Someone submited this story with this result.

CityLink, by the way are Wellington's IT equivalent of WingNut, Richard Naylor is their Peter Jackson.

Mea culpa, but it was a great day.

I really don't understand this country. Where the "poor" drive to queue for the soup kitchens

Whilst I'm in a warm and glowy vein about the good ol' US, well Southpark anyway, have a look at RevMike's journal. Helps chew up the working day.

I was remembering last night how, as a teenager, I invented a new way of frying my eggs. Once the bottom was nice and crispy I would flip it over and fry the top. So all the runny stuff was cooked. If the yoke broke that was ok, less runny stuff.

Years later I happened on a breakfast diner in San Francisico and ordered breakfast. I you could have knocked me over with a feather when a bemused waitress explained what "sunny side down" means.

You see, in America they have all those good little things you've ever discovered packaged up and made part of everyday life.

For a little less sugar here are some questions that Michael Moore would like answered.

I have written a document (avaible in Open Office) outlining a business case and economic case for using OSS. I'm not very clever. A large number of /. people are.

Soooo, if you come across this journal entry and have comments that will help me refine, condense and improve the agruements please let me know.

Please also be aware that the target audience is non-technical. Politicians, CEOs and so on.

The New Zealand Open Source Society have kindly posted an html version up on their site.

Subject: Patents, again

I really don't like patents, all patents. If you are bored by the subject - sorry (no, really).

Anyway, here is a +5 for the project. Correct and re-use at your pleasure.

It has to have the most typos per line than any other comment I've posted (which is saying something).

Whilst we are on the subject, finding this site was like having a wet dream come true.

PS...
Good God almighty that Friend / Fan thing is a bit arcane - isn't it? I found, accidentally, I have a couple of fans (huh? Maybe that should read " a couple of accidental fans"). That's nice, I thought, I'll have to write and tell mother. Anyway, I thought it would be equally nice to reciprocate.

To cut a long story short, on /. you beceome someone's fan by making them a friend. Strange to think that Eminem has so many friendly fans.

In the past I have suggested that the citizens of the USA suffered from some form of humour impairment. (Here and here if you must know.)

I now find the evidence is against me. On a very rare foray into the world of TV I caught a re-run of the infamous Southpark "Ladder to Heaven" episode - you know, the one where, amongst other things, Saddam is building WMDs in heaven, right under God's nose! It was VFF indeed. As with "ball hits man in groin" it works on many different levels.

Even on /. I can find the following:

In Germany they have this weird concept that a seller liying in an advertisement is fraud, as the seller is misrepresenting the product.

In the USA, we are more enlightened than that, and judges have ruled that is quite Ok to lie (even when the company *knows* its lying) in an add as this constitutes free speech.

So, there you go. Counter-proof - and not a moment too soon.

To quote Danny Kay "Get it, Got it, Good.", or Bruce Willis in Moonlighting "Don, dead? Damn!".

On this day in history the nz DNC allowed the registration of level 2 .geek domains.

Finally moderators are modding down. Whilst it hurts to see a comment that you've laboured over for all of 30 seconds reach the golden "5" only to have it booted into touch with a couple of "overrated trolls" I would have to say that it is about time.

Frankly, if I see another SCO/IBM script marked "5 Funny" I think I'll give up on /.

Mind you, my ealier points on humour and perspective in the US still stand. Anything vaguely critical of the USA is always worth a -1 Troll or two.

Enough of this incoherent rambling - on with "The Project".

Subject: Linux Desktop

Mandrake Does it For Me.

Obligatory repost to the constant carp about Linux != "The Big Time" bullshit.

I particularly like this because, word for word it has been re-used.

I'll throw in the following two as they made it to five only to be hammered by the antis. Also shows a good method of raising the ire of the more patriotic moderators out there:

Subject: Bombs 'n' Stuff
A bit of a troll ;-)
Some more reasoned follow up

Anon

Subject Doesn't really matter

This comment has not made the grade but I include it here as a further demonstration of the great cultural divide between pre-dominantly anglo-saxon societies of the world (i.e. the USA and the rest of us).

Moderation +1
    70% Funny
    30% Troll

Go figure!

This was supposed to be a thow away comment. Not one for the project, maybe not particularly funny but worth a point or two either way on the Unfunny / Funny scale.

Imagine my surprise to see it mod'ed as a -1 Troll. I mean, comeon. A previous moderator had already given a clue and rated it +1 Funny. There, it was supposed to be a fscking joke, rate it unfunny, but Troll..? Actually, come to think of it, maybe that was supposed to be funny mod, you know, ironic (remember when the US used to "do" irony, I think it first started with the Supreme Court decision in December 1999 and Bin Laden ended it in September 2001).

Anyway, thanks to /.'s rather dubious high ranking of my Karma this now sits at +3 which is fair but does not qualify for the (unnamed OSS) Project but I'll take the result.

Subject:Apple, Specfically - Lack of originality in design:

Just when I thought this project was headed down the tubes I discovered the perfect comment for any Apple discussion. Aided by very good timing, in being just off a first post. Also by the fact that if moderators are anything like me they can't be arsed to moderate much below 3.

See here

And for the link impaired...

"I went to a talk given by British invetor James Dyson (check out their Home Page [dyson.com]) a few weeks back. He invented the "bagless vacuum cleaner" and one of his engineers' "inovations" was to have a clear case round the rubbish it sucked up. They thought it was cool. One of the most interested people in the design was Steve Jobs...The rest is history."

Currently rated 4.

As an aside I really did go to this talk. He is a fasciniating chap, James. Check out his story online. I particulalrly like the wheelboat.

I did feel his company has spent far too much time and money defending patents. The reality is, they have a fine product (I can endorse it for free!) and maintain their market position through innovation and nice design. In fact, Apple should be paying them royalties for the idea. Oh no, hang on, I'm generally against patents.

everybodies' got it in-for-me(K. Willaims).

Ok, its a fair cop. I'll fix the spelling later but out of respect for the sentiments in that comment on my current sig it will have to remain for a while. BTW, how does one switch on spell checker in /.?

Ok, now for the first entries. Again, feel free to reuse, change an contribute back to the project (not all contributions will be accepted).

Subject:LOTR, Specfically - Gollum's Oscar (lack thereof):
Fortunately this topic is good for another year or so.

The link to the comment is:Re:In his spare time..

You may want to fix the "Te Papa" link as the stupid morons that designed the site insist in www in the URL

The 1st part of the comment can be used in an H1-B discussion, sort of. The second one is basically a plug for my home town, Wellington.

Subject:Old bastard mouths off about technology...:
Recurring theme. I think the article was in the Washington Post but every now and then someone more self serving will submit their own articles (under a false name) to try an drum up traffic.

This is the correct response to that sort of article.

Frankly, I was astonished to find the comment rated "Interesting" as it was supposed to be biting satire. (I've mentioned the culture / homour thing before). Maybe the moderator found the attempt at humour "interesting", I know my girlfriend does.

This entry, will of necessity, be rather long winded...

Perceptive and intelligent moderators have recently awarded me with a "Score 5; Interesting" and a "Score 4; Interesting" on comments made to /. over the last two months (the latter *was* a 5 but see an earlier entry on that issue). Given the challenges of time zone changes and the cultural divide that seperates New Zealand from our ANZUS allies I find this extremely gratifying. (I should say here that I also have a smattering of "Score 2; Funny"'s. On the whole, these were in fact VFF (very fucking funny (note, the use of nested brackets - LOL)) but bow to the superior wit of our allies.)

Flushed with this recent success, and in the spirit of Alan Cox and the OSS movement in general I propose to make my more successful comments available for reuse in the /. forum. All I ask is that if the "re-user" plans to modify the comments and make those mods public then these are feed back to the "project" (I'll think up a snappy code name later).

"The project" is based on three observations:
1. I have, in the past, saved myself considerable effort by cut and pasting my lowly moderated comments into very new story threads and had them highly moderated as a results.

2. I've noticeed other /. members doing the same thing.

3. A poll of "sensible /.ters" (tm) showed that they all have their filters set to browse comments rated 4 or 5.

The trick is to find recurring topics and appropriate comments.

"The project" will catorise highly rated comments by subject for other /. readers to re-use. This will be a community project and I will accept proven (i.e. rated 4 or 5) submissions from other /. readers to the project *provided* they are the orginal authors. (Remember, /. members own their comments and it would be a crime to publish a book or something made up of those comments without those owners' permission - wouldn't it Taco?).

My technical skills are in very little demand these days and so like the Little Drummer Boy, I've been worrying for a long time "what can I give" back to the community. At last I have the answer and I look forward to providing this open service back to the community at large.

4 - not a bad rating for a comment that had a broken link - so much for preview.

What was particularly gratifying was the fact that the second para was a cut and paste of a previous post. The difference being that I posted early this time.

I blew my ratings later in the day by:

1 - posting to an older story
2 - replying to a reply

News flash - rating now at 5, count em five!

Diary note to self: copy old comments and whack them in (if appropriate) under recent stories.

For five heady minutes I had my first "5" rating on a /. comment. The a spoilsport took me down a peg.

Curses.