To whom it may concern:

A while back, I was invited to take a look at the Slashdot beta. I looked at it and quickly decided that it was too painful to use, and hoped (vainly, I knew) that it would die a quiet death. Today, when logging into Slashdot, I was greeted with this cheery message:

MOVIN' ON UP. You are on Slashdot Classic. We are starting to move into new digs in February by automatically redirecting greater numbers of you. The new site is a work in progress so Classic Slashdot will be available from the footer for several more months. As we migrate our audience, we want to hear from you to make sure that the redesigned page has all the features you expect. Find out more.

In other words, we have here all the signs of a corporate "beta" site that will be rolled out regardless of user reaction. Let me be quite clear: "all the features I expect" are already on Slashdot (what you're adorably calling "Classic"). It works. It's not broken. Don't try to "fix" it, because the proposed "fix" irrevocably breaks the entire Slashdot look and feel.

When the beta becomes the only option (and I know it's almost certainly "when" at this point, not "if") Slashdot will become a ghost town. You will have killed what was once one of the most lively, interesting, and important sites on the web. I've loved this site for fifteen years now, but I'm not going to make myself suffer for the zombie wreck of something that used to be great.

Sincerely,
Daniel Dvorkin
UID 106857

EXCLUSIVE: Obama's pot dealer beaten to death for farting in gay lover's face http://dailym.ai/1lmjJHa

https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*PQn-_0Cx3ZUmBIg4x7tybg.jpeg

All hail the mighty pen of the executive, able to correct immigration abuse, low wages for federal contractors, retroactively change the course of technology in the oil industry (did Dr. Who imbibe the pen with the powers of the Tardis?) and even able to declare global warming a fact by fiat.

The executive order has become the law of the land. I guess THIS is how democracy dies.
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Go here for more laughs from the State of the Onion

This morning i went to put gas in the car. I switched gas stations because i don't like answering three-million questions before being able to start the gas pumping. Sheesh, ask if if i want a receipt after it starts, why waste so much precious time (in the freezing weather)!

So, i went to a Valero station as they tend to be a little cheaper. They are not on the corner either, making them harder to get to; i'll see if i continue going there. A couple cents a gallon isn't something to get inconvenient over.

Anyway, on the pump there was a sign, "Please pre-pay before pumping".

Last week i overheard part of a conversation. Someone asked, "what's that in celsius, -40?"

And behold, i chuckled.

What is the missing 3rd factor?

http://i.imgur.com/4rwDfhw.jpg

Where is the rate over time?

http://i.imgur.com/1MZeWdo.gif

http://numero57.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/modern-political-spectrum.png

When we moved to Hungary we had to buy appliances as Europeans believe in big power. And I wouldn't want to have shipped stuff like that anyway. We bought a refrigerator from Bosch because we figured it would be high quality.
 
The compressor on it died the 28th of December. We called out a guy and he informed us that he could replace it for about $250 or we could have it done under warranty. We thanked him and called the warranty people. They came out and told us it would take a week to get the new part. That week turned into two. Finally a guy came out to install it. We were done.
 
That night it died. I think he put it in wrong but I'm not sure. Either way I had to call them back out. They new guy that came said the new compressor was "kaput" and that it would take a week to get one. That was last Tuesday. They are supposed to come put it in tomorrow. So we are coming up on real close to a month.
 
I don't think I'll be buying one of their products again after this.

I started a project to do my homework for the week in the Android class I'm taking. I've been doing the bulk of my work on a desktop machine in my office. This week-end I also set up a dev environment on my Fedora laptop at home. I don't want to have to monkey with copying files and carrying them back and forth so today I set up a GitHub repo so that I could use it to keep things in sync.

I'm no git expert. In the past what I've done is create a project in github with a couple pieces in place. Then I pull that down to a directory on my machine, add the files I need and then push all that back up.

Today I took a little bit of a different approach. I created the project. Then in bash I went to the root directory of the project and set things up. It took me a minute to get it all figured out. The git reference on remotes was a huge help. There is also the JetBrains documentation on git with IntelliJ which is what Android studio is built on.

For my own reference - once I got the project built I needed to add everything. First I went to github and made a repo - but I made it empty, not like I usually do. Then I went to the root of my project in bash.

git add .

and then make an initial commit

git commit -m 'initial commit'

I set up the remote

git remote add origin https://github.com/bittercode/learnandplay.git (bittercode is my github user name and learnandplay is the name of the repo I set up.)

Then I pushed the code to the remote

git push -u origin master

And that put it all up at github. Now I should be able to go home and pull it all down there. I also set up AndroidStudio so that it now handles all the git stuff. When I created a new activity it asked me about adding them to git - so I just said that it should default to yes and now I'm on the fast track to happy days.

I use Google Voice to ring my cell phone and office phone (amongst others). The problem is, the office phone picks up after two rings. It's a Cisco CP-7942G, an ip phone. The time to ring setting is global. Seriously?!

So, the office phone picks up first. This isn't usually a problem, because i am by the office phone during the hours i set Google Voice to use it. But yesterday, for example, was a Monday that i was not in the office, it still picked up first because i forgot to turn it off.

Been playing Battle Monkeys.

Learning what each icon does and proc-order is important, but i haven't seen it explained in detail in one place. So, i decided to place a start, here, so as to have it somewhere:

Each Item can be used once. When used, the icon disappears.

Names appearing on four-part screen before game starts are colored based on rank.

Players can have between 1 and 100 Health.
        - If avatar receives health that would give it more than 100 Health, it is set to 100 Health.
        - If avatar receives damage that would give it less than 1 Health, it is removed from the game.

Avatars take turns:
        - By default, turns are taken in order, from left to right. (i.e. avatar with lowest ranking to highest ranking)
        - Order of actions can change the order of turns, which becomes the new order for subsequent rounds.

If two avatars qualify for an action as a result of a rule, the avatar affected is chosen at random. (Perhaps it is in the same as turn order, that round.)

If an action applies to more than one turn, it is also applied to the current turn.
        - Therefore, even though an action is shown as "+2", the board will show it as if it was 3.

Order of actions on a turn is:
        - Push (Where applicable)
        - Mace (If player is still in Mace from previous turn)
        - Poison (If player is still in Poison from previous turn)
        - Debonus
        - Health, Full Health, Shield, Vanish, Extra Jump
        - The rest (including new Mace and Poison)

Order is very important. For example:
        - An avatar in Poison with 10 (or less) Health, has no recourse for more health.
                - (If all other other avatars are in the same predicament, and go first, player can still win.)
        - Being in Mace and landing on Mace, means Mace actions twice on that turn.
        - An avatar in Poison that lands on a Vanish square, applies Vanish after the poison.
                - So, the damage received from Poison will not affect Vanish.
                - Poison on the next turn will affect Vanish.

All icons have a color:
        Green Health to self
        Red Damage to self
        Blue No Health or Damage to self or others.
        Yellow (potential) Damage to others

Push (event) - Avatar is moved off the current square.
          - When more than one avatar lands on the same square, a die is rolled for each.
                - The same number will not appear on more than one die.
                - The avatar with the highest number applies Push to each of the other avatars.
        - Push moves the avatar to an adjacent square. The avatar receives 10 damage.
        - An avatar on an edge square may land off the board. That avatar receives 100 damage.
        - If as a result of Push, an avatar lands on a square occupied by another avatar:
                        - In Single Player mode, the process runs again, for the new square.
                        - In Multiplayer mode, both avatars occupy the same square:
                                - The avatar that landed on the square first treats the square normally.
                                - The other avatar does not make use of the square, but can receive damage.

Health (heart, green) - Player receives 35 - 45 health

Lava (8 pointed star with outline, red) - Player receives points 35 - 45 damage

Extra Jump (up arrow with line through it, blue) - Player receives 4 (turns) to Extra Jump.
        - During Extra jump, player can move 4 squares (instead of the usual 3.)

Vanish (8 lines in circle around dot, blue) - Player receives 2 (turns) to Vanish.
        - Vanish ends prematurely if player takes any damage.
        - If player stays in Vanish for 10 turns, player receives Ninja Achievement.
        - During Vanish player becomes untargetable and avatar is not shown (mace and shield are)

Mace (mace, yellow) - Player receives 2 turns to Mace.
        - Players in Mace target all targetable avatars within one square of player.
        - Target receives 35 damage.

Shield - (double-lined shield, blue) - Player receives 2 turns to shield.
        - Players in Shield (and not in Sleep) are protected from all damage except Smackdown and Push.
        - Player in Shield can still receive Sleep.
        - If player is also in Sleep, Shield is not active, but does consume a turn.

Sleep (Zzz, blue, targeted) - Target receives 1 (turn) to Sleep.
        - Sleep end prematurely if target takes any damage.
        - Target is avatar closest to player.
        - During Sleep target does not consume any square's icons.

Debonus (encircled x, blue) - All avatars other than player are put in normal state. (Does not affect Health.)

Poison (skull with two injectors through it, yellow, targeted) - Target receives 2 (turns) to Poison.
        - During poison, player receives 10 damage.
        - Target is Avatar with highest health.

Meteor (circle with 3 circles inside of it, and 3 triangles outline of it, yellow, targeted)
        - Target receives 30-35 (usual), 40 ("Big"), or 50 ("Epic") damage.
        - If target has a shield, target takes no damage.
        - Target is avatar that player received the most damage from.
        - If no other avatars are targetable, player becomes target, even if in Vanish.

Lightning (lightning bolt, yellow, targeted) - Targets receive 30 damage.
        - All targetable avatars (other than player) receive 30 damage.

Shotgun (rifle, yellow) - Avatars in the row or column of player receive 40 damage.
        - Avatars with Shield or behind an avatar in Shield (relative to player), are exempt.

Shockwave (circle with 2 jagged outlines, yellow) - Avatars within 3 squares of player receive damage.
        - Avatars within 1 square receive 40 damage, within 2 receive 30 damage, within 3 recieve 20 damage.

Special (star with outline, white) - Special changes by avatar type.
        - Monkey - No special. (Icon is still consumed.)
        - Chimp - Banana bombs.
                - Avatars in every column other than player's column receive 45 damage.
                - Avatar in Shield, or behind an avatar in Shield (relative to bottom of field) are exempt.
        - Baboon - Smackdown (targeted) - Target receives 45 damage.
        - Orangutang - Full Health
                - Player's Health set to 100, even if game is Special: No Health.
                - Player receives 3 (turns) to Shield.
                - If player is in Poison, it is removed.
        - Gorilla - Machine Gun (targeted) - Avatar receives 75 damage.

Berserker (clenched fist, blue) - Player receives 3 turns to Berserker.
        - During Berserker all received damage from player, except Push, is doubled.
        - Initial damage of each Poison is doubled. Subsequent damage is not.
        - Special: Berserker triple damage causes triple damage instead of double.

JOURNALISM!
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2014/01/14/victim-of-dog-authorized-anal-assault-receives-1-6-million-settlement/

And

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/we-better-move-on.html