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Switch Different
x180 writes "Those goofy hackers over at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in San Diego this week have, in a spate of fun, put together a series of Switch ad spoofs for the geeky ones. Writes Rael Dornfest in his blog, 'You've no doubt seen Apple's fabulous Switch campaign commercials. But what of the others? The geeky ones. The scripters. The sysadmins in their server cages. The command-line jockeys. Those through whom the source flows openly.' See the stories of hackers chucking Emacs in favor of Vi, leaving Perl to explore Python, and leaving the familiar home of Unix to play with XP." These, of course, aren't the only switch parodies. Their numbers are Legion.
We at the Phoenix News Service had a news story in a similar vein: PC Companies Counter "Real People" Campaign With "Real Porn Stars" Campaign
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-7- 12&res=l
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
http://www.benbrown.com/switch/. com/switch/
http://animoller
http://www.ubergeek.tv/switchback/
Okay, that was just sad watching those videos. I want to praise them and call them geeks, but honestly, they looked more like DORKS in the video. 2 thumbs down man.
I propose linuxadvertising.org :)
we could take donations from the community and make our own commercials. One could be about schools that made the switch to linux in fear of M$ audits and such. Ive always scoffed when people start talking about linux hasent lived up to this and isnt ready for that because linux is not a company but a little self promotion doesnt hurt
Here's one about Apple Gamers, it's pretty funny.
http://www.drunkgamers.com/switch0001.shtml
...that all the movies on the site are in Quicktime, no?
Parody is a protected form of speech. Get legal advice, but most likely the cease and desist letters don't have much legal footing. From the Chilling Effects website:
Even though the Constitution guarantees freedom of expression, trademark and copyright owners have rights, that may or may not be violated by the name or content of a web site you have dedicated to protest, criticism or parody.
Question: What is "parody"?
Answer: The courts have defined the word parody in the context of an Internet site. Here's what some of the cases have to say: A "parody" is a "simple form of entertainment conveyed by juxtaposing the irreverent representation of the trademark with the idealized image created by the mark's owner." A parody must "convey two simultaneous--and contradictory--messages: that it is the original, but also that it is not the original and is instead a parody. To the extent that an alleged parody conveys only the first message, "it is...vulnerable under trademark law, since the customer will be confused." While a parody necessarily must engender some intial confusion, an effective parody will diminish the risk of consumer confusion "by conveying [only] just enough of the original design to allow the consumer to appreciate the point of parody."
#include
The ultimate "Switch" parody has to be this one - one by Billy G. himself!
I took the time to type up the scripts because I thought they were funny. If you can download the videos, it's worth the wait and pain of using quicktime.
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So when I started using linux, all the people were talking about was emacs. You know emacs, emacs, emacs!
It does everything. I'd type in emacs, and I'd wait for it to load. I'd wait a really long time.
And I mean, my pinky started to hurt. You know the ctrl-alt-meta-escape thing.
So eventually my system administrator suggested that I try vi, so that other people could log into the machine.
So, I tried out vi, and it was really fast, and it was really good, and I loved it.
And my pinky stopped hurting. -- holds up hands, spells out VI -- Vee Eye
vi/switch
Chris DiBona, and I'm an editor for Slashdot.
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I've been using python for years, to pretty much everything.
And life was pretty good. And then my space bar broke... and then my tab key broke...
So then I couldn't use Python anymore. So I had to switch programming languages.
I work with Geeslin, Young, and Serrati. SO I picked perl, it seemed pretty natural. In fact, perl seemed natural.
I mean, it did pretty much what I ment all of the time. Even if I didn't know what I ment.
I mean, I get to macho code. I have job security, and I get to use all the keys on my keyboard... It's nice.
perl.com/switch
Hi, I'm David Asher, and I'm a developer for active state.
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You know, I never thought that I would make the switch but,
I've heard it was something that people did, and it was something that I wanted to try out.
There's so much more room to grow, everything runs so much cooler, and I find it so much more intuitive.
I have the freedom that I've always sort of wanted, and it fits my life sytle, just better... and I love it, I love it.
boxers/switch
Hi, my name is Ken Willaims, and I wear boxers.
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Ahh... white space... Ohhh
Byte code... byte code! I mean, it actually compiles to byte code.
Guido van Rossen is just so much cooler then Larry.
Larry Wall, what's that? 5.. 4.. 9 letters.
Guido van Rossen, I mean, that's definately into the double digits.
I mean, he's even longer than Larry. Wall, what kind of name is Wall? Now Rossen, that's a name!
-- turns around and begins talking with his ass cheeks --
This is my ass! My ass likes Python!
-- ass talking -- Hahahahar, python good! nanannanananaaaa
-- turns back around --
Ohh, and then there's all the cool Monty Python jokes. Because I love monty python so-oo much.
I mean, that dead knight guy who wouldn't die. Ohh... that kills me every time.
I'm so sick of camels... what is it with camels? Camels in the desert, oasis...
Yawn, yawn, yawn! I want a sexy, sleek... phallic?! Wait... excuse me.
python.org/switch
Nat Torkington, pron star
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So my dad had this linux box that I used to use for programming assignments.
I just like hacked all night using vi, gcc, perl, you know all that stuff.
Window managers... desktop managers... editors...
You had to be like a computer scientists, just to like even pick something.
And that's why I switched to Windows XP.
I mean, it's sooo much simpler. All my decisions have been made for me.
There are only 3 color schemes to choose from!
And really, if I want to pick colors, I'm going to paint my toe.
You know, all that glittery stuff... glow in the dark...
I mean there are just so many shades of pink.
So right, XP, simple... it's easy for a girl to grok... or something.
Sure, it crashes now and thing, but you know, you just push the, you know, button thinggy.
I mean, you know the one, the button thingy.
xp/switch.
I'm Sarah Burcham, blog news
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Yeah, it's an ISO standard. 'Legion' equates to a quantity of 3520. 'Multitudinous' is 1579, 'numerous' a mere 89, and 'sundry' is 567 everywhere except the US (where we think it's 543. it's even worse than our adherence to the imperial measuring system). I hear they'll be quantifying 'myriad', 'voluminous', and 'uncounted' next year. 'Flock', unfortunately, was a fiasco after that incident with the bird-watchers in Paris and the official decision has been put off till 2008.
Dyolf Knip
An article on Yahoo News today about Northgate's new "challenge" to Apple with their all-in-one computer/home multimedia machine (Personally, I think it looks sort of a combo iMac/eMac ... an eiMac) was the latest example to my mind.
Flat screens were unusual and esoteric. Apple makes them defacto with the iMac; now they are expected, necessary. MP3 players externally were the size of walkmen (and internally not much better then zip disks), connected via USB (if you were lucky) and were incredibly kludgy. Out comes the iPod; everyone is racing to remake/top them.
I remember when the beige computer makers tried to reinvent their products with translucent plastic as if that was the key to the original iMac/G3s. I remember how desperate and sad Windows 1 - 3.1 were in their attempts to approach the simple elegance of the Mac OS. I remember how many Gnome/KDE Aqua themes were floating about (and still are, slightly under the radar) after OS X was unveiled.
My point: however much Linux drives the geek masses forward in their open source quest, Apple is the internalized mental image that a majority of people hold when they think of the next step in computing. Not just civilians: examine the Aqua themed page that you're reading right now.
(For every "too damn expensive, one button mouse" geek dismisser, I wonder how many are willing to admit that they drool at night at the thought of owning a TI Powerbook, and wish they could have back all the months it took them to try and configure their window manager to approach the functionality of Aqua out of the box).
chrisd is posting it, and he is featured in one of the "funny" switch ads. how cute.
The middle mind speaks!
Another parody, combining 'switch' and the '.mac' debacle...
Yeah, I know it's a self-link, but.. well... mod me down if it's not funny.
Kevin Fox