Somewhat recently, I got bored and decided to write a fictional story. Given that I’ve posted nothing on this blog since last August, I decided I had to break the silence with something.

Last night, I talked to God. The strange—yet somewhat predictable—thing was that God is exactly like me. God explained to me that He and I are clones because my universe was designed to be a replica of His. God, like me, is a computer engineer at BitTech—the largest supercomputer conglomerate in the world. Well, he is a computer engineer at his universe’s BitTech—which is exactly the same as the one in my universe. BitTech is well known for attracting the world’s best engineers by giving away lavish perks—including a small amount of CPU time on some of BitTech’s most powerful computer clusters.

After doing some research, the God version of me found out that the CPU time allotted to him, plus some cheap hard drive space, was barely enough to create a simulation of the entire universe he lived in. In fact, he wasn’t the first to do it—other replicas of his universe had been created. It was not too difficult—astronomy had advanced to the point where the details of the Big Bang were known. A new generation of computers had helped simplify the laws of quantum mechanics and unify it with Einstein’s theories. All the buildings blocks were in place, and others had succeeded in putting them together.

But God’s simulated universe was not a research project—it was the plaything of one of the world’s top engineers. The calculations did not always run as fast as the universes run by well-funded institutions, but that was not a problem. Time was relative.

The main problem with God’s setup of the universe was why he came down to talk to me. God had a warning. His algorithms were not perfect. While both His universe and my universe were identical at the point of the Big Bang, imperfections in His algorithm meant that differences soon popped up in my universe. Energy existed in places where there was none in his universe. But God saw this and attempted to perfect the algorithms. Unfortunately, he was unable to. The best solution that he could come up with was to optimize the algorithms to place the anomalies far away from Earth, so what he considered to be the most interesting part of the universe would be completely unaffected—and thus completely identical.

But I am also a world-class computer engineer. I saw right away that this solution would not be perfect. God nodded and said that after so many billions of years, the anomalies were finally going to affect Earth. There was simply nothing that He could do about it. God said that he had ran the simulation on fast-forward, and said that the miniscule differences in the amount of energy near our planet would ultimately have a powerful effect on human history. Our planet was doomed.

It was the Butterfly Effect. Small changes on our planet over time accumulating and making our world unrecognizable. The immeasurably tiny amount of energy was just enough to cause radical changes in human thinking—even drive us to a nuclear holocaust. He said that we would never know what caused the disaster, because would not have realized that the anomalies were there.

Thus, rather than watch Earth destroy itself, God said that He would euthanize our universe. Delete it from his filesystem, and prevent our humanity from ever feeling the misery that the imperfect algorithms would ever cause us. I nodded quietly. I understood. I told myself that I should have foreseen this.

After all, I had just deleted my own universe simulation the day before for the exact same reason.

Sure, it’s the start of the year, and all the tech blogs are making their own predictions (that usually end up untrue) about what is going to happen this year. I decided that I ought to make my own predictions about what is going to happen in the future. I’m not going to predict what is going to happen in 2009, but instead 2099.

But instead of coming up with a flowchart or five-paragraph essay about my predictions, I present you with a fictional story.

“It’s worse than I feared. Get me the President.”

” Professor, the President?”

“Yes, get ME the PRESIDENT! DON’T YOU REALIZE WHAT IS AT STAKE HERE?”

“Sir, it seems a bit drastic to call the Pres–”

“WE NEED TO ACT NOW! YOU’VE BEEN IN THE BRIEFINGS! YOU KNOW THE DANGER WE ARE FACING!”

The student ran into a nearby tent and fetched a satellite phone. “Here you go, sir.”

The professor snatched the satellite phone from the student and stared at the phone’s touchscreen.

“P…R…E…Q–no-S!” muttered the professor while pecking at the keyboard on the touchscreen. “These iAwesomePhones touchscreen keyboards are so inaccurate! I wish they ran Linux!”

“Don’t they run Linux already?”

“No, but they will soon,” answered the professor as he continued pecking at the keyboard.

“Really? Why?” inquired the curious student.

“Oh, GooHat is forcing the world to use Ubuntu Paragon Penguin.”

“GooHat?”

“Didn’t you hear? Google and Red Hat had a merger. You kids should read the news more.”

“Right, but doesn’t Ubuntu belong to Novell after they bought out Canonical?”

“But then Red Hat bought out Novell.”

The satellite phone’s screen flickered, flashed the words “Incoming Call,” and a woman’s face appeared. “Ender, is it you?”

“No, Jane,” sighed the professor. “Wrong plot universe.” The woman disappeared off the screen, and the professor continued muttering and clacking away at the touchscreen. “E…N..T–enter.” The phone’s screen flickered again, and a man’s face appeared.

“It better be important!” barked the President.

“Oh, it is,” the professor spoke as he nodded gravely. “I have a student that has found a glyph of a cheeserburger.”

The President buried his face in his hands for a few seconds, then he dropped his hands to his sides and sighed. “Lolcats, right?”

The professor nodded gravely again and said, “Yes, the amazing quantity of these lolcats are likely to make exterminating them much more difficult.”

“But you know what will happen if we don’t get rid of these lolcats.”

“Yes, I know.” The professor sighed and nodded gravely for a third time. The student that had found the cheeseburger glyph looked dumbstruck.

TO BE CONTINUED

The year 2008 is ending, and there is a flurry of blog posts with an end-of-year theme, be it resolutions, predictions, or something else for the new year.

I’m horrible at keeping resolutions and predicting, so for the year 2009, I’ll be, as the title so clearly states, tracking and graphing things.

Credit: Randall Munroe of xkcd.com. Click the image for the comic’s page.

So, what will I be tracking?

• Length of time spent playing BZFlag (an open source 3D tank battle game) — I really need to cut back on playing it. Tracked via this simple shell script I made.
• Length of time spent browsing the web. Tracked via Usage Counter Firefox Extension.
• Length of time computer is left on. Tracked via Unix ‘uptime’ program.
• Number of Delicious bookmarks posted in the year (via Delicious API app that is not yet completed).

I won’t be the only person tracking statistics in 2009. Yuvi outlines his plans to restart The StatBot, which is a website where he blog about all sorts of interesting statistics he measures.

Will you be tracking anything in 2009?

Introduction

You have seen those extremely brilliant ant-Linux anti-Linux trolls that demonstrate their brilliance on IRC channels, message boards, and blog posts, right?

(No, I’m not talking about the Linux Hater. He is a different kind of animal. The Linux Hater is actually useful to the Linux community.)

Now, I bet that you’ve always wanted to become one of those trolls. You probably think it is grand to spread around misinformation, right? If you didn’t, you probably shouldn’t be reading this post.

General tips

1) Study the work of other trolls.

Other trolls have done a lot of fine-tuning of their flamebaiting skills, and you should observe their techniques in order for you to become a top-notch troll.

2) Be an anti-Mac OS X troll too.

GNU/Linux and OS X are both Unix-like operating systems. It is difficult to be a hater of Linux, a lover of Max OS X, and still look like a realistic troll. Loving Mac OS X and hating Linux is something that you might get to graduate to when you become a more advanced troll.

Though, should you ever become among the trolling elite and decide to be pro-Mac and anti-Linux, remember to register new accounts at all your favorite websites and chat rooms, or people will notice your change.

3) Be knowledgeable about Linux, but not too knowledgeable.

If you clearly know nothing about Linux, people aren’t going to listen to you. If you know a ton about Linux, then people are going to wonder why you know so much about Linux when you clearly hate it.

The goal is to get to a happy medium where people trust your opinions on Linux, but don’t suspect you to be secretly pro-Linux.

Account-related tips

1) Use multiple accounts.

People on the Internet aren’t very likely to listen to just one anonymous commentor, so remember to register at least five accounts per website or IRC server. You should also be registered on at least ten different websites/IRC channels, which hints at a total of at least 50 accounts per troll. Really good trolls, though, might need more accounts.

2) Choose strong, unique passwords for each of the accounts.

You might be tempted to choose the same password or same pattern for the passwords to your (at least) 50 accounts. This, of course, is very bad behavior because it would be catastrophic if even one of your accounts was accessed by a pro-Linux or even OS-neutral person.

Choosing long, unique, and hard to predict passwords is a good strategy to make sure that all of your trolling accounts are kept safe. Try using password managers such as Keepass to keep track of all the passwords you will have.

3) Aim for high or low karma.

Many websites and social networks have the concept of karma. That is, users can vote the comments of other users up or down. Comments with high karma are sometimes more visible on certain websites. Comments with low karma are usually hidden.

If your comment has high karma, other users like how you phrased your point, which means that you are a good troll. If your comment has low karma, it means that people do not like what you are saying and wish that you would not say it. Having comments with low karma is a sign that you are a good troll.

Website-related tips

1) Get your own websites (and domain names).

While posting comments or sending messages on other websites/IRC channels is a good strategy, there is always the chance that your comments will get deleted and/or you will get banned.

Having your own website is a better strategy. Getting a domain name is not necessary for having your own website, but it makes your website look more believable, which in turn makes you a more efficient troll.

Getting a website at Freewebs or another host is not recommended, due to the lack of control you have over the webpage. Buying shared hosting, and some domain names too, is the best way to create a troll website.

2) Remember to use SEO tactics on your websites.

Getting your websites into high ranking positions in search engines maximizes your visibility as a troll. The ultimate goal of an angry anti-Linux troll is to have every major search engine return anti-Linux webpages when the keyword “Linux” is searched.

3) Remember to follow usability guidelines on your websites.

Making sure that your website works well when it is read by screen readers and such seems like a waste of time, but it is necessary for the troll that wants everybody to hear the anti-Linux message.

Conclusion

While the life of a troll isn’t for everybody, these tips can make it easier for beginning anti-Linux trolls to get started.

No trolling in these comments, though.

You can find the song at http://codingexperiments.com/examples/song.mp3

I’m not that great of a singer, but I don’t think that the song is *too* bad for a silly parody that I came up with in an IM conversation.

EDIT: If you didn’t see the original post, you can find the lyrics to my parody song here.

Well, to fill up space, I think I’ll advertise the guest posting offer. Email me at possible248@gmail.com if you would like to write a short, tech-related guest post. If you wish, you can read up more on why you should guest post on this website.

We’re no strangers to algorithms.
You know the syntax, and so do I.
You know pointers are what I’m thinking of.
You wouldn’t get this from any other app.
I just want to tell you how I’m coding.
Gotta make you understand.

Never gonna give C up!
Never gonna let C down!
Never gonna run around and write Python.
Never gonna throw an error.
Never gonna corrupt files and hurt you.

I’ve known C for so long.
Your heart’s been aching, but you’re too shy to say.
You wanna see my source code.
You know the language, and so do I.
And if you ask me how’s my coding,
Don’t tell me you’re too blind to see.

Never gonna give C up!
Never gonna let C down!
Never gonna run around and write Python.
Never gonna throw an error.
Never gonna corrupt files and hurt you.
Never gonna give C up!
Never gonna let C down!
Never gonna run around and write Python.
Never gonna throw an error.
Never gonna corrupt files and hurt you.

Never gonna give, never gonna give
give C up.
Never gonna give, never gonna give
give C up.

I’ve known C for so long.
Your heart’s been aching, but you’re too shy to say.
You wanna see my source code.
You know the language, and so do I.
I just want to tell you how I’m coding.
Gotta make you understand.

Never gonna give C up!
Never gonna let C down!
Never gonna run around and write Python.
Never gonna throw an error.
Never gonna corrupt files and hurt you.
Never gonna give C up!
Never gonna let C down!
Never gonna run around and write Python.
Never gonna throw an error.
Never gonna corrupt files and hurt you.
Never gonna give C up!
Never gonna let C down!
Never gonna run around and write Python.
Never gonna throw an error.
Never gonna corrupt files and hurt you.

I wrote the above song today after a funny IM conversation. It doesn’t actually make much sense, but I think it is funny, and I know this blog needs some funny posts.

In the previous post covering screen resolutions, I had a big messup.

I was tired of proofreading the post, which is more than a thousand words, so I just hit the Pubish button after one of my friends said it looked okay.

Big mistake.

Two hours later, I go to bed, but I can’t sleep. As usual, I’m analyzing what happened in the day, and making plans for the next day. When thinking about my blog, my eyes suddenly widen and my fists clench. I asked myself, How could have I been so careless? Well, I was careless because I was tired from a long day of work. I had just realized that I forgot to add the screenshots to the blog post that I published.

The moral of the story is don’t read this blog everybody makes mistakes, especially me.

PS: If there are grammar errors in this blog post, please politely inform me and I’ll get to it tomorrow. I’m too sleepy to proofread this post. I hope I won’t have to write another post about the failures in this post. That might result in a vicious cycle of apologizing.

You should guest post on this blog…

1) …because Uncle Sam told you so.

You heard the man.

2) …because it’s good for your blog’s statistics

In the intro to your guest post, you can totally post links to your blog, or whatever else you would like. That may increase the Google PageRank or Technorati Authority of your blog (or whatever else).

3) …because guest posting on other blogs makes you look more popular.

Any random person can start his or her own blog, but it takes a real good blogger to be allowed on the blogs of other folk.

If your blog is more popular than mine, well, you still increase your reputation because you show yourself as a good fellow that respects blogs that are less popular than his.

4) …because when CodingExperiments overtakes TechCrunch on Techmeme, you’ll want to say that you were part of this blog’s success.

Hey, I can totally take on TechCrunch. It might take a few decades, but it will happen.

5) …because people can quickly get tired of what I have to say.

I’d like this blog to have some diversity in it.

6) …because you want to make the kitty happy.

Click image to view on Flickr. This image was photographed by Flickr user studio-d.

You can become a guest poster by…

…sending me an email (possible248@gmail.com) containing:

• who you are.
• what you would like to write about.

If I approve, I’ll send you a followup message with more instructions. Assuming I let you write a guest post, you’ll make the kitty happy and Uncle Sam will be satisfied.

In one of my periods of lunacy that I enter into from time to time, I decided to try out the ancient relic known only as “Phoenix”.  Or, really-really-old-Firefox, if you prefer.  Sampling both 0.1 and 0.3, I was impressed, actually; all of the sites I visited had more or less perfect rendering, with only a few trivial sizing glitches (Although more technologically advanced sites such as GMail and Google Pages either didn’t work or loaded a more basic view). However, I did make one interesting observation: Phoenix 0.3 had somewhat better Acid2 compliance than Microsoft Internet Explorer 7. That’s right: a 2002 early development release of Firefox still had better standards support in some areas than the latest and greatest from our pals at Redmond.

Take a gander, and ponder this facinating tidbit.  Its actual relevance is questionable as certainly more sites will work with IE7, and additionally Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 is known to more or less pass Acid2, but it’s interesting to me nevertheless.

A few weeks ago, I switched from this current WordPress installation to a multi-user one to give the guest bloggers their own blog. The problem with that was that they are guest bloggers. They only blog once in a while as they pay attention to their own blogs more than they do to their CodingExperiments blogs.

So, I was smart enough to back up the old, single-user installation and now everything is back to normal.