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I'm looking over these posts here, and good lord. Y'all are so naive. Haven't any of you ever lived in the Real World?

Ok, lets try looking at another case. A simple example, stretched just a bit to illuminate the obvious.

You're running Playboy.com. You have an extensive network infrastructure, multiple OC3 pipes, terabytes of data, round the clock support staff, unlimited rice pudding, etc etc.

I'm running NakedBoobies.com. My site has less than 10k of static HTML served by an obsolete version of Apache running on a 486 off my cable modem.

Most of my website consists of the lines: <img src="http://playboy.com/...

I'm making money hand over fist through my advertising links.

Now, do you want to call me and discuss this like civilized people?

Because I can guarantee you that, as long as I'm making a profit, I can drag this out pretty much indefinitely. "Gee, I'm sorry, the person you need to reach is traveling right now. Why don't I try and page him for you -- Is there number where we can call you back?"

Do you want to instigate legal action?

The courts are worse. With a cheap shyster I can drag that out for a damn long time.

And if I eventually lose, if you don't settle out-of-court just to get me to stop stalling, well does anyone here really want to see deep-linking become illegal?

Do you want to come to some sort of financial arrangement with me?

Ohhhh. There's gotta be a million ways to spike that. In the aforementioned Fuddruckers/briggster scenario, a quiet call to the right legal departments will get them involved, extending negotiations for years. Legal fees will take care of any profits that might have been had. (In the real world, legal departments aren't real concerned unless (1) rights would expire or (2) there's money changing hands.)

Face it: The technological solution is rude, crass, optimal, quick, and effective. When you are dealing with corporate weasels, this is how you make things happen.

A handful of people will see mildly offensive materials. That's the price you pay.

The redirection choice here was quite reasonable. The sites involved would appreciate traffic from Fuddruckers (or any other hamburger chain).

Porn, the frequent choice in these situations, would have been a poor choice given the potential for viewing by children, and the ridiculous children/porn position held by so many of the room temperature IQ crowd in the states.

Yes I'm anonymous. Live with it.

We don't NEED IBM to use OS/2

• Sluggy
• Ubersoft
• Absurd Notions (notorious for irregular updates, but well worth it if you can tolerate that.)
• Ozy and Millie
• Irregular Web Comic

• Ornery Boy
  
• Ubersoft
  
• Men In Hats

Decent hardware (Mice)

Excel (The spreadsheet, that is)

Providing competition for the free operative systems.

Providing inspiration for http://ubersoft.net/, among others.

It looks like you're trying to replace the CEO of Opera with a small shell script. Would you like some help with that, Skipper?

Ref: Binky

helpdesk the funniest parody webcomic of microsoft. EVAR.

I suppose this apostrophecolon article is old news by now. Still, your post reminded me of it.

That ego is being worked on.

http://ubersoft.net/features/apostrophecolon/index .html

http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20030417.html

And Qt is evil because ...
...Trolltech still hasn't grovelled before the feet of Richard M. Stallman.

If it's not Scottish^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Linux, it's CRAP.

When will this day end? In about 30 minutes.

At least, as practiced by Ubersoft.

You decide!

To quote the ubersoft.net webcomic:

paraphrased summary of the comic:
-"I want to ask why you remove beloved feature XYZ"
-"We don't support it anymore"
-"Was it buggy?"
-"No we just don't support it anymore"
-"But it worked fine!"
*embarassed silence*
-"That's why you removed feature XYZ isn't it?"
-"Thank you for calling ubersoft tech support"
linkfor the curious.

Not sure about their other hardware, but it seems my Microsoft mouse works just fine, it works too well in fact, I don't notice it's Microsoft, and I have little to no brand-awareness(I picked it because it worked, without any drivers but what came with the oses I use, I also resist downloading any "custom" drivers that would make my Microsoft experience more Microsoft-y). Maybe that's why? Could it be that they tried to use their routers to increase sales/free(for now) use of some other Microsoft product/service and were disappointed by the result? (MSN perhaps?)

Well, I don't know what Amiga is but according to this slashdot parody it has something to do with linux...

"It seems like you're trying to exploit a security hole. Would you like help?"

Whoa! Deja Vu!

It's almost echoing this recent thread in the Kernel Panic strip.

"It seems like you're trying to exploit a security hole. Would you like help?"

Whoa! Deja Vu!

It's almost echoing this recent thread in the Kernel Panic strip.

Well, I think it should be Lindoze.

After all, to challenge this, MS would have to acknowledge the widely-used "Windoze" mispeling of their trademark name.

Of course, there's always Mike Rowe to think of. And there's a nice parody of it all at www.ubersoft.net.

With any luck, he'll be out partying tonight, getting smashed. Then he comes home completely toasted, and has to rebuild the server from the pile of smoke he finds in his server closet.

Hell is working on MS stuff drunk and plasted. You'll never know what will happen [read the comics through to the end]

The whole article actually reminded me of Chris Wright's.NIT story arc

The whole article actually reminded me of Chris Wright's.NIT story arc

Illiad is still in the top 10 tech comics, IMHO.

Sheeit... I don't think I know 10 tech comics. Can you recomend a couple?

As for cartoons, Userfriendly is nice, tho not laugh out loud funny. There are only so many jokes about tech support before it gets too repetitive. It usually feels like the cartoon version of slashdot articles.

Ubersoft has the right idea. Makes fun promarily of the company we love to hate, but spares no punches when poking fun at itself.

I don't think that the real pirates like it either

http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20030923.html
http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20030929.html
http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20031001.html
http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20031002.html

I don't think that the real pirates like it either

http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20030923.html
http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20030929.html
http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20031001.html
http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20031002.html

I don't think that the real pirates like it either

http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20030923.html
http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20030929.html
http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20031001.html
http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20031002.html

I don't think that the real pirates like it either

http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20030923.html
http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20030929.html
http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20031001.html
http://www.ubersoft.net/d/20031002.html

Exactly The Wrong Kind Of Pirate

Explain Microsoft again to me then?

Unholy business practice? (I'm only half joking)

Bottled water?

Snobbery? Plus, the tap water at some locations is simply a no-go. Blame it on the local purification authorities or the pipes or whatever. The fact that bottled water is more expensive that a can of coke, however, always baffled me. Do the really ship it from some mountain in Switzerland or wherever?

93 Octane gasoline?

You got me there. I always use 91, since I didn't see a performance difference.

Mark: But TRUST ME when I say "game has a tendency to take down the Northeast US Power Grid, as well as parts of Canada's" qualifies as SUITABLY CATASTROPHIC.
Phil: Fine, I'll make a patch.

Mark: But TRUST ME when I say "game has a tendency to take down the Northeast US Power Grid, as well as parts of Canada's" qualifies as SUITABLY CATASTROPHIC.
Phil: Fine, I'll make a patch.

Mark: But TRUST ME when I say "game has a tendency to take down the Northeast US Power Grid, as well as parts of Canada's" qualifies as SUITABLY CATASTROPHIC.
Phil: Fine, I'll make a patch.

August 12th 2003

August 14th, 2003

In that context, I think this qualifies as a really bad bug. [smile]

Ubersoft is a reasonable decent satire of MS, of course.

August 12th 2003

August 14th, 2003

In that context, I think this qualifies as a really bad bug. [smile]

Ubersoft is a reasonable decent satire of MS, of course.

August 12th 2003

August 14th, 2003

In that context, I think this qualifies as a really bad bug. [smile]

Ubersoft is a reasonable decent satire of MS, of course.

Oh really? I bet you would apply that same logic if it was up to Microsoft to try patent this idea ...

I was kinda referring to the claim that Apple never uses their patents. Such a claim was not made about Microsoft.

I should have added, a defensive patent is also used so that if an evil company did sue Apple for something, Apple could find something in their patent arsenal that the evil company was infringing on, and threaten to countersue the evil company, until some sort of licensing agreement could be reached - threat to Apple averted.

Relevant comic

Well, hobbyists, for one. OS/2 has what looks to me like a very small but hardcore following. Obviously, it being non-free makes it much less interesting for the general geek population to try out, but supposing you got hooked back when OS/2 was a contender, eComStation must be a godsend. I know Chris Wright seemed euphoric back when it first came out.

For more information, check out this Ubersoft thread.

Make sure your staff don't share any similarities with this help desk.

Several years ago, some online comic artists banded together and formed Keenspot (and its sibling network Keenspace). Hosting, forums, artist control of whether pop-up ads (vs. only banner ads) appear for any given comic, optional subscriptions for ad-free reading; good stuff.

Among my favorites there: General Protection Fault, Help Desk, It's Walky (formerly Roomies), Lost and Found, Real Life, and Schlock Mercenary.

There's also a list of comics using png.

See here for details.

A comic to make you think.

While I understand that Opensource is a driving factor behind this site, the title is still "Slashdot : News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". I move to have this changed to "Slashdot: News for biased Linux nazis, stuff that doesn't matter".

I think you want Apostrophecolon

Hmmmmm ... wonder how long it'll be before THIS lawsuit happens??

Microsoft isn't keeping up with their web comics.

He sounds just like Binky, the Office Assistant, as shown in one of my favourite cartoons of all time

Can it be true that some people actually ... gulp ... like ... him?

When I first saw him, I felt gripped by fear, fear that "The Paperclip Spy", as I called him, would be sending my deathless prose to Redmond for analysis. I knew that was an irrational thought, since they could send my stuff to Redmond even without a paperclip, but ... you get the idea.

(Come to think of it, our otherwise very nice and sane accounting lady loves her cat version).

D

...rename Lindows to Nifty Doorways.

2) The support mechanism for the site (products advertised, etc) have to be valuable enough that people will go for these as well.

Maintaining the character of a site, breathing life into it so that it is constantly alive, is WORK. Some folks burn out on this faster than others.

An example of this are sites like ubersoft, a comic strip which is decent, often excellent, but where the author sometime falls behind due to distractions or other details, or the well runs dry for a day or two.

In a website like slash, the number of stories submitted, comments posted daily typically is something like one percent of the active users that day. It also depends on the events of the day, etc. A very crude measure to be sure. of course, you can have someone just pumping out stories for a year or two, But you better have an edge, like spinsanity does, being located in DC, etc.