Once Again, Funny Because It’s True

Posted without comment (but with smirk)

I Love Oversimplifications

Especially when the entity coming up with the incredibly simplistic graphic stands to make a profit from people buying into their analysis. “Why Gartner” indeed…

 

Gartner’s 2013 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies Maps Out Evolving Relationship Between Humans and Machines

Product Activation Keys…

are intended to activate your software so you can use it indefinitely and receive tech support (for those folks who use that *g*).

They are *not* intended for one to hit “Not Now” and skip entering the key for, I don’t know, 5 YEARS OR SO.

Giant Software Company will eventually enforce their arbitrary deadline and shut down your ability to use the software you bought and paid for, just because they can. Which is evidently very frustrating for non-technically inclined students 7 weeks into the semester.

It’s True – You Can Write An Article About Anything

For once this isn’t a rant about scholarly publishing and the fact that you can get published on any subject, such as:

Author, N.E. (2013). So I came in to work today and opened my office door – A longitudinal study of early-morning academic library work habits focusing on first-five-minute

behaviors. Journal of WastingMyTimeButItsPublishOrPerish Research (100)100, 100-575. doi: 10.blah.blahblah.blah

Yes, that’s a correctly APA-formatted citation to a made-up but not implausible article.

Instead it’s about a recent tech article regarding cell phone form factors from Engadget: “The brutal, exaggerated death of the form factor phone“.

While entertaining enough (“* 2011 — Grizzled old men gathered round the fire to lament the death of consumer choice. Their whispers were occasionally interrupted by the calls of increasingly rare animals like the Xperia Play and HTC Surround. * 2012 — The grizzled old men died.”) and containing some interesting information, the conclusion left something to be desired (“Either the slab will persist, like the technological equivalent of the crocodile, so perfectly adapted to its environment that it barely needs to change. Or things will go the opposite way: the technical expertise that has built up during the ultra-competitive era of the slab will lead to an explosion of new species.”).

Is it just me or does that parse as “Either things will stay the same, or they will change – we just don’t know which”? I think I may have been able to figure that much out on my own *g*.

Oh, and the only thing more entertaining than a comments thread on Engadget or Gizmodo is a comments thread on ANY gun control article. Greatest microcosms of the human race you will find.

How Sad Is It

when I can provide better tech support on a Microsoft product than a Microsoft Tech Support Specialist?

The Internet Is An Archive

People seem to forget (or, more likely, never really understood) how the internet works. Once you post something, unless you delete it almost immediately, someone somewhere has a copy. Especially when it’s salacious or embarrassing or controversial, or even really just interesting. Don’t even get me started on the inability to actually remove content from social media sites.

Why the mini-rant? Because I thought this was funny. Reaction GIF’s:

When my local news show said “The pictures have since been removed from the internet”

Space Really Is Awesome

We are now regularly shooting video of the sun and we have a way cool recreational vehicle on Mars. Where’s my flying car!

From the fine folks at Geeks are Sexy

CamScanner for Android

I look at a lot of Android apps, and every once in a while I run across a genuinely useful one. CamScanner is one of those, in that “you may not need it but when you do it is absolutely perfect at what it does” way.

CamScanner turns your phone into a scanner. With CamScanner, you are able to digitize any paper documents by photo shooting. Simply take a picture of any paper documents such as receipts, whiteboards, notes, agreement and so forth, and CamScanner can auto-crop image, enhance image quality and create an industry standard PDF file. And you can easily upload documents to cloud like Dropbox, Google Doc, Box.net, and manage them by tagging or searching.

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

And this Admin idiot over at Smoke and Thunder (the www’s newest, bestest, most somethingest social media site – just ask them) is as stupid as I’ve seen in a long time. It’s like a perfect storm of Paul Cristoforo, Robert Farago and the idiot from GunsAmerica.

Hilarity is almost certain to ensue. Grabbing popcorn while this tool learns how the internet actually works. Good times…

Apropos of Nothing

…except, maybe, useful to provide a little perspective.

Time-lapse photography from the International Space Station, shot from about 350km up and put into a cleaned-up video. Cool.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.