I know all you geeks are getting warm and fuzzy thinking about Phillips being cool and rejecting these copy-prevention techniques for "CD" logo carying status. My more accute senses smell the subtle scent of corporate greed brewing. I'm suspecting this is just some posturing for Phillips to position them as a new media format provider in the coming few years.
Think about it... supposedly EVERYONE is getting hard ons for media with copy-prevention nowadays. That means there's cash to be made if you're the one to provide the new solution. Phillips most likely sees themselves as a potential new solution provider. I'd expect to see them presenting a "CD-plus!" format or something like that in the next few years, which has copy-prevention built into the media format.
Hate to respond to users with their heads up their ass, but... here it goes
this whole blame enron on the corporate world crap needs to end. enron simply did what it was given a green light to by the politicians (on both sides), the regulators (who whined about being overworked, underfunded and unable to do their jobs), and auditors, accountants, attorneys and other paid whores. Crooked as hell, yes. Unethical, yes. Hurting innocent people, absolutely. But also totally permitted while the government looked the other way (with its hand out).
umm.. yeah... umm yeah, we can't expect anyone to behave ethically unless someone is threatening them with prison... that sounds about right... its completely rediculous to expect anyone to do their job responsibly (responsible financial practices) without allowing rampant greed and corruption to be the cornerstones of success in american business.
If enron didn't do what it was given the go ahead for, they would be guilty of being stupid
no, they would be guilty of running a financially responsible entity which resisted the urge to swindle a billion dollars from investors in order to ensure long term stability. They wouldn't have been a fortune 7 company, but they wouldn't be fucking bankrupt now either.
its rediculous that we would have to rely on any regulation to avoid this sort of situation. It could much more easily be avoided by running a corporation in an ethically responsible manner... and knowing that if you don't, the trade-off is a greatly reduced long term stability.
seriously... this is getting rediculous... even if you're not a full time troll here on slashdot, at least have the dignity to burn 2 fucking karma points on a first post attempt. I mean what the hell could be so tragic about having x-2 karma. You think you've got something to prove to your fellow geeks by maintaining a reputation on slashdot? Would you feel dirty like a whore if you non-anonymously posted a first post?
big ups to spicy latino girls who want your schlong on the beach.
damn... i was just trolling on this article and didn't even notice the subject. I grew up a couple of miles from the "slinky mansion" (sarcasm alert). I lived in a fucking trailer park and the richest man within many miles was the guy who lived in a decent house... a self made man... a revolutionary thinker... the creator of the slinky.
props to all the horny gals in california who like to masturbate in my car.
damn... i just came back from a bar in San Jose which shall remain nameless. You know, you gotta appreciate a place where you can smoke weed in the back in comfort and get so high that you start thinking its really damn funny that some chick just left her panties hanging from the corner of the lamp near the jukebox.
Yep, I originally found this on some ftp server even before www days. Who knows where it originally came from... I just remember laughing my ass off when I first saw it.
I like monkeys.
The pet store was selling them for five cents apiece.
I thought this was odd since they are normally a couple thousand apiece.
I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I bought 200 of them.
I like monkeys.
I took my 200 monkeys home.
I have a big car.
I let one of them drive.
His name was Sigmund.
He was retarded.
In fact, none of them were really bright.
They kept punching themselves in the genitals.
I laughed.
They punched me in the genitals.
I stopped laughing.
When I got home, I herded them into my room.
They didn't adapt very well to their new environment.
They would screech and hurl themselves off the couch at high speeds and slam into the wall.
Although humorous at first, the spectacle lost its novelty halfway into it's third hour.
Two hours later I found out why all the monkeys were so inexpensive:
they all died.
No apparent reason.
They all just sort of dropped dead.
Kinda like when you buy a goldfish and it dies five hours later.
God damn cheap monkeys.
I didn't know what to do.
There were 200 dead monkeys lying all over my room;
on the bed, in the dresser, hanging from my bookcase.
It looked like I had 200 throw rugs.
I tried to flush one down the toilet.
It didn't work.
It got stuck.
Then I had one dead, wet monkey and one hundred ninety-nine dead, dry monkeys.
I tried to pretend that they were just stuffed animals.
That worked for awhile, that is, until they began to decompose.
It started to smell real bad.
I had to pee but there was a dead monkey in my toilet and
I didn't want to call a plumber.
I was embarrassed.
I tried to slow down the decomposition by freezing them.
Unfortunately there was only enough room for two at a time, so I had to change them every 30 seconds.
I also had to eat all the food in the freezer so it didn't go bad.
I tried to burn them, but little did I know that my bed was flammable.
I had to extinguish the fire.
Then I had one dead, wet monkey in my toilet, two dead, frozen monkeys in my freezer, and one hundred ninety-seven dead, charred monkeys in a pile on my bed, and The odor wasn't improving.
I became agitated at my inability to dispose of the dead monkeys and I really had to use the bathroom.
So I went and severely beat one of the monkeys.
I felt better.
I tried throwing them away, but the garbage man said the city was not allowed to dispose of charred primates.
I told him I had a wet one.
He couldn't take it either.
I didn't bother asking about the frozen ones.
I finally arrived at a solution:
I gave them out as Christmas gifts.
My friends didn't quite know what to say.
They pretended to like them, but I could tell they were lying.
Ingrates.
So I punched them in the genitals.
When I first got out of college, I worked for an uber-geek who recently discovered his ability to attract women with his money. He was very lacking in social behavior and I was very lacking in programming experience. To make a long story short, he taught me how to code while I taught him how to operate a bong.
This page is a good one... it also has 2 very good links at the bottom of it. I think the most interesting part of music theory is that the human ear seems to prefer tones of simple ratios.
The reason for this is on the piano, the player needs to be able to look down and determine where their hands are based on the missing black keys between the notes B,C and F,E.
huh???? You're really going to write a comment titled "music lesson" and tell people that the only reason that there is a half-step between B and C is to make things look nicer on the piano??? Don't you think the structure of the major scale has something to do with it? I think you'll find that the conventions used for identifying the major scale will pre-date any piano construction.
hahaha... you got trolled bad. you're some troll's little bitch right now. ya didn't happen to notice that the FIRST POST message was from "CmdrTaco on Thursday" did you?
Top Nine Reasons to Quit Slashdot.org
#9. Slashdot is a plot by Microsoft to destroy the productivity of Linux users.
I have friends who were once tremendously productive programmers, until they started reading Slashdot. Then, the endless stream of links, updated a dozen times a day no less (so you don't go once a day to get your fix; instead, you keep a window open and hit reload every twenty minutes or so), steadily seduced them, until they eventually became babbling idiots, dribbling saliva from the corners of their mouths, ranting on the forums about the relative merits of Karma Whores and Anonymous Cowards. Can there be any doubt that this website is anything other than a nefarious ploy to destroy Linux by undermining the productivity of its developers? And is there any organization that would like to destroy Linux more than Microsoft? (Well, maybe the Santa Cruz Operation...) Is it any coincidence that just as the Feds were working out Microsoft's sentence, Microsoft sued Slashdot, resulting in a firestorm of geek ire that totally overshadowed the monopoly ruling?
#8. Screaming 14-year-old boys attempting to prove to each other that they are more 3133t than j00.
Need I say more?
#7. Technical opinions refereed by popular vote means lousy technical opinions.
Before the Internet, a certain breed of deconstructionists had a lot of fun telling everybody that "privileging of dominant paradigms" was wrecking the world. The Internet has taught us that privileging certain views is absolutely crucial to avoid drowning in the ravings of idiots. On Slashdot, many articles discuss technical issues---but comments are refereed by popular vote, and even though the populace of Slashdot readers knows somewhat more than your average set of people off the street, they still tend to promote (as in "moderate up") a lot of technical nonsense. Reading Slashdot can therefore often be worse than useless, especially to young and budding programmers: it can give you exactly the wrong idea about the technical issues it raises.
The pre-Internet publishing world had magazines, newspapers, and journals with editors. Respectable publications hired qualified editors. Those qualified editors were educated enough to make intelligent decisions about the quality of content. The Slashdot model removes the editors and substitutes popular vote, and the result (unfortunately) is that the quality level becomes incredibly inconsistent. It was an interesting experiment; it didn't work, not for Slashdot (though it might work in some other population of users). Too bad. Now, it's time to quit.
#6. Community myth that Linux is technically superior to any other operating system in the known universe.
People who do operating systems research, of course, think this is a joke. Dissent from this view in Slashdot, however, and you'd better be wearing your asbestos fatigues.
#5. Butt-ugly visual design.
Of course, this one's a matter of taste. However, in my analysis, the visual elements of the Slashdot site are basically hopelessly confused and wrong. From the cryptic links in the left margin, to the drop-shadowed graphics (hello, digital design cliche circa 1994?), to the offensively lousy color scheme (let's use circuit board green, because it's "News for Nerds", right?) I can't find much to like about the design of Slashdot.
#4. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to any and all articles that vaguely criticize Linux in any way.
Blowhards (like the flock of irresponsible columnists over at the Windows-boosterism rag InfoWorld) have had tons of fun taking advantage of this tendency to drive hits to their site. On any given day, Slashdot readers are treated to another link to another column by another self-proclaimed pundit declaring that Linux is (pick one) unreliable, not scalable, not user-friendly, doomed, piracy-inducing, foul-smelling, or un-American. And irony was that the editors of Slashdot are falling right into the pundits' trap: inciting the Slashdot community is the one surefire way to drive up your hit count and hence your revenue from ad banners. Did the Slashdot editors ever wise up? Not that I ever saw. Given how tiresome the endless pro-Linux jihad had become by the time I quit, I have very little desire to go back and find out whether that's changed.
#3. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to bogus pseudoscience articles by crackpots.
At the time I quit, the editors were posting links to theories of alternate consciousness, unified theories of the universe made up by people in their garages, and the like at a rate of two or three a week. And the number was only increasing. If I want to read articles that promote totally bogus pseudoscience, I'll open up the Village Voice. We don't need another webzine filling that role.
#2. Editorial/comment system pretends to be democratic but in reality most content remains firmly in the iron clasp of the editors.
The above problems with editorial could be solved if stories could be moderated as well as comments, or if editors paid attention to negative feedback about the posting of certain articles. However, the editorial staff, while pretending to be ideology-free selectors of any "interesting" content, in fact exert tremendous power over the content of the site, because they are the only ones who can select top-level links. They have furthermore demonstrated, for all the reasons above, that they cannot use this power wisely.
In fact, if you think about it, the links on Slashdot are easily an order of magnitude less interesting, on average, than those of Suck, Hotwired, or FEED---all of which are run by smart editors with good taste (and two of which are dead---thus proving that only the good die young). If you've read any of these webzines, you'll probably agree. Rob and Hemos simply don't compare, as editors, to Stephen Johnson or Joey Anuff.
So, really, it's time to ask yourself: why should I read Slashdot? Because it targets my demographic? That's a silly reason. So why not quit today?
#1. Two words: Jon Katz.
Every community has its resident gasbag. The difference between Slashdot and other communities is that they have the means to kick their village idiot off his soapbox, but they lack the will. If Jon Katz is not the single worst writer for any webzine, anywhere on the planet, alive today, then I am a penguin. His writing manages to be endlessly meandering and verbose, and simultaneously utterly content-free.
Notice, by the way, that I have not said a word about his technical acumen. It's not necessary to. Katz (who, like all opportunists, likes to paint himself as an innocent victim whenever he's criticized) makes a big deal about how there are "technical snobs" in the Linux user population who blast him for not being a technical genius. To tell the truth, Katz's inability to install even recent Linux distributions (which are arguably as easy to install as MacOS or Windows) on a run-of-the-mill x86 PC does testify to his general cluelessness. However, Katz is not a programmer or sysadmin; he's a writer. He must stand or fall based on the quality of his writing. And his writing is totally the pits. He would never have gotten published anywhere but Slashdot; even WIRED, cheerleaders of all things "digital" and "decentralized", finally got tired of his babbling and let him go. The cheesiest, most blatantly pandering "Hookers Who Read Proust" article on Salon.com displays more literary skill than the finest Katz screed ever to see the light of day.
To make things worse, Katz is also a shameless opportunist who regularly uses Slashdot to promote his books. And the Slashdot admins go right along with it. You can't criticize someone for their taste in friends, but you can criticize them for continuing in a relentless and blind nepotism that destroys the quality of the site.
No single factor wase more pivotal in driving me away from Slashdot than Jon Katz. Even when I registered for an account and filtered Katz out, still he made it into news items not labeled Jon Katz---presumably to promote sales of his book. What other webzine displays such a blatant disrespect for its readers?
But then again, Katz's pandering, one-note "Ich bin ein Geek" spiel may be exactly what the Slashdot audience deserves.
Simply put, it's time to quit Slashdot, once and for all.
For all of us with decent monitors that can support resolutions up to 10240x7680, most web pages look way too small when displayed full screen. So, here's a fix to widen up the page and take full advantage of your large monitor.
Top Nine Reasons to Quit Slashdot.org
#9. Slashdot is a plot by Microsoft to destroy the productivity of Linux users.
I have friends who were once tremendously productive programmers, until they started reading Slashdot. Then, the endless stream of links, updated a dozen times a day no less (so you don't go once a day to get your fix; instead, you keep a window open and hit reload every twenty minutes or so), steadily seduced them, until they eventually became babbling idiots, dribbling saliva from the corners of their mouths, ranting on the forums about the relative merits of Karma Whores and Anonymous Cowards. Can there be any doubt that this website is anything other than a nefarious ploy to destroy Linux by undermining the productivity of its developers? And is there any organization that would like to destroy Linux more than Microsoft? (Well, maybe the Santa Cruz Operation...) Is it any coincidence that just as the Feds were working out Microsoft's sentence, Microsoft sued Slashdot, resulting in a firestorm of geek ire that totally overshadowed the monopoly ruling?
#8. Screaming 14-year-old boys attempting to prove to each other that they are more 3133t than j00.
Need I say more?
#7. Technical opinions refereed by popular vote means lousy technical opinions.
Before the Internet, a certain breed of deconstructionists had a lot of fun telling everybody that "privileging of dominant paradigms" was wrecking the world. The Internet has taught us that privileging certain views is absolutely crucial to avoid drowning in the ravings of idiots. On Slashdot, many articles discuss technical issues---but comments are refereed by popular vote, and even though the populace of Slashdot readers knows somewhat more than your average set of people off the street, they still tend to promote (as in "moderate up") a lot of technical nonsense. Reading Slashdot can therefore often be worse than useless, especially to young and budding programmers: it can give you exactly the wrong idea about the technical issues it raises.
The pre-Internet publishing world had magazines, newspapers, and journals with editors. Respectable publications hired qualified editors. Those qualified editors were educated enough to make intelligent decisions about the quality of content. The Slashdot model removes the editors and substitutes popular vote, and the result (unfortunately) is that the quality level becomes incredibly inconsistent. It was an interesting experiment; it didn't work, not for Slashdot (though it might work in some other population of users). Too bad. Now, it's time to quit.
#6. Community myth that Linux is technically superior to any other operating system in the known universe.
People who do operating systems research, of course, think this is a joke. Dissent from this view in Slashdot, however, and you'd better be wearing your asbestos fatigues.
#5. Butt-ugly visual design.
Of course, this one's a matter of taste. However, in my analysis, the visual elements of the Slashdot site are basically hopelessly confused and wrong. From the cryptic links in the left margin, to the drop-shadowed graphics (hello, digital design cliche circa 1994?), to the offensively lousy color scheme (let's use circuit board green, because it's "News for Nerds", right?) I can't find much to like about the design of Slashdot.
#4. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to any and all articles that vaguely criticize Linux in any way.
Blowhards (like the flock of irresponsible columnists over at the Windows-boosterism rag InfoWorld) have had tons of fun taking advantage of this tendency to drive hits to their site. On any given day, Slashdot readers are treated to another link to another column by another self-proclaimed pundit declaring that Linux is (pick one) unreliable, not scalable, not user-friendly, doomed, piracy-inducing, foul-smelling, or un-American. And irony was that the editors of Slashdot are falling right into the pundits' trap: inciting the Slashdot community is the one surefire way to drive up your hit count and hence your revenue from ad banners. Did the Slashdot editors ever wise up? Not that I ever saw. Given how tiresome the endless pro-Linux jihad had become by the time I quit, I have very little desire to go back and find out whether that's changed.
#3. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to bogus pseudoscience articles by crackpots.
At the time I quit, the editors were posting links to theories of alternate consciousness, unified theories of the universe made up by people in their garages, and the like at a rate of two or three a week. And the number was only increasing. If I want to read articles that promote totally bogus pseudoscience, I'll open up the Village Voice. We don't need another webzine filling that role.
#2. Editorial/comment system pretends to be democratic but in reality most content remains firmly in the iron clasp of the editors.
The above problems with editorial could be solved if stories could be moderated as well as comments, or if editors paid attention to negative feedback about the posting of certain articles. However, the editorial staff, while pretending to be ideology-free selectors of any "interesting" content, in fact exert tremendous power over the content of the site, because they are the only ones who can select top-level links. They have furthermore demonstrated, for all the reasons above, that they cannot use this power wisely.
In fact, if you think about it, the links on Slashdot are easily an order of magnitude less interesting, on average, than those of Suck, Hotwired, or FEED---all of which are run by smart editors with good taste (and two of which are dead---thus proving that only the good die young). If you've read any of these webzines, you'll probably agree. Rob and Hemos simply don't compare, as editors, to Stephen Johnson or Joey Anuff.
So, really, it's time to ask yourself: why should I read Slashdot? Because it targets my demographic? That's a silly reason. So why not quit today?
#1. Two words: Jon Katz.
Every community has its resident gasbag. The difference between Slashdot and other communities is that they have the means to kick their village idiot off his soapbox, but they lack the will. If Jon Katz is not the single worst writer for any webzine, anywhere on the planet, alive today, then I am a penguin. His writing manages to be endlessly meandering and verbose, and simultaneously utterly content-free.
Notice, by the way, that I have not said a word about his technical acumen. It's not necessary to. Katz (who, like all opportunists, likes to paint himself as an innocent victim whenever he's criticized) makes a big deal about how there are "technical snobs" in the Linux user population who blast him for not being a technical genius. To tell the truth, Katz's inability to install even recent Linux distributions (which are arguably as easy to install as MacOS or Windows) on a run-of-the-mill x86 PC does testify to his general cluelessness. However, Katz is not a programmer or sysadmin; he's a writer. He must stand or fall based on the quality of his writing. And his writing is totally the pits. He would never have gotten published anywhere but Slashdot; even WIRED, cheerleaders of all things "digital" and "decentralized", finally got tired of his babbling and let him go. The cheesiest, most blatantly pandering "Hookers Who Read Proust" article on Salon.com displays more literary skill than the finest Katz screed ever to see the light of day.
To make things worse, Katz is also a shameless opportunist who regularly uses Slashdot to promote his books. And the Slashdot admins go right along with it. You can't criticize someone for their taste in friends, but you can criticize them for continuing in a relentless and blind nepotism that destroys the quality of the site.
No single factor wase more pivotal in driving me away from Slashdot than Jon Katz. Even when I registered for an account and filtered Katz out, still he made it into news items not labeled Jon Katz---presumably to promote sales of his book. What other webzine displays such a blatant disrespect for its readers?
But then again, Katz's pandering, one-note "Ich bin ein Geek" spiel may be exactly what the Slashdot audience deserves.
Simply put, it's time to quit Slashdot, once and for all.
bloody brilliant... As a token gesture of our newfound friendship, I hereby widen this page.
Top Nine Reasons to Quit Slashdot.org
#9. Slashdot is a plot by Microsoft to destroy the productivity of Linux users.
I have friends who were once tremendously productive programmers, until they started reading Slashdot. Then, the endless stream of links, updated a dozen times a day no less (so you don't go once a day to get your fix; instead, you keep a window open and hit reload every twenty minutes or so), steadily seduced them, until they eventually became babbling idiots, dribbling saliva from the corners of their mouths, ranting on the forums about the relative merits of Karma Whores and Anonymous Cowards. Can there be any doubt that this website is anything other than a nefarious ploy to destroy Linux by undermining the productivity of its developers? And is there any organization that would like to destroy Linux more than Microsoft? (Well, maybe the Santa Cruz Operation...) Is it any coincidence that just as the Feds were working out Microsoft's sentence, Microsoft sued Slashdot, resulting in a firestorm of geek ire that totally overshadowed the monopoly ruling?
#8. Screaming 14-year-old boys attempting to prove to each other that they are more 3133t than j00.
Need I say more?
#7. Technical opinions refereed by popular vote means lousy technical opinions.
Before the Internet, a certain breed of deconstructionists had a lot of fun telling everybody that "privileging of dominant paradigms" was wrecking the world. The Internet has taught us that privileging certain views is absolutely crucial to avoid drowning in the ravings of idiots. On Slashdot, many articles discuss technical issues---but comments are refereed by popular vote, and even though the populace of Slashdot readers knows somewhat more than your average set of people off the street, they still tend to promote (as in "moderate up") a lot of technical nonsense. Reading Slashdot can therefore often be worse than useless, especially to young and budding programmers: it can give you exactly the wrong idea about the technical issues it raises.
The pre-Internet publishing world had magazines, newspapers, and journals with editors. Respectable publications hired qualified editors. Those qualified editors were educated enough to make intelligent decisions about the quality of content. The Slashdot model removes the editors and substitutes popular vote, and the result (unfortunately) is that the quality level becomes incredibly inconsistent. It was an interesting experiment; it didn't work, not for Slashdot (though it might work in some other population of users). Too bad. Now, it's time to quit.
#6. Community myth that Linux is technically superior to any other operating system in the known universe.
People who do operating systems research, of course, think this is a joke. Dissent from this view in Slashdot, however, and you'd better be wearing your asbestos fatigues.
#5. Butt-ugly visual design.
Of course, this one's a matter of taste. However, in my analysis, the visual elements of the Slashdot site are basically hopelessly confused and wrong. From the cryptic links in the left margin, to the drop-shadowed graphics (hello, digital design cliche circa 1994?), to the offensively lousy color scheme (let's use circuit board green, because it's "News for Nerds", right?) I can't find much to like about the design of Slashdot.
#4. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to any and all articles that vaguely criticize Linux in any way.
Blowhards (like the flock of irresponsible columnists over at the Windows-boosterism rag InfoWorld) have had tons of fun taking advantage of this tendency to drive hits to their site. On any given day, Slashdot readers are treated to another link to another column by another self-proclaimed pundit declaring that Linux is (pick one) unreliable, not scalable, not user-friendly, doomed, piracy-inducing, foul-smelling, or un-American. And irony was that the editors of Slashdot are falling right into the pundits' trap: inciting the Slashdot community is the one surefire way to drive up your hit count and hence your revenue from ad banners. Did the Slashdot editors ever wise up? Not that I ever saw. Given how tiresome the endless pro-Linux jihad had become by the time I quit, I have very little desire to go back and find out whether that's changed.
#3. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to bogus pseudoscience articles by crackpots.
At the time I quit, the editors were posting links to theories of alternate consciousness, unified theories of the universe made up by people in their garages, and the like at a rate of two or three a week. And the number was only increasing. If I want to read articles that promote totally bogus pseudoscience, I'll open up the Village Voice. We don't need another webzine filling that role.
#2. Editorial/comment system pretends to be democratic but in reality most content remains firmly in the iron clasp of the editors.
The above problems with editorial could be solved if stories could be moderated as well as comments, or if editors paid attention to negative feedback about the posting of certain articles. However, the editorial staff, while pretending to be ideology-free selectors of any "interesting" content, in fact exert tremendous power over the content of the site, because they are the only ones who can select top-level links. They have furthermore demonstrated, for all the reasons above, that they cannot use this power wisely.
In fact, if you think about it, the links on Slashdot are easily an order of magnitude less interesting, on average, than those of Suck, Hotwired, or FEED---all of which are run by smart editors with good taste (and two of which are dead---thus proving that only the good die young). If you've read any of these webzines, you'll probably agree. Rob and Hemos simply don't compare, as editors, to Stephen Johnson or Joey Anuff.
So, really, it's time to ask yourself: why should I read Slashdot? Because it targets my demographic? That's a silly reason. So why not quit today?
#1. Two words: Jon Katz.
Every community has its resident gasbag. The difference between Slashdot and other communities is that they have the means to kick their village idiot off his soapbox, but they lack the will. If Jon Katz is not the single worst writer for any webzine, anywhere on the planet, alive today, then I am a penguin. His writing manages to be endlessly meandering and verbose, and simultaneously utterly content-free.
Notice, by the way, that I have not said a word about his technical acumen. It's not necessary to. Katz (who, like all opportunists, likes to paint himself as an innocent victim whenever he's criticized) makes a big deal about how there are "technical snobs" in the Linux user population who blast him for not being a technical genius. To tell the truth, Katz's inability to install even recent Linux distributions (which are arguably as easy to install as MacOS or Windows) on a run-of-the-mill x86 PC does testify to his general cluelessness. However, Katz is not a programmer or sysadmin; he's a writer. He must stand or fall based on the quality of his writing. And his writing is totally the pits. He would never have gotten published anywhere but Slashdot; even WIRED, cheerleaders of all things "digital" and "decentralized", finally got tired of his babbling and let him go. The cheesiest, most blatantly pandering "Hookers Who Read Proust" article on Salon.com displays more literary skill than the finest Katz screed ever to see the light of day.
To make things worse, Katz is also a shameless opportunist who regularly uses Slashdot to promote his books. And the Slashdot admins go right along with it. You can't criticize someone for their taste in friends, but you can criticize them for continuing in a relentless and blind nepotism that destroys the quality of the site.
No single factor wase more pivotal in driving me away from Slashdot than Jon Katz. Even when I registered for an account and filtered Katz out, still he made it into news items not labeled Jon Katz---presumably to promote sales of his book. What other webzine displays such a blatant disrespect for its readers?
But then again, Katz's pandering, one-note "Ich bin ein Geek" spiel may be exactly what the Slashdot audience deserves.
Simply put, it's time to quit Slashdot, once and for all.
You have to post in HTML, look at my journal for an example. Try cutting and pasting from there.
Many people are annoyed by wide pages, but some of us are annoyed with skinny pages... go figure. For example, I run my monitor at a 10240x7680 resolution and prefer a much wider page... So I post these wideners to make the comments fit nicer onto my monitor.
Top Nine Reasons to Quit Slashdot.org
#9. Slashdot is a plot by Microsoft to destroy the productivity of Linux users.
I have friends who were once tremendously productive programmers, until they started reading Slashdot. Then, the endless stream of links, updated a dozen times a day no less (so you don't go once a day to get your fix; instead, you keep a window open and hit reload every twenty minutes or so), steadily seduced them, until they eventually became babbling idiots, dribbling saliva from the corners of their mouths, ranting on the forums about the relative merits of Karma Whores and Anonymous Cowards. Can there be any doubt that this website is anything other than a nefarious ploy to destroy Linux by undermining the productivity of its developers? And is there any organization that would like to destroy Linux more than Microsoft? (Well, maybe the Santa Cruz Operation...) Is it any coincidence that just as the Feds were working out Microsoft's sentence, Microsoft sued Slashdot, resulting in a firestorm of geek ire that totally overshadowed the monopoly ruling?
#8. Screaming 14-year-old boys attempting to prove to each other that they are more 3133t than j00.
Need I say more?
#7. Technical opinions refereed by popular vote means lousy technical opinions.
Before the Internet, a certain breed of deconstructionists had a lot of fun telling everybody that "privileging of dominant paradigms" was wrecking the world. The Internet has taught us that privileging certain views is absolutely crucial to avoid drowning in the ravings of idiots. On Slashdot, many articles discuss technical issues---but comments are refereed by popular vote, and even though the populace of Slashdot readers knows somewhat more than your average set of people off the street, they still tend to promote (as in "moderate up") a lot of technical nonsense. Reading Slashdot can therefore often be worse than useless, especially to young and budding programmers: it can give you exactly the wrong idea about the technical issues it raises.
The pre-Internet publishing world had magazines, newspapers, and journals with editors. Respectable publications hired qualified editors. Those qualified editors were educated enough to make intelligent decisions about the quality of content. The Slashdot model removes the editors and substitutes popular vote, and the result (unfortunately) is that the quality level becomes incredibly inconsistent. It was an interesting experiment; it didn't work, not for Slashdot (though it might work in some other population of users). Too bad. Now, it's time to quit.
#6. Community myth that Linux is technically superior to any other operating system in the known universe.
People who do operating systems research, of course, think this is a joke. Dissent from this view in Slashdot, however, and you'd better be wearing your asbestos fatigues.
#5. Butt-ugly visual design.
Of course, this one's a matter of taste. However, in my analysis, the visual elements of the Slashdot site are basically hopelessly confused and wrong. From the cryptic links in the left margin, to the drop-shadowed graphics (hello, digital design cliche circa 1994?), to the offensively lousy color scheme (let's use circuit board green, because it's "News for Nerds", right?) I can't find much to like about the design of Slashdot.
#4. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to any and all articles that vaguely criticize Linux in any way.
Blowhards (like the flock of irresponsible columnists over at the Windows-boosterism rag InfoWorld) have had tons of fun taking advantage of this tendency to drive hits to their site. On any given day, Slashdot readers are treated to another link to another column by another self-proclaimed pundit declaring that Linux is (pick one) unreliable, not scalable, not user-friendly, doomed, piracy-inducing, foul-smelling, or un-American. And irony was that the editors of Slashdot are falling right into the pundits' trap: inciting the Slashdot community is the one surefire way to drive up your hit count and hence your revenue from ad banners. Did the Slashdot editors ever wise up? Not that I ever saw. Given how tiresome the endless pro-Linux jihad had become by the time I quit, I have very little desire to go back and find out whether that's changed.
#3. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to bogus pseudoscience articles by crackpots.
At the time I quit, the editors were posting links to theories of alternate consciousness, unified theories of the universe made up by people in their garages, and the like at a rate of two or three a week. And the number was only increasing. If I want to read articles that promote totally bogus pseudoscience, I'll open up the Village Voice. We don't need another webzine filling that role.
#2. Editorial/comment system pretends to be democratic but in reality most content remains firmly in the iron clasp of the editors.
The above problems with editorial could be solved if stories could be moderated as well as comments, or if editors paid attention to negative feedback about the posting of certain articles. However, the editorial staff, while pretending to be ideology-free selectors of any "interesting" content, in fact exert tremendous power over the content of the site, because they are the only ones who can select top-level links. They have furthermore demonstrated, for all the reasons above, that they cannot use this power wisely.
In fact, if you think about it, the links on Slashdot are easily an order of magnitude less interesting, on average, than those of Suck, Hotwired, or FEED---all of which are run by smart editors with good taste (and two of which are dead---thus proving that only the good die young). If you've read any of these webzines, you'll probably agree. Rob and Hemos simply don't compare, as editors, to Stephen Johnson or Joey Anuff.
So, really, it's time to ask yourself: why should I read Slashdot? Because it targets my demographic? That's a silly reason. So why not quit today?
#1. Two words: Jon Katz.
Every community has its resident gasbag. The difference between Slashdot and other communities is that they have the means to kick their village idiot off his soapbox, but they lack the will. If Jon Katz is not the single worst writer for any webzine, anywhere on the planet, alive today, then I am a penguin. His writing manages to be endlessly meandering and verbose, and simultaneously utterly content-free.
Notice, by the way, that I have not said a word about his technical acumen. It's not necessary to. Katz (who, like all opportunists, likes to paint himself as an innocent victim whenever he's criticized) makes a big deal about how there are "technical snobs" in the Linux user population who blast him for not being a technical genius. To tell the truth, Katz's inability to install even recent Linux distributions (which are arguably as easy to install as MacOS or Windows) on a run-of-the-mill x86 PC does testify to his general cluelessness. However, Katz is not a programmer or sysadmin; he's a writer. He must stand or fall based on the quality of his writing. And his writing is totally the pits. He would never have gotten published anywhere but Slashdot; even WIRED, cheerleaders of all things "digital" and "decentralized", finally got tired of his babbling and let him go. The cheesiest, most blatantly pandering "Hookers Who Read Proust" article on Salon.com displays more literary skill than the finest Katz screed ever to see the light of day.
To make things worse, Katz is also a shameless opportunist who regularly uses Slashdot to promote his books. And the Slashdot admins go right along with it. You can't criticize someone for their taste in friends, but you can criticize them for continuing in a relentless and blind nepotism that destroys the quality of the site.
No single factor wase more pivotal in driving me away from Slashdot than Jon Katz. Even when I registered for an account and filtered Katz out, still he made it into news items not labeled Jon Katz---presumably to promote sales of his book. What other webzine displays such a blatant disrespect for its readers?
But then again, Katz's pandering, one-note "Ich bin ein Geek" spiel may be exactly what the Slashdot audience deserves.
Simply put, it's time to quit Slashdot, once and for all.
Slashdot Mirror
mod this man up... make him work for his troll status!
or something before your sig line?
eat an anonymous cock, then see the real first post below
of the emergency first posting service... if this would have been a real first post, this text would be followed by an important troll
Think about it... supposedly EVERYONE is getting hard ons for media with copy-prevention nowadays. That means there's cash to be made if you're the one to provide the new solution. Phillips most likely sees themselves as a potential new solution provider. I'd expect to see them presenting a "CD-plus!" format or something like that in the next few years, which has copy-prevention built into the media format.
good stuff... pretty fuckin weird, but hey... good stuff!
New moderation system
+5 (Agrees with CmdrTaco)
-5 (Disagrees with CmdrTaco)
you didn't do the tacosnot did you?
this whole blame enron on the corporate world crap needs to end. enron simply did what it was given a green light to by the politicians (on both sides), the regulators (who whined about being overworked, underfunded and unable to do their jobs), and auditors, accountants, attorneys and other paid whores. Crooked as hell, yes. Unethical, yes. Hurting innocent people, absolutely. But also totally permitted while the government looked the other way (with its hand out).
umm.. yeah... umm yeah, we can't expect anyone to behave ethically unless someone is threatening them with prison... that sounds about right... its completely rediculous to expect anyone to do their job responsibly (responsible financial practices) without allowing rampant greed and corruption to be the cornerstones of success in american business.
If enron didn't do what it was given the go ahead for, they would be guilty of being stupid
no, they would be guilty of running a financially responsible entity which resisted the urge to swindle a billion dollars from investors in order to ensure long term stability. They wouldn't have been a fortune 7 company, but they wouldn't be fucking bankrupt now either.
its rediculous that we would have to rely on any regulation to avoid this sort of situation. It could much more easily be avoided by running a corporation in an ethically responsible manner... and knowing that if you don't, the trade-off is a greatly reduced long term stability.
Don't let CmdrTaco talk you into something he calls "TacoSnotting". You'll be better off if you just stick with more traditional faggotry.
nope, it wasn't even a strip bar, that was the best part!
big ups to spicy latino girls who want your schlong on the beach.
props to all the horny gals in california who like to masturbate in my car.
big ups to all the horny gals of california.
How big is your penis?
Yep, I originally found this on some ftp server even before www days. Who knows where it originally came from... I just remember laughing my ass off when I first saw it.
I like monkeys.
The pet store was selling them for five cents apiece.
I thought this was odd since they are normally a couple thousand apiece.
I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I bought 200 of them.
I like monkeys.
I took my 200 monkeys home.
I have a big car.
I let one of them drive.
His name was Sigmund.
He was retarded.
In fact, none of them were really bright.
They kept punching themselves in the genitals.
I laughed.
They punched me in the genitals.
I stopped laughing.
When I got home, I herded them into my room.
They didn't adapt very well to their new environment.
They would screech and hurl themselves off the couch at high speeds and slam into the wall.
Although humorous at first, the spectacle lost its novelty halfway into it's third hour.
Two hours later I found out why all the monkeys were so inexpensive:
they all died.
No apparent reason.
They all just sort of dropped dead.
Kinda like when you buy a goldfish and it dies five hours later.
God damn cheap monkeys.
I didn't know what to do.
There were 200 dead monkeys lying all over my room;
on the bed, in the dresser, hanging from my bookcase.
It looked like I had 200 throw rugs.
I tried to flush one down the toilet.
It didn't work.
It got stuck.
Then I had one dead, wet monkey and one hundred ninety-nine dead, dry monkeys.
I tried to pretend that they were just stuffed animals.
That worked for awhile, that is, until they began to decompose.
It started to smell real bad.
I had to pee but there was a dead monkey in my toilet and
I didn't want to call a plumber.
I was embarrassed.
I tried to slow down the decomposition by freezing them.
Unfortunately there was only enough room for two at a time, so I had to change them every 30 seconds.
I also had to eat all the food in the freezer so it didn't go bad.
I tried to burn them, but little did I know that my bed was flammable.
I had to extinguish the fire.
Then I had one dead, wet monkey in my toilet, two dead, frozen monkeys in my freezer, and one hundred ninety-seven dead, charred monkeys in a pile on my bed, and The odor wasn't improving.
I became agitated at my inability to dispose of the dead monkeys and I really had to use the bathroom.
So I went and severely beat one of the monkeys.
I felt better.
I tried throwing them away, but the garbage man said the city was not allowed to dispose of charred primates.
I told him I had a wet one.
He couldn't take it either.
I didn't bother asking about the frozen ones.
I finally arrived at a solution:
I gave them out as Christmas gifts.
My friends didn't quite know what to say.
They pretended to like them, but I could tell they were lying.
Ingrates.
So I punched them in the genitals.
When I first got out of college, I worked for an uber-geek who recently discovered his ability to attract women with his money. He was very lacking in social behavior and I was very lacking in programming experience. To make a long story short, he taught me how to code while I taught him how to operate a bong.
This page is a good one... it also has 2 very good links at the bottom of it. I think the most interesting part of music theory is that the human ear seems to prefer tones of simple ratios.
huh???? You're really going to write a comment titled "music lesson" and tell people that the only reason that there is a half-step between B and C is to make things look nicer on the piano??? Don't you think the structure of the major scale has something to do with it? I think you'll find that the conventions used for identifying the major scale will pre-date any piano construction.
you may now bend over and receive your troll.