Yeah I was going to make the same joke.

"I scratched in the litter box and peed, then covered it up. What do you know? The cat imitated me doing that too!"

"tailpipe pollution -- the United States' largest source of greenhouse emissions"

Wow, this was news to me. I would have thought it was still the energy industry.
... hey, guess what? (does a quick online search) the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions is from the energy industry: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.epa.gov%2Fghgemissio...

Transportation is only 14% -- and this number even includes "tailpipes" from planes, trains, etc.

I'm very "late to the party", just heard about Rob a few hours ago. It's a minor devastation, a fleeting reminder of mortality in this immortal software universe we've built and live in.

Everything good that could be said about Rob has already been said, in more eloquent ways than I could say. So why am I posting at all? Well, when a loved one has passed, I'd like to believe that repetition of praises is never shunned but always welcomed. So here I am to add mine.

So I will echo what others have said and add my own thoughts. I discovered slashdot in the late 90's, it was *the* place for news in the nascent world of "internet tech nerds", but it wasn't just a place for nerds to read the news -- it was a "safe place" where we could just be nerds, talk about those things that mainstream news had no interest in covering, and have fun.

Those early days of /. will forever be special to me, and I'm happy to have been a part of them. I know that the early work of any startup is, at core, the passion of a few committed individuals, and I am and will be forever grateful for Rob and his contributions to that effort. RIP Robin Miller, you done good, super damn good, at least by the reckoning of this stupid nerd. I'm gonna miss ya, sincerely.

And to the current /. crew -- I have to admit, I was skeptical at first, but I am very impressed with the stewardship you have taken of this platform. After many years of "asleep at the wheel' management, you are doing an honor to Rob by keeping this site to its original mission, continuing to grow it, and keeping a fresh mind to the future. thank you for keeping it real, I'm looking forward to more of the good stuff.

Rob (speaking to your ghost, or your family or whatever) -- you helped organize open source nerds on the Internet in a super-early, super-critical-important time when we *needed* to be organized! Whatever anyone wants to say to the contrary, F them, slashdot was a very important part of making open source, Linux, all of that, a part of the national conversation and you did it. You won, we all won. Linux is now running most server infrastructure and a majority of mobile devices. MEGA PROPS TO YA AND YOURS!

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...
Plutonium *does* exist in nature, albeit in very tiny quantities, not suitable for industrial use.

I've managed a team that spent more than one day just isolating where a bug was occurring. If you don't have expert-level developers (expensive!!), be very afraid. Every once in a while a nasty bug will pop up that takes 5-10 days to finally fix. Development on large codebases is very slow due to poor modularization/code structure from the start, which I have sadly never seen done right.

If you have a greenfield situation, and really want to use node, make sure your first developer is top-notch, not only in coding skill but in coding structure. Hopefully it can be designed so that its tendencies are not to become a giant hairball -- but it still might anyway.

Bureaucrats and Control-Freaks Fantasize that Somehow, Everyone in the Entire World Will Mindlessly Obey Their Regulation to Keep 3D-printed Gun Blueprints Offline For Good

but maybe that would have been too long.

People *do* care about privacy. 86% have taken some steps to clean up digital footprints. There's other stats that show the interest, but there's some serious overtones of impotence -- that there's just not that much anyone can do about it -- we all need all these super valuable cloud services so we must lock ourselves in to big vendors, who then might abuse our trust (or get hacked themselves, being a rich target).

But Greenwald is absolutely right, we must provide for our own safety, we cannot ever delegate the ultimate responsibility for that, and yet, does this mean that we must throw in with mega-corps, to trust with our freedom?

I think there is another way.

http://cloudstead.io/ is something I've been working on for the better part of 2014. Cloudstead is a free & open (AGPL'd) cloud operating system, designed to free you and me and everyone from dependence on the mega-cloud services. And more generally, to start owning more your cloud apps instead of renting everything and paying the landlord with your privacy, your cash or both.

A lot of common apps have been commoditized; excellent open source versions are available. Cloudstead's default setup includes email, calendar, and file sharing but it can run any app -- php, rails, java, python, you name it. Lots of integrated features -- single sign on, app-wide search, address book, automated backup/restore, this is a cohesive cloud OS, not a hodgepodge of apps. And it's totally portable: it can move itself from one place to another, from a public cloud (ec2) to private hardware (your datacenter or office), or if you're getting really paranoid, onto a USB stick (bring it live later, somewhere else, when you feel safe). A cloudstead really is your cloud and will do only your bidding.

Cloudstead is currently in beta testing. If you would like a cloudstead to take for a spin and see how easy it is to own your cloud, please send me an email: jonathan (shift two sym) cloudstead.io

recent demo: http://www.cloudstead.io/2014/...

Any/all feedback is appreciated.

thanks.

ah, if only there were a "troll but true" comment rating.

fer chrissakes, i read about this during my morning commute -- on the AP news iphone app.

Slashdot used to break news, now they rehash stuff that the MSM picked up 12 hours earlier, very disappointing. get with the times dudes.

    - jonathan.