I think the moderation system ought to allow arbitrary point assignments for any category. For example, some trolls are worthwhile reading, and some aren't, so the Troll label should allow either +1 or -1, at the moderator's discretion. We also need new categories, as most of the posts marked "troll" aren't technically real trolls. The lack of a "flame" label means that the "flamebait" label is misapplied to flames, instead of posts that simply try to provoke flames. And we also could use labels like "Moderator-bait" (for those posts that collect lots and lots of moderator points, like OOOG the Caveman), "Random" (for those posts that don't bear on the current discussion but are technically still on-topic), and "WTF?!" (just because I like the idea of a category like that).
For one thing, there's this big bright thing that makes it impossible to see clearly.
"That must be the Daystar. I've heard talk about it."
Also, you might run the risk of seeing a person you don't know -- someone who might not know how to recompile the Linux kernel. Then you'd have to find something ELSE to talk about. Horrors!
You could just start talking about the Linux kernel anyway. Chances are you won't have to talk very long before the other person remembers an important dental appointment and leaves.
I think it's because processors intended for portable devices sacrifice performance for the sake of low power use (or some other feature beneficial to portable systems). In a desktop system, power use and temperature aren't really important, so it doesn't make sense to sacrifice performance for the sake of power consumption. Then again, I'm no expert on embedded systems, so I may be mistaken.
I always thought Dax was way sexier than 7 of 9...
Which Dax? They killed off Jadzia in the next-to-last season, then in the last season they introduced Ezri, who goes back to DS9 despite the Trills' strict rules against trying to relive past lives. I liked Ezri much better than Jadzia, although I still think Seven is better-looking than either of them. (Then again, maybe it's just the uniform.)
Different episode. In the episode in question, Voyager interfered in a war between two species, and the winners built a museum that portrayed Voyager as a warship with a sadistic crew. Then someone found the doctor's backup module and reactivated him, and the doctor told the people the truth about Voyager.
I probably got quite a few details wrong, so someone feel free to correct me.
...gee I wish I could cut&paste from Netscape into StarOffice.
You can. Cut-and-paste between X apps is actually easier than it is in Windows. Just highlight the text you want to copy, switch to the window where you want to paste, and click the middle mouse button (or left & right buttons simultaneously if you're using a two-button mouse with three-button emulation.) I found this out, interestingly enough, from a rather bad-tempered Slashdot post a while back. I'm reposting that post below, as it's more complete than my simple explanation. (I would credit the original author of that post, but I have no idea in the world who wrote it.)
First, set a mark.
Tap button#1 once to set a left-hand mark at a character point and set drag type to chars.
Tap button#1 twice to set a left-hand mark at a whole word and set drag type to words. Also, puts that word in cut buffer.
Tap button#1 thrice to set a left-hand mark at an entire word and set drag type to lines. Also, puts that line in cut buffer.
To grow your cut buffer:
Next, you may now start dragging the point device to grab up chars, words, or lines, depending on initial tap count -or-
you may now tap button#3 to mark right-hand character, word, or line, depending on initial tap count.
(Make sure your ~/.Xdefaults contains the following, without a newline: xterm*vt100.charClass: 33:48,35:48,37:48,43:48,45-47:48,64:48,95:48,126:4 8,35:48,58:48
if you want cool words.)
Finally, tap button#2 to paste whatever is in your cut buffer. Cut and paste works fine. It's easy.
Yes, illegal mp3's are illegal. But if you'll read the parent post again, it never said anything about illegal mp3's. It merely said that just because a file is in.mp3 format, that doesn't make it illegal. I have several dozen mp3's on my hard drive that I copied from my own CD's and have never distributed. Those are perfectly legal under fair use doctrine. MP3.com has quite a lot of non-copyrighted (and therefore legal) mp3's. Distributing (or downloading) copyrighted material without the copyright holder's permission is illegal. Recording and using mp3's is not.
Re:So where's the box...
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It's there at the top of the comments section, labelled "Theshold". Set it to 2 or higher to filter out the trolls.
"Your midday is someone else's midnight, someone else's sundown and even someone else's sunup."
That last one is the most coherent statement on the entire site.
There was at least one point where he was actually insightful. Somewhere in the ranting, he said "Word is a Trojan Horse". For years, I've been saying that all Microsoft software, not just MS Word, is a virus. How else could it have spread to 90+% of computers?
Re:Email Tunneling is old..
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No, wait, never mind. I was thinking of the CDs that degrade after the first time they're read.
Re:Email Tunneling is old..
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The self-destructing CDs were also on Slashdot a while back, although I'm too lazy to look up the exact article right now.
Come on, are you seriously telling us we should use OS/2 instead of windows?
I'd take OS/2 over Windows in a heartbeat. Now, if you offered me a choice between Windows and, say, having all my fingernails pulled out one by one, then I'd have to think about it for a while.
Why was this marked as "interesting"? It's a troll. In fact, it's one of the most well-written trolls I've seen in quite a while. A good troll is supposed to look enough like a real post to fool people who don't read it closely enough. And judging by the number of replies to this post, it certainly succeeded.
Just before I started writing, the post was changed to "funny". I'll agree it's kind of funny, but it's more a troll than a funny post, and "Troll" would be the most accurate categorization. (Actually, I think it deverves a "Score 2, Troll" because of the craftsmanship. This is no ordinary hot grits/Natalie Portmant post. This is a truly well-written troll.)
For many of us that read ebooks, ascii is the preferred format, as it can be formatted for any situation (can be read on pc, formatted to a Palm, etc...), and stands the best chance of being a valid format in the future.
I personally prefer HTML. With plain ascii, you lose things like italics, font sizes, and foreign characters, and line breaks can sometimes be troublesome. HTML has all (or nearly all) the advantages of ascii (lightweight, universal, easily editable, etc.) with few or none of the disadvantages.
While not an ebook per se, I'd recommend getting a Palm III (or V, or VII, depending on your price range). There are utilities that can convert plaintext, html, and probably others into the Palm format and back. But what I really like about the Palm is all the other software that you can get for it. Why get a device than can only display text when you can get a calendar, organizer, and solitare in the same package?
xpdf will read Acrobat files, as will gv (GhostScript Viewer). There are probably other readers too, but those are the two that immediately come to mind.
You think we're bad for noticing that today is 3-14? There are some people who memorize pi for fun. I only know the first 20 decimal places of pi, but I have a friend who memorized 50 places on a bet. And some people have memorized a lot more than that. It's those people who have too much spare time, not those of us who just observe Pi Day.
Your comment illustrates the author's point about the prevailing attitude of Open Source programmers.
You open up the source code...
When the author of the article refers to "end users," he means ordinary people that don't use command lines and couldn't tell the difference between C and line noise (not that some C programmers make that distinction obvious:-)). People like that wouldn't open the source code. They probably wouldn't even know it was there. Ordinary users generally want to use their programs, not figure out what clever algorithms the author came up with. If the only way to contact the author of the program is by reading the source or opening/usr/share/lib/several/other/levels/of/subdirector ies/README, then very few ordinary users are going to be able to complain about the program if they don't like it.
If the end user does not like the gui, it is his right, under the OS way of thinking, to change it to something everyone will like better.
That idea is fine for programmers, but for ordinary people, changing the source code simply isn't an option. They have neither the skills nor the inclination to write a new GUI. That's why better feedback is needed.
...most of us like that friendly # symbol from which to do our work...
You do all your work while logged in as root? Sounds dangerous. (Yes, I know that's probably not what you intended, but I like nitpicking.)
And what's so difficult in using the 'z' switch to tar?
I use SunOS 5.6 for coursework at school, and one thing that really annoys me is that the version of tar on the school's system doesn't have the z switch, which forces me to use two commands when only one should be necessary. In cases like that, it would be better to have a program that does archiving and compression in a single step.
Are you aware that, on the preferences page, you can block all articles by a specific author? Failing that, you could just NOT READ articles by people you hate. So do us all a favor and just avoid Katz's articles in the future, rather than spewing hate all over the comments section.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the moderation system ought to allow arbitrary point assignments for any category. For example, some trolls are worthwhile reading, and some aren't, so the Troll label should allow either +1 or -1, at the moderator's discretion. We also need new categories, as most of the posts marked "troll" aren't technically real trolls. The lack of a "flame" label means that the "flamebait" label is misapplied to flames, instead of posts that simply try to provoke flames. And we also could use labels like "Moderator-bait" (for those posts that collect lots and lots of moderator points, like OOOG the Caveman), "Random" (for those posts that don't bear on the current discussion but are technically still on-topic), and "WTF?!" (just because I like the idea of a category like that).
"That must be the Daystar. I've heard talk about it."
Also, you might run the risk of seeing a person you don't know -- someone who might not know how to recompile the Linux kernel. Then you'd have to find something ELSE to talk about. Horrors!
You could just start talking about the Linux kernel anyway. Chances are you won't have to talk very long before the other person remembers an important dental appointment and leaves.
I think it's because processors intended for portable devices sacrifice performance for the sake of low power use (or some other feature beneficial to portable systems). In a desktop system, power use and temperature aren't really important, so it doesn't make sense to sacrifice performance for the sake of power consumption. Then again, I'm no expert on embedded systems, so I may be mistaken.
Which Dax? They killed off Jadzia in the next-to-last season, then in the last season they introduced Ezri, who goes back to DS9 despite the Trills' strict rules against trying to relive past lives. I liked Ezri much better than Jadzia, although I still think Seven is better-looking than either of them. (Then again, maybe it's just the uniform.)
I probably got quite a few details wrong, so someone feel free to correct me.
Well, would you want to reboot a dozen times a day if you didn't have to?
You can. Cut-and-paste between X apps is actually easier than it is in Windows. Just highlight the text you want to copy, switch to the window where you want to paste, and click the middle mouse button (or left & right buttons simultaneously if you're using a two-button mouse with three-button emulation.) I found this out, interestingly enough, from a rather bad-tempered Slashdot post a while back. I'm reposting that post below, as it's more complete than my simple explanation. (I would credit the original author of that post, but I have no idea in the world who wrote it.)
if you want cool words.)Finally, tap button#2 to paste whatever is in your cut buffer. Cut and paste works fine. It's easy.
Oops. Thanks.
Yes, illegal mp3's are illegal. But if you'll read the parent post again, it never said anything about illegal mp3's. It merely said that just because a file is in .mp3 format, that doesn't make it illegal. I have several dozen mp3's on my hard drive that I copied from my own CD's and have never distributed. Those are perfectly legal under fair use doctrine. MP3.com has quite a lot of non-copyrighted (and therefore legal) mp3's. Distributing (or downloading) copyrighted material without the copyright holder's permission is illegal. Recording and using mp3's is not.
It's there at the top of the comments section, labelled "Theshold". Set it to 2 or higher to filter out the trolls.
That last one is the most coherent statement on the entire site.
There was at least one point where he was actually insightful. Somewhere in the ranting, he said "Word is a Trojan Horse". For years, I've been saying that all Microsoft software, not just MS Word, is a virus. How else could it have spread to 90+% of computers?
No, wait, never mind. I was thinking of the CDs that degrade after the first time they're read.
The self-destructing CDs were also on Slashdot a while back, although I'm too lazy to look up the exact article right now.
I'd take OS/2 over Windows in a heartbeat. Now, if you offered me a choice between Windows and, say, having all my fingernails pulled out one by one, then I'd have to think about it for a while.
Yes, but they're also full of lawyers, so they can effectively do anything they feel like.
So am I. What's the problem?
Just before I started writing, the post was changed to "funny". I'll agree it's kind of funny, but it's more a troll than a funny post, and "Troll" would be the most accurate categorization. (Actually, I think it deverves a "Score 2, Troll" because of the craftsmanship. This is no ordinary hot grits/Natalie Portmant post. This is a truly well-written troll.)
I personally prefer HTML. With plain ascii, you lose things like italics, font sizes, and foreign characters, and line breaks can sometimes be troublesome. HTML has all (or nearly all) the advantages of ascii (lightweight, universal, easily editable, etc.) with few or none of the disadvantages.
While not an ebook per se, I'd recommend getting a Palm III (or V, or VII, depending on your price range). There are utilities that can convert plaintext, html, and probably others into the Palm format and back. But what I really like about the Palm is all the other software that you can get for it. Why get a device than can only display text when you can get a calendar, organizer, and solitare in the same package?
xpdf will read Acrobat files, as will gv (GhostScript Viewer). There are probably other readers too, but those are the two that immediately come to mind.
You think we're bad for noticing that today is 3-14? There are some people who memorize pi for fun. I only know the first 20 decimal places of pi, but I have a friend who memorized 50 places on a bet. And some people have memorized a lot more than that. It's those people who have too much spare time, not those of us who just observe Pi Day.
You open up the source code...
When the author of the article refers to "end users," he means ordinary people that don't use command lines and couldn't tell the difference between C and line noise (not that some C programmers make that distinction obvious :-)). People like that wouldn't open the source code. They probably wouldn't even know it was there. Ordinary users generally want to use their programs, not figure out what clever algorithms the author came up with. If the only way to contact the author of the program is by reading the source or opening /usr/share/lib/several/other/levels/of/subdirector ies/README, then very few ordinary users are going to be able to complain about the program if they don't like it.
If the end user does not like the gui, it is his right, under the OS way of thinking, to change it to something everyone will like better.
That idea is fine for programmers, but for ordinary people, changing the source code simply isn't an option. They have neither the skills nor the inclination to write a new GUI. That's why better feedback is needed.
You do all your work while logged in as root? Sounds dangerous. (Yes, I know that's probably not what you intended, but I like nitpicking.)
I use SunOS 5.6 for coursework at school, and one thing that really annoys me is that the version of tar on the school's system doesn't have the z switch, which forces me to use two commands when only one should be necessary. In cases like that, it would be better to have a program that does archiving and compression in a single step.
Are you aware that, on the preferences page, you can block all articles by a specific author? Failing that, you could just NOT READ articles by people you hate. So do us all a favor and just avoid Katz's articles in the future, rather than spewing hate all over the comments section.