Monday, January 29, 2007

How could anyone possibly...derive pleasure from that?

Have some fun with Google's suggest feature. Google tries to predict what you'll type next based on what a gajillion people have searched for before you. It's kind of like The Interrupter, but more useful. You're supposed to use it to search with less typing, but I think it's useful for other stuff. Like this: "The murderer is" gives one result: "The murderer is my wife". Uh Oh.

I also wrote some poetry with the help of suggest. I wrote the title, and google wrote the poem. I love google. I hate poetry.

Fatty Fat
fatty fatty
fatty fatty two by four
fatty fatty boom boom
fatty fat fat
fatty fatty mcfatpants
fatty fatty bum bum
fatty fat fat fat
fatty fatty fat fat
fatty fatty 2x4
fatty fatty 2 by 4

Where can
where can i buy a wii
where can i buy a nintendo wii
where can i get a wii
where can i find a wii
where can i buy nintendo wii
where can i get a nintendo wii
where can i buy wii
where can i find a nintendo wii
where can i buy a ps3
where can i buy the wii

My Brother is
my brother is a soldier
my brother is a marine
my brother is dead
my brother is stupid
my brother is a dog
my brother is a quarterback
my brother is an asshole
my brother is annoying
my brother is getting married

My Husband D
my husband doesnt love me
my husbank doesnt love me anymore
my husband doesnt talk to me
my husbank doesnt work
my husband doesnt appreciate me
my husband doesnt want kids
my husband doesnt want me
my husband drinks too much
my husband died

God An
god and goddesses
god and goddess
god and science
god and jesus
god and devil show
god and the devil are raging inside me
god and me
god and country
god and marriage
good and evil

Friday, January 12, 2007

Password as mantra

I had a coworker, let's call him 'Michael' (that was his name) who disliked another coworker 'Ted' (the other guy's name). Michael's password was "killted". It must have been cathartic to type "killted" multiple times a day, every day, for months. I wondered if that was a cause or effect of Michael's mean spiritedness.

Your password is a kind of mantra, one that you type rather than say over and over. I tried changing my password to a more life-affirming one.

There is a benefit of an angry password. When someone wants to use your account this happens:

  • sloppy fat jerk: What's your password?
  • you: Just type "I'm a sloppy fat jerk"
If they're not willing to type it, they can't use your computer, jerk.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Survey time

Can someone out there help? I can't decide which one of these is more erotic. They sure look good together.


Tuesday, January 09, 2007

consumer electronics recapitulate video game history

It's time to finally write down my theory from at least 10 years ago when I noticed how excited people were to play simple games such as hangman on the web when 8-bit computers like the Apple ][ did it over a decade earlier. The theory in a nutshell is:

As a technology develops the games it can play retraces the history of video games

It's either profound or obvious. There are some exceptions to the rule- most notably Tetris which seems to belong in the late 1970's but debuted in 1985. Plus, of course, some devices are better at certain types of games than others.

So where are we in 2007? People are playing early 1990's games in flash. We can now play Doom (1993) on digital cameras, PDAs, and MP3 players but not without a lot of hacking. These are often linux squeezed onto a consumer electronics device that runs a linux version of Doom. I'm not sure if I should count this kind of hackery.

Speaking of MP3 players, I recently bought my wife a brand new state-of-the-art Apple ipod nano. It comes with four games - two are arcade games: Arrow (a game like Hustle from 1977) and Breakout ( like Breakout from 1976 but not as sophisticated as Super Breakout from 1977). The other two games are a quiz game and solitaire. Videogame versions of those are from the mid 80's at the latest.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Hume Videos

In the forward to a Nancy compilation I have, Ernie Bushmiller's comics are referred to as "hume" ( as in "there's hume, humor, and humest"). No one laughs out loud at Nancy. Here's some "hume" videos: Donald Rumsfeld being silly, a schoolbus driver yukking it up, kids throwing ping-pong balls around and a crazy Japanese Pac-Man reenactment.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

True this

What's your favorite 100-year old comic strip? Mine is The Outbursts of Everett True. It's a two-panel strip. Mr. True gets irritated in panel one and beats the crap out of the object of his irritation in panel 2. Really, what more do you need? More info here, but the first link is all you really need.