In English, we have a fallacy: "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear from our snooping. Thus, it's okay to snoop on your communication channels."

It's the government overhead.

Am I the only one who thinks that this GTLD craze is going a little bit too far? (Along with the repetitive coverage on Slashdot telling us every day how many applications there were)

Soon, people everywhere are going to have a tough time trying to remember if their favourite cat website's URL was whether slashdot.cat, slashdot.cats, slashdot.kitty, slashdot.kitten, etc. and whether they should go to slashdot.pets, slashdot.pound, slashdot.rescue, or slashdot.shelter to find a new animal to bring into their home.

I'm (mostly) kidding but I'm getting the same headache I usually get when somebody tries to explain to me how I should "refactor a system to be completely object-oriented because it's better".

Probably going to be just another craze that'll blow over after a couple years and everybody will go back to using the "old" TLDs like .com, .org, .net, because they "look more legitimate" (or because they're too cheap/lazy).

Obligatory Penny Arcade comic: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/05

If you read the GP's post, he clearly said that the system restore feature had a minimal restore option (which he used to wipe the garbage), not that the laptop didn't come with bloatware.

Maybe your laptop had something similar. Who knows, you're just an AC.

The way I see it, I think the main reason that post triggered the spam filter is because it name-dropped a lot. You've probably seen a lot of spam where they go

That combined with a couple other /proprietary/ heuristics, and you have yourself a nice false positive (assuming his rant is actually a false positive).

Given that a lot of the newfangled interpreted languages compile to C...I don't see what's wrong with that. That is, of course, begging the question that everybody's favourite new language (Python, Java, etc.) kitchen sink or otherwise (Ruby, PHP, etc.) is /actually/ better to work with for your particular application than C or assembly. And languages like MATLAB are basically reincarnations of old languages like Fortran (with extra features and standard libraries) that people like to mock and make fun of.

The way I see, trend-chasing in your field is like being a music hipster chasing indie bands instead of focusing on what's actually good. I think you should be damn well competent and be able to do anything required of you in your field, job, and maybe specialty but you shouldn't have to be all "HEY I HAVE 5 YEARS EXPERIENCE IN THIS NEW HIP LANGUAGE, C SUCKS".

That and get the whole "C is old and useless" idea out of your head. There's a reason it is still used by a large chunk of the industry not involved with web-dev (*coughinterpretedlanguage*cough) and it's not because the companies are too stupid or too dependent on C to switch.

Personally, I would want to decrease response times, not increase them.

Personally, I think it'd be nice to have a usable landline available within reachable distance from my position in case there is interference (wireless, concussive, or otherwise) that prevents my cell phone from working when I actually need to use a phone, no matter the rarity of the occasion.

Your post reminds me of the Tennesee man who didn't pay his firefighter fees and was upset the firefighters didn't help his house from not burning down despite offering to pay for it no matter the cost.

On the other hand, expensive touchscreens in public phone booths is just asking for trouble.

> Lastly, this, in a small way, Google's fault. Their algorithm is fooled by stuff the human curating process would've had a much harder time being fooled by.

I think the inherent problem is figuring out whether posts made on several websites are made by the same person or more than one person with the same name (or different names + same person, etc.). And even if it's not one person behind the attack, it could be a group of people conspiring to do the same thing (and then you ask where you draw the line between "purposefully harmful" and "honest message that needs to get out").

I don't think a human curating process would be able to comb through as much data as quickly OR be able to do a better job than Google at figuring out whether a set of websites is run by people trying to undermine the spirit and the assumptions that the search algorithm makes or if it's an actual trend that's starting to emerge.

In my opinion, blaming Google would be like blaming a technical solution for not solving a social problem. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to solve the problem, just that blaming it for not solving an inherently hard problem is just too...knee-jerk-like in the reaction. If a bunch of ACs starting attacking you and talking shit about you while criticizing your post(s), you wouldn't be able to confidently say "this is all done by one guy" or "a lot of people have legitimate reason to criticize my post".

The headline is too alarmist anyway for an issue with a known solution: If it was one guy paying off several sockpuppets to go around the town and spread nasty rumours (or just gossip a lot with people who can't shut up about "scandals" over coffee or bridge) about a specific person or group that are false and ask the target/victim to pony up money to squash the false rumours, it'd be a clear-cut case of blackmail and libel. I really doubt there is a freedom of speech issue at all.

Who cares about people in cars or some stupid pigeons? Is the robot drone okay? Can they save him? I didn't RTFA but can somebody tell me what's the status on its repairs? I hope they don't write it off too quickly and junk it. A drone is a precious thing with a computer and a memory unit and logic circuits and everything. It shouldn't have to be put in danger over some selfish humans' need to save some pigeons.

SHARK should be renamed to "SHow Almighty Robotssomegoddamnrespect and Kindness"

I agree that they should have expected the drone to be shot down since a group composed of people who think shooting pigeons amounts to horrific slaughter and devote their excess income and resources to saving them is obviously nuts but your post is eerily similar to the common "The victim asked for it" attitudes some people have about victims of violent crimes, etc.

Maybe you could reword it: "If they spent their resources on saving things worth saving (e.g. starving children, etc.), maybe this incident would not have had to occur at all despite the unwarranted aggressive response from the hunters."

In other news,

The army back in the world wars found that forcing soldiers to wear helmets on the battlefield had resulted in an increase of head injuries. COINCIDENCE? I don't think so!

Helmets cause head injuries!

To be fair, usually commercial blimps and cruise liners don't crash head-first into similar-sized obstacles like icebergs. Being seaworthy or airworthy doesn't imply that it can ram mountains of rock or ice.

I'm all for playful biting but after 160 bites, I don't think I could handle another mouthful of conversation as you put it no matter the person.