This journal entry isn't about customers that call in, despite the numerous ijits out there that deserve to be mocked.
No, it's about the company I work for, specifically the bosses.
Yesterday, I recieved an email saying that "Firefox is on the list of banned software, and there will be disciplinary repercussions if anyone is caught using it."
Nevermind that all our webapps suck ass, or that I've spent time on and off the clock for the past 3 months, in between calls, trying to make it work with them. Bless you, greasemonkey.
Don't even consider, that on average, my calltimes have to be at least 1 minute shorter because of firefox. I have a single window open, not 20 IE windows. I've not only fixed the webapps, but extended them... when I pull up your phone number, I see all the information that I'd spend the next few minutes (and in a few select cases, the next 15-20 minutes) looking for in a mix of shared drive documents, webapps, and even printed out documents. That one CO location with the abbreviation that doesn't match its name, and since everyone on night shift has only been there 2 months, they can never figure out which... our main webapp now sports a button that I click, to log into it. 15 minutes reduced to 3 seconds.
If you've wandered through our phone menu and gotten lost, I can see immediately if you have our dialup or dsl, or if you're just a telephone only customer... I don't waste the next 60 seconds figuring this out before I transfer you.
So, why would this be a problem? Well, apparently, I let the wrong person test an older version of the greasemonkey script that even makes the webapp work at all. And it opened a ticket, but didn't save the comments. Now mind you, you only have to re-edit the ticket, add them again (and the guy should have noticed, it doesn't whisk you away to another page, it shows the saved ticket there after saving it). Also, consider this: we screw up alot of tickets. On average, a dozen a day, I'd think. Someone using IE forgets to put his comments/notes in, or schedules the wrong person to work on it, or doesn't send it back to the company that wholesales the phone lines when its their problem.
We screw up hundreds of tickets every year. The first one ever screwed up by firefox, because I didn't quite fix the webapp perfectly on one of the earlier beta greasemonkey scripts, and firefox simply can't be tolerated.
So, I go and ask my boss (think her title is Director, never spoken to her before) if she could spare a few minutes to talk to me.
I'm polite, I don't start screaming, or spouting ideological rhetoric. I simply state that this would be a hardship, and would impact my productivity. I explain how the enhancements I've made improve my calltimes, how I've got literally dozens upon dozens of saved passwords in firefox (that IE doesn't save), that I'd spend the next couple of months having helpdesk change for me, or that I'd have to look up in documents no one can find.
What do I get? Do I get anything like the minimal respect that a 30 yr old man is entitled to? That a human being is entitled to? How about because I'm a worker making shit wages who took it upon himself to actually try and improve things there, even just a little? No. I'm treated like a child in grade school. This from a woman that can't be 5 years older than I.
"Now I hate to do anything that would decrease your productivity, but I can't very well let you use it and prohibit it for everyone else."
This is ridiculous. She can say that. She's not giving out candy to kindergarteners, she is saying which workers can use which tools. At construction sites, do you have one guy whining that he wants to use the crane today, that Jimbob got to use it yesterday? Fucking ludicrous.
Side note: She thinks that "E" is the name of the web browser we are supposed to be using, because of the icon...
Finally, I somehow manage to pour more on, without whining (imo). She relents, and I won't be written up as long as "there's not another single incident of it creating a bad ticket".
So, I investigate a little further, after our talk. Seems it was just as I describe, it didn't save the comments (if indeed, he simply didn't forget to type them in). It didn't create some invalid ticket that fucked up the database, and it was caught that very same day.
There are several problems here:
1) A director managing a technical department that knows so litte, she can't name the web browser she uses.
2) The applications department isn't giving us the tools we need to do our job.
3) Making your own tools isn't praised as resourcefulness, it's punished for a single instance of a flaw that is so trivial that the triviality can not be over-emphasized.
4) This proclamation/rule/policy implies that my calltimes aren't important, and the corollary that our abandonment rate is not important either. That has a corollary too, which is that helping our customers isn't important... if they hang up before I can talk to them, then I'm not helping them.
5) It suggests that the managerial groupthink tends towards something I would describe as "militaristic", that is, it is more important I do what I'm told, rather than I've given a problem and left to my own devices to solve that problem.
6) It never ocurred to her that if it can reduce my calltimes, with as much experience as I have (seniority in just 6 months, kind ridiculous eh?), then it might also improve calltimes all-around, especially for the new guys. Not only would I not have to put a customer on hold every 30 seconds to answer them when they ask which CO an abbreviation is (they'd just click that button), they wouldn't have to put a customer on hold to ask me.
7) They're (by this, I mean the director and 2 supervisors) concerned with calltimes and abandonment rates, but only have managerial talents at their disposal to solve those problems. Not only do they not have the technical talent to solve these problems, they can't even recognize technical solutions when they see them.
I don't work here by choice, I'm paying down 5 figure credit card bills from when I was unemployed. Last payment is this month, after which my girlfriend and I will be debt free. My other job pays better, is telecommuting, and I can work in my underwear if I so wish. I don't know if I will continue to work the second job (would be nice to actually put away some savings for once), but the real question is, how can I?
Next time you're on hold for an hour because your DSL is down for the third time in a month, remember that your ISP chases away workers like myself.
http://slashdot.org/~jammitch!/
That's me now.
Well, I wonder if temporary bans last this long, or if my sarcastic email managed to get me an editor pimpslap.
Strangely, I don't miss it as much as I would have thought.
Well, it's been well over 24 hours. May have to wait til I get my DSL before I can comment again. So all you losers that think you won our arguments... wrong, you've been protected from my stinging sarcasm and subtle wit by none other than the editors. They can't protect you forever. One day, you'll say something stupid on fark, or k5, and my vitriolic rebuttals will tear your wimpering souls to shreds. That, or you'll just ignore logic and continue blabbering on.
On DSL: It sucks. I work for the DSL company. I'm figuring that it will be down 5 days a month. About on par with my cable modem. That said, I plan on keeping both of them, and praying to the Gods of Networking that the 5 day periods never overlap. Yet another reason why a consumer broadband router is a poor substitute for a linux machine with quad port nics...
I recieved the:
Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, comment posting has temporarily been disabled. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner . If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email moderation@slashdot.org
So I decided to email them. Here is the gist of it.
Robert Rozeboom wrote:
> So, I'm lumped in with all the GNAA trolls?: No you'll get the ability to post again after a timeout period. You were banned because you have been downmodded too many times.
I apologize, obviously something I wrote mistakenly led you to believe I was a retard. I respectfully submit that I am indeed of normal intelligence and that I suffer from no chromosomal abnormalities or other birth defects that cause me below average intelligence.
As you may be aware, your warning message doesn't say "if you believe this to be in error", which if it did, I would think it might mean "if you believe a random slashcode math error caused this". It says "if you think this is unfair". My previous email should indicate that yes, I think it is unfair, even though I don't necessarily believe it to be in error.
That being the case, I am slightly confused that you would reply with an email that says in effect, "there is no error, you've been downmodded". I understand that the moderation system is a very tricky thing, and that you have little control over it even when gibbering idiots somehow get mod points and go running amok like chimps randomly clicking buttons. Perhaps you should change the wording, so that you no longer use the word "unfair" and instead use something like "in error" or maybe "by misktake". That way, people like me will be able to see that you and the other powers that be at slashdot don't care about fairness, or that you have no control over it.
Or you could just ignore me, and allow nature to take its course. Here in a year or two, when no attitude/sarcasm/strong opinions are left and the great slashdot groupthink experiment is complete, will it matter as long as advertising revenue is strong?
Respectfully,
John
Non Von-Neuman architectures are tough to wrap your mind around, but it can be worth it. I hope to find a few other people who can see the power of this idea, and bring it to realization.
Trollback!
Yes folks, it's Slim Pickins this month, though while the pearls are fewer they shine just as bright. We blame not you, readers and participants, but ourselves, as our always-present eye on Slashdot got infected for a few weeks; you'll note a preponderance of late September postings. Open Source people often say that "many eyes make all bugs shallow", which while demonstrably false sure is fun to say. Even so, we always accept links to excellent postings from anywhere on the World Wide Internet at our e-cyberspace address, trollback at gmail dot com. So send us your favorites, and thanks for reading.
This month's topic icon is a ass. We don't really feel the need to qualify.
The List [VOTE]
100|(-1,22,28,8%) Anonymous Coward | "IPv6: Not Ready For Prime Time"
I do not see IPv6 being accelerated with proxy servers - IPv6 deployment is already going as fast as it can.While IPv6 fixes many problems in IPv4, the developed world will not embrace IPv6 until many shortcomings in the protocol are addressed. As a Brown University grad student, the subject of IPv6 is what my disseration is upon. Allow me to include a few talking-points on what I've learned. Cisco routers suck at IPv6. Many of cisco's routers use the router's CPU to process IPv6 [cont]...
95|(1,17,36,22%) Anonymous Coward | "DHS"
I can't post non-anonymously as it could jeapordize my career. I work at a mid-level office position at the DHS (Department of Homeland Security). Several months ago papers started to circulate about how to effectively ban arial photoography to prevent precise measurement and targetting of sensitive targets (nuclear power plants, etc). If you live near a target like this you'll soon notice a large fenced area with a large white square building in the center. This building hides a [cont]...
90|(2,12,40,10%) Anonymous Coward | "Good news? Bad news"
Wow, I can't believe people are so selfish that they'd risk the U.S.'s relations with another country just so they, and _possibly_ others, can see what happened. If the FBI wants documents classified, the FBI has a good reason. I don't want another 9/11 in the U.S. or a foreign country just because people want to see some documents.
84|(5,13,35,18%) mekkab | "Second rate!"
Great! A second-rate search engine buys a second rate MP3 player! News at 11!
77|(5,8,27,25%) Dancin_Santa | "The WTO move is the prime incentive"
Joining the WTO would require Iran to abide by internationally agreed upon IP regulations (Bourne Convention) and the impact of suddenly enforcing copyright law against its citizens would be very heavy.Even limiting enforcement to the government computer systems would result in significant layouts of cash to Microsoft (and other software makers). Iran is simply not in a position to make that kind of investment.Likewise, it is difficult to see how Microsoft could do business with the r [cont]...
72|(-1,10,33,6%) Dancin_Santa | "Not spam"
First off, I fully agree with the Linux folks on this one and rebuff the MPAA demands. It is absolutely idiotic for this kind of action to be taken without even the slightest consideration of the actual infringement impossibilities of the software names.That said, I think there's a lot to be considered when choosing a software project name. One that quickly and accurately describes or at the very least gives a hint as to the functionality of the package is great. The kinds that the [cont]...
64|(0,8,20,19%) Dancin_Santa | "My Roomba doesn't take pictures"
And I can safely assume that it doesn't because I trust that no hackers have entered my home (except myself, of course) and altered the hardware to such an extent that paranoia regarding the hardware is necessary.I think that every time stories like this appear in the mainstream press, that hackers in general become more and more externalized from society. You start to change things such that you end up being your own 'Little Brother' with your prying eyes everywhere and soon enough y [cont]...
64|(-1,8,24,8%) Anonymous Coward | "Hmmm"
What happens when people start dying?
60|(2,9,24,14%) Three Headed Man | "As someone who actually used it..."
I had VoIP for about 3 weeks (early June to June 30) before I got too frustrated. It was down pretty frequently; not nearly as dependable as my AT&T line. I got an echo, and the sound quality never was as good as a phone. I just decided to stick to cellular access, and cancelled before I started another month of fees. I'm happy with AT&T.
50|(1,11,19,9%) FortKnox | "Front Page Material!"
Now this is what I call front page material. Any normal slashdot article would have about 50-100 comments by now. This one has 5 (4 of which are trolls). Anime should be in its own section, IMHO. Its only here because of Taco's love of it. I really don't consider it a 'nerdy' thing. Sure, lotsa geeks are anime fanboys, and some actually enjoy the plots and stuff in the movies, but it really doesn't fit in with technology and science in my opinion. So I say give it its own section s [cont]...
49|(5,9,13,3%) Sheetrock | "Conversely..."
My question is: Is this software as good as the ever-extensible Kwiki implementation?My question is: is there anything Microsoft can do that we won't question?Applaud them for their newfound approach to open source. More alternatives are always better. I'll bet this software does something Kwiki can't do.
48|(0,7,23,5%) rd_syringe | "Rules for this story"
I feel the need to lay out some ground rules before we go on:1.) Microsoft is somehow responsible for all third-party DLLs on a system. Their scanner must contain a self-sufficient, learning AI that just knows which DLLs to scan on any system in existence.2.) Mozilla was affected by this same vulnerability, but it's okay because it's Mozilla and not Microsoft.3.) When Mozilla's XUL bug was marked Confidential since 1999 only to be revealed earlier this year when exploits came out [cont]...
48|(0,6,19,10%) Sheetrock | "It's pretty amazing when you think about it."
Mars always seemed just out of reach when I first took interest in astrology. The planet most like our own in the solar system, it's the logical next step for our move off this planet as we begin to explore and colonize space and it's quite encouraging to see that this is a possibility -- although hopefully more success will be had with landing manned spacecraft on its surface.I suppose another thing I've always hoped to see was signs of life in the universe. Although we've discovere [cont]...
45|(1,7,23,4%) Three Headed Man | "Cheap"
Nothing better. Maybe Solitare too.
42|(-1,9,16,6%) Anton Anatopopov | "All of this could easily have been avoided."
It's obvious to anyone that this scenario could easily have been avoided. The issue here is the restrictive nature of the GPL. Had this code been released under the more flexible and free BSD license, none of these issues would arise.Stallman has set back the cause of quality free software by 20 years with his viral-like GPL, which infects everything it comes into contact with.Notice that Apple based their OS around the Darwin kernel, precisely because of the major problems inhera [cont]...
40|(-1,8,14,5%) Sheetrock | "What's wrong with flexibility?"
I see a few comments in here questioning the logic or similarity of this project to the already failed thin-client model that was once promised to revolutionize business computing. It seems to me the point is not to put all the eggs in one handbag -- but quite the opposite; to increase the capability and flexibility of an already capable and flexible system. This isn't an end in itself, but rather a means to discover or fully realize other possibilities with Linux that hinge upon gre [cont]...
32|(5,5,17,3%) Dancin_Santa | "Your rationale vs. their rationale"
You want to put Debian on the systems because of the vast array of software available for it.They want to run IBM solutions because they can trust that the few apps that they actually want to run on the system will run with no trouble.The trouble here is that you want Debian on the systems for your own selfish reasons. They want to run their systems as reliably as possible. Since this is a business and not a college dorm room, the business case will always win out.Debian is a fine di [cont]...
30|(5,8,12,2%) Sheetrock | "Re:But what about text to speech?"
Given that there is already a rudimentary text-to-speech package available for Linux, and now a speech-to-text package, perhaps the secret is to pipe one to the other in a closed loop until one learns how to enunciate and the other how to listen?
29|(3,6,9,7%) Dancin_Santa | "Expect ISP rates to rise"
It seems like this is a good deal for everyone all around except that in the end VoIP is still another manifestation of the infinitely malleable POTS system. All those bits are travelling over the same wires as those expensive long distance calls are. The only difference is in who is paying for that bandwidth.With normal long distance calling, the burden is borne by the person making the call or the receiver in the case of a collect call. In VoIP, the burden is already being paid fo [cont]...
23|(-1,7,8,2%) Anonymous Coward | "Solar Electricity"
I think I've read somewhere that solar panels cost more in energy to create than they ever produce. Is this correct? When I thought about it, it seemed entirely plausible, as there is a lot of steel in there that needs to be welded.On another note, I've also read that the Chinese were not responsible for chopsticks, although they were responsible for fortune cookies. Apparently chopsticks were invented just 200 years ago in San Francisco.Can anyone clear this up for me please? [cont]...
12|(2,4,6,0%) SimianOverlord | "Just some thoughts"
A question we have to ask oursevles is why did the jenemy attack the WTC, when there were more politically explosive (White House) and economically important (NY stock exchange) targets? My best guess is that it was due to the underlying symbol of the twin towers.It's a well established fact of modern architecture that skyscrapers represent masculinity. I don't want to make it anymore explicit than that. The act of throwing up a huge public, tapering monument is very symbolic of what d [cont]...
5|(2,2,2,0%) Anonymous Coward | "Re:FAA?"
When someone as prominent and as much an annoyance to the coporate capitalist power structure as Richard Stallman has a nearly fatal accident we SHOULD start asking if there is a conspiracy to murder him.The free software movement is in the crosshairs. Why do you think software patents have become such an issue recently? Did SCO come up with the idea of its copyright attack on Linux on its own all of a sudden? Some investor immediately gave it the cash infusion it needed to per [cont]...
LA Confidential
CmdrTaco is going to be on television in LA, before his globe trotting lifestyle takes him to Google and universities worldwide to teach them how to build scaleable next generation Linux based websites. Additionally he notes that the few readers of his journal can send in email to get free tickets. Now, so can you. Plz snd pix thx.
Is it troll or is it Memorex?
This post over at dKos: is it good or is it whack? Either way, we're having fun watching the locals stick up for their local troll, er, satirist? We thought "oversampling" was some electronica nerd thing, but perhaps it's also the tool of the carpetbagger. Who knew.
Food for dogs, Pate on platters:
We couldn't help but chuckle at this last minute substitution. Let them eat cake!
Excessive Bad Stories:
What's the sound of one web site biting? Probably something akin to the collective groan that went up from this submission about eliminating "Pirate to Pirate" file sharing tools on a network. Shockingly absolutely no on-topic comments were posted, though to prove that denial isn't just the world we live in, Linux apologists kicked it up to 11 in this story about a company reversing its Linux migration. We're sure it was all the fault of Harvard MBA's, who are all uneducated, worthless jerks (+1, Informative).
Area Man Inadvertently Becomes Statistic:
Free Teh iPods:
The long awaited successor to the Amazon affiliate link?
That's it for this month. As always, email your links to trollback at gmail dot com. Subscribe to Trollback Magazine by befriending; Slashdot will notify you of upcoming issues! And please remember,
_________/_____\___________
A MUSHROOM CLOUD
WAITING TO HAPPEN
Trollback!
No apologies for the delay, dear readers, hurricane season is afoot and we've learned our lesson. For future reference, we present the following tips to publishing a successful online magazine during tropical storms:
This month's topic icon is a wheelbarrow, always useful when you're digging shit. Somehow, we felt it was appropriate.
The List [VOTE]
Now with 400% more Voodoo.
462|(5,35,197,26%) Lostie | "Not the first time..."
This isn't the first time a huge company has made an embarassing translation error.There is that old classic when Ford introduced the Pinto in Brazil. After watching sales go nowhere, the company learned that Pinto is Brazilian slang for small penis. Ford pried the nameplates off all of the cars and substituted them with Corcel which means horse.
344|(5,59,104,30%) ObviousGuy | "The whole idea is crazy"
I don't get it.
321|(5,22,166,14%) Madison K | "Re:Aim a little lower...."
How about just respecting women? So many times I talk or I see another woman talk to you guys and your eyes just gloss over like you go into some standby mode until we finish. Then many of you keep right on as if we said nothing at all. Just a thought. Madison
316|(5,35,132,24%) USAPatriot | "Microsoft and Windows Topics Icons"
Of the list of slashdot topics [slashdot.org], only Microsoft and the Windows icons are of a derogatory and belittling nature. Why is it so hard that the editors can't use the appropriate icons for them? It's time this site starts to grow up.
238|(5,10,119,15%) Anonymous Coward | "There is a simple reason"
There are two simple reasons why microsoft does not incorporate these techniques into windows. Windows runs on many different pieces of hardware. Not all hardware supports the options that these accelerators need. Believe it or not, not everyone has an AGP video card. Linux is not faster as a desktop than windows. As the gnome and kde desktops are the main competition for Microsoft Windows, it does not make sense for microsoft to make windows as fast as it can, because Linux is [cont]...
200|(4,33,74,17%) Sanity | "News about how great Apple is, Stuff that Matters"
congrats to Apple for a job well doneDo Apple have to pay for all the free advertising and advocacy they geton Slashdot? I mean, lets take a look at some of the opinions youwon't hear on Slashdot (from here [downhillbattle.org]): It's too expensive Let's start simple: the iTunes Music Store is not a good value forcustomers. Apple says many users are buying whole albums for $8-$12each. That's less than the $16 store price, but used CDs at Amazon orebay cost $5, and those come with line [cont]...
178|(1,12,88,16%) Sheetrock | "One possible explanation"
Before getting all excited about this, it is worth noting the following:Photons have mass.An eclipse means less photons are emitted and reach the measurer.Ergo, gravitational effect.Although it is well known that if your effect has a name it instantly has more credibility, I'm a bit skeptical that this is the one that'll turn relativity on its ear (dark matter is another story...)
174|(3,38,72,10%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "What a week for women's rights"
Ten years after Demi Moore went for a million bucks, we've found a way to bring the objectification of women to a new level. The computer is apparently Larry Flynt's new meat grinder.It's sad to see the rate at which our runaway technological advances outstrip the advancement of society. In one hundred years we've developed flight, space travel, nuclear physics, gene therapy, and global digital communications networks, but we still can't get past treating women like property instead of [cont]...
155|(5,18,86,5%) Anonymous Coward | "Worst movie I've seen"
Goatse.cx: The Movie - Tagline: Opening Soon Near You
153|(5,22,69,9%) rd_syringe | "Article summary--uh, "recent mass migration?""
All the submitter did was link to a blog entry that listed a couple of public advisories and mentioned Mozilla. Apparently, when put through the Slashbot filter, that becomes recent mass migration away from MSIE?According to Google Zeitgeist [google.com], IE 6 hasn't dropped at all and is still massively slaughtering the competition. In fact, Slashdot's own browser statistics show that IE is the majority browser for people accessing this website! Also note that every year is th [cont]...
148|(-1,8,74,11%) Omnifarious | "Re:ext3 to reiser4 ?"
MD5 has been proven to have collisions. Use sha1sum, not md5sum. IMHO, the md5sum tool should be deprecated and removed from all future Linux distributions.
131|(0,27,60,5%) vuvewux | "Funny enough, I was planning on voting for Kerry."
I don't agree with most of the crap Bush believes in. For what it's worth, I think Bush is a sleazy, shady douchebag. And, save for the level-headed folk I see on Slashdot, I can't fucking stand Bush supporters and militant Republicans. I really hate those fucking pudgy, clean-shaven, uptight business suit republican twats on my campus. But my distaste for conservatives and Republicans pales in comparison to my distaste for whackjob liberals.The way the left-leaning have conducted [cont]...
126|(4,14,57,20%) rd_syringe | "Kinda sad..."
You basically admitted that nobody will use it because copyrights are enforced. Heaven forbid people respect copyrights. You know, like we demand with the GPL. I actually got accused of trolling the other day because of my sig.
122|(4,1,79,5%) ron_ivi | "Re:Democracy.."
So who would be for reasonable copyright use? Badnarik [badnarik.org]?Just remember, unless the voting results in an exact tie, you're throwing your vote out anyway, so a vote for a third party candidate is as good as any.
122|(2,8,70,4%) Zabu | "All the studies show"
Stroke victims prefer Bush.
107|(3,3,65,4%) Anonymous Coward | "Re:Florida is going to sink anyway..."
They made Bush our president. They're just catching payback for the last 4 years from someone upstairs
:)
104|(4,14,49,8%) FortKnox | "From memory"
I'm going off of memory, which may not be correct at all. But here are my assumptions:X-Chat is freeX-Chat may or may not be open sourceX-Chat borrows off of other GPL code What's the big deal? Its a free project that no one is getting money from. Now if it was a big corporation, trying to make a profit off of GPL'ed code, I'd see a problem, but this is just silly. The thing I notice most about GPL and open source in general is how many internal flame wars ensue. Just be happy thin [cont]...
101|(4,10,51,10%) Anonymous Coward | "Non-Moderated, not Slashdot"
PJ reckons: 'an astroturf campaign depends upon a non-moderated site Which, thankfully isn't slashdot. Most readers probably don't know this, but the editors have full control over moderation, and can use their unlimited mod points to mod stuff over and over again. It doesn't show up publicly, but editors have been doing this for quite some time.By doing this, they can trigger IP bans and therefore thwart these nefarious astroturfing campaigns. I trust the good editors here to [cont]...
75|(4,6,43,4%) fiannaFailMan | "Another terror alert?"
I smell the work of the GOP trying to get the geek vote.
73|(5,17,28,6%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "This is probably a good thing."
People need to confront the DMCA, really see it for what it is. Right now, the law says thou shalt only play the movies in the way Hollywood prescribes, but it hasn't really internalized because so many people can use unlicensed software to do things like copy DVDs, play them without commercials, etc. I think the FBI needs to really crack down on anyone who violates the DMCA, by imprisoning everyone who copies a DVD for home use, especially rich and politically connected people. We co [cont]...
65|(1,10,34,7%) cubicledrone | "Oh good"
All Apple does invent one great product after another:iPodG5PowerbookOS XCinema Display(for openers)and they invest millions to make inexpensive music downloads available (at almost no profit). But they don't sell shovelboxes at $299 each, so let's kick Apple in the face again. Sounds great.
62|(2,10,27,5%) dasmegabyte | "Re:...EU software patents?"
Fuck you, man, thinkers got to eat. They shouldn't have to hope nobody else can figure out what they're doing and sell it better than they can (which wouldn't be hard...inventors are as bad at marketing as markeeters are at invention). And hey, we developed the same thing at the same time, what a coinky-dink isn't an excuse -- if it were, there'd be less impetus to publish ideas, resulting in less knowledge. Anybody could read the journals and claim coincidental development. It's [cont]...
59|(3,18,24,3%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "This is not wise."
The most popular P2P software vendor is AOL, maker of AOL Instant Messenger which allows for direct file transfers between users of the service. It's important to keep in mind that the chairman of the FCC, Mike Powell, has a huge number of shares of AOL stock. So when you go after American P2P companies, you're going after Mike Powell's pocket, and in turn that means you're going to be invoking the wrath of Colin Powell.Like I said, not smart.By the way, did anyone know that Colin Powe [cont]...
58|(0,8,23,5%) hanssprudel | "A job well done indeed!"
Most of all, I would like to congratulate Apple on their fantastic use of the DMCA to crush free software developer writing applications (PlayFair) that can handle the formats in which they sell music. We like to commend such positive use of the DMCA here on Slashdot, so that perhaps more companies will start using the DMCA and attacking small developers!It is very important that companies like Apple help show the world that is completely possible to shove DRM down consumers throw [cont]...
55|(5,9,30,1%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Nothing shocking about it."
Terrorism works. Terrorism causes fear, and the people whom terrorism works best on are those who fear the most and are most able to emphatize with victims. This has been aided by modern media, which is able to deliver maximum shock images instantly via a worldwide television network.I will be moderated down for saying this, but it's on-topic, it's factual, and it's my well reasoned opinion. Not good material for Slashdot, but my conscience dictates my actions.If we lived in a world of [cont]...
54|(2,10,29,2%) Brandybuck | "Re:Why Harry?"
I used to work at a bookstore that occasionally sold controversial books. So let me tell you the difference between Christians and Muslems when it comes to sacrilege...When we sold Last Temptation of Christ, some Christians boycotted, some urged others to boycott, and some wrote letters to the newspapers. The author never had his life threatened. When we sold Satanic Verses, Muslems threatened us with bombings and death. The author of the book actually had to go into hiding, and is sti [cont]...
53|(-1,11,22,5%) vuvewux | "Engineering?"
EE here. Please stop calling yourself Engineers, because you're not (B/M/PhD.Sc vs B/M/PhD.Eng), and you doing so degrades my trade.
52|(-1,9,22,9%) USAPatriot | "The Privacy Jihad"
I'm concerned that in these times, the privacy advocates and other luddites just want to block any technological advances towards thwarting terrorists and other evildoers.They want to shackle law enforcement in the name of privacy. It's clear that 'privacy concerns' have become a catch-all to dismantle any tool that may be useful to government agencies. I'm not saying they can't be used for evil, harassing the innocent isn't what its primarily used for. Evoking 'Big Brother' at eve [cont]...
45|(5,12,18,4%) Anonymous Coward | "No..."
I am a windows developer of a small program with about 4000 users. Without spyware I would not be in business, since most people crack my s/w and dont pay after the trial.Thanks to spyware, I am still make a living.
37|(4,10,16,3%) USAPatriot | "Good For Them"
Microsoft has decided not to rush a release just for the sake of releasing it. They want to get it right the first time. I congratulate them for doing the Right Thing and making sure they deliver a rock solid Service Pack for the millions of XP users out there.Before the slashdot editors and crowd crow over this delay, just remember the 503 errors and flakiness this site has experienced since maintenance was performed. Don't throw stones in glass houses, kids.
35|(2,6,19,3%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Let's get this straight."
A lawyer posted on Yahoo to protect his reputation, was attacked by a bunch of faceless Anonymous Cowards, and is angry because he can't determine their identity because Yahoo's moderation system won't filter them out?Sounds like your typical Slashdot user.I think among the Slashdot crowd it's of course common knowledge that Yahoo deletes comments all the time, just full time staff with unlimited moderation power [slashdot.org] to instantly IP ban anyone who disagrees too much - but wh [cont]...
27|(0,7,8,5%) after | "What about 5001?"
Why must Slashdot get all excited when a number like 5000 pops up? I don't understand why everyone is so excited about numbers. I took my 500th shit this month, you dont hear me calling the press do you?What about the 5001st book? Will that also yeild a news item?
22|(4,8,8,4%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Way to turn the tables on M$!"
Micro$oft gives out millions of dollars to catch people who exploit bugs in their browser! Now Linux gives out cash directly to people who find the bugs, rewarding engineers instead of snitches. I hope the major news outlets cover the huge difference in paradigm here- good cop instead of bad cop.Everyone failed my last Gmail invite challenge, and I'm up to three invites, so here's a new one: there are sixteen factual errors in this article [nytimes.com]. I'll give you one for free: Bus [cont]...
22|(3,2,12,1%) Have Blue | "Re:Interesting timing.."
Maybe the passengers upset with the terrorists' plans to crash them into the Internet.
19|(5,4,7,6%) Anonymous Coward | "A word if I may:"
Gentlemen, the time has come for a serious discussion on whether ornot to continue using Perl for serious programming projects. As I willexplain, I feel that Perl needs to be retired, much the same way thatFortran, Cobol and Java have been. Furthermore, allow me to be so boldas to suggest a superior replacement to this outdated language.To give you a little background on this subject, I was recently askedto develop a client/server project on a Unix platform for a Fortune500 compan [cont]...
17|(5,7,7,1%) orangesquid | "Re:Very Easy"
Not if your car is a webserver. That's like having a car with a big sign that says LOOK IN THE WINDOWS! THERE'S COOL STUFF INSIDE THIS CAR! Of course some people are bound to try the handle, at least to get a closer look. I attempt anonymous ftp logins and try
/pub URLs on webservers all the time, as well as ascending to the parent directory and such. Sometimes I find some really neat stuff that way. I'm not about to attempt a root login, but, it's human nature [cont]...
9|(-1,1,5,1%) Anonymous Coward | "What really happened to Zeitgeist"
I'm a google enginer in an unrelated department. I can shed light on what actully happened. While I could get fired, I want all Linux Zealots to take note.Zeitgeist has freqently been used by pragmatists to show that Linux is not redy for the desktop based on the user agents presented during a search. If it were ready, more people would send user agent Mozila/Linux. 1% of all browsers is below the margin of error.A common rasponse to Zeitgeist is that Linux users set there bro [cont]...
We Want Negrodamus
An alert reader alerted us to this profoundly poor appraisal of the iPod by Slashdot's preeminent portly prognosticator:
"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
Unsurprisingly, he seems to be getting called on it now and then. To be fair, hindsight is 20/20. Looking back, writing a million reader site in an interpreted language probably wasn't the best idea - it might scale poorly.
Selected Reading
While there's a lot of good stuff in this month's List, we wanted to direct reader's attention to this highly rated comment suggesting gene therapy as the cure for liberalism, Slashdot's millionth comment, and the best retort you never saw.
I Wanted to Be a Coward
Lest we get burned again, we point you in the direction of this suspiciously non-anonymous post about a user... by the same user. Remember kids, you can check "post anonymously" in your preferences.
Daily WHAT?
Apparently Rusty of the busted-bridge site has come to consensus with CmdrTaco: k5 is a failure. Rusty's new bid for fame is a site called "DailyKos", which is "untrollable" because they have an ex-military administrator deleting accounts and posts in true Free Republic style. An alert reader, however, points out that nothing is impossible.
The Cathedral and the Bizarre
If Microsoft sometimes has obtuse development practices, it is highly probable that they are merely learning from the leader. With developers like that, who needs espionage? [cache]
The 10th Circle
We think this journal entry should be required reading for Slashdot moderators. Feel free to email the admins and suggest that it be added to the moderator guidelines.
Hurricane-force Quickies
September marked the continuing success of the lame filter's War on ASCII Art, Gnome Developers and their secret Adequacy ties, and a boot stomping on a Slashdot comment, forever. If you're going to use a banned script to read Slashdot, you should archive your journal first. Here's a script that reads Slashdot to do it.
That's it for this month. As always, email your links to trollback at gmail dot com. Subscribe to Trollback Magazine by befriending; Slashdot will notify you of upcoming issues! And please remember,
_________/_____\___________
DECAPITATE JUNIS AFGHANISTAN
Trollback!
This July had some marvelous things to offer. Scantily clad young redheads! Stripping schoolgirls! Slashbots, however, are far more interested in arguing online - bad for them but GOOD FOR TROLLBACK! So without further ado, the Trollback editorial staff is proud to present our roundup for the month of July, 2004.
We've got Gmail!
For a solid gigabyte of righteous trolling feedback, we've decided to go with Gmail.NET as our single-source e-mail solutions provider. Give us a ring at trollback@gmail.com!
Jews in Spaaaaaaaaaaace!
We have to tip our collective hat to the ongoing efforts of Baldrson, who got his tidy little article about Spaceplane-2 posted to Slashdot's front page this month. As with his other front page stories, Baldrson also managed to get a link to his website included, featuring enthusiastic information about rocketry, science, racial superiority, the nonexistence of the Holocaust and some handy facts about how killing the Jews is a great idea, along with that fantastic mug shot. Congratulations go to Simoniker for upping the Pagerank(tm)(R) of one of America's premier Neonazi crackpots.
The List [VOTE]
Well here it is, this month's hand picked list of links, scored by an arbitrary closed-source mechanism we call Voodoo. Some of you may note that the number of direct replies to a comment as reported by Trollback is wildly different than the count reported in a user's comment summary. Is it whack? No, yuo. We've hand-checked this anomoly a number of times now, and believe it or not Slashdot's Perl scripts incorrectly count the number of direct replies. It's true. Keep in mind we also discount replies by the author of the post in question. We thought about reporting this bug but the last guy to try that hasn't gotten very far. In short: we're right, they're wrong, and nothing's new! Slashdot dealt everyone a straight flush this month by introducing a shit-flavored color scheme to match their content - and we've tinted our List to match. Enjoy.
458|(4,63,188,15%) Real Troll Talk | "Microsoft are lying to us"
People choose, replied Hachamovitch (IE lead engineer). Hundreds of millions of people actively use Windows and they get to choose. Nothing in Windows as it ships keeps them from downloading other software that extends their browsing experience (e.g. the Google or Ebay toolbars) or changes it (e.g. an alternative browser).No they don't. Maybe I do, but I'm a computer expert.My mom certainly has no clue that there even IS anything other than IE to use. Most of our mothers probably don [cont]...
267|(5,5,122,31%) Sheetrock | "Isn't this illegal?"
I thought most (if not all) DVDs come with a warning about not being used for public performances.
210|(5,28,85,22%) FortKnox | "Firefox"
Note that this does not mean that they are replacing IE with FireFox. Good, cause firefox has render problems on slashdot all the time (where as IE doesn't). I don't think its firefox, either, cause it doesn't happen on any other site I go to.
185|(0,17,78,23%) britneys 9th husband | "Careful"
We humans aren't going to have any immunity to these microbes that have been isolated for 500000 years. I hope whoever's studying these lakes takes appropriate precautions against both accidental release and theft by terrorist organizations.
171|(3,34,62,18%) Real Troll Talk | "This is great because it's Google"
Nothing was greater than when Google bought out Delphi and took over the largest USENET archive of all-time.Google always does things the right way without ruining the user experience or their wallets.In Google We Trust...(P.S. I have three Gmail invites anyone up for one -- I already gave away 5 to friends/family?)
161|(0,9,89,7%) bje2 | "Re:Old Ben said it best"
Except that in Ben's time people weren't flying airplanes into skyscrapers...
152|(-1,20,74,6%) Squeezer | "whats the problem with the patriot act?"
i don't see what the problem is. there haven't been any cases of abuse. if you don't want to be spied upon, then don't do suspicious things. how has the patriot act directly affected you?
128|(5,17,48,6%) circletimessquare | "i didn't like the demonization of fusion"
i liked the movie, but i did not like the demonization of fusion in spider man iiin a world of smog and wars fought over oil prices (pro-iraq war people: read why iraq invaded kuwait, anti-iraq war people: read why us invaded iraq) we do not need an ultra-pop movie demonizing one of the few technologies which could save us from the petroleum agein spider man ii, fusion can go chernobyl, this is a fallacyif something goes wrong with a fusion reaction, it just fizzles out, it can NE [cont]...
125|(2,6,66,12%) Milo of Kroton | "Why Censor?"
Really, is only naked women or men. In Mozilla Firebird, I have setted it to Block images from goat.cx (not visit!) and if my kids pictures of naked people find, fine. I did as child. I run linux but don't need this. As friend said You Americans are so puritanical!
121|(-1,9,49,26%) Anonymous Coward | "Obligatory"
But as both the company behind this TDA, Novinit, and myself are French, I decided to investigate You misspelled surrender.
108|(5,8,50,26%) Real Troll Talk | "I don't believe the news anymore these days"
How can we TRUST the big bully corporations to tell us the truth?After F9/11, I just don't trust anyone with $ any more.
93|(5,15,29,15%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "I remain: Unafraid, Undeterred."
Mod me down as troll, but I'm about to speak the truth. Ubiquitous surveillance? There are cameras covering every inch of the city I walk in. Massive government analysis? A huge database called MATRIX contains all my financial and medical records, searchable by federal agents. I have to give my SSN, despite the law, to every two-bit huckster who asks for it, to buy a house, a car, a plane ticket, you name it.And you know what? I don't care. Because I've made a choice to deal with this [cont]...
62|(5,11,27,6%) Anonymous Coward | "Actually Tolkien was a Genius, read on..."
Here's a brief explanation for beginners of Tolkien's mythology and worldscape: Q: Is LoTR really based on Christian Mythology?A: Yes. Tolkien wanted to demonstrate that even the mentally and physically challenged were capable of success and that therefore we should love everyone, regardless of their defects.Q: So who represents the mentally and physically challenged?A: Well obviously the hobbits are the physically challenged ones here, but the central mentally challenged figure i [cont]...
56|(-1,9,24,11%) Anonymous Coward | "Huh?"
How do you make money in a job working on a free operating system? Just wondering.
55|(2,14,27,8%) Lover's Arrival, The | "Help"
I have gentoo on my computer. You might think this is good, but its bad. My ex-boyfriend was a big gentoo-lover, in fact he was a developer for it or something. But now he's left me, and all that's left of him are some books and the impact he made on my computer.I would love to be able to use linux more, I am taking a course in community college and my boyfriend was wonderful for helping me out with that but when I told him that I hated him developing for gentoo all the time (he even f [cont]...
55|(1,9,23,2%) Sheetrock | "Space science isn't something you can do in a jar."
I was just thinking about this today during my ruminescing aboutthe crazy and sometimes haphazard ways in which spaceflight and NASA has returned benefits to our society against adversity from folks not unlike Van Allen. In it's own way, this is comparable to the battleagainst entrenched interests that new theories must undergo beforethey become the accepted norm.Take, for example, the struggle of Galileo against the church topermit society to recognize the fact that the world is roun [cont]...
51|(2,4,28,12%) Viol8 | "Spaceship One isn't even a space ship"
Its an aircraft with a rocket motor attached. Real spaceships can't use wings to slow themselves down and manuouveaure because there is no air to do it in! I'm sorry if I sound churlish but this whole enterprise to me smacks more of someones ego than anything practical. When they've solved the problems of manourveuring in a vacuum , long duration human life support (an O2 cylinder doesn't really count) , proper re-entry from near orbital speeds (which are required for any useful f [cont]...
48|(4,8,20,4%) 91degrees | "The DMCA explicitely permits reverse engineering"
I have no idea why people who haven't even read the legislation keep making comments that are plain incorrect. The only time reverse engineering is illegal under the DMCA is when it is used for making infringing copies.
47|(-1,8,18,7%) BWJones | "It's about the music....."
I've been watching this whole thing unfold for some time now and paid attention to the overtures Real was making to Apple some time ago. Basically issue here is that the folks who designed the iPod and the iTunes music store really cared about the music, whereas Real is concerned with making money by delivering media rather than caring anything about the media per se. Let me repeat that for the folks at Real........It's about the music.
46|(1,6,21,9%) AvantLegion | "Die already!"
What's your problem, CS?It's way past time to die!BSD died nice and gracefully - why won't you go? Are you too good for your destiny?
46|(-1,8,25,5%) The Pim | "tall tales"
In 1996, he developed a solar-powered pump powerful enough to lift water from wells up to 20 metres deep. His invention is widely used in his home province of Wardak and the neighbouring province of Logar as well.One atmosphere of pressure is about 10 meters of water. You can't pump water any higher than that. I smell exaggeration.
46|(0,10,22,7%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Re: Killing Muslims"
Just kill some muslims and take their oil! They'll only use it for terrorism anyway!I'm pretty sure the parent post was meant as a joke, but this is actually a serious business. The reason for this guy's adventure, and other adventures into alternative energy sources, is very real: Prince Bandar and his Saudi friends are currently in control of America via a proxy named George Bush. If you've seen Farenheit 9/11 you know what I'm talking about. At last night's convention John Kerry add [cont]...
45|(-1,6,24,5%) CatKnight | "WMD"
Great, now we have yet another form of weapon of mass destruction. Terrorists could cook up a batch of prions and dump it in a water or food supply, thus killing off lots of people a short period of time later. Ahh, the miracles of modern science.
43|(-1,7,19,5%) Noose For A Neck | "Burt Rutan does not matter."
You know what really irritates me these days is the sheer pomposity of the name SpaceShip One. Hello? It's not a spaceship. It's an airplane. They did not even get close to entering orbit. They have done nothing to solve the re-entry problem. It's an (ugly-looking) airplane with a rocket strapped to the back that can't even take off on its own power.So why is Burt Rutan suddenly the go-to guy for all things space-related - what's he going to do, drop payloads off in the high atmos [cont]...
41|(5,4,28,3%) AKAImBatman | "Work harder"
Personally, I download Open Source software. Warez and Crackz are great for teenagers, but I don't really have time or energy for this stuff. If an Open Source piece of software does the job, I'll use it. If only a commerical piece of software does the job, I'll buy it. Unfortuately for software makers, I'm buying less and less. Either the product has to be REALLY good, or it has to do something no other product does. e.g. My last few purchases were WMA Recorder, PalmBasket, and Budget [cont]...
32|(-1,5,9,7%) Anonymous Coward | "I'm so lonely"
It's been almost two months since graduation, and I'm still living on campus, by myself, in a hundred twenty square foot single. I haven't left the building in more than three weeks. Perhaps the Chinese delivery place will wonder why I stopped calling. More likely, they won't even notice, and wouldn't care if they did. My so-called friends packed up and left without saying goodbye, and the only phone call I've answered since then was a wrong number; the other party hung up immedia [cont]...
30|(5,8,13,6%) Sheetrock | "BOINC has issues..."
We've tried deploying BOINC before for distributed biologic research on our internal workstations to create an informal cluster of sorts, with dissatisfying results. While BOINC is considered the provolone cheese of the distributed computing industry, we found that it behaves in a somewhat inconsistent manner.For one thing, on most of the workstations BOINC would appear to work very quickly on the data only to crash out well before the computation was created. Indeed, sometimes it wo [cont]...
25|(4,6,13,4%) Milo of Kroton | "It do Work here"
Government can't switch to Linux or even free software, people say. Well, such has done München (Munich you say) here in my country. I am professional involved with some of people who are with the project involved, and it is as they are accorded going smooth move, exlax as you Americans say.
21|(3,6,11,1%) Dozix007 | "Many ways to get around GPL"
There are sadly many ways to get around GPL. One being the method they use by offering to ship the source only. This can be done in many different shapes to get around anything. You simply charge an irrate fee for packaging, documentation, or something of the sort. There are a few liscences that will not allow this, sadly they are not widely used.
20|(0,6,11,1%) the_2nd_coming | "Re:P3 CPUs?"
umm, you have a Xeon system based off the P3, not a P3 duely since the P3 is incapable of duel proc setups.
20|(5,1,6,1%) Sheetrock | "Proof that technology (not legislation) works."
Part of the secret to the success of the Internet is in allowing unfettered communication between endpoints. While I am to some degree concerned about the technical approach to solving the spam problem, because of the collateral consequences it may have, it does not raise the spectre of 1st Amendment violation that anti-spam legislation does.That Microsoft is taking part is to their credit. Finally the Internet at large is going to actually try to apply a solution to spam at the sour [cont]...
14|(2,5,6,3%) trifakir | "cDc and 2600"
Cool, all the old geeks. I shall admit that I've always been sympathetic to the cause of the good hackers who fight for freedom of speach and all these liberties, many of your ancestors had died for...But on the other side, I wonder where is now and for them the border of what is allowed and what is not. Is this hackers ethics they define something too murky or it is non-existing at all? How do we prevent the proceedings about the Distributed Password Cracking API from their confe [cont]...
The GNAA is there!
Last month's GNAA coup involved getting some interesting screenshots posted on a couple high-profile Mac sites, promoting plenty of... discussion. For firsthand coverage visit the official GNAA press releases here and here.
We're perverted!
One of the best "trolling definitions" ever seen popped up here:
Sometimes trolls feel that they serve a community purpose, by shaking things up, stirring up discussion, playing the DevilsAdvocate, by being the CourtJesters, but they really aren't. They are a perversion of all those purposes.
In short, folks, you'd be better off if editor moderation on Slashdot was still a secret. For our part, we're pretty impressed that a site which encourages ignoring trolls has devoted nearly an entire book to the subject of trolls.
Netcraft confirms it: USENET is dying
All the same, an alert reader pointed out that the fish are still biting.
Failing it like a porn star
Note to would-be trollerization
specialists: when scraping the bottom of the barrel with that random
right-wing crapflood, don't paste
your real username in when posting AC. Real or faked, it's funny either way.
Update: Trollback investigates. This cache appears to show that OverlordQ was a Slashdot subscriber as of May, 2004, predating this comment (which includes a link to subscribe). We find this highly inconclusive, not to mention insulting - giving money to Rob Malda is totally unacceptable - but as always, the final decision belongs to our dear readers. HTH, HAND.
You dare to succeed?
Trollback enjoyed the treatment of a capitalist trying to make money by patenting his invention when he tried to post to Slashdot. Stuff that matters to people who don't? Almost certainly.
I'd like a Meximelt and a Jackito, please
Is it real? Is it a plane? Is it a French Fraud or a Freedom Swindle? Trollback isn't taking bets, but we'd totally fail it if we didn't mention Michael's dangerous liasons with a very shady weblog and its assertion that the escrow paramid built on the "Jackito TDA" is too legit to quit. It's a fraud!. No it's not!. Yes it is! Huh? They've posted a low resolution movie of an oversize grayscale mockup prototype of the device, and that's proof enough for us.
The "Moon": A Ridiculous Liberal Myth
It's true. Now you and other god-fearing Americans can fight back with this commemorative T-shirt. Let's see how those gun grabbers like it when we blow their observation platform clear out of the sky.
Slashdot Gold!
For this month's blast from the past, we thought we'd rally the party faithful with one of the best documented examples of outright lying from Slashteam. Jamie McCarthy used his iron wit to lay the smack down with a fearsome Simpsons reference a few years back when denying that he wrote the censorware code in Slash. You doubt the Trollback? Check the author of comments.pl(line 522), the portion of Slashcode that halts posting based on some very questionable "math". But is it Censorware? Jamie confirms it - Censorware!!
Lifetime Achievement Award
While Mike Miller is certainly on the road to greatness in trolling, it's well past time we honored Michael Moore for a lifetime of successful trolling. Fat, ugly, and wildly rich, Moore's romp past $100 million in bites shows a rich flair for capitalism, karma whoring and specious reasoning. Without even mentioning brand name biters such as Guiliani, we feel pretty safe in saying that Michael's Voodoo is permanently off the map. In his recent book, "Stupid White Men", Moore asserted that because of the assymetrical opportunity structure in place in America he would never hire anyone who wasn't black ever again. We're not entirely sure, but Trollback suspects that this marked the birth of the GNAA.
I, HBT
A monumental work of trolling hit the box office this weekend as director Alex Proyas released his Isaac Asimov "adaptation" to the enjoyment of ignorant buffoons nationwide. Asimov spent his entire lifetime creating a world of fiction in which robots were not the dystopic, soulless horrors of his contemporaries but rather a failsafe, harmless aid to mankind. Since Asimov had invested forty years of his life facing off against literary technophobia, Proyas saw fit to honor him with a movie based on Asimov's books in which evil, murderous robots controlled by a central hive-mind engage in a terrifying quest to enslave mankind. Released to general acclaim and the muted background death-shriek of Asimov fanboys everywhere, Proyas's feat establishes him as the newest Fresh Prince of Hollywood trolling. Well done, Alex.
A license to steal
You've made it to the end of Trollback!
For our faithful readers, we have a gift. Ever tried to read the
darling magazine of granola munchers everywhere, Salon , but been stopped short by their
draconian money-grubbing subscription scheme? Trollback has no idea
how a communist magazine like Salon could be so craven as to attempt
such a capitalist undertaking, but we intend to set them straight. Right then: http://www.salon.com/news/cookie.html. Visiting
that URL gives you the "free day pass" cookie, opening all content on the site for 24 hours if you accept the cookie. Three cheers for bad web design! Four cheers
for Trollback!
Quickies:
Trollback apologizes for missing this total gem in May, A license to cyber-surf, the total nonexistence of piracy, retarded Slashbot loose in Best Buy, USENET troll kicks Hawking ass, the stench of death, Slashdot's ASCII filter performing admirably, proof that Mozilla developers bumble security holes too, the return of the ring, and the return of the Apple thing, and not truly a troll but we liked the use of "Gay AIDS" and Caps Lock.
That's it for this month. As always, email your links to trollback at gmail dot com. Subscribe to Trollback Magazine by befriending; Slashdot will notify you of upcoming issues! And please remember,
_________/_____\___________
FREE JUNIS FROM AFGHANI503 SERVICE DOES NOT SCALE
Format change for Trollback
You may notice some formatting
changes this month; someone yelled rotate and we all switched
desks. This month marks the return of Voodoo, our answer to
Karma and a numerical approximation of just how black your magic truly
is. Here's a breakdown of the new scheme:
Voodoo|(Score,Direct
Replies,Total Replies,Percentage of Story) Name | Subject
Comment text summarized
Number of anonymous comments AC, Awards +stuff
The story percentage is
the fraction of comments in the story which are nested under the
linked comment. If you managed to Parent 50% of the discussion in the
story, you'll see 50% here, and your Voodoo score will reflect
this. Voodoo is also influenced by the +awards section, which we
decline to further elaborate on. Our system for measuring Voodoo must
not fall into the hands of crack reverse engineers such as Jamie
McCarthy (played brilliantly by Ben Affleck) so for deciphering this
section, you're on your own. Suffice it to say that every factor
available is taken into account.
Note: Voodoo is calculated from a
browser-cached version of the page, not by scripted interaction with
the site. That means that late replies may be missed by our scoring
system. Complaints? Let us know what you think of the new
system by voting
in our poll.
Flamewar 9/11
As we noted in last month's issue, class C subnet bans are in effect for anyone whose posts consist of "Bad Behavior". What is "Bad Behavior"? Well according to pudge, anyone who asks is a "doo doo head" [sic]. Trollback decided to fact check pudge's assertion:
[trollback@dotnetenabled faq]$ pwd
/cvs/slash/plugins/FAQSlashdot/faq
[trollback@dotnetenabled faq]$ cvs update
cvs update: Updating.
P com-mod.shtml
[trollback@dotnetenabled faq]$ grep -i "bad behavior" *
[trollback@dotnetenabled faq]$
Unsurprisingly,
pudge has no idea what he's talking about. So what exactly is
"Bad Behavior" on Slashdot? Turns out, "Bad Behavior" means, among
other things, being a Republican, not entirely trusting Michael Moore,
or asserting that self-described Op-Eds are Op-Eds. This is made
abundantly clear in the most deliberate (and successful) troll of the
month.
CmdrTaco decided that this month, "News for Nerds" included reviewing
a highly charged political movie and noting that it "speaks much
truth", on the front page. This is the guy who won't post stories on
Slashdot about Slashdot because it's not "News for
Nerds". This 3200+ comment flamefest generated all the histrionics
you'd expect, with one interesting caveat: anyone who questioned
Moore's impartiality was moderated Troll, and thereby subnet banned
from the site. This is, in a nutshell, the very definition of
"Bad Behavior" - disagreeing with CmdrTaco's politics. To quote from
their beloved FAQ:
"The Slashdot Editors have unlimited mod points, and we have no problem using them."
Bad Behavior indeed. Here's a quick guide to understanding how bad the problem is:
Now click on the
F911 story. You will basically only be reading Republican points
of view now; these are the only people who got moderated down. In a
story which was basically an open invitation to political discussion,
with a highly polarized electorate, the political faction that agreed
with the editors was moderated up, while the political faction that
disagreed, no
matter how calmly presented, was moderated Troll/Flamebait
and banned from posting to the site. And moderation is anonymous, so
we'll never know who did it.
Now and then trollback gets email
from people who don't understand why we publish our magazine. We
don't want to come down on either side of the F-911 debate
(except perhaps to say that we consider Mr. Moore living proof that
you can troll for a living) but we do think that trying to use
Perl to silence your political opposition might not be Fair &
Balanced. Blatant flamebait posted as a story? Your political
opposition moderated out of sight and IP blocked from posting? And
remember, it's not
censorship!
Vive le resistance!
Update: An alert reader has pointed out that while nearly every anti-Moore poster was modbombed into a subnet ban, pro-Moore posters who linked to the websites of holocaust deniers as evidence escaped the carpet bombing. Yes indeedy, Stuff that Matters.
Spider-Man 2 Reviewed Reviewed
Bonch got his review of Spiderman 2 posted to the front page of Slashdot, the only comment being "Thanks to bonch for this review". Sadly no one remembered to thank Google for not being consulted, as this review had been written and posted the day before at Chud.com. As legions of Slashbots began to moan about the plagiarism, the story stayed unedited on the front page until it reached the very bottom, at which point a retraction was posted. Bonch wins Trollback's Bayesian Filter Food Award this month, proving once again what an effective anti-trolling tool a Bayes filter would be.
I can watch ICANNWATCH
Near and dear to our hearts is ICANNWATCH, a Slash-based site devoted to meticulously monitoring ICANN for signs of abuse. Now, we love an Internet crank as much as anybody, but unlike Slashdot, we're pretty sure that ICANN's ethics are unassailable. Nevertheless, it seems they've got a problem over there with something called "Anonymous Posting". Switch to -1 Nested to see some of the best...
Sheetrock 2 Reviewed
Yes it's true, Sheetrock is back. Posting from behind enemy subnet lines, you'll note he found a way to keep his powder dry and make an appearance in this month's List.
The List, now with voting!
198|(2,17,84,7%) AKAImBatman | "Tactical Flexibility"
What I'd like to know is, what kind of tactical advantage does a railgun bring? Sure, it can hit a target some 200+ miles out, but so can a missile. Missiles also have the advantage of being self-guided. All this thing is, is a way to build a more powerful battleship. And yet, the U.S. has put all of its Battleships on active reserve. In their place, they've been deploying missile carriers at a lower cost and higher degree of flexibility.In short, what does the railgun bring to a Real [cont]...
175|(4,5,86,15%) Lyssa Watson | "Just Great..."
A key benefit of the e-Plate is that the tag provides an encrypted and secure ID code which is registered in the UK Ministry of Transport's vehicle database. This code prevents tampering, cloning, or other forms of fraud that can currently happen with camera-based systems. Additionally, the e-Plate is designed to shatter if anyone tries to remove or otherwise tamper with it, and the tag can be programmed to transmit a warning if any attempt is made to dislodge the plate. They said tha [cont]...
161|(5,10,85,7%) adequacy | "In the land of empty tanks"
Cyclists are gods.Fuckin bring it on.
159|(5,29,73,10%) Anonymous Coward | "This is another reason why C should be deprecated"
Gentlemen, the time has come for a serious discussion on whether or not to continue using C for serious programming projects. As I will explain, I feel that C needs to be retired, much the same way that Fortran, Cobol and Perl have been. Furthermore, allow me to be so bold as to suggest a superior replacement to this outdated language.To give you a little background on this subject, I was recently asked to develop a client/server project on a Unix platform for a Fortune 500 compan [cont]...
131|(1,9,73,10%) Anonymous Coward | "Re:Absolutely Stupid!"
DVDs are manufactured with recyclable plastic. It's your fault if you buy this and don't recycle it. Only you can prevent forest fires.
119|(2,14,41,17%) Tim_F | "Correct me if I'm wrong"
But an F/OSS hacker has taken a company's proprietary work and made it available for free, even giving it a similar name.Why is this a good thing?If F/OSS developers want to speed up Linux, the corporate environment is where they should be looking. By doing this they have enabled corporations to get something for free which could cause a company (and a lot of potential Linux users) to go out of business.How are the developers supposed to feed their children if they're unemployed? [cont]...
119|(4,14,47,23%) Sheetrock | "Worth it?"
While the iPos looks nice, and admittedly has the best interface of all the MP3 players (owing to the simple design Macintosh has become a master of), is it worth dropping a couple hundred on it? I've heard of two design flaws now -- both of which they seem less than inclined to fix beyond a short period of ownership -- and have noticed that PDAs in a similar price range can do MP3, video, and even word processing. If it was reliable I'd buy one tomorrow, but are they yet? [cont]...
114|(0,22,53,4%) Anonymous Coward | "Sorry, no."
Java Faster Than C++?No, it isn't. It's much slower.I wrote a program that simply counts to 10000 and then quits. Time from double-clicking the icon until when the program exits: C++: 0.5 secondsJava: 20 seconds How hard is that?
91|(3,10,46,3%) b.foster | "The lesson to be learned here"
...is to hire a good lawyer. Hint: a lawyer who advises you to settle when you have done nothing wrong is not a good lawyer. Most lawyers are too lazy to take cases that they do not understand, which explains why so many tech-related cases wind up costing the protagonist money. This is even worse in the criminal law arena, because these lazy attorneys can cost an innocent man his freedom. IMHO there is no excuse for this, but it happens every day. Case in point: my roommate [cont]...
87|(3,15,33,3%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Overturn Betamax?"
My reading of the bill is that the law would not overturn Betamax so much as explicitly prevent Betamax from being applied to digital media. Betamax and VHS were both analog formats with cumulative degradation, that is, a copy of a copy was degraded, and at enough generations the quality would be unusable. Perfect digital copies, however, do not have this limitation, and it is merely common sense that they should be covered by a different law. Betamax was a Supreme Court decision, and [cont]...
83|(0,23,38,3%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Typical liberal court"
Despite the first amendment, there are restrictions on what you can say in America. Now, I understand that this bill is not worded as well as it could have been. A sensible restriction would be self-classification of pornographers into a
.XXX TLD, with jail time and other punishments only for those who attempt to sneak into .COM and others. This would allow respectable ISPs such as AOL to block all pornographers simply by blocking [cont]...
77|(2,10,41,7%) WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWX | "That's cool"
It's good to see Microsoft trying to get on board with at least the spirit of Open Source.
65|(-1,7,23,7%) Dozix007 | "I Love Terminal Emulators"
I can't count the number of times a Terminal Emulator has either saved me from boredom, or prevented me from booting into Windows. Nothing like playing Crusader or Warcraft II in Linux.
61|(1,9,24,2%) Midnight Thunder | "Luckily this is the US"
Luckily this is the US, otherwise we would be considering sanctions and maybe even sending UN inspectors.I know this sounds like a troll, but just think about it for two minutes.
53|(2,8,25,20%) Milo of Kroton | "Is not"
Faster importantless? With 64 bit processing power for all available by athlon 64 made available that works with 64 bit yes immdiately we would switch. These chip make futiliity. Why make processors of like these new when you can improve on 64 bit? The battle is to will be lost to Athlon without 64 bit competition by.
39|(0,7,18,7%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Confirmed: Architect not a verb"
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=architect : 1. One who designs and supervises the construction of buildings or other large structures.2. One that plans or devises: a country considered to be the chief architect of war in the Middle East.I mean, it's not even a second meaning. It's just plain English abuse. I hope this Zdziarski guy's paper is decent, since he's pretty tripped my spam filter from the gate.
37|(0,4,13,56%) Anonymous Coward | "Important note:"
The passing lane is for passing, and the law of the passing lane is this: Slower Traffic Always Yields To Overtaking Traffic. She couldn't pass you, because overtaking on the right is illegal. By blocking the passing lane, you've gone ahead and blocked the entire freeway to anyone who obeys the law.You were in the wrong, she did the right thing. If it were me, I'd have shot you.FYI.
34|(3,8,11,3%) Milo of Kroton | "Yes, fast"
But what cost? Only government would want new technology this fast, maybe your NSA, that around codebreaking.
32|(3,8,17,5%) Milo of Kroton | "Greatness!"
I am for cannot waiting able frequency to this have! I too am so greatness compression going to get. I am ask: can use this games? UT2k4 is good. It is very big game however maybe some for people. Can this technology fast enough for gaming be?
30|(-1,9,11,1%) Sheetrock | "Go back to basics?"
This brings up a complaint I've got with the way the industry works nowadays.
As a programmer, I feel the continual march of progress in computing has beenhampered as of late because of a major misconception in some segments of thesoftware industry. Some would argue that the process of refinement byiterative design, which is the subject of many texts in the field -- extremeprogramming being the most recent -- demonstrates that applying the theory ofevolution to coding is the most ef [cont]...
29|(-1,5,14,2%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "That is correct."
BMW parts are much harder to fence, as car thieves steal cars for their parts, and the market is entirely an economy of scale. The more popular a car, the more the car is worth. Which is why BMW has never made the most stolen car list [cnn.com]. The parts to a Honda Accord, for instance, are worth a lot more and are easier to sell.Of course, stealing an iPod from a BMW doesn't mean you have to steal the whole car, just smash the window. This will be a huge boon to radio thieves, as the [cont]...
25|(4,5,7,1%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Ugh"
I wonder if they have plans to move this into other, higher quality vehicles in the future? While I admit that BMW's are very expensive and prestigous, independent car reviews like Consumer Reports always give them the lowest possible marks for reliability, a key indicator of quality. Any chance they're going to port this to high quality makes such as Nissan, Honda or (the king of reliability) Toyota?Before anyone flames me -1 Troll or something, here's a link [consumerreports.org] to [cont]...
18|(-1,2,12,6%) hkhanna | "Steve Wozniack's Son"
Steve Wozniack's son and I got in a fight at a Jack-In-The-Box in Los Gatos, California last year. He told me to go back to Iraq (I have brown skin color).I would have kicked the shit out of him but he had a bunch of his buddies from Los Gatos High there and I only had a couple friends with me. The cops showed up really soon so it was all over anyway.
OSnews: Hotbed of Agreement
OSnews, a highly moderated forum, is pretty much troll-proof. We think. On the other hand, there might be some exceptions. An alert reader has sent in the following links:
Coming next month: The GNAA captures some truly unbelievable screenshots!
That's it for this month. As always, email your links to trollback at ziplip dot com. Subscribe to Trollback Magazine by befriending; Slashdot will notify you of upcoming issues! And please remember,
_________/_____\___________
FREE JUNIS FROM AFGHANISTAN
If TrollBack seems a little late to you, please understand that the best things in life take time. When was the last time you saw Quickies? Exactly.
Please remember that the TrollBack team welcomes guest editors and content. Send us an email if you're interested in helping.
As the Greatest Generation finally gets a Memorial in Washington D.C., we here at TrollBack find ourselves mourning the passing of fallen comrades. Cmdr Stalin has passed a new subnet banning decree, signalling the end of such greats as SCO$699FeeTroll. Slashdot trolls will rise from the ashes of fascism to circumvent their subnet bans and post again.
(Ban)-ana Monkeys
The IP ban code has been given a new set of very sharp teeth, causing many everyday Slashdot users to get IP banned. Most of these people will just quietly leave, but a small fraction are figuring out that they can still post journal entries on the subject. Here's a small sampler:
To follow this up, we have a priceless response in which the Swiss guy's grammar is mocked. Yes, Slashdot mocked someone else's use of English - a foreign national, to boot. We just can't make this stuff up: 'We will get back to you when we are done "Thinking of it."'
These are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg: you can find more diaries on the topic.
If you're an unaffiliated, non-trolling Slashbot who got banned for posting something truthful about Microsoft, the DMCA, or any other Kool-Aid laden topic at Slashdot, take a moment to share your story in the comments of this diary. For those who are wondering how the new IP ban code works, it's just a simple change to an old system. Basically if you get moderated down by any moderator, they put a posting ban on the entire class C network you posted from, and if it happens more than once, the ban can last for months. Many people who are angry at 'the jerk on my network who got me banned' are unaware that the 'jerk' is probably them. Look in your history: do you have a single post at -1? That's probably why you can't post.
Some of you may be thinking "you mean I can ban an entire dorm of nerds, or my company, or an entire cable modem block, just by posting goatse links a few times?". The answer, in short, is yes. Troublemakers have been handed a new form of troublemaking: just visit a network with a lot of Slashdot users, go on an anonymous posting spree, and you can get them shipped off to Gauntanamo for months. If you're intending to use a proxy to get its subnet banned, please be aware that they don't proxy scan you if you post logged in, so use a fresh account.
In other news, we can finally tell (sometimes) when editors are moderating a story. Moderators can now moderate posts down from -1 to -1 (-1 + -1 = -1, Slashdot math, etc). This allows the editors to put IP bans on users posting at -1. Here's coverage, and here's a race condition in Slashcode.
Robbie the Slashbot
After careful consideration, we here at Trollback have decided on a new Mascot: Robbie the Slashbot, pictured upper right. Robbie won out because despite his total lack of a brain, he's managed to get his right arm in the air for a healthy Sig Heil. Robbie knows that BSD isn't dying, Linux is the best operating system and Osama bin Laden was probably a freedom fighter. Welcome, Robbie! Here at Slashdot, you're among friends. Lots of them.
The List
(0,5,20) ObviousGuy | Why doesn't Unix die?
(4,14,36) bonch | I'll come right out and say it
(-1,8,32) ObviousGuy | CS has very little to do with math
(3,10,22) ObviousGuy | International relations
(2,7,30) ObviousGuy | Well, yes..
(2,6,7) ObviousGuy | Well, yes..
(4,23,58) Ckwop | A few suggestions
(3,6,14) ObviousGuy | Microsoft does what it does best
(5,6,51) ObviousGuy | Reinventing X?
(4,10,19) Debian Troll's Best | Article puts it all in perspective
(5,5,8) Anonymous Coward | As an insider for Microsoft
(3,6,7) Debian Troll's Best | Re:Turing was also...
(5,19,136) palndron | How is this different?
(1,10,44) tacobot | Before anyone spouts off at the mouth
(3,9,40) Power Everywhere | 10-15 years?
(5,13,20) Hanna's Goblin Toys | SO cool.
(-1,8,27) Exmet Paff Daxx | Fantastic
(5,19,58) Power Everywhere | Let me tell you how it differs.
(2,25,351) Vokbain | Your civil rights called...
(5,27,70) Noose For A Neck | I never understood the Bittorrent thing...
(4,10,53) Noose For A Neck | Already in use
(-1,6,10) Noose For A Neck | Anybody have a bittorrent link?
(4,5,13) Noose For A Neck | Good to see them in headlines again
(-1,11,23) dnoyeb | Hype
(0,6,26) USAPatriot | Beat The Chinese
(-1,6,12) Debian Troll's Best | FUD not a serious threat to Linux at this stage
(0,11,47) A. Pizmo Clam | Ho Hum
(-1,6,40) Exmet Paff Daxx | That's nice.
(4,72,334) Anonymous Coward | Fuck you America
(-1,6,18) Anonymous Coward | You GOTTA read this: WARNING!!!
(1,5,8) Anonymous Coward | iPod and UFS
(1,8,31) Tuvai | How Lovely
Honourable Mentions
Veni, Vedi, Wiki
Let's take a stroll down amnesia lane. In June of 2003, Hemos & CmdrTaco settled down with a few mixed drinks and a keyboard to discuss Slashdot on IRC. When a Slashdot reader asked what they thought of the Wiki concept, they had this to say:
<Questions> erigol asks: Have you considered setting up a slashdot Wiki, since Wiki's are, like, the rage, and stuff.
<CmdrTaco> Wiki is silly. Not scalalble.
<hemos> Wiki's make me want to guage my eyes out.
<hemos> gouge, even.
<CmdrTaco> They're fun for small groups.
<hemos> No, I like the idea.
<CmdrTaco> Slashdot is for millions.
<hemos> And yeah, for smaller groups is great.
<hemos> But we spent the 3 years scaling up to this level of users
<CmdrTaco> Thats the thing that people don't understand
Strangely, just 6 months later, a site called Wikipedia blew by Slashdot so fast that it nearly knocked them off the Internet, utilizing only unscaleable Wiki technology. As Slashdot continues to decline, Wikipedia now has nearly doubled Slashdot's Alexa traffic ranking. Strangely in only a few years, a site not for millions blew millions past a site for millions. Pretty confusing, even to a Slashbot. Trollback has not yet learned how this amazing event took place, but we encourage you to write CmdrTaco to find out.
That's it for this month! See you in two weeks, sanity permitting.
Welcome to TrollBack for April 2004. April started off rather slowly, with The List picking up a number of the strongest submissions in the last few days. We'd like to welcome USAPatriot to TrollBack. TrollBack regrettably did not see any posts that were made last month by this user, although if we had we would have had these posts [1, 2, 3] in The List.
TrollBack would like to welcome back b.foster and Lover's Arrival, The to TrollBack; it has been far too long between posts for these two legends, and we hope to see more material for next month's issue. Thanks to some fan-whoring last month by an anonymous TrollBack fan, we have a number of new readers that we'd like to welcome.
Answering the Mail Bag
We had a few emails in the past month we'd like to take some time to answer. The letters have been edited slightly.
Letter #1: Encyclopedia Article on Slashdot Trolling
As someone who reads (and infrequently writes for) the Wikipedia (1), but regularly reads Slashdot, I feel you are a rather respected (wellknown at least) part of our community which is covered quite extensively in the Wikipedia under "Slashdot" (2), "Slashdot subculture" (3), and "Slashdot trolling phenomena" (4). What this is only lacking is any real mention of you. You can directly contribute any information about yourself into the articles using the "Edit this Page" links on the pages. I'm in no way affiliated with the management of the wikipedia, but I feel that the article(s) could stand to benefit from additional information regarding your work.
Regards,
Thank you for your letter. We notice that link 4 is a 'featured article candidate' on Wikipedia, which presumably means it will make the next edition of Brittanica. We'd like to suggest that the wikipedia definition of the Slashdot Troll 'community' is quite different to the what many of the purist trolls might define. For something a little more grounded in history, TrollBack suggests the following reading materials as a starting point on any wikipedia definition: The Slashdot Troll FAQs written by spiralx, jsm, and an Anonymous Coward.
As far as a mention for TrollBack goes, perhaps something along the lines of being Slashdot's best known alternative publication. The TrollBack team likes to think they have made a positive contribution to the community, particularly in recording moments that might otherwise be lost and forgotten about as the drudgery of Slashdot's normal programming continues.
Letter #2: Dear TrollBack
Dear TrollBack,
I tried to follow Pan T. Hose's posting this month. Unfortunately my favorite Mensa Babe, PhysicsGenius, tps12, Professor Collins, Amsterdam Vallon and Boromir son of Faram haven't posted anything this month (oh God, how I miss them!), so I've got only links to Pan T. Hose's texts. (I've read lots of great comments by ObviousGuy lately but I haven't saved the links.) So here are my favorite ones, some of which you might consider including in the next issue of TrollBack.
Thank you for your letter. TrollBack misses these accounts as well, and if the account holders are reading, perhaps they might consider a come back. It should be noted that Boromir son of Faram is tps12's follow-on account. tps12 stopped posting when he had 1337 comments to his name. TrollBack would also like to backup this letter's mention of ObviousGuy. ObviousGuy has been carrying TrollBack for a few publications now, and it is appreciated.
Elsewhere
Over at Kuro5hin, the proverbial hit the fan in a major way in April. It seems accurate to suggest that in the past few months, K5 has been chock full of meta-wankery and whining about so-called crapflooders. Rusty pulled the plug on new account creation and anonymised any account that posted a photo-shopped photo involving his wife.
As could be expected when you're the recipient of whining and bitching, Rusty kept a low profile. So the site with the highest meta-overhead of any popular nerd site saw an article titled 'Where is Rusty?' voted up rapidly to the front-page. Momochrome summed the whole situation up in a single comment that turned the tables back on those who have created the most noise of late.
A fair amount of anguish has been expressed over the lack of a comment search feature in scoop that worked well. In this very story, localroger suggested that the answer to scoop's comment searching was to generate a flat file that consisted of all words that had been posted in all comments to date, with comment ids associated with each instance of said word. In order to ensure this superb search strategy ran as fast as possible, it was to be implemented using assembly language. At that stage of events, localroger was completely serious about it.
Realising he had been cut to pieces, localroger decided that he'd try and get some credibility back with a follow-on story, this time as a troll. That story got voted to section. Shortly after the story got section, localroger posted a diary where he bragged about his brilliance. Shoeboy's comment sums localroger up in a few short sentences.
Slashdot Math
As reported first in 31337, slashdot math struck again this month, with a comment that is 30% Underrated + 20% Insightful + 20% Interesting == +5 Funny. As 31337 gets flushed of old posts, we think we should preserve some of the most insightful meta-commentary ever seen:
Could the figure be made less helpful?
One possibility might be to eliminate 'Score:' as a number entirely and instead represent it with a smudge of color made up of smudges of various colors as chosen by the moderators.
This brings with it a multitude of advantages, not the least of which is the reduction of the point modifier system for mod attributes (such as 'Interesting') to a color wheel, but also the potential to alienate the colorblind portion of the community. Best of all, if the new moderation system follows a subtractive color mixing model most comments will be rated 'brownish', which coincides quite nicely with my online experiences and posting history.
There's been a lot of change to the moderation system of late. Many of you may have noticed that being moderated up as Funny doesn't raise your Karma. This means that a post that 100 moderators think is Funny and 100 moderators think is Overrated will bounce between 4 and 5 100 times, lowering your karma by one each time. The result? In one post you can go from +50 (Excellent) to -50 (Terrible). This is progress. +1 Funny is now a weapon. There's also a huge penalty to anyone whose post is first moderated up a bunch, then moderated down a bunch. This happens most often when people point out spelling errors in stories; later, the spelling error is fixed by editors and the original poster is moderated down. So you lose 50 karma because you helped an editor fix a spelling mistake. You've also lost a bundle of moderation tokens.
CmdrTaco has had a busy month by all indications, given a recent spate of journal activity. In between his attempts to purchase a high resolution Tivo to see bad television more perfectly defined, he's been sharing a lot of his brainstorming about how to "fix" that which he considers not broken: The Moderation System. Some of you who have been following the story for years may recognise many of his new insights as your own comments, shot down years ago by Rob as items that "won't scale" and resurrected as innovations on his yellow legal pad. There's talk of bringing back trusted moderators (though this time his AI will do the selection for him, no blacklist required), talk of de-gaming the system by removing all the scores, and a small trickle of two-year-old "unscaleable" common sense lifted straight from user feedback to the Post of Doom.
Finally, it has been proposed that Slashcode could use Bayesian Filtering to identify troll posts on slashdot. We'd like to help the slashteam waste their time by identifying trolling legends to feed into the filter. This month's nominee is Sheetrock, truly a Slashdot icon.
Bayesian Filter Food Award
TrollBack would like to present a special tribute to TrollBack regular Sheetrock, who never ceases to amaze the team with the quality of posts made. TrollBack has featured 30 posts by Sheetrock in the previous 13 editions of Trollback. The decision to confer an inaugural award to Sheetrock came with this post, which shall forever be known as the "Great Wall of China through Japan" post. TrollBack will now provide a short review of 5 select posts that we love, and we're sure you will too.
When TrollBack nearly folded a distant 15 months ago, Sheetrock wrote a moving eulogy, and a special place in TrollBack's heart for Sheetrock was found. The award's prize is a permanent listing in TrollBack's friends section. A round of applause for this gentleman, please, and an acceptance speech if you're reading, Sheetrock.
The List
(-1,7,18) ObviousGuy | Take an object, leave an object
(5,14,51) conner_bw | Sigh.
(-1,3,3) Lover's Arrival, The | My husband used to play Neverwinter nights
(2,10,51) dolo666 | Linux Changelog Email Publishing
(5,4,4) Debian Troll's Best | How would Google manage a 100K-node cluster?
(5,6,9) Debian Troll's Best | Asian-language localized UNIX tools
(-1,14,32) Anonymous Coward | DATUM not data
(1,4,7) Sheetrock | Time for something new?
(3,19,26) ObviousGuy | Do we need this kind of humor here?
(0,15,44) b.foster | Python's dirty little secret
(-1,7,36) USAPatriot | More Leftist Propaganda
(5,15,24) USAPatriot | Excellent
(4,4,120) Anonymous Coward | *MAGNETIC* fans in my PC?
(5,14,61) Sheetrock | Sadly...
(5,18,28) USAPatriot | Stupid
(4,7,8) Anonymous Coward | We're banning Yo-yos
(1,5,8) Debian Troll's Best | Any system software updates also?
(-1,8,18) Sheetrock | A consideration.
(-1,6,16) Samir Gupta | On Xbox's lack of success in Japan
(-1,13,33) Mr. Darl McBride | A link on swbell.net? Oh, that'll last.
(1,21,42) Sheetrock | Fantastic.
(5,18,) timecop | What Lies Ahead for Linux...
Honourable Mentions
Amnesia Lane
Finally, we'd like to take you back down amnesia lane. This month, we feature the infamous Shoeboy vs Merlyn episode that took place on slashdot back in April 2001.
Merlyn is a 'perl monk', which means he is a perl expert and likes to engage in relations with camels. Merlyn had been fired and taken through the courts by Intel, after it caught him cracking passwords in a self-appointed security review without authorisation to do so. Slashdot featured a story about how he had been taken to the cleaners and lost an appeal. You'd think that being a master of password security, you'd set your slashdot password to something half reasonable. Apparently not.
In a crushing irony, his slashdot account password at that time was "slashdot" and was guessed by Shoeboy. Shoeboy had a fetish (and probably still does) for Larry Wall's daughter, and proceeded to make a few posts as Merlyn saying that having become a criminal, he'd never be able to settle down with Heidi an lead a peaceful life.
Many of Merlyn's friends jumped to his defence: coward! defamation! insulting! Remove the offending posts! Merlyn tried denying his password was slashdot when the account was returned, but was quickly corrected [1, 2]. Shoeboy was accused of being an asshole, but defended his actions. 'You're not going to press criminal charges?' was shoeboy's cheeky response. Shoeboy, as it turned out, did not 'crack' any password, and was lucky that Merlyn had spent a fortune in the courts already.
That's it for this month!
That's right, assmasters, it is that one special time of year when the slashdot front-page consists entirely of one tired lame gag after another. Luckily, the Trollback team have put together another issue of your favourite publication.
April fools is a bizarre day on slashdot. It is just about the only time you'll find an editor post a story suggesting that ESR is full of hot air. Sadly, they stop short of suggesting that ESR is an arrogant gas baron. Surely that is the most on-topic discussion to be had on April 1.
The List is chock full of funny gags this issue; perhaps Trollback is front-page material?
Harvard is the new Mensa
The mensa line has been used to great effect by trolling legends Krapangor and Mensa Babe. Slashbots just hate elitism, even if it is central to their open source zealotry. Trollback is proud to provide you with the complete posting history of the Harvard character that some of you may have seen posting during March.
The character actually started out rather slowly back in February, but had a great outing at the beginning of March, which is featured in The List. The next outing was a re-post of the February post, but this time it had success. It was at this time when the character was corrected: Harvard refers to its Teaching Assistants as Teaching Fellows.
The early success brought laziness as the Harvard poster took a turn for the weeds [1, 2, 3] - although there were always good bites to be had. The poster was quickly back on the spoke though, with a comment making unfounded accusations against unfounded accusations that had a good bite from the article's submitter and even a joke about Harvard wankers. This was followed up with another entry in The List, discussing why Qt is not his favorite toolkit.
With all the negative feedback our intrepid poster from Harvard had received, he felt a bit depressed, and wanted to know why was he not liked. He wanted to recommend that other people did not make the same mistake one of his students did when the student tried to write a BIOS based on Debian Linux. He also did his best Dan Quayle impression.
He finished his expedition posting as someone who was in Harvard Law.
Remember: if you're having success posting anonymously, please report your successes to 31337, or alternatively email the Trollback team.
Make Windows your Foe
If anything is true about the Slashbot, it is the hatred they have for Windows and Microsoft, despite doing all they can to create a clone operating system. This month saw an attack led by the crapflooder users.pl, posting early into many stories to get the user windows in lots of foe lists. The writeup in windows' journal tells the sad story of what has happened so far.
Elsewhere
Over at K5, the user IndianaTroll has been keeping a record of interesting events on K5 that are troll-related in his diary. We applaud the effort made my IndianaTroll to keep a record of these events; the team has registered TrollBack on K5, but we feel the quality of K5 trolls is lacking except for the right wing maniacs Ray Megard, Adam Rightmann, and sellison. We'd like to pay special mention to Ray; every one of his posts is a work of art. Slashdot could really do with a good right-wing manic post now and again. If you've spotted one lately, please reply to this diary and share the joy.
The List
(-1,22,40) Anonymous Coward | Unit tests are a bad idea
(3,17,112) krog | Why shell?
(3,51,165) Sheetrock | Not the only person against Grand Theft Auto
(-1,7,51) Anonymous Coward | Re:EV1
(1,18,38) Overly Critical Guy | Question
(1,11,18) valence | BIOS = Built-in Operating System
(-1,10,20) ObviousGuy | No clamor
(-1,10,31) ObviousGuy | I am not for these laws at all
(1,8,28) ObviousGuy | Yep, they're out of ideas
(-1,9,17) ObviousGuy | Fraud? Really?
(3,11,92) ultrabot | MySql
(4,15,27) Anonymous Coward | Bad Patents?
(-1,4,7) mao che minh | Re:Canada: Socially Advanced
(-1,3,4) Sheetrock | Atmospheric phenomenon?
(0,12,16) Anonymous Coward | Qt is not my favorite toolkit
(2,29,113) ObviousGuy | Power Power Power
(-1,17,39) egg troll | IPv6: Not Ready For Prime Time
(0,12,38) ObviousGuy | Follow the money
(0,7,13) Anonymous Coward | We can catch the worm's author
(-1,2,12) Anonymous Coward | My success with OpenBSD
(-1,21,147) Anonymous Coward | HOW TO BE AN AMERICAN! FUCK AMERICA! FRANCE RULES!
Honourable mentions
Amnesia Lane
Finally, we'd like to take you back down amnesia lane. Trollback will try and make amnesia lane a regular feature from now on.
Adequacy.org announced this month that they have released their archive of slashdot troll outings pre-adequacy.org to the drooling masses. The headcheese archive is a database of the various adequacy accounts that were used and the post they made in the name of trolling. They have conveniently provided the world with a top-ten list of their most successful posts; the top-20 direct replies table is a trolling how-to.
That's it for this month!
"Conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will." -- Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway"