Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Pre-History of Slashdot

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 366 posts

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#351

Post by lozenge »

kibwen wrote: post #297
rwmj wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slashdot got a surprisingly large amount of stuff right, amazing considering it was one of the pioneering web-based discussion systems. - You cannot both moderate and comment on the same article. - Limited moderation points (too limited on Slashdot arguably, but better than infinite up/down votes). - They didn't have up/down, but a system of "Interesting", "Informative", "Off-Topic" and a few others. These are the sa…

When I was younger I thought that Slashdot's moderation was brilliant, and every time that I tried to think up something better I invariably came back to that model. When I first stumbled across Reddit I thought to myself that it couldn't possibly work: too simple, too accessible, too easy to game. And yet over the years I kept reading Reddit and stopped reading Slashdot, and it dawned on me that Reddit's comment rat…

I think it's similar to Netflix replacing stars with thumbs up/down. They realised they didn't need that data, they just needed more dimensions (ie for you to rate more of their library).

Slashdot didn't need to limit voting so severely. And it turns out replies to funny comments are usually funny and interesting comments are usually interesting.

They also never scaled it - +5 was the maximum from when an article might top out at 200 comments or 5000 comments.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#352

Post by ballenf »

Nition wrote: post #230
ballenf wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd look into youtube-dl. I tried all the parental controls on Youtube, Netflix, Amazon and devices only to finally realize that my idea of what's suitable doesn't have an equivalent rating. There are so many safe for any age videos that have a bunch of kids with the worst, most cynical attitudes and no respect for authority and then wholesome shows with "intense emotion" or whatever that get rated tv-14. So I downlo…

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.

VLC also has a great iOS app that can stream and/or download from a desktop running the companion app.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#353

Post by DocWoodside »

rmason wrote: post #48

Whether they know it or not Slashdot inspired a lot of Michigan startup founders. They proved that you didn't have to be in Silicon Valley to found a notable company. I well remember after reading Slashdot for a few months and then finding out that they were in West Michigan and being absolutely floored. Fun fact one of Rob's friends who helped found the company is now a professor at Michigan State University: https:…

Kurt is also involved with Sight Machine: http://sightmachine.com/company/#leadership

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#354

Post by KGIII »

Flenser wrote: post #331
KGIII wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have wanted HN to have a friend/foe system since I first found the site. I'd also like it to have the ability to make notes, like 'farkies' from Fark. On Slashdot, you simply add them to a friend or for list. On Fark, you get to flag them in certai colors and then leave yourself a note (other people can't see it but admins probably can) that I use to remind me of why I put them on the list. I'd like a combination o…

something like this? https://imgur.com/a/wRtfp NB: the icons beside your name are for "model", "traffic", "acquired" and "phd"

Neat!

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#355

Post by KGIII »

themaninthedark wrote: post #285
KGIII wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have wanted HN to have a friend/foe system since I first found the site. I'd also like it to have the ability to make notes, like 'farkies' from Fark. On Slashdot, you simply add them to a friend or for list. On Fark, you get to flag them in certai colors and then leave yourself a note (other people can't see it but admins probably can) that I use to remind me of why I put them on the list. I'd like a combination o…

Slashdot is where I first read your comments, then you didn't post for a while and I found HN and you post here too! I didn't create an account on /. since AC was easy and I mostly lurk anyway but I always enjoyed the insights that everyone brought. I remember either around the time of the revelation of the NSA phone closets there was a guy who used to do SIGINT and he posted a bunch on how to avoid surveillance. I t…

Thanks! I took the karma hit to say hi to taco, in the thread. Worth it!

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#356

Post by cisanti »

titzer wrote: post #320
cisanti wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In today's world we need to call out people who do the job for these spy machines. Developers working for Google & Facebook should be ashamed of themselves. Money talks, I guess.

I work for Google. I am not going to be "ashamed of myself," but I am also not into drinking the Koolaid. It's an oversimplification to demonize groups in this way. What is more troubling is the (non)reaction of society to the vast encroachment on privacy and rights from all sides, not the least of which are governments, telecommunication companies, and advertisers.

But you should. It's obvious you're privileged enough to change jobs once you have worked for them but you won't, because you don't want to take responsibility of knowingly playing part of the evils and histories biggest and most dangerous spying system.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#357

Post by shagie »

adventured wrote: post #277
flukus wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the days of Sears, you got a big catalog every so often. It had everything. You could go to the Sears store and it would probably have it in stock. I remember that's where you bought Boy Scout uniforms some 30 years ago... and the necessary basic patches.

Last time I went to Sears, I was looking for some good working outside pants. The store had an odor of perfume. Most of the clothes were for women. The size of pants I wanted was sold out with no idea of when it would be in stock.

So I went over to Target. They didn't have any good working pants. They might get some in the next shipment in a week or so. I went over to REI... and the pants were a bit too expensive for what I was after. I ended up at Duluth trading... the outlet a good half hour drive away from where I am now.

If I was living back up in the north woods where it was more than a half hour drive? I probably would have ordered online and probably from Amazon. Sure, Cabela's has same day shipping to a store, but at my previous residence, the nearest store was an hour and a half away... and shipping on one pair is %20 of the cost of the pants.

There was a sears in the town where I lived up north... but Amazon hasn't killed Sears. Sears has been committing a slow suicide for decades with poor availability and service. Other stores with an online presence still have what I would consider exorbitant shipping costs.

Don't blame Amazon for picking up the customers of the once mighty Sears mail-order empire - they didn't get their catalog online fast enough and ignored that silly Seattle company selling books for far too long.

I don't see it as Amazon being aggressive at undercutting competitors or vaporware them in the way that Microsoft was in its day (Competitor A announces a product... Microsoft announces they're going to do it too - everyone waits for Microsoft to come out with it while Competitor A's product withers on the vine). Amazon has a product and a focus, and they're doing a better job of it than other companies are.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#358

Post by ethbro »

hinkley wrote: post #226
ethbro wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Clipper/Skipjack https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

Unfortunately, people had already forgotten about the Clipper Chip when Al Gore got the nomination the first time.

I believe we'd still have better outcomes from a candidate who was trained in the sciences than an alternative completely ignorant about technology.

I make mistakes when I'm writing code all the time. But as a science professional, I test my code against an objective reality, characterize my bugs, then change my approach.

Politics could use a lot more of that.

And I'd also offer that in the mid-90s key escrow wasn't as bizarre an idea. We were just starting to grapple with mass physical communication transitioning to digital.

And while I hate the dragnet currently used, targeted, court-approved interception of communication content is a good to society (via an effective law enforcement branch, hence an effective court system, hence rule of law).

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#359

Post by unexistance »

wingerlang wrote: post #292
unexistance wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fascinating :D I do have my own system on following/starring PoI in HN, using no extension at all, so I can instantly know who's comment is more useful no banning though, since valuable nuggets on knowledge can come from anyone

How does that work?

just using Firefox only... Set the color to always use your own colors, then change accordingly

whomever you want to take interest to, will pops up in 'Visited Link' color, the rest just normal URL

obviously works best in less-hyperlink sites like HN, wikipedia quite tolerable

YMMV :D

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#360

Post by intended »

dredmorbius wrote: post #328
intended wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh its worse - After you make your peace with that, theres an entire world of rules and theories on moderation, all of it useful and important to get the job done. The cheat code to cut through that mess is - "I'm coming to agree that theres no substitute for good editorial control" Trust me on this, the proof is to painful to reproduced regularly.

Also agreed. (You're going to have to try harder for an argument ;-)

haha not arguing, just seeing how deep this rabbit hole goes.

Like teachers, now editors are another social good that we need to manage information dissemination optimized for civilization's good.

Post reply on HN