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When “We Remove Vista” Becomes a Selling Point

Here’s a sign displayed in the window of A&D Computer in Milford, New Hampshire:

Sign in a Seattle computer store window: “We remove Vista / We install XP”

Here’s the relevant excerpt from Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog:

Shop manager Aaron Kaplan said they were prompted to put it up because so many people were having problems with Windows Vista, including compatibility issues with older software and trouble adjusting to the interface.

“A lot of people didn’t like using Vista, and a lot of the manufacturers forced people to go up to Vista,” he said.

What was the demand for the service? “We had a lot of people coming in and asking about it,” Kaplan said. “Of all the signs we put up there the last two years, at least, we probably got the most response out of that one. A lot of people coming in.”

Kaplan said they’ve since replaced it with a different message, but they’re thinking about putting the Vista removal message back up.

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“Mommy, Why is There a Server in the House?”

Cover of “Mommy, Why is There a Server in the House?”
And while we’re at it, why is Mommy taking off her shirt in front of the webcam?


This promotion for Windows Home Server
is done up in the style of “Mommy, Where Do I Come From?” childrens’ books, and it is high-larious. Gizomodo’s got scans of the entire book — check ’em out!

Page from the book: “When a mommy and daddy love each other very much, the daddy wants to give the mommy a special gift.”
Ooh! Daddy’s going to Mommy a server! Watch for the follow up book, Why is Daddy Sleeping on the Couch?

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Warren Ellis’ Three Laws of Robotics

Move over, Asimov! Warren Ellis, master of the “decompressed” style of storytelling in comic books, has come up with his own Three Laws of Robotics.

I like the second law: “Robots do not want to have sex with you. Are you listening, Japan?”

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What the Perl 6 and Parrot Hackers Did on their Christmas Vacation

My favourite line from the O’Reilly OnLAMP.com article What the Perl 6 and Parrot Hackers Did on their Christmas Vacation: “A running joke in the Perl 6 world is that we’ll release a stable Perl 6.0.0 by Christmas. We just won’t tell you which Christmas.”

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2008 is the “Year of RSS”…for the 5th Year in a Row

“I Want to Believe” poster with RSS icon in place of the flying saucer.

Back in late 2006, I wrote an article about how they’ve been predicting that for the fourth year in a row, someone has declared that “this is the year RSS will be big!”.

I also wrote:

Perhaps I should start a betting pool on when the pundits will stop predicting that RSS will go mainstream next year. I’ll put money down on 2009. Any takers?

I’m glad I didn’t put money down on 2008, as someone has declared 2008 as the “Year of RSS”. Yes, it was a blog called Enterprise RSS, but still…

I think that “The Year of RSS” is turning into “The Rapture” — always imminent, but never actually coming to pass.

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2008 Batman, Meet 1966 Batman

The Adam West Batman, hurling his batarang

In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the latest trailer for The Dark Knight, the upcoming Batman movie with Christian Bale in the title role and Heath Ledger as the Joker:

Better still, here’s a trailer that mashes up the audio from the trailer above with scenes from the 1966 Batman movie, in which Adam West plays the title role. It’s camp-licious!

Links

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“Now, While Rails is Weak, We Must Strike!”

Rebel pilot briefing from “Star Wars: A New Hope”, with some Rails-specific changes made to the display of the Death Star

If you’ve been following the usual programmer and tech new sites, you’ve probably read (or at least heard of) Zed Shaw’s rant, titled Rails is a Ghetto. If you haven’t read it yet, go there now, give it a quick read and come back. I can wait.

High-spirited stuff, isn’t it? As you might expect, there have been a number of interesting responses to Zed’s polemic, but only one made me laugh out loud — it’s this entry in Jesse Stay’s blog:

Ruby on Rails is weak right now, it’s breaking apart from the inside. Now is the time for the Perl community to show its strength and unite in an effort to make Perl once again the most used platform on the web!

Perhaps it’s time for Larry Wall to update his maxim about the great virtues of a programmer: it should now be laziness, impatience, hubris and revenge fantasies.