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I went to go see CmdrTaco speak in 2005. Someone asked him how to make a website as popular as Slashdot. Malda said to start it in 1997. Of course in the next year the meteoric rise of both digg and reddit began. I think there is a moral here about not resting on your laurels and never thinking no one can catch up with you.
Did he actually do that, or just told the only way he personally knew how to do it?
To this day, I log into nyt.com with: user: cowboyneal pass: cowboyneal Anyone else?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the span between the Columbine shooting and 9/11 was probably their peak. So many of my memories of /. involve national disasters.
The most commented story was "Kerry Concedes Election To Bush" (with 5687 comments), followed by "Strike on Iraq".
To this day, I log into nyt.com with: user: cowboyneal pass: cowboyneal Anyone else?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the span between the Columbine shooting and 9/11 was probably their peak. So many of my memories of /. involve national disasters.
/. is how I found out of the 9/11 attacks.
I don't visit /. anymore, but definitely grew up on it. I don't think you can understate the impact it had on a generation of geeks. Especially when it comes to Open Source, I think /. was incredibly important in educating people on a concept, history and philosophy many of us take for granted now. And hot grits aside, it really did set the bar for intelligent discussion. /. was the first site where the comments were…
I, too, read /. in the late 90s and up to around 2005, when I became more interested in other things, and other sites began making the changes that /. (and presumably CmdrTaco) were resistant to.
I also remember trying to read the source and muttering over the innumerable lines of cryptic Perl.
I haven't seen him lately but CmdrTaco used to attend startup related events. One of the early Slashdot crew, Kurt DeMaagd, is now an assistant professor at Michigan State.
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The verb "slashdotted" is even more common. I recall seeing it at least once in a Charles Stross novel or two, and in numerous other near-future SF.
I once submitted a friend's blog entry to slashdot. It was picked for the front page. I can't remember exactly how it works, but you get an email or a notice on the site saying your story will appear shortly. I was in my friend's living room at the time, sitting near the laptop on the end of an ADSL connection that served his blog. "Ummmm.... I think i've done a baaaaad thing." That lil' ol' laptop was absolutely ham…
What the hell is going on today? Thats two influential tech personalities resigning from their signature positions in 24 hours. Im starting to get worried here. Whats next, John Carmack resigns from id?(heaven forbid!) My world view has been shaken. Best of luck & thanks for the good times CmdrTaco. I wore out F5 keys on that site :)
Retiring the same day as Apple's CEO just seems like Rob Malda's style to me, in the best possible way. I doubt he made a snap decision to do it, but if he was already planning on doing it and saw the opportunity... :)