I'm removing non-fan friends who haven't posted in two years since I'm at my limit and I use friends to game the scoring system to see more interesting posts.

Any of you who have been discontinued - send me a note if you start posting again and I'd be happy to re-friend you.

I really wish somebody would drive into Rob's head the idea that "An April Fool's Joke SHALL be FUNNY."

The way /. keeps screwing themselves up every 1 April, you would think that Rob's idea of a good real-world prank would be to slash you tires and fill your car with expanding urethane foam. The fact that it makes your car unusable is irrelevant - it's funny innit?

Oh well, time to start my yearly "Ignore /. for a day"....

It happened once again. After this round of mass downmodding, I haven't been able to post from this account for about 2 weeks. The email complaint that the posting denial page gives is useless. Well, that is unless an editor is behind the mass down modding. That wouldn't surprise me because much seeing how the down mods are coming in at something like 10 and 15 at a time. I know some mod points are awarded at 10 instead of five and editors have unlimited points. I guess it's either a pissed off editor abusing their power because he or she cannot win an argument on the facts or a tightly knitted group of idiots who think quieting anything apposing their viewpoints is somehow winning an argument.

Oh well, it's ok, I can still post from my other accounts and have done so since the down modding. It's sort of interesting that almost identical posts under other accounts are either modded up or untouched by moderation. This and the fact that the downmods all come within a day or so each time locks the entire mass modding just to quiet an apposing viewpoint theory. I remember when slashdot was about conversations not who can yell the loudest or stop someone else from being heard. And my points weren't all that controversial either, things like there is no reason why someone cannot separate science from religion and practice both within their respective natures without being stupid or ignorant, that evolution as in speciation is still just a theory and not an observed fact even though the evidence points to it being likely, and the last one was that just because it's written in the bible doesn't mean it's mandated to certain religions to do. Oh, and I forgot about the conversation with the guy who wasn't aware that Microsoft was a separate incorporated company from Microsoft's licensing division which is incorporated and operated in an entirely different state altogether. Of course with that last one, once the guy discovered that they were two separate companies being run as separate companies, he agreed with my original assertions that it would be difficult if not impossible for Washington to apply a tax on the MS licensing operations.

If anybody cares and has the skills, my employer is looking for people with Unified Modeling Language (UML) experience (experience with Enterprise Architect a plus) for our Wichita, KS division. This is a long-term job - FYI, I've been here for coming up on 20 years this April.

On the off chance that anybody reading my JEs is interested or knows anybody interested, let me know.

The first Ghost Article in many, many months shows some strange behind-the-scenes SlashCode action. When I reload the original page URL, I get the generic "Nothing to see here, move along". But when I click on the "title" link, the one in the header before the comments section, the page that results has the full article title. It's not just echoing the text in the URL, either... otherwise it would say "Man HIV Free" instead of "Man HIV-Free". That implies that the ghost is still in the database... somewhere.

Man HIV-Free 2 Years After Stem Cell Treatment
Date: 26 Feb 2010
Orig link: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/02/26/1637249
Title link: http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/02/26/1637249/Man-HIV-Free-2-Years-After-Stem-Cell-Treatment
Posted by kdawson in The Mysterious Future!
from the good-genes dept.

kkleiner writes

"According to a recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine, a stem cell transplant performed in Germany has unexpectedly removed all signs of HIV from a 42-year-old American patient. The unnamed white male was treated two years ago for leukemia with a dose of donor stem cells, and his HIV RNA count has dropped to zero and remained there since. While the treatment was for leukemia, Dr. Gero Hutter and colleagues at the Charite Universitatsmedizen in Berlin had selected the stem cell donor for his HIV-resistant genes. While there are still many questions unanswered, this is the first such case of stem cells treating HIV that has been reported in a publication of the caliber of the NEJM."

I find it funny that I'm constantly being group modded by trolls who seem to think that ruining someone's karma is a legitimate way to counter an argument they do not agree with. This is probably the tenth time since late '09 that I have received an attack on messages I have posted. This time, in less then 24 hours, I went from having no comments moderated at all on my comment page to comments posted over a week ago with no mods at all and comments posted a few days ago being modded down for reasons obviously counter to the mod claim.

As for being obviously counter to the modded claim, Here is a post modded redundant when it is explicitly addressing the person I replied to about his misunderstanding of the post I mentioned. Could someone please explain how replying to someone about their inaccurate understanding of a post is redundant? And it isn't like I fifteen other people corrected him either, it was a dialog specifically between me and another person who admitted to mistaking my post for saying something else.

Anyways, this has typically happened only after I comment to someone who is commenting on some sort of religion or evolution post who has it wrong in some way. Is it really that important to people who do not like religion or people who have placed evolution as their religion the they need to take steps like this in order to suppress opposition to their wrongful opinions? I mean it's not like I'm saying Creation is correct or anything, I'm generally pointing out that they are doing the same things they blame the religions of doing when they make absolute statements about Evolution being an undisputed fact instead of composed scientific theory or when they have some sort of incorrect interpretation of the bible or whatever. I find it's typically easy to trip them up when I ask if anything could come along and make evolution different as in for our understanding of speciation or common descendant thoughts. When they say no, then it's obvious they are not following science because science allows for that regardless of how improbable it might be. For instance, the posts I believe that started this round of mass down-modding stems from some idiot who reposted a bunch of nonsense from a few websites about a few bibles verses they found and then took everything out of context in order to create some demonesque image of God. There are plenty of verses in the bible which one can legitimately question the compassion or loving nature of a god, but to take something completely out of context in order to make your point is a little intellectually lazy as well as dishonest.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised about the down-modding. When dealing with idiots who want to cite a few verses and ignore the context before and after it (whether they are for or against the bible) and draw completely one sided conclusions that do not remotely fit the story context, we aren't really dealing with articulate or intelligent people. It really does seem that the less intelligent the person is, the more dirty and underhanded shenanigans you should expect from them and like minded people. Maybe slashdot should have a system for their mods where someone could complain about the mass modding or a script that checks mods made to a single account within a certain time frame and then flag the comments for further review. It wouldn't need to be anyone special reviewing it either, just make sure they come up for metta moderation.

Per my usual, since I have had a temporary lapse of judgement and attempted to submit a story to /., I will post it here, as I doubt it would otherwise see the light of day:

  wowbagger writes "Has anybody ever heard of a VNC-like tool that, instead of exporting to Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol or VNC, exports the display to a UPnP hosted MPEG stream?

With the rising number of set top boxes/TV sets/media players that can play MPEG content from a UPnP server, a program that could scrape a display, convert it to an MPEG stream, and send it via UPnP to those devices could allow many existing devices to act as a remote display. Yes, exporting via MPEG wouldn't be as "good" as via a protocol designed for such a purpose, but unless and until you see all these devices coming with a VNC or RDP client, that option is not open.

Even better would be a program that acted like vncserver in that it would create a virtual display that persisted even when no client was connected, so that an otherwise headless server could be viewed via a set top box."

------------
BTW - am I the only one who thinks the UI on /. has gone from bad to worse? Pretty much unusable without Javascript, who's brilliant idea was it to put the "Write in journal" at the BOTTOM of the page, etc.

I have a saying, paraphrasing The Man With No Name: "when a business forgets what business it is in, that business is a dead business."

For example, Polaroid made their money on instant photography - that was their business. They forgot that, and got the idea they were in the self-developing film business, and so chose to ignore the digital photography business, because it wasn't self-developing film. Kodak moved in, and look where Polariod is now.

Likewise, the various intelligence gathering agencies - the NSA, the CIA, the FBI - were in the business of "Protecting America". However, they have lost sight of that, and now believe they are in the "intelligence gathering" business. And just like a miser who just amasses wealth for wealth's sake, and lives in a hovel and eats beanie-weenies, they have lost sight of the idea that the reason we gather information is so we can use it!

Instead, the spooks are so busy "gathering information" that they never share it, nor act on it - "My God man, if we act on this information, we might compromise our assets! We might not be able to gather any more information! No, we will just protect our assets, kept this information secret, and see what happens."

Yes, if the spooks have some double-aught sooper sekret spy stuff that lets them read the bad guys' brains, and they read that a guy is planning on flinging some poo at an embassy, and revealing the intel will compromise the secrecy of their brain scanner, they SHOULD site on the information - flinging poo is not worth losing that intel asset. But there is a world of difference between flinging poo and flinging PETN guys! - screw the secrecy of your "asset" and DO YOUR DAMN JOB!

In short, intelligence agencies: YOUR BUSINESS IS NOT GATHERING INFORMATION - YOUR BUSINESS IS PROTECTING THE US! IF YOU FORGET THAT YOU WILL GO THE WAY OF ANYBODY WHO FORGETS WHAT BUSINESS THEY ARE IN!

And I, for one, DON'T want to see what happens if you should go out of business!

Eh. 's'been a while.

I've lurked at /. without posting for ages, mostly because I just don't have the time to interact like I used to.

But I've been clicking through the old RSS feed more and more lately, and when I saw the PAX Plague thread today, I came over to comment, since I'm kind of affected by the whole damn thing. I thought I'd take a look around since I haven't been here in awhile, and I saw that there are freaking ACHIEVEMENTS associated with our accounts. It's silly, and I'm sure it's been here forever, but I thought it was awesome and I was delighted when I read it.

I didn't realize how much I missed Slashdot until I spent some time here today, and I bet that anyone who joined in the last 2 years doesn't even give a shit about my stupid comments or anything, but it felt good to come back here, and feel safely among my people again.

Since i keep getting asked all the time, here is the purpose of my signature:

It is to make a person think.

To think about how relative labels are such as 'patriot' and 'dissident', or even 'terrorist'. It all depends on which side of the line you are on, and who won the battle.

Much as George Washington was considered a dissident terrorist to the British, we won so he's a hero to us. Booth, on the other hand was on the losing side so he's considered a assassin. Was willing to die for what he felt was an enemy of his country, and his act would have been considered heroic, if the south had won.

Im not saying i do or don't support what he did, but his actions do serve as a good vehicle for what i was trying to point out.

So, there really is a journal function?
It'd be more useful if this would dovetail with a blog like facebook. If someone is such a narcissist that they think people care about their opinions, might as well keep it to a minimum and focused?

It's a good thing I'm not on any of the several medications that react badly with Grapefruit juice, as it is one of my favorite drinks. However, something I cannot explain has happened: I can't get the stuff here in Wichita!

None of the stores at which I shop are carrying it anymore. I have some left over from my trip to California over the 4th, but that obviously won't last.

Since a statistical sampling of 1 isn't very valid, I'll throw this question out: what about anybody else, can you get it where you are?

Zogger, since you are a bit more plugged in to things agricultural than I, do you have any insights?

Also, the local stores no longer carry the "lots of pulp" versions of the Florida's Natural Orange Juice either.

Maybe the stuff isn't selling (while I buy a lot, obviously I don't buy enough to justify a store carrying it all by my little lonesome).

OK, I think I've been fair in trying out Alpha, but I just don't see it being useful - let me give you my use cases and see what you think:

Use case 1: I wanted to know the change in elevation from Moriarty, NM to Albuquerque, NM. OK, this should be easy for WA, right? "(elevation Moriarty, NM) - (elevation Albuquerque, NM)". Result? "I don't understand your question".

Use case 2: I wanted to know the energy of a red light photon in electron volts. "energy red light photon in eV". FAIL. OK, let's help it a bit: "energy 638nm photon in eV". FAIL.

The sad thing is that Use case 2 was answered by Google on the first question.

So, what was WA supposed to do for us again?

NOTE: "for us", not for "it's hype feeding creator."

So, with some trepidation given the media focus surrounding the new 3GS and pointing out how expensive it is over time, I decided to "donate" my iphone 2G to my fiancée and go for a 3GS. Since it's another 2 year contract, I figured I'd go for the top-of-the-range and wait it out again. To my (pleasant) surprise, my needs are relatively cheap...

Initial costs are a bit steep at $415 including tax, shipping. But the monthly charges are $56 (including the data-plan) for my particular needs. I don't use the phone much for talking (450 minutes a month is overkill for me) and I rarely text people (an average of 25/month is (again) overkill, and this corresponds with the '200' dollar amount I'd otherwise have to pay for in bulk). What I *do* use on the phone is the data service. A *lot*. And that's built in as unlimited - it breaks down as $32 for the Nation 450 w/rollover, and $24 for the unlimited data plan.

That comes to a total of $1759 over two years. ($415 + 24 * $56), and I can comfortably afford that. That's also a *lot* less expensive than the $3000+ (over 2 years) that people have been bandying around. It's worth looking at the options, and seeing what suits you before coming to a decision...

Simon