A recent comment to this article in Coding Horror reminded me of the joke about XML:
“It has been said that XML is like violence; if a little doesn’t solve the problem, use more.”
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Tag: Funny
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Facebook for Old People
The new job (I’ve been here less than four weeks) involves developing social networking software that has been customized for specific groups, organizations and associations, so naturally software of that ilk catches my attention. Here’s a cute parody of Facebook that appears on Straight from my Brain: Pensionbook!
Click the image to see it at full size.
[Found via Jen Vetterli.]
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The Star Wars Holiday Special
So Bad, Even George Lucas Wants Nothing to Do With It!
Even as an eleven-year-old back in 1978, I knew as soon as voice-over went…
with special guest stars…Beatrice Arthur! Art Carney! Diahann Carroll! The Jefferson Starship! Harvey Korman!
…that something was about to go terribly, terribly wrong with the Star Wars Holiday Special, a show so terribly bad that even George “I’m no longer qualified to tell good from bad” Lucas has disavowed any involvement with it, no matter how minor.
Now, thanks to the miracle of Google Video, you too can enjoy the so-bad-it’s-goodness of the Star Wars Holiday Special, either in the tiny window below or on its Google Video page at a larger size. After watching it, Episode I: The Phantom Menace seems like The Godfather in comparison. At least Phantom Menace had the decency to not include a scene featuring Bea Arthur doing a Broadway number and dancing with Greedo.
Click here to watch a larger version.
The Five-Minute Version
If you can’t bear to watch all two soul-crushing hours of the Star Wars Holiday Special, you’re in luck: some kind sould has created an edit that sums it up nicely in five minutes. It spares you a lot of painfully bad wookie pantomime…
Click here to see the video on its YouTube page.
Links
- Wikipedia page for the Star Wars Holiday Special
- Stomp Tokyo’s review: “Like so many of the films we end up watching, The Star Wars Holiday Special is a curiosity best left to extremely hard-core fans and to the corners of history. No matter how appealing it sounds to begin with, we guarantee this viewing experience can bring you little but pain. Fast forward to the animated sequence (let the Force be your guide) and turn the VCR off immediately after it ends. Trust in these words: you’ll hate the rest of the special, and hate leads to the Dark Side.”
- BadMovies.org: “Arrrrggghhhhh! Why am I watching this?”
- i-Mockery.com: “I don’t care how many public claims he’s made about wanting this holiday special wiped off the face of the planet, I still have a hunch that George Lucas watches it every night, masturbating furiously as he cackles like a madman. Oh you knew what you were doing Georgie boy… and just because you made sure your name didn’t appear in the credits doesn’t mean you’re not still responsible for it. Come on George! It’s time for you to let the world see that twisted stepson known as “The Star Wars Holiday Special” whom you’ve had locked in the attic all these years. After all, if you can show the world “The Phantom Menace” with no shame, I see no reason why you can’t give this special the same treatment.”
- The Unknown Movies: “Though I was really pained by many moments of this terrible special, I must admit that several hours later I found myself laughing out loud, remembering some especially horrible moments. As I write this, it is 24 hours since I’ve seen the special, and I am still laughing out loud at times as I write, even remembering some of the material that while watching almost made me scream in agony. So I guess in an indirect way, I did get some entertainment value out of it.”
- OhTheHumanity.com: “If you want to beautiful childhood memories to disappear, if you want to brag about how much Star Wars stinks and this shows it, if you want to take your mind off how happy your life is and want to wallow in misery for a couple of hours, please see this. Hell, please see it anyway, if you can find a bootleg, because it’s probably the most messed up thing you could ever watch around the holidays other than your aunt hit on your older brother. I’ll be washing this movie off me for weeks.”
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“Bioshock” Meets a Shopping Cart
I love this Photoshop job in which Rapture (the setting of the game BioShock) propaganda replaces the standard “Do not leave child unattended” message on grocery shopping carts:
The line is derived from the philosophy of game character Andrew Ryan (whose name and backstory are rearrangements of Ayn Rand). You hear it in an in-game recording in Ryan’s own voice:
I am Andrew Ryan, and I’m here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
No, says the man in Washington. It belongs to the poor.
No, says the man in the Vatican. It belongs to God.
No, says the man in Moscow. It belongs to everyone.
I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible.
I chose…Rapture.
A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.
If you’re looking for a gift for someone with an XBox 360 or a PC with enough horsepower to play modern first-person shooter games, you might want to consider BioShock as a gift. It’s an excellent game that blends gaming action with a very rich backstory — quite possibly the richest since Myst. Better still, it’s can be finished in an amount of time that still lets you have a life: at the “easy” level, I finished it in a about a week, playing a couple of hours a day, and I’m a relatively casual gamer.
Links
- 2KGames’ official BioShock page
- BioShock’s Wikipedia entry
- Bioshock review in MetaCritic (where it’s the highest-rated game in the XBox 360 section)
- SomethingAwful’s review of BioShock, complete with SomethingAwful’s trademark irreverence
- The Escapists’s video review of BioShock (worth watching!)
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Pythagorean Pick-Up [Updated]
Don’t you wish stuff like this actually happened?
Click the comic to see it on its original page.
Comic courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
You get bonus bragging rights if you spotted the missing precondition.
Click the screenshot to see the article Review: Windows XP
From the blog Coding Sanity (whose subtitle is “.NET, pragmatism and geek cachet”) comes the review titled Review: Windows XP…
I have finally decided to take the plunge. Last night I upgraded my Vista desktop machine to Windows XP, and this afternoon I will be doing the same to my laptop.
You can read the whole review about the experience of upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows XP here. The review concludes with this:
To be honest there is only one conclusion to be made; Microsoft have really outdone themselves in delivering a brand new operating system that really excels in all the areas where Vista was sub-optimal. From my testing, discussions with friends and colleagues, and a review of the material out there on the web there seems to be no doubt whatsoever that that upgrade to XP is well worth the money. Microsoft can really pat themselves on the back for a job well done, delivering an operating system which is much faster and far more reliable than its predecessor. Anyone who thinks there are problems in the Microsoft Windows team need only point to this fantastic release and scoff loudly.
And Now, a Word on Vista’s Behalf…
Here’s Chris Pirillo delivering a very stirring defense of Windows Vista. Enjoy!
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Here Comes Another Bubble
Here Comes Another Bubble, which my fellow TSOT developer Adam showed me, is a song about the current “Web 2.0” bubble set to the tune of Billy Joel’s “laundry list” song about world events that took place during his lifetime, We Didn’t Start the Fire. Here’s the video for the song — I like the infographic that shows that Facebook’s valuation ($15 billion) is really close to that of the Ford Motor Company ($16.8 billion):