A: Okay, Twitter is going to be a beacon of free speech. We're not going to censor it in any way, and we're going to fight anyone who attempts to like hell.
B: Great! I agree. This is going to be a great site!
A: Uh, okay, people are pretending to be other people for purposes of satire. We should probably add some sort of verification so that people can know tell the real person's account from the joke ones.
B: Makes sense.
A: Right, now let's just shut down those joke accounts, to minimize confusion.
B: Uh... wait.
A: And a bunch of people are being mean to other people. We'll just shut that down as well.
B: But--but--
A: Now, that may be unpopular, so we'd better organize a committee made up entirely of people on a single side of the political spectrum to decide who gets to speak and who doesn't.
B: Now just hold on a min--
A: Oh, and according to our committee, all the people on the other side of the political spectrum are the ones being mean. We'll just ban them outright.
B: [censored]
A: Actually, why don't we just start censoring things all the time for no reason, with no real justification or even a discernible pattern.
It's hard to glean much about his methodology from the linked article, but it seems that he's taken the all the known exoplanets, extrapolated from that data somehow, and came up with some really small values for a few variables in the Drake Equation. Ho hum.
We got enough railroads. What don't have is new boxcars to replace old boxcars at the end of their 50-year lifecycle.
Interesting, but I think what they meant was "we should have more passenger rail in the US". The only passengers for whom boxcars are relevant are hoboes, and they're a sadly unrepresented demographic these days.
Yes, okay, fine, I misspoke: The word "analytics" can mean things other than spying. Just not in the context of web browsers that phone home. There is no God damn thing about my browsing habits I want the maker of my browser knowing. Not what, not where, not when, not how long, not how much, not what type. I guess I'm not too worried about them knowing I downloaded it, but then again, if I could conceal even that datum from them, I would.
Xamarin provides a rich mobile development offering that enables developers to build mobile apps using C#
Oh. Here I thought that Xamarin was specifically intended as an alternative to Microsoft's proprietary implementation of C#. Oh, well, shows what I know. I guess we've always been at war with Eastasia.
Ubuntu...crams badly designed UI (Unity) down throats that neither meets needs nor was requested by anyone.
You obviously haven't visited the Ubuntu forums since Unity was introduced. According to the forums, it seems that all the diehard Ubuntu fans liked Unity so much after it was forced down their throats that their collective love for it reached backwards through time and requested it from the future.
I think it means three things: "Why do people use Mint when Ubuntu is better in every way? Some people think the only answer is 'Cinnamon' . Ubuntu should port that over so they are the awesome and Mint can die"
I agree with your interpretation. I even (unlike you, probably) kind of agree with the original author's point. I would be pretty happy if the Ubuntu team offered Cinnamon as an alternative of Unity. But of course they never will, because they specifically developed Unity to replace Gnome in the first place, thus creating all this demand for Cinnamon and Linux Mint.
These router manufacturers are getting rather annoying with their "specs." Oh, it covers 14,000 square feet. That's a square less than 120 feet on a side.
Never mind the rest of the specs. The real story here is, how'd they get their radio antenna to cover a square instead of a circle?
It's about time we did this. Fucking criminals, all the time trying to conduct trade of any kind without the government being intimately involved.
We should also implant GPS trackers in all the coins, and make all the eyes in all the portraits on all the denominations functional. Of course, we'll have to make room for all these new security features, so some older features are going to have to go. I suggest we start by removing all references to "liberty". Only the filthy terrorists will miss it, anyway.
When snowden reported the spying on Americans, that was whistleblowing. When he reported how nsa spied on AQ, china, Russia, ISIS, and even Brazil and Europe, he became a traitor and is up for aiding/abetting the enemy.
I'm curious, how would you have blown the whistle if you were in his place? I like to imagine it would go something like this:
PROSECUTOR: So, Mr. Snowden, according to your testimony, the NSA set in place no fewer than five top-level programs to illegally gather the Constitutionally-protected personal information of American citizens, and that this information is sourced from almost every aspect of the telecommunications infrastructure, regardless of any established or suspected criminal status of its participants. If that's the case, sir, how is it that NO foreign nationals were caught up in this massive worldwide dragnet?
SNOWDEN: Well, I mean, of course they also gathered information on foreign nationals. They couldn't avoid that, even if they wanted to, which they don't.
PROSECUTOR: Aha! Your honor, given that the defendant has just confessed to high treason, in revealing classified information on how the NSA spies on America's enemies, and for that matter, allies, I move that we bind this case over to a secret court, and that Snowden be placed in solitary confinement for an indefinite period, but almost certainly for at least a decade or so.
> This is very relevant subject to most Slashdot users
Why? The event will not change any existing technologies or policies, nor has it raised a new issue. It's just "this happened", with no side effect.
Uh... okay. I'm no longer surprised when people aren't willing to read three pages of setup to get to my punchlines, especially given the uneven quality of those punchlines. But I must say I did think they'd read at least one sentence past the sarcastic remark that made them mad, if for no other reason than to have more stuff to be outraged about.
Slashdot has a strange obsession with Uber. They post literally everything Uber related. I just don't get it.
People who travel for business a lot seem to really be into Uber. I therefore postulate that the editors of Slashdot must travel a lot for business.
This is very relevant subject to most Slashdot users, in fact. I myself am a frequent business traveler. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to "catch a flight" and travel upstairs to see what kind of progress my colleague "Mom" has made with the We Need More Pizza Rolls project.
God dammit, when I heard my elementary school got hacked I thought I was finally going to be able to get out from under the pernicious shadow of my Permanent Record!
Yeah, what he said. What does this "Snow-don" character have to do with the legal consequences of the overreach of government surveillance?
Let's talk about something else instead. But none of this irrelevant crap. Here, I'll give you a topic: Let's talk about the influence of classical Greco-Roman architecture on modern architecture, but I don't want to hear a lot of jibber-jabber about the Parthenon or the Pantheon or the Colosseum!
For some reason, the editors took the "NSA Director Says" part off the front of the original headline. I'm not sure why they'd do that. Maybe they wanted to increase the percentage of people who would actually read the article, since many of us have learned to stop paying attention whenever we see the words "NSA Director says", because what comes after that is always complete nonsense.
While I do think there's a lot of rabid self-serving self-righteous self-aggrandizing going on about this subject nowadays, I've gotta say that, when you rear back and deliberately poke someone in the eye, you can't really call it "claptrap" when they decide to have you charged with assault.
(Also, it's "make me a sandwich", not "make me some popcorn". Who peremptorily orders someone to pop them popcorn? That's so odd that it doesn't really read as insulting, it just makes it sound like maybe you have special needs and aren't allowed to use the microwave.)
Is it possible that those developers who don't feel it necessary to point out their favorite college sports team in situations where their favorite college sports team doesn't matter tend to also be those more likely to contribute worthwhile changes? Is it possible that those developers who make it a point to draw attention to their favorite college sports team in situations where there is no reason to bring up their favorite college sports team at all, are also more likely to be less convincing regarding the usefulness of their work?
Nobody else has said so, so let me say: Thanks for trying to fix things, New Management. I appreciate efforts like these. Keep it up.
The others are probably right about it being too late to make much difference, of course. Broken trust is a mother. And none of us are really sure how reputable the new bosses are, of course. But I feel it's important to recognize and encourage any steps in the right direction. So thanks again.
Slashdot Mirror
A: Okay, Twitter is going to be a beacon of free speech. We're not going to censor it in any way, and we're going to fight anyone who attempts to like hell.
B: Great! I agree. This is going to be a great site!
A: Uh, okay, people are pretending to be other people for purposes of satire. We should probably add some sort of verification so that people can know tell the real person's account from the joke ones.
B: Makes sense.
A: Right, now let's just shut down those joke accounts, to minimize confusion.
B: Uh... wait.
A: And a bunch of people are being mean to other people. We'll just shut that down as well.
B: But--but--
A: Now, that may be unpopular, so we'd better organize a committee made up entirely of people on a single side of the political spectrum to decide who gets to speak and who doesn't.
B: Now just hold on a min--
A: Oh, and according to our committee, all the people on the other side of the political spectrum are the ones being mean. We'll just ban them outright.
B: [censored]
A: Actually, why don't we just start censoring things all the time for no reason, with no real justification or even a discernible pattern.
It's hard to glean much about his methodology from the linked article, but it seems that he's taken the all the known exoplanets, extrapolated from that data somehow, and came up with some really small values for a few variables in the Drake Equation. Ho hum.
We got enough railroads. What don't have is new boxcars to replace old boxcars at the end of their 50-year lifecycle.
Interesting, but I think what they meant was "we should have more passenger rail in the US". The only passengers for whom boxcars are relevant are hoboes, and they're a sadly unrepresented demographic these days.
Yes, okay, fine, I misspoke: The word "analytics" can mean things other than spying. Just not in the context of web browsers that phone home. There is no God damn thing about my browsing habits I want the maker of my browser knowing. Not what, not where, not when, not how long, not how much, not what type. I guess I'm not too worried about them knowing I downloaded it, but then again, if I could conceal even that datum from them, I would.
Xamarin provides a rich mobile development offering that enables developers to build mobile apps using C#
Oh. Here I thought that Xamarin was specifically intended as an alternative to Microsoft's proprietary implementation of C#. Oh, well, shows what I know. I guess we've always been at war with Eastasia.
Ubuntu ...crams badly designed UI (Unity) down throats that neither meets needs nor was requested by anyone.
You obviously haven't visited the Ubuntu forums since Unity was introduced. According to the forums, it seems that all the diehard Ubuntu fans liked Unity so much after it was forced down their throats that their collective love for it reached backwards through time and requested it from the future.
I think it means three things: "Why do people use Mint when Ubuntu is better in every way? Some people think the only answer is 'Cinnamon' . Ubuntu should port that over so they are the awesome and Mint can die"
I agree with your interpretation. I even (unlike you, probably) kind of agree with the original author's point. I would be pretty happy if the Ubuntu team offered Cinnamon as an alternative of Unity. But of course they never will, because they specifically developed Unity to replace Gnome in the first place, thus creating all this demand for Cinnamon and Linux Mint.
Both versions collected waaaaay to much information that has nothing to do with analytics...
This is a meaningless statement, mostly because "analytics" is always a just a weasel-word for "spying". The only acceptable amount is zero.
These router manufacturers are getting rather annoying with their "specs." Oh, it covers 14,000 square feet. That's a square less than 120 feet on a side.
Never mind the rest of the specs. The real story here is, how'd they get their radio antenna to cover a square instead of a circle?
It's about time we did this. Fucking criminals, all the time trying to conduct trade of any kind without the government being intimately involved.
We should also implant GPS trackers in all the coins, and make all the eyes in all the portraits on all the denominations functional. Of course, we'll have to make room for all these new security features, so some older features are going to have to go. I suggest we start by removing all references to "liberty". Only the filthy terrorists will miss it, anyway.
When snowden reported the spying on Americans, that was whistleblowing. When he reported how nsa spied on AQ, china, Russia, ISIS, and even Brazil and Europe, he became a traitor and is up for aiding/abetting the enemy.
I'm curious, how would you have blown the whistle if you were in his place? I like to imagine it would go something like this:
PROSECUTOR: So, Mr. Snowden, according to your testimony, the NSA set in place no fewer than five top-level programs to illegally gather the Constitutionally-protected personal information of American citizens, and that this information is sourced from almost every aspect of the telecommunications infrastructure, regardless of any established or suspected criminal status of its participants. If that's the case, sir, how is it that NO foreign nationals were caught up in this massive worldwide dragnet?
SNOWDEN: Well, I mean, of course they also gathered information on foreign nationals. They couldn't avoid that, even if they wanted to, which they don't.
PROSECUTOR: Aha! Your honor, given that the defendant has just confessed to high treason, in revealing classified information on how the NSA spies on America's enemies, and for that matter, allies, I move that we bind this case over to a secret court, and that Snowden be placed in solitary confinement for an indefinite period, but almost certainly for at least a decade or so.
> This is very relevant subject to most Slashdot users
Why? The event will not change any existing technologies or policies, nor has it raised a new issue. It's just "this happened", with no side effect.
Uh... okay. I'm no longer surprised when people aren't willing to read three pages of setup to get to my punchlines, especially given the uneven quality of those punchlines. But I must say I did think they'd read at least one sentence past the sarcastic remark that made them mad, if for no other reason than to have more stuff to be outraged about.
Slashdot has a strange obsession with Uber. They post literally everything Uber related. I just don't get it.
People who travel for business a lot seem to really be into Uber. I therefore postulate that the editors of Slashdot must travel a lot for business.
This is very relevant subject to most Slashdot users, in fact. I myself am a frequent business traveler. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to "catch a flight" and travel upstairs to see what kind of progress my colleague "Mom" has made with the We Need More Pizza Rolls project.
God dammit, when I heard my elementary school got hacked I thought I was finally going to be able to get out from under the pernicious shadow of my Permanent Record!
"Hey, is this where the water polo events are being held?"
"No, no, read sign, estupido! It say 'water polio'!"
In light of recent regrettable events, I'm waiting for SpaceShipThree, thanks.
why hit a "drum" when you can simply program a computer and fully synthesize it?
Why program a computer to synthesize it when you can just sample it?
Why bother sampling it when you can just claim it was yours in the first place, and issue a DMCA takedown request for it?
(Note: This may only work if you're Sony or one of the other three corporations remaining in the world.)
Yeah, what he said. What does this "Snow-don" character have to do with the legal consequences of the overreach of government surveillance?
Let's talk about something else instead. But none of this irrelevant crap. Here, I'll give you a topic: Let's talk about the influence of classical Greco-Roman architecture on modern architecture, but I don't want to hear a lot of jibber-jabber about the Parthenon or the Pantheon or the Colosseum!
For some reason, the editors took the "NSA Director Says" part off the front of the original headline. I'm not sure why they'd do that. Maybe they wanted to increase the percentage of people who would actually read the article, since many of us have learned to stop paying attention whenever we see the words "NSA Director says", because what comes after that is always complete nonsense.
Engineers Devise a Way To Harvest Wind Energy From Trees
Wow. I know Slashdot tends to lag behind the other news sites, but this is ridiculous.
Sorry, meant to make a smart remark about windmills there. It's ruined now. I suck. Sorry, everyone.
Engineers Devise a Way To Harvest Wind Energy From Trees
Wow. I know Slashdot tends to lag behind the other news sites, but this is ridiculous.
Go Ferrets!
While I do think there's a lot of rabid self-serving self-righteous self-aggrandizing going on about this subject nowadays, I've gotta say that, when you rear back and deliberately poke someone in the eye, you can't really call it "claptrap" when they decide to have you charged with assault.
(Also, it's "make me a sandwich", not "make me some popcorn". Who peremptorily orders someone to pop them popcorn? That's so odd that it doesn't really read as insulting, it just makes it sound like maybe you have special needs and aren't allowed to use the microwave.)
Interesting point. Also worth asking is:
Is it possible that those developers who don't feel it necessary to point out their favorite college sports team in situations where their favorite college sports team doesn't matter tend to also be those more likely to contribute worthwhile changes? Is it possible that those developers who make it a point to draw attention to their favorite college sports team in situations where there is no reason to bring up their favorite college sports team at all, are also more likely to be less convincing regarding the usefulness of their work?
Nobody else has said so, so let me say: Thanks for trying to fix things, New Management. I appreciate efforts like these. Keep it up.
The others are probably right about it being too late to make much difference, of course. Broken trust is a mother. And none of us are really sure how reputable the new bosses are, of course. But I feel it's important to recognize and encourage any steps in the right direction. So thanks again.