Watch Beer Wars Online
Slash Guy
An interview with Rob Malda by Amy Armitage
When Reece PingZine handed me this assignment and told me I was interviewing Rob Malda I pretended to be excited and nodded knowingly while he educated me in the back of Rob.
Honestly, I had no idea who he was Rob. I guess because I live in my own little world and Web Hosting Reality TV … but then I heard the magic word: Slashdot!
Oh …
My …
God mine …
Slashdot? Are you kidding me? They are like the Internet GEEKSTAPO. The sacred source for all things Techy! (Do not publish my presentations Slashdot … pfft indeed)
Just as Lois Lane was determined to get to the heart of this history to know something nobody knows about Rob Malda. There must be some edge, something that can bring to this story that will have people panting to my interview techniques witty and clever …
I know! I'm going to cheat in a relaxed and comfortable and then when you least expect it, I'll hammer with a question so volatile, LP lawyers wondered whether even worth posting my exploze (yes, is true, ex-plo-ze: explosion of exposure).
[*] Innocent eyes
Amy: So Rob, hi, how are you? Good time we are having right? Love your shoes by the way …
Rob: 85 degrees and humid as hell. Tonto October. Do not go outside. And I'm not wearing shoes: Get a new recipe!
[* Sigh]
Amy: I've been doing a lot of reading about you and your achievements, so I'm thinking that you must perform monitor their teen back where it all began ..
[God I sound like a] therapist
Are you a fan of Star Wars?
Rob: Indeed. I still often put their record when they air on TV and see if they air in high definition. In college my roommate and saw the entire trilogy every weekend for a year.
Amy: You play Dungeons and Dragons? Ummm … Why? Did you ever in WOW or Everquest?
Rob: Yes, We have a bi-weekly D & D campaign. My name now is Bonze char xylophone, an undead ranger. It's just an excuse to drink beer and eat cookies. Last week we had fondue. I played a fair bit of EQ and tons of WOW. I have 70 years now in fact the level 4, although not connected to your system for months. I just like games with XP. I like to make the numbers go up, and the monsters go splat.
Amy: I was reading his biography as a child on his mother's favorite punishment was to bring his keyboard and lock it in your trunk. The story of how he learned to paint me (Rob added a keyboard error code check to your autoexec.bat file which launched a BBS making it possible to obtain data from the home of a friend). He reached me thinking about children online today and traps and filters we put in place to protect / monitor their online activities. Are we delude ourselves that by checking their history and adding some filters for Google, MySpace, etc blockade can stop them?
Rob: Absolutely delusional.
[Wow ... Did you just call me delusional?]
Rob: Kids are smart and each generation is smarter than the previous technology. The truth is that the higher is the wall to build, the harder the child will work to see what is on the other side. Better to build a picket fence and just talk with the child about what is on the other side of it. Instead, just try to sue anyone who creates something that might not want a child to see. It's sad.
Amy: You were a hyperactive child. What other problems you get? Come the spill.
Rob: Once you started a fire under a bridge near the local high school. I have it big enough and I panicked and so a cardboard box filled with water from a nearby creek and dragged him back into the burning fire. Most of the water leaked out of cardboard (not the best vessel for the mind distribution of water you) and dumped in the blazing inferno. The steam and smoke rising from under the bridge traffic is stopped until the eye could see, just as the school was dropping. It was awesome. It was probably 10.
Amy: Her first job was working as a computer tech guy and master Windows and then the heavens opened and an angelic penguin whispered "Linux" on the ear. He tells us how that experience that the transition in cyberspace.
Rob: Linux came into my life because I was one of the main SC who was obliged to do the job with UNIX Sun SPARC stations. Linux let me work at home. In addition was made by Internet easy (even on a 14.4k modem) and really showed why windows was the wrong way to work.
Amy: I happened to "drop" his name to some guys I know and the development of the conversation went something like this:
Dev Guy: "Sup Ames? You look very beautiful and glamorous as usual today "
Amy: "Oooooh nothing much really, just the wording of some questions to ROB THE CREATOR OF Maldà Slashdot"
Dev Guy: "OMG OMG OMG OMG! Like totally no way!" (Valley Girl style)
And, after they stopped squealing like chicks to me called asking if you use any open source software on Slashdot and how to configure?
Rob: Almost everything in Slashdot is open source. MySQL. Perl. Apache. Even our own code is open source and available at www.slashcode.com . It's like software created by usually is: on the hard drives of computers. Plugged in at various outlets on the walls, some give us electricity and others give us packages. And all is well.
Amy: Also .. What are some tips and tricks for managing a high traffic site?
Rob: Cache. Cache. Cache. If you can to apply in advance, do it. Most people do not need any adjustment, so the page once and take the next 10,000 people the same page.
Amy: Oh, and ASL?
Rob: I do not know American Sign Language. They hardly speak English.
[Pffft and rookie]
Amy: Ha created SlashDot and yes, I would have the same idea. Are you uber rich now? Did you sell the site to a massive conglomerate and retire at the age of 21 years to own island?
Rob: I'm not super rich, but I bought my first house in like 23. Still have not paid the mortgage, however. And while we're sold the corporate lords, I have 31 and still far from retirement or an island.
Amy: Do you regret selling?
Rob: Like something is a heterogeneous group. I like to have health insurance and a 401k. But managing a multimedia company in a publicly traded corporation is a unique set of challenges.
Amy: SlashTips – I mentioned earlier I have not written was published on Slashdot (I guess they do not appreciate my style and the humor). What do you look for when approving Slash-missions?
Rob: Maybe you're trying to hard.
[Yup that must be]
Amy: Rob is married to a beautiful girl named Kathleen and married Vegas-style. Tell us how you met!
Rob: An old girlfriend and I created it with a friend, and somehow no relationship lasted. Worked good for all.
Amy: SlashCats – How many cats you have Rob and Kathleen? Are you a cat-a-holic?
Rob: In order of seniority are pixels, Dante, Matrix and sushi. We could probably withstand some die, but I was 2 and had two and then everything was Brady Bunch and stayed with his flock. But are ours and we love them, even when sick strange objects blur of color in the carpet.
Amy: On weekends I like going to yard sales and buy junk random in the hope that I will make millions with a treasure … What you do in your downtime that is not something to plug the mains?
Rob: Go to the movies. Learn to cook. Go to interesting restaurants. Travel. Video Games. Watch the season premiere of Heroes.
Amy: A web hosting fans, tell us of the server when it started to SlashDot created and now the situation?
Rob: DEC Alpha running Red Hat Multia/166 connected to a T1. Now we have a dozen webheads Dual CPU, 4 databases Quad CPU, and some other random boxes of aid, and are connected to an OC3.
Amy: What is the next challenge or project for you, Rob?
Rob: You mean that after surviving this interview? Find shoes … Stop looking at my feet.
[Sheesh ... now I will be known as the girl with foot fetish;)]
Thanks for chatting with me Rob! I had a slashtastic!
About the Author
Amy Armitage is the head of Business Development for Lunarpages. Lunarpages provides quality web hosting from their US-based hosting facility. They offer a wide-range of services from dedicated servers and managed solutions to shared and reseller hosting plans.
Don’t Panic – Beer wars!