Journal KGIII's Journal: Observation and the Coming of the new Slashdot Overlords! 32
Since the arrival of the new overlords, I've observed a trend. It's a good trend, I think?
See, I pay attention to usernames and, with that, I often note the UUID number. Since the announcement that the site has sold, I'm seeing some familiar names that I've not seen in a while. I'm also observing an increased number of posts from folks with a lower number.
There are a variety of reasons that I may be seeing this but, to be clear, I didn't just start paying attention to the names and numbers recently. No, I've been noticing them for years.
At any rate, I dare say that this is a good thing. The articles seem to be improving (from what people are saying - 'snot like I'm a heretic and going to admit to reading them) and the comments seem to be marginally improved but that may be a matter of perception and the latter due to confirmation bias. I suppose that means we can be nice to the new owners of the site.
As an aside, they seem to be aware that they just own the site and only that. I've noted (and mentioned to one of them) that they've not stressed it but I think the attitude is there. They've referred to us as a community as opposed to calling a an audience. That makes me think good things may be in store and it appears that I'm not alone.
We'll see (Score:2)
Time will tell all truths. But I hope you're right.
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Sorry for my slow reply. I am a slacker. ;-)
But, it looks good so far. Our Mr. Alex P K seems to have his name (or some combination of it - or perhaps some number of it) sent to 127.0.0.1 via the lameness filter. I'm not entirely sure how to take that. That's a powerful tool and being wielded heavily but I don't disagree with the choice. The dude's got to know right from wrong, at some level, and seems to not give a shit.
So, we'll find out.
So Far, So Good (Score:2)
Topicality and quality of the articles seems to be on the way up.
Clickbait and marketspeak pieces seem way down.
*And* it seems they've figured out how to keep APK from crapflooding.
Videobytes is still there, which is annoying, but it's easy enough to scroll past, and it occurs to me there may be a contract involved and we'll just have to wait until it runs out, maybe. On the plus side, I think they've taken away that Promoted Stories/Outbrain thing.
Still waiting to see what happens with Unicode and metamode
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Actually, he was still here today and yesterday. Sorry I did not get back to you sooner.
However...
Just a few minutes ago, I noticed something new. Lameness filter is kicking in on his name w/the H file word in it or alone. I'm too lazy to figure out the exact combination right now but I just found it had changed - I'd typed his name and the H file name multiple times before and did so just the other day. Today, Whipslash indicated that his days were numbered in one of his posts. ;-) I think you might be rig
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I'm still chuckling over the guy who posted the Rite of Exorcism a while back in response to him.
I've seen a few posts from him in recent days, but generally not more than 2 under any given story.
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I must have missed that one. ;-)
So Far, So Good. (Score:2)
I agree, the tea leaves look good for this uncertain "Year of the Monkey" - here on Slashdot.
Now there are signs of intelligence, and of a little more respect for the subtleties that bring value to slashdot (but not to the media whore monetizers).
There is nothing like a mass exodus to get pharaoh's attention....
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Sorry for the delay, I've been slacking. Things do look good. They look great! LOL I... Err... I just figured something out.
It's new... I'm assuming you've bumped into the lameness filter before? If so, we have a certain poster who's really excited about the hosts file and his name begins with the letter A and his last name begins with a K and he's got a P in the middle. I kind of share a little responsibility for this change, I suspect. Whipslash asked who he was and I gave him a whole bunch of links. Then
no audience . Community is valuable (Score:2)
About half way through reading what you wrote, I thought to myself "they haven't called us 'the audience' yet." Then you said it. :) A few years ago "building community" was almost a buzzword- everybody wanted to own a site with a "community", but that's hard to accomplish. It seems Dice literally didn't know what they had; they didn't realize they had the elusive community.
It'll be interesting to watch. If I had just spent $XX million buying Slashdot, I'd want to recup my investment (and a little mo
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Yeah, it's great that they've got the right sort of mindset going on - or do at an outward level. We can't really know what's going on internally. An interesting aside: They indicated that "***'s days are numbered." I'm not sure what to make of that. Err... I didn't really help that out much, I might kind of be a little culpable.
Well... No... Someone said he had to go. Whipslash asked who he was. So, being the helpful sort of person that I am (and wanting them to know the truth) I offered no opinions but I
lameness filter, that's cool (Score:2)
I wondered what they planned to do. Using the lameness filter to trigger on those words seems like a good start. I might not have seen your post if it wasn't edited; I did my own lameness filter via Tampermonkey.
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Well, I'm glad you did and I'm glad I did. Though, now I kind of want that script. :P
I'm in Opera so it's ViolentMonkey for me. It's the same thing. There's Grease, Tamper, and Violent. There may be more but I've used all three of those. I'm a big fan of that and Stylish. I love me some scripts and user-styles. I use a gray theme for Slashdot, it looks nice but has some minor bugs in it.
I suspect they'll have to keep modifying the filter as it's really hard to stop a determined spammer. I've thought about a
UIDs (Score:2)
It does seem to be getting better. I think that the winning tactic would be to get more new people like the old. People who don't need TRIGGER WARNINGs, take offence at pointing out realities that go against their PC views, have no sense of humour, and think that everyone should be censored except themselves because they're "special". Special? So are the people on the short bus ... and in my experience they are much more interesting and easier to get along with than the acid-filled SJWs.
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I'm inclined to agree. Sorry for the delay, by the way. I've been slacking. I've had an interesting week during the human hours. It has made me pretty lazy.
I've not yet filled you in on the latest. :/ It's too much to type today but, suffice to say, we've now managed to fit seven people into this five bedroom house. That is, technically, one less than what we had for the holidays. (They were in need of help and have taken my offer to do some work helping out in exchange for housing and money.)
The kids are b
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Glad to hear things are working out with that family.
Interesting times here (as in no good deed goes unpunished). One of my sisters said there was a woman staying at the crisis center who needed someone to look after her dog because they were kicking her out (she had over-stayed her time) and she'd have to go to a homeless shelter. I was told she left home because she had an abusive partner ...
So I agreed to rent her out my spare bedroom ....
Turns out she has most of the earmarks of a sociopath. She didn
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Yeah, I've been fortunate in either being able to tell or just having good luck. I really enjoy helping people out but, as politically incorrect as this is to say, many of those people who are in a place where they need help are there because of their own choices. Many are there because they are unwilling to make an effort. Of course, I'd try to avoid saying that in the main section of this site as it'd be too difficult to explain. Verbosity I can do but I'm not the most articulate and to explain the differ
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I'm always glad to hear a friend having a good time. I'd be a total a-hole if I didn't, and I would feel so guilty about feeling that way that the behavior would be pretty much self-correcting. It's what makes the current situation a bit hard - I don't want to tell her to leave, but I think I have to for my own good. It's the common-sense thing to do, but I've never had much common sense concerning myself. I suspect this is one of those situations where I'll have to "grow a pair" (metaphorically speaking)
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You're stronger than I am, I think. I'd go absolutely batshit if I could not read. I'm a compulsive reader - I'll read the paperwork inserted in a box of tampons while I'm going to the bathroom. I really think that I'd go insane. Let me see if I can articulate this properly - it will probably be a little long but hopefully not too bad. Err... I'd probably read all the way to the bottom? Skipping some of what I am going to say might result in some misconceptions. I can't think of any way to say it but this:
T
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I don't know if I'm stronger, or just that there are a LOT of weird things that have happened to me that have kind of forced me to "hang in there at all cost,." like this [slashdot.org]. That led to a lifetime of coping with PTSD, with a lot of help from my dogs - until they weren't enough [slashdot.org]. After I wrote that second entry, things rapidly went downhill even worse for almost half a year, with a second antidepressant, and then doubling that one a month later ...6 months of hell.
Am I tough? I certainly don't feel like it. Fe
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Alright. I just wrote you a HUGE wall of text. I had to edit some of it, some of it is incomplete. I'd love to share it with you and ask your opinion but some of it is not stuff I'd want to post on an open forum - it attracts undue attention. It's also a wall of text, which implies a burden of reading and replying. Part of it is a bit of some history, some is the way things are, and other parts are my current thinking, expectations, and a request for a good, wise, opinion.
Now, I was just going to redact som
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When the whole "OMG they've published my address on the internet" stupidity broke out, I pointed out repeatedly that we used to have a thing called a phone book that had everyone's address in it. I posted my email and street addresses to show how silly the fear was. :-)
Barbara Hudson
1312 Hyman, #301
Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Quebec
Canada
H9B 1M7
barbarahudsononline@gmail.com
which is where I bumped into her and she stuck
Nice turn of phrase.
It was -27 this morning, -40 with the wind chill. Cold, but tolerable. :-)
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Forgive my eavesdropping, I'm a recent fan of KGIII, just lurking around to solve the mystery of who Alex PK might be when I found your prose.
I noticed you mentioned retinal surgery, and having helped an acquaintance with his distant commute to and from doctors 100 miles away for his detached retina surgeries, that you are quite correct about having to keep your face down in the recovery. This way the bubble of air that forms in the viscous oracular fluid won't interfere with the healing process or cause s
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Nothing to forgive - this is a public post - but thank you for asking :-)
There were four different eyedrops that I had to apply up to 6 times a day, and two of them came with warnings that they "may introduce drowsiness." They were not kidding. I basically slept my way through the several weeks while the bubble disappeared. I was warned not to read anything even after the bubble disappeared, and I found out the hard way why. At one point, I had to go to court to fight the developer that was illegally givin
Here's hoping (Score:2)
I've been here very little lately and didn't know they were bought again.
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Yeah, about two weeks ago now. There's a HUGE thread about it and then there's a follow-up. The guy's name is whipslash. Seems pretty legit, says all the right things, and seems to have a good head on his shoulders and a moderate understanding of who and what Slashdot really is. We'll have to see but I'm maintaining a line of optimistic pragmatism. (I can do that, right?)
And yes, you have been missing. 'Tis good to see you're back. I usually check your journal posts to see how your life has been treating yo
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invited not just the neighbors but all of Slashdot. Yup... All of 'em... ;-)
I remember thinking about the possible consequence of such an invitation. It struck me at the time that somehow you were serious, and had I made arrangements to visit an old friend in Maine, and then check in with you, that you would in fact be available. I imagined what your open invitation would yield for you, in terms of various possible scenarios.... and now I read how things have unfolded for you, it all makes perfect sense. This is novelty, really. I enjoy the whole narrative, it's quite liberating, a
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It has been a hell of a ride. It's surely not what I expected life to be like and I'm grateful for what I have. I don't have a whole lot of fear, I'm rather pragmatic. If I could think of one approach I take that seems to have the most impact, it is this: I try to make each moment a little better than the last for myself and those that I'm in contact with.
It's not altruism, it's just a way to make things better than they were and I get the benefit from that just as much as the next person. I'm a secular Bud
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I've been hibernating. Winter's not so bad when you don't have to go to work every day. I've been more or less steadily writing. I decided last fall to farm the SF out to the magazines before posting them; if one of them publishes me I'll become better known. Right now it's only a couple hundred people.
I never realized how many people write. Even the smaller circulation magazines get hundreds of stories every month, and out of those hundreds only a half dozen are printed. I've come very close so far. Most r
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Yeah, I read the two of 'em and thought they were not that bad. I'd probably say something if I had had any constructive criticism. I write. I don't write very well - I'm not that articulate. I am, on the other hand, rather verbose. To make some extra money, I was a "freelance journalist" for a couple of my university years. I put that in quotes because I mostly did hard copy and political beat news for a single publication but sometimes they put stuff out over the wire and it was picked up and I'd make a f
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Well, I'm not in it for the money either, I'm comfortably retired. All of my books are posted on my web site in multiple formats, and the physical copies are so cheap I usually lose money on them. And the first one was by reader requests when I was posting the "paxil diaries" at k5 after my divorce.
Rather than selling my place, the mortgage company stole it. The Illinois Attorney General sued them, I got $1200 for being defrauded out of my home. Most of my family and my oldest friends live in the St Louis a
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Umm... They stole your house (and I believe you and I don't think you'd exaggerate - and I know some mortgage companies can be pricks) and you got $1200? Err... You didn't get back any of the equity you'd established? That... That... That is effin' retarded! WTF are you supposed to do with $1200? Were I a more angry person, I'd get all that money in $1 bills, buy some gasoline, and use those bills to make a nice little fire and burn the place to the ground.
I don't know the circumstances but I can't actually
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That's how "class action" works. You can bet your bottom dollar that a lot of lawyers got a hell of a lot more than $1200. But I didn't even expect that. It was a real scam. They would collect mortgage for a year or two (I didn't actually live there that long) until the borrower made the slightest mistake (in my case, a math error in my checkbook) and the fees made it impossible to catch up. They then pocketed the money they'd collected from the borrower and sold the house for more than they'd loaned.
Yes, I