Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Dilbert Voices the Secret Thoughts of the Geek...

For any geek working in a company run by non-geeks (decidedly not the case at my employer, ServiceNow – but true of some of my former employers), it's a common occurrence to have some suit ask or tell you to do something utterly stupid – and obvious to any other geek.  If you're interested in keeping your job, you swallow, count to 10, and try to come up with some civil response.  But what you really want to do is this:


Scott Adams (the genius creator of Dilbert) somehow manages to keep nailing the current geek, despite not having worked in industry for decades...

The Cowboy Way...

My lovely bride passed along this little pearl of Cowboy Wisdom&tm;:
The guys were all at a deer camp.  No one wanted to room with Bob, because he snored so badly.  They decided it wasn't fair to make one of them stay with him the whole time, so they voted to take turns.

The first guy slept with Bob and comes to breakfast the next morning with his hair a mess and his eyes all bloodshot.  They said, "Man, what happened to you?"  He said, "Bob snored so loudly, I just sat up and watched him all night."

The next night it was a different guy's turn.  In the morning, same thing – hair all standing up, eyes all bloodshot.  They said, "Man, what happened to you? You look awful!" He said, "Man, that Bob shakes the roof with his snoring. I watched him all night."

The third night was Fred's turn.  Fred was a tanned, older cowboy; a man's man. The next morning he came to breakfast bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.  "Good morning!" he said.  They couldn't believe it.  They said, "Man, what happened?" He said, "Well, we got ready for bed.  I went and tucked Bob into bed, patted him on the butt, and kissed him good night...

Bob sat up and watched me all night.
I'll bet he did!

Best Response Evah!

Suppose you're a violinist.  You're playing at a somber, serious classical music concert.  Suddenly someone's Nokia (recognizable from the ringtone) phone starts ringing.  What do you do?  Here's what one fellow did:


Clipboard in the Cloud...

Here's an interesting idea – shareable clipboard-like functionality hosted in the cloud.  It's basically a fast way to share (live) relatively small amounts of text...

JavaScript Best Practices...

A nice little compilation and discussion of mostly common-sense practices – but if you're new to JavaScript, this is quite handy!

Well, That Worked!

Doug S. passes along this amateur video clip of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  The guard is not happy with the laughter and levity of the crowd:




I didn't hear a peep after that!

I wonder if that was ad hoc, or if the guards are trained to maintain decorum?  And what do you suppose would happen if that warning hadn't worked?