We last interviewed CmdrTaco, along with Hemos, in January 2000. Slashdot's 10th anniversary seems like a good time to put Rob back on the hot seat. He's older now and married, his former hobby site now has well over one million registered user IDs, and Linux has gone from "upstart" operating system to a normal part of the IT landscape. So ask away, one question per post. Expect to see answers to at least 10 of the highest-moderated questions next week. And if you miss your chance to participate in this interview, don't worry. We'll probably do another one with CmdrTaco sometime between 2014 and 2017.
CT: Also the clock is ticking if you want to sign up for a Slashdot 10-Year Anniversary party if you want a T-Shirt or a shot at the $1k ThinkGeek gift certificate.
Q: How many of those one million registered user IDs are active?
Explanation: I have seen a fair number of folks that have defected to other platforms/communities to find resources or tools that Slashdot does not provide. I've continued to hang around as I appreciate what Slashdot has to offer, but are there any plans to change anything?
Why has the number of technical articles dropped so much over the years? IOW - why are you trying to turn/. into Digg?
Oh, come on. Slashdot may suck at times, but Digg is an utter mess. The majority of the stories posted on the front page of Digg usually resembles an exclamation mark orgy, whoever posts the most wins automatically. The comment system is irritating at best, and really useful comments are rare. Someone once said that he reads Digg for the stories, and Slashdot for the comments. Basically, Digg is Fark.com without the humor, and Slashdot is lightyears away from turning into Digg.
I too wonder about this. I miss the old articles about how to hack this device or how these proposed changes to language X work. All of these RIAA articles, for instance, seem to pander to teenagers, while there are very few articles for technical people anymore.
Wil Wheaton has written about meeting a famous author, I think it was Larry Niven, and being completely blown away that Niven was at least as jazzed about meeting Wil as vice versa.
I'm sure you've met lots of folks that us normal mortals only see on TV. Anyone in particular that you were really excited to meet who hyperventilated when they realized who you were?
Around 1987 or 1988, I saw Larry Niven at a convention. I was officially there to be the Star Trek guy, but I didn't have to go on stage for a few hours, and rather than sit in some suite with the rest of the Star Trek people who didn't want to get too close to the masses, I grabbed my backpack and wandered around the convention as nerdy fanboy number 42.
I bought a ton of crap in the dealer's room (mostly FASA sourcebooks, and some bootleg anime videos IIRC) and on my way down a hallway toward the gaming room, I saw this guy who was dressed in a Space Shuttle flight suit (blue) sitting behind a table that had some books on it.
Holy shit, it was Larry Niven.
I walked up to him and the conversation went something like this:
Me: OMG YOU'RE LARRY NIVEN!
Him: OMG YOU'RE WESLEY ON STAR TREK!
Both: CAN I HAVE YOUR AUTOGRAPH!
Both: YOU WANT MY AUTOGRAPH?!
Both: YES!
Me: I don't have a pen.
Him: It's okay, I have several.
He pulled a pen out of the shoulder pen-holding pocket thing on his blue Space Shuttle flight suit. I was so out-nerded, it wasn't even funny. I tried to counter-attack by producing my own copy of Ringworld that I had in my backpack, because I carried it with me everywhere in those days, just in case, you know, I felt like reading it. (I am not exaggerating at all. I loved -- and continue to love -- that book that much. For reals.)
That's a wonderful account, and it's also awesome that you post on slashdot.
My story isn't as cool, because A: I'm not famous and B: I was a dork, of sorts. But hey, it's my story.
I was at a sci-fi con, had some art in the art show. Since I grew up without a TV I really didn't know much about what was going on, but my friend was helping organize the con and talked me into going and watching the art auction. We were wandering around, talking about this and that, and walked into a room. There was a strikingly pretty woman sitting in a chair, looking *very* bored, and on the other side of the room, a strikingly handsome man, surrounded by people, talking.
I've never suffered from either shyness or lack of confidence. So I went over, introduced myself to the pretty blonde lady, and we started talking about art, as it happens. I noticed a couple people look my way, frown, but I didn't think anything of it, until my friend sidled up and said, sotto voice, "dude, you're hitting on Starbuck's girlfriend."
I said, "who?"
Some may argue that not knowing who Starbuck was makes me not a dork. But in the land of dorks, well, the clueless man is even more dorky.
I'm glad you post on Slashdot even though you also have a Digg account.
I don't subscribe to the notion that we should only have one account in one place, and participate in one community. That attitude is one of the myriad reasons I don't waste my time on Digg any more. In addition to that annoyance, the comments and interaction at Digg is worse than useless, and even as an aggregator it's become inferior to Reddit and Propeller (where I'm a scout - full disclosure.) Digg could have been really cool, if it had the kind of leadership that Slashdot has via editors. Instead, those who would lead Digg seem more content to cash the checks and let the Digg Mob run out of control down every tube on the Internets.
For truly useful and worthwhile discussion and insight, nothing comes close to Slashdot. In fact, if I were to ask Rob a question, it would be about the commenting and moderation system: does he agree that Slashdot has the best moderation online, and why doesn't every community use the same model?
Considering the FAQ hasn't been updated in almost a year, could you explain exactly what tags do these days? At one time, it seemed to be a vote-based system, now I have no idea how tags show up on articles. Frankly, since I didn't understand it and my tags didn't seem to affect anything, I gave up on using the feature.
Could we get a definitive answer to how tags work?
The followup question to this is: since the tagging system seems to be a complete failure even when restricted to a small subset of users, what hope remains for its future evolution? At this point, why not just shut it down and give up?
By 'failure', I mean that the tags we see are generally ridiculously useless (like a "science" tag on a story in the Science section) or otherwise simply degenerate ("haha" seems to be the most common tag). It's hard to imagine what purpose the system would serve even if people were honest with it. Further, the idea of tagging comments as a future moderation system now seems completely horrible.
since the tagging system seems to be a complete failure...
I actually kind of like them. When I see an article slathered with "flamebait", "badsummary", "inaccurate", etc. then I have a pretty good idea that it's not worth getting worked up about and that I'll probably read its debunking a few comments down. I think that's a fairly nice service.
Something I've been sort of curious about for ages:
Can you talk a little about how you experienced some of the dotcom insanity, specifically as it unfolded here at Slashdot? For a while, it seemed like Slashdot was about to become wunderkind central -- the sale to VA, the infamous ESR post about uber-wealth, etc. I'd be interested to hear about how that experience translated from your side of the ball.
Ever since GiS [wikipedia.org] went away you've become a sort of man-behind-the curtain type persona, and we don't see much in the way of journal updates or news posts about Slashdot or you yoyrself much. One of the last things most of us knew about the "Real Rob Malda" was the article in Wired [wired.com] years ago regarding the Andover-cum-VALinux-cum-OSDN-cum-Death-keiretsu IPO.
Your recent journal entry talks about Slashdot becoming very popular very quickly. But at some point later, you realize that transferring slashdot over to a commercial enterprise would make you actual money that you could live off of. We'd love to hear the story of that meeting/phone call/e-mail/whatever.
Dealing with a bunch of creative, resourceful, tenacious, stubborn, and sometimes outright hostile nerds, I'm sure there were MANY times when you were tempted to just give up on the whole thing. e.g. page-widening trolls; Church of Scientology; Microsoft source code, or even the release of slash code to the community and the barrage of insults.
I'm really glad you held on and persevered, but I'd like to know when you were most tempted to throw in the towel, and even more importantly, I'd like to hear the story around how you held on and kept things going.
Can you give us any insight into the hardware/platform that slashdot runs on? How many servers does it use? What did you code it in? (a half drunk, coked-up deaf guy screaming HTML into a tin can on a string?) How much bandwidth does it use?
I know this is more than one question, but my MAIN question is just: "What does it take to run slashdot, hardware/software/bandwidth wise?"
These are probably pretty cliche questions, but I am interested in the answers.
What is a normal day at slashdot like? How much time do you spend improving slashcode vs picking stories vs the normal computer admin tasks vs other stuff. How are the workload/responsibilities split up among the different staff members? How has this changes over the years?
I also remember back in the old days, the work you did with Enlightenment, as well as the animated short you made (Duckpins?). I was wondering if you get the chance to do much programing outside of slashcode, or what other hobbies you spend your free time doing now (besides being married).
If you were in Soviet Russia, would a Beowulf cluster of Natalie Portmans and other insensitive clods as our 1337 new goatse overlords (confirmed by Netcraft as dying) have you naked and petrified with hot grits poured down Cowboy Neal's pants (profit!!!) ?
If you were in Soviet Russia, would a Beowulf cluster of Natalie Portmans and other insensitive clods as our 1337 new goatse overlords (confirmed by Netcraft as dying) have you naked and petrified with hot grits poured down Cowboy Neal's pants (profit!!!) ?
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
For the newbies among us, allow me to explain all the parts. This post is the culmination of 11 Slashdot memes which are, in order:
What do you think the exact turning point was for Slashdot that got the ball rolling. Maybe it happened when it was Chips and Dips, but how did word get out to the professional engineers that told their friends and so on? Did you announce your creation on usenets, was there one loudmouth who advertised for you, do you have any idea how it came to be that this was a mecca for nerds online when it could have just as easily been ignored?
Have you ever regretted starting Slashdot, or invested so much of your time in to this site? Did any actions by your peers, by the community or by your colleagues, as a result of a story posted on Slashdot or related to one, made you ever regret your decision to start Slashdot.
Anyway, been here a guest since 1999, and a member for the last seven. Enjoyed being part of this community, every single day (or when its non-xenophobic).
Junis surely must have some interesting thoughts on the state of Afghanistan and his feelings towards the USA today. I'm also interested to know if he ever upgraded from that Commodore he was using to download movies - the one he hid from the Taliban in his chicken coop.
If Google comes to you with a huge pile of cash and says "we want to add Slashdot to out stable of products," perhaps as some kind of competitor to Digg, would you a) be tempted but decline because this is, after all, your baby, b) talk to them a while, negotiate, but ultimately call it off, or c) buy that island you've always wanted and start your own country?
Slashdot is successful by any measure. You've certainly pioneered many things we now take for granted. Many "slashdot killers" have been attempted and failed or found a different niche. What are the biggest threats to/. success today and going forward?
Originally written by you in the late 90's, what with all the advancements in best practices, the evolution of CPAN, the barrage of Damian Conway "Right Way To Do It" conferences, and Perl 6 forever on the horizon, do you still have the chops to be an active Slash maintainer? Any thoughts about passing on "your baby" to other coders? Any regrets at all?
My question is simple: Do you like the discussions that appear on Slashdot stories? Do you read them?
My question originates from the fact that, apparently [slashdot.org], you've only commented 368 times. Considering that you've been here "since the beginning," that's not a lot of comments. Avid Slashdotters make about that many comments per year.
So why don't you participate more in the discussions? Do you not like Slashdot discussions? Or is it just because you prefer reading? Is it because you're too busy? (Aren't we all?) Is it because you worry that any comment you make will be unduly scrutinized, because of your peculiar status within this community? (Do you sometimes post under a different name?)
You've probably followed more news stories and trends over the past decade than just about anyone else.
Based on that, what are your predictions for the next 10 years?
Some technology is obviously going to die a quick and painful death. Some of that technology will be good and some deservedly bad. What's going to catch on? What has staying power? Google has been a golden child the last few years, will that continue? Are there any big turnarounds coming? Who's got good stuff in the pipeline? Don't you dare tell me 2008 is the year of Linux (and I know you won't) - we've both been hearing that marketing crap for the past 10 years.
This is another controversial subject, and the parent will probably be modded down, but it is a good question (when phrased properly): How do you feel about the political/whatever climate on slashdot and do you feel that all viewpoints are respected?
Along those lines, "When will long time users, such as myself, who have not had mod points in *years* be given an explanation as to why they haven't seen them?"
I've only ever gotten mod points once. I figured they were just stingy with them. How often do they come up for most people?
I think the bigger question is why these (and other) editors love to link to blogs aggregating other blogs posting about articles talking about news, rather than just the original news reports.
Nah, I bet most posters couldn't care less. Don't mistake a noisy 5% for the whole. I wonder if that's a seed for a question?
Mr. Taco: You have access to stats, such as number of pageviews, active posters, and so forth. This lets you objectively measure a lot of things that we can't see. What do you think are some misconceptions that we have about slashdot? Maybe we're really still mostly IE users? Is 'videogames' the most read section? Perhaps the tech and science articles that everybody seems to clamor for are really the least read?
Silly Question (Score:5, Interesting)
My Question for Rob Malda (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, Rob looks like he escaped from the nearest infirmary.
Time for a better hair cut, Rob.
(posted anonymously for obvious reasons)
Sincerely,
Kevin Rose
Parent
Active users? (Score:5, Interesting)
Q: How many of those one million registered user IDs are active?
Explanation: I have seen a fair number of folks that have defected to other platforms/communities to find resources or tools that Slashdot does not provide. I've continued to hang around as I appreciate what Slashdot has to offer, but are there any plans to change anything?
Oh, and congratulations on 10 years.
Re:Active users? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Do it again (Score:5, Interesting)
Why has /. turned into Digg? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why has /. turned into Digg? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Why has /. turned into Digg? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Any mutual "I can't belive it's ...!" moments? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wil Wheaton has written about meeting a famous author, I think it was Larry Niven, and being completely blown away that Niven was at least as jazzed about meeting Wil as vice versa.
I'm sure you've met lots of folks that us normal mortals only see on TV. Anyone in particular that you were really excited to meet who hyperventilated when they realized who you were?
Yeah, mutual geeking out is awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
I wrote about it in my blog [typepad.com], thusly:
Around 1987 or 1988, I saw Larry Niven at a convention. I was officially there to be the Star Trek guy, but I didn't have to go on stage for a few hours, and rather than sit in some suite with the rest of the Star Trek people who didn't want to get too close to the masses, I grabbed my backpack and wandered around the convention as nerdy fanboy number 42.
I bought a ton of crap in the dealer's room (mostly FASA sourcebooks, and some bootleg anime videos IIRC) and on my way down a hallway toward the gaming room, I saw this guy who was dressed in a Space Shuttle flight suit (blue) sitting behind a table that had some books on it.
Holy shit, it was Larry Niven.
I walked up to him and the conversation went something like this:
Me: OMG YOU'RE LARRY NIVEN!
Him: OMG YOU'RE WESLEY ON STAR TREK!
Both: CAN I HAVE YOUR AUTOGRAPH!
Both: YOU WANT MY AUTOGRAPH?!
Both: YES!
Me: I don't have a pen.
Him: It's okay, I have several.
He pulled a pen out of the shoulder pen-holding pocket thing on his blue Space Shuttle flight suit. I was so out-nerded, it wasn't even funny. I tried to counter-attack by producing my own copy of Ringworld that I had in my backpack, because I carried it with me everywhere in those days, just in case, you know, I felt like reading it. (I am not exaggerating at all. I loved -- and continue to love -- that book that much. For reals.)
Parent
Re:Yeah, mutual geeking out is awesome (Score:5, Funny)
My story isn't as cool, because A: I'm not famous and B: I was a dork, of sorts. But hey, it's my story.
I was at a sci-fi con, had some art in the art show. Since I grew up without a TV I really didn't know much about what was going on, but my friend was helping organize the con and talked me into going and watching the art auction. We were wandering around, talking about this and that, and walked into a room. There was a strikingly pretty woman sitting in a chair, looking *very* bored, and on the other side of the room, a strikingly handsome man, surrounded by people, talking.
I've never suffered from either shyness or lack of confidence. So I went over, introduced myself to the pretty blonde lady, and we started talking about art, as it happens. I noticed a couple people look my way, frown, but I didn't think anything of it, until my friend sidled up and said, sotto voice, "dude, you're hitting on Starbuck's girlfriend."
I said, "who?"
Some may argue that not knowing who Starbuck was makes me not a dork. But in the land of dorks, well, the clueless man is even more dorky.
Parent
Slashdot v. Digg (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't subscribe to the notion that we should only have one account in one place, and participate in one community. That attitude is one of the myriad reasons I don't waste my time on Digg any more. In addition to that annoyance, the comments and interaction at Digg is worse than useless, and even as an aggregator it's become inferior to Reddit and Propeller (where I'm a scout - full disclosure.) Digg could have been really cool, if it had the kind of leadership that Slashdot has via editors. Instead, those who would lead Digg seem more content to cash the checks and let the Digg Mob run out of control down every tube on the Internets.
For truly useful and worthwhile discussion and insight, nothing comes close to Slashdot. In fact, if I were to ask Rob a question, it would be about the commenting and moderation system: does he agree that Slashdot has the best moderation online, and why doesn't every community use the same model?
Parent
What is this crazy tags thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Considering the FAQ hasn't been updated in almost a year, could you explain exactly what tags do these days? At one time, it seemed to be a vote-based system, now I have no idea how tags show up on articles. Frankly, since I didn't understand it and my tags didn't seem to affect anything, I gave up on using the feature.
Could we get a definitive answer to how tags work?
Re:What is this crazy tags thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
By 'failure', I mean that the tags we see are generally ridiculously useless (like a "science" tag on a story in the Science section) or otherwise simply degenerate ("haha" seems to be the most common tag). It's hard to imagine what purpose the system would serve even if people were honest with it. Further, the idea of tagging comments as a future moderation system now seems completely horrible.
Parent
Re:What is this crazy tags thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually kind of like them. When I see an article slathered with "flamebait", "badsummary", "inaccurate", etc. then I have a pretty good idea that it's not worth getting worked up about and that I'll probably read its debunking a few comments down. I think that's a fairly nice service.
Parent
Okay, I'll bite (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you talk a little about how you experienced some of the dotcom insanity, specifically as it unfolded here at Slashdot? For a while, it seemed like Slashdot was about to become wunderkind central -- the sale to VA, the infamous ESR post about uber-wealth, etc. I'd be interested to hear about how that experience translated from your side of the ball.
Thanks. And nice site you got here.
any annoyed or happy /. effect stories? (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you have any stores of annoyed sysadmins writing/phoning you and complaining that a link on Slashdot crushed their machines?
Alternatively, anyone whose exposure on slashdot boosted their popularity/traffic enough that they could retire/change jobs/make a major job change?
Re:any annoyed or happy /. effect stories? (Score:5, Interesting)
What sites are you most proud of slashdotting?
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Most-visited sites.. (Score:5, Interesting)
What the hell do you do all day? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just what the hell do you do all day now, anyway?
What is your actual job? (Score:5, Interesting)
Show Me the Money! (Score:5, Interesting)
what was the "oh my god" moment? (Score:5, Interesting)
poll answer (Score:5, Interesting)
I bet it's Soviet Russia. (In Soviet Russia, CmdrTaco bets on you!)
Thoughts of giving up? (Score:5, Interesting)
When were you most tempted to give up?
Dealing with a bunch of creative, resourceful, tenacious, stubborn, and sometimes outright hostile nerds, I'm sure there were MANY times when you were tempted to just give up on the whole thing. e.g. page-widening trolls; Church of Scientology; Microsoft source code, or even the release of slash code to the community and the barrage of insults.
I'm really glad you held on and persevered, but I'd like to know when you were most tempted to throw in the towel, and even more importantly, I'd like to hear the story around how you held on and kept things going.
Infrastructure (Score:5, Interesting)
I know this is more than one question, but my MAIN question is just: "What does it take to run slashdot, hardware/software/bandwidth wise?"
In and out of Slashdot. (Score:5, Interesting)
What is a normal day at slashdot like? How much time do you spend improving slashcode vs picking stories vs the normal computer admin tasks vs other stuff. How are the workload/responsibilities split up among the different staff members? How has this changes over the years?
I also remember back in the old days, the work you did with Enlightenment, as well as the animated short you made (Duckpins?). I was wondering if you get the chance to do much programing outside of slashcode, or what other hobbies you spend your free time doing now (besides being married).
Oh, so much karma to burn.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh, so much karma to burn.. (Score:5, Informative)
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
For the newbies among us, allow me to explain all the parts. This post is the culmination of 11 Slashdot memes which are, in order:
1. Russian reversal - in Soviet Russa joke - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_reversal#Russian_reversal [wikipedia.org]
2. Beowulf cluster Slashdot meme - "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of..." self referential joke - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Culture [wikipedia.org]
3. Natalie Portman obsession Slashdot meme - originally arose due to widespread attraction of Slashdot posters to Natalie Portman - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Culture [wikipedia.org]
4. Insensitive clod Slashdot meme - joke originating from a Calvin and Hobbes strip dated February 14, 1986 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Culture [wikipedia.org]
5. 1337 = LEET = elite internet meme - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet [wikipedia.org]
6. Goatse internet meme - a widespread shock image - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goatse [wikipedia.org]
7. "I, for one, welcome our new (insert descriptive here) overlords" internet meme - originally arose due to the widespread popularity of the Simpsons episode "Deep Space Homer" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culturally_significant_phrases_from_The_Simpsons#Influences_on_language [wikipedia.org]
8. "Netcraft confirms, (insert target of joke here; was originally BSD) is dying" Slashdot meme - one of the original Slashdot troll posts - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Culture [wikipedia.org]
9. Naked / petrified / hot grits poured down the pants Slashdot meme - a reference to an unusual true story about the cruel and unusual punishment of a southern U.S. woman to her unfaithful significant other - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Culture [wikipedia.org]
10. Cowboy Neal Slashdot meme - a reference to Jonathan Pater's nickname which is featured prominently, especially on Slashdot polls - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Culture [wikipedia.org]
11. ??? Profit!!! internet meme - a reference to a joke in a South Park episode - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underpants_Gnomes#The_Gnomes [wikipedia.org]
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What was the turning point? (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you any regrets? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, been here a guest since 1999, and a member for the last seven. Enjoyed being part of this community, every single day (or when its non-xenophobic).
What's your wife like in bed? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What's your wife like in bed? (Score:5, Funny)
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Where's Junis? (Score:5, Funny)
I found Jon Katz's Message from Kabul [slashdot.org] truly mesmerizing.
Junis surely must have some interesting thoughts on the state of Afghanistan and his feelings towards the USA today. I'm also interested to know if he ever upgraded from that Commodore he was using to download movies - the one he hid from the Taliban in his chicken coop.
-Isaac
Simple Question (Score:5, Interesting)
If Google comes to you with a huge pile of cash and says "we want to add Slashdot to out stable of products," perhaps as some kind of competitor to Digg, would you a) be tempted but decline because this is, after all, your baby, b) talk to them a while, negotiate, but ultimately call it off, or c) buy that island you've always wanted and start your own country?
What are the biggest threats to /. success? (Score:5, Interesting)
Two/three part question: (Score:5, Interesting)
If so, what are your favorite and least favorite things about the community?
How much... (Score:5, Funny)
Perl, any regrets? (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you like Slashdot discussions? (Score:5, Interesting)
My question originates from the fact that, apparently [slashdot.org], you've only commented 368 times. Considering that you've been here "since the beginning," that's not a lot of comments. Avid Slashdotters make about that many comments per year.
So why don't you participate more in the discussions? Do you not like Slashdot discussions? Or is it just because you prefer reading? Is it because you're too busy? (Aren't we all?) Is it because you worry that any comment you make will be unduly scrutinized, because of your peculiar status within this community? (Do you sometimes post under a different name?)
Do you run a Linux desktop? (Score:5, Interesting)
If so, which distro? If not, what do you run?
Question: Trends (Score:5, Interesting)
Based on that, what are your predictions for the next 10 years?
Some technology is obviously going to die a quick and painful death. Some of that technology will be good and some deservedly bad. What's going to catch on? What has staying power? Google has been a golden child the last few years, will that continue? Are there any big turnarounds coming? Who's got good stuff in the pipeline? Don't you dare tell me 2008 is the year of Linux (and I know you won't) - we've both been hearing that marketing crap for the past 10 years.
Re:The question everyone wants to ask (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Ask Rob (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Over/under (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Over/under (Score:5, Interesting)
I get them every two weeks or so now. I didn't get them at all, even though I had excellent karma, until I metamoderated a few times.
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Re:Why haven't you fired Kdawson yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Why haven't you fired Kdawson yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:OMG! (Score:5, Funny)
...only if you say ..."PONIES!" afterward...
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Re:Roland Piquepaille (Score:5, Interesting)
Nah, I bet most posters couldn't care less. Don't mistake a noisy 5% for the whole. I wonder if that's a seed for a question?
Mr. Taco: You have access to stats, such as number of pageviews, active posters, and so forth. This lets you objectively measure a lot of things that we can't see. What do you think are some misconceptions that we have about slashdot? Maybe we're really still mostly IE users? Is 'videogames' the most read section? Perhaps the tech and science articles that everybody seems to clamor for are really the least read?
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