Slashdot

Really? Trolls have a posting history as long as mine? I must be one dedicated troll.

Because I disagree with another poster and the groupthink.

You honestly expect me to believe that there isn't groupthink and bias here? It's almost gotten as bad as Digg and Reddit.

Maybe I'm not a troll? Maybe I'm someone that - gasp, horror - disagrees?

Uh, yes, I do.

Sorry there, buddy, but it wasn't a "fringe" view. Claiming it was, now, is pathetic CYAing because it didn't turn out that way.

And the science is perfect now, right? Those guys back then had it wrong, but you have it right now?

Dude. Seriously. Fuck off. Call me when your neighbor is eating you alive and the temp is 150F.

Damn hard to get funding when the world doesn't want to hear a dissenting view.

I can assure you that you will need new accounts if Sandvine or anyone else sets their PR firm on you. Five years worth of good reputation can vanish in as few as five posts. Once they have you posting at -1 they can keep you there with very little effort and no one will notice. A new account fixes that and drives them wild, kind of like free speech on the internet obsoletes the MAFIAA business models. The fix for a non neutral net won't be nearly as easy.

Shatter36 writes "Following on from the clever hack of John McCain's MySpace page on Wednesday, a slashdot subscriber decided to do a follow up, tricking the page maintainers into displaying an embarrassing comment on McCain's page for 18 hours. Not that exciting, except that today he was raided by the FBI and had all of his computer equipment seized, even though he didn't actually "hack" anything! — all the images that appeared in the comment were hosted on his website. He's posted a short account of the afternoon's events on his website (probably NSFW — he sounds a little upset). This is just ridiculous. I am lost for words, though I guess one should never underestimate the stupidity of politicians..."

wenko writes "The device that heralded the beginning of the 20th century electronics industry first saw the light of day in late 1906, just over a century ago. This was the triode electron tube, or audion, as its inventor called it."

An anonymous reader writes "Popular Mechanics Magazine List of Top 10 F/X Scenes in Movie History!! Related URLS: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industr y/4206967.html
http://www.cgindia.org/2007/02/popular-mechanics-l ist-of-top-10-fx.html Enjoy!"

A recent slashdot story reported on an article by the ex-editor of New Scientist, Nigel Calder. RealClimate have taken issue with what they call "bizarre calculus that takes evidence for solar forcing of climate as evidence against greenhouse gases for current climate change". They have posted a rebuttal to Calder's article that basically concludes: "No trend = no explanation for current changes".

It should also be noted that Calder's article ended with an advertisment for his new book "The Chilling Stars".

TapeCutter writes "A recent slashdot story reported on an article by the ex-editor of New Scientist, Nigel Calder. RealClimate have taken issue with what they call "bizarre calculus that takes evidence for solar forcing of climate as evidence against greenhouse gases for current climate change". They have posted a rebuttal to Calder's article that basically concludes: "No trend = no explanation for current changes".

It should also be noted that Calder's article ended with an advertisment for his new book "The Chilling Stars"."

bcrowell writes "Nature is reporting on e-mails leaked from the Association of American Publishers, which considers itself "under siege" because of NIH and congressional efforts to get all NIH-funded scientific papers posted for free on PubMed Central. The AAP has hired a PR firm, which is advising them to spread the message that "Public access equals government censorship," and that traditional for-profit print publishing is the same thing as peer peer review."

Since late December, white supremacist Hal Turner has been under siege from the users of various websites, who have prank-called his radio show, ordered him pizza and attacked his webserver. Wikipedia has a short description of the dispute, and a choice entry from Hal's blog (currently his only web presence) describes the attacks from his point of view, and contains comments from the attackers themselves. Recently, the feud climaxed with the filing of a lawsuit against several of the involved sites, followed shortly by the disappearance from the internet of Mr. Turner's website.

sgent writes "A substitute 7th grade teacher faces 40 years in prison after conviction of 4 counts of "impairing the morals of a child". A classroom computer went into a "pop-up loop" displaying porn.

The teacher had complained multiple times to the IT department, and the school allowed their filtering software to lapse. In addition, an expert for the prosecution testified "You have to physically click on it to get to those sites," Smith said. "I think the evidence is overwhelming that she did intend to access those Web sites."

"The pop-ups never went away," Amero testified.

From the Norwich Bulletin or if /.'ed a writeup by Pharyngula."

wim_t writes "According to a news release on the website of the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Environment Secretary David Miliband and Education Secretary Alan Johnson have announced that Al Gore's climate change documentary, an Inconvenient Truth, will be distributed to every secondary school in the United Kingdom. From the article: '"The debate over the science of climate change is well and truly over, as demonstrated by the publication of today's report by the IPCC," said Mr Miliband. "Our energies should now be channelled into how we respond in an innovative and positive way in moving to a low carbon future. I was struck by the visual evidence the film provides, making clear that the changing climate is already having an impact on our world today, from Mount Kilimanjaro to the Himalayan mountains. As the film shows, there's no reason to feel helpless in the face of this challenge. Everyone can play a part along with government and business in making a positive contribution in helping to prevent climate change."'"

steveha writes "Scott Adams lost his ability to speak normally, and then got it back again. A few weeks later, he caught a cold, and regressed. His blog tells the story of how he tried an unconventional treatment and how well the treament worked for him, with lots more details on Spasmodic Dysphonia and how to treat it. Extremely interesting reading."

Attila writes "A respected climatologist speaks out about how the scientific findings of his committee were twisted for political purposes by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (part 5 of a series from admittedly conservative Canadian newspaper The National Post)."

I tried to explain to two guys I work with that global warming is bad. Naturally this conversation started in reaction to the recent announcement by the IPCC. I first tried to explain it in terms of how it effects the human species. I couldn't find a good example. I tried to explain what's bad about humans causing the extinction of other species and couldn't think of one who's ecosystem would be wiped out and who's extinction would effect us adversely. Then I tried to explain its effects on weather exemplifying its effects on hurricane Katrina, they were incredulous but it was at least solid (the energy in the ocean contributes to the energy in the atmosphere and so on). The arguments I often encounter are "the animals will adapt, as will we." a plausible yet disturbing argument. Can anyone else come up with a good way to explain why we should stop global warming to those less educated about it?

TapeCutter writes "M. Mann and co. over at RealClimate have started a disscussion analysing the contents of the recently released IPCC SPM. They intend to write a series of articles going over the report chapter by chapter and answer readers comments. So for the dwindling army of "skeptics" and those who want to know more, fire away, but please respect the "dinner coversation" atmosphere."