/dev/null/kevin

There was a recent story about Google's CAPTCHA being broken.  CAPTCHAs are the little tests that websites use to prove the user is a human and not an automated system (spammer).  This very blog uses the simple, and easily broken, "add these numbers" test to leave a comment.

Here are my (not serious) suggestions for improved CAPTCHAs:

Use Pop Culture References:

Which character ruined Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace?

A. B. C. D. All of the Above

Answer: D

What internet meme died on April 1, 2008?

1. Dramatic Hampster
   
2. Rick Rolling
3. LOL Cats
4. Scientology
   

 

Answer: B

 Use Song Lyrics: 

How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
The answer is: --> blowin' in the wind

Who ya gonna call?
--> Ghostbusters!

Who's the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks?
--> Shaft!
You're damn right

Who is the man that would risk his neck for his brother man?
--> Shaft!
Can ya dig it?

Who's the cat that won't cop out when there's danger all about?
--> Shaft!
Right on!

You see this cat Shaft is a bad mother--
--> Shut your mouth
But I'm talkin' about Shaft
--> Then we can dig it

 Use Trivia: 

How Many Licks Does It Take To Get To The Tootsie Roll Center Of A Tootsie Pop?

--> 3

What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?

--> African or European?

 Use Jeopardy Questions: 

 Catagory: POTPOURRI

The most undeserving popular blog at blogs.sun.com.

--> /dev/null/kevin

Please phrase your response in the form of a question

--> What the hell is /dev/null/kevin?

Comment approved.

I'm questionable.  Got a huge freaking spider bite on my big toe, and I can barely get a shoe on and hobble around at work.

--Chris W.

Thanks to Chris K. for the laugh.

Male nerds, geeks and gamers have the stereotypical reputation of being absolutely clueless when it comes to women.  Conan O'Brien and his writers love to poke fun at nerds this way.  Of course, this isn't true, but it just might be true in the case of the geeks who wrote Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07.

We rented this game for our Wii.  My 4 year old daughter's favorite part of the Wii is the Mii editor.  She had lots of fun making herself and all of her friends.  So while she wasn't into playing Tiger Woods' gold game (that was for Daddy), she did want to use the game's character builder.

The in-game "Game Face" character builder is much more complicated than the Mii generator.  The characters are much more realistic than the Miis.  We built Daddy first, and it looked pretty close to me (a very athletic version of me).  We then tried to make my daughter.  The process first asks some quesions:

• Gender.  Female.  At least the have that option.
  
• Age.  She's almost 5, but 8 was the smallest value we could choose.  Fine, eight years old it is.
• Height.  The smallest value was 5' 0" (152 cm).  While that is short, I know some adults who are shorter than that.  Hmmm.
• Face.  No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get this girl to look younger than 20, let alone 8.  Did that parameter mean anything?
• Body.  Here's where it gets good.  I now needed to select how big to make this "8" year old's boobs.  Hello!

Like the other attributes that wouldn't scale to the 8 year old level (let alone 5), the choice for breast size ranged from a B cup to D cup.  I don't know what they were thinking, but my first reaction was "stupid horny engineers!"

Yes, this game probably isn't for little kids, but it could be.  Michelle Wie started playing golf at age 4 and turned pro at 15.  If you're going to make age a parameter, and let me select age 8, then you'd better actually support it.  Don't just make all of the female avatars be your virtual fantasy girl.

BTW, if anyone knows of any good Wii games that let the Mii characters play together, let me know.

Men don't understand women, or so my wife tells me when I'm actually listening.  Women are even harder for most geeks for grok.  So when I was going through the HTML response codes, I noted that some of them could be used by a women when a man uses a pickup line on her.

Ladies, won't it be great to get your point across easily and with no confusion?  Men are clueless and can't take a hint.  Now there won't be any more mixed signals.  Keep the guys you want and get rid of the rest.

Men, we're good with numbers, right?  We are men after all.  But women?  Do we ever know what they really want?  No means yes.  Yes means no.  A or B?  No!  It's secret option C!  WiFi encryption was easier to crack.  But we're the Japanese navy and they're the Navajos.  So, wouldn't it be great if if we could get clear and meaningful responses from them?  Why waste time with a girl who doesn't dig us when Miss Right Now could just be around the corner.

Great!  Now that we're all in agreement, I present...

Starring Thin Guy as Sun Ray.  Inspired by a tweet from acworkma.

[Original]

Paraphrased conversation:

Engineer1: We need an Apache expert to look at this.  Who can we call?

Engineer2: That would be you.

Engineer1: Damn it!

They say that fashion is cyclical and everything comes back into style.

They were wrong.

Very wrong. 

Thanks to Gordon for the tip.  Give him a job.

"Newbies" have long incurred the wrath of more advanced computer users due to their lack of experience and naive views.  But what if computers and the internet really were as n00bs think it is?  What would the world be like? 

• Unplugging your computer would be the safest way to shutdown your computer
• Little elves would scan all email lists for subscription and removal requests - 24 hours a day.
• Likewise, if you just reply (to all) with "me too" you'll automatically be included.
• AOL/MySpace/Facebook is the internet.
• Making a real friend is as easy as clicking on a button.
• Don't like something?  An internet petition will change it!
  
• Cancer would be cured with chain letters.
• We'd all be rich, thanks to that nice Nigerian fellow.
• Except Bill Gates, since he gave all of his money away to people who tested his email tracking program.
• We'd be even richer because we'd won dozens of European lotteries that we didn't even enter.
  
• Oxford and Merriam-Webster change the proper spelling of "the" to "teh."
• LOLCAT would become the official language of the United States and Great Britain.  kthxbai.
• THE SHIFT KEY WOULD BE MANDATORY.
• or outlawed and removed from the keyboard.
• The "ANY KEY" key replaces the BACKSPACE key.
• All keyboards would be Dorito-proof.
• OK, that's just for me.  I really just dropped a handful of Doritos on my keyboard.  Now it crunches when I type.
  
• It's completely safe to give your PayPal password to the helpful employees who ask for it.
• Same for your credit card info.
  
• We would all know if we were "hot" or "not."
• "abc" is the most secure password to use.
• Windows Vista?  The best OS in the world.
• Everyone's penis would be longer and constantly erect.

Recent research shows that as you get older you lose your sense of humor.  Quoting the article:

If you need more proof, look no further than this blog.  Aging Led Zeppelin fans are still trying to lynch me with a cactus for that posting.  They would have caught me, too, but the tennis balls kept falling off their walkers.

I think the real issue isn't how good Zeppelin is or was, but that by recognizing that the band is now old, then they, the fans, are also old.  No one wants to face that.

Of course they are not that old, but if people can give me Depends for my 30th birthday then I can make fun of Zeppelin 30 years after they last toured in the US.  It's the law - look it up.

Perhaps you've heard of the upcoming Led Zeppelin Reunion Tour.  Never mind that a true reunion would require a shovel, these guys are almost older than the Rolling Stones.  And they've been dead for years, right?

The new tour is going to require them to change a few of their songs:

New Led Zeppelin Song Titles:

UPDATE [09/13/2007]: Hey, I'm not the only one who thinks this thing could go south.  Who is the Robert Plant guy anyway?  Oh, right.  Look at this youthful face of rock n' roll.

For the record, I own every Led Zeppelin album released.  I even own a Dread Zeppelin reggae album.  However, I've also heard many of their later live performances and they're not very good.  Even Page's and Plant's solo live covers aren't good.  For whatever reason, they jumped the shark long ago.

Final Update [02/15/2008]: Does anyone remember laughter?

Ridiculous and misleading election commercials are the norm right now (in the US where we have a midterm election tomorrow next week).  However, there is one that must target only the dumbest people in California.  Using the usual negative ad music and voice over, the announcer warns that...

Dear God!  Not words!!  No!!!  And legally binding at that!

Remember, this November, only vote for laws that contain pictures, but not legally binding pictures, only suggestions.  Yes, support suggestive pictures.  And the more suggestive, the better! 

Tags: election, voting, humor, stupid

Not one, but two three really bad places to eat today.



Yes, it's Hitler's Cross.  What marketing genius came up with this?  Was "Bin Laden's Deli" taken?



How hungry do you have to be to come up with this idea?  Yes, it's the USBBQ.  Sorry, can't use the mouse, keyboard or printer today.  I'm cooking prepackaged meat from a bag!  This restaurant should be called "T.G.I. Triconosis"

Update!

Thanks to Walter for this new entry: Toilet Bowl Restaurant.  Don't order the pupu platter.



Tags: humor restaurant stupid
August 24, 2006 10:20 AM PDT Permalink | |

OK, I'm getting old. And as such, I've earned the right to talk about the past.

As a child of the 80s, I've seen all sort of things go out of style, come back, and go out of style again (yes you, bell-bottom jeans and Donny Osmond). However, there are a few things that went away and I don't think are ever coming back.

Today's Edition: Music

• The Fade Out.
  Songs used to not end, they just faded out and got quieter and quieter. What was with that? How lazy are you to not write an ending for your song? I'm sure it played better on the radio or something, but with the iGeneration out there I don't think that's ever going to fly again.

• The Never-Ending Song
  While some songs faded out on the radio, the live version of a song might never end. Endless "solos" and schtick could prolong a song well past its expiration date. I'm listening to a live version of Y&T's song "Forever" and it's taking forever for this song to end. I checked and it took one minute and 20 seconds from the "last" note to when they actually stopped playing.

  
  

• The Gong.
  There was a time that every drummer had a huge gong behind him. We're talking 6 to 8 feet across here. It must have weighed 100 pounds, not including the huge stand required to hold it. And for what? How many songs needed that gong? One. Just one. And I don't mean "one song per band" - I mean one song in the history of songs. That song was Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. So unless you are Roger Taylor, it's back to Gong World for you.

  
  

• The Drum Solo.
  I'm picking on drummers since I am one, but the era of the self-indulgent drummer is over. Sorry guys. In the old days drummers like John Bohnam and Neil Peart would go off for hours while their band mates got high and scored with groupies (true!) but no more. The truth is, no one wants to hear it except the other drummers in the audience. The chicks all want the lead singer anyway.

• Kung Fu.
  OK, this might be limited to David Lee Roth and Van Halen, but you just don't see lead singers doing martial arts on stage any more. Is the world a better place? You decide.

  
  

• The Bridge.
  Don't know what a musical bridge is? It's neither the chorus nor the verse, but it ties the two together. It also takes some musical talent to write. Some bands think a bridge is a guitar solo or a rap break. Please. Some of these bands set the bar so low that I'm impressed if I get a key change out of them.

• Keyboards.
  Now of course bands have keyboards, but when was the last time you actually heard one played as a keyboard? Unless it's being a piano you don't. The keyboard has become an effects and sequencing system. You'll hear sustained chords and sampled sounds but you never hear that synth sound anymore. It must tough to be Jean Michel Jarre now.

Next up: Things you just don't see on TV anymore.

I recently took my 2 year old daughter on a paddle boat ride. She loved it and I got a work out. If you've never piloted a paddleboat before (because you were born yesterday) you should know that there is a small lever that controls the rudder, which is supposed to steer the boat. Having played lots of games with joysticks, I assumed that if I moved the lever to the left the boat would turn left, and if I moved the lever to the right the boat would turn right.

I was wrong.

Here is a more accurate diagram detailing how to steer a paddle boat.

I'm sure the fact that I out weigh my daughter by 200 pounds, and the boat was leaning heavily towards one side, had nothing to do with the steering problems.