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Slashback: Riftiness, Ixianism, Eclipse 231

Posted by timothy from the hello-from-lima-ohio dept.
Slashback (below) brings you tonight more on the fate of Mobilix, "borrowing" from the Onion, keeping track of campus, the recent (partial) eclipse, and animated television. Enjoy!

I want you to hear my side of the story. R. Benjamin Shapiro writes "Hi There, After reading the reactionary (and slanted) Salon story (of which I am a subscriber) and the responses to it, I thought I'd point the /. community to a paper describing what we are actually doing. Many of the suggestions posted on /. are things we have been doing for some time now. Thanks very much for your feedback!"

A minor but nice victory. Werner Heuser writes "In the hearing from June 12th the court has rejected the arguments of 'Lés Editions Albert René.' The court says the words 'MobiliX' and 'Obelix' can hardly be mixed up with each other. Also the work of MobiliX is dedicated to another audience. This is a great success for the Free Software Community.

MobiliX is a very well-known site dedicated to Linux and BSD on mobile devices (like laptops, PDAs, cell phones and more). In November 2001 Werner Heuser, owner of the Open Source project MobiliX - UniX on Mobile Computers was charged by 'Lés Editions Albert René,' which is owner of the trademark 'Obelix.' In their opinion the names Obelix and MobiliX are very similar. The charge aimed for a deletion of the trademark 'MobiliX' and a compensation fee. The charge has been discussed in many newsgroups and mailing lists. It seems to be a very important case for the Free Software Community, because there are many projects, which names are also ending on 'iX.' Some other projects have even silently withdrawn their names, because the financial risk of losing a trademark case is high. The documentation of the case is available online. It includes the letters from MobiliX lawyers Jaschinski Biere Brexl - JBB."

In 10,000 years, these plates will be mandatory. An Anonymous Coward writes "The director of the Nevada DMV has denied the application for a custom plate depicting a mushroom-shaped cloud. The plates where apparently 'insensitive' and otherwise politically incorrect. .. "

Truer than you know. Zeekamotay writes "Referring to this previously reported story, The Beijing Evening News has now apologized to its readers for printing a story that originated from The Onion. They don't quite seem to grasp the concept of satire though: 'Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money,' the paper said. 'This is what the Onion does.'"

One more item for your bazillion-hour PVR. Stalke writes "This is a little old, but Tripping the Rift, first mentioned in a previous slashdot article, has been picked up by the SCI FI channel as their first ever animated series. For those of you that don't know, this is a parody of Starwars and Star Trek that takes place on the "Free Enterprise" and includes Chode, a purple alien, Six, a half-naked android, and a dark clown named Bobo. A higher res version of the original movie linked by the previous article is also available on their website."

Some of the "Sun" projectors were just down for scheduled maintenance. leananglemorgan writes "Just in case anyone missed the ol' Solar Eclipse on the 10th, here is a link to quick snaps I took ... Not the greatest, but reasonable enough to get some 'Hey that's cool!' remarks. Enjoy! I thought a couple came out good enough to share!" Another reader submits: "Thought everyone would enjoy this eclipse video I found."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Slashback: Riftiness, Ixianism, Eclipse More

Slashback: Riftiness, Ixianism, Eclipse

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  • Frequently? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Thursday June 13, 2002 @07:07PM (#3698092) Homepage Journal
    Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money,' the paper said. 'This is what the Onion does.

    At one issue a week, I sometimes wish it were more frequent!

    And I could do without all the shitting jokes.
    • Yeah, no kidding. The Onion crew takes like a week off, for every holliday. You can forget about Christmas and New years, I think they took a whole month off for that. Plus, this includes the hollidays where everyone else has to work. Those satire slaking suckas!

    • I have been reading The Onion for about five years. It was funny at first, but then they started repeating stories!
      • You know, all it would take for you to sound like a troll or one of those people who like to whine at one of this site's occasional lapses would be a simple s/// command or two:

        "I have been reading Slashdot for about five years. It was interesting at first, but then they started repeating stories!"
      • Yep, I've been reading the Onion for over 10 years, and they do repeat themselves sometimes. Its hard to blame them though, just like its hard to blame Letterman for doing the same gags over. It ain't easy having to be funny.
    • Some friends and I are trying to get something akin to The Onion started up, but unlike them we'll take submissions from readers. Granted, we're not quite up to par with The Onion yet, but we don't have a great photo-doctoring budget or many writers yet. We try and put up at least one brief article every day or two, and have only been at it for around a week.

      I'm hoping people might be interested enough to check it out and possibly contribute. :)

      Domination News Network [bowdownbefore.us] News for The Next Ruling Class(tm)

    • Re:Frequently? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Whereas large American newspapers / TV stations and other media frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into believing -

      a) They have a democracy vs a plutocrary

      b) That JFK was really killed by a lone gunman

      c) The Microsoft settlement is for the best

      d) That America is not the worlds biggest financier of terrorism

      c) That the government doesnt just arrest people to get good PR

      d) DMCA / USAPATRIOT etc arent just to shore up the status quo

      I think you can guess most of the rest...

  • We'll try back in a few generations... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by smittyoneeach ( 243267 ) on Thursday June 13, 2002 @07:09PM (#3698105) Homepage Journal

    "According to congressional workers, the Onion is a publication that never ceases making up false reports," the Evening News said.

    Dear China,
    Learning how to mock your government is an essential step towards democracy. Sorry you miss the point. Odds are, you'll 'get' democracy around the time the former Soviet Onion does...
    R,
    C
    • Which will probably be several millenia before America "gets" democracy.
      • Yeah, your right. The Americans are a lot less democratic than the Chinese. If it wasn't for the efforts of the US government to forceably keep people from leaving by holding the remaining family hostage 90% of Americans would probably have emigrated to China by now.
        • I'm not saying China is more democratic than America, at the moment they probably arn't.

          But America's inistance that they are "purely democratic" when they obviously arn't leaves little room for improvement. Whereas China has conceded they arn't democratic - this gives them alot of room to change.
          • When has the US insisted that it was purely democratic? It has always been viewed as a republic. Hence the electoral college. ::ducks as flame war begins over the last election::
          • So you're saying it's better to have a crappy system with lots of room for improvement than a generally good system with little room for improvement? Doesn't sound like a good way to evaluate things to me.
            • I'll byte..

              Not necessarily in the short term.. But in the longer term America's arrogant position will drag it down to anything-but a democratic system... (can anyone say 'previous election' or 'corporate sponsurship of politicians'?) - Though the way I see china is ultimatly having a better system since they'll probably try to combine comunism (the 'citizens input' aspect of it) with democracy and end up with something good.

              Remember kids, comunism isn't bad - they just taught you that because 'russia was bad' and 'china is bad': Neither of which are proper communist states.
              • Yeah,

                It's just a *coincidence* that every communist country ever instituted has been an oppressive, murderous, soul crushing disaster. Next time for sure.

                "Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy at least they are different lies."

                -- Unknown
    • hmm, sounds like your an american. Has your cuntry set a date yet ?
    • From what I've heard, make a joke like that about the government in China and they shoot you and bill your family for the bullet. Bureaucrats and fanatics have no sense of humor...

      OTOH, in Russia (even under the Soviets) nearly everyone makes jokes about the government. Unfortunately, they more they joke about it, the less they do to fix it.

      That's getting to be a problem here, too. 8-(
      • In the U.S., I am free to mock the government without being shot.


        In China, people are also free to mock the U.S. government without being shot . . .


        :)


        hawk

  • Eclipse pictures (Score:5, Funny)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Thursday June 13, 2002 @07:09PM (#3698110) Homepage Journal
    Great now I have a glowing dot in my field of vision.

    Warning: Don't look directly at the pictures. Use a pinhole camera. Once you burn out those rods and cones, they are gone forever. Be careful, please. It's too late for me, but maybe this warning can prevent someone else succumbing to the same fate.
  • This was the first solar eclipse in way too long, and not to mention, the first time nobody thought I was strange for staring directly at the sun for hours straight in a long, long time.

  • My All-time favorite Onion headline (Score:3, Funny)

    by carambola5 ( 456983 ) on Thursday June 13, 2002 @07:13PM (#3698132) Homepage
    "Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes"
    • My favorite conversation heard over cubicle walls:

      JB: Holy shit! I can't believe it, Microsoft patented zeros and ones!

      TS: Uhm, what?

      JB: Yeah, it's right here, check it out...

      TS: Joe, you're reading The Onion again.

      JB: Oh, yeah. I forgot.

      ... and sad to say, Joe was just hired to do network administration...

    • "Man ends business call with 'I Love You'".

      Now, this is funny for me because yesterday I sent my girlfriend an email, and then sent one to some colleagues. Unfortunately I signed the business one like I sign the ones to my girlfriend.

      I've made a whole load of new friends at work...damn....
  • The director of the Nevada DMV has denied the application for a custom plate depicting a mushroom-shaped cloud. The plates where apparently 'insensitive' and otherwise politically incorrect. ..

    If I recall correctly, weren't these standard issue liscense plates a while back? They may have been a bit more expensive, but it seemed like every other Nevada plate had them. It's a big part of NV's history.
    • If I recall correctly, weren't these standard issue liscense plates a while back?

      Nope they never were. Up until 1982 we had the colbalt blue plates, from 1982 until this year, we had the silver "Bighorn Sheep" plates, and now we have a color ripoff of the Colorado plates.

    • Re:Mushrooms (Score:3, Funny)

      by JesseL ( 107722 )

      Heh, it seems Nevada officials would like to leave the bad 'ol days of nuclear testing behind them and focus instead on their illustrious(sp?) history of gambling, prostitution, and racketeering ;-)

      • Ah, that reminds me of a story I remember seeing in a small, weekly newspaper published in my previous hometown, Madison. According to this front page story (which I couldn't find archived online at the paper's site, http://www.theonion.com), Nevada recently repealed all laws making everything legal.
      • I was actually looking and hoping for something about Dune as well.
  • It seems like they are right on target for understanding what The Onion does: Fabricate offbeat news to make money. I'm glad they have reached the wisdom and recognition levels my 7-year-old niece possesses.

    We'll know if they've really figured out that The Onion is NOT a news source if they stop accusing Bill Gates of poisoning the water supply [theonion.com], although they might get the same impression from certain other web sites. Oh dear, I can see it now: Yu Bin not only quoting Joe Klein from The Onion, but getting his substantiation from /.!

  • Is the Onion going to sue? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cognitive Dissident ( 206740 ) on Thursday June 13, 2002 @07:16PM (#3698149)
    Next the Onion should run a story about planning to file suit against the Beijing Evening News for stealing their story.

    Oh, but they don't know what copyright means, either... so they won't get the joke.
    • "Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money," the paper said. "This is what the Onion does."

      It cited a recent Onion article about the U.S. government issuing life jackets to all Americans for some unexplained reason. "According to congressional workers, the Onion is a publication that never ceases making up false reports," the Evening News said.


      And once more... for discrediting/slandering them in a national publication. ;)

      ---
  • 'Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money,' the paper said. 'This is what the Onion does.'"

    Well, as nice as it is to see the paper retract their statments, does the Onion really make that much money? I mean, aside from the ads and paper subscriptions they really don't have a source of capital (Like the classified sections of your other papers)
    • You know what, I never realized the Onion did paper subscription. WHOHO! I'm ordering me one now! (you should contact them for your commision check now. HAHA)
      • Why not? I'll knock them up for money, even if it's 45 cents it'll be nice.
      • Where I live (Denver) the hardcopy Onion is distributed for free at finer stores statewide.

        I can see it now... it's almost an Onion story: "Man Buys Otherwise Free Content".

        Seriously, all the good stuff is on their web site. The hardcopy has some ads you don't get on the site, but I'd not pay for that as long as you can type onion.com
    • Have you ever read one of the paper editions? A friend brought a paper issue back for us. The ads in the back probably paying the bills nicely.

      --RJ
    • Actually, they do. While interviewing there, that was one of the questions I asked. Turns out the ads and subscriptions more than pay for everything, even with being able to pick up free copies wherever it is in paper form. I suppose if I ever moved away from the Onion's home, I'd order them. $40/year within the U.S. and $200/year for anywhere else.

  • Gilligan's Island.. those poor people (Score:4, Funny)

    by tapin ( 157076 ) on Thursday June 13, 2002 @07:23PM (#3698178)
    Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money.

    But surely they've had a chance to examine our historical documents?

    </SpaceQuest>

  • Big Surprise (Score:5, Funny)

    by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Thursday June 13, 2002 @07:25PM (#3698187)
    Sure the Beijing newspaper has a bit of a slant explaining the source of the story but honestly what did you expect them to write.

    "The story we published was copied word for word from an American on-line newspaper that is notorious for making up blatantly obviously fake stories for the purpose of humor."

    • Re:Big Surprise (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nobodyman ( 90587 ) on Thursday June 13, 2002 @10:55PM (#3698987) Homepage
      Of course, then you would have to further explain the notion of parody, and then further explain that it is a device often used in the criticism of an idea or concept, and further explain that such criticism of government is in fact legal in the United States. As opposed to China, where criticism of government is often followed by a tank smooshing you.

      You think that the editor for the Beijing Evening News has the guts to sign off on that story?
  • Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money,' the paper said. 'This is what the Onion does.

    Oh yeah I am sure they make lots of money. I am sure people ripping of their stories without payment much less credit helps a ton. Piracy capital of the world - what a surprise. :P

  • Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money,' the paper said. 'This is what the Onion does.

    ...In case there where a few people left in China who thought Americans might not all be scumbags.

    Now they're using our own COMEDY against us. Some governments just HAVE to cause drama and conflict (ours included)... sick sick F**KING SICK.

  • Nevada Nuke License Plates (Score:3, Insightful)

    by unicron ( 20286 ) <unicron@NOSpAm.thcnet.net> on Thursday June 13, 2002 @07:40PM (#3698261) Homepage
    I live in Nevada, and we're pretty pissed we didn't get the plates. That's our history, it's who we are, and for someone to say it won't happen because it's offensive is like taking every test site worker that has ever put in an honest days work and pimp-slapping him.

    We put in 50 years+ with that site in our back yard. The U.S. winning WW2 started in Nevada at the test site. Hundreds of older workers now have cancer, others never made it this far.

    And for all the heart ache they tell us they're ashamed of what those workers accomplished. It's bullshit. For a massive final insult, they decide to store high level nuclear waste in our backyard. Their isn't a nuclear power plant in the entire state, yet we get to store it. None of our tests, mind you, have produced waste in more than 10 years, they're all subcritical(they stop just before achieving fusion).

    I don't work at the test site, either, but I do work in Las Vegas at a support site in the IT department.

    • Re:Nevada Nuke License Plates (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Martin Blank ( 154261 ) on Thursday June 13, 2002 @07:57PM (#3698320) Homepage Journal
      The U.S. winning WW2 started in Nevada at the test site.

      Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding your reference, but wasn't most of the research done at Los Alamos, NM, the University of Chicago, and Oak Ridge, TN, with the first detonation at Trinity Site in New Mexico? I know a lot of later work was done in Nevada, and the primary underground test ranges were there, but I believe that was all post-WW2.
    • You're pissed because a project which gave cancer to many workers (and unsuspecting civilians who were too close to test sites and unwarned), killed hundreds of thousands of people (some of whose decendants might actually be living in Nevada), and a technology whose refuse is now being dumped in your state, is not being commemorated by a license plate? If anything, I'd want the plates to be a mushroom with a big circle and cross over it.

    • The U.S. winning WW2 started in Nevada at the test site.

      Ah, you're changing the name of your state to New^Hvada?

    • Re:Nevada Nuke License Plates (Score:5, Informative)

      by alexjohns ( 53323 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .cirumla.> on Friday June 14, 2002 @07:48AM (#3700294) Journal
      The U.S. winning WW2 started in Nevada at the test site.

      Wow! Nice revisionist history. Maybe that's what they're teaching in school these days. Let's be clear: We didn't win World War II because of the atomic bomb. The Japanese were already negotiating their surrender before anyone outside Los Alamos knew about the bomb. Truman's whole cabinet was willing to accept their surrender except for his Secretary of State (can't remember his name - but it should live in infamy.)

      The Japanese's one condition was that they get to keep their monarchy intact. The SoS didn't want that, so we kept bombing the crap out of them and then popped a couple of atomic bombs. They surrendered unconditionally after that. Yeah, us winning WWII was really dependent on those two nukes. The firestorm that raged through Tokyo (which really got the Japanese to have second thoughts about this whole 'conquering the world' thing) was started by which one of the nukes? Oh yeah, that's right, conventional bombing did that. Tell me, I forget in my dotage, which cities in Germany did we nuke to win the war there?

      So, to sum up, Unicron doesn't have a pretty new license plate and the citizens of Washington, DC have no representatives in this country's legislature.

      • As the documents show at http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/war.term/093_03.html, the Japanese were NOT willing to surrender prior to the atomic explosions. While they were half-heartedly persuing peace through Soviet negotiations, it was known that Americans were accepting surrenders through the Swiss, as is customary is wars of such scale. The Japanese correspondance with the Soviets was for a seperate peace, thereby ensuring that they would only face a war from the Pacific side of their country. Remember, the Soviets only declared war on the Japanese on August 7th, 1945 -- ONE day before the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and days AFTER the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Prior to that date, Americans had been unable to use Soviet territory for aerial bombing of Japan, and instead used carriers and captured islands as their primary Japanese staging areas.

        The Japanese never surrendered unconditionally. They were <i>still</i> allowed to keep their Emperor as a figurehead leader, much like the British Constitutional Monarchy, <i>as a condition of their final surrender</i>!. Prior to August 6th, the Japanese had said they would never surrender; a long and drawn-out invasion of the Japanese mainland was called for, probably resulting in heavy casulties on both sides. As it was, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the prime navy/army (forget which is which) bases left in Japan that had not been firebombed out of existance. Thus, they were valid military targets. Less lives were lost in both the atomic explosions then in the firebombing of Tokyo.

        So, yes, victory in Japan was dependant upon those two nukes, or perhaps an invasion of Japanese territory. Did you know there were still Japanese who had not surrendered in the Philipeans until sometime after 1960? A Japanese officer had continued raids on Americans in the Philipeans until sometime during the Kennedy administration. Once the Japanese start a war, they try <b>very</b> hard to finish it in their favor.

        • Hear Hear, this is more real history than the post this guy was responding to.

          May I add that nobody wanted to use a nuke, least of all Truman, but allied analysts recognized that there was no way the war was going to end for good without displacement of the Emperor, that before the atom bomb strikes the Japanese were adamant about not displacing the Emperor they revered as a god in any way, and even if a halt to hostilities was mediated they'd strike back again soon to recover lands & honor. In the classic 1970's miniseries "The World At War" Japanese ex-military leaders from the time explain in exact terms that they and the Emperor's government were trying to get a pause in the fighting from Russia and/or the US in order to regroup & counterattack. It was only after the Hiroshima hit that the Emperor met with his subordinates and started to talk about stepping down from supreme leadership. The historical record shows that it WAS the bomb that ended that war right then & there.

          We had to alter the regime in Japan to insure a lasting peace with the country. Leaving the Emperor with power would have been too dangerous and could have resulted in a pacific war redux. It was war dammit, a dirty business and a far cry from what we're calling "war" today. I'm a pretty liberal guy, but pretending we commited some damned atrocity by dropping that bomb is an insult to the multitudes of men killed by the Japanese in that war. You think dropping the bomb was beyond the pale? Try beheading men en-masse who fucking surrendered to you because your culture tells you men who surrender don't deserve their lives. Try working men to death. Try torture for kicks. Try dragging out every single battle needlessly by fighting to the last fucking man even when you know you're beat. All these things the Japanese did, and each one is as horrendous as dropping those bombs.

          BTW, there's no better source of WWII history on film than the miniseries The World at War [amazon.com]. 24 hour-long episodes that kick anything on the History Channel's ass.

        • First, the comment I was replying to said that we won WWII because of the bomb. Germany surrendered in May, we didn't drop the bomb until August. So for all of June and July, we were concentrating on beating the crap out of the Japanese. We'd been bombing them continously since November 1944. If there was no Atomic Bomb, we were still beating them so badly that by the end of 1945 we would have run out of targets to bomb. We would have been relegated to bombing individual homes if they hadn't surrendered.

          On July 27th, 1945, with the Potsdam Proclamation, we told the Japanese to surrender unconditionally. The Japanese considered their emperor a god. There were high level talks between Truman's cabinet and the Japanese cabinet about the surrender. J. F. Byrnes (looked it up this time), Truman's Secretary of State insisted that we not accept Japan's surrender with the condition that they keep their emperor.

          On the 6th of August, we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. On the 9th, Russia invaded Manchuria at the same time we dropped the bomb on Nagasaki. Up until this point, Russia and Japan had been neutral and Japan had been trying to negotiate a conditional surrender through the Russians.

          For the next 4 days, the Japanese Cabinet debated whether to surrender. It required a unanimous vote to do so and the 'hawks' weren't having any of it. On the 14th, Emperor Hirohito himself told the cabinet to accept the surrender. This was after he'd learned, through diplomatic channels, that 'unconditional surrender' didn't mean the same thing to us as it did to the Japanese. The Japanese were afraid it meant that we might execute the emperor or put him on trial for war crimes. We told them it actually meant we didn't care if they kept the emperor, as long as there was a democratically elected government. The cabinet voted to surrender then and the head of the War Department committed hara-kiri the day after.

          The fact is that the Japanese did accept our terms for surrender and that it was 'unconditional', but there was an understanding that it didn't mean they had to get rid of the emperor. We can debate endlessly about what would have happened if we hadn't used nukes or if we'd dropped the 'unconditional surrender' or even if Russia had decided to switch sides or if we'd allowed Patton to roll the tanks and take on Russia like he wanted to.

          Getting back to the original point, we didn't win WWII because of the atomic bomb. It helped decide when exactly the end was going to be, but without the backroom - 'yeah, we said unconditional, but we don't really care' - the Japanese would have fought on for quite some time. And I know we're looking back on it with 20/20 hindsight, but a diplomatic ending to the war could have been achieved much earlier, except for the fact that everyone was looking for a military solution. And there was the revenge factor for Pearl Harbor.

          There's our history lesson for the day. Your inane comment about a few Japanese idiots in the Philippines has no bearing. I grew up in Georgia and to this day there's numbnuts down there who have rebel flags and vow 'the South's going to rise again.' The fact that some people are unable to accept defeat and move on with their lives says nothing about the Japanese (or American) people as a whole.

          • >And I know we're looking back on it with 20/20
            >hindsight, but a diplomatic ending to the
            > war could have been achieved much earlier,


            uhh, yeah. In fact, that was an option on December 8, 1941--and the one that the Japanese were *planning on* when they attacked . . . the attack was an attempt to keep us out of the war, not to get us in it . . .


            hawk

    • Look on the plus side - if you DID get those nuke plates, I can guarantee you wouldn't have them for long before some activist pulled them off your car, or some kid stole it to put on his wall.
    • Why don't you get a license plate with some other graphic, and then put a sticker of a mushroom cloud over it?
  • In 10,000 years, these plates will be mandatory
    Sadly if Yucca Mountain goes through and then fails sometime down the road, these plates might actually have some meaning besides all the nuclear testing that went on in the desert of Nevada. But then again the chance of something bad happening to Yucca Mountain are small. Right? I mean thats what the government has told me.

  • From the UCSD article... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jasno ( 124830 ) on Thursday June 13, 2002 @07:47PM (#3698287) Journal

    let you see through the crowds and undistinguished buildings to reveal nearby friends, potential colleagues, departments, labs, and interesting events. By making the clutter transparent and highlighting otherwise invisible things, the confusing bustle of the campus becomes more sensible and within reach.

    Wow, so instead of conversing with all those icky people(clutter) who aren't like me, I can ignore them and be instantly in touch with a community of like-minded(close minded?) people just like me.

    So, like the internet, this is a new way for subcultures to reinforce their ties to each other and keep people apart.

    • There's a 'promiscuous mode' you can enable that lets you disclose online status or online status and location to everyone rather than just your buddies. Then you become part of that clutter that can be interacted with. ;)

      It's the best way I could think of to implement such a system to allow for meeting strangers as well as meeting those in your subcommunity while still giving users full and total control over what information they want to publish about themselves and to who. Promiscuous mode is pretty popular. There's also a location-based 'graffiti' system (It's a _lot_ nicer now than in the screenshots in the paper) that anyone can post to and everyone can see which might introduce you to some different people to say the least. ;)

      If you've got some better ideas on how to do this, I'd like to hear them.

  • The Chinese Knows What Satire Is, Believe Me (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Wingie ( 554272 ) <wlmuiNO@SPAMamherst.edu> on Thursday June 13, 2002 @07:48PM (#3698295) Homepage
    I should point out that, even thought most people would've already guessed/knew, Chinese media, even if privately owned etc., are under strict government regulation and what not. It's not like the editors of the newspaper or readers in China don't know that making fun of the government is a democratic step and that satire is fun, but it's that if they say so in a national newspaper heads will start rolling, literally, even if in the end that single sentence doesn't get publiched.

  • Les Éditions Albert René (Score:4, Funny)

    by boa13 ( 548222 ) on Thursday June 13, 2002 @08:07PM (#3698342) Homepage Journal
    That's the correct way to write it in French, even though I've noticed a tendancy in American products to put more accents on French words than there are in reality. Ah those Americans, always overdoing things. ;)

  • Slackware Eclipse (Score:2, Interesting)

    by boa13 ( 548222 )
    Since we're all sharing eclipse photos, here's mine [boa13.free.fr].

    The photo was taken using my great Canon PowerShot A40. The bluish shadow is due to a reflection inside the Slackware CD I was using as a filter. :)
    • I was just reading about eclipses and the myths and misconceptions about staring at the sun. A CD is NOT a good filter, in fact it will probably cause more harm than good, since it blocks visible light, which allows your pupils to open. Then your eyes are fully exposed to the UV and other wavelength light.

  • Solar Eclipse and the X-Files (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kidlinux ( 2550 ) <duke.spacebox@net> on Thursday June 13, 2002 @08:12PM (#3698361) Homepage
    Is it just me, or does this picture [oneorzero.com] look very similar to one of the opening shots from the X-Files, where what seems to be a spirit or alien form with arms outstretched depicts the "X".
    The same could be said for this picture [oneorzero.com] but the lines are too narrow.
  • Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money,' the paper said. 'This is what the Onion does. The Lima News or The Daily Standard ??? (anyone from that area of Ohio will know what i'm talking about)
  • I saw the original short on Sci-Fi's Exposure series. Of the various shorts featured in that episode, Tripping the Rift was easily the most puerile, insulting, and just plain stupid segment. It was a lot like the kinds of coarse, inept parody stories my friends and I would devise as 12-year-old geeks back in junior high, only much worse. It's pathetic and sad that this, of all things, would get picked up for a series when there are surely many far more deserving shows.
    • Well what do you expect? There are tons of high-quality SciFi anime already made and relatively cheap, yet all they've picked up are a handful of movies. I mean if SF doesn't show Serial Experiments Lain, who will?
  • Some of the math and physics teachers at my school got together and took some pictures [wwc.edu] through telescopes with real solar filters of the eclipse. They are pretty good, you can see sunspots and stuff.
  • 'Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money,' the paper said. 'This is what the Onion does.'"
    "As opposed to how some small Chinese newspapers frequently print patently false stories without investigating them in order to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making political propaganda. This is what the Beijing Evening news does."

    Okay, so maybe 1 million in circulation is not a 'small newspaper.' Then again, china has how many people in it?

    And we *should* cut these people some slack. After all, they live in a country where supporters of a religion can be executed, and where criminals serve as involuntary organ donors.
  • is it just me or were any other of you expecting to see something about Dune?

  • They don't quite seem to grasp the concept of satire though.

    On Fox News they said the exact same sentence

    Can't remember if more of what they said is the same though. I need a PVR so I can go back and sheck these things.
  • I saw the word "Ixianism" in the title and immediately thought of Frank Herbert's Dune series. But, alas, no mention in the article of such wonders as no-ships, remote controlled Laza tigers, shigawire, lasguns, and the Royal Cart of the God Emperor. No melange, no Tlielaxu axlotl tanks, no Honored Matres, no sandtrout, no semuta music, no Bene Gesserit witches. How disappointing...

  • Translation of beijing evening new article (Score:3, Informative)

    by gargle ( 97883 ) on Friday June 14, 2002 @06:04AM (#3699985) Homepage
    Following on my translation of the original beijing evening news article [slashdot.org], I now translate the apology:

    On June 3rd, we reported that members of the US Congress were pressing for construction of a brand-new Capitol, complete with a retractable dome and luxury boxes, in order to stay competitive.

    Our reporter in Washington checked out the story, he discovered that some of its contents were identical to the Onion's joke article.

    Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money. This is what the Onion does. According to congressional workers, the Onion is a publication that never ceases making up false reports.

    This is a practice that we, fortunately, do not suffer from China. In China, newspapers are not allowed to make up all sorts of wild stories about our dear leaders. We were therefore caught off guard.

    We are open to our readers' criticism, and we apologize.

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