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Goodbye Slashdot

Ok, it's official. I'm not visiting Slashdot any more. I've commented on Slashdot on several occasions here. One entry was even titled "How To Break Your Slashdot Addiction"

I've been reading Slashdot for a long time -- I actually own a Slashdot t-shirt circa Comdex '99 in Las Vegas (now used for painting, I think). But over the past few months, I think CmdrTaco and his cohorts (man those sites are creepy) have basically finally caught on to the formula that spewing random anti-Microsoft crap gets them a whole pile of traffic. They don't have to say anything that contains value, accuracy, fairness, truth (and so they don't) to get traffic to the site.

I guess it was the utterly braindead Can .NET Really Scale? posting that finally put me over the edge. See Rory's comments on that item. Ian White's statement that "I don't read slashdot anymore, its way to anti-MS for me, and precious little else." finally gave me the courage to make the break.

Anyway, I'm wasting entirely too much emotional energy on thinking and talking to anyone who'll listen (thanks Jared) about stuff I see there. The only reason I still visit is to pick up miscellaneous interesting tidbits, but my RSS aggregator now guarantees that I always get my interesting tidbits several days before Slashdot gets around to posting them.

As of this morning, I figured I had two choices on how to deal with Slashdot:

  • create a separate blog to give vent (Jared, though patient and having his own addiction to deal with, must be getting tired of listening)
  • stop visiting the site, thus eliminating the need to vent

    I chose the latter. I've removed my RSS feed, browser link, and DQSD alias. I'll post here if I fall back into my addiction. I need a few people to agree to hold me accountable for my actions -- maybe we can help each other just say "no". Post a comment if you need help too -- admitting is the first step to recovery.

    So long Slashdot...

    [Listening to: The 77s - Woody (from Pray Naked)]
  • Comments

    Testify!!!

    This might help:

    http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/klee/misc/slashdot.html

    Not sure if that site is real or fake though

    Stupid website. Wouldn't even take my comment the first try. Let me guess... I bet its running on windoze right? Hehe. Seriously, I'll help you in your efforts by not throwing slashdot in you're face so often. I can't promise I'll quit, but I'll help you out where I can =P

    Good on you Steve! drop me a note if you feel the urge to go visit - We'll find a 3rd party to go there and pull the most anti-ms posting for the day thus convincing us we're right to stay away.

    "just say no"!

    Er, sure my site is "real", if by "real" you mean that I actually quit reading slashdot entirely on or about Leap Day 2000. Welcome to the club. Of course, there's some exaggeration for humorous effect on "Quit Slashdot Today!", but more truth than jest I think.

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