Members kef and einar have written about some recent research:
"A new study from the University of Manitoba has claimed that internet trolls might not be so nice or mentally stable in real life. While previous studies have shown that people with negative character traits are using the internet more frequently for their own amusement, not to socialize, the results seem to link trolling to sadism. Two surveys among amazon's mechanical turk users were conducted which allowed creating a character profile of the participants. Based on the profile, internet behavior could be correlated with different character traits. Trolling appears to be correlated to sadism.
From the study:
... correlations, sometimes quite significant, between these traits and trolling behavior. What's more, it also found a relationship between all Dark Tetrad traits (except for narcissism) and the overall time that an individual spent, per day, commenting on the Internet. ... To be sure, only 5.6 percent of survey respondents actually specified that they enjoyed "trolling." By contrast, 41.3 percent of Internet users were "non-commenters," meaning they didn't like engaging online at all. So trolls are, as has often been suspected, a minority of online commenters, and an even smaller minority of overall Internet users.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 05 2014, @01:15PM
You missed a minor contribution in that "he proposes replacing K5's MySQL database with flat files and assembly code." which vaguely resembles the NoSQL movement which is like tossing a bucket of gasoline onto a campfire. Absolutely hilarious in a parody sense. The cultural trends and background make it even funnier than at first glance.
In comparison, if he proposed replacing the JVM with flat files and assembly code, or something else totally off the wall, he would get a much more WTF reaction than humor, but his parody of a subcultural trend in DBMS is absolute genius. And it doesn't even matter if he knows it or not (as a controls engineer or whatever he is, he's probably not a big DBA guy) but the cultural reaction by people who do know, is what makes it funny.