Slashdot Mirror
History of Slashdot Part 3- Going Corporate
Nobody had ever heard of Andover, and from our perspective, that was kind of the point. We had talked to companies that sold Linux distributions as well as a number of web network type organizations, but at the end of the day, we decided that we had to go with someone that would guarantee us editorial independence, and not create serious conflicts of interest by forcing us to favor some particular distribution. Likewise we didn't want to get into a situation where we were 'just part of a network' using all our stories to plug other network sites. Andover was not really a Linux company, so we were able to get a deal that met our needs.
I vividly remember the day we closed the deal. We went to some law firm high up in a huge skyscraper in Boston. Hemos & I signed papers lined from one end of a conference table to the other, along with Bruce (the pres of Andover). After that we went to the boston aquarium for a bit, and went out to dinner with the entire Andover staff at some seafood place that apparently is well known but I'm not a boston person so I don't really know what it was. I remember wanting to just read my email and being incredibly uncomfortable the whole time. I've never been a good person dealing with meatspace crowds. I was on the verge of panic the whole night. I had scallops and tried to smile and be polite when I just wanted to hide in the corner. I've still never really dealt with my ability to deal with crowds.
Following the sale, I found out what it meant to work for a large company. I joined the board of directors of Andover, but soon after realized that corporate boards are probably not the best place for me to spend my time. During that time we hired Jamie, Timothy, Michael and the company hired Pudge, Wes, and a number of other folks who initially worked for other parts of the company, but later came to work for Slashdot. Also we were able to give a paycheck to people who had, up until this point volunteering for Slashdot. Among them was Jon Katz who continued to write for us for a number of years until he decided it was time to write about dogs instead.
Besides an HR department, health insurance, 401k, and that other stuff, having a large corporate backer made a number of things possible. We actually migrated from just 2 boxes to like a half dozen. We chewed through a number of load balancing techniques and were able to scale up from a half a million to multiple million daily page views. We spent literally years getting by on minimal hardware. We spent years optimizing the code, adding layer after layer of caching. I still have mixed feelings on this matter. Had the corporate overlords given us a dozen machines, we could have been free to write a lot of new user features during that time. But instead we used the same database for nearly 5 years.
For me the biggest transition was offloading tasks to other people. With people on payroll, I was able to finally have engineers working on things instead of me doing most everything by myself. It took several years before I trusted the staff enough to take away my own CVS access, a decision that is really necessary. For years I was (fairly) mocked by Slashdot readers for my terrible way of developing code- I'd just write the code live on the site. When it worked, I'd just overwrite the old code live with almost no testing. On several occasions a typo resulted in a hundred emails in my box with readers reporting that Slashdot was no longer compiling. Under the corporate umbrella there was CVS committing, rollbacks, and scheduled deployment of code. I still get impatient with all this overhead to this day, but I know everyone prefers it this way. It's better, but it's definitely less 'Fun'.
Around this time a box arrived on our doorstep containing a bunch of glasses and t-shirts. They were unusual because they were clever and of good quality. When you do this long enough you really can tell when you're getting garbage, and when the people behind the work are smart and clever. The website was ThinkGeek. I brought them to Andover and pushed to have us acquire them. I shoulda got a commission off that deal... now they have like 30 employees and do millions of dollars in business. Most of the people that started the thing are still there (just like Slashdot!) and they are still doing great things (also just like Slashdot!) I still feel a strange connection to ThinkGeek... I think of them as my younger sibling... except that while I sit in the back of the class or maybe play on the chess team, they are starters in all the sports teams and get straight A's.
My first, last, and hopefully only ever COMDEX was in Las Vegas (although I went to Vegas countless times since for fun- NYC, Las Vegas and Tokyo are the 3 cities I love to visit). We had a crazy booth. It was absolutely huge, with bean bags and a plasma TV. ThinkGeek had this little niche in the corner. We had nerf guns. We had a install race- VA gave us a few machines, and we had people race to install Linux distributions on them. Patrick Volkerding. himself represented Slackware, and his machine had a faulty CD drive. It was hysterical watching him come in last. Some (shall remain nameless) distribution had a booth across the aisle from us, and speakers that were inappropriately loud. They would have constant presentations that were deafening throughout the conference hall. So we hooked up our own speakers and starting yelling at them and telling them their distribution sucked and making fun of their catch phrases... after you'd heard the speech 50x, it was pretty easy to mock. At least it was a distro nobody liked in the first place. My punishment for my bad behavior was catching the worst flu of my life. For some reason we flew into chicago, a 3 hour drive home. CowboyNeal and I were both on the verge of passing out, hallucinating with flu, singing at the top of our lungs just to say conscious.
Looking back, I think it interesting that the moment in my life where I most experienced the excesses of the dot com boom was followed by probably the single most terrible bouts of illness of my adult life. Kathleen took care of me for days as I couldn't leave the bed.
Along the way Andover went public in a dutch auction style IPO. I don't have much to say about it except that I think it was the right thing to do, even if long-term it didn't much work out for me personally nearly as well as I had dreamed at the time. No personal jet. No military style compound. But a nice house isn't a bad way to start off your adult life.
Just as I was getting used to flying to boston regularly for board meetings (and racking up crazy frequent flier mile status in the process, getting nearly constant first class upgrades) the 'Merger' between VA & Andover came along. I wasn't surprised when it happened, and at the time there was a lot that made sense. VA had SourceForge (and we had the competing Server 51 project) as well as Linux.com. There was a fairly intense rivalry between a number of people at the companies, although I never really felt it. The bubble that Slashdot has always tried to stay inside has insulated from corporate politics- something that is usually true today as well. I knew the contract we signed guaranteed me the editorial control Slashdot needed regardless of ownership, and I was confident enough in the leadership of VA that I would not have problems with people trying to wreck the site.
Of course all of this happened during the bubble burst where we all went from thinking we would retire by 30 to realizing that we might be broke and jobless within a year. I'm still amazed that Slashdot has survived. From Blockstackers, to Andover, to Andover.net, and then to VA Linux Systems to OSDN to VA Software to OSTG to SourceForge. I've had a lot of different business cards. The names have changed, and a few faces have changed as well, but the core the site, the attitude and spirit remain the same.
Part 4 will run next week where I'll talk more about present day Slashdot operations and philosophy.
Slashdot Sells Out
Street Fighter Fucking 4 has been announced!! Great god almighty get off slashdot and go party!!
The new interface only dowloads a few comments at a time and you usually have to click on them to read anything. This is a pain. Please consider reverting to the previous interface. You will have fewer clicks, but a more satisfied audience.
That's all I remember slashdot for; Goatse...
and a Lemon party or two...
SEXYKELLYOSBOURNE and friends...
signal11
January 31st, 2005, was the last day that Michael Sims, Nazi editor of Slashdot, ever posted a story or indeed was ever heard from again. But what happened that day to Michael Sims? Did his embroilment in the Censorware.org conspiracy finally catch up with him? Or was he involved in a violent, and ultimately fatal, lovers' spat with his partner Jamie McCarthy? The truth, as we'll see, is much more perverse than fiction.
On New Year's Eve of 2004, the entire Slashdot staff was throwing a party to celebrate another year of Linux propaganda, homosexual recruitment, and the profits that their Microsoft ad banners had raked in for them. Eric Raymond, Emad, Roblimo, Hemos, Taco, Jamie, and Alan Cox all planned to rape Richard Stallman later in the night. Michael had shown up late, however, and was let in on the plans after they were made.
As it turned out, Jamie was to be leading the charge against the Free Software Foundation's founder and would be the first to penetrate Stallman's hairy unwashed ass. Michael, however, was jealous of this and made secret plans to thwart their nefarious venture of homosexual rape. The event was planned for zero hours, right as the ball dropped. But Michael had other ideas.
Michael suggested they all toast their plan with Jägermeister, Eric Raymond's drink of choice that was in heavy supply that night, and the rest of the partygoers followed. While everyone downed their first shot, Michael slipped into the VA Software office's break-room, grabbing the syringe Raymond used to inject Rob Malda's semen with on the way. Michael leered at the case of Jägermeister, needle in hand.
Minutes later, Michael reappeared in the conference room with more Jäger, ready for more shots. Over the next couple of hours they indulged in several drinking and party games, spurred on by Michael, as they drank bottle after bottle of the dark brown herbal liquor. If one were to pay special attention to Michael, however, they would note that Michael drank much less than anyone else and only from his own bottle.
Emad and Roblimo were involved in a powerful sixty-nine cheered on by Hemos and Alan whose bent geek penises throbbed near Emad's head and Roblimo's bloated ass, waiting for an opportunity. Moaning, Emad diverted his wet mouth from Roblimo's butthole and took down Hemos and Alan's cocks in quick succession. Hearing the wet, sloppy commotion behind him, Roblimo lost control and glunked all over Emad's chest.
Across the room near the podium, Eric Raymond was man-handling Rob, jamming a handgun down the back of his pants and asking him if he remembered their special night in Holland. Rob was giggling like a school girl and squirmed with all his might against the cold steel. Eric rained a shower of Jäger over Rob's head which Rob greedily tongued up even as Eric's skinny red penis entered his ass cheeks, probing for the brown prize.
The conference room was awash in gay cum and chaos, Michael noted happily as he surveyed the carnage around him. Emad had now teamed up with Alan and Hemos to rape Roblimo's ass as Rob was being pistol-whipped to orgasm by Eric, all oblivious to the massive amounts of Rohypnol they were ingesting as they drank the Jägermeister Michael had given them. It wouldn't be much longer before the drug took effect.
Another half-hour into the night, Eric paused from raping Taco's mouth and sodomizing his anus with his Glock, short of breath. His head swam and he looked at his bottle of Jägermeister. I can usually down six of these babies, thought Eric, wondering why he was now farting uncontrollably. Rob's nose wrinkled as Eric's rectum expelled another gallon of aerosolized feces into the air. Stooping, Eric held on to the podium for support.
Across the way, Emad pulled his tiny Iranian dick out from between Alan and Hemos's in Roblimo's ass and doubled over. Alan and Hemos continued pounding Roblimo's purple, swollen anus even as Emad began vomiting all over their cocks, thinking it a move on Emad's part to
And why?