Actually, although I did post the original monkey moderation, I did not post the reply. Monkey moderation started here on posts wegarding the webmonkey article by Jon Katz... on post 103 a couple of weeks ago. They were made as a method to combat trolling and make useless trolls a bit more creative and funny (which, I admit... is in the eye of the beholder). They're only used as a response to a troll, never as the start of a new thread.
Though your troll has caused me to respond, don't take it as if I really care or anything. Monkey moderation was done for my sole enjoyment, though I hoped some others would catch on (and a few did).
Now I've throttled my moderations down to a maximum of one per story... usually in response to a braindead troll or extremely misguided post.
This post has been selected for a monkey moderation.
Due to this post, a monkey with antlers strapped to its head was set free in a forest in Mebane, North Carolina. An hour later, the monkey was found dead... strapped to the hood of some yokel's truck.
Due to this post, a monkey was strapped to the back of a motorcycle, which was then sent at great speed toward a freight train. We had meant for the motorcycle to jump over the train; However, our technicians forgot to set up the ramp.
There was a tremendous impact as the motorcycle slammed into the train. Unfortunately, the monkey did not survive this encounter.
I feel that I've outdone myself with this latest Masterpiece of Monkey Moderation, and to celebrate... I'm revealing my secret identity.
I can't take credit for every one of the monkey moderations you've all seen, but I've posted all but a couple that I know of. I've actually hoped it'd catch on a bit more than it has, but alas... I was unable to keep up with so many trolls on my own.
You'll still see the occasional monkey moderation from me. I'm not going to let this die easily... but from now on, I'll honestly take the karma hits as they come.
Here's to Monkey Moderation in all it's Glory (hehe)... may it continue!
Sadly, I just found out that I am actually not the first to post this site. Though I fervently believe that the Notorious SPAM Cam should win on its own merits, I defer to the poster who mentioned this site first. Hopefully my own descrition was entertaining enough to keep the redundancy factor down a bit.:)
I agree! I posted it as well (sadly... before seeing you had already posted it). This page fits like none other I have ever seen!:) As soon as I saw their contest, I remembered The Notorious Spam Cam from a couple years ago. Good Post! You deserve to win if they pick it...
I've seen a lot of posts involving SPAM, but none yet that have mentioned this site. The owners of the site have done several experiments based on SPAM's remarkable ability to rot. The experiments run the gamut from the silly to the overwhelmingly disgusting.
The lab notes from experiment two are especially descriptive of the smells that rotting tomato, rotting SPAM, rotting (amazing!) Twinkies, and rotting Jello Jigglers can emit, but could certainly benefit well from smell tags. Also in those same lab notes is a horrific rendition of how the rotten tomato perpetrated violence upon the hapless twinkie as it lay there peacefully on the plate (the twinkie didn't rot until the tomato killed it... alas.)
A quote from the site: How does Spam decompose compared to other organic materials? View the daily decay. Each day is fuzzier, grittier, slimier, and smellier than before. Visit often.
The experiments sadly stopped a couple of years back, but the page has remained for posterity. Perhaps my post here will spark the interests of other budding scientists to continue their research. In my opinion, having the actual smells of the experiments would increase the overall assault on one's senses quite nicely.
Try something unique post an on-topic Haiku off-topic poster!
Aluminum case our most expensive product Innovative? NOT!
They advertise that their "Yuri" case weighs in at only six pounds. I say "Big whoop." When you put the power supply and other components in it, it really isn't going to make that much of a difference. I doubt the type of person who'd buy one of these would be lugging it around anyways, all that fancy plastic trim scratches and dirties up quite easily.
There seems to be too much embellishment on this site for my taste, and not in the areas where a good case can make a real difference. I prefer a manufacturer that primarily concentrates on good airflow and component placement rather than weight and looks.
I always look forward to Jon Katz's "Articles"... the comments they elicit are absolutely hilarious! While most writers and enthusiasts encourage civilized discussion by posting only when there is something substantial to post, Jon Katz posts seem to be a signal for all the kooks, comedians, and critics to crawl out of the woodwork and start blathering. (Just like I am right now.) They seem to work on the same level as Slashdot surveys.
The heck with the movies... I'm waiting for the next Jon Katz article to come rolling in.
I hate PC as much as the next guy, but this title needs to be chenged to something more gender neutral.
Actually, if you'd go to the site and read the article, you'd notice that your gripe has been rendered moot. It's Time's "Person of the Year". Jon Katz posted it as "Man of the Year"...
Fixing The Hubble Space Telescope (an essay by Monkeysoft)
Technology has made many of our nation's essential services -- utilities, banking, communications, transportation, health care, and telescopes -- enormously more productive and reliable.
Yet, while we take for granted many of technology's benefits, concerns over issues like Yanni, mischievous monkey corporations, ritz crackers and even the President's haircut raise legitimate questions about our preparedness for Global Domination.
That's why the announcement last week of the creation of an industry-government alliance -- the Partnership for Critical Telescope Security -- was so important. The partnership was formed in part to address potential threats to and vulnerabilities of the telescopes and monkeys upon which our nation's essential services depend.
As Arid-zona Senator Jon Katz, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Telescopes, Turkeys and Government Terrorism, noted at a congressional hearing in October, "virtually every key service is dependent on monkeys: from electric donkey bottom wipers to phoney hairpieces, telescopes, pizza delivery and strip-o-gram services, "medical devices" [and] embezzling."
According to Senator Katz, the National Insecurity Agency has evidence that more than 100 countries are working on monkey warfare techniques. Katz cited reports of breaches of the digestive systems of the Defense and Energy departments, of ritz crackers gaining access to the women of leading telecommunications companies, the national powerless grid and air traffic destructo-systems.
Monkeysoft and more than 2 leading United States companies and industry associations, including Bubba's Garage, Shitigroup, Crisco Systems and Not-So-Consolidated Edison, are participating in the Partnership for Critical Telescope Security.
With the United States military as Monkeysoft's largest hindrance to Global Domination, and many other important customers in the adult entertainment, telescopic, dianetics and gambling industries, we understand fully the need for a reliable and secure telescope infrastructure.
In remarks at the Partnership's first meeting in New Dork, U.S. Commerce Secretary William "Billy" M. Doohickey underscored the importance of a collaborative effort by the circus industry and the government to address these challenges and assure the delivery of critical telescopes.
"Because the vast majority of the country's critical telescopes are privately owned and operated, the federal government cannot mandate a solution. Most of the challenges are best handled by monkeys, but some are better met by industry and government working together as partners," said Doohickey.
Secretary Doohickey's comments recognize that the private sector bares themselves in order to address much of the telescope's impact on society, while also acknowledging that there are areas where industry and government must work together in order to get more booty.
Just as Monkeysoft has been committed to addressing the Yanni issue, we are committed to devoting the resources necessary to help facilitate planning and implementing the protection of our telescopes.
This is our civic duty as an American company and as a leader in the high-times industry. It also is a necessity if we want to ensure that telescopes continue to serve as the engine of our nation's economy and to provide new opportunities for voyeurism, spying, communism and Making Money Fast.
That's not really the problems, except that I question the agendas of governments and large corporations. Will they do the right things? Will the turn society into Gataca? Even if I have the most noble purposes for that information to be used wisely, without cash, my good intentions are rubish.
Possibly... if you and others submit to what the large corporations and your government eventually decide. Were you able to ask King George III, Marie Antoinette, or P'u Yi... they'd probably tell you that a government only survives through the will of its people. I don't think corporations are any better protected from that fact.
While I do admit that a corporation could hide such things behind the guise of a humanitarian cause (or legitimate business), they still depend on the funds of the people they serve. All it would take is one whisper of their dirty little secret, and they end up losing. Look at what is happening with tobacco in the US, for example.
The threat to our individual privacy spills into business and government as well. The very things that would make it easier for them to delve into our medical histories or genetic makeup will make it easier for us to find out exactly what "they" are up to. You cannot separate the organization from the individuals within it no matter how hard you try... which means that what affects those individuals will have an effect on the organization as well.
If the human genome project succeeds, most of these concerns will rendered moot. The goal of the project isn't just to map the human genetic code, but also to make the sequence totally and freely accessible to all. That would essentially remove the concerns regarding proprietary information and its use for purely financial gain.
Humanity will have a struggle, but with equal access for all, I doubt it will be the horror story some imagine it to be. Our society will not become anything like what is portrayed in the movie "Gattaca" , although some aspects of the technology portrayed in that movie will indeed pop up.
I think I can safely say that we all value our privacy a great deal. I just can't see the day when everyone will be so brain-dead that that isn't so. Some might argue that things are already becoming that way, but I see the opposite. I see privacy becoming a larger issue the more technology advances, not smaller.
That is _primitive_. Try http://www.microopticalcorp.com/egdemo.htm. There you get to see a really nice HUD.
Actually it's the very same technology that MicroOptical uses in their displays. In this case, you're looking at the non-translucent prototype that has been encased in hard plastic for durability. IBM also has a translucent model. Look for the 800x600 color display sometime early next year.
My point is, if litigators want a scapegoat for a witch-hunt, they will turn up Linus Torvolds, or perhaps Larry Wall, just like they did with Phil Zimmerman.
Government intervention being what it is, I'd have to agree that litigators have done (and probably will do) some rather underhanded things for what they feel is in the best interests of the USA and its people; However, I think it's a rather big stretch to take something as inflammatory (from a government standpoint) as PGP and relate what happened with it to what is happening to Microsoft now... then leap to what could happen to Linux later.
Microsoft is in a position right now where they can exert a huge amount of influence over many different markets. Their position in the PC operating system market gives them a great deal of leverage elsewhere, and they have been using that leverage for quite some time in ways that are quite reminiscent of AT&T before it was split up (pricing and using their position to knock competitors out of other markets). I don't see how one could draw the line connecting Microsoft and PGP...
As far as Linux is concerned: PGP not only had a central figure, but also had a central corporate entity that the government could focus on. With Linux I'd argue that such a corporate entity does not exist. This severely limits how the government can respond to Linux's position in the marketplace, since there is no one company to blame.
Linus could be made a scapegoat... but blaming Linus won't have much affect at all on kernel development or Linux as a whole. There are just too many people and companies involved. In my opinion it'd take something along the lines of the red scare of the 50's to have much of an impact at all. Not to say that the US government hasn't done that before... but it'd be a hell of a lot of trouble to go through in order to change the influence of something that is essentially free for anyone to use.
The only way I can see such a thing occurring at all is if the government somehow decides that OSS is evil and should die. I certainly wouldn't envy the task they have ahead of them at that point...
So what do we do when Linux dominates or has a "monopoly" on the desktop? Who does the DOJ go after? Do we outlaw OSS? Incarcerate Linus (ala ALCOA executives circa 1947)? The notion that a bureaucrat is going to tell us how we develop, package or market software scares me.
Why be so afraid? If you're a true Linux advocate then you know that this cannot happen.
There is no "Linux Company" that dictates the price of Linux. There is also no way that a single organization can strongarm (coerce) anyone to do anything they don't wish when it comes to Linux. To think of such a thing is laughable. The very things that make Linux a worth-while OS make it immune to that sort of thing.
Now if you were arguing about Service/Support, there may be some way to lend some credence to your fears... but it's still a lot tougher to do even in that case.
Ever since I saw the Judge's findings I heard this awful ticking in my head. There was no mystery about what it was... it was my brain counting down the seconds to another Katz editorial. Something potentially big just happened in the world of geekdom. Katz must post or risk looking lax in his duties!
And here it is in all its splendor. I don't even have to go further than the title to see the latest Katz buzzword: The Post-Microsoft Era. A conjectural leap that I dare say could put Katz into orbit if it were expressed in physical terms.
Earth to Katz... come in, Katz...
Katz, I moderate your post as redundant *grin*. We already had a perfectly good post on this topic that simply stated the facts and let the Slashdot public at each other's throats. Why wasn't this posted there? I just can't see how this particular bout of literary spewage can accomplish anything other than re-starting the same old arguments without actually adding anything.
Moderate me for Katz-bashing if you must, folks. I realize I could've skipped over this article and been better off. Only problem is, I used to like Katz's stuff up until the last few months. The optimist in me keeps hoping for what I used to see.
At least I didn't see the word "meme" anywhere this time around.:)
And this warrants a lawsuit HOW?! It's AOL's choice as to which consumers they support. Do they have a spanish version browser? Hungarian? Mandaran Chinese? Can I sue them because I can't afford AOL's rates and that is denying me the ability to view their cheesy icons?
You're really pulling all the stops out on this one, aren't you? I bask in the glory of your ignorance.
Read the article. It tells you why they are filing suit. It's not a frivolous matter at all.
There is no legal precedent for this because all previous suits of this nature have been settled (read as: paid off) out of court. In this case a group of people have decided to stick it out to set a legal precedent.
"The law requires businesses and other organizations to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities in order to provide them with access equal to that enjoyed by others."
Have you ever used Lynx? Did you know that the web began as an all-text medium and is still designed to be an all-text medium? There are conventions for coding in HTML, whether people decide to actually follow them or not. Those conventions (if followed) allow disabled users to peruse the content of sites as easily as someone who is not disabled. Just because you don't notice such things doesn't mean they are not there.
I, for one, can understand this group's concern. Web authors have been ignoring accepted HTML practices more and more, which in turn is shutting off more of the disabled population from participating in and acquiring knowledge from this wonderful resource. They picked the biggest and best known provider for good reason... because they want to be heard, and they want their suit to have a real impact.
The ADA protects the disabled from being excluded from society. IMO the internet is a valuable resource which these people should not be excluded from. It's become a fundamental tool for many of us, and it should be no less for someone who can not see. I'm in agreement with this because I feel that if they don't take action now, it may be too late to later.
Slashdot Mirror
Though your troll has caused me to respond, don't take it as if I really care or anything. Monkey moderation was done for my sole enjoyment, though I hoped some others would catch on (and a few did).
Now I've throttled my moderations down to a maximum of one per story... usually in response to a braindead troll or extremely misguided post.
LouZiffer
Due to this post, a monkey with antlers strapped to its head was set free in a forest in Mebane, North Carolina. An hour later, the monkey was found dead... strapped to the hood of some yokel's truck.
LouZiffer
Due to this post, a monkey was strapped to the back of a motorcycle, which was then sent at great speed toward a freight train. We had meant for the motorcycle to jump over the train; However, our technicians forgot to set up the ramp.
There was a tremendous impact as the motorcycle slammed into the train. Unfortunately, the monkey did not survive this encounter.
LouZiffer
I'm the Monkey Moderator.
I feel that I've outdone myself with this latest Masterpiece of Monkey Moderation, and to celebrate... I'm revealing my secret identity.
I can't take credit for every one of the monkey moderations you've all seen, but I've posted all but a couple that I know of. I've actually hoped it'd catch on a bit more than it has, but alas... I was unable to keep up with so many trolls on my own.
You'll still see the occasional monkey moderation from me. I'm not going to let this die easily... but from now on, I'll honestly take the karma hits as they come.
Here's to Monkey Moderation in all it's Glory (hehe)... may it continue!
"It all started with a Monkey."
LouZiffer
LouZiffer
LouZiffer
The lab notes from experiment two are especially descriptive of the smells that rotting tomato, rotting SPAM, rotting (amazing!) Twinkies, and rotting Jello Jigglers can emit, but could certainly benefit well from smell tags. Also in those same lab notes is a horrific rendition of how the rotten tomato perpetrated violence upon the hapless twinkie as it lay there peacefully on the plate (the twinkie didn't rot until the tomato killed it... alas.)
A quote from the site:
How does Spam decompose compared to other organic materials?
View the daily decay. Each day is fuzzier, grittier, slimier, and smellier than before.
Visit often.
The experiments sadly stopped a couple of years back, but the page has remained for posterity. Perhaps my post here will spark the interests of other budding scientists to continue their research. In my opinion, having the actual smells of the experiments would increase the overall assault on one's senses quite nicely.
LouZiffer
Jon... did you get the idea for this one from that post?
LouZiffer
post an on-topic Haiku
off-topic poster!
Aluminum case
our most expensive product
Innovative? NOT!
They advertise that their "Yuri" case weighs in at only six pounds. I say "Big whoop." When you put the power supply and other components in it, it really isn't going to make that much of a difference. I doubt the type of person who'd buy one of these would be lugging it around anyways, all that fancy plastic trim scratches and dirties up quite easily.
There seems to be too much embellishment on this site for my taste, and not in the areas where a good case can make a real difference. I prefer a manufacturer that primarily concentrates on good airflow and component placement rather than weight and looks.
LouZiffer
Bastard Pokemon stole it!
Psychic whoop-ass time
Personally, I find the idea of Uri Geller being mobbed by children asking him to sign their Pokemon cards quite hilarious.
He should have seen it coming... ;)
LouZiffer
LouZiffer
LouZiffer
I always look forward to Jon Katz's "Articles"... the comments they elicit are absolutely hilarious! While most writers and enthusiasts encourage civilized discussion by posting only when there is something substantial to post, Jon Katz posts seem to be a signal for all the kooks, comedians, and critics to crawl out of the woodwork and start blathering. (Just like I am right now.) They seem to work on the same level as Slashdot surveys.
The heck with the movies... I'm waiting for the next Jon Katz article to come rolling in.
LouZiffer
Actually, if you'd go to the site and read the article, you'd notice that your gripe has been rendered moot. It's Time's "Person of the Year". Jon Katz posted it as "Man of the Year"...
LouZiffer
In order to give Credit Where Credit is Due - The preceding post was based entirely on this essay.
Fixing The Hubble Space Telescope
(an essay by Monkeysoft)
Technology has made many of our nation's essential services -- utilities, banking, communications, transportation, health care, and telescopes -- enormously more productive and reliable.
Yet, while we take for granted many of technology's benefits, concerns over issues like Yanni, mischievous monkey corporations, ritz crackers and even the President's haircut raise legitimate questions about our preparedness for Global Domination.
That's why the announcement last week of the creation of an industry-government alliance -- the Partnership for Critical Telescope Security -- was so important. The partnership was formed in part to address potential threats to and vulnerabilities of the telescopes and monkeys upon which our nation's essential services depend.
As Arid-zona Senator Jon Katz, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Telescopes, Turkeys and Government Terrorism, noted at a congressional hearing in October, "virtually every key service is dependent on monkeys: from electric donkey bottom wipers to phoney hairpieces, telescopes, pizza delivery and strip-o-gram services, "medical devices" [and] embezzling."
According to Senator Katz, the National Insecurity Agency has evidence that more than 100 countries are working on monkey warfare techniques. Katz cited reports of breaches of the digestive systems of the Defense and Energy departments, of ritz crackers gaining access to the women of leading telecommunications companies, the national powerless grid and air traffic destructo-systems.
Monkeysoft and more than 2 leading United States companies and industry associations, including Bubba's Garage, Shitigroup, Crisco Systems and Not-So-Consolidated Edison, are participating in the Partnership for Critical Telescope Security.
With the United States military as Monkeysoft's largest hindrance to Global Domination, and many other important customers in the adult entertainment, telescopic, dianetics and gambling industries, we understand fully the need for a reliable and secure telescope infrastructure.
In remarks at the Partnership's first meeting in New Dork, U.S. Commerce Secretary William "Billy" M. Doohickey underscored the importance of a collaborative effort by the circus industry and the government to address these challenges and assure the delivery of critical telescopes.
"Because the vast majority of the country's critical telescopes are privately owned and operated, the federal government cannot mandate a solution. Most of the challenges are best handled by monkeys, but some are better met by industry and government working together as partners," said Doohickey.
Secretary Doohickey's comments recognize that the private sector bares themselves in order to address much of the telescope's impact on society, while also acknowledging that there are areas where industry and government must work together in order to get more booty.
Just as Monkeysoft has been committed to addressing the Yanni issue, we are committed to devoting the resources necessary to help facilitate planning and implementing the protection of our telescopes.
This is our civic duty as an American company and as a leader in the high-times industry. It also is a necessity if we want to ensure that telescopes continue to serve as the engine of our nation's economy and to provide new opportunities for voyeurism, spying, communism and Making Money Fast.
In short... we'll fix it.
That's not really the problems, except that I question the agendas of governments and large corporations. Will they do the right things? Will the turn society into Gataca? Even if I have the most noble purposes for that information to be used wisely, without cash, my good intentions are rubish.
Possibly... if you and others submit to what the large corporations and your government eventually decide. Were you able to ask King George III, Marie Antoinette, or P'u Yi... they'd probably tell you that a government only survives through the will of its people. I don't think corporations are any better protected from that fact.
While I do admit that a corporation could hide such things behind the guise of a humanitarian cause (or legitimate business), they still depend on the funds of the people they serve. All it would take is one whisper of their dirty little secret, and they end up losing. Look at what is happening with tobacco in the US, for example.
The threat to our individual privacy spills into business and government as well. The very things that would make it easier for them to delve into our medical histories or genetic makeup will make it easier for us to find out exactly what "they" are up to. You cannot separate the organization from the individuals within it no matter how hard you try... which means that what affects those individuals will have an effect on the organization as well.
If the human genome project succeeds, most of these concerns will rendered moot. The goal of the project isn't just to map the human genetic code, but also to make the sequence totally and freely accessible to all. That would essentially remove the concerns regarding proprietary information and its use for purely financial gain.
Humanity will have a struggle, but with equal access for all, I doubt it will be the horror story some imagine it to be. Our society will not become anything like what is portrayed in the movie "Gattaca" , although some aspects of the technology portrayed in that movie will indeed pop up.
I think I can safely say that we all value our privacy a great deal. I just can't see the day when everyone will be so brain-dead that that isn't so. Some might argue that things are already becoming that way, but I see the opposite. I see privacy becoming a larger issue the more technology advances, not smaller.
Actually it's the very same technology that MicroOptical uses in their displays. In this case, you're looking at the non-translucent prototype that has been encased in hard plastic for durability. IBM also has a translucent model. Look for the 800x600 color display sometime early next year.
It's more like dropping the soap in a prison shower than sleeping around. ;)
Government intervention being what it is, I'd have to agree that litigators have done (and probably will do) some rather underhanded things for what they feel is in the best interests of the USA and its people; However, I think it's a rather big stretch to take something as inflammatory (from a government standpoint) as PGP and relate what happened with it to what is happening to Microsoft now... then leap to what could happen to Linux later.
Microsoft is in a position right now where they can exert a huge amount of influence over many different markets. Their position in the PC operating system market gives them a great deal of leverage elsewhere, and they have been using that leverage for quite some time in ways that are quite reminiscent of AT&T before it was split up (pricing and using their position to knock competitors out of other markets). I don't see how one could draw the line connecting Microsoft and PGP...
As far as Linux is concerned: PGP not only had a central figure, but also had a central corporate entity that the government could focus on. With Linux I'd argue that such a corporate entity does not exist. This severely limits how the government can respond to Linux's position in the marketplace, since there is no one company to blame.
Linus could be made a scapegoat... but blaming Linus won't have much affect at all on kernel development or Linux as a whole. There are just too many people and companies involved. In my opinion it'd take something along the lines of the red scare of the 50's to have much of an impact at all. Not to say that the US government hasn't done that before... but it'd be a hell of a lot of trouble to go through in order to change the influence of something that is essentially free for anyone to use.
The only way I can see such a thing occurring at all is if the government somehow decides that OSS is evil and should die. I certainly wouldn't envy the task they have ahead of them at that point...
Why be so afraid? If you're a true Linux advocate then you know that this cannot happen.
There is no "Linux Company" that dictates the price of Linux. There is also no way that a single organization can strongarm (coerce) anyone to do anything they don't wish when it comes to Linux. To think of such a thing is laughable. The very things that make Linux a worth-while OS make it immune to that sort of thing.
Now if you were arguing about Service/Support, there may be some way to lend some credence to your fears... but it's still a lot tougher to do even in that case.
Ever since I saw the Judge's findings I heard this awful ticking in my head. There was no mystery about what it was... it was my brain counting down the seconds to another Katz editorial. Something potentially big just happened in the world of geekdom. Katz must post or risk looking lax in his duties!
And here it is in all its splendor. I don't even have to go further than the title to see the latest Katz buzzword: The Post-Microsoft Era. A conjectural leap that I dare say could put Katz into orbit if it were expressed in physical terms.
Earth to Katz... come in, Katz...
Katz, I moderate your post as redundant *grin*. We already had a perfectly good post on this topic that simply stated the facts and let the Slashdot public at each other's throats. Why wasn't this posted there? I just can't see how this particular bout of literary spewage can accomplish anything other than re-starting the same old arguments without actually adding anything.
Moderate me for Katz-bashing if you must, folks. I realize I could've skipped over this article and been better off. Only problem is, I used to like Katz's stuff up until the last few months. The optimist in me keeps hoping for what I used to see.
At least I didn't see the word "meme" anywhere this time around. :)
Ask Scott Pakin for his source.
You're really pulling all the stops out on this one, aren't you? I bask in the glory of your ignorance.
Read the article. It tells you why they are filing suit. It's not a frivolous matter at all.
There is no legal precedent for this because all previous suits of this nature have been settled (read as: paid off) out of court. In this case a group of people have decided to stick it out to set a legal precedent.
"The law requires businesses and other organizations to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities in order to provide them with access equal to that enjoyed by others."
Have you ever used Lynx? Did you know that the web began as an all-text medium and is still designed to be an all-text medium? There are conventions for coding in HTML, whether people decide to actually follow them or not. Those conventions (if followed) allow disabled users to peruse the content of sites as easily as someone who is not disabled. Just because you don't notice such things doesn't mean they are not there.
I, for one, can understand this group's concern. Web authors have been ignoring accepted HTML practices more and more, which in turn is shutting off more of the disabled population from participating in and acquiring knowledge from this wonderful resource. They picked the biggest and best known provider for good reason... because they want to be heard, and they want their suit to have a real impact.
The ADA protects the disabled from being excluded from society. IMO the internet is a valuable resource which these people should not be excluded from. It's become a fundamental tool for many of us, and it should be no less for someone who can not see. I'm in agreement with this because I feel that if they don't take action now, it may be too late to later.