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_jyWWP"^``"`.C"9*,J _.mqD:^^"WWWWWWQg__
jgW"^.C/" .C' I `D. 'D._"WQg_
jWP` .C" C' I `D._ `D._ "Qg_
jQP` .C ,d^^b._ I _.d^^b. `D._ "Qg
jQ^ .C" /` .+" \ I / "+. `\ `D. XQ
jQ' .C' |` ." ) _I ( ". | `D. 4#
Qf .C C ( / / y\ \ ) ) `D. Qg
jW C' \__\_.+' / / \ `+._/__/ `D jQ
Qf C C /_/ \ D D Qk
Qf C _ C \_\____/ D _ D QF
QL C \`+.__ _______ ______.+'/ D QF
B& C. \ \| |I | |I / D Qf
jQ `C. \ |____|/ |____|/__ / .D' jW
TQ `C. \._ `+.__________/___/|_/ .D' jQ`
9Q `C. C.`+._ | |/.D' .D' jQ'
"Qg `C. `C. `"+-------' ' .D' .D' pW`
^WQy `C. `C. I .D' _.D' yW"
^9Qy_`C. `C. I .D' _.D jgW"
`9WQgC.__ `C. I .D' _.Dp@@"`
ilmk `""9WQQggyyyyyygyyyyyQggQWQH""

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...

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 :-)

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.

A journal is created with "Comments Enabled", and yet no comments are made available. Strange, huh?

Update: It's fixed now. Thanks pudge.

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?).

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

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. 1. 1. that is all.

&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

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.

by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13, @07:54PM (#2335472)

[ed: another pre-Trooper troll. I had yet to find my own voice, so this one is little more than a childish twist on seventypercent's classic "Moon" liberal myth troll. Thanks to this fellow for saving it. -S.Trooper]

It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have allowed themselves to be so swiftly deluded by a fraudulent fabrication of such ridiculous proportions. The very idea that not one, but two jumbo jets would crash themselves into a famous New York skyscraper -- in broad daylight with vigilant air-traffic controllers and tight airport security watching every move of every craft in the air -- is laughable. Furthermore, it is a horrendous affront to the world-renowned intellect and common sense of the American people. The fact that anyone could actually believe this is evidence that the Liberals -- after decades of waging war against intellectual integrity and honesty -- have finally ripped the few remaining, tenuous strands of control of our educational system from full-blooded, hard-working, God-fearing Americans.

As such wonderful documentaries as The Siege have so articulately exposed, the Liberal masterminds in Berkeley and their toadies throughout the nation have been silently waging war against the American people and their God-given rights to protect themselves, their worship, their family values, and their hard work. Much of this has been conducted under the guise of preventing "terrorism", a meaningless word engineered by radical left-wingers specifically to bring fear into the heart of honest Americans. Think about it -- can you remember any reference to so-called "terrorism" that occurred before Liberals invaded our government offices in the last decade? Of course you can't, because despite whatever the revisionist histories may tell you, there is no mention of any "terrorism" in classic literature before 1980. Only then did the neo-Marxists invent such absurd figures as Timothy McVeigh and Osama Bin Laden in order to legitimize their anti-freedom agenda, drowning the spirit of the American people in a blatantly-engineered machine of fear and mourning for "victims" of these "terrorist attacks".

In fact, it should be incredibly obvious that the concept of a 110-story building even being built, much less two, is a clear and obvious fraud. No documentation of these "twin towers" existed before a "terrorist attack" occured on the previously-nonexistent pair of skyscrapers on September the 11th. Due to this hoax being perpetrated by the Liberal-controlled media, suddenly people all over the world mourned the loss of thousands of people who had not existed before. Innocent men and women, brainwashed by the left-wing education institutions, gave firsthand accounts of losing relatives they never had until the "attack" happened.

But the most outrageous aspect of this hoax is the "Pentagon" -- a government office fabricated especially for this purpose. Liberal media claims this imaginary building to be "the center of America's defense system", although obviously an organization as proud and God-fearing as the United States Military would never think to station themselves in a building of five sides, so obviously close to the pentagram, mark of Lucifer himself. It is insulting to the nation's intelligence that eight hundred members of the world's proudest institution would be made to meet their Lord by something as graceful, efficient, and secure as our country's fine aviation system.

Don't let the devious tricks of the Liberals allow you, a citizen of the greatest nation this Earth has ever or will ever know, to surrender your freedoms. Any lesser nation would have succumbed to their wills long ago, and indeed the socialist states in Europe already have. It is only the superior resilience, pride, and intellect of America that has allowed it to withstand the constant threat of Liberal control.

by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19, @03:31PM (#2321680)

[ed: this is a troll I wrote before I made the "Starship Trooper" account and became a career troll. I found it strangely enough through a random Google search, and thought it should be archived. -S.Trooper]

[update: Wow, some ass bit hard enough to copy this to his personal page (look for the Google-highlighted bit)!]

10 ways to tell if you or someone you know may be a potential terrorist:

1. They are shy or antisocial;
2. They spend a large percentage of their free time on a computer;
3. They are quick to criticise the government or corporations, often complaining about their "rights online";
4. They are obsessed with privacy;
5. They have a tendency to play violent computer games;
6. They frequently illegally copy music, movies, or software;
7. They listen to aggressive, "alternative" music;
8. They have an aversion to going outside;
9. They like to reverse-engineer, or "hack", anything they can for no substantive reason;
10. They use software such as Linux, which is designed by and for hackers.

For the sake of national security, please report all potential terrorists to the NSA.

by Anonymous Coward on 05:15 AM March 16th, 2000 CST

[ed: This is only a partial archive of what I found on Craig McPherson's site; unfortunately I haven't been able to find the full text. If you have a full copy of this document, or know where one is, please mail me. -S.Trooper]

But mainly help me. I had a long, dull business trip Tues. and Wed., and as a result I wrote the following (5000 words and still unfinished) Slashdot Troll FAQ. I haven't been able to build on 80md's original due to lack of connection, but the doct. below still needs revised. Specifically, it needs to be made more entertaining. See whatcha think.

jsm

Slashdot troll FAQ

1. What do trolls do?
   We post inflammatory, satirical or just plain weird comments on slashdot, aiming to draw attention to ourselves and to distract discussion away from the matter at hand. We use satire, wit, art and other cultural weapons to give fun to the clueful and embarrass the clueless.
   1. What are the characteristics of a good troll?
      A good troll is a statement designed to inflame the passions of a certain type of reader. A troll is a contrary or controversial statement, which attacks a preconception of someone who is likely to read it, causing them to suspend their normal standards of critical thinking, and to fire off a combative response, without thinking that they are being had. This is the "classic" troll, aimed at enticing someone to make a fool of themself.
   2. Are there any other kinds of troll?
      Yes. The "surrealistic" troll is a piece of prose, rambling, comic or just downright weird, inserted into a discussion where it seems at once utterly irrelevant and curiously in place. The common thread linking the types of trolls is that a certain kind of personality (read - far too uptight) gets irrationally annoyed by them.
   3. What are "characters"?
      Some kinds of trollish statement have been proven to work again and again, so naturally, some trolls have taken advantage of this fact to repeat them again and again. Certain individual trolls are more or less identified with certain types of trollish statement, and thus we have the idea of a "character" - a fictitious entity which is supposed to actually hold the views which are expressed in the troll?s posts. Some of these characters have distinct personalities and maintain narrative coherence from troll to troll (see the "Microsoft Linux" episode between streetlawyer and DMG); some of them show up expressing the same or similar points of view again and again (the RWM and derivatives).
   4. What are some of the characters?
      The number one maximally 1337 troll character is the RWM; the most established troll, with the most solid track record behind him. Opensource man and his creations is the oldest surreal troll; gnarphlager and auntfloyd also adopt this style. Paranoid Man is getting off the ground, and DMG and streetlawyer have their fans. Mindless Bastard is more of a style of trolling than a character per se. There are lots more people posting trolls than are listed here; these are just the repeating characters.
   5. What is an RWM?
      RWM is the Right Wing Maniac, a character with a hotch-potch of (often mutually incompatible) libertarian, Christian, and Objectivist views, who typically (mis)applies the general principles of his world-view to various slashdot topics. He tends to be keen on referring to people as "socialists", particularly if they consider themselves to be conservatives. Sometimes he?s more of a religious nut; sometimes it?s more the free market which rings his bell. There is also a Left Wing Maniac with a yen for spouting dialectical materialism, but he hasn?t done much recently. It?s worth noting that it is very rare to find a RWM troll thread in which at least one participant doesn?t agree with most of RWM?s views.
   6. What is a DMG?
      DMG is the Dumb Marketing Guy. He claims to have been involved in Linux for "at least four years, since the very beginning", and offers unsolicited "open source" marketing advice on Linux advocacy to the members of the community. He often takes a rather hurt tone in response to the welter of abuse which is the usual response to his advice.
   7. How about the other characters?
      For crying out loud, they ought to be self-explanatory, surely to heck?
   8. What?s with the "cheese" thing?
      Buggered if I know. Lots of trolls mention cheese, and seem to indicate that cheese has some sort of significance. Maybe it does.
   9. Why does streetlawyer swear so much?
      Because he had a hard life, dragging himself up from the streets to get his fucken law degree from fucken Hah-vud, OK?
   10. What you said really offended me!
       Well, sorry. But really, nobody cares (see below). You?re too easily offended. Now purge the post from your board, log our IP address and go back to drawing your "After Y2K" comic (which is shit, by the way).
2. What don?t trolls do?
   We don?t do boring, uncreative shit which just makes slashdot harder to read. We?re not into denial of service attacks - they aren?t very funny. We?re probably harsher opponents of the spam bunch than you are, because anything which encourages people to browse at levels above -1 makes our work harder.
   1. Those cut & pastes which fill up the forums, are those you guys?
      Nope. Nezh.
   2. How about that obscene ASCII art I just saw?
      Nope. Nada.
   3. Thank God you?ve got nothing to do with "open source Natalie Portman", or "naked and petrified"!
      Errrr, well actually yes we have. Both of those ongoing trolls were written by regulars on the troll forum, and you?re not going to find condemnation of them in this FAQ.
   4. What?
      Read them. Untwist your underwear, stop fulminating over the momentary interruption to your terribly important discussion about Slackware and have a look at some of these posts. Open source Natalie Portman was a fine piece of Burroughsian prose and if you don?t agree that it was, then you?re wrong. The whole "Naked and petrified" thing was an absolute triumph - it provoked a huge amount of reaction, entertainingly interfered with a few people?s heads by sexualising the context of slashdot and is still talked about, several months after the original author stopped bothering.
      1. But that naked and petrified stuff was really sick!
         Sick to you, but that was actually the guy?s genuinely held sexual fantasy. He was erotically excited by the thought of women turned to stone, and was letting the world know about it. Don?t pretend that you weren?t interested - it?s absolutely fascinating.
      2. You?re kidding me!
         Nope. I was taken aback myself, but there are several sites on the Net with active discussion boards on this very subject. It?s not that very different from the subject of "The Fermata" by Nicholson Baker, where the hero has the power to stop time, effectively turning women into statues. And that is quite a common paraphilia.
      3. Well, I thought it was offensive to women. Wasn?t it tantamount to a rape fantasy?
         No, it was a petrification fantasy. Which is something rather less threatening, because harder to act out (how many people really believed that anyone could actually turn Natalie Portman to stone?)
      4. What does Natalie Portman think about being "open sourced"?
         I?m sure she?s not wonderfully happy about being the subject of someone else?s tawdry sexual fantasies, but it kind of comes with the job. I doubt she loses much sleep.
      5. You keep saying I should read this stuff. How can I?
         Opensourceman?s works (including the Star Wars series and Fat-time Charlie) are available online at: http://www.warmann.com/ Craig MacPherson has a website at: http://users.ipa.net/~cmcpher/ , which probably has a few things on it to do with the petrification thing.
   5. So gritsboy and scooby doo are trolls then? And Trollmastah?
      Wellllll .... they?re a step above the cut ?n? pasters. And sometimes they can be funny if you?re in a silly mood. But they don?t contribute to the troll forums, and it?s not what I personally would call incredibly creative. Some people like running jokes and some don?t. The original Trollmastah has contributed some good material, but there?s a lot of imitations about.
3. Why, for God?s sake?
   For a variety of reasons, but mainly to puncture the self-importance of a few people who deeply deserve it. Slashdot has a lot of very clever people posting, but vastly more individuals with a serious perception/reality gap with regard to their own intelligence. People who believe themselves to be perceptive, clueful, even deep thinkers while merely reciting lists of conventional wisdom deserve to be taken for a ride. And there?s the sheer Skinnerian joy of it - if somebody, or some group of people have buttons, it?s inhuman not to take delight in pushing them.
   1. Why do you spend such effort on being assholes?
      In order to do it properly.
   2. What?s your problem with moderation?
      No problem. Whining about moderation is for the moderation thread. Several trolls moderate more or less frequently (and meta-moderate - be very afraid), and there is very little genuine complaint about moderation on the troll threads. Any remarks about $3 crack are meant in a spirit of fun and affection, and are usually merely cris de coeur when a finely crafted troll has been rumbled in the first few seconds and down-modded.
      1. What about "Portrait of a Moderator"?
         That was funny.
   3. Why don?t you go and troll somewhere other than slashdot?
      Where is there? We?ve had a token go or two at Nitrozac and kuro5hin, and an abortive attempt to troll some n

Since it's coming up to the start of a new academic year I thought I'd take this opportunity to explain how lucky you Americans are to have a fraternity system.

English Universities are so dull by comparison. Like most students in England I had to rent private accommodation for my second and third years, but it never occurred to us to build a whole culture around collectively renting a rather dilapidated house in Clapham. It wasn't even single sex accommodation, so we couldn't engage in the fun and games of para-homosexual activities - Girls just don't have the same grip on your loyalties as your Greek brothers ;-). And while cliques certainly form in English Universities, the are all much too boring to come up with the idea of hazing. I fondly recall diving off a weir and almost drowning when I was 12 because everyone said I was chicken. If only it had been possible for me to gain respect in later life through similar tests, and if these tests could have been combined with pseudo Masonic rituals culminating in the awarding of a little badge, then that truly would have made my time at University worthwhile. And while I still have friends from University, these friendships seem so hollow compared to bonds of fraternal brotherhood since they are not based on solemn vows of fellowship, mutual sacrifice, group solidarity and owning the same poxy little badge.

Then there's sheer joy alcohol seems to bring fraternity members.. By the time I went to university the delights of getting dangerously drunk at parties had started to seem mundane. But to American students in fraternities, the bravado of excessive alcohol consumption is a an exciting new and illicit game where you can prove yourself worthy to all your male friends and simultaneously circumvent college alcohol policy - thereby proving what a rebel you are too. Gosh.

I am also rather fond of the references to ancient Greece. It reeks of a history far nobler and grander than anything a British University can instil its students with, and the wearing of togas must make it seem as authentic as a ploughman's lunch.

I think what I am trying to say is that Fraternities give young Americans the chance to grow up in their own time, and that it is regrettable that no similar opportunity is afforded to European Students. In particular, I find it sad that even some American students forego the opportunity to wear togas and claim to be Greek. Really this should be mandatory, so every graduate will be secure in the knowledge that they have gained something much more valuable than a degree from an American University - a little badge with some Greek letters on it.

Although I am not American, I admire the system so much that I would dearly love to become an honorary member of a fraternity. I have set my heart on becoming an alumni of Theta Omicron Sigma Sigma Epsilon Ro Sigma. I do so hope this is possible.