It really is possible to gain useful knowledge on slashdot. In the article "Mac OS X to Get Journaling FS", one reader explains how journaling file systems work with a nice analogy that involves a librarian falling out of a window.

There also a tangential discussion comparing features of linux vs. OS X which includes the line "Damn that apple and their embracing of open standards."

All this has me seriously thinking about getting a mac. We bought a video camera this weekend and iMovie seems like it'd be a nice way to share some movies of Marney.

Senate Panel Votes to Give D.C. Full Voting Rights in Congress (washingtonpost.com)... no, it won't get any further than committee approval.

Supporters of the measure note that the District is the only jurisdiction where U.S. residents who pay federal taxes and serve in the military have no vote in Congress. The District, with 572,059 residents, ranks second among the states in per-capita federal income taxes paid, and it suffered more casualties than did several states in 20th-century wars, from World War I through Vietnam.

And still "Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) restated his flat opposition to the measure". Please, somebody, explain to me again how an allegedly patriotic American like Lott can oppose the basic right of congressional representation.

I've found a new pastime to try, Letterboxing. From the FAQ:

Here's the basic idea: Someone hides a waterproof box somewhere (in a beautiful, interesting, or remote location) containing at least a logbook and a carved rubber stamp. The hider then usually writes directions to the box, which can be straightforward, cryptic, or any degree in between. Selecting a location and writing the clues is one aspect of the art.

Once the clues are written, hunters attempt to find the box. In addition to the clue and any maps or tools needed to solve it, the hunter should carry at least a pencil, his personal rubber stamp, an inkpad, and his personal logbook. When the hunter successfully deciphers the clue and finds the box, he stamps the logbook in the box with his personal stamp, and stamps his personal logbook with the box's stamp. The box's logbook keeps a record of all its visitors, and the hunters keep a record of all the boxes they have found, in their personal logbooks.

It's appealing to me because it's a goal-oriented (yet still basically pointless), it's a nice weekend outing with my wife and daughter, and it's a modest way to get a little more exercise.

My big beef with the site is that there's no entry for District of Columbia on the directory of clues. Repeat after me:

Washington, DC is not part of Maryland.
Washington, DC is not part of Maryland.
Washington, DC is not part of Maryland.
Washington, DC is not part of Maryland.
Washington, DC is not part of Maryland.

On a UI note, the Letterboxing North America web site has one of the most creative uses I've seen of image map navigation, particularly the page about their mailing list.

Dolly Parton was interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition this morning about her new album. NPR's site has more info and some great quotes like Parton's comment on Whitney Houston's success with Parton's "I Will Always Love You"

I will always appreciate her -- I made a lot of money, and I need a lot of money, because it costs a lot of money to look this cheap.

But the best part is that she covers "Stairway to Heaven" (Real Audio) on her new album and it's not that bad.

Following a story on slashdot about "L33T" Speak Invades Schools, some slashdot readers got into a discussion of the proper way to translate the Lord's Prayer into "L33T" Speak.

Proof that I'm a unix weenie. I've got a bunch of lines in a web server log file that look like this:

[19/Sep/2002:20:07:50][19141.88][-sched:31-] Notice: ep_email_alerts (1): finished processing user alerts for 20 of 452 total users in 00:07:19 (21.00 sec/user)

I want to know the average "sec/user" value for all of these lines and I do this with one command line:

% grep sec/user gateway108-error.log | awk -F\( '{print $3;}' | awk -F. 'BEGIN {count = 0; sum = 0;} {sum = sum + $1; count = count+1;} END { printf("count = %d\nsum = %d\navg = %.2f\n",count,sum,(sum*1.0)/count);}'

I didn't say it was a simple command line. Here's what the output looks like:

count = 115
sum = 2229
avg = 19.38

So there.

'Anti-Radiation' Trousers Fuel Mobile Phone Debate

Over on Scripting News, Dave Winer bemoans that searching google for "Dave" doesn't show him as the number one hit, he's only second. At least he's up there and at least the number one hit is a person.... search google for "Doug" and the top hit is an acronym for the Director Online User Group. With a little effort and self-promotion, I might get myself up towards the top. That'll be next year's project.

Time magazine has discovered instant messaging: "A Swarm of Little Notes", subtitled "Is instant messaging creating a work style that's breezily efficient — or one that's more oppressive?" The article is written at a pretty high level (this is Time magazine, after all), but it hits on many points both for and against IM. It'd be a good thing to share with a boss who still thinks that IM is for teens.

Buy used university stuff... Terrapin Trader Surplus Property- University of Maryland

Seen over at ThinkGeek, the Universal Command Guide. "It describes and illustrates every command in every commonly used operating system, and cross-references each command to the equivalent commands in other operating systems." Covers many dialects of un*x, wind*ws, and macint*sh.

This is a nifty device... the eFilm PicturePad is like an iPod for photos. It combines a 20 or 30 GB hard drive, a small lcd screen, a compact flash slot, a few buttons and outputs for USB or TV display. I suppose it won't be long before somebody combines the features of this with a built in mp3 player.