Ah, good catch. Corrected. Carry on with your otherwise happy existences :)

This looks awesome - I'll have to see if I can find a way to watch it, since I'm not in the USA and don't have access then to PBS. The fact that you're posting the link as an anonymous cow-herd is not lost on me :)

Comcast is already a crappy ISP. Google "Comcast Sucks" for some fun reading. People hate them with a passion. This is a clever, PHB strategy to avoid having to invest in a better built-out infrastructure. Let's just insert a pricing scheme [which we can then fiddle with endlessly to see just how much screwing the customer is willing to take] instead of actually building out the infrastructure necessary to handle the increased demands of on-demand video etc.

"But that idea will never fly! It's impossible!"

"No worries, we have fired all our tech staff and replaced them with lawyers and lobbyists. We've got this one in the bag."

Fuck this shit. I'm going back to FIDOnet, the last net that was truly owned by the people.

Fortran 77 is certainly what I think of. I only ever learned two programming languages (Commodore 64 BASIC doesn't count): Pascal and Fortran 77. And at the time I thought Fortran was pretty damned cool. Those two were enough to show me I didn't have the right disposition (or intellect) to be a programmer, and I took another career path. But I do have a bit of nostalgia for that old language. I even remember writing my programs out on graph paper to make sure I had things in the right columns. What was that old deal where any characters beyond column 77 wouldn't be regarded as anything but a comment, or something like that? Fun times in 1991.

You've got a good point. Google and devs need to get cracking then to show these alternative uses - your examples are compelling. Currently, the "killer apps" that are being shown and discussed largely involve taking and viewing pictures, which is exactly why people concerned about those things are expressing their concern. Sure, give me a Glass-app that can look at my steak and give a good estimate of whether it's been well-cooked. Give me an app that shows if my friends are nearby. Give me a bearing and distance for the GPS location of my kids. Those things are useful to me. Taking a picture without having to reach for a camera or phone? Not so much.

Why is it happening now? I suspect that its due to having easy access to funding (through crowd sourcing) makes it so that small teams feel that they can deliver on their gadget.

I'd also wager it's because it's an interesting, new platform with lots of room for growth (and lots of room for improvement, as well!). There's probably good money to be made in this new space for innovation.

They're not going to have many support costs at all if they make it a distro that users don't like. I've been a SUSE guy since 2001 and I have no regrets at all not jumping onto the Ubuntu bandwagon. The only thing I really envy is apt-get (still, to this day).

That's still going to oblige them to deal with the problem that it's between your eyes and the person you're talking to. It's offputting for most of the world, and it's a good way currently to get punched in the face. Google Glass belongs over the ear or something, which would make it useless in other ways. Someday it will be a contact lens and you'll never have a clue who is filming you and who isn't. Fuck the future - it's going to suck.

They've got to do some more innovating then. I like watches. I also surf. So give me a smart watch that somehow does something interesting with my smartphone and gives me a tide indicator (there are all sorts of tide watches for people like me, and there are tide apps too). But that doesn't exist. As far as I can tell, the Gear and other smart watches haven't found much to do other than show me the time, weather, and how many emails/twitter posts I've received. I don't need that. I'm not aware of smart watches having calculator functionality or other things. They're just not that useful.

On the other hand, my next potential gadget is the Jawbone, which looks like a neat health tracker. I'm interested in wearables, just haven't yet found any wearables worth wearing. There's potential here but the app developers are going to have to get beyond Twitter updates on your wrist - boring!

Texas is probably going to be a desert in another few decades. They are already experiencing extreme water stress of the sort that changes ecosystems. Not too late to repent, Texas! I'm kidding about repenting, but the climate change thing is real - whether you agree it's man-made or not. Humans have been utterly unable to make any difference in the rapidly expanding Sahara desert, the drying of the Gobi, the water stress of California and beyond. Ultimately, this race of apes is going to have to evolve or perish. Urk, we don't know how to evolve! We just like buying and consuming more stuff!

Read Robert D. Kaplan's The Coming Anarchy if you want a glimpse of what resource scarcity and population pressure will lead us to. Hint: looks more like Lagos, Nigeria and less like Beverly Hills, Hollywood. Have a nice generation!

Wow, man - Pipecode comes with a built-in snark filter ;) That's some impressive programming! Take that, lameness filter - we've got you beat!

I'm inclined to agree. I move frequently, even after marriage and kids, so every 2-3 year we are forced to do a sweep of our possessions, since we can't bring it all with us. Out with the old toys, clothes, gadgets, junk. No pack rats here - when you are forced to pay by the kilo to move things, you start drawing a much tighter distinction between 'need' and 'no need.' I see my folks in their house, stuffed with junk, and managing, organizing, rotating, and maintaining all that crapola becomes a job in itself. I'm happy to have a much simpler lifestyle, and as reward we are mostly free to go where we want to. If a great job came up on the other side of the world, it would be a no-brainer to accept it, because uprooting and moving there wouldn't be a big deal at all. 'Course, going digital has a lot to do with the simplified lifestyle: fewer physical possessions to haul around.

You forgot the now obligatory: "Fuck Pipedot! All hail my new site, EqualsBracketSlash!"

Ncommander's response isn't surprising. I guess the question had to be asked, and now that it's been answered both sites can move on. I thought - with the exception of the word 'mess' - he was essentially gracious. So both sites will move on and complement each other and sometimes even overlap. Sounds like he/they have put a lot of work into upgrading the code, which interesting. Best of luck to our soybean cousins!

There are fundamental problems with a payment/monetisation strategy such as this one, which seeks to directly derive payment from others for the posting content of the contributors to the site.

Of course any monetisation of the site is trying to do the same thing, but it's a little less direct than outright charging people to read what others have written.

You've got a good point! So what do you recommend?

I can't resist the C64 myself, but took my first babysteps into the world of computing on a second generation PET, which was like the most amazing thing on earth back in the day. To this day, I'm nostalgic about it.

There's a company that has built modern keyboards out of old C64 chassis. You get a USB connection and the works, but on a C64 keyboard. I'm strangely attracted to it.

The new generation doesn't care about real names. Hear about that new app - currently the hottest craze on earth - where you get to a new city on some business trip and it helps link you up with people of the age and profile you choose? It's crazy - like, "let's create an app that helps people get raped and killed." The new generation doesn't care. They will when the shit hits the fan.

Just thinking out loud here, brainstorming, really:

Paid subscribers get to see more than the first 20 comments? I'm not sure IMAP email (I've already got one) is a huge benefit. Or like the Android app model: paid subscribers see no ad banners. Not sure if it would everywhere, but at b3ta.com paid members get a little icon next to their names, which becomes a bit of a status symbol over time. I think they also offer different icons per year, so if you wanted the polar bear you had to be a member in '06 or something like that. Or the icon reflects number of years as a paid member? Maybe the email notification of responses to your post is a paid feature or something? By the way, $12/yr is a decent price point.

Who's to say? I concur that G+ isn't all that it was cracked up to be, and some of their decisions - like making any potential Youtube commenter a G+ member and then lauding the 'huge growth in users' - have been circumspect. As the Forbes article points out, the G+ thing was run by an ex-Microsofter who probably came pre-installed with that kind of crappy business tactic in his genetic code.

That said, all the pissing on current platforms might just reflect falling page-views in major media and the need to post/publish inflammatory articles that drive page views.

Anyway, given there doesn't seem to be - in my opinion - any alternative platforms out there, I don't see anyplace for people to 'go to.' Unless we've just grown tired of talking with strangers over the Internet. Not impossible.

There's a balance to maintain here: I traveled extensively in Southeast Asia in '93, and decided to just live for the moment, no camera. These days, I kind of regret it - that was an awesome trip and I don't have many photos from it. On the other hand, the memories are great ...

I also never thought I'd carry a smartphone with a camera in it, but hey, here is a Note 3 in my pocket and I kind of love it. With my kids doing interesting things all the time, it's useful to be able to whip one out and capture it. I almost never carry my little video recorder anymore, which is a direct result of the camera phone.

Leaders don't need fancy phones, though. They should be reading, thinking, and speaking carefully, not suffering the distractions of the rest of the world. If they need a gadget, give them a nice, old Palm Pilot - just the basics.

It's a bitchy HP Laptop. (I said 'bitchy,' not 'bitching.') I knew it before I even started the project of installing. BSDs and even some Linuxes, actually, are notoriously finicky on laptop hardware; openBSD has less hardware compatibility than other BSDs, etc. But openBSD wanted nothing to do with this laptop, which I suspected before even trying. That's OK because I probably wouldn't want to run it on a laptop anyway; I'd want it on a router or a tower/desktop etc. So no hard feelings.

I haven't been following this issue other than keeping in the back of my mind that it *is* an issue. But it sure seems these guys are taking an aggressive stance in pushing fixes well in advance of their need, so there's sufficient time (no joke intended) to test, patch, and ensure. That's responsible engineering and I'm pretty impressed by it.

I'm also impressed this article didn't immediately become a bitchfest about Theo, the way most openBSD posts on Slashdot used to. Focus on the technology, not the personalities. OpenBSD is damned impressive, even if it doesn't like my hardware :( And to all you guys using it as a desktop out there: you have my respect.

Wow - even the ACs are cooler here than on Slashdot :) When is the last time you ever saw an anonymous cow-herd say thanks anywhere? Nice one, AC.

Proof, I suppose, of the other side of the argument about anonymity. There are so many different ways to run forums out there and there is a prevalent train of thought that anonymity leads to abuse and anti-social behavior. That may be true - hell, I've been on Usenet long enough to see it happen there - but some forums that allow anonymity also permit people to contribute who would otherwise be reluctant to do so. That's an interesting observation.

Likewise, forced use of real name (Facebook, G+) was supposed to make people more civil and stand behind their comments on the Internet. But in practice that hasn't happened either. Look at the comments on Youtube these days: even though accounts are tied to G+ accounts now there is still a surprisingly high number of asshat posts out there, despite usage of real name. I conclude that asshats will be asshats, and even anonymous cowards can be forthright and decent contributors.

Does this mean the debate on anonymity in forums has just been rendered null and void?

Nothing ground-breaking on that list: basically, don't be a jerk. I wonder if this is in response to some unpleasant events, or is a preemptive move so that future asshattery can be swatted down with a "you're not complying with the code" kind of a thing.

Debian does a good job, I think, of being a well-run democratic kind of administration, not an easy thing with so many diverse expectations and personalities, and the need to balance transparency/fairness with getting things done. Lean too far in the direction of democracy and you get mediocrity and "design by committee." Lean too far in the opposite direction and you get dictatorship and complaints of heavy-handedness a la openBSD.

It almost seems too bad to have to put together a code of ethics like this, but sooner or later most teams find it necessary. Then they all make fun of how obvious/stupid it is. I manage a 10 person team and we put together a team charter that essentially came up with these same tenets. Then we occasionally forget and do mean things to each other.

Humans are tough to manage!

I took an awesome vacation with the family to the Adirondacks (http://therandymon.com/index.php?/91-Six-Nights-on-Fourth-Lake.html) looking forward to some time away from the Internet and looking forward to some isolation and time to reflect. But dammit if I didn't find myself down on the dock with my Nexus 7, trying to leach the neighbor's wifi connection so I could look some things up on Wikipedia, check email, etc. Surprisingly addictive, this information network. I might try it again and this time go gadget free, but I dunno, maybe that era has come to a close. I'd at least want my ereader so I could do some reading, and a cellphone might be nice, and ...

Wow, having a submission history is pretty cool. Not sure if it's unique? In any case, it is a nice step in the direction of transparency and honesty. Cool technology - well done.

BTW there are at least 2 or 3 volunteer editors on deck, too.

I think you're right, that they tried to do away with anonymity on Youtube comments to get people to shape up. I'm not convinced it worked though. It's thrown a bucket of cold water on people who'd otherwise enjoy Youtube more. And the dumb*sses that don't care are still out there posting crap. Youtube has about the worst comments anywhere. Not cool though, the way Google asked you about a hundred times if you wanted to link your Youtube account to your Google account (I said no, every time) and then basically just did it anyway. I avoid Youtube now (made me more productive in life anyway not wasting time there).

The thing looks cool, and actually reminds me a bit of the old Handspring PDAs with cartridges that could make your Handspring into a cellphone, a GPS, a barcode scanner, etc. Probably too late for me, but I hope my son gets into this stuff. Just looking at the things they sell at Adafruit makes me wish I had the talent to get into these interesting projects. There's still some fun to be had out there!

Reading the comments on Soylent shows there are a bunch of pissed off people who didn't understand the process and wonder if the thing wasn't rigged or stacked on purpose. I don't think it was unfair, just think they could have been a bit more clear in the instructions. Not good to have frustrated voters; it leads to unhappy, angry, violent people .

I've got strong feelings about the topic: I've written and published three books since 2000, and while it's been a rewarding and ultimately satisfying experience, I'm glad I've done so on the margins of better paid work. I wouldn't recommend any kid decide to "be a writer" when he grows up - it's too hard, the money isn't great, and frankly people aren't reading as much as they used to anymore.

There are two routes: get lucky and a publisher picks you up, and takes care of marketing, distribution, arranging talks on radio and TV shows, etc. Or self-publish and do all that yourself. With a publisher, you've got to be the best; publishers are extremely selective now and they all want the next best seller in an already-defined genre, and very infrequently something crazy or innovative or 'new.' They're all gun-shy. But you pay hefty percentages of your profits to a publisher, who does a lot on your behalf but also gets paid for it.

On the self-publishing side, watch out! There's too much garbage out there so the word 'self-publish' has strongly negative connotations. These days, anyone with $100 and a copy of Microsoft Word can self-publishing the most astonishing drivel. You also get to do your own distribution, marketing, promotion, hand out free copies, mail stuff to book stores etc, and it's a horrific amount of work. If you're lucky you can make millions - there are a couple of authors, mostly publishing teen fiction, who have made serious money selling books for $1.99 to huge audiences of admiring readers. But the bulk of the self-published stuff only sells a handful of copies.

Either way, it's good to have a source of income in the meantime, and especially in the years and years that you toil away at the keyboard. Otherwise, you're going to be eating a lot of catfood.

That guy's website is bog-slow on this old computer by the way. Not sure how they designed it, but they clearly stuffed it full of fail.

Howdy, editor here. I also had trouble with the instructions so I've rewritten them so they'll be more clear. Don't want any Palm Beach Florida s on this site. Got to say, I'm learning a bit about tech here on Pipedot, but I'm also learning a bit about voting systems, too!

If you're looking for BSD hosting - and it doesn't sound like you are, I'm using rockvps for www.dictatorshandbook.net and I'm really happy with it. Or maybe I'm happy with BSD. Either way, I'm happy.

Wow man - great looking book shelf, with what looks like lots of good stuff to read. Is that Asimov mag as good as it was reputed to be?

Ray Kurzweil? I'd hate to think Howey Hugh's Wool Trilogy is our future, though we're probably capable of it. (Great series, Wool, by the way). Interesting that this guy is considered a futurist, when his vision of the future only seems to be a few product cycles away, so 4-5 years at best. Is no one thinking long-term anymore, or is there no profit in that these days?

Die, patent trolls, die. This is a public service announcement on behalf of the tech-using world, who is sick of this kind of crap.

Well, knowing nothing about what's going on behind the scenes, at first glance is this nothing more than a business optimization? Perhaps they found that typical users needed nothing more than X but were actually getting Y, and if they adjusted they could fit more customers into their existing hardware resources?

That doesn't make it right of course, but would help explain what's going on. Not too late for a competitor to swoop in with a better deal and steal away customers - it's what keeps the business world honest and on their toes.

I think those are valid concerns. I share them, actually. I *do* know that while these comment sections remain pretty sparse, the site is very easy to look at. I thought I'd be happy and nostalgic about early Slashcode, but I am now finding it visually jarring, and I am not sure why. Looks aren't everything, of course. Hoping the user/reader wins as 2014 unfolds.

I add, not because I think it's a great solution for you but because I can't resist: Bodhi Linux is Ubuntu-based but with E17 (Enlightenment) as a desktop, and it's really lovely. It's just different enough that your teachers wouldn't be comfortable with it, but try it on your own equipment and see what a great distro it really is.

I hear almost nothing about Edubuntu these days and wonder how active its community is. Mint on the other hand, is all over the news. I thought one of the advantages of Edubuntu was the fact that you could turn machines into thin clients. Doesn't seem like that's advantageous to you so maybe Mint is a good choice?

These days I would think the "ditch XP" movement on hardware that's basically still good should lead to a lot of Linux installs. One can only hope!

Now I'm really confused - will BIND9 and BUNDY then be "competing" products in the open source sense? Will they address different issues or usage scenarios? Also, even if the name has the magic combination of letters, 'Bundy' is an awful name that only evokes Al Bundy of Married with Children fame. How about BooNDoggle? BorNDangerous? BerkeleyNextgenDaemon? Just a starting point.

I can imagine this revolutionizing manufacturing, but I think history shows most revolutions were unforeseen. So this team will invent a cool, swarming micro-robot technology, and then some other team will find some extraordinary use for it, like heart surgery or something. Then the mafia and drug lords will find some new use for it that will be unethical and vaguely horrifying. This has potential way beyond just circuit boards. Stick a microphone on one of these things and send it into your competitor's HVAC system? That's just the start!

Always thought I'd be looking up when the robot wars begin. Might actually be looking down, as they pool around my feet.

And I use Bodhi, which is an Ubuntu derivative, so also a Debian beneficiary. Debian is hugely important. I wish they'd do a bit of marketing and outreach though. I'm pretty handy with Linux and even I am apprehensive about installing Debian because I think/believe/suspect it's hard to install. That's almost certainly not the case, but that rumor has stuck in my mind.

But, what an awesome distro. And apt-get is one of the best things ever invented. I also use openSUSE and I much prefer apt-get as a package manager. Ian, you kick ass!

I smell sour grapes. Maybe I'm biased because I've volunteered to help edit, but I think in the long run Pipedot is going to be more sustainable. Soylent might currently be bigger but I'm not impressed with the quality of the comments, and the never ending trying to sort out who is the boss and what the site's mantra will be is tiring, to say the least. I think your comment about "most people" is somewhat premature, as it's not a zero-sum game.

There's room for more than one news site out there - they will differentiate themselves, behave differently, and attract different or overlapping crowds. That's a good thing!

I think lots of open source projects could stand to be fuzz-tested just to see if they have any soft spots. Just because people can get access to the source code doesn't mean they do. Some bits of software are higher vulnerability than others. It's the equivalent of peer review in the scientific world.

I've seen my 3 year old crash my Linux distro by banging on the keyboard - I have no idea how he does it. Maybe hire mylittle dude to fuzz-test your software by inputting crazy strings into your text fields to see what it takes to crash it.

[resisting the urge to compare average users to a 3 year old.]

Here's a link to Bruce Schneier's article , too. He calls the bug 'catastrophic.' Bold words from a guy who knows security and has the respect of security professionals.

I don't think it has anything to do with views on abortion. I think Mormon families just traditionally prefer and appreciate large families. I have several Mormon friends and they all hope to have 4-6 children because they enjoy family life. That's too many kids for my taste, but I can certainly appreciate where they're coming from.

Something makes me think this is a bigger problem in the USA than elsewhere. I know the last time I was in a Walmart looking for a fun toy for my daughter I was appalled by how little there was that wasn't pink/fluffy, involved Barbie or equivalent, or some stupid princess.

I will check this company out - I agree we are partly to blame for preferring toys of one type, but holy crap, the manufacturers aren't making it easy on us, at least, not the major stores and distributors.

I'd love to see one of those famous paperless offices. While I am able to go weeks without needing to print much of anything, I work with a bunch of clowns that regularly print out 20 pages sets of papers for everyone at a meeting, which no one actually reads or needs to read. What a waste! I've also got people printing out their email on a color printer, so all the hyperlinks print in blue, if there are any. Seriously, if these people had to buy their own toner cartridges you'd see a change in attitude, I think. Such a huge waste. Then I can only assume they print the email, read it, and then throw it in the trash.

But there are tons of people in modern offices who loathe empty space. They like to clutter the whole place up with papers, books, manuals, junk - not because they need any of it but because it makes them look busy and/or indispensable. It's hard to look busy when your desk is spotless and all your docs are carefully arranged digitally.

Vogt's blog was pretty straight-forward and understandable. The way they release notes were written though I'm not sure how much of it was intended to be a joke. What's up with all that java stuff? Surely that was for humor? Or am I just coffee deprived?