"There is already a natural occurance of this type of warning. It's called pain."
I don't want my furniture feeling pain. Pain leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to revenge. Next thing you know my toilet decides to take scuplting lessons when I bring a girl over.
"If you're too fucking dumb to insert Tab A into Slot B yourself, then YOU hire someone to do it, and YOU incur the extra cost."
Slow down there chief. If it's too hard to put something like furniture together, then it's poorly designed. Anybody remember that episode of Married with Children where Al and Jefferson were trying to assemble a work bench? They were confused because they had more 'seven shaped' brackets than 'L shaped' brackets.
Al and Jefferson aren't very bright, but there's some hints there that the workbench wasn't designed that well in the first place. The damn thing looked like an erector set! The first mistake in designing something like that is having too many different pieces that look similar. The next big mistake is making them so that they sort of work. Ever put a screw that was too small into a hole, only to have it sort of fit? Ever tried finding that screw when you had one that definitely didn't fit?
I hate my laptop because it uses screws of 3 (three) different sizes. Why do they need all the different sizes? Why couldn't they use one size of screw and be done with it? I'm sure there are internal reasons, but I don't feel like performing different permutations with 12 different screws.
However, Toshiba did something right with this laptop. Each screw hole (shaddup Beavis) has a number by it. Examples (B-4, B-6, B-8, B-10) After a little experimentation, I realized what those numbers ment. B-4 was the tiniest screw, which was probably 4mm long. B-10 was the longest one, about a centimeter long. After discovering that, I realized that Toshiba compensated for their bad design! Seeing as how only authorized technicians are supposed to work on the machine *sheepish grin*, that made sense. Good choice on Tosihiba's part!
Furniture has little excuse for being hard to assemble. Even PCs, which are far more complicated, make it virtually impossible to plug something in the wrong place. That's called good design.
In any case, the summary of my point is that difficulty isn't a matter of intelligence, it's a matter of design.
" If they're going to treat the slashdot readers as mindless consumers, I'm certainly not going to waste my bandwidth in order to help them make a profit"
Replying to my post didn't do anything to help that. It's another comment, therefore more participation in the thread. You should be emalling them about it, not me.
"They've done nothing to earn my loyalty."
Is loyalty really an issue here? It's not like you're paying anything to view the news.
"I recommend that anyone that dislikes the attitude of the slashdot staff block the advertisements."
0 effect. Don't like when Slashdot does something? Complain directly to the editors so they know what the problem is. I seriously doubt they're paying a whole lot of attention to the comments. I wouldn't. People who complain about/. in the least tactful way. Blocking the ads will only lower/.'s ability to get money, which could lead to shutdown of the site. If all you want is a minor fix, then you're going about it in the least direct and most painful way.
I doubt that's really why people are posting the obvious. I think it's karma whoring, personally. Half-assed attempts at +1 Funny's and so on.
If you really want to complain, send an email to the Slashdot staff. If an article drives 400 comments, then 400 people have seen the ads. Think about it. You'll just encourage errors to happen.
Personally, I think the real reason that not much attention is paid to spelling is that it drives the eyeballs up. (that and it's hard to be nice to people who are impolite about it.)
Sorry about the temporal incongruity folks, my Tardis has been acting funny since I spilled carrot juice on the console. I'd fix it if some AC wasn't trying to kill me.
Or maybe he wants the people who nitpick everything a celebrity says to over-worry themselves about something frivolous. Kinda like a 'moronically zealous honeypot'. Heh.
I could see him doing that. "At least they're not ripping my point apart, putting words in my mouth I didn't really say." Maybe if I adopted that writing style, then the only people commenting on my point would be those who took the time to understand it.
"Your leaping to conclusions and holier-than-thou attitude regarding the previous poster's comments suggests that you are in fact judgemental."
a.) I've never said I'm not. I don't think very highly of people who nitpick spelling, particularly when it's obvious he wrote it that way on purpose.
b.) There's a difference between judging somebody as zealously nitpicky and going off half cocked about a man's spelling when he makes a hell of a good point. At least I *read* what he said.
c.) When somebody criticizes somebody else's spelling, saying things like "he couldn't spend have spent extra time on it?", then what are they doing besides attempting to appear smarter than everybody else? It's one thing to say "Good point, but his spelling made it hard to read", it's another to say "Man, this guy sounds like a 14 year old chick on IM."
Call me judgemental if you like, but I'm the one who got value out of that article.
"The reason people are focusing on his "spelling", is because to garner any sort of respect amoung regular geeks, you must have, or at least appear to have, a grasp on which ever language you happen to be speaking."
So what would you say if a notable person doesn't speak english as his native language? Would you guys pull this shit with him too?
I mean seriously, if you're going to measure somebody's intelligence based on their shorthand (note: these aren't even typos we're talking abouthere) then wtf's the point? We're talking about the same group of people who uses email, instant messaging, IRC, and so on. Yet you're supposed to spell check everything you say?
Sounds like an attempt at a social class to me. I'm glad I'm not that judgemental of people. I'd be missing a lot.
Why do I have a feeling that most people focused on Prince's spelling rather than what he was saying?
Honestly, if you're spending time reading the comments section, then you should already be prepared to read lots of typos and shorthand spellings. Don't act like it's all encrypted.
How do you feel about the general policy of "CD's cannot be returned unopened."? Do you feel this is necessary to protect artists? The reason I ask is that it seems to fly right in the face of customer satisfaction.
I personally believe that the big reason that the RIAA's up in arms about music sharing is that they're concerned that people will hear the music and realize they may not want it. They fear losing money from people buying an album without really knowing what's on it.
Do you think there's any truth to what I'm saying?
Slashdot Mirror
...The AC offered to show photo ID to prove the check was valid, only to produce a pic of a man holding his bum open.
"I am an information consumer. Please explain how the DMCA protects me."
It protects your wallet from getting heavy.
"The instructions are usually poor, but the worst part is the pieces just don't fit together well."
Furniture should never make you want to go to Home Depot and buy tools and raw material.
"There is already a natural occurance of this type of warning. It's called pain."
I don't want my furniture feeling pain. Pain leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to revenge. Next thing you know my toilet decides to take scuplting lessons when I bring a girl over.
"If you're too fucking dumb to insert Tab A into Slot B yourself, then YOU hire someone to do it, and YOU incur the extra cost."
Slow down there chief. If it's too hard to put something like furniture together, then it's poorly designed. Anybody remember that episode of Married with Children where Al and Jefferson were trying to assemble a work bench? They were confused because they had more 'seven shaped' brackets than 'L shaped' brackets.
Al and Jefferson aren't very bright, but there's some hints there that the workbench wasn't designed that well in the first place. The damn thing looked like an erector set! The first mistake in designing something like that is having too many different pieces that look similar. The next big mistake is making them so that they sort of work. Ever put a screw that was too small into a hole, only to have it sort of fit? Ever tried finding that screw when you had one that definitely didn't fit?
I hate my laptop because it uses screws of 3 (three) different sizes. Why do they need all the different sizes? Why couldn't they use one size of screw and be done with it? I'm sure there are internal reasons, but I don't feel like performing different permutations with 12 different screws.
However, Toshiba did something right with this laptop. Each screw hole (shaddup Beavis) has a number by it. Examples (B-4, B-6, B-8, B-10) After a little experimentation, I realized what those numbers ment. B-4 was the tiniest screw, which was probably 4mm long. B-10 was the longest one, about a centimeter long. After discovering that, I realized that Toshiba compensated for their bad design! Seeing as how only authorized technicians are supposed to work on the machine *sheepish grin*, that made sense. Good choice on Tosihiba's part!
Furniture has little excuse for being hard to assemble. Even PCs, which are far more complicated, make it virtually impossible to plug something in the wrong place. That's called good design.
In any case, the summary of my point is that difficulty isn't a matter of intelligence, it's a matter of design.
These ads are in Real Media format and thus completley unviewable to me :)
Remember, we all love CHOICE at Slashdot!
" If they're going to treat the slashdot readers as mindless consumers, I'm certainly not going to waste my bandwidth in order to help them make a profit"
/. in the least tactful way. Blocking the ads will only lower /.'s ability to get money, which could lead to shutdown of the site. If all you want is a minor fix, then you're going about it in the least direct and most painful way.
Replying to my post didn't do anything to help that. It's another comment, therefore more participation in the thread. You should be emalling them about it, not me.
"They've done nothing to earn my loyalty."
Is loyalty really an issue here? It's not like you're paying anything to view the news.
"I recommend that anyone that dislikes the attitude of the slashdot staff block the advertisements."
0 effect. Don't like when Slashdot does something? Complain directly to the editors so they know what the problem is. I seriously doubt they're paying a whole lot of attention to the comments. I wouldn't. People who complain about
I doubt that's really why people are posting the obvious. I think it's karma whoring, personally. Half-assed attempts at +1 Funny's and so on.
If you really want to complain, send an email to the Slashdot staff. If an article drives 400 comments, then 400 people have seen the ads. Think about it. You'll just encourage errors to happen.
Personally, I think the real reason that not much attention is paid to spelling is that it drives the eyeballs up. (that and it's hard to be nice to people who are impolite about it.)
"Does this mean that we can get free fonts from PDF files?"
Yes you can, but they locked up so tight you may need an Orphan Annie Decoder Ring to get them out.
Calling me a 'consumer' is like calling me an 'organic pain collector'. Both are accurate, but at least citizen gives me back my humanity.
"Do the guys that work at Slashdot actually READ Slashdot?"
Did the 4,000 people who commented on the dupe story read the comments?
"could at least just put it in a slashback."
Sorry about the temporal incongruity folks, my Tardis has been acting funny since I spilled carrot juice on the console. I'd fix it if some AC wasn't trying to kill me.
--Doc
So, in other words "you're not worthy of my attention, move on."
Pity, you missed a good point that way.
Statistics show that roughly half of the people bad-mouthing cell phone users in this thread do, in fact, have cell phones.
Or maybe he wants the people who nitpick everything a celebrity says to over-worry themselves about something frivolous. Kinda like a 'moronically zealous honeypot'. Heh.
I could see him doing that. "At least they're not ripping my point apart, putting words in my mouth I didn't really say." Maybe if I adopted that writing style, then the only people commenting on my point would be those who took the time to understand it.
"Your leaping to conclusions and holier-than-thou attitude regarding the previous poster's comments suggests that you are in fact judgemental."
a.) I've never said I'm not. I don't think very highly of people who nitpick spelling, particularly when it's obvious he wrote it that way on purpose.
b.) There's a difference between judging somebody as zealously nitpicky and going off half cocked about a man's spelling when he makes a hell of a good point. At least I *read* what he said.
c.) When somebody criticizes somebody else's spelling, saying things like "he couldn't spend have spent extra time on it?", then what are they doing besides attempting to appear smarter than everybody else? It's one thing to say "Good point, but his spelling made it hard to read", it's another to say "Man, this guy sounds like a 14 year old chick on IM."
Call me judgemental if you like, but I'm the one who got value out of that article.
"The reason people are focusing on his "spelling", is because to garner any sort of respect amoung regular geeks, you must have, or at least appear to have, a grasp on which ever language you happen to be speaking."
So what would you say if a notable person doesn't speak english as his native language? Would you guys pull this shit with him too?
I mean seriously, if you're going to measure somebody's intelligence based on their shorthand (note: these aren't even typos we're talking abouthere) then wtf's the point? We're talking about the same group of people who uses email, instant messaging, IRC, and so on. Yet you're supposed to spell check everything you say?
Sounds like an attempt at a social class to me. I'm glad I'm not that judgemental of people. I'd be missing a lot.
Why do I have a feeling that most people focused on Prince's spelling rather than what he was saying?
Honestly, if you're spending time reading the comments section, then you should already be prepared to read lots of typos and shorthand spellings. Don't act like it's all encrypted.
"One question on the application asked if you'd smoked pot more than 15 times..."
Wouldn't it just be easier to leave a bowl of candy out?
Heh no they weren't, at least not the way they are today. PC growth EXPLODED in the late nineties.
Err. Yah I messed up.
:)
Heh u know what I mean.
I could install Linux 'till my CD-ROM drive burns out and Slashdot still wouldn't have posted any of my submissions.
Actually, I was implying that a story about somebody installing Linux would get posted.
Hi Janis,
How do you feel about the general policy of "CD's cannot be returned unopened."? Do you feel this is necessary to protect artists? The reason I ask is that it seems to fly right in the face of customer satisfaction.
I personally believe that the big reason that the RIAA's up in arms about music sharing is that they're concerned that people will hear the music and realize they may not want it. They fear losing money from people buying an album without really knowing what's on it.
Do you think there's any truth to what I'm saying?
"that was pretty weak, you big puff."
So, in other words, I was right and you have no means to defend yourself. Weenie.