LOL - no worries. Given the 'no reading the TFA' I did think it was funny.
Side-note: One personal metric for how mature a web site is is whether or not the username "MikeTheGreat" is taken. I was MikeTheGreat on BitBucket but had to fall back to MikeTheTall on GitHub:)
The article is fine, and it's actually nice to see something that's written some a more diverse (at least, non-US) perspective. It really struck me, and caused me to think about how all y'all non-US people must see all the (other) politics articles here on/.
...when there's a Slashdot article about the U.S. This political story is nice and all, but none of these names even ring a bell, let alone mean anything:)
Note that this is audience-specific--if you're writing for/., you shouldn't have to say...
Agreed - that's exactly what I'm pushing. Here on/. we should be expected to know about technology, or have enough interest to go look it up (or be mature enough to ignore it). One of the ways that/. can differentiate itself from other websites is by attracting a more technically proficient audience, and part of that is to implicitly establish the 'floor' of knowledge expected of participants.
Personally, I find this to be a good way to figure out what I ought to know - if something comes up and I don't know what it is I might ignore it the first time. And the second time. By the third time it's clear that I need to know more about it because clearly it's important.
If you have to ask, you should first look it up, then ask an informed question
One of the reasons why I come here is to be exposed to tech that I haven't seen before. See something that you're not familiar with? Look it up! Especially for this topic - "Xamarin", just by itself, is an extremely unique search term thus enabling you to self-educate with almost no effort. And today the whole Xamarin+VS is at the top of any search results for either.
Slashdot is "news for nerds", not "news for people who kinda like plunking around on their computers in between their online first-person shooter games but don't really want to have to, y'know, think about this stuff"
Can I (genuinely) ask why people want Unicode? It seems like all the articles that are linked to are in English (or a European language with the same alphabet + accent marks) so I don't quite follow why people want read article text and post comments in Unicode.
Thank you for doing this! I didn't realize how much I loved and missed this site until I finally, finally admitted to myself that it's just not the same place anymore. This first step has me more hopeful for/. than I've been in years!
I want to support the idea of having actual humans choosing the stories.
My understanding of the firehose is that it's supposed to automate/crowd-source the stories we see, but when you've got valid accounts used by spammers to place their stories/comments then it no longer works. Even if the firehose is used to make something more noticeable to the editors we still need actual humans preventing stealth slashvertisements, etc.
I just wanted to support the idea of detecting & displaying controversial posts - it's a really good idea!
I could imagine an implementation wherein readers might have a checkbox available to them (perhaps right next to the 'what level do you want to browse at?' slider) to turn the display of controversial posts on / off. But having a checkbox vs. always showing them vs. something else is just details - the main thing is that this is a really good idea.
I agree that the moderation system largely takes care of the trolls.
I think that 'Slashvertisements' are much, much worse. You'll see a string of articles for some product/service/etc over a couple of weeks or so that are clearly being paid for by somebody, and then their budget is spent and the articles stop. Bitcoin had a run like this, as did solar power, and a couple of others.
...but isn't this the equivalent of going over to a bunch of kids on the playground and saying "That new kid over there said he could beat up each and every one of you! With one hand tied behind his back!"
What I'm wondering is: who paid to have this on/.'s front page so that armies of geekdom are mobilized to find all the new, Edgy exploits?
I always wondered why 'Star Trek' characters seemed to spend a good fraction of the episodes rebuilding critical parts of their spaceship/gun/etc on the fly, under duress, and with a limited amount of time. I mean yes, obviously, some of it was just good (suspenseful) TV, but it's interesting to hear that there was actually an era when the person doing the engineering work would later be the one to actually go on the mission. Maybe they modeled Star Trek off people like this guy.
So aside from the details of this particular incident, why doesn't this happen more?
I want to be clear that I don't want this to happen, it's clearly a bad, bad thing when it does, but think of it this way: Each term (semester, quarter) millions of people enroll in classes. Tens of thousands of classes. Business 101, Advanced Operating System Design, Underwater Basket Weaving, whatever. Statistically it's very unlikely that any given class will fail (there's probably at least one person who's going to do the work well enough to pass) but over the whole set of classes, term after term, year after year, shouldn't we expect to see this happen at least once every so often?
After reading just the title I thought that they were bragging - other people have figured out how to use just NAND gates to build their computers (theoretically) - WE USE ONLY XOR!!!!!:)
(Thankfully, the summary cleared it right up for me)
The cost of producing a large amount of well-thought out, cohesive, modular, high-visual-quality video is in the labor, not the cost of the tech. What the professor is saying is that she doesn't have the time to write 200 hours of script (or even write out 200 hours worth of detailed notes), record the 200 hours (which'll take more than that to record - no-one can do 200 hours of high-quality video on the first take), go back and edit stuff (even just cutting out uhms & ahs takes long than you think - step 1 will be to re-watch the 200 hours of video to find them:) ), etc, etc.
The $100,000 figure struck me as being weird, as well, but the professor's point is that producing 10 hours of video for each of 20 lessons in addition to all the other course materials is way, way too much to just demand that someone do.
Besides, for stuff like this you mostly want a good book anyways. Something that you can read a short paragraph of, stop and think about for a bit, come back and re-read in order to make sure that you got it, read another paragraph the same way, maybe work through a problem or two. Videos of this would be nice, but they're window-dressing around the main event.
Isn't this how the XBox became the XBox? They released the code name of their internal project, people kept using the name, and then they just stuck with it?
On the one hand "Microsoft Spartan" doesn't seem corporate enough. On the other hand it'll fit right in with Firefox & Chrome, which also have non-descriptive names that are pan-inoffensive yet interesting...
Reading this my first thought was "What if that single-service company goes out of business?" Is it really any different for a single-focus company to go out of business than for a Google (etc) product to be discontinued?
I loved Google Reader too, and was happy to be able to move over to Feedly pretty easily because Reader allowed me to export my data.
Maybe what we really want is not companies that have a single focus, but rather companies that allow us to move our data/patronage elsewhere?
Slashdot Mirror
LOL - no worries. Given the 'no reading the TFA' I did think it was funny.
Side-note: One personal metric for how mature a web site is is whether or not the username "MikeTheGreat" is taken. I was MikeTheGreat on BitBucket but had to fall back to MikeTheTall on GitHub :)
I know that it's a tradition here on /. to never read TFA, but Zune is actually #2 on that list.
Next time I'm going to be more clear about what I'm trying to convey.
I wasn't criticizing the summary, I was amused by it, and then reflected that most non-US visitor probably feel like this all the time.
Clearly I need to use more smiley faces next time. :) :) :) :)
The article is fine, and it's actually nice to see something that's written some a more diverse (at least, non-US) perspective. It really struck me, and caused me to think about how all y'all non-US people must see all the (other) politics articles here on /.
...when there's a Slashdot article about the U.S. :)
This political story is nice and all, but none of these names even ring a bell, let alone mean anything
Note that this is audience-specific--if you're writing for /., you shouldn't have to say...
Agreed - that's exactly what I'm pushing. Here on /. we should be expected to know about technology, or have enough interest to go look it up (or be mature enough to ignore it). One of the ways that /. can differentiate itself from other websites is by attracting a more technically proficient audience, and part of that is to implicitly establish the 'floor' of knowledge expected of participants.
Personally, I find this to be a good way to figure out what I ought to know - if something comes up and I don't know what it is I might ignore it the first time. And the second time. By the third time it's clear that I need to know more about it because clearly it's important.
Also - I love your technology examples :)
If you have to ask, you should first look it up, then ask an informed question
One of the reasons why I come here is to be exposed to tech that I haven't seen before. See something that you're not familiar with? Look it up!
Especially for this topic - "Xamarin", just by itself, is an extremely unique search term thus enabling you to self-educate with almost no effort. And today the whole Xamarin+VS is at the top of any search results for either.
Slashdot is "news for nerds", not "news for people who kinda like plunking around on their computers in between their online first-person shooter games but don't really want to have to, y'know, think about this stuff"
Can I (genuinely) ask why people want Unicode?
It seems like all the articles that are linked to are in English (or a European language with the same alphabet + accent marks) so I don't quite follow why people want read article text and post comments in Unicode.
It's really, really nice to make Slashdot part of my 'daily rounds' of websites again. Thank you so very much for everything you've done!
Thank you for doing this! I didn't realize how much I loved and missed this site until I finally, finally admitted to myself that it's just not the same place anymore. This first step has me more hopeful for /. than I've been in years!
I want to support the idea of having actual humans choosing the stories.
My understanding of the firehose is that it's supposed to automate/crowd-source the stories we see, but when you've got valid accounts used by spammers to place their stories/comments then it no longer works. Even if the firehose is used to make something more noticeable to the editors we still need actual humans preventing stealth slashvertisements, etc.
I just wanted to support the idea of detecting & displaying controversial posts - it's a really good idea!
I could imagine an implementation wherein readers might have a checkbox available to them (perhaps right next to the 'what level do you want to browse at?' slider) to turn the display of controversial posts on / off.
But having a checkbox vs. always showing them vs. something else is just details - the main thing is that this is a really good idea.
I agree that the moderation system largely takes care of the trolls.
I think that 'Slashvertisements' are much, much worse. You'll see a string of articles for some product/service/etc over a couple of weeks or so that are clearly being paid for by somebody, and then their budget is spent and the articles stop. Bitcoin had a run like this, as did solar power, and a couple of others.
Is Amazon dropping all other streaming devices that don't support Prime Video? And if not, will that undermine their argument?
All of which is really putting the cart before the horse - in terms of legal arguments, does their rationale actually hold any water to start with?
...but isn't this the equivalent of going over to a bunch of kids on the playground and saying "That new kid over there said he could beat up each and every one of you! With one hand tied behind his back!"
What I'm wondering is: who paid to have this on /.'s front page so that armies of geekdom are mobilized to find all the new, Edgy exploits?
I always wondered why 'Star Trek' characters seemed to spend a good fraction of the episodes rebuilding critical parts of their spaceship/gun/etc on the fly, under duress, and with a limited amount of time. I mean yes, obviously, some of it was just good (suspenseful) TV, but it's interesting to hear that there was actually an era when the person doing the engineering work would later be the one to actually go on the mission. Maybe they modeled Star Trek off people like this guy.
Parent poster is incredibly insightful (and articulate AND concise)! I wish I had mod points!!
So aside from the details of this particular incident, why doesn't this happen more?
I want to be clear that I don't want this to happen, it's clearly a bad, bad thing when it does, but think of it this way: Each term (semester, quarter) millions of people enroll in classes. Tens of thousands of classes. Business 101, Advanced Operating System Design, Underwater Basket Weaving, whatever. Statistically it's very unlikely that any given class will fail (there's probably at least one person who's going to do the work well enough to pass) but over the whole set of classes, term after term, year after year, shouldn't we expect to see this happen at least once every so often?
Much though I enjoy the multi-hundred-comment threads where we all scream at each other about politics, why is this here?
How is this 'news for nerds'? I mean, even the summary has given up on trying to even mention technology/nerdy stuff.
That's awesome!
I knew that it's possible but I couldn't remember if anyone had actually done it or not so I hedged and threw in 'theoretically'. Whoops :)
After reading just the title I thought that they were bragging - other people have figured out how to use just NAND gates to build their computers (theoretically) - WE USE ONLY XOR!!!!! :)
(Thankfully, the summary cleared it right up for me)
The cost of producing a large amount of well-thought out, cohesive, modular, high-visual-quality video is in the labor, not the cost of the tech. What the professor is saying is that she doesn't have the time to write 200 hours of script (or even write out 200 hours worth of detailed notes), record the 200 hours (which'll take more than that to record - no-one can do 200 hours of high-quality video on the first take), go back and edit stuff (even just cutting out uhms & ahs takes long than you think - step 1 will be to re-watch the 200 hours of video to find them :) ), etc, etc.
The $100,000 figure struck me as being weird, as well, but the professor's point is that producing 10 hours of video for each of 20 lessons in addition to all the other course materials is way, way too much to just demand that someone do.
Besides, for stuff like this you mostly want a good book anyways. Something that you can read a short paragraph of, stop and think about for a bit, come back and re-read in order to make sure that you got it, read another paragraph the same way, maybe work through a problem or two. Videos of this would be nice, but they're window-dressing around the main event.
Isn't this how the XBox became the XBox? They released the code name of their internal project, people kept using the name, and then they just stuck with it?
On the one hand "Microsoft Spartan" doesn't seem corporate enough. On the other hand it'll fit right in with Firefox & Chrome, which also have non-descriptive names that are pan-inoffensive yet interesting...
With no money, how can you afford to drive?
(Are you driving your parent's car while you're still a teenager?)
Reading this my first thought was "What if that single-service company goes out of business?" Is it really any different for a single-focus company to go out of business than for a Google (etc) product to be discontinued?
I loved Google Reader too, and was happy to be able to move over to Feedly pretty easily because Reader allowed me to export my data.
Maybe what we really want is not companies that have a single focus, but rather companies that allow us to move our data/patronage elsewhere?