technology

Address him as ‘Steven’ to really drive your point home.

Jun 25th, 2010
by John.
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Steve Jobs, the CEO, CIO, lead software developer and Lunch ‘n Learn Fun Committee chairperson is answering any and all emails now.  In the past, contacting Steve at his @apple.com email address was a great way to escalate your nerdy issues straight to the top in lieu of Apple’s tech support.  Steve would be all, “Nope” or “What” or “Zap your pram” and everyone was happy.  Now, angry developers, drunken bloggers and other random numbskulls are seeking an audience with his royal Steveness, and he’s replying – sometimes with more than one word!  Your iPhone has no reception?  “STOP HOLDING IT DUMBFUCK.”  Below are a few choice Q and A rap sessions with Steve, all of which are totally real and not fake.

I can’t wait to follow @aplusk’s garbage disposal.

Apr 8th, 2010
by John.
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Remember that year when everything in the world took on the color of brightly colored iMacs?  You could buy a bright orange dustbuster, a translucent blue toaster, and a shockingly red George Foreman grill.  I’m pretty sure my N64 was purple (and this is totally unrelated, but when I think of N64 I think of the countless hours I spent playing Beetle Adventure Racing while listening to Eminem’s Slim Shady LP… both pinnacles in their respective fields).  I’m guessing this was done so that folks could color coordinate their home appliances with their desktop PC – my goofy computer is see-through yellow, and so is my vacuum!  I can see the collected dirt and dust AT ALL TIMES and I’m living in the future.  Also, I’ve named my two sons Ross and Chandler because it’s the 90’s and I have no regrets.

Fruitifying our appliances didn’t do much to their core functionality though.  I mean, you still chopped stuff in your food processor, it just looked like it was made of Lego bricks. But what if there was a way to add bleeding edge technology to something you use everyday, and not only change the way you use the appliance, but also increase its functionality by like a hundred billion percent?  Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Twettle.  The tea kettle with a Twitter account.

Two London designers decided to come up with a get-rich-quick scheme whilst waiting for a bartender to mix their drinks. The result? A kitchen appliance which could communicate through Twitter.  And what kitchen appliance would any self-respecting Englishman choose? An electric kettle, or the Twettle.

The Twettle works via WiFi, connecting directly to the internet and tweeting when it has boiled.
— Wired

Hey does anyone have a free USB port? I need to install a new OS on the kettle. Guys? Hey guys?

You see, because boiling water is unpredictable, imprecise and depressingly analog.  Cave men did this shit pretty much the same way!  Just sitting around, waiting for their water to boil in a bird’s stomach or whatever while they picked wildebeest gristle from their teeth.  With Twettle technology, Ook could be doing something more productive like foraging or smashing a weaker neanderthal’s skull with a rock instead of staring at the magic sorcery that makes stuff boil.  Check your tweets Ook, your water is piping hot!

Even Wired realizes that it’s pretty easy to tell when the water in your tea kettle is boiling in your house since you’re usually in your house when you have a tea kettle on the stove in your house.  “But, in, say, an office, it might be helpful to know that the water is done so you can rush to the kitchenette with a sachet of powdered soup, or even to catch up on gossip as others make their tea.”  Or, the office cut-up could follow your Twettle account, get notified the instant the water is boiled and then rush to the kitchenette to pour the boiled water down the drain.  Meanwhile, you stand there with your stupid sachet of powdered soup and catch up on the office gossip, which is, “That guy is such a dick, and we need to detwettlefriend him immediately.”

In my humbled humbling opinion, the Twettle is kind of stupid.  Boiling water takes about 2 minutes, and you’re not really gaining anything by being notified the SECOND your water starts to boil.  Here’s a real world example – sometimes I become so absorbed in working or writing or contemplating life’s greatest mysteries that I won’t hear my tea kettle whistling (which is like the reel-to-reel version of boiling water notification as opposed to the laserdisc-like Twettle) in the kitchen.  But usually I break out of my trance-like state a minute or so later and I’m rewarded with boiling water that I forgot I even put on the stove.  Hooray!

Would my life be any better if my kettle sent me a DM and was all like, “@John_TMH – ur water is hot!  get on that it b4 it evaporates!  ur pal – twettlebot”  No.  I mean, maybe?  No, actually, I’m going to stick with no.  Here’s what I want instead of the Twettle: a Leffle.  It’s a waffle iron that sends me a letter in the mail when I want waffles.  Then when I get the letter, there’s a coupon for syrup alongside delicious recipes.  Get on it science.

It’s the thuggish ruggish clone.

Feb 22nd, 2010
by John.
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Avatar tells the story of beautiful blue people who shove their braids into dragons, fight battle mechs and fly majestically into your heart. For seven hours. Through the use of fancy 3-D technology, James Cameron and his squad of A/V nerds in white lab coats are changing the public’s perception of 3-D movies, and the public wants MORE MORE MORE. But instead of taking chances on new 3-D franchises (admittedly, the technology needed to create the perfect font for Avatar’s script took about 8 years), Hollywood is just going to re-release all of our favorite movies of yesteryear with enhanced 3-D jackoffery and useless effects that add nothing but a chance to say “Whooooaaaaaa!” as the Ghostbusters play trombones that pop off the screen and right into your face. I know I’ll be ducking in my seat with my hands over my head as glorious digitized wine sprays the audience during Sideways 3-D. This is a new and exciting frontier for film-making, and I can’t wait to–

“Well, we’ve been looking for years and years and years at trying to put Star Wars in 3D, but the technology hasn’t been there and we’ve been struggling. I think this will be a new impetus to see if we can’t make that happen.”
– George Lucas

Oh for fuck’s sake, who invited him? I mean, “Didn’t we just leave this party?” asks Han Solo. Yes we did, fictional space-drug trafficker. The last time George got a boner for advanced technology, he re-mastered the original Star Wars trilogy and added a bunch of goofy shit that nobody wanted to see. Thousands of CGI aliens, jazzy dance numbers and other questionable additions made the world proclaim the now ubiquitous phrase, “George Lucas raped our childhood.” However, is it rape if you invite the rapist over to your house and then pay him $10 to rape you? Three times? The law says, “Probably not,” and then a bunch of words that I don’t understand.

Nevertheless, do you think George Lucas is just going to click the “OK MAKE THIS 3-D NOW” checkbox next to the original trilogy’s data files, save the changes and then forward them to your favorite movie dispensary? No! He’s storyboarding thousands of changes that still need to be made, because technology is finally catching up with whatever whacked out ideas he claims to have imagined 30 years ago. Here are some new plot developments that we can look forward to when Star Wars 3-D blasts itself into your theater like Captain fucking EO.

RETCONS RETCONS RETCONS. Retcon is short for “changing shit and claiming it was always meant to be that way for the sake of convenience.” Sometimes this works! The retelling of Evil Dead 1 during the first 15 minutes of Evil Dead 2 is a good example. The prequels are a bad example. Now it’s just a coincidence that everyone in every galaxy knows each other. I mean, Darth Vader was always going to build C-3PO! Yoda fought alongside Chewbacca, ok? It could totally happen. With three old movies to futz with and nothing but time on his hands, George is gonna retcon the living fuck out of everything. For instance, did you know that Mace Windu was Lando Calrissian’s father? This will add so many new levels of… something to the story. It will finally answer the question – What the hell was Mace Windu good for? Answer – fathering Lando Calrissian. Plus, Samuel L. Jackson will re-record all of Billy D. Williams’ dialogue to further drive this point home. THEY’RE RELATED NOW, WHY CAN’T YOU SEE THAT?

Han: Lando’s not a system, he’s a man! Lando Calrissian, son of great Jedi master Mace Windu, who was killed by Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader during the Clone Wars. I saw all of this on a security hologram.
Leia: My adopted father briefly stood next to Mace Windu during the Clone Wars! What a coincidence that these two seemingly unrelated characters are related. Now I’m getting a vision of my real father… killing younglings… also on a security hologram.

There are still too many questions left unanswered! Quickly, retcon them out of existence! How do 20 Ewoks take down a squad of countless stormtroopers in Return of the Jedi? Easy. They were clones. That had the force. In 3-D. Our 21st century minds are ready for extreme Ewoks that can rip trees out of the ground and fling them halfway across the planet or sever a stormtrooper’s spinal cord by “jub-jub”ing in his general direction. Believe me, there won’t be a dry eye in the house when that one Ewok youngling dies and his midichlorians form the shape of a heart and float up to heaven in 3-D.

Did you know there are entire websites dedicated to the symmetry of Darth Vader’s fucking helmet? George has heard your complaints and will now digitally alter Vader’s helmet in the original trilogy. It will now be so symmetrical and perfect that you’ll question how you ever watched the films featuring the lopsided asshole helmet that was probably held together with dog shit. Maybe it will even take your mind off the fact that this guy is now underneath all that black plastic.  Wait till you see the new footage of Luke removing Vader’s helmet in Return of the Jedi… I won’t spoil it for you, but it’ll be in 3-D and you’ll watch it a million times and HATE EVERY SECOND OF IT BECAUSE IT COMES FROM THE MIND OF A CONNIVING RAPIST.

There is no “i” in internet.

Feb 7th, 2010
by John.
1 comment

What is the internet?  The question has plagued scientists and laypeople for thousands of years.  Some say it crash landed on American soil, wiped out the dinosaurs and instantly made all of our 1994 Encyclopedia Britannica CD-ROMs laughably out of date.  Others don’t know what it is or what it wants from us, but will nevertheless throw credit card numbers at it in exchange for goods (bestselling novels, replacement Lego pieces, tax-free cigarettes) and services (blowjobs).  Much like your local supermarket or DMV, the internet allows murderers, pedophiles and other scumbags to coexist with normal people like you and me.  And that’s great and all… but seriously, what the hell is the internet?

The new scientists over at New Scientist have a few ideas, and with the help of their clipboards, two-way mirrors and various beeping and booping accoutrement, they compiled a list of Eight Things You Didn’t Know About the Internet.  It’s a very interesting article, and even I, a crackerjack internet veteran, learned a few things.  Dark corners on the self aware internet?  What the fuck, right?  But, did you know there are a few more things that you probably didn’t know about the internet, or maybe you always wanted to know but were too afraid to ask about the internet?  It’s true!  And I’ve got a hastily thrown together list that sort of proves it –

An addendum to:
New Scientists’ “Eight Things You Didn’t Know About the Internet” article.

9. The internet goes offline for 15 minutes every year on June 2nd at 11:30 am for recharging.
Remember the 1999 film entitled, “The Matrix”?  In it, a computer hacker becomes Jesus and fights software applications in suits.  When the computer hacker asked Laurence Fishburne what the Matrix was, he was like, “It’s a computer program and you’re a battery.”  And then he held up a battery.  The internet is nothing like this, but it still needs to be recharged, much like the battery in the previous sentence.  OK, this was a terrible example… ooh, I got it – remember the 1989 film entitled, Shocker?  In it, a serial killer uses electricity to come back from the dead and carry out his vengeance on the football player who turned him in to the police.  That’s what imdb said anyway… I just remember there was a billboard near my house advertising this movie, and it scared the shit out of me.  Because I was 8.  Again, I should really think about these examples before committing them to print.  My apologies.  Anyway, the internet goes offline for 15 minutes every year on June 2nd at 11:30 am for recharging.  The heading for this section really summed it up.

10. The first electronic mail (e-mail) message took 9 months to reach its recipient.
Prof. Theodore Atsine of MIT penned the following e-mail message to his lab assistant on April 22nd, 1965 at 3:15 pm –

TESTING.  THE QUICK BROWN PROFESSOR JUMPED OVER THE LAZY LAB ASSISTANT.  THAT’S YOU.  RESPOND OR YOU’RE FUCKING FIRED.

The lab assistant was fired at the end of the day.  In January of 1966, the e-mail finally arrived at the lab assistant’s terminal.  Due to the raw processing power required to receive the e-mail, most of MIT’s computer equipment melted, exploded and, oddly enough, vanished without a trace after an ear-shattering “YOU’VE GOT MAIL” announcement liquefied the ear drums of everyone in a 5-mile radius.  Prof. Atsine was hospitalized and later died due to complications with tinnitus.  Considered the world’s greatest genius, Prof. Atsine was given the highest honor of having a typographic character named after him.  The at sign. @.  Get it?  Because he invented e-mail.

11. The internet doesn’t “exist,” but is actually a digitized collection of thoughts and dreams of an incredibly perverted genius.
Although I don’t have any actual “proof” or “charts” or “words” to describe this issue that “aren’t in quotations,” I think there’s a pretty good chance that I’m totally right about this one.  And even if you tried to do some research to disprove my theory that the internet doesn’t exist, consider your source – I’ll give you a hint: it’s the fucking internet.  You’ll need a lot more than a Google search to start unraveling the convoluted e-fabric, my friend.  You may have to head to a library to check out some books on the subject… or I guess you could just download them to your Kindle — oh god THEY’VE TAKEN OVER OUR BOOKS, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES PROBABLY, ETC!

So, in conclusion, the internet is here to stay.  One day, we will harness its awesome power for something so revolutionary that merely thinking about it now would turn your brain to gray hummus.  It will probably be a combination of social networking sites and email and chatrooms and oh fuck - Google already invented it months before I wrote this sentence.

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