I just submitted this as a story, but it's time for a journal entry about it too.

According to the American Educational Research Association's recent Action Alert, the United States government will be purging from government web sites any and all information that "either does not fit with the current administration's ideology or is 'outdated'."

This is atrocious. Regardless of your political views, it is unacceptable for an administration to remove public information because it disagrees with it. If you give someone half the information on an issue, then there is no way that person can make a full informed decision.

Obviously, a lot of the backlash around this is related to the Health and Human Services web sites. Information on abortion and proper condom usage is being removed (to name two of the big topics). Regardless of your feelings on abortion or teenagers having sex, removing this information is unacceptable. While abortion is legal, information on abortion needs to be available to those who consider it. If teenagers are taught that using condoms is bad for them, and that instead they should practice abstinence, then when they do have sex it will be without the use of a condom (there is tons of research which proves this point, some of which are on the HHS web sites). You may not want teenagers having sex, but denying them the information on how to do it safely just forces them to have unsafe sex, not to abstain.

Bush has already tried to Politicize Science, and this is the next step: politicizing the dispersal of information. It is not quite censorship, but damned close. And it disturbs me greatly.

Spread the word about this. Write your own journal entries. If my story isn't accepted, submit it yourself. People need to know about this, and it needs to be stopped. Send emails to your friends and mailing lists which may be sensitive to this, and if possible, follow the steps of the Action Alert and get the word to those in the government that this is unacceptable policy.

This is why I hate ground-level apartments. Two people (either incompetent theives or drunk students) tried to break into my apartment through the kitchen window about half an hour ago (3:30am EST). They succeeded in pulling the screen off, and had a small cinderblock all ready to smash the window in.

Luckily, they never got to use that cinderblock. I walked into the kitchen (I was up coding, believe it or not) and asked the window what the fuck it was doing. Dark sneakers ran away. And I called the cops. Apparently, I was not the only person to call them. I am not amused.

So much for trying to fall asleep now. I'll update this entry with more specifics if anyone wants to listen to me rant (not that you normally get that choice).

UPDATE: On closer inspection, the screen was cut off with a knife. All I saw were the dark sneakers through the window (it's elevated a little), I never saw anything else of the guys who tried to break in, as I was opposed to the idea of confronting them in any way other than a verbal manner.

I just posted the following memo to Cliff's journal here attached to his journal entry entitled Even Professional Writer Mis-Spell.

Basically, I was agreeing completely with Cliff (I've always taken the slashdot editors' sides when its come to stupid typos in stories, etc.).

Upon being made aware that Slash has a spell-checker that the editors use to spell check stories and their posts before posting, I made a case for a user-end spell checker. I have spoken with lots of slashdotters, and read many threads where people have asked (quite nicely, actually) for user-end spell checking.

So my question is, do you guys agree with me? Would user-end spell checking be helpful to you? Do you think my case (either follow the thread above or just read my final reiterance below) makes sense? Am I being stupid?

My case:

Heh, no problem. I understand completely what you're saying, and I wasn't making the comment with any intention of you actually taking me up on idea. After all, it's not even really my idea, just my presentation.

I just needed to get it down in writing for my own sake. But since it appears that I was not as clear as I would have liked to be, I'll try and clear things up a little for the sake of anyone reading this thread. [i.e. feel free to stop reading here if you want :)]

Let me start with a little disclaimer: Don't even consider implementing a spell-checker now, just play with the idea. Since slash has the capability for spell checking, you obviously could have implemented it already if you really felt like it. So I'm sure you have your reasons for not doing so at this point in time. What follows are the reasons I think having one would be a good idea.

My first point is that there is a substantial user base which wants at least semi-automated spell checking of their own posts. Just a list of possibly misspelled words. When you click preview, you see your post and you see any blatant spelling errors. This is not a substitute for proofreading, just gentle hand holding. After all, people rarely notice their own spelling mistakes. The word highliting I mentioned is a frill (I only brought it up previously because someone else mentioned it [you?] and it got me thinking about easy ways to tackle the problem) and not necessary by any stretch of the imagination.

My second point is that implementing that simple spell checker on the user end would go a long way to alleviate users' perception about editorial mishaps. And I would bet a bunch of money that you editors would like it if people stopped complaining about those stupid, inconsequential, and minor said mishaps. My reasoning behind this is twofold, a) users would actually see spell-checking capabilities on slashdot and b) users would see how easy it is to make mistakes even when using a spell checker. You'd think people would understand this, but apparently it just isn't the case. Once you have a spell-checker and make the same mistakes, it's just that much harder to go out and rant about someone who has only done the exact same thing.

That's my case. I'm not saying slashdot needs to implement a spell-checker. I'm not saying you can get close to, or should even attempt to get close to, a perfect spell-checker. I'm just saying that there are lots of people out there who want something simple which will jump on braindead misspellings which happen when one posts at 5am after no sleep or during a nice long rant. Adding a simple user spell checker to the preview post pages would go a long way, both for the users and for the editors.

If you've read this far, I just wanted to add that I'm pretty much done with this issue, I just wanted to make the case I outlined above. I'm not planning to fight any fights, or argue with the editors. If they have their reasons, that fine by me. I (sort of) know Rob and whatever decision he's made is fine by me. I'm just interested in what you guys think. So tell me damnit!

11/03/02 11:00pm UPDATE: Cliff has posted this comment in response to my little diatribe above. Coolness! Okay, I'm going to sit down and see if I can hack up that patch myself (seeing as how I am not familiar with Slash at all, I might not be able to tackle it).

For as long as I can remember (a few years now), I've been getting mod points once or twice a month. Now, with the new slashdot mod point changes, here's the deal with my mod points:

• When I don't metamoderate, I get mod points about once every 10-12 days.
• If I metamoderate about three or four times within a five day period, at the end of those five days, I get mod points.

Does this seem a little weird to anyone else? Not that I mind the mod points, but that something so annoying as metamoderating can cut the time it takes for you to get mod points in half? Frankly, I've never metamoderated since I was a newbie. CmdrTaco recently said in a journal entry that metamoding led one to receive mod points more quickly. So I tried it, and lo and behold, mod points in half the time.

Now, I guess this is good for someone who rarely gets mod points, but should people really be able to get mod points every five days? Maybe there's a reason for me: I only mod up, I've only been modded up, all metamoderation done on my mods have been fair (that I know of), and my karma's been at 50 (oh yeah, excellent) for years. But then, my record couldn't be that clean, could it? I must be forgetting something.

On the other hand, if there are so many mod points being handed out now anyway, does it really matter if some schmuck with a low user id (sine when have I had a low user id?) gets mod points every few days? Part of me says of course not, and the other part screams bloodly murder. With so many mod points out there right now, one person getting mod points so frequently is useless, isn't it? Shouldn't mod points be distributed evenly among the users? Isn't it unfair for someone with a clean record to be boosted to frequent moderator status when we all know most trolls have two accounts for that exact same reason?

Maybe I'm just tired, but this certainly seems weird. Maybe what I'm suggesting is that there should be a cap like with karma: no more than X mod points over Y days.

Any thoughts? Am I thinking like a freak this morning? Being stupid? Or actually making sense?

Anyone else have problems with the friends of friends functionality?

Here's a quick test: go to a friend's friend list. Every single person on that list *should* be marked as a friend of a friend. For instance, when I go to CmdrTaco's friends they are all listed as friends of a friend. Unfortunately, his list is the *only* one I can go to where that happens. When I go to any other friend's friend page, everyone is marked as either neutral or a friend.

This same lack of connectivity can be shown on the relations page. The relations at the end are almost always empty, even when I know they exist.

I've also seen other weird irregularities, for instance neal n bob is a foe of heliocentric's and No More Trolls's and a friend of Em Emalb, and he shows up as both a friend of a friend (of Em Emalb) and a foe of a friend (only of Heliocentric's, not of No More Trolls's). He is the only person outside of CmdrTaco's friends who shows up as a friend of a friend or has any stats on the relations page. Just plain weird.

I think the friends and foes of a friend functionality could be quite interesting if it worked properly. Anyone else see this problem, or is it just limited to me?

I'm getting sick of the political attitudes of most Americans. Their laziness and disinterest in what's going on around them, in their country and out, distrurbs me in a most uncomfortable way.

This could easily be a rant about the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or Bush wanting to go to war with Iraq, or the DMCA, or Eldred v. Ashcroft, or the disappearing First Ammendment, or other obvious ongoing political conflicts. Rest assured that I have very opinionated views about all, and I may even post my feelings at a later time - but they're not what I'm complaining about now.

It is not so much people's stances that bother me, but rather the vast majority of people who have no stance or blindly follow someone else's. Not the people who say "I don't know" or who are unsure -- but the people who don't care or who refuse to consider the position they're pushing.

I guess I just don't like people who can't think for themselves. And I'm not complaining about members of Congress who spout the party line. I'm talking about the everyday Americans who pay no attention to what's going on. Laziness must be a factor. It's just too complicated to keep up with the complex issues, to sort out the FUD, to come up with your own opinion. That has to be the reason, any other is downright scary.

I'm sick of people getting angry with me for my views, but are unable to actually discuss the situation because they don't know what they're talking about. And I don't mean I disagree with what they're saying, I mean they lack the information to have a discussion. You cannot simply say "I'm for X!" or "How could you be for X, are you nuts?" and expect that to be the end of the conversation. You are entitled to your opinion, and I am entitled to think you're stupid and lazy for not being able to explain or qualify the reasons behind your statement.

UPDATE: Hit save when I meant to hit preview. I'll blame it on my mouse. Stupid, lazy mouse. Anyway, I was close enough to done, so I'll let it sit here for now. And don't just tell me I'm being stupid or I have my head up my ass, tell me why.

Also, I'd just like to add that I don't mean for this journal to be political in nature, but the topic will come up from time to time. This article was simply prompted by Bush's speech last night and the reaction this morning and my annoyance with the indifference or ineptitude of the vast majority of those I've spoken with so far.

Well, as is painfully obvious, I still cannot sleep. On the other hand, I now have mod points.

Does anyone else think that there are too many mod points floating around nowadays? Remember when comments rarely raised past a threshold of 3? When there was a 5 once every few articles? Well I do. Now a threshold of three gives me just as much junk as a theshold of zero used to. But then, I guess I'm remembering days when most of the comments were posted by anonymous cowards and the troll to real post ratio was negligable. Hell, I can't believe I've been reading slashdot this long. Someone put me out of my misery. Or better yet, give me lots of money. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Note to self: Get sleep. Lots of sleep. NOW.

Apparently, one of the benefits of insomnia is that you have time to sit down and write things you never would have while your brain is fully functional. On second thought, maybe benefit is the wrong word.

I've also taken the time tonight to wade through slashdot and see where I get taken to (some of the most interesting sites on the web can be found by following the links in obscure signatures).

So I wandered into Slashchick's journal and was intrigued by her "Me Me Me!" post. So I followed the link to colorgenics and was very surprised by the outcome of my color test:

At this time you are feeling 'uptight' and you are urgently in need of rest and relaxation; but perhaps even more than that you need to overcome that feeling that you have been 'hard done by' and treated with a complete lack of consideration. Maybe you have, but whatever may have been the cause of your inherent anxiety, you regard the situation as intolerable. You are, however, sufficiently competent to turn that situation around - you have overcome similar problems in the past, and really this one isn't too different.

Everything seems to be going against you at this time. Try as you may you are meeting with considerable resistance at every turn. Nothing is going as you would plan. The situation is difficult and you are trying to persist in your objectives against resistance. It would appear that you are being very secretive about your future plans just in case people around you try to thwart you.

Aside from being afraid that people will try and thwart my plans, this description is dead on. The past three weeks have been extremely painful for me: my grandmother died, I spent way too much time wallowing in 9/11 coverage and spent too much time around ground zero itself, and my girlfriend unexpectedly dumped me. Now, I'm sure you're all broken up over my girlfriend dumping me, but damnit, I am!

On a side note, it is nice that whatever you choose, colorgenics finds a way to stroke your ego. Heh. Crazy colorgenics.

Well, I'm entering rambling babbling rant land, so it's time for me to try and get some sleep (again). If I don't succeed, there might just be another journal entry posted here shortly.