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A Pre-History of Slashdot

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Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#271
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got an Intel NUC I could do this with. Is there a video player app for iOS that kids could use (i.e. Interface isn't super complex), that'd play remote media? Edit: Looked into this myself just now. VLC Streamer looks decent, as does Infuse by Firecore.

Also check out Plex Server. It's awesome. The management side is particularly well done.

Thanks, will do.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#272
post #204
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like avoiding the steamroller of "embrace and extend" that was MS at the time was highly dependent upon luck.

The steam roller is still there from quite a few companies, make something popular and Google, MS, Facebook will clone it and force it on people. No luck about it though, these companies are only interested in mass market stuff, the long tail has only gotten longer.

First they offer to buy it.

If you aren’t insane you sell it.

If you think you can beat the big three you probably deserve to be crushed.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#273
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, but there is no way that I'm aware of to whitelist (or blacklist!) specific channels on youtube. And thanks to HTTPS, I can't even intercept + modify youtube pages at the network level. Thank you, privacy folks, hope you're happy! Alternatively, there is always kids.youtube.com which is weirdly just an app for Ios/Android. I haven't tried it, and myself have actively disabled/removed all Youtube from bein…

The inability to blacklist channels is a major PITA. The Power of Block is powerful, and denial of it a major Internet dysfunction. I do believe you can hack at Squid to intercept HTTPS and terminate if for you, as well as run filtering (Squidguard), also possibly Dansguardian. Though I've not fully researched this yet. http://squidguard.org http://www.squid-cache.org

HSTS would probably be an issue, although you could configure squid/etc. to strip those headers.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like: 1. Group #1 joins who care about site 2. Group #1 improves site. Sense of "community" keeps things in check. 3. Site grows in popularity and group #2 joins 4. Site loses sense of community and ability to moderate itself effectively. 5. Group #1 leaves

There are platforms which can and do survive. HN, despite bumps, does pretty well. Metafilter is another that seems to be kicking along. Others tend to become Generation Ships of the founder culture. I'd put the Well in that category, as the userbase still seems to be strongly focused on the original cohort. Some fresh blood is necessary. Actually: the idea of a university as an intentional community that tends to su…

The platforms that survive tend to be either incredible focused around a certain niche (ycombinator), or heavily moderated with a strong editorial hand (metafilter). Slashdot is still limping on as a much less interesting site since it had money behind it but places like Kur05hin (however it was spelled) and its ilk quickly imploded.

People like to complain about heavy-handed moderation but all the experiments to try and build self-moderating communities eventually get overrun with trolls and (worse) self-promoters.

Any automated system will eventually be gamed, something that even huge sites like twitter and youtube are starting to realize now that state-level actors are using them for their own purposes.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#276
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason I think this going to happen to HN too, and I feel it is at 3. And I'm not sure if I'm in group #1 or group #2.

I, along with a lot of people, joined HN in 2008 after Techcrunch wrote about it. That's pretty close to "Group 2 joins" and yet 9 years later HN persists!

I get the feeling a lot of group #1 left in between 2010 and 2012. There are still tons of folks here who made accounts on day one, but a lot of the more conservative or libertarian leaning folks seem to have migrated to other communities around that time.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#277
post #204
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like avoiding the steamroller of "embrace and extend" that was MS at the time was highly dependent upon luck.

The steam roller is still there from quite a few companies, make something popular and Google, MS, Facebook will clone it and force it on people. No luck about it though, these companies are only interested in mass market stuff, the long tail has only gotten longer.

> The steam roller is still there from quite a few companies

It never left, it will never not exist.

Amazon is presently crushing the old-line retail industry in a manner that is little different from what any number of giants in the past did to the competition, whether Walmart or Sears before it.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#278

I wish that people would stop blogging on Medium, especially about Free software topics. I click the link and get an obnoxiously animated popup shoved in my face that tells me that I've read my two articles for the month and that I should log in for the full experience. Why should people be asked to sign in to follow a blog when there is RSS/Atom? Learning how to use Hugo, Metalsmith, Hexo, Pelican, or Jekyll is not…

Works fine with NoScript. Never knew Medium had a page view limit.

Same here, NoScript, and never knew they had some kind of page limit on views.

I do, however, have to run my "dickbars be gone" bookmarklet every time I view a page. But since dickbars seem to be spreading everywhere, that bookmarklet gets a lot of usage now.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#279
post #160
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The anti-Microsoft zeitgeist that you could find at the top of pretty much any thread, even if it was about something completely unrelated. Just a side comment, I feel like Hacker News is going this way with Facebook a little. Posts that tangentially mention Facebook, there's usually a high-rated comment about how Facebook is evil and since the user left Facebook their life has improved. Those "I don't even own a T…

Not owning a TV is pushing my kid to watch a lot of YouTube. I'm seriously considering buying a TV, after living for 30 years without one, just so that I can have a quality entertainment feed that doesn't bend to the new media's idea of what my kid should watch, because what that ends up being is endless advertisements ("open this egg! What's inside? A Ken doll!! Wow!!") and videos of pandas killing each other with c…

I occasionally hear people complaining about ads on youtube, but I have never seen a youtube ad aside from when random people try to show me a video on their computer. Do people just not use adblock+ any more?

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#280
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, man, Kuro5hin! That was such a great, diverse, welcoming site for a couple of years. So sad what it descended into.

For anyone who wonders why HN mods are overly strict, then note that Kuro5hin tolerated trolls and they utterly destroyed the site. It doesn't exist any more.

Same happened to usenet. Too much noise.
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