As I understand it, you deleted a dupe that only had a few comments in it. A side effect was the deletion of any comments posted in the dupe. Technically, yes, you deleted the comments. I seem to recall that Malda's policy was to do the same thing. I've criticized you guys and my history proves that, but I'll admit this is a non-issue. Nothing is being censored. I had a problem with Slashdot editors using unlimited mod points and $rtbl to silence criticism; that is actually censorship. I don't care for the lameness filter silencing APK and the GNAA posts; that's a form of censorship and I think it's unintentionally blocking some non-harmful posts. That said, I have no problem with the lameness filter blocking ASCII art (like the goatse.cx ASCII) and page lengthening/widening posts. Although Slashdot technically did delete the comments, this isn't censorship. SoylentNews has a spam downmod that hits a user with -10 karma; you could implement something similar for firehose, where being tagged binspam causes the user to take a karma hit. If you get karma for submitting a story that's accepted, perhaps you should lose karma for posting crap (not simply rejected stories or publishing journal entries, but actual spam) to the firehose. If an accepted story is +5 karma, perhaps binspam should be -5 karma. I'm not too bothered by the spam, but it's an interesting idea I wanted to suggest.

1) Can you open source the code that's running Slashdot? For a long portion of Slashdot's history, the code was open source. It might not have been precisely the same code at any given time, but it was pretty damn close. As a show of good faith, why not start hosting it on Sourceforge again? I'm pretty sure the old project is still there.

2) Can you re-enable the old search functionality that used to work? While searching for stories works pretty well with the normal search page, there's a lot of functionality that's been removed. The old search page is still present on the server, but it never returns any results. Sometimes it's very hard to find an old comment that had useful information, for example.

3) There are still ways to break Slashdot's rendering of pages that have been around for years. See this obnoxious page widening post for an example. It still works today, at least when I've tested it in comment previews. I won't be making any page widening posts, but it's not a bad idea to block such posts.

4) About the AC's comment previously, I'm not bothered by the use of non-free Javascript on Slashdot. I don't really care and I think it's actually rather silly. I'm more interested in not having malicious advertising. For what it's worth, I use Noscript and only enable the domains that are necessary for the core functions of the site to work (like Slashdot's discussion system) but nothing else.

5) Please don't implement Unicode; users need something to bitch about and that would guarantee that we'd always have something to fuss over. :-)

Thanks! I see a lot of progress being made, and encourage you to bring back subscriptions for those of us who wish to support you without enabling possibly malicious ads.

We are the United States. You will be assimilated into our American culture. We have analyzed your defensive capabilities as being unable to withstand us. If you defend yourselves, you will be punished. Resistance is futile.

The idea has definitely been discussed. It would seem very irresponsible to travel unarmed in pirate-infested waters such as near Somalia. However, it's not clear where this attack took place. It should be relatively safe to ship through the north Pacific or north Atlantic. I'd also expect the Southern Ocean is pretty safe because there isn't too much down there.

There's an article from the Christian Science Monitor that does a really good job of explaining the issues with protecting ships. It says that if crews are armed, pirates may retaliate if fired upon, injuring the crew or damaging the ship. Similarly, they believe that having specific armed security on ships will result in pirates getting more powerful weapons and firing from a distance. In short, they don't want to create an arms race with the pirates. There are other measures to protect ships, though they're somewhat expensive. I'd guess that shipping companies don't want to spend the money to protect ships traveling in areas where pirates aren't common.

Actually, the NBA (and college basketball) definition of when the game ends makes more sense for basketball. The NHL's definition makes more sense for hockey.

In hockey, the definition of a goal is that the entire puck must cross the goal line. Requiring a game clock overlay isn't perfect, but it's almost never an issue because goals aren't that frequent and you don't usually have last second shots in a period. If the rule was like basketball, the puck would have to leave the shooter's stick before the end of the period. There are enough deflections that totally obvious at normal speed to be a problem. What looks like a goal initially could be disallowed because of an apparent deflection. Also, what happens if the shot leaves the stick before the period ends but it hits the goalie right after the clock is at zero and bounces in? That's a goal at any other time, but it would have touched a player after the clock expired. It's easier to require that the puck cross the goal line.

In basketball, there are orange LED strips that show when time expires. As long as the ball leaves the shooter's hand before the light goes on, it's a shot. It's not subjective at all, nor does it require a game clock overlay. As long as the game clock is correct, you simply have to see if the ball leaves the hand before the light turns on. It's almost always very obvious in the replays. If the ball had to go through the hoop before time expired, you'd have to determine at what point it's actually a field goal. Does it have to completely pass through the bottom of the net? Does the top of the ball have to be below the hoop? Does the widest part of the ball have to be below the hoop (more than halfway down)? Does it have to be partly inside the rim? Does it simply have to be above the cylinder? You'd have to position cameras to get just the right camera angle for some of those. You'd actually have more controversy than you do now.

Normally if the game clock doesn't start, officials just whistle and stop play. If the error isn't significant enough for the officials to catch it in real time, perhaps it shouldn't be reviewed at all. As long as a person has to start the clock, there's going to be some margin of error between when the player touches the ball and when the clock starts. If we reviewed every inbound pass in the final minute of a close game, it would destroy any flow to the game and make it unwatchable.

Let's say the ball is inbounded with 5.0 seconds left, enough time for the player to dribble and get an open shot. Let's say the clock doesn't start until 0.8 seconds after the ball is touched. The player dribbles and gets off a shot with what appears to be 0.6 seconds left. After replay, it's determined it actually took 5.2 seconds to get the shot off and the basket is waved off. The player taking the shot is basing the decision of when to shoot on the game clock that's shown in multiple places. Because of the error by the officials, and a small one at that, the basket doesn't count. That seems really unfair to me. And yet it's a completely realistic scenario. That's why I think such reviews should have to be a real time decision by the officials, initiated by blowing the play dead.

You're mostly right. However, in the NBA, the timekeeper doesn't have to react to the officials' whistles being blown. The whistles automatically stop the clock as soon as they're blown. Also, the clock is started when an on-court official presses a button on their belt. That's no longer done at the scorer's table. Generally an official on the court will have a better view of when the clock should start. I'm not certain if this is done for resetting the shot clock, though; I think that's still done at the scorer's table.

The bill the Senate voted on is HR 644, which simply references existing law and indicates that the moratorium on internet taxes is to be made permanent. Here's the text of the existing law. From reading it, it seems clear that it refers both to wired and wireless internet connections, so I'm interested in where you see otherwise. This is what I see, as it defines internet access:

I think the real issue is whether it's still really a telecommunications service, which I think is questionable. The major carriers generally only provide plans now that include data and it's treated as a single package. It seems like providers such as Verizon basically give away unlimited talk and text and charge for data use. I'm not sure that really qualifies for an exemption from the law, which reads:

Forgive me if this is a stupid question. Lots of jurisdictions impose taxes on cell phone service. Where I live right now does so. I have LTE, in which everything (voice, texts, data) is sent as data. Essentially it's purely an internet connection. If Congress makes it illegal for anyone to tax internet access, wouldn't this also cover wireless services? For previous generations of wireless technology, it could be argued that the portions not sent as data were what was being taxed. That doesn't seem to be the case for LTE where it's all data. Unless there's some specific exemption for wireless services that I'm not aware of, shouldn't this mean that my city imposing a tax for cell phone services on me is illegal under federal law?

GPS isn't the problem here. Perhaps I'm being pedantic when I say that, but it needs to be said. If it were the problem, it would likely be obvious; the location fix would be totally wrong and the directions wouldn't make any sense. It might say to turn where there's no place to turn or, quite possibly, indicate you're not on a road at all when you actually are. The real problem is a combination of software issues, poor design, and user error.

I do see some very strange routes that come out of some mapping software. I live in a city that's mostly a grid with some major north-south and east-west roads. If I plan my own route, I'll tend to stay on those main roads. That makes sense because the speed limits tend to be higher, there are fewer uncontrolled intersections, and the stoplights will be timed such that you're less likely to hit red lights on those roads. Mapping software often plots a course that zigzags through the streets. I suppose the software projects it saves a few seconds, but I'm not convinced it's the optimal route. I make trips east to St. Louis from time to time, and Google Maps gives me some bizarre alternate routes. If I'm heading east on I-70, an alternate route that follows I-64 (or if you're from St. Louis it's Highway 40) makes sense. It's probably a time difference of a minute or two. However, many times the alternate route offered involves taking some state highway down to I-44 or something like that, which can add an hour to the trip. I have no clue why this is a logical alternate route, but it's what the software finds. Thankfully I know not to consider those routes.

Poor design can be an issue. If it's easy for the user to select the wrong destination, that's a big problem. That certainly sounds like the case here in the linked story. If the user can't easily verify that the destination entered is really where they want to go, then poor design can be to blame.

That said, none of this is a substitute for common sense. If a route looks really strange or if the estimated time seems way too long, that's because it probably is. Driving for two days and crossing international borders for a trip that's supposed to be two hours long cannot simply be blamed on mapping software. The user is an idiot. At minimum, you have to cross two international borders to get from Belgium to Croatia. Quite possibly it was more than two, which should have been a huge warning sign that the user was too foolish to pay attention to.

GPS is a wonderful tool. I tend not to rely heavily on it to give me precise directions. I tend to follow the approximate route if it looks reasonable to me. I also use it to tell me where I am and roughly how long it is until the next turn and when I need to watch for particular road signs. That said, it's no substitute for common sense, knowing how to read a map, and watching the signs along the road.

A fraudulent return means the IRS won't accept your legitimately filed return. As a result, you'll need to prove your identity to the IRS, and then wait a lengthy amount of time for them to process your return. This happened to my parents and it took a few months for them to get their refund. If the IRS owes you a refund, you won't get it for a long time. While you're not liable for the fraudulent return, you'll have to wait a long time for your refund and it's quite a hassle. Also, a substantial amount of federal money is spent on fraud and waste. As a taxpayer, a portion of your money is wasted by fraudulent refunds. While I'm not necessarily opposed to most taxation, I have no interest in paying any taxes where the money ends up going to fraudsters.

The IRS really should assign everyone PINs or, preferably, better security. There's no good reason that additional security is restricted to people in Georgia, Florida, or those who have suffered tax-related identity theft. Also, why not simply maintain a registry of public keys for individuals? Require tax returns to be filed electronically and digitally sign them using the private key of individuals. As long as people don't allow anyone access to their private keys, this could prevent a lot of the problem. Why we're still using SSNs for identity information in the 21st century is beyond me. They were supposed to serve one purpose and one purpose only -- an identifier to track people's contributions to social security.

The solar plant is near Ouarzazate, which I estimate is about 300 miles from the southern tip of Spain. It's on the edge of the Sahara Desert, which should be a good location for more sunshine. Ouarzazate gets a little over 3,400 hours of sunshine per year while Gibraltar gets about 400 hours less. Also, as you go poleward, the sunlight is spread over a wider area, meaning that it's less intense at any given location. Gibraltar is at the southern tip of Spain, so this gets more pronounced if you go farther north. If you go north to Madrid, you can subtract roughly another 200-250 hours of sunlight each year while being nearly ten degrees latitude farther north. There's also a whole lot less seasonal variation in the amount of sunlight at Ouarzazate than at either location in Spain, making it more suitable for a constant supply of electricity that doesn't require being supplemented by something else.

The solar plant is actually at a great location, so it probably makes sense for Spain to by their electricity from Morocco than to build their own solar plant. In cold enough climates, the electricity demand might be high enough during winter that, if it can't be met with solar, it would be necessary to build another type of plant to supplement it or to buy the electricity from another country. It's much more cost-effective to have the plant in Morocco.

By the way, the original plan was to build the plant with European funding and supply the electricity to Europe, but the partners in Europe pulled out requiring the African Development Bank and the government of Morocco to save the project. Obviously the approach made sense to Europe at one point and, now that the plant is being built, might still be lucrative to them.

Pluto is getting colder. It has a highly eccentric orbit and right now that's taking Pluto farther from the Sun. As a result, temperatures will decrease on Pluto.

Actually, NASA used the term "float" to describe it because the water ice is less dense than the ice dominated by nitrogen. So, yes, the icebergs are floating.

There's plenty of outrage in the threads. Very little is based on facts and logic.

The methodology in this story set telemetry to "basic" instead of disabling it. Other features that are part of Windows' out of the box experience weren't disabled. The services that connect out weren't fully disabled, not even close. The router was configured to log and block outgoing connections. Even legitimate and desired services will retry failed connections and probably try different hosts. Ever take a look in Linux when yum can't contact a mirror? It doesn't just give up; it tries lots of other mirrors until either the list is exhausted or it finds one that works. This is desirable behavior, especially for essential services like Windows Update. Not trying different hosts would make the system vulnerable to a denial of service attack against a single host. The statistics reported were completely inflated by the chosen methodology, one in which telemetry wasn't even fully disabled. Other users have reported that fully disabling telemetry and shutting down non-essential services does reduce the outbound traffic to only Windows Update.

Regarding Android and Google, you actually brought it up in a post you made. I don't see anyone arguing that Google not respecting privacy justifies Microsoft not doing so. That's a straw man, which is a logical fallacy. The real issue is directing outrage mostly at Microsoft when there are plenty of others who deserve criticism for their practices.

You also make this very angry statement: "The second is to use a goddamned iPhone, which everyone pretends is just as bad on privacy but it really isn't. This isn't a great argument point, however- Apple is perpetually one patch away from having ruinous privacy policies, because they are such a proprietary solution." If this is actually a valid argument, it renders any of your criticism of Microsoft completely invalid. If you don't like Windows invading your privacy, you have the option to install Linux. Unlike your statement that Apple could modify their privacy policy at any time, that doesn't hold true for Linux. There are so many distros that even if a few chose to egregiously invade privacy, there are still a multitude of alternatives. Furthermore, open source software that engages in questionable behavior or makes poor licensing decisions tends to be forked. If your statement is true, then your criticism of Microsoft is invalid because you have choices like Linux, FreeBSD, or to buy a Mac. In fact, considering all the different distros, you have far more choices with a desktop OS than you do with phones.

There's a lot of hostility in your post, but you haven't touched on the real issues. In my experience, during the initial setup of an Android phone, the user is presented with options to disable sending telemetry to Google. While the box is checked by default, it's brought to the user's attention. I'm not aware of that happening in Windows 10. Furthermore, the versions of Windows 10 that most users will upgrade to won't present them with an option to altogether disable telemetry. Android presents me an option during setup to fully disable telemetry; I always do so, and therefore Android's telemetry doesn't bother me.

Yes, what Microsoft is doing is quite a bit worse than what Google does. But it's not for any of the reasons you've stated. And this story is based on a false premise. Let's stick to the facts, please. There's more than enough to justifiably criticize Microsoft for.