Slashdot Mirror
Dotcom Era Fads
prostoalex writes "Nostalgic USA Today looks at the fads of the dotcom boom era. The Dancing Baby, HamsterDance, I Kiss you dot org and the phrase 'All your base are belong to us' made the list."
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Toaplan creates the Zero Wing video game.
Toaplan releases a port for the Sega Genesis console with the addition of an intro scene, which is then translated into english (very poorly) and released in the United States.
Toaplan goes out of business.
Someone from a Zany Video Game Quotes website notices the poor translation, and highlights the game.
Overclocked.org does a humorous voiceover of the Zero Wing intro in a fake Wayne Newton voice.
Dozens of game-related messageboards begin to post quotes from the parody, and images altered to show the phrase.
Most of the threads lose interest and die off quickly as the trend is pronounced dead countless times.
The Flash movie/video is released with images from the threads and music taken from the origional game someone had added the phrase "all your base" to.
AYB explosively expands to the general (non game messageboard-reading) public.
The origional site for the video is shut down within hours due to excessive traffic, and moves to PlanetStarsiege.
Lycos ponders how "All your Base" was transformed from obscurity to a top 50 search practically overnight.
Mainstream media begin to notice the trend, and stories appear in Time Magazine, USA Today, Fox News, The Los Angeles Times, Tech TV, Wired, and many others.
As the 'remix' used in the video goes from 58 hits a day to several thousand per day, mp3.com notices the track has been ripped directly from the video game and pulls the music off their site due to copyright violations. It is later returned unchanged.
The trend continues to grow as it expands into nearly every corner of the web.
Large websites like Angelfire and Hewlett Packard sneak "all your base" references into their designs.
"All Your Base" is pronounced dead several times every day, yet it's 15 minutes of fame continue for some reason...
I don't remember that one, so I looked it up
http://www.funnyjunk.com/pages/mydog.htm
It's a shockwave file, and it's not bad. Not bad at all
-- james
Since nobody here seems to know the original source, I'd better chime in. The prank is from a Jerky Boys CD. Despite their stupid movie, those guys produced two (maybe more) hilarious CD's full of these types of calls. Even though the "why you kick my dog!" routine is funny, it isn't their best material. If you like the skit, I suggest you look into the full CD's. (I have no financial interest here; I'm simply a fan.)
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire
Wikipeda has a great collection of "Slashdotisms", which they categorize under "Slashdot Trolling Phenomena". They're all here (or if not all, then most): Natalie Portman, In Soviet Russia, Beowulf Clusters, etc. The Slashdot Effect has its own entry, too.
They forgot one other fad: Mr.T Ate My Balls (and original site). I have to admit, I never got that one.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
I guess I've been around too long in software development circles and don't see what the problem is. I've worked for a number of companies and we were always expected to work 5 days a week. Generally most of the companies I worked for had what we called "core hours" which were between the hours of 10AM and 4PM. These were the hours we're expected to be around for meetings etc. This also gives people the flexibility to come in from anywhere from 7:00AM to 10:00AM so long as we're around during core hours. I've never worked anyplace where people would take afternoons off during the work week.
I have worked for a few companies there had a schedule where people could work nine 9 hour days in a row which then allowed a person to every other Friday off. I've always put in alot of hours in my programming jobs over the year since it goes with this sort of job. We don't do death marches but the programmers I work with know if they're behind or not and if they need to work an extra day or two on the weekend sometimes to catch up they do it. I never saw any of this "slacker" behavior where just because someone put in some extra hours on some days earlier in the work week that they're now entitled to take a few afternoons off during the week.
I'm trying to sound like a hard ass but I was around as a programmer long before the dot.con boom and I'm still around after the bust. I've never ever had a programming job that was 9 to 5 and that just sort of goes with the job IMHO. At least now with VPN solutions available if I have to do some work on the weekend I can do it from home and not waste the time driving into the office. And with the IT downturn I'm doing alot more than just programming now. I'm also our office's part-time Oracle DBA and I'm also resposible for system admin duties for several Linux servers and a Win2K server.
I do agree that you should be able to take the vacation time off that you've earned but I'm not real sympathetic about whether you can or can't take Thursday and Friday afternoon off. A reasonable manager may not care how many hours you work each week so long as you get all of your work done on time and done correctly. But your manager may also have a PHB putting pressure on him/her and so that pressure gets passed down to you.