."
So if they ban it in soap, will people start washing their hands with Colgate's Total toothpaste? I'm sure there are already people who rub Colgate's "Optic White" in their eyes to whiten their vision.
Personally, I find the thought that we put that stuff in our mouths every day much more worrying than the use in soaps.
Perhaps you just need a brand in a shinier box? I suggest you try the new Crest 4D White toothpaste. It has every bit as much fluoride as 3D White, but comes in a new extra-shiny with sparklies box. Those matte boxes will make your teeth rot.
The day that Slashdot finally became a gossip mag has arrived.
I'd say it's becoming more like the techie version of the Howard Stern Show. McAfee is just one of the premier members of The Wack Pack, like High Pitch Erik. People are fascinated by train wrecks:
The name informs people up front to take Lauren's submissions with a grain of salt, and heads off all the uninformed incorrect gender-specific pronouns that inevitably get applied to him
The name informs people up front that Nerval's Lobster is actually Nick Kolakowski, slashdot "editor" and self-described "literary gun for hire" who writes brief provocative opinion pieces (often about stories we've already discussed) and sells them to generate page views by pushing slashdotters' buttons (he's a paid troll)
I'm just surprised they didn't go with "McAfee's Home Set A Belize" for the headline.
As previously noted, "Slashdot Editor" Nick Kolakowski is once again promoting his own "Business Intelligence/Cloud" opinion pieces under the guise of the fake user Nerval's Lobster. He's simply trolling for pageviews, as he does just about every weekday... but this one is particularly shameless, as he's writing something almost no one will believe about a story we discussed yesterday. It's almost like his day consists of reading the comments of slashdot stories to see what deeply-seated opinions he can play off the next day to justify his job.
Don't feed the troll. Don't comment on stories "submitted" by Nerval's Lobster.
Disclaimer: I am a former Washington Post journalist
First of all, TFA is at The Washington Times. That alone makes its credibility dubious. The Washington Times was founded by Sun Myung Moon (crazy "Unification Church" cult leader) who stated that the purpose of the "newspaper" was to be "the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world." Moon was convicted that same year of filing false federal income tax returns and conspiracy and served 13 months in prison. The Times has long been known as a conservative shill (although it has a decent sports section) that had to be financially supported by Moon's "church" to survive. Moon spent nearly $2 billion of his followers' money over 20 years to keep the paper afloat.
Second, The Washington Times article doesn't even claim to have done any reporting on its own... it cites some article from UPI that isn't readily available on UPI's home page or even by searching UPI for "IRS." Ultimately found the "article" here. It's a 9-paragraph blog posting. UPI was once a respectable news agency like AP or Reuters, but its relevance diminished to the point where it was bought out in 2000 by... you guessed it: Sun Myung Moon. UPI's White House correspondent retired the next day after 57 years with the organization. These days UPI doesn't even have a White House correspondent, and its finances have gotten so bad that it relies on free articles contributed by college students.
The UPI blog posting cites a Courthouse News Service article: John Doe Company sued 15 John Doe IRS agents in Superior Court. The plaintiff's attorney alleges that the records affected may include those of "politically controversial members of the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild, and prominent citizens in the world of entertainment, business and government, from all walks of life." He goes on to complain that the unnamed IRS agents "decided to use John Doe Company's media system to watch basketball, ordering pizza and Coca-Cola, to take in part of the NCAA tournament," but "Plaintiff's attorney Robert E. Barnes declined to elaborate on the complaint's allegations, saying he will have more information 'in a few months.'"
Why publish a story no one can verify, since all you can say for now is that that unnamed people at the IRS are illegally snooping on unnamed politically controversial people through an unnamed medical firm? Because it helps fuel the fire driving the current Republican party line of "the IRS is evil and Obama is responsible." Because some ignorant blogger might pick it up and run with it, thinking that The Washington Times and UPI are real news organizations, and not even bother to look for the source of this story. Great job Timothy.
It's the next episode in MacFarlane's Star Wars remake series. Remember, at the beginning of Blue Harvest Peter said "let's start with part four." He then went on to do parts five and six, so now he's going back to do part one to explain how it all began, only on a grander scale, possibly with Tom Hanks voicing a long-eared character with a pull string who is like the Forrest Gump of the universe. It will require RealPlayer 7 to watch.