Humor Posts

• 01.23.07 So Many Fonts, So Little Print (Humor)

  I went on a free-font-downloading bender last weekend. I still love typography, and I’m glad to see the arcane art of type design isn’t dying out. Back in the old days of Desktop Publishing, you had a choice between high-quality but expensive fonts from reputable foundries, or a bunch of cheap but crappy knockoffs done in Fontographer.

  But now, thanks to mass amateurization, there are people who actually know what they’re doing, who design new typefaces … MORE

• 05.05.06 Only Known Instance Of Zork Slash (Fiction, Games, Humor)

  My friend Tanya asked her friends to write her a short bit of Slash fiction as a birthday present. Which is not something I’m accustomed to, but here goes…… MORE

• 01.10.06 The Ballad Of badtz-maru (Humor)

  I had a tiny Linux box
  Its name was badtz-maru ;
  It sat out in the office
  Serving tunes for me and you.

  One day the Squeezebox just went black!
  I didn’t know what to do!
  Safari, ssh and ping
  Lost touch with badtz-maru.
  The living room was silent
  (Between games of Pikachu).
  … MORE

• 06.29.05 Lesser-known scripting languages (Languages, Humor)

  Just when it seemed, a decade ago, that the programming world had settled on C++ as the lingua franca, the One Language To Rule Them All, instead we got an explosion of new high-level languages that have risen to popularity. Why did this happen? Chiefly because the World-Wide Web has conditioned users to expect five-second delays before any responses to their actions, which provides an environment ideally suited for interpreted, garbage-collected scripting languages. This movement has been encouraged by server vendors like Sun and IBM who are eager to show Web developers the productivity increases they can get by using such languages, especially after they then install massively powerful servers.
  … MORE

• 05.19.04 Anagrams (Games, Humor)

  Way back in 1989 my friend M@ and I used to work at a font company called Kingsley/ATF Type Corporation. One evening after work—actually we were still at work, physically speaking—we began to consider the subject of anagrams of the company name. After running off the necessary letters (in 100pt ITC Galliard all caps from an Adobe Type 1 font, using Microsoft Word 4.0 on a Mac SE, printing to a … MORE

• 05.13.04 “Whose round soft dog fidgeting.” (Fiction, Humor, Computers)

  This was appended to one of the rare spams to make it through Mail’s filter. Perhaps the filter knew I would enjoy some strange mechanical poetry?… MORE

• 12.08.03 Super Leaf Blower 64™ Official Players’ Guide (Fiction, Games, Humor)

  Yesterday I got acquainted with our leaf-blower. It’s electric, thank Cthulhu, but not what you’d call “whisper quiet”. We got it as a gift several years ago, and I tried it once back then and it just blew the leaves into a huge swirling cloud that settled down exactly where it began. So I disappointedly put it in the shed and forgot about it.

  This time, though, I treated it as if it were some new … MORE

• 09.04.02 A Koan For Video Gamers (Fiction, Games, Humor)

  The Zen master Yoshi was playing a video game. Seated in the lotus position, he expertly maneuvered the controller with his gnarled hands. Nevertheless, on the screen Mario failed to leap from one block to the next and plummeted screaming into the void.

  Again, Yoshi began the same level. Again, the moving platforms eluded the sprite onscreen.

  Seventeen more times, master Yoshi caused the hapless plumber to fall into nothingness and lose another life.

  Still, … MORE