Is VNV Nation EBM? Futurepop? Or just Electronica? How about Dead Can Dance? I think they've hit a dozen different genres over the years, how do you pick one?
Well, you don't HAVE to tag every single song the same way just because it's the same artist...
There's also a science fiction short story dealing with this subject matter - I don't recall all the details, really, or even who wrote it or what the title was, but it involved one guy who had been frozen for some reason and was later on thawed again. The story chronicled how he struggled to fit into the new world - one he wasn't born into, wasn't familiar with, and ultimately couldn't fit into.
One thing I do remember and that might help to identify the story was that he was sentenced to death at some point for something he did; he was executed, too, but later on woke up again, and was told that even though he had died, he had been resurrected as well - apparently, this was the norm in that society when a death penalty was carried out. He hadn't known about this before, though, and had freaked (of course).
I don't remember how the story ended (it's really been a while), but I think the author had a point: would you even *want* to wake up a few hundred years into the future? Suppose that someone from the Renaissance had been frozen and would be thawed today - do you think they'd fit in? The technological changes would already be overwhelming, but the cultural changes are probably an even bigger problem. You might learn to adapt, but ultimately, you couldn't be happy, and even if you really *were* the richest man in the world, all that you could do with your riches would be to try recreate the world you lived in and which doesn't exist anymore.
You're not, no. I used to do a reasonable amount of business on eBay, but nowadays, I don't anymore - it's just not worth it. Considering that there's no guarantee that things will actually sell and that you have to pay a significant fee even when they don't, I've pretty much stopped doing business on there. Not that it will matter much to them, of course, but as soon as there's a worthwhile competitor (Yahoo does not count; they're probably even worse then eBay in terms of corporate ethics, if that's even possible), I'll switch over to that and never look back.
BitComet, BitComet... that name sounds vaguely familiar, somehow. Ah, yes, now I remember - it's the client that cheats and thus is banned in many (if not most) trackers.
Yes, they should've included that one, even if just to give it a 0/5.
A perfect example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Zonk, you're an idiot - or an unscrupulous intellectual arsonist. But then, thinking about it, that's true for every Slashdot editor, and it's not even news...
If that's true, though, why did ALL of the other search engine companies roll over? Following your logic, they should've fought the request tooth and claw as well - for financial/market reasons even if not for ethical ones.
Calm down, it's just a preliminary injunction. These are relatively easy to get pretty much everywhere, and it doesn't say anything about what the final decision will be.
And for that matter... the whole case is clearly ridiculous, so it will get thrown out quickly enough. There's no need to rave about how "no single country can shut down information on the internet" and how "some Germans still want to rewrite history" - in fact, the last statement seems to be borderline Godwinesque, although I may be misinterpreting it.
The Wikimedia foundation has a German chapter, though. I'm not sure whether that really means much - and it probably very much depends on exactly what kind of influence / authority this chapter has -, but it's not like Wikipedia's just a US website entire unconnected (legally) to Germany, either.
Thanks - you said that much better than I could have hoped to.
The problem with Slashdot's editors, as I see it, is not so much that dupes, embarassing spelling and grammar mistakes and so on happen; it's that there's a "the work we do here is very good" attitude. Don't pat yourselves on the back, guys - invest your energy into actually *being* good. If you're unable to acknowledge that you're not perfect, you'll never get any better.
And there's another problem: you seem to view your readers as foes of sorts, at least when they criticise you and don't act all fanboy-ish. This is evident in statements "they are welcome to disagree, but at least I've been clear on the matter" - what you're basically saying is "I'm not interested in hearing any criticism". Well, that's your right, of course, but if you actually want to improve, then - again - you have to be able to acknowledge that there might be some validity in the criticism you're receiving.
That's just a free tip from me. Feel free to take it or ignore it; at this point, I still care about Slashdot enough to offer suggestions instead of just moving on. I've been reading Slashdot since late 1998; I've made literally thousands of comments (many as AC, many more after registering), and I've even subscribed in the past, but I've seriously been thinking about leaving. You may not realise (or care), but as far as I'm concerned, your ship is sinking, so you'd better stop claiming that there's no problem - otherwise, you'll drown soon.
Again, I'm not saying this to bash you. If I really didn't care anymore, I wouldn't bother commenting on (or even reading) Slashdot anymore. But I think you should try to understand *why* people are criticising you so much instead of just brushing aside all criticism as unjustified/ungrounded, and you also should stop thinking that it's just a "communication" problem where people criticise you because they don't understand you. It's not. It's not people who have the problem; it's you, the editors.
Despite China's oppressive human rights record, you'd have to be a moron to equate the two countries.
Indeed, you would - the holocaust cost about ten million lives, while Mao's "cultural revolution" took about fifty million. Of course, both numbers are really unimaginably large; the only real difference is that Mao's legacy lives on.
OK, I don't know much about WoW, so maybe the answer to this is obvious, but... if Chinese players aren't accepted into English-speaking groups, why don't they just form their own groups? I'd think that that's what farmers would do, anyway - work together in groups to maximise "profits" without having to wait for/rely on "regular" players.
Buy media used (on eBay etc.) instead of new, at least for companies like Sony etc. which advocate and use DRM techniques.
Exercise your fair use rights:
Be familiar with the rights you have.
If you can legally share CDs with friends, family etc. (this is the case in many countries outside of the USA), do so.
Exercise other fair use rights you might have.
Donate to the EFF etc.
Write to your MPs/representatives/senators/... and let them know how you feel about DRM. Write actual letters, too, not emails or faxes. Phone them, too.
Educate your non-techie friends and family about copyright, fair use, and DRM.
Refrain from using the term "intellectual property", which not only lumps together unrelated concepts like copyright, patents and trademarks, but also implies that these things _are_ property in the same sense that a physical object in your possession is.
It would be the editors' job to take care of things like this, though - that is, it would be their job to actually *edit* submissions instead of blindly clicking on "accept and publish" all the time.
But then, Slashdot editors (neither Taco nor any of the others) haven't cared about story quality and journalistic standards for years, anyway (assuming they ever did at all); they have shown time and again that the only thing they care about is ad revenue, and unfortunately, it seems to be easier to get ad impressions/clicks when you intentionally stir up huge flamewars.
It's pretty sad really, but unfortunately, it's not a new low - it's an old low.
Speak for yourself. Nobody's forcing you to block anything; in fact, the GP did not even say "OMG u h4v3 to block this now!!!111", he merely said "IF you want to block it, it's easy, as you just have to add the following filter to adblock". Whether people actually do that or not is up to them - not him, and not you either.
And as for "do you want to hurt the websites you visit", that's the same strawman that's used by those who're against any use of ad blocking whatsoever, too, but it's still a strawman. People's intention is not to hurt websites; it's to avoid getting tracked without their knowledge or consent, in ways that they cannot check or supervise even when they want to.
Besides, have you ever gone to the fridge to grab a can of soda or used the restroom while there was a commercial break on TV? If yes, then you should ask yourself the same thing - why do you hurt the channels you watch by not sitting there and taking notes about the products you're supposed to buy the next day?
Advertising is built on the idea that most people won't bother ignoring it, but that doesn't mean that there's something morally wrong with doing so. If someone says "hi, would you like a cookie?" and then, after I eat it, asks me to buy something or listen to him rant about religious or political matters or the like, I'm not obliged to do that just because he gave me a cookie - and if he gets pissy and said "but you took my cookie", I would just point it out to him that he chose to give it to me out of his own free will.
Advertising is the same. If you put up a website with advertising, don't expect people to feel obliged to look at it - and what's more, don't complain if they don't. If you absolutely want them to see it, don't let them in before sitting through it. Think that'll drive your visitors away? Tough luck, there's no constitutional right to having your business model work out.
And while most of the above was about advertising, the same goes for tracking and the like, too. Feel free to try, but don't tell me I'm under a moral obligation to let it happen - I'm not. And if you don't like me taking your free cookie without listening to you or signing your petition afterwards... don't offer free cookies.
Slashdot Mirror
It's "Philip", not "Phillip" (in "Philip Glass", that is). ^_~
Well, you don't HAVE to tag every single song the same way just because it's the same artist...
You will; you'll just have to compress them a bit more.
KernelTrap recently reported on this: http://kerneltrap.org/node/6053
It's "certiorari", guys. Get a spellchecker.
Don't be so sure you'd have the courage to do that.
There's also a science fiction short story dealing with this subject matter - I don't recall all the details, really, or even who wrote it or what the title was, but it involved one guy who had been frozen for some reason and was later on thawed again. The story chronicled how he struggled to fit into the new world - one he wasn't born into, wasn't familiar with, and ultimately couldn't fit into.
One thing I do remember and that might help to identify the story was that he was sentenced to death at some point for something he did; he was executed, too, but later on woke up again, and was told that even though he had died, he had been resurrected as well - apparently, this was the norm in that society when a death penalty was carried out. He hadn't known about this before, though, and had freaked (of course).
I don't remember how the story ended (it's really been a while), but I think the author had a point: would you even *want* to wake up a few hundred years into the future? Suppose that someone from the Renaissance had been frozen and would be thawed today - do you think they'd fit in? The technological changes would already be overwhelming, but the cultural changes are probably an even bigger problem. You might learn to adapt, but ultimately, you couldn't be happy, and even if you really *were* the richest man in the world, all that you could do with your riches would be to try recreate the world you lived in and which doesn't exist anymore.
You're not, no. I used to do a reasonable amount of business on eBay, but nowadays, I don't anymore - it's just not worth it. Considering that there's no guarantee that things will actually sell and that you have to pay a significant fee even when they don't, I've pretty much stopped doing business on there. Not that it will matter much to them, of course, but as soon as there's a worthwhile competitor (Yahoo does not count; they're probably even worse then eBay in terms of corporate ethics, if that's even possible), I'll switch over to that and never look back.
Where's Google Auctions when you need it...
BitComet, BitComet... that name sounds vaguely familiar, somehow. Ah, yes, now I remember - it's the client that cheats and thus is banned in many (if not most) trackers.
Yes, they should've included that one, even if just to give it a 0/5.
A perfect example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Zonk, you're an idiot - or an unscrupulous intellectual arsonist. But then, thinking about it, that's true for every Slashdot editor, and it's not even news...
If that's true, though, why did ALL of the other search engine companies roll over? Following your logic, they should've fought the request tooth and claw as well - for financial/market reasons even if not for ethical ones.
But they didn't.
Don't be so sure about that until you've actually tried immigrating.
Calm down, it's just a preliminary injunction. These are relatively easy to get pretty much everywhere, and it doesn't say anything about what the final decision will be.
And for that matter... the whole case is clearly ridiculous, so it will get thrown out quickly enough. There's no need to rave about how "no single country can shut down information on the internet" and how "some Germans still want to rewrite history" - in fact, the last statement seems to be borderline Godwinesque, although I may be misinterpreting it.
So, just relax.
The Wikimedia foundation has a German chapter, though. I'm not sure whether that really means much - and it probably very much depends on exactly what kind of influence / authority this chapter has -, but it's not like Wikipedia's just a US website entire unconnected (legally) to Germany, either.
Those responsible for axing the people who have just been axed, have been
axed.
Thanks - you said that much better than I could have hoped to.
The problem with Slashdot's editors, as I see it, is not so much that dupes, embarassing spelling and grammar mistakes and so on happen; it's that there's a "the work we do here is very good" attitude. Don't pat yourselves on the back, guys - invest your energy into actually *being* good. If you're unable to acknowledge that you're not perfect, you'll never get any better.
And there's another problem: you seem to view your readers as foes of sorts, at least when they criticise you and don't act all fanboy-ish. This is evident in statements "they are welcome to disagree, but at least I've been clear on the matter" - what you're basically saying is "I'm not interested in hearing any criticism". Well, that's your right, of course, but if you actually want to improve, then - again - you have to be able to acknowledge that there might be some validity in the criticism you're receiving.
That's just a free tip from me. Feel free to take it or ignore it; at this point, I still care about Slashdot enough to offer suggestions instead of just moving on. I've been reading Slashdot since late 1998; I've made literally thousands of comments (many as AC, many more after registering), and I've even subscribed in the past, but I've seriously been thinking about leaving. You may not realise (or care), but as far as I'm concerned, your ship is sinking, so you'd better stop claiming that there's no problem - otherwise, you'll drown soon.
Again, I'm not saying this to bash you. If I really didn't care anymore, I wouldn't bother commenting on (or even reading) Slashdot anymore. But I think you should try to understand *why* people are criticising you so much instead of just brushing aside all criticism as unjustified/ungrounded, and you also should stop thinking that it's just a "communication" problem where people criticise you because they don't understand you. It's not. It's not people who have the problem; it's you, the editors.
Good luck.
"Cray Seymore"? The guy's actually called "Seymour Cray", y'know - you managed to switch his first and last name around *and* add a mistake. :)
No, I'm not worried. If the product is as crappy/buggy as you describe, Linus won't merge it.
Indeed, you would - the holocaust cost about ten million lives, while Mao's "cultural revolution" took about fifty million. Of course, both numbers are really unimaginably large; the only real difference is that Mao's legacy lives on.
OK, I don't know much about WoW, so maybe the answer to this is obvious, but... if Chinese players aren't accepted into English-speaking groups, why don't they just form their own groups? I'd think that that's what farmers would do, anyway - work together in groups to maximise "profits" without having to wait for/rely on "regular" players.
Or am I missing something?
It would be the editors' job to take care of things like this, though - that is, it would be their job to actually *edit* submissions instead of blindly clicking on "accept and publish" all the time.
But then, Slashdot editors (neither Taco nor any of the others) haven't cared about story quality and journalistic standards for years, anyway (assuming they ever did at all); they have shown time and again that the only thing they care about is ad revenue, and unfortunately, it seems to be easier to get ad impressions/clicks when you intentionally stir up huge flamewars.
It's pretty sad really, but unfortunately, it's not a new low - it's an old low.
Maybe you should actually read up on the system. It's not a reimplementation of GPS; it's a much better version.
Stupid trolls...
Speak for yourself. Nobody's forcing you to block anything; in fact, the GP did not even say "OMG u h4v3 to block this now!!!111", he merely said "IF you want to block it, it's easy, as you just have to add the following filter to adblock". Whether people actually do that or not is up to them - not him, and not you either.
And as for "do you want to hurt the websites you visit", that's the same strawman that's used by those who're against any use of ad blocking whatsoever, too, but it's still a strawman. People's intention is not to hurt websites; it's to avoid getting tracked without their knowledge or consent, in ways that they cannot check or supervise even when they want to.
Besides, have you ever gone to the fridge to grab a can of soda or used the restroom while there was a commercial break on TV? If yes, then you should ask yourself the same thing - why do you hurt the channels you watch by not sitting there and taking notes about the products you're supposed to buy the next day?
Advertising is built on the idea that most people won't bother ignoring it, but that doesn't mean that there's something morally wrong with doing so. If someone says "hi, would you like a cookie?" and then, after I eat it, asks me to buy something or listen to him rant about religious or political matters or the like, I'm not obliged to do that just because he gave me a cookie - and if he gets pissy and said "but you took my cookie", I would just point it out to him that he chose to give it to me out of his own free will.
Advertising is the same. If you put up a website with advertising, don't expect people to feel obliged to look at it - and what's more, don't complain if they don't. If you absolutely want them to see it, don't let them in before sitting through it. Think that'll drive your visitors away? Tough luck, there's no constitutional right to having your business model work out.
And while most of the above was about advertising, the same goes for tracking and the like, too. Feel free to try, but don't tell me I'm under a moral obligation to let it happen - I'm not. And if you don't like me taking your free cookie without listening to you or signing your petition afterwards... don't offer free cookies.
Assuming that that's true, that, too, says a lot about M$ in general and windows and windows security in particular.