They collect your real name but you can post under any persona with any email address you choose, valid or not. The real name never makes it off the eternal september servers, I think it is there so they can comply with legal requests and scare off child pornographers.

Comp.misc on Usenet is the new Slashdot. It is a totally abandoned group, and I have already inaugurated it. Nobody even uses it, so we won't be offending anybody.

Come one come all, join the Slashdot exodus on usenet! Eternal September is a free Usenet provider, and you can read news with Seamonkey, MS Outlook, Opera, Unison (pay product), or the classic Unix programs such as tin, rn, slrn and so forth.

Usenet is free, distributed, uncensored, and allows you to shit-can offensive posters. While it doesn't have moderation per se, the number of replies a topic gets can indicate how interesting the topic is. Additionally, a conversation can go on for months or years (or decades as some have) so you can keep that flamewar going, and with the handy killfile feature you don't have to worry about spamming other people!

Join me there!

Well it seems comp.misc has basically nothing at all at the moment, so I don't think we would be taking any resources away from anybody.

However, a couple hundred thousand users suddenly coming into Usenet, perhaps again, perhaps for the first time, could rejuvenate many groups most of which are languishing at this point. People could subscribe to the groups they like, and it would all sort itself out naturally.

DOWN WITH BETA! UP WITH NNTP!

I think that we should all just migrate to Usenet, en masse. It is the only medium left on the Internet that is distributed, uncensorable, JavaScript and banner ad free, and which allows each user to shit-can crappy posters / contributors. Think of it, with the critical mass of Slashdot users migrating away from this mess, we can finally rejuvenate Usenet and restore it to its previous position as the pre-eminent Internet discussion medium.

I know many of us using residential broadband saw our ISPs droop Usenet support, but there are still alternatives. Eternal September is a free Usenet provider, with the caveat that they don't allow binaries to be posted nor do they carry binary groups. Giganews is still in operation, and perhaps one or more of us Slashdot refugees will start our own infrastructure to compliment these resources.

Think of it this way - if we all go to Reddit or Digg or one of the alternate Slashdot replacements being bandied about during this crisis, this is just a temporary fix and no guarantee that this kind of shit won't happen again.

Help me rejuvenate NNTP and Usenet, after all it is the only realistic long-term solution.

This is kind of a non-committal response. Slashdot is by far the most popular of Dice's 'holdings' but what about the future? There is still no clear position for the people who do not use Javascript, for example.

Let's just all move back to Usenet, like we were accustomed to in the old days. There will never be a redesign, it is decentralized, allows one to ignore any poster, it is non-commercial, and it can not be censored.

Look up Eternal September, after Comcast screwed me over by removing news I have started using their *FREE* service. No binaries but that's OK - Bittorrent has whatever you want anyway.

NNTP FOREVER KNICKERS!

I purposely turned off Javascript on my browser completely, just to defeat Beta. It turns out that it improves the entire internet massively - I am no longer pulling 50+ scripts from Science knows where on every site.

Fuck Beta and fuck Javascript.

People are suggesting that we should go to another web site, or form one, to get out of the Slashdot Beta trap, but I will put forth a suggestion - this could be an opportunity to rejuvenate Usenet, to post in the manifold moribund groups, and to create a renaissance of uncensored Internet joy such as was common in the old days. No longer should we merely enrich some soulless company just to have a handy discussion forum.

Usenet presents many advantages. It is not controlled by any one entity, it works well for low-bandwidth users, one can completely shit-can abusive posters, popular topics are promoted by replies and not by peevish moderators, and it allows discussions that can last many months or years.

I know that many ISPs no longer provide Usenet feeds, but if you search for Eternal September you will find a very nice, free (donations accepted) Usenet provider, the only caveat being that binaries are not allowed. I use it and I suggest you all do to.

I haven't had Flash installed for at least 4 years now. The number of sites that actually need it is so minuscule as to be unworthy of mention. Those that do require it, do not need me on their sites.

Even several years ago when I decided 'no more Adobe' and Flash was much more prevalent, it was not an issue. What was I missing, silly animations and stupid games? YouTube? Who gives a shit. Turned out that a good benchmark of whether or not a site is a waste of time is if it is implemented in Flash!

Let's not even talk about advertisements, which at this point appears to be 90% of the Flash code base.

Greenland has experienced (like Antarctica) some very heavy snowfalls in the past few years, which increases the thickness of the glaciers. Glacial flow is fairly well understood, as the glacier gets thicker it causes faster movement.

The calving of large glaciers is often touted by alarmists as proof of their claims, but this phenomenon does not actually support the alarmist position at all.

The voters make decisions based on the information they are fed. Not the information they *GATHER* by and large, because that is an active process. Most people seem to tune in to the media outlets that favor their political leanings, which are driven by the corporate and special interests that own these media empires. Whether your corporation is Fox, MSNBC, or American Public Media, people are really being spoon-fed an official line that serves somebody else's self-interest, packaged in a way that makes them feel like this media empire puts its own self-interest below that of its audience.

Part of the problem is that news is a form of entertainment, and in the USA at least, news outlets are legally allowed to deliberately lie to you. Journalists are hypnotists, plain and simple, and if they do tell the truth it is because it happens to align with their employers' interests that day.

If people were given the tools to understand this game during their formative years, they might be more willing to take the time to independently research the issues they care about, but even this is a stretch. After a long day at the office, most folks want to just sort of zonk out and, tired and often filled with alcohol, the news is turned on and they absorb the day's "news" without a single functioning critical thought neuron in action.

If I were naive I would suggest some legislative fix to this but knowing how the legislative process works, and its typical results, this would almost inevitably lead to a much worse scenario than that which is being played out right now.

No, you just send some guys over with a National Security Letter and force Google / MS / Apple to put your backdoor into your OS or firmware. Who would notice?

I received the Slashdot Death Penalty for making fun of Roblimo's video Slashvertisements a while back, and even if my comments get tons of positive karma they will eventually be god-modded down. Read at -1, people, that's where we Slashdot political prisoners are.

The weapons are on chips, firmware or in the OS! Did you not read that catalog that the Snowden fella kindly leaked for us?

Ask Intel about iAMT and vPro. Ask China about Manchurian Microchips. Ask Microsoft about NSAKEY again, because if we didn't believe their lame excuses 10 years ago, we REALLY don't buy them today.

Sure, the NSA probably has a large virus arsenal too, but when you can issue a National Security Letter to MS or Apple or Google or Mozilla, or simply activate one of our many programmer agents in place (such as in the IETF or at MS or Google) and just put the exploits wherever you like, viruses start seeming pretty silly. Heck, even our geopolitical adversaries are using US-made cyber-weapons - ahem, I mean operating systems and applications.

Just stop this already. Before I get my driverless car, I want my oft-predicted jetpack, flying car, and robot maid.

Self-driving cars aren't a cool idea, they are just stupid.

Since Gawker is not just a journalistic outfit (and just barely that) but is also a business and a link farm, they were directly profiting from the theft of Quentin's work. They may not be criminally liable but Gawker and the author himself exposed themselves to a serious tort.

The issue has nothing to do with 'holding charge' but the colder temperatures slow the rate of chemical reaction. Batteries do not hold sparking electricity, they undergo chemical reactions.