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Yes. This is an official rant/complaint/whine. I've had news submissions rejected in the past, but for the most part, I understood it. Someone else would submit it first perhaps, or the story was something only few would care about. And, heck, who isn't miffed when it happens? However, August 15, 2007 marked a pretty darn significant event IMO. It was the 30th anniversary of the most significant discovery, ever, pointing to the possible existence of ETI -- Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. I submitted the story on the same day and waited. As I waited for 3 days, watching the anniversary pass, watching the submission read "pending" and, believe it or not, watching submissions get posted such as The 25th Anniversary of the CD Drive, I began realizing that the thing was going to be rejected. I thought surely it was something others were on to, and it would get submitted and posted by another. This would have been more than acceptable to me, but it did not. /. never breathed a word about, to me, one of the most important "news for nerds" events ever.

So, I ask a legitimate question: what's wrong with /. editors? Overwhelmed? Tired? Bored? Favoritism? Are only 25th anniversaries good enough? I'll accept any answer. More than anything, I would like to hear from an editor proper. Trust me, if you give me a logical explanation I will understand. 'An' explanation is better than nothing at this point, and I still feel that something should be said about the 30th Anniversary of the Big Ear discovery.

Here is the submission. Check it and tell me if something is wrong. That way, I will do better with the next:

Slashdot Story Submissions
Preview Submission
30th Anniversary of the Wow! Signal
Space
Himring writes "Today marks the 30th anniversary of the single most significant event, to date, that points to possible evidence of ETI. On this day in 1977, Dr. Jerry R. Ehman circled data retrieved from the "Big Ear" radio telescope of the Ohio State University Radio Observatory. The telescope has since been destroyed, and although other, modern telescopes have tried (such as the VLA) none of have successfully reproduced the results of that day. By and large, all possibilities of an earth-based signal causing the event have been ruled out as well as any possible natural phenomenon. Still, Dr. Ehman has remained reserved and stated that he doesn't want to draw, "vast conclusions from half-vast data." Here is the link to Dr. Ehman's 30th Anniversary Report."

I told myself I would write in my journal today. Hey, if you try to post, but can't, please let me know by posting....

Human nature truly fascinates me. The older I get, the more I am intrigued by it. Reading people is an art and a valuable gift. If only I could've read people better up to now.... I think human relationships are best described by way of astronomy. I saw this cool show on the science channel of how galaxies dance around each other, collide, pass through, reform.... Some collisions benefit one galaxy more than another. Some galaxies lose more stars than they gain in the incident. Heavenly bodies, period, behave this way. Moons were smaller bodies tossed about, finally gathered-up by a larger body. All orbits are moving and changing, drifting futher apart or coming closer together. It's not noticable.

The same goes for human relationships. Friends and lovers come and go. Some relationships are growing ever closer. They will only end when the two people die. One can die but the other carries the relationship on, just as a heavenly body still perpetuated by the gravity of the missing partner. Others are growing apart. Marriages are dissolving. One partner knows it, says nothing, the other hasn't a clue. Or, maybe the one growing apart doesn't know it either, but can feel it. Maybe they never were as close as it was thought.

Some marriages or relationships go on for years with one partner constantly involved with others (affairs). The faithful partner never knew. Is it even a relationship at all? It is, but each person has a different perspective on it.

It's just tough growing up and realizing that role-models go away, friends and lovers leave and you must trode on. The one comfort is in knowing that others will come along to fill the place. Our job is to be as ready as we can, having learned from the past, so that we can be the best we can possible be for our future relationships....

MS is guilty of making the "next/next/next/finish" administrators who don't know wtf they're doing. MS, with this proliferation of "dumb" admins (yes, I called them dumb cuz they are) are what have provided the world with a very nice DDoS farm waiting to receive such things as codered. That thing will never go away cuz there are still boxes out there on the public network that are unpatched cuz the next/next admins don't even realize they're running an IIS server!!! This is a mind-boggling fact. The MS "Options Pack" CD (or whatever it was called) for NT4 server came ready to go with IIS and one had to do little more than next/next/finish their way through setting it up, and voila! a webserver you don't even realize is running (btw, everything has a friggin webserver on it these don't it?). Administration should be hard (are you listening microsoft?), and the fact that Microsoft has both dumbed it down and then built an insecure OS riddled with holes and wherein everything is connected to everything (MSTD) has created this cacaphony. We patch, we AV protect, we do it all to still have our large switches about once a year peg out at 100% (network goes down) cuz of some new worm broadcasting to the world, and it's due to the root-assumption of windows that they're just now trying to do something about (omg, i gotta stop cuz I'm gonna rant, ramble and roll).

Second and final point I want to make, is after considering all of the above, you then have to consider the fact that microsoft is an incredible PR machine/marketing machine. They control so much spin, and most upper IT managers get their talking points from these microsoft influenced "CIO Magazine" type crap. So, we little guys in the trenches meet with the big guys who already know what the "truth" is as microsoft has spun it. Thus, Linux is indeed not free, Firefox will be JUST AS BAD as IE once enough people use it, and Squirrelmail isn't really an email server cuz no real email server would be called "Squirrelmail."

My one haven is Dilbert. Dilbert isn't funny. It's a religious experience....

Having a major in English lit and having studied linguistics, semantics and all that shit that I don't use to make a living now, and doing my best to be objective (read my journal), I must say that this issue of Al Gore's famous words regarding the Internet continues to fascinate me.

The mere fact that people defend, vehemently, what he said reveals to me that there's something to it. I.e., "me thinks he doeth protest too much," as one of Shakespeare's characters put it. Which means, the fact that there's all this buzz -- that we can't even discuss the Internet's history without 90% of that discussion going toward Gore -- tells me that surely there's "something rotten in the state of Denmark" (ugh, I'm wearing out the Shakespeare quotes).

1st and foremost, Gore did indeed contribute, perhaps more than any other in his day, to the Internet's development. Now, that means, as a government representative he did what his position could do and did more than any other.

So, did Gore tell the truth? Yes, there was truth in what he said (there's also truth in a joke, a lie, a heresy, and indeed in the truth itself), did his political opponents use his famous words to smear him? Yes. Did they find a weakness and exploit it? Yes. All of this is true.

As I see it, he was speaking the truth regarding some factual happenings, but he was also self-aggrandizing and exaggerating, and that's what bit him in the ass. He broke a cardinal rule of politics and he knew better, so no one should feel sorry for him or, really, defend him any longer (please, let's let this die). Always let your political enemies bury themselves when wounded. Always let your political friends defend you when possible, and always, ALWAYS, let your political friends puff your record. You should come across as humble, kind, gracious, etc. Gore puffed himself for himself all by himself and it cost him greatly. Good job in this thread on explaining the "truth" of the matter, but live with the fact that he screwed the political pooch otherwise....

I voted for Bush only because I knew Nader didn't have a chance. I am most impressed with the zealot underdogs such as Nader, libertines, etc. My basic assumption (having spent 10 years in the university system studying liberal arts and history) is that socialism is a failure. The new oligarchy is a failure too (corporatism -- as Nader tries to combat). The two prime evils -- representing socialism on the one hand and corporatism on the other -- is taxation and labor abuse (the workin' man and his struggles). Both have to be dealt with. Of the two I see taxation as the greatest evil. It is #2 on Gibbon's reason for the fall of Rome. Taxes do not work (it is the middle class who eventually suffers from taxation, not the rich). "Name a country that has taxed itself to prosperity." You cannot. Abusing labor doesn't work either, but is more easily dealt with IMO (lots to be said here, but I digress). All of this being said, there have been tangible results to a Bush administration and that is less taxes (yes, there are many negatives too, but they are out-weighed IMO). I know, cuz I paid less taxes now. From my experience and time (I'm highly political around the year and not just during elections -- I am 36 years old and have been voting since I legally could), the democratic party both raises taxes and bows to corporatism whereas the republican party only does the former (Bush Sr.'s tax hike not-withstanding; also, note the accomplishments of Reaganomics which rejuvinated the economy while at the same time workers died from lack of proper government regulations at factories -- a tragedy and testimony to corporatism, but highlights the balance needed). In any event, it is a mixed issue for me, and had Kerry won I would not have been upset, but I feel both corporatism and socialism would have thrived during his administration. My decision to vote as I did was not 100% ... not even close. I will say this: such pejorative remarks as you make does nothing but help what you hate. I sat through an entire interview of Bill Press on his new book and was fascinated by points he made. I was darn near ready to buy the book and read it ("10 Reasons Bush Must Go" or whathaveyou), when at the end of the interview he stated that only idiots vote republican. With that comment, I had no desire to learn anything else he had to say. You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, as they say. In any event, there is no substance to your 4 types that vote for Bush. Believe it or not, thoughtful people vote for each candidate. I do not hate anyone who voted for Kerry. As a matter of fact, I respect them. Learn from Voltaire who said, "I disagree with what you say, but I would fight to the death your right to say it...." Also, attack an idea, grapple with it, struggle with it, force it into submission, but do not attack the person holding that idea. Only a socialist or an oligarchist would do that, and I'm sure you wish to be neither. Always remember the axiom of Socrates and his student Plato: "The unexamined life is not worth living...." Be the gadfly. Don't be the one who kills it (the death of Socrates)....