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Comment This isn't a victory for Behring-Breivik. (Score 3, Insightful) 491

Someone once pointed out that hoping a rapist gets raped in prison isn't a victory for his victim(s), because it somehow gives him what he had coming to him, but it's actually a victory for rape and violence. I wish I could remember who said that, because they are right. The score doesn't go Rapist: 1 World: 1. It goes Rape: 2.

What this man did is unspeakable, and he absolutely deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison. If he needs to be kept away from other prisoners as a safety issue, there are ways to do that without keeping him in solitary confinement, which has been shown conclusively to be profoundly cruel and harmful.

Putting him in solitary confinement, as a punitive measure, is not a victory for the good people in the world. It's a victory for inhumane treatment of human beings. This ruling is, in my opinion, very good and very strong for human rights, *precisely* because it was brought by such a despicable and horrible person. It affirms that all of us have basic human rights, even the absolute worst of us on this planet.

United States

TSA: Confiscating Aluminum Foil and Watching Out For Solar Powered Bombs 289

schwit1 writes "If you think confiscating aluminum foil to prevent a solar powered bomb attack on a plane is a waste of time, don't blame the TSA agent. According to a former employee most of the security people agree with you. Instead, we need to hold accountable the people sending down such ridiculous orders. From the article: 'Ridiculous restrictions and the TSA have become nearly synonymous in the post-9/11 airport, and as new, improbable terrorist plots come to light, we will likely continue to be burdened with new, absurd rules. But our best bet is to take the frustration toward the TSA agent confiscating our over-sized liquids, and re-direct it to the people at TSA headquarters who are being paid the big bucks to make the rules — the ones who make the call as to whether our toothpaste is verboten and whether our shoes will need extra screening.'"

Comment Re:Does this mean the Apple turfers will be labele (Score 1) 230

In checking your other posts, I realize when you said "Apple turfers" you may have meant "anti Apple turfers", not "Apple astroturfers".
If that's the case, sorry I let you have both barrels because you mispoke or I misunderstood.

Still, group labeling of accounts is pretty offensive. You can block any user.
  I guess I don't participate in /. conversations as much as I did in the nineties, so I've only had to block on a few occasions.

Comment Re:Does this mean the Apple turfers will be labele (Score 0) 230

"Labeling" users? How offensive. How do you propose doing that, by affixing "armbands" to their usernames? Maybe you are the one who needs to wear a stigmatic identifier.

I'm -pretty sure- Apple's roaring success depends naught on maintaining an army of "turfers". However there seems to be no end of anti-Apple posters like yourself, suggesting they exist. I see the value of pre-emptively accusing your opponent of your OWN sins, however all documented instances of "astroturfing" have been attributed to Microsoft or their agents.

I'm not an Apple fanboy. Been running Linux at home since 1994. But at least Apple advanced desktop computing, while Microsoft held it back AND helped change the Internet into this incredibly insecure thing, by virtue of a PERMANENT army of zombie computers. Old MacOS was never as cavalier about security as Windows still is, and Apple's record on security is pretty damn good with OS X. I can still gripe about the window dressing on the Mac desktop, but the underpinnings of OSX are a solid standard UNIX kernel... the modern Apple OS foundation is solid, unlike Microsoft's.

Comment Re:StackOverflow competior? (Score 2) 230

Are you saying Oracle (for example) is going to have some expert answer common Java questions in a slashvertisement/tech support type thing?

This -does- have the feel of something which came out of a 'monetize' brainstorming session. The description reads just as badly... it sounds like Soulskill is reading off of marketing's talking-points.

So HOW exactly does this benefit Slashdot users? Or is there one at all?
  HOW are sponsor representatives represented in discussion? Are their comments automatic +5, and totally immune to moderation?
This doesn't need explanation, apparently. :-/

I've been on Slashdot.org for about 14 years, and seen it survive the threat from Digg (and the the Digg self-destruct). But my interest is declining. The original stories are less insightful, more incidence of stories linking to overtly 'controversial' blog posts elsewhere designed to troll web clicks. Years ago I switched from viewing this website, to monitoring the RSS feed, and less and less often do I find reason to stick around when I click one of the feed items.

My biggest complaint of all is there is no benefit or advantage to the older accounts. I gave up submitting stories because even if I were one of the first (just a guess), there are semi-professional story submitters who get the credit. No wait, that's not my worst grievance... Slashdot has a checkbox for "Do not display ads", given for past participation on the site... but the checkbox doesn't work.

Maybe the worst annoyance is when I visit my ~user page, it tells me there's a new post on Will Wheaton's Slashdot journal.. which was deleted like 10 years ago, and because of that deletion I can't unsubscribe from it (it's a silent error, but probably failed SQL stupidity... and my support emails to slashdot go unanswered).

I think Slashdot recognizes that their future's probably in nurturing "communities" where the users interact more with each other (like Slashdot USED to be). GOOD call. But that space is served by Ning. If Slashdot's owners think the answer is "commercially sponsored questions and posts"... really? lulz. For me the answer is, different websites for different genres of information. That's way easier to follow, and you can somewhat get to know people.

Comment Re:...Good for you? (Score 1) 627

I'm sorry, this isn't a story. This is a blog entry, and a short one at that.

I'm sorry, you lack cynicism: what this submission IS is a troll for ad revenue. It's almost a troll... kind of like every John Dvorak article since 1990 (but without the legitimacy he had built up prior to that time).

I thought I had it good when we ditched our "desktop" computers 6 years ago and went with just laptops in the home. Now it's an iPad 1 and 2. When I am developing for Drupal, I use my iPad and laptop (Ubuntu, with Komodo IDE). When I take notes or read OReilly/Safari Books, it's the iPad. When I take notes or set appointments, it's the iPad and Google apps. When I play games, I use either the iPad or the PS3. When I watch movies, it's NetFlix on the iPad or PS3. I suppose for some the droid tablets are the same (although they all seem rather sluggish to me, and have inconsistent UIs.. but maybe I'm just jealous).

Apple

Using a Tablet As Your Primary Computer 627

harrymcc writes "Three months ago, I started using an iPad 2 (with a Zagg keyboard) as my primary computing device--the one I blog on, write articles for TIME magazine on, and use to prepare photos and other illustrations that go with my writing. I now use it about 80 percent of the time; my trusty MacBook Air has become a secondary machine."

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