Parent has a point. The moderation is wrong, and just shows that Slashdot is absolutely infested with these sort of ironclad ideologies. Their fallout is news that is hyped up beyond its merits.
Far too many stories are sensationalized for their own sake. This is incredibly sad for a site that is supposed to be for nerds. And in the unlikely event a story hasn't been spun this way in the summary, there is always some extremist blowhard in the comments who either: 1. Wildly speculates about an uncomfortable future by taking this single event and extrapolating a set of worst possible consequences. Moderators respond by modding it up, almost as if they believe people noticing it will therefore prevent it from happening. 2. Makes some incredibly naive statement and then laments that it isn't true. Nostalgia is stimulated, and moderators respond by modding it up, as it to make it true.
I'd love to find a site that doesn't house the sort of people that refuse to live in the real world, but I have yet to find one.
I have to laugh at anyone who feels like they need to make more money than their neighbor. If you think about it even for just a few seconds you'll realize you're going to be perpetually unhappy. What exactly does it mean to me as a person if I make more money? Does it mean I am a better person? More powerful? Of course not. It just means I have more things than the next person.
When will people wake up from the self-induced stupor of materialism?
So, let's see. I can take several hours of my life out to talk through this on the phone (let's be optimistic and say three) all to make $52.50, or I could just stay at the office with those three hours and make more than that.
It is much easier to hate a corporation that has been convicted of a monopoly than it is to hate something that affects human lives far more. In the case of the former, all you need to do is say the right things on this website and you'll get plenty of affirmation. However, with the latter, you'd be faced with some very uncomfortable options that involve sacrificing parts of your own cozy life in order to work against it. You might have to give some money, or some time. I'm talking about serious social problems, such as poverty, children made to fight in wars, or other seriously messed up things.
Certainly mark Microsoft as evil, but I find it comic how incensed people become discussing them. And quite sad, considering if that sort of passion were put toward something besides spewing vitriolic comments on anonymous message boards, perhaps we'd be a lot better off. What I learn from Microsoft is that no corporation is to be trusted. I should question motives of an entity that exists solely to make profits, in everything they do. I also learn that corporations tend to converge on suckiness, almost without fail. My opinion stops there, however. I reserve the farther reaches of the emotional spectrum for people, not things, because people are what really matter.
Let's review what lock-in actually means. A quick Wikipedia search gives us:
In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in, lock-in, or the Pottersville pattern, is a situation in which a customer is so dependent on a vendor for products and services that he or she cannot move to another vendor without substantial switching costs, real and/or perceived.
Burning and then ripping music costs the consumer time and blank CDs. I think you might have to retag your songs as well, which is a huge pain. We should be able to move our music from one player to the next easily, regardless of whether our next player is an iPod or not. If you don't agree with the previous sentence, then say so. If you do agree, then tell me how it isn't inconvenient to burn/rip one's entire iTunes collection. It'd be even better if you'd show me how I can do it through iTunes without third party software.
Also of note from the Wikipedia article:
In January 2005, an iPod purchaser named Thomas Slattery filed a suit against Apple for the "unlawful bundling" of their iTunes Music Store and iPod device. He stated in his brief: "Apple has turned an open and interactive standard into an artifice that prevents consumers from using the portable hard drive digital music player of their choice." At the time Apple was stated to have an 80% market share of digital music sales and a 90% share of sales of new music players, which he claimed allowed Apple to horizontally leverage its dominant positions in both markets to lock consumers into its complementary offerings [1]. In September 2005, U.S. District Judge James Ware approved Slattery v. Apple Computer Inc. to proceed with monopoly charges against Apple in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act [2].
It isn't my 'fantasy' to vilify Apple here, but until it is possible through iTunes to move your music to another player in a batch manner, they are (perhaps inadvertently) locking users to the iPod. Apple doesn't get special treatment here just because they are the underdog.
The problem is that many people do not want honest discussion via the comment system: they want to be affirmed in what they believe. And some people would rather cater to the groupthink and adopt that as their own belief because they lack a spine. Since you don't seem to be one of them, please continue to both call them out, and mock them. Usually someone who spouts a line to feel like they belong can't hold their own in an argument, or invokes a logical fallacy when they argue.
A good counter to the moderators who think they can just moderate down anyone who doesn't agree with them would be to list who moderated what comments. Then, other members can check up on the moderators (without the silliness of meta-moderating) if they wish to. Also, I'd ditch the whole friends/foes system. It only further establishes a sort of collective thought.
I hope you are joking with regard to C#. Have you used both languages? Java is not the end-all, be-all of object-oriented languages! Given the choice to use either Java or C#, I'd take C# every single time. The.NET Framework is superior to Java's in terms of organization and naming conventions. (It is not as deep as Java's third party support, however.) I consider Visual Studio superior to any of the sluggish-feeling-type-type-oh-wait-now-I've-gotta- garbage-collect-so-I'll-stall-for-awhile Java-based ones that everyone raves about for Java. C# is more expressive than Java, as well. I use Java daily, but at times it feels like the language has been greatly watered down so it would be the next COBOL.
You fail to realize that MS doesn't care one way about being interoperable. Why would they want a cross-platform filesystem? Their game is being proprietary. Anyway, complaining about the whole choice thing is rather silly. Isn't that what open source is all about? Frankly I'd rather have the competition to spur innovation.
I don't really wish to play a game where the distinctions of skill are all but eroded by simplified gameplay. I want a game that some people will try, and say, "this is too fast/out of control/intense." I want a game where people are clearly better than other people, but I don't want one where the 'best' people are necessarily the ones who have played the longest. (Obviously there is a decent amount of correlation at times here, but it shouldn't be the SOLE determining factor.) The 'relative simplicity' of the rule set (as you conceded) is cognitively dull for me. It doesn't inspire me to think of bizarre strategies. I do not think it fun to sit around and talk to people half the time. In fact, I prefer games where the individual can upset the entire team if they're good enough.
When it comes down to it, you cannot explain away that leveling is usually described as grinding. What other genre of games is this true in? Why is it that I have to fight a swarm of monsters, each that look and act like the last? Why does it have to be so repetitive? What if I want more out of gaming than following a bunch of cookie-cutter style quests involving taking various items to places, or killing X Murlocs?
There is very little depth of gameplay when it comes to WoW. It deserves all the stimulus/response criticism it gets, because it is overly simplified. MMOs never have much in the way of gameplay, and that is why I don't play them. Without an element of skill, the game becomes repetitive once the shine of materialism wears off the players.
Care to give us concrete examples, backed up by external sources that show us how the DRM associated with Vista is obtrusive and cumbersome for almost all users? You sounded very sure of yourself, so that must mean you have this sort of thing.
Slashdot editors tend to accept stories that re-spin what the original article was spinning if it violates one or more of the Basic Memes (Linux/Apple/Google = always good, Microsoft = always bad). One of the most memorable proofs was the recent CIA/Google article which suggested that one adopt a dismissive attitude toward the whole thing, based on needing more evidence. Everyone knows that if the article was about the evil, evil em-dollar sign, that comment wouldn't have been there.
Funny how the open source movement is about choice until you decide not to use them. For example, any article on here that mentions Photoshop, without fail there's always someone who stands up and says, "stop Adobe's monopoly! Use Gimp!" This sort of myopic zealotry is childish at best. People aren't always going to use what you think is best. They may have different requirements than you. Heck, they may just want to get stuff done without dragging ridiculous debates on software distribution into everything.
This was just a choice the charity made. Perhaps it isn't what this crowd wants to hear. Instead of complaining about it, figure out what made them be dissuaded, and evaluate whether their complaints are legitimate. If they are, then fix the underlying problem. If they aren't, then disregard it and move on. You don't need to sit there and whine endlessly about it.
It achieves a sort of sacred status in which people engage in flat-out denial that there are issues because they put too much blind faith in the development process behind it. They will tell you that the only real way of proving anything is the scientific method and then turn around and say they have complete faith that this is the year of Linux on the desktop. This is the primary reason why this site is not considered respectable among some IT professionals: it thrives only on fanboys and huge amounts of bias. Zealotry always involves a certain level of chosen ignorance.
Slashdot Mirror
Did I forget to judge this person based upon him saying he needs to take a bath?
Parent has a point. The moderation is wrong, and just shows that Slashdot is absolutely infested with these sort of ironclad ideologies. Their fallout is news that is hyped up beyond its merits.
Far too many stories are sensationalized for their own sake. This is incredibly sad for a site that is supposed to be for nerds. And in the unlikely event a story hasn't been spun this way in the summary, there is always some extremist blowhard in the comments who either:
1. Wildly speculates about an uncomfortable future by taking this single event and extrapolating a set of worst possible consequences. Moderators respond by modding it up, almost as if they believe people noticing it will therefore prevent it from happening.
2. Makes some incredibly naive statement and then laments that it isn't true. Nostalgia is stimulated, and moderators respond by modding it up, as it to make it true.
I'd love to find a site that doesn't house the sort of people that refuse to live in the real world, but I have yet to find one.
Then it is Not That Bad Because I Can Waste Time Burning And Reripping. Don't forget about this important exception!
They're the exceptions to the rule, right? I'm not good at keeping up with groupthink.
I have to laugh at anyone who feels like they need to make more money than their neighbor. If you think about it even for just a few seconds you'll realize you're going to be perpetually unhappy. What exactly does it mean to me as a person if I make more money? Does it mean I am a better person? More powerful? Of course not. It just means I have more things than the next person.
When will people wake up from the self-induced stupor of materialism?
So, let's see. I can take several hours of my life out to talk through this on the phone (let's be optimistic and say three) all to make $52.50, or I could just stay at the office with those three hours and make more than that.
It is much easier to hate a corporation that has been convicted of a monopoly than it is to hate something that affects human lives far more. In the case of the former, all you need to do is say the right things on this website and you'll get plenty of affirmation. However, with the latter, you'd be faced with some very uncomfortable options that involve sacrificing parts of your own cozy life in order to work against it. You might have to give some money, or some time. I'm talking about serious social problems, such as poverty, children made to fight in wars, or other seriously messed up things.
Certainly mark Microsoft as evil, but I find it comic how incensed people become discussing them. And quite sad, considering if that sort of passion were put toward something besides spewing vitriolic comments on anonymous message boards, perhaps we'd be a lot better off. What I learn from Microsoft is that no corporation is to be trusted. I should question motives of an entity that exists solely to make profits, in everything they do. I also learn that corporations tend to converge on suckiness, almost without fail. My opinion stops there, however. I reserve the farther reaches of the emotional spectrum for people, not things, because people are what really matter.
You failed to address the lock-in portion of his comment, which is what is important. What Microsoft did is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
Also of note from the Wikipedia article: It isn't my 'fantasy' to vilify Apple here, but until it is possible through iTunes to move your music to another player in a batch manner, they are (perhaps inadvertently) locking users to the iPod. Apple doesn't get special treatment here just because they are the underdog.
So, what do you do now?
At least in my book. Nothing like needing 300 megabytes of memory to be used just to download files!
(Yes, I realize you can probably use other clients. I'm just being offensive.)
The problem is that many people do not want honest discussion via the comment system: they want to be affirmed in what they believe. And some people would rather cater to the groupthink and adopt that as their own belief because they lack a spine. Since you don't seem to be one of them, please continue to both call them out, and mock them. Usually someone who spouts a line to feel like they belong can't hold their own in an argument, or invokes a logical fallacy when they argue.
A good counter to the moderators who think they can just moderate down anyone who doesn't agree with them would be to list who moderated what comments. Then, other members can check up on the moderators (without the silliness of meta-moderating) if they wish to. Also, I'd ditch the whole friends/foes system. It only further establishes a sort of collective thought.
I'd prefer no bias either way. Some of us prefer to get our news without having opinions pushed on us.
I hope you are joking with regard to C#. Have you used both languages? Java is not the end-all, be-all of object-oriented languages! Given the choice to use either Java or C#, I'd take C# every single time. The .NET Framework is superior to Java's in terms of organization and naming conventions. (It is not as deep as Java's third party support, however.) I consider Visual Studio superior to any of the sluggish-feeling-type-type-oh-wait-now-I've-gotta- garbage-collect-so-I'll-stall-for-awhile Java-based ones that everyone raves about for Java. C# is more expressive than Java, as well. I use Java daily, but at times it feels like the language has been greatly watered down so it would be the next COBOL.
You fail to realize that MS doesn't care one way about being interoperable. Why would they want a cross-platform filesystem? Their game is being proprietary. Anyway, complaining about the whole choice thing is rather silly. Isn't that what open source is all about? Frankly I'd rather have the competition to spur innovation.
I don't really wish to play a game where the distinctions of skill are all but eroded by simplified gameplay. I want a game that some people will try, and say, "this is too fast/out of control/intense." I want a game where people are clearly better than other people, but I don't want one where the 'best' people are necessarily the ones who have played the longest. (Obviously there is a decent amount of correlation at times here, but it shouldn't be the SOLE determining factor.) The 'relative simplicity' of the rule set (as you conceded) is cognitively dull for me. It doesn't inspire me to think of bizarre strategies. I do not think it fun to sit around and talk to people half the time. In fact, I prefer games where the individual can upset the entire team if they're good enough.
When it comes down to it, you cannot explain away that leveling is usually described as grinding. What other genre of games is this true in? Why is it that I have to fight a swarm of monsters, each that look and act like the last? Why does it have to be so repetitive? What if I want more out of gaming than following a bunch of cookie-cutter style quests involving taking various items to places, or killing X Murlocs?
Kind of like how everyone knows by now that people irrationally hate Microsoft, yet it continues to get modded up.
Oh please.
There is very little depth of gameplay when it comes to WoW. It deserves all the stimulus/response criticism it gets, because it is overly simplified. MMOs never have much in the way of gameplay, and that is why I don't play them. Without an element of skill, the game becomes repetitive once the shine of materialism wears off the players.
Reminds me of how some people remain perpetually angry at a certain software company in Redmond.
Care to give us concrete examples, backed up by external sources that show us how the DRM associated with Vista is obtrusive and cumbersome for almost all users? You sounded very sure of yourself, so that must mean you have this sort of thing.
Since so many willingly pledge allegiance to them, I thought I'd just throw that out there.
Yep, I made my entire worldview around this simple fact. It works great!
Slashdot editors tend to accept stories that re-spin what the original article was spinning if it violates one or more of the Basic Memes (Linux/Apple/Google = always good, Microsoft = always bad). One of the most memorable proofs was the recent CIA/Google article which suggested that one adopt a dismissive attitude toward the whole thing, based on needing more evidence. Everyone knows that if the article was about the evil, evil em-dollar sign, that comment wouldn't have been there.
Funny how the open source movement is about choice until you decide not to use them. For example, any article on here that mentions Photoshop, without fail there's always someone who stands up and says, "stop Adobe's monopoly! Use Gimp!" This sort of myopic zealotry is childish at best. People aren't always going to use what you think is best. They may have different requirements than you. Heck, they may just want to get stuff done without dragging ridiculous debates on software distribution into everything.
This was just a choice the charity made. Perhaps it isn't what this crowd wants to hear. Instead of complaining about it, figure out what made them be dissuaded, and evaluate whether their complaints are legitimate. If they are, then fix the underlying problem. If they aren't, then disregard it and move on. You don't need to sit there and whine endlessly about it.
It achieves a sort of sacred status in which people engage in flat-out denial that there are issues because they put too much blind faith in the development process behind it. They will tell you that the only real way of proving anything is the scientific method and then turn around and say they have complete faith that this is the year of Linux on the desktop. This is the primary reason why this site is not considered respectable among some IT professionals: it thrives only on fanboys and huge amounts of bias. Zealotry always involves a certain level of chosen ignorance.
The mark of a fanboy is when they hold their ideal company to different standards than all others.
Frankly I'm tired of people tolerating all the love of companies in the first place. It shows a lack of critical thinking skills.