For some bizarre reason, this also reminds me of the "Funniest Joke in the World" (aka Killer Joke) sketch from Monty Python.
(Opening Scene: A suburban house in a boring looking street. Zoom into upstairs window. Serious documentary music. Interior of small room. A bent figure (Michael Palin) huddles over a table, writing. He is surrounded by bits of paper. The camera is situated facing the man as he writes with immense concentration lining his unshaven face.)
Voice Over : This man is Ernest Scribbler... writer of jokes. In a few moments, he will have written the funniest joke in the world... and, as a consequence, he will die... laughing.
(Ernest stops writing, pauses to look at what he has written... a smile slowly spreads across his face, turning very, very slowly to uncontrolled hysterical laughter... he staggers to his feet and reels across room helpless with mounting mirth and eventually collapses and dies on the floor.)
Actually, I'm sure it will happen within our lifetimes... I've been predicting for years that eventually actors and actresses will be computer generated and that one day there'd be a new movie starring the avatars of Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe...
Thanks for the tip about Orwell, I've been meaning to read 1984 since before 1984...
(Reuters) Further research also produced an Instant Film Generation Algorithm (IFGA). The Perfect Film Formula (PFF) was then programmed into the IFGA and the scientists were delighted to see Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope produced spontaneously.
Viewers of the IFGA/PFF results were astounded and enthralled until someone realized that popcorn hadn't been figured into the PFF. The project was scrapped.
Seriously, aren't there too many distros as it is? The more we fragment Linux, the more our efforts are divided and the more work gets duplicated. In the name of what? Vanity?
I think we should pull together more, honestly, and quell the confusion so maybe Linux can finally grow up.
I was born the year before the astronauts walked on the moon. As a toddler, I watched in awe as astronauts shook hands in space, then parachuted out of the sky and splashed down in the ocean. As a teen, I cheered when Columbia first went up, and cried happily when they landed like an airplane.
When I was 17, I remember walking the halls of high school hearing whispered rumors that the shuttle had blown up, and spent the rest of the day watching it happen. Over and over on television, the media showing us even Christa McAuliffe's class burst into tears as their teacher died. I remember my tears at the loss, my anger at the Shuttle Jokes that appeared soon after.
I woke up this morning, seventeen years later and cried again, the oldest, my sentimental favorite, the Columbia and her crew were lost. I pulled out the yellowed, laminated front page of the paper from April 14, 1981, headline reading "Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machine", Young and Crippen grinning in black and white.
God damn it. Please, let's not lose our space program. We need that kind of hope in these dark times.
Well, I noticed that the 'gore' (and I am VERY squeamish about gory movies) was virtually bloodless and not shoved in the audience's faces the way other movies have done. I wouldn't take little kids to it, but I wasn't really bothered by it like I worried I would be (having read the books a few times over the years, I know there's hack-n-slashing in it).
Chris
Re:I'd have a hard time taking this book seriously
on
God's Debris
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· Score: 1
You know, actually I found a lot of stuff he wrote in _The Dilbert Future_ to be insightful and fairly deep, he doesn't really stick only to management fads and engineering in it. He really puts on the old thinking cap and talks about what he sees as coming up in the future. The way he describes things shows how he came to the conclusions he did. Sure, maybe a lot of it is for humor value, but it does make you think.
There was even an actually serious section in the book on the concept of affirmations. He dropped the funny face and talked about this subject and how he truly believes that, for whatever underlying reason, affirmations have gotten him to where he is today. This sounds shallow as I write it, but I was really struck by the chapter when I read it. I even wrote him a note about my experiences and observations, and got a personal reply back from him. Seems like a nice guy, too.
Anyway, that's my take on this, I don't think he's as completely unproven as the original poster asserts. I'd bet that the original poster hasn't actually read any of Scott Adams' books, just his comic strips. There's quite a difference.
In Douglas Coupland's _Microserfs_, we sort of see the origin of the "fun" tech job... Startups and sweatshops "made up" for working programmers insane hours and giving up their personal lives for the company by allowing them to "play" during work hours. It was an admirable model, and may well work some places still, but I for one would rather work some place comfortable that DOESN'T ask me to work 60+ hours a week. I don't want to work someplace whose hope is to get techies to live their job, have friends only within work.
Nerf toys are no substitute for having a Real Life (tm) outside of work.
So, as I see it, the problem isn't that people played at work, reducing productivity, but that the companies tried to pass work off as play.
Just like in the Cryptonomicon, where the characters did "Van Eck Phreaking" to watch a display from another room... It's ultra-paranoid security. I don't think it'll catch on outside of the government.
I think the line that you cross between 'fun' and 'mean' is one to think about here. I mean, the funniest tech support war stories aren't about people struggling to learn so much as those horrified that they *must* learn in order to use this expensive piece of equiptment they've bought.
_User Friendly_ doesn't attack novices, it jokes about the people who use CDROM trays for cup holders, stick diskettes to the fridge with magnets... It's not about elitism, it's about common sense. I mean, if someone stuffed money in a CD slot in a car, hoping they'd invested their money wisely, would you chalk that up to the person learning how to use a car?
Sure, I agree, some tech support humor can be mean, but I submit that the funniest ones aren't "can you believe he didn't even know how to ctrl-alt-del ha ha ha", but rather "This guy thought his PC ought to work during a power failure!".
Slashdot Mirror
For some bizarre reason, this also reminds me of the "Funniest Joke in the World" (aka Killer Joke) sketch from Monty Python.
... laughing.
(Opening Scene: A suburban house in a boring looking street. Zoom into upstairs window. Serious documentary music. Interior of small room. A bent figure (Michael Palin) huddles over a table, writing. He is surrounded by bits of paper. The camera is situated facing the man as he writes with immense concentration lining his unshaven face.)
Voice Over : This man is Ernest Scribbler... writer of jokes. In a few moments, he will have written the funniest joke in the world... and, as a consequence, he will die
(Ernest stops writing, pauses to look at what he has written... a smile slowly spreads across his face, turning very, very slowly to uncontrolled hysterical laughter... he staggers to his feet and reels across room helpless with mounting mirth and eventually collapses and dies on the floor.)
Actually, I'm sure it will happen within our lifetimes... I've been predicting for years that eventually actors and actresses will be computer generated and that one day there'd be a new movie starring the avatars of Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe...
Thanks for the tip about Orwell, I've been meaning to read 1984 since before 1984...
Chris
(Reuters) Further research also produced an Instant Film Generation Algorithm (IFGA). The Perfect Film Formula (PFF) was then programmed into the IFGA and the scientists were delighted to see Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope produced spontaneously.
Viewers of the IFGA/PFF results were astounded and enthralled until someone realized that popcorn hadn't been figured into the PFF. The project was scrapped.
Chris
...Distro owns you!
Seriously, aren't there too many distros as it is? The more we fragment Linux, the more our efforts are divided and the more work gets duplicated. In the name of what? Vanity?
I think we should pull together more, honestly, and quell the confusion so maybe Linux can finally grow up.
Chris
I was born the year before the astronauts walked on the moon. As a toddler, I watched in awe as astronauts shook hands in space, then parachuted out of the sky and splashed down in the ocean. As a teen, I cheered when Columbia first went up, and cried happily when they landed like an airplane.
When I was 17, I remember walking the halls of high school hearing whispered rumors that the shuttle had blown up, and spent the rest of the day watching it happen. Over and over on television, the media showing us even Christa McAuliffe's class burst into tears as their teacher died. I remember my tears at the loss, my anger at the Shuttle Jokes that appeared soon after.
I woke up this morning, seventeen years later and cried again, the oldest, my sentimental favorite, the Columbia and her crew were lost. I pulled out the yellowed, laminated front page of the paper from April 14, 1981, headline reading "Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machine", Young and Crippen grinning in black and white.
God damn it. Please, let's not lose our space program. We need that kind of hope in these dark times.
And please, no shuttle jokes.
Chris
Well, I noticed that the 'gore' (and I am VERY squeamish about gory movies) was virtually bloodless and not shoved in the audience's faces the way other movies have done. I wouldn't take little kids to it, but I wasn't really bothered by it like I worried I would be (having read the books a few times over the years, I know there's hack-n-slashing in it).
Chris
You know, actually I found a lot of stuff he wrote in _The Dilbert Future_ to be insightful and fairly deep, he doesn't really stick only to management fads and engineering in it. He really puts on the old thinking cap and talks about what he sees as coming up in the future. The way he describes things shows how he came to the conclusions he did. Sure, maybe a lot of it is for humor value, but it does make you think.
There was even an actually serious section in the book on the concept of affirmations. He dropped the funny face and talked about this subject and how he truly believes that, for whatever underlying reason, affirmations have gotten him to where he is today. This sounds shallow as I write it, but I was really struck by the chapter when I read it. I even wrote him a note about my experiences and observations, and got a personal reply back from him. Seems like a nice guy, too.
Anyway, that's my take on this, I don't think he's as completely unproven as the original poster asserts. I'd bet that the original poster hasn't actually read any of Scott Adams' books, just his comic strips. There's quite a difference.
Chris
In Douglas Coupland's _Microserfs_, we sort of see the origin of the "fun" tech job... Startups and sweatshops "made up" for working programmers insane hours and giving up their personal lives for the company by allowing them to "play" during work hours. It was an admirable model, and may well work some places still, but I for one would rather work some place comfortable that DOESN'T ask me to work 60+ hours a week. I don't want to work someplace whose hope is to get techies to live their job, have friends only within work.
Nerf toys are no substitute for having a Real Life (tm) outside of work.
So, as I see it, the problem isn't that people played at work, reducing productivity, but that the companies tried to pass work off as play.
Chris
Why not do this? Well..
Just like in the Cryptonomicon, where the characters did "Van Eck Phreaking" to watch a display from another room... It's ultra-paranoid security. I don't think it'll catch on outside of the government.
EChris
I think the line that you cross between 'fun' and 'mean' is one to think about here. I mean, the funniest tech support war stories aren't about people struggling to learn so much as those horrified that they *must* learn in order to use this expensive piece of equiptment they've bought.
_User Friendly_ doesn't attack novices, it jokes about the people who use CDROM trays for cup holders, stick diskettes to the fridge with magnets... It's not about elitism, it's about common sense. I mean, if someone stuffed money in a CD slot in a car, hoping they'd invested their money wisely, would you chalk that up to the person learning how to use a car?
Sure, I agree, some tech support humor can be mean, but I submit that the funniest ones aren't "can you believe he didn't even know how to ctrl-alt-del ha ha ha", but rather "This guy thought his PC ought to work during a power failure!".
Just my opinion.
EChris