Just a note....There is absolutely nothing your ISP can do to get you DSL quicker, I work for one and believe me we'd love to be able to offer DSL, but the phone company has us just as tied up as any other customer. Ranting at your ISP will not solve the world's problems.
Au contraire, GTE is big on openness. They've gone after the cable companies with AOL to open up their cable systems to allow other providers in. GTE lets ISPs provide service over their DSL offerings, so if Mom & Pop ISP wants to provide DSL speeds, they ask GTE about it. I've checked up on this. I've worked for an ISP, and they've put pressure on the telco to do something. Think for a minute how much your average ISP pays for the access lines. ISPs are basically the biggest customers, and if the telco wants to keep their customer happy and paying their bill, they should be listening to the customer. Those of you who are getting both DSL service and bandwidth from your telco are just allowing their monopoly to grow. Anyone who says they can't do that, even the cable companies, is full of it. I don't have the URLs handy for people to look at, but there's been some stories at News.com and you can also read GTE's site. Though I'm extremely not happy with GTE's attitude towards my local area, I have to credit them with openness.
We've heard the promises before of high bandwidth. Will it ever materialize? Not unless the people who want/need it start letting cable, telephone, and other companies know its needed, and there's large amounts of motivation for the utilities to provide it. I live in an area serviced by GTE and I recall them stating that they are rolling out ADSL based the on customer demand. Sure. What I've seen so far is that they are in college towns/cities deploying DSL. That makes little sense, because almost anyone in those towns can go into the college and get what they need in a lab. How many college towns do you know of where there's two or less ISPs? There's an awful lot of people begging anyone for bandwidth. The telcos complain that they are losing money and in danger of their networks failing because of all the people who have more than one line so they can access the Internet. Duh. Give us real bandwidth and then your problems go away! All this beating around the bush is so the telephone companies can make money with all their fees for second/third/etc. lines. Folks, it's time to let your telco/cable co./ISP/etc. know you're tired of this stuff. Contact them, contact your public utilities commissions, contact your representatives, contact the Federal Commnications Commission, and get them to do something. Maybe if the people in government gave these companies a tax cut with the stipulation that they must provide high-bandwidth in a certain size area in a certain amount of time, the utilities would get up and get going.
Then again we all know that it's the Utilities Mafia (there is no Utilities Mafia [tm]) that's behind this.
There's a little link that says code on the page somewhere. It leads to Slash 0.2 and 0.3-pre. Please report to the eyedoctor. Oh yeah. Please report to the Slash-help mailing list too for information.
It was said above: This happens to me too. Interestingly, a similar freeze effect happened to X Windows (NOT the whole OS) when I was using an early version of Daryll Strauss' X Server for Voodoo Banshee - he later fixed the bug, but windows (YES the whole OS) still crashes. And only on slashdot. I can't tell whether it's the windows banshee drivers suffering from the same bug, or whether it's something nastier (see below). Either way, improper HTML and/or buggy userland gfx should NEVER be able to bring the whole OS to a halt. Windows really is a crap system.
Interesting, because I have a Banshee too, using their reference drivers. Anyone else see this? I'm using the reference drivers from 3dfx with mine.
I've brought this up on the slash-help mailing list, and I really hate to put more pressure on, but I can't possibly be the only one with this bug, can I?
With Slashdot in its normal (with all the tables and colors) display, both IE 4.01SP2 and Netscape 4.6 LOCK SOLID on me under Win98 when I scroll the pages. It doesn't happen under Netscape 4.6 on Linux, and it doesn't happen with "Slashdot Light" (great taste or less filling?). Basically, there's three constants here: my box (Gateway G6-400), Windows 98 (which I've reloaded 6 times and it still does it) and Slashdot (which is the only site this happens on). I'm seriously thinking the HTML making up Slashdot is seriously b0rked (run it through validator.w3.org and you'll see). I think a lot of the rendering problems people complain about would be solved if Slashdot put out correct or near-correct HTML 4. That way if there's problems, it's the fault of the browser and not Slashdot. Does anyone else agree with me?
I speak with some experience here, as I took Slash 0.2 and made the front page HTML 4.0 with exception to ampersands in URLs (then again, that's mostly out of my control.)
MITS Altair 8800 is regarded as the "true PC". PDP's were multiuser, hence not personal, even if you have one in your house for heating in the winter. So if you have an Altair and you can prove it is the earliest, I think you'd win. Unless you can prove you built something at home before that.
And I'd hope you get a bonus if you're running MS-BASIC on that Altair...
I apologize for posting this now instead of earlier in the Hellmouth series, but it was terribly long and I didn't want it at the last page of 300 comments where few people travel. Yes, it's really long and just reiterates all the stuff you've heard until you get towards the bottom half.
As an avid Slashdot reader, former high school and now college) student, and self-confessed Geek I feel compelled to give you the my viewpoints. I have been mostly speechless as most of the articles and comments from my fellow Slashdot readers have essentially said most of what I feel. However I must express some of my own viewpoints.
The fallout of the shootings in Littleton have lead many to attempt to find any explanation as to how such an event could occur. Many are blaming anything that they can tie to the killers. Trenchcoats, Quake, Marilyn Manson, the Internet, Hitler, and anything non-conformist all are being blamed. This is very ironic. Let us examine these closely.
Trenchcoats: Now some people would have you believe that wearing a trenchcoat automatically makes you someone who will shoot up anything. This is ironic because if you examine it closely, your officers of the peace and armed forces have trenchcoats as part of the standard uniform. And these are people carrying guns as their job. I don't see them shooting up everything in sight without orders.
Quake: this is the classic "blame violence for causing violence" issue. Does this mean if I watch the news and they show a protest in Israel, fighting in Kosovo, or footage of the civil rights marches of the 1960's that I will go shoot people? I don't think so. Actually, the effect of so much violence being shown by the media leads to the viewers being desensitized.
Marilyn Manson: The same people who listened to rock in the 60's (who are now the parents of the children listening to Mariliyn Manson) are doing the exact thing their parents did to them. They blame the music for their kids being disobedient. How hypocritical.
The Internet: The Internet is at fault for providing the killers with bomb plans? Excuse me. I believe there is another place where you can find everything you need to know about building a bomb. It is your local library. I do believe Abbie Hoffman wrote one book with bomb plans in it, and there is the _Anarchist's Cookbook_ too, along with everything from chemistry books to books on the physics of the atomic bomb. The Internet only makes it faster to find what you are looking for.
Hitler: I believe it was reported by an NBC affiliate that one of the killer's mothers was Jewish, or at least had Jewish roots. Strange. Also, the people who are acting anything like Hitler are the people segregating anyone resembling a profile of the killers and forcing them to be ostracizied. They're rounding them up into internment camps and re-education facilities they call "counseling" and "therapy sessions", or they exile them from school to keep all the other "good" children safe.
Anything Non-conformist: The parents, teachers, school administration, etc. are mostly of the Baby Boomer era. They were non-conformists. They had Woodstock, they experimented with drugs, and they didn't conform to what their parents wanted. Suddenly the people who didn't conform to what their parents wanted expect their children to conform to what they want?
A Geek Life Story
I had a rough time in school from the start. Both my parents worked. My dad worked various shifts, and my mom worked mainly 3p to 11p 5 days a week. We lived in the bad part of the Port Clinton, Ohio. In the Port Clinton area, you can go from a $500,000 view of Lake Erie from a cliff to less than $300 apartments in duplexes built as temporary housing for troops in World War II that were meant to be destroyed after the war. My parents encouraged me to learn. We sacrificed cable TV, good clothes, and everything else for books and educational stuff. We got our first computer in 1990. Things got better for us by misfortune. My father was in three auto accidents, one in 1984 when I was 6, one in 1986 (IIRC), and one in 1989. From the total of the three accidents he is partially paralized, suffers loss of short term memory, has severe muscle spasms, thoracic outlet syndrome, and a host of other ailments. This set the stage for me to grow up with an even bigger division between my classmates and I. I had a father who was working to pay the bills, in constant pain, and unable to do the normal fatherly things like teaching his son how to throw and catch a football or baseball. My mother worked full-time to pay the bills. There were doctor bills, lawyer bills, insurance bills, everything. My parents fought to get the insurance companies to pay on their policies and pay the bills. They finally reached a good settlement which allowed us to move into a good neighborhood, wear good clothes, have a satellite dish, and live the "average" middle-class life depicted in the media and television. "Oh boy!" I thought. I had been a subject of ridicule since about third grade. I was always called "very bright" by teachers. I never fit in with the other students though, because I couldn't play their games (not knowing the rules and how to kick or throw a ball) and I would always get praise from the teacher, causing jealousy and anger in my classmates because it was demonstrated that I was smarter than them. I got ridiculed, but I actually got attention, something I didn't get at home. I seized on it. I became a class clown. They put me into a Talented and Gifted program where I had fun and learned things instead of being bored in class. I didn't get along well with the other people in there because I played class clown. I didn't know how to make friends. People learned my father was handicapped and made fun of him. I couldn't do anything. I was like this until high school, where I finally snapped and started defending myself. I had enough of a certain group of sophomores and older picking on me in gym class. I started poking fun of them when they started taunting me, and one day it came to a head where I saw the group enter the locker room in a mass. I just turned to ignore them, and they came around me and one of them punched me hard right in the back. I jumpped up on the bench and laid into the kid all over the head. His buddies drug me out to the teacher and told her I attacked this kid, and I told her he attacked and I defended myself, and please let's take this down to the principal. It went to the principal where I was told that I would be seeing ten days of out of school suspension. I told the principal that any policy where someone is punished for defending themself was unfair, and that I would gladly take it to the school board and an attorney if I needed to. Needless to say I wasn't punished. As a result of this though, people didn't mess with me as much. We would trade insults but not much else. However I wasn't still in the "in" group because by then I saw the "in" group for what they are: materialistic, superficial people with bad values and morals. I decided that I didn't have to get perfect grades or wear $50 jeans or cheer the school on. During this period I contemplated many different acts of violence against my classmates or my teachers or the administraton, or even myself. I thought regularly about suicide. I attempted it several times. I survived long enough to graduate. I did think about getting a GED; however, the even though you can't be discriminated for having a GED it still carries certain stigmata.
What Happened After High School?
I'm at a university in south-eastern Ohio reknowned for its party and riot reputation, surrounded by more of the same people. I realized that last quarter. I'm not doing too well in my classes either. The difference between the people here and the people in high school is that the people here realized whether I graduate or not, I will likely end up being paid and worth more than they are. They ask me for computer help, they actually try to integrate me into their social activities, and they respect me more than the people in high school did. I am still emotionally scarred from my time in primary and secondary school though. I have been to several counsellors, psychiatrists, and I currently take 20mg of Prozac a day. I had one brief relationship which broke up badly because I did not feel adequate nor was I actually adequate for my significant other, and I had nothing to guide me in the relationship, since I had no experience. I have only a few things in my life that make it tolerable. Right now my father is fighting to keep working, since his employer (an automotive systems coroporation recently made wholly separate from a large US automaker) and the union he is a member of (a union for people in the automobile indusrty) are discriminating against him because he wants a policy of their changed because it is discriminatory. Remind yourself that he is legally handicapped. (You may not like the term, but that's what it says on the blue and white tag that gets him front-row parking in most places.) He now has some idea of what life was like for me. He really wants to continue working there but the people there want him out because he didn't sit down and shut up and conform. If he loses his job, quits his job, or takes disability from them, he effectively can't make enough to help put my sister and I through college, and he doesn't have job skills for the current job market nor can he pass a physical to get a job. He takes his anger out on the rest of the family, and we understand why he does this. We're waiting for more information from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to get back with decisions on how to handle these matters. That's where things are for now.
What's Ahead?
I am doing something that I want to do. I run LilithFair.org (not the official site in case you didn't catch the.org) and while it's been a pain in the butt it's something that I have hope for. I'm doing it in part because I sort of owe my life to Sarah McLachlan and other singing women. It's kind of my outlet and my stress relief to listen to that music rather than rap, R&B, or a group of screaming boys jumping around. I'd like to get a job as an administrator for the summer at least, if not for the next year if someone offers. I'll be happy to take a year off from college. I'd like to be part of Lilith 99. I'd bust my butt for them in exchange for food and a place to sleep for 4-6 hours. Happily. (Okay so I'm weird.)
What the Heck Should I Get Out of This?
* Some people have it harder than you (I didn't intend this to make a flood of personal hardship stories, but just an example to try to cheer up some people who think they have it bad).
* Maybe sometimes hauling off and decking someone might be a Good Thing (okay this is debatable).
* Find something to have hope in. Find something to put your anger towards. Don't lose hope!
I'm not afraid to stand up and say I'm James Turinsky. If someone has a problem with it that's too bad. Feel free to reduce/recycle/reuse any part of this if you tack my name and my e-mail address general@LilithFair.org on it. Feel free to e-mail me. Feel free to ICQ me at #20441490. I have nothing to be afraid or ashamed of.
Read some mod_perl documentation. When Apache is compiled with mod_perl your httpd processes take up MEGABYTES of RAM. So why have your images coming from these httpd processes? Serving images off a separate machine makes things all that better for everyone. (send flames to Rob on his choice of mod_perl)
We've got the guy who chilled his computer down to -50C, and we've got the VaxBar and VaxTap. Why doesn't someone get a huge case, put a refrigeration system in it, stick their system in there, stick a keg in there, and have a custom setup that monitors beer level, temperature, etc. And why not create a servo mechanism to operate the tap and create a/dev/tap or/dev/beer. Heck, wire up more than one keg and create a dispense program. dispense -s -d . Hm. Symlink the taps to what is in the keg. [bartender@virtualbrew/bar]$ dispense --yard -d/dev/guiness. Let's revive the Unix to Unix Beer Protocal and network these babies. Yeah, that's it right there! Somedays I have really dumb ideas. Somedays I have really good ideas. What kind of idea day is this? JT | LilithFair.org
The perfect VAXbar companion: VAXTap 2000 Pro
on
2 Scoops of Quickies
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· Score: 1
The VaxTap 2000 Pro instrument-monitoring hardware is connected through a serial port to our Web server--an Intel/Windows NT machine running IIS (Internet Information Server). We developed a Visual C++ program that listens to the serial port on the Web server. If an event occurs, such as the opening or closing of the tap, then the program logs an event description, along with the time of the event. No way, I don't want my keg running Windows NT... who knows what a Blue Screen of Death would cause...File BeerTap.vxd corrupted. Oh my... WINDOWS CRASHED MY BEER!
Okay okay, I'm revising it. I was halfway insane when I wrote it. I had to play it safe though because I didn't want to run into recursion (we all know someone would file a bug report on it and try to exploit the buffer overflow), or worse, CmdrTaco and his million points plus everything else goes over the unsigned long double or whatever (I'm not a programmer) and segfaults/coredumps and kills him. Oh, and thanks for the Slashdot effect. It a) proved Linux and Apache is a good system to my host/employer and b) got me out of my depression. I'm going to do some revision and maybe I'll write my first-ever from scratch Perl program for finding your/.Q. I'll submit it here when I get done.
And please, send your suggestions in. I got like four e-mails. Is that the best you can do?
Thanks again.
James T. Lilithfair.org owner/admin/all-around wacky guy.
Where is AlterNIC in all this? I remember them pressing the issue a long time ago. Especially Eugene Kashpureff redirecting internic.net, going into hiding, and eventually turning himself in. Anyone know what's up with AlterNIC? [peer@www null]$ nslookup alter.nic Server: www.lilithfair.org Address: 208.13.14.4 Name: alter.nic Address: 206.191.128.47 Good old alternate TLDs...
Waitaminute, this is AOL, home of the 19-plus-hour national outage and the busy-signal/refund fiasco. Are we all sure we want AOL in this business, given their track record for being hacked, downtime, spamming, and other stuff? And while I'm thinking about it, how do we know these other companies won't be any better? NSI is selling off the contact information so we can all get spammed and phone calls and junk mail? Shouldn't we force the hands of the domain name registries to agree to a "Acceptable Use/Privacy Policy"? Something like "we will not sell your information without your personal approval. Check here to give us your approval to sell your information..." would be easy for them to do, but noooo, they gotta make even *more* money. Unless something like this gets done, they'll shaft you like NSI has and is going to again.
This scares me. This makes Stephen King fiction and X-Files look like your average 4th-grade ghost story. A nine-year-old genius, being trained to be the next Bill Gates. Someone who is being formed to dominate a multibillion dollar company. Microsoft all but admitting that they have given up until 2005 and let Linux have its moment. Thought Recognition software. I think that someone is going to read this, load up their rifle, and blow Gates and the kid away.... This has an X-Files plotline, but MS in the role of the government. There's someone crazy enough out there. Myself, I'll not be sleeping tonight or the rest of the month either. The government training monkeys to fly jets, I can believe. This terrifies me. Even the brief interview with the kid sounds like accounts of Gates. This kid is teaching Warren Buffet things? I am stunned and frightened. I don't know what to say... I'm thinking of a voluntary frontal lobomoty if MS ever materializes with this stuff.
Problem: People who choose not to view Anonymous Coward comments will not see comments from moderators. Comments from moderators might be insightful.
Solution: Create an Anonymous Moderator thing, so moderator comments are shown, and have an option to block them if people don't want to see moderator comments.
Folks, you'll either take this as flamebait or agree, but there's a big fight over censorship here. Basically I call it like this:
* If the defaults show *all* comments, that's not censorship.
* If First Post/MEEPT!/* sucks is removed/demoted, that's censorship, *only* if the defaults do not allow it to be viewed.
What has been provided here is a peer review system to sort the signal from the noise. You are given the tools to decide if you want to see good comments, or junk. How you use those tools is up to you. Yes, having others decide what is signal and what is noise is not necessarily good or bad, but the probability is high that what about 400 people pick as signal and noise is going to come close to what you pick.
Now, if you view *everything* by default, and you use the filters to block out Anonymous Cowards and stuff the moderators mark as noise, *you* are the censor, not CmdrTaco, not the moderators. YOU. I find it similar to the 4-star movie ratings. There are 4-star films that I can't stand to watch, and there are no-star films that are great, and there are others that should get a half or whole star more or less, but I'm not the person making the ratings. So please everyone, kindly spend some time on the toilet or your favorite thinking place, ponder what I said, and come back here in due time. Consider this a guideline at to what you might enjoy reading. If you like First Posts! or MEEPT!, go set your preferences likewise, if you like well-written commentary, set your preferences likewise, if you don't read comments, well, what can I say?
Also, reference my previous comment titled "Several Questions, Comments, and Ideas" above.
--- James Turinsky, blah blah blah. Comments welcome.
99% of previous comments unread due to extremely slow link (I apologize if I cover something previously posted)
Comment: This is probably one of the best moderation systems I've seen so far.
Question 1: Is there a heirarchy of moderation, i.e. are there "Super" moderators who can change/revoke moderation that another moderator has done, remove moderator status from lower moderators, etc?
Question 2: Is there some sort of trial period (please don't mention a duration or specifics) for new/added moderators?
Question 3: Is there/will there be a system for moderators to provide feedback to comment posters as to why their comment was moderated (i.e. "flamebait", "MEEPT!", etc.)? This would be good to help those of us who think we're writing good comments, yet we're either stating the obvious or are off-topic but don't know it.
Question 4: Now that my brainstorm is getting underway, with all the recent customization, how about an area for "trusted" "part-time" story posters? Like those of us who have a story on Linux that's more than the "Linux on CNN" stuff, but almost never gets posted, e.g. the BeroLinux-Linux Mandrake distro merger? Something where people can turn off part-time story posters if they choose, and maybe combine the moderation feature into that so part-time posters are rated on the importance/quality of stories they post. To me at least, this seems like something that could provide more news (especially on those slow days) and still leave the "original" Slashdot for those who want it.
Question 5: How about a way to alert/flag stuff for moderators to moderate? Like a MEEPT! post (sorry to pick on MEEPT, but that's the only example I can think of right now) could get flagged for moderator attention, or something that goes waaaaaaay off-topic. Sounds useful.
Question 6: Is there some sort of "real" democratic system for the suggestion of new features and other feedback? I mean, is there like a congress of moderators or people who vote aye or nay on stuff after reviewing it, and their vote counts so many points, and higher-ups can veto it, etc.?
Question 7 (rhetorical): Will this actually be read and responded to, and acheive a high score?;-)
--- I'll gladly take full responsibility for this comment if you'll gladly mail general@lilithfair.org telling me why you like/dislike it. James R. Turinsky, LilithFair.Org/SomeSites.Com owner/administrator/Linux user and advocate.
Slashdot Mirror
Just a note....There is absolutely nothing your ISP can do to get you DSL quicker, I work for one and believe me we'd love to be able to offer DSL, but the phone company has us just as tied up as any other customer. Ranting at your ISP will not solve the world's problems.
Au contraire, GTE is big on openness. They've gone after the cable companies with AOL to open up their cable systems to allow other providers in. GTE lets ISPs provide service over their DSL offerings, so if Mom & Pop ISP wants to provide DSL speeds, they ask GTE about it. I've checked up on this. I've worked for an ISP, and they've put pressure on the telco to do something. Think for a minute how much your average ISP pays for the access lines. ISPs are basically the biggest customers, and if the telco wants to keep their customer happy and paying their bill, they should be listening to the customer. Those of you who are getting both DSL service and bandwidth from your telco are just allowing their monopoly to grow. Anyone who says they can't do that, even the cable companies, is full of it. I don't have the URLs handy for people to look at, but there's been some stories at News.com and you can also read GTE's site. Though I'm extremely not happy with GTE's attitude towards my local area, I have to credit them with openness.
We've heard the promises before of high bandwidth. Will it ever materialize? Not unless the people who want/need it start letting cable, telephone, and other companies know its needed, and there's large amounts of motivation for the utilities to provide it. I live in an area serviced by GTE and I recall them stating that they are rolling out ADSL based the on customer demand. Sure. What I've seen so far is that they are in college towns/cities deploying DSL. That makes little sense, because almost anyone in those towns can go into the college and get what they need in a lab. How many college towns do you know of where there's two or less ISPs? There's an awful lot of people begging anyone for bandwidth. The telcos complain that they are losing money and in danger of their networks failing because of all the people who have more than one line so they can access the Internet. Duh. Give us real bandwidth and then your problems go away! All this beating around the bush is so the telephone companies can make money with all their fees for second/third/etc. lines. Folks, it's time to let your telco/cable co./ISP/etc. know you're tired of this stuff. Contact them, contact your public utilities commissions, contact your representatives, contact the Federal Commnications Commission, and get them to do something. Maybe if the people in government gave these companies a tax cut with the stipulation that they must provide high-bandwidth in a certain size area in a certain amount of time, the utilities would get up and get going.
Then again we all know that it's the Utilities Mafia (there is no Utilities Mafia [tm]) that's behind this.
There's a little link that says code on the page somewhere. It leads to Slash 0.2 and 0.3-pre. Please report to the eyedoctor. Oh yeah. Please report to the Slash-help mailing list too for information.
It was said above: This happens to me too. Interestingly, a similar freeze effect happened to X Windows (NOT the whole OS) when I was using an early version of Daryll Strauss' X Server for Voodoo Banshee - he later fixed the bug, but windows (YES the whole OS) still crashes. And only on slashdot. I can't tell whether it's the windows banshee drivers suffering from the same bug, or whether it's something nastier (see below). Either way, improper HTML and/or buggy userland gfx should NEVER be able to bring the whole OS to a halt. Windows really is a crap system.
Interesting, because I have a Banshee too, using their reference drivers. Anyone else see this? I'm using the reference drivers from 3dfx with mine.
I've brought this up on the slash-help mailing list, and I really hate to put more pressure on, but I can't possibly be the only one with this bug, can I?
With Slashdot in its normal (with all the tables and colors) display, both IE 4.01SP2 and Netscape 4.6 LOCK SOLID on me under Win98 when I scroll the pages. It doesn't happen under Netscape 4.6 on Linux, and it doesn't happen with "Slashdot Light" (great taste or less filling?). Basically, there's three constants here: my box (Gateway G6-400), Windows 98 (which I've reloaded 6 times and it still does it) and Slashdot (which is the only site this happens on). I'm seriously thinking the HTML making up Slashdot is seriously b0rked (run it through validator.w3.org and you'll see). I think a lot of the rendering problems people complain about would be solved if Slashdot put out correct or near-correct HTML 4. That way if there's problems, it's the fault of the browser and not Slashdot. Does anyone else agree with me?
I speak with some experience here, as I took Slash 0.2 and made the front page HTML 4.0 with exception to ampersands in URLs (then again, that's mostly out of my control.)
MITS Altair 8800 is regarded as the "true PC". PDP's were multiuser, hence not personal, even if you have one in your house for heating in the winter. So if you have an Altair and you can prove it is the earliest, I think you'd win. Unless you can prove you built something at home before that.
And I'd hope you get a bonus if you're running MS-BASIC on that Altair...
Ooooh a -1, remind me to redefine the Slashdot Quotient to account for that.
BOFH mode continues to be on.
Slash-help mailing list, Scary Devil Monastery for recovery after installing Slash. Remind me to put in the FAQ on how to turn moderation OFF too. Darn hypocrits.
I apologize for posting this now instead of earlier in the Hellmouth series, but it was terribly long and I didn't want it at the last page of 300 comments where few people travel. Yes, it's really long and just reiterates all the stuff you've heard until you get towards the bottom half.
.org) and while it's been a pain in the butt it's something that I have hope for. I'm doing it in part because I sort of owe my life to Sarah McLachlan and other singing women. It's kind of my outlet and my stress relief to listen to that music rather than rap, R&B, or a group of screaming boys jumping around. I'd like to get a job as an administrator for the summer at least, if not for the next year if someone offers. I'll be happy to take a year off from college. I'd like to be part of Lilith 99. I'd bust my butt for them in exchange for food and a place to sleep for 4-6 hours. Happily. (Okay so I'm weird.)
As an avid Slashdot reader, former high school and now college) student, and self-confessed Geek I feel compelled to give you the my viewpoints. I have been mostly speechless as most of the articles and comments from my fellow Slashdot readers have essentially said most of what I feel. However I must express some of my own viewpoints.
The fallout of the shootings in Littleton have lead many to attempt to find any explanation as to how such an event could occur. Many are blaming anything that they can tie to the killers. Trenchcoats, Quake, Marilyn Manson, the Internet, Hitler, and anything non-conformist all are being blamed. This is very ironic. Let us examine these closely.
Trenchcoats: Now some people would have you believe that wearing a trenchcoat automatically makes you someone who will shoot up anything. This is ironic because if you examine it closely, your officers of the peace and armed forces have trenchcoats as part of the standard uniform. And these are people carrying guns as their job. I don't see them shooting up everything in sight without orders.
Quake: this is the classic "blame violence for causing violence" issue. Does this mean if I watch the news and they show a protest in Israel, fighting in Kosovo, or footage of the civil rights marches of the 1960's that I will go shoot people? I don't think so. Actually, the effect of so much violence being shown by the media leads to the viewers being desensitized.
Marilyn Manson: The same people who listened to rock in the 60's (who are now the parents of the children listening to Mariliyn Manson) are doing the exact thing their parents did to them. They blame the music for their kids being disobedient. How hypocritical.
The Internet: The Internet is at fault for providing the killers with bomb plans? Excuse me. I believe there is another place where you can find everything you need to know about building a bomb. It is your local library. I do believe Abbie Hoffman wrote one book with bomb plans in it, and there is the _Anarchist's Cookbook_ too, along with everything from chemistry books to books on the physics of the atomic bomb. The Internet only makes it faster to find what you are looking for.
Hitler: I believe it was reported by an NBC affiliate that one of the killer's mothers was Jewish, or at least had Jewish roots. Strange. Also, the people who are acting anything like Hitler are the people segregating anyone resembling a profile of the killers and forcing them to be ostracizied. They're rounding them up into internment camps and re-education facilities they call "counseling" and "therapy sessions", or they exile them from school to keep all the other "good" children safe.
Anything Non-conformist: The parents, teachers, school administration, etc. are mostly of the Baby Boomer era. They were non-conformists. They had Woodstock, they experimented with drugs, and they didn't conform to what their parents wanted. Suddenly the people who didn't conform to what their parents wanted expect their children to conform to what they want?
A Geek Life Story
I had a rough time in school from the start. Both my parents worked. My dad worked various shifts, and my mom worked mainly 3p to 11p 5 days a week. We lived in the bad part of the Port Clinton, Ohio. In the Port Clinton area, you can go from a $500,000 view of Lake Erie from a cliff to less than $300 apartments in duplexes built as temporary housing for troops in World War II that were meant to be destroyed after the war. My parents encouraged me to learn. We sacrificed cable TV, good clothes, and everything else for books and educational stuff. We got our first computer in 1990. Things got better for us by misfortune. My father was in three auto accidents, one in 1984 when I was 6, one in 1986 (IIRC), and one in 1989. From the total of the three accidents he is partially paralized, suffers loss of short term memory, has severe muscle spasms, thoracic outlet syndrome, and a host of other ailments. This set the stage for me to grow up with an even bigger division between my classmates and I. I had a father who was working to pay the bills, in constant pain, and unable to do the normal fatherly things like teaching his son how to throw and catch a football or baseball. My mother worked full-time to pay the bills. There were doctor bills, lawyer bills, insurance bills, everything. My parents fought to get the insurance companies to pay on their policies and pay the bills. They finally reached a good settlement which allowed us to move into a good neighborhood, wear good clothes, have a satellite dish, and live the "average" middle-class life depicted in the media and television. "Oh boy!" I thought. I had been a subject of ridicule since about third grade. I was always called "very bright" by teachers. I never fit in with the other students though, because I couldn't play their games (not knowing the rules and how to kick or throw a ball) and I would always get praise from the teacher, causing jealousy and anger in my classmates because it was demonstrated that I was smarter than them. I got ridiculed, but I actually got attention, something I didn't get at home. I seized on it. I became a class clown. They put me into a Talented and Gifted program where I had fun and learned things instead of being bored in class. I didn't get along well with the other people in there because I played class clown. I didn't know how to make friends. People learned my father was handicapped and made fun of him. I couldn't do anything. I was like this until high school, where I finally snapped and started defending myself. I had enough of a certain group of sophomores and older picking on me in gym class. I started poking fun of them when they started taunting me, and one day it came to a head where I saw the group enter the locker room in a mass. I just turned to ignore them, and they came around me and one of them punched me hard right in the back. I jumpped up on the bench and laid into the kid all over the head. His buddies drug me out to the teacher and told her I attacked this kid, and I told her he attacked and I defended myself, and please let's take this down to the principal. It went to the principal where I was told that I would be seeing ten days of out of school suspension. I told the principal that any policy where someone is punished for defending themself was unfair, and that I would gladly take it to the school board and an attorney if I needed to. Needless to say I wasn't punished. As a result of this though, people didn't mess with me as much. We would trade insults but not much else. However I wasn't still in the "in" group because by then I saw the "in" group for what they are: materialistic, superficial people with bad values and morals. I decided that I didn't have to get perfect grades or wear $50 jeans or cheer the school on. During this period I contemplated many different acts of violence against my classmates or my teachers or the administraton, or even myself. I thought regularly about suicide. I attempted it several times. I survived long enough to graduate. I did think about getting a GED; however, the even though you can't be discriminated for having a GED it still carries certain stigmata.
What Happened After High School?
I'm at a university in south-eastern Ohio reknowned for its party and riot reputation, surrounded by more of the same people. I realized that last quarter. I'm not doing too well in my classes either. The difference between the people here and the people in high school is that the people here realized whether I graduate or not, I will likely end up being paid and worth more than they are. They ask me for computer help, they actually try to integrate me into their social activities, and they respect me more than the people in high school did. I am still emotionally scarred from my time in primary and secondary school though. I have been to several counsellors, psychiatrists, and I currently take 20mg of Prozac a day. I had one brief relationship which broke up badly because I did not feel adequate nor was I actually adequate for my significant other, and I had nothing to guide me in the relationship, since I had no experience. I have only a few things in my life that make it tolerable. Right now my father is fighting to keep working, since his employer (an automotive systems coroporation recently made wholly separate from a large US automaker) and the union he is a member of (a union for people in the automobile indusrty) are discriminating against him because he wants a policy of their changed because it is discriminatory. Remind yourself that he is legally handicapped. (You may not like the term, but that's what it says on the blue and white tag that gets him front-row parking in most places.) He now has some idea of what life was like for me. He really wants to continue working there but the people there want him out because he didn't sit down and shut up and conform. If he loses his job, quits his job, or takes disability from them, he effectively can't make enough to help put my sister and I through college, and he doesn't have job skills for the current job market nor can he pass a physical to get a job. He takes his anger out on the rest of the family, and we understand why he does this. We're waiting for more information from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to get back with decisions on how to handle these matters. That's where things are for now.
What's Ahead?
I am doing something that I want to do. I run LilithFair.org (not the official site in case you didn't catch the
What the Heck Should I Get Out of This?
* Some people have it harder than you (I didn't intend this to make a flood of personal hardship stories, but just an example to try to cheer up some people who think they have it bad).
* Maybe sometimes hauling off and decking someone might be a Good Thing (okay this is debatable).
* Find something to have hope in. Find something to put your anger towards. Don't lose hope!
I'm not afraid to stand up and say I'm James Turinsky. If someone has a problem with it that's too bad. Feel free to reduce/recycle/reuse any part of this if you tack my name and my e-mail address general@LilithFair.org on it. Feel free to e-mail me. Feel free to ICQ me at #20441490. I have nothing to be afraid or ashamed of.
Read some mod_perl documentation. When Apache is compiled with mod_perl your httpd processes take up MEGABYTES of RAM. So why have your images coming from these httpd processes? Serving images off a separate machine makes things all that better for everyone. (send flames to Rob on his choice of mod_perl)
James Turinsky
slash-faq editor
We've got the guy who chilled his computer down to -50C, and we've got the VaxBar and VaxTap. Why doesn't someone get a huge case, put a refrigeration system in it, stick their system in there, stick a keg in there, and have a custom setup that monitors beer level, temperature, etc. And why not create a servo mechanism to operate the tap and create a /dev/tap or /dev/beer. Heck, wire up more than one keg and create a dispense program. dispense -s -d . Hm. Symlink the taps to what is in the keg. [bartender@virtualbrew /bar]$ dispense --yard -d /dev/guiness. Let's revive the Unix to Unix Beer Protocal and network these babies. Yeah, that's it right there! Somedays I have really dumb ideas. Somedays I have really good ideas. What kind of idea day is this? JT | LilithFair.org
The VaxTap 2000 Pro instrument-monitoring hardware is connected through a serial port to our Web server--an Intel/Windows NT machine running IIS (Internet Information Server). We developed a Visual C++ program that listens to the serial port on the Web server. If an event occurs, such as the opening or closing of the tap, then the program logs an event description, along with the time of the event. No way, I don't want my keg running Windows NT... who knows what a Blue Screen of Death would cause...File BeerTap.vxd corrupted. Oh my... WINDOWS CRASHED MY BEER!
Okay okay, I'm revising it. I was halfway insane when I wrote it. I had to play it safe though because I didn't want to run into recursion (we all know someone would file a bug report on it and try to exploit the buffer overflow), or worse, CmdrTaco and his million points plus everything else goes over the unsigned long double or whatever (I'm not a programmer) and segfaults/coredumps and kills him. Oh, and thanks for the Slashdot effect. It a) proved Linux and Apache is a good system to my host/employer and b) got me out of my depression. I'm going to do some revision and maybe I'll write my first-ever from scratch Perl program for finding your /.Q. I'll submit it here when I get done.
And please, send your suggestions in. I got like four e-mails. Is that the best you can do?
Thanks again.
James T. Lilithfair.org owner/admin/all-around wacky guy.
Where is AlterNIC in all this? I remember them pressing the issue a long time ago. Especially Eugene Kashpureff redirecting internic.net, going into hiding, and eventually turning himself in. Anyone know what's up with AlterNIC? [peer@www null]$ nslookup alter.nic Server: www.lilithfair.org Address: 208.13.14.4 Name: alter.nic Address: 206.191.128.47 Good old alternate TLDs...
Waitaminute, this is AOL, home of the 19-plus-hour national outage and the busy-signal/refund fiasco. Are we all sure we want AOL in this business, given their track record for being hacked, downtime, spamming, and other stuff? And while I'm thinking about it, how do we know these other companies won't be any better? NSI is selling off the contact information so we can all get spammed and phone calls and junk mail? Shouldn't we force the hands of the domain name registries to agree to a "Acceptable Use/Privacy Policy"? Something like "we will not sell your information without your personal approval. Check here to give us your approval to sell your information..." would be easy for them to do, but noooo, they gotta make even *more* money. Unless something like this gets done, they'll shaft you like NSI has and is going to again.
This scares me. This makes Stephen King fiction and X-Files look like your average 4th-grade ghost story. A nine-year-old genius, being trained to be the next Bill Gates. Someone who is being formed to dominate a multibillion dollar company. Microsoft all but admitting that they have given up until 2005 and let Linux have its moment. Thought Recognition software. I think that someone is going to read this, load up their rifle, and blow Gates and the kid away.... This has an X-Files plotline, but MS in the role of the government. There's someone crazy enough out there. Myself, I'll not be sleeping tonight or the rest of the month either. The government training monkeys to fly jets, I can believe. This terrifies me. Even the brief interview with the kid sounds like accounts of Gates. This kid is teaching Warren Buffet things? I am stunned and frightened. I don't know what to say... I'm thinking of a voluntary frontal lobomoty if MS ever materializes with this stuff.
Problem: People who choose not to view Anonymous Coward comments will not see comments from moderators. Comments from moderators might be insightful.
Solution: Create an Anonymous Moderator thing, so moderator comments are shown, and have an option to block them if people don't want to see moderator comments.
Folks, you'll either take this as flamebait or agree, but there's a big fight over censorship here. Basically I call it like this:
* If the defaults show *all* comments, that's not censorship.
* If First Post/MEEPT!/* sucks is removed/demoted, that's censorship, *only* if the defaults do not allow it to be viewed.
What has been provided here is a peer review system to sort the signal from the noise. You are given the tools to decide if you want to see good comments, or junk. How you use those tools is up to you. Yes, having others decide what is signal and what is noise is not necessarily good or bad, but the probability is high that what about 400 people pick as signal and noise is going to come close to what you pick.
Now, if you view *everything* by default, and you use the filters to block out Anonymous Cowards and stuff the moderators mark as noise, *you* are the censor, not CmdrTaco, not the moderators. YOU.
I find it similar to the 4-star movie ratings. There are 4-star films that I can't stand to watch, and there are no-star films that are great, and there are others that should get a half or whole star more or less, but I'm not the person making the ratings. So please everyone, kindly spend some time on the toilet or your favorite thinking place, ponder what I said, and come back here in due time. Consider this a guideline at to what you might enjoy reading. If you like First Posts! or MEEPT!, go set your preferences likewise, if you like well-written commentary, set your preferences likewise, if you don't read comments, well, what can I say?
Also, reference my previous comment titled "Several Questions, Comments, and Ideas" above.
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James Turinsky, blah blah blah. Comments welcome.
#end_lurk_mode
;-)
Lurk mode off.
99% of previous comments unread due to extremely slow link (I apologize if I cover something previously posted)
Comment: This is probably one of the best moderation systems I've seen so far.
Question 1: Is there a heirarchy of moderation, i.e. are there "Super" moderators who can change/revoke moderation that another moderator has done, remove moderator status from lower moderators, etc?
Question 2: Is there some sort of trial period (please don't mention a duration or specifics) for new/added moderators?
Question 3: Is there/will there be a system for moderators to provide feedback to comment posters as to why their comment was moderated (i.e. "flamebait", "MEEPT!", etc.)? This would be good to help those of us who think we're writing good comments, yet we're either stating the obvious or are off-topic but don't know it.
Question 4: Now that my brainstorm is getting underway, with all the recent customization, how about an area for "trusted" "part-time" story posters? Like those of us who have a story on Linux that's more than the "Linux on CNN" stuff, but almost never gets posted, e.g. the BeroLinux-Linux Mandrake distro merger? Something where people can turn off part-time story posters if they choose, and maybe combine the moderation feature into that so part-time posters are rated on the importance/quality of stories they post. To me at least, this seems like something that could provide more news (especially on those slow days) and still leave the "original" Slashdot for those who want it.
Question 5: How about a way to alert/flag stuff for moderators to moderate? Like a MEEPT! post (sorry to pick on MEEPT, but that's the only example I can think of right now) could get flagged for moderator attention, or something that goes waaaaaaay off-topic. Sounds useful.
Question 6: Is there some sort of "real" democratic system for the suggestion of new features and other feedback? I mean, is there like a congress of moderators or people who vote aye or nay on stuff after reviewing it, and their vote counts so many points, and higher-ups can veto it, etc.?
Question 7 (rhetorical): Will this actually be read and responded to, and acheive a high score?
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I'll gladly take full responsibility for this comment if you'll gladly mail general@lilithfair.org telling me why you like/dislike it.
James R. Turinsky, LilithFair.Org/SomeSites.Com owner/administrator/Linux user and advocate.
Howabout a little on an estimated time for slash-0.3 which ought to actually work? Please? Pretty-please? I'm dying here...