WALLACE & GROMIT NEWS

There will be time next year for news about technology that affects your business. Let's focus on something more important.

On Xmas day, a new Wallace and Gromit short film, "A Matter Of Loaf And Death," was broadcast on British television! This is exciting news for anyone who enjoyed A Grand Day Out, A Close Shave, The Wrong Trousers, and The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit. Everyone likes Wallace and Gromit! The new film is just as wonderful as the rest. It will eventually be released in the US, although anyone familiar with Bittorrent can find a copy pretty quickly.

That's not all! In 2009 Telltale Games will release "Wallace and Gromit Grand Adventures," computer games from the same company that did such a wonderful job for two years on Sam & Max games. (Here's a bit more information about Sam & Max, in case you've forgotten.) Save up some free time!

Labels: games, humor

posted by bruceb at 12/30/2008 12:59:00 AM | permalink

IT TRUTH

Labels: humor

posted by bruceb at 12/25/2008 12:04:00 AM | permalink

COMPLAINT FOR XMAS DAMAGES

Plaintiffs, consisting of the class of all children who on or about Dec. 24, 2008 were hanging stockings by the chimney with care in the reasonable belief that St. Nicholas soon would be there, sue defendant and allege:

1.    This is an action for an accounting, damages and injunctive relief.

2.    Upon information and belief, defendant is a citizen and resident of the North Pole, where he maintains his principal place of business.  The court has subject matter jurisdiction of the amount pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1332.

Count I: Breach of Contract.

Throughout the fall of 2008, plaintiffs met with agents of defendant at various shopping malls to negotiate the delivery of certain goods on the evening of Dec. 24, for which plaintiffs paid valuable consideration in the form of exorbitant tie-in charges for photographs of the negotiating sessions.

Plaintiffs repeatedly informed defendant, through his agents, that time was of the essence in completing such deliveries.  As of this date, many of the contracted goods have not been delivered.

Other goods were nonconforming and lacked batteries, rendering them useless to plaintiffs.

Count II: Deceit.

Defendant fraudulently induced plaintiffs to improve their conduct against their will by misrepresenting that defendant knows if plaintiffs have been bad or good, when, in fact, defendant lacks sufficient knowledge upon which to form a reasonable belief regarding such matters.

In justifiable reliance upon these representations, plaintiffs invested substantial labor in not shouting, pouting or crying, and at all times relevant hereto were good for goodness sake.

Count III: Infliction of Emotional Distress. 

On the relevant night, defendant knew or should have known that plaintiffs were snug in their beds with visions of hand-held video games and name-brand athletic apparel dancing in their heads.

Despite such knowledge, defendant willfully and maliciously concealed off-brand goods and inherently worthless property such as sweaters and umbrellas in packages that misrepresented their true contents.  Plaintiffs suffered severe emotional shock and fright upon opening such packages.

Count IV: Trespass and Conversation.

Defendant?s implied license to enter plaintiffs? premises terminated upon his substantial breaches of contract.  Once on the premises, defendant exercised substantial dominion and control over an estimated 200 tons of cookies and 44,000 gallons of milk, converting such property and depriving plaintiffs of its beneficial use.

WHEREFORE, plaintiffs demand judgment for damages, injunctive relief and an accounting.

 

[Quoted from A Family Christmas, edited by Caroline Kennedy, as noted by Susan Bradley.]

Labels: humor, law

posted by bruceb at 12/24/2008 12:05:00 AM | permalink

DISNEY VIRAL VIDEO

A lot of companies are trying to cook up the next viral video, the link that will be passed from person to person until we're all heartily sick of it. I wouldn't expect the Disney corporation to be successful at that - but I have to admit, this is a very nice piece of work. Go to the Sun 7 News site for a very special video!

Labels: bruceb, humor

posted by bruceb at 12/12/2008 12:20:00 PM | permalink

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

All my best wishes for a peaceful Thanksgiving, surrounded by family, happy computers, and cooperative turkeys.

Labels: humor

posted by bruceb at 11/27/2008 01:23:00 AM | permalink

FREE COMICS

Finally, some online technology that you can use!

In the last ten years, many newspapers, magazines, and other publishers experimented with putting material online behind walls set up for subscribers only. One by one, the experiments failed to attract much interest and frequently instead drove consumers to free alternatives, so for the last few years more and more content has been made available for free, albeit surrounded by ads. Even television shows are increasingly likely to be available online, at least for a while, at sites like Hulu and Fancast.

Now a big barrier falls in the world of newspaper syndication. United Feature Syndicate is the first of the comics syndicates to put all of its content, including years of archives, online for free at comics.com. A quick, free registration is all it takes. (Well, almost all. You have to respond to their confirming email. My copy got caught in my spam filter, but once I figured that out everything went fine.)

The selection is only fair but it includes Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, some great editorial cartoonists, and every single Peanuts strip ever published, all 21,010 of them. You can view the comics online with a customized page displaying the comics you choose or get a daily email, plus you can set up an RSS feed of your favorite strips. If you're reading blogs every day, you really should take the time to learn about RSS feeds!

Go read comics!

Labels: humor, web_services

posted by bruceb at 11/12/2008 01:27:00 AM | permalink

SECURITY EXHAUSTION

Labels: humor, security

posted by bruceb at 8/09/2008 12:53:00 PM | permalink

LIFE WITHOUT THE NETWORK

[Originally posted March 13, 2007]

From Max Barry's marvelous book Company, about corporate life in the weeks after the computer network goes dead:

"Two weeks ago the network went down; soon after Senior Management assured the company it would have the problem fixed within a few days; now everyone is realizing it is never going to happen. Work-arounds are springing up everywhere you look, like new grass after rain. In the absence of e-mail, employees are discovering the art of speaking into phones. They are realizing that discussions that previously required three days and six e-mails can, with phones, be settled in minutes. Spam and computer viruses, both of which IT claimed were unsolvable problems, have vanished. The plague of e-mail jokes, funny at first and then not, has been eliminated. The pressure to forward chain letters under threat of personal catastrophe has lifted. In-boxes no longer fill with desperate sales pitches from co-workers trying to shift their cars, or kittens.

"To transfer documents from one location to another, workers tighten their shoelaces and stretch their legs. People pass each other in the corridors, papers in hand, exchanging happy greetings. Their brains dizzy from unexpected exercise, they stop to chat and laugh. No one realized there were so many people in Zephyr. Until now, you never saw them. Until now, most people arrived at work, planted their buttocks in a chair, and the twain didn't part until five thirty. Now the corridors are like maternity ward waiting rooms, filled with excited voices and good cheer. Lower-back pain is clearing up. Color is rising. Workers find each other more physically attractive. And nobody receives suspicious looks for leaving the department anymore, not so long as they're clutching a sheaf of papers.

"Network - what was that thing ever good for? The workers shake their heads in amazement. Good riddance! Zephyr Holdings may not be the world's greatest employer, the workers agree; it may have a sadistic Human Resources and an incompetent Senior Management; the company's purpose may be a complete mystery and the CEO an out-of-touch eccentric whom no one has seen in person - all this may be true, but at least it doesn't have a network."

Labels: humor, network

posted by bruceb at 6/28/2008 12:34:00 AM | permalink

GOOGLE LAUNCHES FUTURE SEARCH

Google Australia launched Gday today, a new search engine that allows users to search content on the internet before it is created.

"Google spiders crawl publicly available web information and our index of historic, cached web content. Using a mashup of numerous factors such as recurrence plots, fuzzy measure analysis, online betting odds and the weather forecast from the iGoogle weather gadget, we can create a sophisticated model of what the internet will look like 24 hours from now.

"We can use this technique to predict almost anything on the web ? tomorrow?s share price movements, sports results or news events. Plus, using language regression analysis, Google can even predict the actual wording of blogs and newspaper columns, 24 hours before they?re written!"

Google has traditionally introduced innovative new products around this time of year. It's possible there will be more announcements from Google throughout the day.

Labels: Google, humor, Internet

posted by bruceb at 4/01/2008 12:42:00 AM | permalink

BRUCEB RETURNS

Labels: bruceb, humor

posted by bruceb at 2/17/2008 12:57:00 PM | permalink

SEASON'S GREETINGS!

 

Dilbert - Christmas Day 2007

Hope you, your families, and your computers have a wonderful holiday! All my best wishes for a happy new year! I'll be off in the corner wondering what was in Scott Adams' mind when he published today's Dilbert . . .

Labels: bruceb, humor

posted by bruceb at 12/25/2007 12:05:00 PM | permalink

PRESS THE OK BUTTON, DOLT!
I got a kick out of this - a short history of the OK button, helping to explain why your computer doesn't constantly call you a dolt.

Labels: humor

posted by bruceb at 5/17/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

DILBERT ON TECH SUPPORT

Labels: humor

posted by bruceb at 5/15/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

SPINAL TAP TO REUNITE
An important announcement today: Spinal Tap is going to reunite and appear at Wembley Stadium on June 7, as part of the worldwide Live Earth concerts.

Director Rob Reiner has prepared a 15-minute film explaining what the band has been doing since its last appearance:

"Nigel has been raising miniature horses to race, but can't find jockeys small enough to ride them; David is now a hip-hop producer who also runs a colonic clinic; and Derek is in rehab for addiction to the Internet."

You're probably as excited as I am. If you don't recognize why this is so important, you owe it to yourself to rent the 1984 documentary about the band.

Labels: humor

posted by bruceb at 4/26/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

GOOGLE ANNOUNCES FREE WIRELESS BROADBAND
A potentially world-changing announcement from Google today - the launch of Google TiSP, a free in-home wireless broadband service that delivers online connectivity via users' plumbing systems. A simple fiber-optic cable running through any toilet on a municipal sewage system can be used to make the connection with a TiSP Access Node.

Google intends to continue development on a high-performance version of TiSP tailored to small and medium-sized businesses, including 24-hour, on-site technical support in the event of backup problems, brownouts, and data wipes.

Complete details and installation instructions are on this page.

If you have a minute, you might want to look at the link provided for details about professional installations, and follow some of the links on that page as well.

Labels: broadband, Google, humor, wireless

posted by bruceb at 4/01/2007 11:07:00 AM | permalink

ZE FRANK & THE SHOW
Ze Frank has just finished a year of producing The Show, three-minute video monologues that appeared online five days a week. Slate, the Los Angeles Times, and others are writing paeans to a project that blossomed into something unique and special. The audience turned into a community making creative contributions and The Show became a conversation - consistently interesting and frequently hilarious.

The Show has ended but the episodes are archived - dive in anywhere. The Slate article has a good overview and lots of links to memorable episodes to get started. Personally I'm a big fan of the Scrabble episode, and Fingers In Food makes me laugh out loud every time.

Labels: humor, Internet, video

posted by bruceb at 3/27/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

LIFE WITHOUT THE NETWORK
From Max Barry's marvelous book Company, about corporate life in the weeks after the computer network goes dead:

"Two weeks ago the network went down; soon after Senior Management assured the company it would have the problem fixed within a few days; now everyone is realizing it is never going to happen. Work-arounds are springing up everywhere you look, like new grass after rain. In the absence of e-mail, employees are discovering the art of speaking into phones. They are realizing that discussions that previously required three days and six e-mails can, with phones, be settled in minutes. Spam and computer viruses, both of which IT claimed were unsolvable problems, have vanished. The plague of e-mail jokes, funny at first and then not, has been eliminated. The pressure to forward chain letters under threat of personal catastrophe has lifted. In-boxes no longer fill with desperate sales pitches from co-workers trying to shift their cars, or kittens.

"To transfer documents from one location to another, workers tighten their shoelaces and stretch their legs. People pass each other in the corridors, papers in hand, exchanging happy greetings. Their brains dizzy from unexpected exercise, they stop to chat and laugh. No one realized there were so many people in Zephyr. Until now, you never saw them. Until now, most people arrived at work, planted their buttocks in a chair, and the twain didn’t part until five thirty. Now the corridors are like maternity ward waiting rooms, filled with excited voices and good cheer. Lower-back pain is clearing up. Color is rising. Workers find each other more physically attractive. And nobody receives suspicious looks for leaving the department anymore, not so long as they’re clutching a sheaf of papers.

"Network – what was that thing ever good for? The workers shake their heads in amazement. Good riddance! Zephyr Holdings may not be the world’s greatest employer, the workers agree; it may have a sadistic Human Resources and an incompetent Senior Management; the company’s purpose may be a complete mystery and the CEO an out-of-touch eccentric whom no one has seen in person – all this may be true, but at least it doesn’t have a network."

Labels: humor, network

posted by bruceb at 3/13/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

THE IT CROWD
The IT Crowd is my new favorite TV show. The first season's six episodes can be downloaded pretty freely - here's one collection of links to downloadable files, for example. Much of it is available on YouTube if you don't mind low resolution video - here's the first part of episode 1.

It's a British series about two IT geeks in the basement of a large, abusive corporation who get a new boss, a woman who lied about her IT experience on her resume. It's hysterical, as funny as anything I've seen on television for years. Here's Cory Doctorow's description of it on Boing Boing. Although there are lots of in-jokes for geeks, the appeal should be universal. An American version has just begun filming, following the example of The Office.

Look for it, download it!

Labels: humor, video

posted by bruceb at 3/10/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY
Happy Valentine's Day! Stuck for a gift? I'm sure a lot of you depend on Thinkgeek.com for your last minute holiday shopping, so you'll be relieved to know that Thinkgeek is all prepared for Valentine's Day. For example, you might not have known where to go for a t-shirt that says:

Roses are #FF0000
Violets are #0000FF
All my base
Are belong to you

Kind of makes you all misty, doesn't it?

Labels: humor

posted by bruceb at 2/14/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

VIRAL ADVERTISING
The folks responsible for promoting Windows Vista are trying hard to be hip - check out http://clearification.com. Microsoft is footing the bill for Demetri Martin, a Daily Show regular, to film short episodes of a random and mildly amusing story that features Vista computers in various scenes. The idea is to create a viral buzz that drives people to check out the site out of curiosity because they hear about it from friends. Doesn't do much for me - I'd rather watch Lonelygirl15 clips, I think.

Labels: humor, Microsoft, Vista

posted by bruceb at 12/13/2006 12:45:00 AM | permalink

DISCLAIMER FOR THE INTERNET
A particularly thorough disclaimer for a rock climbing site inspired attorney David Canton to adapt it into a disclaimer for the Internet.

WARNING

Business is unpredictable and unsafe. The Internet is dangerous. Many blogs have been written about these dangers, and there's no way we can list them all here. Read the blogs.

The Internet is covered in slippery slopes with loose, slippery and unpredictable footing. The RIAA can make matters worse. Patent trolls are everywhere. You may fall, be spammed or suffer a DOS attack. There are hidden viruses and worms. You could break your computer. There is wild code, which may be vicious, poisonous or carriers of dread malware. These include viruses and worms. E-mail can be poisonous as well. We don't do anything to protect you from any of this. We do not inspect, supervise or maintain the Internet, blogsphere, ISP’s or other features, natural or otherwise.

Here's the complete text.

Labels: humor, Internet

posted by bruceb at 5/06/2006 12:22:00 PM | permalink

TRACKING SANTA
If you have Google Earth installed, then clicking on this link will allow you to track Santa Claus as he delivers presents around the world. at 3:00pm PST, he's travelling from city to city in India. Click here: http://dev.keyhole.com/santa/SantaRadar.kml

Here's the Google blog entry explaining that the company did not license the Naughty and Nice data layers this year - even though Santa explained that it had been checked twice.

Happy holidays to all!

Labels: Google, humor

posted by bruceb at 12/24/2005 03:08:00 PM | permalink

RIAA BANS TELLING FRIENDS ABOUT SONGS
In the news today:

"LOS ANGELES-The Recording Industry Association of America announced Tuesday that it will be taking legal action against anyone discovered telling friends, acquaintances, or associates about new songs, artists, or albums. "We are merely exercising our right to defend our intellectual properties from unauthorized peer-to-peer notification of the existence of copyrighted material," a press release signed by RIAA anti-piracy director Brad Buckles read. "We will aggressively prosecute those individuals who attempt to pirate our property by generating 'buzz' about any proprietary music, movies, or software, or enjoy same in the company of anyone other than themselves." RIAA attorneys said they were also looking into the legality of word-of- mouth "favorites-sharing" sites, such as coffee shops, universities, and living rooms."

Okay, granted, it comes from The Onion, which occasionally prints a few things that are not entirely true in some hyper-technical sense. But is this item any more unlikely than the news that Sony had intentionally installed a virus on your computer when you played a CD?

By the way, Business Week just reported that Sony had been pressuring security vendor F-Secure for a month to stay quiet about the security hole caused by its rootkit, before an independent researcher discovered it himself. The real world makes The Onion look tame sometimes.

Labels: business, DRM, file_sharing, humor

posted by bruceb at 11/30/2005 02:45:00 PM | permalink

PANEXA AND THE IMPORTANCE OF READING SAFETY INFORMATION
The web can be a valuable resource for researching heavily advertised pharmaceuticals. Case in point: the ads for Panexa may look tempting, but it's a clear example of how important it is to read the safety information and possible side effects before deciding to take a new drug.

Labels: humor

posted by bruceb at 11/16/2005 11:18:00 PM | permalink

GOOGLE PURGE
The hard-working reporters at The Onion bring us news of the latest step in Google's expansion effort.

Google has announced Google Purge, a far-reaching plan to destroy all the information it can't index.

"As a part of Purge's first phase, executives will destroy all copyrighted materials that cannot be searched by Google.

"'A year ago, Google offered to scan every book on the planet for its Google Print project. Now, they are promising to burn the rest,' John Battelle wrote in his widely read 'Searchblog.' 'Thanks to Google Purge, you'll never have to worry that your search has missed some obscure book, because that book will no longer exist. And the same goes for movies, art, and music.'

"'Book burning is just the beginning,' said Google co-founder Larry Page. 'This fall, we'll unveil Google Sound, which will record and index all the noise on Earth. Is your baby sleeping soundly? Does your high-school sweetheart still talk about you? Google will have the answers.'

. . . "Although Google executives are keeping many details about Google Purge under wraps, some analysts speculate that the categories of information Google will eventually index or destroy include handwritten correspondence, buried fossils, and private thoughts and feelings.

. . . "'This announcement is a red flag,' said Daniel Brandt, founder of Google-Watch.org. 'I certainly don't want to accuse of them having bad intentions. But this campaign of destruction and genocide raises some potential privacy concerns.'

"Brandt also expressed reservations about the company's new motto. Until yesterday's news conference, the company's unofficial slogan had been 'Don't be evil.' The slogan has now been expanded to 'Don't be evil, unless it's necessary for the greater good.'"

Labels: Google, humor

posted by bruceb at 9/02/2005 10:18:00 PM | permalink

GOOGLE MOON
In case your travels take you really far, Google has just opened Google Moon, with the same interface as Google Maps. Hidden joke alert: when you first check it out, make sure you zoom all the way in for a close look, then go take a look at new Google job listings.

Labels: Google, humor

posted by bruceb at 7/20/2005 11:57:00 AM | permalink