readily available supply of Nerf weapons

Which failed to prevent an ensuing three decades of continuous patent litigation between the two companies. Oh. Wait....

Signing a cross-licensing deal is a good outcome for both parties, depending on the terms.

Some of EE Doc Smith is at gutenberg.org. Fun stuff.

Credulity when it comes to pithy stories about "tree huggers" getting their comeuppance? Inconceivable! Why be skeptical?!?

We're working on copying tractors.

Note that the ancient Greeks had a form of copyright(?) on recipes on food made for the public. Once a new food was made, the chef had a 1 year license to make that specific dish before others could copy him/her.

Unfortunately, the source for this is at IU Bloomington's Lilly library. I do not recall the book at this time.

I like that idea.

Lets call it Flaming Chicken.

bok bok BKOK!

See signature below.

R. T. F. A.

That may be a weakness in your eyes, but remember that Win95 was an incredibly huge success for Microsoft. Just like the developer API is for Facebook. Warts and all.

"Microsoft doesn't let you use product codes more than once because they'd lose money if you re-use their product."

That's why many of my cheaper clients use Linux for basic computing needs. And it is also the reason I am fluent in dealing with small end business needs in regards to Windows and Linux.

For the record: I really thought that champagne cooler was empty.

In 1997, right after Chips n' Dips had faded away, to be replaced by the enigmatically named http:///..org, all of us free software nerds hung on its every story, comment and poll like it was carved on tablet and flung from a burning bush. A year later I had started at hardware maker VA Research and /. was falling down for lack of machinery, so we rummaged through our returns piles and sent Rob and Jeff some 2u servers to help out. That was for me the beginning of some of the most important friendships in my adult life.

Its hard to explain how important Slashdot was to all of us 10 years ago. Indeed, without it it would be hard to imagine HN, Reddit, Digg, Fark or any of a thousand lesser sites. The editorial perspective of Rob and the other editors of /. is what kept people coming back and for a long time that perspective was Rob's, then Rob and Jeff and a bunch of us (some, like Timothy and samzenpus, still around!), but then Jeff left, now Rob. In some way I see this as a passing of an era in free software.

Throughout, while some have left for those greener shores, slashdot abided even while buffeted by the markets and the de/evolving internet news world, and it has remained a default tab in my and many others' browsers.

I didn't mean this post to be about Slashdot though, but about my friend Rob. I'll only say that while the site will be the lessor for you leaving, I firmly believe that computer science will gain my. While this note reads like an epitaph or the last pages of a book, it is really no more than a thank you note from me and many I know to your for your decade+ of work on the site. So...

Thanks.

Go look up Doki Doki Panic for Famicom.

That's where US SMB2 came from. It was rebranded with "mario", and tougher. You had to beat the game with all characters, not just 1. And the waterfalls were headache-inducing.