Dice have no reason to keep the comment system - commenters don't make them any money. Large click-through rates on huge adverts and paid placements/slashvertisements make money, and those are things that the current user base are extremely sensitive and hostile to. So the easiest solution is to gut slashdot from the inside out by destroying the thing we come here for - then all of us pesky marketing-resistant geeks will fuck off someplace else, leaving the site free for either a) an eternal september's worth of users from elsewhere or b) strip-mining of the/. assets.
Either way, given the way this beta has been foisted upon everyone with next to no feedback being listened to, I think dice has decided that/. as we know it is dead. Businesses rarely recognise sacred cows.
In my opinion, dice have taken a look at the amount of ad revenue they get from/. and decided it's not worth it. A very sizeable percentage of people here will run adblockers and the click-through rates of the ones that don't are almost certainly minuscule, and the community here has been traditionally very wary of paid placements masquerading as news, shills and all the rest of it. People come here for the discussion, yes, but that doesn't make dice any money.
So the decision was undertaken to alienate the existing community into leaving, and once they're gone expect heavy cross-promotion from other dice sites to get those users here as well. The comments will remain a meaningless mess but that doesn't matter since the beta seems expressly designed to make having a conversation as frustrating as possible.
This all probably sounds a bit crazy conspiracy nut to be honest, but given the continuing beta, ignoring of all feedback and no response from the admins themselves about the beta's many, many issues, it appears to be a fait accompli.
Sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from incompetence.
I'm sure Cisco et al will be more than happy to sell you a wireless access point for every room in your house, and then declare them all obsolete whenever 802.11xyz comes out.
That's still better than some of the anagrams of Microsoft SkyDrive:
Defrock My Visitors Frisky Coder's Vomit Mortify Dick Servos Voids First Mockery Modify Risk Vectors Cover Dorky Misfits Ivory Serfdom Stick It Forks My Divorces
I'm not normally much of a racing buff, but the BBC did a fascinating documentary about Group B rallying which is well worth a watch if you can find a copy. Lots of interviews with the drivers and the engineers who created such monsters.
Would it have been so hard for an editor to do such and save dozens of other people from doing the same thing? AC's reply was, in any case, more useful than the wikipedia entry.
Thanks AC - from your post it sounds like it's a user-friendly RDP/VNC-alike-over-HTTP(S) VPN, something that I don't think would have been too hard to fit in the summary. I'm guessing from your post you've got some experience with it and indeed it sounds like it would have been useful for non-technical home users and small businesses.
Perhaps this is just reinforcing my "you're an IT dinosaur, old man!" but for the benefit of us ignoramuses, might it be possible for the submitter or, god forbid, the editors to say what "log me in" actually does?
But if you eliminate all of the difficult bits from the interface, there won't be any power users left since none of the users will have any power. It's a problem that fixes itself!
Just like they've removed comment threshold filtering on the new/. beta, they'll soon be able to eliminate the "Reply" button as well.
I've quoted an excerpt here from a book, Country of the Blind by Christopher Brookmyre, that I've always thought summed up the issue rather succinctly. People clamouring to have something banned have almost never seen it. The only enjoyment I ever get out of Moral Panics has been playing Spot the Idiot Who Hasn't Even Seen What They're Complaining About and in the UK I grew up through the panics on "video nasties", video games in general and Night Trap especially, US wrestling, Teenage Mutant Hero* Turtles and a dozen others. It's a tactic often used by the tories for winning votes and it seems to work every single time. Porn is just the easiest option because everyone can hate it thanks to a cultural quirk of the language.
"It's simple. Right," Parlabane now sat forward in his chair, eyes shining through their bloodshot tiredness. He was clearly impressed with Swan's cleverness, and therefore more impressed with his own for sussing it. "When asked whether sexually explicit material should be legal in the UK, most people say yes it should. Ask the same people if hard-core pornography should be legal, and they all say no. So you ask them to define pornography, and they say: sexual material that is perverse, depraved, corrupting, Offensive To Women, yakka yakka yakka. Who the fuck's going to say yes, let's legalise that? Nobody. But it's completely meaningless. There's no imperial scale of depravity, no universal standard of what is Offensive To Women or to men for that matter. It's entirely subjective. And this is Swan's coup. That's why pornography, like it or loathe it, is the greatest aunt sally* in politics. Back Swan, vote against porn, and you're voting against whatever you individually disapprove of, your own personal sexual demon. Nobody knows what they're really objecting to, because nobody's ever going to see what this material is that they're banning. But in the voters' minds it's whatever they don't like. This fine upstanding man is fighting for them, against whatever they don't like." "The LCD vote," said Nicole quietly, mainly to herself. "So they don't just rally to the Tory banner, they rally to a man and a party who are once more saying exactly what they want to hear. Or think they want to hear."
Catch 22 here unfortunately. The government basically said to the big ISPs "implement a filter voluntarily or we'll force you to do it via draconian legislation", and the ISPs reluctantly agreed. Small/niche ISPs weren't going to have it forced on them as it was seen as implementing a mandatory filter would have a disproportionately high capital outlay for the smaller firms, so almost all of them don't implement (and many, such as AAISP, wear this as a badge of pride) but of course many of them provide the option of safety filters/software as an optional service.
However, the threat is basically there that if there is a groundswell of people flocking to unfiltered ISPs, they'll no longer be considered a small ISP and the government will start breathing down their necks.
The writing's been on the wall for years now (what with the histrionics generated by the Daily Heil and Mumsnet [who have since recanted I believe] amongst others) so a great many geeks have been using VPNs and alternative DNS servers for quite some time. We'll have to see how far the thumbscrews get tightened in that regard.
Fuck knows what Cameron et al see in this other than a blatant power-grab via pandering populism, but sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Bear in mind that it's summer in the southern hempishpere; the interior of antarctica is typically is usually about -20 to -30C in december/january (which I think is something like between -5 and -20F).
It may not have been designed for audio files, but it's pretty damn good at them anyway - the hydrogen audio chaps rate is as equivalent to AAC and vorbis at the same bitrate, as well as having excellent quality at low bitrates along with low algorithmic delay. It appears to be a "cake and eat it" codec at present.
Now the problem that#s always plagued vorbis... will we see widespread hardware support for it? If it's already being deployed for Skype and WebRTC usage then I hope a few SoC manufacturers are going to support it.
As a history teacher, I'm sure your friend sadly understands how most people don't appreciate the freedoms they have until they've been lost, and then the cycle repeats itself. Most people of the current generation haven't this seen first, second or even third hand and don't understand what typically happens when those in power exceed their authority. Hell, most people don't even understand that everyone has something to hide, they just think that if their head is down low enough no-one will care. And then, sooner or late, cue Niemoller.
I don't think so. Most consumers who might be in the market for a new computer now have the option of either a regular PC or a tablet PC, and many are jumping on the tablet PC bandwagon - something that's even more locked down than even Windows 8.
People simply do not seem to care about lockdown, general computing or indeed almost anything that much of the/. community holds dear; most just want to watch youtube and twittle their facebook and think nothing of their device requiring an account to function that will happily upload your favourite websites to your advertising overlo... I mean, The Cloud.
The traditional PC industry isn't going to die, but it will become increasingly marginalised, especially if like me you don't like "commoditised" machines that have been intentionally gimped.
Well last I checked, android shipped with FAT support anyway but I'm not sure if the onus would be on Google or the OEM itself to pay the MS tax (although most of them do anyway so suspect it's billed against the people shipping the devices). Even then, I think the patents only covered storing both forms of the filename so IIRC if you store only the long form and don't bother creating an 8.3 filename then I don't think you're technically in violation. Need to check up on that one...
exFAT I'm not very sure about since I inevitably end up formatting them FAT32 anyway, but yes, I long for the day when we can all just use UDF or somesuch on an SD card.
However, I do still think that the removal of SD cards by most manufacturers is mostly a result of trying to push people to using remote storage for everything simply because there's so much money to be made out of it. But then I'm cynical:)
I mean, really.. Are we re-inventing the dumb terminal here?
Yes. It's much easier to secure revenue when you've got a guaranteed monthly income from people whose data you're holding hosta... I mean, from people whose data you're protecting. I mean, it takes money to look after this stuff, and you wouldn't want anything to happen to it would you?
Witness the extremely aggressive push to even remove things like (micro)SD slots from mobile phones and tablets under the guise that it's a "design compromise", despite the fact they're miniscule. Surprisingly enough, the people who make android and iOS and windows and what have you and provision the "cloud" (aka Someone Elses Computer) behind them think it would be a really good idea for you to use their cloud.
I bought one of the original Nexus 7's and was shocked by how utterly unusable it was as a "computer to do things". Even finding applications that aren't in the google store is tricky.
It isn't a one-click method to install the CM firmware though - just a method of making the installation via PC less painless. All the app does is basically enable USB debug and help with the ADB setup.
I'm sure they'll all receive extensive de-escalation drilling as well.
*laughs bitterly, wipes tear from eye*
Hypothetical situation but one that seems all to scarily real now - passenger, perhaps running a bit late for their plane, becomes more short-tempered after perceiving idiocy at the hands of the TSA and makes a snarky comment regarding the legitimacy of TSA employees' parentage. Or perhaps, as has happened before, an outraged parent or sibling goes ballistic at their sobbing relative being groped or any one of a thousand potential reasons for getting stressed out in a security line. TSA rent-a-cop, perceiving a vastly over-inflated threat, pulls their sidearm and levels it in someone's face. What happens next?
Naturally, even after the first ten innocent people are shot, it'll be justifiable since the TSA can't take any chances and I'm sure any and all official enquiries will put all the wrongdoing at the feet of that parent or overly stressed sales rep.
Slashdot Mirror
"I come not to praise Slashdot, but to bury it".
Dice have no reason to keep the comment system - commenters don't make them any money. Large click-through rates on huge adverts and paid placements/slashvertisements make money, and those are things that the current user base are extremely sensitive and hostile to. So the easiest solution is to gut slashdot from the inside out by destroying the thing we come here for - then all of us pesky marketing-resistant geeks will fuck off someplace else, leaving the site free for either a) an eternal september's worth of users from elsewhere or b) strip-mining of the /. assets.
Either way, given the way this beta has been foisted upon everyone with next to no feedback being listened to, I think dice has decided that /. as we know it is dead. Businesses rarely recognise sacred cows.
The AC above me http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... pointed this out but I'd like to add a "me too".
In my opinion, dice have taken a look at the amount of ad revenue they get from /. and decided it's not worth it. A very sizeable percentage of people here will run adblockers and the click-through rates of the ones that don't are almost certainly minuscule, and the community here has been traditionally very wary of paid placements masquerading as news, shills and all the rest of it. People come here for the discussion, yes, but that doesn't make dice any money.
So the decision was undertaken to alienate the existing community into leaving, and once they're gone expect heavy cross-promotion from other dice sites to get those users here as well. The comments will remain a meaningless mess but that doesn't matter since the beta seems expressly designed to make having a conversation as frustrating as possible.
This all probably sounds a bit crazy conspiracy nut to be honest, but given the continuing beta, ignoring of all feedback and no response from the admins themselves about the beta's many, many issues, it appears to be a fait accompli.
Sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from incompetence.
I'm sure Cisco et al will be more than happy to sell you a wireless access point for every room in your house, and then declare them all obsolete whenever 802.11xyz comes out.
That's still better than some of the anagrams of Microsoft SkyDrive:
Defrock My Visitors
Frisky Coder's Vomit
Mortify Dick Servos
Voids First Mockery
Modify Risk Vectors
Cover Dorky Misfits
Ivory Serfdom Stick
It Forks My Divorces
I'm not normally much of a racing buff, but the BBC did a fascinating documentary about Group B rallying which is well worth a watch if you can find a copy. Lots of interviews with the drivers and the engineers who created such monsters.
African or European horses?
Would it have been so hard for an editor to do such and save dozens of other people from doing the same thing? AC's reply was, in any case, more useful than the wikipedia entry.
Thanks AC - from your post it sounds like it's a user-friendly RDP/VNC-alike-over-HTTP(S) VPN, something that I don't think would have been too hard to fit in the summary. I'm guessing from your post you've got some experience with it and indeed it sounds like it would have been useful for non-technical home users and small businesses.
Perhaps this is just reinforcing my "you're an IT dinosaur, old man!" but for the benefit of us ignoramuses, might it be possible for the submitter or, god forbid, the editors to say what "log me in" actually does?
Mr. President, we must not allow a Satan gap!
But if you eliminate all of the difficult bits from the interface, there won't be any power users left since none of the users will have any power. It's a problem that fixes itself!
Just like they've removed comment threshold filtering on the new /. beta, they'll soon be able to eliminate the "Reply" button as well.
I've quoted an excerpt here from a book, Country of the Blind by Christopher Brookmyre, that I've always thought summed up the issue rather succinctly. People clamouring to have something banned have almost never seen it. The only enjoyment I ever get out of Moral Panics has been playing Spot the Idiot Who Hasn't Even Seen What They're Complaining About and in the UK I grew up through the panics on "video nasties", video games in general and Night Trap especially, US wrestling, Teenage Mutant Hero* Turtles and a dozen others. It's a tactic often used by the tories for winning votes and it seems to work every single time. Porn is just the easiest option because everyone can hate it thanks to a cultural quirk of the language.
* Ninja was seen as too violent
** Analagous to a straw man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Sally
Catch 22 here unfortunately. The government basically said to the big ISPs "implement a filter voluntarily or we'll force you to do it via draconian legislation", and the ISPs reluctantly agreed. Small/niche ISPs weren't going to have it forced on them as it was seen as implementing a mandatory filter would have a disproportionately high capital outlay for the smaller firms, so almost all of them don't implement (and many, such as AAISP, wear this as a badge of pride) but of course many of them provide the option of safety filters/software as an optional service.
However, the threat is basically there that if there is a groundswell of people flocking to unfiltered ISPs, they'll no longer be considered a small ISP and the government will start breathing down their necks.
The writing's been on the wall for years now (what with the histrionics generated by the Daily Heil and Mumsnet [who have since recanted I believe] amongst others) so a great many geeks have been using VPNs and alternative DNS servers for quite some time. We'll have to see how far the thumbscrews get tightened in that regard.
Fuck knows what Cameron et al see in this other than a blatant power-grab via pandering populism, but sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Bear in mind that it's summer in the southern hempishpere; the interior of antarctica is typically is usually about -20 to -30C in december/january (which I think is something like between -5 and -20F).
Bill Hicks and George Carlin were both heavily plug-resistant yet magnetic personalities, but are sadly no longer with us :(
It may not have been designed for audio files, but it's pretty damn good at them anyway - the hydrogen audio chaps rate is as equivalent to AAC and vorbis at the same bitrate, as well as having excellent quality at low bitrates along with low algorithmic delay. It appears to be a "cake and eat it" codec at present.
See here for their take on this very promising codec: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Opus
Now the problem that#s always plagued vorbis... will we see widespread hardware support for it? If it's already being deployed for Skype and WebRTC usage then I hope a few SoC manufacturers are going to support it.
As a history teacher, I'm sure your friend sadly understands how most people don't appreciate the freedoms they have until they've been lost, and then the cycle repeats itself. Most people of the current generation haven't this seen first, second or even third hand and don't understand what typically happens when those in power exceed their authority. Hell, most people don't even understand that everyone has something to hide, they just think that if their head is down low enough no-one will care. And then, sooner or late, cue Niemoller.
I don't think so. Most consumers who might be in the market for a new computer now have the option of either a regular PC or a tablet PC, and many are jumping on the tablet PC bandwagon - something that's even more locked down than even Windows 8.
People simply do not seem to care about lockdown, general computing or indeed almost anything that much of the /. community holds dear; most just want to watch youtube and twittle their facebook and think nothing of their device requiring an account to function that will happily upload your favourite websites to your advertising overlo... I mean, The Cloud.
The traditional PC industry isn't going to die, but it will become increasingly marginalised, especially if like me you don't like "commoditised" machines that have been intentionally gimped.
I think you mean Gothenburg, Finland.
Well last I checked, android shipped with FAT support anyway but I'm not sure if the onus would be on Google or the OEM itself to pay the MS tax (although most of them do anyway so suspect it's billed against the people shipping the devices). Even then, I think the patents only covered storing both forms of the filename so IIRC if you store only the long form and don't bother creating an 8.3 filename then I don't think you're technically in violation. Need to check up on that one...
exFAT I'm not very sure about since I inevitably end up formatting them FAT32 anyway, but yes, I long for the day when we can all just use UDF or somesuch on an SD card.
However, I do still think that the removal of SD cards by most manufacturers is mostly a result of trying to push people to using remote storage for everything simply because there's so much money to be made out of it. But then I'm cynical :)
Yes. It's much easier to secure revenue when you've got a guaranteed monthly income from people whose data you're holding hosta... I mean, from people whose data you're protecting. I mean, it takes money to look after this stuff, and you wouldn't want anything to happen to it would you?
Witness the extremely aggressive push to even remove things like (micro)SD slots from mobile phones and tablets under the guise that it's a "design compromise", despite the fact they're miniscule. Surprisingly enough, the people who make android and iOS and windows and what have you and provision the "cloud" (aka Someone Elses Computer) behind them think it would be a really good idea for you to use their cloud.
I bought one of the original Nexus 7's and was shocked by how utterly unusable it was as a "computer to do things". Even finding applications that aren't in the google store is tricky.
It isn't a one-click method to install the CM firmware though - just a method of making the installation via PC less painless. All the app does is basically enable USB debug and help with the ADB setup.
Ars did a pretty decent writeup of the installation process here; http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/11/android-roms-the-easy-way-testing-the-new-cyanogenmod-installer/ - it's certainly not a one-step job.
Oblig. Onion (video): CEO Worked Way Up From Son of CEO
Oxymoronic.
I'm sure they'll all receive extensive de-escalation drilling as well.
*laughs bitterly, wipes tear from eye*
Hypothetical situation but one that seems all to scarily real now - passenger, perhaps running a bit late for their plane, becomes more short-tempered after perceiving idiocy at the hands of the TSA and makes a snarky comment regarding the legitimacy of TSA employees' parentage. Or perhaps, as has happened before, an outraged parent or sibling goes ballistic at their sobbing relative being groped or any one of a thousand potential reasons for getting stressed out in a security line. TSA rent-a-cop, perceiving a vastly over-inflated threat, pulls their sidearm and levels it in someone's face. What happens next?
Naturally, even after the first ten innocent people are shot, it'll be justifiable since the TSA can't take any chances and I'm sure any and all official enquiries will put all the wrongdoing at the feet of that parent or overly stressed sales rep.