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User Journal

Journal: Boo!

Journal by Starship Trooper
_ Jgy__
_ jWW `""9Wf
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_jyWWP"^``"`.C"9*,J _.mqD:^^"WWWWWWQg__
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ilmk `""9WQQggyyyyyygyyyyyQggQWQH""
User Journal

Journal: Beware long friends lists 2

Journal by Starship Trooper
According to this journal, if you try to put more than 200 people on your friends list, the Slashdot editors have a script that will wipe your friends list clean. While a hard upper limit would make more sense to me, I'm sure the Slash coders have their reasons for doing it this way...
User Journal

Journal: Comment bonuses for friend-of-friend and foe-of-friend

Journal by Starship Trooper
If you check your comment preferences, you'll see that there are now People Modifiers available for 'Friend of Friend' and 'Foe of Friend' in addition to the standard Friend/Fan/Foe/Freak bonuses. Personally, I wish there were a way to stop those icons from showing up at all. I don't particularly appreciate having my eye drawn to idiots like fmaxwell and Com2Kid who just so happen to be friends of people who like me. But that's just my own opinion :-)
User Journal

Journal: Slashdot Secrets vol. 1: Journal Secrets 7

Journal by Starship Trooper
Slashdot has a wealth of features that are either poorly documented or not documented at all. In order to improve the Slashdot experience for everyone, here is the first in what may eventually become a series of articles documenting Slashcode's subtleties. All those small but useful features that are forgotten when the time comes to update the FAQ shall finally be exposed! And there is perhaps no part of Slashdot as inadequately documented as the Journal system. So without further ado, I humbly present Slashdot Secrets volume 1: Journal Secrets.
  • How do I see a list of all recently written journals?

    Use the 'journals' search op with no search term. The URL http://slashdot.org/search.pl?op=journals works nicely.

  • Is there an easy way to catch up on my friends' latest journal entries?

    Yes there is! Try http://slashdot.org/my/amigos to get the full content of the ten latest journals posted by your friends.

  • Is it possible to get an RDF feed for journals?

    Yes. To get a feed for someone's journal, use a URL of the form http://slashdot.org/journal.pl?content_type=rss&uid=<uid>, where <uid> is the user ID of the user you want a feed for. You can get a user's ID by going to their user info page and noting the large bold number in parentheses. For example, CmdrTaco's user id is 1. Yours is most likely a bit higher than that :-)

    Alas, there is not yet a way to get an RDF for all journals, or even journals by your friends. This is most likely an oversight on the Slashcode developers' part and not an intentional design decision; hopefully it'll be fixed soon.

  • My Karma is Terrible! I can only post two comments a day, even to my own journal! Whatever shall I do?

    Log out and post anonymously. Up to 10 comments per day can be posted from any one IP address, regardless of a user's karma. If you have been banned for excessive negative moderation, however, you're unfortunately stuck unless you get yourself another IP address.

  • I enabled comments on my journal and it's getting overrun with Trolls. Slashdot won't let me disable comments. Is there anyway I can stop this?

    You can click the "Edit" link for the entry, copy its content into your paste buffer, and delete the entry. Repost it with comments disabled.

That's all for now. If there's another journal trick, tip or secret I missed that you think should be listed, you're welcome to post a comment below informing us all about it. Suggestions for the next installment of Slashdot Secrets are welcome as well.

User Journal

Journal: I am so 31337 3

Journal by Starship Trooper
I'm compiling the latest Linux kernel while listening to Aphex Twin, watching Cowboy Bebop, and drinking Mountain Dew! I haven't taken a shower or gone outside in two weeks (too busy trying to get X-Windows working with my obscure onboard video chipset). I just wrote 200 lines of perl to automate ripping my CDs into Ogg Vorbis so I can trade them with all my friends on my super-secure wuftpd file server. I deleted Windows 98 from my computer yesterday, finally (though I had to install it again so I can play Warcraft III when it comes out. Why can't those bastards at Blizzard port their games?).
Slashdot.org

Journal: Slashdot Crossword Solution 1

Journal by Starship Trooper
Sorry for not posting this sooner, but I've been busy. The only man able to solve the crossword by himself was faeryman, so be sure to congratulate him on his skill and his fresh new box of Quaker Grits when you get a chance to.

T M B G C M B A N Y E M A D R
I E W I A I B O A R M S M I D I
P M T R O N Z O O R D M C A
W I P O J U N I S V A
V I S B A S E X I M I A N G
D V D S Y A C P 2 P P H P
E D O C D L I L O O O O G
S P A M D K D E T
S C O P G P A 4 5 B G N U
I A N A L O P T K F A I R
M I E E E H I L L A R Y I R C
S A L O N R T B L E D E T O B
N U I O C R F E H S I D
L I N U X K E N O C H B S D T
A M O S M K S H P
R E O G U M A D A B A
S M O O N N E F P M P A A
P 2 P T H O L E P I A T
P I 3 P O O M P E R L G R E P
S E D H F E N T E M A C S C

User Journal

Journal: Slashdot Blackout results

Journal by Starship Trooper
This is an extension of sllort's preliminary results. I've formatted and corrected his raw data, adding comments and cleaning things up for easier viewing, and with data from Friday and Saturday added (Saturday's info is still preliminary, and should not be taken as fact yet). Note that comments are disabled on this journal because I had to use a page-widening trick to keep the text from wrapping, which makes reading this table far easier at the expense of everything else on the page. if you want to comment, do so in sllort's journal linked above.

4/14 4/15 4/16 4/17 4/18 4/19 4/20
(+2) (-1) (+2) (-1) (+2) (-1) (+2) (-1) (+2) (-1) (+2) (-1) (+2) (-1)
23 145 46 181 289 979 62 188 86 241 278 948 92 274
221 502 59 183 65 254 133 265 117 288 15 83 142 495
74 249 236 728 82 232 173 660 53 182 101 325 121 344
184 432 103 262 166 461 21 136 74 184 83 245 94 315
172 570 193 597 155 484 344 880 75 232 105 283 127 363
63 159 181 386 62 226 195 530 268 794 84 217 46 137
27 73 278 817 295 727 39 109 231 641 53 180 87 193
47 146 67 204 101 281 115 351 225 764 132 295 149 543
37 146 23 83 142 440 58 169 199 499 89 263 63 169
121 336 56 204 121 346 96 379 100 248 71 173 73 171
134 388 183 466 230 685 179 526 158 411 225 726 167 495
20 80 122 320 140 376 129 382 58 131 145 404 43 143
80 198 107 436 98 290 57 165 62 187
109 287 36 102 184 746 75 223 129 565
115 332 171 508 96 317 126 369
36 119 219 618 140 430
142 344

Total 12 Total 16 Total 17 Total 14 Total 16 Total 15 Total 12 (# of stories)
1123 3226 1887 5367 2523 7499 1826 5611 2012 5750 1698 5263 1204 3642 (# of posts)
Average Average Average Average Average Average Average
94 269 118 335 148 441 130 401 126 359 113 351 100 300
S/N S/N S/N S/N S/N S/N S/N
0.34810911 0.351593069 0.336444859 0.325432187 0.349913043 0.321937322 0.333333333

4/21 4/22 4/23 4/24 4/25 4/26 4/27
(+2) (-1) (+2) (-1) (+2) (-1) (+2) (-1) (+2) (-1) (+2) (-1) (+2) (-1)
121 398 91 326 62 197 152 474 111 327 52 179 183 554
94 270 176 647 64 243 58 157 60 205 111 275 111 341
49 160 25 79 143 446 135 430 126 264 73 228 69 190
98 291 168 487 49 147 60 150 208 677 80 218 39 130
17 52 55 166 88 238 101 312 165 461 38 125 91 253
43 116 26 87 77 245 83 230 197 652 375 924 96 207
97 237 335 866 286 814 26 81 55 162 74 349 59 149
56 246 54 140 78 220 222 646 66 247 66 209 39 87
106 325 262 600 79 250 49 170 101 266 102 285 45 130
31 79 159 380 130 360 144 420 83 245 179 518 35 120
127 350 22 94 109 353 83 219 35 123 129 468 69 216
76 301 45 138 85 296 384 1016 280 793 89 225 57 154
67 261 11 68 20 83 224 665 55 214 52 212 27 146
126 322 101 369 119 371 90 262 35 139
83 244 42 122 45 151 52 171 35 105
57 248 29 111 193 597
140 654 177 588 66 256
25 158

Total 13 Total 17 Total 18 Total 15 Total 17 Total 15 Total 13 (# of stories)
982 3086 1835 5546 1644 5240 1885 5492 1943 5922 1490 5949 920 2831 (# of posts)
Average Average Average Average Average Average Average
76 237 108 326 91 291 126 366 114 348 99 397 71 218
S/N S/N S/N S/N S/N S/N S/N
0.318211277 0.330869095 0.313740458 0.343226511 0.328098615 0.24937028 0.32568807

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
Ratio Ratio Ratio Ratio Ratio Ratio Ratio

0.808510638 0.915240495 0.6154049410.96349033 0.908899544 0.87610619 0.710000000 (at thresh 2)
0.881040892 0.972566556 0.6599398440.91353888 0.969329923 0.88413098 0.726666667 (at thresh -1)

      1. that is all.
Slashdot.org

Journal: The (Hopefully) Great SLASHDOT CROSSWORD PUZZLE! 6

Journal by Starship Trooper
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Presented for your entertainment ...
&#x261E; &nbsp; THE (HOPEFULLY) GREAT SLASHDOT CROSSWORD PUZZLE! &nbsp; &#x261C;

Now's your chance to see just how well you've been paying attention during the past four years of chips, dips, Micro$loth, Napster, IPOs, BSD, rights online, editor censorship, and of course Linux, Linux, Linux! Complete the following professional-quality crossword puzzle chock full of trivia on Slashdot, Open Source, and geekiness in general for not only posterity but &#x2606; GREAT PRIZES!! &#x2606; Prizes include the following:

&#x2660; A fresh box of QUAKER GRITS !
&#x2666; Your very own SLASHDOT CRUISER !
&#x2663; A hot date with NATALIE PORTMAN !
&#x2665; A genuine VA Lin^H^H^HSOFTWARE STOCK CERTIFICATE !

It doesn't get much better than this, folks! Here's how to play:

&#x262F; Fill in the crossword completely. No incomplete (or incorrect) solutions will be considered.
&#x262F; Once you're sure you have the crossword completely figured out, submit it to slashdot_crossword at engineer.com. If you indeed have the solution, one of the above four prizes are yours! The prizes are in limited supply (well, except for the VA stock certificates), so get those solutions in early!
&#x262F; The winners will be announced on 2002/04/28, to be praised in -1 crapfloods for all eternity (or at least until the crapflooders get bored and go back to posting gay Slashdot editor fanfics).

While we fully assert that this crossword is professional quality, there are of course some variations from the standard crossword form to make things more interesting for the Slashdot crowd. Some answers are used more than once. Digits (0-9) exist in some answers. Some clues are repeated with different answers. Many of the answers are acronyms or initialisms; if the answer that comes to mind doesn't fit, try thinking of common abbreviations for it. And, of course, the crossword indices are all in hexadecimal (this is Slashdot, after all!)

So, without further ado, here comes the crossword! Plain HTML is admittedly ugly and unpleasant to look at, so you may download and print a nice PDF version here (and thanks to Fiver-rah, a PostScript version is available here and here). Good luck! &#x263A;

+-&#32;+- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +-&#32;+- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|1 |2 |3 |4 |##|5 |6 |##|7 | |8 |##|9 |##|0a| |0b|0c|##|0d|&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+-&#32;+- +- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +-&#32;+-&#32;+- +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +-&#32;+- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|0e| | | |##|0f| |10| |##| |##|11| | |##|12| |13| |&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+-&#32;+- +- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +- +-&#32;+-&#32;+- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +-&#32;+- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
| &#160;|##|##| |##|14| | | |##|15|16| &#160;|##| |##|17| | | &#160;|&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+- +- &#43;- +- +- +-&#32;+-&#32;+- +- +- +- &#43;- +- +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|##|18| &#160;| |19|##|##|1a| |1b| &#160;| |##|##|##|1c|##&#124;##|##| |&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +- &#43;- +- +- +- +-&#32;+-&#32;+- +- +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|1d| &#160;|##|##| |##|1e| | | |##|1f|20|21|22| |23|##|24|##|&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+&#45; +- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- &#43;- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +-&#32;+- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|##|25|26|27| &#160;|##|##| |##|28|29|##|2a| | |##|2b|2c| &#160;|##|&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +- +-&#32;+&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|##|2d| &#160;| |##|2e|2f|##|##|30| | | |##| |##|31| &#160;| |##|&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +-&#32;+- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|##|##|##|32| | | &#160;|##|##|##| |##|##|33| |34|##| |##|##|&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+-&#32;+- +- +- +- +&#45;&#32;+- +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +&#45; +&#45; +- +- +-&#32;+- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|35|36|37|##|##|38| |39|##|3a|##|##|3b| &#160;|##| |##|3c| | |&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+-&#32;+-&#32;+- +- +- +&#45;&#32;+- +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- &#43;- +- +- +- +&#45; +- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|3d| | | &#160;|3e|##|##|3f| | &#160;|##|40|##|##|41| | | |##|##|&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+-&#32;+- +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +&#45; &#43;- +- +- +&#45; +-&#32;+- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
| &#160;|##|##|##|42| |43| |##|44| | |45| | | &#160;|##|46|47|48|&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+- +- &#43;- +- +&#45; +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +-&#32;+- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|49|4a| | | |##|4b| | &#160;| |##|4c| |##| |##|##|4d| | &#160;|&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+- +- +- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +- +&#45; +- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|##| &#160;|##|##| |##| &#160;|##|##|4e|4f| |##|50| |51|##|52| | |&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+-&#32;+- +- +&#45; +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +&#45; +- +- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|53| | | | |##| &#160;|##|54| | | | |##|55| | &#160;|##|##| |&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +- +&#45; +- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|56| |##|##|##|57| | |##|##|##| &#160;|##|##| |##|##|##|58| |&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+- +- +- &#43;- +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|59| &#160;|##|##|##|##| |##|5a| |5b|##|##|5c| |5d|##|5e|##| &#160;|&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+- +- +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +- &#43;- +- +- +-&#32;+- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
| |##|##|5f| |60| |##| |##| |##|61| &#160;|##|62|63| | |##|&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +- +- &#43;- +- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|##|64| | |##| |##|65| | | |##|##| |##|66| &#160;| |##|##|&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+- +-&#32;+- +- +- +- &#43;- +- +- +- +- +-&#32;+-&#32;+- +- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|67| |##|68| &#160;| |##|69| |##|6a| | &#160;| |##|6b| | | |##|&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +- +&#45; +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
|6c| | |##|##| |##|6d| | | &#160;|##|##|6e| | | | |##|6f|&#32;&#160;&#10;&#9;
+-&#32;+- +- +- +- +- +-&#32;+&#45; +- +- +- +- +- +- +-&#32;+- +- +- +- +-&#32;+

THE CLUES:

Across
&nbsp;1. This band must've been desperate for publicity to give an interview to Slashdot!
&nbsp;5. Crapflooder impersonated well by Silicon Simian.
&nbsp;7. A special treat you earn for Bad Posting.
0A. Sean Kelly's ex-lover and former SlashNET IRCop.
0E. Ew! Between the eyes!
0F. This dog won't mess your carpet, shed fur all over the place, or do much else besides consume batteries.
11. Living proof that you get what you pay for.
12. The soundtrack for the World Wide Web.
14. Disney makes money to destroy free speech on the Internet every time you buy ____ on DVD.
15. Slashcode's overglorified killfile.
17. You were writing FOX about "The Tick" when you should've been writing your congressman about this bill.
18. A very Snotty troll.
1A. This young Afghan loves watching movies and JonKatz on his C64.
1D. The best text editor EVER!
1E. What you say!! If you say it one more time, I'll bludgeon you to death!
1F. These guys gave Linux mono.
25. These shiny discs feed money into a bloated media cartel and stifle fair use rights, but you buy them by the millions anyway.
28. Slashdot's top comment poster and story submitter.
2A. These networks "disrupt" artists' cash flows.
2B. Open Source codeword for amphetamines.
2D. RAM type optimized for Extended Data Output on old Pentiums.
2E. Hillary Rosen knows you're just itching to steal Charley Pride's __.
30. A hack to get a kernel designed only to boot off floppy disks to boot off a hard drive.
31. ___ BREAK HEAD WITH OPEN-SOURCE CD!!!
32. Marketers who resort to this tactic are worse than Hitler and should be tortured and killed.
33. This desktop environment kicks GNOME's ass!
35. Microsoft sold off this Unix, and it's gone downhill ever since.
38. An essential e-mail utility for child pornographers and terrorists.
3B. (0A Down)'s lucky number.
3C. It's not Unix, and it shows.
3D. Preface for 90% of Slashdot comments, and 100% of CmdrTaco's personal ads.
3F. Where non-free software goes on your file system.
41. You better mark all the comments as ____ in metamod unless you want to lose karma.
42. This international standards body, no matter what you may think, does NOT read Slashdot.
44. Head bitch of the RIAA.
46. A primitive chat program superseded by AOL Instant Messenger.
49. An online webzine which demonstrated that online subscriptions don't work to everybody except CmdrTaco.
4B. If you moderate in a way CmdrTaco doesn't like, you earn this special database flag.
4C. vi does a poor job of emulating this standard Unix text editor.
4D. To B or not __ _.
4E. You won't get much use out of this text-recognition technology if all you use your scanner for is scanning your ass.
50. The sound Michael's head makes when he's stuffing it up his rectum.
52. Unique index for a whole LIST of babble.
53. The world's best operating system!
54. Father of Methuselah, or old-school Slashdot troll.
55. You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict this operating system's future.
56. Most geeks sleep through this half of the day.
57. This open-source man was Natalie's first.
58. Carly's mission is to steer this company into the ground.
59. mimbleton's favorite subject prefix.
5A. Chewing this might help your babbling problem.
5C. Programming language named after Lord Byron's daughter.
5F. Dead drummer for CmdrTaco's favorite band, or ridiculous Liberal myth.
61. Every Slashdotter's dream is to get one of these.
62. The Firm that is spelling Armageddon for free speech on The Net.
64. These networks are the beginning of Disorganized Crime.
65. Shitty "bitch band" whose leader likes to bitch about the RIAA.
66. The only Adequacy editor with a real PhD.
67. I think 7 over 22 is both backwards AND wrong.
68. Mentioning this droid (and others) is what is keeping you from getting laid.
69. Two-letter country code for Oman.
6A. Giving a ____ Necklace involves "coming" on Heidi Wall's bosom.
6B. What people who can't afford Visual Studio use to search text files.
6C. This hacker tool is often used to replace "characters" in "strings".
6D. QueenTaco's maiden name.
6E. The best text editor EVER!
6F. The PDP-11 assembler that thinks it's a programming language.

Down
&nbsp;1. Taco thinks that a purchase of his publicly traded company's services is a ___.
&nbsp;2. The self-centered Windows 9x release after 98SE.
&nbsp;3. 3D Tamagotchi game designed by Peter Molyneux.
&nbsp;4. A crippled Photoshop wannabe.
&nbsp;5. Lock your penis bird in a cage to protect it from this text-outputting animal.
&nbsp;6. Russian Geeks in Space.
&nbsp;7. If your karma surpasses 25, you have this and a problem.
&nbsp;8. Luckily, michael was born too late to join THIS party.
&nbsp;9. If this Slashdot section's color scheme doesn't drive you away, Michael's snotty editorial remarks will.
0A. Suffering cerebral palsy didn't stop him from becoming Surprised by Wealth.
0B. The market leader in megahertz lies.
0C. Statement used to declare variables in Visual Basic.
0D. Media cartel dedicated to protecting Britney Spears from dirty hackers.
10. Once the greatest Karma Whore ever, now a suicidal loser seen only on (33 Down).
13. Game console that bankrupted its parent company because of hackers making free games for it.
16. The only Unix understandable by non-geeks.
18. (40 Down) likes his pages ____.
19. Do many eyes make all bugs shallow, or do too many cooks spoil the broth?
1C. Research? Linux? Software? Whatever!
20. The first step towards failure for Linux companies.
21. Every Slashdotter's duty (except those marked with (4B Across)).
22. Apple's stylish new IP theft device.
23. (43 Down)'s employer.
24. A flaky Open-Source knockoff of (38 Across).
26. ESR's birthday present to RMS.
27. This primitive operating system denies any service to its users.
29. Unique index for a particular piece of babble.
2C. A tasty breakfast treat -- down your pants!
2E. You hit this once you get 50 karma points.
2F. This marketing guy troll sure is dumb!
33. This site is decidedly not Slashdot.
34. An easy way to lose all your karma is to offer your account for sale on this popular auction site.
35. Unfortunately, this famous online Nazi's treatment of the Censorware Project wasn't just a game.
36. Two-letter country code for the 51st state.
37. A geek's computer is always __.
39. ____, Lover, Aesthete, Programmer. There is no contradiction.
3A. The XP makes it go faster!
3E. The world's worst operating system!
40. The only troll with a freaks list longer than JonKatz'.
41. The OS all the cool people use now that Linux isn't trendy anymore.
43. A top-flight IT consultant who somehow manages to find time in his busy schedule to post to Slashdot.
45. What comes after as(1) and before strip(1) in the C build process.
47. VA Software has the world's worst ___.
48. This Senate bill comes closer to passing every time you go to see Lord of the Rings again.
4A. Legalized child pornography.
4F. What the Greeks went to Delphi for, Geeks go to this state for.
51. The Hellmouth should've eaten you here.
53. This rocker's battle against file-sharing networks won't end until he can Kill 'Em All.
5A. This desktop environment kicks KDE's ass!
5B. This modest and self-effacing troll was one of the first on Slashdot.
5C. You'd have to think different to justify spending money on this company's overpriced products.
5D. A game console which thought it was a full-featured computer system.
5E. Cofounder of Chips 'n' Dips.
5F. It may not have the best sound quality, but at least it's better than Ogg Vorbis.
60. Preface for the 10% of Slashdot comments not prefaced with (3D Across).
63. Apple stole all their ideas from this research group.
64. Bye bye, miss USian ___, drove the Cruiser like some loser who starts posts with a *sigh* ...
65. A dynamically updated list of the biggest losers on Slashdot.
67. Standard programming language implemented by most high-end printers.
6F. This language's lack of bounds checking is responsible for 90% of software security holes out there.

fin

User Journal

Journal: Linux 2.4 is an incredible step backwards

Journal by Starship Trooper
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 23, @01:46PM (#2338415)

[ed: my last AC troll, and the first truly successful troll penned by myself. This is the one that showed me the true potential of trolling, and inspired the creation of this account and my subsequent descent into depraved, unwashed, heathen trollery. :-) -S.Trooper]

The 2.2 series of Linux kernels were indeed impressive works, with stability and performance on par with the far more expensive products put out by commercial entities such Microsoft and Sun. Unfortunately, Linus and the other kernel developers decided to sit on their laurels as Windows, Solaris, and even FreeBSD surpassed Linux in almost every category, and then tried to "catch up" by pushing out a half-baked "2.4" kernel. Unfortunately, this gaffe has made Linux into all but a laughingstock of an operating system.

  • The copy-on-record algorithm used by the new VM is a horrible, O(n) NP-complete way of managing swap space. Any CS undergrad could come up with at least 20 better ways of managing the swap space, such as inverse buffer-partitioning or full-duplex write caching, which are used in FreeBSD to good effect.
  • The new ReiserFS's attribute-tree modeling produces even more pathetic disk performance. Opening a file takes three times longer than ext2fs in 2.2 kernels, and almost five times longer than using Windows 2000's block-spacing scheme used in NTFS. It is truly a pathetic, rushed product, whose mediocrity is hidden behind meaningless buzzwords such as "journalling".
  • The 2.4 developers made a huge mistake by replacing the 2.2 kernel's direct bus device management with a much clunkier frontside multiplex. This extra abstraction means that Linux has no chance of ever matching the AGP throughput of Windows, which is a necessary acheivement if Linux ever hopes to make headway into the home environment. Performance of all other devices, including USB devices, parallel-port printers, and IDE hard drives, is far lower than any competing operating system. The decreased hard drive performance is especially staggering when coupled with ReiserFS's depressed filesystem speed, making the whole Linux system entirely inadequate for even simple server tasks such as web serving.

It's plain to see that Linux 2.4 will never get off the ground; future versions promise only to bring more poorly-implemented systems into the fold. It is sad to see such a promising system waste away so; I would suggest using a 2.2 kernel to people interested in Linux, except that those kernels have been obsoleted by almost every other product in the marketplace. If you want to learn Unix, I suggest you go with Solaris or FreeBSD instead, or to just forget it and use Windows XP.

Ahead warp factor one, Mr. Sulu.

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