The only person not providing proof is you. You have failed to show any evidence of what you say, as others have pointed out. And as for the prize money, not that it matters...

"Rosemary Altea suggested the one million dollar prize fund does not exist, or is in the form of pledges or promissory notes. The JREF stated that the million dollars was in the form of negotiable bonds within a "James Randi Educational Foundation Prize Account" and that validation of the account and the prize amount could be supplied on demand. The money was held in an Evercore Wealth Management account." (Wikipedia -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...)

If you could provide one shred of evidence for your lies, like the like the charlatans that could not pass the test, we might actually believe you.

I knew I would find another comment from you that had gone unanswered, which I guess you were hoping for. So, others have already stated that you are a liar and none of your accusations are true, but in unswerving "lie until they can't tell the lie from the truth" fashion you continue at it, hoping vainly that someone, anyone, will believe your lies.

You are right. My ID is almost 20 years old (and even that is not my original one as I decided I did not want my name as my ID). I was not in my teens even then. And you know what, I check out Slashdot headlines daily and have done so for almost every single day of those 20 years (vacations and such aside, of course). It is part of my daily routine. When I first arrived here the stories were interesting and much more tech/science based, but that was largely because of what the web was back then and the excitement that was being generated by new ideas that appeared almost daily. And tech was changing quickly. Linux was growing and expanding in exciting ways and processors were increasing in speed all the time. You'd read about overclocking (yes, I ran the Abit board with dual, overclocked Celerons after reading about it here), and certainly lots of Linux news. And the discussions were fun and often hilarious. I was so impressed by what some people had to say I started collecting my favorite comments in a document. The "Slashdot effect" was fun.

Were there always trolls? Sure, but even they were different. By the way, one or two obvious trolls who post some crazy, long winded cut and paste comment that used to get cut off when it reached the character limit is one thing, they were easy to ignore. And they were drowned out (or ignored) by the majority. Today's persistent and coordinated attack groups that use sophisticated tactics to spread hatred are a very different matter.

The last 10 years (with roots going back further still) have changed society, and not necessarily for the better. This revival of hatred goes far beyond Slashdot, but that does not mean it is not sad to see it here. And the web has changed by becoming weaponized. I don't know how many paid trolls spend their days here just for the purpose of injecting hatred and division now, but it was not like that 20 years ago. Slashdot is still interesting though not as fun. I still come here every day and, once in a while, comment. I still like to read what people have to say, but I have to admit that the quality of the discussion is not what it was. I see an old timer has mentioned some of the old "topics" of discussion. I loved all the articles posted by the original Slashdot team and the jokes people made about them. I also enjoyed every article written by Jon Katz. Different time.

No, you are wrong. It is not specifically intended to stop a stall. Read up on the issue. It is intended to let all qualified 737 pilots fly the Max WITHOUT EXTRA TRAINING. This plane has different stall characteristics, meaning it does different things when it stalls. Normally, you would train a pilot to notice what it is doing and adjust accordingly. But, that requires training that Boeing told airlines they would not have to do. So, Boeing designed MCAS specifically to make the Max behave like a regular 737 when approaching a stall, ie. kick the nose down. By doing that, the pilot is supposed to be able to see a familiar characteristic and say *ding* *ding* *ding*, my plane is stalling. NO EXTRA TRAINING. MCAS is not a stall prevention system, but a Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System. To learn more, at least read the first three paragraphs of this article:

https://theaircurrent.com/avia...

And all the white nationalists talking about foreigners in this thread is sickening. Sad to see Slashdot being overrun by these maggots.

AC, you have a reading comprehension problem. And you are awfully angry and impulsive for a guy who's got to be in his 50s by now.

Read the post carefully. The original poster was referring to MIL-STD-1553B as being "designed and developed in 1978", which is pretty accurate. But, he NEVER stated when he wrote scripts. You just assumed he wrote them in 1978.

You are setting up an argument that was not made by the original commenter. If you pay attention to the Slashdot debate, the prevailing attitude is that this is wrong no matter where it occurs. Perhaps you could elaborate on why you feel it is *not* wrong when it happens in "corporate america" [sic]. What we are talking about here is H-1B visas and the abuse of the system by business. As you must be well aware, businesses claim that there are not enough qualified Americans to fill all the tech jobs that need to be filled and this means the US needs to bring in more qualified tech workers from abroad. Politicians who get their money from such businesses have elevated the debate to the national level and increased the number of foreign workers allowed in the country, using the same business argument they are being fed by their backers. Schools have been blamed for not teaching enough tech and a wide ranging debate on how to increase the numbers of home grown tech workers has ensued. There are whole segments of the education industry, sometimes funded by governments at all levels, that are promoting tech work as a secure and life-long career path. And all of this is a lie, from beginning to end. There is no shortage of US tech workers. They are everywhere. Instead, the real travesty here is that a visa program promoted and executed for the expressed purpose of filling a shortage is a complete sham! This program needs to be shut down immediately, or at least severely curtailed.

Look, if a business of any kind decides that it will outsource its IT infrastructure and workers to to a foreign country, that is one thing. All the buildings and computers and networking gear and workers would then be located and employed in that foreign country. Not something an American might want, but business may dictate it. But to use a lie to bring in foreign workers onto US soil and fire US workers for the purpose of having a non-citizen workforce that can be rotated/replaced at will and paid less than prevailing wages and benefits? That's a different matter. And this lie is propagated at the highest levels of American government completely unchecked. American citizens need to do something about that. Just use your own head and think about this for a few minutes. How far could such lies go and how much of the American economy and workforce could they affect? THINK!

There is a certain percentage of the American population (sadly, usually white and Republican) that thinks their fellow Americans have it too easy, or that they are too lazy, or some such. These Americans have swallowed the notion that if "you" want to compete, then "you" must work for the same amount an Indian worker would accept, or a Mexican migrant might accept (because these foreigners know they have no rights and can be fired for any reason at any time and thrown out of the country). But Americans don't live in India, or Mexico. Americans have to live and survive in a country with a higher cost of living, not to mention the daily differences in the way life is lived in the US (like requiring a car). These Americans also usually think that they are somehow the exception, that they will succeed through hard work and unpaid overtime. That they deserve to be paid more because they accept no benefit, temporary, contract work. They will soon learn that this is now a dream and that they too will be replaced by younger, more desperate, workers (or foreigners living among them while having few rights).

As much as we don't like outsourcing to other countries, the long term effect of such outsourcing is that the cost of labor in that foreign country rises and there is a more level playing field. This is even happening in China and that country is struggling with the consequences, just like the US. But bringing the foreign labor into the US and displacing American workers is a much more evil way of keeping labor poor. It does not bring the same benefits to the rest of the world, while destroying American labor at all levels. The US, and Europe, enjoyed an incredible rise in living standards starting in the late 19th century and lasting through most of the 20th. Whether you like it, or not, it was primarily due to the rise of the power of labor. Labor forced higher wages, defined work hours, safety standards, benefits and pushed through government regulation and oversight. Huge strides were made in every sector of the economy and life improved tremendously, for everyone. And now we are witnessing a regression, mostly fuelled by hate.

Please show me how this influx of constantly rotating temporary foreign labor and the displacement of American labor is a benefit.

The first time I found Linux (the OS) was when I was trying to figure out what to do with an old Mac I bought from a university for $10 in 1996. It was a Mac Classic, I believe. Found Debian and began looking over the docs and learning about Linux. I gave up on that project, but a couple of years later installed Debian (from floppies, of course) on a P100 laptop, with 24MB of RAM. Played with that until I broke it. Was told about Slashdot in 1999 and became a daily reader from that time. Installed Linux on various machines for playing around until I decided to say goodbye to Windows NT, in 2004, and move over to Linux. I had a PC with a very difficult video card at the time, running a BNC cable to a 21" HP workstation monitor I pulled out of a dumpster when a local shop threw them out. Getting Linux installed (I tried several times) was not easy, but I got Slackware going on it. Ran that for 2 years, until I retired that old Abit board based, 2 Celeron CPU box and went to laptops. Ubuntu 6.06 was new at the time and I put that on. Been running a flavor of Ubuntu ever since. Even my current workstation at work has been running Kubuntu 12.04 since it came out, and Ubuntu 10.04 before that. So I could have contributed to the KDE thread, as well, since I both use it and like it. Home machines mostly run Xubuntu right now.

And when I set up servers, it's Red Hat/CentOS/Oracle/Ubuntu, depending on what I need to do.

"Don't get too comfortable with laws and checks and balances you believe are bullet proof."

Nothing is "bullet proof". It requires constant vigilance, action and, above all, a sense of duty and responsibility. Your example of violence as a subversive force in society is simplistic. You see, there is a vast chasm between what you have described -- an independent criminal, or even a gang of them -- and institutional oppression. There is a reason why western societies have been able to survive individual acts of violence and that reason is a faith in their democratic institutions and laws (and, by extension, in those who enforce the laws). Criminal violence is very different from situations where the authorities are the ones committing the violence and oppression. We can easily shrug aside deranged individual violence and we do our best to prevent/fix criminal violence. But a society cannot survive when the police and other institutions of government, themselves, are the instigators of violence against citizens.

The legal system cannot be destroyed by individual violence because the perpetrators of that violence would be hunted and effectively removed. Judges in free societies do not fear for their lives for the very reason that there is confidence in the enforcers of law and order. The legal system and justice can only be eroded and destroyed from within. Sadly, with Americans ever more eager to embrace "strong man" tactics and an outlook of "might is right", the day these institutions are rendered ineffective may be closer than we would like. The polarization of American society threatens to tear it apart. I understand differences of opinion, but the outright hatred and the spread of it in the echo chambers of the internet, is disturbing. We don't have to think alike, but we should protect each other's rights to think and speak freely (in a manner that is legal and without hate). When we gloat at the violence inflicted on those we don't like, and worse yet, when we promote violence against others, we destroy the very thing that keeps us free. It is not done by some random criminal with a gun, though that is a favourite trope in scaremongering.

To bring this back to Trump, a judicial application of considered checks and balances, supported by the populace, would keep him in check effectively. And there is still no chance in hell he will be accepted and elected even by the majority of the Republican voter base, much less the entire electorate. Once the primaries begin it is my prediction that, unless he finds a source of serious funding, he will be out of the running after the first 5-6 contests. At that point, only a stubborn application of money, or money combined with a renewed bid as an independent candidate, will keep Trump around.

First of all, it will not be Hilary vs Trump. Hilary, yes. Trump? I would be willing to place a friendly wager with you that it will not be Trump. Not by a long shot. Yes, he is getting all the media attention because he's a nutjob and what media outlet doesn't like to cover a story that writes itself? It's easy money.

Second, all of you amaze me in your ignorance of the American political system. The President does have power, but Congress has a lot more. Appropriations, oversight, you name it and Congress has it. Has Congress ceded a lot of its power to the President? In some cases, yes. And it is done cynically, to deflect blame in most cases. However, should Congress choose to exercise its power there is little the President can do on her/his own. That would be even more true if the Supreme Court were to side with Congress. That is the whole damned point of the United States -- an abhorrence of kings. Why some Americans would willingly walk away from that is incomprehensible to me.

It is called FREESCO and I ran it, too. On an old 486 that kept on chugging away.

That's just contradiction!

So, a couple of things. And, you should really learn this in life.

An expert in a field is not necessarily the best practitioner in the field. Not only that, but the best practitioners may not be the least interested in, nor capable of, teaching. Teaching is different from doing. Sure, in a perfect world you would have, say, the best brain surgeon also be the best teacher. In the real world, the best brain surgeon may be motivated by the money he makes and the chicks he gets to impress with his status and he may not give two s***s about you and your desire to learn. He is driven to be the best because of what that gets him, not for the love of spreading the knowledge around. This is true for a whole lot of things.

Sally Weiner Grotta's skill is in writing a coherent book and teaching an interesting and informative class. She is an expert because she knows her stuff, even if she produces relatively pedestrian work with that knowledge. It could be that her website is also used as an educational tool and the examples are there for students, as much as random visitors. What her students should, and will, do is use the fundamentals she teaches and extend them in their creative work. Maybe they will use different color gels on their flashes for special effects; maybe they will mix constant lights with strobes to make a statement; maybe they will paint scenes with light. If every teacher knew everything and could *do* everything, why would we need students? What new work could there possibly be? Grotta is a product of her generation and her interests. She can teach you all sorts of things about photography even if she has no interest in using those skills in her work, and it is then up to you to do what you can with that knowledge.

I was most impressed with Grotta's architecture, flower and some landscape work. She has an eye for lines and patterns. She is also capable of beautiful portraits, though I found that part of the site less impressive, as a whole. Remember the most important thing about photography -- it is *art*. As such, there are bound to be more people who dislike any one artist's work than are impressed by it. That is the nature of art. I am glad you did not like her work, but that does not mean someone else feels the same way. Go find work that you do like -- but the fundamentals of making that art are the same ones that she would teach in her class.

Finally, let me just say that I agree with you on one point -- this was one terrible interview (on the part of the interviewer).

Oh man. A different time and a different place from that in which I discovered Slashdot.

I was actually taking an MCSE course, in 1999, with some modifications to it to expose the students to Novell Netware 4, Lotus Notes 4, and Unix (FreeBSD is what we used). In the end, though, it was about getting the MCSE. Our instructor for the Unix portion mentioned this website one day and I immediately checked it out. And I've been reading it daily since. And my browsers have been set to point to Slashdot as their home page since that time, as well. Although I had already heard of Linux by then and even looked into installing Debian on an old Mac I bought for $10, it was after I began reading Slashdot that I became really interested in the OS.

So many stories, so many events and interesting diversions... And so many more to come!

Thank you for creating the site and guiding it along all these years. It will be strange not to see your name attached to the posts.

Good luck to you in all your future adventures.

PS: I should have created an account right then, dammit!

The obvious answer here is that you have not given it enough thought. You have not actively participated in discussions with real people who hold different views and been open to listening to those views. Here is one simple word that answers a lot of what you claim you don't understand: POWER.

Here is a simple way of describing it that involves a huge amount of nuance and complexity behind the scenes -- those who have it want to keep it; those who don't have it, want it. Now, think about what it takes to get that power and how many palms you have to grease along the way. You will be owned by those interests in the future -- how will you pay them back?

Blaming the media is a stupid, currently favored bogeyman approach to keeping one's eyes closed. If you don't trust an "independent" (yes, there are lots of issues with that word) third party, then who are you supposed to trust? Give me another entity that can delve into every facet of government, business and personal life and disseminate knowledge to the entire population? Many countries have carved out specific protections for the media to be able to do this and have given the media unprecedented access just so a semblance of "truth" (ouch, another problematic word) can get out.

Why do you suppose religion exists? Why would people willingly submit themselves to the authority of a small, privileged group (or individual) and then take the word of this group, or person, as (pun intended) gospel? Why don't they ask questions? Why don't they confront their leaders?

One key thing to remember is that the majority of the World's population is too busy trying to survive to be worried about politics, or why wars are started. They are manipulated by the information brokers into believing the cause is just and they don't have time to adjust their lives to accommodate fact-checking the allegations. Those who do have the time are wealthy (relatively speaking) and they aspire to be power/information brokers themselves, even if only in small ways.

At a basic level, we are all the same. We identify with our peers and our community. Our "truth" is built around the place we were born and where we grew up -- even today. It is easy to manipulate us because we are human, not fact-checking, emotionless computers. Wars start because, just like on the playground, you hurt (kill) my friends and I am now going to hurt (kill) you back. That's what the power and information brokers have been pushing to the people for as long as human societies have existed. We just have really, really, sophisticated ways of doing this now.

It isn't a bad guy vs good guy thing, it's a belief/faith thing. You have a faith that you may not even understand in your own society (Western). It is easy for you to believe what you are told by *your* leaders. Now, for a moment, why don't you try to believe everything said by some other authority -- say, the Chinese. Let's see how far you get. But, if *you* were Chinese, you would have an amazing faith in those leaders -- even if you did not like the Chinese form of government. Making Americans look evil is easy, if you are not American.

Keep thinking about it. Maybe you'll get there one day.