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Slashback: Nods, Lamentations, Nudity
from the like-pictures-of-prom dept.
This too shall pass. Lord_Macblaster writes "The GameFan Network is no longer hosting sites. Many sites, including VoodooExtreme and my own site, Monolithic Illusions are nothing but dead links now. It's a real shame. Plenty of top notch sites were shut down. Not major news yet, but info is available here on PlanetCrap, and here on Lum The Mad."
This is the kind of thing that could get me into gaming.
nomadic writes: "
Electronic News reports that the PS2 shortage (mentioned before on Slashdot) may actually be DVD-related. Some analysts point to a shortage in DVD drive parts that has been affecting the notebook industry as well, but others suggest that it might be their lax CSS security.
Guess the MPAA leaning on them wouldn't be too implausible, but it's interesting if you consider that Sony's a member of that august body. Wonder how much flak they got from their brethren over the DVD copy protection workaround that Japanese gamers found earlier this year."
Another thing that could get me into gaming -- TheMyth writes: "It appears the Vivid Entertainment Group, is trying to release interactive adult movies for the Playstation 2. Read the article here that tells it all. -- I can't wait to see the field day that our government reps are gonna have with this one. Is this another "targeting adult content to kids case" or is it "targeting adult content to adults that play video games"? Censorship here we come ..."
Giving competition a good name again. An unnamed correspondent points to the results of the century's last ICFP programming contest. ICFP stands for a real mouthful: "International Conference on Functional Programming." "This year, functional languages take all the prizes; OCAML gets 1st and 2nd place, Haskell 3rd, Mercury 4th, and the judges' prize (for best image) goes to a SML/NJ team."
Battling giants has its rewards. GoldSkin writes: "The Digital Divas have reached an out-of-court settlement against Microsoft and their Digital Diva site. You may recall this article from way back in May." From their site: "In the simplest terms, Microsoft's Stacy Elliot will no longer be known as the 'Digital Diva' and Microsoft will no longer use digitaldiva.com in connection with content like that formerly available at that site. Also, in accordance with our settlement agreement, Microsoft has posted a notice at digitaldiva.com. Please visit and see for yourself."
I have a PS/2 forsale! (Score:3)
If you buy today, I'll throw in a second PS/2!
That's right! Two PS/2's for the price of one!
I'm only asking $300, which is more than fair seeing as how you'll be getting my PS/2 a month before Sony releases their PS/2.
Re:Resident Troll, move over [Repost] (Score:3)
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Re:Last Post (Score:3)
Yes, imagine how great it would be to be able to moderate George Bush and Pat Buchanan down as (-1, Flamebait).
- Joe
Re:Last Post (Score:3)
Anyway, you nailed it full on. Wish I could have said it as well as you.
(And Siggy, sorry to see you go. Effugus and the original Enoch Root passed with out a peep, somehow I don't think it will be same with you. At least let us know your maximum karma if you really are gone. Or would that destroy the legend?)
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Re:Last Post (Score:3)
Reporters of "Smut" (Score:3)
"The level of interactivity enhances fantasy, so you can customize it to fit your fantasy," he said. "It's incredibly destructive.... What you have is an effort by the industry to turn sexual exploitation into a game."
That cracked me up. Can you imagine an anti-porn advocate standing in the middle of a shopping center shouting stuff like this with a megaphone? (probably whilst waving a bible with the other hand). These people need to grow up and understand that people like porn and their childhood snickering only leads to discredit them.
Re:Last Post (Score:3)
I started reading Slashdot several years back, when I was still in college. I posted fairly regularly, tried to get moderated up. The issues on Slashdot seemed vivid and important.
In the words of Kafka:
"I was still quite a puppy, everything pleased me, everything was my concern. I believed that great things were going on around me of which I was the leader and to which I must lend my voice, things which must be wretchedly thrown aside if I did not run for them and wag my tail for them."
I left college, moved on in life. Life is hard and fraught with difficulties. Suddenly, whether Windows was better than Linux, or whether KDE was better than Gnome didn't seem that important after all. The discussions on Slashdot? Silly and inane.
Signal 11 and other long time regular Slashdot posters are probably experiencing the same jadedness. Slashdot isn't dying, but there comes a time when people move on.
PS2 (Score:3)
Re:Last Post (Score:3)
If you took the time to read and understand my post you'll find no allusions to "slashdotting politics" - instead, I'm talking about the fact that the same problems are inherent in any group debating system, whether that system be the government or Slashdot.
If we're going to move to a more parcipitative form of governance, we're going to need to solve group debating issues on a much larger scale than just the few hundred people who debate laws today. My point is simply that if we can't solve these problems in an imaginary scenario such as Slashdot, how can we solve them in a real scenario like the government.
If holding that view makes me part of the "wide-eyed groupthink" majority then so be it, but believe me, this is not because I am following the herd. These are my own opinions. I didn't just read them out of a Wired issue.
If you think Signal 11's experiments give you insight into the herd mentality then please share these insights, so we may all be enriched by them. It might help solve the very real problems that we face as a civilisation. That's why I responded to Signal 11's message. It seems a shame that someone with such insight would abandon such an experiment.
Unfortunately, it seems, you're more interested in acting smug and arrogant than in actually solving anything. In fact, your attitude is worse than that - you seem to want to make the problem itself a taboo subject. Well, that's a somewhat Victorian attitude and I think that even the Slashdot herd, who you despise, are at least embodying the spirit of the current age, rather than the 19th century spirit of scientific determinism, which every college student knows is philosophically flawed and just plain inaccurate.
Incidentally, unless you know Signal 11 personally, why are you calling him Siggy? Is his first name even Signal? And why are you using ELTAs when you don't know the meaning of the word "troll"? Now, I don't want to accuse you of acting up to the herd, but when you're pretending to be on first name terms with someone "famous" and using abbreviations without knowing their meaning, it might look to an outsider as if you're playing herd power games, trying to boost your own herd acceptance by using power symbols.
But, hey, you're the sociologist, so I'm sure you're well aware of what game you're playing here.
.88 magnum -- it goes through schools.
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It's a
VE, and what an omen... (Score:3)
(Personally I think this needs far more coverage than just a slashback, guys)
Apache has started that Voodoo Extreme [voodooextreme.com] (the link probably won't work :P) would return in full force in the coming days. They had already started to move before the plug was pulled. The VE staff are taking a few days vacation before they go back with their new host, who though unmentioned is receiving high praises.
By all accounts it sounds like GameFan was collapsing rapidly and it's amazing they lasted as long as they did. Something shady was going on with advertising revenue. Many people have stated that since moving to new hosts they've gotten almost 50% more click-through/hit revenue than what Gamefan was showing them.
What concerns me is that this is not going to be the last network to fall by any means. UGO and IGN BOTH sound like they're in for a very tough year, and to me this is going really raise questions about the profitability of internet-only content. Wired, CNN, WSJ, NYT, and hell even /., are all able to stay very much alive because of real world counterparts in other media (or just plain ol' big bucks hoping to diversify). Do the online portions, despite the large readership, actually provide profit at all? Would you pay for Blue's [bluesnews.com]? sCary's [shugashack.com]?
Someone is going to have to come up with a better answer for online-only content distribution, and this year is going to prove it.
- Spiff
Re:Porn on the Playstation (Score:3)
Ah, but you said it yourself, "reasonable person". These people are fighting a crusade against pornography in spite of there not being any hard (ha ha) evidence whatsoever that it actually causes any harm. In fact, way back in 1969 the Nixon Administration (okay, not the most august name to be throwing around) championed a study which ended up decided that pornography has no effect whatsoever on increasing or decreasing the likelihood of sex crime. (I did a report on this back in seventh grade or so.)
Consider the following quote from the article on Fox News:
This is paranoia, plain and simple; Besides which, there are already interactive pornographic video games. For example, Virtual Valerie (One through... Three?) and the even older applications for the Mac Plus and such which featured the same sorts of things; You penetrate a virtual "woman" with virtual "sex toys" and make her make noises. Big deal. This is supposed to be realistic?
These games should not be sold to children. As the article reads, "Non-PlayStation porn DVDs already offer multiple camera angles, story lines and zoom buttons." My DVD player actually has a nice zoom feature (up to 4x, at which point they look like the average graphics in the computer porn games - impossibly pixellated. It's like watching skinimax through the haze of analog protection... I see a cock! I definitely see a cock!) You can pan the zoom area around, and everything.
I have nearly every console videogame system with interchangable games. I need to get a Vectrex, atari's 5200 and 7800 (or was that 5800 and 7200? I always forget) and a Dreamcast, and then a PS2 when it comes out, and then about the only thing I won't have is an Odyssey I. I'm not really collecting the handhelds, though I do have a virtual boy and a couple game boy systems. I also have a few porn titles, including one DVD which I intend to play on my upcoming Playstation 2, just to sneer at Sony.
I'm also 23 years old. I'm sure telling you this violates some sort of intelligence standard, just one more piece of data to drop into the bucket - But I digress. I like videogames, and I like porn. Why shouldn't I be able to buy porn videogames? Mind you, I'm not likely to until they make some that don't suck ass - Er, wait, that didn't come out right.
And finally; These companies should sell a Dragon's Lair/Space Ace/etc-style game on DVD first. It's arguably a videogame, you could easily have the actors' wabbly bits flash (ala Space Ace, except that didn't show any genitalia) when you're supposed to hit a button, and it would be playable on any DVD player with a good menu speed -- Like my Apex AD600A, or the Playstation 2. That paves the way for above-board porn games. The only trick now is whether or not Sony will sell them a development system and license. Personally, I want to see how accurately an Emotion Engine, coupled with Sony's spiffy GPU, can handle the physics of a cumshot.
What happens to the domain? (Score:3)
digitaldiva.com still redirects to someplace on Microsoft's site, and I would say the URL is definitely a source of possible confusion. Who cares if Microsoft's person keeps calling themselves a "diva" or not (okay, we all care, but still)? As long as MICROS~1 has the domain, they will still be getting tons of hits from it.
Re:Last Post (Score:3)
You know, this is the exact attitude that Signal 11 was exploiting during his karma whore experiment. Wide-eyed folks like you who were always promoting "Slashdotting politics the way we Slashdot webservers" were/are easily exploited in a groupthink/popularity manipulation contest that Siggy played so well.
I'm not trying to be rude, but unless you yourself are playing that game right now, YHBT.
He didn't go far. (Score:3)
Congradulations on your purchase of a new monitor (Score:3)
One studio executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that new ideas on copy protection for that analog interface are under discussion among PC, consumer electronics and movie makers. Companies such as Hitachi, Intel, Matsushita Sony and Toshiba -- all with a big stake in the issue -- have been working to find a solution, the executive said. He indicated that an answer might emerge in the next few weeks. (bold mine)
So this is what Sony VP Hecler meant when he said [uwiretoday.com];
We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC.
So why do I get this 'gut feeling' that we are going to have to buy infallible copy protection for the studios with our future PC purchase???. Does that mean that I can't modify said future hardware purchase without being in violation of the DMCA even if it was for a "legit" purpose??
Last Post (Score:4)
I've written a short explanation of all this in my user information page (above).
So long, Slashdot, and thanks for all the fish.
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Re:Last Post? Good for you. (Score:4)
"1. Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch." Far fetched? Hear me out.
Slashdot, Vanguard (according to Katz, anyway) of the Geek Culture, is a victim of it's own success. I started here not long after Linux hit the mainstream, just as I got curious about the "new OS in town". Seemed like a nice spot. I think a search engine link brought me here. My first post was some drivel about how Linux zealots were being hipocrytes - they wanted users, but only the smart ones, and that wasn't how to complete the "World Domination" they craved. My little diatribe seemed well recieved, and caused a good discussion to happen - so I created my account and have stuck around. (Actually, IIRC, my response was to a someone slagging Kats when he was trying to install Linux on his laptop - and Taco helped him with it. Ironic, eh?) It seems I've watched
The one thing that always strikes one full in the face about the "geek culture" is that it's real currency is Intellect, and the display thereof. CmdrTaco, in his infinite wisdom, put a real, monetary value to the intellegence displayed by we people who post - Karma points - instead of measuring them by the quality of the thread created. Now, intead of soliciting replies in order to get lively debate, discussion and possibly New Clues, we solicit Karma. Karma, so we don't look like idiots to our peers. Or, if we figure that we don't rate, and haven't got the chance to, we troll [goatse.cx] or pop in as an AC - to hopefully deflect some of the moderators away from putting other people's "Inellect" ahead of our own. Signal 11 [slashdot.org] is right - it's now a contest to see who can win the title of "Most Intellegent Geek", not "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters" - we all seem to want scratch our itch to be viewed as "Intelligent" to our peers.
No Slashdot account with a cool nic? You're just not in the game anymore, man. Don't run Linux? Further damage to your credibility. Only 3 Karma points? HAHAHHAH, you're either a moron or a Micr$oft shill, dude!
Personally, it's getting to the point that I don't give a flying fuck about my Karma anymore. +1 Bonus? Who cares. It'll just be drowned out in the rush to be first with some sort of incredibly pendantic navel gazing that we've all heard before. "Preaching to the Chior" indeed.
At least I don't have to sort through C/Net [cnet.com], ZDNet [zdnet.com],Kiro5hin [kuro5hin.org] or the BBC [bbc.co.uk] to get to the importatnt stuff anymore - just the repeat stories here. VA - you've been HAD.
"Thank you for your post. That'll be 5.95 in Karma, buddy"
Re:Karma Cap (Score:4)
So, the only purpose of posting meaningful stuff on Slashdot is getting a higher karma? Is Slashdot some kind of huge interactive video game to everyone else?
I try to contribute when I have something meaningful to say. Usually that results in me getting moderated up and increasing my karma. So the system works, right?
Maybe Rob should introduce a "-1 per post" option where you can optionally loose one karma point per post. Would that increase the "challenge"?
Greg
Re:Resident Troll, move over [Repost] (Score:4)
Now, if you left Slashdot, it'd be, like, a part of Slashdot dying off... That being said, I understand; I'm pretty much fed up of it too, and trolling has provided temporary haven from boredom only. It's also a testimony to the fact that whatever effort you make for months on to have a clean rep on Slashdot, a few choice trolls will ruin that, and will provide the incentive for a few morons to publicly wish your death in graphic details.
To tell you the truth, the so-called 'geek' community, as it is showcased on Slashdot, comes across as one of the most close-minded, hypocritical bunch whose sole interest is looking out for their own narrow-minded view of their dysfunctional world. I don't blame you for wanting out of that.
Re:Resident Troll, move over [Repost] (Score:4)
What I don't like is tight-assed zealots. Nowadays, I'm busy creating and inventing new and cool ways to promote/use WAP and broadband. I'm past my coding years, but I still managed to stay fairly open-minded, creative, and capable of hearing somebody out and changing my opinion.
Perhaps it's the sheer popularity of Linux. Perhaps the old-timers are still around and lurking.
But it's a sad testimony on the state of affairs when the most intelligent and open-minded discussions are found on the trolling forums, and the most playful and innovative people on Slashdot are the trolls themselves.
Like someone else pointed out, trolls didn't break moderation. They merely took advantage of it when it was demonstrated the system was screwed up.
Re:Last Post (Score:4)
But the assumption that Slashdot is dying is just plain stupid IMO. First and foremost its "News for Nerds". The frontpage still shows the most relavant news, things that I'm interested in. The comments from the authors and sumbittors are great. Even the dept line is good most of the time.
Sure, the comments might not be the most intellectual forum possible, but browse at 2. There should really be a setting to display any posivitely moderated comments. Numerical thresholds just don't accomplish their purpose. I think the comments have become more of a place for passing information rather than ideas. Relavant links, past history. And don't forget personal experiences. Sure they're just one person's example, but if we all said what we've been through with a particular topic, a pattern emerges very quickly.
And even to this day, Slashdot remains the one place where you can post a story and know that anybody in the Open Source/tech community will either read it or hear of it second hand, assuming its worth knowing. Contrast that to CNet, ZDnet, Yahoo, even Reuters. This little site off in nowhere can get news out where it needs to be like nothing else.
And like someone already mentioned, the political aspects are amazing. It would not be unlikely to see Slashdot to be a great organizing factor in future geek-initiated political movements. I do think Rob needs to get off this "I'm neutral, I swear!" soapbox, or at least let everyone else start spreading some opinion (even Katz has good ideas mixed in).
Anyhow, just my thoughts. I don't like to see people blasting my favorite website w/o fully exploring the issue. Good luck in whatever you do. Let us know if you find a place better than Slashdot (but don't tell the trolls!).
Re:Resident Troll, move over [Repost] (Score:4)
<rant>
From the parent post to the one I'm replying to: "Mozilla is dead".
What I don't like is tight-assed zealots.
Perhaps the old-timers are still around and lurking
We old-timers would call many of the current cap of zealots Linux-weenies, after the similar UNIX-weenies of the bygone era. It's sad, really, when the spirit of the old-school UNIX hackers died at the same time as the popularisation of Linux, many of us left the geek scene.
I made a comment the other day to a coworker, when asked what I thought of Linux as an OS. I replied, "It sucks less than most of them out there" (note: this was being asked by a guy with at least an MS in CS, with a solid grounding in OS theory, and has read about 40-50% of the Linux source, and analised its strengths and weaknesses as a solution. How many of us have actually done so lately?). Yeah, it's more stable than Win9x, but that's like saying my car's faster than a tricycle. Compared even to NT, Linux suddenly seems less stellar.
What I really get annoyed by is the Linux-weenies (who tend to cluster around the ages of ~14-20) who get some half-baked idea in their heads, and try to ram it down everybody elses' throats. Yeah, some of them are downright brilliant (both ideas and the youngun's), but the sheer arrogance of these people sickens me. It kind of reminds me of the MacOS zealotry of the early 90's, actually, when Mac started to die.
Is Linux dying? Yes. Linux as we knew it in 1993-1995 is dead. Try ramming something like the a.out -> ELF format change down the Linux zealots' throats now. Actually, I would love to see this. It's time to grow up, people. Open is great, but Open isn't the only way to play.
Mozilla-as-Netscape, btw, is dead in many peoples' eyes. It died when Netscape released NS 4.5. It continued to rot as NS, and AOL-NS, released 4.6 and the nauseatingly large patch levels 4.7. Meanwhile, "Public Beta"'s come out every six months, look ugly as sin, and is still not 100% standards-compliant (the best one still out there, imo, is IE 5.0 for the Macintosh). Lovely. This just gives the corporate suits more ammo to not play by the counterculture rules. Sorry, kids, but they/we (I now work for a large multinational as a member of the management now...yeah, I used to be a geek) write the rules. It's time to wake and grow up.
</rant>
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Re:Last Post (Score:4)
Do you remember when AOL started sending people to the newsgroups?
The future of Slashdot seems intricately bound up to the future of politics. If we can solve these mass-community problems in the comforting realm of Slashdot, we can eventually do it in politics, and make a fair system of government someday. If we - the brightest of our generation - can't do this, then what hope does government by the people have?
.88 magnum -- it goes through schools.
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It's a
Playstation Porn (Score:4)
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Re:Last Post (Score:5)
Anyway, good luck, wherever you end up..
- Joe
Porn on the Playstation (Score:5)
Resident Troll, move over [Repost] (Score:5)
As a karma whore turned troll [goatse.cx], let me chime in.
Why is Slashdot a circus of karma whores and trolls at the moment? Slashdot moderation is failing because of exactly the Delphi effect that Signal 11 tries to promote: the more you spread the ability to vote, the more rating the comment becomes a popularity contest.
Trolls know this well, and so do karma whores, to an extent: it's a simple matter of politics. Democracy was cracked by power-hungry lobbyists pretty much the same way Slashdot was cracked by the trolls. If you want enlightened comments and worthwhile discussions, then placing the debate in the hands of the silent majority is just going to create a mess.
Take Big Brother as an example: are you surprised the pretty face with the missing leg won? This shows you how pathetic it was to let the whole Internet vote. If you compare with Survivor, where the people involved in the action did the voting, there's a modicum of sense that arises. The winner was not the prettiest or the most popular, but the one who worked the hardest and made the most sense.
In Slashdot terms, the problem comes from the fact that those who moderate are necessarely uninvolved in the debate at hand. This allows trolls and karma whores to manipulate the popular opinion, while ACs sink karma faster than an omniscient Battleship player.
What you want is closer to peer review that you find in scientific papers. You want moderators who know what the hell is going on, and have proved they are unbiased.
Democracy works when everyone votes. But it doesn't work insofar as empowering everyone with the ability to run the show. Slashdot needs to realize that if they ever hope to run a decent discussion site.
I'd like to see either Signal 11 or myself get moderated up in a story we don't know shit about, when the moderators are authorities on the subject.
And by the way, if you moderated this down because of the goatsex [goatse.cx] link, you're probably part of the problem I just described.
Gamefan: Eat a Bag of Hell! (Score:5)
Jeff K. Rluez!!!
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Re:Last Post (Score:5)
The reason /. is so successful is because of all the games you can play and all the drama that ensues. The tech news is just an excuse to be here.
If all this fun moderation, hidden sids, outrageous personalities, impersonation, trolling, etc. didn't exist then this would be just another web log that would have already died. We can get our news anywhere. Only slash has the ridiculously disfunctional community of people who thrive on feeling superior to each other.
I'll repeat this, because I can not overstate its importance: If all the things you (and everyone else) complained about didn't exist, then /. also would not exist, at least not in any meaningful form. If people really just wanted small scale, intelligent discussion they would just join a mailing list.
The soap opera drama that is Slashdot is what keeps people here.
The real reason you are "leaving" (like I said, no one really leaves) is because you are tired of being one of the main characters on stage. I don't blame you. You *ahem* "shined" far brighter than any other, and I don't think anyone else will ever achieve your level of notariety here.
So, make your speeches or whatever. You'll be back, and it won't be the news that brings you.
And a footnote for those of you who will disagree with me: I am right. The only reason you don't recognize it is because you are living a lie, trying to convince yourself that you're here for "pure" reasons. It's all a game, so you might as well admit to being a player.
Vivid Entertainment Group Responds To Criticism (Score:5)
"I am outraged that consumers are even THINKING that we are targeting children. Every CD bought comes with a EULA that requires them to return the merchandise if they are not at least 21 years old."
When asked why Vivid Entertainment Group gives 5 packs of Pokemon Trading Cards with each purchase, he had no comment.