Good and bad...

I keep seeing stories on slashdot about foreign countries either moving away from MS towards open-source, or being coerced/bribed by MS to stay in their camp. So, what do you think stories like this mean for the U.S. economy?

On the one hand, it's great for Brazil, and the the Brazilian IT market. In general, it takes more highly trained (and more expensive) IT workers to manage a Linux infrastructure. However, that's money they could be sending into the U.S. in terms of software licenses, which would then trickle down to the rest of us.

Don't get me wrong...I love Linux, and I use it for many home-grown applications. However, in this time of economic uncertainty, I'd rather see money flowing into the U.S., even if it winds up with MS.

---------

Okay, it's a mediocre troll, but it still works. First, look sympathetic, then take the "U.S." before everybody stance, and the "it's okay if MS makes money" blasphemy, and watch the flames roll in. I got it up to +5 Insightful at one point, and then the cocksmoking teabaggers hit with the "Overrated" mods.

"Overrated." WTF does that mean? It means that some asshats didn't like what I had to say, but weren't sure if I was trolling or not, so they use the 'Overrated" mod because those don't get meta-moderated. What a bunch of pussies. WAHH!!! I don't wanna get an Unfair meta-mod!!! WAHHH!!

Cocksmokers.

I find this to be an interesting turn of events. At my university, they have site licenses for all of Microsoft's software, so you can get Windows XP for precisely $0 dollars. Now, my classmates will have the opportunity to purchase RedHat or SuSE for a mere $25!

Oh, what a world, when Windows is cheaper for students than Linux.
---

Okay, so with that bit of tripe, I figure I'm probably 10 or 15 points past Excellent. Let the karma burn begin!!!

Well it certainly seems that some users of certain pieces of software or hardware would benefit from reading the manual before they buy blah blah blah

Or rather, they should read the fucking faq, and essentially a cut and paste from the apple FAQ about iPods got me a +5, and combined with my other drivel, I now have excellent karma after a whopping DAY or posting. +1 bonus? Glorious! Time to crank out another, say four +5s, and then let the burning begin!!!

Don't get me wrong. As an avid collector of maps of all shapes and sizes including those related to the internet that blah blah blah blah blah

Okay, should be past the opening part of the journal that shows on the main page by now. Anyway, another easy plus-motherfucking-five for me! Here I just followed the link on the main page, and then scrolled down to find the author's links, and then just posted them all, and threw in map quest and map blast, which map the real world, not the internet, just to be an ass. Anyway, mods gave me more karma. I'm well into "good" now, but I want to max it out before I start burning through it. Eh, I'll probably just get mod-bombed to hell, but anyway...

Oh yes, of course Mandrake is just wonderful. Why, I've been using it every since version .9375 because of all the useful features and the stability and the free poon!

Or maybe instead I installed it once, thought it sucked, and went back to red hat. But these chumps don't know that I simply made a cut and paste of this fanboy's post. Hell, I got a +5 for it, and he only got a +4!!! Ha!!!

Come on karma, come on...it's going to be fun maxing it out to 50 and then burning through it like a motherfucker.

Well, I think it's just wonderful to see this on the front page of slashdot, as I've simply been telling everybody I can find what a fantasic read it is!

Now, then, the only problem, of course, is that I've never actually read the damn book,, but man o man did I get a nice little karma boost by heading immediately over to amazon, and doing a little cut and paste from a user review. Then, somebody else responded, so...another cut and paste. We'll see if I can double dip, but it's doubtful. Not many people read book reviews stories. Still, it's free and easy karma. Suckers.

Note, this works well with any sort of review, like hardware or software products, also.

I think the wonder of any scientific advance should be tempered by a clear-headed analysis of the dangers it might create.

I don't think anybody should be making any new life forms or modifying any existing life forms, at least until we've had a serious societal discussion regarding its possible role and impact on terrorism and biowarfare.

Imagine a scenario where terrorists could alter a disease or organic biological weapon gene by gene to make it immune to current antidotes. Beyond that, I worry that the US itself might use it for its own cache of new-age weapons.

If WE convert it to a weapon, what's the difference? We can claim we're the good guys and we won't use it. But we can look at Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

I hope I'm not fear-mongering here, but, I worry.

-----

You see, it SOUNDS like I'm being insightful, and within a minute or so I'd gone up to +4 Insightful, and I'd imagine a +5 is not far behind. However, all I did was google for "Craig Venter virus" until I found this article, which I then cut and pasted a portion of into my post. So, I'll pick up some easy karma...a few more rounds like this, and it'll be off to the races!

Also, the post is mildly trollish anyway, as it really just sort of rambles and waffles all ways. Insightful my ass.

And so another glorious trolling session begins. My last account became well-known far too quickly, and the slashdot janitors killed all my karma. Kinda hard to troll at -1. So...fresh account!

First, it's time to whore. Karma is really, really, really easy to come by on /. Just wait for a story to pop up, then hit google and find a couple relevant links. Say something remotely interesting and include the link. Bam, instant +5 informative. It might take a day or two to max out the karma, but then trolling from a +2 is just sure-fire hilarity!

Anyway, off to the races...