"I have this sneaking suspicion that Slashdot still runs on a ton of legacy code and systems that make migrating it far more complex than we think of for other systems. Based on my experience with the site, I don't think it's ever been owned by a particularly deep-pocketed outfit or one that has thought it's worth investing major money in for an overhaul."
"Sorry we inconvenienced you and interrupted your normal routine. It wasn't a fun time for us either, I can assure you. We inherited an aging setup in the acquisition that was located physically far away from us. We made a big investment in a new hardware set up, and ran into sizable issues including a massive DDOS during the process. Going forward we expect much better uptime. We will be dedicating a lot of time and resources this year to improving Slashdot."
We seeing an example of inadequate communication. A very limited explanation was posted as a comment to an unrelated story.
This is what Ray Morris said: "In all that time, I've never seen a site move cause a week of down time unless people just kept making mistake after mistake after mistake."
This is what you said: "He claims to know exactly what went wrong..."
Ray Morris was NOT claiming to "know exactly what went wrong".
"whipslash" is Logan Abbott, President of SourceForge, Slashdot, and others. He said, "I appreciate the concern, conspiracy theories, and even the anger and vitriol. It's nice to see people care."
Slashdot is extremely important to the technology community.
What Ray Morris said in the parent comment seems reasonable to me.
"I do because I have yet to find an advertiser that can provide me adequate assurances..."
Most media companies and ad agencies have no one who has technical knowledge, or is even interested in technical knowledge. "Adequate assurances" are at least a generation away.
It seemed to me that the protest might be appropriate for a 1 hour demonstration. I agree with others who would not like traffic to be slowed during rush hour.
As I said before: "Cities and counties should own and lease dark fiber. The Internet is a necessary public utility, like water, electricity, natural gas, sewage, and trash pickup." And, I should have said, road maintenance.
The protest initially seemed to me to help make the valid point that the Internet is "a necessary public utility". But, to be sensible, it would need to be done in a way that minimizes hassles and maximizes public awareness.
"Sure there are some users that may use some of the very advanced features that only Office offers, but I think that is a very small percentage of the users."
That seems correct to me. I use LibreOffice to write business letters when it is necessary to use tree-killer paper.
"It [LibreOffice] has given fewer problems than [Microsoft] Office,..."
I agree. In my comment that started this thread, Does Microsoft use deliberate file irregularities?, I forgot to mention that I had other problems with Microsoft Office. Weird responses from the user interface, for example. Back in the old days, Clippy was annoying, of course.
If there aren't problems, software companies would not be able to sell a new version of sold software to most people. Now that software is being rented, not sold, there is a different way to force income. People spend hours learning how to use complicated software. It would be expensive to learn other software. So, software renters can increase the monthly rent.
Complicated document organization? Design in HTML, then copy and paste to LibreOffice or Microsoft Office. Design a table, for example, in the free What You See is What You GetSeaMonkey Composer. (Don't use SeaMonkey email, use Thunderbird.) Use the free Notepad++ with the Tidy2 plugin to make the HTML easy to read. When you like the HTML, merely copy and paste it to LibreOffice or Microsoft Office.
"What's the excuse for anything less than 100% compatibility now?"
Maybe there are deliberate file irregularities that Microsoft uses to try to force people to buy new versions of Microsoft Office. If the CEO always wants the latest version of Office, everyone else would then be forced to have the new version, also.
Software companies have found that people who have no interest in technical details are easily abused. Now some software companies are renting their software, and no longer selling it.
A long time ago, I spent several hours writing a document in Microsoft Office. Later I discovered that Office was not able to open the file it had generated.
I was able to open the document in Libre Office. Since then, I use only Libre Office.
Is it possible that most people who have trouble with Libre Office interacting with Microsoft Office have made a mistake in saving the file?
Reported on the Malwarebytes forum yesterday:Malwarebytes Web Protection unable to turn on and a massive Memory Leak. Also, CPU use was extremely high, making computers slow. The issue was fixed in 2 hours and 10 minutes, but it cost many people a huge amount of time because it wasn't obvious what was causing the problems.
Recent automatic updates to Malwarebytes software have been destructive in other ways, apparently. The company says Malwarebytes can and should co-exist with other anti-malware software. However, recent updates have caused ZoneAlarm to fail on about 17 computers of which we are aware. Malwarebytes does not provide a software firewall, ZoneAlarm does, so ZoneAlarm is valuable.
Malwarebytes should change its name. "Malware bytes" is what the software protects against. If a company produces a pill that reduces intestinal gas, should the company name be "flatulence"?
It is not difficult to find evidence of insufficient management at Intel. Yesterday I got 2 poorly considered, poorly written marketing emails from Intel.
Will Intel be allowed to PROFIT from many years of producing processors with vulnerabilities? Will Intel be treated like U.S. banks in 2008, when many banks profited and many finance system managers got bonuses after the financial crash?
If vulnerabilities are profitable, would Intel deliberately allow vulnerabilities in its products? Were the previous vulnerabilities deliberate? Maybe the CEO didn't previously know about the vulnerabilities. Did someone else at Intel profit from the vulnerabilities?
About once a week for the last 3 years I've been around a group that plays Dungeons and Dragons. My impression from talking with them is that they have all had difficult childhoods. It's good that they have a group activity. But playing D&D does not give them any help in understanding how to recover from insufficient care.
Will they have limited social abilities their entire lives? It seems yes.
Want an example of people having limited social ability? Here is an example from this Slashdot story: "You're defending Nazi's Hal. You ought to share their fate." Someone is recommending murder in this Slashdot discussion! There are many other comments on this Slashdot story that are equally lacking in social ability.
"How does this fix the problems that cause Firefox to take as much ram as it can..."
I filed a bug report to Mozilla about that more than 10 years ago.
Firefox gobbles memory and CPU power when there are lots of Windows and tabs open. Eventually Firefox makes Windows 7 unstable, and it is necessary to restart the computer.
Instead of teaching themselves how to interact with other people, and instead of learning how the world works, those who spend huge amounts of time playing video games avoid personal growth and avoid connecting with the world.
Slashdot Mirror
I should have said:
YouTube is part of Google, now called Alphabet. This is another example of bad management by Alphabet, in my opinion.
YouTube should not have announced a partnership that does not exist.
YouTube is part of Google, now called Alphabet. This is another example of bad management by Alphabet, in my opinion.
Interesting point.
Good point in the parent comment, it seems:
"I have this sneaking suspicion that Slashdot still runs on a ton of legacy code and systems that make migrating it far more complex than we think of for other systems. Based on my experience with the site, I don't think it's ever been owned by a particularly deep-pocketed outfit or one that has thought it's worth investing major money in for an overhaul."
Slashdot manager "whipslash", Logan Abbott, posted this explanation as a comment on another story, 'Java EE' Has Been Renamed 'Jakarta EE':
"Sorry we inconvenienced you and interrupted your normal routine. It wasn't a fun time for us either, I can assure you. We inherited an aging setup in the acquisition that was located physically far away from us. We made a big investment in a new hardware set up, and ran into sizable issues including a massive DDOS during the process. Going forward we expect much better uptime. We will be dedicating a lot of time and resources this year to improving Slashdot."
We seeing an example of inadequate communication. A very limited explanation was posted as a comment to an unrelated story.
I am sympathetic to the troubles Slashdot managers had. However, it does seem as though there was a lack of detailed planning.
It would be interesting if someone at Slashdot wrote a comprehensive story.
This is what Ray Morris said: "In all that time, I've never seen a site move cause a week of down time unless people just kept making mistake after mistake after mistake."
This is what you said: "He claims to know exactly what went wrong..."
Ray Morris was NOT claiming to "know exactly what went wrong".
"whipslash" is Logan Abbott, President of SourceForge, Slashdot, and others. He said, "I appreciate the concern, conspiracy theories, and even the anger and vitriol. It's nice to see people care."
Slashdot is extremely important to the technology community.
What Ray Morris said in the parent comment seems reasonable to me.
"I do because I have yet to find an advertiser that can provide me adequate assurances..."
Most media companies and ad agencies have no one who has technical knowledge, or is even interested in technical knowledge. "Adequate assurances" are at least a generation away.
From the Slashdot summary: "... all these TVs raised privacy concerns by collecting very detailed information on their users."
It seems to me that the long-term effect will be to do severe damage to the reputation of both Samsung and Roku.
"It was never intended to be used by individuals..."
Back then, I had friends at Tektronix who opposed the Internet becoming available to everyone.
Apple is poorly managed, in my opinion.
"So, who won the match after Harry fell off his broom?"
This was before Harry. The evidence is the use of Latin numbers, "Super Bowl LII". Latin has been a dead language since the 1400s.
I made a mistake in recommending the protest in my comment above: I'd like to see more protests this relevant.
It seemed to me that the protest might be appropriate for a 1 hour demonstration. I agree with others who would not like traffic to be slowed during rush hour.
As I said before: "Cities and counties should own and lease dark fiber. The Internet is a necessary public utility, like water, electricity, natural gas, sewage, and trash pickup." And, I should have said, road maintenance.
The protest initially seemed to me to help make the valid point that the Internet is "a necessary public utility". But, to be sensible, it would need to be done in a way that minimizes hassles and maximizes public awareness.
Why working at home is both awesome and horrible - The Oatmeal
I know everyone will be impressed that I know how to make an HTML link. Such technical knowledge!
Hey! TARGET="_blank" works on Slashdot now. Didn't maybe 2 years ago.
Wow! Excellent protest!
"Had they used Seagate's world-class global-leading enterprise-caliber hardware, their experience would be much more favorable." --Seagate rep"
So, what does that mean? Does Seagate deliberately make drives that have a higher failure rate? Why?
What is Seagate's "enterprise-caliber"? Is there a "sloppy-manufacturing caliber" or a bad-design caliber"?
The Backblaze statistics are of limited use because only a few were tested of many of the drive models.
Good quotes:
..."
"Sure there are some users that may use some of the very advanced features that only Office offers, but I think that is a very small percentage of the users."
That seems correct to me. I use LibreOffice to write business letters when it is necessary to use tree-killer paper.
"It [LibreOffice] has given fewer problems than [Microsoft] Office,
I agree. In my comment that started this thread, Does Microsoft use deliberate file irregularities?, I forgot to mention that I had other problems with Microsoft Office. Weird responses from the user interface, for example. Back in the old days, Clippy was annoying, of course.
If there aren't problems, software companies would not be able to sell a new version of sold software to most people. Now that software is being rented, not sold, there is a different way to force income. People spend hours learning how to use complicated software. It would be expensive to learn other software. So, software renters can increase the monthly rent.
Complicated document organization? Design in HTML, then copy and paste to LibreOffice or Microsoft Office. Design a table, for example, in the free What You See is What You Get SeaMonkey Composer. (Don't use SeaMonkey email, use Thunderbird.) Use the free Notepad++ with the Tidy2 plugin to make the HTML easy to read. When you like the HTML, merely copy and paste it to LibreOffice or Microsoft Office.
"What's the excuse for anything less than 100% compatibility now?"
Maybe there are deliberate file irregularities that Microsoft uses to try to force people to buy new versions of Microsoft Office. If the CEO always wants the latest version of Office, everyone else would then be forced to have the new version, also.
Software companies have found that people who have no interest in technical details are easily abused. Now some software companies are renting their software, and no longer selling it.
A long time ago, I spent several hours writing a document in Microsoft Office. Later I discovered that Office was not able to open the file it had generated.
I was able to open the document in Libre Office. Since then, I use only Libre Office.
Is it possible that most people who have trouble with Libre Office interacting with Microsoft Office have made a mistake in saving the file?
Reported on the Malwarebytes forum yesterday: Malwarebytes Web Protection unable to turn on and a massive Memory Leak. Also, CPU use was extremely high, making computers slow. The issue was fixed in 2 hours and 10 minutes, but it cost many people a huge amount of time because it wasn't obvious what was causing the problems.
Recent automatic updates to Malwarebytes software have been destructive in other ways, apparently. The company says Malwarebytes can and should co-exist with other anti-malware software. However, recent updates have caused ZoneAlarm to fail on about 17 computers of which we are aware. Malwarebytes does not provide a software firewall, ZoneAlarm does, so ZoneAlarm is valuable.
Malwarebytes should change its name. "Malware bytes" is what the software protects against. If a company produces a pill that reduces intestinal gas, should the company name be "flatulence"?
"From the people who brought you F00F, FDIV, and now Meltdown? No thanks."
Intel has had many years of insufficient management, in my opinion.
It is not difficult to find evidence of insufficient management at Intel. Yesterday I got 2 poorly considered, poorly written marketing emails from Intel.
More evidence of insufficient management: Intel's CEO reportedly sold shares after the company already knew about massive security flaws
Will Intel be allowed to PROFIT from many years of producing processors with vulnerabilities? Will Intel be treated like U.S. banks in 2008, when many banks profited and many finance system managers got bonuses after the financial crash?
If vulnerabilities are profitable, would Intel deliberately allow vulnerabilities in its products? Were the previous vulnerabilities deliberate? Maybe the CEO didn't previously know about the vulnerabilities. Did someone else at Intel profit from the vulnerabilities?
Sorry, I only buy Apple products that cost more than $1,000.
"Do you have any actual evidence for this?"
About once a week for the last 3 years I've been around a group that plays Dungeons and Dragons. My impression from talking with them is that they have all had difficult childhoods. It's good that they have a group activity. But playing D&D does not give them any help in understanding how to recover from insufficient care.
Will they have limited social abilities their entire lives? It seems yes.
Want an example of people having limited social ability? Here is an example from this Slashdot story: "You're defending Nazi's Hal. You ought to share their fate." Someone is recommending murder in this Slashdot discussion! There are many other comments on this Slashdot story that are equally lacking in social ability.
Here is an example of the results of social acceptance of violence in the United States, from a few minutes ago: Kentucky school shooting: At least 5 shot at Marshall County High School - live updates.
Note that my original comment on this Slashdot discussion is modded "Score: 0, Troll". There are 12 comments below my comment.
"How does this fix the problems that cause Firefox to take as much ram as it can..."
I filed a bug report to Mozilla about that more than 10 years ago.
Firefox gobbles memory and CPU power when there are lots of Windows and tabs open. Eventually Firefox makes Windows 7 unstable, and it is necessary to restart the computer.
Instead of teaching themselves how to interact with other people, and instead of learning how the world works, those who spend huge amounts of time playing video games avoid personal growth and avoid connecting with the world.
"According to reports, Intel has known about the vuln for 7+ months."
Re-post: Intel: Years of insufficient management.