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| | Date:Sun Apr 11 00:00:01 1999 |
AND THE CLIMB TO THE SUMMIT CONTINUES
00:01 PST 11 APR 1999
This in from Ed Hurtley again: Well, we're just rocketing up now! http://rc5stats.distributed.net/rc5-64/tmsummary.php3?team=10938 has us up to 75th on the daily standings! C'mon! Everyone join in! Download the software at http://www.distributed.net, wait a day, then visit your stats page (Search for yourself on the stats page above), have your password mailed to you, then go back to the stats page above, and click "I want to join this team!" Ed also sheepishly admitted that he obsessively checks the stats on a daily basis. You go, Ed. :-)
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| Date:Sat Apr 10 00:00:01 1999 |
STARING AT MY NAVEL: THE FINAL WORD
11:43 PST 10 APR 1999
It's been more than a week since April 1, and now that I've had a chance to sit back and look at the landscape I can finally say I have a handle on what happened. No excuses, mind you, just an explanation, and an apology to the readership at large for pulling a joke I shouldn't have to begin with. My one biggest mistake was not paying attention to the newsgroups and comments during the buildup. I was so busy getting ready for my trip to the Gathering in Norway that I left most of my mail unread and I didn't touch the newsgroups. Had I realized what was actually starting to rear, I would've canned the joke right then and there and asked for forgiveness. As it was, I didn't see the warning signs in the community -- blatent as they were, they never crossed my field of view. So the joke was revealed, people felt betrayed and I'm left wondering where all of the outrage is coming from. Going through my mail, I can see letters from people who were in a genuine panic, who were offering money and other forms of assistance. Further reading revealed others claiming the whole thing was "a joke, and aren't you all idiots for being taken in." Top that off with yet others who defended me vehemently, stating that "Illiad would never do anything like that to us. Not ever." Right about there I felt the ice in my stomach. People defending me for something that I was about to screw them over with. They were amongst the hardest hit, because not only did I disillusion them, I put them in a position which made them appear really foolish. April Fools or not, there's a line that shouldn't be crossed. I stepped over that line, albeit inadvertently. And when it comes down to it, as much as I like laughing, I much prefer gentle humour to the the kind that causes the average person any sort of grief. And so it passes. I think I've written more personal apology letters in the last several days than I can count. I'm not so proud that I can't be humble about this whole mess and say that I'm sorry to everyone involved. It was a lesson learned at the expense of the community -- which isn't a price I ever want to see paid again. No more lines will be crossed. Let's just get back to being the community we've always been. RC5 UFIES TEAM UP AGAIN!
01:40 PST 10 APR 1999
Ed Hurtley sent this in: Well, we finally broke the top 100! The userfriendly.org team ranked 99th for yesterday. Visit http://rc5stats.distributed.net/rc5-64/tmsummary.php3?team=10938 to see. Or, http://rc5stats.distributed.net/rc5-64/tsearch.php3?st=userfriendly.org to see that we've moved up 104 from yesterday in the overall standings (to 366th). Go UFies!
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| Date:Fri Apr 9 00:00:01 1999 |
NEED A JOB? WWW.GEEKFINDER.COM
11:20 PST 09 APR 1999
User Friendly is pleased to announce the launch of Geekfinder, the Geek-oriented recruitment site for UFies! It's free to job-seekers, so if you're looking for a new job, looking to "move laterally" in your field, or just want a change of pace, head on over and start browsing. The service will be developed over time to allow for resume placement and other spiff features, but for now you still have bags of job ads to look through. If you're wanting to place an ad, or a dozen, we can take care of that too. Just send e-mail to geekfinder@userfriendly.org and someone will get back to you right away. Just another free service for the illustrious UFie community! :) LINUX AUTHORS NEEDED
00:10 PST 09 APR 1999
So, are you a skilled Linux hacker? Can you string sentences together with some semblance of coherence? Want to earn some bucks for that SGI Octane? If so, contact David Fugate of Waterside Productions, Inc. at david@waterside.com. He represents a number of top technology authors, including Danny Goodman, Molly Holzschlag, Jack Tackett, Jr. and he's also my book agent. He's looking especially for Linux experts, but is also interested in anyone wanting to write about Unix, Java, and Networking, as well as VB, VC++, and other programming languages. ANOTHER UF MAILING LIST
00:06 PST 09 APR 1999
Yup, another UF mailing list has started, this one under the care of Ciannait. I think the charter on this one has yet to be developed, so this is a good chance for you to join a list and help shape it's course. Details: Email majordomo@dustpuppy.org with subscribe ufies in the body of the message. From Ciannait: Ritalin-B was kind enough to let me put this on his machine. The email address for the list is ufies@dustpuppy.org. (It should say so in the welcome message, but it doesn't. I need to fix that when I get a spare minute. :) DISTRIBUTED.NET TEAM UFIE NEARING TOP 100
00:03 PST 09 APR 1999
You betcha. This in from David Charlton: Yes! In case you haven't been watching the stats, we're darn close to breaking into the top 100 for the daily charts... yesterday we were #108 :-) I haven't verified it myself, but that's a damn nice things to see. Way to go team! FOLLOW UP ON BUYING WIN98 UPDGRADES
00:01 PST 09 APR 1999
I got quite a few followups on the 'You Want Me To Spend Money On WHAT?' news item yesterday. Someone at MS wrote in saying that the fixes will still be free. Also, Michael Dunn sent this in: When Microsoft saw the above story they quickly retracted, saying the person who gave them the info was in error. Instead, there will be two new versions of 98. A freely available bug-fix (read service pack), and a purchasable CD with new features, such as IE5. There's more at http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,34772,00.html.
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| Date:Thu Apr 8 00:00:01 1999 |
YOU WANT ME TO SPEND MONEY ON WHAT?
03:06 PST 08 APR 1999
Here's a news item sent in by Justin. It's been featured already on slashdot, but not all UFies go there for their news. Synopsis: it's gonna cost as much to get the "fixed" 98 as it did to upgrade from 95 in the first place. Make sense to anyone else? Story here.A SUPERB OFFER
03:00 PST 08 APR 1999
Ryan, an ISP guru out of Houston, Texas, has made a really nice offer to the UFie community. He'll provide free Web hosting and POP e-mail to any UFie who asks him politely, and he won't be running weird-ass banners on your site a la Xoom and Geocities. Is he a nice guy or what? Ryan, there's a Dust Puppy hat in the mail for you. (And yes, the hats will be available for sale online very soon.) MORE STORYLINES
02:29 PST 08 APR 1999
Thanks again goes to JC Dill for taking the time to go through the Archives and providing me with another mittful of storyline start points. You can see fruits of her labour on the Reading Guide page. IT'S ABOUT WHAT I THOUGHT
00:07 PST 08 APR 1999
Brenda Daverin was kind enough to send me a link to her newsletter, the Unravelled Ferret, where she has a brief review of the comic strip. It's flattering really. Oh, and if you have ferrets of your own, or thinking about getting one or a couple of these adorable critters (I have two myself), give the rest of her newsletter a read, it's much worth it. The review is at http://members.aol.com/lysana/Unrav4.html, do a search for 'Illiad' and you'll find it. WHAT'S ALL THIS THEN?
00:04 PST 08 APR 1999
Remember the recent cartoons featuring Holly and Talkie Toaster from Red Dwarf? A chap I met while in Norway (Martin over at the trés cool Cobalt Networks) sent the strips over to Robert Llywellyn and crew and apparently they laughed their asses off! Oh man, that made my day. :-) Red Dwarf rules! 3D EVERYWHERE
00:02 PST 08 APR 1999
This in from Chad: Users can expect the same awesome Quake II game play with the addition of improved performance, which enables better game play for a more responsive, fun experience. All thanks to 3DNow! technology in the Quake II, OpenGL and Voodoo2 drivers. Details: http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/k623d/drivers.html
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| Date:Wed Apr 7 00:00:01 1999 |
AND YET ANOTHER MENU
00:03 PST 07 APR 1999
Okay, give these ones a try. I've replaced the javascript menus with a simple form-based menu driven by a CGI. Any complaints or bug reports, write me at the usual address. Thanks to everyone who most soundly made the case to never use javascript on the site again. Some of you had very good arguments, whereas the rest of you beat me senseless with your numbers. :-) TEAM UFIE RC5 UPDATE
00:01 PST 07 APR 1999
Dave Easterly, the intrepid captain of Team UFie at the Bovine Project sent this in: I am glad to find out that team joining for the distributed.net UFies team is available again! I received dozens of emails wanting to know how to join, but (as I am sure you know), since the guys at distributed upgraded their stats server, team-joining was temporarily unavailable. If you'd care to let those interested in joining know, they should have their user name (the email address they used when they set their client up) and the password that distributed.net sends to their email address handy, then go to this URL for further instructions: http://n0cgi.distributed.net/cgi/dnet-finger.cgi?user=nugget . Great stuff, thanks Dave! Further related news on RC5 from Matthew DuBois: Just look under April 4th. The url: http://stats.distributed.net/pjointeam.php3?team=10938 should supply the one click team joining for the UF team as well. And thank you Matthew! Go to it folks, break some keys and help earn your teammates a chunk of prize money!
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| Date:Tue Apr 6 00:00:01 1999 |
| WHEREFORE NOT JAVASCRIPT
09:32 PST 06 APR 1999
Update to the Javascript menu question:I'll be adding non-JS menus in short order. I had no idea there were so many different reasons why people want an alternative; some of them were even damned funny, which I can appreciate. :) So consider it done, but gimme a week or so. THE PIPELINE IS FULL
00:07 PST 06 APR 1999
Full of ideas and projects anyways. You'll see some new features (on the order of Peer 2 Peer) and additions to the site over the next week or two. The menus are just the beginning of a stream of new options and features that I and a mittful of UFies are working hard to provide the community. One you'll see soon is a voting system for the cartoons in the archives, which will help us determine which strips would make the best t-shirt art, among other things. MENU FOR THE EVENING
00:04 PST 06 APR 1999
I whipped up some simple Javascript and replaced the old text menus with a client-side drop-down menu. The menu has made its appearance in the Cartoons and Community sections, and will soon spread to the rest of the site. Write me if you see any problems. And if anyone bitches to me about "not being able to use the menus in Lynx," please make sure you have a good explanation as to why you're using a text-only browser on a cartoon site. :) THANKS ARCTEREX
00:02 PST 06 APR 1999
Now that I'm actually back from Norway, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Arcterex for maintaining the site during my absence. Thanks also goes to WildOne- for standing in as a backup. You guys are great. BTW, I'll have a review of The Gathering 99 up sometime this week or early next week. It was quite the experience. MORE GEEKSTUFF
00:01 PST 06 APR 1999
There's more Geekstuff for you to peruse, thanks to Tricia. She's been having a bad case of Real Life lately, so updates haven't been as frequent as she'd like. What's this "life" thing everyone keeps talking about?
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| Date:Mon Apr 5 00:00:01 1999 |
BALANCING THE SCALES
00:05 PST 05 APR 1999
On the other side of the fence regarding the April Fools Joke, here's a succinctly written paragraph from Alan J.: Apparently that trust was misplaced. Either that, or you really seriously misjudged either the status you have in the community, or the reaction people would have to having a significant figure in the community attacked.Nailed it right on the head. I very seriously misjudged the status I have in the community; let me, for once, explain my perspective of the UFie community. On a daily basis I get mail from quite a number of people. Most of the mail is of the "I love your cartoon, you make me laugh every day" sort. It's nice, supportive mail, but it really doesn't reveal (or maybe I'm blind?) what people think of me, just the comic strip. So I place myself in the same class as any Web cartoonist, albeit a fairly popular one, and just carry on. April rolls around and the AFJ is executed, and BLAM! I suddenly discover to my dismay that some UFies see me as more than 'just' a cartoonist, and even more than just a Web celebrity. From another reader: "...you're not just Illiad the guy who draws UF, you're Illiad my friend, even if I've never met you, or e-mailed you." The dismay I feel exists only because now I can see why some readers took the joke the way they did. They didn't expect it of me. And the worst part is that it took the flame mail I've been receiving to find out how highly I'm regarded in the community. One person asked me whether or not I would have executed the joke had I known what the reaction was going to be beforehand. I can answer that with a categorical and unqualifed NO. If I had known that even a single person was going to feel hurt or betrayed by the joke, it would've been enough for me to just can the whole thing. I'm really the exact opposite of malicious, and the very thought of me causing people grief is enough to make me feel sick to my stomach. It doesn't matter that a relatively small percentage reacted this way to the joke. One person feeling bad because of something I've done is one person too many for my tastes. So, to "the few" who may be feeling belittled by the majority of readers with "you have no sense of humour" comments, you have my sincerest apologies. I find myself retracting that "having to go by the percentages" remark. Every single UFie is important to me. The entire UF community is important to me. It's just that, until now, I hadn't realized how important I've become to all of you.
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