Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks.
Feel free to suggest poll ideas if you're feeling creative. I'd strongly suggest reading the past polls first.
This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
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(1)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @01:12AM
(5 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday October 28 2023, @01:12AM (#1330558)
...and then The Best of Both Worlds happened.
Yes, I'm aware that Dallas did a cliffhanger much earlier. Who shot JR? It didn't have the same effect of making season-ending cliffhangers common like TNG did.
(Score: 3, Informative) by istartedi on Saturday October 28 2023, @02:19AM
(4 children)
The Wikipedia article disagrees [wikipedia.org], attributing the first prime time season-ending cliff hanger
to Soap, and of course Dallas, associating it with prime time soaps. The article doesn't even mention TNG, but it mentions The Empire Strikes Back
being one wrt to Luke's heritage. LOL, hopefully we don't start a Trek/Wars cliffhanger significance war on Wikipedia. How will it be resolved? Return
here next week to find out...
-- Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @03:16AM
(3 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday October 28 2023, @03:16AM (#1330574)
Some of the cliffhangers discussed weren't at the end of seasons. For example, Doctor Who routinely used cliffhangers all the way back to An Unearthly Child. However, these were used within a single serial, generally not at the end of a season or otherwise between serials. There are examples of continuity such as the Macra appearing on the TARDIS viewscreen at the end of the previous serial, but I'm not sure that constitutes a true cliffhanger. In some respects, the forced regeneration at the end of The War Games might be a bit closer, but the primary questions were what the Doctor's new appearance would be, and the circumstances he would find himself in on Earth. Still, Spearhead From Space is a new story in its own right, not really a resolution of The War Games.
Now, season-ending cliffhangers might have been more common in primetime soaps than I realized, but I'm not aware of them being commonplace in other shows until after season 3 of TNG. For example, starting with the end of season 2 of the X-Files, cliffhangers were quite common. Mulder appears to be killed at the end of Anasazi, and this cliffhanger is repeated under different circumstances two seasons later in Gethsemane. However, I suspect that if this show had aired a decade earlier, these stories would have included cliffhangers at the end of seasons. By the way, the cliffhanger at the end of Anasazi was quite good. Although the Gethsemane-Redux-Redux II three-part story was quite good, I don't think the audience found Mulder's apparent death as compelling. But if the X-Files had primarily aired in the 80s, I suspect that these season-ending cliffhangers wouldn't have happened.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @04:49AM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday October 28 2023, @04:49AM (#1330583)
The 80s had season ending cliffhangers all over. Even worse, given the trend of canceling shows with little to no warning, many of them were also the series finales. While it is easier to remember the ones that happened recently, they absolutely happened in the past. Cliffhanger season finales, false endings, "to be continued..." and stingers happened back then because it garnered higher ratings for the finales, which increased the chances of a show getting renewed. Cliffhangers in general were abound with shows that aired outside the prime viewing hours because it increased your chances of tuning in next time. Today, cliffhangers and false ending are all over the place for a similar reason with everything competing for your attention. Another thing that often happened is that if the show was canceled early enough, they would air episodes out of order in an attempt to provide that closure. Often time today, they don't really care because ending on a cliffhanger doesn't really matter when TV time is more expensive and you don't get as many angry letters thanks to all the other distractions you can consume.
The 80s had season ending cliffhangers all over. Even worse, given the trend of canceling shows with little to no warning, many of them were also the series finales
Fond memories of being urged to watch a show with other people in our dorm.
Word was, the writers had been tipped off to the show being cancelled after
just one season, and they were going to do something drastic with the script.
It did not disappoint. They did the classic disarming a nuclear bomb scene, except that they
failed to disarm it. Then somehow they got renewed anyway, and for their
first episode of the 2nd season they had the narrator say, "this all happened years ago",
so we were supposed to be watching a prequel from then on out. IIRC, either the
2nd season didn't complete or that was it; but my memory could be way off so
let's test it. I haven't googled yet.
OH, interesting. You can watch that
entire episode [youtube.com] on YouTube. I wonder if it would hold up. I skipped to the end and
confirmed the nuke. But now that I think about all this, it's not really a cliff-hanger
is it? It's more like a cliff annihilator. It seemed really unique and special at the time.
-- Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
I still get chills watching the very first episode of Doctor Who: the fog, the dark, the bobby checking doors....you see Foreman Scrap Merchant, the door opens and-- There's the TARDIS!
And then it all cliff-hangs with the Doctor being his selfish self. The TARDIS lands with Ian and Barbara unconscious, and outside; a shadow....
I enjoy the original series more than the reboot.
I grew up with Tom Baker, but the first Doctor is just so grumpy, cantankerous, selfish, joyful...and original.
-- ---
Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC.
---Gaaark 2.0
---
OK, it's not high tech. But 30 some years ago, I took the two older boys out in the woods, to get a load of firewood. "Daddy, did they have chain saws when you were our age?"
Alright, if I were to choose one of the options given, it would probably the the phones screwed to the wall. I mean, even land lines today are pretty portable - I can carry the hand set almost anywhere on this one acre, and it still works. I think the range is right at 175 to 200 ft, which gives a guy a lot of pacing room.
-- “I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @05:03AM
(6 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday October 28 2023, @05:03AM (#1330586)
Speaking of phones, I'd go with party lines. I still have relatives living in the middle of nowhere that are on party lines today. The oldest uses one those old coiled headset cords with that distinct aged yellow color that is easily 75 feet long when stretched out. It reaches from one side of the house to the other up the stars and then back to the starting side with cord to spare. We tried years ago to switch her to a cordless, but it was too "high maintenance."
You can't lose a handset on the end of a cord (This is important when, as you age, you more frequently forget where you put something down.), and it doesn't run out of charge in the middle of a call.
Young people, who have not yet experienced the vicissitudes of ageing, tend to say "Oh, you can just press the button on the base-station to make the phone beep so you can find it.", which is one more damn thing to remember, and doesn't work when the handset battery is flat, because who remembers to put it back on the base-station to recharge: and the batteries wear out anyway.
Designing stuff to allow people to maintain their independence is hard, and requires both experience and sensitivity. It's also worthwhile, because the longer people can remain independent, the less expensive it is for them to live, and they are happier. I wish website and app designers would get their stuff tested by people experiencing the typical cognitive difficulties that arise as you age. It's obvious they don't.
Look after your old people well, to set a good example to you children, so they will look after you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @11:27PM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday October 28 2023, @11:27PM (#1330674)
That sounded more dismissive than it should have because it is an old argument. But watching that poor woman struggle with that cord on the off chance she wants to go upstairs shows the alternative isn't exactly maintenance free either. That and she has to shuffle over to the phone to pick up the phone or check the large-print caller ID box (usually missing the call in the process anyway) and then shuffle back to return it when done lest the off-hook tone start screeching (because she always sits in her favorite chair by the window in a different room to talk) is also pretty high maintenance. And that long cord stretched into the wrong spot is a horrible tripping hazard for an older woman with poor eyesight and replacement parts. And that doesn't even get into the fact that the time between her calling for help and arriving at the hospital is an hour doesn't help, and even longer if they need to fly her to a better equipped one.
Compared to a cordless phone that can go in a charger on the table next to the chair, it definitely strikes me as much higher maintenance. I think the real truth, which I sort of implied with my half-sincere quotes, is that she doesn't want to change. And that is fair too, especially when you have a system that is (or maybe just seems to be?) working for you. But like you said, that could just be my perspective since I'm used to the alternative already. There are pros and cons to both but as long as it isn't an active threat and she remembers to use whatever phone she has on my birthday, it is good enough for now I suppose. But it still feels like a sword of Damocles hanging above her head.
Maybe put extension phones in: one on a table next to the chair she likes to converse in, and one upstairs, possibly next to her bed?
She might be willing to learn how to use a cordless phone, or even a mobile phone, but she might not be able to learn either easily. Unfortunately I have experience of this - in my case supporting an aged relative's use of an iPad. Things that are trivial for young people become insuperable problems for some people advanced in years. Obviously not everyone, but enough to make it a societal problem.
For phones, there is also the insane price for long distance service in the 1970s. And of course you couldn't own your own phone, you had to rent it from Ma Bell.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @01:58PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday October 28 2023, @01:58PM (#1330631)
Remember kids, only right wing critics are allowed, making a pointed joke about the current insanity of the self-described domestic terrorists of the GOP is forboten! Spam spam spam, even if on topic!
(Score: 0, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @10:58AM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday November 09 2023, @10:58AM (#1332247)
He's just one mod short! Help out an AC! You know,moderations are the most important and significant thing about the SlashCode, and the down-mods produce prodigious amounts of conservative tears, but not nearly as much as if this post hit the coveted +5 Troll! Just do it! Make your Mama proud.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2023, @07:56PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday November 10 2023, @07:56PM (#1332441)
Yeah! He made it! An AC with a +5 Troll rating! We all should be so proud. And just think of all the positive karma this means for the AC! (None, actually, and +5 only half compensates the -10 spam mod.)
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @06:43AM
(25 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday October 28 2023, @06:43AM (#1330596)
Runaway has learned the janrinok lesson. Censorship works! Just ban everyone who might say bad things about your murder-advocating post, and it will be fine! But I am here to say, it is not fine! Such posts, anywhere on SN are a detriment and a pox! We need to no longer allow snuff posts here on SoylentNews! I know that janrinok gets off on them, having been in the "chair force", and Runaway as well, having been a swabie on a ship, but we need to keep these pervert veterans from polluting out forum. No more ammosexual ground-standing posts. We should spam mod them, mercilessly. Until they bleed out of their eyes, and the true nature of their souls is apparent. That is all I want.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @07:23AM
(5 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday October 28 2023, @07:23AM (#1330600)
I wish that moderations were public. I suspect that it is the enraged janrinok that is spam modding all the posts that his "hashes" tell him are aristarchusish, but I have no way of telling where the mods come from. They could equally come from the Runaway right-wing nutjob caucus, due to content, but janrinok says we cannot do the "I disagree" spam mods, so it would seem that the straight from the janrinok himself theory is more apt. Can we get some confirmation on this, one way or the other? Seems to be an awful lot so spam mods around lately, and none of them are rescinded, which is compatible with the lone janrinok theory. Evidence? Please. For the survival of SN.
For the record- I've felt this way since I was messing around on the green-site on dial-up. I thought about proposing that when talk of an ownership change of this site started, but figured it might be impractical to implement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @09:36AM
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday November 05 2023, @09:36AM (#1331518)
The situation is a bit different on /. because editors have unlimited mod points. It makes sense to want to know if you've been modded down by your fellow users or if an editor is using some of their infinite mod points. That's not the case here. The community is also smaller here, so disclosing who moderated a post is more likely to result in petty retaliation.
I would be interested in having the ability to moderate journals. I don't mean to moderate comments in journals, but the actual journals. For users with a karma of +10 or greater, start the journal's score at 10. Otherwise, start it at 0. Have a minimum score of -10 and a maximum score of 20. If the journal's score is +5 or greater, it can be displayed in the recent journals slashbox. If the score is less, it's hidden. For every five times a journal is modded up, increment the author's karma by 1. Likewise, every five times a journal is modded down, decrement the author's karma by 1. Hopefully this would favor displaying interesting journals on the front page while decreasing the visibility of journals that mostly just incite arguments. Users can still post political flamebait in their journals, but they might burn some karma in the process.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2023, @07:49AM
(2 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday November 15 2023, @07:49AM (#1333008)
I suspect that it is the enraged janrinok that is spam modding all the posts that his "hashes" tell him are aristarchusish, but I have no way of telling where the mods come from.
It is more the ENGORGED janrinok that one must worry about. Very angry, very hard, out for revenge and making soylentils toe the fucking line!! Is he the only one who respects the rules? (For fans of "The Big Lebowski", janrinok is a Continental version of Walter Sobchack, and it is fucking Shomer Shabbot, everyday on SoylentNews.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @08:52AM
(13 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday October 28 2023, @08:52AM (#1330608)
If history is any indication, this poll will have several off-topic threads just like this one within a few days. They contain nothing of substance that hasn't already been posted ad nauseum. Repetitive off-topic posting for the purpose of disrupting the site is spam. It's always been spam, regardless of who is posting it. The one or two users posting this have made it clear they have no intention of abiding by community moderation, using Tor and VPNs to circumvent any posting restrictions.
When you reply to these threads at +2 to dispute some of what has been posted, your posts are expanded in the default view for users who aren't logged in. This increases the visibility of the spam threads and helps them disrupt on-topic discussion.
Regardless of who posts these threads, they qualify as spam. I don't believe the site's code allows for you to block AC posting in polls, otherwise you'd have done so. Community moderation is ineffective because any IP bans are just circumvented with Tor or VPNs. However, you have another tool available to you that can prevent these polls from being filled with spam threads. As you've stated many, site policy allows for spam to be deleted. This would not censor the ideas from being expressed because they have already been posted hundreds of times before in journals and other polls. We don't need to see them yet again.
I am asking you to please enforce existing site policy and just delete these spam threads. Don't respond to them and increase their visibility. Just delete them and move on.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @09:07AM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday October 28 2023, @09:07AM (#1330615)
This would not censor the ideas from being expressed because they have already been posted hundreds of times before in journals and other polls. We don't need to see them yet again.
Oh, but yes you do, since you have not understood the essence of right-wing dominance of SoylentNews, and the purpose of the censorship. You need to wake up, so you can be "woke". Or, go back to the stupified state of the somnulent public who thinks racism is just fine.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @10:01AM
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday October 28 2023, @10:01AM (#1330620)
I am only posting this comment so that janrinok has something to spam mod. I can only imagine it makes him happy, like he has accomplished something. Well done, old chap!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2023, @10:09AM
(3 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday November 03 2023, @10:09AM (#1331338)
No one can. Only downmods allowed on SoylentNews, anymore. Sad husk of a discussion site that was. Your comment is off topic, and disruptive. Prepare to be spam modded.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @06:37AM
(2 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday November 05 2023, @06:37AM (#1331511)
I would down mod, with double secret special probation, that no one could know about [soylentnews.org], and only janrinok could offer a super secret remission deal, to, someone, whose name is not to be mentioned, or invoked, lest the whole house of pfards come combubulating down..
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:34PM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:34PM (#1333080)
Super double secret amnesty, so that the one forgiven could never reveal it, no one could ever know that it was granted. Kind of like the deal Satan got.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 18 2023, @11:29AM
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday November 18 2023, @11:29AM (#1333381)
If janrinok offers enough deals, just maybe SoylentNews can continue on! As a crippled, compromised, censored, and stifled news site, but at least as a site. For a while.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 29 2023, @06:49AM
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday October 29 2023, @06:49AM (#1330715)
I am asking you to please enforce existing site policy and just delete these spam threads. Don't respond to them and increase their visibility. Just delete them and move on.
Do you think janrinok capable of such? I have my doubts. And, the questions about admin abuse have not been addressed. Like, WTF is up with all the Spam Mods? Seriously.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 30 2023, @01:39AM
(2 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday October 30 2023, @01:39AM (#1330771)
If history is any indication, this poll will have several off-topic threads just like this one within a few days. They contain nothing of substance that hasn't already been posted ad nauseum.
That's how us old fogies roll! Hey, did I ever tell you about the days when phones actually had dials?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2023, @07:32PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday November 12 2023, @07:32PM (#1332620)
If history is any indication, this poll will have several off-topic threads just like this one within a few days. They contain nothing of substance that hasn't already been posted ad nauseum. Repetitive off-topic posting for the purpose of disrupting the site is spam. It's always been spam, regardless of who is posting it. The one or two users posting this have made it clear they have no intention of abiding by community moderation, using Tor and VPNs to circumvent any posting restrictions.
What do you expect when you have a poll like this one, presented to a community of geezer nerds? They are not repeating, they seriously do not remember. And calling age-related dementia "disruptive" is cruel, and adds nothing to the discussion. Young whippersnappers down modding their elders is no way to run a website. Now, get off my lawn!
[Take a look at the anonymous data story on the front page. It is telling. ]
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2023, @08:09PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday October 31 2023, @08:09PM (#1331004)
Was he a Shooter of the House? Young-earth Creationist? Super stupid crazy evangelican American Christian? May the FSM have marinara upon his sole fillet.
For various reasons, some works are copyrighted for 95 years after publication in the USA. The novel 1984 was published in 1949, so the 95-year rule means it enters the public domain in the USA on 1st January 2044.
It has already entered the public domain in some other countries.
I think the guy who recorded it is Australian, and this version has his reading and sound effects. I really liked it, and some of the YouTube comments are from kids who were assigned the book in school, listened to his audio adaptation, and got a lot out of it.
I had to wake up at 10 o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."
And if you try to tell the young people of today that, they won't believe you.
As it is, I can truthfully say that I had to walk over a mile to school uphill through foot-deep snow. The way things are going, I think the youths will start answering "What's snow?"
-- The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @12:10PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday October 28 2023, @12:10PM (#1330628)
Well, I had to trudge down into the valley, before I could fight my way uphill through the snow. Which meant that when school let out, I had to go down into the valley, again, to barge through the snow to get home! The "city of seven hills" sounds cool, until you add snow to that picture.
When I was in primary school (early 80s) we had a teacher who seemed really ancient (she was probably in her fifties) who told us that when she was a child she used to have to walk, in bare feet, four miles from the next village to this very school where she now taught.
I had (still have) one of those. An Apple Profile drive. 5 MB. Huge. Heavy. It sounded like a jet engine. And it was slow, even then. But faster than floppies.
All I have left is the actual drive mechanism. That took up half the case. Huge. The other half the case was the power supply. I keep that drive on my bookshelf as a bookend and reminder of how bad things once were.
-- Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
When I was a very small boy, and it might have been round about 1979, my dad took me to his work and into the computer room where he proudly showed me his SCADA system. It had 5MB disk drives. They were the size of washing machines and the disks looked like giant frisbees.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 29 2023, @04:01AM
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday October 29 2023, @04:01AM (#1330703)
What we have here if proof positive that SN is a geriatric home for the mentally enfeebled, and just to specifically insult and attack some of the old farts that hang around here, no-longer-early-onset Runaway1956, and the Cold War Cretin janrinok. Oh, they are so old, as McGrew put it, that they were beta testers for dirt. But, as with the Biden/Trump comparison, it is not so much the age, as it is the mental decline. Runaway no longer recognizes half his grandkids, and janrinok doesn't realize he is in the wrong country, and Joan D'Arc is quite pissed at him for hanging about.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Cyrix6x86 on Sunday October 29 2023, @06:11AM
(2 children)
Northern Virginia was always "iffy" for Winter weather. Not only
could the season vary widely, but it was and still is notoriously difficult
to predict in terms of whether it will rain or snow during any particular
storm. It's always close to the rain/snow line. I don't doubt what you're
saying but our Winter was always fickle.
Forget the weather there. For me, it's the birds.
The great migrating flocks. Gone. There used to be what I thought
of as a "river of birds", that's just what it looked like, a great pointillist vein
high in the sky, or if they happened to settle in your area for the night it
was like something out of the Hitchcock movie. I'd say this was pretty much
history by the mid-80s for us. I don't know if the migration shifted due to the
rapidly expanding development of the suburbs, or if it disappeared. I think
it must have disappeared because suburban neighborhoods never seemed
to bother them. We still had plenty of trees, and a park nearby that was
several square miles of woods and a lake.
For this generation, it's insects. I hear tales of fireflies going.
That would be a terrible shame. They were still around when I left Virginia
in the early 2000s. I just can't imagine the east coast without them. When
you move across country, it's hard to say what's what in those regards.
Anyway, for my location is was less about the weather and more
about the wildlife. We are apparently in an epic extinction event.
-- Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
You sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole trying
to confirm the decline in birds specific to my area.
Alas, I couldn't find it in a reasonable time
but the general
decline in North American birds [science.org] is well documented.
You also reminded me of something else. It used
to be common for trees and even the sides of houses
to be menaced by hornets that built the classic egg-shaped
nest. I think the last time I saw one was in the woods, in the 1990s.
Kids are going to see those in cartoons and think they're made-up.
-- Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 29 2023, @06:53AM
(24 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday October 29 2023, @06:53AM (#1330716)
I, for one, would like to see the full text of the back-door offer janrinok made to aristarchus. I am interested in what danger lurks in the minds of lesser men.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2023, @08:55PM
(22 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday November 01 2023, @08:55PM (#1331159)
Your wish is a command!
aristarchus,
The aristarchus account is banned, permanently. However, you seem to be determined to remain on the site so I can offer you a proposal to consider. It is not negotiable. Take it or leave it.
I will allow you to create another account providing that certain conditions are met. The first is that you must identify the nickname that you intend to adopt to me via an email from this account. Notification from any other email account will not be acceptable.
The nickname must not be relatable to any previous account that you have created. It must appear as a totally new identity. I will be one of only 2 people who will know who owns that account. I will indicate my acceptance of your new nickname via this email account and no other.
You may then create the actual account using whatever email address you wish. I would strongly recommend that you do NOT use your yahoo.com address. The new account will probably be blocked by the security software but I will unblock it as soon as I can once I have confirmed the nickname. You will then have a completely new identity on the site.
To be fair to you, only 2 people will know that you have been given a new account.
There are further conditions. These rules will apply for the remainder of your time in our community. If you do no comply with all of the following conditions then your new account will be disabled. You will not have another opportunity to create one. There will be no further warnings.
1. You must adopt a completely new persona - if it is apparent to the community that you are actually aristarchus then the new account will be disabled.
2. You must not attack individuals personally. You may criticise their comments by replying directly to them but you must not make any attempt to personally criticise, ridicule or harass any individual. Everyone is entitled to express their own views. I will judge your behaviour solely on how you act under your new nickname.
3. You will not be allowed to post comments anonymously for an extended period, the minimum of which will be 6 months but may be extended at my discretion. I will judge your behaviour solely on how you act under your new nickname.
4. You must not doxx anyone on this site. You are still doxxing (as of a week or two ago) by including personal information that you think we will not notice. We have. Repeating the same personal information so that it becomes more widely known does not mean it is no longer doxxing.
5. You must not continue to disrupt the site as an AC elsewhere in discussions.
6. You will NOT be permitted to hold a staff position, nor will you have access to the private data that we hold. You may volunteer to stand for election as a community representative on the new board.
7. Any attempt to create further sock puppet accounts will result in all of your accounts being disabled.
8. Any moderation abuse involving your new account will result in the account being disabled.
On the positive side of things you will have the benefit of being able to participate fully in the site's discussions. Please take time to consider this offer - it is the only one that you are going to get. I do not expect a reply immediately and the offer will stand for 1 calendar month from the date of this email. After that it will be automatically withdrawn.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2023, @05:11AM
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday November 03 2023, @05:11AM (#1331321)
If I were aristarchus, I would have accepted this offer. Just think, a Soylentil persona, crafted over many years, abandoned. The right to mod right-wing assholes as they should be, rescinded. Ability to call janrinok a right fucking arse, denied. Such a sweet deal. Only reinforces the perception that SN is a right-wing ammosexual website, that censors any disagreement. Time to die, and be lost, like tears in the rain.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 04 2023, @08:54AM
(8 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday November 04 2023, @08:54AM (#1331445)
Why can't janrinok just admit the original decision was wrong, a false flag operation by Runaway1956, in the first place? Seems to be the easier solution, without all the drama.
You were banned for doxxing. Some of that doxxing occured in multiple submissions made via your own account. You had sole control over that account. It cannot have been done by anyone else.
-- I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @05:34AM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday November 05 2023, @05:34AM (#1331505)
We all could dox you, mein friende janrinok. But you are not bothered by such? Why is the racist mo-fo asshole who was allegedly "doxxed" worried about his actual identity being revealed, despite it was his own efforts that made that possible? Yes, he is a criminal, a racist, an with my sympathies to his wife, a misogynist. We need to ban such cretins, not defend them in the name of "free speech", or "equal rights for the conservative brain damaged." Really, seriously, and in fact, this is what SN has devolved to be, and I, for one, can no longer be part of it.
Sorry, I am not aristsarchus, so your phantom battle can continue, you delusional blighty pom!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:04AM
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:04AM (#1333009)
So, you are saying that aristarchus was a sockpuppet account of Runaway1956, that he used to dox himself? Wow, crazy clever internet modulation, that. More than you would expect from an Arkansas dirt farmer who never went beyond high school. Or, really, what are you saying, janrinok? Aristarchus was just too liberal for this website, so you banned him? Come on, just admit it. And then we can shut the whole place down, now that kolie's ammosexual leanings have come out.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2023, @08:46AM
(2 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday November 16 2023, @08:46AM (#1333128)
Banned for ALLEGED doxxing. Never proven. Never tried before jury of peers. Only the court of the imperium, the "staff", by which we mean janrinok and friends. Time to send the authorities to the Runaway Homestead and Grow Operation. GPS coordinates are not hard to find.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2023, @06:24PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday November 16 2023, @06:24PM (#1333182)
Less than 24 hours ago, you said this on IRC:
[21:10:39] <aristarchus> Hoping for a quick recovery for janrinok.
Now you've resumed the usual personal attacks toward janrinok. I guess you can't even pretend to be a decent human being for 24 hours before you revert back to your true self. That's really quite sad and pathetic.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @11:02AM
(8 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday November 09 2023, @11:02AM (#1332248)
Did janrinok have authorization from the Board to make such an offer? Is there not legal liability involved in this? Could it be that the whole thing was overblown, and the result of bad, and overpriced, legal advice?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:06AM
(2 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:06AM (#1333010)
Why do all comments that mention Oklahoma get spam modded, even though The Mighty Buzzard left long ago. I do not understand what is happening here anymore.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:45PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:45PM (#1333081)
Saw that. TMB and aristarchus had a lovely tête-à-tête. They reminisced about back in the day when there was no censorship on SoylentNews. Au bon vieux temps.
Since I live (and always lived) outside the United States, I never got anything by US Postal mail. This obviously includes Netflix movies.
BTW, I'm not only older than Google. I'm older than the World Wide Web. Heck, when I was born, neither Microsoft nor Apple existed. Not even Unix had been released yet.
-- The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday October 30 2023, @04:33PM
(1 child)
Yep. I'm older than IBM 370, Unix, Microcomputers, Apple, Microsoft, VCRs, Internet, exploding Ford Pintos, WWW, Google, and having to ask people what their pronouns are before you attempt to engage in conversation with them.
-- Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2023, @02:40PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday November 10 2023, @02:40PM (#1332396)
No one has to ask about pronouns, but as always you will find some jerks that get riled up if you use the wrong one. Very similar to jerks thatget offended by happy holidays instead of merry christmas. Don't get too crotchety lest you become what you mock!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2023, @01:27PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday November 06 2023, @01:27PM (#1331640)
Probably those carpet-sweeper things? Vacuum pumps have been around forever though, it's perfectly reasonable that a powered vacuum could be made to run on compressed air or some other power source.
Easily the most unbelievable thing in the universe, that Slashdot (and its progeny) once had a youthful, trendy audience. To be honest I still don't believe it myself...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2023, @03:28PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday October 31 2023, @03:28PM (#1330945)
Not allowing ads for lawyers and pharmaceuticals was wonderful.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday October 31 2023, @09:42PM
When I was a child, hardly any individuals and only large companies had any kind of electronic computer. Restaurants, grocery stores, and most shops relied on mechanical adding machines. Pen, paper, and hand calculations ruled. People got excited about 4-function calculators.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday November 01 2023, @02:07PM
(1 child)
Even for relatively small companies, I bet the uptake of computers was relatively fast. Sure, there's always been the technophobes, but not needing to do everything by hand was a major time saver. Especially, if you had any sort of complex backend.
-- Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
It actually took a while. Early microcomputers were expensive, unfriendly and had limited business useful software. Small business owners were often reluctant to spend the time and money to convert when they already had a system that worked.
When I was child, we had just landed men on the Moon, and most expected we would be going to Mars in a decade or two.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2023, @04:34AM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday November 01 2023, @04:34AM (#1331063)
The gumball machine only charged a penny, and you could snail-mail a post card for two cents. A quarter was a fortune and a silver dollar was a treasure.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday November 02 2023, @10:01PM
Dude, you are old. Atari was old when I was young. Okay, not "that old", but Nintendo crushed Atari's hopes and dreams. Also, our family owned a PC, before any "video game consoles". I've always been a PC first guy. Video game consoles have their place (especially revolving around sharing 1 system), but they have much more limited use scope. With the likes of digital only games on consoles, they have an ever smaller niche use.
-- Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
I would not be surprised if there were members here that remember when the USA comprised 48 states. And some that remember the Pledge of Allegiance not including the phrase 'under God'.
(Score: 2) by Snospar on Thursday November 02 2023, @09:27AM
(1 child)
I've just realised I picked the wrong answer, there wasn't an option for "I've got children older than Google". I bet she doesn't even realise and her sister is not - I think I'll save this for Christmas and set the sparks flying then!
-- Huge thanks to all the Soylent volunteers without whom this community (and this post) would not be possible.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday November 06 2023, @11:34PM
...reading books (and comics) all day, weeks on end (only interrupted by school).
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2023, @09:52AM
(3 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday November 03 2023, @09:52AM (#1331333)
Digital, something, title cut off. But, certainly helped the SoylentNews! Since we implemented the paywall, and banned AC posting, revenues have gone through the roof, and we never saw them after that! Unprecedented levels of comments and spam mods, nearly simultaneously! Future monetization potential is attracting heat-packing venture capitalists, like kolie, and impoverished retired British military, like janrinok. Question is answered, I take it?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2023, @09:55AM
(2 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday November 03 2023, @09:55AM (#1331334)
Note: Posting here because ACs are banned from the front page, on order of Obergruppekommandant janrinok.
I'm older than the first commercial satellite, Telstar.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @05:28AM
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday November 05 2023, @05:28AM (#1331504)
Do not recognize, do they, the obvious logic bombs, and really stupid submissions, designed to make them look the fools. Microsoft? I recall soylentils complaining about "Micro$oft", or Mikro$erf", of "Microphallus, AKA, Trump, or Gill Bates. None of this this worthy of the front page of a news aggregation site, ergo, that is not what SoylentNews is. Suck on it, janrinok!@!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @05:52AM
(2 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday November 05 2023, @05:52AM (#1331507)
Not only Gar, but Pike, as well. . My point is, that many ACs, who are not Liz (and I really appreciate that we have some Micro$erf minions here, who are not afraid to so identify.) are afraid to testify about the abuse that was done to them. Chromas, I suspect, has been permantently damaged by Redmond, and Visual Basic. Janrinok, forced to do avionics on the basis of defense contracts to totally incompetent software companies. And, of course, NPS contract software upon which khallow had to stand his hill, till he collaped, and became a soft an fluffy toy of mangement. So sad, so fluffy and sad, and too bad that janrinok was betrayed by his service, and no he supports killing children. At least they are not Irish.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @08:56AM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday November 05 2023, @08:56AM (#1331516)
It's been said that the two biggest things to come out of Berkeley are BSD and LSD. It is left as an exercise for the reader to determine which of them is responsible for the incoherent ramblings of the parent post.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @06:08AM
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday November 05 2023, @06:08AM (#1331508)
Did you know that ACs could comment on front page articles, back in the day? Not so many days in the back, until janrinok decided that slurs and bad words towards the commanding officers of SoylentNews were bad for Order and Discipline!! Sargeant Major, marching up and down the square [youtube.com]
Now, off you go!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @06:20AM
(3 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday November 05 2023, @06:20AM (#1331509)
Choose your sides, loosers! Free Ireland! The whole island, and Palestine, and aristarchus! Fascists!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @06:59AM
(2 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday November 05 2023, @06:59AM (#1331512)
Time to abandon this shill site. Microsoft is evil, they even said they disagreed with Google's motto, and Google has abandoned it , anyway. The only polar principle on SoylentNews is, and has ever been, aristarchus. He has never wavered in his defense of truth, and justice, and how much of a fucking right-wing hillbilly mother-something asshole (and, pig-fucker) that Runaway1956 is. So, take it from there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @08:48AM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday November 05 2023, @08:48AM (#1331515)
There's no way that young people will ever believe that at one time, long ago, aristarchus actually posted interesting content and didn't create sock puppets. Yes, there was once a time when aristarchus wasn't a spammer, and when he didn't have a creepy obsession with janrinok and Runaway. Sadly, those times are never coming back.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2023, @07:42PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday November 06 2023, @07:42PM (#1331717)
Back in my day, websites didn't need no certifications! We used to trust the network, 'cause only university types had access. No social media, no truth social, no Tweeting. No wounder SN cannot handle such a simple, mundane task!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jimbrooking on Tuesday November 07 2023, @01:06AM
(2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2023, @09:41PM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday November 07 2023, @09:41PM (#1331962)
People today don't believe that it was the Democrats that pushed Trump into running in the belief that it was the only way they could get an evil witch into the White House. It backfired when people still refused to elect her and the Orange Clown was more popular than they expected.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2023, @10:43PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday November 07 2023, @10:43PM (#1331979)
Ha!
The nutters were over the moon that the GOP primaries allowed the moo cows to select a pathetic version of a populiststrong man because of the cult of capitalism and the clear racism they were dying to openly embrace. Pinning trump on dems is just more desperate pronection and denial. Big sad energy.
Software used to come on audio cassettes. They used to load at 1500 baud if you were lucky. All the computers from different manufacturers were incompatible. They had a variety of CPU architectures and different, incompatible "operating systems." Most home computers came with their own unique dialect of BASIC built in.
No one has stood on the Moon since December 1972. The Human Race has had no way of going back there since the 70s.
University education used to be free in the UK.
We used to think that fascists were the bad guys. Now we have Suella Braverman.
In the olden days it was almost always implemented in software and ran very slowly indeed. Not only that, single-precision was 40 bits (5 bytes) and double-precision was 80 bits (10 bytes). When they did 3D on your microcomputer, it was wireframe and the calculations were done in fixed point. If you were lucky there was hidden line removal.
I picked "older than Google" because out of the options it fits best. What I actually wanted to pick is older than Internet. Many youth thinks that Google==Internet.
For many it is difficult to imagine a time when you had to go to the library for looking up information. It was not common to even have a computer and mobile phones did not exist. If you wanted to meet someone you had to always agree on a time in advance.
(Score: 2) by OrugTor on Wednesday November 08 2023, @05:13PM
Paper tape was a great input medium unless you dropped it and it instantly unrolled. I loved paper tape. Punch girls, not so much. And yes, they were actually known as punch girls.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2023, @08:42PM
(4 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday November 08 2023, @08:42PM (#1332165)
Red-green is right.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @08:31AM
(3 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday November 09 2023, @08:31AM (#1332241)
Never have I seen such immediate response to community concerns (see the logs of the #goverance committee from today) about things that avoid addressing the real problems on SN, like the neo-nazi and alt-right, and Runaway, infections, and the banning of progressive speech. But, we must do we, eh? Democracy! It is what SoylentNews is lacking! Hoorah!
(Score: 0, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @06:13PM
(2 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday November 09 2023, @06:13PM (#1332287)
You live in a country where the GOP-led House can censure the speech of Rashida Tlaib for expressing concern for Palestinians. So much for GOP support of free speech. Go figure. It is no mystery that the disease infects SN as well.
Now, to vector back on topic... Hey, kids, you won't believe it, but it wasn't always this way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2023, @06:28AM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday November 10 2023, @06:28AM (#1332365)
Well, if you can occupy their lands, and then marry their daughters, and then do the Murders of the Flower Moon, or the Palestinian equivalent, it is all good imperialist racist lebensraum shit, right?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2023, @06:34AM
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday November 10 2023, @06:34AM (#1332366)
I mean, it was not like the savages were actually using the land, like native americans, or South Africans, of Pre-Roman Britons, or Runaway before the Department of non-stupid plant growing [arkansas.gov] showed up, to help him, with his mental deficiencies. Poor Runaway.. I hope his okra turns out ok.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2023, @01:40PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday November 10 2023, @01:40PM (#1332385)
Found this bit of generational friction funny!
barely understand sarcasm and almost never understand irony anymore. Everything is to be understood literally, and whenever possible, with excessive gravitas and drama nowadays.
We had a government that served our people instead of existing to serve another countries people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2023, @01:33PM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday November 11 2023, @01:33PM (#1332502)
Gee whatever could you mean . . . . . . .
As if US international support is about anything other than US economic interests. Keeping you angry at the wrong things is just one of the many tools of manipulation.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:10AM
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:10AM (#1333011)
This is where we are, the point that separates the sheep from the goats, the asses from the donkeys, the llamas from the alpacas. Pony up, Soylentils. Who gets to decide if the oligarchy of the janrinok faction is to continue! Attend the Governance Committee meeting! But then, maybe, it really doesn't matter. Janrinok will just ban us all, no matter what happens. Right, khallow?
(Score: 1) by Marvin on Friday November 17 2023, @07:51AM
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 18 2023, @09:24AM
(2 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday November 18 2023, @09:24AM (#1333374)
I see white people, and they don't even know they are white! And now, AI is mirroring its learning data. Racist AI, since America, and the internet, it racist. This is why janrinok can never see it.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 18 2023, @11:25AM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday November 18 2023, @11:25AM (#1333380)
I thought Runaway was white, but then I saw his AI generated picture. Shewed his sole, doncha know, black as coal.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @01:12AM (5 children)
...and then The Best of Both Worlds happened.
Yes, I'm aware that Dallas did a cliffhanger much earlier. Who shot JR? It didn't have the same effect of making season-ending cliffhangers common like TNG did.
(Score: 3, Informative) by istartedi on Saturday October 28 2023, @02:19AM (4 children)
The Wikipedia article disagrees [wikipedia.org], attributing the first prime time season-ending cliff hanger to Soap, and of course Dallas, associating it with prime time soaps. The article doesn't even mention TNG, but it mentions The Empire Strikes Back being one wrt to Luke's heritage. LOL, hopefully we don't start a Trek/Wars cliffhanger significance war on Wikipedia. How will it be resolved? Return here next week to find out...
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @03:16AM (3 children)
Some of the cliffhangers discussed weren't at the end of seasons. For example, Doctor Who routinely used cliffhangers all the way back to An Unearthly Child. However, these were used within a single serial, generally not at the end of a season or otherwise between serials. There are examples of continuity such as the Macra appearing on the TARDIS viewscreen at the end of the previous serial, but I'm not sure that constitutes a true cliffhanger. In some respects, the forced regeneration at the end of The War Games might be a bit closer, but the primary questions were what the Doctor's new appearance would be, and the circumstances he would find himself in on Earth. Still, Spearhead From Space is a new story in its own right, not really a resolution of The War Games.
Now, season-ending cliffhangers might have been more common in primetime soaps than I realized, but I'm not aware of them being commonplace in other shows until after season 3 of TNG. For example, starting with the end of season 2 of the X-Files, cliffhangers were quite common. Mulder appears to be killed at the end of Anasazi, and this cliffhanger is repeated under different circumstances two seasons later in Gethsemane. However, I suspect that if this show had aired a decade earlier, these stories would have included cliffhangers at the end of seasons. By the way, the cliffhanger at the end of Anasazi was quite good. Although the Gethsemane-Redux-Redux II three-part story was quite good, I don't think the audience found Mulder's apparent death as compelling. But if the X-Files had primarily aired in the 80s, I suspect that these season-ending cliffhangers wouldn't have happened.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @04:49AM (1 child)
The 80s had season ending cliffhangers all over. Even worse, given the trend of canceling shows with little to no warning, many of them were also the series finales. While it is easier to remember the ones that happened recently, they absolutely happened in the past. Cliffhanger season finales, false endings, "to be continued..." and stingers happened back then because it garnered higher ratings for the finales, which increased the chances of a show getting renewed. Cliffhangers in general were abound with shows that aired outside the prime viewing hours because it increased your chances of tuning in next time. Today, cliffhangers and false ending are all over the place for a similar reason with everything competing for your attention. Another thing that often happened is that if the show was canceled early enough, they would air episodes out of order in an attempt to provide that closure. Often time today, they don't really care because ending on a cliffhanger doesn't really matter when TV time is more expensive and you don't get as many angry letters thanks to all the other distractions you can consume.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Sunday October 29 2023, @11:42PM
The 80s had season ending cliffhangers all over. Even worse, given the trend of canceling shows with little to no warning, many of them were also the series finales
Fond memories of being urged to watch a show with other people in our dorm. Word was, the writers had been tipped off to the show being cancelled after just one season, and they were going to do something drastic with the script. It did not disappoint. They did the classic disarming a nuclear bomb scene, except that they failed to disarm it. Then somehow they got renewed anyway, and for their first episode of the 2nd season they had the narrator say, "this all happened years ago", so we were supposed to be watching a prequel from then on out. IIRC, either the 2nd season didn't complete or that was it; but my memory could be way off so let's test it. I haven't googled yet.
The show? Sledgehammer.
Let's see how I did...OK looks like I at least got the number of seasons correct [wikipedia.org]
OH, interesting. You can watch that entire episode [youtube.com] on YouTube. I wonder if it would hold up. I skipped to the end and confirmed the nuke. But now that I think about all this, it's not really a cliff-hanger is it? It's more like a cliff annihilator. It seemed really unique and special at the time.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday October 29 2023, @12:21AM
I still get chills watching the very first episode of Doctor Who: the fog, the dark, the bobby checking doors....you see Foreman Scrap Merchant, the door opens and--
There's the TARDIS!
And then it all cliff-hangs with the Doctor being his selfish self. The TARDIS lands with Ian and Barbara unconscious, and outside; a shadow....
I enjoy the original series more than the reboot.
I grew up with Tom Baker, but the first Doctor is just so grumpy, cantankerous, selfish, joyful...and original.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @02:15AM (5 children)
They never fucking listen when I tell them to get off my fucking lawn!
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Sunday November 05 2023, @11:56AM (2 children)
But, but,... the grass is always greener at the neighbors'. Therefore:
(I'll get my coat)
(Score: 1) by Techlectica on Wednesday November 08 2023, @07:40AM (1 child)
Well, of course the neighbor's grass is greener! He doesn't have all these darn kids running around on it! Now git!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2023, @02:00AM
Fertilize your lawn with fresh steer manure.
The neighborhood moms will hate you.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday November 10 2023, @07:37PM (1 child)
The original quotes from Gran Torino were better. That movie is now a hopelessly cancelled classic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2023, @10:59PM
Racists love that movie! How do they like the minimal personal growth bits?
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 28 2023, @02:31AM (8 children)
OK, it's not high tech. But 30 some years ago, I took the two older boys out in the woods, to get a load of firewood. "Daddy, did they have chain saws when you were our age?"
Alright, if I were to choose one of the options given, it would probably the the phones screwed to the wall. I mean, even land lines today are pretty portable - I can carry the hand set almost anywhere on this one acre, and it still works. I think the range is right at 175 to 200 ft, which gives a guy a lot of pacing room.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @05:03AM (6 children)
Speaking of phones, I'd go with party lines. I still have relatives living in the middle of nowhere that are on party lines today. The oldest uses one those old coiled headset cords with that distinct aged yellow color that is easily 75 feet long when stretched out. It reaches from one side of the house to the other up the stars and then back to the starting side with cord to spare. We tried years ago to switch her to a cordless, but it was too "high maintenance."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Saturday October 28 2023, @09:18AM (2 children)
Well of course it is.
You can't lose a handset on the end of a cord (This is important when, as you age, you more frequently forget where you put something down.), and it doesn't run out of charge in the middle of a call.
Young people, who have not yet experienced the vicissitudes of ageing, tend to say "Oh, you can just press the button on the base-station to make the phone beep so you can find it.", which is one more damn thing to remember, and doesn't work when the handset battery is flat, because who remembers to put it back on the base-station to recharge: and the batteries wear out anyway.
Designing stuff to allow people to maintain their independence is hard, and requires both experience and sensitivity. It's also worthwhile, because the longer people can remain independent, the less expensive it is for them to live, and they are happier. I wish website and app designers would get their stuff tested by people experiencing the typical cognitive difficulties that arise as you age. It's obvious they don't.
Look after your old people well, to set a good example to you children, so they will look after you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @11:27PM (1 child)
That sounded more dismissive than it should have because it is an old argument. But watching that poor woman struggle with that cord on the off chance she wants to go upstairs shows the alternative isn't exactly maintenance free either. That and she has to shuffle over to the phone to pick up the phone or check the large-print caller ID box (usually missing the call in the process anyway) and then shuffle back to return it when done lest the off-hook tone start screeching (because she always sits in her favorite chair by the window in a different room to talk) is also pretty high maintenance. And that long cord stretched into the wrong spot is a horrible tripping hazard for an older woman with poor eyesight and replacement parts. And that doesn't even get into the fact that the time between her calling for help and arriving at the hospital is an hour doesn't help, and even longer if they need to fly her to a better equipped one.
Compared to a cordless phone that can go in a charger on the table next to the chair, it definitely strikes me as much higher maintenance. I think the real truth, which I sort of implied with my half-sincere quotes, is that she doesn't want to change. And that is fair too, especially when you have a system that is (or maybe just seems to be?) working for you. But like you said, that could just be my perspective since I'm used to the alternative already. There are pros and cons to both but as long as it isn't an active threat and she remembers to use whatever phone she has on my birthday, it is good enough for now I suppose. But it still feels like a sword of Damocles hanging above her head.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Sunday October 29 2023, @11:38AM
Maybe put extension phones in: one on a table next to the chair she likes to converse in, and one upstairs, possibly next to her bed?
She might be willing to learn how to use a cordless phone, or even a mobile phone, but she might not be able to learn either easily. Unfortunately I have experience of this - in my case supporting an aged relative's use of an iPad. Things that are trivial for young people become insuperable problems for some people advanced in years. Obviously not everyone, but enough to make it a societal problem.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Bean Dip on Monday October 30 2023, @06:42PM (2 children)
For phones, there is also the insane price for long distance service in the 1970s. And of course you couldn't own your own phone, you had to rent it from Ma Bell.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 30 2023, @10:18PM (1 child)
And the pulse dialing. You dialed a number by repeatedly and quickly taking the phone off the hook multiple times a second.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday November 06 2023, @11:20PM
And it was fun learning to do that by hitting the hang-up button repeatedly so you could still make phone calls if the rotary dial was broken.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @06:05AM
The nut does not fall far from the tree, chainsaws or not.
(Score: 5, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @06:03AM (9 children)
Did they used to let bat-shit crazy people get elected president when you were young?
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @08:28AM
Does Nixon count? Or Ronnie? Republicans in general, after Ike?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @01:58PM
Remember kids, only right wing critics are allowed, making a pointed joke about the current insanity of the self-described domestic terrorists of the GOP is forboten! Spam spam spam, even if on topic!
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday October 31 2023, @07:16PM (1 child)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2023, @01:14PM
Which administration: Clinton or Trump?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2023, @04:11AM (3 children)
Going for the magic +5 Troll, with an underlying Spam mod! Soylentils! Assemble!
(Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday November 08 2023, @11:18PM
Assemble? Can I use a compiler? It's much less work. And portable.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @10:58AM (1 child)
He's just one mod short! Help out an AC! You know,moderations are the most important and significant thing about the SlashCode, and the down-mods produce prodigious amounts of conservative tears, but not nearly as much as if this post hit the coveted +5 Troll! Just do it! Make your Mama proud.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2023, @07:56PM
Yeah! He made it! An AC with a +5 Troll rating! We all should be so proud. And just think of all the positive karma this means for the AC! (None, actually, and +5 only half compensates the -10 spam mod.)
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday November 11 2023, @03:14AM
Nutcases in high office is nothing new. Read more about, say, Andrew Jackson, if you don't believe me.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @06:43AM (25 children)
Runaway has learned the janrinok lesson. Censorship works! Just ban everyone who might say bad things about your murder-advocating post, and it will be fine!
But I am here to say, it is not fine! Such posts, anywhere on SN are a detriment and a pox! We need to no longer allow snuff posts here on SoylentNews! I know that janrinok gets off on them, having been in the "chair force", and Runaway as well, having been a swabie on a ship, but we need to keep these pervert veterans from polluting out forum. No more ammosexual ground-standing posts. We should spam mod them, mercilessly. Until they bleed out of their eyes, and the true nature of their souls is apparent. That is all I want.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @07:23AM (5 children)
I wish that moderations were public. I suspect that it is the enraged janrinok that is spam modding all the posts that his "hashes" tell him are aristarchusish, but I have no way of telling where the mods come from. They could equally come from the Runaway right-wing nutjob caucus, due to content, but janrinok says we cannot do the "I disagree" spam mods, so it would seem that the straight from the janrinok himself theory is more apt. Can we get some confirmation on this, one way or the other? Seems to be an awful lot so spam mods around lately, and none of them are rescinded, which is compatible with the lone janrinok theory. Evidence? Please. For the survival of SN.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Tork on Tuesday October 31 2023, @07:18PM (1 child)
For the record- I've felt this way since I was messing around on the green-site on dial-up. I thought about proposing that when talk of an ownership change of this site started, but figured it might be impractical to implement.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @09:36AM
The situation is a bit different on /. because editors have unlimited mod points. It makes sense to want to know if you've been modded down by your fellow users or if an editor is using some of their infinite mod points. That's not the case here. The community is also smaller here, so disclosing who moderated a post is more likely to result in petty retaliation.
I would be interested in having the ability to moderate journals. I don't mean to moderate comments in journals, but the actual journals. For users with a karma of +10 or greater, start the journal's score at 10. Otherwise, start it at 0. Have a minimum score of -10 and a maximum score of 20. If the journal's score is +5 or greater, it can be displayed in the recent journals slashbox. If the score is less, it's hidden. For every five times a journal is modded up, increment the author's karma by 1. Likewise, every five times a journal is modded down, decrement the author's karma by 1. Hopefully this would favor displaying interesting journals on the front page while decreasing the visibility of journals that mostly just incite arguments. Users can still post political flamebait in their journals, but they might burn some karma in the process.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2023, @07:49AM (2 children)
It is more the ENGORGED janrinok that one must worry about. Very angry, very hard, out for revenge and making soylentils toe the fucking line!! Is he the only one who respects the rules? (For fans of "The Big Lebowski", janrinok is a Continental version of Walter Sobchack, and it is fucking Shomer Shabbot, everyday on SoylentNews.)
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday November 15 2023, @09:19AM (1 child)
Your biggest mistake is to assume that I am the only person moderating your comments.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:30PM
Mistake? How could it be a mistake? New information has fucking come to light, man!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @08:52AM (13 children)
If history is any indication, this poll will have several off-topic threads just like this one within a few days. They contain nothing of substance that hasn't already been posted ad nauseum. Repetitive off-topic posting for the purpose of disrupting the site is spam. It's always been spam, regardless of who is posting it. The one or two users posting this have made it clear they have no intention of abiding by community moderation, using Tor and VPNs to circumvent any posting restrictions.
When you reply to these threads at +2 to dispute some of what has been posted, your posts are expanded in the default view for users who aren't logged in. This increases the visibility of the spam threads and helps them disrupt on-topic discussion.
Regardless of who posts these threads, they qualify as spam. I don't believe the site's code allows for you to block AC posting in polls, otherwise you'd have done so. Community moderation is ineffective because any IP bans are just circumvented with Tor or VPNs. However, you have another tool available to you that can prevent these polls from being filled with spam threads. As you've stated many, site policy allows for spam to be deleted. This would not censor the ideas from being expressed because they have already been posted hundreds of times before in journals and other polls. We don't need to see them yet again.
I am asking you to please enforce existing site policy and just delete these spam threads. Don't respond to them and increase their visibility. Just delete them and move on.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @09:02AM
No, it is not. It is the heart and sole of SoylentNews, and if you think otherwise, you are welcome to leave! Hoser!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @09:07AM (1 child)
Oh, but yes you do, since you have not understood the essence of right-wing dominance of SoylentNews, and the purpose of the censorship. You need to wake up, so you can be "woke". Or, go back to the stupified state of the somnulent public who thinks racism is just fine.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @10:01AM
I am only posting this comment so that janrinok has something to spam mod. I can only imagine it makes him happy, like he has accomplished something. Well done, old chap!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @02:02PM (4 children)
Someone needs to give this +insightfu!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2023, @10:09AM (3 children)
No one can. Only downmods allowed on SoylentNews, anymore. Sad husk of a discussion site that was. Your comment is off topic, and disruptive. Prepare to be spam modded.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @06:37AM (2 children)
I would down mod, with double secret special probation, that no one could know about [soylentnews.org], and only janrinok could offer a super secret remission deal, to, someone, whose name is not to be mentioned, or invoked, lest the whole house of pfards come combubulating down..
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:34PM (1 child)
Super double secret amnesty, so that the one forgiven could never reveal it, no one could ever know that it was granted. Kind of like the deal Satan got.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 18 2023, @11:29AM
If janrinok offers enough deals, just maybe SoylentNews can continue on! As a crippled, compromised, censored, and stifled news site, but at least as a site. For a while.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 29 2023, @06:49AM
Do you think janrinok capable of such? I have my doubts. And, the questions about admin abuse have not been addressed. Like, WTF is up with all the Spam Mods? Seriously.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 30 2023, @01:39AM (2 children)
That's how us old fogies roll! Hey, did I ever tell you about the days when phones actually had dials?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday October 31 2023, @09:50PM (1 child)
That fisher price toy and Toy Story may be the only reason why kids nowadays even know what a rotary dial is.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Touché) by chromas on Wednesday November 08 2023, @06:15AM
Assuming they're old enough to remember Toy Story :D
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2023, @07:32PM
What do you expect when you have a poll like this one, presented to a community of geezer nerds? They are not repeating, they seriously do not remember. And calling age-related dementia "disruptive" is cruel, and adds nothing to the discussion. Young whippersnappers down modding their elders is no way to run a website. Now, get off my lawn!
[Take a look at the anonymous data story on the front page. It is telling. ]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @08:59AM (4 children)
So, no mention that the perp was a Mormon? Coulda been worse, coulda been a Scientologist, or a Catholic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @12:06PM (3 children)
Citation? No, I've seen no mention of the guy's religion. Are you just making stuff up?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 29 2023, @03:54AM (2 children)
Are you saying you have evidence he was NOT a Mormon?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2023, @04:24PM (1 child)
The Maine shooter's religion has not been publicly disclosed: [vizaca.com]
Show a better reference or stop making unfounded allegations.
Oh, wait, I forgot who I was talking to.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2023, @08:09PM
Was he a Shooter of the House? Young-earth Creationist? Super stupid crazy evangelican American Christian? May the FSM have marinara upon his sole fillet.
(Score: 5, Informative) by pTamok on Saturday October 28 2023, @09:23AM (3 children)
I remember when 1984 was a book that predicted a horrific future.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday October 28 2023, @11:29PM (2 children)
And when it was still under copyright [youtu.be].
(Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Sunday October 29 2023, @12:08PM (1 child)
It still is copyright in the USA until 2044.
For various reasons, some works are copyrighted for 95 years after publication in the USA. The novel 1984 was published in 1949, so the 95-year rule means it enters the public domain in the USA on 1st January 2044.
It has already entered the public domain in some other countries.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Sunday October 29 2023, @03:21PM
I think the guy who recorded it is Australian, and this version has his reading and sound effects. I really liked it, and some of the YouTube comments are from kids who were assigned the book in school, listened to his audio adaptation, and got a lot out of it.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Thexalon on Saturday October 28 2023, @10:45AM (2 children)
As it is, I can truthfully say that I had to walk over a mile to school uphill through foot-deep snow. The way things are going, I think the youths will start answering "What's snow?"
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 28 2023, @12:10PM
Well, I had to trudge down into the valley, before I could fight my way uphill through the snow. Which meant that when school let out, I had to go down into the valley, again, to barge through the snow to get home! The "city of seven hills" sounds cool, until you add snow to that picture.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday November 07 2023, @08:01AM
When I was in primary school (early 80s) we had a teacher who seemed really ancient (she was probably in her fifties) who told us that when she was a child she used to have to walk, in bare feet, four miles from the next village to this very school where she now taught.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by mrpg on Saturday October 28 2023, @09:04PM (7 children)
Maybe the 5 1/4 floppies.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 29 2023, @09:37AM (4 children)
I've already had people who used 3.5 inch floppies not believe me when I mention how we used to use 8 inch floppies.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday October 29 2023, @09:56AM (3 children)
Probably best that I don't show them my 5Mb (!) hard drive that is bigger than many computers and weighs over 2Kg.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 30 2023, @04:28PM
I had (still have) one of those. An Apple Profile drive. 5 MB. Huge. Heavy. It sounded like a jet engine. And it was slow, even then. But faster than floppies.
All I have left is the actual drive mechanism. That took up half the case. Huge. The other half the case was the power supply. I keep that drive on my bookshelf as a bookend and reminder of how bad things once were.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2023, @08:16PM
Last one of those I saw was propping open a lab door!
(Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday November 08 2023, @11:20PM
When I was a very small boy, and it might have been round about 1979, my dad took me to his work and into the computer room where he proudly showed me his SCADA system. It had 5MB disk drives. They were the size of washing machines and the disks looked like giant frisbees.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday November 14 2023, @12:59PM (1 child)
3 1/2 inch... neither a disk nor floppy (well, until you take it out of the case).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2023, @08:11PM
Put that thing back in your pants! You could get arrested doing that in public!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 29 2023, @04:01AM
What we have here if proof positive that SN is a geriatric home for the mentally enfeebled, and just to specifically insult and attack some of the old farts that hang around here, no-longer-early-onset Runaway1956, and the Cold War Cretin janrinok. Oh, they are so old, as McGrew put it, that they were beta testers for dirt. But, as with the Biden/Trump comparison, it is not so much the age, as it is the mental decline. Runaway no longer recognizes half his grandkids, and janrinok doesn't realize he is in the wrong country, and Joan D'Arc is quite pissed at him for hanging about.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Cyrix6x86 on Sunday October 29 2023, @06:11AM (2 children)
In the winter in north Carolina, the lake behind our house used to freeze over with ice thick enough to walk on. This was the 80's.
As recently as the 90's, we would hope for and sometimes get a Christmas snow.
One time we got 24 inches of snow in a single night, January 2000.
We haven't had accumulated snow since 2018. Also, the lake itself has been gone since 2008.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Wednesday November 01 2023, @06:13AM (1 child)
Northern Virginia was always "iffy" for Winter weather. Not only could the season vary widely, but it was and still is notoriously difficult to predict in terms of whether it will rain or snow during any particular storm. It's always close to the rain/snow line. I don't doubt what you're saying but our Winter was always fickle.
Forget the weather there. For me, it's the birds.
The great migrating flocks. Gone. There used to be what I thought of as a "river of birds", that's just what it looked like, a great pointillist vein high in the sky, or if they happened to settle in your area for the night it was like something out of the Hitchcock movie. I'd say this was pretty much history by the mid-80s for us. I don't know if the migration shifted due to the rapidly expanding development of the suburbs, or if it disappeared. I think it must have disappeared because suburban neighborhoods never seemed to bother them. We still had plenty of trees, and a park nearby that was several square miles of woods and a lake.
For this generation, it's insects. I hear tales of fireflies going. That would be a terrible shame. They were still around when I left Virginia in the early 2000s. I just can't imagine the east coast without them. When you move across country, it's hard to say what's what in those regards.
Anyway, for my location is was less about the weather and more about the wildlife. We are apparently in an epic extinction event.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Informative) by istartedi on Wednesday November 01 2023, @06:33AM
You sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to confirm the decline in birds specific to my area. Alas, I couldn't find it in a reasonable time but the general decline in North American birds [science.org] is well documented.
You also reminded me of something else. It used to be common for trees and even the sides of houses to be menaced by hornets that built the classic egg-shaped nest. I think the last time I saw one was in the woods, in the 1990s.
Kids are going to see those in cartoons and think they're made-up.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 29 2023, @06:53AM (24 children)
I, for one, would like to see the full text of the back-door offer janrinok made to aristarchus. I am interested in what danger lurks in the minds of lesser men.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2023, @08:55PM (22 children)
Your wish is a command!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2023, @09:42PM (1 child)
Spam mod? Unsolicited amnesty offers? Better than a rock-crusher!!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2023, @06:58AM
Could we see who spam modded this, just to be sure it was not a vindictive janrinok? No? Why not?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2023, @02:36AM (10 children)
Only 2 persons would ever know who the real aristarchus is? Is this out of a John LeCarre plotline?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2023, @05:11AM
If I were aristarchus, I would have accepted this offer. Just think, a Soylentil persona, crafted over many years, abandoned. The right to mod right-wing assholes as they should be, rescinded. Ability to call janrinok a right fucking arse, denied. Such a sweet deal. Only reinforces the perception that SN is a right-wing ammosexual website, that censors any disagreement. Time to die, and be lost, like tears in the rain.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 04 2023, @08:54AM (8 children)
Why can't janrinok just admit the original decision was wrong, a false flag operation by Runaway1956, in the first place? Seems to be the easier solution, without all the drama.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday November 04 2023, @11:12AM (7 children)
You were banned for doxxing. Some of that doxxing occured in multiple submissions made via your own account. You had sole control over that account. It cannot have been done by anyone else.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @05:34AM (1 child)
We all could dox you, mein friende janrinok. But you are not bothered by such? Why is the racist mo-fo asshole who was allegedly "doxxed" worried about his actual identity being revealed, despite it was his own efforts that made that possible? Yes, he is a criminal, a racist, an with my sympathies to his wife, a misogynist. We need to ban such cretins, not defend them in the name of "free speech", or "equal rights for the conservative brain damaged." Really, seriously, and in fact, this is what SN has devolved to be, and I, for one, can no longer be part of it.
Sorry, I am not aristsarchus, so your phantom battle can continue, you delusional blighty pom!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @08:57AM
No, you will probably stay..... unfortunately.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2023, @07:36PM
But, but, I don't even have an account! Shirley you have me confused with someone else?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:04AM
So, you are saying that aristarchus was a sockpuppet account of Runaway1956, that he used to dox himself? Wow, crazy clever internet modulation, that. More than you would expect from an Arkansas dirt farmer who never went beyond high school. Or, really, what are you saying, janrinok? Aristarchus was just too liberal for this website, so you banned him? Come on, just admit it. And then we can shut the whole place down, now that kolie's ammosexual leanings have come out.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2023, @08:46AM (2 children)
Banned for ALLEGED doxxing. Never proven. Never tried before jury of peers. Only the court of the imperium, the "staff", by which we mean janrinok and friends. Time to send the authorities to the Runaway Homestead and Grow Operation. GPS coordinates are not hard to find.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2023, @09:42AM
take them to court in Delaware. Might not work tho, it is a website and can do what it wants.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2023, @06:24PM
Less than 24 hours ago, you said this on IRC:
Now you've resumed the usual personal attacks toward janrinok. I guess you can't even pretend to be a decent human being for 24 hours before you revert back to your true self. That's really quite sad and pathetic.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @11:02AM (8 children)
Did janrinok have authorization from the Board to make such an offer? Is there not legal liability involved in this? Could it be that the whole thing was overblown, and the result of bad, and overpriced, legal advice?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2023, @07:00AM (7 children)
Spam mod says "no". So much for transparency and community control.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2023, @07:45AM (6 children)
Did janrinok break the law, again? What a criminal!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2023, @08:04PM (5 children)
Did anyone notify the authorities? I believe the perp lives in Norman, Oklahoma.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2023, @04:40AM (4 children)
Sorry, that should have been Normandy, Oklahoma. Next door to Muskogee.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2023, @09:33AM (3 children)
Are you suggesting that janrinok is an Okie from Muscogee, USA? I thought he was French, not Merle Haggard.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:06AM (2 children)
Why do all comments that mention Oklahoma get spam modded, even though The Mighty Buzzard left long ago. I do not understand what is happening here anymore.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday November 15 2023, @10:44AM (1 child)
TMB was on the site a few weeks ago.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:45PM
Saw that. TMB and aristarchus had a lovely tête-à-tête. They reminisced about back in the day when there was no censorship on SoylentNews. Au bon vieux temps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2023, @08:40AM
A "back-door" offer, you say? I always thought those two fought enough to be in some kind of close and loving relationship.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Sunday October 29 2023, @09:02AM (3 children)
... 1957
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 3, Funny) by canopic jug on Monday October 30 2023, @12:55PM (2 children)
Regardless of the decade you say you saw it, will they believe that you actually saw a working computer?
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 31 2023, @03:42PM
For certain definitions of computer.
At some point looking back it becomes blurry. I think of computer having at minimum stored program execution to differentiate it from calculator.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by turgid on Tuesday November 07 2023, @08:03AM
Microsoft hadn't been invented.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday October 30 2023, @04:55AM (3 children)
Since I live (and always lived) outside the United States, I never got anything by US Postal mail. This obviously includes Netflix movies.
BTW, I'm not only older than Google. I'm older than the World Wide Web. Heck, when I was born, neither Microsoft nor Apple existed. Not even Unix had been released yet.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday October 30 2023, @04:33PM (1 child)
Yep. I'm older than IBM 370, Unix, Microcomputers, Apple, Microsoft, VCRs, Internet, exploding Ford Pintos, WWW, Google, and having to ask people what their pronouns are before you attempt to engage in conversation with them.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2023, @02:40PM
No one has to ask about pronouns, but as always you will find some jerks that get riled up if you use the wrong one. Very similar to jerks thatget offended by happy holidays instead of merry christmas. Don't get too crotchety lest you become what you mock!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 14 2023, @10:22PM
I looked it up, and I just *barely* predate the final release of Research Unix, by a couple months :)
"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) by Bean Dip on Monday October 30 2023, @06:45PM (3 children)
I was going to say vacuum cleaners that don't use electricity, but it seems they still make these!
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday October 31 2023, @09:45PM (1 child)
Battery powered vacuums also use electricity. What vacuum are you using that doesn't run on electricity?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2023, @01:27PM
Probably those carpet-sweeper things? Vacuum pumps have been around forever though, it's perfectly reasonable that a powered vacuum could be made to run on compressed air or some other power source.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Thursday November 02 2023, @11:44PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2023, @04:03AM (1 child)
But it seems that base level glassware has improved that it's become a rare occurrence. Not saying it can't happen, but it's not so common.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday November 03 2023, @02:23PM
Most glasses these days use plastic lenses as well as plastic frames.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 4, Funny) by Samantha Wright on Tuesday October 31 2023, @09:17AM
Easily the most unbelievable thing in the universe, that Slashdot (and its progeny) once had a youthful, trendy audience. To be honest I still don't believe it myself...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 31 2023, @03:28PM
Not allowing ads for lawyers and pharmaceuticals was wonderful.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday October 31 2023, @09:42PM
Okay, maybe most will know that New Mexico is a state in the USA. I don't have much hope. Depends on whether ChatGPT gets it confused, I guess.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by ese002 on Wednesday November 01 2023, @02:24AM (2 children)
When I was a child, hardly any individuals and only large companies had any kind of electronic computer. Restaurants, grocery stores, and most shops relied on mechanical adding machines. Pen, paper, and hand calculations ruled. People got excited about 4-function calculators.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday November 01 2023, @02:07PM (1 child)
Even for relatively small companies, I bet the uptake of computers was relatively fast. Sure, there's always been the technophobes, but not needing to do everything by hand was a major time saver. Especially, if you had any sort of complex backend.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Informative) by ese002 on Wednesday November 01 2023, @06:32PM
It actually took a while. Early microcomputers were expensive, unfriendly and had limited business useful software. Small business owners were often reluctant to spend the time and money to convert when they already had a system that worked.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ese002 on Wednesday November 01 2023, @03:00AM
When I was child, we had just landed men on the Moon, and most expected we would be going to Mars in a decade or two.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2023, @04:34AM (1 child)
The gumball machine only charged a penny, and you could snail-mail a post card for two cents. A quarter was a fortune and a silver dollar was a treasure.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday November 02 2023, @10:01PM
An actually silver dollar is still a treasure. Though, quite certainly not to the same degree.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday November 01 2023, @05:42AM (1 child)
When I was a kid there were no home videogame consoles.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday November 01 2023, @02:11PM
Dude, you are old. Atari was old when I was young. Okay, not "that old", but Nintendo crushed Atari's hopes and dreams. Also, our family owned a PC, before any "video game consoles". I've always been a PC first guy. Video game consoles have their place (especially revolving around sharing 1 system), but they have much more limited use scope. With the likes of digital only games on consoles, they have an ever smaller niche use.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pTamok on Wednesday November 01 2023, @12:43PM
I would not be surprised if there were members here that remember when the USA comprised 48 states. And some that remember the Pledge of Allegiance not including the phrase 'under God'.
(Score: 2) by Snospar on Thursday November 02 2023, @09:27AM (1 child)
I've just realised I picked the wrong answer, there wasn't an option for "I've got children older than Google". I bet she doesn't even realise and her sister is not - I think I'll save this for Christmas and set the sparks flying then!
Huge thanks to all the Soylent volunteers without whom this community (and this post) would not be possible.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday November 06 2023, @11:34PM
So do I.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Thursday November 02 2023, @10:09AM
...reading books (and comics) all day, weeks on end (only interrupted by school).
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2023, @09:52AM (3 children)
Digital, something, title cut off.
But, certainly helped the SoylentNews! Since we implemented the paywall, and banned AC posting, revenues have gone through the roof, and we never saw them after that! Unprecedented levels of comments and spam mods, nearly simultaneously! Future monetization potential is attracting heat-packing venture capitalists, like kolie, and impoverished retired British military, like janrinok. Question is answered, I take it?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2023, @09:55AM (2 children)
Note: Posting here because ACs are banned from the front page, on order of Obergruppekommandant janrinok.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2023, @10:19PM (1 child)
because you're really making your case well for that to change, by flooding *this* comment section with useless offtopic whining /s
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2023, @09:19AM
I'm sure he is glad to be of service! Better than the normal posting around here.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hartree on Saturday November 04 2023, @07:11PM
I'm older than the first commercial satellite, Telstar.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @05:28AM
Do not recognize, do they, the obvious logic bombs, and really stupid submissions, designed to make them look the fools. Microsoft? I recall soylentils complaining about "Micro$oft", or Mikro$erf", of "Microphallus, AKA, Trump, or Gill Bates. None of this this worthy of the front page of a news aggregation site, ergo, that is not what SoylentNews is. Suck on it, janrinok!@!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @05:52AM (2 children)
Not only Gar, but Pike, as well.
.
My point is, that many ACs, who are not Liz (and I really appreciate that we have some Micro$erf minions here, who are not afraid to so identify.) are afraid to testify about the abuse that was done to them. Chromas, I suspect, has been permantently damaged by Redmond, and Visual Basic. Janrinok, forced to do avionics on the basis of defense contracts to totally incompetent software companies. And, of course, NPS contract software upon which khallow had to stand his hill, till he collaped, and became a soft an fluffy toy of mangement. So sad, so fluffy and sad, and too bad that janrinok was betrayed by his service, and no he supports killing children. At least they are not Irish.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @08:56AM (1 child)
It's been said that the two biggest things to come out of Berkeley are BSD and LSD. It is left as an exercise for the reader to determine which of them is responsible for the incoherent ramblings of the parent post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2023, @08:46AM
Why not both?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @06:08AM
Did you know that ACs could comment on front page articles, back in the day? Not so many days in the back, until janrinok decided that slurs and bad words towards the commanding officers of SoylentNews were bad for Order and Discipline!! Sargeant Major, marching up and down the square [youtube.com]
Now, off you go!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @06:20AM (3 children)
Choose your sides, loosers! Free Ireland! The whole island, and Palestine, and aristarchus! Fascists!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @06:59AM (2 children)
Time to abandon this shill site. Microsoft is evil, they even said they disagreed with Google's motto, and Google has abandoned it , anyway.
The only polar principle on SoylentNews is, and has ever been, aristarchus. He has never wavered in his defense of truth, and justice, and how much of a fucking right-wing hillbilly mother-something asshole (and, pig-fucker) that Runaway1956 is. So, take it from there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @08:48AM (1 child)
There's no way that young people will ever believe that at one time, long ago, aristarchus actually posted interesting content and didn't create sock puppets. Yes, there was once a time when aristarchus wasn't a spammer, and when he didn't have a creepy obsession with janrinok and Runaway. Sadly, those times are never coming back.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 05 2023, @10:24AM
Aristarchus never sock-puppetted, and janrinok and Runaway are one an the same, if you could look at the #hashtages. Too bad it has come to this.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2023, @06:33PM (1 child)
How fucking dumb can someone be? [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2023, @09:47AM
Noticed the not-too-bright squad has descended to bemoan all the cancelling of rightwing nitwits, and praise the ubermensch Solong Must.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2023, @07:42PM
Back in my day, websites didn't need no certifications! We used to trust the network, 'cause only university types had access. No social media, no truth social, no Tweeting. No wounder SN cannot handle such a simple, mundane task!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jimbrooking on Tuesday November 07 2023, @01:06AM (2 children)
...when Republicans seemed to be sane?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2023, @09:41PM (1 child)
People today don't believe that it was the Democrats that pushed Trump into running in the belief that it was the only way they could get an evil witch into the White House. It backfired when people still refused to elect her and the Orange Clown was more popular than they expected.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2023, @10:43PM
Ha!
The nutters were over the moon that the GOP primaries allowed the moo cows to select a pathetic version of a populiststrong man because of the cult of capitalism and the clear racism they were dying to openly embrace. Pinning trump on dems is just more desperate pronection and denial. Big sad energy.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday November 07 2023, @08:08AM
Software used to come on audio cassettes. They used to load at 1500 baud if you were lucky. All the computers from different manufacturers were incompatible. They had a variety of CPU architectures and different, incompatible "operating systems." Most home computers came with their own unique dialect of BASIC built in.
No one has stood on the Moon since December 1972. The Human Race has had no way of going back there since the 70s.
University education used to be free in the UK.
We used to think that fascists were the bad guys. Now we have Suella Braverman.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday November 07 2023, @05:19PM
In the olden days it was almost always implemented in software and ran very slowly indeed. Not only that, single-precision was 40 bits (5 bytes) and double-precision was 80 bits (10 bytes). When they did 3D on your microcomputer, it was wireframe and the calculations were done in fixed point. If you were lucky there was hidden line removal.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by engblom on Wednesday November 08 2023, @11:59AM
I picked "older than Google" because out of the options it fits best. What I actually wanted to pick is older than Internet. Many youth thinks that Google==Internet.
For many it is difficult to imagine a time when you had to go to the library for looking up information. It was not common to even have a computer and mobile phones did not exist. If you wanted to meet someone you had to always agree on a time in advance.
(Score: 2) by OrugTor on Wednesday November 08 2023, @05:13PM
Paper tape was a great input medium unless you dropped it and it instantly unrolled. I loved paper tape. Punch girls, not so much. And yes, they were actually known as punch girls.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2023, @08:42PM (4 children)
Red-green is right.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @08:31AM (3 children)
Never have I seen such immediate response to community concerns (see the logs of the #goverance committee from today) about things that avoid addressing the real problems on SN, like the neo-nazi and alt-right, and Runaway, infections, and the banning of progressive speech. But, we must do we, eh? Democracy! It is what SoylentNews is lacking! Hoorah!
(Score: 0, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @06:13PM (2 children)
You live in a country where the GOP-led House can censure the speech of Rashida Tlaib for expressing concern for Palestinians. So much for GOP support of free speech. Go figure. It is no mystery that the disease infects SN as well.
Now, to vector back on topic... Hey, kids, you won't believe it, but it wasn't always this way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2023, @06:28AM (1 child)
Well, if you can occupy their lands, and then marry their daughters, and then do the Murders of the Flower Moon, or the Palestinian equivalent, it is all good imperialist racist lebensraum shit, right?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2023, @06:34AM
I mean, it was not like the savages were actually using the land, like native americans, or South Africans, of Pre-Roman Britons, or Runaway before the Department of non-stupid plant growing [arkansas.gov] showed up, to help him, with his mental deficiencies. Poor Runaway.. I hope his okra turns out ok.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2023, @01:40PM
Found this bit of generational friction funny!
Followed up with:
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=58507&page=1&cid=1332285#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
Drama and gravitas, not just for kids ;^)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday November 10 2023, @07:41PM (2 children)
We had a government that served our people instead of existing to serve another countries people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2023, @01:33PM (1 child)
Gee whatever could you mean . . . . . . .
As if US international support is about anything other than US economic interests. Keeping you angry at the wrong things is just one of the many tools of manipulation.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2023, @10:35PM
VLM is not too bright. Very angry, though, at the wrong things.
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Saturday November 11 2023, @05:47AM (1 child)
That most Americans on the internet weren't partisan political hacks, and were generally suspicious of politicians.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2023, @08:10PM
You stupid, racist, libertariantard! Hie thee off, rapscallion!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2023, @05:50AM
Isn't this exactly what got Julian Assange in a tight place? Better subs, all. Janrinok is slipping, and hubie cannot keep up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2023, @06:25PM
They do not like mirrors [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:10AM
This is where we are, the point that separates the sheep from the goats, the asses from the donkeys, the llamas from the alpacas. Pony up, Soylentils. Who gets to decide if the oligarchy of the janrinok faction is to continue! Attend the Governance Committee meeting! But then, maybe, it really doesn't matter. Janrinok will just ban us all, no matter what happens. Right, khallow?
(Score: 1) by Marvin on Friday November 17 2023, @07:51AM
We had only three TV channels to choose from
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 18 2023, @09:24AM (2 children)
I see white people, and they don't even know they are white! And now, AI is mirroring its learning data. Racist AI, since America, and the internet, it racist. This is why janrinok can never see it.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 18 2023, @11:25AM (1 child)
I thought Runaway was white, but then I saw his AI generated picture. Shewed his sole, doncha know, black as coal.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 18 2023, @04:58PM
sudo get help --user='apk'