Slashdot

Okay, this is the third thread in a row on the front page that has been nothing more than an overblown opinion piece or random uninteresting conference coverage. I don't think anyone is really going to be disenfranchised if I take a detour from our regularly scheduled wankfest and open up the floor to Slashdot gripes.

Slashdot has changed a lot since I first logged on here so many years ago. And while I don't expect a site to be static, I do expect that it evolve to preserve the good features and remove the bad features. Slashdot has, in my opinion, done a relatively good job of retaining its "flavor", but it has done a terrible job in preserving the "Slashdot Community". I am interested in your opinion of this, as well as concrete examples of either ways Slashdot has done a good job, in your opinion, or has hurt the community through their bad decisions.

One of the biggest regressive changes was the decision to make Funny moderations worthless, thereby turning funny posts and comments into karma sinks. This has fundamentally shaped the tone of Slashdot comments into a much less humorous form. Slashdot has evolved, through this one action, into a community of sour-faced monks. Such a community makes me wonder why I want to still be a part of it.

Many other changes here at Slashdot have resulted these types of feelings, and if you have an opinion, please feel free to post it in this thread. Be aware, though, that this thread (at least this post) will be modded to -1, so if you can't spare the karma, you may want to move on quietly.

What changes have you seen to Slashdot that have diminished your enjoyment of this site?

It can't be a real technical conference. The media isn't posted in a format locked to Windows.

What would you get if you crossed The Society for Creative Anachronism with an old cat lady? Cat armor of course. Now the age old question of whether or not a cat thrown into battle lands on its feet can be answered. To keep the playing field level, they've also made mouse armor.

Sniper223 writes "Over 70,000 phished and stolen myspace passwords have been released by *channers (calling themselves Anonymous and blaming it on Ebaumsworld, as always). They seem to be releasing the accounts in some form of javascript-rich HTML page, which automatically logs you in as you select your targets. I must admit, it's pretty well made considering where it's coming from. There's an easy to read mirror (most of them seem to be rapidshare uploads of the pages themselves) here: http://bspayce.googlepages.com/, and here: http://sup2u.com/myspays/. (Note: these links are currently down)."
http://youthbored.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=2132

I've been in one field or the other of computer oriented support and/or operating since 1987; Over the years I've made myself familiar with most commonly used operating systems, from DOS to Solaris to OS/2 to Slackware to Windows 2000.
One of the ways I've done this with Microsoft products is by being a MSDN member, and getting and testing Alpha's & Beta's of the various releases; That's why I was was pushing OS/2 Warp over Win95, condemned them before it came out for WinME, and was pretty darned happy when Windows 2000 was released.
I steered people away from XP as long as I could, until it became apparent that Win2k was not going to be easily available; Luckily SP2 for XP had been released by then, and XP (or, as I like to think of it, Win2k Plus! pak with DRM!!!) was usable.
I retired a few years ago, but still support some old customers; today I got my 2nd ever support request for Vista (Help! my DVD drive won't read CD's!).
I've done my due diligence on Vista, and it is a pure crapfest of epic proportions; I doubt seriously that any amount of service packs will ever make it usable.
My first thought was just to tell them they screwed themselves, but then I suggested that they take it back to the place they bought it each and every time they had a problem.
The long winded prelude leads to this: What is the best way to deal with Vista? Would the best course be to try to fix it's myriad problems, or to try to do something that would fix the problem that Vista is?

WirePosted writes "The word from Microsoft is that the company is devoting "non trivial" resources to develop a version of Windows XP that will run on the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project's XO computer. Is Microsoft really seeking third world domination at any cost? can OLPC resist the dollar temptations Microsoft is sure to throw its way?"
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/15055/1023/

jcjewell writes "Am I being anal about this? If you're in a hurry, jump to the bottom for my question, but here is the background:

I've recently changed careers, but I spent from 1980 to about 2001 writing software. It's like laws and sausages — you don't want to know how software is made. Unfortunately, I do know how software is made, and as such, I really don't like to sign those signature capture devices in stores. I always insist on signing a piece of paper. Why? In a nutshell, here it is: The total comes up on the cash register, they say, "Sign there on that pad" and you are at the mercy of whatever pile of code is behind their system. to keep your signature with your transaction. If something gets screwed up down the road, and my $20 purchase becomes a $2,000 purchase, with my "signature" on it, I am now in the position of digging up my own copy of the receipt, and the battle is on to defend what I signed for.

If I demand to sign a piece of paper, I say, "Show me the receipt that I signed." The burden is on them to produce it.

Those signature capture pads serve the store. They don't help me in the least. I want to sign a piece of paper that they need to keep track of.

Yeah, yeah, I know — there are probably checks and balances and hashes and code — blah, blah, blah — to ensure the integrity of that transaction and that "my signature is safe with them". No offense to cashiers, but the vast majority of them don't have a clue how safe my signature is, but it doesn't stop them from talking like they're experts on the system. I don't trust their software with my signature. It's too important to me.

I don't have much problem explaining it very succinctly to cashiers, and even asking the manager to come over to show them how to print a paper receipt. In fact, at many stores, I usually know what they need to punch to get a paper receipt to come out, and I end up educating the cashier. The problem is, my wife doesn't understand why I think signing those pads is a bad idea, and she often feels like she is under a spotlight at the front of the line in the store, and is uncomfortable defending her position. I don't blame her. It's not a comfortable position.

As I await replies, I am debating whether to make a trip to the store, as the manager really belittled my wife this time, in front of a lot of customers, to the point of saying that if she didn't sign the pad, she couldn't help her, because the system wouldn't allow her to print a paper receipt to sign. My wife could either sign the pad, pay cash, or get out of the line and try another register, which had the "broken signature pad", which is what my wife did. That required that she wait in another line.

My question to the collective intelligence of Slashdot: Should I drop this one-man revolt, or should I forge ahead, and simply try to coach my wife more about how to educate the cashiering public? She is willing to learn, and bolster her spiel, I just don't know if I should put her through it anymore."

M$ is not directly mentioning Vista demand while they brag about how much money they made last quarter, because sales fell.

[Microsoft] shipped approximately 28 million copies of Vista in the latest quarter ended September, or 9.3 million copies per month. Though the Windows developer pointed to 27 percent growth in business licenses and noted that many home users were buying the more lucrative Vista Home Premium or Ultimate editions, the rate represents a decline from the 10 million per month reported early in summer.

Conversation is here.

Filed under: Wireless

We'll admit it: we've definitely surfed for free while (shamefully) putting down a Big Mac before here in the US, but McDonald's fans across the UK can now look forward to doing the same. Reportedly, the fast-food giant has announced that it would "offer free wireless internet access across its 1,200-strong restaurants in the UK, making it the country's biggest provider of free wireless broadband access." Take that, Starbucks.

[Image courtesy of BBC]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/168294912/

While on stage at a Gartner's ITxpo conference today, Ballmer got an ear-full from the mother of a 13-year-old girl who said after installing Vista on her daughter's computer she decided only two days later to switch back to XP because Vista was so difficult. Ballmer defended Vista saying: "Your daughter saw a lot of value"; to which the mother replied: "She's 13." Ballmer said that Vista is bigger than XP, and "for some people that's an issue, and it's not going to get smaller in any significant way in SP1. But machines are constantly getting bigger, and [it's] probably important to remember that as well." Says the mother: "Good, I'll let you come in and install it for me."
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9041959&intsrc=hm_list

rifter writes "Today US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) led a massive raid over 16 states in order to arrest people who were allegedly engaged in the importation, installation, sale, and distribution of mod chips and swap discs for Sony's Playstation 2, Microsoft's XBOX and XBOX 360, and Nintendo's Wii.

I did not find a link to the CNN story but the talking heads there were claiming that just having or installing a mod chip was a felony punishable by 5 years in jail and a $500,000 fine, presumably due to the claim that these activities violate the DMCA, as stated on ICE's site. The best news of all is that there is more to come. ICE says this is part of an expanding program of IP enforcement. As they say:

"Illicit devices like the ones targeted today are created with one purpose in mind, subverting copyright protections," said Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "These crimes cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars annually and facilitate multiple other layers of criminality, such as smuggling, software piracy and money laundering."

Obviously the many legitimate reasons for using the MOD chips (backups, foreign titles, etc.) are ignored here. So remember, kids, when you mod your Xbox the terrorists win! I guess it's a good thing for the US arm of Hezbollah they focus on fake Viagra and cigarettes. Dealing in modchips might get them caught more often."
http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/newsreleases/articles/070801washington.htm

Petey_Alchemist writes "Silicon Valley gossip rag Valleywag is carrying a story about Second Life being a new spin on the old pyramid scheme.

The article, which consists mostly of selections from the report of financial consultant Randolph Harrison, suggests that not only are most people deceived about the amount of money they can make in Second Life, but also about how easily they can withdraw it.

From the report:

"Like the paid promotion infomercials that run on CNBC, sadly SecondLife is a giant magnet for the desperate, uninformed, easily victimized. Its promises of wealth readily ensnare those who can least afford to lose their money or lives to such scam in exactly the same way that real estate investor seminars convince divorcees with low FICO scores to buy houses sight unseen with no money down.

Even some corporations have dedicated marketing budgets to creating a presence in SecondLife. While few will shed a tear for the frivolousness of these companies' spending, such adds a false legitimacy to SecondLife. Interestingly, no legitimate, real world corporation has earned net profit from SecondLife activities.

That's because there are but a very tiny handful that profit off of the SecondLife economy. A handful of casino owners, large scale virtual land flippers, and brothel owners are responsible for nearly all of the real money extracted from the game. And they continue to attract new recruits to the bottom of the pyramid.""

Benjamin Vander Jagt writes "From the isoHunt.com forum: "Indexing running, stats are updating. Be patient with the few days missing." ... "We accepted about $6700 (NET after Paypal fees) in donations since we went down on Jan. 16. That's over $1300 averaged, with about $2000 for the last day alone. Indeed, people like you is the power of the internet, and for sure we'll need your help more in the future." Success stories like these sure warm the heart, and I'm sure the donors love showing just how caring "pirates" are."

Here's my idea on how, to make the RIAA happy, allow users to copy music/movies, and generally solve a lot of problems that computers pose to the old media distribution routes. The idea is to abandon physical media as the first source of distribution. So, for instance if some big artist is ready to release an album it begins with purchasing that album and the distribution rights to the album. This idea eliminates the need for creating a false scarcity and operates off of the real intrinsic value of an album. Under this theory if Madonna was to release her next album under this model it would look something like this: First Copy: $X (the value of the first copy is determined by the amount of money willing to be paid by individual distributors) Second Copy: $X (the value of this copy is determined by the nature of the market. The assumption here is that no one will purchase the first copy for several millions of dollars and make the second copy available for download on some website for free) This continues on and on. Essentially, the cost of the first copy keeps the value of derivitive copies high and makes it counter productive to redistribute for free at lower levels. At first glance this sounds rather bad for down stream distributors, but there are many ways this can be made profitable. For instance each successive copy of an album could be sold under a new redistribution agreement. Eventually, the copies of the songs will make it to userland and become free. This is where this really becomes viable. For instance users can work on varied level subscriptions wich come with different level distribution rights. So, someone with a $50 subscription could conceivably sell a song or two every now and then to someone with a $10 subscription level. Then there is the bragging rights the $50 subscription holder has over others when they get access to albums several months before others.

Jotii writes "If you stare at the Moon long enough, you start seeing things. "82 things to be exact," says Bill Cooke, leader of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Group. That's how many "transient phenomena" the group has video-taped since they started monitoring the night side of the Moon in Nov. 2005."