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Submission + - Republicans Block Latest Attempt at Curbing NSA Power 2

Submitted by Robotron23
Robotron23 writes: The latest attempt at NSA reform has been prevented from passage in the Senate by a margin of 58 to 42. Introduced as a means to stop the NSA collecting bulk phone and e-mail records on a daily basis, the USA Freedom Act has been considered a practical route to curtailment of perceived overreach by security services,18 months since Edward Snowden went public. Opponents to the bill said it as needless, as Wall Street Journal raised the possibility of terrorists such as ISIS running amok on U.S. soil. Supporting the bill meanwhile were the technology giants Google and Microsoft. Prior to this vote, the bill had already been stripped of privacy protections in aid of gaining White House support. A provision to extend the controversial USA Patriot Act to 2017 was also appended by the House of Representatives.

Submission + - Elite: Dangerous Dumps Offline Singleplayer

Submitted by Robotron23
Robotron23 writes: The developers behind the sequel to legendary videogame Elite has, to the anger and dismay of fans, dropped the offline singleplayer mode it promised. The game is due for full release in under a month. With the title having raised about $1.5 million from Kickstarter, and millions more in subsequent campaigns that advertised the feature, gamers are livid. A complaints thread on the official Elite forums has swelled to 450+ pages in only three days, while refunds are being lodged in the thousands. It is down to the discretion of Frontier, the game's developer, whether to process refund requests of original backers.

Submission + - Linux Community Considers NSA's Hand in systemd

Submitted by Robotron23
Robotron23 writes: Several sources within the Linux community (here, here, here and here) have continued to discuss the possibility of NSA involvement with systemd. Various commentaries argue that the pace, scope and vociferousness surrounding the Debian kernel updates signify cause for suspicion. Discussion upon this subject has simmered since April, when Julian Assange branded the Debian project as being under the ownership of the NSA.

With examples, iGuru summarizes the arguments in this post. Noted is the worrying influence of developers working in billion-dollar corporate giant Red Hat, the potential for infiltration and manipulation within and between systemd supporters, plus numerous possible security holes and vulnerabilities in the code. Meanwhile, systemd's 217 update was announced as implemented.

Submission + - Marijuana Legalized in Oregon, Alaska and Washington D.C.

Submitted by Robotron23
Robotron23 writes: Coinciding with the midterm elections yesterday were state ballots proposing the legalization of cannabis. All three territories where full legalization was tabled approved the measure, joining Washington state and Colorado in giving cannabis the nod. The narrowest vote was that of Alaska at a roughly 52 to 48 percent margin. Washington D.C. meanwhile saw the vote strongly tipped in favor at about 69% to 31% opposed. Buoyed by the news, advocates of legal cannabis are already contemplating the next round of state ballots in 2016.

Comment Re:There is one, and only one, way to fight trolli (Score 2) 116

You'll notice that there was virtually no griefing or trolling in old MMOs.

I call bullshit.

From 2001 till 2004 I played the oldest of the popular online MMOs; Ultima Online. Trolling occurred through excessive player killing, disruption of guild activities and dungeoneering plus people doing some honest mining. It was characteristic celebrated amongst perpetrators and adrenaline junkies but reviled amongst those wanting a less combative, PvE experience.

It was already on the decrease when I joined up thanks to the introduction of a non-combat realm. Nowadays a few thousand people yearning for the lawlessness of the old UO have founded their own free servers replicating the 'Wild West' culture.

Trolling isn't exclusive to new MMOs or modern forums, social media and so on. It was present in the early days of Usenet, the earliest chat rooms and IRC channels, and from the very first online games venturing beyond LAN and Intranet play.

Comment Slashdot Beta's Death Star (Score 1, Flamebait) 250

by Robotron23 (#46175725) Attached to: The Bitcoin Death Star: KnC Plans 10 Megawatt Data Center In Sweden

CowboyNeal: Governor Alice. I should have expected to find you holding Beta's leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought onboard.

Alice Hill: Charming to the last. You don't know how hard I found it, signing the order to terminate Slashdot.

CowboyNeal: [sarcastically] I'm surprised you had the courage to take the responsibility yourself.

Hill: CowboyNeal, before Slashdot's execution, I would like you to be my guest at a ceremony that will make the Beta shitfest operational. No tech site will dare oppose Dice now.

CowboyNeal: The more you tighten your grip, Hill, the more tech sites will slip through your fingers.

Hill: Not after we demonstrate the power of this revamp. In a way, you have determined the choice of the website that will be destroyed first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the rogue site relaunch base, I have chosen to implement Beta's destructive power on your favorite website of Slashdot.

CowboyNeal: [shocked] No! Slashdot is peaceful. We have no hot grits. You can't possibly–

Hill: You would prefer another target? Then name the system! [stepping closer to CowboyNeal and pinning him against Slashdot's editors] I grow tired of asking this, so it will be the last time. Where is the revamp based?

CowboyNeal: [looks at Slashdot for a moment, then, resigned] AltSlashdot. They're on AltSlashdot.

Hill: There. You see, editors? She can be reasonable. [to sysadmin] Continue with the operation. You may launch Beta when ready.

CowboyNeal: [panicked] What?!

Hill: You are far too trusting. AltSlashdot is too small to make an effective demonstration, but don't worry. We will deal with your revivalist friends soon enough.

CowboyNeal: No!

Fuck Beta! Everyone get in touch with Alice Hill, the person who actually runs the show at Dice - her LinkedIn.

Comment Re:AltSlashdot is coming (Score 1) 23

by Robotron23 (#46173109) Attached to: CowboyNeal Locked In Basement For Opposing Slashdot Beta

How about simply 'AltSlash.org' ? So long as the site isn't too similar to Slashdot classic it might just work. Sounds a bit reminiscent of Usenet though, and there are certainly technical hurdles as unitron says.

Look at how people are condemning Beta, getting twenty or so Beta condemning submissions modded up and flooding topic after topic. If we could rally around a single revival and steadily promote it, especially in the days and weeks leading up to when Classic dies off for good, then a percentage of people will likely make the exodus. Even if it's a small hardcore, it'll still be more than Slashdot had in its early days.

We could even ask CowboyNeal to join the show!

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Can some of us get together and rebuild this community? 21

Submitted by wbr1
wbr1 writes: It seems abundantly clear now that Dice and the SlashBeta designers do not care one whit about the community here. They do not care about rolling in crapware into sourceforge installers. In short, the only thing that talks to them is money and stupid ideas.

Granted, it takes cash to run sites like these, but they were fine before. The question is, do some of you here want to band together, get whatever is available of slashcode and rebuild this community somewhere else? We can try to make it as it once was, a haven of geeky knowledge and frosty piss, delivered free of charge in a clean community moderated format.

Submission + - Alternatives to Slashdot post beta? 8

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Like many Slashdotters, I intend to stop visiting Slashdot after the beta changeover. After years of steady decline in the quality of discussions here, the beta will be the last straw. What sites alternative to Slashdot have others found? The best I have found has been arstechnica.com, but it has been a while since I've looked for tech discussion sites.

Submission + - Gates returns to Windows 7 after being unable to install the Windows 8.1 upgrade 3

Submitted by Artem Tashkinov
Artem Tashkinov writes: According to rumors Bill Gate's first day at his office in Redmond turned out to be a complete disaster mixed with ostensibly curse words no one had expected from him. He tried to install the Windows 8.1 upgrade but the updater failed continuously asking to reboot the PC. Microsoft's new C.E.O. Satya Nadella who came to help resolve the situation couldn't sort it out. In the end Gates said he would be returning to Windows 7 for the foreseeable future.

Submission + - Bill Gates Spends First Day Back at MS Failing To Install Windows 8.Reverts to 7 (newyorker.com) 1

Submitted by JeffClune
JeffClune writes: Bill Gates’s first day at work in the newly created role of technology adviser got off to a rocky start yesterday as the Microsoft founder struggled for hours to install the Windows 8.1 upgrade.

The installation hit a snag early on, sources said, when Mr. Gates repeatedly received an error message informing him that his PC ran into a problem that it could not handle and needed to restart.

After failing to install the upgrade by lunchtime, Mr. Gates summoned the new Microsoft C.E.O. Satya Nadella, who attempted to help him with the installation, but with no success.

While the two men worked behind closed doors, one source described the situation as “tense.”

“Bill is usually a pretty calm guy, so it was weird to hear some of that language coming out of his mouth,” the source said.

A Microsoft spokesman said only that Mr. Gates’s first day in his new job had been “a learning experience” and that, for the immediate future, he would go back to running Windows 7.

Submission + - Dice, what are you getting by butchering Slashdot ? 2

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Before I register my account with /. I frequented it for almost 3 weeks. If I were to register the first time I visited /. my account number would be in the triple digits.

That said, I want to ask Dice why they are so eager to kill off Slashdot.

Is there a secret buyer somewhere waiting to grab this domain, Dice ? Just tell us. There are those amongst us who can afford to pay for the domain. What we want is to have a Slashdot that we know, that we can use, that we can continue to share information with all others.

Please stop all your destructive plans for Slashdot, Dice.

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