Not only is that legally impossible; it's also a a terrible idea.
Microsoft publishes their support lifecycle, and anyone can find out exactly how long their software will be supported. Occasionally they extend it (as was the case with XP), but they are not obligated to do so.
If treating the end of support like a drop-dead date makes their OS an unappealing purchase... then don't buy it.
When about a 50 million people were compelled to buy Microsoft Windows because it came with their computer, were they made aware of this?
No. This was NOT published anywhere where decades of victims of MS Highway Robbery could have seen it. And “don’t buy it” isn’t an option when every computer maker has been illegally strong armed into including their shitware as a requirement to sell...
Look. MS was successful sued over this. Their malfeasance was proven in a court of law on numerous occasions. But thanks, it seems to governmental corruption or incompetence or a combination of the two, Microfuck was NOT broken up the way they should have been, the way Standard Oil and Ma Bell were.
Your pro-corporate “hey, take it or leave it” attitude ignores the fact that things weren’t always as they are now,
Microsoft had, through practices demonstrated in court to be not only anticompetitive but illegally so, made itself the only game in town.
Your argument would be like telling someone living in LA in the 80s that if you don’t like having to own a car, just get to work some other way.
There are no houses you can afford walking distance to work. The place you work is in LA, so relocating to another town or state isn’t an option. There’s no public transport either TO where in the LA metroplex where you work nor one in the suburbs where you live. Bicycling is not an option because in that time and place, bike lanes were a new idea and not everywhere HAD them.
You simply had to own a car if you wanted to have that job and weren’t conveniently already filthy stinking RICH. SO when someone says, you don’t HAVE to own a car... it’s really pretty laughable.
Sure. Just hitchhike to work. Or walk 7 hours each way twice daily. Carpool (before that was a thing...) which means invent carpooling, basically... also be lucky enough to HAVE someone near enough to you...
Having a Wintel computer (that’s actually what they were called, from WINDOWS and Intel) in the 80s or 90s or even early 00s was ESSENTIAL for a LOT of things and MS parasitically FED off everyone basically.
There wasn’t a legally usable free alternative then, certainly not one anyone was writing software for. BSD wasn’t really a thing yet, UNIX was still proprietary, Apple’s Mac OS was a joke that only worked on Apple’s overpriced computers which mostly people weren’t writing software for either... and Linux (and GNU) wasn’t a thing yet either.
There were no iPads or iPods nor iPhones or iFads or iBlads or even iVlads (what Putin uses). You kids nowadays are spoiled. And you don’t even know it.
ALSO, this should include everyone who has ever gotten a copy of XP, “free” with a new computer.
To whatever moron rated this "Flamebait":
It's not, you fucking MICROSHILL.
WE FUCKING PAID FOR MICROSOFT'S GODDAMNED, NON-SECURE-BY-DESIGN, DELIBERATELY BROKEN, INTENTIONALLY INFERIOR, SHITTY SOFTWARE, IN REAL ACTUAL MONEY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Microsoft ROBBED every customer it's ever had. It's entire leadership from inception to today should be in FUCKING PRISON
It's not flame-bait to say so. It's a valid, legitimate opinion, shared by many; likely it's shared by MOST of the F/L-OSS community, much of the GNU and Linux communities, pretty much any and everyone who has been fucked over by goddamned motherfucking MICROSOFT, which means at this point, if you live indoors, and not in a fucking cave, probably you too. Statistically speaking.
So fuck you, whoever you are, you useless, paid-off, dickless piece of shit.
NOW THIS, MAYBE, IS FLAMEBAIT. The original was not. Now you know the difference.
(There should be an official mechanism on slashdot for protesting or appealing moderators who abuse their privileges. Because anyone who thought the original post was flame-bait doesn't know what the fuck flame-bait IS.)
There's been a few comparability breaking hardware changes that make me highly skeptical you could have continually updated a system that long.
Off the top of my head G5 -> x86 -> "x86-64
I wouldn't be shocked if there were some motherboard firmware changes required for the newest version since the first 64 bit x86 hardware too.
It may not be forever, but functionally forever. Imagine at what point the limitations imposed by 64-bit computing will necessitate switching to 128 bit.
The 8 bit era lasted a while, until production capacity for memory chips made them cheap enough to make people maxing out their installed RAM a real problem. Enter 16 bit computing with the Intel 80286 chip. (Yes, I know it wasn't their first, but it was the first mass-adopted.) That lasted a little while before the Intel 80386 took things, IIRC, into the 32 bit era, which lasted a couple decades. (I could be wrong on the numbers; it's been a while since I’ve thought about these things.)
In fact, Apple still hasn’t, as far as I know, made good on their threat yet to release an OS that doesn’t have the capability of running 32-bit binaries, though that day is nigh. I think Windows 10 still can run the lower bit-width software, though as I don’t USE Windows anymore... I cannot say for sure.
We might see 128 bit processors and memory addresses in our lifetime, but unless there is some quantum-leap in digital electronic technology that takes us as far beyond current technology as the transistor did beyond the vacuum tube, I’m not holding my breath.
Every person who has ever paid for a copy of Microsoft Windows XP should join a class action lawsuit, seeking the following remedy:
Microsoft to open source all Windows XP code, including binaries and source, with all comments, patches, drivers, updates, etc.
OR, they can go RIGHT on supporting it for free, indefinitely, including continuing to issue patches until the end of time or their executives responsible can go to prison until they change their minds.
I propose a study to investigate the correlation between so-called scientists attributing to cats properties they may or may not have, with toxoplasmosis infection. If the parasite can make rats think cat piss smells good, it stands to reason that it might well result in "researchers" conducting "studies" concluding that cats are in various ways smarter or better than previously believed.
How do you explain people going gaga over dogs?
I'm starting to think that nerds love the "mind control parasite" thing just because it sounds like a Star trek plotline.
I'm sure dogs have a spare parasite or two, between heart, lung, and liver worms. All you need to do is ask one. As long as it's not food or a chew-toy you're asking him to share, I'm sure the average dog won't mind. They are our best friends, after all.
While yes, mind control parasites WERE featured in at least one Star Trek (Wrath of Khan, specifically*) but like antimatter and teleportation, science, (as Cosmos' Neil deGrasse Tyson pointed out,) had them first, NOT science fiction. I've heard a podcast, (can't recall whose, might have been RadioLab,... or WAS this also Cosmos?) talking about something that could get even the most entomophobic person to feel sorry for a cockroach, called the emerald jewel wasp.
Do you mean specifically the part where you thought it was about you, or do you just mean, narcissism in general?
Alas,/. won't let me mod you up though I currently have modpoints to burn, because I've posted to this thread already. Conflict of interest or avoidance of self-dealing or whatever... but that made me snort. Score + TWO just for that. Hat's off to you Aighearach.
v2.0 won't start if your credit score is too low, or you post 'fake news' or a hate opinion online.
V3.0 will include the following features in addition to all contained in the 2.0:
o Allows anonymous reporting of anyone spreading lies or hateful opinions verbally to the central social credit database.
o Factors in your number of Facebook friends with whom you have exclusively shared something in the last 6 months, your number of Twitter followers, your (original) Tweets to Retweets ratio, and of course, your slashdot Karma score into the computation that determines not only if your car will start, but how far it will allow you to go and in which direction before automatically shutting down.
I know my fellow Slashdotters will actually like this proposed v3.1 feature though; if it detects your number of troll posts exceeds non-troll-scored posts, it causes your car to drive either straight into a tree, or if there are none nearby, off the nearest bridge or cliff.
This is why I only play indy games these days. I get more fun out of Rimworld, Cataclysm, & Dwarf Fortress as I ever did out of any of the AAA games spewed out these days.
I thought AAA games just produced titles like Road Maps Galore, Plastic Spare Key Maker, and Tow Truck Driver 1986.
Thatâ(TM)s (thirty) second amendment, by the way.;-)
It would go on thus:
Congress shall enact laws, and from time to time revisit them as necessary, to ensure that no person, neither natural nor corporate, shall monopolize resources generated by nor provided for the benefit of all; minimum and maximum wages for work shall be established and enforced. Income from sources besides work shall be taxed at such rates as to ensure that remuneration therefrom shall in no event exceed that which may be earned through compensable labor given the limitations of the maximum wage set at that time.
A well regulated Economy being necessary to the prosperity of a free State, the right of the people to enjoy a reasonable and equitable share of the fruits of their labor shall not be infringed.
PS: If the origin of this story turns out to be a joke tailor-made for April first, and one is inclined to exclaim, "Ha-ha, you fell for an April Fools joke!" I would point out that by "falling" for it, I have taken no action nor been changed in any way, except perhaps by having been led to believe that someone, or a group of someones is stupid. Statistically speaking...
Cats Can Recognize Their Own Names, Study Suggests
Cat aficionados who fancy themselves "scientists" are unable to recognize instances of operant conditioning when they see them.
For these cats, the sequence of sounds we humans call "their names" end up being followed by feeding, treats, petting, scritch-scratching, and warm, luxurious laps in which to relax and unwind from a stressful day of napping in the sunshine and occasionally trying to catch their arch-nemesis, that stupid glowing red dot... all good and pleasant things. Naturally, being living organisms, cats tend to gravitate towards that which is pleasant, and avoid that which is not. Having the collection of sounds that they hear right before something nice happens resulting in them tending to come to expect the same or similar when it happens again is just operant conditioning.
I propose a study to investigate the correlation between so-called scientists attributing to cats properties they may or may not have, with toxoplasmosis infection. If the parasite can make rats think cat piss smells good, it stands to reason that it might well result in "researchers" conducting "studies" concluding that cats are in various ways smarter or better than previously believed.
Or 365 days early, (if I counted right, there’s a February 29th between now and the next April first).
Also, if this weren’t an April Moron-Day joke, I would have to weigh being bitten by mosquitos and risking contracting various mosquito-borne illnesses against having to listen to dubstep. Not sure which is worse.
Don't complain, it could have been 1940s German umpapa music.
I am gratefully unaware of what German umpapa music is, and I'm going to resist the natural temptation of curiosity to look it up. Lalalalalalalalla....
Fun activities tend to be done more than not fun ones. It's a plain, simple fact of nature. For example:
On balance, people fuck more than they get root canals. Root canals are actually really good for you; fucking, by contrast, can have a lot of unintended and unpleasant side effects, that last for days, months, or years beyond the handful of minutes of pleasure that can be derived from such an activity as sex. You see, if you have a tooth in your mouth, (your own, obviously, not someone else's... why do you even have that in your mouth?!? Spit it out!) that has decayed to the point that the root is compromised, and has become infected with bacteria, the tooth can't really be saved at that point without a root canal.
A root canal is essential under these circumstances because without one, the tooth can suppurate, resulting in inflammation so painful it interferes with activities of daily life. Allowed to continue to fester, the pocket of bacteria can erode into the jaw bone, spread throughout the body, causing a condition known as sepsis, or septic-shock, in which a previously sequestered bacterial infection suddenly gets direct access to the blood stream. It is, I understand, a horrible way to die. A cursory internet search turned up this, (https://www.new-horizons-dental.com/blog/post/top-5-reasons-not-to-delay-getting-a-root-canal.html) list of reasons NOT to put off getting a necessary root canal. If you actually NEED one, they are literally lifesavers.
By contrast, fucking, while it can be SUPER fun, can lead to the spread of sexually transmitted infections, including herpes, gonorrhea, hepatitis, genital warts, the dreaded human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV for short, and worst of all, a parasitic infection that men can spread to women that causes their abdomens to swell up, resulting in bouts of insanity, cravings for strange foods and food combinations, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, accompanied by sudden weight gain that goes on literally for months, generally culminating in a bloody, screaming fit which can last between 15 minutes and over a day, in which the parasite is expelled from the body amid agony on the part of the infected woman. The nightmare doesn't end there, though. The end result is often extremely expensive, for both the woman AND the man who infected her through sexual contact. And all this assumes she doesn't at any point complain that the activity in which she became infected was non-consensual, the result of coercion, or the threat or use of force. Should this occur, the man can find himself locked in a giant cage with other men who are believed to be incapable of adhering to broader society's rules.
Either way, the adventure in parasitism doesn't end there. The parasite, shortly after being expelled, latches onto the chest of the victim whose body it has just burst forth from, and continues to drain her of precious nutrients and minerals. While incubating inside her, the parasite effectively rewires her brain causing her to care for, and even be willing to kill or die if necessary, to protect this screaming, demanding, smelly, selfish little beast. To quote world-famous physician Gregory House: Many women learn to embrace this parasite... name it, dress it up in tiny clothes, arrange playdates with other parasites...
Fucking, as an activity, can be conclusively shown, I believe, to be FAR more dangerous and detrimental for all concerned, than an allegedly addictive video game. BAN that, I say, PARTICULARLY among people who are basically parasites themselves, such as members of so-called "royal" families! MAYBE, with a little luck, we can put a STOP to that happening, and what a wonderful world it would be.
Or 365 days early, (if I counted right, there’s a February 29th between now and the next April first).
Also, if this weren’t an April Moron-Day joke, I would have to weigh being bitten by mosquitos and risking contracting various mosquito-borne illnesses against having to listen to dubstep. Not sure which is worse.
Apple's CEO gave an utter bullshit one-word explanation for why they'd fixed something that wasn't broken and in the process BROKE it even worse than it wasn't already, when he stated, "Courage".
Apple Inc's name starts with an 'A,' the bullshit excuse started with 'C.' I reversed it, since the car company's name starts with 'C', so I picked a synonym for the word, but which itself starts with 'A'!
LOLOLOL... I hope y'all had anywhere near as good a time reading this as I did writing it.:) In context of other businesses' approaches to business, Apple is beyond fucking ludicrous.
If I spent $200US for a burned-out lightbulb you bet you arse I'd be fixing it rather than throwing it away. Now go back to ruining the economy from your penthouse office you crappy 1%er.
A better question would be: who the fuck wants a pair of crappy headphones for literally 10 times what they're actually worth?
Apple eliminated the headphone jack to save money AND to make MORE money, (having recently acquired Beats, a wireless headphone maker,) by trying to force users to buy something ELSE just to get BACK to the level of functionality and utility they previous had with their older phones, i.e., their own proprietary Bluetooth "+" (basically) headphones or Beats, which I understand incorporates similar proprietary technology to make them interoperate with iPhones and other Apple products (maybe) a tiny bit better (W1 chip) and thus giving them an unfair advantage in the marketplace. (Cough cough microsoft cough cough...)
If Chevrolet pulled this shit, (for example, just to illustrate how nuts this all is,) this is what it would look like:
The all-new 2020 Chevrolet Camaro will be 7 percent lighter than in previous years, because it does not come with a trunk. "At Chevy," they'll announce, "we're freeing drivers from having to have a trunk!" Where the trunk would have been, the Camaro will now have mounts on the backside of the passenger compartment where you can attach an optional Chevrolet "yTrunk". The reason for this is that yTrunk is so super-advanced it's detachable!
"Chevrolet's new yTrunk opens from the bottom instead of top or back; the floor of yTrunk lowers to the ground for loading and unloading, so you don't have to hoist things up and OVER the back of the trunk." (Audience applauds.) "Starting with a base volume of 20 liters storage space, yTrunk will sell for only $1,795, and is available to buy starting today online or at your local Chevrolet Store!"
Market analysts will opine that Chevy decided the target market for the Camaro would rather have the car weigh 100 fewer pounds, and pay nearly two grand (after taxes and fees) to get a trunk with whiz-bang features they never knew they were supposed to want. "Essentially, it's a lift-gate, so you can just place stuff ON the trunk's floor, and it hoists what you put on that up INTO the trunk," they'll say. It even comes with its own little gas tank, they'll enthuse, because Chevy didn't want it to have to be plumbed into the fuel system of the car itself. That would be dangerous, hard to implement, and defeat the purpose if they designed it to be in any way capable of getting power to operate from the car's fuel source. On the down side, it uses fuel constantly whenever the car's in motion to keep the bottom from dropping to the roadway; and needs to have fuel to raise or lower the bottom. If you let it run out of fuel, not only does the trunk become useless, it loses all your groceries or whatever you had in the trunk if you hit the slightest bump. Naturally you can find out how much fuel is left in THAT tank, but you have to press several buttons on the dashboard just to see what the level IS.
If you don't remember to fill the tank every time, (and NO, you can't just plumb it into the car's gas tank,) it becomes effectively useless dead-weight as you're driving around town, or down the freeway and maybe even a road-hazard and legal liability for you.
Someone will then ask, (at a Chevy Product Launch event in the Louis Chevrolet Auditorium,) why they deliberately reduced the utility of one of their best-selling and most important and iconic cars, didn't lower the price versus previous years' models, (indeed, raised it,) and made it so people had to pay through the nose for something that they already HAD and worked just fine in previous generations of Camaros... moreover, he or she will ask, why do this when the new one has smaller capacity, could get lost, needs to be independently powered to open or close, and could so easily dump its contents while
If you are a modern user of updated/modern Apple products, congratulations, you are a beta tester.
Apple still has alpha, beta, and release stages of software. The difference is that nowadays and for a while, Apple has evidently been calling alpha-quality software BETA, and calling beta-quality software RELEASE. I suppose what should be called a release-ready piece of software ends up being a bug-fix and security patch update.
Why does Apple do this? It is cheaper and therefore makes Apple and its investors more money, and Apple software and hardware users have been willing to tolerate it. Or feel they have no choice. Or have developed something akin to Stockholm Syndrome.
Do you dislike Apple charging you amounts of money for their products that would be appropriate and correspond with what you would expect to pay for actually ready for release, polished, finished, properly TESTED software? Do you still buy Apple Defective-By-Design garbage products for good money?
If so, then congratulations, by rewarding malfeasance, you are part of the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Not only is that legally impossible; it's also a a terrible idea.
Microsoft publishes their support lifecycle, and anyone can find out exactly how long their software will be supported. Occasionally they extend it (as was the case with XP), but they are not obligated to do so.
If treating the end of support like a drop-dead date makes their OS an unappealing purchase... then don't buy it.
When about a 50 million people were compelled to buy Microsoft Windows because it came with their computer, were they made aware of this?
No. This was NOT published anywhere where decades of victims of MS Highway Robbery could have seen it. And “don’t buy it” isn’t an option when every computer maker has been illegally strong armed into including their shitware as a requirement to sell...
Look. MS was successful sued over this. Their malfeasance was proven in a court of law on numerous occasions. But thanks, it seems to governmental corruption or incompetence or a combination of the two, Microfuck was NOT broken up the way they should have been, the way Standard Oil and Ma Bell were.
Your pro-corporate “hey, take it or leave it” attitude ignores the fact that things weren’t always as they are now,
Microsoft had, through practices demonstrated in court to be not only anticompetitive but illegally so, made itself the only game in town.
Your argument would be like telling someone living in LA in the 80s that if you don’t like having to own a car, just get to work some other way.
There are no houses you can afford walking distance to work. The place you work is in LA, so relocating to another town or state isn’t an option. There’s no public transport either TO where in the LA metroplex where you work nor one in the suburbs where you live. Bicycling is not an option because in that time and place, bike lanes were a new idea and not everywhere HAD them.
You simply had to own a car if you wanted to have that job and weren’t conveniently already filthy stinking RICH. SO when someone says, you don’t HAVE to own a car... it’s really pretty laughable.
Sure. Just hitchhike to work. Or walk 7 hours each way twice daily. Carpool (before that was a thing...) which means invent carpooling, basically... also be lucky enough to HAVE someone near enough to you...
Having a Wintel computer (that’s actually what they were called, from WINDOWS and Intel) in the 80s or 90s or even early 00s was ESSENTIAL for a LOT of things and MS parasitically FED off everyone basically.
There wasn’t a legally usable free alternative then, certainly not one anyone was writing software for. BSD wasn’t really a thing yet, UNIX was still proprietary, Apple’s Mac OS was a joke that only worked on Apple’s overpriced computers which mostly people weren’t writing software for either... and Linux (and GNU) wasn’t a thing yet either.
There were no iPads or iPods nor iPhones or iFads or iBlads or even iVlads (what Putin uses). You kids nowadays are spoiled. And you don’t even know it.
You pull some shit like this, you loose this customer in perpetuity.
SOMEONE should read them, and it’s NOT gonna be me, so...
ALSO, this should include everyone who has ever gotten a copy of XP, “free” with a new computer.
To whatever moron rated this "Flamebait":
It's not, you fucking MICROSHILL.
WE FUCKING PAID FOR MICROSOFT'S GODDAMNED, NON-SECURE-BY-DESIGN, DELIBERATELY BROKEN, INTENTIONALLY INFERIOR, SHITTY SOFTWARE, IN REAL ACTUAL MONEY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Microsoft ROBBED every customer it's ever had. It's entire leadership from inception to today should be in FUCKING PRISON
It's not flame-bait to say so. It's a valid, legitimate opinion, shared by many; likely it's shared by MOST of the F/L-OSS community, much of the GNU and Linux communities, pretty much any and everyone who has been fucked over by goddamned motherfucking MICROSOFT, which means at this point, if you live indoors, and not in a fucking cave, probably you too. Statistically speaking.
So fuck you, whoever you are, you useless, paid-off, dickless piece of shit.
NOW THIS, MAYBE, IS FLAMEBAIT. The original was not. Now you know the difference.
(There should be an official mechanism on slashdot for protesting or appealing moderators who abuse their privileges. Because anyone who thought the original post was flame-bait doesn't know what the fuck flame-bait IS.)
Master Qui-Gon Jinn will take you on and train you as a JEDI anyway.
If anything happens to him, his padawan Obi Wan Kenobi will take over for him, and I’m sure that’ll all turn out fine.
The Force WILL be with you, Oracle. Always.
Has it?
There's been a few comparability breaking hardware changes that make me highly skeptical you could have continually updated a system that long.
Off the top of my head G5 -> x86 -> "x86-64
I wouldn't be shocked if there were some motherboard firmware changes required for the newest version since the first 64 bit x86 hardware too.
It may not be forever, but functionally forever. Imagine at what point the limitations imposed by 64-bit computing will necessitate switching to 128 bit.
The 8 bit era lasted a while, until production capacity for memory chips made them cheap enough to make people maxing out their installed RAM a real problem. Enter 16 bit computing with the Intel 80286 chip. (Yes, I know it wasn't their first, but it was the first mass-adopted.) That lasted a little while before the Intel 80386 took things, IIRC, into the 32 bit era, which lasted a couple decades. (I could be wrong on the numbers; it's been a while since I’ve thought about these things.)
In fact, Apple still hasn’t, as far as I know, made good on their threat yet to release an OS that doesn’t have the capability of running 32-bit binaries, though that day is nigh. I think Windows 10 still can run the lower bit-width software, though as I don’t USE Windows anymore... I cannot say for sure.
We might see 128 bit processors and memory addresses in our lifetime, but unless there is some quantum-leap in digital electronic technology that takes us as far beyond current technology as the transistor did beyond the vacuum tube, I’m not holding my breath.
ALSO, this should include everyone who has ever gotten a copy of XP, “free” with a new computer.
Every person who has ever paid for a copy of Microsoft Windows XP should join a class action lawsuit, seeking the following remedy:
Microsoft to open source all Windows XP code, including binaries and source, with all comments, patches, drivers, updates, etc.
OR, they can go RIGHT on supporting it for free, indefinitely, including continuing to issue patches until the end of time or their executives responsible can go to prison until they change their minds.
Some people wake and wonder, "how can I make things better?"
Others wake and wonder, "how can I make things worse?"
I think Congress is full mostly of the latter sort.
I propose a study to investigate the correlation between so-called scientists attributing to cats properties they may or may not have, with toxoplasmosis infection. If the parasite can make rats think cat piss smells good, it stands to reason that it might well result in "researchers" conducting "studies" concluding that cats are in various ways smarter or better than previously believed.
How do you explain people going gaga over dogs?
I'm starting to think that nerds love the "mind control parasite" thing just because it sounds like a Star trek plotline.
I'm sure dogs have a spare parasite or two, between heart, lung, and liver worms. All you need to do is ask one. As long as it's not food or a chew-toy you're asking him to share, I'm sure the average dog won't mind. They are our best friends, after all.
While yes, mind control parasites WERE featured in at least one Star Trek (Wrath of Khan, specifically*) but like antimatter and teleportation, science, (as Cosmos' Neil deGrasse Tyson pointed out,) had them first, NOT science fiction. I've heard a podcast, (can't recall whose, might have been RadioLab, ... or WAS this also Cosmos?) talking about something that could get even the most entomophobic person to feel sorry for a cockroach, called the emerald jewel wasp.
(Brace yourself if you're squeamish, and... https://planetearthandhumanity...)
* "Allow me to introduce you to Ceti Alpha Five's only remaining ... indigenous ... life form... "
Yes I hate paying taxes for this reason.
Do you mean specifically the part where you thought it was about you, or do you just mean, narcissism in general?
Alas, /. won't let me mod you up though I currently have modpoints to burn, because I've posted to this thread already. Conflict of interest or avoidance of self-dealing or whatever... but that made me snort. Score + TWO just for that. Hat's off to you Aighearach.
v2.0 won't start if your credit score is too low, or you post 'fake news' or a hate opinion online.
V3.0 will include the following features in addition to all contained in the 2.0:
o Allows anonymous reporting of anyone spreading lies or hateful opinions verbally to the central social credit database.
o Factors in your number of Facebook friends with whom you have exclusively shared something in the last 6 months, your number of Twitter followers, your (original) Tweets to Retweets ratio, and of course, your slashdot Karma score into the computation that determines not only if your car will start, but how far it will allow you to go and in which direction before automatically shutting down.
I know my fellow Slashdotters will actually like this proposed v3.1 feature though; if it detects your number of troll posts exceeds non-troll-scored posts, it causes your car to drive either straight into a tree, or if there are none nearby, off the nearest bridge or cliff.
Actually, I think I might kinda wanna see that.
This is why I only play indy games these days. I get more fun out of Rimworld, Cataclysm, & Dwarf Fortress as I ever did out of any of the AAA games spewed out these days.
I thought AAA games just produced titles like Road Maps Galore, Plastic Spare Key Maker, and Tow Truck Driver 1986.
Thatâ(TM)s (thirty) second amendment, by the way. ;-)
It would go on thus:
Congress shall enact laws, and from time to time revisit them as necessary, to ensure that no person, neither natural nor corporate, shall monopolize resources generated by nor provided for the benefit of all; minimum and maximum wages for work shall be established and enforced. Income from sources besides work shall be taxed at such rates as to ensure that remuneration therefrom shall in no event exceed that which may be earned through compensable labor given the limitations of the maximum wage set at that time.
A well regulated Economy being necessary to the prosperity of a free State, the right of the people to enjoy a reasonable and equitable share of the fruits of their labor shall not be infringed.
PS: If the origin of this story turns out to be a joke tailor-made for April first, and one is inclined to exclaim, "Ha-ha, you fell for an April Fools joke!" I would point out that by "falling" for it, I have taken no action nor been changed in any way, except perhaps by having been led to believe that someone, or a group of someones is stupid. Statistically speaking...
Cats Can Recognize Their Own Names, Study Suggests
Cat aficionados who fancy themselves "scientists" are unable to recognize instances of operant conditioning when they see them.
For these cats, the sequence of sounds we humans call "their names" end up being followed by feeding, treats, petting, scritch-scratching, and warm, luxurious laps in which to relax and unwind from a stressful day of napping in the sunshine and occasionally trying to catch their arch-nemesis, that stupid glowing red dot... all good and pleasant things. Naturally, being living organisms, cats tend to gravitate towards that which is pleasant, and avoid that which is not. Having the collection of sounds that they hear right before something nice happens resulting in them tending to come to expect the same or similar when it happens again is just operant conditioning.
I propose a study to investigate the correlation between so-called scientists attributing to cats properties they may or may not have, with toxoplasmosis infection. If the parasite can make rats think cat piss smells good, it stands to reason that it might well result in "researchers" conducting "studies" concluding that cats are in various ways smarter or better than previously believed.
Or 365 days early, (if I counted right, there’s a February 29th between now and the next April first).
Also, if this weren’t an April Moron-Day joke, I would have to weigh being bitten by mosquitos and risking contracting various mosquito-borne illnesses against having to listen to dubstep. Not sure which is worse.
Don't complain, it could have been 1940s German umpapa music.
I am gratefully unaware of what German umpapa music is, and I'm going to resist the natural temptation of curiosity to look it up. Lalalalalalalalla....
Might as well also ban fun.
Fun activities tend to be done more than not fun ones. It's a plain, simple fact of nature. For example:
On balance, people fuck more than they get root canals. Root canals are actually really good for you; fucking, by contrast, can have a lot of unintended and unpleasant side effects, that last for days, months, or years beyond the handful of minutes of pleasure that can be derived from such an activity as sex. You see, if you have a tooth in your mouth, (your own, obviously, not someone else's... why do you even have that in your mouth?!? Spit it out!) that has decayed to the point that the root is compromised, and has become infected with bacteria, the tooth can't really be saved at that point without a root canal.
A root canal is essential under these circumstances because without one, the tooth can suppurate, resulting in inflammation so painful it interferes with activities of daily life. Allowed to continue to fester, the pocket of bacteria can erode into the jaw bone, spread throughout the body, causing a condition known as sepsis, or septic-shock, in which a previously sequestered bacterial infection suddenly gets direct access to the blood stream. It is, I understand, a horrible way to die. A cursory internet search turned up this, (https://www.new-horizons-dental.com/blog/post/top-5-reasons-not-to-delay-getting-a-root-canal.html) list of reasons NOT to put off getting a necessary root canal. If you actually NEED one, they are literally lifesavers.
By contrast, fucking, while it can be SUPER fun, can lead to the spread of sexually transmitted infections, including herpes, gonorrhea, hepatitis, genital warts, the dreaded human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV for short, and worst of all, a parasitic infection that men can spread to women that causes their abdomens to swell up, resulting in bouts of insanity, cravings for strange foods and food combinations, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, accompanied by sudden weight gain that goes on literally for months, generally culminating in a bloody, screaming fit which can last between 15 minutes and over a day, in which the parasite is expelled from the body amid agony on the part of the infected woman. The nightmare doesn't end there, though. The end result is often extremely expensive, for both the woman AND the man who infected her through sexual contact. And all this assumes she doesn't at any point complain that the activity in which she became infected was non-consensual, the result of coercion, or the threat or use of force. Should this occur, the man can find himself locked in a giant cage with other men who are believed to be incapable of adhering to broader society's rules.
Either way, the adventure in parasitism doesn't end there. The parasite, shortly after being expelled, latches onto the chest of the victim whose body it has just burst forth from, and continues to drain her of precious nutrients and minerals. While incubating inside her, the parasite effectively rewires her brain causing her to care for, and even be willing to kill or die if necessary, to protect this screaming, demanding, smelly, selfish little beast. To quote world-famous physician Gregory House: Many women learn to embrace this parasite... name it, dress it up in tiny clothes, arrange playdates with other parasites...
Fucking, as an activity, can be conclusively shown, I believe, to be FAR more dangerous and detrimental for all concerned, than an allegedly addictive video game. BAN that, I say, PARTICULARLY among people who are basically parasites themselves, such as members of so-called "royal" families! MAYBE, with a little luck, we can put a STOP to that happening, and what a wonderful world it would be.
Okay. So it is now officially April 2nd in all of the (at least CONTINENTAL) United States.
So. Which stories from yesterday here were real, and which stories total bullshit? /. is still doing this, right?
Or 365 days early, (if I counted right, there’s a February 29th between now and the next April first).
Also, if this weren’t an April Moron-Day joke, I would have to weigh being bitten by mosquitos and risking contracting various mosquito-borne illnesses against having to listen to dubstep. Not sure which is worse.
Fleshlight is to pussy.
Your turn.
(All so, lettuce naught four get two day is Ape real fursed, sew this is probe ably bull shit.)
* GET IT? See what I did there?
Apple's CEO gave an utter bullshit one-word explanation for why they'd fixed something that wasn't broken and in the process BROKE it even worse than it wasn't already, when he stated, "Courage".
Apple Inc's name starts with an 'A,' the bullshit excuse started with 'C.' I reversed it, since the car company's name starts with 'C', so I picked a synonym for the word, but which itself starts with 'A'!
LOLOLOL... I hope y'all had anywhere near as good a time reading this as I did writing it. :) In context of other businesses' approaches to business, Apple is beyond fucking ludicrous.
If I spent $200US for a burned-out lightbulb you bet you arse I'd be fixing it rather than throwing it away. Now go back to ruining the economy from your penthouse office you crappy 1%er.
A better question would be: who the fuck wants a pair of crappy headphones for literally 10 times what they're actually worth?
Apple eliminated the headphone jack to save money AND to make MORE money, (having recently acquired Beats, a wireless headphone maker,) by trying to force users to buy something ELSE just to get BACK to the level of functionality and utility they previous had with their older phones, i.e., their own proprietary Bluetooth "+" (basically) headphones or Beats, which I understand incorporates similar proprietary technology to make them interoperate with iPhones and other Apple products (maybe) a tiny bit better (W1 chip) and thus giving them an unfair advantage in the marketplace. (Cough cough microsoft cough cough...)
If Chevrolet pulled this shit, (for example, just to illustrate how nuts this all is,) this is what it would look like:
The all-new 2020 Chevrolet Camaro will be 7 percent lighter than in previous years, because it does not come with a trunk. "At Chevy," they'll announce, "we're freeing drivers from having to have a trunk!" Where the trunk would have been, the Camaro will now have mounts on the backside of the passenger compartment where you can attach an optional Chevrolet "yTrunk". The reason for this is that yTrunk is so super-advanced it's detachable!
"Chevrolet's new yTrunk opens from the bottom instead of top or back; the floor of yTrunk lowers to the ground for loading and unloading, so you don't have to hoist things up and OVER the back of the trunk." (Audience applauds.) "Starting with a base volume of 20 liters storage space, yTrunk will sell for only $1,795, and is available to buy starting today online or at your local Chevrolet Store!"
Market analysts will opine that Chevy decided the target market for the Camaro would rather have the car weigh 100 fewer pounds, and pay nearly two grand (after taxes and fees) to get a trunk with whiz-bang features they never knew they were supposed to want. "Essentially, it's a lift-gate, so you can just place stuff ON the trunk's floor, and it hoists what you put on that up INTO the trunk," they'll say. It even comes with its own little gas tank, they'll enthuse, because Chevy didn't want it to have to be plumbed into the fuel system of the car itself. That would be dangerous, hard to implement, and defeat the purpose if they designed it to be in any way capable of getting power to operate from the car's fuel source. On the down side, it uses fuel constantly whenever the car's in motion to keep the bottom from dropping to the roadway; and needs to have fuel to raise or lower the bottom. If you let it run out of fuel, not only does the trunk become useless, it loses all your groceries or whatever you had in the trunk if you hit the slightest bump. Naturally you can find out how much fuel is left in THAT tank, but you have to press several buttons on the dashboard just to see what the level IS.
If you don't remember to fill the tank every time, (and NO, you can't just plumb it into the car's gas tank,) it becomes effectively useless dead-weight as you're driving around town, or down the freeway and maybe even a road-hazard and legal liability for you.
Someone will then ask, (at a Chevy Product Launch event in the Louis Chevrolet Auditorium,) why they deliberately reduced the utility of one of their best-selling and most important and iconic cars, didn't lower the price versus previous years' models, (indeed, raised it,) and made it so people had to pay through the nose for something that they already HAD and worked just fine in previous generations of Camaros... moreover, he or she will ask, why do this when the new one has smaller capacity, could get lost, needs to be independently powered to open or close, and could so easily dump its contents while
If you are a modern user of updated/modern Apple products, congratulations, you are a beta tester.
Apple still has alpha, beta, and release stages of software. The difference is that nowadays and for a while, Apple has evidently been calling alpha-quality software BETA, and calling beta-quality software RELEASE. I suppose what should be called a release-ready piece of software ends up being a bug-fix and security patch update.
Why does Apple do this? It is cheaper and therefore makes Apple and its investors more money, and Apple software and hardware users have been willing to tolerate it. Or feel they have no choice. Or have developed something akin to Stockholm Syndrome.
Do you dislike Apple charging you amounts of money for their products that would be appropriate and correspond with what you would expect to pay for actually ready for release, polished, finished, properly TESTED software? Do you still buy Apple Defective-By-Design garbage products for good money?
If so, then congratulations, by rewarding malfeasance, you are part of the problem.