The Slashdot subculture is a mixture of insightful and informative comments, juvenilia, sarcasm, deliberately bad jokes, intellectual arrogance and highly developed and artistic attempts to provoke outraged responses from other forum users, amuse them, or challenge their thinking on the popular Slashdot technology website. Many of these are older phenomena which originated in common slang culture, later migrating to Usenet and eventually Slashdot. Slashdot (often abbreviated to /.) is a popular technology-related website/Forum updated many times daily, with articles that are often short summaries of stories on other websites, links to those stories, and provisions for readers to comment on each story. ... This article is a timeline of the most important major events in Slashdot history. ... Reflecting the speed of contemporary pop culture in general and Internet phenomena in particular, many of Slashdots recurring jokes enjoy brief shelf-lives. ... Anonymous Coward is a term applied within some online communities to describe users who post without a handle; it is a dummy name attributed to anonymous posts used by some weblogs that allow posting by people without registering for accounts. ... Rob Malda Rob Malda (born May 10, 1976), also known as CmdrTaco, is the founder of Slashdot. ... CowboyNeal is the online nickname (handle) on Slashdot and other websites of Slashdot editor Jon Pater. ... Jonathan Katz (born 1947) is a U.S. journalist and writer. ... The Slashdot effect is the term given to the phenomenon of a popular website linking to a smaller site, causing the smaller site to slow down or even temporarily close due to the increased traffic. ... Slash (a backronym for Slashdot Like Automated Story-telling Homepage) is the open source collection of Perl scripts which runs Slashdot, one of the oldest and most popular collaborative weblogs around. ... Slashdot trolling phenomena make up a large subset of the bizarre and complex subculture found on the popular technology website Slashdot. ... Trolltalk (also known as 20721, sid 20721 or sid=20721) is a hidden story ID on the online news discussion forum Slashdot, where Slashdot trollers used to converse amongst themselves, sometimes demonstrating new trolling techniques, bragging about successful trolling and insulting each other. ... Geeks in Space (often abbreviated to GiS) ... Slashdot Radio was a nearly-weekly audio show hosted by Rob Malda, Jeff Hemos Bates, Jon CowboyNeal Potter and Nate Mix Master Oostendorp of the popular news site Slashdot about News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters // The Show Drawing from the stories and... Slashdot (often abbreviated to /.) is a popular technology-related website/Forum updated many times daily, with articles that are often short summaries of stories on other websites, links to those stories, and provisions for readers to comment on each story. ... As understood in sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a set of people with a distinct set of behavior and beliefs that differentiate them from a larger culture of which they are a part. ... Sarcasm is sneering, jesting, or mocking a person, situation or thing. ... Slashdot trolling phenomena make up a large subset of the bizarre and complex subculture found on the popular technology website Slashdot. ... Slashdot (often abbreviated to /.) is a popular technology-related website/Forum updated many times daily, with articles that are often short summaries of stories on other websites, links to those stories, and provisions for readers to comment on each story. ... } the surface of the planet for the first time and explore space. ... This page as shown in the aol 9. ... Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ...

Slashdot user stereotypes

Nerd stereotypes are extremely common on Slashdot. The most common stereotypes are:

• That Slashdotters are male
• That Slashdotters are single
• That male Slashdotters have poor social skills, particularly in relating to women
• That female Slashdotters are rare, non-existent, or in reality males hiding behind a feminine name
• That Slashdotters spend inordinate amounts of time in front of computers
• That Slashdotters use the GNU/Linux operating system on their computers
• That Slashdotters have poor hygiene
• That most Slashdotters usually live with their parents (often expressed as "living in their mothers' basements")
• That Slashdotters are obsessed with pornography and/or masturbation (example: "500GB hard drive? How am I going to fit all my pr0n in that?!")

Complaints that the "typical Slashdot reader" would not understand a subject because of nerd stereotypes are common. The response may be "Why do people persist in using analogies so incomprehensible to the average Slashdotter?" when referring to one of the above points. This kind of self-deprecating humor is frequently used on Slashdot. Linux (also known as GNU/Linux) is a computer operating system. ... An operating system (OS) is an essential software program that manages the hardware and software resources of a computer. ... A gigabyte (derived from the SI prefix giga-) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one billion bytes. ... Pr0n or pron is Leet slang for pornography. ... Self-deprecation is a form of humour where the comedian make jokes of himself or his culture. ...

If someone questions an action or concept which appears ridiculous but is well-established on Slashdot, a wit may reply with "You must be new here!", indicating that only a newbie would not accept that ridiculous proposition as reasonable. It can also refer to the opposite - a practice that appears reasonable, but does not meet Slashdot standards. For example, it is common for people to post messages about an article without actually reading the article. This will sometimes receive a reply starting "Don't you people even read the article?" or similar. "You must be new here" is a common follow-up. A newbie (written in 1337 as: n00b) is a newcomer to a particular field, the term being commonly used on the Internet, where it might refer to new, inexperienced, or ignorant users of a game, a newsgroup, an operating system or the Internet itself. ...

Another Slashdot user stereotype is based on the pecking order created by the site's user ID system. Slashdot assigns a numeric ID, increasing over time, to users who create a username and password in order to post comments without being labeled an Anonymous Coward. Thus, users with a low (one- to four-digit) numeric ID, who began visiting Slashdot in its early days, sometimes are viewed as more elite than the masses of five- to seven-digit ID-bearing newcomer newbs. ("Newb," or more frequently "n00b" is online slang for someone who is naïve or clueless, typically used in referring to newbies. It is taken originally from 1940s slang.) Indeed, a comment may sometimes receive greater respect from readers because the poster carries a low numeric ID, thus allowing some of the old Slashdot trolls to be rather effective. Low user IDs are also a source of humor. The above-mentioned "You must be new here" is sometimes used sarcastically when a low-ID user says something insightful but contrary to seemingly prevailing opinion. Sometimes threads which joke about low user IDs get replied by low-ID users, which in turn get replied by even lower-ID users, and so forth. Note: to create a user account for Wikipedia, go to the login page. ... A password is a form of secret authentication data that is used to control access to a resource. ... Anonymous Coward is a term applied within some online communities to describe users who post without a handle; it is a dummy name attributed to anonymous posts used by some weblogs that allow posting by people without registering for accounts. ... Look up élite and elite in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The informal term newbie (n00b or noob in leetspeak is not the same) means a newcomer to a particular corner of cyberspace, such as a game, newsgroup, or the World Wide Web itself or to an operating system. ... // Events and trends World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrination, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atomic bomb. ... Slang is the non-standard or non-dialectal use of words in a language of a particular social group, and sometimes the creation of new words or importation of words from another language. ... Slashdot trolling phenomena make up a large subset of the bizarre and complex subculture found on the popular technology website Slashdot. ...

Slashdot articles

RTFA

A common recurring theme is the notion that most people do not read the featured article, and that many posts are therefore uninformed. Someone posting an incorrect reference to a linked article might be responded to by one or more comments urging the original poster to "RTFA", or Read The Fucking Article (adapted from RTFM) or possibly euphemised as Read The Fine Article or Read The Full Article (often in humour or the workplace). It is fairly common to refer to a linked article as "TFA" in reference to this. RTFM is an initialism for the statement Read The Fucking Manual. This instruction is usually given in response to a question which the responder knows or believes can be answered easily by reading relevant documentation, and suggests that the inquirer may be wasting peoples time. ...

Duplicate "dupe" posts and poor editing

A common "feature" on Slashdot is the prevalence of duplicate news posts, an often-made mistake by the Slashdot editors. Comments complaining about the duplication of current and past posts and even polls are common. Misspellings by the Slashdot editors are also very common. There are often posts making fun of this and indeed this is yet another recurring theme.

The publication of some articles three times led to the mocking term "tripe" for these events.

"Slashvertisements"

Slashdot comments frequently speculate (or accuse) that Slashdot's editors have accepted payment for placing stories on the front page which offer a problematic or unbalanced product review.

Verbal assaults

Personal verbal assaults on the Slashdot editors are extremely common. These are often expressed as trolls that accuse the Slashdot editors (for example Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda), open-source celebrities, etc. of being either homosexual, incompetent, or hopeless nerds. They are sometimes expressed as senryus. In the most extreme form, textual porn taken from random internet sites is rewritten to incorporate Slashdot editors. CmdrTaco's wife, Kathleen Malda, more commonly known by her maiden name of Fent, is a frequent target of these remarks. Rob Malda Rob Malda (born May 10, 1976), also known as CmdrTaco, is the founder of Slashdot. ... Senryū (川柳, literally river willow) is a Japanese form of short poetry similar to haiku in construction: three lines with 17 or fewer syllables in total. ... Pavonazzeto marble sculpture, see Erotic art in Pompeii Pornography (from Greek πορνογραφια pornographia — literally writing about or drawings of harlots) is the representation of the human body or human sexual behaviour with the goal of sexual arousal, similar to, but (according to some) distinct from, erotica. ...

Trolling

Trolling is very common on Slashdot, and there are a number of repeating trolls that are seen on the site. Similar to trolling is flamebaiting, which is also highly prevalent. The most common flamebaits on Slashdot are references to the Microsoft vs. Linux controversy and ad hominem attacks on posters with bad grammar and spelling by grammar and spelling Nazi. See Slashdot trolling phenomena. In Internet terminology, a troll is someone who comes into an established community such as an online discussion forum, and posts inflammatory, rude or offensive messages designed to annoy and antagonize the existing members or disrupt the flow of discussion (see Anonymous Internet posting). ... Flamebait is a message posted to an Internet discussion group, such as a newsgroup or a mailing list, with the intent of provoking an angry response (a flame). There are various motives or explanations for this puzzling behavior. ... Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT, SEHK: 4338) is an international computer technology corporation has global annual sales of over 41. ... Linux (also known as GNU/Linux) is a computer operating system. ... An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin, literally argument against the person) or attacking the messenger, involves replying to an argument or assertion by attacking the person presenting the argument or assertion rather than the argument itself. ... Grammar nazi, spelling nazi, and language nazi are all terms used to describe a participant in a discussion, online or otherwise, who criticizes or corrects the language usage of another participant. ... Slashdot trolling phenomena make up a large subset of the bizarre and complex subculture found on the popular technology website Slashdot. ...

Moderation

The Moderation system is an integral part of Slashdot, and has spawned a few common cliches on its own. Complaints about the moderators, or "mods" are common, and discussions about the fairness of certain moderations are often spawned as a result. On Internet websites which invite users to post comments, a moderation system is the method the webmaster chooses to sort contributions which are irrelevant, obscene, illegal or insulting from contributions which are useful or informative. ...

Karma whoring is a derogatory term for the posting of comments that do not add to the discussion but that are still likely to be modded up, doing so specifically to increase one's karma score. Like the term troll, karma whore can refer to the comment in question, the act of posting the comment, or the user responsible. While not malicious or deliberately disruptive, karma whoring is considered trolling because it distracts from more meaningful and informative comments. On Internet websites which invite users to post comments, a moderation system is the method the webmaster chooses to sort contributions which are irrelevant, obscene, illegal or insulting from contributions which are useful or informative. ... Slashdot (often abbreviated to /.) is a popular technology-related website/Forum updated many times daily, with articles that are often short summaries of stories on other websites, links to those stories, and provisions for readers to comment on each story. ...

The practice is a side effect of the karma system, and is similar to the concept of "tactical voting" as that term is used concerning elections. Users earn karma when one of their comments is modded up. Users with a high karma score enjoy a higher status within the community and a default bonus to their comments' scores, resulting in higher comment visibility. Karma is designed to be a measure of the user's meaningful contributions to the discussion, since in theory it is meaningful comments that are modded up. In practice, some moderators will mod up comments simply because they agree with their opinion, and a user can sometimes collect karma points simply by stating an opinion that the majority of slashdotters agree with, without developing a full comment that would actually bring any new insight to the discussion. Many users consider this cheating, hence the derogatory term implying that the user would do anything, even whore themselves out, for karma. Slashdot (often abbreviated to /.) is a popular technology-related website/Forum updated many times daily, with articles that are often short summaries of stories on other websites, links to those stories, and provisions for readers to comment on each story. ... In voting systems, tactical voting (or strategic voting) occurs when a voter misrepresents his or her sincere preferences in order to gain a more favorable outcome. ... On Internet websites which invite users to post comments, a moderation system is the method the webmaster chooses to sort contributions which are irrelevant, obscene, illegal or insulting from contributions which are useful or informative. ...

Other comments marked as karma whores are those in which a user pastes a verbatim copy of the featured article into a comment because the site that hosts the article is unavailable (usually due to the Slashdot effect). These comments are almost always modded up because they are genuinely helpful, but they are still derided as karma whores because any user could have created them, making it seem unfair that the karma boost should go to the particular user that did it first. This practice of pasting unavailable articles into comments has given rise to the article text alteration troll. To avoid being labeled as a karma whore, some users paste text of the article as an Anonymous Coward (thus not earning karma). The Slashdot effect is the term given to the phenomenon of a popular website linking to a smaller site, causing the smaller site to slow down or even temporarily close due to the increased traffic. ... Slashdot trolling phenomena make up a large subset of the bizarre and complex subculture found on the popular technology website Slashdot. ...

Because of the specialized nature of Slashdot (it's owned by the Open Source Technology Group), moderation often leads to Groupthink, where any opinion that is in disagreement with the website's established principles (no matter how sound or well-phrased) will very likely be "modded down" and censored, leading to the perpetuation of the groupthink mentality. This is often confused with trolling. The Open Source Technology Group (OSTG) describes itself as a news, collaboration and distribution community for IT and Open Source development, implementation and innovation. ... Groupthink is a term widely (and mistakenly) attrbuted to psychologist Irving Janis. ...

Orwellian and other political themes

Orwellian fears of totalitarianism are a recurring theme. Slashdotters are very concerned with privacy issues, and in fact, references to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four are often seen. These types of posts are most often found in the "Your Rights Online" section of Slashdot. Orwellian describes a situation, idea, or condition that George Orwell identified as being inimical to the welfare of a free-society. ... Totalitarianism is a typology employed by political scientists, especially those in the field of comparative politics, to describe modern regimes in which the state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior. ... George Orwell on TIME magazine cover from 1983. ... Nineteen Eighty-Four is a political novel by George Orwell. ...

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt

The Slashdot community has a love/hate relationship with certain technology corporations. Much of this is directly related to the (presumed) popularity of GNU/Linux within Slashdot. Some claim that browser statistics show that a majority of Slashdot posters in fact don't run Linux but instead Microsoft operating systems. This could possibly be due to the Slashdot community visiting the site during the workday from company-owned Microsoft Windows computers. A love-hate relationship is a personal relationship between humans, or figuratively between a human and an inanimate object, like a computer, or a field of study, or body of ideas, or a profession, involving simultaneous or alternating emotions of love and enmity. ... Linux (also known as GNU/Linux) is a computer operating system. ...

The phrase "Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt", often shortened to FUD, is often used to ascribe a propaganda-like character to actions or statements by corporations. Most often, this is used when describing either Microsoft Corporation or The SCO Group. This has more recently been applied to the ADTI. FUD is an abbreviation for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, a sales or marketing strategy of disseminating negative but vague or inaccurate information on a competitors product. ... Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT, SEHK: 4338) is an international computer technology corporation has global annual sales of over 41. ... The SCO Group, Inc. ... The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI) (not Institute) is a Washington, DC-based think-tank, named after the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville. ...

Microsoft is a long-standing target of Slashdotter criticism. Common criticisms include that Microsoft's products are unstable, have poor security, or have Big Brother-like attributes. Big Brother as portrayed in the BBCs 1954 production of Nineteen Eighty-Four. ...

The SCO Group is often targeted for criticism as a result of its claim that "Linux is, in material part, an unauthorized derivative of UNIX" (SCO letter to its Linux customers, 12 May 2003). SCO has asserted broad rights to the intellectual property of Unix, and thus also claims rights over Linux. SCO is attempting to enforce and defend its alleged rights through a series of lawsuits, including ongoing litigation with IBM. SCO brought on the wrath of Slashdotters for, among other things, attempting to charge a fee of $699 for "authorized" copies of Linux. As a result, replies to Linux articles will often contain the semi-serious joke that the poster owes SCO some amount of money. (See SCO v. IBM.) May 12 is the 132nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (133rd in leap years). ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... On March 6, 2003, the SCO Group (formerly known as Caldera Systems) filed a $1 billion lawsuit in the US against IBM for allegedly devaluing its version of the UNIX operating system. ...

The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (ADTI) has recently become the target of jokes since its president Kenneth Brown published a report entitled Samizdat which claimed that Linus Torvalds was not the original creator of Linux, but rather that Linux is a derivative of Minix, a claim which is disputed by many, including Andrew S. Tanenbaum, the creator of Minix. The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI) (not Institute) is a Washington, DC-based think-tank, named after the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville. ... Kenneth P. Brown, Jr. ... Samizdat: And Other Issues Regarding the Source of Open Source Code is a book by Kenneth Brown, which was prereleased in May 2004 and was to be published later that year by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI). ... Linus Benedict Torvalds (born December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish software engineer best known for initiating the development of Linux. ... Linux (also known as GNU/Linux) is a computer operating system. ... Linux (also known as GNU/Linux) is a computer operating system. ... Minix is an open source, Unix-like operating system based on a microkernel architecture. ... Dr. Andrew Stuart Andy Tanenbaum (born 1944) is a professor of Computer Science at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam in the Netherlands. ...

Tinfoil Hat

Often, a poster will refer to his or her "tinfoil hat", referring to someone who is overly concerned with privacy issues, or is a conspiracy theorist. For instance, in response to an article about putting GPS transponders in cell phones, a poster might say "Excuse me while I put on my tinfoil hat, but I don't want the government to track my every move!" A tin-foil hat, also tinfoil hat, is a general term for a piece of headgear made from one or more sheets of tin foil, aluminium foil, or other similar material. ... GPS satellite in orbit, image courtesy NASA GPS redirects here. ... In telecommunication, the term transponder (sometimes abbreviated to XPDR or TPDR) has the following meanings: An automatic device that receives, amplifies, and retransmits a signal on a different frequency (see also broadcast translator). ...

Welcoming Our New Overlords

This catchphrase is based on a quote from the newscaster character Kent Brockman of The Simpsons. In the episode Deep Space Homer, Brockman watches a video broadcast from a space capsule, within which a number of ants have accidentally been released. The ants appear huge because they float directly in front of the broadcast camera and close to the lens. He mistakenly assumes that alien insects are invading Earth and attempts to ingratiate himself to them by broadcasting propaganda: "I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords." (See Made-up words in The Simpsons) // Akira Akira As one of Springfields most prominent Japanese American citizens, Akira is the owner of a karate dojo (which Bart briefly attended) and also works at The Happy Sumo sushi restaurant. ... The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening. ... Deep Space Homer is the fifteenth episode of The Simpsons fifth season. ... Earth is the third planet in the solar system. ... The Simpsons, an animated series, has used and coined many neologisms for humorous effect. ...

Subsequent to this Simpsons episode, variants of the phrase came into common use in 2002-2003, generally used to suggest that whatever party referred to as the new overlords is engaging in Orwellian behavior. For example, in a hypothetical post referring to Deep Blue and its variants, one might post, "I, for one, welcome our new chess-playing robotic overlords." Orwellian describes a situation, idea, or condition that George Orwell identified as being inimical to the welfare of a free-society. ... Kasparov vs. ...

The first known use of this sycophant catchphrase in a Slashdot post can be viewed here. Look up sycophant in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

In Soviet Russia

The original "in Soviet Russia" joke, by comedian Yakov Smirnoff goes, "In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, The Party can always find you!" Yakov Smirnoff (born January 24, 1951) is, according to his own description, a Russian-born American comedian. ... High school students celebrate at a birthday party. ... In modern usage, a communist party is a political party which promotes communism, the sociopolitical philosophy based on Marxism. ...

The implication of Smirnoff's joke is that the latter use of the noun "party" implies the Communist Party, and refers to pervasiveness of the Communist party in Soviet Russia. Whether the members of Slashdot's audience who make these jokes have direct familiarity with Smirnoff's comedy act (which includes much observational humor about the Soviet Union which doesn't fit the word-reversal pattern) is doubtful, since this particular faction of the Slashdot community probably recalls the Cold War as only a childhood memory. More contemporary vectors for the joke were a Simpsons episode (Episode 282 The Old Man and the Key) where the Simpsons watch a stage revue of "burnt out" celebrities such as Charro and Smirnoff and Smirnoff sings "In Soviet Russia, revue watches you," as well as a Family Guy episode in which the family tries out an in-car voice navigation system, which has Yakov Smirnoff as a preprogrammed voice, uttering the one-liner "in Soviet Russia, car drives you!" The Cold War was the protracted geopolitical, ideological, and economic struggle that emerged after World War II between the global superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States, supported by their alliance partners. ... The Simpsons. ... Family Guy is an American animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane for FOX in 1999. ... One-liner may mean: a one-liner joke a one-liner program This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

It has become a custom to fit this joke into topics being discussed in as clever a way as possible.

In these posts, trolls usually begin their comments with the subject "IN SOVIET RUSSIA" (all capitals) and typically proceed to reverse the order of words in that story's headline, usually changing the verb slightly to maintain subject/verb agreement and changing the object of the sentence to the second-person "YOU!". Thus, '[subject][verb][object]' usually becomes 'IN SOVIET RUSSIA, [object][verb] YOU!' The nature of the joke, when done correctly, is such that the noun contains a different and repressive meaning in the latter part of the joke than in the former. In Internet terminology, a troll is someone who comes into an established community such as an online discussion forum, and posts inflammatory, rude or offensive messages designed to annoy and antagonize the existing members or disrupt the flow of discussion (see Anonymous Internet posting). ... State motto (Russian): Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Transliterated: Proletarii vsekh stran, soedinyaytes!) (Translated: Workers of the world, unite!) Capital Moscow Official language None; Russian (de facto) Government Federation of Soviet republics Area  - Total  - % water 1st before collapse 22,402,200 km² Approx. ...

One Slashdot article announcing that Russian Deputy Communications Minister Andrei Korotkov had turned the tables on spammers by flooding their telephone system with a recorded telephone message inspired a number of Soviet Russia jokes, mainly because the article was about an incident that took place in Russia that involved an ironic reversal, the very meaning of the Soviet Russia joke. Andrey Korotkov (Андрéй Короткóв) worked as Deputy Communications and Informatisation Minister in Russia. ...

One variation that is becoming increasingly common is the phrase "In Soviet America." This is usually seen in response to things perceived as a violation of privacy by the poster. e.g. "In Soviet America, you sue MPAA."

Modern slashdot Soviet Russia-jokes do not always explicitly mention the tell-tale line anymore, but still retain the typical reversal and 'you' statement at the end. This may be due to it becoming so well entrenched in Slashdot culture, to the point of seemingly wanting to try to avoid it. (Giant Squid).

Won't somebody please think of the children?

This sentence is often added sarcastically to a comment to make fun of (often socially conservative) policies which are sometimes justified with similar statements.

This line is famous for being delivered by Mrs. Lovejoy of The Simpsons and is used by the writers to point out the over-obsession of protecting children in modern-day America. More specifically, the target of the line is the practice of introducing laws to prevent children from doing something by removing/restricting the freedom of all to do it. // Akira Akira As one of Springfields most prominent Japanese American citizens, Akira is the owner of a karate dojo (which Bart briefly attended) and also works at The Happy Sumo sushi restaurant. ... The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening. ...

One current example of such practice is the Child Online Protection Act. The law would require all commercial distributors of "material harmful to minors" to protect their sites from access by minors. The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) is a law in the United States of America, passed in 1998 with the declared purpose of protecting children from harmful sexual material on the internet. ...

Recurring jokes

Reflecting the speed of contemporary pop culture in general and Internet phenomena in particular, many of Slashdot's recurring jokes enjoy brief shelf-lives. Some posters, aware of Slashdot's trolling subculture, often deliberately set out to create and propagate new memes, hoping to make a new joke catch on. The term meme (IPA: ), a theoretical concept introduced in 1976 by Richard Dawkins, refers to any unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice, idea or concept, which one mind transmits (verbally or by demonstration) to another mind. ...

A poster will sometimes combine several well-known jokes, including many of those listed below, into one "super-cliche." A successful attempt produces a post that is either quite funny or incredibly annoying, depending on a reader's perspective, and is almost always nonsensical outside the immediate context. Example here.

Lines and phrases

• When a new product is reviewed on Slashdot, some posters may respond by asking a question irrelevant to the product in question, such as whether a new toaster model runs Linux (more recently, Mac OS X v10.4) or supports Ogg media. This is a play on the stereotype that some Slashdotters are so passionate about a particular technology -- an operating system or file type, for example -- that they will overlook the positive features of a new development simply because it doesn't involve that technology. The first use of this phrase is in this comment in reference to a "$1000 supercomputer". This comment is actually not a joke but an honest question, thereby defining the typical slashdotter before Slashdot had become "mainstream".

• In some discussions, especially those concerning hardware, some users post humorous "When I was your age" type complaints, parodying such statements with extreme hyperbole. The original poster might write, "When I was your age we didn't have X11. We did everything through the console." Several successive replies might be posted, each more unpleasant and exaggerated than the last: posters complaining that they had only punch cards, toggle switches or even an abacus, echoing the Four Yorkshiremen sketch. A common addendum is the phrase "uphill both ways," which has its origins in Bill Cosby's Himself monologue. (A great example can be found here). Often the assertion is added that they liked it as well; this is generally a reference to Dana Carvey's Grumpy Old Man character, widely known from SNL.

• When a post reflects an apparent lack of geek-ness -- for instance, confusing Star Trek with Star Wars -- subsequent posts will inform the errant commenter that his or her "geek license" is "revoked" and must be turned in. A user will often have his "geek license revoked" when a post implies or states that he has a girlfriend.

• When someone suggests using a network for something unsavory, other users often suggest "setting the evil bit", as defined in RFC 3514 ("The Security Flag in the IPv4 Header"). This RFC became notorious on April Fools' Day 2003, when an article about it was posted dozens of times in response to persistent complaints about duplicate stories.

• More recently (2005), the problem of duplicate stories posted by Slashdot editors has given rise to the "dupe" joke. Example: "Why has no one noticed this article? Because it hasn't been posted three times yet!" Or: "There's a typo/misspelling/grammatical error in the summary." "Don't worry, it will be corrected in the dupe!"

• Discussion of a triplicate story invariably contains the suggestion that as "duplicate" is shortened to "dupe", "triplicate" obviously reduces to "tripe" (an idiom for something useless or nonsensical).

• A poster, often an Anonymous Coward, will preface a comment about a given news story with, "In Korea only old people use ... ." The joke appeared in late 2004 after a South Korean newspaper quoted 22-year-old office worker "Kim" saying that e-mail was a communications medium for the elderly.

• Haiku poems relating to a discussion are occasionally written.

• "Obviously, the dog is on fire" was a short-lived phenomenon, making incongruous appearances in a variety of posts in late 2004 and early 2005. It was spawned by the response to a brain-teaser about spotting a black dog from a car without headlights on an unlit street.(Original brain-teaser [1] and answer [2])

• "Except in Nebraska" is a humor meme derived from a memorable video alleged to be Microsoft's Steve Ballmer promoting Windows 1.0 with an intensity matched only by used-car salesmen. After spending the better part of a minute screaming about the amazing features of Windows 1.0 ("all this and Reversi!"), he ends with an abrupt "...except in Nebraska!" The January 2005 thread in which this video is shown and the meme is introduced can be found here.

• "You forgot Poland" is a response indicating that one has nothing noteworthy left to write and thus can offer only an irrelevant or incorrect comment. Derived from a remark by George W. Bush during the 2004 U.S. presidential debates, the line was often deployed in threads about a European Union software patents initiative blocked by Poland.

• "In the post 9/11 world" is a recurring joke that surfaced in 2005 after a police spokesman used the phrase while justifying the arrest of a man who paid a Best Buy invoice with $2 bills. The concept of terrorists threatening national security with $2 bills prompted the meme, and it is beginning to be used mostly by ACs in recent postings [3].

• In popular culture, a filk is a musical adaptation created by reworking a familiar song with new lyrics. At Slashdot, the device is used only occasionally; a song about the SCO Group Linux lawsuit conflict, for instance, spurred some users to produce variations on Eminem's song "The Real Slim Shady", titled "The Real UNIX Owner".

• Also common are inside jokes that allude to recent articles. For instance, to grasp the humor in an April 2005 comment about exoskeletons with mounted guns [4], a reader would have needed familiarity with a story the previous day about the deployment of robots in the Korean Demilitarized Zone. In some cases a link is provided to serve as a joke's explanation. Another example is this one where it says "that ain't gonna work; you forgot to offer chocolate for it" which at first seems nonsensical as an answer to "Please fill in you credit card number, social security number, date of birth, mother's maiden name and your password to all you most important information below." (about offshored identity theft), until one realises it's a reference to a former article of the previous day, which dealt with the fact most people are willing to give away their passwords for a bar of chocolate.

• When a familiar Slashdot joke turns out to make sense in the context of a discussion, an "Oh, wait, never mind" comment is obligatory. A thread about a new handheld device that runs Linux, for example, might include a wink-and-nod post that reads, "But does it run Linux? Oh, wait... ."

• "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along." From the traditional police officer's admonishment. This is an error message sometimes produced by the Slashdot server software, when the user tries to read a page when they don't have the necessary permissions for it. Most often this is a glitch occurring when reading an article that has just been published; subscribers can read the article, but other users can't. This is particularly funny in case of articles about Internet censorship or sites shut down. The phrase is also frequently used as an in-joke when trying to say that the article topic isn't a new idea even when it's tried to be passed off as such.

• A newer joke comes from Adult Swim's Robot Chicken. A skit shows a guy watching TV. His friends ask him if he wants to go to a bar, to which he replies "Why don't you take your bar and shove it up your ass! I'm watching TiVo!" This phrase has been used in Slashdot comments where a user will replace the word 'bar' with a noun that deals with the article.

• Another common phrase, often recited when dealing with either a disturbing or seemingly harmful image or product is, "The goggles, they do nothing!" A misquote from The Simpsons episode "Radioactive Man" where Rainier Wolfcastle, starring as Radioactive Man, is overcome by a tidal wave of acid having been given only a pair of goggles for "protection". The actual line is, "My eyes! The goggles do nothing!"

• Another recent joke involves chairs being thrown, in a reference to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who reportedly threw a chair upon hearing that Google had hired one of the chief Microsoft developers. It usually refers to an IT-related upset and ends something like 'I hope no one got hurt by flying chairs'.

• In the same incident, Ballmer was quoted as vowing to "fucking kill" Google. This phrase is reused both to allude to his notable enthusiasm[5] and, more generally, to comment on Microsoft's renownedly competitive attitude to its competitors[6].

• The adjective of "fsck" refers to the widespread curse and file systems checker fsck. It is applied to express emotions of impatience and frustration -- commonly experienced when corrupted file systems are being checked and corrected, e.g. after a severe system crash.

• An infrequent meme is of a mundane or usual sounding phrase being ended with "...in Japan!", under the pretense that anything in Japan is futuristic and cool. This started up around late 2004 and died fairly quickly.

• You misspelled (something ironic) as (something) is a joke originated by replies from grammar nazis whose corrections can meander needlessly from the posted article's topic [7]. Sometimes it is simplified to "You misspelled (something ironic)" when the subject of the satire is obvious[8].

• "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." Refers to Rob Malda's (CmdrTaco) initial reaction to the iPod when it was released and announced in a Slashdot article available here. An example of this joke in reference to a slashdot article about a wireless music player is available here.

A toaster is a small, electric kitchen appliance designed to toast bread, an act also known as making toast. ... Linux (also known as GNU/Linux) is a computer operating system. ... Mac OS X version 10. ... For help with sound or video, see Wikipedia:Media help. ... An abacus is a calculation tool, often constructed as a wooden frame with beads sliding on wires. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Bill Cosby as Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show William Henry Bill Cosby, Jr. ... Recent Image of Dana Carvey Dana Thomas Carvey (born June 2, 1955 in Missoula, Montana) is an American actor and comedian best known for his work on Saturday Night Live and the spin-off movie Waynes World. ... SNL could mean: Saturday Night Live Scots National League This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Look up Geek in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Star Trek collectively refers to an American science-fiction franchise spanning six unique television series (which comprise 726 episodes) and ten feature films, in addition to hundreds of novels, computer and video games, fan stories, and other works of fiction — all of which are set within the same fictional universe... The cover of the 2004 DVD widescreen release of the modified original Star Wars Trilogy. ... The evil bit was proposed made in RFC 3514, a humorous April 1st RFC from 2003. ... Anonymous Coward is a term applied within some online communities to describe users who post without a handle; it is a dummy name attributed to anonymous posts used by some weblogs that allow posting by people without registering for accounts. ... Haiku （俳句） is a mode of Japanese poetry, a late 19th century revision by Masaoka Shiki of the older hokku (発句), the opening verse of a linked verse form, haikai no renga . ... Steven Ballmer (born March 24, 1956) is an American businessman and the chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation since January 2000. ... You forgot Poland is a catch phrase based on a statement by United States President George W. Bush concerning Polands involvement in the Iraq War during the first presidential election debate on September 30, 2004, during the 2004 U.S. presidential race. ... Software patents are patents on computer-implemented inventions. ... Filk is a form of music created from within fandom, and performed generally late at night at science fiction conventions. ... The SCO Group, Inc. ... Linux (also known as GNU/Linux) is a computer operating system. ... Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972) is an American rapper best known by the stage name Eminem. ... An in joke is a joke whose humour is clear only to those people who are in a group that has some prior knowledge (not known by the whole population) that makes the joke humorous. ... Map of the Korean DMZ. The DMZ is given in red. ... The Adult Swim logo. ... Robot Chicken is an American stop motion animated television series created by Stoopid Monkey and Sony Pictures Digital, currently airing as a part of Cartoon Networks Adult Swim lineup. ... Sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes, or sketches, commonly between one and ten minutes long. ... TiVo (pronounced, in IPA, ) is a popular brand of digital video recorder (DVR), a term synonymous with personal video recorder (PVR). ... The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening. ... Radioactive Man, within the world of the animated series The Simpsons, is a comic book superhero who acquired his powers after surviving an atomic bomb explosion. ... Rainier Wolfcastle on his short-lived Fox talk show Up Late with McBain accuses his booing audience of being homosexuals in The Simpsons episode Cape Feare. ... It has been suggested that strong acid be merged into this article or section. ... Steven Ballmer (born March 24, 1956) is an American businessman and the chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation since January 2000. ... The system utility fsck (for file system check or file system consistency check) is a tool for checking the consistency of a file system in the Unix system and clones thereof. ... Grammar nazi, spelling nazi, and language nazi are all terms used to describe a participant in a discussion, online or otherwise, who criticizes or corrects the language usage of another participant. ...

Pop culture references

• Duke Nukem Forever (DNF) is a game whose release date has changed for years. Slashdotters often compare a timeline to the timeline of DNF. For example, in an article about a product that appears to be vaporware, someone might post a "But will it come out before DNF?" or "It will come bundled with DNF." Often, DNF is referred to as "Duke Nukem Whenever" or "Duke Nukem If Ever."

Predictions by posters or sources in news stories about the pending release of an application are often greeted with the rhetorical question: "Can they also tell us when Duke Nukem Forever will be released?" Duke Nukem Forever (DNF) is a yet-to-be-released first-person shooter video game being developed by 3D Realms, and is the next game in the popular Duke Nukem series. ... Vaporware is software or hardware which is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge, either with or without a protracted development cycle. ...

• The phrase "All your base are belong to us" was an Internet phenomenon in 2000-2001. Drawn from a clumsy English translation of the Japanese video game Zero Wing, it was often seen on Slashdot in such variations as, "All your (topic of article) are belong to (a relevant group)." Current use of "all your base" and other phrases from the video game, such as "for great justice," implicitly acknowledge the outdated humor.

• "How about a nice game of chess?" sometimes appears in comments about talking robots or large computers. It is a quote from the 1983 movie WarGames. A typical response, also drawn from the film, is: "Why chess? Let's play global thermonuclear war."

• As with The Simpsons, the animated television show South Park has provided ample trolling fodder. A frequently referenced South Park episode features a community of Underpants Gnomes that maintains a three-step business plan:

1. Collect underpants
2. ???
3. Profit!

None of the gnomes knows the second step, and each assumes that someone else in the organization does. This pokes fun at the general lack of sensible business plans by companies of the dot-com era, which often generated interesting ideas but failed to build profitable enterprises. In response to stories about individuals or organizations alleged to have acted questionably, jesting Slashdotters often propose a fake business plan based on this template, with the questionable action as step one. // All your base are belong to us (sometimes referred to as All Your Base and often abbreviated AYBABTU, AYBAB2U, or simply AYB) is a phrase that sparked an Internet phenomenon in 2001 and 2002. ... Zero Wing was a 1989 Japanese shoot em up arcade game developed by Toaplan. ... This article is about the 1983 US movie. ... The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening. ... South Park is an American animated television series created, written and voiced by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. ... Underpants Gnomes is episode 217 of Comedy Centrals South Park. ... A business plan is a summary of how a business owner, manager, or entrepreneur intends to organize an entrepreneurial endeavor and implement activities necessary and sufficient for the venture to succeed. ... Dot-com (also dotcom or redundantly dot. ...

• The animated show, Futurama is also a commonly cited reference. Catch phrases from the main cast such as "Good news everyone" and "Bite my shiny metal ass" are often used or modified to fit the context.

• The Star Wars film series is perhaps the most frequently cited pop-culture source at Slashdot.

Posters often quote Alec Guinness' line "That's no moon... that's a space station" (from the movie Star Wars, referring to the Death Star) when a discussion involves a moon or space station, particularly Saturn's moon Mimas, which has a distinct crater. Futurama is an American animated television series created by Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons) and David X. Cohen (also a writer for The Simpsons). ... The cover of the 2004 DVD widescreen release of the modified original Star Wars Trilogy. ... Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Sir Alec Guinness CH CBE (April 2, 1914 – August 5, 2000) was an Oscar-winning English actor who became one of the most versatile and best-loved performers of his generation. ... There are a number of notable lines in the Star Wars series that have gained currency as catch phrases in the outside world, or are significant within the canon itself. ... The original Death Star The Death Star was a giant military space station in the fictional Star Wars universe. ... Atmospheric characteristics Atmospheric pressure 140 kPa Hydrogen >93% Helium >5% Methane 0. ... Atmosphere none Mimas (mye-məs, IPA , Greek Μίμᾱς, rarely Μίμανς) is a moon of Saturn that was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. ...

Another frequently quoted line is "I find your lack of faith disturbing" (uttered by Darth Vader in Star Wars). It is applicable as a reply to critical opinions of Star Wars, and is sometimes used in response to a poster questioning whether the Slashdot effect can bring down a given Web site. Darth Vader (41 BBY – 4 ABY) is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe. ... The Slashdot effect is the term given to the phenomenon of a popular website linking to a smaller site, causing the smaller site to slow down or even temporarily close due to the increased traffic. ...

Common jokes in movie discussions include "revealing" that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father and replies of mock astonishment to this well-known spoiler.

Since the release of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the Darth Vader "NOOO" at the end of the film is commonly played on. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is the third episode of the Star Wars film series (but the sixth film to be produced), to be released on Thursday, May 19, 2005. ... There are a number of notable lines in the Star Wars series that have gained currency as catch phrases in the outside world, or are significant within the canon itself. ...

Some posters enjoy noting the mysterious Jedi ability to convince others to act (Jedi mind trick) in reference to other seemingly magical events that happen among businesses, people and technology. People often quote and deliberately misquote Obi-Wan Kenobi using this skill at the Mos Eisley space port to hide his droids. The original phrase "These aren't the droids you are looking for" is often altered to fit the discussion topic, with the word "droids" replaced by "files," "servers," "kiwis" and so on. In the fictitous Star Wars universe, the Jedi mind trick is a Force power. ... Alternative meanings: Star Wars: Droids (animated series) A droid is a robot, specifically the intelligent robots in the fictional Star Wars universe. ... There are a number of notable lines in the Star Wars series that have gained currency as catch phrases in the outside world, or are significant within the canon itself. ... {Kiwi}- The bestfriend of Ricey. ...

Also common are variations of Admiral Ackbar's famous utterance, "It's a trap!" (also a frequent Fark cliche) and Obi-Wan's line, "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if a million souls cried out in torment and were silenced at once" (example: "As if a million sysadmins cried out in torment and were silenced at once" in reference to a Windows XP Service Pack release). It is also notable that in this instance Obi-Wan is quoted incorrectly. Admiral Ackbar is a fictional character in the Star Wars movies and novels. ... There are a number of notable lines in the Star Wars series that have gained currency as catch phrases in the outside world, or are significant within the canon itself. ... Screenshot Fark. ...

• "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." is one of Inigo Montoya's lines from The Princess Bride.

• A line from Soylent Green, "Soylent Green is people!" where Soylent Green is substituted with an appropriate noun.

• The topic icons are sometimes references themselves:
  • "It's funny. Laugh." section icon is from Monty Python.
  • Real time strategy game icon is currently from Warcraft III.
  • Role playing game icon is from Final Fantasy IV, the two characters are Tellah and Edward Chris von Muir.
  • Input device icon is a spoon.

The Princess Bride is a 1987 film, based on the 1973 novel by William Goldman, combining elements of comedy, adventure, romance and fairy tale tropes. ... Soylent Green is a classic 1973 science fiction movie starring Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Joseph Cotten and Chuck Connors. ... The Monty Python troupe in 1970. ... Dune 2 (1992), an early RTS A real-time strategy (RTS) game is a type of computer strategy game which does not have turns like conventional turn-based strategy video or board games. ... Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, released by Blizzard Entertainment in 2002, is a real-time strategy computer game and the second sequel to Warcraft. ... This article is about traditional role-playing games. ... Final Fantasy IV (ファイナルファンタジーIV Fainaru Fantajī IV), often abbreviated to FF4, is a console role-playing game developed and published by Square Co. ... Artwork by Yoshitaka Amano Tellah the Sage is a fictional, playable character from the SquareSoft RPG Final Fantasy IV. One of the oldest playable characters in the series, Tellah is very wise, though is a bit short-tempered. ... This article is about the character named Edward in the English release of Final Fantasy IV; you may be looking for the article Edward Edge Geraldine Artwork by Yoshitaka Amano Edward Chris Von Muir (sometimes called Edward Damcyan, Prince Edward, or by the original version of his name Gilbert/Gilbart...

Technical humor

As Slashdot is a gathering ground for those interested in things technical, it is inevitable that a highly advanced sense of technical humor has arisen. Often, this humor is a reference to a past event in geek history, and is often inane and obscure.

Beowulf cluster

Whenever a story mentioning a new gadget (possibly one with networking capabilities) is posted on Slashdot, it will often be proposed that the power of a Beowulf cluster of the new gadgets would be incredible. Under the concept of absurdist humor, this can be applied to non-networkable items as well. Such comments are generally prefaced with "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things!" This type of troll actually began as a parody of sincere posts frequently made in stories about new computers back when the concept of Beowulf clusters first entered the technological mainstream. Beowulf is a design for high-performance parallel computing clusters on inexpensive personal computer hardware. ...

Terminal humor

There is a small body of humor on Slashdot revolving around the idiosyncrasies of older text-based terminals, often requiring knowledge of these arcane or archaic systems.

"NO CARRIER" is a response printed by a modem if it loses its connection. It is usually used to truncate a sentence, implying that some disaster has befallen the author or their computer. This joke goes back to the early days of BBSs. This is used most often in the context of a user accidentally severing his connection, the authorities, or the "SysOp" (system operator) silencing someone during an online exchange or his computer being crashed by something. A modem (a portmanteau word constructed from modulator and demodulator) is a device that modulates a carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. ... A bulletin board system or BBS is a computer system running software that allows users to dial into the system over a phone line and, using a terminal program, perform functions such as downloading software and data, uploading data, playing games, reading news, and exchanging messages with other users. ... SysOp (pronounced /ˈsɪs. ...

The full sequence, for full effect, is

 +++ATH NO CARRIER 

a memorial to one of the first really intrusive software patents. This use is technically incorrect, as "+++" is typed by the user to then allow them to enter modem commands, such as ATH (hangup), and is usually not visible on screen. Software patents are a type of intellectual property and one of many legal aspects of computing. ...

A popular alternative is to insert gibberish characters before the message

 %^%@13#^$3@#$*^&^NO CARRIER 

in an attempt to represent the jumble of nonsense characters read by older modems, especially before good error-correction, due to line noise, such as that caused by a regular telephone extension being lifted on the same line at either end of the connection. Noise often caused modems to lose track of the carrier signal, severing the connection and causing the NO CARRIER text to appear. In computer science and information theory, error correction consists of using methods to detect and/or correct errors in the transmission or storage of data by the use of some amount of redundant data and (in the case of transmission) the selective retransmission of incorrect segments of the data. ... In science, and especially in physics and telecommunication, noise is fluctuations in and the addition of external factors to the stream of target information (signal) being received at a detector. ...

^H^H^H^H

^H represents the key combination control-h, which on Linux/UNIX systems types a backspace. On a misconfigured terminal, the backspace key will sometimes actually print ^H instead of deleting a character. This can lead to embarrassing admissions when a word a user means to delete is left in a message followed by a series of ^H's. Jokes are often made on Slashdot in reference to this bug^H^H^Hfeature. These jokes provide a funny way for users to reveal their true thoughts and to make subtle comments. The convention is described by the Jargon file as "writing under erasure"; it is akin to using the <del> tag in HTML. Wikibooks has more about this subject: Guide to Unix Unix or UNIX is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T Bell Labs employees including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and Douglas McIlroy. ... The Jargon File is a glossary of hacker slang. ... An excerpt of HTML code with syntax highlighting In computing, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a markup language designed for the creation of web pages with hypertext and other information to be displayed in a web browser. ...

A more concise alternative sometimes seen is ^W, which is the shortcut to delete the previous word in the Berkeley Unix terminal line discipline. One ^W can replace a whole string of ^H's. This shortcut has also made it into Emacs and Vi text editors. For really embarrassing blunders, ^U (kill line) can outdo a whole line of ^W. This article is about the text editor. ... The correct title of this article is vi. ...

A recent variant is to prefix a word with $sys$, as a reference to the 2005 Sony CD copy protection controversy. The 2005 Sony CD copy protection controversy is a public controversy relating to copy protection software known as Extended Copy Protection (XCP), created by First 4 Internet and used by the media company Sony BMG Music Entertainment (frequently referred to as Sony) on audio CDs. ...

Older teletypes did not have a backspace and used # for erase, and @ for kill line.

MS-DOS uses H and W as hotkeys for many of its terminal programs, ^ (meaning CTRL) and H for a letter, or W for a word. Microsofts disk operating system, MS-DOS, was Microsofts implementation of DOS, which was the first popular operating system for the IBM PC, and until recently, was widely used on the PC compatible platform. ...

Buffering

"Buffering" is a response to any topic related to streaming media, particularly RealPlayer. The post features a sentence or paragraph broken by "...BUFFERING...", or an an incomplete paragraph ended by this string, imitating the frequent pauses common while playing streaming media. RealPlayer is a media player, created by RealNetworks, that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, as well as multiple generations of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo codecs. ... Streaming media is media that is consumed (read, heard, viewed) while it is being delivered. ...

Search and Replace

Sometimes, a post or quote from an article can be written vaguely enough that it could easily refer to something else. While the target of the article is explicitly stated elsewhere, some Slashdotters use search and replacement syntax to describe the switching of one concept to another, usually to make the original article more amusing. A regular expression (abbreviated as regexp, regex or regxp) is a string that describes or matches a set of strings, according to certain syntax rules. ...

"Just s/WMD/DNF/ and maybe they'll come up with something!" Weapons of Mass Destruction is also the name of rapper Xzibits 2004 album. ...

These types of expressions are also used in a follow-up comment as a way to fix a typo or other minor mistake in the users previous comment. For instance, if the user writes:

"Go check gttp://www.wikipedia.org"

The user may reply with:

"s/gttp/http/"

It is also common to see variations that are commonly used in Vi, such as "s/gttp/http/g" which means to search and replace multiple occurrences. The correct title of this article is vi. ...

Windows Vista System Requirements

Frequently, (as of early 2006) when a computer or component is announced or released that is above a standard PC component, power-wise, it is asked: "Yeah, but can it run Vista?" This is intended to ridicule Windows Vista's extreme system requirements for running several new features, such as the revised GUI. Windows Vista is the next major version of Microsoft Windows, the proprietary operating system developed by Microsoft. ... Gui is short for Guilherme or Guilhermo or an iteration of that, in English it translates to Will. ...

Slashdot Poll

The non-scientific Slashdot poll is usually updated a few times a month and polls Slashdotters on an array of technical and non-technical questions. On occasions when the poll goes for an extended time without an update snide remarks are sometimes posted about the need for a new poll.

The CowboyNeal option

Jon Pater, known in Slashdot by the handle CowboyNeal, is the frequent target of jokes. Until recently nearly all Slashdot polls contained what is called a "CowboyNeal" option, where one of the poll options is either "CowboyNeal" or some variant. See CowboyNeal. CowboyNeal is the online nickname (handle) on Slashdot and other websites of Slashdot editor Jon Pater. ...

You insensitive clod!

A common usage of this is in polls where a poll option accuses the person who framed the poll for giving an inadequate set of options. For example a poll on favorite genres of music might have as the last option, "I'm deaf, you insensitive clod." Opinion polls are surveys of opinion using sampling. ...

The phrase appeared in the 7 May 2000 Simpsons episode Last Tap Dance in Springfield. In the episode, the phrase is used when Professor Frink makes a pair of self-tap-dancing shoes for Lisa. After she dances, he points out that they were really in the "off" position, and that she had tap-danced by herself. Homer replies, "What are you talking about, Professor Frink? They're clearly in the 'on' position. See? 'On'." Professor Frink then says, "I was merely trying to spare the girl's feelings, you insensitive clod." May 7 is the 127th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (128th in leap years). ... This article is about the year 2000. ... The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening. ... Last Tap Dance in Springfield is the twentieth episode of the eleventh season of The Simpsons. ... Professor John Frink Professor Johnathan I. Q. Frink, Jr. ...

A much earlier example of the phrase came out of the first Calvin and Hobbes book, published in 1987. This is documented in the LinuxQuestions.org Wiki. The earliest usage of the phrase on Usenet occurs in January 1991. [9] Calvin and Hobbes took many wagon rides over the years—this one showed up on the cover of the first collection of comic strips. ... Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ...

This phrase was also frequently used in MAD Magazine. Harvey Kurtzmans cover for the first issue of the comic book Mad Mad is an American humor magazine founded by publisher William Gaines and editor Harvey Kurtzman in 1952. ...

However, the earliest known use of the expression is in Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer-winning 1928 play, Strange Interlude, in which Edmund Darrell describes his son as "an insensitive clod". Eugene ONeill Eugene Gladstone ONeill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning American playwright. ...

Example posts

• Classic first post
• Natalie Portman, Naked and Petrified
• Comment explaining the origin of naked and petrified
• BSD is dying
• Beowulf clusters
• Stephen King is dead
• 1,2,3 Business plan
• In Soviet Russia
• Composite joke (In Soviet + First post)
• Composite joke (parody of most inside jokes)
• Movie Spoiler
• Welcoming our overlords
• You insensitive clod!
• You must be new here!
• You must be new here! (to a low-ID user)
• Mods on crack
• Offtopic nonsense
• More offtopic nonsense
• Complaint about being modded offtopic
• Chewbacca Defense
• A Slashdot Haiku
• NO CARRIER
• Assaults on "stereotypical nerd" Slashdot readers
• IANAL
• Example of a story from the "forty-rods-to-the-hogshead dept"
• "PC Load Letter? What the fuck does that mean?!?"
• Digitally signed
• A dupe joke
• Score:5, Troll
• List of Score:5, Flamebait posts
• Goatse reference
• A First Post "Does It Run Linux?" question that is both funny and on-topic
• "Except in Nebraska" used as a reply to "Only Old Koreans..."
• " Slashdot EeziPost (TM)"
• The birth of the "In Korea, only old people ..." jokes.
• Example of a "In Korea, only old people..." joke as applied to a relevant topic.
• Example of a "Soylent Green is people!" joke as applied to a relevant topic.
• You misspelled (something) example
• Nothing for you to see here...
• First mention of the word "blog"
• Strike on Iraq, the slashdot article with most comments ever.

External links

• Seen On Slash - More example posts
• Slashbot - Slashdot Comments We Liked - A Blog featuring funny quotes from Slashdot