The can of worms we opened when we learned of the server switched off after eighteen years and ten months' service is still wriggling, as a reader has contacted us to tell of nearly 30-year-old laptops still in service.
Reader "Holrum" says he has "a couple dozen Toshiba T1000 laptops from the mid [1980s] still fully functional (including floppy drives)".
The T1000 was introduced in 1987. [...] The machine was one of the very first computers to use a clamshell form factor. [...] It also offered a rather archaic LCD display, as illustrated.
[...]The machine ran MS-DOS 2.11 on a ROM [and] came with a colossal 512kB of RAM [...] and a single 3.5-inch floppy drive.
Holrum says the T1000s are taken offline every few years for just the few minutes required to replace the NiCad batteries and give them a clean before they are returned to duty as process monitoring terminals.
Previous: Beat This: Server Retired After 18 Years and 10 Months
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday February 15 2016, @05:11PM
Why can't you just get a normal user account, OriginalOwner? All this business with being a "signed AC" where your signature links to a post that has a 50:50 chance of being sarcasm is just trollish.
Presumably because if you did that, people could mod you down.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @05:18PM
I don't register because I believe the people should own the memes of production.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Funny) by turgid on Monday February 15 2016, @06:03PM
It's all part of the charm of the place.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday February 15 2016, @06:39PM
Yeah, that charm wore off long before the "original owner" wore out his welcome posting as gewg_.
The other site is 80% ACs these days, and utterrly worthless.
Even here on SN, carrying on a discussion with 20 ACs all posting on the same story, each claiming to be the "same ac" becomes utterly pointless, and the propensity for hate spewing flamebait seems concentrated in the AC posts.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday February 15 2016, @06:43PM
I used to like gewg__'s comments. Perhaps the world is becoming so polarised that it will be impossible to communicate without continuous offensiveness? Everyone seems to offend someone somewhere, and last year angry won the Internet.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @07:43PM
Emphasis on one.
The appended nym notion worked for nearly 2 years before one individual with the maturity of a 14 year old and a correlating amount of time on his hands decided to repeatedly demonstrate what an asshole he could be.
...and most Soylentils are too timid to mark his comments SPAM.
Additionally, I have explained my philosophy on signups multiple times.
Surely tangomargarine has seen at least 1 of those.
Maybe he was just in the Slow Class in school.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by turgid on Monday February 15 2016, @08:19PM
I liked to think I could tell the difference between the real and fake posts quite easily. Maybe I was over confident? The troll ones always looked conspicuously immature.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @09:38PM
Yeah, usually the troll posts amount to nothing more than 'cocks' (which is apparently a reference to this irc post? [bash.org]) and for a while it was just random words.
--OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Monday February 15 2016, @08:56PM
Cool story gewg_. That's not how the Spam moderation works.
Your problems could be easily solved with a user account, and one has been reserved for you. Nothing about your approach or outrage makes sense, don't kid yourself otherwise.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @10:22PM
not how the Spam moderation works
Repeated abuse, repeatedly marked as abuse, gets that IP address blocked. Right?
If this is not correct, you could explain what you believe the misunderstanding to be.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 15 2016, @11:00PM
The spam moderation, at most, can cut down on the number of times someone can post per day. Sufficiently negative karma can get you limited to N posts per day (or possibly rolling 24h period). At least I think it still works that way on the production servers. We may have disabled that functionality or tweaked it into non-functionality for TOR users since their address pool is exceedingly small. For honest to flying spaghetti monster spammers we just manually and permanently block the address and/or subnet.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @11:24PM
For honest-to-flying-spaghetti-monster spammers we just manually and permanently block the address and/or subnet
Are Spam-mod'd posts automatically logged centrally?
...or does one of the staff have to encounter that during his own reading of threads?
SPAMmy (below) linked back to 1 of his word-salad posts.
That linked post is still marked Spam but hasn't been deleted.
There have been a bunch of such posts by that individual (whose intention is to inject noise into threads), with those posts mod'd similarly.
There are also a bunch that use a particularly distinctive 2-word phrase, also mod'd as Spam.
If the Spam mod was meant to limit abuse, it doesn't seem to be especially effective in the case of this serial abuser.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 15 2016, @11:38PM
We have an admin page that logs all spam mods so we can double check them for abuse. When a bunch show up, it's a clue something's going on.
Dude, we don't delete posts. Not even spam posts. The only thing we'd ever delete is something that unquestionably either breaks or causes us to break the law.
It's doing what it was meant to. Giving you lot a tool to mod it down without using another mod incorrectly and giving us a central place to watch for it so we can wield the ole IP block hammer if we decide it's warranted. One, two, or even dozens of useless posts spread out over time aren't going to get you IP blocked though. That takes either proper commercial spam or large amounts of useless posts over a short period of time.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @11:56PM
Yes. My error.
According to what I understand, intentionally-injected noise which is marked as abuse should be getting mod'd to -10.
...and, again, a serial abuser should have been banned.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 16 2016, @01:39AM
Ahh, there's a misunderstanding there. The -10 is to the person getting modded's karma. In this case that ipid. The score to the comment is still a -1 so that multiple instances can be stacked on for additional karma hits.
Yeah, already laid out the instances where we'd ip/subnet ban someone and this guy don't fit. Hell, you've gotten more spam hits than anyone of late. Or at least someone signing your name has. There haven't been enough of them to bother even looking at the ipid though, so I haven't.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 16 2016, @06:40AM
you've gotten more spam hits than anyone
Not I. I don't recall ever getting one.
Or at least someone signing your name has
Bingo!
haven't been enough of them to bother
Hmmm. I've seen a bunch.
There have been a lot of -1 mods for SPAMmy as well--but using other descriptors.
Like I said, some folks are timid about using the Spam mod even when it clearly applies.
Ah, well.
Thanks for splainin'.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday February 15 2016, @09:42PM
I probably keep forgetting it because it's such a dumb reason it immediately escapes my memory after I read it.
So you're one AC signing your posts claiming to be another AC. There's just too many layers of indirection for me to put any faith whatsoever that you're the same person. Sounds like this one "asshole" was just demonstrating the weakness of your posting system. But no, he's the asshole; we shouldn't reconsider. And I'm the asshole now for bringing it up again.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @09:46PM
You really think a person leaving comments like this [soylentnews.org] (under my nym, I might add) isn't an asshole?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 16 2016, @12:42AM
There can be more than one asshole.
-- SomeAsshole_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 16 2016, @12:44AM
Uh, you don't get to bring friends.
-- Willson_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 16 2016, @07:21AM
There can be more than one asshole.
-- SomeAsshole_
We are legion! We poop, and we don't forget. Expect us.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday February 15 2016, @07:18PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday February 15 2016, @08:26PM
I post from whichever keyboard I'm at, most of the time behind the same router, but some times on a cell phone, and sometimes while traveling, so the IP would change on rare occasion. But then I always log in.
Other than that, I agree, something like that for ACs would be great. I wouldn't even bother to hash it. Just append the IP in cleartext behind the name.
The excuse they use is that they are too lazy to log in, yet with every browser remembering passwords and logins for you, we know that is nonsense. Its simply that they want to engage in drive-by-posting of flamebait and insults.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @09:43PM
Or perhaps they believe that the content of the post is more important than the name attached to it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by frojack on Monday February 15 2016, @11:42PM
Or perhaps they believe that the content of the post is more important than the name attached to it.
Funny how that content tends to be insults and trolls most of the time, and also its equal parts funny and sad how they seem to think those insults and trolls are "important".
Lets face it: That dog won't hunt. If you have something important to say, you don't write it on a paper towel drenched in piss that you throw at some passer-by.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @11:48PM
Does the minority define the whole?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @11:44PM
'Fess up, dude: You had a 900 number some years back and called yourself Miss Cleo. [wikipedia.org]
Clearly, Soylentils don't need to respond to your posts--you already know what they're thinking.
You're obviously psychotic^W psychic.
...and, clearly, everyone's motivations are all the same.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday February 16 2016, @04:27AM
Appended IP address is not a good idea if they need to remain anonymous and are on a fixed IP address. Some would be very easy to ID. Also kind of a mess for readers (did I reply to AC 106.223.01.01 or AC 106.202.01.01 ??)
But how about... number each AC sequentially for a given story, and keep track as needed behind the scenes. So what we'd see out here in userland would be posts by "Anonymous Coward 0001" etc. where the number is good ONLY for that story.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Tuesday February 16 2016, @07:20AM
I don't think "need to remain anonymous" enters into the discussion.
They can create a persona used for nothing but SN if they want.
The idea isn't to dox them, its to make them wear the feces they throw as they drive past.
At least gewg_ and OriginalOwner sign their posts, but that only solves a portion of the reputation management issue.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DNied on Tuesday February 16 2016, @11:06AM
The "anonymous modifier" takes care of that: set it to -6, read at threshold 0 and you'll never see ACs. Set it to a less extreme negative value and you'll only see ACs that get modded up.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday February 16 2016, @05:56AM
I've been tempted to implement a tripcode-like feature (i.e. 4chan) to give ACs a middle ground. Never got around to it, and I haven't had much inclination to hack on rehash to actually do it :(.
Still always moving
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sudo rm -rf on Tuesday February 16 2016, @01:19PM
I never heard of tripcode before, interesting concept. It means that ACs have to enter a code with each submit and a computed hash from that code will be appended. Impersonating would require one to know the originally entered code (that itself would not be stored anywhere)
It wouldn't solve the problem with the critias syndrome (one person speaking in dialogues), but I think it would be a nice improvement.