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Interview: Illiad Answers
Q: (from rde) What is the capital of Burkina Faso, and why does it have so many vowels?
A: Ouagadougou, pronounced "ouagadougou." As for the number of vowels, evidently the government of Burkina Faso offered Pat Sajak bags of money.
Q: (from Simon Hibbs) When the Dust Puppy plays Quake, how _does_ it do that *wiggle* thing?......
A: I'm not entirely certain, although I've seen a substantially higher consumption of caffeine in the office just before the little guy gets into a gibfest.
Q: (from Manatee) Is Miranda as hot as I think she is?
A: Much hotter. She knows she attracts men, but her choice of wearing thongs "because panties make my thighs look big" was purely done for her own sense of aesthetics.
Q : (from Squeamish Ossifrage) Is the User Friendly Project For Humanity getting anywhere?
A: Yes and no. The infrastructure and enthusiasm is there, but now we need funding. I'm working on filling a trust account for UFPFH so that when we reach a decent dollar figure, we can cut the money loose and let UFPFH do what its meant to. Rest assured that it hasn't been forgotten, especially after Iambe, Shadowdragon and all of the participating UFies have put so much heart into it.
Q: (from Evangelion) How good are you at q3test? Can Dust Puppy kick your ass?
A: I'm a fairly good player. I don't play enough to get really superb at it, although I do have my moments. On other days I can really suck. Dust Puppy could hand me my ass in a game of Quake.
Q: (also from Evangelion) When you were lost in the deserts of Turkey, dying of thirst, did you, even once, wish you were back in Seattle in a bubblebath with Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates?
A: I am happy to say that my primal desires were satisfied by the few vultures that were convenient at the time.
Q: (from cemerson) Occasionally there's a stack of boxes labelled "BeOS 4.5" or something similar, often with the Dust Puppy sitting on top. What makes you decide what names to put on the boxes? Is it your favourite stuff, advertising/product placement, or what?
A: It's *never* been advertising or product placement -- companies can buy banner ads or a sponsorship if they want to get at the UFie eyeballs. The brands and labels I include are usually done on a whim, or if I really like a company or product. BeOS, for example, has my attention in a big way. So does VA Linux Systems and SGI.
Q: (from Mudhiker) As an amature artist/cartoonist, i'd like to know what tools you use...do you sketch it out on a huge piece of paper (like some cartoonists do) and then scan it and shrink it down or just maybe have great mouse hands and do it with Gimp...?
A: I used to use Microfibre inking pens on high-opacity paper for many of the early strips, followed by some time on the scanner and some work in Photoshop. Now I use a Wacom Artz II digital tablet, and life is so much easier. I could never draw with a mouse. That would be kind of like trying to write serious code with copy con.
I use Photoshop and Illustrator, but I've been seriously consideing The GiMP under Linux and a variety of other apps under BeOS.
Q: (from i244) I extremely enjoy looking at your funny comic strip. In fact, it's what i have setup as my 'homepage' on my browser. I've gone through all the archives and have laughed my head off at some of the jokes. The only thing that strikes me as odd is that how come I havent seen 1 black, hispanic, asian, native american, etc. in the whole strip ever? What's up with that?
A: It's never really come up, although recently I've been working on a new character for the cartoon, a fairly bright and sarcastic oriental support technician. I live in Vancouver, B.C., which is heavily multicultural, and in fact I had the benefit of growing up in two distinctly different cultures. I suppose when it comes down to it, I never really see people as different races; they're all just "people" to me.
Q: (from Phule77) Does Geek Culture, especially with regards to the internet, represent progress in our civilization, creating a meaningful pocket for the brains and outcasts of our culture, or does it merely represent a burp in the cultural mainstream, likely to collapse once the govt. seize control of the net and we all...well, anyway, sorry, mustn't trail off. Thoughts?
A: "Geek Culture" isn't going to vanish any time soon. In fact, it's abdundantly clear to me that geeks are about to move into a role that transcends a great many of the models that traditional business people have been clinging to for the past decade. There are already many examples of geeks changing the way that the business and finance communities perceive the world market, and this is really just the beginning. As far as the government seizing control of anything, I'd like to point out that above all else, Geeks love to communicate and share, and if we feel repressed we will find a way to get around that repression. So, to answer your primary question, no, our culture won't collapse. In fact, it will become "mainstream hip and trendy" to be a geek, and the fact of the matter is that if you're not a true geek, no amount of money is going to make you into one.
Q: (from dewyn) What constitutes "success beyond your wildest dreams" concerning User Friendly?
A: I'm not really materialistic but I sure would like to not worry about money ever again, and also be able to take care of the people I love and contribute to causes I consider important to me. So in that sense, making bags of money would help, especially if it's done without selling my ass to a traditional-thinking syndicate, the type that wants to own your butt for ten years and who take half of everything you make from the newspapers and then some.
On the flip side, I'd really like to see UF rise to the level of popularity which demands mainstream media attention. I see the strip as giving a voice to geeks, one of the most underappreciated and consistently persecuted sectors of society. Seeing the Dust Puppy on the cover of TIME magazine would make me grin, especially because then you know that Calvin Klein or some other outrageously pretentious fashion designer would take note and start up a "geek clothing line." You know, t-shirts and shorts. Wooo. That's new.
In a lot of ways UF has alreadly delivered the "big win" for me. I've met some really great people, made some wonderful friends, and helped bring together a community through the strength of humor. I never dreamed this would happen, so I guess you can say that I've already achieved something I didn't even think was possible.
Illiad
Posted by Mike@ABC:
I knew that I was really getting into the geek stuff when I read User Friendly and laughed, because I understood some obscure BeOS reference. The strip is a great barometer of this burgeoning "geek culture" that everyone is talking about, and the Dust Puppy is the greatest face you could ever put on that culture.
We US types do learn about the rest of the planet...just not Canada :-)
;-) So, in the interest of educating our fellow Slashdotters, here is my decidedly inexpert guide to Canada (at least, as seen by a resident of Buffalo, New York):
:) :)
:)
Seriously, though, I agree that most Americans know very little about Canada. Probably 'cause you're not a pain in the ass like some other countries
---The Stradivarius Guide to Canada---
Cool things about Canada:
1) Their view of Niagara Falls rocks.
2) The US dollar buys a lot in Canada.
3) They have currency called loonies. Gotta love that
4) The drinking age in Ontario is 19. See #2.
5) Toronto has a bunch of cool stuff: the CN Tower, theaters, and Science Museum are among them.
6) The letter 'Z' is pronounced "zed". cool.
7) Canadian bacon
Bad things about Canada:
1) You never know what the heck the conversion rate is. The weather on this day in the year 2593 is more predictable
2) Those speed-limit signs that read "100". You zip along...until you realize that's km/hr, not mph.
3) It's even colder than in Buffalo.
4) The taxes.
5) The taxes.
6) All those damn Canadian quarters that keep ending up as change in US stores. Can't use 'em for anything unless you go up to Canada, and can't use 'em for much *in* Canada, either.
7) eh?
Sigh. If anyone points out that an organization that, in real life, would be filled with non-whites is being portrayed as all-white, people who are comfortable with pretending that these all-white artificial worlds are natural start screaming about the PC police. So the American TV is full of shows set in an all-white New York or an all-white LA, when in real life, whites are a minority in both cities. Makes you kind of wonder whether all of the other folks were carted away. Similar, Vancouver has a very large Asian population, mainly Chinese.
Note that I'm not advocating artificial diversity (like those mixed-race gangs you see on TV sometimes -- any given gang is likely to be all people of the same race). But I think it would be hard to find a techically oriented company of any size on the west coast of the US or Canada that doesn't have anyone of Chinese or Indian ancestry.
So in this sense, what's being pointed out is a kind of error in the presentation of the strip. UF could show Linux boxes crashing every day, and you would scream. The author could reply that it is possible for Linux boxes to crash, but you'd be correct to complain that that is very rare. I suppose he could then accuse you of being with the Linux PC police, but such an argument would be stupid.
Similarly, it is possible that in the whole history of an ISP, no non-white person ever works there or even visits the company. It's just that this is so wildly unlikely in the real world as to be peculiar.
I am white. I just now looked down at my skin, and noticed that it is nowhere near the shade of white of a piece of paper. Actually, it's a pretty dark tan, because I am outside a lot.
Does this mean that a cartoonist should have a full palette of "skin tones" to choose from? Starting at the pasty geek-white, and running all the way down to the very darkest black of some african tribes? No.
I like Iliad's comment on how they're all just 'people'. I have mixed races in many of my classes, and I often forget about their races, too.
I know some little black kids who, when asked to draw a picture of themselves, drew an outline of a person without coloring it in - just like white kids do, and just like cartoonists do.
And what about Pitr? He does not strike me as a typical caucasian male. I could be wrong, but I always had the impression that he is Indian (as in from India). Maybe I'm wrong about that, but he seems to me to be a good example of diversity, while at the same time staying true to an accurate reflection of geeks.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
I have read some Pitr lines aloud, to try and place that accent ("am thinkink about goink out for sushi") and it always came out sounding Indian, like Ben in "short circuit". I figured that fit, since there are a lot of Indians that talk like that at my friendly neighborhood computer shop. Oh well.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
The Dilbert Zone
Not quite as hip as UF, but still covers the biting corporate stupidity quite nicely. More for lusers than geeks, IMHO, but funny either way.
+&x
Get real. Everybody knows that Real Hackers don't use copy con to write code. We don't need such sissy little steps. REAL Hackers use COPY CON PROGRAM.EXE
~ Give me 101 plastic soldiers, and I will conquer the world.
Seems to be in yoyo mode for the last few hours.
:-)
I hope the slashdotting of the server stops when school gets back in session.
Hey, if the "capitol of Burkina Faso" question made it into the list, what about all the other good, off topic questions? Could have had some outlandish answers. Maybe some of them will work their ways into future strips
Anyways, we love ya, Illiad. Keep up the good work.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
That would be kind of like trying to write serious code with copy con.
:)
And what, exactly, is wrong with that?
Q"The only thing that strikes me as odd is that how come I havent seen 1 black, hispanic, asian, native american, etc. in the whole strip ever? What's up with that?"
-Must we always come back to political correctness. If the man doesn't feel like putting those characters in, he shouldn't and he shouldn't be pressured to! Diversity has to be a choice, not forced. Anyway, I would rather see it happen naturally rather than have some obligatory "token" character.
www.niceFire.com
Funnier than a speeding bullet