SlashNOT

DiabolicAl writes: OSDN SERVER ROOM– The wartorn realm of journalistic relevance experienced further upheaval this morning when the internet address once known as “digital Nerdvana” suffered a content crash. Famed bastion of integrity SlashDot was rendered completely unuseful when alleged superuser and self-proclaimed Aeka groupie CmdrTaco approved the submission “North Korea Admits to Having Nuclear Weapons“. The alleged news item somehow flipped the stupid bit on every 30 year old virgin/cyborg in the Northern Hemisphere, and when the dust cleared, the carnage was unmistakable. Page after page of half-baked ideas, unsolicited opinions, and unintelligible sonnets on Natalie Portman littered the screen. “I logged in to submit a request for someone to do my work for me and proceeded to the front page” said one culprit, Milton, who declined to give his full name for fear that his mom would kick him out of her basement for interrupting his job search. “The top item said something about North Korea. All of a sudden I felt strangely drawn to completely reveal my utter ignorance of world affairs by posting a 3 page rant. I guess the moderators scrolled down to the “Click here to read more” link, threw up their hands, and modded me +5.”

Chaos reigned as the user-submission interface was brought forcibly to its knees and made to textually gratify Earth’s most repellent sect, after which it vomited into its own angst-riddled self-absorbed journals that no one of importance holds in any regard. “In my daily search for pure and untainted enlightenment, I am usually satisfied by the first post” remarked corporate cash hemmorage Johnny Bangmouse. “I was completely caught offguard, just like when my wife called after her 3 month vacation alone in Jamaica to tell me we were through.” The discussion degenerated at the second level of thread, an unprecedented but not unpredictable speed. “As soon as the topic hit the front page, I googled the word ‘Nazi’ on it” said professional SlashDot monitor and unemployed telephone support technician Joe L00zer. “I had hits before the 100 post mark.”

When asked why he grabbed the red phone, CmdrTaco grinned. “I got sick of seeing JonKatz’s name in the Hall of Fame” he said. “Everyone complains that every poster except himself is a troll, but they’re missing the point. There is one troll to rule them all, one very big troll, and his name parses like HmdrWacko.” CmdrTaco waved off further queries, claiming he had to do “fail his saving throw versus Bigby’s Clenched Fist of Pleasure”.

No numbered SlashDot users contributed to this report.

Matthew writes: A new study of high profile failures of expensive software projects has definitively linked the name of the project with the probability of failure.

“The loftier the project name, the more likely it is to fail.” Says study lead Dr. Johan Grauss. “Cases in point: FBI’s “Carnivore” project that was to provide the ability to search through Internet traffic for signs of terrorism, Ford Motor Company’s “Everest” supply chain management software that was to standardize acquisitions across the company, and McDonald’s “Innovate” initiative to provide detailed control and reporting of all franchise operating parameters—All three of these initiatives failed and were cancelled after burning through hundreds of millions of development dollars.”

“We have positively correlated the loftiness of the name with a desire to sell upper management on nebulous and over-reaching project goals that will never meet the hyped up expectations created by the project’s proponents. To avoid these problems, we suggest giving your project more attainable names, such as ‘Herbivore’, ‘Death Valley’, and ‘Mimic’.”

Matthew writes: iRobot, makers of the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, as well as military pack robots, has developed a military version of the popular device.

Dubbed “Boomba”, the device is essentially a ruggedized Roomba that is designed to clear minefields. Replacing the “small, medium, and large” buttons are similar “Checkpoint, Roadside, Intersection” buttons, along with a “Convoy” mode that clears a path going forward at a walking pace.

“We have big hopes for Boomba,” says iRobot CEO Colin Angle, “With the way the world is going and the fact that Boomba is, for all intents and purposes, a single use device, Boomba could easily outsell Roomba.”

Boomba also supports iRobot’s new swarm mode, utilizing the SwarmOS operating system, to clear a minefield in a matter of minutes, as well as scare the bejesus out of anyone who sees them coming. “There is an effective psychological warfare component to swarm mode,” says Mr. Angle, “I’ve saw it in prototype two weeks ago, and I still can’t sleep.”

Matthew writes: Based on research performed at the University of Southern California, scientists have created a prosthetic brain implant for the stupid. The device, which is placed into a hollowed out area of the prefrontal lobe, consists of a Pentium 4 processor and a per-user custom programmed ASIC that interfaces the processor to the remaining brain tissue.

“Based on our initial trials, the results look really good. Other than a persistent fever, patients have exhibited many signs of dramatically increased intelligence. Indicating factors are:

A decreased use of Walmarts

Switching to microbrewed beers

The ability to not click ‘yes’ to download

More judicious use of their reproductive faculties

A change of political party preference (both ways)

“We’re continuing to test, but the results look really good. As long as they remember to recharge at meals, they’ll be just fine.”

Matthew writes: While browsing a news site online, I clicked a link to a company that markets replicas of an early automatic watch. What ensued was my first conversation with an Artificial Stupidity engine that went so far as to claim to be real, and then abruptly ended the chat when I challenged it. The conversation is transcripted below in its entirety, clever misspelling included.

(Click [Continued...] for the full chat transcript) Read the rest of this entry »

Dave writes: You may publish this article anywhere you wish, as long as the whole article is included and it is not

edited.

You know computers have taken over your life when…

You hum the Windows opening theme when ever you wake up

You think the numbers on tombstones are high scores

You use Google to search for your car keys

You actually hand in work from EssayGenerator.com

You keep getting fired as you beat up you boss thinking that you’ll get to the next level

You keep a trash can and a selection of neatly arranged folders on your desk top

You excuse yourself to go to the toilet by anouncing that you have to “download”

You try to shut windows by tapping them on the top right corner

You refer to meals as “power ups”

You call christmas a “bonus round”

Matthew writes: (Excerpted from the Sunday, January 12th 1958 Syracuse Post Standard, with minor edits by SlashNOT)

In the chill of a desert dawn today, anxious technicians crowded the ramps at Edwards Air Force Base_^Mojave Airport in Southern California’s Mojave Desert. Searching the brightening sky, they will be waiting for a thunderbolt to hurtle earthward from the top of the atmosphere, waiting for a new era of flight: The Age of _^Commercialized Space.

Flying over 100 miles away will be two planes that have taken off from Edwards two hours before: a chase plane, probably an F-100 _^Learjet, and a converted bomber, either a B-36 or a B-52_^carrier plane called White Knight. Nestled beneath the bomber_^carrier plane will be a third plane—not yet airborne—a ship the like of which has never been seen before. Unofficial estimates put its speed at 5,000_^2,500m.p.h. It will probably reach an altitude of over 150_^62 miles. It is the X-15_^SpaceShipOne, a rocket ship built by North American Aviation_^Scaled Composites, in co-operation with the Air Force, the Navy, and the National Advisory Committee for Auronautics (NACA)_^Paul Allen. It’s mission: to take man into space.

The man is Scott Crossfield_^Brian Binnie, a research test pilot for whom this day will be the culmination of years of work and planning. He watched X-15_^SpaceShipOne’s birth on the drawing board, flew her on a mathematical computer before she was built, saw her take form in North American_^Scaled Composite’s plant, put her through her test trials. On this day, X-15_^SpaceShipOne will be gunning for maximum performance—and that, X-15_^SpaceShipOne being what she is, means space.

To get to space man has struggled upward through a vast sea of air for nearly 200_^250 years, rising higher and higher in balloons, airplanes, and rocket ships. The nation_^Scaled Composite’s top-secret dark horse entry in the race to space_^Ansari X-Prize, the X-15_^SpaceShipOne, is the product of a decade_^s of high-speed research flight that started in 1947 when Major Chuck yeager broke the sound barrier in the X-1. Later, Bell’s X-2 hit 2,300 m.p.h. and conquered the heat barrier—a speed region of 1,000 degree heat from air friction. X-15_^SpaceShipOne is designed to break the last barrier between man and space—the controllability_^cost barrier.

What is the controllability_^cost barrier? It is a deadly combination of high speed_^Bureaucracy and thin_^hot air that can hurl ships and missles into a vicious supersonic yaw—a wild, rolling, pitching tumble_^cycle that shakes a plane _^development program out of control under the buffeting force of it’s own shock waves_^cost overruns. Crossfield_^Binnie’s mission is to go up and cross that barrier.

The future of _^commercial space flight depends on his success. Missile men_^Private  launch platforms, too, are waiting eagerly for the results—they have been bothered by a lack of control at high altitude and they hope Crossfield_^Binnie’s flight may help.

Matthew writes: The Subway under Seoul, South Korea, was rebooted today in an attempt to fix numerous accumulating problems. Among the problems noted by transportation authorities were an accumulation of unauthorized advertisements cluttering the walls, unexplained slowness of the trains, some stuck automatic doors, and a group of tourists that had accumulated in the lower levels of the subway and had been unable to find their way out.

During the reboot, BIOS messages were visible on automatic signs throughout the subway. The reboot appeared to have solved some of the problems, but the persistent problem of accumulated advertisements has returned, and the trains are beginning to slow down again. Transportation authorities have been asking other governments if they know anybody who knows how to clean up subways permanently or if they should just give up and buy a new subway.

Yuri writes: Hackers have placed the world’s first dual-bounty on Verizon because they disabled the Bluetooth file transfer and serial port features of the Motorola v710 phone.

“The bounty is for the first person who either: (a) re-enables these features via a software hack, or (b) plants a cream-pie squarely in the face of the CEO of Verizon Wireless for disabling the features in the first place.”

The bounty is currently at $ 1026 dollars, and you can place your donation via paypal.

krudz writes: Robotics technology newcomer robotechsoft informed us today that Project Rollerball has been completed and the new bots are ready for deployment. “These are the first robots to be able to effectively use rollerskates”, announced project leader Craig Winter at a press conference. A complete summary of features was provided, which included:
-Ability to move on both wood and metal surfaces
-Two speed settings (fast and slow)
-Limited support for slopes (3-4 degrees, downwards only)
-8-10 hour battery life for extended sessions
-AM radio tuner
-Nothing else
When asked “Why not just give it wheels?”, he replied with “Well, yeah.” and had to leave on an urgent call.