Journal Journal: teh google+ 3
I'm digging G+ more and more. Feel free to add me to your whatever circles. I have a "/.ers" circle.
I'm digging G+ more and more. Feel free to add me to your whatever circles. I have a "/.ers" circle.
I did have teh lulz...
I just received mail notification that a fellow user has bought me a gift subscription to slashdot. I'm already friends/fans with the person but his email address isn't visible so I can't thank the person off-/. (wimp, change your privacy settings and deal with the spam!
Not sure what I did to deserve it, but I thank you!
Short Flash vid...
http://en.tackfilm.se/?id=1273610622233RA56
Canadian pre-orders started today.
64 GB WiFi version ordered, should be here by May 28. No need for the 3G version, I can tether with MyWi on the iPhone.
My dad picked up the similar model on a trip to the US last week. Was playing with it on the weekend, awesome device. Perhaps not magical but still most impressive.
I don't actually have anything to say. Kathleen is due any day, and I'm looking forward to a few weeks of staying home, getting poor sleep, and changing diapers.
But mostly I'm testing to see if journal saving works properly.
We've made some significant updates to the submission/journal system. Visiting Submissions and Journals yields a new form that allows stuff like tags to the data types. There are a number of annoying bugs, but for the most part the dust is starting to settle. More notes will be coming, but this journal entry is really just me putting the final test on the new Journal form.
So my wife turns on the TV to watch Dancing With the Stars and who do I see but The Woz. That's right, Steve Wozniak... ballroom dancing. He looked more awkward and uncomfortable than I would have imagined, and I've practiced ballroom dancing. He did have a very joyful attitude.
If I voted it would go to David Alan Grier. He cracks me up.
I launched the DocForge wiki for programmers almost two years ago. The intent is to grow a comprehensive reference for everyone who writes software. Unlike Wikipedia we accept original research and opinions.
We've had a few very helpful contributors, but most of the content has been posted by me. Some of the articles use Wikipedia content as a starting point, which helps. But I'm having a difficult time finding many others who are interested in making serious contributions. The irony of any wiki is it needs enough content to grow a community, but it needs a community to grow content. Ideally we'd eventually grow large enough to be able to hire some writers and editors as employees.
So how do we find people who are interested in contributing to DocForge? Paying for every contribution isn't a good idea because of politics, legalities, economics, and a low budget. I'd like to give occasional gifts to great contributors, but that doesn't bring in new writers. One promising way to go may be bounties, making donations to charities or open source projects when an article or section reaches a certain quality. On my low personal budget that could get expensive. What other options do I have? How could I attract those who are frustrated with Wikipedia's limitations and politics? How can I get the word out on this project to other programmers and academics (other than the obvious linking from dzone, etc.)?
Dear grub: My name is Lily Liu. I am a PhD student carrying our a project with my supervisor Christian Wagner (iscw@cityu.edu.hk) who is a professor at City University of Hong Kong. We are trying to understand the popularity of Slashdot to its active contributor, such as you. We hope you might be able to help us in our effort by answering three questions.
*Question 1:*
In your opinion, what (if so) makes Slashdot special among online discussion sites? Is it the content, the group of people it draws in, the discussion engine (e.g., content rating and filters), or possibly other factors?
*Question 2: *
Compared with other discussion sites you know or/and have used, do you consider Slashdot's technology platform to be better? In other words, does it encourage (a) more sense of community or (b) more active participation?
(In answering please also feel free to mention the other discussion site or sites you might be comparing to)
*Question 3:*
As a unique user in Slashdot, could you please rate your own reciprocity by assessing what you get from the community compared with what you contribute to it?(you can give an answer such as: i think i get more or i contribute more,of course we would be very appreciative for your explanation of detail)
**
Please let us know at your earliest convenience. We will quickly summarize results and gladly send you a summary, if you are interested (and sufficient replies are received to create a meaningful summary).
Thank You for Your Time and Valuable Feedback!
Sincerely,
Lily
We now abbreviate journals in the firehose... so they are more like slashdot stories with a Read More link to the full text.
The big user facing change this week was structural: historically we had 2 different "skeletons" on Slashdot, but with this refresh we unified to a single one. This change simplifies maintenance for us quite a bit (maintaining the idle section and the firehose views of the same data was a royal pain).
You also will see some changes to the firehose.pl layout. We're playing with the tab layout a bit, moving some menus around and better integrating the core functions into the site chrome. It's a bit buggy atm, so feel free to email me if you see something wonky. We're extinguishing a few minor brush fires but there's no forest fires that we're aware of.
A US judge has thrown out a case against God, ruling that because the defendant has no address, legal papers cannot be served. Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers sued God last year. He said God had threatened him and the people of Nebraska and had inflicted "widespread death, destruction and terrorisation of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants". "Since God knows everything," he reasoned, "God has notice of this lawsuit."
HOLY MACRO!