Basically, I'm writing this journal entry so that the post can be housed without polluting an article and so I can always find it. Sentimental value, I guess. Feel free to ignore it.

Basically over the past year I have noticed that I grades are dropping and I spend tons of time on slashdot reading/posting/etc and having a damn good time. Just look at my number of posts. But dropping grades are bad.

Last summer when I was doing development work for a company, I blocked slashdot on my machine via hosts file and my productivity jumped. Just the inconvenience of having to remove it kept me paying attention to my job.

And look at me now. I have a major paper due tomorrow and I'm writing in my slashdot journal. Damnit, I have to keep myself away from this place!

Today, less that 1 week remains until the end of my work term. The software I developed has gotten some very enthusiastic and positive reasponse from Engineers and managers alike - I did a presentation to the Department Head late last week and it went quite well.

Now, to readers who have been made cynical by long experience with the world of work and programming in particular, please tell me if I learned the right things (as listed below) because, frankly, I'm too young to know.

- Pretty pictures are important. When demonstrating software, having 5% of the GUI done is more meaningful to the manager/non-programmer audience than having 50% of the coding done properly.

- Upper management is uninformed when it comes to computers. They don't know how to recognise policies that cut back on productivity with little or no tangible gain, and frankly they don't want advice or pointers from the people who do know.

- Watch the managers. Managers are managers for a reason. If you are in the lower ranks, you can learn a thing or two from watching how they handle questions in meetings, present information, interact with other people, etc.

- It's better to be a nice person. You're going to have to interact with your co-workers to do your job. It's best to help them out if you know a fix for their problem and make some friends. Some of them know amazing things and are willing to show if you have some initiative. (I found some of the best Dim Sum in Toronto this way!) If the people around you don't like you, then your life will be miserable.

- Appearances matter. Don't go around the office muttering to yourself. Show some pride in your work. Feel free to laugh. Managers and others notice these things and make quiet mental notes about your character. And it's infectious too, and can lead to a better office environment overall.

- Watch your money. You never know when your close family member / friend will ask to temporarily borrow $1000. You know they're trustworthy and will pay you back and you can't easily say no. Don't buy something on impulse and only buy it if you have a good reason and you need that specific item, not the cheaper alternative.

I wish I had a screen shot.

Does this kind of thing happen often? Was the story pulled because it was fake or something?

I remember that the story said the device stored about 3 movies (no mention of size) or about 1000 mp3s. And it ran Windows XP. Am I hallucinating? I did see this story appear momentarily on the homepage.

Or is this a regular occurence that I have only just found out about?

Main Entry: America
Pronunciation: &-'mer-&-k&
Usage: geographical name
1 either continent (N. America or S. America) of the western hemisphere
2 or the Americas /-k&z/ the lands of the western hemisphere including N., Central, & S. America & the W. Indies
3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

I suspect they got this from an American dictionary.

Think about it...

This the same country that arbitrarily redefines words in 'easier to spell' variations such as aluminium/aluminum, aeroplane/airplane, colour/color, night/nite (OK 'nite' is not ubiquitous in the USA.)

This is from the same country where the RIAA can redefine the meaning of a word in the dictionary for its own purposes.

The New Lexicon Webster's Encyclopaedia Dictionary of the English Language (Canadian Edition of an American Dictionary):

America: the two continents North America and South America, extending from beyond the Arctic Circle to the subantarctic regions and joined by a central isthmus. North America is centred on longitude 100 deg W while South America lies further East centred on longitude 60 deg W. The name is from Americus Vespucius (Amerigo Vespucci). The total land area is over 16,000,000 sq. miles and the estimated total pop. 500,000,000 Linguistically and culturally the Americans are known as Anglo-America (the U.S.A. and Canada) and Latin America (Mexico, Central America, most of the West Indies, and South America)

So essentially, the American dictionary makers are saying that outside of the USA, America != United States of America.

A small message to those who read Dilbert but haven't had a big-company office job: Dogbert and Catbert are right. Cubicles. Office Politics. Real Work. Real Benefits. Real boring. Meetings. Managers. Deadlines. Departments. Yes, you never understand the true ironies shown in the Dilbert world until you live them.

Has anyone else noticed that the metamoderation page has recently started to serve messages that are obvious trolls/offtopic/crapflood and fewer items that are ontopic and provide new and interesting information? It wasn't always like this. Even three weeks ago there was nary a crapflood or "Malda is gay" post appearing there.

Is this some sort of deliberate experiment? Or is the troll population exploding? Or am I just seeing random conspiracies when none are present?

What's up with this? Am I the only one that is noticing this? And if you see it too, what do you think it means?

- Poor Editorial Quality: They still post stories with spelling / grammar errors.
- Poor Editorial Quality: They say that software is released when it has not reached the mirrors or been officially announced yet, thus slashdotting everything and preventing anyone from getting the software.
- Poor Editorial Quality: They went and posted blatant spoilers to the X-Files plot on the front page without warnings. And when they realised what they had done, the spoiler was not removed.
- Inexplicable Editorial Behaviour: They reject perfectly good stories again and again and then end up posting them weeks later. Mozilla 1.0RC1 has been out for a week and the editors have not posted it even though I submitted it.
- Arrogant Editors: They try to silence people who think differently. Did you ever read the first troll post investigation? The editors eliminated moderator privileges from everyone who modded that post up and kept knocking it down themselves.

This is why I will not give these people my money.

Expect the Karma Police to Come Get Me Soon.

Just for reference:

Karma 50 (mostly the sum of moderation done to users comments)
User Bio

-2001-Dec-19- You may have seen the 8-Ball link in my sig. Please note that I am not affiliated with the site. I just like it ;-)

Jucius Maximus has posted 623 comments. Below find the most recent 24 comments.

1 Re:Noise cancelling headphones posted on Thursday April 04, @01:04AM (Score:1 Replies: 1)
attached to Making Your Room Quiet
2 Dogs posted on Thursday April 04, @12:38AM (Score:1)
attached to Making Your Room Quiet
3 Re:Noise cancelling headphones posted on Thursday April 04, @12:30AM (Score:1 Replies: 2)
attached to Making Your Room Quiet
4 Re:A-D posted on Wednesday April 03, @10:49PM (Score:1)
attached to Sony Intentionally Crashes Customers' Computers
5 CowboyNeal, Blood Warrior posted on Wednesday April 03, @10:45PM (Score:1)
attached to Poll: Coolest RPG (Non-computer)
6 Re:Poor kernel hackers posted on Wednesday April 03, @10:29PM (Score:1 Replies: 1)
attached to Sony Intentionally Crashes Customers' Computers
7 Guaranteed Free Money! posted on Wednesday April 03, @08:38PM (Score:1 Replies: 1)
attached to Sony Intentionally Crashes Customers' Computers
8 Re:CD-Audio drives posted on Wednesday April 03, @08:23PM (Score:1 Replies: 2)
attached to Sony Intentionally Crashes Customers' Computers
9 Re:Dearest Michael posted on Wednesday April 03, @08:15PM (Score:-1)
attached to Sony Intentionally Crashes Customers' Computers
10 What we need here... posted on Wednesday April 03, @08:09PM (Score:2 Replies: 1)
attached to Sony Intentionally Crashes Customers' Computers
11 The users were warned! posted on Wednesday April 03, @08:02PM (Score:5 Replies: 3)
attached to Sony Intentionally Crashes Customers' Computers
12 Re:Why have a cat if you don't want it around you? posted on Wednesday April 03, @07:43PM (Score:1)
attached to Do Felines Have Instrument Preferences?
13 Good idea posted on Wednesday April 03, @06:06PM (Score:1 Replies: 1)
attached to Should Open Source Software Expire?
14 Cowboyneal posted on Wednesday April 03, @03:54PM (Score:1)
attached to Poll: Best Desktop Environment?
15 Re:Another completely far wing article posted on Wednesday April 03, @12:53PM (Score:1)
attached to Public CD Copying Machine in Australia
16 Lemmie Guess... posted on Tuesday April 02, @11:17PM (Score:1 Replies: 1)
attached to What Should Microsoft's Open Source Strategy Be?
17 Re:Two things: posted on Tuesday April 02, @08:54PM (Score:2 Replies: 1)
attached to Slashback: Blender, Pictures, Servitude
18 Re:Windows 2000 _is_ a good choice. posted on Tuesday April 02, @01:05AM (Score:1 Replies: 1)
attached to Poll: Best Windows Distribution?
19 Re:"with their owners' permission" posted on Tuesday April 02, @01:02AM (Score:1)
attached to Distributed Computing Program Hidden in Kazaa
20 Re:Sounds like outright theft posted on Tuesday April 02, @12:57AM (Score:1 Replies: 1)
attached to Distributed Computing Program Hidden in Kazaa
21 Sounds like outright theft posted on Monday April 01, @11:46PM (Score:3 Replies: 3)
attached to Distributed Computing Program Hidden in Kazaa
22 Re:Windows 2000 _is_ a good choice. posted on Monday April 01, @06:29PM (Score:1 Replies: 2)
attached to Poll: Best Windows Distribution?
23 If JAVA had proper garbage collection... posted on Monday April 01, @03:52PM (Score:2)
attached to CPAN Shifts Focus
24 Reminds me of an old joke... posted on Sunday March 31, @11:17PM (Score:2 Replies: 1)
attached to Best High-Tech Toilet?

Take a look at this:
Happiest Day Of My Life?

I liked it, so it's up! Thanks.

  Chris

--
Program Manager, OSDN Events | http://www.osdn.com
Grant Chair, Linux International. | http://www.li.org
Co-editor, Open Sources | http://www.dibona.com

On Fri, 7 Dec 2001, you wrote:

> Chris:
>
> Here's a poll suggestion that you might want to consider for Slashdot. I
> hope I haven't missed a 'poll suggestion form' or anything:
>
>
> The happiest day of my life:
> - Graduation
> - Marriage
> - First Child
> - First Successful Linux Install
> - Getting Broadband
> - Getting Laid
> - Meeting CowBoyNeal (optional ;-)
>
>
> - C.M.
> aka "Jucius Maximus" user #229128 on slashdot
>
> ps: I'm a linux user because of slashdot. Thanks collectively to the site's crew.
>

At least it's my last exam of the semester and then I'll be off until after Christmas! Hurray!