Seven months since leaving Slashdot

At the end of December 2012, I left Slashdot. Cold turkey, no more reading, no more story submittals, no more comment moderation. I had good karma and I have no idea what they did with it. Like others, I posted under a handle so you won't find my contributions without working at it.

In case you are not familiar with Slashdot, it "is a technology-related news website owned by the US-based company Dice Holdings, Inc. The site, which bills itself as 'News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters,' features user-submitted and evaluated news stories about science and technology related topics." (Source: Wikipedia)

I left for four reasons: I have better sources for "News for Nerds," they refused to track a story back to its original source, the editing of stories was atrocious and I got tired of the stupid comments. Let me expound on these.

Better sources: I have several blogs and other news sources for my tech news. As a whole, they are faster and have better reporting and editing than Slashdot. One of the last straws in December was when Slashdot posted a story that I had read elsewhere two days earlier.

Original source: Slashdot relied on reader-submitted stories. While there is some original reporting on the Internet, many news sites simply scrape and rewrite content from the originators. How many times have you read a story in a major media source and realize that it was written by the Associated Press? The readers who submitted content rarely took the effort to track the story back to its roots, something I always try to do on this blog. This resulted in incorrect information and incomplete stories.

Sometimes, they had ridiculous situations where an Australian news publication was used a source for a United States story. It also resulted in a couple of cases where someone was able to sneak through a story that was a couple of years old.

Atrocious editing: Readers are nerds and their submissions need editing. This didn't happen as much as it should have. Ranging from misspelled words and wrong word usage to summaries that totally misrepresented the stories, this got really obnoxious after a while. Also, the problems listed in "Original source" were passed right on through by the editors.

Stupid comments: Every blog or other site that allows comments has to have a way to deal with stupid ones. Slashdot had an excellent moderation system that used people like me with good karma to keep the stupid comments in line. It was just too much work and there was just too much stupidity to deal with.

I really have a problem with tech people who work exclusively in a Wintel world (Windows + Intel) world and have no clue that there's other worlds out there that have nothing to do with Microsoft or Intel. They would be amazed to know that there are servers out there that don't run any antivirus software and yet are not vulnerable to malware!

Last year, I was wasting too much time cussing at stories and comments on Slashdot. Now I have that time back to do other things, like write this blog.

Updated Aug. 9: Replaced "stupid commenters" with "stupid comments." I really shouldn't call people stupid. People aren't stupid, they just do stupid things, like post stupid comments. As Forrest Gump's mother used to say, "Stupid is as stupid does."

The new Gmail Inbox: I like it

I like the new Gmail Inbox with tabs, which I got yesterday. I'm training it as there are some things that are showing up under the wrong tab. But for the most part, the default classification is good. Here is a screen shot of the top of my Inbox*:

My understanding is that "Primary" is the default tab for any conversations (groups of messages) not showing up under the other tabs.

"Social" are messages connected with social media, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and blogs I've subscribed to, etc.

"Promotions" are messages that have an advertising flavor to them. Promotions are not spam as that goes into the spam filter. A sample message is like the one I got from Toyota today, "Bruce, Get a First Look at the All-New Corolla."

"Updates" are more newsy items from companies that I have a relationship with. A typical entry is from Fidelity Investments, "Tax-smart investing tips."

As I mentioned, I'm training it. For example, the two messages from Cincinnati.com showing in image showed up under "Updates" and I want news like this to be under "Primary." To move them, I selected them with a check in the box at the left then right-clicked (left-clicked for left handers) on the message and selected "Move to Tab ➜" then "Primary". I got a confirmation message that the message had been moved and this:
"Do this for future messages from newsletters@e.cincinnati.com? Yes".

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* Yes, I have 14,435 messages in my Inbox of which 4,868 are unread. Google said when I signed up that I don't have to delete messages any more and I listened to them. I recently searched for and used a message I wrote in 2008.

Earlier this week, I passed a milestone that I like: I have now reached over 1,000 page views on this blog. Someone out there is reading my stuff.

The NBC News app has a problem, has a problem

Updated Sept. 6: Although the software on my phone has not been updated, this has been fixed. This post will be kept for reference.

Screen shot from my iPhone

I get NBC News on my iPhone with the NBC News app (version 4.0.1). They're experiencing difficulties right now; I wonder, is anyone at NBC paying attention? Here are the current "Top Stories," in order. For your reading convenience, I've put a number at the beginning of each duplicate showing how many times it has appeared so far:

Morsi investigated for murder as rival rallies take to Egypt's streets

(2) Morsi investigated for murder as rival rallies take to Egypt's streets

(3) Morsi investigated for murder as rival rallies take to Egypt's streets

More Dreamliner ills; smoke in one, another grounded

Holder: Snowden would not face death penalty if sent home

Death-tax tip: Don't do what Gandolfini did

Ariel Castro pleads guilty in kidnappings, agrees to life sentence without parole

Mysterious hum driving people crazy around the world

(2) Ariel Castro pleads guilty in kidnappings, agrees to life sentence without parole

(3) Ariel Castro pleads guilty in kidnappings, agrees to life sentence without parole

Armed men bust 'Pink Panthers' jewel thief out of Swiss prison

(4) Ariel Castro pleads guilty in kidnappings, agrees to life sentence without parole

(2) Holder: Snowden would not face death penalty if sent home

China silences American-style TV talent shows

(2) More Dreamliner ills; smoke in one, another grounded

'Fat shaming' actually increases risk of becoming or staying obese, new study says

(5) Ariel Castro pleads guilty in kidnappings, agrees to life sentence without parole

Terminally ill 'Simpsons' co-creator Sam Simon giving fortune to charity

Pope stresses the importance of family in Brazil speech

(6) Ariel Castro pleads guilty in kidnappings, agrees to life sentence without parole

(7) Castro agrees to plea deal: Life without parole plus 1,000 years

(3) Holder: Snowden would not face death penalty if sent home

Driver of crashed Spanish train investigated for 'recklessness,' police say

(2) Pope stresses the importance of family in Brazil speech

Two dozen injured in Egypt as rival rallies brace for bloodshed

(8) Castro agrees to plea deal: Life without parole plus 1,000 years

(2) Driver of crashed Spanish train investigated for 'recklessness,' police say

Edward Snowden's dad: This story is far from over

(3) Pope stresses the importance of family in Brazil speech

(9) Castro agrees to plea deal: Life without parole plus 1,000 years

(3) Driver of crashed Spanish train investigated for 'recklessness,' police say

(2) Terminally ill 'Simpsons' co-creator Sam Simon giving fortune to charity

(2) Two dozen injured in Egypt as rival rallies brace for bloodshed

Yearning to be a parent, dad is one of few single men who turned to surrogacy

(2) 'Fat shaming' actually increases risk of becoming or staying obese, new study says

Happy birthday Mick Jagger: 70 never moved better

(4) Driver of crashed Spanish train investigated for 'recklessness,' police say

LA- area campgrounds shut down after squirrel test positive for plague

Is Weiner part of a 'war on women'? EMILY's List says no

(5) Driver of crashed Spanish train to be questioned in wake of deadly derailment

At this point, the duplicates stop. Stay tuned, I'll let you know if this gets fixed.

Updated Oct. 19.  Wording changes.

Math problem one: The Time Clock Problem

I was at an orientation meeting for a job which had a situation that lends itself to a math problem. This company uses the last four digits of the employee's Social Security Number to identify the employee on their time clock system. Assuming that the last four digits of the SSN are random (0000 is not valid so valid values are 0001 to 9999) and you have a group of 200 employees, what is the probability that at least two employees have the same last four digits? I will post the answer when I figure it out.

If you know the answer, post a comment or send me an email at bruce.hobbs@gmail.com. Sorry, other than bragging rights, there is no prize for a correct answer.

Updated Aug. 9: A solution to this problem is here. I also changed the problem to add "at least" two employees have the same last four digits.

Updated Aug. 23: I renamed this post from "A math problem for today" to "Math problem one: The Time Clock Problem." Does this mean that there will be additional problems? You bet! But the next one is complicated enough that I'm going to solve it before I post it. That way, I can post the solution the next day. The common theme of these problems: These are problems that occur in real life.

Peaches are no longer king in Georgia

Georgia is known for peaches. There's even a picture of peach on its license plate. But beginning in 2005 and continuing every year since, Georgia farmers have made more money from blueberries than peaches. That may come to an end this year, though, as one farmer lost over half of his blueberry crop due to excess rain in July.

One story discussing this is "Blueberry tops peach as Georgia’s top fruit crop" from the Atlanta Business Chronicle. The story about the farmer with rain problems is from News Channel 6.

“There’s gold, er, rare-earth metals in them thar hills, boys!”

It turns out that the waste from many gold mines contains rare-earth metals. Why is that important? According to this article by the Associated Press, "Two years ago, China raised prices — in the case of neodymium, used to make Prius electric motors stronger and lighter, from $15 a kilogram in 2009 to $500 in 2011, while dysprosium oxide used in lasers and halide lamps went from $114 a kilogram in 2010 to $2,830 in 2011. It's also about the time China cut off supplies to Japan, maker of the Prius, in a dispute over international fishing territory." So it's important that new sources of these rare-earth metals are found.

The AP explains that miners in the early days of the West were looking for gold, silver and copper. They didn't even know what rare-earth metals were; even if they did, these metals are much more difficult to extract. With China raising the prices for political reasons, companies are looking for new sources and they have found them in an unexpected place.

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The quote that the title is based on was originally from "The American Claimant" written by Mark Twain in 1892. However, there is some indication that this phrase was originally spoken by M.F. Stephenson describing the hills around Dahlonega, Georgia.

From Wikipedia, here are the 17 rare-earth metals. They get the name "rare earth" because they are widely distributed and not concentrated in ores as are gold, silver and copper. Also, they tend to bind to each other. This makes these metals harder to concentrate and refine.

Note that indium, also mentioned in the story, is not considered a rare-earth metal. Also, I doubt that AP Style calls for capitalizing element names. Oops.

Updated July 23 to improve formatting.

Nice profile of DatDudeBP

Cincinnati Magazine is running a great profile on DatDudeBP (otherwise known as Brandon Phillips, second baseman for the Cincinnati Reds). Phillips said some controversial things in that article, which I'm not going to repeat verbatim here, but I will give you a run down on the controversy. Note that this is one sided; the magazine apparently didn't ask or didn't get a response from the team.

To understand the situation, you need to go back to the 2012 season. Phillips was going to become a free agent at the end of the season while teammate Joey Votto (first baseman for the Reds) had two years remaining on his contract. According to Phillips, Reds management talked to Votto before talking to Phillips. The result was a contract extension offer of $225 million over 10 years which Votto accepted. Then they went to Phillips and offered him a six-year deal worth $72.5 million which he accepted.

On the face of this, it looks like Votto is getting paid a lot more than Phillips. For me, to compare these salaries fairly, I need to determine the actual salaries for this year and the next two years. I found two sources for this, which agree on the base salaries: Baseball Player Salaries and Sports Contracts.

Player	2013	2014	2015	Total
Brandon Phillips	$10M	$11M	$12M	$33M
Joey Votto	$17M	$12M	$14M	$43M

Looking at it this way, things don't look so lopsided. Also note that Votto is taking a pay cut next year; Phillips isn't. I don't know if Votto is worth $10 million more than Phillips over three years or not but I think Phillips' outrage is misplaced.