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Slashdot During War? 127

Posted by Cliff from the never-thought-about-that-before dept.
Seen Dairen writes "How would Slashdot function during a war or comparable crisis? Would it help people distribute critical information? Would it help people keep in touch with their friends and enemies? Would it help to prevent a war? So far it seems no person in extreme need has submitted to Slashdot, but if they do, how would we respond?"
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Slashdot During War? More

Slashdot During War?

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  • Parochialism, Thy Name Is Slashdot... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...do any of the North Americans (Canada, U.S., Mexico) on this site have *any idea* how many wars have gone on (were, are, will continue to be) since slashdot.org got up and running?

    ...do any of you read newspapers?
  • What would happen? IMHO, just about nothing, at least on /.

    Reporting on wars is not the purpose of /., otherwise we would have heard about the war in Chechenia (sp?), in Macedonia, in Bosnia, and probably a whole lot of other locations.

    Hopefully, publications will spring up, possibly using part of the /. technology, like the moderation system, but where everyone can post, and whose threads will later be sort of expired, based on a function of total score and time online. Hopefully, nothing will be deleted in that process, just archived in a searchable way.

    Also, there might be news services that use the freenet technology (http://www.freenetproject.org/ [freenetproject.org]) to distribute the news, while achieving some level of resistance against disaster, be it censorship or weapon effects.

    Regards, Ulli

  • What is it with Americans and worrying so much about war? Everything seems to involve national security. Even the damn road system was built so that aircraft would have a stretch of runway every few miles "in case of war". Constitutional support for the right to bear arms is so the people can form a militia and over-throw the government. Etc. etc. etc. Is it me, or do Americans seem rather paranoid?
  • Very simple. Ignore it while reporting on new exciting anime DVD's and Shakespeare TxtMsg Contests...
  • /. would post a poll, and we'd find out the awful truth... that CowboyNeal is the most popular OS on modern military hardware.
  • You mean we're not already at war [slashdot.org]?
  • 2004-09-27 16:48:22 How to stop current global thermonuclear war? (articles,ask slashdot) (rejected)

    ...'nuf said.

  • -Ellen (Posting anonymously to preserve my precious reputation as an objective Slashdot admin.)

    Uhm.. Ellen? I think you forgot to check the little 'Post Anonymously' box, before smakcin' the submit button.. better luck next time.

  • Frankly if Slashdot becomes any kind of a major influence in a wartime situation, I'm moving to a small island and starting my own army. Outside of complaining that the US Govt. isn't running Linux on everything that contains a microprocessor or wondering what Natalie Portman looks like in fatigues I don't see posibilites for Slashdot being involved in a combat situation.
    1. The first five readers trying to bring the war to Slashdot's attention would have their stories rejected.
    2. Five days after the war began, Slashdot would announce the war as if it were new news.
    3. The discussion thread for news of the war would fill up with all the FP! posts, and "all your post are belong to us ..." type stuff.
    4. A reader submission about an edible 3-d display would knock the war into second place.
    5. The announcement of the latest revision of the Linux kernel would bump the war into third place.
    6. All the karma whores would give up trying to post to the war thread and switch over to posting in the Linux thread.
    7. The war would be bumped from Slashdot's front page less than twenty hours after it was announced, by news of O'Reilly books' being purchased by AOL, which would end up drawing three times the posts to its thread as the war drew ...
  • You would function as Patriots of the United
    States of America, of course, and hire
    Tom Clancy as a consultant. =)

  • yeah umm, can Slashdot help bring about world peace?

  • Here are the headlines by priority:

    1.) Linux 3.4.1 released [Read more...]
    2.) Europe destroyed in nuklear attack. [Read more..]


    It is NEWS FOR NERDS, right?


    - Knut S.
    It may just be me being lame
  • This totaly depends on the level of computerising in the enemy army.

    We have no guarantee that our enemy would even use a network that we/you could connect to, much less crack in such a way that a vital system could be knocked out.


    - Knut S. May just be me bing lame
  • There ARE actually wars, mostly everywhere but in our calm occidental realms. Wake up guyz. But do populations there have even the possibility to reach slashdot. Think of it.
  • "So far it seems no person in extreme need has submitted to Slashdot, but if they do, how would we respond?" Easy, someone would tell them to read the FAQ and call them a newbie. What else. I'll get modded down for this I'm sure, but I couldn't resist and it's not like I can spend my karma at wal-mart.(I tried)

    Geek House [geek-house.org]

  • What are you people on, for crying out loud??? First, there was a lunatic asking /. about alien rights (sure, worry about the aliens from other planets/galaxies and forget about the Planet Earth's "aliens" - right, my Mexican friends?), and now there is this bullshit about Slashdot during war. Drop the acid, guys... All of you! The ones who sent in those silly questions and the ones at /. who posted them in the first place. Smarten up... Well, I know, that's kinda hard for a Nation who elected an ass as their President...
  • A while ago, ran across a group of folks who ping the entire internet on a regular schedule, then produce maps of their results. They have a page showing the adaptation that took place during a part of the Serbian conflict:

    http://plan9.bell-labs.com/who/ches/map/yu/index.h tml [bell-labs.com]

    Now, I don't know what'd happen to ./, but if there's connectivity, someone will step in. I've got my old ham rig boxed in the basement, just in case; that, and a packet radio TNC, and I could be a post-armegeddon ISP!

  • It doesn't seem to be mentioned above but I think that /. is quite capable of causing a major war or crisis all on its own.... Just let Cowboy Neal out of his cage for 10minutes and - oh dear

    For British /. users Can you imagine Kate Aidey making her news reports inside a server room? "And as the B-52 fly overhead" - perhaps not that strange really :)
  • Please pardon my intolerable thickness; If only english were my first language :)
  • note to self: use spell-check, and always remember that ware is bad, mmmmmkay.


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • If they're going to tease you... :-)

    Answer: It may do, unless the tapes in question are in heavily-EM-shielded cases. However, since they will be, in very quick succession, toasted by the heat wave and blown apart by the shock front, this is rather immaterial. And even if they are outside this radius, the fallout will prevent anyone from using them for some time. Assuming anyone survives the bombing, and that they're not blinded by the flash.

    In other words, whether your copy of Baywatch survives is likely fairly low down the list of priorities when a nuclear bomb goes off above you.

    Grab.
  • Sounds more like a report on a fight in a cocktail bar.

    "And as the B-52s fly overhead, the yuppies make a frontal assault with a round of Harvey Wallbangers, but are held off by a group of underdressed women with repeating Pina Coladas."

    Sorry, I'm not sure where I was going with that. I think I should stop now. :-)

    Grab.
  • I am sure that Americans not glued to CNN likely will be interested in keeping fresh with the hottest Star Wars trivia web site. Or the latest download of some cleverly-written Linux drivers for an old ISA modem. And (besides donning chemical warefare protective clothing) just what every G.I. needs to know while not dodging bullets: how to recompile his kernel!
  • Great! Give us the question, but don't give us the answer!!!

    Tease...

  • The editors could just link to important enemy web sites... Or the military could contract with them to create some sort of super slashdot effect...
  • The first thing Saddam will do is nuke the /. server location in order to silence Jon Katz ;-)
  • Does anyone need to see a woman of some indeterminate Asian descent shooting liquid feces on herself in a bathtub?

    If so then this is the right place.
    ---
  • A Harrier can't land on a highway either. They already blow huge chunks out of the special landing pads they use. Try landing one on a US highway (or almost any road for that matter), and you'll have a plane that can't get back up because it a)tore up the whole area around it and b)in the process of tearing up all that asphalt and/or concrete, it managed to also put a few rather significant holes in it's self.

    Then again, IIRC, about 1/2 the Harriers are down again, so maybe they shouldn't be a consideration anyway. :)
  • Yes, I do know what VSTOL is and that Harriers can land and take off like other fixed wing aircraft. I've also spent a lot of time in ATC towers watching them. They still cause a great deal of damage (conventional or vertical) and all it takes is one rock to ground them. It happens all the time.

    There is no reason for it to be unable to take off from or land on a highway conventionally other than the state of maintenance of the average highway (stresses, cracks, rocks, other debris) and the front landing gear (they don't call it the widowmaker for nothing-I know, not the main reason for the name, but true nonetheless).

    A conventional landing or take off on a highway may be within the operational envelope, but only just barely and under either strictly controlled or emergency conditions. I can't think of a pilot who would do it even then.

    I don't know much about the steel mesh. I think it would to eliminate the problem with the thrusters kicking up all the debris on a vert., but using it would require a controlled situation. I don't think that is what was being discussed.
  • it certainly *is* odd... ranks right up there with other concerns such as the cost of hen's teeth in moldavia, or which amplifiers the discos in Anchorage, AK use.
  • I remember chatting with Moscow university students during the hard-liners' attempted coup in the 1990s.

    It was rather strange to be on IRC and to read someone writing that he could hear automatic gunfire in the distance and see tank columns in the city streets.

    I also remember wondering that if the hard-line communists won, how long it would take before they remembered to cut the internet connections. Phone lines and radios would have been gone at once, but the net was such a novelty back then that the universities might have been able to keep a life-line abroad for a while longer.

  • Considering communications lines are the first thing enemies try to destroy..

    Yeah, Slashdot and the Internet in general would be REALLY useful.

    "Uhh, why can't I get online?" as sirens and the sounds of bombs crash in the background... "I need to check my email!"
  • Did the Chinese embassy in Belgrade post when they heard a US bomber overhead?

    8)
  • Yeah, like daily cnn.com fixes?
  • AC asks: "Hi Slashdot. The U.S. government has ordered me to kill all the women and children of this village. I hear they are armed with biological weapons (poop on a sharp stick), and they must be eliminated to achieve global security and total economic domination of the Third World. They tell me that this is my duty, to serve Jehova and my country and keep the price of oil and RAM down.

    Our planes are dusting us with something that tastes like coal and makes me feel like LSD-25. They say deserters are shot in the back of the head. My question to you is, what should I do?"



    sorry if I'm a cynic, but I am :P
  • The slashdot system is designed to cause public (geeks) responses that are then mined for value. The system is not designed to support back and forth communications over more than a few days at best. This helps to serve the objective of mining for fresh meat (initial responses). Anyone wanting to reach out with a request for help would more than likley not soley rely on /. to help, though it has been shown that if you need help with finding employees of non-standard programming quality, /. might well help you. For such a thing is alone the lines of the values extracted from the system.
    3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!

  • They should have typed faster...

    Dear CmdrTaco,
    Sorry to interrupt your important Napster stories, but something is amiss...

  • Did slashdot do anything fantastic during the U.S. action against Yugoslavia? Do you really think that Slashdot is a sane alternative to 911 should someone in Oregon report a Chinese bomber overhead?
  • nah - that would be classified. theyd post a nmap -O of every piece of hardware they could ping thou. Without the actual IP of course, lest saddam start teardropping all of our tanks.
  • "Would it help people distribute critical information?" Critical like Jon Katz's opinion on the latest shite movie he saw? "Would it help people keep in touch with their friends and enemies?" Why would you want to keep in touch with your enemies? Do you think warring nations would use Slashdot to negotiate a peace treaty or something? "Would it help to prevent a war?" More likely cause one... some super geek war over what OS/browser/chip is the best. Come on though, did I really just read this? Slashdot prevent a war? Do you really think there is anyone out there actually capable of starting a war that would be influenced (either directly or indirectly) by something posted on Slashdot?? "So far it seems no person in extreme need has submitted to Slashdot, but if they do, how would we respond?" Pending it actually got posted before the war was over, A handful of people would frantically vie for first post, a few would come up with some funny and clever response to it, there'd likely be a few off-topic posts. And after sifting through all that BS, maybe one or two genuinely useful posts.
  • Why would you use a public forum, thus an easy target, to call for help ? And Slashdot would be very promptly pressured into removing anything that it was told to (i.e.: the Scientology documents, DeCSS, ...).

  • Is it me, or do Americans seem rather paranoid?

    It's you. The only reason it seems unreasonable to you is because the US has done such a good job of it they appear invincible, so it's easy to mock them of over building their defenses (hence offenses). Yet as stable as the world seems there are always people eyeballing screwing it all up again, and if you wait until you're being overrun it's perhaps a little bit too late..

  • What will you do?
    That's easy! Shoot the hostage!


    Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
  • Ask Slashdot: If aliens were to land during this war, which side would they help?

    Your Rights Online: "Loose lips sinks ships" to be official motto of Carnivore 2.5


    Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
  • A more interesting question is how Slashdot (and others) would be permitted to operate in war. If the U.S. got into a serious conflict where our national survival was at stake, I'm guessing that the pressure to try to control the dissemination of information would be overwhelming. Any web sites that didn't toe the line on disseminating sensitive information would be shut down or forced to expunge content. Even if they were hosted offshore, I'd expect that if they had U.S. citizens running them, those folks would be subject to arrest. Plus, any sites that had content that was counter to U.S. interests, whether run by U.S. citizens or not, would be attacked electronically.
  • I have just adjusted Shoeboy's karma manually. --Ellen (Posting anonymously to preserve my precious reputation as an objective Slashdot admin.)
  • Troll: to be used when a post downplays Linux, or brings up any German empire.
    Flamebait: to be used when a post is the parent of a 5-post long discussion, regardless of the content of those posts.
    Offtopic: to be used when a post does not cover all of the items discussed in a story.
    Redundant: to be used when a post contains one sequence of words used in a previous post, no matter how unique the post actually is.
    Overrated: to be used out of spite, or to fulfill a moderator's personal gain.
  • It doesn't hurt to have numerous failsafe systems in the government. After all, look at what happened right after the French Revolution: Napoleon came to power. The concept of totalitarianism that the Revolution had supposedly eliminated returned with a vengeance.
  • ...the Troll War and the War of the Flames.

  • Slashdot during wartime (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Slashdot during wartime, The talking heads

    Heard of a website that is loaded with people,
    modd'ed up and ready to go
    Heard of some other sites, on the super highway,
    a place where nobody knows
    The sound of goatsex, off in the distance,
    I'm getting used to it now
    Lived on slashdot, lived on kuro5hin,
    I've lived all over this placea

    This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
    this ain't no fooling around
    No time for dancing, or lovey dovey,
    I ain't got time for that now

    Transmit the kernal, to the receiver,
    hope for an update some day
    I got three slashdot accounts, a couple of emails,
    you don't even know my real name
    High on a hillside, linux is loading,
    everything's ready to roll
    I sleep in the daytime, I code at nightime,
    I might not ever get done

    This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
    this ain't no fooling around
    He ain't no Hemos, or RMS,
    he ain't got time for that now
    Heard about kuro5hin? Heard about freshmeat?
    Heard about latest kernals?
    You oughta know not to mod down to zero
    somebody might see do that
    I got some cable, some kernal updates,
    to last a couple of days
    But I ain't got no slashdot, ain't got no
    news for nerds, ain't got no weblog to read

    Why stay at slashdot? Why go to freshmeat?
    Gonna be different this time
    Can't use cryptography, can't send a news story,
    I can't write nothing at all
    This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
    this ain't no fooling around
    I'd like to read slashdot, I'd love to mod you
    I ain't got no time for that now

    Trouble in the code, got through the segfault,
    we blended with the crowd
    We got computers, we're tapping pohne lines,
    I know that ain't allowed
    We dress like students, we dress like housewives,
    or in a suit and a tie
    I changed my post stule, so many times now,
    I don't know how i type!
    You make me shiver, I feel so tender,
    we make a pretty good team
    Don't get exhausted, I'll do some modding,
    you ought to get some sleep
    Get your mod points, follow directions,
    then you should change your email address
    Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day,
    whatever you think is best
    Burned all my notebooks, what good are
    notebooks? They won't help me survive
    My linux is crashing, burns like a furnace,
    the crashing keeps me alive
    Try to stay healthy, physical fitness,
    don't want to catch no virus
    Try to be careful, don't take no chances,
    you better watch what you say on slashdot

  • "Slashdot is the single most important english site on the internet"?

    You're kidding, right?

    I admit that slashdot has been my homepage for a very long time, but it is not, was not, has never been, and never will be "the single most important english site on the internet".

    For starters, I could make the argument that sites like Freshmeat or Linux Today are at least as important as Slashdot, and perhaps moreso.

    Then, we could go from there to actual sites in The Real World(tm) that cover topics such as: Current Weather, World Events, and... heck, even Technology.

    And then we have the Meta Sites, such as Google: the duct tape of the Internet, without which we could find very little.

    And then, you go on to say that the stories that are picked on Slashdot are redundant or boring. Gosh, I guess that rules out the rest of the Internet, then!

    ...except for this "Kuro5hin" site, which somehow isn't "the single most important english site on the internet", despite being possibly more diverse or colorful than slashdot?

    However, even if you can't make an argument, at least someone found you Insightful. I just hope *they* aren't planning on posting, and enlightening us all with *their* newfound insight, TOO...
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
  • Never understood why they call the 52 a buff, I always thought they looked pretty cool (at least in flight).

    First saw 'em in the late 50's or so when my dad took us aboard Seymour Johnson one summer when he was reserve training. I admit they're a little strange looking when parked, with the wings looking like something out of a Salvador Dali painting.

    C-130's must be smaller than I thought, or carriers bigger.

  • I knew what BUFF meant (Haven't been to Goldsboro for some time but I've read a couple of Dale Brown books), I just don't understand why people find them so unattractive, I think they look pretty good (for a bomber*), or at least they did "back in the day"

    *Of course fighters like the P-51 my dad flew can't help but outshine bombers in the looks department.

  • Now there's an idea. In the event of war, send Katz to report from wherever the fighting is the fiercest and the lead's a-flyin' :-)
  • ... that would be useful.
  • The question of how well Slashdot would continue to work depends on the scale of war.

    If this was a nuclear war, the commercial Internet would surprisingly go down pretty quickly--the detonation of several megaton-yield nukes at high-altitude over the USA and the ground destruction of critical communications backbone facilities would stop all commercial Internet traffic--I don't think commercial server farms are capable of withstanding the EMP burst.

    Now, military communications would likely survive, since they are designed to operate even in high radiation/EMP environments.
  • Probably, all routers on the Internet would be required to block port 80 traffic.

    A friend of mine studied to get his HAM license. Just before passing his exam, one of his mentors pulled him aside, and quietly told him: "Now, that you'll be licensed, you have to realize that in case of war, they gonna come out and lock you away, and confiscate all your gear".

    He did not bother taking the exam.

    --

  • I would listen very carefully, as would the NSA. Actually, Taco et al would probably be drafted, and made to use this forum as an info gathering device as well as a disinformation channel.

    I for one would either be in the theater fighting a meatspace battle, or in my bedroom hacking the enemy.
  • If slashdot ever starts covering socially significant topics, they'll have to change their slogan to "Stuff that matters, nerds that don't."
    --Shoeboy
  • During wartime, wouldn't we have bigger things to worry about than our daily Slashdot fixes?
  • IMO, Slashdot is the single most important english site on the internet, except when silly stories [ like this one ] are published so people can speculate about an event that will likely never happen.
    This shouldn't be debated when I know so many quality reader submissions are being sumarily dismissed without a second thought. Story selections are becoming a real problem lately - alot of stories are either redundant or boring -and I can see a mass exodus to kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org] if the editors of /. don't allow more color and diversity.
  • The source of all the trolling, goatse.cx, AYBABTU, etc. is all coming from this [slashdot.org] website. Go and slashdot 'em, people.
    --------------------------

  • I got some groceries, some peanut butter
    to last a couple of days.

  • True story...

    When I worked at CSC subcontracting for lockheed, the naval display systems for aegis battleships and cruisers ran HP-UX
  • Um... you have only to look here - http://www.indymedia.org/ - to realize that /. is, in fact, less than useful when it comes to the reporting and publicizing of armed conflict or serious issues such as nuclear weapons, the environment and so forth. Indymedia is about the only useful news sites on the web- the only real issue is that their updates are less regular and a little more.... focused.

    Odds are that if somepleace like Korea gets nuked, you'll get the news from Indymedia.org, and a lengthy diatribe about how much [company X. movie X, processor X] sucks/rules from the slashdot editors, who wouldn't even notice until the submission line became clogged with nothing else.

  • Considering the number of wars that have happened during slashdot's history, and the number still happening now, I think we can conclude that for the next few wars at least, slashdot would be no help at all, and would be largely unaffected by it.

    Or were you referring to a war affecting the slashdot editors? Geez, if someone invaded Jon Katz' territory we'd never hear the end of it...

    War in the United States ain't gonna happen any time in the forseeable future. Nobody's going to invade the country with the world's most bloated millitary budget, and the likelihood of revolution of any kind, second amendment or no second amendment, is as close to zero as it's possible to be. (If the well-trained militia were really going to overthrow the government for being tyrranical, it'd have happened by now.)

  • I can't believe how many people fell for this April Fool's joke.

    So. You're new here, are you?
    --
  • Sorry that was Stanford University, not "Standord".

    --Matt
  • Wow. A silly article posted on April 1. Who'd 'a thunk it?
    --

  • Serious Security flaw in US Anti-Missle Defence System
    by Hemos [hemos.net]

    Will the War Delay Kernel Release?
    by CmdrTaco [cmdrtaco.net]

    War is Targetted at Geeks Like Me and You by JohnKatz [goatse.cx]

  • Slashdot could win back peace just by slashdotting the servers of the Strategic Command on both sides...
  • [FLAMEBAIT] We may have elected an ass, but at least he only got two terms, and was then tossed on the slag heap of history.[/FLAMEBAIT]

  • You'd expect that they'd start a poll asking how certain aspects of the war should be conducted such as whether or not all-out sanctions should be imposed on Think Geek products or whether the B-52's should drop Binary encoded message T-Shirts on the enemy - how do you spell "We are gonna loose" in Binary?

    Perhaps there should be a poll on how many Cowboy Neal clones would be neccesary to ensure victory ( or is one enough?:)
  • They'd talk about GPS, and how it's used for missle tracking.

    And email their congressmen to get GPS turned back on in war zones.

    --
  • i propose that we send Katz to do coverage directly from the front line ;-)

    (then again, he'd probably survive the war and do a 10 part-er on the relationship between "smart" bombs and social inadequalities in Zimbobwe).


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • slashdot would go on posting things that it found newsworthy (ware related or otherwise) and 10% of geeks would continue reading the site.

    any questions?


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • This person's question isn't necessarily silly. . .in the event of a large scale crisis, most forms of mass communication would be too busy pushing stories of "who did what" to deal with a cry for help from some person or small entity. The /. community is unique in this sense because no question or "cry for help" that I have seen has went unanswered. So yes, I would have to say, in the event of a major crisis, /. would more than likely not only be a source for good news, but also a place to come to and post if you needed help.
    • 2001-07-12 22:03:15 Bombs falling again (articles,war) (rejected)
    • 2001-07-14 02:02:17 TV Station Captured (articles,media) (rejected)
    • 2001-07-16 03:27:19 There's a genocide going on here! (articles,war) (rejected)

    You get the idea.

    --

  • Slashdot Post:
    Subject: Help us please!
    Comment: We have no food or water left! The Canadiens have overrun us! We are in a small data center with a T1 and two laptops, please helps us!

    modded -1 Offtopic

    Reply Post
    Subject: Re Help us please!
    Comment: click here for help goatse.cx

    modded - 1 Troll

    Reply Post
    Subject: Re Help us please!
    Comment: Have you tried using
    #!/usr/bin/perl -w?
    use food;
    M$ Sucks!

    modded +4 Insightful
    ---
  • I can only think the questioner meant to ask about how the Internet would help in case of war. Asking how /. would help seems a tiny wee bit parochial. Still:

    How would Slashdot function during a war or comparable crisis?

    About as well or badly as it does now, factored by as well as it is able to given whatever conditions are imposed on it and on the internet by the said war.

    Would it help people distribute critical information?

    Very doubtful that anyone would chose /. above other websiate and/or internet facilities.

    Would it help people keep in touch with their friends and enemies?

    Same answer. I'm not about to communicate with my sister via /. - I'll write her an email. Duh.

    Would it help to prevent a war?

    No. Good grief.

    So far it seems no person in extreme need has submitted to Slashdot, but if they do, how would we respond?

    We only know that no such submission has been published. Possibly this is because the /. crew do not want /. turned into a FAQ for newbies and the lame. How would we respond? Heterogeneously, as normal.

    By the way, could I take this opportunity to troll by saying your president *really* *really* sucks over the Kyoto thing.

  • I can't believe how many people fell for this April Fool's joke.

    Define "April Fool's joke". Are we talking about an Ask Slashdot that's so unbelieveably stupid, inane, or silly that there's no way it could be taken seriously?

    If so, I'd like to point out the following non-April 1st "Ask Slashdot" entries:

    Given that the "Slashdot during War" AskSlashdot is less absurd than some of the "legitimate" AskSlashdot's and could (potentially) serve as a catalyst for worthwhile discussion, the question becomes just who pulled a prank on whom?

    Or, to put it more simply, is trolling trolls really trolling? How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Who is John Galt? What's keeping Godot? If a tree falls in the woods, will it knock out my Internet connection?

  • you should probably be aware that "dropping" acid does not mean setting it on the floor.

  • A Harrier can't land on a highway either. They already blow huge chunks out of the special landing pads they use. Try landing one on a US highway (or almost any road for that matter), and you'll have a plane that can't get back up because it a)tore up the whole area around it and b)in the process of tearing up all that asphalt and/or concrete, it managed to also put a few rather significant holes in it's self.


    You do know that the AV-8B Harrier is VSTOL, that is can take off like a conventional aircraft, without using its vectored thrust systems. Also, it can take off vertically from rough fields prepared with steel runway mesh and from the decks of LHDs. So there's no reason that it can't take off conventionally from a highway or vertically from a highway or field prepared with steel mesh.

    Landing conventionally on a highway is also within the Harrier's operational envelope.

    Maj. Kong.
    --

  • Never understood why they call the 52 a buff, I always thought they looked pretty cool (at least in flight).


    BUFF = Big Ugly Fat Fucker.

    Flown them for years, when they were almost old as I was (last one off the line was 1962).

    Real name is the "Stratofortress", a/k/a "Aluminum Overcast".

    Maj. Kong
    --

  • Even the damn road system was built so that aircraft would have a stretch of runway every few miles "in case of war".


    Bullshit

    Ever seen a B-52H son? Big ugly fat fucker, with a wingspan that would need a 20-lane highway. Ever been to an Air Force Base? Those runways are specially reinforced concrete twenty feet thick.

    With 6,000 airports and thousands of square miles of dry lake beds out west, you don't need to land on highways.

    True, the Interstate highways were an Eisenhower Administration project built with civil defense and military mobility in mind (the 12' 6" minimum overpass height were supposed to accomodate troop and missile carriers), based on the German Autobahn.

    And yes, there are plenty of European nations (Sweden, Finland, Germany, UK, Russia) that use their highways as emergency staging areas for military aircraft. But these are always small fighters and fighter/bombers, smaller than anything in the USAF inventory. You might be able to pull it off with the A-10 or a USMC Harrier, maybe even a C-130 (which landed on a carrier deck once -- the test pilot got the DFC for that one), but that's about it.

    Now, if you want to talk paranoia, take a look at all of the armory buildings that were built in the late-1800s and early-1900s, when the urban gentry felt threatened by rioting immigrants and bomb-throwing anarchists. The machine guns in those armories were meant to mow down rioters, something that happened a number of times (Haymarket riots, Bonus Army, Pullman strike).

    Maj. Kong, USAF (ret.)

    --
  • All your base are belong to U.S.
  • A war, Slashdot would be posting articles on it every 15 minutes, hell they'd have to make their own war page. But in a war, we would be a vital source because we could hack the enemy with hardly any possible legal resutition, hell it was wartime, we were helping our country!
    We hold a lot more power than some of you think. We're the ones that can destroy the enemy's computer systems, but then again, we can do that to our own nation as well..cuts two ways
  • Slashdot is on American soil, and so it would be subject to any news/info blackout imposed by the DOD. If you though the Church of Scientology and the DMCA issue was bad, incurring the wrath of the DOD will be many times worse. Slashdot would effectively become an organ of US propaganda during a war. All info they could publish would be supplied by the DOD. (I'm assuming WWII precedents) Slashdot could defy the DOD and publish reality, but I doubt it would last long. I think it would be more the decentralized internet that would foil the DOD. AIM, ICQ, and chat rooms would spread the truth and horror of the war. The internet was designed for war pigs, but the communication that it creates could well result in the end of war. (Or at least the effective waging of it by nations.)

  • Slashdot's contribution to the war effort (Score:3)

    by Our Man In Redmond ( 63094 ) on Sunday April 01, 2001 @06:11AM (#323284)
    If war hits Slashdot should just continue to function normally. Sometimes in war it's convenient to spread mis- and dis-information to the enemy, something Slashdot has proven itself good at.

    That, and get Jon Katz to write a few essays to bore the enemy into submission.
    --

  • Ask Slashdot: Please speculate wildly... (Score:3)

    by ThunderBucket ( 73081 ) on Sunday April 01, 2001 @06:04AM (#323285)
    ...and/or flame amongst yourselves. Anyone else noticed this trend?

  • Slashdot During War? (Score:3)

    by gargle ( 97883 ) on Sunday April 01, 2001 @07:09AM (#323286) Homepage
    Slashdot During War?

    I can't believe how many people fell for this April Fool's joke.

  • /. has already been there. (Score:3)

    by HerrGlock ( 141750 ) on Sunday April 01, 2001 @05:57AM (#323287) Homepage
    I read /. in Bosnia regularly. Seems just the thing to remind me what home was and what was important beyond the minefields. It also kept me up to date on what the IT industry was up to.

    DanH
    Cav Pilot's Reference Page [cavalrypilot.com]

  • No. (Score:3)

    by The last true geek ( 325018 ) on Sunday April 01, 2001 @05:54AM (#323288)
    News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.

    During a war, slashdot would bitch about how hard it is to get RAM through trade embargoes.

    They would use cryptography, and get arrested. And their user base would bitch about it.

    They'd talk about GPS, and how it's used for missle tracking.

    In short, it would help the war effort exactly not one iota, and still waste the time of our geeks overseas.

    But you knew that, right?

  • Distro... (Score:4)

    by don_carnage ( 145494 ) on Sunday April 01, 2001 @05:55AM (#323289) Homepage
    /. would more than likely report which Linux distro is running on US Military hardware.

    --

  • Re:A rather silly "Ask Slashdot" (Score:5)

    by Bob McCown ( 8411 ) on Sunday April 01, 2001 @06:00AM (#323290)
    Reminds me of the following from the reader's Q&A column in TV Guide:

    "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?"

  • HELP! (Score:5)

    by Talisman ( 39902 ) on Sunday April 01, 2001 @05:55AM (#323291) Homepage
    "...no person in extreme need has submitted to Slashdot, but if they do, how would we respond?"

    Pop quiz, hotshots:

    HHHHEEEEELLLLLLLPPPPPPP MMMMMMMEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

    ESR just broke into my house. He's naked, covered in jelly and holding a gun along with a copy of ESR's Love Tips :(

    What will you do?
  • Hi,

    I built the first site for the North Korean famine (www.northkorea.org [northkorea.org]) over some years with a past Newsweek editor in Japan. I've had some time to think about how to converge people on sites and solve problems.

    Actually since the Kobe quake I've thought about how to make systems that could help focus responses to a web thread and help people solve problems. Slashdot might be better than nothing, though it lacks an editor who can continually digest and udpate info to provide a quick to consult page. On the web people tend to surf away and away from a given site, so while Slashdot is great for gathering a mass of people, you still are going to need a link at the top to someone's page. That someone will have to be a superhuman or have a lot of helpers to manage the information flood and remain of interest.

    It seems there are a number of interesting components that could be useful in this case if they are not built monolithically, I'm thinking of sourceforge and open directory type collaborative services like dmoz.org [slashdot.org].

    There are a lot of other problems though, and one big one which it seems the people here might have a chance at solving, which is the political angle. It's everyone's business when there is a war, and lots of people may not want some information to be posted. There is also disinformation and the danger of getting people hurt.

    In the North Korea project, we had a bank account closed in the U.S. and I kept my name off the board since I was worried about being able to travel. But the biggest reason and perhaps the only reason why it succeeded (we raised a quarter million dollars in food, medicine, clothing, and other items) is that it was masterminded by an ace journalist named Bernie Krisher who felt something had to be done, did it, documented it, and demonstrated integrity to people through the site. He pulled his contacts and he risked his life (just because he is elderly.. and still more active and energetic when it counts than most twenty-year olds) one of the trips he ended up hospitalized there. The story got out through the site's news items, essays, photo and video reports, faxes from the government of North Korea, and info about newspaper appearances around the world which were also very important.

    I thought of using the web in the Kobe quake to help organize volunteers to assemble needed materials, but the fact is one manic person can do more than a CGI program. If you can somehow gather twenty manic networking people and filter everyone's energy through that you got something big. I say this because in the Kobe quake my own contribution was just to mirror a site on the beleaguered system that was still up in Kobe, and to direct people to a fantastic frequently updated site that everyone from student to megacorporation looked when it was the most important.

    Where was the site? Standord University. A student there had the objectivity of five thousand miles and some incredible energy because before other companies took up the slack, and while the government was paralyzed, this guy was probably the most important communications channel.

    You also will need to consider how to get people in and out. More information could be had from Eastern European linux people who have plenty of experience in this area. Even in a highly industrialized area you are likely to discover problems getting people physically in and out of the area. And the groups which can move freely may be highly politicized themselves. I think you will have a lot more luck if you try to be extremely focussed and selective about what you are trying to do and what you say you can do. In the end though if someone depends on your website, your ass is going to be on the line! Literally!

  • Excerpts from Slashdot@War... (Score:5)

    by CBoy ( 129544 ) on Sunday April 01, 2001 @07:13AM (#323293) Homepage
    FS! (Score:-1 Offtopic)
    by FPTroll (kissmy@trollbutt.com)on Sunday April 01, @07:03 CST (#5)
    (User #987765 Info)
    First shot! Ow dammit, that was my foot!

    Germanys past Performance... (Score:2 Funny)
    by Gazundheit (sneeze@germanyr0x0rs.com)on Sunday April 01, @07:30 CST (#22)
    (User #666666 Info)
    Didn't Germany do rather well in the last big war?

    Help!!! (Score:-1 Flamebait)
    by unknown_soldier (unknown@soldieroffortune.com)on Sunday April 01, @07:45 CST (#37)
    (User #425112 Info)
    Help! Help! The guys with the anti-personnel flamethrowers are here!

    Imagine ... (Score:4 Insightful)
    by PortmanFan (biggestfan@Ilovenatalieportman.com)on Sunday April 01, @07:41 CST (#44)
    (User #133755 Info)

    We could really end this war if every guy had their own beowolf cluster of cloned Natalie Portmans who would serve them fresh, hot grits for breakfast.

  • Re:A rather silly "Ask Slashdot" (Score:5)

    by blane.bramble ( 133160 ) on Sunday April 01, 2001 @06:08AM (#323294)

    More likely The Powers That Be would continue posting articles on why The Enemy was going to lose because they were not using The One True OS. Jon Katz would post articles on how the use of guns on the battlefield was leading to a crackdown on geeks in US schools. And the trolls would keep on trolling. Possibly in another language if the war was lost.

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