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Talking to the Kids in Their Language

LOL or WTF

When I was young, I used to cringe when adults made clumsy, if well-intentioned, attempts to speak in what they thought was “youthful slang” in order to make a connection with us.

Now that I’m one of those adults, I can’t tell for sure whether the message in this poster (which I saw in the Toronto subway yesterday) comes across to today’s net/text-speaking youth as clever or clumsy. I’m torn – should my reaction be LOL or WTF?

(And is it me, or does the expression on the guy’s face say BRB?)

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

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Health (and Sex!) Tips for Programmers

comic_book_guy_with_laptop

My friend Andrew Burke has written a blog post on staying healthy as a programmer. It’s not easy given the sedentary nature of the job. Check out his advice, which is pretty sound – but make sure you actually do something about it!

The title of Andrew’s post, Health Tips for Programmers, is somewhat reminiscent of this gem that’s been floating about “The Internets” for years: Sex Tips for Geeks, written by none other than Eric S. Raymond. See if you can read the chapter titled On Being Good in Bed without having this internal monologue:

Must…fight…mental image…of ESR…doing it…”

AIEEEEEE! Mental image winning! Mental image winning!”

I can’t.