This is the first time since Google’s acquisition of YouTube that I am seeing some actual innovation on the YouTube site. I’m not sure either party is responsible for the innovation, though, as it turns out it’s a Wii commercial.
After it’s done, you can still play with the fallen pieces. Good times.
EDIT: This post was featured on uncov.com!
I’m getting really tired of seeing a new article submitted to digg every freaking day by some douchebag who feels obligated to share his newest discoveries about Firefox to the world. In almost all cases, all that happens is some idiot realizes you can modify browser settings by typing “about:config” in the address bar, and gets overwhelmed by a sudden h@x0r rush.
What they don’t realize is that anyone who is technically capable enough to edit those settings probably already knows it exists, and has settled on the fact that the minute potential increases in speed are simply not worth the effort. Unfortunately, these script-kiddie-wannabes will not stop until every last setting has been toyed with and then documented in what they will ambitiously refer to as an “optimization guide”. In reality, these could be more accurately described as manuals for people who wish to reduce their productivity as a human being to that of a freaking lawn ornament.
Actually, I take that back. Lawn ornaments are, for the most part, harmless. They will not set your lawn to flames, or unlock all your doors while you sleep. Misguided assclowns of the internet, however, provide no such protection:
“You can take the last step even further by telling Firefox to ignore user interface events altogether until the current page has been downloaded. Firefox could remain unresponsive for quite some time.”
Yes — that’s right. He is advising you to “optimize” your browser by configuring it to stop responding to anything you do. Continue reading
All the political bullshit going right now on reminded me of a story I once heard about cow shit. The story came with some very useful morals, especially for a story about cow shit. It went something like this:
Once upon a time there was a black swallow. This swallow had been left behind by his flock and was aimlessly wandering about in a winter blizzard. It was dark, windy, and he had lost all sense of direction. He began to weaken, as nature’s strength overwhelmed him. Finally, he collapsed to the ground. Lying there, motionless, he began to accept his inevitable death. He knew it was just a matter of time.
Meanwhile, a cow meandered over to his soon-to-be final resting place. As if his predicament was not torturous enough, the cow took a shit all over him. He wondered what he did in life to deserve such an unceremonious exit. He only wanted death to come quicker. But death never came. He survived the entire storm inside that pile of shit.
Soon, he realized it was the warmth of the cow’s shit that kept him alive the entire time. The irony of it all gave him a renewed perspective on life. No longer able to contain his joy, the swallow begin to sing loudly. He wanted the whole world to know how happy he was to be alive.
It was during this melodious outburst that a wandering cat overheard the swallow. The cat saw the buried swallow, and dug him out of the pile of shit. The swallow was convinced that his life had taken a turn for the better, and that getting shit on was the best thing that ever happened to him.
Then, the cat ate the swallow.
THE END
And now — the part that made reading all this worthwhile, the morals of the story:
What’s great about society is that, as a whole, people have a very short attention span. Something that is considered wrong or unacceptable at a fundamental level will be protested… but the interval of the protest is almost always a limited period of time.
Let’s take the whole post-9/11 “arrest now, decide why later” policy. There are people who are getting out of jail today, being released with absolutely no charges. We’re not even talking about people who aren’t guilty, we’re talking about people who haven’t even been accused of anything. It’s just outrageous. But this was a known fact many years ago. People forget. People stop caring. Only recently, some of the wardens remembered they exist, and their “cases” were “tried”.
Want to hear the real numbers? It’s scary. Over 7,000 prisoners have been taken in related to terrorist activities. Out of those, 700 ended up in Guantanamo Bay. From various sources, it has become known that some were released, and 500 are still thought to be in Guantanamo. As for the rest, no one has any idea what has happened to the thousands of potentially innocent people still held in prisons. That information is still classified. They are presumed tortured or dead. This is the most daunting fact:
Out of ALL the 7,000 prisoners that were taken, only 10 have ever been convicted of anything. That’s a whopping 0.14% conviction rate. Continue reading
So, we’re all aware that political candidates can and will take any measure to enhance their approval ratings during the bullshit-fest that is the elections. I’ve now detected a pattern over the past decade that seems to be forming — the need to declare oneself as the creator of holy things.
This technique was first perfected by everyone’s favourite wax museum escapee, Al Gore, who claimed to have invented the freaking internet. Now, I recognize that this was proven to be a hoax, but that was a good deal of time later. I didn’t exactly see the Gore campaign parting the earth to invalidate the suggestion while he was up for election.
Following closely in Al Gore’s footsteps (is that an oxymoron? has anyone actually seen him move?) is John McCain. Apparently, he is now being credited with creating the Blackberry. An interesting notion, but there is a small gap in that logic:
“McCain has acknowledged that he doesn’t know how to use a computer and can’t send e-mail, one of the BlackBerry’s prime functions.”
I’m not saying McCain is not capable of innovation. I mean, if someone were to tell me that John McCain was the man behind recent inventions such as the monacle, I’d have no arguments. None. After all, I’m sure at some point he saw a Blackberry. By Palin’s logic, that makes him an expert on mobile devices!
Furthermore, if he continues his trend of buying more houses than he can count, he’ll soon be able to see all kinds of shit from his porch(es). That would give him more insight into the American nation than anyone in the country! I can already hear the new McCain campaign chants: “4 More Houses… 4 More Houses…”
Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running-mate from Alaska, decided to give ABC an interview. Below are highlights of exactly why she waited so damn long.
GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?
PALIN: They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.
Yes, intelligence insights are roughly equivalent to things you can see from an island.
GIBSON: What if Israel decided it felt threatened and needed to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities?
PALIN: Well, first, we are friends with Israel and I don’t think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security.
GIBSON: So if we wouldn’t second guess it and they decided they needed to do it because Iran was an existential threat, we would cooperate or agree with that.
PALIN: I don’t think we can second guess what Israel has to do to secure its nation.
GIBSON: So if it felt necessary, if it felt the need to defend itself by taking out Iranian nuclear facilities, that would be all right.
PALIN: We cannot second guess the steps that Israel has to take to defend itself.
“It’s RUDE to second guess friends!!! Do you even KNOW what BFF means?”
What’s the lesson here? Continue reading
I’ve seen many instances where “sane” and “competent” employees will attempt to regurgitate a visual copy of their brain farts using what is commonly known as a printer.
Unfortunately, there are occasions when a printer encounters infinitely complex problems such as being Out of Paper, or more commonly, Off.
The way an individual handles his or herself in such situations is usually not logical and almost always entertaining. In fact, being a techie i would like to post this instructional video on how one can handle printer issues more efficiently than people do today.
My name is Salman Ansari.
I am in charge of everything Facebook at Involver, while also getting my hands dirty in pretty much every piece of our platform as a senior engineer.
I like to rant.
I was inspired to rant publicly by the king of tech rants, Ted Dziuba. Speaking of Uncov, I was lucky enough to have a couple of my rants featured here and there (uncov.com is not up at the moment, unfortunately).
If you enjoy what you read here, or have something you’d enjoy hearing me rant about, I’m all ears.