Slashdot Discussions Now Include Roulette Video Chat

It's been a long time coming, but we're pleased to announce the latest updates to our discussion software. We've been paying a lot of attention to what other websites have been doing in the space, and as we are only too happy to steal good ideas, from now on all Slashdot stories will now be accompanied by a Roulette-style webcam video chat. In testing, we've discovered that Slashdot users are amazingly likely to engage in informative, troll-free discussion when presented with the video image of one of their peers. This new addition to Slashdot nicely rounds out and improves the discussion experience for all users.

Pretty Funny Videos

[eldavojohn]

Watch them, it's worth it. I think I see pudge playing guitar, Rob Malda playing guitar singing about short shorts. Crazy dog lady (pretty much straight out of Best in Show) actually a lot of dog related videos. Funny notebook writings like "If you click next, I root your computer" *flip* "Don't make your computer sad." Or "If you turn your head, I win!" A pan of a desk with the nerdiest things you can conjure and then a note that says "Proud to be a nerd." There's a recurring bass player that likes to read you books and sneeze. There's a lot of older folks and women in here ... they probably got their wives and parents to make short videos so it "seemed" like a random demographic.

Sound seems broken on half of them though.

Well played, Slashdot, but the quality of these videos are too high and entertaining for this to be a real chat roulette :-)

Re:

[penguinchris]

The videos are funny, but they're having a hard time loading... not that I think slashdot is really capable of slashdotting itself, but maybe streaming videos is straining the servers a bit. It'll be interesting to see what happens when more people try to watch them.

Re:

[Smauler]

The videos may be funny, and I laughed at 1 I think the first time. However, I'm listening to streaming music, and they keep fucking going. I can't turn the audio off. Cheers slashdot, for being the first ever site to force me to install flashblock... seriously, never felt the need to install flashblock before now.

Re:

[SQLGuru]

I have a snake and a chick, you know what to do!

Sad thing is that the srsly@ e-mail doesn't work.

Re:Pretty Funny Videos

[commodore64_love]

Well let's look I'm done with slashdot for the day.

Okay I admit it - The videos were funny at first, but now I'd like to be able to turn them off, and nobody seems to have included that ability.

Flashblock

[tepples]

Okay I admit it - The videos were funny at first, but now I'd like to be able to turn them off, and nobody seems to have included that ability.

What web browser are you using? I have my Mozilla Firefox set up so that whenever I reload a page, the SWFs turn off until I click them [mozilla.org].

Re:

[commodore64_love]

IE6. It's the only thing my employer lets me run. If I was using FF or Opera, then yeah I could turn-off the flash until I give permission for it to load (click "play"), but no such function in Microsoft's shit.

Re:

[tepples]

IE6. It's the only thing my employer lets me run.

I can think of three solutions:

• Uninstall Flash Player.
• File a trouble ticket with the IT department about Acid2 (that's 2, not 3) breaking, and then post your boss's rationale as to why all of your employer's PCs still use only a decade-old web browser.
• There is a third solution, but describing it on Slashdot has been seen as flamebait in the past.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Software Restriction Policies in Windows

[tepples]

No one's forcing you to run IE, even if you don't have root privileges.

But you may need Administrators-group privileges to add a browser to the operating system's binary whitelist [microsoft.com], or in some more locked-down organizations, even to mount USB mass storage devices.

Re:

[commodore64_love]

Switched to "low bandwidth" and "simple design" and the videos still load. I can't figure out how to turn them off.

Re:

[gtall]

I cannot seem to get the video's turned off and allow me mod pointing at the same time while using Noscript. Anyone else know?

Re:

[sirius_bbr]

Actually, this prank pushed me over the edge to actually install flashblock :)

Re:

[Anachragnome]

"...the SWFs turn off until I click them..."

Better luck then me. All the Single White Females I come across turn off the moment we share the same room.

Re:Pretty Funny Videos

[Ihmhi]

Agreed. It's especially annoying for me as I'm the sort who opens a half-dozen or so /. stories from the RSS feed, so I have six of these videos going off.

By the way, if you want to block the source of the vid in an adblocker, hosts file, etc., the link is:

http://s.fsdn.com/aprilfools/flowplayer-3.1.5.swf

Re:

[The Moof]

Sound seems broken on half of them though.

After the one time it worked, I wish it would fail all of the time. Seriously, nothing beats pulling up an article and having a video of some jackass who is just screaming on my screen.

Re:Pretty Funny Videos

[Anonymous Coward]

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/dex_Faraday.m4v [fsdn.com]
Dog licking camera

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/dex_Movie1.m4v [fsdn.com]
Handwritten sign "Your ad here" with spoken ad for marketing to "not just shut-ins"

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/dex_Movie4.m4v [fsdn.com]
Almost black screen. Apology to a couple of moms for agreeing to the Chatroulette thing.

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/dex_r1.m4v [fsdn.com]
Doll doing the SNL Natalie Portman Gangsta Rap

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/dex_Video1.flv [fsdn.com]
Silent. Video feedback of camera filming its own output on top of a Slashdot page

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/dex_Video2.flv [fsdn.com]
Handwritten note: "If you turn your head, I win!!" Audio, but no voice.

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/dex_Video3.flv [fsdn.com]
Pan across nerd paraphernalia with handwritten note "Proud to be a nerd." Audio, no voice.

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/dex_Video4.flv [fsdn.com]
Paranoid guy with tinfoil hat and face cover, worried that "THEY could be watching."

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/dex_Video5.flv [fsdn.com]
"Before we get started, I'd just like to thank you on behalf of Slashdot [bla bla] Alright, let's do this thing." Stands up, prepares to unzip pants.

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/lee_1.mp4 [fsdn.com]
Silent. Guy pointing and laughing at camera.

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/lee_2.mp4 [fsdn.com]
Silent. Guy holding dog in front of camera.

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/leefriend_1.mp4 [fsdn.com]
Silent. Girl acting surprised/embarrassed by what she sees, turning away, then looking again.

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/leefriend_2.mp4 [fsdn.com]
Silent. Bearded dude waiting and talking.

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/leefriend_3.mp4 [fsdn.com]
Silent. Dude with yellow tie moving camera to correct lighting situation. Talking to the camera and someone off camera.

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/leefriend_4.mp4 [fsdn.com]
Silent. Dude in red polo shirt badly acting like he's laughing.

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/leefriend_5.mp4 [fsdn.com]
Silent. Doll held in front of camera, hardly any movement.

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/pudge_bad_hair.m4v [fsdn.com]
Guy with guitar playing a song about the bad hair of his supposed chat partner.

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/pudge_my_mic_is_off.m4v [fsdn.com]
Silent. Guy with guitar playing a song, possibly about his turned off microphone.

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/pudge_nerdier_than_me.m4v [fsdn.com]
Guy with guitar playing a song repeating the line "You look nerdier than me", ending with "but stay the way that you are."

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/pudge_should_be_working.m4v [fsdn.com]
Guy with guitar playing a song, musing that the viewer should be working, but in the end admits that he's glad the viewer isn't working.

http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/m/pudge_tune.m4v [fsdn.com]
Guy tuning his gu

Re:

[sa1lnr]

"Sound seems broken on half of them though."

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Re:

[TheSunborn]

>>It's NOT funny when I'm on a slow connection and slashdot is stealing it, and I have no way to turn this shit off.

Come on. Any slashdot reader should know how to turn of flash. If you really don't know please turn in your geek card.

>>It's NOT funny when I'm at work, and the admin wants to know why I streaming mega-videos & tying up work servers.

Tying up work servers? That would be interesting but really, your browser should newer connect to any work server. (Proxy server excluded, but a pr

Re:

[networkBoy]

Well played.
Seems to be a decent in-line with April 1 / poke fun at /. groupthink troll.
I liked it.
-nB

Re:Pretty Funny Videos

[Lumpy]

I'm his admin, and I am really wanting to know why he's tying up the work servers... Honestly, he came in this morning with about 600 feet of rope and has been tying onto all the servers since 9:00am. he wont stop, and has locked himself into the server room. Security cant get him out and I'm about 5 minutes from hitting the halon system to end it all.

If you want to save his life, please talk him down, he keeps talking about how the devil on slashdot's new video made him do it..

Re:

[tomhudson]

Then you should be using slashdots' new VLB (Very Low Bandwidth) [slushdot.com] interface.

Re:

[daveime]

about:blank will crash on OSX ... your point was ?

Re:

[m.ducharme]

It's crashing the flash plugin for Chrome on OS X, but not Chrome itself.

that's the explanation

[jollyreaper]

This is what they've been doing instead of fixing the CSS problems on Idle (or simply removing it.)

Re:that's the explanation

[u38cg]

CSS is not getting fixed on Idle because Taco and co want it to go away. Since they are corporate schills, they can't say so: all they can do is make it so bad they just "have" to kill it.

Re:

[Seakip18]

So true. CmdrTaco actually posted that it's there because higher ups wanted slashdot to keep up with this "social media thing" thing other sites do.

OMG BOOBIES!

[thomasdz]

What a great idea. Now I can see BOOBIES from the safety of my parents basement... here...let me try it out..
ewww gross. (click) ewwww gross... (click) ewww yuckko (click) ewww grosser! (click) ahh good, guy with guitar playing a tune... OMG he's lifting his shirt...agghhh ewww gross. (click) ewww gross...
I want Boobies. Girl Boobies. Oh yeah, I forgot...this is Slashdot.
I guess I'll just reload the wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boobies [wikipedia.org]
oh YEAH baby... seabirds! yeah! fap fap fap

Re:OMG BOOBIES!

[HopefulIntern]

Shouldnt that be "flap flap flap"..?

Sorry..

Re:

[mcgrew]

We, he must have the same probem with his keyboard I have. I don't ike it one ittle bit.

there's plenty of boobs on slashdot

[circletimessquare]

male gynecomastia is quite common in the slashdot user base

you should have let the guy finish lifting his shirt: probably a nice B cup, albeit a little hairy

Awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

I found my long lost dog through slashdot. Roulette Video Chat FTW

If Only ...

[WrongSizeGlass]

... my iPad had a camera and supported Flash.

Re:

[AHuxley]

Dell has you covered with its hand sized flash and cam device.

Re:If Only ...

[BitZtream]

Once again, proof that Apple knows best and by removing flash from the iPad has saved you from the evil it brings.

NO HATS?!

[denzacar]

What is this? 1982? [youtube.com]
Very ungentlemanly.

Re:

[dangitman]

Actually, I saw one guy wearing a baseball cap in one of the videos. He appeared to be wearing it quite safely though, so I guess it's OK.

OMFG no!!!!!

[mcgrew]

Web cams of us? Does that mean I have to put clothes on? Well, you'll finally find out how fat Tami is, and how skinny Tammy is.

Excuse me while I get a robe and warn the women...

Ouch! The Visuals!

[filesiteguy]

I can only imagine the average /. user logging in from home and what that person looks like. (I include myself in this cohort.)

This is not an april fools joke, it is a potential scary movie!

But...but...

[gimmebeer]

I'm on the Internet so I DON'T have to interact directly with other humans... :(

Re:

[John Hasler]

> I'm on the Internet so I DON'T have to interact directly with other
> humans...

Don't worry. Nothing but Slashdotters here.

Bad /. no biscuit

[jhesse]

Nice how this crashes the Flash plugin under OSX/Safari.

WTF?

Re:

[commodore64_love]

+1 troll

-1 informative

===

0 change to score ;-)

Re:

[jhesse]

At least the plugin is sandboxed under Safari. Seeing as I'm not the only one, I'm sure Apple is gonna love all those crash reports about Flash today. ...how is Flash not being on the iPad a negative, again?

Re:

[Phroon]

ClickToFlash [github.com] will help alleviate your Flash problems on Safari without completely disabling Flash altogether.

Nice!

[Lifyre]

Like putting Icy-Hot on my balls...

I know this is an April Fool's joke, but ...

[damn_registrars]

... this would fit right in with all the other crappy non-features that have been forced into slashdot lately.

Re:

[Idiomatick]

Achievements WERE added last april fools.

Hahaha

[XPeter]

I'm 16, you're all pedophiles!

I'm calling Chris Hansen :)

Re:

[mcgrew]

The FBI is on its way to your house to arrest you for distributing child porn.

Re:

[grcumb]

I'm 16, you're all pedophiles!

I put on my robe and wizard hat....

From My POV

[mindbrane]

Fine, I'm OK with it, got my Logitech Pr0n 9000 set up on the 37" Viewsonic and it gives great closeups of me reclined on the couch; but, I just want you all to know I'm not getting a bikini wax.

Please don't.

[bkr1_2k]

Please don't. I'm probably in the minority, but as far as I'm concerned, this "feature" sucks. I get a lot of interesting information about various subjects from this site, but there is nothing gained with taking up the extra bandwidth for audio and video, especially if the person is a blowhard or just talking out of their ass. Don't get me wrong, we all fall into those categories at some point or another, but there's not much gained by adding this feature.

Holy crap!

[L4t3r4lu5]

This is seventy billion shades more awesome than the video chat. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/01/floyd_nes/ [theregister.co.uk]

Dark Side of The Moon in 8bit sound! Have it on in the background while you play around with Slashroulette.

OMG! Ponies !!!

[tekrat]

'nuff said.

Open the floodgates of April the 1st.

[blind biker]

This is the first of many idiot-stories for the 1st of April, that will appear on Slashdot. The interesting thing is, ALL the stories are bunk. There won't be a single true one for about 18 hours from now.

Which kinda kills the joke.

I've worked with some of the greatest trolls

[Drethon]

And they do their work just fine face to face...

Re:

[mcgrew]

I can attest to that; here in Springfield most of the trolling [slashdot.org] is done offline.

Chatroulette

[camcorder]

I'm wondering how many cocks CowboyNeal needed to see while collecting ideas for this joke. On the other hand, it's good to know CowboyNeal is using chatrl, so maybe I could meet him some day, only if I know how he looks.

By posting, do I get the April Fools Achievement?

[JoshDM]

As in, posting here, or was that only when Achievements were released?

Will I At Last...

[damn_registrars]

... find out what the anonymous coward looks like?

Re:

[mcgrew]

Keep watching the video, he's the guy with his head covered in tinfoil.

Thanks CmdrTaco

[bazald]

It's new features like these that keep the site fresh. srsly

Worst AF ever!

[Cro Magnon]

And for slashdot, that's saying something.

Slashdotted.

[Fantastic Lad]

It's comforting to me to see that some things can still be relied upon.

-FL

OMG PONIES!!!!!!!!

[mdsolar]

Now I can share my collection!!!

Looks like I'll be back tomorrow, then.

[Orbijx]

Yeah... call center full of geeks reading /. because we can't get anywhere else online, and now there's video being loaded. I'm sure that IT will filter us in the face shortly, and come slap us with rulers for watching not-work-related video with company bandwidth. =|

Achievements

[halcyon1234]

After I participate in 10 chats, do I get an achievement [slashdot.org] to show for it?

Forgot your meds, did you?

[whitroth]

This is the *STUPIDEST* idea I've seen in a long while (other than, say, the idea that the tea baggers live in the real world).

AND I see no way to turn it off.

Did I mention I hate flash? And are you guaranteeing on-site, 24 hr maintenance, when we get infected from an infected flash video?

            mark, who has his setting at "old style" slashdot

Re:Forgot your meds, did you?

[whizzard]

AND I see no way to turn it off.

If you have adblock plus installed (and you should, really), this filter will take care of the problem:

slashdot.org##div.chatter

Damn you all are looking old.

[Dante]

Kinda scary, everyone is looking old, looking to the mirror, oh, me too.

Locks up my PC

[DJRumpy]

This 'feature' locks up my Mac cold when I view this via Chrome. I've never had a hard lock on this until today. I'm scrambling to addblock it.

Congratulations ./

Re:

[DJRumpy]

Well putting flashblock at least stopped the cold lockups. I'm amazed that something actually took down my Mac like that. No keyboard input, no mouse, no nothing. Hard reboot. Amazing feature...

Thankfully

[esocid]

I'm on my droid and flash isn't working. Well played though.

it crashes firefox on mac

[FiloEleven]

like...repeatedly

no /. for me today, i guess =\

NSFW

[Lord Lode]

Dude this wasn't funny, I don't like moving images in my browser at work, and now I can't even load /. without them!

Re:

[Lord Lode]

On a second look... I like the nerdiness of these movies! Nice!

forbid fsdn.com with NoScript

[xandroid]

Just told NoScript to forbid fsdn.com. Incredibly annoying problem solved.

Goddamnit I hate this poor excuse for a holiday.

Sucks

[thetoadwarrior]

Whether it is a joke or not, having multiple windows with Slashdot in them now makes Firefox crawl and randomly crash. Thanks!

sigh...

[Endymion]

ahh, the one day I need to remember to NOT visit /.

Darnit...

[Foo2rama]

No more posting in the nude.

Re:Boobs

[Vorpix]

this is one thing we DO NOT WANT from slashdot's readerbase.

Re:Boobs

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I always read Slashdot with my cock in hand, so I suppose this means that Cmdr Taco actually read that reader survey form I filled out last year.

Re:

[Ihmhi]

Here, it'd would probably be "Moobs or GTFO"...

Re:Boobs

[SimonTheSoundMan]

I hope I get this guy on the other end: http://www.wimp.com/livechatroulette/ [wimp.com]

Re:

[Pulse_Instance]

I'm hoping for Balmer I want to goad him into throwing a chair at me.

Re:

[JavaBear]

Go next on your video, and you get another that I would have thought to be even more worthy of this day's hi-jinx
http://www.wimp.com/indiapakistan/ [wimp.com]

Re:

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Right, seriously. I have people holding note pads asking for mod points, and another guy took his trousers/pants off. Please, slashdotters!

Re:

[Lumpy]

Hey at least you got that far, I was only 4 click in before I got penis after penis....

Are there no chicks on slashdot roulette?

Re:

[g0bshiTe]

Those were the chicks!

Re:

[fermion]

Everyone I have seen is in blatant violation of the 'no hats' rule. I see no rules about pants or other clothing, so i don't see an issue with people taking off their pants. But do let us follow the rules and refrain from hats.

Re:

[suso]

You're libel to get man boobs.

Re:Boobs

[Minwee]

You're libel to get man boobs.

That's only possible if there is a permanent record made. If the image isn't published then you are _slander_ to get man boobs.

Re:

[ffreeloader]

Dang, you beat me to it....

Re:

[Saint Mitchell]

Indeed. Though I did get a chuckle out of the "don't click next or I will root your computer" sign.

Re:

[m.ducharme]

If you can't figure out how to disable it, you need to turn your geek card in at the door.

Re:

[kalirion]

Disable it? Hell, I can't figure out how to enable it! Nothing shows up in firefox (though I gave temporary permissions to everything on the page through noscript).

IE blocks some cookies or scripts, but I don't feel like playing with that.

Re:

[Rolgar]

Block http://a.fsdn.com/aprilfools/* [fsdn.com] with adblock

Re:

[Endo13]

Unfortunately, yeah. A lot of the april fools stuff is funny.

But these videos... I like to have my slashdot in peace and quiet, without having to stop a stupid video on every damn page.

Re:

[owlstead]

You can't turn it off? WTF? This is supposed to be a geek site, now go away!