palordrolap

Comedy sketch that takes this in a slightly different direction but with similar results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtm4mbtPOgk

Back in the 1960s there was a kind of car called a Bubble Car. They had a front-opening door, that is, the door and windscreen were one, and it opened up, out and to the left. The cars also had no reverse gear.

It was thus possible to get into a state where you’d driven right up to the back wall of a garage and were then completely unable to get out.

The car wasn’t broken and otherwise worked normally. If there’d been a radio in there, that would have still worked. The seat didn’t suddenly become uncomfortable, etc. Nonetheless, the user was stuck.

What’s the point of this anecdote? Well, a computer that can be fixed by rebooting was in a state like that bubble car stuck against the back wall of the garage.

Unfortunately, with the car, there was no equivalent reset to get back outside the garage again, and usually resulted in the user screaming for help.

…and then he died.

Frankly, I’m surprised an old-school juggernaut like Zawinski doesn’t already have his own mail server. It’s not like he lacks the technical ability to set one up.

Are you sure that’s not pre-Python? Maybe one of David Frost’s shows like At Last the 1948 Show or The Frost Report.

Marty Feldman (the customer) wasn’t one of the Pythons, and the comments on the video suggest that Graham Chapman took on the customer role when the Pythons performed it. (Which, if they did, suggests that Cleese may have written it, in order for him to have been allowed to take it with him.)

Actually yes, but I didn’t expect they’d go down the same avenues with the Pi.

I actually considered getting one of the computer-in-keyboard versions precisely because I’m of that same generation, but I couldn’t justify the expense.

Edit: It has come to my attention that it isn’t actually the people behind the Pi doing this. I really should read more rather than jumping to conclusions. There’s a few obvious rewrites I could make, but I think the prediction at the end is still valid even if the route I took wasn’t the right one.

This would appear to indicate that someone in charge of product design at Pi HQ is a Gen X-er or Boomer desperate to relive computing history through their own products.

Computer on a board. Bigger computer on a board. Computer entirely within a keyboard.

And now a computer in a PC-like case.

Prediction: The next step will be some kind of ARM-based cloud service.

Emotional daaaaa

Internet memes had led me to believe that the correct verb and noun in this scenario are, respectively, “tonguepunch” and “fartbox”.

This is the limit of my knowledge on this topic and it’ll likely stay that way.

5 - 3 = 2. So I have ten buckets. Checkmate!

Had to look up the logical fallacy because I thought there must be a name for it. It’s called “affirming the consequent” or “fallacy of the converse” among other names.

The real question might be whether the compiler was smart enough to change var++ and var-- into ++var and --var when the initial values aren’t needed.

As compiler optimisations go, it’s a fairly obvious one, but it was 1974 and putting checks like that in the compiler would increase its size and slow it down when both space and time were at a premium.

cookiemonsternomnomnom.gif

Could work. The guy who currently performs Kermit’s voice is better at singing than talking. (Or that was the case previously. He might have improved since I last consumed Muppet media).

I assume this is like one of those “one lies, the other tells the truth” things and a narcissist would answer “no”. If I saw the QI episode, I’ve long since forgotten what was said about it.

FWIW, my response would be “oh god I hope not”, all the while fretting that I’ve been writing a lot of comments from the first person with lots of "I"s these days, which is a bit self-centred. I don’t have the brain power to rewrite. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(Another, slightly more cruel one is to find a perfectionist who thinks that perfectionism is an imperfection and ask them if they’re a perfectionist. A therapist accidentally short-circuited my brain with that one.)

Relevant stand-up routine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJXl1gPW0Fc

Caution: If you lean Trumpwards politically, this isn’t for you.

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgqEIp2YmtE

Almost but not quite the same energy: https://www.buttersafe.com/2008/10/23/the-detour/

I feel like the demon in the Buttersafe comic was equally and unexpectedly benign and got the guy to his kitchen.

Pros: Little screens on every key!

Cons: Looks awful and costs a fortune!

Get one today!

That’s taxable. In Britain at least, we have the VAT system where businesses must include it in their prices. There are two or three tiers with the highest tier of 20% applying to goods and services absolutely not necessary for day-to-day living.

Businesses are supposed to keep records of what they’ve charged and to whom, and they can use that proof to claim all or part of VAT back, so that the tax falls mostly on the consumer.

Businesses that don’t do this generally get in trouble sooner rather than later.

(Now, I’m not going to claim VAT is perfect, nor that the stratification of it is done correctly as it stands, but it’s proof a system like that can and does exist.)