Category Archives: Humor

I used to take April Fool’s pretty seriously. but to do it well, it takes time, energy and the guts to take a risk. Which is why, again this year, Anil is right.

So this year, I thought I’d talk instead about the best April Fool’s joke I ever put together, one I never had the guts to pull off.

Very simple, really. Everyone in the building at Apple I worked in at the time would show up to a memo on their desk announcing Apple’s new Drug Testing Policy.

With a sample cup. And instructions on where to drop it off.

This one had the potential for chaos on so many levels. The obvious: a drug testing policy is so against the culture of a company like Apple, it’s an obvious riff. And frankly, a “here’s our new policy” memo or email just isn’t that interesting. But toss in the sample cup and submission info, and it’d suddenly feel a lot more real — at least initially.

then think about the different layers of this: people who don’t get it who get pissed (ahem) and start screaming about it until someone clues them in.

Then start thinking about the poor person at the wrong end of the submission address. And the interoffice mail folks. And… Because you know some folks WILL. And some folks will — but using innovative substances. And…

This one goes way back, when the subject of affection was Kevin Sullivan, for whom I had no real love lost for his work at Apple.

But the reason I never did it was because the peope who’d take the brunt of the bad aspects of the joke weren’t the people it was aimed at (Sullivan, Apple HR at the time, and whiny people who scream first and think maybe), but the AA’s who’d actually have to deal with all of the submissions. And that just didn’t seem funny to me. Now, Sullivan himself dealing with them? that’d have been worth being fired over…

(This is a reprint of a piece I did in 2008, but I think it deserves a fresh look here in April Fools day. Either that, or I’d have to come up with a new joke…)

It’s with some sadness I read today that a couple of people have passed away — Wally Boag and Betty Taylor. Boag was 90, and Taylor was 91.

Unless you’re an entertainment geek of the proper age and persuasion, neither name will mean much to you. But Boag and Taylor were hired by Walt Disney to perform in the Golden Horseshoe Revue in Frontierland. Bpag played Peco Bill and Taylor was Slew-foot Sue and emceed the show. The show ran from almost the opening of the park in the 50′s to 1986, and Boag and Taylor did the show live 5-6 days a week, 3-5 shows a day for thirty years. They and the show are in Guiness as the longest running stage show with over 47,000 performances.

As a kid growing up in SoCal, I visited the park a lot, and later, worked there for four years after high school. My job there gave me a lot of opportunity to explore the bowels off hours, as I worked mostly swing or graveyard, and left me days free, so of course I spent a number of them in the park as well (because I self-admit to having no real life).

One of the places I went to a lot in the park was Golden Horseshoe; it was a cool, quiet place in the heat of the day where you could get a sandwich that wasn’t a greaseball and a cold drink and sit for a bit. And the show was a lot of fun, especially for someone with a fondness for slapstick humor. I’m not exaggerating when I say I probably saw it around a hundred times over the years.

Taylor was a strong performer with a classic vaudeville/broadway voice, the singer that could fill a room, much like Ethel Merman. Boag was your classic slapstick comedian, very mobile face, a good sense of timing. Steve Martin, another former Disneylander who’s schtick I saw a couple of times when he was  working in the magic shop, has said Boag was a major influence of his; I think it says something about Boag’s influence that he hosted the Muppet Show when most people watching the show likely had no clue who he was.

What made the Golden Horseshoe fun time and time again was how these people kept it fresh; I honestly have no idea how someone could do effectively the same routine for 30 years and not end up phoning it in or losing enthusiasm for it — but if they did, I never saw it. What they did wasn’t Shakespeare (and wasn’t intended to be), but the quality and consistency stood out. They were pros and they were proud of what they did, and they made sure the people there were entertained, every show, every day.

So this is one of those little pieces of my history that’s now moved on; I never met either, although I saw them both backstage a couple of times in my work there. So enjoy, if you will, a couple of youtube clips of their work and raise a glass and a fond wish on their passing.

(this clip seems to be from, I’m guessing, the mid or late 60′s)

(this bit by Taylor is from some special broadcasted performance much later, probably late 70′s or close to retirement time)

(and finally, Boag on the Muppet show, doing his Horseshoe routine with Miss Piggy as Slewfoot Sue).

and here on the net, I’m seeing dozens. And honestly? Most of them aren’t funny, or interesting, or original.

Sigh.

Here’s a hint, from someone who used to really enjoy April Fool’s day: If you’re doing something that took under 10 minutes to think up or under 10 minutes to implement, you probably shouldn’t bother. Renaming products (“Palm POST” heh. How unique. all ten of you) and bad photoshops do not an April Fools joke make. Just an April Fool.

About the only one I’ve seen this year that shows any real thought is Michael Mace’s sideswipe of both the mobile market and the federal bailout strategy. Definitely worth a read.

I presume the big topic of discussion at the CTIA conference this week is going to be the government’s emergency bailout package for the tech industry. I was surprised this morning when US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner replaced RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis at the CTIA keynote to announce the package, and ever since I’ve been scrambling to sort through all the details. A lot of it’s still fuzzy, but here’s what I’ve been able to figure out so far:

via Mobile Opportunity: Thoughts on the tech industry bailout.

Honorable mention as usual goes to Tidbits. Not all of their articles click with me, but they thought about it and put some time into it. And some of their pieces are pretty good.

The rest of it is pretty damn forgettable.

Curmudgeonly yours,

Someone who was doing this when most of you were in diapers.

From the robot chicken folks. Enjoy!

(hat tip: Brian Fies)

updated to point to the copy at Adult Swim….

I used to take April Fool’s pretty seriously. but to do it well, it takes time, energy and the guts to take a risk. Which is why, again this year, Anil is right.

So this year, I thought I’d talk instead about the best April Fool’s joke I ever put together, one I never had the guts to pull off.

Very simple, really. Everyone in the building at Apple I worked in at the time would show up to a memo on their desk announcing Apple’s new Drug Testing Policy.

With a sample cup. And instructions on where to drop it off.

This one had the potential for chaos on so many levels. The obvious: a drug testing policy is so against the culture of a company like Apple, it’s an obvious riff. And frankly, a “here’s our new policy” memo or email just isn’t that interesting. But toss in the sample cup and submission info, and it’d suddenly feel a lot more real — at least initially.

then think about the different layers of this: people who don’t get it who get pissed (ahem) and start screaming about it until someone clues them in.

Then start thinking about the poor person at the wrong end of the submission address. And the interoffice mail folks. And… Because you know some folks WILL. And some folks will — but using innovative substances. And…

This one goes way back, when the subject of affection was Kevin Sullivan, for whom I had no real love lost for his work at Apple.

But the reason I never did it was because the peope who’d take the brunt of the bad aspects of the joke weren’t the people it was aimed at (Sullivan, Apple HR at the time, and whiny people who scream first and think maybe), but the AA’s who’d actually have to deal with all of the submissions. And that just didn’t seem funny to me. Now, Sullivan himself dealing with them? that’d have been worth being fired over…

Darth Vader, violinist

Originally uploaded by BrooksT.

Having heard him play on a few trips to Victoria, I can say that Vader the Violinist isn’t bad at all.

In general, the huckster scene in Victoria is pretty rocking. A lot of pretty good musicians and groups and a few other things — jugglers, etc.

of course, there are exceptions. Bad Shakespeare guy, as I like to call him, offers to recite sonnets to you and your loved one for a kindly fee, and then there are the bagpipers out by the harbor. Very popular — but only if you don’t know bagpipe music… As photo ops, yes. As musicians, not so…

(via gadling)

Weekend plan:

1) take cats to vet for checkup

2) winter garden cleanup

3) put the rest of the christmas stuff back in storage

4) sharks game saturday night

5) go birding on sunday.

6) work on “outsider’s guides”

Weekend reality:

1) tear apart bedroom to find cats

2) take cats to vets for checkup

3) decide as long as bedroom is torn up it’s a good time to shampoo carpets

4) find out the carpet shampooer has died a hero (hey, it moved here with us from Mountain View….)

5) off to target for a new carpet shampooer

6) decide to watch the sharks from home — if we stay awake

7) we did (barely)

8) decide to stay home and take it easy, work on “outsider’s guide”

9) spend hours wandering around groups.google.com going “gee, did I really write THAT crap?”

10) afternoon nap

11) catch up on Mythbusters episodes

12) realize it’s time to crash…

How things change. Anyone who knows cats understands how the weekend went sideways. ours have this innate, psychic ability to know that the cat boxes have been pulled from storage, even if they’re not able to see that they’re moved. at some point, Archie will look at one or the other of us and canter off; we now know that he’s headed into hiding, and he usually grabs Manon and she runs off with him. If we’re lucky, it’s under the bed (if it’s not, it’s in the garage or storage room, and then we’re in big trouble)

extricating them involves tearing off all the bedsheets, then leaning the mattress and box springs against the wall with the door and closet closed and locked, and then grabbing the cats (who have welded their claws into the carpet) and stuff them in boxes. If we’re lucky, we can do this in about 20 minutes… We made the vets with 5 minutes to spare….

One of the things we discovered was that quiet, lovable Manon has another side to her. See, in the past, since Apple had christmas week off, we’d head down to my family in LA and board the animals, and the annual checkup and shots happened magically when we were gone. We’ve actually never been IN the room during a checkup since Manon’s kitten check. This year, with everything changed, we had to do the checkup ourselves.

Manon was mostly cooperative; until the vet went to take her temperature (I’ll stop a second while you ponder how cats get their temperatures taken; it’s not under the tongue). She just made it quite clear that wasn’t going to happen, and the vet smiled and declared it optional. More amusingly, when we checked her files, we found out teh ONLY time her temperature has been taken was her kitten checkup. Shots? Mildly annoying? Thermometer? not a chance.

Archie wasn’t happy, but he let us do the necessary.

Both are healthy, both are now up to date on shots and boosters. Manon is 14.5 pounds, and about a pound heavy. Archie’s 12+, and right on. All is well in the world.

And, as long as we have the bedroom torn apart, we can shampoo the carpets and get under the bed easily. No problem!

yeah, right. ohwell. I’ll finish the shampooing of the rest of the house next weekend…

I had a great time wandering through the old blog postings and the old USENET stuff today. wasn’t what I’d planned, but what the heck. Nice to run into some folks (virtually) that I haven’t seen in years. Interesting that I can go back 20+ years and document that I’ve averaged a posting a day that entire time. (note I said interesting; good? useful? productive? god knows…)

And we’re mostly up to date on TV again, except for the last two episodes of Battlestar, which I’d probably say was the best written thing on TV if it wasn’t for Dr. Who coming out of britain… just finished viewing 2nd season from Sci-Fi earlier in the week, and the way they ended year two blew me away. I’ll miss you, Rose Tyler. (now, how do they top this?)

Someday, some poor student working on a Ph.D. is going to try to explain USENET and how it operated (and didn’t) as part of their thesis; maybe they’ll be crazy enough to look at it in the wider context of the birth of the Internet in its current form, and whatever it decides to become.

I doubt there’s a better explanation for what it was like to live through USENET from start to finish than the USENET Olympics. Scott Forbes had this wonderful ability to both put things in perspective and make them horribly funny at the same time, without ever taking things very seriously. Sort of like Dave Berry, sort of like Scary Movie, finding the essence within the silly.

So running into this again today was truly a trip back to the past for me; for most of you, for all I know, this is going to be gibberish….

(and, in fact, I did actually use the phrase “they aren’t rules, they’re guidelines” in the last couple of weeks, and then laughed a bit. Much to the confusion of the people I was with at the time; I declined to explain then, because that was a rathole not worth travelling. But the answer is actually here in Scott’s piece…..)

Google Groups: rec.arts.sf.misc:

[Chuq and Peter are walking away from Lawrence Stadium on a

road made entirely of asbestos bricks.]

Peter:

>Isn’t there SOMETHING you can tell me about this place, other

>than the obvious “Wizard of Oz” parallels?

Chuq:

>You must find the answers for yourself. There is no other way.

Peter:

>Who or what is at the end of the road? Emerald City? The Wizard?

Chuq:

>It will all be clear to you when we reach the end of our quest.

Peter:

>Look, all I want to do is change the Guidelines. Why is –

[There is a terrifying high-pitched wail, trailing off into

frequencies beyond human hearing, and filled with terrible purpose.

A Rulewraith on a winged steed descends from the sky, blocking

the path before Peter and Chuq. The Rulewraith looks suspiciously

like Jose Martinez:]

Rulewraith:

>THE GUIDELINES ARE INFLEXIBLE! THEY MUST BE FOLLOWED TO THE

>EXACT LETTER WITHOUT ACCOMODATION! THEY MUST NOT BE BENT OR

>ALTERED OR MODIFIED! YOU WILL NEVER CHANGE THEM!

[Horrified by the evil in the words of the Rulewraith, Peter

stands frozen in sheer terror. Chuq calmly pulls a bucket of

water out of his cloak and throws it at the Rulewraith.]

Rulewraith:

>AIYEE! I’M MELTING!

[The Rulewraith dissolves, leaving an inky puddle. Peter stares

at the puddle, then stares at Chuq.]

Chuq:

>Please do not say those words again.

Blast from the past: January, 1984….

Google Groups : net.flame:

I have found what I think is a great quote to keep in mind the next time

you want to flame someone for bad spelling:

You can’t help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he

doesn’t spell it right; but spelling isn’t everything. There are days

when spelling Tuesday simply doesn’t count.

– Piglet, about Owl

Winnie-The_Pooh by A.A. Milne

He has a point. There ARE days when spelling Tuesday doesn’t count, like

Wednesday, Thursday…

As people who read this blog know, a few years ago, I got involved in a new project at Apple, which has been quite successful for the company. It’s also a project that’s been under a bit of a cone of silence, which has sometimes led to amusingly convoluted postings where I attempt to talk about what’s going on without actually discussion what it is I’m talking about.

I’ve been talking to my business team about this, on and off, and whether this hardcore secrecy is still really necessary or relevant now that the project is maturing. We’ve all finally come to an agreement, with some appropriate restrictions, to open up the kimono a bit, since there’s some really interesting technology involved. I’m hoping to work on a paper for an upcoming comference, hopefully next year’s Etech by O’Reilly.

Until then, this will have to do.

You see — I run the Reality Distortion Field.

Yes, that one.

The RDF has a long history at Apple. It was invented by Steve Wozniak one rainy sunday in 1982 when he was trying to extract a stuck piece of toast from a toaster, and forgot to unplug the thing. At first, he didn’t realize what he had; when he woke up, he took it to a repair shop. There, the repairman offered to fix it for half price — and Wozniak realized something strange was going on.

Soon, he and Steve had figured out what was going on — the RDF affects brainwaves of those within it’s effect field. It’s a really interesting effect: it doesn’t influence how a person thinks, and it can’t make a person change their mind or believe something they know to be false: it merely reduces a person’s prejudices and preconceptions, and makes them more amenable to new ideas. To, well, thinking different. But ultimately, and this it a crucial point — whether you accept an idea is up to you. It just enhances your willingness to listen. If you aren’t; nothing happens.

The original RDF was obviously an analog system. It had all of the problems analog systems tend to have: it was sensitive to environmental conditions, it was hard to set up so it would work reliably, it’s field of effect was limited (and impacted by the square of the distance, meaning you needed to be very close to the source for it to be very effective), and operating the beast took a skilled hand. Most people couldn’t get the field to operate at all, much less operate over a wide area.

Steve, of course, was a natural.

As Apple grew, however, the RDF struggled to keep up.

It took more and more people to operate the machine.

It used more and more energy.

It had to be close to the audience, and it frankly wasn’t very portable. Ever wonder why Steve liked to use Flint Center?

And occasionally — we had our little mistakes.

Eventually, the engineer who kept the RDF running for Steve retired.

You could tell, just from looking at him, what the strain of trying to tame that beast for Steve had cost him. Others took up the challenge, but the RDF just wasn’t the same, or as reliable.

And, of course, you know what that meant to Apple, and to Steve.

But a few years ago, I was working with Guy Kawasaki on EvangeList and we were wondering what future (if any) Apple still had. We were talking to some of the hardware engineers, and they mentioned this new technique they were experimenting with — it’s somewhat similar to what disk drive manufacturers are starting to do — embedding data bits vertically on the hard disk medium to increase data density. Only in this case, they had come up with a way to use quantum mechanic techniques to embed a second data packet onto a TCP packet by stuffing it (more or less) vertically in between the bits that are being sent out across the network horizontally. The interesting thing was that this second packet, which took up no extra space, could hold either digital or analog information in it, and is completely undetectable except to a device built to read the quantum packet.

The engineers saw this as a way to do real-time data compression on networks.

We saw it as the possible salvation of company. If we could make it work.

It took some doing — but it happened. We could, if we had enough hardware, insert RDF analog packets and distribute them globally. Easier said than done, of course, because those packets have to go somewhere, and once they get there, be decoded so they can be released.

so all we needed to do was create a piece of hardware that included the network interface that included the decoder, and convince people to buy them. And then convince the owners to connect to Apple and accept the packets.

That, of course, turned out to be the easy part. A Unix box has the networking we needed, and we could build an ethernet interface that would decode these quantum packets but which wouldn’t look different from other interfaces. And Unix has one thing we could use to distribute these quantum packets:

Network Time. If you look in your system preferences panels, in the the date & time section, you’ll see how Mac OS X boxes (and OS9 boxes before them) connect to time.apple.com. Just about every Apple computer in the world connects to time.apple.com; and every packet time.apple.com sends has a quantum RDF packet inserted into it.

Somehow, Steve got wind of the project. Copland was dead, everyone inside Apple knew that it’d died on the table long ago. If we could create a reliable (and global!) Reality Distortion Field again, he knew he could save Apple. But not from the outside. He needed control of the RDF again.

Gil Amelio never knew what hit him.

That didn’t get the hardware out into users hands, but it was a start. We retrofitted the time code into the existing OS and started building better networking cards with our quantum functionality. Steve and Jonathan Ive went to work on the iMac. Apple went to work on Mac OS X. It was a slow process, but we knew it would be. WIFI was a godsend, of course, because people would bring their own personal quantum-packet-decoders and sprinkle them through audiences for us. Whenever, wherever Steve spoke, these packets would be flying around. As Apple turned around, and more people owned Macs and converted to Mac OS X, more people would find themselves in an RDF field. As more people entered these RDF fields — Steve’s ability to convince them to try OS X and Apple increased.

And this is an important part: the Reality Distortion Field is not, and never has been, about making people buy Apples. It doesn’t. It can’t. If OS X were a crap product, it would have failed, and so would have Apple. All RDF has ever been about is giving Apple a fair shot in a world where Apple was fighting a dominant monopoly, and trivialized by IT organizations that put maintenance of the bureaucracy over serving their user’s needs. All it did was give Apple a fair chance with people willing to be open minded.

The actual creation of these quantum packets is still a carefully held secret — as you might imagine, not everyone would use them for good the way Steve has. One can only imagine if the Soviets had figured out how to do this. Or Pat Robertson.

So for now, this is a technology Apple won’t be releasing into the wild. We hope to, some day. But with OS X’s success in hand and the Intel transition well in hand — we’re starting to question the need for the RDF, and we may well shut the project down. Or repurpose it to other causes, if we can agree on what might be appropriate. After all, for the RDF to be successful, it has to be a true cause, just one that needs a little more open mindedness. a willingness to, well, Think Different.

Until then….

Church of the Customer: It’s the little details that matter:

Should I be asked to “assist us in the event of an emergency,” as the flight attendants always say with some measure of gravitas — and I hope that request is never made — I’m not quite sure where to put exit door.

Personally, I’ve never figured out the utility of emergency exits at 30,000 feet…..

damn you, Steve Jackson Games (oh, wait. too late…)

The Teddy Bears Summon Cthulhu!

“If you go out to the woods today
You won’t like what you will find
If you go out to the woods today
You’re certain to lose your mind
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain because
Today’s the day the teddy bears summon Cthulhu!

Ritual time for teddy bears!
The little teddy bears are waking the Elder Gods today!
Smell the incense in the air!
And see them dancing their eldritch ballet!
See the waving tentacles
While in their pentacles
They summon your worst nightmares!
And soon their Lord, Great Old One Cthulhu
Will rise up from the sea
Because they’re faithful little teddy bears

You could go out to the woods today
With the bears and their evil tome
It’s lovely out in the woods today
But safer to stay at home
Beneath the trees where nobody sees
They’ll chant and pray as long as they please
Today’s the day the teddy bears summon Cthulhu!”

from http://www.warehouse23.com/item.cgi?SJG9401A

Steve Bellovin has released RFC 3514, a change to TCP/IP to make it easier for network applications to tell whether or not the packet is safe or has evil intent. Once fully implimented, this will make the job of the firewall a lot easier.

ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3514.txt