But back to the topic at hand, You are welcome to disagree with me on matters of grammar and spelling. And many of you do, very vocally in the forums. I would hope moderators would see such commentary as offtopic. A story about a new motherboard chipset has nothing to do with the proper use of "Its" and "It's".
Slashdot was spawned from what today would be called a blog. To be more precise, it came from MY blog. Where I posted almost nothing but my own opinions. But more blatantly, I could simply rewrite the entire thing, say exactly what I want to say, and post it as an anonymous reader. Or as a made up nickname. I don't do any of those things. I simply add my 2 bits at the end to the occasional story. Not only do I think this is desirable on Slashdot, I think it's essential.
I see these two statements as somewhat contradictory. If/. were supposed to be a serious, well-run site where interested users can glean interesting, well-formulated ideas, I could understand wanting to suppress the sort of metacommentary seen in the comments. But it isn't. It is a blog that is interesting, and good enough that people keep coming here, and the community is a part of it. The editors can post dupes and error-laden stories all they want, why shouldn't people be able to comment on it? It's not a matter of "the editors desire scrutiny" so much as "the editors are asking that we hold the readers to a higher standard than they themselves are held to."
There's not much to worry about, though, because this story won't really change anything. The editors will continue to do an adequate job (because there really isn't any incentive to do a superlative job, and they probably spend most of their time fighting off trolls anyway), and commentary on the quality of editing will often be modded up when it isn't blatant trolling. If the editing improved, it really wouldn't make much of a difference, though I'd appreciate it. But without some modicum of sarcastic jackasses,/. frankly wouldn't be as enjoyable.
I can't diagnose cancer and I know nothing about medicine, but that doesn't mean that I don't know what cancer is or what some causes are or that metastasis is bad, etc. Likewise, all told I really know very little about computers. I couldn't begin to tell you what a TCP packet looks like, I don't know a single opcode in any machine language, and I don't know how the hell you represent a filesystem using a binary tree. But I know what a computer is, and how it basically functions, so that learning specific things about it is trivial. Most people have better things to do than be computer whizzes, but considering how important computers are and how much we use them, most people should know the fundamentals of them. Or as a specific example: almost nobody really needs to know that an HTTP request ends with CR LF CR LF, but they should know that when you look at a webpage, your computer is actually requesting a file from another computer on the internet.
The 9/11 attacks were carried out by middle-class people funded by an extremely rich man. The stereotype of terrorists being poor and desperate is not based on reality so much as people's inability to grasp the idea that an educated, well-off person might actually hate them enough to kill them.
I would think Gates wouldn't want to be compared to Carnegie--a man who probably gave so much to charity to improve his image and lighten his conscious because so much of his wealth wasill-gotten. Nobel, on the other hand, felt guilty about honestly inventing something which was not meant to be harmful but inevitably would be.
I don't disagree that what he did was wrong. But he isn't being sued for damages, he isn't even being charged with a misdemeanor: he's being charged with a felony. Does this really warrant removing him from civilized society? Should we teach him how to commit truly harmful crimes while simultaneously radically circumscribing his ability to make an honest living? Yes, he needs to learn a lesson. But destroying his life will only teach him that the system is unfair and that the only proper attitude toward society is antagonism.
Doing stupid, puerile, disruptive things is bad and often warrants punishment.
The flagrant, egregious, unbridled abuse of justice in an attempt to abrogate a person's human rights for doing something this minor, however, is an outrage which should offend everyone everywhere.
There are always hardliners, but as time passes they become less and less relevant. There are still plenty of people against IVF, but it's pretty accepted. There's almost no one against organ transplantation. And you'd be seriously hard-pressed to find someone against using analgesic drugs during birth for moral reasons. Stem cell research will almost certainly become uncontroversial during the lifetimes of young people today, or at least much sooner than human cloning.
But in an ideal world, Windows wouldn't be dead and no other OS would get its market share. Instead, several OSes would have comparable market share, meaning that they and Windows would compete, therefore giving incentive to all to put out the best product. It isn't as though Microsoft has a lack of money or talented programmers; the reason they don't put out a better product is because there is no incentive to do so. As it stands, people for the most part will use Windows whether it's good or bad, and that's the problem. I don't want to see Microsoft destroyed; I want to see them make quality software, a task for which they obviously have the resources.
I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Nazism and Communism, and the former isn't atheistic at all. It's kind of hard to kill anyone, or for that matter do anything at all "in the name of" a non-belief. Mao didn't believe in the geocentric model of the solar system; that doesn't mean that he killed in the name of heliocentrism and that we should slander astronomers.
It's nice to see that you personally know more about the workings of the human body than all of the greatest minds in medicine combined. Could you just humor me a bit, though, and tell me what the deal with introns is? I've really been dying to know. Also, if you have any spare time, what's the deal with mitochondrial DNA? Is it protein synthesis cheat codes? I bet it's cheat codes.
Some places won't sell R movie tickets to those under 18, without a parent there. How is a game different?
Some places won't sell M rated games to those under 18, without a parent there. But it isn't the law, nor are there any laws about MPAA ratings. Nobody is trying to make laws about MPAA ratings however, and the difference is probably that they donate more money to political campaigns than the video game industry.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but consumers only have DVD-R or DVD+R or DVD-RAM recorders, for which the media do not have writable lead-in areas.
Slashdot was spawned from what today would be called a blog. To be more precise, it came from MY blog. Where I posted almost nothing but my own opinions. But more blatantly, I could simply rewrite the entire thing, say exactly what I want to say, and post it as an anonymous reader. Or as a made up nickname. I don't do any of those things. I simply add my 2 bits at the end to the occasional story. Not only do I think this is desirable on Slashdot, I think it's essential.
I see these two statements as somewhat contradictory. If /. were supposed to be a serious, well-run site where interested users can glean interesting, well-formulated ideas, I could understand wanting to suppress the sort of metacommentary seen in the comments. But it isn't. It is a blog that is interesting, and good enough that people keep coming here, and the community is a part of it. The editors can post dupes and error-laden stories all they want, why shouldn't people be able to comment on it? It's not a matter of "the editors desire scrutiny" so much as "the editors are asking that we hold the readers to a higher standard than they themselves are held to."
There's not much to worry about, though, because this story won't really change anything. The editors will continue to do an adequate job (because there really isn't any incentive to do a superlative job, and they probably spend most of their time fighting off trolls anyway), and commentary on the quality of editing will often be modded up when it isn't blatant trolling. If the editing improved, it really wouldn't make much of a difference, though I'd appreciate it. But without some modicum of sarcastic jackasses, /. frankly wouldn't be as enjoyable.
I can't diagnose cancer and I know nothing about medicine, but that doesn't mean that I don't know what cancer is or what some causes are or that metastasis is bad, etc. Likewise, all told I really know very little about computers. I couldn't begin to tell you what a TCP packet looks like, I don't know a single opcode in any machine language, and I don't know how the hell you represent a filesystem using a binary tree. But I know what a computer is, and how it basically functions, so that learning specific things about it is trivial. Most people have better things to do than be computer whizzes, but considering how important computers are and how much we use them, most people should know the fundamentals of them. Or as a specific example: almost nobody really needs to know that an HTTP request ends with CR LF CR LF, but they should know that when you look at a webpage, your computer is actually requesting a file from another computer on the internet.
GNUstep may not be anywhere nearly as mature as Qt or Gtk, but it's hardly a non-starter.
The ethical (and more important) reason is that copying the material was dishonest.
Actually, NeXT and OS X are based on the Mach kernel. There are bits from BSD in it, but mostly it's the low-level userspace that's Unix.
Too bad Jesus wasn't a Christian.
Woah! Slow down there, maestro. There's a new Mexico?
The 9/11 attacks were carried out by middle-class people funded by an extremely rich man. The stereotype of terrorists being poor and desperate is not based on reality so much as people's inability to grasp the idea that an educated, well-off person might actually hate them enough to kill them.
I would think Gates wouldn't want to be compared to Carnegie--a man who probably gave so much to charity to improve his image and lighten his conscious because so much of his wealth wasill-gotten. Nobel, on the other hand, felt guilty about honestly inventing something which was not meant to be harmful but inevitably would be.
What are you implying? That santorum ingestion is a possible vector for HIV transmission?
I don't disagree that what he did was wrong. But he isn't being sued for damages, he isn't even being charged with a misdemeanor: he's being charged with a felony. Does this really warrant removing him from civilized society? Should we teach him how to commit truly harmful crimes while simultaneously radically circumscribing his ability to make an honest living? Yes, he needs to learn a lesson. But destroying his life will only teach him that the system is unfair and that the only proper attitude toward society is antagonism.
All that text, and the phrase "Lorem ipsum" doesn't appear once. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
The flagrant, egregious, unbridled abuse of justice in an attempt to abrogate a person's human rights for doing something this minor, however, is an outrage which should offend everyone everywhere.
Three years ago, DVDs were a consumer product. Today, neither Blu-Ray disc nor HD-DVDs are.
If only you had a warp engine, perhaps you might actually have succeeded in getting first post.
There are always hardliners, but as time passes they become less and less relevant. There are still plenty of people against IVF, but it's pretty accepted. There's almost no one against organ transplantation. And you'd be seriously hard-pressed to find someone against using analgesic drugs during birth for moral reasons. Stem cell research will almost certainly become uncontroversial during the lifetimes of young people today, or at least much sooner than human cloning.
Actually, SMB3 was on the NES.
They will run in Rosetta, though. That may be pretty slow, but frankly so is a G4 at this point.
But in an ideal world, Windows wouldn't be dead and no other OS would get its market share. Instead, several OSes would have comparable market share, meaning that they and Windows would compete, therefore giving incentive to all to put out the best product. It isn't as though Microsoft has a lack of money or talented programmers; the reason they don't put out a better product is because there is no incentive to do so. As it stands, people for the most part will use Windows whether it's good or bad, and that's the problem. I don't want to see Microsoft destroyed; I want to see them make quality software, a task for which they obviously have the resources.
I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Nazism and Communism, and the former isn't atheistic at all. It's kind of hard to kill anyone, or for that matter do anything at all "in the name of" a non-belief. Mao didn't believe in the geocentric model of the solar system; that doesn't mean that he killed in the name of heliocentrism and that we should slander astronomers.
It's nice to see that you personally know more about the workings of the human body than all of the greatest minds in medicine combined. Could you just humor me a bit, though, and tell me what the deal with introns is? I've really been dying to know. Also, if you have any spare time, what's the deal with mitochondrial DNA? Is it protein synthesis cheat codes? I bet it's cheat codes.
Some places won't sell M rated games to those under 18, without a parent there. But it isn't the law, nor are there any laws about MPAA ratings. Nobody is trying to make laws about MPAA ratings however, and the difference is probably that they donate more money to political campaigns than the video game industry.