Tell your friend to stop being a leech and relying on ads for revenue. Get a real job that doesnt rely on polluting the web. and annoying users. Hes a parasite if he cant live without ads, we dont need his work if they are the only way to do it.
Harsher than I would have put it, but true nonetheless.
If all advertising revenue were to disappear tomorrow, any industry or product which couldn't migrate to another form of acquiring revenue in a few days probably doesn't need to exist in the first place. People would be able to choose if they want to directly pay for access to sites they like, or to move on and spend their time on something else they value more. Sites that are a hobby or a true labor or love (the way 80% of them were in the early days of the web) would go back to that, leaving a lot of the crap and cruft behind. Buzzfeed and other "TOP TEN WEIRD TRICKS" sites would hopefully just go away. There would probably be less crap on TV, and actor salaries would drop to a more reasonable level to compensate for the lack of an advertiser teat to leech from.
Or, somebody will decide that ATI and NVidia aren't satisifying the market, and we'll be back to the old days when you had to choose between S3, Matrox, ATI, NVidia, 3dfx, PowerVR, Intel, Rendition, Trident....
Please no. I don't want to go back to a "Works best with Voodoo 3dfx!" world. At least with only two big graphics companies things are usually compatible and interoperate pretty well.
By impeding everyone else's "bandwidth" on his bicycle, he made the point that someone should have the power to move him out of the higher-speed lanes and into a lower-priority one.
Net Neutrality has absolutely nothing to do with quality of service type traffic prioritization. The only people who conflate the two issues are either ignorant or intentionally misleading people.
In this scenario, the cyclist was in the position of the ISP. The road is the Internet connection the consumers and content providers (drivers) have already paid to access. He was artificially slowing them down unless they paid to go faster, just like Comcast has already done to BitTorrent users and Netflix.
What exactly do you think Visa/MasterCard/Amex/Discover do??? 2.9% of every transaction, plus $0.35 per swipe.
Credit cards are not a currency so this is a false equivalence. In fact, Bitcoin shares many problems and negative aspects with credit cards and it's really closer to a debit card than currency.
The problem isn't paying a 3rd party to authenticate your transaction.
Yes, it absolutely is. If I can't exchange goods with another person without a third party or paying a processing fee, then I'd say whatever we are using of value is not a valid currency.
I don't find the current Bitcoin valuation rooted in reality.
Of course it isn't, and that's the reason for this announcement. Everyone knows the bubble bursting is inevitable, so those with some control over exchanges are trying to draw it out as long as possible so they can maximize their cashout. I guarantee you that if Brian Armstrong and his buddies want to start selling off their own bitcoins they won't have to deal with "delays" or "unavailable servers".
What kind of crazy clown currency has private entities acting as gatekeepers over all transactions, whether buying or selling? If I walk into a store with cash, gold dust, bottle caps, or whatever, I don't need to page some third party to come over and write down the transaction in their ledger. Oh, and writing down that transaction record takes longer each time, and he takes a huge percentage of the money changing hands.
Any kind of currency which requires a third party to take part in the transaction, and which the full value can't simple change hands without a processing fee simply isn't practical or viable.
What's harsh about space other than it being relatively cold?
What comes to mind:
A temperature of minus 455 degrees Fahrenheit (only about 5 degrees above absolute zero). Many materials and electrical components do not behave or age the same when subjected to decades of extreme temperatures and it wouldn't be a surprise at all to find some materials slowly getting brittle or changing shape or thermal or electrical conduction.
Radiation. A complete lack of protection from a planet's magnetic field or atmosphere means every single gamma ray heading the right direction hits it, hence the shielding and hardened components used to build the satellites. Maybe this drops off as it moves away from the sun, but we really don't know what the nature of space beyond the sun's immediate influence looks like.
Heat dissipation. No atmosphere means there is no convection so all heat must be dissipated via radiation emissions, which can be very slow. This means if you have hot spots in your electronics or the RTG power system without proper heat sinks, it can build up to a thermal failure.
Aside from the fact that I find it subjectively ugly, I dislike it because I think the design is unusable outside of a very base case of 2-4 tabs. Tabs-on-top is also a huge pain in the ass when using Remote Desktop or anything else that puts a bar along the top of the screen. It also goes against all OS design guidelines by removing the window title bar and system menus which makes muscle memory around those UI elements worthless. I could go on, but it doesn't really matter.
Is that REALLY the criteria you judge software on? The shape of the buttons and tabs?
Of course. These UI elements are the only way to interact with the application. Would you complain if the steering wheel of your car was changed to a cube and the brake and accelerator moved to toggle switches on the dashboard? After all these are just the shape and position of a few controls. So far I've been content to fix these problems using a UI addon, but every single one of those is made non-functional in version 57.
Hand over your data to GOOGLE using a chrome WHICH LOOKS LIKE AUSTRALIS ANYWAYS!
Which is why I would never switch to Chrome. I do have to use it occasionally as the "modern" web is becoming a "Works best with IE ^H^H Chrome" clusterfuck, but every time I do I'm just reminded why it sucks.
After using Firefox for 15 years, watching it turn into a mini-me of Chrome is soul-crushing. Honestly, I'm really hoping that the 57 fiasco will either spawn a viable fork that puts the browser back on the right path, or pushes more development resources towards Gecko alternatives like Waterfox.
Personally 56 is the end of the Firefox line for me. I completely reject the horrible Australis interface and the push towards the gimped and incapable Chrome-style Web Extensions. Firefox had a good run, but its Chromification is now complete and there's little reason to continue using it.
Waterfox or Pale Moon will probably be my Firefox replacement. Does anyone have any comments or suggestions on migrating to one of them?
Recurring posters and in-jokes are one of my favorite things about Slashdot comments.
My favorite is probably posts from K'breel, Speaker for the Council and the Martian propaganda fight against the so-called "evil Terran aggressors" (relayed by Tackhead).
It's been awhile since we had news from Mars. I hope he's doing okay.
Subscriptions have been broken for years at this point. I reject and block advertising for security and on principle and want a way to support the site, but they literally won't take my money.
I had hope when the new owners took over last year but they really haven't done much besides starting to delete and censor comments. I guess they've realized they also don't know how to make the site profitable. Sourceforge has seen improvement, which is good, but it also makes me wonder if they really just wanted Sourceforge and got stuck with Slashdot as a package deal.
I think it says something important about the modern web that nobody knows how to get money from a loyal and decades-old community with disposable income. Hint: no advertising, subscriptions, skillful editors, and responsive improvements to the site (aka the opposite of the Betapocalypse).
Given that the FBI has repeatedly made it plain that they want unrestricted and owner-involuntary access to every piece of hardware on this planet, I'd take any cybersecurity recommendation they make with a grain of salt
That may be true, but do you really think the Russian government is less interested in this same thing? I don't like FUD without evidence, but if you really fear the motives and reach of the US government, then you'd best be even more very worried about Russia as well.
And, ask yourself this: Would you trust a Chinese software company headquartered in Beijing more or less that Kaspersky, headquartered in Moscow, or Symantec, headquartered in Mountain View? At this point if you distrust one, you'd probably best distrust them all. At least of the three, the US is still democratic and answerable to Congress. Who do you think Putin answers to?
Trump's... conflict-avoiding... personality... Were you by any chance in a coma during his campaign leading up to his presidency?
To be fair, there's a big difference between up-close personal conflict with a few individuals and anonymous conflict like you see on a stage in front of a big crowd or via the Internet. It really isn't a big surprise that someone who hides behind Twitter to shout insults at the world is more of a coward in person.
Not "caused by", "aided by". A firearm does not make anyone commit suicide.
In such a case the cause of death would obviously be a self-inflicted gunshot wound with a firearm being the instrument of the user's death. There are many other important factors at play as well, but this one is an unavoidable and key element.
And frankly, I don't care...if someone is that messed up, likely they are doing us a favor by taking themselves out of the gene pool.
Then, politely, fuck you. I'm not going to try and have a discussion about a topic that necessitates some measure of empathy with someone who is clearly a sociopath. Look up the word if you don't know what it means (most sociopaths don't).
I would dare say, if you removed the suicide gun deaths
I don't really advocate for stronger laws against gun ownership (at least without a constitutional amendment), but this seems very disingenuous. Suicides by firearms are tragic and a big problem in the US. It provides an unsurpassed easy and effective way for someone to end their life in a momentary surge of desperate emotion.
I find wearing headphones (something kind of large that covers the ear, not earbuds or anything)
Anyone have suggestions for such headphones? I have a pair of Sennheiser HD 439 that I like, but they don't suppress as much ambient noise as I'd like.
First of all, a deregulated telecommunications means you have choices in which ISP to use. Second it creates competition between them to provide superior services for lower costs.
Complete rubbish.
A lack of regulation gave us Standard Oil. A lack of regulation gave us US Steel. A lack of regulation gave us the Bell Telephone Company.
No regulation in an industry with a high barrier to entry leads to less competition, an uneven playing field, and monopolies. AT&T, Charter, and Time-Warner are all pursuing mergers even as we speak.
Do you know how much money these companies spend marketing bigger, better, faster and cheaper messages to you as a consumer?
And do you know how many tax payer dollars they've received via government subsidy to install that infrastructure?
You're business means everything to them. These aren't heartless big business entities that have a monopoly on your money.
Like how NPR doesn't have ads, they have 30 second messages from "contributors".
I used to tolerate NPR's ads because they were short, all read by the same woman (with a nice soft radio voice), and infrequent. However I'd swear that in the last year they've increased the frequency and duration of them by at least 50% and changed voices to an unpleasant man's voice. I now mute the audio or switch stations when they come on.
I abhor advertising and refuse to partake in it, so I usually pay for services. However if something like NPR is going to run ads anyway, why should I continue to donate to them? If Google is going to shove ads at us, why should I pay for their Home device?
It used to be "free" or "ad-supported". Now companies want to double dip and make you pay to hear ads. Fuck that noise.
Without having commercials to teach you that companies consider you a never-ending open wallet, and that they WILL lie to you to get your money, will these Netflix-only kids grow up to be or more less naive about the honesty of other people and companies?
This may be true, but the flipside is that without growing up inundated with asinine commercials, they may also tend to be less tolerant of them overall. One could hope this would lead to trending away from commercials as a valid way of paying for entertainment. I've avoided TV and radio commercials for a decade and now find them utterly abhorrent.
Personally, I'd love it if we moved away from all advertising subsidization. It would lead to fair market prices for entertainment and services, as well as bringing back some sanity in the salaries for actors. With some luck we might even end up back where the user the customer instead of the product.
Slashdot Mirror
Tell your friend to stop being a leech and relying on ads for revenue. Get a real job that doesnt rely on polluting the web. and annoying users. Hes a parasite if he cant live without ads, we dont need his work if they are the only way to do it.
Harsher than I would have put it, but true nonetheless.
If all advertising revenue were to disappear tomorrow, any industry or product which couldn't migrate to another form of acquiring revenue in a few days probably doesn't need to exist in the first place. People would be able to choose if they want to directly pay for access to sites they like, or to move on and spend their time on something else they value more. Sites that are a hobby or a true labor or love (the way 80% of them were in the early days of the web) would go back to that, leaving a lot of the crap and cruft behind. Buzzfeed and other "TOP TEN WEIRD TRICKS" sites would hopefully just go away. There would probably be less crap on TV, and actor salaries would drop to a more reasonable level to compensate for the lack of an advertiser teat to leech from.
In all cases it's a win for everyone.
Or, somebody will decide that ATI and NVidia aren't satisifying the market, and we'll be back to the old days when you had to choose between S3, Matrox, ATI, NVidia, 3dfx, PowerVR, Intel, Rendition, Trident....
Please no. I don't want to go back to a "Works best with Voodoo 3dfx!" world. At least with only two big graphics companies things are usually compatible and interoperate pretty well.
By impeding everyone else's "bandwidth" on his bicycle, he made the point that someone should have the power to move him out of the higher-speed lanes and into a lower-priority one.
Net Neutrality has absolutely nothing to do with quality of service type traffic prioritization. The only people who conflate the two issues are either ignorant or intentionally misleading people.
In this scenario, the cyclist was in the position of the ISP. The road is the Internet connection the consumers and content providers (drivers) have already paid to access. He was artificially slowing them down unless they paid to go faster, just like Comcast has already done to BitTorrent users and Netflix.
His protest was simplistic but not wrong.
It is a pretty remarkable euphemism. Imagine prescription drugs had disclaimers written like this:
"Notice: This product may introduce higher than expected deaths."
Sign me up!
This is exactly why Unicode support is unsafe and dangerous! Thankfully Slashdot will always be a safe haven from such shenanigans.
I really liked this TED talk about it: Surviving a Nuclear Attack.
What exactly do you think Visa/MasterCard/Amex/Discover do??? 2.9% of every transaction, plus $0.35 per swipe.
Credit cards are not a currency so this is a false equivalence. In fact, Bitcoin shares many problems and negative aspects with credit cards and it's really closer to a debit card than currency.
The problem isn't paying a 3rd party to authenticate your transaction.
Yes, it absolutely is. If I can't exchange goods with another person without a third party or paying a processing fee, then I'd say whatever we are using of value is not a valid currency.
I don't find the current Bitcoin valuation rooted in reality.
Of course it isn't, and that's the reason for this announcement. Everyone knows the bubble bursting is inevitable, so those with some control over exchanges are trying to draw it out as long as possible so they can maximize their cashout. I guarantee you that if Brian Armstrong and his buddies want to start selling off their own bitcoins they won't have to deal with "delays" or "unavailable servers".
What kind of crazy clown currency has private entities acting as gatekeepers over all transactions, whether buying or selling? If I walk into a store with cash, gold dust, bottle caps, or whatever, I don't need to page some third party to come over and write down the transaction in their ledger. Oh, and writing down that transaction record takes longer each time, and he takes a huge percentage of the money changing hands.
Any kind of currency which requires a third party to take part in the transaction, and which the full value can't simple change hands without a processing fee simply isn't practical or viable.
What's harsh about space other than it being relatively cold?
What comes to mind:
A temperature of minus 455 degrees Fahrenheit (only about 5 degrees above absolute zero). Many materials and electrical components do not behave or age the same when subjected to decades of extreme temperatures and it wouldn't be a surprise at all to find some materials slowly getting brittle or changing shape or thermal or electrical conduction.
Radiation. A complete lack of protection from a planet's magnetic field or atmosphere means every single gamma ray heading the right direction hits it, hence the shielding and hardened components used to build the satellites. Maybe this drops off as it moves away from the sun, but we really don't know what the nature of space beyond the sun's immediate influence looks like.
Heat dissipation. No atmosphere means there is no convection so all heat must be dissipated via radiation emissions, which can be very slow. This means if you have hot spots in your electronics or the RTG power system without proper heat sinks, it can build up to a thermal failure.
And in space, no one can hear you scream.
Why so negative on the visuals of the browser?
Aside from the fact that I find it subjectively ugly, I dislike it because I think the design is unusable outside of a very base case of 2-4 tabs. Tabs-on-top is also a huge pain in the ass when using Remote Desktop or anything else that puts a bar along the top of the screen. It also goes against all OS design guidelines by removing the window title bar and system menus which makes muscle memory around those UI elements worthless. I could go on, but it doesn't really matter.
Is that REALLY the criteria you judge software on? The shape of the buttons and tabs?
Of course. These UI elements are the only way to interact with the application. Would you complain if the steering wheel of your car was changed to a cube and the brake and accelerator moved to toggle switches on the dashboard? After all these are just the shape and position of a few controls. So far I've been content to fix these problems using a UI addon, but every single one of those is made non-functional in version 57.
Hand over your data to GOOGLE using a chrome WHICH LOOKS LIKE AUSTRALIS ANYWAYS!
Which is why I would never switch to Chrome. I do have to use it occasionally as the "modern" web is becoming a "Works best with IE ^H^H Chrome" clusterfuck, but every time I do I'm just reminded why it sucks.
After using Firefox for 15 years, watching it turn into a mini-me of Chrome is soul-crushing. Honestly, I'm really hoping that the 57 fiasco will either spawn a viable fork that puts the browser back on the right path, or pushes more development resources towards Gecko alternatives like Waterfox.
I dread updating to Firefox 57, because it will break all of my plugins.
Apparently some editions of version 57 will continue to support "legacy" (bootstrap, XUL, etc) addons via a preference setting, including the developer and unbranded versions. This might be an option if you really want to upgrade to 57 but still want your addons.
Personally 56 is the end of the Firefox line for me. I completely reject the horrible Australis interface and the push towards the gimped and incapable Chrome-style Web Extensions. Firefox had a good run, but its Chromification is now complete and there's little reason to continue using it.
Waterfox or Pale Moon will probably be my Firefox replacement. Does anyone have any comments or suggestions on migrating to one of them?
Recurring posters and in-jokes are one of my favorite things about Slashdot comments.
My favorite is probably posts from K'breel, Speaker for the Council and the Martian propaganda fight against the so-called "evil Terran aggressors" (relayed by Tackhead).
It's been awhile since we had news from Mars. I hope he's doing okay.
Off-topic!? Natalie Portman is never off-topic on Slashdot - irrespective of her clothing, petrification, or hot cereal status.
Subscriptions have been broken for years at this point. I reject and block advertising for security and on principle and want a way to support the site, but they literally won't take my money.
I had hope when the new owners took over last year but they really haven't done much besides starting to delete and censor comments. I guess they've realized they also don't know how to make the site profitable. Sourceforge has seen improvement, which is good, but it also makes me wonder if they really just wanted Sourceforge and got stuck with Slashdot as a package deal.
I think it says something important about the modern web that nobody knows how to get money from a loyal and decades-old community with disposable income. Hint: no advertising, subscriptions, skillful editors, and responsive improvements to the site (aka the opposite of the Betapocalypse).
Given that the FBI has repeatedly made it plain that they want unrestricted and owner-involuntary access to every piece of hardware on this planet, I'd take any cybersecurity recommendation they make with a grain of salt
That may be true, but do you really think the Russian government is less interested in this same thing? I don't like FUD without evidence, but if you really fear the motives and reach of the US government, then you'd best be even more very worried about Russia as well.
And, ask yourself this: Would you trust a Chinese software company headquartered in Beijing more or less that Kaspersky, headquartered in Moscow, or Symantec, headquartered in Mountain View? At this point if you distrust one, you'd probably best distrust them all. At least of the three, the US is still democratic and answerable to Congress. Who do you think Putin answers to?
Trump's... conflict-avoiding... personality... Were you by any chance in a coma during his campaign leading up to his presidency?
To be fair, there's a big difference between up-close personal conflict with a few individuals and anonymous conflict like you see on a stage in front of a big crowd or via the Internet. It really isn't a big surprise that someone who hides behind Twitter to shout insults at the world is more of a coward in person.
See also the greater internet fuckwad theory.
Better to open and close it repeatedly until we observe the desired result...
A proper /. headline might read; "Have Scientists Just Eliminated Peanut Allergies?"
But then Betteridge would say the answer is no, and we don't want to upset Betteridge.
A truly proper headline would be: CURE YOUR PEANUT ALLERGY FOREVER WITH THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK!
Not "caused by", "aided by". A firearm does not make anyone commit suicide.
In such a case the cause of death would obviously be a self-inflicted gunshot wound with a firearm being the instrument of the user's death. There are many other important factors at play as well, but this one is an unavoidable and key element.
I don't...if you are wanting to take yourself out, you'll take yourself out, doesn't matter the method.
This just isn't true, as others said. Suicide is very often an impulsive behavior, and one that those who attempt it immediately regret. A huge majority of those who attempt suicide and fail eventually find the support and care they need to live a normal life.
And frankly, I don't care...if someone is that messed up, likely they are doing us a favor by taking themselves out of the gene pool.
Then, politely, fuck you. I'm not going to try and have a discussion about a topic that necessitates some measure of empathy with someone who is clearly a sociopath. Look up the word if you don't know what it means (most sociopaths don't).
I would dare say, if you removed the suicide gun deaths
I don't really advocate for stronger laws against gun ownership (at least without a constitutional amendment), but this seems very disingenuous. Suicides by firearms are tragic and a big problem in the US. It provides an unsurpassed easy and effective way for someone to end their life in a momentary surge of desperate emotion.
In 2014, 50% of all suicides in the US were caused by firearms. Any discussion about gun deaths must include suicides.
I find wearing headphones (something kind of large that covers the ear, not earbuds or anything)
Anyone have suggestions for such headphones? I have a pair of Sennheiser HD 439 that I like, but they don't suppress as much ambient noise as I'd like.
First of all, a deregulated telecommunications means you have choices in which ISP to use. Second it creates competition between them to provide superior services for lower costs.
Complete rubbish.
A lack of regulation gave us Standard Oil.
A lack of regulation gave us US Steel.
A lack of regulation gave us the Bell Telephone Company.
No regulation in an industry with a high barrier to entry leads to less competition, an uneven playing field, and monopolies. AT&T, Charter, and Time-Warner are all pursuing mergers even as we speak.
Do you know how much money these companies spend marketing bigger, better, faster and cheaper messages to you as a consumer?
And do you know how many tax payer dollars they've received via government subsidy to install that infrastructure?
You're business means everything to them. These aren't heartless big business entities that have a monopoly on your money.
Poe's Law strikes again.
Like how NPR doesn't have ads, they have 30 second messages from "contributors".
I used to tolerate NPR's ads because they were short, all read by the same woman (with a nice soft radio voice), and infrequent. However I'd swear that in the last year they've increased the frequency and duration of them by at least 50% and changed voices to an unpleasant man's voice. I now mute the audio or switch stations when they come on.
I abhor advertising and refuse to partake in it, so I usually pay for services. However if something like NPR is going to run ads anyway, why should I continue to donate to them? If Google is going to shove ads at us, why should I pay for their Home device?
It used to be "free" or "ad-supported". Now companies want to double dip and make you pay to hear ads. Fuck that noise.
Without having commercials to teach you that companies consider you a never-ending open wallet, and that they WILL lie to you to get your money, will these Netflix-only kids grow up to be or more less naive about the honesty of other people and companies?
This may be true, but the flipside is that without growing up inundated with asinine commercials, they may also tend to be less tolerant of them overall. One could hope this would lead to trending away from commercials as a valid way of paying for entertainment. I've avoided TV and radio commercials for a decade and now find them utterly abhorrent.
Personally, I'd love it if we moved away from all advertising subsidization. It would lead to fair market prices for entertainment and services, as well as bringing back some sanity in the salaries for actors. With some luck we might even end up back where the user the customer instead of the product.