Not surprising that SlashDot revenue is decreasing over time. Before I disabled ads completely (flash is off by default) the ads being shown here, apart from the amazon crap that displays stuff I've recently viewed on Amazon, were 3rd rate companies that you wouldn't even see advertising on CNET.

The straw that broke the camel's back, was when Opera prevented a pop-up from Slashdot...when the tab was in the background (not the active tab). Fuck that noise, JS disabled completely on slashdot.

I thought I recognized her name... Alice Hill
--> http://www.alicehill.com/
--> http://www.realtechnews.com/
Which is in some way connected to http://www.digitalreviews.net/

Their videos tended to be on Much Music on Friday nights - late 80's/early 90's. Anything non-mainstream was fair game - it might of even been called "Alternative"-something-or-other. Music from Ministry, Skinny Puppy - were all classified at that point as "Industrial".

IIRC most indie/used CD stores in Nova Scotia - that carried that "kind" of music would also likewise have an "Industrial" section.

The odd time you might find Skinny Puppy in the "Metalz" section - if that was the case - the store in general probably did a poor job categorizing any of their music by genre at all.

I'm sure one could argue over Synth-this-Electro-that, or even put NiN in the same general group...but I wouldn't. Industrial (alternative, being unnecessary) to me (and maybe others) was akin to Metal+ModulatedVoice(sometimes)+CreativeSamples+...

I think one would be hard-pressed to be more specific with a genre for Skinny Puppy, beyond "Industrial" that would accurately fit all the songs on a given album without just shoehorning.

Slashdot's next step, replace the commenting system with Disqus. Oh yeah, good times.

Skinny Puppy is known for their Industrial Alternative, not "Electronic" --- they aren't a hipster Dance band.

Slashdot Beta is Trash. So was Skinny Puppy pretty much since 1992 (after Too Dark Park). But they have realized the Error of Their Ways and have returned to 1984. So now the 100,000 dollar question: Can Slashdot's caretakers realize the Error of Their Ways before it is too late?

Anyone recall Arstechnica's major design change about 4 years ago? Nope me neither. Know why? When they did it, they left the OLD design available to use. Two settings exist to this day for Colour: Dark on Light, or Light on Dark; as well as a setting for layout. I wonder if maybe, just maybe its not such a boneheaded thing to do --- to give users a choice and stop being such a bunch of pricks.

Because "Web Developers" can't code, since they don't use the Holy C.

Of course one might also consider that "Web Developers" might actually be able to code better than those that "strive for all that is good about coding" since they have to deal with the bullshit that is HTML+CSS and get work done :-)
My favorite usage of C was LPC via DGD. A technically interpreted "Object" C language. It was very elegant compared to many languages that were "invented" to run crap with html. I always felt it was a downright shame that DGD/LPC didn't find that niche. I don't think there would of been a need for JavaScript, PHP, and possibly many other languages that were created (primarily) to deal with HTML.

dakira > TruthNow â 3 days ago
Wow. They took a piece of cross-platform software and made it stop working on Linux by applying their skin. That's just sad.

http://blogs.opera.com/desktop...

(*) Chopera defenders (and the Dev's themselves) on the blog frequently spout about how software development takes time... as the excuse for why almost none of Opera's old functionality has made its way into the new Chrome "clone".

clone - implies something that is a copy of its "parent" ... except Chopera isn't even close to a clone, not only is it missing nearly everything that made Opera useful, it's missing most of what Chromium has as well.

They have a new mission, Opera ASA is primarily an AD and services company. The browser is a side business.

99% of the time that Opera wouldn't work on a given site, choosing "Mask as Firefox" or "Mask as IE" would resolve the issue --- as it was almost always caused by browser sniffing and giving the wrong JS/HTML for Opera to render.

In a few odd cases, it was a failure of Opera's JS engine and masking as FF/IE would not actually resolve the problem.

This was on arstechnica last week. A number of people grabbed onto the "nearly identical" phrasing then too. Except the wording of the contract was something close to: royalties for any "derivative works". Whether the games were identical is irrelevant, and disingenuous of the judge to use the "virtually identical" phrasing as a basis for throwing out the juries verdict.

How is it random. I always get beta.slashdot, unless I log-in. Then since I have preferences set to no-javascript - I get regular slashdot.

If slashdot forces that on its users, I'm pretty sure it will cause a significant exodus.

I couldn't even find the login on my laptop, turns out the whole top menu, except for the slashdot logo, disappears if your browser isn't almost full-screen.

GURPS only problem that I know of, is the whole system pretty much falls apart when/if your Character gets 16+ in a prime stat. That, and perhaps there is enough evidence that a few more primary attributes would help the system.

So likely not that difficult to fix the main problems GURPS has - leave the reliance on 3d6 rolls to another feat/resistance roll type system, and consider how a couple (2/3/4?) more Primary Attributes could be worked into the existing skill system.

"Touch" would be pretty easy to emulate with a mouse - it would actually be better than actual touch.

If Right-Click turns the mouse pointer to a "Hand" grabber: now moving the mouse left/right is the same as "touching the screen and dragging in a given direction".

There is absolutely nothing that "touch" brings to the table that can't already be done with the tools we have: mouse, keyboard, and touch-pads/touch-pad mice. It's also only about 3 clicks to change the "Start-Screen" to an Apps-Screen... except its an either/or proposition. All-in-all it makes very little sense that we cannot set hotkeys or toolbar-buttons to actions like bringing up "normal-start-screen" or "apps-only" or "a folder with modern-layout/view."

After all this time how is it that Microsoft doesn't "get" that customization of the interface is what makes MS different from everyone else.

Instead we wind up with Windows 8, and Aero -- which many consider as the logical upgrade from the Win2K/98 look, as opposed to the Fisher-Price look of XP -- ripped out by its roots, instead of an option to the flat bland crap appearance of Win8.

Not only does Win8 go off on it's on tangent in a number of respects, but it does away with concrete tangible concepts that Microsoft has iterated over since Windows 3.

I'm sure everyone recalls the basic theming ability to choose 2 colors for the title bar, and have it blend. Win 8 takes that concept and shits on it. Text is flat, Title-bar background are bland, flat, shapeless non-dimensional pastel colours. I think if the dev's had of tripped out on acid we would of wound up with something better than the utter-disregard for users in Windows 8.