Was it a geek tragedy, or just an outpouring of true love? On top of the usual virus scares and excessive and mushy online greeting cards that appear on the web each Valentines Day, it was true love this year - well at least in the case of prominent "dork" Rob Malda.
Malda , the creator of Slashdot, a US-based "news for nerds" online service, took his web influence to another level yesterday and proposed to long-time girlfriend Kathleen Fent via a Slashdot news story. The story, titled 'Kathleen Fent Read This Story' was typed, as Malda says, "with-one-pair-of-sweating-palms". It was immediately (to be precise, 15 minutes and 30 seconds later) answered by e-mail with an emphatic "Yes" then followed by "Dork. You made me cry. :)".
"Malda wrote: "I wanted to do this in this most potentially embarrassing way possible, and I figured doing it here and now, in front of a quarter of a million strangers was as good a way as any."
Already 1500 users have responded to the proposal, some sending their congratulations, others expressing dismay at the "geeky" way in which the proposal was put forth. One user even went so far as to suggest that the story was a hack, and offered his own apology to Fent for the mix-up.
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