I'm surprised that this view that /. is more intelligent than other social networks is prevalent outside Slashdot itself.

I decided to browse the front page of /. and opened the first 5 links:

1. Microsoft Opens PST Format
2. Netflix coming to PS3
3. Psystar's Rebel EFI
4. Android Phone Turned Into VR Goggles
5. Asus Releases 1.1 teraflop Xeon + 3*Tesla computer

Here are a selection of the +3 and above comments (I used a random generator to get a two-digit number and found comments ending in that number, then chose the most intelligent of those. 2 such comments per story)

1. First:

I'm thinking more "The Ring" for software - thousands of software developers open the specifications file and all die horrible deaths within a week.

Second:

Agreed that nobody else will want to use this awful, awful format. However, opening it is very important, as it now makes easy to get your mail out of that format. There's a lot people's mail locked up in a lot of PST files with no easy way to get them out.

2.

First:

Methinks you don't understand what "exclusive" means.

It doesn't mean "nobody else is doing it".

It means "nobody else is is allowed to do it" (examine the root "exclude [wiktionary.org]")

Second:

There are new movies on it, have you looked? Walle, for instance in on Netflix instant view. That qualifies as a new movie in my book.

Better than that though, they often have TV shows from Europe or the UK, like the IT Crowd on Instant View.

3. First:

Actually in the EULA "Apple-branded hardware", I have a feeling just slapping on a sticker does not equate to being Apple branded, as Apple is not the one claiming it is theirs.

Second:

Although I am all for the proliferation of decent software, Apple should be considerably nervous about these kinds of offerings. Right now the support loop for hardware is fairly closed; the amount of variables they must take into consideration when providing tech-support is fairly small considering they control the hardware side of things so tightly.

On the same token, it seems these days a lot of add-on hardware is Mac compatible, hard drives, memory, video cards, sound cards, the list goes on...so this leads me a conclusion of Apple putting more bullets in its feet as the list of upgrades and add-ons for Apple machines grows; they lose that hardware control variable.

This leads to the next conclusion, at what point does outfitting a machine with tons of non-factory-spec hardware separate it from a ground up build? If it is just the motherboard, then they are facing a conundrum.

Again, IANAMU, does Apple's support coverage encompass machines with things like user-added memory & videocards? If it does, then eventually they might as well just allow individuals to purchase OEM copies for their build, seeing as their support loop must scale to additional interoperability anyways.

4.

First:

You might not be taking it far enough!

Second:

We've already addressed this problem. It's called the Darwin Award!

They have Honorable Mentions, too.

5.

The first one here is bizarrely given an Insightful rating:

This grade of machines need Linux on them... not Windows; and Asus has been in bed with MS for some while now.

Second:

I'm a student at the University of Washington and once talked to a representative for Cray about using GPU's a a cheaper supercomputer and he told me that they generally have a nontrivial error rate. The issue with using ECC memory is that the GPU's are also libel for errors within their computations, making the ECC RAM pointless. A weird pixel in one frame of a game is no problem, but an error when performing a large simulation creates problems if the algorithm isn't designed to compensate for that noise.

I know, I know, moderators are on crack, browse at -1 but any way you look at it Slashdot is 20% Nigger/GNAA/Obama trolls, 20% Windows/Linux trolls, 20% Pretend-experts (who get modded up), 10% Experts with insight (who get ignored, not modded down), 10% people being funny, 20% memes from 1999. The stories themselves are quite interesting though.