Slashdot

PreacherTom is an astroturfer for BusinessWeek magazine. Look at the URL in this recent Slashdot story and notice the campaign_id string. Now look at his user page. Scroll down to the submissions section. Notice how almost every one is a link to a BusinessWeek.com article containing the campaign_id string. Now look at the search results for "campaign_id preachertom". He's been pulling this shit on slashdot, digg, Fark, MetaFilter, and who knows where else. Check out this MetaTalk thread for the initial discovery.

Spread the word, perhaps?

Hey folks, just throwing this up to let yall know I can't reply to anyone in that mousepad thread. Apparently I'm down to 1 post allowed per day, so that was it. All I can do is write journal entries now, can't even reply to comments in those. Thanks for playing!

Gah, ok, I gave it more that a fair shot, IMO, and yep, this new layout is terrible. It makes me feel even more colorblind that I already am. Wow, thanks, slashdot. You picked the one shade of green that I see as gray, and then slathered various shades of gray around that. Fucking brilliant. I can't tell what's green and gray anymore, and it makes me want to throw up. Anyone got a graph showing a decline in traffic after the switch? Comment volumes decreasing perhaps? This theme is terrible, horrid, and disgusting.

Forbes is running an interesting article about /. parent, VA Software, and how they use the term "open source" purely for marketing. Why won't VA open-source it's main product? "Our own code could be used to compete against us," according to Colin Bodell, chief technology officer at VA Software. The article also contians some choice RMS action, urging us "cyber Che Guevaras ... to do the right thing"?

I knew /. was evil, but this article brings up some things I was ignorant of.

Starting now, I'm foeing every motherfucker who begs shit from me. You have been notified.