Slashdot Mirror

Swiss Tony Says:

The Hydrogen Problem is like making love to a beautiful woman! You could always just have a wank - but its a whole lot more rewarding to put some effort into seducing the beautiful woman.

The wanking is oil okay - the beautiful woman is hydrogen, or solar, or wind or whatever.

Burn in programs that can test the entire system for failure (processor errors to memory errors to etcetera) from overclocking are usually run on any machine before it is "blessed" for production work.

Check out the Hogshead "new wave" roleplaying game De Profundis. It's an epistolary RPG of the Cthulhu mythos, focusing on playing in the horror milieu (either in the 20s and 30s, or the present-day) by writing letters, journals, diaries, and so on. I've got some friends who are running a game via a Livejournal group; it's not too hard to imagine something sort of like Majestic growing out of several groups getting in contact with each other.

And hey, it's only $7, how can you go wrong?

I have heard anecdotal evidence that they've been using drugs like this for quite a while in emergency rooms to take advantage of the amnesia-inducing effect for those who have suffered a very traumatic experience - nearly burning to death, violent rape, etc.

This is version 0.6 of a troll HOWTO, sort of a companion piece to jsm's excellent troll FAQ. As a draft, comments and criticism are always welcome, if not appreciated :)

There are techniques used by successful trolls to elicit the maximum amount of responses from unthinking /.ers. This section is dedicated to explaining how to use these in the course of your trolls. Remember though, a great troll can break any or all of these and still be successful...

• Timing

  Because you're posting as an AC, your troll will generally be ignored in favour of posters using their accounts, and so getting in early is essential. A good guideline is to get into the first 20 posts, so that people reading the article will see the troll before it is swamped out. One way of increasing the speed with which you get your troll into play is to prepare them beforehand, and then quickly customise them for the current article. This is easier than it sounds since /. typically repeats stories with small variations and runs lots of similar stories.

  Note that this is why Jon Katz stories are pretty worthless as trolling material - by the time you've found the article and prepared a troll there's already 50+ posts on it, most of them flaming Jon Katz anyway :)

• Exposure

  Once you've got your troll in, you need people to actually read it. You also want replies - /.ers are more likely to read your troll if it starts a large thread. You also want to remember that some people have set their comment thresholds to values higher than 0 - to get the attention of these you either want to get your post moderated up (see Style, below) or get a reply which gets moderated up to 4 or 5, in which case your troll becomes visible to all.

• Accounts

  An alternative to the time-honoured tradition of AC trolling is that of creating a "troll" account. This gives you the advantage of posting at 1 rather than 0, and slashbots are more likely to take you seriously, especially if you at least sound reasonable. If you do this, try to avoid posting stuff where it is obvious you're a troll under the account - post it anoymously instead - some slightly more canny readers actually check your user info before they reply. Not many though :)

  The ultimate goal of the troll account is to secure the +1 bonus, which is currently received once you hit 26 points of Karma. To get there, employ the techniques of karma whoring that we see every day on /. and watch the karma roll in. And of course once you get the +1 bonus, the world is your oyster in terms of /. Posts made at a default of 2 hit even those people with the threshold of 2, are more likely to get moderated up even further if they are at all coherent, and people tend to lose their critical thinking abilities in the face of the +1 bonus. Milk it for all it's worth.

• Layout

  To get people reading it a troll needs to be easily readable. Make sure you break it down into easily digestible paragraphs, use HTML tags where appropriate (but always make sure you close them properly) and use whitespace appropriately.

• Size

  Generally a troll shouldn't be too short, otherwise it'll get lost in the crowd. A workable minimum is a couple of medium paragraphs. Conversely, it shouldn't be too long, or no-one will bother to read it. Keep it to a happy medium.

• Spelling

  Whilst spelling is important if you want the troll to be taken "seriously", key spelling mistakes can draw out the spelling zealots, especially if you mis-spell the name of a venerated /. hero, like Linus Torveldes or Richard Strawlman (thanks dmg). Related to this is the use of the wrong word, explaining an acronym as being something it isn't or making a word into an acronym even when it isn't.

• Subject

  The subject line needs to draw attention to your post without making it obvious that it is a troll. A simple statement of the main point of your argument can work here.

• Style

  Once you realise that most moderators don't bother to read past the first paragraph or two, you can use this fact to craft trolls that can be moderated up as "Insightful" (note that I mean this in the /. sense rather than the real-world sense). Start off fairly reasonable, making statements that are /. friendly and not being too controversial. As the troll goes on, make it more and more controversial, building it up for the coup de grace in the final paragraph.

• Linking

  As we all know, a post with links is considered "informative" by the /. crowd. Moderators love it, and they rarely check the links, so be sure to include as many as possible. And make them wrong - a link to the Perl website should instead point to the Python website instead, and vice versa. The other alternative to incorrect links is "useful" links to places like www.linux.org and www.microsoft.com i.e. places /.ers could never have found on their own :)

• Feeding

  The ideal troll requires no feeding - it runs on its own, generating flamewars between clueless /.ers for your amusement. But often a troll requires some help and so you should consider feeding it. Feeding is best reserved for people making either completely clueless responses, people making responses with holes in, or those wonderful people who write a 2000-word point-by-point rebuttal of your troll.

• Know your audience

  Always keep in mind the kind of things advocated on /. so that you can play on and against them. This is why anti-Linux, creationist, gun-loving, pro-corporation trolls work well - the vast majority of /.ers hold the opposite viewpoints. And if a few people agree with you, so much the better - it merely validates your viewpoint in the eyes of readers.

• Arrogance

  Be arrogant. You, as a troll, know that you're right. No other explanation could exist. The wronger the "fact", the more assertively you should state it. Make it clear that you are better than everyone else - you know the truth and they are just too stupid to realise it. Use plenty of sarcasm, and use "quotes" to show it to people too dumb to realise.

• Offensiveness

  Being offensive in your initial troll can be counter-productive - it causes moderators to mark you down as flamebait in general. But if you're feeding, then you can get away with calling /.ers all kinds of things. Make broad generalisations about /. readers - call them "long-haired Linux zealots", "socialist open-source bigots" or whatever. Stereotyping is encouraged - people always want to think that they're an individual, and will point this out to you given half a chance.

• Indifference

  Great for articles with a political or social bent, this kind of troll expresses complete indifference to the topic at hand, wondering who on Earth cares about it. An alternative method is to say that the topic only concerns a certain group of people - criminals, idiots, hackers (always use this instead of crackers) or whatever group you want to offend.

• Sympathy

  Appear to take the same stance as the people you're trying to troll - claim you're as much a fan of Linux as the next man, but... This way you can make all kinds of claims in the sure knowledge that you actually know what you're talking about. A great phrase to use here is "In my experience". Remember to act like all the things you're pointing out are unfortunate but true.

• The common touch

  Always accuse /.ers of being elitist. This is an easy thing to do seeing as a lot of them are. Claim that is their grandmother couldn't use it, then they are just into it to feel better than Joe Sixpack rather than "doing it for the average user". This is always great for working into anti-Linux trolls - attack command-line tools and poorly designed desktops.

• The 31337 touch

  The opposite of the above. Claim that technology or whatever is only for the elite of society and that any attempt to open it up for everyone is wrong, an attack on intellectualism and possibly even dangerous. If people were meant to understand these things then they would, and it's their fault if they're too stupid to learn.

• Contradiction

  Never be afraid to contradict yourself, even in the space of a single sentence. The phrases "I am a top programmer who codes in VB" or "I am a supporter of open source who uses NT at work and 95 at home" will be sure to get a response from some weenie smugly pointing out the contradiction. Confuse the issue more by engaging in contradiction when you are feeding - this will confuse /.ers who will then make even more stupid replies, leaving them even more wide open for response.

  Clues

  If you're feeling brave, give the reader clues that this is an obvious troll. The classic example here is dmg's stock phrase "I am often accused of trolling (whatever that is)", but also feel free to use phrases like "I have not read the article, and I don't know much about XYZ but I feel I must comment". If anyone responds to a troll with these kinds of clues in it, feel free to bask in the glow of knee-jerk /. responses.

• Denial

  If you're unlucky someone will accuse you of being a troll (surely not!) and try and ruin it for you. If you don't want it all to end there, then be sure to counter it by accusing them of being small-minded and petty, saying that it's easier for them to say it's a troll than to accept that people have different opinions. Be sure to say this in the subject line, especially if their subject was the infamous "YHBT. YHL. HAND."

• Claiming credit

  Given that /. has its community of regular trolls (hi guys!), it's only polite to publish your troll on one of the so-called "hidden" forums for all to see and admire. This way, you get to bask in the praise of other trolls, they get to contribute to your's if they want to, and you get an easy way to find the troll later on when you want to check on its progress :)

  As for when to post it, that's a matter of opinion really. You can either post it straight away or leave it will after people start biting. Remember that the troll forum is also frequented by non-trolls, and sometimes you may get a self-declared "troll-buster" try and expose you. But remember, /.ers always post before thinking, and often it doesn't matter at all.

  There is no real current forum at the moment thanks to various spammers hitting the sids, but try trolltalk, the original troll sid started by 80md and osm way back in the day. Generally all postings are done there as an AC, with your name at the end of the post. Include a link to the troll somewhere in the text, which ideally will be directly to the post and its replies - click on the #XX link in the thread to get there.

• Ending the troll

  Sometimes you just get bored with a troll, or people start posting genuinely thoughtful stuff in reply (it does happen). When this happens it might be time to own up to the troll with a helpful "YHBT. YHL. HAND." post. Sometimes people will carry on a discussion of the issue, and if you're really lucky (and it was a great troll) they will completely fail to believe you and carry on arguing. If that happens, pat yourself on the back for writing a great troll :)

• The cheap $3 crack

  Finally, when all else fails and your troll gets moderated down to (-1, Troll) within ten seconds of you posting it, the only honourable thing to do is to accuse the moderators of smoking the cheap $3 crack (again) and give up :(

1. The Maniac

   Probably the most popular kind of troll, the Maniac holds an opinion on something, and won't budge from that opinion no matter what evidence to the contrary is presented. If challenged, the Maniac will simply get more and more agitated and abusive, deriding his opponents as "idiots", "wrong-thinking", "dangerous" and "subversive". Generally the Maniac takes a position that opposes the prevalent /. beliefs, but a similar effect can be achieved by taking a typical /. viewpoint and pushing it to ridiculous extremes.

   Maniacs can be crafted for practically every article /. posts, although some are more obvious targets than others. Civil liberty articles, especially on things like censorship, DMCA, UCITA that really get /.ers riled up, are usually extremely fruitful grounds for a well-crafted maniac. The other obvious type of article is anything which could possibly involve religion, especially evolution :)

   Here are some fruitful avenues to explore:

   • The Right-Wing Maniac

     Always popular, the right-wing maniac (RWM) is a God-fearing, gun-toting, flag-waving American, and proud of it. They don't care about the rest of the world, unless it's to "prove" that America is better than everything else, and they cannot stand liberal whining over civil rights. They hate the moral decay of America and want it to revert into a nation of heterosexual, Christian whites like it was meant to be. Woe betide anyone that dares to suggest otherwise.

   • Religion

     There are two ways to approach this kind of maniac. The harder to pull off is the militant atheist, but this is quite common amongst /. posters and you would have to be very offensive to get this to work. Of course with religion trolls, the argument can go on for ever once it's started... The more common approach is the Christian fundamentalist. They are ignorant, intolerant and bigoted in the extreme. For them the Bible is the inerrant word of God revealed to man - it contains no flaws and no contradictions. Thus they are strict Creationists - mentions of evolution or cosmology will set them off on vitriolic rants. Flaming denunciations of anyone daring to contradict the "Word of God" are the way to go, and any kind of proof can always be ignored by appealing to "secular humanist brainwashing". And let's not forget, the USA is the greatest nation on Earth because it has the righteous power of Jesus Christ behind it.

   • Ideology

     Pick a philosophy, any philosophy. This troll is a troll with a cause - they have found some kind of ideological truth, and are out to expose every other philosophy as a sham. Whether it be libertarianism, objectivism, communism or capitalism, this troll will point out the obvious "flaws" in any other philosophies, whilst spouting dogma about their own. And the best thing is - you don't even need to know that much about what you're spouting - making doctrinaire mistakes will get both sides of the argument flaming you, adding to the fun.

   • Software

     This is an old favourite and crops up in many forms, covering the gamut from OS maniacs (Linux zealots, MS-apologists or embittered BSD fanatics), language maniacs (Pascal vs. C, C vs. C++, C++ vs. Java, Perl vs. Python, VB vs. everything), application maniacs(GIMP vs. Photoshop, Netscape vs. IE, vi vs. emacs) and also includes people who complain about how technology should only be for the 31337 hackers.

   • Guns

     Americans love their guns, and will always fight passionately for their Constitutionally guarenteed rights to bear arms and shoot people. Even the slightest hint of criticism of this will bring down the wrath of a thousand and one enraged gun-owners on you, so it's always a great point to work into a troll :)

2. The Expert

   The Expert is someone who is "savvy" in their particular field, and is perfectly willing to give their opinion on any topic even vauguely related to their field. The Expert is most likely to be from a field which /.ers as a rule despise - the classic example is dumb marketing guy, but try consultants, lawyers, politicians, lobbyists, executives, journalists (just think Jon Katz). With this kind of troll sweeping statements with little content are the norm, along wire dire portents of future catastrophe and dark hints of "insider knowledge".

   Some possible angles to exploit:

   • Industry knowledge

     The expert knows the computing industry from the inside - as a long-term pro, they can dispense knowledge knowing that they can "speak for the industry". Their smug self-satisfaction is bound to annoy, as is any suggestion that things aren't the way that /.ers would like it - saying "Linux requires the rock-solid guarantee of a trusted company like Microsoft" or "Apache cannot be trusted for mission-critical enterprise platforms" is guaranteed to get you denials explaining exactly why you're wrong, in excruciating detail.

   • Helpful hints

     With their tech-savvy (or law-savvy or whatever) experience, the expert is obviously the best person to point out what's wrong with things or to give out useful "factual" information. In fact this probably works best with lawyer trolls - for all that /.ers protest "IANAL", they certainly seem to think they could be, and any mistakes you make will send them rushing to prove themselves by correcting you.

3. Offtopic Trolls

   Not really a "troll" in the strict Jargon File sense of the word, but they certainly should be included here :) This category includes parodies, offtopic weirdness any all kinds of amusing stuff. Not really my area of expertise, this stuff is mainly done by gnarphlager and opensourceman. Thanks to gnarphlager for this section.

   Offtopic trolls, like any other, come in almost as many colours as an iMac, but generally not as cute. But then again, a good offtopic "troll" can affect more people than a repulsive little gumdrop on your desk, because you need to have someone SEE your desk before they can react. Simple? Moreso than even my overblown prose could indicate. Some basic examples:

   1. The serial troll

      Write a story. Keep expanding it. It doesn't matter what article you post it under, so long as it's high up. If you want people to recognize you, pick a couple themes or symbols, and carry them on throughout the story. Other alternatives include back linking or including the entire story, but adding more each time. Be funny if you want. Or if you don't feel like being funny, just be really weird. Someone will react.

   2. The random troll

      This has nothing to do with anything. Be it a stream of consciousness rant, or a description of the corner of your desk. Another favorite is a monologue, read as if spoken from any one given entity to another. The more outlandish, the better (a pair of socks talking to a mousepad, for example). If you really wanted to be artsy, work in an actual metaphor or legitimate meaning behind it, but it's not necessary.

   3. The vaguely related troll

      Start out with a comment about the article. Have a definite opinion of it. Then, after a little while, disintegrate into randomness. All roads eventually can eventually lead to cheese (yum), Natalie Portman, cannibalism, toasters, squirrels, futons, you name it. All it takes is a little bit of creativity. Oh, and feel free to use other trolls' motifs. Open source and all that ;-)

   General tips:

   • If it's funny for a fleeting moment, then it's worth posting.
   • Puns. Puns are only less vile than mimes, but it's hard to mime on /. So feel free/obligated to litter your offtopic and random bits with puns. Hurt the bastards. And if they're sick enough to laugh at them, then they'll eventually end up here ;-)
   • Obscure cultural references and injokes are always good. SOMEONE will get them eventually.
   • Several drafts of a serial or random post are common, but true elegance is being able to come up with something on the spot that still makes the top 40 posts (on a post-heavy article)

The following links contain background information useful for trolls needing quick quotes and "expert" opinions to include.

1. General purpose links
   • ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html - How to deal with USENET trolls - learn your enemy :)
   • www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html - A List Of Fallacious Arguments - Learn them and use them liberally
   • www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html - USENET troll HOWTO
   • www.baiting.org - Baiting.org
   • www.fieldingtravel.com/df/index.htm - Fielding's DangerFinder - A guide to what and where's dangerous
   
   
2. Religious links
   • www.godhatesamerica.com/ - God Hates America
   • www.chalcedon.edu/creed.html - The Creed of Christian Reconstruction
   • www.demonbuster.com - How to cast out your demons and do spiritual warfare
   • riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/thi ngs.htm - Things Creationists hate
   • www.icr.org/ - Institute for Creation Research
   • www.xenu.net - Operation Clambake - The fight against Scientology on the net
   • www.hom.net/~angels/ - Citizens for the Ten Commandments
   • www.bju.edu/rcnbc.html - The difference between Catholics and Christians
   • www.geocities.com/prazske00/biblequotes.html - Bible quotes by category
   
   
3. Political/economy links
   • www.aynrand.org - The Ayn Rand Institute
   • www.reason.com - Libertarian site
   • www.freerepublic.com - Right-wing stuff
   • www.jbs.org - Excellent site for all kinds of right-wingery
   • www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html - Web economy bullshit generator
   
   
4. Crackpot science links
   • www.fixedearth.com - The Earth Is Not Moving
   • www.jir.com/index.htm - The Journal of Irreproducible Results

© spiralx, I did not write this ;)

This is version 0.6 of a troll HOWTO, sort of a companion piece to jsm's excellent troll FAQ. As a draft, comments and criticism are always welcome, if not appreciated :)

There are techniques used by successful trolls to elicit the maximum amount of responses from unthinking /.ers. This section is dedicated to explaining how to use these in the course of your trolls. Remember though, a great troll can break any or all of these and still be successful...

• Timing

  Because you're posting as an AC, your troll will generally be ignored in favour of posters using their accounts, and so getting in early is essential. A good guideline is to get into the first 20 posts, so that people reading the article will see the troll before it is swamped out. One way of increasing the speed with which you get your troll into play is to prepare them beforehand, and then quickly customise them for the current article. This is easier than it sounds since /. typically repeats stories with small variations and runs lots of similar stories.

  Note that this is why Jon Katz stories are pretty worthless as trolling material - by the time you've found the article and prepared a troll there's already 50+ posts on it, most of them flaming Jon Katz anyway :)

• Exposure

  Once you've got your troll in, you need people to actually read it. You also want replies - /.ers are more likely to read your troll if it starts a large thread. You also want to remember that some people have set their comment thresholds to values higher than 0 - to get the attention of these you either want to get your post moderated up (see Style, below) or get a reply which gets moderated up to 4 or 5, in which case your troll becomes visible to all.

• Accounts

  An alternative to the time-honoured tradition of AC trolling is that of creating a "troll" account. This gives you the advantage of posting at 1 rather than 0, and slashbots are more likely to take you seriously, especially if you at least sound reasonable. If you do this, try to avoid posting stuff where it is obvious you're a troll under the account - post it anoymously instead - some slightly more canny readers actually check your user info before they reply. Not many though :)

  The ultimate goal of the troll account is to secure the +1 bonus, which is currently received once you hit 26 points of Karma. To get there, employ the techniques of karma whoring that we see every day on /. and watch the karma roll in. And of course once you get the +1 bonus, the world is your oyster in terms of /. Posts made at a default of 2 hit even those people with the threshold of 2, are more likely to get moderated up even further if they are at all coherent, and people tend to lose their critical thinking abilities in the face of the +1 bonus. Milk it for all it's worth.

• Layout

  To get people reading it a troll needs to be easily readable. Make sure you break it down into easily digestible paragraphs, use HTML tags where appropriate (but always make sure you close them properly) and use whitespace appropriately.

• Size

  Generally a troll shouldn't be too short, otherwise it'll get lost in the crowd. A workable minimum is a couple of medium paragraphs. Conversely, it shouldn't be too long, or no-one will bother to read it. Keep it to a happy medium.

• Spelling

  Whilst spelling is important if you want the troll to be taken "seriously", key spelling mistakes can draw out the spelling zealots, especially if you mis-spell the name of a venerated /. hero, like Linus Torveldes or Richard Strawlman (thanks dmg). Related to this is the use of the wrong word, explaining an acronym as being something it isn't or making a word into an acronym even when it isn't.

• Subject

  The subject line needs to draw attention to your post without making it obvious that it is a troll. A simple statement of the main point of your argument can work here.

• Style

  Once you realise that most moderators don't bother to read past the first paragraph or two, you can use this fact to craft trolls that can be moderated up as "Insightful" (note that I mean this in the /. sense rather than the real-world sense). Start off fairly reasonable, making statements that are /. friendly and not being too controversial. As the troll goes on, make it more and more controversial, building it up for the coup de grace in the final paragraph.

• Linking

  As we all know, a post with links is considered "informative" by the /. crowd. Moderators love it, and they rarely check the links, so be sure to include as many as possible. And make them wrong - a link to the Perl website should instead point to the Python website instead, and vice versa. The other alternative to incorrect links is "useful" links to places like www.linux.org and www.microsoft.com i.e. places /.ers could never have found on their own :)

• Feeding

  The ideal troll requires no feeding - it runs on its own, generating flamewars between clueless /.ers for your amusement. But often a troll requires some help and so you should consider feeding it. Feeding is best reserved for people making either completely clueless responses, people making responses with holes in, or those wonderful people who write a 2000-word point-by-point rebuttal of your troll.

• Know your audience

  Always keep in mind the kind of things advocated on /. so that you can play on and against them. This is why anti-Linux, creationist, gun-loving, pro-corporation trolls work well - the vast majority of /.ers hold the opposite viewpoints. And if a few people agree with you, so much the better - it merely validates your viewpoint in the eyes of readers.

• Arrogance

  Be arrogant. You, as a troll, know that you're right. No other explanation could exist. The wronger the "fact", the more assertively you should state it. Make it clear that you are better than everyone else - you know the truth and they are just too stupid to realise it. Use plenty of sarcasm, and use "quotes" to show it to people too dumb to realise.

• Offensiveness

  Being offensive in your initial troll can be counter-productive - it causes moderators to mark you down as flamebait in general. But if you're feeding, then you can get away with calling /.ers all kinds of things. Make broad generalisations about /. readers - call them "long-haired Linux zealots", "socialist open-source bigots" or whatever. Stereotyping is encouraged - people always want to think that they're an individual, and will point this out to you given half a chance.

• Indifference

  Great for articles with a political or social bent, this kind of troll expresses complete indifference to the topic at hand, wondering who on Earth cares about it. An alternative method is to say that the topic only concerns a certain group of people - criminals, idiots, hackers (always use this instead of crackers) or whatever group you want to offend.

• Sympathy

  Appear to take the same stance as the people you're trying to troll - claim you're as much a fan of Linux as the next man, but... This way you can make all kinds of claims in the sure knowledge that you actually know what you're talking about. A great phrase to use here is "In my experience". Remember to act like all the things you're pointing out are unfortunate but true.

• The common touch

  Always accuse /.ers of being elitist. This is an easy thing to do seeing as a lot of them are. Claim that is their grandmother couldn't use it, then they are just into it to feel better than Joe Sixpack rather than "doing it for the average user". This is always great for working into anti-Linux trolls - attack command-line tools and poorly designed desktops.

• The 31337 touch

  The opposite of the above. Claim that technology or whatever is only for the elite of society and that any attempt to open it up for everyone is wrong, an attack on intellectualism and possibly even dangerous. If people were meant to understand these things then they would, and it's their fault if they're too stupid to learn.

• Contradiction

  Never be afraid to contradict yourself, even in the space of a single sentence. The phrases "I am a top programmer who codes in VB" or "I am a supporter of open source who uses NT at work and 95 at home" will be sure to get a response from some weenie smugly pointing out the contradiction. Confuse the issue more by engaging in contradiction when you are feeding - this will confuse /.ers who will then make even more stupid replies, leaving them even more wide open for response.

  Clues

  If you're feeling brave, give the reader clues that this is an obvious troll. The classic example here is dmg's stock phrase "I am often accused of trolling (whatever that is)", but also feel free to use phrases like "I have not read the article, and I don't know much about XYZ but I feel I must comment". If anyone responds to a troll with these kinds of clues in it, feel free to bask in the glow of knee-jerk /. responses.

• Denial

  If you're unlucky someone will accuse you of being a troll (surely not!) and try and ruin it for you. If you don't want it all to end there, then be sure to counter it by accusing them of being small-minded and petty, saying that it's easier for them to say it's a troll than to accept that people have different opinions. Be sure to say this in the subject line, especially if their subject was the infamous "YHBT. YHL. HAND."

• Claiming credit

  Given that /. has its community of regular trolls (hi guys!), it's only polite to publish your troll on one of the so-called "hidden" forums for all to see and admire. This way, you get to bask in the praise of other trolls, they get to contribute to your's if they want to, and you get an easy way to find the troll later on when you want to check on its progress :)

  As for when to post it, that's a matter of opinion really. You can either post it straight away or leave it will after people start biting. Remember that the troll forum is also frequented by non-trolls, and sometimes you may get a self-declared "troll-buster" try and expose you. But remember, /.ers always post before thinking, and often it doesn't matter at all.

  There is no real current forum at the moment thanks to various spammers hitting the sids, but try trolltalk, the original troll sid started by 80md and osm way back in the day. Generally all postings are done there as an AC, with your name at the end of the post. Include a link to the troll somewhere in the text, which ideally will be directly to the post and its replies - click on the #XX link in the thread to get there.

• Ending the troll

  Sometimes you just get bored with a troll, or people start posting genuinely thoughtful stuff in reply (it does happen). When this happens it might be time to own up to the troll with a helpful "YHBT. YHL. HAND." post. Sometimes people will carry on a discussion of the issue, and if you're really lucky (and it was a great troll) they will completely fail to believe you and carry on arguing. If that happens, pat yourself on the back for writing a great troll :)

• The cheap $3 crack

  Finally, when all else fails and your troll gets moderated down to (-1, Troll) within ten seconds of you posting it, the only honourable thing to do is to accuse the moderators of smoking the cheap $3 crack (again) and give up :(

1. The Maniac

   Probably the most popular kind of troll, the Maniac holds an opinion on something, and won't budge from that opinion no matter what evidence to the contrary is presented. If challenged, the Maniac will simply get more and more agitated and abusive, deriding his opponents as "idiots", "wrong-thinking", "dangerous" and "subversive". Generally the Maniac takes a position that opposes the prevalent /. beliefs, but a similar effect can be achieved by taking a typical /. viewpoint and pushing it to ridiculous extremes.

   Maniacs can be crafted for practically every article /. posts, although some are more obvious targets than others. Civil liberty articles, especially on things like censorship, DMCA, UCITA that really get /.ers riled up, are usually extremely fruitful grounds for a well-crafted maniac. The other obvious type of article is anything which could possibly involve religion, especially evolution :)

   Here are some fruitful avenues to explore:

   • The Right-Wing Maniac

     Always popular, the right-wing maniac (RWM) is a God-fearing, gun-toting, flag-waving American, and proud of it. They don't care about the rest of the world, unless it's to "prove" that America is better than everything else, and they cannot stand liberal whining over civil rights. They hate the moral decay of America and want it to revert into a nation of heterosexual, Christian whites like it was meant to be. Woe betide anyone that dares to suggest otherwise.

   • Religion

     There are two ways to approach this kind of maniac. The harder to pull off is the militant atheist, but this is quite common amongst /. posters and you would have to be very offensive to get this to work. Of course with religion trolls, the argument can go on for ever once it's started... The more common approach is the Christian fundamentalist. They are ignorant, intolerant and bigoted in the extreme. For them the Bible is the inerrant word of God revealed to man - it contains no flaws and no contradictions. Thus they are strict Creationists - mentions of evolution or cosmology will set them off on vitriolic rants. Flaming denunciations of anyone daring to contradict the "Word of God" are the way to go, and any kind of proof can always be ignored by appealing to "secular humanist brainwashing". And let's not forget, the USA is the greatest nation on Earth because it has the righteous power of Jesus Christ behind it.

   • Ideology

     Pick a philosophy, any philosophy. This troll is a troll with a cause - they have found some kind of ideological truth, and are out to expose every other philosophy as a sham. Whether it be libertarianism, objectivism, communism or capitalism, this troll will point out the obvious "flaws" in any other philosophies, whilst spouting dogma about their own. And the best thing is - you don't even need to know that much about what you're spouting - making doctrinaire mistakes will get both sides of the argument flaming you, adding to the fun.

   • Software

     This is an old favourite and crops up in many forms, covering the gamut from OS maniacs (Linux zealots, MS-apologists or embittered BSD fanatics), language maniacs (Pascal vs. C, C vs. C++, C++ vs. Java, Perl vs. Python, VB vs. everything), application maniacs(GIMP vs. Photoshop, Netscape vs. IE, vi vs. emacs) and also includes people who complain about how technology should only be for the 31337 hackers.

   • Guns

     Americans love their guns, and will always fight passionately for their Constitutionally guarenteed rights to bear arms and shoot people. Even the slightest hint of criticism of this will bring down the wrath of a thousand and one enraged gun-owners on you, so it's always a great point to work into a troll :)

2. The Expert

   The Expert is someone who is "savvy" in their particular field, and is perfectly willing to give their opinion on any topic even vauguely related to their field. The Expert is most likely to be from a field which /.ers as a rule despise - the classic example is dumb marketing guy, but try consultants, lawyers, politicians, lobbyists, executives, journalists (just think Jon Katz). With this kind of troll sweeping statements with little content are the norm, along wire dire portents of future catastrophe and dark hints of "insider knowledge".

   Some possible angles to exploit:

   • Industry knowledge

     The expert knows the computing industry from the inside - as a long-term pro, they can dispense knowledge knowing that they can "speak for the industry". Their smug self-satisfaction is bound to annoy, as is any suggestion that things aren't the way that /.ers would like it - saying "Linux requires the rock-solid guarantee of a trusted company like Microsoft" or "Apache cannot be trusted for mission-critical enterprise platforms" is guaranteed to get you denials explaining exactly why you're wrong, in excruciating detail.

   • Helpful hints

     With their tech-savvy (or law-savvy or whatever) experience, the expert is obviously the best person to point out what's wrong with things or to give out useful "factual" information. In fact this probably works best with lawyer trolls - for all that /.ers protest "IANAL", they certainly seem to think they could be, and any mistakes you make will send them rushing to prove themselves by correcting you.

3. Offtopic Trolls

   Not really a "troll" in the strict Jargon File sense of the word, but they certainly should be included here :) This category includes parodies, offtopic weirdness any all kinds of amusing stuff. Not really my area of expertise, this stuff is mainly done by gnarphlager and opensourceman. Thanks to gnarphlager for this section.

   Offtopic trolls, like any other, come in almost as many colours as an iMac, but generally not as cute. But then again, a good offtopic "troll" can affect more people than a repulsive little gumdrop on your desk, because you need to have someone SEE your desk before they can react. Simple? Moreso than even my overblown prose could indicate. Some basic examples:

   1. The serial troll

      Write a story. Keep expanding it. It doesn't matter what article you post it under, so long as it's high up. If you want people to recognize you, pick a couple themes or symbols, and carry them on throughout the story. Other alternatives include back linking or including the entire story, but adding more each time. Be funny if you want. Or if you don't feel like being funny, just be really weird. Someone will react.

   2. The random troll

      This has nothing to do with anything. Be it a stream of consciousness rant, or a description of the corner of your desk. Another favorite is a monologue, read as if spoken from any one given entity to another. The more outlandish, the better (a pair of socks talking to a mousepad, for example). If you really wanted to be artsy, work in an actual metaphor or legitimate meaning behind it, but it's not necessary.

   3. The vaguely related troll

      Start out with a comment about the article. Have a definite opinion of it. Then, after a little while, disintegrate into randomness. All roads eventually can eventually lead to cheese (yum), Natalie Portman, cannibalism, toasters, squirrels, futons, you name it. All it takes is a little bit of creativity. Oh, and feel free to use other trolls' motifs. Open source and all that ;-)

   General tips:

   • If it's funny for a fleeting moment, then it's worth posting.
   • Puns. Puns are only less vile than mimes, but it's hard to mime on /. So feel free/obligated to litter your offtopic and random bits with puns. Hurt the bastards. And if they're sick enough to laugh at them, then they'll eventually end up here ;-)
   • Obscure cultural references and injokes are always good. SOMEONE will get them eventually.
   • Several drafts of a serial or random post are common, but true elegance is being able to come up with something on the spot that still makes the top 40 posts (on a post-heavy article)

The following links contain background information useful for trolls needing quick quotes and "expert" opinions to include.

1. General purpose links
   • ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html - How to deal with USENET trolls - learn your enemy :)
   • www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html - A List Of Fallacious Arguments - Learn them and use them liberally
   • www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html - USENET troll HOWTO
   • www.baiting.org - Baiting.org
   • www.fieldingtravel.com/df/index.htm - Fielding's DangerFinder - A guide to what and where's dangerous
   
   
2. Religious links
   • www.godhatesamerica.com/ - God Hates America
   • www.chalcedon.edu/creed.html - The Creed of Christian Reconstruction
   • www.demonbuster.com - How to cast out your demons and do spiritual warfare
   • riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/thi ngs.htm - Things Creationists hate
   • www.icr.org/ - Institute for Creation Research
   • www.xenu.net - Operation Clambake - The fight against Scientology on the net
   • www.hom.net/~angels/ - Citizens for the Ten Commandments
   • www.bju.edu/rcnbc.html - The difference between Catholics and Christians
   • www.geocities.com/prazske00/biblequotes.html - Bible quotes by category
   
   
3. Political/economy links
   • www.aynrand.org - The Ayn Rand Institute
   • www.reason.com - Libertarian site
   • www.freerepublic.com - Right-wing stuff
   • www.jbs.org - Excellent site for all kinds of right-wingery
   • www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html - Web economy bullshit generator
   
   
4. Crackpot science links
   • www.fixedearth.com - The Earth Is Not Moving
   • www.jir.com/index.htm - The Journal of Irreproducible Results

© spiralx, I did not write this ;)

This is version 0.6 of a troll HOWTO, sort of a companion piece to jsm's excellent troll FAQ. As a draft, comments and criticism are always welcome, if not appreciated :)

There are techniques used by successful trolls to elicit the maximum amount of responses from unthinking /.ers. This section is dedicated to explaining how to use these in the course of your trolls. Remember though, a great troll can break any or all of these and still be successful...

• Timing

  Because you're posting as an AC, your troll will generally be ignored in favour of posters using their accounts, and so getting in early is essential. A good guideline is to get into the first 20 posts, so that people reading the article will see the troll before it is swamped out. One way of increasing the speed with which you get your troll into play is to prepare them beforehand, and then quickly customise them for the current article. This is easier than it sounds since /. typically repeats stories with small variations and runs lots of similar stories.

  Note that this is why Jon Katz stories are pretty worthless as trolling material - by the time you've found the article and prepared a troll there's already 50+ posts on it, most of them flaming Jon Katz anyway :)

• Exposure

  Once you've got your troll in, you need people to actually read it. You also want replies - /.ers are more likely to read your troll if it starts a large thread. You also want to remember that some people have set their comment thresholds to values higher than 0 - to get the attention of these you either want to get your post moderated up (see Style, below) or get a reply which gets moderated up to 4 or 5, in which case your troll becomes visible to all.

• Accounts

  An alternative to the time-honoured tradition of AC trolling is that of creating a "troll" account. This gives you the advantage of posting at 1 rather than 0, and slashbots are more likely to take you seriously, especially if you at least sound reasonable. If you do this, try to avoid posting stuff where it is obvious you're a troll under the account - post it anoymously instead - some slightly more canny readers actually check your user info before they reply. Not many though :)

  The ultimate goal of the troll account is to secure the +1 bonus, which is currently received once you hit 26 points of Karma. To get there, employ the techniques of karma whoring that we see every day on /. and watch the karma roll in. And of course once you get the +1 bonus, the world is your oyster in terms of /. Posts made at a default of 2 hit even those people with the threshold of 2, are more likely to get moderated up even further if they are at all coherent, and people tend to lose their critical thinking abilities in the face of the +1 bonus. Milk it for all it's worth.

• Layout

  To get people reading it a troll needs to be easily readable. Make sure you break it down into easily digestible paragraphs, use HTML tags where appropriate (but always make sure you close them properly) and use whitespace appropriately.

• Size

  Generally a troll shouldn't be too short, otherwise it'll get lost in the crowd. A workable minimum is a couple of medium paragraphs. Conversely, it shouldn't be too long, or no-one will bother to read it. Keep it to a happy medium.

• Spelling

  Whilst spelling is important if you want the troll to be taken "seriously", key spelling mistakes can draw out the spelling zealots, especially if you mis-spell the name of a venerated /. hero, like Linus Torveldes or Richard Strawlman (thanks dmg). Related to this is the use of the wrong word, explaining an acronym as being something it isn't or making a word into an acronym even when it isn't.

• Subject

  The subject line needs to draw attention to your post without making it obvious that it is a troll. A simple statement of the main point of your argument can work here.

• Style

  Once you realise that most moderators don't bother to read past the first paragraph or two, you can use this fact to craft trolls that can be moderated up as "Insightful" (note that I mean this in the /. sense rather than the real-world sense). Start off fairly reasonable, making statements that are /. friendly and not being too controversial. As the troll goes on, make it more and more controversial, building it up for the coup de grace in the final paragraph.

• Linking

  As we all know, a post with links is considered "informative" by the /. crowd. Moderators love it, and they rarely check the links, so be sure to include as many as possible. And make them wrong - a link to the Perl website should instead point to the Python website instead, and vice versa. The other alternative to incorrect links is "useful" links to places like www.linux.org and www.microsoft.com i.e. places /.ers could never have found on their own :)

• Feeding

  The ideal troll requires no feeding - it runs on its own, generating flamewars between clueless /.ers for your amusement. But often a troll requires some help and so you should consider feeding it. Feeding is best reserved for people making either completely clueless responses, people making responses with holes in, or those wonderful people who write a 2000-word point-by-point rebuttal of your troll.

• Know your audience

  Always keep in mind the kind of things advocated on /. so that you can play on and against them. This is why anti-Linux, creationist, gun-loving, pro-corporation trolls work well - the vast majority of /.ers hold the opposite viewpoints. And if a few people agree with you, so much the better - it merely validates your viewpoint in the eyes of readers.

• Arrogance

  Be arrogant. You, as a troll, know that you're right. No other explanation could exist. The wronger the "fact", the more assertively you should state it. Make it clear that you are better than everyone else - you know the truth and they are just too stupid to realise it. Use plenty of sarcasm, and use "quotes" to show it to people too dumb to realise.

• Offensiveness

  Being offensive in your initial troll can be counter-productive - it causes moderators to mark you down as flamebait in general. But if you're feeding, then you can get away with calling /.ers all kinds of things. Make broad generalisations about /. readers - call them "long-haired Linux zealots", "socialist open-source bigots" or whatever. Stereotyping is encouraged - people always want to think that they're an individual, and will point this out to you given half a chance.

• Indifference

  Great for articles with a political or social bent, this kind of troll expresses complete indifference to the topic at hand, wondering who on Earth cares about it. An alternative method is to say that the topic only concerns a certain group of people - criminals, idiots, hackers (always use this instead of crackers) or whatever group you want to offend.

• Sympathy

  Appear to take the same stance as the people you're trying to troll - claim you're as much a fan of Linux as the next man, but... This way you can make all kinds of claims in the sure knowledge that you actually know what you're talking about. A great phrase to use here is "In my experience". Remember to act like all the things you're pointing out are unfortunate but true.

• The common touch

  Always accuse /.ers of being elitist. This is an easy thing to do seeing as a lot of them are. Claim that is their grandmother couldn't use it, then they are just into it to feel better than Joe Sixpack rather than "doing it for the average user". This is always great for working into anti-Linux trolls - attack command-line tools and poorly designed desktops.

• The 31337 touch

  The opposite of the above. Claim that technology or whatever is only for the elite of society and that any attempt to open it up for everyone is wrong, an attack on intellectualism and possibly even dangerous. If people were meant to understand these things then they would, and it's their fault if they're too stupid to learn.

• Contradiction

  Never be afraid to contradict yourself, even in the space of a single sentence. The phrases "I am a top programmer who codes in VB" or "I am a supporter of open source who uses NT at work and 95 at home" will be sure to get a response from some weenie smugly pointing out the contradiction. Confuse the issue more by engaging in contradiction when you are feeding - this will confuse /.ers who will then make even more stupid replies, leaving them even more wide open for response.

  Clues

  If you're feeling brave, give the reader clues that this is an obvious troll. The classic example here is dmg's stock phrase "I am often accused of trolling (whatever that is)", but also feel free to use phrases like "I have not read the article, and I don't know much about XYZ but I feel I must comment". If anyone responds to a troll with these kinds of clues in it, feel free to bask in the glow of knee-jerk /. responses.

• Denial

  If you're unlucky someone will accuse you of being a troll (surely not!) and try and ruin it for you. If you don't want it all to end there, then be sure to counter it by accusing them of being small-minded and petty, saying that it's easier for them to say it's a troll than to accept that people have different opinions. Be sure to say this in the subject line, especially if their subject was the infamous "YHBT. YHL. HAND."

• Claiming credit

  Given that /. has its community of regular trolls (hi guys!), it's only polite to publish your troll on one of the so-called "hidden" forums for all to see and admire. This way, you get to bask in the praise of other trolls, they get to contribute to your's if they want to, and you get an easy way to find the troll later on when you want to check on its progress :)

  As for when to post it, that's a matter of opinion really. You can either post it straight away or leave it will after people start biting. Remember that the troll forum is also frequented by non-trolls, and sometimes you may get a self-declared "troll-buster" try and expose you. But remember, /.ers always post before thinking, and often it doesn't matter at all.

  There is no real current forum at the moment thanks to various spammers hitting the sids, but try trolltalk, the original troll sid started by 80md and osm way back in the day. Generally all postings are done there as an AC, with your name at the end of the post. Include a link to the troll somewhere in the text, which ideally will be directly to the post and its replies - click on the #XX link in the thread to get there.

• Ending the troll

  Sometimes you just get bored with a troll, or people start posting genuinely thoughtful stuff in reply (it does happen). When this happens it might be time to own up to the troll with a helpful "YHBT. YHL. HAND." post. Sometimes people will carry on a discussion of the issue, and if you're really lucky (and it was a great troll) they will completely fail to believe you and carry on arguing. If that happens, pat yourself on the back for writing a great troll :)

• The cheap $3 crack

  Finally, when all else fails and your troll gets moderated down to (-1, Troll) within ten seconds of you posting it, the only honourable thing to do is to accuse the moderators of smoking the cheap $3 crack (again) and give up :(

1. The Maniac

   Probably the most popular kind of troll, the Maniac holds an opinion on something, and won't budge from that opinion no matter what evidence to the contrary is presented. If challenged, the Maniac will simply get more and more agitated and abusive, deriding his opponents as "idiots", "wrong-thinking", "dangerous" and "subversive". Generally the Maniac takes a position that opposes the prevalent /. beliefs, but a similar effect can be achieved by taking a typical /. viewpoint and pushing it to ridiculous extremes.

   Maniacs can be crafted for practically every article /. posts, although some are more obvious targets than others. Civil liberty articles, especially on things like censorship, DMCA, UCITA that really get /.ers riled up, are usually extremely fruitful grounds for a well-crafted maniac. The other obvious type of article is anything which could possibly involve religion, especially evolution :)

   Here are some fruitful avenues to explore:

   • The Right-Wing Maniac

     Always popular, the right-wing maniac (RWM) is a God-fearing, gun-toting, flag-waving American, and proud of it. They don't care about the rest of the world, unless it's to "prove" that America is better than everything else, and they cannot stand liberal whining over civil rights. They hate the moral decay of America and want it to revert into a nation of heterosexual, Christian whites like it was meant to be. Woe betide anyone that dares to suggest otherwise.

   • Religion

     There are two ways to approach this kind of maniac. The harder to pull off is the militant atheist, but this is quite common amongst /. posters and you would have to be very offensive to get this to work. Of course with religion trolls, the argument can go on for ever once it's started... The more common approach is the Christian fundamentalist. They are ignorant, intolerant and bigoted in the extreme. For them the Bible is the inerrant word of God revealed to man - it contains no flaws and no contradictions. Thus they are strict Creationists - mentions of evolution or cosmology will set them off on vitriolic rants. Flaming denunciations of anyone daring to contradict the "Word of God" are the way to go, and any kind of proof can always be ignored by appealing to "secular humanist brainwashing". And let's not forget, the USA is the greatest nation on Earth because it has the righteous power of Jesus Christ behind it.

   • Ideology

     Pick a philosophy, any philosophy. This troll is a troll with a cause - they have found some kind of ideological truth, and are out to expose every other philosophy as a sham. Whether it be libertarianism, objectivism, communism or capitalism, this troll will point out the obvious "flaws" in any other philosophies, whilst spouting dogma about their own. And the best thing is - you don't even need to know that much about what you're spouting - making doctrinaire mistakes will get both sides of the argument flaming you, adding to the fun.

   • Software

     This is an old favourite and crops up in many forms, covering the gamut from OS maniacs (Linux zealots, MS-apologists or embittered BSD fanatics), language maniacs (Pascal vs. C, C vs. C++, C++ vs. Java, Perl vs. Python, VB vs. everything), application maniacs(GIMP vs. Photoshop, Netscape vs. IE, vi vs. emacs) and also includes people who complain about how technology should only be for the 31337 hackers.

   • Guns

     Americans love their guns, and will always fight passionately for their Constitutionally guarenteed rights to bear arms and shoot people. Even the slightest hint of criticism of this will bring down the wrath of a thousand and one enraged gun-owners on you, so it's always a great point to work into a troll :)

2. The Expert

   The Expert is someone who is "savvy" in their particular field, and is perfectly willing to give their opinion on any topic even vauguely related to their field. The Expert is most likely to be from a field which /.ers as a rule despise - the classic example is dumb marketing guy, but try consultants, lawyers, politicians, lobbyists, executives, journalists (just think Jon Katz). With this kind of troll sweeping statements with little content are the norm, along wire dire portents of future catastrophe and dark hints of "insider knowledge".

   Some possible angles to exploit:

   • Industry knowledge

     The expert knows the computing industry from the inside - as a long-term pro, they can dispense knowledge knowing that they can "speak for the industry". Their smug self-satisfaction is bound to annoy, as is any suggestion that things aren't the way that /.ers would like it - saying "Linux requires the rock-solid guarantee of a trusted company like Microsoft" or "Apache cannot be trusted for mission-critical enterprise platforms" is guaranteed to get you denials explaining exactly why you're wrong, in excruciating detail.

   • Helpful hints

     With their tech-savvy (or law-savvy or whatever) experience, the expert is obviously the best person to point out what's wrong with things or to give out useful "factual" information. In fact this probably works best with lawyer trolls - for all that /.ers protest "IANAL", they certainly seem to think they could be, and any mistakes you make will send them rushing to prove themselves by correcting you.

3. Offtopic Trolls

   Not really a "troll" in the strict Jargon File sense of the word, but they certainly should be included here :) This category includes parodies, offtopic weirdness any all kinds of amusing stuff. Not really my area of expertise, this stuff is mainly done by gnarphlager and opensourceman. Thanks to gnarphlager for this section.

   Offtopic trolls, like any other, come in almost as many colours as an iMac, but generally not as cute. But then again, a good offtopic "troll" can affect more people than a repulsive little gumdrop on your desk, because you need to have someone SEE your desk before they can react. Simple? Moreso than even my overblown prose could indicate. Some basic examples:

   1. The serial troll

      Write a story. Keep expanding it. It doesn't matter what article you post it under, so long as it's high up. If you want people to recognize you, pick a couple themes or symbols, and carry them on throughout the story. Other alternatives include back linking or including the entire story, but adding more each time. Be funny if you want. Or if you don't feel like being funny, just be really weird. Someone will react.

   2. The random troll

      This has nothing to do with anything. Be it a stream of consciousness rant, or a description of the corner of your desk. Another favorite is a monologue, read as if spoken from any one given entity to another. The more outlandish, the better (a pair of socks talking to a mousepad, for example). If you really wanted to be artsy, work in an actual metaphor or legitimate meaning behind it, but it's not necessary.

   3. The vaguely related troll

      Start out with a comment about the article. Have a definite opinion of it. Then, after a little while, disintegrate into randomness. All roads eventually can eventually lead to cheese (yum), Natalie Portman, cannibalism, toasters, squirrels, futons, you name it. All it takes is a little bit of creativity. Oh, and feel free to use other trolls' motifs. Open source and all that ;-)

   General tips:

   • If it's funny for a fleeting moment, then it's worth posting.
   • Puns. Puns are only less vile than mimes, but it's hard to mime on /. So feel free/obligated to litter your offtopic and random bits with puns. Hurt the bastards. And if they're sick enough to laugh at them, then they'll eventually end up here ;-)
   • Obscure cultural references and injokes are always good. SOMEONE will get them eventually.
   • Several drafts of a serial or random post are common, but true elegance is being able to come up with something on the spot that still makes the top 40 posts (on a post-heavy article)

The following links contain background information useful for trolls needing quick quotes and "expert" opinions to include.

1. General purpose links
   • ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html - How to deal with USENET trolls - learn your enemy :)
   • www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html - A List Of Fallacious Arguments - Learn them and use them liberally
   • www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html - USENET troll HOWTO
   • www.baiting.org - Baiting.org
   • www.fieldingtravel.com/df/index.htm - Fielding's DangerFinder - A guide to what and where's dangerous
   
   
2. Religious links
   • www.godhatesamerica.com/ - God Hates America
   • www.chalcedon.edu/creed.html - The Creed of Christian Reconstruction
   • www.demonbuster.com - How to cast out your demons and do spiritual warfare
   • riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/thi ngs.htm - Things Creationists hate
   • www.icr.org/ - Institute for Creation Research
   • www.xenu.net - Operation Clambake - The fight against Scientology on the net
   • www.hom.net/~angels/ - Citizens for the Ten Commandments
   • www.bju.edu/rcnbc.html - The difference between Catholics and Christians
   • www.geocities.com/prazske00/biblequotes.html - Bible quotes by category
   
   
3. Political/economy links
   • www.aynrand.org - The Ayn Rand Institute
   • www.reason.com - Libertarian site
   • www.freerepublic.com - Right-wing stuff
   • www.jbs.org - Excellent site for all kinds of right-wingery
   • www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html - Web economy bullshit generator
   
   
4. Crackpot science links
   • www.fixedearth.com - The Earth Is Not Moving
   • www.jir.com/index.htm - The Journal of Irreproducible Results

© spiralx, I did not write this ;)

Hmm, that Willson boy seems to be quite well-informed... LOL...

I'm surprised I didn't see an essay on how NASA faked the moon landings on there.

I still think that a good game engine can make plenty of difference. Compare Nethack to Diablo, and think how much better Diablo could be.

Absolutely. However, there's a lot of visceral inertia (I can say that in public, can't I?) to overcome before most people will consider learning any other language. It's tied up pretty deeply in their personal and cultural identity. Witness the vitriolic attack by the (clearly under-informed) AC who replied to you first.

Personally, I think it's just fear. Fear by people who are used to being very competent at what they do, of being put in a situation where they aren't the Alpha for a while. I lucked out, picked up Esperanto in high school because I found it very geeky and I was a stone geek. All the other kids laughed, which was nothing new. I'm very glad I spent the amazingly short time to learn the basics; now I'm reading translated literature (some of it from Chinese!) at a fairly advanced level, with ease.

As for the attacker, sigh ... I don't have the energy to form a proper rebuttal. I guess I'd note that Esperanto is the single biggest success story in the constructed-language world, the longest-lived, and its speakers have increased in numbers pretty steadily since the beginning. But don't take my word for it (and if geeks are reading this, they won't), see for yourself. Those links were good; here are some others:

• La Multlingva Inform-Centro ... bet you find your native tongue represented!
  
• Esperantic Studies Foundation ... some formalism for a change
  
• An examination of some of that "visceral inertia"
  
• For you Canadians
  
• And the Britons
  
• Aussies, too
  
• The misleadingly-named Esperanto League for North America, which really means "The USA" here
  
• And finally, for fun, just when you thought Shatner had done it all ...
  

Iru. Jenu. Lernu. Ghuu.

Holy shit! There's a New Sealand????

let us not forget that Tolkien hated allegory in all its forms. He has repeated stated that while inspiration comes in many forms, he never meant LoTR to parallel the bible, nuclear arms race, or any of the dozens of theories that people with degrees love to speculate on.

What would the personification of the DMCA be in law enforcer form? I would imagine something a cross between gates, rosen, and kobrin. Please click on the kobrin link if you don't know who she is.

You really need them as PDF? Otherwise it's surprising how many are available online. I don't know much about the console mags & C64 mags because I was a Speccy / Amiga owner, but I know many mags are archived online by enthusiasts (often WITH covertapes, posters, silly 3D pullouts etc).

A few I know of:
http://www.zzap64.co.uk/
http://www.old-computer-mags.co.uk/
http://www.ysrnry.co.uk/cover1.htm
http://www.mjwilson.demon.co.uk/crash/
http://www.sincuser.f9.co.uk/
http://www.btinternet.com/~amigapower/

Mercy Dash is currently unemployed at http://www.grenville-evans.co.uk/mercy.htm

LONG LIVE THE PAST!!!

Check this out...

http://www.semis.demon.co.uk/Gameboy/DsoDemo/DsoDe mo.htm

Not exactly a pc interface, but nifty anyway.

There is also the Pocket Sampler kit by Oatley Electronics. Not the fastest thing in the world, but worth a look. It's $25, and kit number K090. We used it in an EE class I had a few years ago.

http://www.oatleyelectronics.com/pdf/august01_kit. pdf

-JM

The dutch magazine Elektuur published a design for a device that allows a Gameboy to be used as an digital oscilloscope. See Some info in dutch about the device. The english sister-magazine elektor also published the design, but I can't find anything online about it, except the fact that it is published in issues 2000/10 and 2000/11.
Using Google I found a page with screenshots about the device.

New cars produced in the european union must now include something called OBD III in the engine control unit (On Board Diagnostics).
This is stuff that allows the ecu to monitor extra paramaters of engine performance and emmisions. If for example the car owner opts to tune the engine (something as simple as fitting a free flow air filter and sports exhaust system), then if the engine performance changes out of a pre set band of tolerance, the ecu decides there is a fault, logs it, and illuminates the check engine light on the dashboard.
If you happen to get stopped at a roadside check while this light is illuminated, its no good saying "it just came on" cos the police can plug in a portable interrogator and find out how long its been on.
This system is making it increasingly hard to tune sports cars and still keep road legality.
Cars like the earlier model of mine used to have a vast aray of tuning options, however, since the introduction of OBDIII, there are very few options that keep the car road legal.

In the Vietnam war era, we had the 13-cents killers. Soon, we'll have the 25-cents killers!

It has the code for it, but it isn't enabled by default.

Enabling swap encryption is easiest, you just modify you /etc/sysctl.conf (it's labelled well in that file) and/or use the sysctl command.
i use swap encryption on my 1.2 athlon, but not on my 486's running openbsd.

Enabling filesystem encryption requires a kernel build (you need to add "option TCFS" to your config) and some commands to be compiled and run. i found this article to be helpful.
i just did this to see what it'd be like. the documentation is rather minimal but it is workable. You have the option of using 3DES, RC5 and Blowfish. Check out that link for more info.

Can I now expect a version of graphical CP/M sometime soon?

As an aside, my best friend works on the Forth Rail Bridge in Scotland - you know the big cantilever arch bridge built 100 years or so ago. He's shown me round it, and quite frankly, it is absolutely awe inspiring! It was a huge project, bigger and different from anything previously built. And yet it was completed on time, and is still there running 1000 tonne trains every day. WHy? Because the design, specification and construction process was up to scratch.

Compare that with the fate of the neighbouring Tay Bridge, which fell down one night kiling 75 people on a train.

Process wont save you from everything, but it will weed out most of the worst problems

Just my 2p's worth. Regards

Treefrog

My results so far are:

• Arround 90% of the ads filtered
• Popup and popunder filtered: don't even open if called by external js, otherwise content filtered.
• Some "brand toolbars" wiped (xoom and nbci when they existed, netscape, freeservers, lycos)
• No watermark or ads of any sort on Geocities (for all sites)
• External stats/counters sites filtered (mainly those adding ads to the counter)
• ...

Well I for one and most people I know who frequent places like HardForum the forum sister site to HardOCP use burn in programs like SiSoft Sandra's burn in program for at least 12 or so hours before we leave the overclock in place.

microdot acid

• Automatically generate import statements
  
• Drive Mozilla to the correct Javadoc for each class
  

Plus with a set of mappings from my Vim config, I:

• Automatically generate class skeletons
  
• Automatically generate setter/getter methods
  
• Automatically generate iterators over arrays, collections and vectors
  
• Build javadoc tags
  

• Vim is available on every platform, on every spec of machine. When I move around between clients, this in invaluable.
  
• I don't just edit Java files.
  
• The actual editing functionality of Vim outstrips every IDE editor I've seen
  

I piloted an Airbus A320 for about an hour in one of those nice CAE toys . It is really amazing. You can feel the irregularities of the asphalt as you accelerate on the take-off ramp, and the inercia makes you stick in the seat. All the commands and movements of the cockpit are perfect. The graphics of the landscape are good, but they don't get close to photorealism.

To make the things work, they use an IBM RISC/6000, equipped with several boards and equipments that are present on fly-by-wire systems of the actual planes. There are also special boards to control the hydraulic systems that make the whole thing swing. The instruments that are in the cockpit are also the same of an Airbus A320.

It doesn't have anything to do with helmets, gloves or helmets, but they are a demonstration of the cool things VR can do.

This is somewhat offtopic, but if you're running some version of NT (4.0, 2000, XP), you can just run most DOS games with support for sound, using VDMSound.

I've played both Monkey Island and Monkey Island II with it; hearing the music and sound effects for the first time EVER almost brought a tear to my eye. (When I first played them, my PC didn't have a sound card, so it was all PC Speaker blips and beeps...)

For Linux' DOSEmu, there's SBEmu.

Never having used that, I can't vouch for how well it works, but I don't think it's quite as advanced as VDMSound.

Many of the comments have implied Slack is not for the newbie, but in fact Linux is not for the newbie; slack is just more honest, in not trying to bolt inadequate GUIs over a system that was built to be adminstered from the command line and text file.

Maybe if you're buying new hardware the more commercial distros are the way to go, but you can't beat slack for installing on old hardware: I'd tried to install SuSE 7.0, RedHat 7.1, and Debian 2.2 for an old Compaq server before I downloaded a pre-compiled kernel kernel off a slackware mirror, which worked like a charm. Short account of my adventures here: http://www.carnall.demon.co.uk/prosignia_linux.htm

And the lean installs are good too. You have to know what you're doing, but then you have to know what you're doing anyway. So far I've not felt any pain because I had a .tgz rather than a .rpm to install. As for Debian, well, ideologically it's the distro I'd most like to use, but the pain of the UI of the package management database they use ("dselect": the 'd' surely stands for 'devil') has always made it impossible for me to do anything useful with it. Instead it makes me feel physically sick. Presumably they don't update this because they want to keep the riff-raff out. Well, they've succeeded in my case.

I'm aware of Debian's theoretically greater prowess: my dream distro would bolt apt-get like updating over a network to slackware's spare elegance. Maybe one day I'll know enough to it myself (don't hold your breath).

. I also despise CS Lewis, which is the literary equivalent of having a metaphor pounded into your head with a 2x4

And how much Lewis have you read? There's a lot more than just the "Narnia" series. Oh, and if you ever studied the man, you'd know how much he hated people reading metaphor into his books, a metaphor he never intended. Narnia may be seen as a "loose allegory", meaning he didn't write about religion in our world using a childrens story, he created a new world and tried to imagine what it would look like if Jesus went there. See this FAQ entry for a better description.

And here are some quotes from the man:

"When I started The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe I don't think I foresaw what Aslan was going to do and suffer. I think He just insisted on behaving in His own way. This of course I did understand and the whole series became Christian. But it is not, as some people think, an allegory. That is, I don't say 'Let us represent Christ as Aslan.' I say, 'Supposing there was a world like Narnia, and supposing, like ours, it needed redemption, let us imagine what sort of Incarnation and Passion and Resurrection Christ would have there.' See?"

Elsewhere, Lewis also continued to deny Aslan's presence as an allegorical figure, stating instead that his lorldly lion was to be seen as suppositional:

"If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality however he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, 'What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?' This is not allegory at all. So in Perelandra. This also works out a supposition. ('Suppose, even now, in some other planet there were a first couple undergoing the same that Adam and Eve underwent there, but successfully.')
Allegory and such supposals differ because they mix the real and the unreal in different ways. Bunyan's picture of Giant Despair does not start from supposal at all. It is not supposition but a fact that despair can capture and imprison a human soul. What is unreal (fictional) is the giant, the castle and the dungeon. The incarnation of Christ in another world is mere supposal: but granted the supposition, He would really have been a physical object in that world as He was in Palestine, and His death on the Stone Table would have been a physical event no less than his death on Calvary."

He doesn't know who'd in win in Adric Vs. Wesley Crusher, but Adric would lose the hairstyle event. So that's where my salad bowl went! Thank you, Dutch Boy!

Wil Wheaton also played a character his own age, which is rare on TV. Adric was initially played by a 19-year-old.

Sure, it's a hoax, but nothing else will suffice.
Although Peltier cooling is pretty nifty, too.

Losing an acquaintance (river, and perhaps others) to addiction, do you have any feel for that fine point in a friendship where not confronting them ("you have a problem and need help") would be practically criminal, and forcing the issue would not also drive them away?

(/serious) I'd also like your opinion on Debbie Gibson, and what you were thinking in that picture :)

For example, take a look at APLus, a GPLed language created at Morgan Stanley and derived from APL.

For more information about J (another offshoot of ALP) and APL, take a look at J\APL - the journal of APL.

You're forgetting the time the treasurer of Pennsylvania blew his brains out during a live TV press conference - That pretty much is the thing that made me hooked.

here it is

I've been, on and off, a member of the West London Meccano Society (featured somewhere in the link above) since I was ooh, too young to do anything serious with Meccano, as opposed to now being too busy... Introduced by my Dad, who's built more Meccano trucks and cranes than I care to remember, along with writing many modelplans for them and various texts on particular areas of model construction - a review of how to build different types of vehicle suspension system, for example. Sorry, no URL for his work but they're sold by MW Models under the Everything Automotive banner.

Anyway. I was fortunate enough to be at this year's SkegEx show in Skegness, England for a little while. Some absolutely stunning models were on show - if anyone wants to see more photos (though no plans I'm afraid) of some really, really good models, I can heartily recommend John Thorpe's page though there's a lot of photos so it's a little slow to load :-) Always difficult to call a favourite, but three stick out in my memory:

• Fully working walking dragline - picture one, picture two, picture three
• Top Buzz fairground ride - picture one and picture two which ran constantly throughout the show, without any problems _I_ noticed :-)
• Cutaway model of a Mini - only one picture :-(

Very, very impressive, all of them.

I've been, on and off, a member of the West London Meccano Society (featured somewhere in the link above) since I was ooh, too young to do anything serious with Meccano, as opposed to now being too busy... Introduced by my Dad, who's built more Meccano trucks and cranes than I care to remember, along with writing many modelplans for them and various texts on particular areas of model construction - a review of how to build different types of vehicle suspension system, for example. Sorry, no URL for his work but they're sold by MW Models under the Everything Automotive banner.

Anyway. I was fortunate enough to be at this year's SkegEx show in Skegness, England for a little while. Some absolutely stunning models were on show - if anyone wants to see more photos (though no plans I'm afraid) of some really, really good models, I can heartily recommend John Thorpe's page though there's a lot of photos so it's a little slow to load :-) Always difficult to call a favourite, but three stick out in my memory:

• Fully working walking dragline - picture one, picture two, picture three
• Top Buzz fairground ride - picture one and picture two which ran constantly throughout the show, without any problems _I_ noticed :-)
• Cutaway model of a Mini - only one picture :-(

Very, very impressive, all of them.

I've been, on and off, a member of the West London Meccano Society (featured somewhere in the link above) since I was ooh, too young to do anything serious with Meccano, as opposed to now being too busy... Introduced by my Dad, who's built more Meccano trucks and cranes than I care to remember, along with writing many modelplans for them and various texts on particular areas of model construction - a review of how to build different types of vehicle suspension system, for example. Sorry, no URL for his work but they're sold by MW Models under the Everything Automotive banner.

Anyway. I was fortunate enough to be at this year's SkegEx show in Skegness, England for a little while. Some absolutely stunning models were on show - if anyone wants to see more photos (though no plans I'm afraid) of some really, really good models, I can heartily recommend John Thorpe's page though there's a lot of photos so it's a little slow to load :-) Always difficult to call a favourite, but three stick out in my memory:

• Fully working walking dragline - picture one, picture two, picture three
• Top Buzz fairground ride - picture one and picture two which ran constantly throughout the show, without any problems _I_ noticed :-)
• Cutaway model of a Mini - only one picture :-(

Very, very impressive, all of them.

I've been, on and off, a member of the West London Meccano Society (featured somewhere in the link above) since I was ooh, too young to do anything serious with Meccano, as opposed to now being too busy... Introduced by my Dad, who's built more Meccano trucks and cranes than I care to remember, along with writing many modelplans for them and various texts on particular areas of model construction - a review of how to build different types of vehicle suspension system, for example. Sorry, no URL for his work but they're sold by MW Models under the Everything Automotive banner.

Anyway. I was fortunate enough to be at this year's SkegEx show in Skegness, England for a little while. Some absolutely stunning models were on show - if anyone wants to see more photos (though no plans I'm afraid) of some really, really good models, I can heartily recommend John Thorpe's page though there's a lot of photos so it's a little slow to load :-) Always difficult to call a favourite, but three stick out in my memory:

• Fully working walking dragline - picture one, picture two, picture three
• Top Buzz fairground ride - picture one and picture two which ran constantly throughout the show, without any problems _I_ noticed :-)
• Cutaway model of a Mini - only one picture :-(

Very, very impressive, all of them.

I've been, on and off, a member of the West London Meccano Society (featured somewhere in the link above) since I was ooh, too young to do anything serious with Meccano, as opposed to now being too busy... Introduced by my Dad, who's built more Meccano trucks and cranes than I care to remember, along with writing many modelplans for them and various texts on particular areas of model construction - a review of how to build different types of vehicle suspension system, for example. Sorry, no URL for his work but they're sold by MW Models under the Everything Automotive banner.

Anyway. I was fortunate enough to be at this year's SkegEx show in Skegness, England for a little while. Some absolutely stunning models were on show - if anyone wants to see more photos (though no plans I'm afraid) of some really, really good models, I can heartily recommend John Thorpe's page though there's a lot of photos so it's a little slow to load :-) Always difficult to call a favourite, but three stick out in my memory:

• Fully working walking dragline - picture one, picture two, picture three
• Top Buzz fairground ride - picture one and picture two which ran constantly throughout the show, without any problems _I_ noticed :-)
• Cutaway model of a Mini - only one picture :-(

Very, very impressive, all of them.

I've been, on and off, a member of the West London Meccano Society (featured somewhere in the link above) since I was ooh, too young to do anything serious with Meccano, as opposed to now being too busy... Introduced by my Dad, who's built more Meccano trucks and cranes than I care to remember, along with writing many modelplans for them and various texts on particular areas of model construction - a review of how to build different types of vehicle suspension system, for example. Sorry, no URL for his work but they're sold by MW Models under the Everything Automotive banner.

Anyway. I was fortunate enough to be at this year's SkegEx show in Skegness, England for a little while. Some absolutely stunning models were on show - if anyone wants to see more photos (though no plans I'm afraid) of some really, really good models, I can heartily recommend John Thorpe's page though there's a lot of photos so it's a little slow to load :-) Always difficult to call a favourite, but three stick out in my memory:

• Fully working walking dragline - picture one, picture two, picture three
• Top Buzz fairground ride - picture one and picture two which ran constantly throughout the show, without any problems _I_ noticed :-)
• Cutaway model of a Mini - only one picture :-(

Very, very impressive, all of them.

I've been, on and off, a member of the West London Meccano Society (featured somewhere in the link above) since I was ooh, too young to do anything serious with Meccano, as opposed to now being too busy... Introduced by my Dad, who's built more Meccano trucks and cranes than I care to remember, along with writing many modelplans for them and various texts on particular areas of model construction - a review of how to build different types of vehicle suspension system, for example. Sorry, no URL for his work but they're sold by MW Models under the Everything Automotive banner.

Anyway. I was fortunate enough to be at this year's SkegEx show in Skegness, England for a little while. Some absolutely stunning models were on show - if anyone wants to see more photos (though no plans I'm afraid) of some really, really good models, I can heartily recommend John Thorpe's page though there's a lot of photos so it's a little slow to load :-) Always difficult to call a favourite, but three stick out in my memory:

• Fully working walking dragline - picture one, picture two, picture three
• Top Buzz fairground ride - picture one and picture two which ran constantly throughout the show, without any problems _I_ noticed :-)
• Cutaway model of a Mini - only one picture :-(

Very, very impressive, all of them.

I admit, I was wrong... thank you *snif* ;)
Well, in fact... I found something quite fun too about geeks inventing cool stuff: take a look here. This is quit a nifty thing, no?
Another nice thingy is this: a hovercraft / scateboard, and well not so quit sportive: The motorwheel.
I guessgeeks made those too ;)

http://www.yipton.demon.co.uk/

There is this unhealthy system or mechanism, whatever you may call it known as "education system". It's obsessed with categorizing students, teachers and schools in classes, from the worst to the best. What do you need to do that? You need grades and tests. Teacher whose students get best grades is better. Schools with best grades is higher on the ladder. *That's* the name of the game.

What's the #1 lesson, the unspoken rule in every school? Get most with the least effort - that is, highest grades with the least effort. The smarter students actually learn less than the dim ones - they are better at getting A with least knowledge.

Another important and closely related skill is forgetting the formulas 10 minutes after the test - short-spam memory.

Why is a reference book forbidden on a test? What do you see in NASA engineering rooms - do you see the supervisor shouting "What the hell is *THAT*? - and pulling out a math book from under the table paper. "Oh, I'm sorry" - says the shuttle engineer - "I just forgot one formula there." The answer is quite simple - it's easier on teachers. If reference was allowed, you'd have to create a new problem for each exam, you'd perhaps have to create exam questions that have some relation to the real world - and that's tough. You can't seriously expect that on $20k salary, can you?

The art of solving real-life problems is live above all, and education system is dead as fossils in the british museum. It's hard to trace even the subtlest relation between the two.

If you want drones, if you want robots - keep your tests and grades. If you want Da Vinci's and Einsteins, throw them out. This is not a pipe dream, there's a school in england that is free of any compulsion and it's running for decades now and it works just fine. John Gotti, a teacher of the year from NY, US has said that there's no hope for the education system as it is right now and the only way out he sees is home education. I think he is working in a some new independant school in Ohio or somewhere now (anyone have more info on this?).

Oh, there's a good word that's the root of all evil in the education system - compulsion. You cannot beat a kid with sticks into an intelligent, resourceful, capable professional. Whenever it does happen, it happens *despite* the whole system of education. It fails somewhere, and you get your Torvalds or whoever.

An ideal learning environment IMHO would be a school where a bunch of kids are free to make any sort of research or a project they want. Teachers would be there to help and guide them when help is requested. If they don't want to do anything, if they want to play nintendo, they go home and play nintendo (or don't come to school at all). Okay, so 40% or 80% won't come there at all - so school overcrowding is solved, future gas station clerks will practice their moves in tekken or watch friends reruns, and future shuttle engineers or teachers or programmers are learning in an environment that's actually, you know, is perfect for learning. Pipe dream indeed.

But that don't matter. Education is an industry, and if 80% of kids don't go through it, the industry, the machine is mortally wounded. We want kids in schools, not on the streets, even if they turn schools into a combination of a concentration camp on one hand and a street/gang place on the other. It's like Bush said "opponents say that we have 'test' mentality - but let's put that logic to the test (notice pun) - if kids are tested for arithmetics, guess what, that's what they're going to know - arithmetics". Great logic. 10s of thousands in Yale education are paying off, that is, if he wrote this himself.

What can we do? Nothing, really. If there's going to be a change, it's going to be incremental, and will take decades if not centuries. It's going to be small private schools, home education, john gottis that act from inside the concentration camps that will eventually lead to the big change.

I'm sorry if this post is incidental to the story, I think it's important enough to compensate for that.

Here's some links:

Summerhill freedom school

Sorry, I can't find the Gotti page anywhere.. I read about it on K5 but apparently they don't archive all old stories. Can anyone post link in a reply?

Also, I don't want to offend any teachers. They have to follow the rules or they'll be fired. They have to work on low wages with students who don't want to learn whatever the program says they should on that day. It's a miracle they get *anything* done at all.

I use the redrat2 attached to the serial port of my linux box. It is a pc controlled learning remote. I control it via the command line using a script I wrote for Kermit. It can be found here.

I worked for Viisage Technology for a couple of years, and they use a system in the building where two cameras scan for faces in the hallway (as you're approaching to enter) and if a face found matches one in the employee database, it unlocks the door.

It was sophisticated enough to identify me as me even when I was wearing my eyeglasses, and later, when I grew a goatee type beard and moustache. No ID code to enter, no badge to carry. If you didn't match anyone in the database, it would summon security and leave the doors locked.

Having run their Technical Support Department for 2 years, I can tell you that the products not only work, but work very well. They use the facial recognition in Massachusetts at the Department of Transitional Assistance (Welfare) offices to identify those people obtaining multiple ID's under assumed names to weed out Welfare fraud.

The kind of access system they have in their entry could be used in an airport entry to identify a suspected terrorist trying to move about the country and alert security. It's pretty close to an Orwelian concept, except this type of monitoring would definately have oversight by a committee or White House office to prevent civil rights abuses.

I personally am against the idea on principle, but sometimes one principle takes precedence over another.

I still run Elite on the Horizon BBC emulator (oops - that page is now dead)

> I've always wondered what the point of the
> interpretted code was. Why not just make a new
> object format, or extend an existing one, but
> make it pure intel object code?

I guess because Intel object code is far from being perfect. Too many opcodes to consider, too many specialities that would have to be emulated. Ok, there are some 386/486/pentium emulators out there, but I can think of better VM designs to make byte-code portable.
On the other hand: Why not use Z-Code? I remember one company that even made a database program for this architecture...

You might find R/C servos fit your needs... You can control them from the parallel port directy - check out m'colleague Moose's page:

http://www.mitt.demon.co.uk/gadgets/servo.html

Servos have a suprising amount of power, actually. I keep meaning to get some more of them and make a four legged robot.

I found these guys searching for modular robots a few months ago. The ideas behind their stuff are very similar if on a larger scale. The videos seem fake though. Anyone know anything more about them or have any insight into thier validity?