Slashdot Mirror

According to Rob's personal site: http://www.roblimo.com/

"Now mostly retired, but doing a little video work for Slashdot"
A little eh? I have nothing against you Rob, you can make these videos as often as you like, but since you're now affiliated with Slashdot could you please request on behalf of its (remaining) users to have these videos put in the Slashdot TV section, where they belong? Virtually everyone hates them here because they're basically ads, and so any redeeming qualities go out the window.

Spammers, here ya go: robin@roblimo.com
 
WHO ARE YOU, PSYCHO DOUCHE!?! Your gay videos of timothy are incredibly annoying!

I have no idea about the dollars, but the traffic (and presumably advertising revenues) is about 1/40th of a slashdot. The demise of linux.com at 1/5th of a slashdot is a much bigger deal.

I plan to spend Tuesday evening going from one "victory party" to another in Sarasota and Manatee Counties (Florida) with my Canon XH-A1 video camera, then to send all my videos to Channel 10 (local CBS outlet), then post them @ my own site, http://roblimo.com./

You can do the same thing yourself, even if you don't have a hook-up with a local TV station or pro-quality video gear. Grab your cell phone with built-in vidcam, your Flip Video cam, your 1-CCD camcorder -- whatever you have -- and upload your videos to YouTube or other video sites.

You might also want to do your own exit polls. As long as you're on public property, no one has the right to keep you from shooting video.

Nowadays there is no reason to be a passive video consumer instead of a media creator.

Get out there and BE the media instead of sitting on your ass watching people who are no smarter than you TELL YOU what's going on.

- Robin

Oh, I noticed the mistakes. But we tell/warn/promise all Slashdot interviewees that we'll run their answers "verbatim, except for HTML formatting." And that's exactly what we do.

Those mistakes are almost always a guarantee that the person answered the questions without help from a PR department or other launderer, BTW. I'd rather see "real" answers with mistakes than perfect ones that are obviously committee efforts.

In 2000, we ran an interview with Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, and Timothy got yelled at by many readers for transcribing (this interview was done by phone) all of Lars's swear words and verbal tics. But Lars loved it. The interview captured not only information, but let his personality come through in a way no MSM interview ever would.

And to show you that Timothy's interview skills go well beyond typical Slashdot material, here he is interviewing a boxing coach and some of his fighters.

Well... "Telco spokesthing says telco plan is Good For America" isn't much of a story. Add a voice from the other side and it gets more interesting.

BTW, I'm not worrying about Google or Yahoo. As far as I'm concerned, New Neutrality is all about me [flash video] and other small-timers moving into Internet video delivery, not a fight between big companies.

- Robin

I had a revelation one evening at a Walgreens Drug Store in Bradenton, which I suppose is as good a place to have a revelation as any. It was about Jesus, Passover, and Easter. In a flash, I suddenly realized why Christianity is popular and Judaism is not.

It's the candy!

Let's see... Slashdot started in a small town -- Holland, MI.

At the time I worked for Andover News Network (later Andover.net, bought by VA Linux, which become VA Software and renamed Andover OSDN, then OSTG), which was in a small town not terribly far from Boston. I lived in Elkridge, MD, a small town near Baltimore.

Andover bought Slashdot. The original Slashdot crew moved from Holland, MI, to Dexter, MI, another small town near Ann Arbor.

I moved to Bradenton, FL, pop. ~55,000. Retirees are courted like mad here because they *don't* use a lot of civic services. Realize that schools are about the most expensive civic service we have, and retirees rarely have school-age children.

This area has a substantial number of creative loonies. I wrote about that phenomenon on my personal site.

I have friends in tech businesses here who are doing fine.

When Tropicana -- based in Bradenton -- got bought by Pepsi Cola and all the executive positions were transferred to Chicago, not many Tropicana execs made the move. They decided to stay here. And they found jobs.

In fact, this area has a negligible unemployment rate, down around 3%.

Not all small towns are the same.

And not all small towns are in the middle of nowhere. I live about 3 miles from Interstate 75, which runs to Atlanta and from there, eventually, to Detroit. Not only that, we have a local airport 10 minutes away and Tampa International less than an hour away. Tomorrow I'll fly from Tampa to Raleigh, NC on business. It will take me less time to get to the airport than it would take me to get to LaGuardia if I lived in Greenwich Village -- and I'll pay a lot less for parking, too.

I can be anywhere on the East Coast in four hours or less, including driving and airport wait time. I can be in San Francisco in seven hours or so.

If I have large quantities of physical goods to ship in or out, we have a huge container shipping port right up the road, and another one across the bay in Tampa.

I don't feel I'm exactly in the middle of nowhere, even though I don't live in one of America's largest population centers.

Our nearest Gulf Coast swimming beach is about 8 miles, and the nearest launch ramp for my sailboat is 1.4 miles.

Since "I'd rather be sailing," this smallish town is a far better place for me to be than NYC, just as skiers would rather live in New Hampshire or N. Dakota than in San Francisco.

We all have our own tastes. I was born in Los Angeles, and I've lived in San Francisco, Baltimore, and the New York (Long Island) burbs. I learned that I liked a smaller place better than a big one. And I like having salt water nearby. So I live where and how *I* want, which may not be how and where *you* want.

- Robin

Especially since, for some reason, the book's title page shows a penguin...

My wife and I adopted an adult pound dog two days before she was scheduled for euthanasia.

Terri (the dog) is shaggy, lovable, and protects us from Al Queda terrorists, who often try to come into our yard disguised as cats.

People ask me what breed she is. I say, "She's an American dog."

And so she is, complete with waggly tail and a friendly disposition.

Not only that, Terri is computer-literate!

I don't think Terri is clonable. She is a unique individual.

Take any pound dog with a reasonable disposition, give that dog love and firm training, and you will have a fine companion.

There are lots of pound dogs waiting for you to come along and adopt them. If you want a dog, this is the best wat to get one!

What chance then that other drivers-for-hire -- such as slashdot editor roblimo -- may switch to hybrid vehicles?

Try contacting Roblimo directly and ask for his opinion. He's the guy behind /., even if he's more detached these days.

http://roblimo.com/

No. Who's Rob Limo?

For the mouse-impared:

Robin 'Roblimo' Miller is editor in chief for OSDN, one of the world's leading online tech news publishers. He has written extensively about computers and the Internet for Slashdot, Linux.com, NewsForge, Time New Media, Online Journalism Review, Web Hosting Magazine, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, and many other Web sites, newspapers, and magazines.

Hope this helps ... :-)

As of the time stamp shown on this post, questions for Mr. Godwin have been selected and will be emailed to him within the next hour. Questions posted after this will not be considered.

I'd like to thank everyone who submitted questions. If yours didn't "make the cut" this time, we'll have plenty of future interviews for you.

Don't forget: You can suggest interview candidates by emailing robin at roblimo.com. Please make sure you include current contact information for the person you'd like to see interviewed.

- Robin 'Roblimo' Miller

This can't be /.'s own Robin Miller (roblimo), can it? Of course not, it's Robin MilNer!

Glad to know these people want others like them to play a stronger role in running the Internet, truly it does.

- Robin 'Roblimo' Miller

The danger or at least inconvenience to pleasure boaters and commercial fishermen is a big reason the locals say they're against this offshore windmill farm. That makes no sense. It looks to me like there would be plenty of space between the towers for a pretty large yacht or fishing boat to pass through the line of windmills.

Not only that, how hard would it be to provide several wide passages between selected towers for the big-boat people, and mark them with standard channel navigation buoys?

I have trouble understanding how any sailor could be against this project. I mean, if you take a look at my boat, you'll see that it openly and unashamedly uses wind as its primary power source.

But don't worry about me, Nantucket Sound people, I promise not to sully your view with my litle wind-powered boat. It's a lot cheaper to live and sail here in Florida... and we can sail year-round, too. :)

- Robin

PS - I'd be okay with windmills off the shore in the Gulf of Mexico. They'd be a lot better than the environmentally destructive offshore oil rigs Pres. Bush wants to put here -- but his brother Jeb, FL governor, keeps fighting against, so far successfully, although the oil people keep attacking and handing out the bribes, so sooner or later they'll probably get to do their damage unless we manage get the reflubicans out of office first.

Not to be grossly offtopic, but both spellings are correct and incorrect. Traditionally, the commonly accepted past tense & past participle form of "to spell" in English (as in the UK) spelling would be "spelt", where-as the commonly accepted American version would "spelled". It could be argued that "spelt" would be the formal form and "spelled" the informal form (similar to Usted verus Es). However, it is only slashdot and there are some of us that enjoy the butchering of the english language and believe it is part of the reason slashdot has been so sucessful. :)

While I agree that in principle the AC's comments were inflammatory and in general added nothing to the discussion, your reply was just as inflammatory only goes to feed the trolls. I only bring this up since browsing your comment history you generally make quite intellegible remarks I believe have contributed more than most to making /. more than "n4tALi3 p0rtM4n's h0t gRitZ". I am also making an active effort to lower the S/N ratio, instead of just whining about it. :)

I think a good idea to remove SPAM is to all get personal websites and do what Roblimo has done (scroll down about half way).

My official job title is Editor-in-Chief for OSDN, but I'm more of an in-house editorial consultant than a controlling "boss" editor because we have a great staff that needs little or no direction. Now and then I offer a little advice, but I usually wait until I'm asked instead of forcing my words of wisdom (wisdumb?) into unwilling ears.

i'd prefer to poke fun at your inability to determine the distinction, given the photo on his homepage

he dont look female to me

Robin Miller has a rather-amusing reply that he sends to the Nigerian scam letters that he gets. I hope he won't mind my pasting it in below.

-Waldo Jaquith

---------------
FROM THE DESK OF: MR. WORGEE G. SHUB
Corporate (Special) Trust Fund,
United Political Parties of America,
Contract Award Committee,
Washington DC USA

Dear Esteemed Nigerian Sir:

I am the Chairman of the Contract Award committee and my committee is solely responsible for awarding and payment of contracts on behalf of the United Political Parties of America. My Committee has received payments from Enron, Microsoft, Walt Disney, and many other large American companies that we then disbursed in accordance with United States law to the intended politicians in return for government services rendered to The Corporations. We overshot the contracted sum by USD35 Million. We have paid the politicians and withholding the balance of Thirty-Five Million United States Dollars. Since the existing domestic laws forbid civil servants from opening, operating and maintaining foreign accounts, we do not have the expertise to transfer this balance of funds to a foreign account.

Due to the salubrious investment and taxation climate in Nigeria, as outlined in FMF A26 Unit 3B paragraph "D" of the Auditor General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Report of NOV. 1999 about annual estimated petroleum revenues of 28billion US Dollars, and especially opportunities relateed to the late Head of State General Sani Abacha who died on 8th June 1998, which we have become aware of through various emails we have received from your countrymen about the supply of Agricultural Machines and spare parts to the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, we have prepared to pay a commission to a worthy individual like yourself equal to 25% of the total sum transfered while 5% will be reserved for incidental expenses that both parties will incur in the course of actualizing this transaction and the balance of 70% will be kept for the Committee members.

If you know you are capable of helping us actualize our life's dream, you should send to me immediately the details of your bank particulars or open a new account where we can transfer the money(US$35M)which you will hold in trust for us until we come over there for our own share.

As soon as you open the account, send by e-mail to me immediately the details of the account viz: Name of bank, address, routing number, telex number, Account number, Tel and Fax number.You should also include the name of your company, your personal address, Tel and Fax numbers for further communication.

Note that this transaction will be concluded within 10 working days from the day you give your consent.

Sincerely yours,

Worgee G. Shub
Chairman of Disbursements,
Corporate (Special) Trust Fund,
United Political Parties of America,
Contract Award Committee,
Washington DC USA

tel: 1-900-CON-4YOU

NOTE THAT FOR THE CONFIDENTIALITY OF THIS TRANSACTION, WHEN YOU CALL ME THE FIRST THING YOU DO IS FOR YOU TO ASK ME WHAT IS THE CODE, AND MY RESPONSE WILL BE (055).IF I DO NOT TELL YOU (055) THEN KNOW YOU ARE NOT TALKING TO ME. DROP THE PHONE IMMEDIATELY AND CALL ME BACK TILL I GIVE YOU THE CODE WORD. THIS IS DUE TO JAMMING TELECOMMUNICATION DEVICES IN YOUR COUNTRY AS A RESULT OF THE BOMB EXPLOSION IN A LAGOS MILITARY BASE.

1) Karma?
by glowingspleen

Since you're probably the only one with real access to all the user records, you're the one to ask:

Who among us is the current Karma Whore King, and what is their score? Is there a maximum amount of karma one can earn?brAnd finally, is there a cutoff level where you auto-post at 3 or above?

CowboyNeal:

Wow, a question about karma, what I consider to be the most boring subject in all of Slashdot. I dunno who is the Karma Whore King, since we instituted a karma cap at 50, and all karma levels that are above 50 are living on borrowed time. Getting a karma above 20 allows one to post with a +1 bonus, and from there on there are no rewards.

I said that karma bores me, and I don't understand why people get all hung up over it. It's not like having a high karma is gonna get you discounts in stores. If you're really worried about karma, go donate money to charity or donate your time to some place that can use it. I guarantee the reward will be better than anything that Slashdot karma can get you.

2) Give us the ups and downs!
by Dino

What's the best thing that happened to you since Slashdot started? Conversly, what's the worst?

CowboyNeal:

Easily, the best part was when I got a real job out of it. I had done a few odds and ends for BSI and Slashdot before coming on full time, but getting a check on a regular basis is something I still am thankful for. The worst part is probably the sheer volume of email that I get to deal with on a daily basis. That's not to say that I dislike the people that email me, but it gets troublesome when one has an inbox that can take up to half a day daily to get squared away.

3) A User Info slashbox?
by update()

Like a lot of people, I bet, I frequently look at my user info page to see if there have been responses to my posts, and what moderations I have received. Would it be possible to provide a Slashbox with that information on the main page?

CowboyNeal:

This kind of thing could be implemented, but with our current setup it just wouldn't scale. It would need to add another query to viewing the home page, for each person that has it chosen. There might be a few tricks to implement this that could save some overhead, but if I were to make such a box, it definitely wouldn't happen until after Slashdot is running bender, the new development branch of Slashcode.

4) Slashdot
by emmons

How did you become tangled up in this Slashdot thing with that CmdrTaco guy? How did you guys meet?

CowboyNeal:

I met both Rob and Jeff when all of us where freshmen in college. Rob was in the same Health Dynamics (read, Phys. Ed.) class I was, and Jeff and I shared a lab bench in Chemistry Lab. The CS department at Hope wasn't that large, and most CS majors were aware of Chips & Dips, and would read it regularly. When I graduated, I was approached by Blockstackers, who owned Slashdot at the time, and offered a job. About two months later, Slashdot was acquired by Andover.Net (now OSDN) and my employment was transferred to them.

5) Yes!
by OlympicSponsor

I've been following CowboyNeal's career for years, reading everything he writes, watching all of his movies and eating all of his cooking. Now I finally have a chance to ask him the question that's been burning me up inside: What's Taco really like?

Seriously, can you give us a breakdown of how much time each editor spends actually reading the site they nominally run? Like, time spent clicking on user comments?

CowboyNeal:

Hrm, it sounds like you might have me confused with someone else. I've never made any movies or had a restaurant *grin*. Honestly, I don't know how much time an editor spends doing those tasks. I would assume it varies from person to person, but I don't share office space with hardly any of them, nor do any of them ever have to report to me.

I know from our internal discussion lists and channels, that all of us are constantly reading the site, but as for a detailed breakdown, I'd have no idea where to start.

6) The future
by yamla

What will you be doing in five years? In ten years? If you expect/hope to still be with Slashdot, what sort of changes do you see happening to Slashdot in that time?

And yes, I know 5 - 10 years is an eternity.

CowboyNeal:

5 - 10 years is an eternity! I don't even know what I'm doing two weeks from now!

I wish I knew. I was the kid in school who when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, didn't have the slightest clue. When I finally discovered computers, I knew that I wanted to work with computers in some capacity for a living. When I think about how much technology has advanced since I first started using a computer, it's truly amazing how far we've come. I'm hoping that someday we can put all this patent/copyright/intellectual property BS behind us, and by that time someone will have discovered the secret to putting infinite bandwidth into everyone's homes and with all of these new resources at our disposal, someone will discover the new killer app for all of it, repeat ad infinitum. That's how the system works. I just hope to be there and be a part of the process somehow. I think it's especially interesting how the internet and all of what it entails has made it easier for people to communicate and become exposed to experiences and views they normally wouldn't, so any new advances will hopefully only improve that.

I don't think Slashdot will do anything like try to take over all forms of media or any sort of grand scheme like that because there's already organizations into that sort of thing. I do think, however, that if a new way of delivering content that replaces or augments the web comes about, that we will most likely be there.

This is probably the best question I've been asked, because it was easily the toughest for me to answer. My job now is primarily the day-to-day maintenance of Slashdot, which means that I'm not usually concerned with looking to the future, but rather just making sure that our current system runs smoothly. In short, I'm not a leader but a follower.

7) What was your fav poll abuse?
by chabotc

What poll in which you were an 'option', did you find most amusing/entertaining?

What was the most depressing?

CowboyNeal:

The first few times I was a poll option I thought it was funny, but I have become rather immune to it now. Now it's to the point where I'm surprised when I am not an option. As for trying to pick out particular polls that amused or depressed me, I can't really remember any.

8) tell us the truth
by segmond

How often have you posted anonymously? do you have a pseudo handle? Have you ever trolled? Are you getting bored with slashdot? What is the biggest screw up that you did to the site that we never found out? Have you ever used "super moderating power" to mod down posts attacking slashdot editors...? What is your favorite pizza topping and sandwich?

CowboyNeal:

Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

That should bring me up to the "screw up" question, so I will now relate a story that showcases my stupidity. One day I was working on Slashdot's database, and cleaning up a lot of old database entries, when I suddenly realized I'd forgotten a "WHERE" clause in one of the SQL statements.

Unfortunately, this was after the statement had already run, and the blocks table was completely wiped out. If you know anything about Slashcode, you know that blocks holds everything from color schemes, to the slashboxes, the HTML that gives the site its look and feel, to all the headlines that go into the slashboxes on the right side of the homepage. Of course, this brought the site to a halt until we could restore from backup. I was able to berate myself before anyone else could, though, so anyone in the know about my mistake was fairly forgiving.

As for "super moderating power", I know I could go into the database and moderate like crazy, but my ethics won't allow me to do so. Also, I don't usually read comments attached to stories. I have banned IP addresses from which people have been hammering on the site with scripts at the rate of several requests a second, but I don't actively moderate any stories.

I don't know if I have a favorite pizza topping. I used to work at a pizza place when I was in high school, and learned to like almost every pizza topping there is, even anchovies.

My favorite sandwich is easily a veggie submarine. I'm not a vegetarian, but I find myself ordering veggie subs more than any other sandwich.

9) Anime
by spudwiser

Seeing as in most Geeks in Space episodes Anime quotes and quips spew forth from you, I think we the listeners (and deranged readers) should see exactly how your background in anime developed.

CowboyNeal:

Well, this answer is pretty boring. One day in college my friend and I decided we should watch some anime, because we had heard it was cool. So we took a week, and rented a movie or two per night, starting with Ghost In The Shell, then moving on to Akira, Fist Of The North Star, and Vampire Hunter D. I think those are the anime titles everyone starts with, because they're available at almost any Blockbuster.

But yeah, we discovered we liked it, and I just started watching more anime. I warned that this answer was boring.

10) Stories
by Fervent

Why don't you yourself ever post any stories, Cowboy Neal?

CowboyNeal:

Oh, but I do. On the rare occasion that we get to record an episode of Geeks In Space I'll post the announcement in the radio section. Sometimes a story falls through the cracks and I'll pick it up, also, but that happens much less often lately. Rob and Jeff like to say that the surefire way to not get a story posted is to email it directly to them instead of using the submissions bin, but if you want to absolutely sure your story doesn't get posted to the site, email me it to me instead. *grin*