NDPTAL85,
Slashdot is definitely NOT a hobbyist site. I make money, like all the editors here. I like my work, like most of the editors here. But despite liking my job, and getting paid for it on the side, because it IS a paid job, I try to do it as good as I can. I am a professional. I became a professional when I started getting paid for what I do since my employers think I'm pretty good at what I do. Slashdot editors are professionals too. I suspect most of them LIKE what they do here. I never argued that. But since they are professionals they SHOULD do the best they can instead of pushing their own websites, posting double news (at least Timothy apologised for that, kudos) or writing movie reviews that indeed could be in a high school newspaper. And Katz knows how to write well. He just did (in my opinion and quite a few of the posters) a halfassed job on the movie review.
Now, in case you don't realise this, it is US who pay these people their income, mostly through ad revenues. We are their customers. Your opinion that 'THATS FINE' is like Adobe customers saying 'THATS FINE' when Adobe sells them crap.
Lastly, I said in my previous post that I LIKE slashdot, I APPRECIATE slashdot, BUT my criticism stands. It's my opinion, it's a well explained opinion too.
Oh wait, one more thing. What you call 'obscure' is all over the world considered to be a MAJOR milestone of very big importance. It even surpasses your beloved American right of Free Speech or the DMCA. If you can't BREATHE, you cannot speak you know. Reconsider your opinion and read the article I pointed out, and also try and find somewhat less American centric news reporting about it, it's worth the read, PARTICULARLY for nerds who want to be around and who want their children to be around for a few more generations.
Yeah, I know, Kyoto will affect everyone, and I'm so shallow and politically naive for thinking it doesn't necessarily need to be discussed here, whatever.
Don't put words in my mouth. I never said that slashdot, or it's readers, or even you are shallow and politically naive. I think there is lots of evidence supporting that this is not the case.
I just sometimes don't understand the decision making process of the editors here at all; There's old news (Alan Cox resigning from Usenet), editor's own petpeeves (CmdrTaco's anime article), rather blatantly poorly written articles (JonKatz's 'movie review') etc. I do like slashdot, I come here every day and I like the discussions a lot, but sometimes you really have to wonder what drugs the editors are on:) Maybe that's part of the charm of the site, that we also get to nag at the editors a lot... SO NAG!!:)
the kyoto treaty is not really "news for nerds", it is closer to "news for ecologists". but at least im doing my part for the environment...
Well, I partially agree with you. At first looks maybe it isn't "news for nerds", and I won't disagree on that based only on "slashdot has been reporting FAR more that's not 'news for nerds' lately".
It is however news which very well illustrates the pres's isolationist attitude. This isolationist attitude also shows through very much in the Dmytri Sklyarov reporting. How many comments in the last few days have you seen about how the USA is getting more and more isolated from the rest of the world? The Pope warning Bush about the 'Evils' of Embryo Cell Research is yet another example of this. And in that context is is news for nerds.
Dave,
I have one question for you. What do you think of the fact that Slashdot, the interviewing site, find your interview more 'news' than they find the final signing of the Kyoto Treaty ?
Does this not make you worry about the quality of the news site that's interviewing you?
The video games/movies/TV paradox of whether it's 'good' or 'bad' for 'children' is a very challenging one to consider. First off, when I read 'children' in the context of these kind of reports, I always get a bit paranoid. The reporter, knowingly or not, is then trying to reach our emotional side, as opposed to our logical side. I would much prefer to find out how the violence influx of all these media is influencing us, whether adult, child, male, female.
I'm often tempted to say that 'the way nature intended it' is 'good' but this alone is far too simple a point of view I believe. After all, we are part of nature, we create much of the environment around us, like a bear creates his own cave pretty much. Does the fact that a bear lives in a cave make him an unnatural being? I think not. Similarly, I don't think the 'things' we create around us make us 'unnatural' neccesarily.
However, nature has a way to deal with excesses of particular things/species in ways we often cannot fathom. Mind you, 'video games' by my earlier description have become part of our 'nature'. Violence has ofcourse always been part of our nature.
Nature encourages improvement. Nature encourages better adaptation to the world we live in at any particular moment in time. However, nature also kills excessive cancerous species. So, a very interesting (well to me:) thing to wonder is when nature is still nourishing us, and when nature will start turning against us.
Do video games create supersadistlittlehitlers that will kill us all, or enough to get the numbers right again? Maybe, and maybe they are just yet another innovative tool to make humans adapt even more to their increasingly competitive environment. Video games have been around for quite a while, it would be far more illustrative to see 'where are all those videogame players from back then now?'. Was Bill Gates a fanatic video game player? Larry Ellison? President Bush? I don't care much about a bunch of kids having supernatural reflexes because they play quake often, blah. Where is that report that links 'ideas' to 'reality' ?
Please send me a list of editors' websites. I'll sprinkle some references to them over any next article I submit. Perhaps that way even the less interesting pieces will make it to the homepage.
He said "hated by the US government". As you probably know by now, the US government no longer represents the American people anymore, so don't take it personal.
Some more reading (combined with earlier reading) reveals that a few miles of sail would have to be folded up in a little can that gets shot in space...
How come they don't just give this sail to some guy who's about to visit the ISS and just have him toss if overboard from ISS?
Ha! First them ruskies think they can just steal IP and then they think they can build rockets! They shoulda hired the Rocket Guy, at least he knows how to build something as trivial as a Rocket that Works (tm).
Ok... enough of that. Just a little joke to relax the people (including me) who are infuriated with the Sklyarov thing.
Hmmm, last time I read something about the percentage of Americans that vote, it said something like 30% or so voted. Not really a 'major percentage'.
Besides that, even if you do vote here, sometimes your vote does not get counted. Particularly in states where your brother is governor. Come on Americans, don't waste time. You country is rapidly being overhauled into a dictatorship. Don't get defensive about that observation, but DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Revolutions are part of the growth cycle of a country, it's your chance to create culture instead of always advertising 'european this' and 'european that' in commercials on TV.
I posted here and here my new encryption scheme named ASCII. I will repeat it here again, don't say I did not warn! You don't need to be posting ROT-13 anymore, since as of yesterday the ASCII encryption is 'my way' of encryption. I intend to enforce it when Adobe gets it's way in court, since the law in this country works based on precedent.
Dear Company X,
We have noticed your software does not ship with ROT-13 encryption. We must STRONGLY urge you to enable your ROT-13 encryption by default so the world will become a more secure place!!
With this notice, and as many other message boards I can find, I would like to let the word know of my new encryption method.
It will be named 'ASCII', short for 'Americans Screw Communist In Jail'. Oops, that last 'J' was incorrectly encrypted, oh well.
This technique will involve replacing the arabic characters so commonly used in the western world with numbers!
The US Government has just set a precedent that implies that such trivial encryption methods that have been around forever are as good as any complex, bugprone strong encryption like DES for example. I will also give my full cooperation to the US government by handing them the full 'key' to my encryption method, the so called 'ASCII table'. I am not a large corporation yet, but I believe that arresting a few communists will make me so enormously popular with the American corporations that funding should be NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER.
Please let it be known that I will from now on go after offenders that publish decryption devices for the ASCII encryption, the so called 'editors', 'wordprocessors' etc. In fact... I do believe that the website you are reading this on has stored it's data in my encryption method and is indeed traficking an encryption device!!! (You can read this, can't you?)
I posted here in the earlier Felten story. Since this is earlier in the thread, I would like to reiterate it, please follow the link and read it. I will forward this earlier post to the EFF to get informed of the possibilities of doing something like this. Protests, emailstorms, outrage etc. may work well, but I can only imagine that Adobe would not want to stand in court against hundreds of defendants. When I get a reply from the EFF, I will post it here.
A few years ago the scientology church started a courtcase against a few small ISP's for hosting the Fishman Affidavit, one of the documents the scientology church does NOT want people to see. The strong suspicion was that they geographically selected the ISP's in order to get to a court that was suspected to have scientology sympathies.
In a rather unexpected move however, the Dutch PTT, through Planet Internet added themselves to the defendant list, giving the little ISP's some more weight and causing another court to handle the case. I may be off on the details here, but those are not relevant at this point, it's the idea that matters now.
I am wondering if the US court system allows this kind of 'adding yourself' to the list of defendants (is 'defendant' the right word? I hope so...). IF there is no secret agenda behind this courtcase, like KGB/CIA meddling or earlier crimes comitted in the US by Sklyarov, and the whole case is ONLY about publishing/speaking on how to break a ROT13 encryption, I would be HAPPY to 'add' myself to this case and share Sklyarov's destiny. The same would apply for Dr Felten actually (just to not get smacked down as being 'Offtopic') but hey, I cannot claim to be as smart as Dr. Felten.
I figure if enough people and perhaps companies (there MUST be companies out there that are very much AGAINST this DMCA) will rise against this (from what it looks like, and admitting that I don't know all the facts) GRAVE INJUSTICE. I just cannot stand people being treated like the most vicious criminals for violating laws that go against every common sense, and not violating it in a brutal way, but merely by exposing pure STUPIDITY.
Anybody with legal knowledge, please post on here if this is at all possible and if there have been precedents like this where many many people voluntarily added themselves to a courtcase.
If the SDMI thing isn't going to be blatantly obvious enough in court, this case certainly should be.
I should go report myself for inventing a circumvention device that decrypts the Supreme Court judge's underwear. I bet I could make it stick (the case, not the underwear) in court too by using the DMCA.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Re:Question....Super cavitating hydrofoils?
on
High-Tech Hydrofoil
·
· Score: 1
Ehr... where to find wind that blows at speeds > mach 1 then?
I do think that I see at least the rudder boards on the 'wings', but it's not visible if it has any other control surfaces. I wonder just how much control the rudder boards give at high speeds and how safe this is. Imagine one rudder blade to get slightly misaligned with the other, I figure that would make the hydrofoils snap off like a twig.
As with hovercrafts, one always has to wonder if this is 'boating' or 'flying'. Anyone who has ever taken a ride (mandatory silly wordjoke) in a hovercraft will tell ya that it resembles flying a lot.
This hydrofoil looks incredibly awesome, I wish I could take a trip in it. It's not quite such new technology however. Hydrofoils have been around forever, this is just a more perfectioned version of it all.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, in case you don't realise this, it is US who pay these people their income, mostly through ad revenues. We are their customers. Your opinion that 'THATS FINE' is like Adobe customers saying 'THATS FINE' when Adobe sells them crap.
Lastly, I said in my previous post that I LIKE slashdot, I APPRECIATE slashdot, BUT my criticism stands. It's my opinion, it's a well explained opinion too.
Oh wait, one more thing. What you call 'obscure' is all over the world considered to be a MAJOR milestone of very big importance. It even surpasses your beloved American right of Free Speech or the DMCA. If you can't BREATHE, you cannot speak you know. Reconsider your opinion and read the article I pointed out, and also try and find somewhat less American centric news reporting about it, it's worth the read, PARTICULARLY for nerds who want to be around and who want their children to be around for a few more generations.
Don't put words in my mouth. I never said that slashdot, or it's readers, or even you are shallow and politically naive. I think there is lots of evidence supporting that this is not the case.
I just sometimes don't understand the decision making process of the editors here at all; There's old news (Alan Cox resigning from Usenet), editor's own petpeeves (CmdrTaco's anime article), rather blatantly poorly written articles (JonKatz's 'movie review') etc. I do like slashdot, I come here every day and I like the discussions a lot, but sometimes you really have to wonder what drugs the editors are on :) Maybe that's part of the charm of the site, that we also get to nag at the editors a lot... SO NAG!! :)
Well, I partially agree with you. At first looks maybe it isn't "news for nerds", and I won't disagree on that based only on "slashdot has been reporting FAR more that's not 'news for nerds' lately".
It is however news which very well illustrates the pres's isolationist attitude. This isolationist attitude also shows through very much in the Dmytri Sklyarov reporting. How many comments in the last few days have you seen about how the USA is getting more and more isolated from the rest of the world? The Pope warning Bush about the 'Evils' of Embryo Cell Research is yet another example of this. And in that context is is news for nerds.
Does this not make you worry about the quality of the news site that's interviewing you?
I'm often tempted to say that 'the way nature intended it' is 'good' but this alone is far too simple a point of view I believe. After all, we are part of nature, we create much of the environment around us, like a bear creates his own cave pretty much. Does the fact that a bear lives in a cave make him an unnatural being? I think not. Similarly, I don't think the 'things' we create around us make us 'unnatural' neccesarily.
However, nature has a way to deal with excesses of particular things/species in ways we often cannot fathom. Mind you, 'video games' by my earlier description have become part of our 'nature'. Violence has ofcourse always been part of our nature.
Nature encourages improvement. Nature encourages better adaptation to the world we live in at any particular moment in time. However, nature also kills excessive cancerous species. So, a very interesting (well to me:) thing to wonder is when nature is still nourishing us, and when nature will start turning against us.
Do video games create supersadistlittlehitlers that will kill us all, or enough to get the numbers right again? Maybe, and maybe they are just yet another innovative tool to make humans adapt even more to their increasingly competitive environment. Video games have been around for quite a while, it would be far more illustrative to see 'where are all those videogame players from back then now?'. Was Bill Gates a fanatic video game player? Larry Ellison? President Bush? I don't care much about a bunch of kids having supernatural reflexes because they play quake often, blah. Where is that report that links 'ideas' to 'reality' ?
Why do you say that? Did Adobe 'invent' ROT-13?
He said "hated by the US government". As you probably know by now, the US government no longer represents the American people anymore, so don't take it personal.
How come they don't just give this sail to some guy who's about to visit the ISS and just have him toss if overboard from ISS?
Ok... enough of that. Just a little joke to relax the people (including me) who are infuriated with the Sklyarov thing.
Besides that, even if you do vote here, sometimes your vote does not get counted. Particularly in states where your brother is governor. Come on Americans, don't waste time. You country is rapidly being overhauled into a dictatorship. Don't get defensive about that observation, but DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Revolutions are part of the growth cycle of a country, it's your chance to create culture instead of always advertising 'european this' and 'european that' in commercials on TV.
It will be named 'ASCII', short for 'Americans Screw Communist In Jail'. Oops, that last 'J' was incorrectly encrypted, oh well.
This technique will involve replacing the arabic characters so commonly used in the western world with numbers!
The US Government has just set a precedent that implies that such trivial encryption methods that have been around forever are as good as any complex, bugprone strong encryption like DES for example. I will also give my full cooperation to the US government by handing them the full 'key' to my encryption method, the so called 'ASCII table'. I am not a large corporation yet, but I believe that arresting a few communists will make me so enormously popular with the American corporations that funding should be NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER.
Please let it be known that I will from now on go after offenders that publish decryption devices for the ASCII encryption, the so called 'editors', 'wordprocessors' etc. In fact... I do believe that the website you are reading this on has stored it's data in my encryption method and is indeed traficking an encryption device!!! (You can read this, can't you?)
In a rather unexpected move however, the Dutch PTT, through Planet Internet added themselves to the defendant list, giving the little ISP's some more weight and causing another court to handle the case. I may be off on the details here, but those are not relevant at this point, it's the idea that matters now.
I am wondering if the US court system allows this kind of 'adding yourself' to the list of defendants (is 'defendant' the right word? I hope so...). IF there is no secret agenda behind this courtcase, like KGB/CIA meddling or earlier crimes comitted in the US by Sklyarov, and the whole case is ONLY about publishing/speaking on how to break a ROT13 encryption, I would be HAPPY to 'add' myself to this case and share Sklyarov's destiny. The same would apply for Dr Felten actually (just to not get smacked down as being 'Offtopic') but hey, I cannot claim to be as smart as Dr. Felten.
I figure if enough people and perhaps companies (there MUST be companies out there that are very much AGAINST this DMCA) will rise against this (from what it looks like, and admitting that I don't know all the facts) GRAVE INJUSTICE. I just cannot stand people being treated like the most vicious criminals for violating laws that go against every common sense, and not violating it in a brutal way, but merely by exposing pure STUPIDITY.
Anybody with legal knowledge, please post on here if this is at all possible and if there have been precedents like this where many many people voluntarily added themselves to a courtcase.
I should go report myself for inventing a circumvention device that decrypts the Supreme Court judge's underwear. I bet I could make it stick (the case, not the underwear) in court too by using the DMCA.
This hydrofoil looks incredibly awesome, I wish I could take a trip in it. It's not quite such new technology however. Hydrofoils have been around forever, this is just a more perfectioned version of it all.