Summary: Gosh, I really hate the Windows Messenger 7 UI. It's so ugly. I'm going to say something unsubstantiated about vendor lock-in here and never mention it again, because I want to sound hip to teh Lunix.
Everybody in the entire continent of Europe uses MSN Messenger and most of us just call it -- wait for it -- MSN!
Did you know that Gaim sucks? Look at Firefox and Openoffice.org! Those are much cooler than Gaim. Did you know that ten year olds won't use Gaim because it isn't flashy enough? Lol gaim is so ugly!:( There'll never be Lunix on the desktop!
Kthx.
--Stéphane Rieppi lives in Belgium and is majoring in sociology at the University of Liège. He has a strong passion for Free and Open Source computing and is working on a thesis about Free and Open Source software seen from a sociological viewpoint.
In a swift and decisive move, Dell Computers announced today that it will begin shipping all systems with intentionally mis-labeled specifications on the boxes. In what is being seen as an obvious attempt to play catch up with Apple computer's brilliant move to sell its Mac mini systems with specs that may "meet or exceed" those listed on their packing, Dell took the move one step further.
"We feel the average consumer is becoming bored with the computer buying experience." says Dell's Chief Marketing Officer Mike George. "They no longer wish to choose an item, pay for it, and have that item arrive at their front door. It's predictable. It's what their parent's would want. Today's consumer needs the element of surprise to add a bit of excitement to the table."
To that end, Dell plans to ship all of its consumer desktop models and its Inspiron 6000 and 1200 model laptop computers with wildly off-base specifications. "We've actually created a random number generator which is responsible for listing the model number and processor speeds. Even WE don't know exactly what is in those boxes. It really is exciting." says George.
If it really "explains so much" for you, then I guess you weren't reading Slashdot two years ago when it was covered on at least two separate occasions.
uncheck pdf and anything else you don't want opening in firefox
I do. Unfortunately, over the course of normal usage this option decides to check itself again. (As does the wmv plugin). It's like plugin disabling doesn't stick in Firefox 1.0.6.
There was an episode of Sliders with a slightly different setup but the same conclusion. ("Love Gods"). It was a whole lot like another episode where LOL WOMEN R THE LEADERZ ("The Weaker Sex").
Searching for information on digital cameras, especially less popular ones, often yields dozens of pages of sites that want to sell one and no descriptions of user experiences or reviews. (Even the manufacturers' own product description is usually hard to find.)
This problem is not specific to digital cameras - it's endemic to any piece of hardware that the majority of the Internet is interested in selling rather than discussing. It's great that your Yahoo! Storefront and its twenty clones want to give me a great deal on the Flibbet Jibbet Cog, but I'd really like to know what people who use it think about it.
(Occasionally some results with "flibbetyjibbit linux compatibility" will work - but never general product information!)
Yes. Okay, so there's no government involved, and it's a private company making decisions on what content to remove from its own Web site. I know that. Sorry for setting off your "get some PRIORITIES!" detector.
But at the same time, they say "customer reviews" and imply that the reviewers bought the product. There isn't a disclosure that "we'll probably eliminate negative customer reviews, especially on popular items". I don't always keep this foremost in mind when I shop on Amazon.com - I don't care very much (since it's not of course real censorship) - and as a result, I occasionally forget that their reviews require an unusually large dose of salt. (For example, the ten or fifty glowing reviews on a laptop case, digital camera, or esoteric novel probably won't help me at all in choosing whether to buy.)
The WSJ article only mentions Amazon in passing (it no longer allows anonymous reviews), but they have the strongest review censorship I've seen yet.
Any bestselling item will never have an average review of less than 4.0/5.0 stars.
There is a much higher standard for poor reviews than good ones; and even excellent reviews of a product may disappear if they are unfavorable.
(And we can't forget the time that Amazon.com accidentally slipped and published the identities of every reviewer, so that it became obvious which were editorial, publisher, or even authorial! shills.)
On the other hand, Amazon does occasionally allow wonderful things, like hundreds of reviews of Bil Keane's work that are mostly interested in the ontological existence of being. But these are rare and hard to find.
"Intelligent design" is, frankly, philosophically uninteresting. Descartes, Aquinas, Aristotle, et al. have contributed more compelling, diverse, and profound arguments.
A good introductory philosophy class could certainly include intelligent design. For instance, the instructor could require students to read a popular book on intelligent design and to analyze the arguments used, as an exercise in applying what they've been taught. This would be a difficult task for the students because they would have to wade through a great deal of Time Cube, David Icke-style "science" attacking evolution; the philosophy is sometimes rather thin. But once they found some philosophy to investigate, they could have a great deal of fun making allusions and comparisons to old arguments. Who knows - students might even find some novel argument! (I wouldn't bet on it.)
I wish more proponents of the Intelligent Design argument agreed with your point of view, by the way; if you haven't noticed, few of them are willing to admit they're not arguing about science.
This isn't a speculative article. It's a quiet attempt by Microsoft to gauge the community's reaction to a possible open source product.
Recently I was paid $10 to take a survey geared towards IT professionals about "current trends within the Software and PC Industry". The questions were clearly written by Microsoft, and one possible plan was obvious:
-Microsoft will compose a list of dozens of software patents allegedly violated by Linux and will offer total indemnification for Red Hat users only. If necessary, it will use its own patent portfolio as leverage. -Microsoft will strengthen Red Hat's source offerings to emphasize "interoperability", which means that it will be possible to administer a RH install from Windows. -Microsoft will buy Red Hat for considerably more than it seems to be worth and will immediately cripple it just as it's crippled every other worthy competitor it has bought out.
This is a clever plan to defeat Linux.
(Part of the survey really bugged me because it seemed like a push poll - see here.)
Somebody accidentally chose the wrong group in their address book. Also, a bunch of technically illiterate people hit 'reply to all' instead of 'reply to'.
The illiterates in question were journalists, and the content of the email was bland but interesting to journalists. So the Editor and Publisher publication picked up on it...
I'm not sure how this qualifies as 'news for nerds'.
Not any more. One of the features of Google Beta, aside from the terrible new UI, is the addition of groups local to Google and only loosely related to real Usenet.
I'm fairly certain that Google does not provide a gateway to these groups (google.arts.newgroupname) from Usenet. So to a certain extent, Google Groups is now just a collection of groups.
Slashdot Mirror
Google, Blogger's owner, is doing its best to fix the problem
:p
Really? I hadn't heard
Summary:
Gosh, I really hate the Windows Messenger 7 UI. It's so ugly. I'm going to say something unsubstantiated about vendor lock-in here and never mention it again, because I want to sound hip to teh Lunix.
Everybody in the entire continent of Europe uses MSN Messenger and most of us just call it -- wait for it -- MSN!
Did you know that Gaim sucks? Look at Firefox and Openoffice.org! Those are much cooler than Gaim. Did you know that ten year olds won't use Gaim because it isn't flashy enough? Lol gaim is so ugly!
Kthx.
--Stéphane Rieppi lives in Belgium and is majoring in sociology at the University of Liège. He has a strong passion for Free and Open Source computing and is working on a thesis about Free and Open Source software seen from a sociological viewpoint.
Reported here:
In a swift and decisive move, Dell Computers announced today that it will begin shipping all systems with intentionally mis-labeled specifications on the boxes. In what is being seen as an obvious attempt to play catch up with Apple computer's brilliant move to sell its Mac mini systems with specs that may "meet or exceed" those listed on their packing, Dell took the move one step further.
"We feel the average consumer is becoming bored with the computer buying experience." says Dell's Chief Marketing Officer Mike George. "They no longer wish to choose an item, pay for it, and have that item arrive at their front door. It's predictable. It's what their parent's would want. Today's consumer needs the element of surprise to add a bit of excitement to the table."
To that end, Dell plans to ship all of its consumer desktop models and its Inspiron 6000 and 1200 model laptop computers with wildly off-base specifications. "We've actually created a random number generator which is responsible for listing the model number and processor speeds. Even WE don't know exactly what is in those boxes. It really is exciting." says George.
A moose bit my sister once.
A new web site, an attitude that's more harsh than fawning towards sucky interviewees...
truly the times have changed.
(First post?)
OH I GET IT - it's a sex joke!!!!
If it really "explains so much" for you, then I guess you weren't reading Slashdot two years ago when it was covered on at least two separate occasions.
It's dupetacular!
At least Zonk is honest when he has to run Slashvertisements.
uncheck pdf and anything else you don't want opening in firefox
I do. Unfortunately, over the course of normal usage this option decides to check itself again. (As does the wmv plugin). It's like plugin disabling doesn't stick in Firefox 1.0.6.
There was an episode of Sliders with a slightly different setup but the same conclusion. ("Love Gods"). It was a whole lot like another episode where LOL WOMEN R THE LEADERZ ("The Weaker Sex").
And I'm extremely wary about downloading anything put out by people who can't spell or form cohesive sentences.
What are you doing on Slashdot?
These are billboards at railway stations.
Funny how many comments got this wrong....
"Oh yeah, we're real worried about an Apple lawsuit."
Searching for information on digital cameras, especially less popular ones, often yields dozens of pages of sites that want to sell one and no descriptions of user experiences or reviews. (Even the manufacturers' own product description is usually hard to find.)
This problem is not specific to digital cameras - it's endemic to any piece of hardware that the majority of the Internet is interested in selling rather than discussing. It's great that your Yahoo! Storefront and its twenty clones want to give me a great deal on the Flibbet Jibbet Cog, but I'd really like to know what people who use it think about it.
(Occasionally some results with "flibbetyjibbit linux compatibility" will work - but never general product information!)
Yes. Okay, so there's no government involved, and it's a private company making decisions on what content to remove from its own Web site. I know that. Sorry for setting off your "get some PRIORITIES!" detector.
But at the same time, they say "customer reviews" and imply that the reviewers bought the product. There isn't a disclosure that "we'll probably eliminate negative customer reviews, especially on popular items". I don't always keep this foremost in mind when I shop on Amazon.com - I don't care very much (since it's not of course real censorship) - and as a result, I occasionally forget that their reviews require an unusually large dose of salt. (For example, the ten or fifty glowing reviews on a laptop case, digital camera, or esoteric novel probably won't help me at all in choosing whether to buy.)
The WSJ article only mentions Amazon in passing (it no longer allows anonymous reviews), but they have the strongest review censorship I've seen yet.
Any bestselling item will never have an average review of less than 4.0/5.0 stars.
There is a much higher standard for poor reviews than good ones; and even excellent reviews of a product may disappear if they are unfavorable.
(And we can't forget the time that Amazon.com accidentally slipped and published the identities of every reviewer, so that it became obvious which were editorial, publisher, or even authorial! shills.)
On the other hand, Amazon does occasionally allow wonderful things, like hundreds of reviews of Bil Keane's work that are mostly interested in the ontological existence of being. But these are rare and hard to find.
You posted highly similar comments here, back in May.
"Intelligent design" is, frankly, philosophically uninteresting. Descartes, Aquinas, Aristotle, et al. have contributed more compelling, diverse, and profound arguments.
A good introductory philosophy class could certainly include intelligent design. For instance, the instructor could require students to read a popular book on intelligent design and to analyze the arguments used, as an exercise in applying what they've been taught. This would be a difficult task for the students because they would have to wade through a great deal of Time Cube, David Icke-style "science" attacking evolution; the philosophy is sometimes rather thin. But once they found some philosophy to investigate, they could have a great deal of fun making allusions and comparisons to old arguments. Who knows - students might even find some novel argument! (I wouldn't bet on it.)
I wish more proponents of the Intelligent Design argument agreed with your point of view, by the way; if you haven't noticed, few of them are willing to admit they're not arguing about science.
This isn't a speculative article. It's a quiet attempt by Microsoft to gauge the community's reaction to a possible open source product.
Recently I was paid $10 to take a survey geared towards IT professionals about "current trends within the Software and PC Industry". The questions were clearly written by Microsoft, and one possible plan was obvious:
-Microsoft will compose a list of dozens of software patents allegedly violated by Linux and will offer total indemnification for Red Hat users only. If necessary, it will use its own patent portfolio as leverage.
-Microsoft will strengthen Red Hat's source offerings to emphasize "interoperability", which means that it will be possible to administer a RH install from Windows.
-Microsoft will buy Red Hat for considerably more than it seems to be worth and will immediately cripple it just as it's crippled every other worthy competitor it has bought out.
This is a clever plan to defeat Linux.
(Part of the survey really bugged me because it seemed like a push poll - see here.)
Did it really say "0-day Initiative"?
That's like AOL founding the "^_^Rofloffle Institute for Instant Message Research".
Somebody accidentally chose the wrong group in their address book. Also, a bunch of technically illiterate people hit 'reply to all' instead of 'reply to'.
The illiterates in question were journalists, and the content of the email was bland but interesting to journalists. So the Editor and Publisher publication picked up on it...
I'm not sure how this qualifies as 'news for nerds'.
How many times have we all wanted to maximize Homestar Runner
Never. I have never wanted to maximize Homestar Runner.
What happened to HR-1? ...plot, "nice shoes", ...
I'm sorry, my responses are limited. You must ask me the right questions.
Is HR-1 standing right behind me with a sledgehammer, awaiting your orders to kill me?
Ah. Now you are asking the right questions!
A couple of guys told everyone on Usenet about their latest green card scheme.
Should we bomb them into oblivion?
Or should we listen to the voice of reason and tolerate this behavior as a necessary evil, integral to the total freedom of the global Internet?
Sometimes I think we chose wrong.
Not any more. One of the features of Google Beta, aside from the terrible new UI, is the addition of groups local to Google and only loosely related to real Usenet.
I'm fairly certain that Google does not provide a gateway to these groups (google.arts.newgroupname) from Usenet. So to a certain extent, Google Groups is now just a collection of groups.
You missed my favorite!
:/
Slashodt takes you to dna-paterniti-testing.org.
Guess they misjudged that market