Tipmonkies/OSNews/expert-zone

A lot has been happening with Tipmonkies lately. I did an article on different linux distros, which Martin submitted to Slashdot and OSNews, and we got slammed. We had been open for about 2 months and I think over the whole period had about 17,000 people. In a three day period we had over 300,000 hits, and not get about 30,000 hits per day. My article was all over blogs, and even was on some pretty big sites like the O'Reilly site OSdir and Linux Format Mag.

Martin also opened a new site in collaboration with Eugina from OSNews and Thom from Expert-zone. I didn't actually have anything to do with the new site, even though it's being promoted as a collaboration between the three sites, but I think it was more between those three individuals.

Martin and I did a podcast with Thom once, so I have sorta met him, but I've never talked to Eugina, apparently Martin and Thom do a bit. She was alwasys sorta a hero for me as the Editor-in-Chief at OSNews. But yesterday she revealed that she was quitting, which stinks. She always did a good job of helping keep that site more balanced, and she was willing to step out on a bit of a limb to speak her mind. She just took too much of a battering in the forums and comments. I got a taste of it when my article hit Slashdot. This was one of the best:

eh... (Score:5, Interesting)
by ltwally (313043) on Saturday June 18, @10:48PM (#12854222)
(mailto:ltwally@softhome.net | Last Journal: Tuesday March 04, @08:48PM)

"...The beauty of Slack is in its simplicity. The core of the OS is based off of BSD, whereas Debian and RedHat are based off of AT&T UNIX..."

eh... Is this guy smoking crack or something? I've played with Slack, and have multiple FreeBSD boxes. While Slackware might be the least graphical (and thus, more arcane -- like the BSD's) linux distro out there, it is not based off any BSD that I've ever seen. The kernel is linux, the userland utilities are all GNU, and the location and configuration of all the system files is definitely not BSD related.

I dunno... while much of this dude's article seemed accurate, after reading the above, I've come to the conclusion that even after all his years of experience, he's still a newb... or he's just plain smoking crack.

It's really hard not to take that personally. Overall, for a linux article on slashdot, I had relativly little flames, but there certainly were some.

And my grammer. Eww. My english teachers are probably screaming. I knew logically that it's is the contraction of it is, not the possesive of it. But I write with out much thinking, and often with little sleep. There were other little things, but I got roasted for the its. I guess sometimes you just have to learn from screwing up. ;)

And now it's (<----See thats right) very much time to get ready for work, and stop rambleing.

Strange night

Last night at Kinko's was very strange. We were relativly slow most of the day, then all of the sudden at about 10 (when the other two working with me left) I had a rush. It was during about the 5th group or pair of students requesting a bound color document that I realized there must be something big due at State. In addition, a young lady called around 8 to ask for a very short turnaround time on an oversize color poster. Jody, my manager, told her we could do 3 hours, even though oversize color is typically 24 hours. When she arrived at 9 she basically asked for us to have it done by about 10, despite what Jody told her on the phone. We explained that we would try, but we have to take care of other customers in the building, especially since Jody knew it would be just me soon. She was nice, even a bit meek, but stood around asking if the file opened, then if we set it up, then if it was to the printer yet. About the 6th time in a row that she asked me if it was at the printer yet (it was like a child askingn "are we there yet?") I basically barked back that I was working on setting the file up. What I said was ok, but my tone was harsh with frustration. Jody then stepped in the situation and told her that it would take a while to print, then quite a while to dry, and reccmended she leave for a while and come back. So she left, and I managed to get her poster printed right about the time my little student rush started, only a little after 10. I called to tell her it was ready and she said she wouldn't come till the next morning. ARG!

So finally my third shift showed up, and with all the students it was almost 45 minutes after I was supposed to have left that I finally counted my till, and didn't walk out to my car until 1AM. There is a Papa John's directly beside our store, and on the way out to the parking lot. As I walked past it I saw a group of about 9 women and girls. Probably 6 teenage girls and 3 women that looked like they could be the girls mothers. The girls all had on prom-looking formal dresses, and the women had on very 80sish southern looking formal clothes. Sequins and shoulder pads. They were getting pizza at 1AM on Hillsborough St., which is a little scary even for me. And then they all piled (some sitting on top of each other) into a single Cadillac. It was a very quick and fluid motion, like it had been done before, and it made me think of clowns loading into a VW at the circus, except these were clowns in formal wear. I dare say they even did it elegantly.

I guess that doesn't sound like the whole night was really strange, but there was just an aura to the whole night that was capped off in that migration via Cadillac. I then got home and of course couldn't go to sleep.

In Your Honor

The new Foo Fighters CD is out. It's pretty impressive. I think I would already go as far as to say this is their best. They have always been pretty eclectic and they took it to an extreame with this one, it's a double album with one CD all acoustic and one CD all heavy. This with a bit less middle ground than previous records. The electric is pure 4 piece heavy pop-rock. The acoustic side is very strong stuff, and has some pretty big guests on it (John Paul Jones even). I picked up the fancy Dual-Disc version with a DVD on one side and audio on the other. The only actual video is a 20 minute making of, which was fun to watch. If it carried on much longer it would have been pretty stupid, but the length was about right. Dave says he hopes that 20 years from now when a kid says "Dad, which one Foo Fighters record should I get?" this will be the one. The scary thing he says is that he thinks every Foo Fighters record will be the last. The band is somewhat of a supergroup, all 4 members came from a successful prior career, and these supergroups tend to be short lived.

I of course hope thats not the case, and I certainly chew on every song they publish. One neat thing about this one is that I'm pretty sure one of the acoustic songs will hit top 40 stations and Katy will be singing something off of it soon. :)