Feedback

Got a comment? Just dying to tell me how wrong I am or how I need Viagra? Consider this maxim:

You should read everything on the Internet as if it had 'but I'm probably full of shit' appended to it.

...then quickly dial feedback@xdroop.com and I promise to post you here and make fun of you.

Waay back in August, I received this:

From: "Cybershark ruble" 
To: feedback@xdroop.com
Subject: cybershark sticker
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 17:30:05 +0000
   
Hello Neighbor,
   
was wondering if you could send me a scan of your cybershark sticker
to add to my shark collection.  or at least, a discription of what it
looks like. :)
  
thanks, Rodney

Well Rodney, you will be thrilled to know that it only takes me six months to take one picture. (Well, OK, it only took me five months to take the picture -- it took me an additional month before I unloaded the camera.)

Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 13:57:42 -0500
From: "Tobias Robison" 
To: feedback@xdroop.com
Subject: list of computer OSs used for at least one hour

xdroop,
I enjoyed your list! However it struck me at once (and many software
developers of my age would have the same reaction) that there was
something odd about this list. Every item on it has been used for at
least one hour by thousands, in many cases, millions of people. If I
made a similar list, it would read, in part, like this:

totally rewritten Data General RTOS.

written-from scratch data multi-threaded General RTOS, for an EKG
analysis system.

written-from-scratch multi-threaded OS for a one-of-a-kind mini computer
used for communications.

written-from-scratch PDP 8 multi-threaded operating system used on six
PDP-8s handling front end communications.

written-from-scratch OS for Interdata 3 Microcode to emulate an
instruction set for a theoretical minicomputer.

Bill Easton's multi-threaded OS that entirely used version checking
instead of Mutexes to avoid thread interlocking.

written-from-scratch OS for a multi-threaded computer terminal.

written-from-scratch multi-threaded OS for a five-CPU computer to
support office automation software.

written-from-scratch multi-threaded OS for the original 8-cpu system
that puts those green "first down" lines on a TV football field,
handling yardline position analysis and occlusion logic.

Each of these was used by five to 20 people in their entre life time
(the last two items might have been used by 200).

Ah, the bad old days of roll-your-own...

- toby robison
- The Precision Blogger
http://precision-blogging.blogspot.com

Ahh... yes those good old days. Hang on, I'm merely a lite-beer kind of programmer -- I've never had to roll-my-own OS... I'm kind of envious.

From: ben 
To: feedback@xdroop.com
Subject: your /. sig
Date: 24 Jun 2003 16:47:23 +0100
 
Just thought you'd like to hear that I took the time to implement your
slashdot sig
        "You should read everything on the Internet as if it had
                'but i'm probably full of shit' appended to it"
 
as a Privoxy filter.  It did indeed improve the web.
 
;-)
 
ben

That sig on slashdot is new this week -- changed after I got annoyed at some of the officious lecturing by some of the obviously less knowledgable members. Once I reflected on the message in my sig, I stopped being annoyed.