An AC writes: "Congress absolutely runs on the quid-pro-quo of vote swapping: "I'll vote for your invasive, environmentally unsound, pork barrel project if you'll vote for mine". You think all those egocentric, power-mad, greedy lawyers in Congress actually read the bills that they vote on? Nope, they swap votes or follow the party line, often without having a clue what they're voting for or against. So much easier than having to think... and potentially so much more profitable."
Wish you hadn't posted anonymous. This is one of the most obvious-yet-insightful (the best kind) comments I've seen in a while.
That's extremely funny, I'm going to send that to everyone I know. I sometimes feel like I harp on it too much (especially lately) but unfortunately the fact that I don't own a TV does come up a lot. This is because conversations frequently involve TV references. For example, last night a friend mentioned that his group of friends was sometimes referred to as the "Grey Council." Apparently this is a Deep Space 9 reference, so I had to ask, "what means this 'Grey Council?'"
Even old, old friends of mine seem to forget this too but generally catch themselves right after asking. "Hey, did you see [insert show here]. Oh, wups. Forgot."
"I watch TV and (gasp!) have independent thoughts. All things in moderation."
No, I don't think you do. If you watch TV in moderation then I would argue that you're abrogating your scope of right and wrong, just moderately. Television is a heavily filtered and often commercially influenced medium. Of this much I think we can agree. So what gets filtered? Things that are upsetting, first of all. Advertisers do not want a spot right in the middle of a 20/20 docu-drama on abortion for example. I think we can probably agree there too. So what is the end-result? You are exposed to less "radical" ideas. You're only seeing a slice, a perspective that does not impede your duties as a consumer.
I categorize this as damaging. The "all things in moderation" merely attenuates the damage.
First, let me apologize in advance for the rant that will follow. It is kind of hard to say this stuff without sounding like an elitist f*ckwad. I do not intend to come off this way. And I tie this into the current topic at the end, so bear with me. Without further ado...
In 1996 I doused my television with lighter fluid and did you-know-what. I really only expected to not be chained to it anymore but its effects got a lot more profound than that; around 2001 I actually began to have thoughts of my own that I couldn't trace to any marketing effort.
Further, we're social things, we humans. We float ideas we develop past them and find out what sticks and what doesn't and respond accordingly. But who are our "friends" these days? Friends, that's who. Granted, not entirely. And for some more than others. But who do you see more of -- your flesh-and-blood friends or actors? The question is rhetorical so answer honestly after thinking about it for a few minutes.
I bring this last point up because with this whole Iraq war looming, for example, I realized I was forming my own opinions instead of abrogating this responsibility to the television. I no longer had a group of electronic friends that would keep my thinking corraled within the bounds of "acceptable," whether that be Dan Rather or...er, [insert some tv actress' name here]. I also noticed that with one exception, the more television a friend of mine watched, the more likely they were to favor a war in Iraq. I found that particularly troubling.
Does this seems silly? Like I'm off the deep end? How many of your ideas of right and wrong coincide with how television would present it? Is this a coincidence? Is it also a coincidence that our media-drenched society is also significantly out of touch with the entire rest of the world and observably so (if you bother to look, anyway).
To borrow a page from Adbusters, go sit in front of your TV but don't turn it on. Sit there for an hour looking at it. If the first idea through your head is "that's nonsense, I'm not going to do nothing for a whole hour"...well what do you think you'd be doing if it was on?
So to answer the question of this post, "What Should [You] Do With Your Life?" I don't know. That's up to you. But don't get the answer from a book, regardless of how well it is written. If you're looking to a book to answer that question for you, I would suggest you have bigger issues.
Thanks for reading this far.
Re:The OS world from the 'GO' perspective
on
ReactOS 0.1.0 Released
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Billy the Mountain writes: "This announcement of this OS may seem interesting, but if you play the endlessly fascinating game of Go, your insight can become more balanced. For example, When Microsoft was well on the way of total OS dominance, it was as if the board had many stones, but all in one corner. Then Linus Torvalds, almost absentmindedly, played a stone in the opposite corner that was mostly vacant and Microsoft and the rest of the world ignored it, so Linus played a few more stones. Soon there was a formidable structure that Microsoft and the rest of the world couldn't ignore. And that's where we are today. Now ReactOS comes along and plays a stone, but no matter where the stone is placed on the OS board, the position is weak."
Perhaps, but I think you will agree that Microsoft's position is thick and slow. And there is death in the hane.
Tar-Palantir writes: "They simulated a visit to the Monterey Aquarium, why not simulate, say, a visit to a secluded hamlet in Soviet Russia with Natalie Portman?"
My only regret is that by the time they manage to pull this off convincingly I will either be long dead or far from interested in Natale Portman.
... Hm. Now that I think about it I'm not sure I could live long enough to achieve situation #2, so scratch that.
In late November of 2001 I was walking near my house and felt a rather sharp pain in my right thigh about 4" away from the pelvis connection. Went to MGH (Massachusetts General Hospital) thinking that perhaps I had cracked my pelvis (about what it felt like) but the scans showed I had DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis).
The doctors asked if I had been on an airplane recently as this is often seen in people who sit in cramped positions for long periods of time. I had not. But I was working as a low-level NOC monkey. Combine that with my computer activities post-work and you have pretty much the same thing minus the cramped aspect. But the doctors seemed to discard that theory.
Just to sew the story up, I took self-administered shots of Fragmin for about 2 weeks and then coumadin/warfarin (blood thinners) for about 8 months. The Fragmin is necessary because the warfarin will cause blood thickening when starting off so the Fragmin counters this. I should mention that Fragmin is incredibly expensive ($50/ea shot, 2x a day IIRC) so not having health insurance would have really sucked.
But the only thing I can think of that would have caused it is long hours at the computer. Of course it might have had a genetic origin but I've never heard of anyone in my family having it.
Me too. Left (well, got laid off from) Akamai 12/2001. Lived in Southie and Somerville.
"Did you know Scholtz (the guy in question) was also an employee of Polaroid, the camera and film company. He worked there during the day and record during the night..."
That's kind of funny because my roommate and friend of 10 years worked for Polaroid and I still wasn't aware of that. =) Do you know if any of them still live in the area or anything? I'm in Rhode Island now.
There have been previous gaming consoles that have superior technical merit and found themselves bested by technically inferior competition (think; Jaguar). There have also been gaming consoles that had a plethora of games to choose from (more than I can enumerate here). The key failing point for all of them is a small core of good games. Regardless of what you think of Sonic, it made Sega. Regardless of what you think of Mario, it made Nintendo.
These guys can have 250,000 carts and it won't be worth anything if they don't have a Sonic or a Mario.
Regardless, any competition in the market is good for gamers.
mla_anderson writes: "Since there would be a 150lb+ person on it the total mass moving at UP TO 12.5 mph would be about 220lb. Therefore it wouldn't be equivalent to a 150lb person running at 8 mph."
Oops. I was so annoyed and dying to flame them that I didn't figure this out. I suck.
But still, someone on a bike could a TON of damage. Granted, it might be illegal to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk there, but afaik they're talking about banning Segways entirely, so if a cop spots one, it's getting nailed. On the other hand, I've only been pulled over once for operating a bike on the sidewalk (in NH) and my bike has been my sole means of transportation for 6 years.
From the article: Critics say the Segway is a safety hazard on sidewalks because it weighs 69 pounds and travels at up to 12.5 mph -- three times faster than the typical pedestrian.
Oh, right, so...it packs about the same punch as a 150lb adult running at 8mph? Hello? Is there not a single one among them with a highschool-aged child taking physics?
*sigh
These weenies are so law-happy, let them set a damned speed limit on them. Cripes. This is a little like the apocryphal carpenter who views every problem like it's a nail. These nits don't have to start thinking "outside the box," they just need to start thinking.
From the article: Veteran comics fan Christian Cooper, who once worked as a Marvel editor, thinks Judge Barzilay got carried away. If Kraven isn't human, what about the twisted villains in Dick Tracy? Or worse yet, Superman himself? "Here's a guy who changes his clothes in a phone booth and flies through the air," says Mr. Cooper. "Does that mean he's now an animal?"
No, he's Kryptonian you nitwit. What a kneejerk reaction!
THIS IS OVER IMPORT DUTIES CLASSIFICATION FOR CRIPES SAKE! Who gives a groundhog's fanny if they call Superman a "cup of water with a straw hanging off the end?"
Too bad there isn't a mechanism to meta-moderate slashdot stories for duplicates. That way you could filter out anything ranging from -1 (I don't care if it is a retread) to 5 (this has to be a beyond-all-doubt repost before I don't see it).
WindBourne writes: " One of the problems with unions have been that they fight against any new labour savings devices. Yet, they would do better to fight for jobs promotion to other positions such as tech work on the mags."
I thought of that but, afaik, unions are not structured like this. The Dockworkers Union represents dockworkers, not what dockworkers will eventually become if they go with the (possibly delayable but inevitable) technical advance. So there is no incentive. Their only option is to stall.
I'm not saying I agree with it. Painters got pissed about cameras because multi-day portraits became a decidedly unattractive option in comparison. Progress marches on with very little notice or concern for who it steps on. I'm not lamenting it so much as wondering, from a societal standpoint, how they're coping. Or maybe even learning from past union mistakes.
From the article: "Mooring a ship can be a time-consuming, labour-intensive affair in which dock workers grab ropes hurled from the deck of the incoming ship and secure them to the dockside."
I've never been one decry progress because it'll put some people out of work, but this does have the potential to unemploy a whole crapload of people over the not-so-long term.
I wonder how the dockworkers union is handling this?
This is about as bright as the already in-effect tax on writeable media. It goes to the RIAA et al to reimburse them for piracy. So we pay for piracy and still can't do it.
Just when you thought that the corporate-owned government couldn't screw us in a more blatant, shameless and imaginative way, along comes Hillary...
mgkimsal2 writes: " So you think the guy wouldn't sue his ISP for revoking his account because of someone's complaint? If the ISP wouldn't do it for fear of a lawsuit, then blocking based on IP just hurts more people than this one guy. If the ISP *would* take on the lawsuit, that means there's merit, and there are legal grounds to go after this guy. If there are legal grounds, let the pest company go after him directly."
Good points. I would suggest that there likely exists a ToS (Terms of Service) which he is in violation of. But granted, the ISP might very well wish to take a neutral stance for fear of a lawsuit.
My only real objection to your answer is that simple technical measures don't appear to have been tried yet and they should.
I don't think the people behind this suit are particularly adept. Block the IP. If that doesn't do it contact their provider. If that doesn't work start blocking the whole IP range owned by that person's ISP.
If the guy has to find a whole new ISP just to post a message that will be killed by a moderator in a few hours he's not going to be doing it for long.
The only way I can see this not being a good idea is if the ISP in question is sufficiently large AND sufficiently unresponsive to your complaints, but I don't see that as being the case here. I think they're spending a whole lotta money on something they're going to lose anyway.
I, like probably a great number of Slashdot readers, use Kazaa. There is a feature that allows you to rate a file's technical accuracy/integrity. On it's face, it looks easily spoofable, all that the RIAA et al needs to do is set the integrity rating at "excellent" and boom.
Not so fast. The idea of P2P is that person 1 shares with, say, 20 people, those 20 people each share with 20 people, etc. The more aggressive and possibly effective the industry gets at poisoning the data pool, the more people are going to rely on the built-in moderation mechanism (the integrity rating). In other words, they'll receive the poisoned data and then either rate it low or, more likely, simply delete it. Since P2P is a tree structure, the poison will only expand to a few branches and will be utterly swamped by good data that is rated well.
In order for those wishing to poison the data to overcome this obstacle, they'd have to create a number of nodes that I would estimate to be at least 5% of the legitimate users. Right this second I show 3.8 million users on my network, so that would involve them creating roughly 190,000 fake accounts, all with discrete IP addresses. For integrity's sake, I'll admit that I pulled the 5% figure out of my butt. Could be lower, could be much higher. It's just a guess. But the percent would have to be lower by several magnitudes for it to be realistic from a technical point of view.
I'm not sure I've been clear enough in this description, but what I'm saying, in a nutshell, is that there exists techniques -- currently unused, for the most part -- which would become more used if the poisoning became effective. In other words it would be self-attenuating. The more they poison, the more people use the rating tools, the less effective the poisoning is. Sort of like a thermostat.
Slashdot Mirror
tag?
Pretty please? With sugar on top?
An AC writes:
"Congress absolutely runs on the quid-pro-quo of vote swapping: "I'll vote for your invasive, environmentally unsound, pork barrel project if you'll vote for mine". You think all those egocentric, power-mad, greedy lawyers in Congress actually read the bills that they vote on? Nope, they swap votes or follow the party line, often without having a clue what they're voting for or against. So much easier than having to think... and potentially so much more profitable."
Wish you hadn't posted anonymous. This is one of the most obvious-yet-insightful (the best kind) comments I've seen in a while.
Maeryk writes:
"I want to see mandatory drug testing for congress, with printed pass/fail results, personally."
Hope you have a wide browser. And you'd damned well better click on this because I took the time to find it and scan it... =)
http://www.fivefoot6.com/temp/bc001b.jpg
Here is a to the 640-width trailer for everyone who would like to perhaps save it locally and not use the imbedded junk. I hate that.
...wow. Aren't I articulate? This is, essentially, fanfic. And it is pretty damned good.
As for the trailer
God bless timothy for posting this at 6:49AM. =)
micromoog writes:
" I've read about you."
That's extremely funny, I'm going to send that to everyone I know. I sometimes feel like I harp on it too much (especially lately) but unfortunately the fact that I don't own a TV does come up a lot. This is because conversations frequently involve TV references. For example, last night a friend mentioned that his group of friends was sometimes referred to as the "Grey Council." Apparently this is a Deep Space 9 reference, so I had to ask, "what means this 'Grey Council?'"
Even old, old friends of mine seem to forget this too but generally catch themselves right after asking. "Hey, did you see [insert show here]. Oh, wups. Forgot."
"I watch TV and (gasp!) have independent thoughts. All things in moderation."
No, I don't think you do. If you watch TV in moderation then I would argue that you're abrogating your scope of right and wrong, just moderately. Television is a heavily filtered and often commercially influenced medium. Of this much I think we can agree. So what gets filtered? Things that are upsetting, first of all. Advertisers do not want a spot right in the middle of a 20/20 docu-drama on abortion for example. I think we can probably agree there too. So what is the end-result? You are exposed to less "radical" ideas. You're only seeing a slice, a perspective that does not impede your duties as a consumer.
I categorize this as damaging. The "all things in moderation" merely attenuates the damage.
Love the nick.
First, let me apologize in advance for the rant that will follow. It is kind of hard to say this stuff without sounding like an elitist f*ckwad. I do not intend to come off this way. And I tie this into the current topic at the end, so bear with me. Without further ado...
...er, [insert some tv actress' name here]. I also noticed that with one exception, the more television a friend of mine watched, the more likely they were to favor a war in Iraq. I found that particularly troubling.
...well what do you think you'd be doing if it was on?
In 1996 I doused my television with lighter fluid and did you-know-what. I really only expected to not be chained to it anymore but its effects got a lot more profound than that; around 2001 I actually began to have thoughts of my own that I couldn't trace to any marketing effort.
Further, we're social things, we humans. We float ideas we develop past them and find out what sticks and what doesn't and respond accordingly. But who are our "friends" these days? Friends, that's who. Granted, not entirely. And for some more than others. But who do you see more of -- your flesh-and-blood friends or actors? The question is rhetorical so answer honestly after thinking about it for a few minutes.
I bring this last point up because with this whole Iraq war looming, for example, I realized I was forming my own opinions instead of abrogating this responsibility to the television. I no longer had a group of electronic friends that would keep my thinking corraled within the bounds of "acceptable," whether that be Dan Rather or
Does this seems silly? Like I'm off the deep end? How many of your ideas of right and wrong coincide with how television would present it? Is this a coincidence? Is it also a coincidence that our media-drenched society is also significantly out of touch with the entire rest of the world and observably so (if you bother to look, anyway).
To borrow a page from Adbusters, go sit in front of your TV but don't turn it on. Sit there for an hour looking at it. If the first idea through your head is "that's nonsense, I'm not going to do nothing for a whole hour"
So to answer the question of this post, "What Should [You] Do With Your Life?" I don't know. That's up to you. But don't get the answer from a book, regardless of how well it is written. If you're looking to a book to answer that question for you, I would suggest you have bigger issues.
Thanks for reading this far.
Billy the Mountain writes:
"This announcement of this OS may seem interesting, but if you play the endlessly fascinating game of Go, your insight can become more balanced. For example, When Microsoft was well on the way of total OS dominance, it was as if the board had many stones, but all in one corner. Then Linus Torvalds, almost absentmindedly, played a stone in the opposite corner that was mostly vacant and Microsoft and the rest of the world ignored it, so Linus played a few more stones. Soon there was a formidable structure that Microsoft and the rest of the world couldn't ignore. And that's where we are today. Now ReactOS comes along and plays a stone, but no matter where the stone is placed on the OS board, the position is weak."
Perhaps, but I think you will agree that Microsoft's position is thick and slow. And there is death in the hane.
"They simulated a visit to the Monterey Aquarium, why not simulate, say, a visit to a secluded hamlet in Soviet Russia with Natalie Portman?"
My only regret is that by the time they manage to pull this off convincingly I will either be long dead or far from interested in Natale Portman.
In late November of 2001 I was walking near my house and felt a rather sharp pain in my right thigh about 4" away from the pelvis connection. Went to MGH (Massachusetts General Hospital) thinking that perhaps I had cracked my pelvis (about what it felt like) but the scans showed I had DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis).
The doctors asked if I had been on an airplane recently as this is often seen in people who sit in cramped positions for long periods of time. I had not. But I was working as a low-level NOC monkey. Combine that with my computer activities post-work and you have pretty much the same thing minus the cramped aspect. But the doctors seemed to discard that theory.
Just to sew the story up, I took self-administered shots of Fragmin for about 2 weeks and then coumadin/warfarin (blood thinners) for about 8 months. The Fragmin is necessary because the warfarin will cause blood thickening when starting off so the Fragmin counters this. I should mention that Fragmin is incredibly expensive ($50/ea shot, 2x a day IIRC) so not having health insurance would have really sucked.
But the only thing I can think of that would have caused it is long hours at the computer. Of course it might have had a genetic origin but I've never heard of anyone in my family having it.
telecaster writes:
"I'm FROM Boston.."
Me too. Left (well, got laid off from) Akamai 12/2001. Lived in Southie and Somerville.
"Did you know Scholtz (the guy in question) was also an employee of Polaroid, the camera and film company. He worked there during the day and record during the night..."
That's kind of funny because my roommate and friend of 10 years worked for Polaroid and I still wasn't aware of that. =) Do you know if any of them still live in the area or anything? I'm in Rhode Island now.
telecaster writes:
"Boston's first record (which I still think is one of the best recorded albums)..."
Easily one of the best debut albums, ever. You can play that forever and never get sick of it. Well, almost. =)
Did you know that two members of Boston went to MIT?
There have been previous gaming consoles that have superior technical merit and found themselves bested by technically inferior competition (think; Jaguar). There have also been gaming consoles that had a plethora of games to choose from (more than I can enumerate here). The key failing point for all of them is a small core of good games. Regardless of what you think of Sonic, it made Sega. Regardless of what you think of Mario, it made Nintendo.
These guys can have 250,000 carts and it won't be worth anything if they don't have a Sonic or a Mario.
Regardless, any competition in the market is good for gamers.
This is the most content-free message, ever, but I have to say it... This is one of the coolest things I have ever seen.
There. I said it. =)
mla_anderson writes:
"Since there would be a 150lb+ person on it the total mass moving at UP TO 12.5 mph would be about 220lb. Therefore it wouldn't be equivalent to a 150lb person running at 8 mph."
Oops. I was so annoyed and dying to flame them that I didn't figure this out. I suck.
But still, someone on a bike could a TON of damage. Granted, it might be illegal to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk there, but afaik they're talking about banning Segways entirely, so if a cop spots one, it's getting nailed. On the other hand, I've only been pulled over once for operating a bike on the sidewalk (in NH) and my bike has been my sole means of transportation for 6 years.
From the article:
...it packs about the same punch as a 150lb adult running at 8mph? Hello? Is there not a single one among them with a highschool-aged child taking physics?
Critics say the Segway is a safety hazard on sidewalks because it weighs 69 pounds and travels at up to 12.5 mph -- three times faster than the typical pedestrian.
Oh, right, so
*sigh
These weenies are so law-happy, let them set a damned speed limit on them. Cripes. This is a little like the apocryphal carpenter who views every problem like it's a nail. These nits don't have to start thinking "outside the box," they just need to start thinking.
Let the politician jokes begin...
From the article:
Veteran comics fan Christian Cooper, who once worked as a Marvel editor, thinks Judge Barzilay got carried away. If Kraven isn't human, what about the twisted villains in Dick Tracy? Or worse yet, Superman himself? "Here's a guy who changes his clothes in a phone booth and flies through the air," says Mr. Cooper. "Does that mean he's now an animal?"
No, he's Kryptonian you nitwit. What a kneejerk reaction!
THIS IS OVER IMPORT DUTIES CLASSIFICATION FOR CRIPES SAKE! Who gives a groundhog's fanny if they call Superman a "cup of water with a straw hanging off the end?"
Summary: Marvel wanted the items to be declared non-human to shoehorn them into an arbitrary category that incurred less import tax.
This is an affront to the X-Men theme of intolerance in only the most semantical, BS way imaginable.
Too bad there isn't a mechanism to meta-moderate slashdot stories for duplicates. That way you could filter out anything ranging from -1 (I don't care if it is a retread) to 5 (this has to be a beyond-all-doubt repost before I don't see it).
Barely A Speck. Freaky.
WindBourne writes:
" One of the problems with unions have been that they fight against any new labour savings devices. Yet, they would do better to fight for jobs promotion to other positions such as tech work on the mags."
I thought of that but, afaik, unions are not structured like this. The Dockworkers Union represents dockworkers, not what dockworkers will eventually become if they go with the (possibly delayable but inevitable) technical advance. So there is no incentive. Their only option is to stall.
I'm not saying I agree with it. Painters got pissed about cameras because multi-day portraits became a decidedly unattractive option in comparison. Progress marches on with very little notice or concern for who it steps on. I'm not lamenting it so much as wondering, from a societal standpoint, how they're coping. Or maybe even learning from past union mistakes.
From the article:
"Mooring a ship can be a time-consuming, labour-intensive affair in which dock workers grab ropes hurled from the deck of the incoming ship and secure them to the dockside."
I've never been one decry progress because it'll put some people out of work, but this does have the potential to unemploy a whole crapload of people over the not-so-long term.
I wonder how the dockworkers union is handling this?
This is about as bright as the already in-effect tax on writeable media. It goes to the RIAA et al to reimburse them for piracy. So we pay for piracy and still can't do it.
Just when you thought that the corporate-owned government couldn't screw us in a more blatant, shameless and imaginative way, along comes Hillary...
mgkimsal2 writes:
" So you think the guy wouldn't sue his ISP for revoking his account because of someone's complaint? If the ISP wouldn't do it for fear of a lawsuit, then blocking based on IP just hurts more people than this one guy. If the ISP *would* take on the lawsuit, that means there's merit, and there are legal grounds to go after this guy. If there are legal grounds, let the pest company go after him directly."
Good points. I would suggest that there likely exists a ToS (Terms of Service) which he is in violation of. But granted, the ISP might very well wish to take a neutral stance for fear of a lawsuit.
My only real objection to your answer is that simple technical measures don't appear to have been tried yet and they should.
I don't think the people behind this suit are particularly adept. Block the IP. If that doesn't do it contact their provider. If that doesn't work start blocking the whole IP range owned by that person's ISP.
If the guy has to find a whole new ISP just to post a message that will be killed by a moderator in a few hours he's not going to be doing it for long.
The only way I can see this not being a good idea is if the ISP in question is sufficiently large AND sufficiently unresponsive to your complaints, but I don't see that as being the case here. I think they're spending a whole lotta money on something they're going to lose anyway.
I, like probably a great number of Slashdot readers, use Kazaa. There is a feature that allows you to rate a file's technical accuracy/integrity. On it's face, it looks easily spoofable, all that the RIAA et al needs to do is set the integrity rating at "excellent" and boom.
Not so fast. The idea of P2P is that person 1 shares with, say, 20 people, those 20 people each share with 20 people, etc. The more aggressive and possibly effective the industry gets at poisoning the data pool, the more people are going to rely on the built-in moderation mechanism (the integrity rating). In other words, they'll receive the poisoned data and then either rate it low or, more likely, simply delete it. Since P2P is a tree structure, the poison will only expand to a few branches and will be utterly swamped by good data that is rated well.
In order for those wishing to poison the data to overcome this obstacle, they'd have to create a number of nodes that I would estimate to be at least 5% of the legitimate users. Right this second I show 3.8 million users on my network, so that would involve them creating roughly 190,000 fake accounts, all with discrete IP addresses. For integrity's sake, I'll admit that I pulled the 5% figure out of my butt. Could be lower, could be much higher. It's just a guess. But the percent would have to be lower by several magnitudes for it to be realistic from a technical point of view.
I'm not sure I've been clear enough in this description, but what I'm saying, in a nutshell, is that there exists techniques -- currently unused, for the most part -- which would become more used if the poisoning became effective. In other words it would be self-attenuating. The more they poison, the more people use the rating tools, the less effective the poisoning is. Sort of like a thermostat.