We all know that on a regular basis, the editors here at Slashdot reject very good stories in favor of, well, not so good stories (OKay, many are just plain stupid).
To add insult to injury, how many people here have submitted very intelligent, meaningful, and possibly important stories... only to have them rejected in favor of these stupid April Fools jokes. Slashdot is often referred to by many of us an intelligent and useful news source to "open source initiates" or other professionals.
Today however, like every other year, it descends into silliness. All useful content has been eliminated. Every story is an April Fools "joke" and thus, it's completely pointless because it's funny when you're tricked.
Editors, stop displacing useful content for this nonsense, please? I am sure there's lots of real stuff out there today amongst the cruft. Of course, this request will be ignored because the editors are so damn full of themselves.
I suggest everyone who got a story rejected post it as a reply to this post. Maybe we can actually get some stuff that matters.
It's the worst Slash-dot day of the year! With geeks belly-aching and everyone telling you "a-hundred to one!" It's the worst Slash-dot day of the year!
There'll crapping and trolling With dumb jokes a-flowing And avian-I-P! With a thousand and one posts Reminding our hosts It's 'oh four 'oh one!
It's the worst Slash-dot Day of the year! You'll think we're in hell When you can't really tell You gulliable nerd! It's the worst Slash-dot Day of the year!
Not everyone gives a crap about that copy protection political circus going on in Washington right now, they just wanna play some games!
It's amazing that you can brush this agenda off like that. You realize that you won't <condescending>get to play your cute little games</condescending> if the general purpose computer minus copyright protection becomes illegal. You might want to become aware that what the government does affects all of us no matter how distant they may seem.
...to count and publicize the wonders and qualities of Disney. Meanwhile, they are one of the most powerful members of a consortium that's working hard to eliminate freedoms enjoy most by the type of readers that consume Slashdot.
Way to go guys. Not only are most religious and polotical leaders hypocrites, but so is a huge group of the geek archtype.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Elizabeth, Queen of England was found dead in her Windsor lodge this afternoon. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss her - even if you didn't enjoy her politics, there's no denying her contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
I think it's important that we all write and hammer this company and make them accept the very open standards and technologies they're selling!
To: webmaster@sharpelectronics.com Subject: Your Website Baffles Me
Dear Webmaster,
I am highly surprised that you are offering a Linux-based PDA on a web site that blocks open source browsers and even recommends (or requires?) a Microsoft product. I am trying to view http://www.sharpelectronics.com/ using Galeon (which uses the Mozilla engine, and is Mozilla for all intents and purposes, but with only a lighter interface) to read about this great product. It is highly ironic that you could not view this web page with the very product the page is meant to promote.
I have been very excited and enthusiastic about the Sharp Zaurus and have been looking forward a purchase. Now I'm afraid I cannot hold much faith in a company that puts no stock in technologies (open source software) that act as a crucial component to their product. I will be happy to reconsider if the web site is designed and implemented bias-free, with open standards in mind (such as those used by the Zaurus itself).
Thank you for your time.
Who knows? Maybe we'll get a special offer for our toils to keep us as customers.:)
What exactly is "true artificial intelligence" versus "false artificial intelligence"? You mean neural networks, production or expert systems? What are you talking about? This guy is working on a project to simulate a human image with "intelligence" behind it. Perhaps you mean something that will pass the Turing Test?
I know it may seem cool to randomly throw out a few items you don't know anything about that you would like to "invent", but give it a rest. But, I guess I should try it for myself...
If only I had some 3D peanut butter...
#1. Some duct tape and a fly swatter where you use your pelvis to spank Rodney Dangerfield.
Would other countries, like Canada for instance, be upset that a torrent of America's most brilliant citizens were suddenly at their borders, looking for work? Could it possibly be a blessing to them? Maybe Canada and other developed nations should start offering harbor for American citizens of the intellectual contingents!
If the American Government no longer wants highly intelligent people contributing to society, I suggest that we oblige. Why continue producing work (code) that makes America a better place when we can take our brains elsewhere?
If the CBDTPA gets passed into law, there is no sense in fighting it. Let's follow the lead set by Alan Cox and take our brains and mountainous volumes of talent somewhere else.
One thing that governments must work to do is please the citizens so the citizens either remain for the collective good of society, or continue to support the government.
It appears to me that our government does not want the contributions of brilliant citizens but rather the monies of megacorporations. I'm sure that America would get along quite nicely if all the innovators in the technology field were to leave.:)
Personally, I don't see any reason to continue feeding into this pointless system where laws are passed to the highest bidder. Why would I do work and development that the government and their corporations can use to their advantage and against me? Anyone else of this mindset?
I noticed that the two replies above this one to my post were both moderated down to -1, Offtopic. Although this post is Offtopic itself, I'd like to point out the obvious relation to my theory on why negative moderation is more destructive than bad posts. I don't mean to sound like a karma whore, but if those two points were used to moderate my original post up, it would be visible to all readers and hence more valuable. By negatively moderating those two replies as Offtopic, you've accomplished nothing and only caused the information of my post to be excluded from the discussion.
Moderators, PLEASE think about what you're doing before you just aimlessly throw points away like this. If you are granted moderator privaledges, please use them to do your job: making the discussion forum more useful.
Failing to do this only hurts Slashdot. I think my original post holds a useful piece of inormation that can help prevent a bad law from being passed.
However, it misses out on one point that I think is a valuable addition to the letter. If you are going to send a letter to your reps, please consider adding this!! Here's what I wrote...
5. It is not the responsibility of the government to ensure profitability of obsolete business models. Times are changing and technologies are rapidly evolving. Many large industry players refuse to change their business models to adapt to a changing economy and consumer base. People want the right to create mix collections of the content they purchase, the right to create personal copies, and other various rights that are clearly fair use and do not harm producers. Media industry players feel this will dissolve their profits, and therein lies the core issue driving legislation such as the CBDTPA and DMCA. This issue is the industry's refusal to adapt to the needs and desires of consumers. Traditionally, businesses provide what the customer wants, or they fail. No business has the right to man-handle consumers as the entertainment industry has. This is especially the case when what the consumers want is not piracy as large corporations would have one believe. People want free reign to use the information they own as they see fit. Not everyone will chose to use copyrighted material for the purpose of piracy. However, these bills assume all consumers are criminals and thus violate a principal American ideal: that we are innocent until proven guilty. Large corporations should not be granted greater control over media technologies and the subsequent use of content. If they are granted more power, it will only result in more vicious tactics that will both stifle technology and choice in both American and global markets.
If everyone has suggestions, please post them there!
"All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landings there."
I tell you, we're only asking for trouble. Personally, I think if a gigantic black universal Swiss Army Knife tells you to not land somewhere, you should definitely not land there!
Apple is NOT open-source friendly! This should be glaringly obvious from MacOS X. The only development Apple did that was original is on the components that they keep closed and proprietary (the API's, Quartz, etc). The parts that are open are the components that were open to start with. It's tantamount to theivery... considering Apple gives nothing back to the community. They are using keep business sense to get a lot of free development work and they could care less about how we're all affected.
Open source developers: STOP doing work for Apple until they start working for you. If Darwin is such a great platform, fork it and then relicense it to keep it out of Apple's grubby hands. It's not their work to begin with anyway.
They say that this chunk of tissue was kept in a nutrient rich liquid. I don't understand. The tissue would then be composed of the nutrients in this liquid. Therefore, consuming the tissue would be the same as consuming the meat. However, it would much less wasteful to consume the nutrient liquid rather than the meat - which people would desire to cook and of course, would not be as well digested.
So for a space mission, you're talking about bringing a few thousand liquid tons of nutrient to produce a substantially lower quantity of food. Am I getting this wrong?
Why not just consume this nutrient liquid directly - something I'm sure a human body would digest better than meat. Space travel requires practical designs. I'm sorry the astronauts will not get a juicy Texas steak every now and then.:)
Once again, Cringely misses the point and Slashdot editors whore themselves out like they work in Times Square.
Open source isn't about "freely distributable". It's about having the specifications / plans / blue prints / etc. to something you use to produce an end product. You can take those specifications and produce something totally new and potentially useful, then pass those on... or not.
If we're talking about the stock footage, what can you really do with that? There's something along the lines of cutting the video such that you make Cringely repeat how much of an idiot he is, but you could have done that anyway with the end product. You can't make something totally new like you can with algorithms and existing code. In the case of video, the end product does not obscure the information used to create the product! Just the opposite actually. The restriction of information is what happens in software.
People who advocate freedom of speech do not fight against the MPAA or RIAA or whatever because they don't have the stock material. They fight back because those people want to control ownership and how you can view the product and for what cost. We're talking about apples and goats when it comes to open source and various forms of media.
I'm sorry... Cringely needs to get a clue and/. needs to stop getting paid to publicize him.
If as much time spent developing great software for running Win32 binaries and strengthening Microsoft's position, was spent towards building a plethora of open-source multimedia applications, we'd be a lot better off. Linux needs more native software that it can run well, instead of software that gives it access to a library of programs that it can run poorly. Plus, the more we support Microsoft's platform, the stronger they get. It keeps us dependent on Microsoft and other proprietary platforms, and gives less incentive to move completely over to Linux. (Think: "if Linux can run Windows software, but not as good, why should I use Linux?")
Again, they are great projects and kudos to them for doing such a great job. I just wish we could see more native software of this nature.
Definition - As used in this section, "prohibited sexual act" means sexual intercourse as defined in section 3101 (relating to definitions), masturbation, sadism, masochism, bestiality, fellatio, cunnilingus, lewd exhibition of the genitals or nudity if such nudity is depicted for the purpose of sexual stimulation or gratification of any person who might view such depiction.
Thanks for the definition, but incidently, this is where my problem with the standard lies. First of all, any person can view anything with a mind for sexual gratification. Someone could get aroused by looking at pictures of aboriginies. On the other hand, how many know of little kids running around their lawn naked. How many people here have played in their little tot's swimming pool naked, in public display? This is not uncommon and there's nothing wrong with it. Little chilren are innocent and enforcing a sense of shame over their body is not constructive. Now, what if someone else in the neighborhood sees this and gets sexual gratification from it? Are the parents guilty of proliferating child pornography?
Think of the children. If child pornography is suddenly inaccessible to those sick perverts then there is no market for it.
Not having a market will not stop people from producing it. And I am thinking of the children because I think resources would be better spent going to stop the source, rather than trying to halt the flow of information. Refer to my line at the end of my post.
And if there is no market for child pornograhy, then hopefully it will stop.
There already is no "market". People who produce it are aiming for their own pleasures and their quiet, under-the-table deals. It will not stop if the gov't fights the market, the same as drug trafficking has not stopped because the gov't has attacked the market.
Would you like to be one of those poor kids molested and whatnot just for the sake of some sick fat pervert hiding behind a computer screen?
No, which is why I am suggesting that the gov't try to stop people who are producing the content.
Re-read my post and use your brain this time. I am not in favor of child porn. I am saying that attempting to censor a medium like the Internet is not possible. You can stop the source, however. And in the news, I've seen many cases of producers getting nailed. They seem to have success putting money into getting these creeps in jail. The money will NOT do any good trying to censor it once it's already on the Net, however.
I am a little unclear on the standards of child pornography. It seems to me that if you put such a broad block, you can lose a great deal of meaningful content. Example. You're doing research on rain jungle aboriginies and there are pictures of children unclothed as they frequently are. (Ever watch a National Geographic?)
I admit this is a weak argument, but this is part of a larger issue. No Internet content ought to be blocked. The only filter should be your own brain. If you find this image offensive, don't look at it! It's just that simple. I agree, child pornography is absolutely sick, and the government should take steps to eliminate it and prosecute those who produce it. They should not on the other hand, enforce tactics for trying to regulate the flow of information to clients. This is impossible.
Consider the choices: regulate content flow to a billion+ clinets, OR, eliminate a few thousand content sources. *sigh*
Slashdot Mirror
We all know that on a regular basis, the editors here at Slashdot reject very good stories in favor of, well, not so good stories (OKay, many are just plain stupid).
To add insult to injury, how many people here have submitted very intelligent, meaningful, and possibly important stories... only to have them rejected in favor of these stupid April Fools jokes. Slashdot is often referred to by many of us an intelligent and useful news source to "open source initiates" or other professionals.
Today however, like every other year, it descends into silliness. All useful content has been eliminated. Every story is an April Fools "joke" and thus, it's completely pointless because it's funny when you're tricked.
Editors, stop displacing useful content for this nonsense, please? I am sure there's lots of real stuff out there today amongst the cruft. Of course, this request will be ignored because the editors are so damn full of themselves.
I suggest everyone who got a story rejected post it as a reply to this post. Maybe we can actually get some stuff that matters.
It's the worst Slash-dot
day of the year!
With geeks belly-aching
and everyone telling you
"a-hundred to one!"
It's the worst Slash-dot
day of the year!
There'll crapping and trolling
With dumb jokes a-flowing
And avian-I-P!
With a thousand and one posts
Reminding our hosts
It's 'oh four 'oh one!
It's the worst Slash-dot
Day of the year!
You'll think we're in hell
When you can't really tell
You gulliable nerd!
It's the worst Slash-dot
Day of the year!
"It's the worst
Slash-dot day,
Of the year!"
Not everyone gives a crap about that copy protection political circus going on in Washington right now, they just wanna play some games!
It's amazing that you can brush this agenda off like that. You realize that you won't <condescending>get to play your cute little games</condescending> if the general purpose computer minus copyright protection becomes illegal. You might want to become aware that what the government does affects all of us no matter how distant they may seem.
...to count and publicize the wonders and qualities of Disney. Meanwhile, they are one of the most powerful members of a consortium that's working hard to eliminate freedoms enjoy most by the type of readers that consume Slashdot.
Way to go guys. Not only are most religious and polotical leaders hypocrites, but so is a huge group of the geek archtype.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Elizabeth, Queen of England was found dead in her Windsor lodge this afternoon. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss her - even if you didn't enjoy her politics, there's no denying her contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
Who knows? Maybe we'll get a special offer for our toils to keep us as customers.
You might want to talk to these people. I am sure they can provide you with a "3D engine".
#1: Martial arts video game where you use your body as input for the game.
Consider reading this paper. You're a little late.
#2: True Artificial Intelligence
www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~sager/a
What exactly is "true artificial intelligence" versus "false artificial intelligence"? You mean neural networks, production or expert systems? What are you talking about? This guy is working on a project to simulate a human image with "intelligence" behind it. Perhaps you mean something that will pass the Turing Test?
I know it may seem cool to randomly throw out a few items you don't know anything about that you would like to "invent", but give it a rest. But, I guess I should try it for myself...
Nah, wasn't so much fun. Use Google.
By the end of the month i'll be covered completely
You know, this is really something you oughta take over here.
Is it possible that geeks who are shot down by this bill could make a mass exodus to other countries?
:)
Would other countries, like Canada for instance, be upset that a torrent of America's most brilliant citizens were suddenly at their borders, looking for work? Could it possibly be a blessing to them? Maybe Canada and other developed nations should start offering harbor for American citizens of the intellectual contingents!
If the American Government no longer wants highly intelligent people contributing to society, I suggest that we oblige. Why continue producing work (code) that makes America a better place when we can take our brains elsewhere?
If the CBDTPA gets passed into law, there is no sense in fighting it. Let's follow the lead set by Alan Cox and take our brains and mountainous volumes of talent somewhere else.
One thing that governments must work to do is please the citizens so the citizens either remain for the collective good of society, or continue to support the government.
It appears to me that our government does not want the contributions of brilliant citizens but rather the monies of megacorporations. I'm sure that America would get along quite nicely if all the innovators in the technology field were to leave.
Personally, I don't see any reason to continue feeding into this pointless system where laws are passed to the highest bidder. Why would I do work and development that the government and their corporations can use to their advantage and against me? Anyone else of this mindset?
Canada bound?
I noticed that the two replies above this one to my post were both moderated down to -1, Offtopic. Although this post is Offtopic itself, I'd like to point out the obvious relation to my theory on why negative moderation is more destructive than bad posts. I don't mean to sound like a karma whore, but if those two points were used to moderate my original post up, it would be visible to all readers and hence more valuable. By negatively moderating those two replies as Offtopic, you've accomplished nothing and only caused the information of my post to be excluded from the discussion.
Moderators, PLEASE think about what you're doing before you just aimlessly throw points away like this. If you are granted moderator privaledges, please use them to do your job: making the discussion forum more useful.
Failing to do this only hurts Slashdot. I think my original post holds a useful piece of inormation that can help prevent a bad law from being passed.
However, it misses out on one point that I think is a valuable addition to the letter. If you are going to send a letter to your reps, please consider adding this!! Here's what I wrote...
If everyone has suggestions, please post them there!
Can't you read?
"All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landings there."
I tell you, we're only asking for trouble. Personally, I think if a gigantic black universal Swiss Army Knife tells you to not land somewhere, you should definitely not land there!
...is when it uses phrases like "I'm not trolling".
I dub thee a troll.
Apple is NOT open-source friendly! This should be glaringly obvious from MacOS X. The only development Apple did that was original is on the components that they keep closed and proprietary (the API's, Quartz, etc). The parts that are open are the components that were open to start with. It's tantamount to theivery ... considering Apple gives nothing back to the community. They are using keep business sense to get a lot of free development work and they could care less about how we're all affected.
Open source developers: STOP doing work for Apple until they start working for you. If Darwin is such a great platform, fork it and then relicense it to keep it out of Apple's grubby hands. It's not their work to begin with anyway.
he can see and feel and hear everything she experiences.
He most certainly does.
This would be for long trips, and you do have to try to keep the astronauts sane.
That's why HAL has many stimulating relationships with humans. So the astronauts have someone to talk to.
Therefore, consuming the tissue would be the same as consuming the meat.
Yes, obviously this is true. I meant to say "consuming the tissue would be the same as consuming the liquid."
Sorry... my revision skills are lacking... but no more than CmdrTaco's.
They say that this chunk of tissue was kept in a nutrient rich liquid. I don't understand. The tissue would then be composed of the nutrients in this liquid. Therefore, consuming the tissue would be the same as consuming the meat. However, it would much less wasteful to consume the nutrient liquid rather than the meat - which people would desire to cook and of course, would not be as well digested.
:)
So for a space mission, you're talking about bringing a few thousand liquid tons of nutrient to produce a substantially lower quantity of food. Am I getting this wrong?
Why not just consume this nutrient liquid directly - something I'm sure a human body would digest better than meat. Space travel requires practical designs. I'm sorry the astronauts will not get a juicy Texas steak every now and then.
without having to bring along actual animals and fish into space.
Fish aren't animals?
Once again, Cringely misses the point and Slashdot editors whore themselves out like they work in Times Square.
/. needs to stop getting paid to publicize him.
Open source isn't about "freely distributable". It's about having the specifications / plans / blue prints / etc. to something you use to produce an end product. You can take those specifications and produce something totally new and potentially useful, then pass those on... or not.
If we're talking about the stock footage, what can you really do with that? There's something along the lines of cutting the video such that you make Cringely repeat how much of an idiot he is, but you could have done that anyway with the end product. You can't make something totally new like you can with algorithms and existing code. In the case of video, the end product does not obscure the information used to create the product! Just the opposite actually. The restriction of information is what happens in software.
People who advocate freedom of speech do not fight against the MPAA or RIAA or whatever because they don't have the stock material. They fight back because those people want to control ownership and how you can view the product and for what cost. We're talking about apples and goats when it comes to open source and various forms of media.
I'm sorry... Cringely needs to get a clue and
If as much time spent developing great software for running Win32 binaries and strengthening Microsoft's position, was spent towards building a plethora of open-source multimedia applications, we'd be a lot better off. Linux needs more native software that it can run well, instead of software that gives it access to a library of programs that it can run poorly. Plus, the more we support Microsoft's platform, the stronger they get. It keeps us dependent on Microsoft and other proprietary platforms, and gives less incentive to move completely over to Linux. (Think: "if Linux can run Windows software, but not as good, why should I use Linux?")
Again, they are great projects and kudos to them for doing such a great job. I just wish we could see more native software of this nature.
(just my two cents)
Definition - As used in this section, "prohibited sexual act" means sexual intercourse as defined in section 3101 (relating to definitions), masturbation, sadism, masochism, bestiality, fellatio, cunnilingus, lewd exhibition of the genitals or nudity if such nudity is depicted for the purpose of sexual stimulation or gratification of any person who might view such depiction.
Thanks for the definition, but incidently, this is where my problem with the standard lies. First of all, any person can view anything with a mind for sexual gratification. Someone could get aroused by looking at pictures of aboriginies. On the other hand, how many know of little kids running around their lawn naked. How many people here have played in their little tot's swimming pool naked, in public display? This is not uncommon and there's nothing wrong with it. Little chilren are innocent and enforcing a sense of shame over their body is not constructive. Now, what if someone else in the neighborhood sees this and gets sexual gratification from it? Are the parents guilty of proliferating child pornography?
Think of the children. If child pornography is suddenly inaccessible to those sick perverts then there is no market for it.
Not having a market will not stop people from producing it. And I am thinking of the children because I think resources would be better spent going to stop the source, rather than trying to halt the flow of information. Refer to my line at the end of my post.
And if there is no market for child pornograhy, then hopefully it will stop.
There already is no "market". People who produce it are aiming for their own pleasures and their quiet, under-the-table deals. It will not stop if the gov't fights the market, the same as drug trafficking has not stopped because the gov't has attacked the market.
Would you like to be one of those poor kids molested and whatnot just for the sake of some sick fat pervert hiding behind a computer screen?
No, which is why I am suggesting that the gov't try to stop people who are producing the content.
Re-read my post and use your brain this time. I am not in favor of child porn. I am saying that attempting to censor a medium like the Internet is not possible. You can stop the source, however. And in the news, I've seen many cases of producers getting nailed. They seem to have success putting money into getting these creeps in jail. The money will NOT do any good trying to censor it once it's already on the Net, however.
I am a little unclear on the standards of child pornography. It seems to me that if you put such a broad block, you can lose a great deal of meaningful content. Example. You're doing research on rain jungle aboriginies and there are pictures of children unclothed as they frequently are. (Ever watch a National Geographic?)
I admit this is a weak argument, but this is part of a larger issue. No Internet content ought to be blocked. The only filter should be your own brain. If you find this image offensive, don't look at it! It's just that simple. I agree, child pornography is absolutely sick, and the government should take steps to eliminate it and prosecute those who produce it. They should not on the other hand, enforce tactics for trying to regulate the flow of information to clients. This is impossible.
Consider the choices: regulate content flow to a billion+ clinets, OR, eliminate a few thousand content sources. *sigh*