The Average Age of a Digger

Since becoming aware of Digg a few years ago I've always had mixed feelings about it and it's users. The site itself is very well put together technically, offers a ton of almost real-time up-to-date links, and was created by Kevin Rose whom I feel is a good spokesman for my generation online. The one thing that never sat well with me though were the comments on submitted stories. After reading Slashdot for almost ten years and being exposed to a exceptional moderation system, reading Digg's lead something to be desired. At first I thought it was simplistic up/down style moderation, letting drivel like "dugg!" through and me actually having to see it, but gradually I came to realize it was something else: age.

The average Digger to me, from the way they write to the insights they express, has always appeared to be in the under 18 category. I'm not judging them on their grammar or spelling, but with Slashdot whenever I read an insightful or interesting comment there's just this sense that it was written by a knowledgeable adult. Digg have never had that, comments are usually only a sentence or two, and rarely link to other sources. I still read Digg daily to get interesting links, but only rarely do I venture into the comments for fear that I may somehow get sucked into some comment abyss. Today though, I finally have solid evidence that these comments, and in fact most of Digg, are run by people under the age of 18. That evidence is Pokemon.

The top story for today in Gaming (although it has the most out of any digg section) is "Catch Mew-FINALLY!". Now the phrasing of the title aside, I saw this an immediately thought to myself "WTF is Mew?" Like Jason Mewes? Or something like the flu? As I ventured into the linked page I learned Mew was some type of Pokemon creature that you apparently could only capture by using a cheat device like The Gameshark or something else. So how does this solidify my belief in diggers being not of legal age? Well the Pokemon games (Yellow/Red/Blue) they mention weren't released until 1999, when I was 18 years old. At that age I missed the whole Pokemon craze, but remember the age group that was playing it then, 6-10 years old. Making them at most 16 and at least 12 today.

Now the story itself was technically interesting , but then I saw the comment count was up to 200+ (a rarity for most stories, even the popular ones) with the majority of them reminiscing about playing the game in their "youth". I don't mean to rag on these kids, since I did the same thing about old NES and Atari games when I was their age, it just proves to me why I've always felt Digg was wrong for me. I'll still continue to visit Digg, but I don't plan to really participate in it since the comment moderation and digging of stories will most likely be judged by the generation below me.

Xfce Desktop on Etch

Last week I decided to make the jump from Debian Sarge to Etch on my home media server. The upgrade was for the most part painless, although there were a few snags I hit that I will explain in more detail in another post. For now though I wanted to post a nice screen shot of my new Xfce desktop:


On the left is the main app panel featuring: xterm, K3b, VMware, GAIM, Grip, XMMS, DVD::RIP, Iceweasel (aka Firefox), and Konqueror. Finally the little mouse with the X is the Xfce application menu, then hardware temperature sensors (a little high actually) and system load information. The top panel is running six virtual desktops with a taskbar on the right side. The app that is currently running is DVD::RIP in GUI mode making an Xvid video out of the Talladega Nights DVD I recently purchased.

Random Debian Scripts

Today at work I decided to do make a few Debian scripts for generating a dynamic MOTD and auto-updating using apt-get and I thought I'd share.

Debian MOTD

The first script is a fun one and requires the fortune and cowsay packages. When run, it generates a cow saying a random message from the fortune quote program and writes it to /etc/motd. Cowsay isn't just limited to a cow, and a look through the documentation will reveal a whole range of ASCII art. Mine is set to run every night at midnight and it makes for some fun variety throughout the week. Here's an example of what a login looks like:

Welcome to Debian GNU/Linux 3.1!
_________________________________________
/ Q: What do Winnie the Pooh and John the \
| Baptist have in common? A: The same     |
\ middle name.                            /
-----------------------------------------
     \   ^__^
      \  (oo)\_______
         (__)\       )\/\
             ||----w |
             ||     ||

Linux jezebel 2.6.16-2006-03-28-mcw-01 #1
PREEMPT Tue Mar 28 21:32:57 PST 2006 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Debian Apt AutoUpdate

The second is for those who get tired of running the same apt-get update && apt-get upgrade command day after day just to keep their system up-to-date. The script is simple enough, using the -y argument to allow for unattended updates and writing verbose output to a log file.

"The Plantation Mentality in American Media"

This morning while listening to Democracy Now! I noticed something different other than their normal run down of news headlines, commentary, and interviews. Instead they started to play a speech given on Saturday at the National Conference for Media Reform by Bill Moyers.

Although I've briefly heard of him and his works with PBS I was blown away by his speech titled "The Plantation Mentality in American Media Today" and think all of you will too.

It's quite long, around an hour, but it is definitely worth checking out if you can spare the time. DailyKos has both links to the video as well as a good rundown of the major points discussed.

My Wii and New Memberships

With the holidays last month and having almost two weeks off work I really wasn't online a whole lot other than manically searching websites for a Wii. Finally after talking to a friend of mine at our Holiday Wine Party he told me there was a scheduled shipment of 60 consoles going to Electronic Boutique in El Cajon, about 15 miles from my house. After going to sleep at 3am, Alissa woke me up at around 6am and told me to go get my Wii. Still recovering from the former nights activities, I drove to El Cajon, found the mall and got in a line that looked like it had already passed 60. With disappointment beginning to creep in once again I then realized that I was standing in the Gamestop line not EBs. I turned the corner and was greeted by another, shorter line, excitedly I jumped in and about 10 minutes later I was holding in my paw the number 41 and two hours later after waiting in line I had the Holy Grail of video games.

After obtaining my Wii I spent a lot of time offline, mainly because I was playing it, but I'm going to get back into the swing of things and do some more updates.

Other than the Wii another notable mention is I finally joined the EFF and renewed my FSF membership. I've been wanting to join the EFF for a while now, but before didn't have the financial wiggle room to put down the 65$. Thankfully the UC system doesn't want to lose it's IT folks to the private sector and gave us all nice wage boosts and I can make these memberships a reality.

10 Random Mac OS X Tips

Today I was reading the Slashdot story on 15 Things Apple Should Change in Mac OS X and I came across these excellent hints in the comments:

1. Hold down on the + window button to fully maximize a window (may not work in some apps)
2. To find the actual path of a app or file drag it into a terminal window
3. To rename a file, select it and hit enter
4. Create a shortcut on the dock for the Apps folder, then click-and-hold for a pop-menu of all your apps
   
5. Shift-A will open the Apps folder if you don't want it in the dock
   
6. Don't copy and paste, drag and drop everything, including text
7. To put a widget permanently on the desktop, open a terminal and type:

   defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES

   press F12, and while dragging a widget press F12 to drop it
   
8. Use Command-O to launch an App or open a file
9. To skip the"Are You Sure?" dialog. hold down the option key when choosing to shutdown
10. Use the dock for temporary storage of files when using the drag-and-drop method of cutting-and-pasting
    

The Funky Monkey

Now, let's explain this. First of all, Erin is always fun, so the "fun" this comic is referring to is meant to represent that when Erin drinks her personality shifts to where she appears more free spirited. The only time she's not fun is when she's asleep, but then who is fun when they're asleep? Well unless you have a marker.

Secondly, the events in this strip are entirely fictional. Erin has, at least not to my knowledge, slapped my booty.

Thirdly, the where-did-the-bad-person-touch-you doll is a reference to a Family Guy episode where the lawyer asks a child to point "where the angel touched" him. Which is in turn a reference to the long lived 90s TV show Touched By An Angel starring that silver fox Roma Downey, also known for her role in the 2004 movie Funky Monkey.

Lastly the careful reader will note that the word drunk has been crossed out and replaced with "fun", this is to distinguish the personality shift explained in the first paragraph.