When Reece from PingZine handed me this assignment and told me he was interviewing Rob Malda, I pretended to be excited and knowingly nodded as he briefed me on Rob’s background.

Honestly, I had no idea who Rob was. I guess that’s because I live in my own little world of Web Hosting and Reality TV … but then I heard the magic word: SLASHDOT!

Oh …

Me …

God …

Slashdot? Are you kidding? They are like the GEEKSTAPO of the Internet. The sacred source of all things technological! (Slashdot never publishes my submissions btw … pfft)

Like Lois Lane, he was determined to get to the bottom of this story to discover something no one knows about Rob Malda. There has to be some edge, something I can add to this story that will make people gasp at my clever and clever interview techniques …

He !! I’ll lure you into a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere and then when you least expect it, hammer you with a question so volatile that LP’s attorneys will question whether my exploze is worth publishing (yes, that’s right, ex-plo-ze: Explosion Exposed ).

[* innocent look]

Amy: So Rob, hey, how are you? Nice time we’re having, huh? I love your shoes by the way …

Steal: 85 degrees and humid as hell. Stupid October. Do not go out. And I’m not wearing shoes: Get a new recipe!

[*gasp]

Amy: I’ve been reading a ton about you and your accomplishments, so I think we should trace back to your teenage years, where it all began …

[Gawd I sound like a therapist]

Were you a Star Wars fan?

Steal: Indeed. I still routinely record them when they are broadcast on television and watch them if they are broadcast in high definition. In college, my roommate and I watched the entire trilogy every weekend for a whole year.

Amy: Do you play Dungeons and Dragons? Ummm … why? Have you ever gotten into WOW or Everquest?

Steal: Yes. We have a biweekly D&D campaign. My current character’s name is Bonzer Xylophone, an undead ranger. It’s just an excuse to drink beer and eat cookies. Last week we had fondue. I played some EQ and tons of WOW. I currently have 4 levels 70, although I haven’t logged in in months. I just like XP games. I like to make the numbers go up and the monsters splash.

Amy: I was reading in your bio that when I was a child, your mother’s favorite punishment was to take away your keyboard and put it in her trunk. The story about how he managed it made me laugh (Rob added a keyboard error code check to his autoexec.bat file which launched a BBS that made it possible to get the data from a friend’s house). It made me think of kids online today and the traps and filters we put in place to protect / monitor their online activities. Are we fooling ourselves into thinking that by checking their history and adding some filters to Google, blocking MySpace, etc., we can stop them?

Steal: Absolutely delusional.

[Wow… did he just call me delusional?]

Steal: Children are smart, and each generation is more tech-savvy than the last. The truth is that the higher the wall you build, the harder the child will work to see what is on the other side. Better build a fence and talk to the child about what is on the other side. Instead, we are just trying to sue everyone who believes something we don’t want a child to see. It’s sad.

Amy: You were a hyperactive kid. What other trouble did you get into? Come on, drop it.

Steal: We once started a fire under a bridge near the local high school. It got pretty big and I panicked so we filled a cardboard box with water from a nearby stream and dragged it back to the blazing fire. Most of the water leaked out of the cardboard (not the best container for water distribution) and was thrown into blazing hell. Steam and smoke billowing out from under the bridge stopped traffic as far as the eye could see, just as the school let out. It was amazing. He was probably 10 years old.

Amy: Your first job was working as a PC technician and you mastered Windows and then the heavens opened and an angelic penguin whispered “Linux” in your ear. He tells us how that experience got him into cyberspace.

Steal: Linux came into my life because I was a computer science student asked to do homework on UNIX SUN Sparcstations. Linux lets me work at home. Plus, it made the internet easy (even on a 14.4k modem) and really showed me why Windows wasn’t the right way to work.

Amy: It happened that I “blurted out” your name to some development guys I know and the conversation went something like this:

Dev Guy: “Sup Ames? You look very beautiful and glamorous today as always.”

Amy: “Oooooh not much actually, I just write some questions for ROB MALDA THE CREATOR OF SLASHDOT”

Dev Guy: “My God, my God, my God! No way!” (Valley girl style)

And, after they stopped screaming like girls, they asked me to ask you if you use any open source software on Slashdot and how it’s set up.

Steal: Almost everything on Slashdot is open source. MySQL. Perl. Apache. Even our own code is open source and readily available. It is configured as software usually is: on hard drives inside computers. We connect them to various sockets on the walls, some give us electricity and others give us packages. And everything is going well.

Amy: Also … what are some tips and tricks for managing a high traffic site?

Steal: Hidden. Hidden. Hidden. If you can do it ahead of time, do it. Most people don’t need any customization, so create the page once and give the next 10,000 people the same page.

Amy: Oh, and ASL?

Steal: I don’t know American Sign Language. I barely speak English.

[Pffft ya newbie]

Amy: You created SlashDot and yes, I wish I had the same idea. Are you super rich now? Did you sell the site to some massive conglomerate and retire at the age of 21 to your own island?

Steal: I’m not very wealthy, but I was able to buy my first house at around 23. However, I still haven’t paid my mortgage. And even though we sold to the corporate lords, I am 31 years old and still nowhere near retirement or an island.

Amy: Do you regret selling?

Steal: Like everything, it is a mixed bag. I like having health insurance and a 401k. But running a media company within a publicly traded corporation is a unique set of challenges.

Amy: SlashTips – I mentioned earlier that nothing I’ve written was posted on SlashDot (I guess they don’t appreciate my unique style and humor). What do you look for when passing Slash missions?

Steal: Maybe you are just trying with all your might.

[Yup that must be it]

Amy: Rob is married to a beautiful girl named Kathleen and they were married Las Vegas style. Tell us how you met!

Steal: An old girlfriend and I put him in touch with a friend of mine, and somehow neither relationship lasted. It worked well for everyone.

Amy: SlashCats – How many cats do you and Kathleen have, Rob? Are you a holic cat?

Steal: In order of age they are Pixel, Dante, Matrix, and Sushi. We could probably take some dying but I was 2 and she was 2 and then it was all Brady Bunch and we got stuck with a herd. But they are ours and we love them even when they spew strange colored fuzzy objects on the carpet.

Amy: On the weekends I love going to garage sales and randomly buying junk hoping to make millions off that treasure … What do you do in your downtime that doesn’t involve plugging something into an outlet?

Steal: Go to the movies. Learn to cook. Go to interesting restaurants. Trip. Playing video games. Watch the season premiere of Heroes.

Amy: For fans of web hosting, please tell us about the server setup when SlashDot started and the situation now.

Steal: DEC Alpha Multia / 166 with Red Hat connected to a T1. We now have a dozen dual CPU web headers, 4 quad CPU databases, and some other random auxiliary boxes, and they are connected to an OC3.

Amy: What’s the next challenge or project for you, Rob?

Steal: You mean after surviving this interview? Finding shoes … Stop staring at my toes.

[Sheesh… now I’ll be known as the girl with the foot fetish ;)]

Thanks for chatting with me Rob! I had a slashtastic time!