Lately, I'm seeing more and more "reign in" on Slashdot and I've got to say, I'm disappointed.

I need a new system on which to run asterisk, bonus points if I don't have to configure it from scratch. I'd like to spend less than $200 (ideally I'd pick up something used if necessary for $100) but I have storage devices available, whether CF, SD, USB, or what have you. It can have wireless, but it doesn't have to because I have a routerboard for that. I have found my pogoplugs to be unreliable at best.

So I'm cutting up a Trinidad Scorpion Butch-T pepper with gloves on, and sprinkling it around a pizza that I am going to cook and eat. Grown in worm casings, it is said to be the hottest pepper in the history of anything, ever.

I didn't have a surplus of worm casings when I planted my plant, Trisha (yes, I name my ridiculous pepper plants). But I did have enough household compost to dig a big hole and replace it with the results from a worm-heavy cold-compost pile before planting the little girl in the middle of that pile of worm-digested food.

Therefore I suspect she's very well-fed; indeed, she's grown much larger than any other first-year pepper plant in the garden, without any purposeful chemical treatments or chemical fertilizer.

I've grown ghost peppers (bhot jolokia) for a few years, and I think I understand what I'm in for. The Scorpions have just started to ripen for the season and this is my first of them.

So I pick a deliciously-colored one, quickly sharpen a good knife, and chop it up finely with gloved hands. Still wearing the nitrile gloves, I scrape the minced pepper from the cutting board and sprinkle it onto the pizza. And I take the gloves off and throw them away, because I'm done handling it now -- right?

But seeing those tiny morsels of pepper on that slab of cardboard crust, tomato goo, and imitation cheese makes me think: Gee, how hot could it be?

So I gather up a tiny sliver from the surface of the pizza with my fingertips and eat it. Yep: It's hot. So hot that it has no redeeming qualities, other than just being hot. None of this was unexpected, though at least by comparison a Habernero has a strong and sweet citrus quality once one gets past the pain... But there was no redeeming quality to this pepper: Just pain.

Well enough, I say to myself. I set the oven to pre-heat the oven and go take a leak while I wait.

Twenty minutes later, my fingers are fine. My palette is fine. My throat is fine. My genitals are on fire.

It's not like I can buy these things at the market, so it's amusing to see how persistent this pepper is in casual use.

And, by God, I'm going to cook that pizza. And I'm going to eat it. And I'm going to handle each and every bite with dishwasher-safe, stainless utensils, and I am going to wash them with an enzyme-based detergent and then a bleach-based detergent -- nobody needs to experience this on accident.

I might even put a fresh pair of nitrile gloves on, just to make sure that nothing that goes in my face winds up somewhere other than in my face when I eat this pizza.

But the question is: Why? Why not just enjoy some bland, cheap, freezer pizza? Why, while I wait, do I suffer from a special kind of burning nasal distress every time I emit a tiny burp or belch, having eaten just the tiniest sliver of a pepper? Why can't I just admire Trisha in all of her visual Trinidad Scorpion Butch-T delight? (She is a very lovely plant, after all.)

Why must I torture myself by eating her fruit?

Not so well, huh? India is usually cited as one of the Green Revolution's successes, but it's easy to watch the ongoing failure.

I decided to try out nosupportlinuxhosting but they appear to have suspended hyperlogos.org without notice or explanation. I sure hope I don't have to issue a chargeback, that would be stupid. I'm already waiting for Amazon to process two returns that have been sitting around at their facilities for weeks.

I'm not talking about the content, that has always been shit
I'm talking about what happens when I try to modify my relationships.

OK

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, admin@slashdot.org and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Apache/2.2.3 (CentOS) Server at slashdot.org Port 80

Of course I reported the error. Of course I never heard back. Now I'm seeing it again.
Slashdot is basically unusable without friends/foes lists.

Subject says it all. If I can't read your content without javascript, either you are an idiot, or you're evil, or you're an evil idiot.

Google will tell you that their collection of "anonymous" location statistics is opt-in. That is, technically, true. However, on Gingerbread it is not opt-out. Once turned on, there is no option to disable it, that was added later. That, or I have forgotten all I once knew about google-fu. I can find how to change your mind about this on ICS, but not on GB.

I became curious (about Slashdot achievements, silly) and searched to no avail. Anyone have any clue?

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3464373&cid=42911081
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3464373&cid=42911043
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3464373&cid=42910999
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3464373&cid=42910763
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3464373&cid=42910725

Slashdot, why for you no let me use Plain Text in my journal any more?

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3436185&cid=42803807
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3436175&cid=42803841
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3430839&cid=42803897
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3436185&cid=42804399

I can afford it.

Modtrolls troll mod. Film at eleven.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3428941&cid=42771455
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3428941&cid=42771437
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3426877&cid=42770781
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3427061&cid=42770777
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3427083&cid=42770769

Pretty sure this time I offended an iFanboi.

Too bad you can't tag things "slashdot"

Every time I get a modtroll I get validation. Here are the five comments in question, all downmodded in a row by someone too lazy to even spread out their punitive moderation.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3411745&cid=42715053
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3412111&cid=42714885
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3412141&cid=42714871
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3412263&cid=42714843
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3412263&cid=42714801

I should very much like to demand satisfaction from people who are badly in need of correction. Namely, those who use insults against me in lieu of argument. (I am not above answering insult with insult, of course.) When are we going to get internet VR boxing, so that I can realistically challenge some random dipshit who talks a lot of shit to a boxing match and announce his cowardice should he decline?

http://perens.com/blog/2013/01/16/1/