Archive for November, 2007
November 29, 2007 · Filed under Entertainment
It’s amazing the way YouTube gathers content that, for the most part, does nothing but make me cringe. Occasionally, I’ll find a really cool video (like Alice in Chains playing Man in the Box David Bowie playing Starman), but for the most part, it is nothing but garbage. As count-intuitive as it may seem, that’s precisely why YouTube is so awesome. If I want serious content, I generally turn to the news, but a video of some rock surgeon running a skateboard into a large, stationary object? Yup. Morons popping wheelies on their motorcycles and wrecking their bikes? Dayum. Bring it on.
So, at the risk of posting too many videos, here is a video of some kids in China lip-syncing to the Back Street Boys. Thanks to Spankles for bringing this to my attention.
I love the shamelessness of the these guys, and that they just went ahead and did this with that random dude sitting in the background; judging by what I’m seeing on his screen, I think he’s playing “Pong”.
November 19, 2007 · Filed under Entertainment
Well, I’ll be off to the Motherland tonight to meet Michelle in Amsterdam. Incomprehensibly, in the decade we’ve been together, we’ve 
never found the opportunity to travel there together. Although Michelle has been before she met me, she will find Dutchland to be an entirely new experience now that her eyes have been opened to the importance, nay – infallibility – of the Dutch.
We will eat croquetten, fritten, and drink imported beer. (For all their strengths, the Dutch don’t make great beer. Our neighbors to the south are better.)
As I prepare to leave, I reflect on some best practices if you’re an American traveling in the Netherlands.
- Always recognize that any stranger you meet on the street is smarter, wiser, and better looking than you. Unless you’re also Dutch. Then you draw straws.
- If you speak Dutch fluently and need to find out how the rail system works, do not ask in Dutch. If you speak Dutch and don’t know how the trains work, they will assume – quite rightly – that you are some kind of freak. Always use English in this matter, and the natives will be most helpful. After all, as an UnDutch you could never be expected to understand the very sophisticated and well-designed Dutch public transit system.
- Don’t refer to Belgians as “tidy”.
- If you think Berlin is the capital, don’t bring it up. In fact, don’t confuse the Dutch and Germans in any way. Different country, different language, different people, one occupied the other. Sensitive subject.
- While we’re on the subject of countries that have occupied the Netherlands; I forget the specifics, but it’s best not to mention most of Europe. You can talk about Luxembourg, though. No problems there. Lichtenstein is aces, too.
- Don’t be surprised if a Dutchman walks up to you on the street and explains to you how you should be behaving differently. For those of you living in Seattle, this will make you feel at home; for the rest of you, this will be somewhat odd. Consider it public service and an opportunity to become a better, more complete person; you’ll be just that little bit closer to being Dutch.
- It will be rainy and gray. For those of you living in Seattle, this will cure your homesickness; for the rest of you, this will make you feel rainy and gray.
See you in a week.
November 17, 2007 · Filed under Entertainment
Scott Adams has made a few jokes about web development technologies recently, and I appreciate them all. He does a good job of capturing the oddity of this business and gets a chuckle out of me every time.
He has, however, never done it as well as this. Although the third panel ruins the joke, the simplicity of it is brilliant and brings into sharp relief how critical it is to have some context, otherwise you end up getting the wrong picture completely. I’d be lying if I were to say that I’ve been at meetings where my sales team said something like this to a client, but it’s within the imaginable realm that somewhere there’s a guy saying this to his customer.
I remember when I was just getting started in web development and I was researching how to get web sites listed in Yahoo. At the time, Yahoo didn’t use web crawlers to decide what sites to list in their search engine; you had to submit it in the category that you wanted your site listed, and a human would review it and decide whether or not to list your site. I don’t know if it still works that way or not, but it’s almost inconceivable that it still would.
I remember at the time, I called someone at Yahoo to ask about the process, and the guy at the other end went into a long story about the elaborate logarithms Yahoo used to determine search results and their listing order. Obviously, what this imbecile meant was “algorithm”. Unfortunately for him, the words you use are more important than the words you mean, so this poor guy got written off as the dude who told me Yahoo will only return the natural log of the results of your search. Lucky for me, I always happen to be looking for a bijection of the set of positive real search results to the set of all real results so it doesn’t get in my way, but it does explain why Yahoo is less popular than Google.
November 16, 2007 · Filed under Entertainment, Music, Video
That last post reminded me of the coolest thing ever. Anything I say will just take away from the sheer awesomeness of this. All I’m going to say is that the best part is four minutes in.
Watch the whole thing. I promise it’s worth it.
November 16, 2007 · Filed under Entertainment, Music, Video
The Dutch Mafia has been guarding this secret for a while, but I’m going to share it with you. We were planning on trying to keep this whole thing quiet for a while longer, but it turns out YouTube is letting every cat out of every bag everywhere.
So here it is: Bono is a wanker.
A couple things strike me in the first minute and a half of this video.
- Bono is a wanker
- “We’re making a DVD”. Really? Right now? Aren’t you making a video that you will distribute on DVD? Or is Adam Clayton sitting in the corner busily cranking out a single, blank DVD out of raw materials? If so, that sounds cooler than listening to Bono ramble on about Italy and films and stained-glass windows.
- Why is he talking like William Shatner? “Thank you…for…being a part of…the FILM…we’re making…TONIGHT.”
- Why does he raise his arms when he says “little film”? Is he trying to hex the audience? Appear taller than he is? What?
- We’ve established that U2 is playing in Milan. Why does he say “Excuse moi”? Last I heard, this guy was bouncing around the world explaining to everyone how we all need to spread western wealth and medicine to under-developed areas of the world. A noble cause, but I would think a guy who knows so much about what the world needs would know that Italians don’t speak French
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