The bad side of /.

I like the Slashdot site, but I am often aggravated by some articles, and by many of the posters. The other day, for example, they were given about five screenshots of Windows Longhorn Beta1, and they then promptly tore it apart, bit by bit (if you will excuse the pun) saying how badly it looked. Despite the fact that they KNOW that it is only a beta, and that the current UI is nowhere close to what it will be when it's done. The Aero UI is not expected to be shown until beta2, and even then, it will not be the full UI.

Another example is this one review (I cannot link to it because he is having bandwidth issues) of the H2G2 movie. The person in question saw a pre-final cut and promptly went to tear it apart. He is the self proclaimed "Greatest fan of H2G2," I couldn't disagree more. He is a fanatic (fanatic being a person so possessed by it that if the smallest thing was done wrong, they stop enjoying it) and a real kneebiter. But worse than that is the reaction of the populace of Slashdot. completely forgetting to take a kilogram of salt with such a fanatical review, combined with what sometimes passes as a headline on /., the denizens of the otherwise good site start to bitch and whine, agreeing with each other that it as been a bastardization of a wonderful series of novels, radio shows and TV shows, while they have not seen the movie themselves. All they had was a fanatical review, of an incomplete cut of the film.

I seem to not be the only one that feels this way. Here is what Greg Dean, author of Real Life has to say:


"As is so often my style, I write the comic with a particular frame of mind, and then when it's all done, I realize the next day I put my damned foot in my mouth, and feel like an idiot.

So let me clarify a little bit about my stance on slashdot in the comic today. I DON'T hate slashdot itself. I'll be honest, I don't usually read it - maybe once a month, when someone posts a link to a particular slashdot posting, I might check it out, but on the average it's not really of much interest to me. But the people who run and operate slashdot are cool in my book - they do their thing, and I respect that.

What has me so peeved about slashdot is the people who POST there. There's about a 10/90 signal/noise ratio going on in those damned posts. I've never much cared for the way people who post there behave, but the beginning of my complete hatred came when /. made the post about the Daily Grind, and people just started ripping into these cartoonists for absolutely no reason whatsoever. One person starts in with a negative response, and fifteen others join in to jump on the "me too!" bandwagon. In this case, they were pissed off because a group of cartoonists started a little bet with each other, and felt that ample reason to start calling everyone in it names, ripping apart their comics, and generally being complete asshats. Now, I can understand being upset with someone's CONDUCT, but to just start tearing people down who are doing nothing more than trying to encourage one another to do their comic on a daily basis is just plain wrong, and I wasn't happy about it.

In the case mentioned in the comic, yeah - I have a bit of a problem with a fairly large, established "geek news" site choosing to link to the single most scathing review of the movie on the internet, and essentially saying "Well, looks like it won't be any good." Have I seen it? Can I prove it wrong? Not yet - not till tomorrow. But hell, i know people who HAVE. People who are die-hard HHG fans, and expected it to be utter crap, and they came out loving it. It angered me, because it immediately polarized people against it, with a review that is tantamount to "Lord of the Rings was a horrible, horrible movie, because it doesn't have Tom Bombadil in it." But again, in this case, the slashdot posters jumped into action, completely tearing apart a movie they've never seen. Classic. (Yes, I realize it's fairly stupid of me to DEFEND a movie I've both never seen, and have no involvement with. But I desperately want it to be good, and to succeed. There are talks of completing the trilogy if it does well, so dammit - I want it to do well. :) )

So, just to clarify - slashdot itslef, the website, the people who run it - they's cool. I know I said I wanted slashdot's server to go down in flames, but it wasn't anything personal to the people behind it. But the slashdot posters - 90% asshats. And that's all I have to say about that."

I say bring on the movie, and make our own decisions about it. However, if you are so inclined, I will be writing what I think about the movie after I see it tomorrow.

--the_sidewinder

(Song of the day: Broken Glass by The Crystal Method, on the album Legion of Boom)

H2G2 is almost here!

Nonsensical post of the day, The Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy is just over a day away! The anticipation is almost as killer as Vogon poetry!

(Image courtecy of Coryct on fark.com)

Don't forget your towel!

Why I love blogs

So, there is a discussion or the relicnews forums on who blogs. Sadly, it got derailed into something more along the line of why blog? Why read blogs? What do these "diaries" have that would make you want to write or read them?

Well, I have no idea about you, but I like blogs because they often can inform me of new events, and technology, and even sometimes something a bit funny. An example of a funny blog is here. Funny story about a hacker who has to ask for an IP to hack someone, and that doesn't know that 127.0.0.1 is a computer's internal IP address.

Why do I write a blog? Well I was bored, and I thought this would be a good way to express myself. As well as a good way for me to practice my writing skills, and shape my thought process, there is not much else for me to say, but what I have said is enough for me.

--the_sidewinder
(Song of the day: Fallen by Sarah McLachlan, on the album Afterglow)

The Digital Music Era, Part one

So, here we are, at the beginning of the digital of the digital music era. I say beginning because we have, quite obviously, passed the dawn, which saw the birth of file sharing and Digital Audio Players. However we still have many hardships to pass. Namely the concept of Digital Rights. Who owns the music, who controls the music, how much should a user pay for it, and what rights do they have over that purchased music.

Let's start with that last point. What do we, as the consumer, have as rights in terms of what we can do with the music that we purchased? For example, when we would be to buy a CD or vinyl record, we can resell it should we loose interest in that music. With online music, however, we cannot resell that music, at least not with the current state of DRM technologies. However, the music purchased online does in fact hold an advantage. The problems with store bought music is that you may not like all the song presented on the album, and that if you accidentally wreck that CD, you are not entitled to a free, or reduced cost replacement, whilst with online music, there are no adverse legal implications to backing up one's music. This is why I use a combination of Napster To Go and Puretracks to fill my Zen Micro.

On the other hand, there are no adverse effects of backing up your music to your hard drive in Canada. At least not yet. Certain corporate identities are lobbying the government, and there is a new law being read by our parliament that would restrict our use of media that we have bought and want to either make a backup copy, or have another copy so that you could have one for your car, home stereo and such. A petition to stop this from happening is also being put forward. a link is available in my previous post. When you buy music, you should be able to do with it what you want as long as it remains in your possession, and that no copies should be made for other people outside your family. If you resell the music, all copies should go to the buyer, or the extras should be destroyed.

Who owns the music? We, the consumer, do not. Like PC software, we have a sort of license that allows us to enjoy the music. Sadly though, many artists and bands do not own the music either. Often, it is the recording label that the band or artist has a contract with. What this means is that the label dictates the cost of the album, what kind of air time it gets, and how much the artist gets per CD sale. It also hampers the artist's ability to leave that label, and join another one, or to sell and distribute their music themselves. Truly this is a problem, as I feel that the only owners of the copyright, and therefore the original material, should be the person or people that created it, and it should be they who choose the price of their music, alongside an entity to make sure that prices do not get to high.

Well this is all or this post. I need to get to sleep, more parts of this to come later.

--the_sidewinder
(Song of the day: Flower by Moby, on the album Play, The B Sides)

So, this is a blog

Whoo, my first blog entry. Being as tech savvy as I am, I thought it may be time to get a blog. What is a blog for me? Well I guess it will be useful for me to discuss new technology, my thoughts and expectations, as well as how I feel on the existing tech. I may post helpful information on how to get your computer to work, or haw to get it to do that little trick your friend showed you, but will not explain how they did it.

I will most likely also talk about current issues that affect us in ways many people will not comprehend at first, such as this petition for user rights. An important issue, I feel, that not enough people are getting behind, as it affects almost all of us, not just those with a Zen or iPod.

Movies, fluff and novels will also show up here once and awhile. First two are a bit obvious is The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy movie this coming Friday, and the BBC Radio 4 Quandary Phase that begins the following week (I will be needing my towel a little more than usual). I have my hopes for the movie, mainly that it will not be a disaster. The radio show, on the other hand, I feel is in good hands of the remaining original cast, and Dirk Maggs who have proven themselves, in my eyes, with the tertiary phase. I will discuss novels I read, tell you, the hapless people who fell into my blog, what I think. Maybe you could also tell me about a book you may want me to read.

Finally, I will also post anything I find of particular interest in real life, or online, and you can pretend to care. This blog is dedicated to my life in general, and my life online in particular.
Have fun!

--the_sidewinder

P.S. If any of you have ventured from the relic entertainment forums, yes I am the_sidewinder.