So as we've been migrating the system from the tired old D1 to the exciting and awesome new D2 a number of complaints have come up. I'm going to talk about a couple of them here because I'm really looking for feedback on THESE issues. Please only talk about these points or I will mod you offtopic or troll or something.

The issue is about the use of Flat/Threaded/Nested modes. D2 cleanly replaces both threaded and nested modes- you effectively get nested mode by bringing the 2 sliders together. And threaded mode is vastly more flexible because you can choose the level at which comments are abbreviated or displayed in full text. So users of those modes should be set (obviously there are other reasons not to use D2, I'm just talking about the layouts here tho)

What's left is flat mode, which has a number of sort options. Now flat mode is used by roughly 4% of our active population. When i think about flat mode, I think about 2 reasons you would have to use it:

1. I hate indenting and whitespace. I want a big vertical column now this isn't my bag, but I can understand it and even consider supporting it in D2. I think you sacrifice legibility, but this is a personal preference. It also would be easy to support in D2. Hell, you could probably do it in a greasemonkey script no problem.
2. It's easier to remember your place in flat mode This to me is the only reason to use flat mode- you can reload your page an hour later, find the last comment you read, and pick up where you left off.

Now I Would think that the only reason to use flat mode is #2... except that only a couple hundred Slashdot readers have the 'ignore threads' sort order enabled. So either they don't understand what they are doing, or #1 above is the real reason that they use flat mode.

So in a nutshell, the question I am asking in this journal is 'Why do you use flatmode?' Is it cosmetic? To more easily keep your place in a discussion? Something I'm just missing? We have plans to implement a read/unread state retention for discussions, so maybe would you migrate to a threaded view if that function exists? Or is it purely aesthetic... an irrational hatred of scrollbars and whitespace? :)

The reason this matters is that simply formatting the page flatly is easy. Probably a simple greasemonkey hack or maybe a few lines of CSS. But re-implementing the alternate sort is gonna take some work. And I'm ok with that... except that the logs say that nobody actually USES that sort... they ONLY are using flat mode for the cosmetic reasons.

Speak out! Stay on-topic or you WILL be moderated down.

To all my friends who actually have artistic talent, can someone please
draw me a stick figure in a bell hop uniform (ya know, the pill box type
hat, and jacket), pinned to a wall by several arrows sticking out of his
arms and chest, with X's for eyes, and blood dripping from the arrow
holes sticking out of him? If you've ever played Kingdom of Loathing,
that style of stick figure is what I'm looking for. (see
http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/) The text beneath it should read,
"Porter Arrows".

I need it for the wiki at work.

What an asshole!

In-Place Posting is now live for all logged in users. Hopefully there are no surprises. We've found a number of very tiny bugs, but nothing show stopping. We'll leave the link up to the 'classic' reply form for a few weeks. Next week anonymous coward will get the new posting form... hopefully there are no surprises with that.

A few new keybindings aren't documented yet... v (end) t (top) [] change upper threshold and ,. change bottom threshold. Also 'r' opens the new reply box, m opens the mod total thingee.

The only major complaint so far is that the design changes consume a lot more whitespace. I have mixed feelings on the subject, but am aiming to strike a balance. We noticed 2 very clear places where the whitespace is excessive and hopefully that will be fixed RSN. But on the other hand, making deep threads visually clear, and drawing some attention to the 'reply' buttons is beneficial to everyone, so bare with us as we work to strike some sort of balance.

1. Yes
2. No
3. OMG!!! PONIES!!!!
4. OMG!!! Cowboy Neal!!!!

Discussion2 rolls on... the most recent addition to the system is in-place comment posting. Essentially, little dynamic ajaxy slideout boxes to post directly within the thread, without going to a stand-alone page. This is great because you don't have to lose your place within the thread to post.

this functionality is currently only available to paid subscribers, and several hundred of them have tested it out already. We still need to make it look pretty and add a few minor things (like the CAPTCHA for anonymous posting) but it's almost done.

Also worth noting is that logged in users can click on the 'Score' field of comments to view the moderation information on the comment. This information was previously not visible within D2, unless you navigated outside the d2 system (opening a comment in a new window did it). I doubt most people really care about this info, but it's available.

We also have one (perhaps minor) thing to get in... right now if you visit a comment directly via a CID link you can navigate within that thread, but navigating 'up' the comment hierarchy results in a new page, and a new discussion... this makes context a pain to maintain. So pudge is going to change that page to display the parent posts in an abbreviated format. This will mean that you can climb back up the thread easily, even if you entered the forum via a link deep into a thread.

A few minor items left on the todo list (keybindings for threshold changes... maybe press 'r' to open the reply slideout from the current comment, and a bunch of small design issues to make the threads a little more visually clear and easily navigatable) and we're ready to call D2 finished.

We have no plans to remove D1, so those of you who hate D2 are welcome to stay on the old system, but obviously new moderation tools and whatever else we think of will be attached to D2, not D1, so you've been warned ;)

I have just received an email from Bruce Perens informing me that he is running for the executive board of the Open Source Initiave, or OSI. Bruce's candidacy is about the "...over-representation of vendors, particularly the kind that have an Open Source product as their profit-center rather than part of operations." Bruce has setup a page asking for signatures to assist him in getting elected to the board. Won't you please sign?

So, you didn't like my blog entry from yesterday...
Current mood: bitchy

Ok. That's cool. I get that. Mind you, it was all very 'stream-of-consciousness' style stuff, and really could have been better written, both for flow and clarity.

For example, I really should have redacted OSO1 & OSO2's names from the start. I have apologized to them for that, but now I'm doing so publicly as well. Fair is fair, after all. They deserve that much respect from me, and a lot more than I showed yesterday.

Second, someone seems to think it's none of my business who she's fucking. You know what? She's right. What *IS* my business is not getting woken up at 3am by the fiancee of the person she's fucking, because he's over at her place at 3am. You think it's wrong of me to get pissed? I should just be happy to get woken up at 3am? I should just file the whole thing away, shouldn't say anything to anyone, and should what - be happy that I got woken up by a friend in pain because she didn't know where my room mate was?

OH HELL NO!!!

If you don't like me calling you on your bullshit, make sure it doesn't result in my being woken up at 3am. Make sure it doesn't hurt anyone I care about. Other than that, I don't really give a fuck. I have tried to be your friend, I can only assume from your blog that you don't care to be, and that's fine. I have enough of my own mental health issues on my plate right now, I don't need your drama.

Why is it I'm the asshole here, exactly? I'm not lying to anyone. I said it last time, I'll say it again - Polyamory is about open, honest, ethical non-monogamy. Don't feel like adhering? Fine, don't! You have no one but yourself to blame when others point fingers and call you on your shit. I can't believe I was ever attracted to you. *** shudder ***

I like you, most of the time. I just don't like what you're doing to my friend, Ashley. I think it's fucking bullshit.

I'm very upset about this, as I don't like to see my friends hurt, and also because OSO2 and 'the older woman' are getting along so famously. Mind you, this is actually a good thing. They both deserve good friends, and other than this issue, I don't really have a problem with 'the older woman'. I know that she's lacked for friends around here, and that's a shitty place to be. I'm happy for her and OSO2 both that they're getting along well. I just don't see why another friend of mine has to get hurt by all of this. Sad, really, but I can't do anything about it.

I love OSO2, and I don't want to upset, hurt, or disappoint her, but I have my own needs just as she has hers. I had hoped we were strong enough to weather this, and I still hope that we are. It's always a bad sign when you get luke warm reactions from someone at best. :-(

OSO1 seems to be taking it very well that I won't go over to her house anymore. She understand my reasons, and agrees with them, which is a plus. At least my whole life hasn't gone to hell in a hand basket. I love her and OSO2 very much, and I hope they understand that for me, this is like therapy. It helps me a LOT to get these things OUT in the open.

So, it's been an odd few days.

For starters, Dot/Karen looked at my profile on OK Cupid. I really wasn't prepared to see her in my stalkers list, and I never thought she'd so much as look at my profile again. It seems that's all it was however, was idle curiosity. I wrote her a note encouraging her to talk to me, and letting her know that I wasn't mad at her any more, but also telling her I could never let her that close to me ever again. After all, I nearly stepped in front of a train because of her... I told her that what she did was needlessly cruel, but that I did still love her, and wanted to talk.

No response.

Sigh. Why did she even have to look at my profile, then? I was doing so much better. I didn't feel the constant pain of her absence, I have been throwing myself into my work very hard. I didn't miss her, I have been building up a stable of relationships so that no one person can ever derail me like that again. My therapist tells me that I am not to obsess over her, that I need to go on as before, but it is SO damn hard.

Plus, Debbie broke it off with me. Now, I shouldn't be surprised by this, I know better than to date non-poly women, but still. She was very sweet, and loving. We had a date to go see the Shedd, which I absolutely love going to do. I had told her all along that I had to go home on the 4:30 train and that I had plans. I didn't tell her what those plans were, because she had asked me specifically NOT to tell her about things with my 'other women' as she put it, so I didn't. As it turns out, I had a date with Veronica that evening. She got kind of distant, didn't want to make plans to see me later in the week, and then broke up with me on IM. Now, I can't really blame her for that - she mentioned that she was upset, and didn't want to discuss it on IM, but I am the kind of person who gets VERY worried if something is wrong, to the point that I won't be able to function until I find out what it is, and I told her as much. I'm glad she told me, but I wish she'd been honest with me from the start, and I don't feel that she was.

So, I'm down to just Cindy and Veronica at this point, and I'm pretty happy with that, for the most part... Every relationship has it's issues, and most of mine stem from other people. I don't want to say who, but there's someone else in Cindy and Veronica's life who makes it difficult for us all to get along by acting like a complete child. It seems that it's ok to talk shit about me behind my back, whine that I cut into his time with them, and yet be distant, an asshole, and treat them like property at the same time.

I took pity on this guy, even after he made the VERY serious mistake of threatening me physically. I sat down with him at dinner, along with the two lovely ladies in our lives, Cindy and Veronica, and I laid it all out for him - the whole poly 'thing' since he clearly isn't poly, doesn't get poly, and does the two things that PISS ME OFF more than anything else in the world: He uses 'Poly' as a code word for 'I get to fuck anyone I want, and still be an insecure ass', and he treats Cindy and Veronica like property.

So, bearing that in mind, I step back from my (deserved, righteous) anger, and I try to reach out to him. I try to teach him what Poly is all about, why it's important to respect your partners, and give him a copy of "The Book" to read. (as an aside, "The Book" is a variable for what you think is the most important work on a given subject. For me, regarding polyamory, it's "The Ethical Slut: a Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities")

What does he do? He gives the book to Veronica, tells her to give him the cliff notes version, and continues to talk shit about me behind my back, and whine about poor him poor him poor him.

Not to put too fine a point on it, fuck that shit, I'm done. I no longer give a flying fuck about him. I wouldn't piss down his throat if it was on fire. I will be polite to him, I will not do anything to purposely antagonize him, and I will not disrespect him back in his own home, but I will never respect him, and I will do everything I possibly can to make sure I spend as little time around him as I can manage. I just don't need that shit. I have enough of my own drama.

Speaking of drama, I got woken up at 3:11am last night by my room mates girl friend / fiancée, who wanted the number of our other mutual friend, Kim. See, Kim (who Cindy introduced me to) and 'the boy' as she calls him are 20 years apart in age, and are riding the hobby horse together. She denies this, but I know better. Why else is he over there at 3am? Why else did she buy a brand new, top of the line PS3 which she then loaned him? Why doesn't the fiancée have her number directly? Why can't the room mate do his chores? Why is my sleep interrupted? I mean, for fuck sake, the only reason I'm letting the 18 year old boy stay there is because I need a maid. I am on the train 4 hours a day, and work 9+. I'm old enough that I actually NEED 8 hours of sleep, if not more, and that leaves precious little time for the housework he's not doing. I finally told him today that either he starts doing his end of things, or I will find someone who will. That, and I REALLY need to not get woken up by his personal little love triangle.

I was really mad at Kim. She's the adult in the situation, and isn't acting like it. True, I was most angry because *I* wanted to fuck her, and he swooped in and nailed it first. That kinda pissed me off. Again, no respect for the Poly lifestyle. He's also not understanding that it's Honest, Ethical, Consensual, Non-monogamy. This wasn't the first time he'd done that to me, either, and it's getting on my nerves.

I really dislike it when someone uses my lifestyle for all it's benefits but refuses to accept the responsibilities that come with it! That makes me actively ANGRY, in fact. I'm trying to be mindful of the fact that he's a kid still, he's only 18, and that he's got to learn. Still, it's annoyingly like raising a puppy.

Also to work.... Guess I should go now. More thoughts later, I'm sure.

In the last few weeks, we've switched most users over to the new 'D2' discussion system- a fully ajaxified discussion system. There are a number of minor bugs, but I figured I'd toss up a few quick notes to address the biggest user complaints.

1. you can turn it off if you log in. Some people get stuck in there ways, and no matter what we build it will never make you happy. So you can have the old lame system and we'll all enjoy the new cool system without you.
2. you can get 'nested' mode back by dragging the 2 thresholds together in the floating slider. they connect and become a single thing. it's quite nifty, and if you are logged in the setting is remembered so you don't have to click to navigate deep threads.
3. you can get more comments at once from the 'prefs' link. the default is currently 50, but choosing 'many' changes that (currently) to 250, which means you will get roughly the average number of comments in a typical slashdot story. Yes you will need to click 'more' on a huge discussion, but at that point we're talking about very large pages and slower computers like to choke on huge pages anyway so we have to balance size and performance.

there are 2 huge wins here for everyone... the first is retention of context. You can wade into a thread, retrieve more comments, change your threshold, all without losing your place like you did in the old system. And using the WASD keys to navigate makes it very easy to peruse discussions in a number of interesting ways. mouseover the help text in the floater for more information about how they work. We're open to suggestions on how this should work- i'm not totally happy with it yet... but it *is* possible to mash a single key and go from start to end of a discussion, which pleases me.

the second is that the default users see the highest score comments first. You can change this by logging in and toggling the retrievable order to oldest first, but for most people this means that the first comments they see will be the best. There are so many great comments on Slashdot, but most users don't see them because they are buried within the discussion. I think this goes a long ways towards helping.

A final word about the ads in there- unfortunately there are ads in the new system. Changing from a static page-page-page system to a dynamic ajax system with a single 'page load' causes us to serve hundreds of thousands of fewer ads. We worked out roughly how long people read discussions and are trying to strike a balance so that you see roughly the same number of ads under this system as you would have under the old one. We'll tweak it of course, but we gotta pay the bills here people!

And obviously all of this is a work in progress. Pudge is leading development work on this. The next project is to make it possible to post without losing your place in the discussion, and then to refine navigation keybindings and thread expansion/contraction controls to make the whole UI clean. We appreciate constructive criticisim. There are bugs (especially in IE, but almost no slashdot user runs IE) but we're mashing them out- thanks for your feedback on them. As we sand off the rough edges I think you'll all find the new system a vast improvement if you just play with it for a bit and give it a fair chance. Not all change is bad ;)

I'm sure they'll love this in dot.poly_snark... ... but I really don't care. Nothing matters anymore. Nothing. I had all of my worst fears confirmed today. The one I loved more than anything in this world, doesn't care about me, at all. Takes the "It's not my problem anymore, so I don't care" attitude toward me, to what was us, to my pain and suffering. I. Don't. Matter. I didn't matter then, either, I suspect. I feel like I was used, and she lied to me. She said that she loved me, too, and that it was intense for her, too. Then she just cut the cord, refused to speak to me. Today, I learned the real truth. I wanted to post the whole log here, of the conversation where I learned the truth, but that wouldn't be fair to the person I had the conversation with. I feel that I want to die, now. I think it's the only way I'll stop feeling like this. It's been almost two months, and nothing is getting any better. It just gets worse, and worse. I can't take it anymore. Anything is better than this pain. When I was young, and very stupid, I tried to swallow a bottle of pills (aspirin) to erase the pain. What I now know to be the lesson from that, is that pills don't always work. I wish it had. I wish I'd never had this relationship, so that I wouldn't feel this way now. I don't matter. At all. I never will matter to her again. Why keep going? To put it in the vernacular of the geeks I work with - "Epic Fail".

It would be terribly wrong of me to reveal the private conversation I had with her husband, but I think it's ok for me to share my side of the conversation. Esp. after redacting anything that could be used to identify who I'm talking about, right?

{My Stupid Ass}: Sigh. I'm guessing that you and I really aren't going to have a chance to talk? I really wish I knew if {The one I love the most} was ever going to talk to me again. I feel like an idiot even asking at this point.
{My Stupid Ass}: This is killing me. I'm sorry, I shouldn't even bring it up. There's just so much I don't understand, and I really need to. I don't want to burden you with it, I really, really don't. I almost don't know what I would do if she DID talk to me, you know? I have a lot of fear either way, now. On the one hand, I'd like nothing more than to be able to have SOME sort of relationship, but on the other, I keep thinking, 'how could someone do this to you, if they really did care about you at all in the first place?' and that leaves me very, very confused. I feel like I was used, and spit out on the sidewalk when the flavor ran out. It has made me feel that something was wrong with me, that I am somehow less than. There's more, but I don't feel comfortable, completely going into it. I just feel that this was really, really shitty. One thing that _really_ bothers me is, if she knew for a month that she wanted to break up, why did she ask me to buy you guys groceries? I don't care about the $300 worth of food - it's more the willingness to USE me like that which bothers me. Ditto all the meals out. Ugh. I'm sorry. I just don't know what to say. I just know that I don't want to feel this way anymore, and I'm the only one not getting closure here.
{My Stupid Ass}: Would YOU do that to {Husband's Girlfriend}? Or anyone? Unless I am very much mistaken, I doubt that you would.
{My Stupid Ass}: So, what makes it ok to do this to me? :((
{My Stupid Ass}: She never put it in those terms. She said that there were things she was unhappy with, and I was for working on them. She never, at any point, said she wanted to break up with me. My plea to her not to break up with me was based only on my own intuition.
{My Stupid Ass}: {Her Husband}, I loved her more than anyone, and the really sad thing is, I still do. Even after all of this, I'd give anything just to have her smile at me one more time, or even just give me a hug. I'm glad I'm alone at work, because I'm crying sitting here typing this. I never, ever, had the slightest clue that she was unhappy enough to want to break up, and she never gave me any indication of that. We had a total of 3 conversations in the history of our relationship where her being less than happy with anything even came up, and none of them were put into "I'm unhappy about this enough to end the relationship" terms.
{My Stupid Ass}: I really wanted to do this in person.
{My Stupid Ass}: But I'm really suffering.
{My Stupid Ass}: I'm sorry if that seems selfish. I don't mean to be. Sometimes, these things don't happen on a timetable that's equitable for everyone. All I know is, I can't function well, and this is affecting every single other relationship that I have.
{My Stupid Ass}: No one seems to understand, either, which is really hard to deal with. I get shit on from all sides about it, or just plain ignored by {The one I love the most}, which is driving me CRAZY.
{My Stupid Ass}: Even if it's not what I want to hear, I get the nagging feeling that I'm not getting the truth, or the whole truth.
{My Stupid Ass}: If she just wanted a fling, she should have been honest about that with me.
{My Stupid Ass}: That wasn't what I wanted, I'm tired of that. I was looking for a real relationship, you know? And the really sad thing is, as short as it was, that was the best relationship of my life. I'm sure that's a big big part of why it's so hard to let it go.
{My Stupid Ass}: I wish she'd told me that, at the start.
{My Stupid Ass}: She never did.
{My Stupid Ass}: As my feelings got deeper, and deeper, I had no idea the relationship was in trouble. I thought we had a few relatively minor issues to work out. Nothing more. I felt such shock when I came home that night. I literally dropped everything I was holding, completely shocked. :44:59{My Stupid Ass}: The worst part is, I can't even get it together to be angry at HER for it. I spend a lot of time inventing excuses for her, figuring that anyone who's that good and kind a person couldn't do this to someone intentionally. I know I should be mad, and at her, but I just can't. It's not that her actions don't warrant it - far from it. It's that I can't bear to feel that way about someone I love.
{My Stupid Ass}: I just feel really worthless now. My self-esteem is at an all time low. Not that that is in any way your problem, or that you can do anything about it, but that's part of where I'm coming from.
){My Stupid Ass}: I knew she couldn't. I knew it, and it didn't matter to me. I really genuinely was happy with whatever attention she was willing to give me. As I said in the letter to her, she may have felt like she was throwing scraps to a dog, but if the dog is happy with the scraps, who really cares in the end?
{My Stupid Ass}: I never pressured her about it, far from it. If it ever came up, I tried to stress to her that I was completely happy with the status quo.
{My Stupid Ass}: What else could I say? I always, always told her the truth. Short of brain surgery, I don't know how I can change it.
{My Stupid Ass}: Nor am I suggesting either of us can actually DO anything, you know?
{My Stupid Ass}: People are funny that way.
{My Stupid Ass}: What I don't get, is why she didn't tell ME at all, ever?
{My Stupid Ass}: If she had told me, "Don't ever bring up how you feel about me again so I can be comfortable, and not end our relationship" I'd have said, "Yes, Ma'am." saluted smartly, and done exactly that.
{My Stupid Ass}: It surely would have been better than living in hell.
{My Stupid Ass}: And oh my God, do I live in hell now. Every single damn time I try to talk to {My annoying OSO1} about it, all I get is an earful about how " {The one I love the most's nickname} did this to me" and " {The one I love the most's nickname} did this to our relationship" and "Why do you still defend her" and "blah blah blah blah" and then she wonders why I broke up with her!!! She wonders why I'll take care of her kids, but don't want ANYTHING like a relationship with her! {My OSO2} at least understands, and tries to be supportive.
{My Stupid Ass}: I really wonder something else... And it's really none of my business, but, did she do this same thing to {Her old OSO}, too? Is this like a pattern? There are some things that I think I will never understand. How did she get under my skin so quickly? Why did this happen? I have always, always, always been SO in control of my emotions, not a slave to them like I am now. But... That control is gone. Any pretense at being emotionally strong is gone. Sigh. I doubt I'm making any sense to you here, and if so, I apologize. I wish I could convey to you what this ordeal has been like. More than that, I almost wish she could feel what this has done to me, emotionally, but then I think, hey - I wouldn't wish that on someone I didn't even like, much less someone I care about. You know?
{My Stupid Ass}: She has, or rather, had a point there.
{My Stupid Ass}: I 100% agree with her on that. I hope to god I never have another relationship like this again, because I think the next time.... Well, that's not really an issue, because there will never be another time like this. I can't handle this kind of rejection again.
{My Stupid Ass}: I know, but I question so much now. If so many of my underlying assumptions were untrue, which they'd have to be to have this happen, then what else do I have wrong?
{My Stupid Ass}: Right now, I just don't think I can let anyone ever get that close again, you know?
{My Stupid Ass}: I still hit {The website we met on} every day, but if they're too much like {The one I love the most}, I block them... which is really funny, because she's like my ideal woman now. lol. I'm actually afraid, though. Does that make any sense, or am I as crazy as I suspect I am? Seriously, that's not a joke question at all.
{My Stupid Ass}: Is she mad that I talk to you?
{My Stupid Ass}: Is she mad at me for anything?
{My Stupid Ass}: It just hurts so much. :((
{My Stupid Ass}: I go through the motions, every single day, but it's like the whole world is grey now.
{My Stupid Ass}: I got a NASTY shock the other day, when I realized that I'm not allowed to see things in her LJ anymore... That made me
feel even lower, like, there's something wrong with me, and so she how has to hide things from me.

---
This is where I finally get the full impact of a part I can't post, because I didn't write it. This was the moment, where I realized just how far into hell I am.
---

{My Stupid Ass}: Oh wow. I'm not even worth worrying about anymore... I don't matter at all. Wow. I see.
{My Stupid Ass}: I mean nothing.
{My Stupid Ass}: I meant nothing.
{My Stupid Ass}: I'm sorry, {Her Husband}.
{My Stupid Ass}: No, {Her Husband}. I don't believe that anymore. You can't take that attitude to someone if you love them. I never did anything wrong that I have been made aware of.
{My Stupid Ass}: No one is that cruel, and callous.
{My Stupid Ass}: I have no idea what to say now.
{My Stupid Ass}: I'm very sorry, I shouldn't have brought this up at all.
{My Stupid Ass}: Please tell {The one I love the most}, that I love her. Please tell {The one I love the most}, that I'm so very sorry. I will not ever be a bother to you again, I promise.

My journal's moving. The new URL is http://lottadot.blogspot.com/

You can pick it up via RSS at http://lottadot.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Why stop posting here? Simple, I can include images, slashdot javascript, digg javascript, embed javscript (ie slide shows), google ads, voting polls, as well as control the "slashboxes" that appear with my journal/blog articles elsewhere. I get traffic-stats (analytics).

While I do absolutely love Slashot's (and Slashcode's) discussion system (D2 rocks), as well as the friend's-journal-notification system, the other benefits outweigh it. More and more people are using RSS to know when their friends post something at {insert site/system here} such that the friend's notification isn't really needed all that much, except for the very novice user. And that type of user, maybe except for my Mom, couldn't care squat about my journal/blog entries. After-all, most people don't comment at all, though they are assumedly reading my ramblings.

And the best part, is I don't have setup another VM or web-head-machine or special blogging software to make it happen. I just use a free blogging service. Am I entirely reliant up on it? Yup. Am I that concerned that Google would go away tomorrow and my journal would disappear? nah.

Is there a GOOD way to get around LJ's access permissions? There's something I very badly want to read, but can't get to, as I'm no longer allowed access to this persons more private writings. FUCK!

Since this is not yet documented, I figured I would mention this here now... we are experimenting with some very rudimentary keystroke navigation in the discussion2 system. We support both FPS style WASD keybindings, as well as the standard vi layout of HJKL. Down/Up will cycle you through next/previous comment chronologically... left/right will cycle you through next/previous in thread order. Holding SHIFT down while you press the navigation key will collapse the previous comment. And when you get to the end, pressing down or right will attempt to retrieve more comments if you want them.

What this means is that you can now use D2 to simulate most of the most popular viewing modes of the original discussion system. By dragging both the abbreviate & display sliders right next to each other you effectively remove abbreviated comments which simulates nested mode. By toggling comment retrieval order to 'Oldest First' and using up down, you can effectivel read the discussion from oldest to newest. And of course the default settings gives you the best comments first, providing a nice default view of discussions for most anonymous users (who rarely participate and we want to really show only the best comments).

You can also disable D2 in the comment prefs (the word 'prefs' in the floating dialog box) if you are logged in. Right now we're testing D2 for a large percentage of anonymous readers. As soon as we finish IE7 support we'll roll out D2 for the rest of the ACs.

I saw this Saudi King Tries to Grow Modern Ideas in Desert. It caught my eye because:

Saudi Arabia has been sending people to the US for education training, conferences and even ncaete. Infact, they've been hiring people from the upper-educational world and paying *big* money for help (ie consulting).

Personally, I think you'll see Jordan doing this next. Because some of these countries are finally realizing if they don't reinvest all the oil money they've made off of us, they're screwed.