Today at the close of the market Apple became the largest publicly held corporation by market capitalization. At $337.17 billion Apple's market value came to more than the prior number 1, Exxon which closed the day valued at $330.7 billion. Apple has had an amazing run up in the last few years, growing over 320% in the last 32 months. Most attribute this to the strengths of new products the iPhone and iPad, which between them account for two thirds of the company's revenues.

Foredecker, a longtime slashdot user passed away on July 23rd of Melanoma. We had many a rollicking argument, he and I - and it was a lot of fun. I'll miss him.

I would really rather not use my real name on Google+.

I am happy to use a middle name and my surname, do you think Google would consider this a violation?

Is it possible to have more than one account? Perhaps one for inanity and one for being professional?

I still don't want to register (I deleted Facebook) but college life is very different without it.

It is hateful and bad to dislike someone for what they are (e.g. their skin color).
It is NOT hateful NOR wrong to dislike someone for what they think or believe in.

It's as simple as that!

I think this picture captures what is truly evil:

http://badpeopleproject.org/index.php?showimage=38

Children are perhaps the most unbiased and neutral force for judgement. They might be naive but they are neutral.

I started a controversial thread in the article Earth's Population To Hit 7 Billion This Year.

I strongly believe people should be having less children and taking responsibility for their actions.

I honestly do not understand how people can regard me selfish for this opinion.

Population control is not necessarily an extreme measure that others have assumed. In the UK we have tons of teenage prenancies. I mean tons. There's a page on Wikipedia dedicated to it. Some areas in Britain are full of single mothers which live off the state. I find this a disgusting waste of resources.

What if they taxed young children who have children young more? These kids should be in school - not getting pregnant. There is a really good post about sending girls to school, as that really does work.

Some jackass modded me overrated because they disagreed. Humanity has a long way to go!

Have these vigilantes done any physical damage? No.
Have they killed anybody? No.
Have they seriously hurt people? No.
Are they an organized crime cartel? No.
Are they for profit? No.

Do they have motivations that are good for the rest of the population? Yes.

If you ask me, the authorities should be going after all the malicious software, the scareware and crapware that is written INSIDE the United States. Why go after some kids who are making a point?

Society these days! SNAFU!

In the last two weeks, I have read the following books:

  - Anthem (Ayn Rand)
  - Old Man's War (Joe Scalzi)
  - The Forever War (Joe Haldeman)
  - Gateway (Frederik Pohl)

I enjoyed all four books.
  - Anthem is a very familiar story since it's concept is used in lots of other fiction. It was nice to have book that encapsulates the idea of collectivism in one short story. I can't think of any similar stories right now but I will soon.
  - The Forever War is probably not as funny as Old Man's War but it's got some very cool battle scenes. The portrayal of Earth is believable. I love the time dilation effects. The ending reminds me of Gaia in Foundation. The English is less complex than OMW but some of the ideas are perhaps cooler. (Like the fields, trauma suppression system, Marygay). Very happy ending. Likable main character. The best way for me to summarise this book is essentially 'AVATAR done properly'.
  - Old Man's War reminds me like Avatar but done properly. I like how there is a moral background to the whole thing. The universe is portrayed as a very dangerous place which I like. The part about the humans being surrounded reminds me of the Rendezvous with Rama book in the species simulator room, how many species expand and die out or there is conflict between them. Well written. Likable main character.
  - Gateway is a tough one. I really enjoyed the science and all the concepts. Earth was believable here too. I liked some of the characters but I hated the main character. He was a big asshole. I did like the robot psychologist to a degree but the ending was ambiguous, the first time I read the last paragraph I thought the robot was becoming self-aware. I did not like the whole psychological tirade about his sexuality, his mother and Dane, it kind of came out of nowhere to me.

Four good books that I highly recommend you read. Perhaps in the following order: OMW, TFW, Gateway, Anthem. OMW and TFW are very similar, military science fiction.

Yes. Please join Google+! It's very much better than Facebook!

Disclaimer: I don't actually use Google+ or intend to use Google+. I just want to see Facebook die. Come on, you know the geek in you wants it to be true too!

Is it disingenuous to recommend something for spiteful gain? Mark Zuckerberg is an asshole.

It's not even funny anymore. PR films own our news. Is anyone else suspicious that there has been an unbelievable amount of articles on the following:

  - Google+
  - BlackBerry's death

Something makes me think that maybe some company is funding these articles. BlackBerry may very well be in decline but these constant articles alluding to it make me think it's an induced Streisland effect. Some PR firms are attacking BlackBerry relentlessly. I wonder if it is Google or Apple?

Conjecture.

I think it's important to give people benefit of the doubt online.

However I am not sure if I broke my civility. On Slashdot it seems that it is common for people to politely be rude to people.

Take this thread for example. Am I the civil one? Or did I lose my cool with this post?

I've reached my limit. How do I get more? :-(

I'm noticing a lot of first post trolls recently:
pandrijeczko (588093) has done it a number of times now. He makes his posts look like they could be real.

Another is arth1, I can't tell if it is a sockpuppet.

I'm wondering if anybody knows of a way to download Slashdot comments (and journals) easily?

I'd like to take my own copy of my slashdot comments. Short of writing a script to do it I can't think of a simple way to do it.

Can I get Slashdot to email me after a comment? Really, I should be sensible and save comments to my computer first and paste them in...

If someone I disagree with makes a valid and thoughtful arguments, I moderate them up anyway. I want someone else to enjoy the post!