I got a solid scoop on the fact that OSI members did not invent the term "Open Source Software" and Slashdot's not interested.

Slashdot is having serious problems with forms. https://slashdot.org/journal only loads sometimes. After submitting a comment, the subsequent page load almost always fails (but the form submission works.) What did you guys break this time?

Ad networks

There are millions of websites on the Internet, operated by millions of publishers. A single advertiser cannot practically contact millions of publishers individually to inquire about placing ads. Nor can an advertiser necessarily trust reach metrics (views and clicks) provided by a publisher that isn't well known. So instead, advertisers and publishers use web advertising networks. These allow an advertiser to place an advertisement on websites operated by a wide variety of publishers.

Interest-based targeting

Advertisers don't want to waste their money buying ad space only to show ads that are completely irrelevant to a viewer's demographic. So they pay a premium for ad space more closely aligned to a particular interest. To better match ads to viewers, ad networks build interest profiles about the behavior of visitors to sites operated by publishers that use the ad network.

"Retargeting" occurs when these profiles become as narrow as "viewers who have visited a page about X product". Sellers of this product then place ads for this product through the network in order to encourage people who are interested in this product to complete the purchase. Some users consider retargeting creepy, as if the stores were "stalking" a particular user.

But as phozz bare pointed out in a comment:

Sure, "retargeting" [has] happened to me. As a Firefox user. I don't really care

So long as the ad network operator doesn't disclose an individual visitor's interest profile to the advertisers or publishers using the network, what's the downside of this surveillance?

Why does it need to be so damned hard to tell the difference between a visited and non-visited link on Slashdot? I have color-calibrated my display, so it's not me.

Went to Fortuna for the beer fest, which was pretty good except that I didn't have any beer there which I liked much which I hadn't had before. Found out that, shock amazement, Hoparillo became Hop-Trio due to threat of lawsuit by a Texan brewery which might have been in or had a beer named Amarillo. (Hello Texas, I hope you don't get your asses kicked too bad, some of you are with me always.) Anyway, most of my comments got up-modded. I'm certainly going to combine beer with Slashdot a lot more.

A big part of the formula had to be that I was using my phone, though, and less is more. So with that thought in mind,

Looking for sysadm or auto electrical work, willing to tone down online rhetoric if it's a dealbreaker

It's possible to install a GNU/Linux environment on a Chromebook using Crouton. The first step is to put the Chromebook into developer mode, as described in the article "How to Enable Developer Mode on Your Chromebook" by Chris Hoffman. But every time you turn on a Chromebook in developer mode, the Chromebook firmware begs the user to wipe it. Here's the exact wording that the firmware displays:

The first screen (screenshot):

OS verification is OFF

Press SPACE to re-enable.

The second screen (screenshot):

OS verification is OFF

Press ENTER to confirm you wish to turn OS verification on.
Your system will reboot and local data will be cleared.

To go back, press ESC.

(The screenshots are from How-To Geek. Please ignore its pop-ups requesting that you add yourself to the site's mailing list.)

The primary user of a Chromebook in developer mode can press Ctrl+D to skip this prompt each time it appears. But someone else who turns on the device is unlikely to know Ctrl+D. Instead, she is likely to follow the prompts ("Press SPACE" then "Press ENTER") without fully understanding the hardship that following them could cause for the device's owner.

This means the device's owner will not be able to trust the device's internal storage for anything. He will have to operate the device with a USB flash drive sticking out of its USB port, so that all user data gets written to external storage, which is less vulnerable to this sort of data loss. He will also need to carry a second USB flash drive containing reinstallation media for Crouton so that he reinstall Crouton should someone wipe it.

How practical is it to ensure the data on your Chromebook doesn't get wiped without losing eligibility for fixes to, say, the screen hinge and power jack?

As of today and for the past few months, cnn.com sucks. They have so many scripting and click overlays or whatever generating ad content it takes up to 30 seconds to load on my fast home computer with good Internet connection.

Worse, it grinds Chrome almost to a halt. If I click the close box, it can take over 5 seconds to actually close that awful cnn.com tab. Other tabs are hindered.

So I'm playing with this antique iMac because whee shit and I'm trying to download the 1GB developer tools DMG and Apple sure makes it a gigantic pain in the arsehole, don't they? You can't just download the URL with wget without rigamarole which I haven't gone through yet. I can't actually load the site in Safari at all because of some kind of https error. And my download just failed somehow in the last seconds, which means I get to download it all over again. And then it may fail again. Other downloads are working fine, it's just Apple that's incompetent here somehow.

This is the kind of thing that convinces me that anyone who gives Apple money is either a moron or a masochist. Luckily, I got this machine for free, so all I'm wasting is time.

That may not be a good way to describe it but... I have a C64 I never use and I think I shall desolder its SID before consigning it to recycling since they are now officially hard to come by. What can I put it on that will let me use it efficiently?

The above quote rendered one of my comments unpostable...

Surely someone around here knows where's the best slightly-reputable site to buy some knockoffs of the Oakley M2 XLs. I want to try them out for a while and see how they feel on my head. The sites I've found so far are registered straight outta China. Oakley has successfully driven the fakes off eBay and Amazon... the problem is, I'm not going to drop two hundred bucks on some glasses that might give me a headache, like most glasses do.

Apple is now actively, willingly, and deliberately aiding in online harassment and identity theft against me. They refuse to destroy an Apple ID which has been created with my email address, to which I do not have the answers to the "secret questions". They will not permit me to proceed any further without having an attorney.

What do I do now? Who do I call for relief? I can't afford a legal battle with Apple. I don't have an attorney on retainer.ï

Finally, I got my A8 Quattro up to the point where I could get it smogged. Registration and rubber to follow imminently. Crap, this thing is quick.

I have Excellent karma, as usual, but I have a five minute delay between my posts. It seems to have appeared on my account again after the last time I said something mean about a Slashdot "editor". Is this something that Slashdot has done to everyone recently, or is it a punitive action against me specifically by one of the "editors"?