From the you-have-got-to-be-shitting-me department:

The cover of IEEE Spectrum has a photo of CmdrTaco and the cover story is all about "The Slashdot Supremacy," "How a Michigan geek tamed the online masses."

Are you fucking kidding me? Of all the different things the "magazine of technology insiders" could have dreamed up to use as a cover story it's a story about Slashdot? Yeah, Slashdot is fun and all, but hardly worthy of cover story attention. Most of the engineers I know and/or work with don't read it, and they are some of the most brilliant people I know.

Slashdot is worthy of a story, but not worthy of a cover story in Spectrum, if you ask me..

(Funny enough, Slashdot is giving me 503 errors as I try to post this..)

Holy cow, in 4. Totally swept it!

Not only is the Curse dead, it looks like it's buried, too.

So I decided to do one of the Slashdot parties. Normally I try to keep my real life and my activities on sites such as Slashdot as separate as possible, but I thought I'd give it a shot.

So I drive the 45 miles to the location of the party, being held at the in-state rival of my alma mater. After struggling to find a parking space, and then walking around trying to find the building, I finally reached the location.

You'd think there'd be a sign mentioning the Slashdot party on the door, or on a bulletin board or something. All I had to go on was "Penguin's Nest, Dearborn Hall, Oregon State University". There were no signs of anything called "Penguin's Nest" in Dearborn Hall. There were not so many people around, and the ones that were there were studying or otherwise absorbed in activities that I didn't feel like interrupting.

I explored three floors above and one below ground level, trying to see if I could find anything that looked, sounded, or smelled like a Slashdot party.

Coming up empty, I went home.

Yeah Red Sox!!! Clean up the Rockies in the World Series!

Hey, there are *three* of the particular item you are bidding against me for on eBay. I am bidding on two of them, leaving one available for you. Why don't you bid on the third one that has *no* bids on it right now, so we can both get what we want for cheap?

Or, instead, you can be a dickhead and continue to ignore the third identical item and drive up the bids I have placed on the other two.

Sigh.

My integer is 89 21 42 8C A0 98 90 D8 5B DF BE 21 EB 40 33 33. From this front page story.

You are hereby notified that redistributing this number is a violation of the DMCA and I'll sue your ass if you do. :-)

This was a two-part maintenance:

First, I just marked a whole bunch of people neutral who were on my friends list. If one of them was you, don't take it personally - though I doubt you are reading this since you met both of the following criteria:

(1) You haven't posted a comment or journal entry for a long time.
(2) You never reciprocated my friendship.

Second, I just marked a lot of people on my "fans" list as friends, except for people who haven't posted for a few months, and a few people who didn't make it past Slashdot cutting me off with "you have used this resource too much recently, please try again later."

I'll try and get to you soon.

If you feel you have been neutralized or omitted from friendship in error, comment here.

I was going to resist.

Then I wanted to leave a comment.

Same user name there as here.

I was browsing around freshmeat and found this little gem of a shareware program.

Here's the scoop from the description page. For only $10 you get:

General:

        * Delete ALL files (in the specified directory) with file dates older than the specified days.
        * For Unix/Linux system only.

Features:

        * E.g. Delete all files older than 30 days - regardless of the permission setting of the files.
        * Can be run manually from browser, telnet or automatically using crontab.
        * Support deletion of files in multiple folders and of different ages.
        * Only two variables to edit - the directory and the file age.

Requirement:

        * Perl
        * No MySQL needed.
        * No SSI needed.

Here's what they are charging $10 for. Only they've written it in perl.

--- BEGIN CUT HERE ---
  #!/bin/sh
  DIR=/path/to/directory
  AGE=30
  find $DIR -mtime +$AGE -exec rm -f {} \;
--- END CUT HERE ---

Only two variables to edit, deletes everything in the specified directory (DIR) older than AGE days. You can even do multiple directories with different ages by deleting the DIR= and AGE= and copying the find command a few times, substituting the values in for $DIR and $AGE. You can run it as-is from telnet, and from cron, and by adding "echo Content-type: text/plain ; echo" at the top, it might even run as CGI.

Oh, and you can have the above for free. But if you want to send me $10 for all 10 seconds that took to write, be my guest.

Every now and then I see a comment that is just ignorant, wrong, or just irks me like no other. This is one of those comments.

kimvette wrote:

Executive orders

They're unconstitutional as Hell but Congress and SCOTUS are not doing a thing about it, and we aren't either, because we're not using the power of the vote to correct the matter. We keep reelecting the same bastards into office time and again. We need a revolution, and the revolution should be this: vote out the old guard, and vote in candidates who actually care about long-term survival of our nation as a FREE country.

An executive order is a directive to the executive branch of the government to enact policy and/or procedure. Guess who is in charge of the executive branch?

Enter the Constitution:

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.

That line right there says the President is the head of the executive branch. Saying that the President cannot issue executive orders is like saying the CEO of a company can't give instructions to subordinates or enact policy statements for the company.

So, how exactly are they unconstitutional?

For what it is worth, an executive order can be unconstitutional if it is counter to the Constitution or laws passed by Congress. Congress can certainly revoke or modify an executive order by passing legislation - there is nothing stopping them from doing that. However, executive orders in and of themselves are not inherently unconstitutional.

By the way, the first executive order was issued by George Washington in 1789.

Happened upon this while surfing around. In 2001, Wired published some silly test that gives you your "Autism Quotient." Here's the explanation:

Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen and his colleagues at Cambridge's Autism Research Centre have created the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, or AQ, as a measure of the extent of autistic traits in adults. In the first major trial using the test, the average score in the control group was 16.4. Eighty percent of those diagnosed with autism or a related disorder scored 32 or higher. The test is not a means for making a diagnosis, however, and many who score above 32 and even meet the diagnostic criteria for mild autism or Asperger's report no difficulty functioning in their everyday lives.

My score? 31.

First predicted here, I called the Fiesta Bowl for the Broncos.

Granted, it looked like I'd be wrong at times, especially before six seconds to the end of the fourth quarter. But, Boise State pulled it off with a two-point conversion in overtime.

Can we please have playoffs now and give these guys a chance at the title?

Everybody's doing it...

1. If you had to live in a different state than the one you live in what would it be?
Idaho.

2. If you were on a plane that crashed, would you rather be stranded on an island or a desert?
Did you mean *in* a plane? Definitely an island.

3. What "catches your eye" first in the opposite sex?
Her face.

4. How much do you think a guy should spend on an engagement ring?
Don't get me started. Diamonds are the most expensive useless thing out there. That being said the one I bought for my bride is worth a few grand.

5. How old do you want to be when you retire?
Unfortunately, I have passed that age and am still not retired.

7. Would you rather be the smartest person in the world or the most attractive person in the world?
Smartest.

8. Do you think tattoos are hot?
By "hot" do you mean sexy? Depends.

9. What was your first pet?
It was a cat.

10. Where did you go on your first Spring Break?
Home.

11. Are you scared of spiders or snakes?
I'm not scared of spiders, but I dislike them.

12. What was your first job?
Burger flipper.

13. What is in your front, right pocket?
Not wearing pants, sorry.

14. Do you put up a real Christmas tree each year?
No. Some years I don't put up a tree at all.

15. How many blankets are on your bed?
One.

16. Do you have a TV in your bedroom?
As of about 3 days ago.

17. When was the last time you received a card in the mail?
A few days ago.

19. Who was the last person that text-messaged you?
Wife.

20. Who was the first person you saw today?
Wife.

21. Do you have any awards hanging on your wall?
Not yet. But I did in the old place.

22. Do you own glasses?
Yes. Drinking out of plastic sucks.

23. When is the last time you shaved something on your body?
Today.

25. What was your first vehicle?
1985 Dodge Charger.

26. Do you miss high school?
No.

27. Are you more of a neat or messy person?
Somewhere in between.

28. Do you think that everyone should have a cell phone?
Everyone should be allowed to have one... until they annoy the piss out of me somewhere where people are supposed to STFU, like a movie theater. That should be punishable by death.

29. Do you remember your first family vacation?
No.

30. Ever been in a fight with a best friend?
Yes.

31. Ever puked in public?
Oh yeah... at a formal dinner... after a few bottles of wine all to myself... it gets worse...

32. Would you prefer dinner and a movie or bowling and ice cream?
I don't get a say in things like this... the wife decides.

33. Do you sleep with your door open or closed at night?
The front door? Closed.

34. How far do you live from work?
5 minutes.

35. Do you believe in afterlife?
Well, I don't think we "wink out" when we die.

36. How many credit cards do you own?
Read the back of the card. You don't own yours, either.

37. Would you move to another country tomorrow, if you were offered a $100,000 job?
Depends on the country. But that's not much more than I make now.

38. How many kids do you see yourself having?
I can't have children. Lack of ovaries, uterus, etc.

39. Were you a trouble child?
Hah. You'd unfriend me if you knew.

40. Do you like butterflies?
Meh.

41. Can you shake your booty?
Would you want me to try?

42. Do you shower at night or in the morning?
Night.

43. Where is your favorite place to eat?
Home.

44. What did you wear to bed last night?
Wear?

45. Do you have to sleep with something "ON" every night in order to sleep?
Allergen filter.

46. On average, how much TV do you watch a day?
0 to 1 hour.

47. Do you have any piercings?
No.

48. Would you rather go snorkeling in the Caribbean or hiking on the Appalachian Trail?
Bah, I've already been scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef. What's the Caribbean got to offer?

49. Have you ever taken karate lessons?
No. But I've taken Shaolin Kung Fu.

50. Do you think if you got married, you would ever get a divorce?
I am married. And I don't really think people plan on getting divorced. Except maybe the Hollywood types.

The old Slashdot was easy on the eyes. The new Slashdot's font choices are difficult to read, and some of the color choices are, as well.

The intercharacter spacing is too narrow. The font letters are too narrow. Black on medium gray is difficult to read. Slashdot green on medium gray is also difficult to read.

The gradient effects of various parts only serve to enhance the problem.

And, just to be clear, I am not going to tweak my browser settings just to fix one site, most of the others I regularly visit are perfectly readable.

What does this mean? You'll probably be seeing less of me on Slashdot.