Archive for the ‘Geekery’ Category

Lolcatz Pomes

Sunday, January 25th, 2009
Over at Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s blog Making light, in one of the open threads we started paraphrasing well-known verse and prose in lolcats style. I succumbed to the temptation and came up with these.
 

Apologies to A. E. Housman

O hai, iz stoopid stuf

Fud gone, k

Beer gone, k

But ur pome suxxorz

hertz kitteh tummeh

<pome> Cow be stabid

Cow head iz sleepin </pome>

O noes my turn nao

2 here ur t00nz killin ur cow

2 here ur rime killin ur dudes

Do not want!

U dangle cat toy on string nao kthx

A seventies TV theme duet (maybe you had to be there)

> I is teh hick!

I is teh roxxor!

> I can has memphis & nashvl

I can has motown flava

> is it gud? y/n?

/me luvs it

> I is teh hick!

I is teh roxxor!

The original was about felines so this should be obvious

Fat kitteh on mat dreemin

I can has cheezburger

AFK dreemin

*ROAR* 1337 beest in teh eest

in ur den feestin on ur men

Kitteh big bro wit iron clause

An big bludy teeths

Spotted kitteh on kwik feets

In ur loft jumpin on ur meat

In ur woods loomin in ur gloom

Big kitteh roxxorz littul kitteh sleepz

Fat kitteh on mat

Keeps u as staff

But kitteh knoes

And from a great SF novel

O hai, im Gully Foyle

Im from ur Erth

Livin in deep space

Goin to teh starz!!111eleventyone

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Damn COBOL Programmers!

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

Damn Cobol programmers! (kinda OT)

Rant rant rant rant rant! I just wasted all afternoon trying to make what I thought was a simple 2-line change to a program, because the stupid programmer used a stupid misfeature of the stupid Cobol language.

Who the hell was writing new apps in Cobol as late as 1999 anyway? The stupid contractors hired by my stupid company, that’s who. And they must have been supervised by a stupid project manager (probably one of my ex-bosses) who failed to ride herd on them and enforce sensible coding standards.

I shouldn’t even have to touch this program anyway. All support for the old apps is supposed to be frozen so that we have time to design, build, and test the new apps. But no! Our CEO came down with a sudden allergy to one of our business partners, so now this database has to be ripped apart with such unseemly haste that reminds me of the college freshman who’s worried about missing the last day of the going-out-of-business sale at the whorehouse.

Not only did my change have no effect whatsoever, but I couldn’t even figure out how the original version of the program could have possibly worked. After wrestling all afternoon with this grotesquely structured monstrosity, I finally learn that in Cobol you can write a statement like:

READ FILE INP-FILE NEXT RECORD INTO WS-WORK-RECORD.

and it not only moves the data into WS-WORK-RECORD but also into some totally different area named under the file description. And the cross reference doesn’t show that this other area is ever modified.

So I finally get to go home two hours late, with a headache.

I hate Cobol!

Okay, I’m done ranting. You can have your web site back now.

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Literary Divination 2

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

[This was another entry in the Literary Divination parlor game at Making Light. You are meant to study the clues and figure out which book or character the reading is for.]

(more…)

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Literary Divination–Luke Skywalker

Sunday, January 25th, 2009
[The good folks at Making Light were playing a parlor game called Literary Divination. “My challenge to you, dear friends: deal out a Tarot reading, using books (or films, or any other work) as cards. You can use the Celtic Cross, or any other format, doing a full layout or part of one. Your querent may be real or imaginary, your books from any genre or style. You can examine any aspect of your querent. There are no rules, except one. Don’t be boring.” This was my contribution.]
I’ll do Luke Skywalker too.

  1.  This covers him, defining the problem space: The Wizard Of Oz. Eldritch forces contend for control of the world.
  2. This crosses him, showing the nature of his challenge: The Wizard Of Oz. The querent is plucked from his home and voluntold to play a pivotal role in beating back the advances of evil.
  3. This crowns him, representing the best possible outcome: The Wizard Of Oz. The survivors get to go home.
  4. This is beneath him, the foundation of the matter: The Wizard Of Oz. An orphan reaches moral maturity by learning to assess the virtues and vices of those around him, and then himself.
  5. This is behind him, where he has been: The Wizard Of Oz. An isolated rural upbringing with Auntie Em and Uncle Henry.
  6. This is before him, where he is going: The Wizard Of Oz. He seeks the aid of a reputed good power (the rebel alliance), which can’t actually do much for him except encourage him to rely on the virtue that is already within him.
  7. The Significator, defining the Querent: The Wizard Of Oz. If you can’t see Luke = Dorothy, you need to retune your gaydar.
  8. His environment: The Wizard Of Oz. On the road with the Scarecrow (Chewbacca), the Cowardly Lion (Han Solo), the Tin Man (the chilly Princess Leia), and Toto (R2D2 and C3PO). Somehow, Toto, I’ve a feeling that traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops in Kansas.
  9. His fears: The Wizard Of Oz. This film was very early in Judy Garland’s career and she never made a more popular one. Will it be the same for Mark Hamill?
  10. Culmination, how it all comes out: The Wizard Of Oz. A good witch holds secrets about his destiny, which could have been revealed much earlier but then the movie would have only been twenty minutes long.  

 

Yes, I’d been thinking about that comparison before. And by the way, the line-up of characters between the two works was meant to match their personalities rather than their appearances. If you went by looks, the obvious match-up is Princess Leia = Dorothy, R2D2 = Tin Man, Chewbacca = Cowardly Lion, and Luke = Scarecrow. But I dare you to call Chewbacca cowardly to his face!

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