Tales From the Slashdot Help Desk: Reverse-Engineering Rob Malda (Video)

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Tales From the Slashdot Help Desk: Reverse-Engineering Rob Malda (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on Tuesday December 25, 2012 @08:26AM from the we-can-be-rich-beyond-our-wildest-dreams dept.

One day Rob 'samzenpus' Rozeboom was happily working away at Slashdot HQ, then in Holland, MI, when a gentleman came though the door with a plan to make millions of dollars by reverse-engineering Rob Malda. There was a certain Underpants Gnome Step 2: '????' bizzareness to the idea, but he offered him a car just for a chance to meet Rob Malda, an offer Rozeboom could (and did) refuse. But that is just one of the many reader comments and requests he has dealt with in his years at Slashdot. Most of them come in by email, and we've included a few of the weirder ones in the video for your chuckling pleasure.

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Uh, where's the video? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-25 08:37 · Score: 0

well?
1. Re:Uh, where's the video? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-25 10:16 · Score: 0
  
  It's embedded as an Adobe Flash plugin just below the article.
2. Re:Uh, where's the video? by Mojo66 · 2012-12-25 11:32 · Score: 1
  
  This is funny. On my iPad, I can watch the movie. On my Mac with Safari, it Slashdot tells me I need to install Flash. When I set the User Agent in Safari to iPad, I can watch the movie without Flash.
  Why is Slashdot lying and tries to force users to install Flash?
3. Re:Uh, where's the video? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-25 14:09 · Score: 0
  
  Because they're coders are incompetent. You just realized this?
4. Re:Uh, where's the video? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-25 15:04 · Score: 0
  
  Because they're coders are incompetent. You just realized this?
  And they're comments our incomprehensible.
5. Re:Uh, where's the video? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-25 16:34 · Score: 0
  
  It's cause they are reverse engineering your brain and plan to build a copy in a duffle bag and run it twice as fast.
Color banding by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-25 08:45 · Score: 1

The color banding of the wall in the background is distracting.
P = NPE by TechyImmigrant · 2012-12-25 08:48 · Score: 1

Reverse engineering Rob Malda would prove that Rob Malda isn't NP complete, he's NP-Easy. So P = NPE.

--
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Letters overlaid on talking guy - really? by advantis · 2012-12-25 09:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

Don't make scrolling text and a talking guy compete for attention - I couldn't pay attention to either of them. Play again, and again? You wish.
I was about to suggest you do what "Hide/Show Transcript" does, but I noticed it before I submitted this, so I deleted 2/3 of what I wrote. :)

--
Question for religious people: where do unrepentant masochists go when they die?
1. Re:Letters overlaid on talking guy - really? by Kneo24 · 2012-12-25 09:37 · Score: 2
  
  I second this notion. This should have been thought out more carefully. The video about a very weird incident is fine. The rest of the text below the video is fine. Merging them into the video and having the text below the video is not fine.
  Remove the text from video and make it more clear what "hide/show transcript" really is (rename it or some such) and you're good to go.
2. Re:Letters overlaid on talking guy - really? by TapeCutter · 2012-12-25 11:52 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, most people use the same part of the brain to both read an listen to words. Some people are able to do both at once but if your like me (and most other people) there is a "voice in your head" that narrates what you are reading, it's difficult (if not impossible) to "hear" both voices at once. This forces the brain to jump back and forth between the two input streams, it's not dissimilar to disk thrashing on a computer that's running tow apps but only enough to hold one in ram.
  
  People who can read and listen at the same time ( or do math and count at the same time ) are quite rare and can do so because their brain processes the two streams differently, for example some people count by visualizing the numbers rather than silently speaking the numbers to themselves, these people can readily count and add up numbers at the same time. Richard Feynman was fascinated by this, he created some party tricks with it and then found certain people didn't have to train themselves to do the trick, it just came naturally to them because of they way they process information coming from the two basic channels (audio and visual).
  
  --
  And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
3. Re:Letters overlaid on talking guy - really? by TapeCutter · 2012-12-25 11:53 · Score: 1
  
  s/ tow app / two apps
  
  --
  And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
4. Re:Letters overlaid on talking guy - really? by lewko · 2012-12-25 23:44 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah. Because it's hard to watch the video, read the text and write comments all at the same time...
  
  --
  Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
5. Re:Letters overlaid on talking guy - really? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 07:16 · Score: 0
  
  Almost a candidate for one of the scrolling letters IMNSHO.
  Personally I enjoyed it - first time I looked at a /. TV entry. I think it was worth more than what I paid for it.
Re:My eyes! The goggles they do nothing! by Kneo24 · 2012-12-25 09:34 · Score: 2

I would say your mom, but her beard is bigger than Samzenpus'!
And by binarylarry · 2012-12-25 10:29 · Score: 2

That man was Larry Page from U of M in Ann Arbor, who later reversed engineered Rob Malda on his own and starting a little known tech company called Google based on the technology.

--
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
At least he didn't want to reverse engineer by sconeu · 2012-12-25 10:53 · Score: 1

CowboyNeal... We'd have a had a black hole worse than those thought of by the LHC paranoids.

--
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Office? UPS guy? FEDEX? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-25 11:37 · Score: 0

How brick and mortar! I thought you guys were all in orbit, alone, with a 3D printer?
Best Quote by The+New+Andy · 2012-12-25 11:55 · Score: 1

A cat is no trade for integrity.

Truer words have never been spoken.
Email by Janek+Kozicki · 2012-12-25 12:14 · Score: 1

I emailed cmdrtaco once, and actually got a nice reply. Can't remember what was it about, though, but of course have it archived in claws mail.

--
# #\ @ ? Colonize Mars #
1. Re:Email by Janek+Kozicki · 2012-12-25 12:17 · Score: 1
  
  btw, it was like 10 or 8 years ago :)
  
  --
  # #\ @ ? Colonize Mars #
2. Re:Email by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-25 13:10 · Score: 0
  
  Mod parent -1 Redundant; you already said it was in Claws Mail.
3. Re:Email by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 01:01 · Score: 0
  
  cool story bro
A Slashot reader has kids? by davidwr · 2012-12-26 04:51 · Score: 1

Don't you have to, um, have to, you know, um, the thing you do when you get a girlfriend and get married, that thing, first???

--
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
1. Re:A Slashot reader has kids? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-26 05:45 · Score: 0
  
  Wash their underwear together.