Slashdot Mirror


Slashdot Turns 10 But You Get The Presents

October marks 10 friggin years of Slashdot, and nobody is more surprised about any of this than me. Throughout the month we'll be running a series of navel gazing meta news articles about our history, infrastructure and plans for the future. We're also going to give away 500 t-shirts and ThinkGeek gift certificates to people willing to organize and attend their own local Slashdot parties. One lucky winner will get a cool grand to blow at ThinkGeek! I'm going to attend "official" gatherings in Ann Arbor, MI on Oct 20 and in Palo Alto, CA on Oct 25. But you can read on for details about party organization and how you can win the grand prize. The idea is simple. Visit the Slashdot Anniversary Party Web Page. You can sign up to attend a party, or if there's nobody hosting near you, you can create your own. The details of your local parties are up to you- each has a corresponding discussion so you can work it out amongst yourselves. The Ann Arbor gathering will be at a bar because dammit I'm old and don't have time to go out for beers much these days. But you do whatever works for the folks in your area. Dorm Room. Bar. Gym. Wherever several Slashdot readers gather, we shall attempt to mail shirts until we run out.

To be eligible for schwag, you need to schedule your party by Oct 8 and sign up to attend a party by Oct 9- this will give us time to figure out where to send the shirts, and time to send them before you all start partying naked during the official party window of Oct 19-28.

As for the one thousand dollar ThinkGeek Gift Certificate grand prize, the winner will be the party attendee who submits the coolest thing for our "scrapbook". Videos. Pictures. Songs. Anything you can email. Something that proves that your party was the one we all wish we were at. The deadline for submissions will be Oct 28. We'll have an official submission email address posted later. This is all about creativity and coolness so good luck with that. The grand prize winner will be posted on Oct 31, the end of the month when we can all forget that any of this ever happened.

Oh, and happy birthday to us. Here's to wasting another decade, same as the first.

21 of 636 comments (clear)

  1. One has to ask... by Cleon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So when was the first "First Post" post?

    The first "all your base are belong to us?"

    The first "in Soviet Russia" joke?

    The first time someone imagined a Beowulf cluster?

    Ah, ten years of Slashdot cliches. Here's to ten more, you crazy nerds. :)

    --
    Gifts for Geeks - Stuff that really matters!
    1. Re:One has to ask... by CmdrTaco · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yeah we lost like 3-4 months worth of stories... like 300-400 of them iirc. Back then I never really considered that we'd still be here a decade later and actually CARE about them ;)

      --
      Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
  2. I for one.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ....congratulate /. on making me an anonymous coward for 10 years.

  3. Re:wow by CmdrTaco · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll just cut this off now then.

    --
    Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
  4. Er by Joe+Jay+Bee · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Slashdot" and "parties". Two words I never expected to see anywhere near each other.

  5. And to think, I woke up today and didn't feel old by Skyshadow · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Back in 1997 I first logged onto Slashdot from my office at SGI's Chippewa Falls location (better known as 'Cray'). Back then we didn't even need to log in -- you just entered your username when you posted.

    Ten years since I've been an intern. And, in certain respects, I'm still sitting here this morning doing that same sort of stuff. That's... depressing. I need to go open a bicycle shop or something.

    --
    Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
  6. Re:wow by FuzzyDaddy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nazi!

    --
    It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
  7. Re:wow by CmdrTaco · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, internally AC is 666.

    --
    Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
  8. obligatory by osoroco · · Score: 5, Interesting
  9. Minimum requirements for Slashdot party? by eln · · Score: 5, Funny

    What are the minimum requirements for an event to be called a "Slashdot Party" and thus eligible for those fabulous prizes? Because I've been getting loaded by myself and posting drivel on Slashdot for years. If that's not good enough to qualify as a Slashdot Party, I can put on some house music next time.

    In order to stay closer to the "spirit" of Slashdot, I can buy the same beer two events in a row and then shout "dup!" at myself. Then, I can complain bitterly about the quality of the beer, and how I used to buy much better beer 10 years ago before I sold out and got all "corporate". I'll hang a big banner that says "2007: The Year of Linux on the Desktop" and shout "Windows Sucks!" at passersby. Finally, I'll pour hot grits down my pants and pass out on the keyboard mumbling sweet nothings about what I'd do to a petrified Natalie Portman.

    The last thing I should do, if I want to keep the event true to the Slashdot spirit, is to invite others to attend. So, I think my party will be the most "authentic" Slashdot party of them all. Where's my t-shirt?

  10. TOP TEN PROBLEMS WITH THIS by alan_dershowitz · · Score: 5, Funny

    10. Leaving parents basement. The light! The light!
    9. People only like me on Slashdot because they cannot smell me on slashdot
    8. People will probably bring laptops, and I run Windows Vista
    7. People will realize I am not a) an astrophysicist nor b) a hot female astrophysicist
    6. While I can get away with visiting Slashdot at work, people will actually notice I am not working if I go to this.
    5. Actual, retributive karma likely if my "foes" met me in person
    4. I don't remember my password
    3. ???
    2. profit!

    and finally
    1. I don't actually want to be associated with any of you in real life (I keed, I keed!)

  11. Re:wow by ximenes · · Score: 5, Funny

    You've stolen my bit!

  12. Reply to parent by lorenlal · · Score: 5, Funny

    What about the first karma whore?

  13. Re:wow by phil+reed · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hi there!

    --

    ...phil
    "For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
  14. The History of the World, as seen through /. by Dan+Hayes · · Score: 5, Funny


    2.5 million B.C.: OOG the Open Source Caveman develops the axe and releases it under the GPL. The axe quickly gains popularity as a means of crushing moderators' heads.

    100,000 B.C.: Man domesticates the AIBO.

    10,000 B.C.: Civilization begins when early farmers first learn to cultivate hot grits.

    3000 B.C.: Sumerians develop a primitive cuneiform perl script.

    2920 B.C.: A legendary flood sweeps Slashdot, filling up a Borland / Inprise story with hundreds of offtopic posts.

    1750 B.C.: Hammurabi, a Mesopotamian king, codifies the first EULA.

    490 B.C.: Greek city-states unite to defeat the Persians. ESR triumphantly proclaims that the Greeks "get it".

    399 B.C.: Socrates is convicted of impiety. Despite the efforts of freesocrates.com, he is forced to kill himself by drinking hemlock.

    336 B.C.: Fat-Time Charlie becomes King of Macedonia and conquers Persia.

    4 B.C.: Following the Star (as in hot young actress) of Bethelem, wise men travel from far away to troll for baby Jesus.

    A.D. 476: The Roman Empire BSODs.

    A.D. 610: The Glorious MEEPT!! founds Islam after receiving a revelation from God. Following his disappearance from Slashdot in 632, a succession dispute results in the emergence of two troll factions: the Pythonni and the Perliites.

    A.D. 800: Charlemagne conquers nearly all of Germany, only to be acquired by andover.net.

    A.D. 874: Linus the Red discovers Iceland.
    A.D. 1000: The epic of the Beowulf Cluster is written down. It is the first English epic poem.

    A.D. 1095: Pope Bruce II calls for a crusade against the Turks when it is revealed they are violating the GPL. Later investigation reveals that Pope Bruce II had not yet contacted the Turks before calling for the crusade.

    A.D. 1215: Bowing to pressure to open-source the British government, King John signs the Magna Carta, limiting the British monarchy's power. ESR triumphantly proclaims that the British monarchy "gets it".

    A.D. 1348: The ILOVEYOU virus kills over half the population of Europe. (The other half was not using Outlook.)

    A.D. 1420: Johann Gutenberg invents the printing press. He is immediately sued by monks claiming that the technology will promote the copying of hand-transcribed books, thus violating the church's intellectual property.

    A.D. 1429: Natalie Portman of Arc gathers an army of Slashdot trolls to do battle with the moderators. She is eventually tried as a heretic and stoned (as in petrified).

    A.D. 1478: The Catholic Church partners with doubleclick.net to launch the Spanish Inquisition.

    A.D. 1492: Christopher Columbus arrives in what he believes to be "India", but which RMS informs him is actually "GNU/India".

    A.D. 1508-12: Michaelengelo attempts to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling with ASCII art, only to have his plan thwarted by the "Lameness Filter."

    A.D. 1517: Martin Luther nails his 95 Theses to the church door and is promptly moderated down to (-1, Flamebait).

    A.D. 1553: "Bloody" Mary ascends the throne of England and begins an infamous crusade against Protestants. ESR eats his words. A.D. 1588: The "IF I EVER MEET YOU, I WILL KICK YOUR ASS" guy meets the Spanish Armada.

    A.D. 1603: Tokugawa Ieyasu unites the feuding pancake-eating ninjas of Japan.

    A.D. 1611: Mattel adds Galileo Galilei to its CyberPatrol block list for proposing that the Earth revolves around the sun.

    A.D. 1688: In the so-called "Glorious Revolution", King James II is bloodlessly forced out of power and flees to France. ESR again triumphantly proclaims that the British monarchy "gets it".

    A.D. 1692: Anti-GIF hysteria in the New World comes to a head in the infamous "Salem GIF Trials", in which 20 alleged GIFs are burned at the stake. Later investigation reveals that mayn of the supposed GIFs were actually PNGs.

    A.D. 1769: James Watt patents the one-click steam engine.

    A.D. 1776: Trolls, angered by CmdrTaco's passage of the Moderation Act, rebel. After a several-year

  15. Re:wow by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Informative

    That would be mfh (56)

    I see nothing wrong with this and would consider it myself if something came along at the right time.

    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=118075&cid=9980688

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
  16. Re:wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Has it been ten years already? I really should get back to work!

  17. Re:wow by bwulf · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hello, hi.

    -bwulf

  18. Re:wow by Eponymous+Bastard · · Score: 5, Informative

    Let's see,
    There was the whole voices from the hellmouth thing. A big deal actually, read up on it.
    CleverNickName's jokes in trekkie threads look really out of place until you figure out who he is. say, here. The first one I saw was a joke on how something was done on the Enterprise, he simply replied "in my day we did it this way..." and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why he was +5 funny. He also had an ask slashdot which redeemed him for a lot of people.
    Trolling, Karma Whoring, Metamoderation have a whole story that I won't get into. There was a troll who upon leaving /. posted a how-to on how to karma whore, which was an interesting read. I wish I could remember his name.
    Goatse. That's the reason why links now get the domain name appended.
    Slashdot got hacked once, because the production site had the same password as a less secure test site. That was an interesting discussion.
    CommanderTaco's wedding proposal (see the FAQ, favorite story). Achieving record number of posts.
    Database breaks upon reaching 2**31-1. Site goes back online without threading for a few days.

    This is only some I remember. There were other story-related cool stuff. Some interesting interviews as well.

    (I have a high UID because I always posted as AC, but I've been here for a long time)

  19. Re:wow by TigerNut · · Score: 5, Funny

    325 and beowulf was already taken?

    --

    Less is more.

  20. Re:Suggestion: Reposting stories from 10 years ago by skis · · Score: 5, Funny

    You mean they don't do that already?