A Year of Linux, Februray 3: Installation Recipes!

The old plan: Ring in the new year by switching over to Linux for a week, documenting each day of the transition. To read that first week, click here!

The new plan: Keep using Linux for the rest of the year, giving periodic updates on my experiences, all of which you can read here!

February 3: Installation Recipes!

Last week I moved back in with Linux and tried to convince it to do a favour for me and install Java, even though I hadn’t washed the dishes the entire time I was there and also accidentally set Linux’s couch on fire during my daily meditation, because my chakras wouldn’t centre and I dropped my incense.

Linux wasn’t very happy with me, but in the end it did what I asked. Like a true friend it took my abuse with no expectation of ever getting anything out of the relationship in return, and with no expectation of ever getting back its foot massager or its copy of The World According to Garp (which I haven’t started yet, but I’m totally gonna start reading it when I have some free time, man.)

All in all I got a taste of what it’s like to have difficulty installing an app in Linux, and now I want more of that delicious, moist, fluffy frustration. So join me for my installation recipes!

My latest obsession is a video game called Toribash. I was introduced to it on a Windows machine at a friend’s place, where we first started learning the martial technique of spastically flailing like a crash test dummy experiencing massive seizures while jacked up on a host of amphetamines.

When I get home I am happy to see that there is a Linux version of Toribash available, just waiting for me to haphazardly attempt to install it and then write an article about it, so that readers like you can derive some enjoyment out of my ragdoll-like technological spasms!

Sticking with my usual style I decide to rush in head first with my arms flopping at my sides like dead rainbow trout, with no regard for the potential risk of tearing myself apart in the event that things go wrong.

My first step is to check the Linux download section on Toribash’s site, which I find has a few different installation types for different versions of Linux. I don’t immediately see anything that looks familiar, and so without any consideration whatsoever I grab two different packages designed for “other distributions.”

My first step in finding some tangy, melt-in-your-mouth installation options is to go to work on the tar.gz package, because it is somewhat familiar to me. I know that the .tar file is an archive, so I open it up to see what I can find. Inside there are some files that look like they ought to run the game, so I extract them to a folder and click on the one that says “Toribash.”

The next thing that happens is nothing. Either that or Toribash looks exactly like my desktop when absolutely nothing is happening. I decide to pick the most obvious possibility of the two: that I have once again failed miserably in my first attempt at getting something to work in Linux. Mmm, scrumptious.

With the sweet sting of failure lingering on my palette, and absolutely no desire to figure out how to manipulate any of the files in the .tar archive to get them to work, I decide to move on to the automatic installation file. Automatic installation files are nice because they are files that install automatically, instead of not installing automatically. With this key piece of information in mind I click on the file and wait for it to automatically do its automatic thing, like a microwave turning a raw potato into a perfect batch of gnocchi.

What actually transpires is nothing of the automatic installation sort. In fact what happens is so far from an installation, and so far removed from anything that makes sense given our standards of reasoning, that it became the primary reason for writing an entire article — an article that you may or may not be reading at this very moment. (I don’t want to make any assumptions about what you like to read. That would just be presumptuous of me.)

Rather than install, the automatic installer chooses to communicate to me that an error has occurred, via an error window. The error window is titled “Error,” which actually makes quite a bit of sense when you think about it.

It is the next part that doesn’t disappoint me with any of that sensical nonsense; the error window’s next step is to inform me that the error which has occurred is, in fact, Success.

Oh God it is so delicious.

The error was success. I cannot think of anything more brilliant than that. I don’t even have to write any more bad jokes, because that error window made something more perfect than I could ever hope to imagine even thinking about one day considering.

The irony is actually tangible. It has a flavour, and it tastes like a gigantic cake topped with icing made from another liquefied cake, stuffed inside yet another cake and then condensed into a bite-sized morsel, which is placed delicately on the most concentrated area of taste buds on my tongue. It is installationy culinary perfection.

Finally, it leaves me with a button that simply says OK, as if to imply that by pressing the button I am somehow just A-okay with what it has shown me. “Error: Success. OK?” it tells me as I stare at it in utter confusion, my only course of action being to press the OK button and be forced into accepting that the logical abomination it just presented me with is just fine.

My hunger for installation insanity has truly been sated by this automatic installer, and there is almost no reason for me to continue writing, or even continuing living for that matter. Yet I must continue, for the sake of the article.

With the aftertaste of that fantastic second failure still in my eating hole, my next step is to head to the Add/Remove programs app, and then Synaptic, to see if Toribash is included in those collections for easy installation. Unfortunately, both apps come up with nothing and I am left in a strange and scary situation.

Up until now installation of programs in Linux has been fairly easy: if using the resources provided by the creators of the software didn’t work, then I could simply find a way within Ubuntu to get things installed. Even Java, which was more of a pain to get working than was probably necessary, was still supported enough by the resources of Linux to be installable through Add/Remove and Synaptic.

But now I am left in a barren wasteland of installationlessness. I am cold and alone, with no support from the OS and no idea what to do to get this wonderful game installed so I can start tearing my own arms off while trying to injure my opponent. What do you do to get something installed when Ubuntu doesn’t seem to directly support it?

With that I head to the forums, which in the past have been a great help. As usual I see that someone else is having the same problem as me, and has made a thread about it. But unfortunately all the answers in the thread are actually vague non-answers, and only explain that I should get the libraries or something, which I don’t know how to do.

You’ve failed me forums! After so many good times spent together you’ve turned your back on me when I needed your help the most: namely, when I wanted to install a video game based entirely on contracting glutes to make people’s limbs fly off.

“There must be an easier way,” I yell to myself as loudly and discontendedly as possible. The person next to me tells me to keep it down, because this is a quiet dining area. Discouraged and tired, I decide that I could probably get some better work done at some place other than a restaurant, and there’s only one place left to go… the manual.

I’ve made fun of the Ubuntu manual before for not really helping with anything ever and being so smelly (I think the only thing it eats is boiled cabbage) so hopefully it will not hold any grudges now that I have come crawling back, looking for its help.

It turns out that the manual is actually totally fine with it, invites me in, asks me if I want some cabbage, tells me it doesn’t get many visitors, and then insists that we are best friends forever now that I made eye contact with it without telling it that it smells like cabbage.

The manual then proceeds to tell me a very long, boring story about its cat Donald who is apparently so cute when it meows, because it sounds just like Dana Carvey doing an imitation of George Bush senior, and also something about installing things in Linux. After many many paragraphs of stuff I don’t care about, something the manual says catches my ear. “To install downloaded packages,” it says, “just use the one that is a .deb file.”

That’s it! I grab my coat, tell the manual that I had a good time and to shut the hell up about its cat, and run out the door to the Toribash site. There I find the .deb installation file, which runs perfectly and installs the game, and before I know it I am doing backflips and breaking my own head off!

And so I learned a good lesson during my quest for delicious installation recipess: just use the .deb file if there are no other options. It may have ended up tasting like disgusting cabbage, but it worked.

I was a bit confused early on in my my relationship with Linux by the slick Add/Remove programs app, because there didn’t seem to be any other way to install things. It wasn’t like Windows, which will run you through an installation wizard for any old app or spyware or virus; instead it seemed the Add/Remove apps were the only way to install things, which was worrisome. And while I’m sure not every .deb file will run as flawlessly as Toribash’s did, it’s good to know that in the event that an application I want to use is not directly supported by Ubuntu, there is another simple way to get things to work.

I also learned that I will never be as funny as Linux unintentionally was today. Error: Success. OK. You just can’t make that stuff up.

A Year of Linux, January 22: Crashing at Linux’s Place!

The old plan: Ring in the new year by switching over to Linux for a week, documenting each day of the transition. To read that first week, click here!

The new plan: Keep using Linux for the rest of the year, giving periodic updates on my experiences, all of which you can read here!

January 22: Crashing at Linux’s place!

As readers of my first week know, Linux and I had a tumultuous relationship for our first period of time together. There were ups and downs, tears and laughter, romance, action and suspense, and in the end everyone involved learned an important, heartfelt lesson about pre-marital intercourse. (The lesson: don’t do it or Linux will burn your car down.)

But like all goodish things, that week had to come to an end. Linux and I packed up our stuff, said our goodbyes, deleted each other’s numbers from our telephones, stomped on the phones as hard as we could until they stopped working, held them next to an incredibly powerful electromagnet to ensure no information could ever be salvaged, then got Alishyana the Mystical Psychic Gypsy Fortune Teller (call 555-5-GYP to set up an appointment) to cast an ancient telephone-disabling enchantment on them.

As you can imagine, I thought my relationship with Linux was over. But like all firey, passionate, Latin couples, no matter how much we fought and yelled and stabbed one another with rusty pairs of Fisher Price scissors, we ended up coming back together.

The circumstances of our reunion are familiar to all of us I imagine: after an extended period of time searching my soul while doing some of the extremest sports known to man on the highest snow-capped mountains and most remote, crocodile-infested tropical islands, I returned home to find that my landlord had evicted me.

With no place to stay, I turned to Linux. “Please, Linux! I’m out on the streets with no way to process words, or even browse social networking sites to read incredibly boring minutia about the lives of people I haven’t talked to in years,” I whimpered. “Take in this tired, old sky-diving rocket-roller-boarder one last time.”

With a sigh, Linux agreed to let me sleep on its couch for an indefinite period of time, so long as I didn’t invite too many people over or eat all of its eggs.

So join me as I crash at Linux’s place!

Now that I’m hanging out at Linux’s place for an extended period of time, I figure I might as well make myself at home. So my first order of business is to get all my mail sent to Linux, because I am a very important person who gets a lot of mail.

Fortunately, Linux doesn’t seem to have a problem with this; it gives me a touch of the evil eye as I write my name on its mailbox with a permanent Sharpie, but other than that the process goes flawlessly.

Setting up my gmail and school email in the pre-packaged Evolution Mail program seems to be no different than doing the same thing in Mozilla Thunderbird, and before I know it I am flooded with hundreds of pieces of wonderful electronic mail. As such, I get straight to the important task of highlighting each one, clicking Mark All as Read, and ignoring everything that was sent to me.

Now that I’ve very carefully inspected all 963 pieces of mail asking me for a monetary donation to the school that sapped me of tens of thousands of dollars and forced me into a massive, overwhelming, depression-inducing student loan-based debt, it’s time for me to rearrange Linux’s place a bit and make it more comfortable. I mean, this place has some seriously harsh feng shui, bro, and I just can’t chill if there’s bad chi-flow in my living space, you know?

So while Linux is at work I decide to completely rearrange its desktop. I’m sure it will be happy with my changes when it gets back, because I have a lot of experience with rearranging friends’ places without their permission.

First, out with that dirty, brown, coffee-stain desktop background (that I spilled my drink on a piece of old parchment paper look is so last week) and in with a stunning, minimalist, black background that is sure to impress all my post-modernist friends.

For the next step in my Desktop Makeover (official TV series debuting this fall on The Style Channel) I decide to change the theme. The Mist one looks nice, and its blue colour pallet will go well with my black background, and will maybe take some attention away from those hideous curtains that Linux insists on keeping around. (Honestly? Just because your grandma gave you those curtains literally seconds before she died a horrible death doesn’t mean you have to keep them up forever. Especially when they clash with, like, everything, girlfriend.)

The final step in project Desktop Makeover: change the desktop icons. I prefer to change all of my desktop icons into question mark boxes from Super Mario Bros. 3 and give them blank spaces for file names, so that anyone who uses my computer gets hopelessly lost and confused and runs away befuddled before they can snoop around at all. (Password protection is for narcs, man.)

This one will probably take some work, as I am unfamiliar with Ubuntu’s icon system and what special file-type Ubuntu uses for icons. So it’s off to the Internet for some research!

After about 16 hours of digging through dead-end links and unrelated information in a search for Ubuntu’s special icon file-type, I figure out that Ubuntu doesn’t actually have a special file-type for icons; any suitably sized .png file will work just fine.

This is a refreshing change from Windows XP, which required I go through a very long bureaucratic process in order to obtain the proper authorization for changing icons, and insisted I fill out reams of paperwork that proved I wasn’t an icon terrorist before it let me actually make my own icons.

So with that I open GIMP and get to work making my custom icon. Another 16 hours later (what can I say, I’m no graphic artist) and I finish screwing around with alpha channels and layer merges and a bunch of other stuff I can’t really get to work because I don’t even know what any of it is, until I get an icon that pretty much looks the way I want it to, even though it is entirely jury-rigged and wouldn’t work for anything but a perfectly square picture.

It is right about this time, when I am continually right-clicking the eraser button in GIMP to try to force it through attrition to erase to a transparent background, that Linux comes back from the office and sees what I have done.

“What the hell did you do to my desktop?” it yells. “And why are the entire contents of my fridge arranged into a happy face on my living room floor?”

“I made a happy face because happy faces are good karma, dude!” I yell back. “And I had to rearrange your desktop because I can’t take my mid-afternoon power-nap unless all the energy lines on my desktop are facing north! It’s common knowledge that energy lines should always face north!”

Oh man is Linux pissed off now; and right when I was about to install Java so I could get my important accounting websites working.

After our fight, Linux doesn’t seem to want to cooperate any more, and also responds to everything I ask it to do by calling me a dirty hippie.

I go to Add/Remove Programs, and Linux gives me a host of different Java installations, including Sun Java Runtime, Icedtea Java Plugin, OpenJDK Java Web Start, You Are a Dirty Hippie, and OpenJDK Runtime. Since Linux isn’t being any help, I decide to install the Sun Java Runtime, because it sounds most familiar. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work, because none of my Java-requiring sites function.

With that I check the manual, which Linux has clearly gotten to, because it mostly just says “you are a dirty hippie” over and over. It also tells me to install the Sun Java package, then go into Firefox and type a command into the address bar to make sure Java is installed. Once you have confirmed that Java is in fact installed into Firefox, because this process is absolutely flawless, the manual explains that you will then prance around in a Java-filled wonderland, executing Java script at will and rolling around in endless Java flower beds.

Unfortunately, Firefox indicates that Java is not installed, and also indicates that I am a dirty hippie. The next step, according to the manual, in getting Java working in Firefox is apparently to do nothing at all, because the manual’s instructions end after telling me to type the command into Firefox. This further reinforces my suspicion that Linux is still angry at me for that whole thing where I smashed every one of its eggs to make sure there were no baby chickens mistakenly trapped inside, trying to get free.

Thinking it must be a problem on Firefox’s end, I decide to install the Java plug-in from within Firefox’s plug-in menu. Unfortunately that doesn’t work either. But I think I’m getting through to Linux and making some progress, because it doesn’t call me a dirty hippie this time. (It just spits on my shoe and kindly informs me that I have spit on my shoe, and that I should probably clean it up.)

At this point I’m starting to get a funny feeling that Linux needs some space and time alone (my friends at the weekly seances tell me I must be psychic or something, because I get feelings like that all the time from everybody) so I head to the old forums to drown my sorrows in a few beers. When I get there, I notice a few people talking about having the same problem as me.

The first suggestion I get is to download the Java plug-in’s binaries straight from the Firefox website, then do something involving an alien to install them, which sounds more ridiculous than anything I can imagine, but is actually pretty much what it said.

Being absolutely terrified by this course of action I check out what other advice is available. Someone else mentions that they got Java working with Firefox by downloading a file-package from the Synaptic application after they installed the Java Runtime, so I go for it too.

Success! When I head to one of my Java-based websites to check if it worked, the site instantly crashes instead of doing nothing at all, showing that Java has been perfectly integrated into Firefox.

Being the stubborn person I am, my next step is to change absolutely nothing at all, load up Firefox again, and try a different Java-based site.

This time it works! Hooray! Linux must have finally forgiven me for catching all its furniture on fire with my patchouli incense!

The process is so obvious; how did I not figure it out earlier? Installing Java just required me to install the Java Runtime from the Add/Remove Programs application, then go to the Synaptic application and install a different Java package that didn’t mention Firefox at all! What a fool I am.

With that I move back into Linux’s place, although I still don’t feel entirely at home. My desktop has been configured to my liking, but Java is hit or miss with particular websites, meaning I’ll have to use other operating systems if I want to use online banking to transfer money out of the savings account my mom set up so I can buy a new hacky sack for the jam-circle this weekend.

Also, the process of getting Java installed in the first place was pretty obtuse: the manual didn’t even begin to help, Firefox’s plug-in menu didn’t work, and all the most obvious courses of action were ineffectual. What I did finally do wasn’t really, you know, explained at all. Oh well!

And thus concludes today’s article! Stay tuned for me next article, which will occur some time in the future!

Using Web Data to Determine the Most Popular Linux Flavor

There’s a lot of talk around the internets about which (free) Linux distro is the ‘best.’ And while this article won’t opine either way, I do hope to put some perspective on the Linux debate using public data.

First off, using Compete.com

We all (hopefully) know the good and bad sides of Compete… While their data is great for getting a general sense of how site traffic measures up by comaprison, it relies on tracking visits made by users that have the Compete toolbar installed, and therefore should not be considered entirely accurate by most standards.

1. Ubuntu
2. Debian
3. Fedora

Next up: Google

Searching Google for the term Linux returns the following ranks (free distros only):

1. Ubuntu (77,500,000 pages contain the term ‘ubuntu’)
   
2. Debian (73,900,000 for ‘debian’)
3. Fedora (32,300,000 pages contain the term ‘fedora’)
   

Lastly, Wordtracker

Wordtracker is a service that estimates search volume for keywords/phrases.

1. Ubuntu – 2,289
2. Fedora – 536
3. Debian – 212

Looks like we’re starting to see a pattern here. I must say that Ubuntu as the leader was not a surprise, but I was expecting to see Mandriva rank a little bit better (it was a close 4th in many categories).

In summary: Ubuntu, presumably, has built a Linux distro that is easily digested by the masses, well supported and gaining ground in huge leaps on the internet. Admittedly this may not be the most scientific method for comparing Linux distros, but it is undoubtedly a method. Other ideas?

How to be Popular on Digg and Reddit: A Scientificky Study

Abstract: Hello, and welcome to this article. Today we will be talking about the stuff that gets popular on Digg and reddit, so that readers like you can harness the powers of the strategies defined within, in order to rocket yourself into the stratosphere of Internet stardom, which is a real place in the sky where everyone sleeps on beds made of invaluable platinum watches and where nobody would ever think of relieving themselves in anything but a latrine designed by Gucci using only the hopes and dreams of those that have failed before you.

Introduction: For those that don’t know, Digg and reddit are “websites.” The arcane processes by which websites function remain mostly mysterious to scientists, who to this day have failed miserably and pathetically at coming up with any sort of rigorous definition for the slimy, slippery creatures.

The best we can offer is an analogy: imagine a very large building, which is exactly 485 floors tall. This building will represent “The Internet,” which has been proven by scientists to only have enough room to hold 485 floors of information. (This is why your computer runs slowly when you are looking at a lot of websites; once the building is full, some low-income websites must be evicted in order to make room for the other, wealthier websites you are looking at, and damage-deposit disputes often make the process very slow.)

Now imagine that our metaphorical Internet-building is filled with rooms, each of which represents a place for a website to go (called a “website place” by experts.) If we were to fill a room with 1) people who speak almost entirely in acronyms, 2) pictures of cats doing funny things, and 3) gigabytes, then we would have a website!

Now we are in a position to understand Digg and reddit: Digg and reddit are websites like the one we described above, but instead of having cats or gigabytes in them, they are filled with angry people who like to complain about Windows.

(Editor’s note: By Windows we are not referring to metaphorical windows in the metaphorical Internet-building we talked about above. The metaphorical Internet-building would have no windows at all, because the Internet is a dark hole of despair where no sunlight will ever be seen.)

But when visitors of Digg and reddit aren’t complaining about Windows, they are voting on whether or not other websites (which sometimes are not Digg or reddit) are any good. So join me as we take a look at what kinds of things are popular on Digg and reddit, so that we can learn from their incredibly marginal Internet success and uncover the topics that are most popular!

Methods: For the purposes of this article I developed a methodology that is both completely baseless and most likely profoundly empirically irresponsible. My strategy was to look through the front-page posts on Digg and reddit that have been the most popular for the last day, week, month or year, organize them according to loose, biased categorical themes, rank the categories according to popularity, then ignore everything I had just done and select the posts that I thought had the most comedic potential.

The next step was to simply total the amount of diggs and reddits (“reddits” is a technical term that I made up for no reason) to give a highly questionable measure of the success of posts about particular topics.

So without further ado, here are the topics that I have determined, via the arcane forces of Science, to be the most popular on Digg and reddit:

Making fun of people who can’t use computers

• Ubuntu Causes Girl to Drop Out Of College - 2110 diggs
• “I had to drop out of college because my laptop came with Ubuntu on it” – 899 reddits
• Stupid tech support – 1451 diggs
• Total: 4460 Angry Nerd Points (ANP)

Making fun of people who can’t use computers is a particularly good way to get a popular post on Digg or reddit, for two reasons. First of all, Digg and reddit users love making fun of people that can’t use computers. In fact, it has been developed into an internationally sanctioned sport, kind of like polo or croquet, except with more merciless insults and vitriolic name-calling and less sport-related stuff, like goals or rules or winners.

For an example of the violent insults used, take a look at this comment on the “Ubuntu Causes Girl to Drop Out Of College” post:

oh man this gilr is so stupid i just want to punch her in the mouth for every minute of every day for the rest of my life for knowing lesss than me about computers

-Me

What a jerk! But comments like these are the rage-derived, oil-alternative fuel that keep Digg and reddit running. This is because they automatically raise the poster’s worth as a human being well above that of those too cowardly to post their thoughts in the comments section (my God I feel good about myself right now) and because Digg and reddit make use of sophisticated emotion-detection mechanisms, which measure one’s level of passion while typing a comment and increase the value of the poster’s up-vote accordingly. Some researchers speculate that the above comment may have garnered the user an up-vote with a value equivalent to 5, or even 100, diggs.

The second reason why making fun of people who can’t use computers is a good way to get a popular post on Digg or reddit is that the people who would would be insulted by the post and vote it down probably can’t figure out what a google is (a google is kind of like an ftp or a megahertz) and will most likely never reach the site due to their incredibly hilarious stupidity. This ensures a maximal popularity-ratio for your post, solidifying your place in the magnificent halls of the palace of Digg and reddit.

Anything related to XKCD

• xkcd – I’m A Idiot – 1344 reddits
• I’m An Idiot – 6360 diggs
• Windows 7 : comics – 436 reddits
• Windows 7 [XKCD] – 4376 diggs
• Total – 12516 Randall Munroes (RM)
  

The furious popularity of anything XKCD-related on Digg and reddit suggests a simple and straightforward strategy for making popular posts: be Randall Munroe. Once you have completed one of the many processes you might choose from to become Randall Munroe, you will find that your popularity on Digg and reddit has increased exponentially.

In the event that you are having difficulties being Randall Munroe, for financial, political, or perhaps metaphysical reasons if you are feeling fancy, the next best strategy presents itself: do something inspired by what Randall Munroe does.

For example, you could make your Mac Mini say stuff (840 reddits) as written about in a recent XKCD comic, or you could build a robotic stick figure that at any moment has a 50% chance of making a romantic quip and a 50% chance of making a joke about calculus. (Editor’s note: Please don’t actually make a robot that does that.)

If it is the case that you do not enjoy jokes about calculus, then this approach is unfortunately not for you. In fact, if you do not enjoy jokes about calculus, then you have no place being on the Internet at all and should pawn your computer and take up a career as a florist in some remote region of the world. (This island, maybe.)

Murder

• New video of BART shooting emerges offering clearest view so far (and audio) - 2384 reddits
• Oakland Police Officer Shoots Unarmed Man, Handcuffed Man – 3048 diggs
• Total – 5432 Police States (PS)
  

Take a moment to observe what is going on in your environment, preferably with a 360 degree, panoramic sweep of your surroundings, ensuring maximum observation-effectiveness. Take note of everything you see, writing down each object and event on a college-ruled piece of looseleaf.

Now take a few minutes to relax and refocus and, once you are prepared, take a look over your list. After you have taken stock of all the things you have observed in your environment, take note of your answer to this question: was anyone being murdered around you?

If the answer is “yes,” then post about it on Digg or reddit! Preferably your post ought to be accompanied by a video of the murder, which will be posted on youtube as soon as possible, where it will be scrutinized by some of the world’s finest political and legal thinkers in the comments section.

Fortunately, posting about murder on Digg and reddit can sometimes have a result other than simply making you realize the world is a cruel, pointless, death-filled, cyclopean abyss, as the humble police gentleman in the videos above was arrested this week, perhaps in part due to the wide dissemination of videos of the event.

But if no one is being murdered around you, then your only option for Digg and reddit popularity through this method is to murder someone yourself. (Editor’s note: It has been proven to be scientifically impossible to make a post about a murder that you didn’t directly witness.) If you are too much of a baby to do this, then this approach is not for you.

Celebrities dying

• George Carlin has died – 20511 diggs
• Heath Ledger is Dead - 23220 diggs
• Total – 43731
  

Murder isn’t the only type of death that is popular on Digg; celebrity death is very popular as well!

As you can see, posts about George Carlin and Heath Ledger dying recorded an enormous amount of Diggs. The lesson: when Steve Jobs dies of whatever hormone explosion or money-disease he has, be sure to post about it immediately and you will be by far the most important person on Digg!

Every other type of death

• UN headquarters in Gaza hit by Israeli ‘white phosphorus’ shells – 1803 reddits
• The Darfur situation is bad, but the situation in Congo is chilling: 5.4 million dead – 783 reddits
• Sri Lankan newspaper editor leaves a secret editorial to be published in the event he is assassinated… – 864 reddits
• F’ing SICK – Israeli soldiers stuff 100 civilians in a single house, then blast the house, killing 70 – 1241 reddits
• Total – 4691 Severe Acute Depressions (SAD)
  

As you can see, pretty much any type of death is very popular, particularly on reddit, and the more depressing and horrifying the better!

The only way to be as popular as these posts is to up the ante and be even more horrifying and depressing. According to my scientific predictions, a post about heroin-addicted kittens being drowned to death in boiling laser-acid for all of eternity by a naked Karl Rove will be the next most popular post on reddit, followed by a post about throngs of severely depressed reddit users commiting suicide.

Meta-diggs imploring diggers to digg a digg about Digg

• Digg this if your sick of power users stealing stories – 20701
  
• How the average Digg user gets fucked – 10009
• Total – 30710 Diggy Digg Diggs (DDD)
  

One very popular type of post, particular to Digg, is to ask Digg users to up-vote your post, which is incidentally about how much Digg sucks. In an interesting scientific twist, it seems that all the people who use Digg (showing how much they like Digg) to voice their hatred for Digg (showing how much they hate Digg) do not suffer from any sort of head-exploding realization about the irony of their actions.

The data supporting this fact is stunning: to date exactly zero people have had their head explode after posting on Digg. We know this because if it happened it would definitely have been dugg pretty much immediately by whoever was nearest to the head-exploding incident. (See: Death, above.)

So our two requirements for popular diggs in this particular category are: ask people to digg your digg, and make sure your digg is about Digg. An example of the perfect digg might then be as follows: digg this if you like to digg pointless polls about Digg.

By making our post a digg to diggers who like to digg diggs about digg on Digg, we have increased the meta-level of our digg to new heights, ensuring that we will get at least double the amount of diggs that any diggers before us have ever gotten. (Editor’s note: Sorry for saying digg so many times. The ‘digg’ key on my keyboard was stuck. I have since remedied the problem.)

diggdiggdiggdiggdigg

Further, by using this strategy we will have gathered important demographical information from our digg. First, we have doubly confirmed that people who dugg the post like digging pointless polls, because they showed their ideological approval of digging pointless polls with their vote, and also because their vote was literally an act of digging a pointless poll.

Second, we have discovered that anyone who didn’t digg the post either suddenly lost their internet connection just before they were about to digg, or suddenly lost their hands (which are important tools designed specifically for digging) in a farming accident just as they were about to digg the post. We know this, because literally everyone on digg would be irresistably compelled by the scientific perfection of this digg to vote it up, and the above scenarios are the only two ways they could be stopped.

Reddits that ask people to vote up your post for literally any arbitrary reason

• Almost anything that begins with “vote up if you…” - So Many Reddits I Can’t Count Them (SMRICCT)
  

This approach is similar to the last one, except on reddit you can ask people to vote up your post for any conceivable reason whatsover, and it will either get absolutely buried or get so many up-votes that the numbers will run all the way down your screen and off the side, spilling over into your cereal.

If you don’t believe me and my powers of Science, simply take a look at the all time most popular reddits (you might have to change the date range to “all time”) where 156% of reddits start with “vote up if you…” and end with “… blah blah blah.”

A familiar strategy presents itself, and the perfect reddit may look something like this: vote up if you like the term “reddits” to refer to the indispensable Internet currency that is net-votes (or “reddits” as they are known.) We have determined that this post is streamlined for maximum reddit popularity, because as we have seen it begins with “vote up if you…” and ends with some other stuff that people may or may not care about.

Unfortunately, even with all this scientific streamlining, this post may not succeed. It is entirely possible that the only people who will vote it up (17 people) will be those who are up-voting it to piss off everyone who is burying it, and everyone who is burying it (everyone else on reddit) will become confused by the post’s lack of material related to death or XKCD, sending them into an uncontrollable down-voting fugue.

Some other junk

In my scientific wanderings through Digg and reddit I found a few other things that were recently popular. In particular, a picture of a guy driving a car while wearing a stormtrooper helmet, a story about a cat being banned from a post office, and a story about youtube muting videos with copyrighted songs.

As such, my highly scientific calculations show that if you make a video of a cat being banned from a post office for driving a car while wearing a stormtrooper helmet, then post it on youtube with Seal’s Kiss From a Rose as the soundtrack, ensuring that it is muted by the silence-Nazis at youtube, you will get exactly 546,362 diggs and reddits.

Conclusion: And thus concludes this article on how to get a popular post on Digg or reddit! We have covered literally everything that is popular on the link-sharing sites, so you now have the tools to go forth and become a true master of the web! (Editor’s note: Please for the love of God vote up this article.)

The New Year Linux Resolution: Day 3

The plan: Ring in the new year by switching over to Linux for a week, documenting each day of the transition.

Day Three, Screwing around with some more pre-loaded Linux stuff!

Other days: Day One, Day Two, Day Four, Day Five, Day Six, Day Seven

Yesterday I finally scaled the mountain of Linux, and when I reached the peak I claimed it as The Republic of Me. Unfortunately I only had time to do some basic things like word processing and internetting, so today I’ll get a (very) little bit more in depth. So join me as I screw around with some more pre-loaded Linux stuff!

Being the rogue maverick loose-cannon that I am, my first order of business is to update my software. (No self-respecting rogue maverick loose-cannon would ever risk missing an important update! It would be downright irresponsible.)

This updating is exhilarating stuff! Riding on the high of clicking on my updater and seeing that it will be finished downloading roughly next millennium, I decide I’ll try to figure out Ubuntu’s keyboard shortcuts. Luckily Linux still runs perfectly smoothly with the updater running in the background, so I get to work.

The keyboard shortcuts menu is easy enough to find, and they have a little bit of a learning curve, but for the most part are very similar to the XP or Mac shortcuts. Before I know it I’m ctrl-alt-shifting that shameful update window over to the next desktop. See you in the distant future, update window, when I am long dead and apes or robots or ape-robot hybrids or something have taken over the planet!

Having tasted sweet, sweet Linux shortcut keys for the first time I begin searching for some more user-interface options, and quickly find that there is a visual effects tab in the appearance menu. As far as I can tell it allows you to visualize your desktops on a little cube with each face being a desktop. Sounds fancy!

Unfortunately I will get to experience no fanciness today, as I either need to update the drivers for my video card or my computer is simply too much of a piece of garbage to run the effects. (Don’t worry, it likes it when I call it a piece of garbage: it’s a term of endearment.) Either way I’m not quite willing to go through the trouble of mucking with drivers or anything right now; I like cubes as much as the next guy, but there’s work to be done!

Um, that is, just as soon as I log on to an instant messaging program to exchange very important information over the Internet with people I see face-to-face pretty much every day. I’m glad to see that Ubuntu has provided me with the ability to reduce my productivity by 1000 percent, as they’ve included Pidgin, a universal IM program. I’ve never heard of Pidgin before, but I’ve used other universal IM services before and they never quite did it for me.

Pidgin seems very straight-forward and simple, and looks like it does pretty much everything I want it to with minimal annoyances. It includes connection capability for every IM program I use, and some I never even knew existed.

It also didn’t require any weird configuration like other IM programs I’ve used. I’ll have to use it a bit longer to see if it holds up, but so far I am content with it, and happy to be free from all the ads and junk that come bundled in MSN. (No, I don’t want to watch Rihanna’s latest video, MSN. Thanks for asking though.)

After some rousing conversation the next order of business is to realize how much time I’ve wasted, panic, and begin to hyperventilate furiously. As soon as I wake up from my fainting spell it’s time to get back to work.

That is, as soon as I play a few games. First on the docket is something called Klotski, which I’m assuming is an Eastern-European word that means “free game that comes bundled with Linux.”

After a bit of playing I realize that all the unfamiliar games that come bundled with Ubuntu were actually designed by an alien race possessing of a completely foreign form of logic and reasoning.

I manage to figure out that the point of Klotski is to integrate the hyper-cube into the goal sector via some form of psionic manipulation, but I have yet to translate the mysterious goals of Robots, Tetravex, or Tali. And what the hell is this Sudoku stuff? Like a game about numbers or some junk is going to catch on.

After Robots rewarded me with a spine-tingling scream the umpteenth time I lost, I decided it was time to move on from the games. It is at this point that I realize that I really don’t use my computer for very much: give me a web-browser, a word-processor and a warm blanky and I’m ready to go.

But that means I’m also kind of running out of ideas for what to do with this OS; so far it seems to be working fine, but where’s the adventure?

With that I venture into the Add/Remove programs application to begin my quest for shiny new programs. Before I know it there is a veritable pantheon of programs laid out before me, waiting to be gotten.

The pleases me: I’m no stranger to looking for apps on the web, but it gets tiresome sometimes. Let’s face it, all that clicking, typing, and observing: way too much work. And it seems like it might be especially tiresome looking for Linux apps on the web, given its thinner distribution, so this simple feature is very welcome.

In my journeys I find 7zip, a compression app that I have absolutely never used to unzip copies of SNES Roms, DOSBox, a very solid DOS emulator I’ve used many times to play some of my old favourites, ZSNES, a program I’ve absolutely never used to play the aforementioned Roms that I’ve absolutely never played, and ScummVM, a fantastic emulator designed specifically to play some great old adventure games.

But what I’m most interested in is sound recording software. I find a few mulitrack programs, such as Audacity and Muse, both of which I’ve never heard of, which I’ll have to try later.

Overall I’m very impressed with Add/Remove programs feature. The comfort of knowing that a myriad of programs, which can sometimes be a chore to find, are available at my fingertips ready to be integrated into the OS is quite nice.

It is a very clever feature that other OS manufacturers ought to look into, although I can’t exactly see Microsoft picking it up any time soon. (“So why do we want to put this feature in again? Uh huh, so you’re saying something about it making it easier for people to get programs, but you’re also saying it won’t make us loads and loads of delicious, beautiful money? I’m really not following. You’re going to have to go over this whole thing again.”)

And that’s about it for today. I’m getting a bit deeper into Ubuntu, and the memories of our tumultuous relationship are starting to fade into the past.

So what’s next? I’ve had a few people recommend I try Wubi, another form of Linux that installs along with Windows, and I’m thinking about trying some virtualization software, to see if I can run a few Windows programs in Ubuntu. Any suggestions from readers about what sort of things I can do with Linux next are very welcome!

Stay tuned for my next day when I do something with Linux that is as of yet undetermined!

Other days: Day One, Day Two, Day Four, Day Five, Day Six, Day Seven

The New Year Linux Resolution: Day 2

The plan: Ring in the new year by switching over to Linux for a week, documenting each day of the transition.

Day Two, Installation Continued, Pure Linux-using Bliss (Hopefully).

Other days: Day One, Day Three, Day Four, Day Five, Day Six, Day Seven

Yesterday was a bit of an ordeal, but I’m ready to forgive, forget, and move on. So today I log on to the forums to see what the linuxperts have to say. (I thought up that word myself, and if you use it I’ll sue the hell out of you.)

We exchange a few posts and I do some stuff that is really not worth talking about. (It was, like, super-boring.) My computer chugs away, working on what I set it to do, and I head to the kitchen to reheat some crispy squid from last night while I wait for Mr. Forum Guy That Knows Way More Than I Do to get back to me. (The crispy squid was delicious, but could definitely have used some sweet and sour sauce, or perhaps a nice hoisin, if you must know.)

Forum Dude gets back to me, and it looks like that option to try using Ubuntu without installing that I ignored as hard as I could is not only pretty clever, but is also actually useful! It turns out I’m going to have to load up Ubuntu in test-mode, where I will venture into the dreaded lair of my nemesis… The Console.

I begin to panic, sweat, and vomit uncontrollably at the thought of using a console again. (Or is it the reheated squid? No time to think about that now, must start consoling.) As I watch that dreadful cursor blink menacingly at me I experience intense flashbacks of my DOS console telling me that Ultima.exe has failed due to insufficient virtual memory. I muster up the courage to bring my fingers to the keyboard and begin to type about grubs and roots and sudos or something.

Success! The memories are fuzzy, but according to Super Forum Guy I just reconfigured the boot loader on my Ubuntu drive. Next I just have to go into my BIOS, make sure it’s set to boot from a USB drive, and reboot so that it can… Error 23.

Ah, Error 23: the old middle finger and crotch thrust again. I think I’m starting to understand your language, Linux. Your a feisty one, but I like your moxy.

My next step is to contemplate suicide for a moment. Once I’m done reflecting on flinging myself off of my balcony onto the Geo Metro below my window, I head to the forums again. And… you know what? This is, like, getting super-boring again. I’m just going to fast-track this whole deal to the part where I get it working. For those of you who enjoyed reading the minutia of my mental ordeal, feel free to pretend there is a bunch of writing and bad jokes in between this paragraph and the next.

[A bunch of writing, bad jokes, and three or four fantastic adventures]

Success! I finally did it! I got Ubuntu Linux working! The best part was definitely when I had to switch the Golden Idol for a suitably weighted decoy so that my Linux distro wouldn’t breathe fire on me.

My first point of order is to check out what writing programs there are on here, so that I can write. (That’s what I do, in case you didn’t know.) To my delight Open Office is already installed. This is a fantastic feature, as I’ve always believed that every OS should come with something as basic as a word processor by default. I’m pretty sure the PC industry is the only one in which it is perfectly acceptable to charge someone hundreds of dollars to be able to write. (Oh, you want to write with your typewriter? You’ve got to buy the $400 MS Typewriter Suite if you want to do that, mister. Duh.)

After a bit of writing I decide to take some screenshots, and I am delighted once again when I find out that pressing the print screen button in Ubuntu automatically saves your screenshot as a .png, circumventing the need to do all that copying and pasting; a very nice feature, and one that you’d think would be common place by now. Next step is to edit the images I just captured, so I head to the Gimp, which was also included with Ubuntu. Gimp seems to be much better than MS paint, and slightly better than the nothing that is included with a Mac. Besides, I love Gimps; they’re such cute little creatures.

Finally I must head to the Internet, so I look for whatever browser is included. When I do find the browser I am thricely delighted; Firefox, everybody’s favourite browser, comes pre-installed. And here I was worrying that Internet Explorer might be installed, and I’d have to go and delete everything associated with it except for the Internet Explore .exe file which Windows forbids you from tampering with, on punishment of slapping you on the wrist and telling you, “Bad computer user!”

And with that I log in to Wordpress and begin typing the very article you are reading right now. Overall I must say I’m very impressed with Ubuntu; everything a person expects a computer to do can be done with Ubuntu, given that everything you need is already pre-loaded. I’m a firm believer that when you buy a computer it should just work, and that includes having fully functional versions of programs that do basic things like word-processing, web browsing and image editing. Although me and Ubuntu had some tumultuous times early in our relationship, I think we’re starting to see eye to eye.

In the short time I’ve used it today I’ve found that Ubuntu is easy to use and has lots of neat features. It even told me that my battery might have been recalled and that I might need to replace it, instead of just letting it explode in my face like that jerk Windows would. True friendship is, after all, not letting something explode in your friend’s face.

So that’s it for today; tune in tomorrow, when I do more stuff with Linux!

Other days: Day One, Day Three, Day Four, Day Five, Day Six, Day Seven

The New Year Linux Resolution: Switching to Linux for a Week

The plan: Ring in the new year by switching over to Linux for a week, documenting each day of the transition.

Day One, Research and Installation.

Other days: Day Two, Day Three, Day Four, Day Five, Day Six, Day Seven

My impressions of the Linux operating system are coloured by memories of the first time my computer-whiz friend unveiled his sort-of-new copy of Redhat Linux to me. Check this out! he said. This OS doesn’t suck like everything Microsoft makes! It came in an over-sized jewel case with 4 CDs, handed down second-hand from another computer-whiz friend who recommended we try it.

Upon installing it we were greeted with an unceremonious command console that might as well have been written in the ancient tongue of the long-dead tribe of Gnitth Shhta Star-God worshippers. We had no idea what to do, and it was exciting. Linux had that combination of sparseness, functionality and seriousness that gave it the feel of being a real operating system, unlike that flighty Windows 95. In short, Linux seemed cool.

But that was my first and last encounter with Linux. In the ten or fifteen years since that first Linux install other operating systems have shown up, like XP and OSX, that have mostly pulled my attention away from Linux. Now my impression of Linux is bundled up with old memories of screwing around with the config.sys file on my DOS computer in order to allocate enough virtual memory to get Ultima running. In short, Linux to me has always been synonymous with “command console,” and although command consoles may work well, they definitely aren’t easy to use.

All these year later, now that those newer and simpler operating systems are available, I find myself wondering: why use Linux at all? Why go through all the trouble of installing an operating system that’s difficult to use, when almost everyone has a perfectly fine operating system already installed on their PC? I’ve never seen the reason to make the switch.

But I’ve also heard all the reports about how Linux is different nowadays. It’s easy to use! they say. It’s even easy to install, and it’s way more stable than Windows! they insist. It’s not like the old days; Linux has changed, man! Just give a try, all the cool and smart and handsome people are using it! Linux still has that indie cred that I experienced all those years ago that makes it seem just a little bit more elite than its competitors, and power-nerds everywhere seem to be cajoling me into trying it.

Lucky for them I have an incredibly weak will. So I’ve decided to give in to peer pressure, light me up some Linux, and trip my way through the alternative operating system carnival in the sky.

Step one is to research what Linux has to offer nowadays. I know absolutely nothing about it, other than the fact that it is associated with penguins and guys with crazy beards, and that I remember it having all the subtlety and ease of use of a sledgehammer to the patience-center of your brain. But my plan is that I shouldn’t really need to know much of anything about it; if all the reports are true, and Linux is no longer the battleaxe it used to be, I should be able to head out and find the most user-friendly version of Linux on the market, pop it in and get all Linuxed up.

So where to start? From what I remember there are at least two or three version of Linux, so I’ll need to narrow down my choices. Unfortunately, my google search for linux os that doesn’t suck doesn’t turn anything up, so I’ll have to turn to the Internet user’s best friend: Wikipedia. A quick Wiki search reveals that there is actually a few more than two or three Linux builds; in reality there is roughly 158,000 million types of Linux, each of them named after a different type of hat.

Ten-gallon Linux sounded a bit old-fashioned, and Beret Linux really looked too pretentious, so I made my choice to try the decidedly un-hat-like Ubuntu on for size.

At the Ubuntu site I found a cute logo that looks kind of like a red, yellow and orange gun barrel pointing at my eyes. Later on, while eating my lunch, I would realize that it was actually representative of three people holding hands, presumably to keep each other from running away to a Mac or XP operating system.

My goal is to do this as painlessly as possible, so I hurriedly look for a copy of the OS and blissfully ignore anything that looks like a guide or set of instructions. I find a download location, and it turns out that downloading things is pretty easy. (You click on the button that says download.) So that’s one point for Ubuntu; good job on making use of basic http protocol, Ubuntu!

The file downloads quite quickly given its size, and a little bit later I’m ready to go. The file is an .iso, so I burn it to a CD, pop it into my drive and reboot.

I’m greeted by a colourful and clear menu, which gives me a series of options for installing. One of them is to try Ubuntu without installing, which is a clever idea for the creators to include, but I decide not to opt for it; my plan is to install Linux as an alternative to Windows and use it consistently, so there’s no point in trying it just yet when I will presumably have it installed in its entirety soon.

So I opt for the full install option. Since I want to keep Windows intact, because it has all kinds of Windowsy things I need, I am going to install Ubuntu on an external hard drive, which I’ve already connected to my computer. Next I select the full install option, after which I am greeted with an earthy-looking background and am serenaded with a truly bitching drum solo. I figure this will probably take a while, so I leave the room to marinate a steak for supper (with garlic, onion and horseradish if you must know.)

As I return I realize I’m actually pretty excited to get this thing installed and try it out. Gleefully I hop into my room to find… it’s locked up. The mouse won’t respond and the screen is stuck in a desktop with a beige background.

So much for the simple install. With the latest development I abandon my bull-headed approach and decide to get some help. Luckily the support forums on Ubuntu’s site have a thread that looks like it addresses my problem. According to the forums it looks like I have to press F4 at the install menu and enter graphic safe-mode; either that or do something with an alternative install CD that I really don’t want to deal with.

I heed the advice about the safe-mode, the installer doesn’t lock up this time and I’m grooving to sick bongo beats once again. I follow the dialogue box, select what I think is my external hard-drive to install on, enter some more basic information, experience a moment of powerful apprehension and potent dread that I might have picked the wrong drive to install on and might end up screwing up my Windows drive, press back a whole bunch, then finally build up the guts to go through with it.

The install process takes about half an hour, during which time I cook up my well-marinated steak (it was delicious, thank you.) I restart my computer and I’m feeling that excitement and wonderment again that I felt all those years ago in those heady days when me and my buddy first experimented with alternative installs. Then my computer starts to boot and… it locks up.

Damn, I think, Something must have gone wrong with the install, which I did on my external hard-drive so that it would be completely separate from my Windows hard-drive so I wouldn’t have to worry about anything.

Disappointed that I’ve run into another road-block and won’t get to use Linux just yet, I unplug my external hard-drive so I can boot into Windows and go to the support forums for more advice and… my computer locks up. It tells me that GRUB is loading, and to please wait, and also that Error 21, which is presumably the Linux-talk equivalent of two middle fingers and a crotch-thrust in my direction.

Now I’m super-screwed; the computer I use everyday has somehow gotten a whiff of the aromatic Linux that I was installing on my external hard-drive and is now throwing a hissy fit and not talking to me any more. I ask my roommate if I can use his computer, log on to the Ubuntu support forums once again, and post a thread: Subject: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, Body: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD.

Luckily the Ubuntu forum staff are able to interpret my well-considered communication and they inform me that I need to boot from a Windows XP install CD to repair the boot-sector of my XP drive.

Success! My computer is un-ruined. But I’ve had enough excitement for one day, and decide to call it. The forum staff explain to me that they can tell me how to set up Ubuntu on my external hard drive so that it works properly, so tomorrow I’ll take another swing at it.

To put it softly, installing Ubuntu was hell. I ran into more problems than I ever imagined I would, and for a moment I thought my computer was reduced to a pretty silicon and plastic paperweight. The simplicity I was looking for was not there, and I’m not exactly planning to recommend that my parents replace their Mac OS with Ubuntu any time soon, given that they would probably have given up when they couldn’t figure out what an .iso was.

Nonetheless, I’m willing to give Linux the benefit of the doubt; I imagine that the majority of users don’t encounter the sort of problems I have, and I’m willing to concede that my hardware is likely to blame for all the peculiar issues. And while it wasn’t an easy process, the Ubuntu forum staff were very helpful and I was able to solve all my problems fairly quickly. Thumbs up for the support!

So tune in tomorrow, when I put the install problems behind me and move on to testing Ubuntu for the first time!

Other days: Day Two, Day Three, Day Four, Day Five, Day Six, Day Seven