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Can you do an 'obligatory UserFriendly' around here or is it just for XKCD?

Nice link. :) and that works for me...

Can you do an 'obligatory UserFriendly' around here or is it just for XKCD?

Yes, complete agree here. The dancing was terrible. The lyrics were lame. The one thing it was NOT was raunchy (m-w: obscene, smutty), in the same way that yelling "penis" (or "vagina") is neither explicit nor sexual in every context. Sometimes it just indicates that something is wrong with you. Not to mention the hilarity in the thinking which led someone somewhere to believe that adding "or vagina" made it inclusive, and someone else to approve it!
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20120604&mode=classic

VHS is better than DVD

Living Fossils: Old Tech That Just Won't Die

Is there anyone else who read this headline and thought it that it referred to some old dude?

Perry Bible Fellowship, even though PBF is a pretty much a ripoff of ["The Parking Lot is Full"]. Still, it ripped off the best, so it gets an honorable mention.

Are you actually serious, or have I just been trolled? I clicked the link, and they're nothing like each other in terms of humour or format (even allowing for the different artwork styles).

That "Ghastly's Ghastly Comic" one you linked to was actually pretty funny (if very NSFW)...

I actually noticed- and was pleased to see- that no-one had mentioned the once-geek-favourite "User Friendly" yet (until I opened my big mouth just then). As I once said elsewhere...

Aside from its "moderately-promising 14-year-old still showing too much influence from the Teach-Yourself-Cartooning book" drawing style, User Friendly has always relied on its geek-friendly subject matter and viewpoints to flatter the audience and obscure the fact that it's neither creative nor funny.

Here's a good example.

There's nothing creative about this. The "news" was a real-life item reported in many tech outlets about a year back [i.e. 2008]. The strip itself is just a lazy [and badly drawn] excuse to let the audience laugh again at that story- it adds nothing to it except an audience-pandering but uncreative aside."

Frankly, I'm guessing that User Friendly got popular because it came out at a time when web comics weren't ten-a-penny and was targeted towards (and pandered to) a geek audience at a time when this was still a novelty. If it had come out later, it would have been seen for what it is- mediocrely-drawn, and not actually that funny, clever or insightful in itself... and perhaps that's what happened?

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070805

userfriendly 8 Dec 2010

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20101208

this:
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20111002

start from the beginning

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19971117&mode=classic

Been done.

Didn't work.

Been done.

Didn't work.

Been done.

Didn't work.

http://chzautocowrecks.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/selfdestruct.gif

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010320&mode=classic (story arc starts here)

http://chzautocowrecks.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/selfdestruct.gif

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010320&mode=classic (story arc starts here)

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20020428

The newly named service includes video games, so "flix" would be a bad choice.

Game, movie, what is difference?

I hold the patent on the process of filing for a patent.

I take off my wizard's hat and put on my giant foam helmet.

Come on, people. UF FTW.

Captcha: "toying"

Userfriendly called it Movie-OS a decade ago.

Cod am pizza ship

The Strip.

Amazon saying a legal reservation on a idea is too generic is kind of like the pot calling the kettle black. I seem to remember that Amazon patented everything they came up with for a long period, and most of that was so obvious no one else would have considered patenting it. UserFriendly covered that a long time ago.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20110304&mode=classic.

Ask, and ye shall receive.

Userfriendly.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010320

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080424

Indeed there is, at UserFriendly.org

Userfriendly.com comic from Aug 7, 1999

Pitr: Am wonderink what is this email

Email: This is not unsolicited bulk email. Buy me. Blah blah blah
...

Pitr: Zlotniks! Sending me spam! Am fixink their leetle red wagon!
...

Boss: What happened to our email server?

Worker: It's flooded. And there's an email here that says "This is not a denial of service attack."

Ah, but when you NEED that piece, it could be priceless! http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010728&mode=classic

Obligatory.

Just to round it out.

I would assume that MS would be off the table, given that Larry Ellison is trying to be Bill Gates.

Wow.. then this cartoon is a gross distortion of the facts, I guess :-)

User Friendly has the answer.

Meanwhile, HTML5 is an open standard meaning that everyone is free to implement it, including opensource implementations like Webkit and Gecko, and closed source like Opera's Presto and... huh... well... maybe IE's engine. Some day. Eventually.

Except they cant even decide on a video codec, let alone other standards.

HTML is unfinished and Apple has already decided to implement a non-standard version of HTML 5.

You know what ? So are HTML5 / CSS / JavaScript.

Across multiple OS's, CPU Arch's and browsers.
Flash: Code once, work everywhere.
HTML5: Code several times for compatibility, someone ends up using a browser that is not compatible.

And is a total joke.

Content protection that appeals to content producers, yet is a complete joke. You see this as a bad thing(TM).

Truly your hate/fanboyism has blinded you.

Flash remains popular with online advertisers.

Sorry ? And that's a good argument how ?

Because it's easy to block. Flash is just a conduit here, not the motivation. If flash dies do you honestly think that advertisers will give up on annoying ads without Flash? Perhaps they'll just find a new means of delivering punch the monkey ads, perhaps over HTML5. Point in case.

So the only good arguments in favor of Flash are :

- Enormous amount of content already in flash (why should they pay to have it changed because Steve says flash is the devil).
- Excellent tools to develop in.
- Excellent tools to develop in (this really is worth mentioning twice).
- It's already here, no waiting for IEEE to finish the spec or for Apple/MS to finish twisting it into something unusable.
- Apple or MS cant be "selective" about which functions they enable on their browsers.
- One application is consistent on all platforms, all browsers and all processor architectures.
- Already has all the funtionality HTML promises.

Sorry but your rant is utter bollocks. Nice work in leaving out the most important things that have made flash popular, the fact that it's here and is consistent on all platforms.

Been there, done that

Actually, it suggests ...

About that conversation:
He who accepts advice from people who write 'r' instead of 'are' and 'u' instead of 'you' deserves their time wasted.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20041201

Well, it has been pronounced "six", but only as a joke.

Obligatory UF

I actually enjoy truly funny geek humour like this, XKCD has grown up around this concept of "If you like it then you're a cool dude" whereas in reality, as stated previously, it's badly drawn and not very funny.

Obligatory UF reference

Your use of the word "nominal" reminds me of this. The word "nominal" always left a foul taste in my mouth; it's like asking someone to give "only" some recurring amount. Aggregate that over a half-dozen someone's, and that recurring amount stacks up.

Let's say that the OP tries his hands at a few dozen businesses during his life. For every one of those domains, he's stuck with another recurring fee to manage. Even if the individual fee is low, it adds up.

Actually, kinda reminds me of the crap I cleaned off my hard drive this afternoon; tiny files can still fill up a drive, if you have enough of them.

My God. Clippy? Is that you?

I thought I'd disabled you on Slashdot...

If not being able to use the latest shiny things is holding things back, then I say good. Why should I have to spend 2 grand on the latest and greatest hardware every 6 months just to play the latest fad game, when the computer I bought 2 or 3 years ago still serves perfectly well for everything else? Computers are expensive, and last I checked most of the world is dragging it's feet out of financial crisis. Additionally, we reached the 'good enough' mark a long time ago. Pushing the technical envelope for the sake of pushing has been an exercise of diminishing returns for a while now.

The Nintendo Wii in particular has proven a very important point. Hardware spec wise, it's a pile of crap. Yet it's also a wildly popular platform. Why? Affordability is a significant factor. Also it's because instead of focusing on massive polygon counts and 1600x antialiasing and whatnot other geewhizbang features, they make games that are enjoyable to play.

If I wanted high quality photorealistic graphics withe pixel perfect shading, etc, I can go outside. It's better than 1600x1200x32 bits out there.

Now get off my lawn!

"It's YOU. Y-O-U. Not *U*. U is a letter. YOU is a word."
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20041201

It's even perfect for online gaming sessions:

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010317

When your parent (godparent?) is trying to help hammer the stake deeper into your heart.

On a note for a similar funeral: http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070211

(Unfortunately posted by a zombie, would someone please talk to my IT people?)