Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

Snooze You Lose Alarm Clock

Posted in Cute, Humour, Photo by Elliott Back on January 3rd, 2008.

I found this via The Triumph of Bullshit; it’s a real gem:

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Just plug your SnūzNLūz in and either connect it to your network via the RJ45 jack on the back, or via WiFi (WPA supported) if available. Then simply configure via the embedded web browser configuration utility. From here it’s a snap. Simply select your online banking institution from the list of supported banks (currently over 1600 are supported). Supply your login information and then select your favorite HATED charity or non-profit from the included lists (over 6200 currently supported). Then plug in your donation amount per snooze incident ($10 or more), set the time, and alarm, and voila, instant time profit!

Ask’s Search Suggest is Hilarious

Posted in Humour, Search, Web 2.0 by Elliott Back on November 2nd, 2007.

If you go to Ask.com and start typing, it will try to help you find what you’re looking for by displaying a list of suggestions it thinks are relevant to your query (and give the arrogance of Ask’s marketing department, probably your life as well).

But not every suggestion is a hit; most are ok, reasonable extensions, but in nearly every phrase I type in there is something hilarious. Take, for example, “learn to speak” which has the usual suspects Spanish, English, Italian, German, and the most unusual Gibberish:

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If you ask me, it’s the most expressive language in the world

While most people want to learn to play a guitar, freestyle, or draw, little Johnny is learning to levitate objects:

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With his mind, what else?

Americans love to sue you. They’ll do it for wrongful imprisonment, slander, or just about any kind of distress they can of, including tubal ligation failure:

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I’d rather check her phone logs…

Ask’ers don’t know much about themselves, so naturally they don’t know if they are pregnant or not, as seen in this query for “how can i:”

ask-pregnant.png
Also, your dog is expecting!

A typo on “how do i find” led me to this gem of feng shui confusion:

ask-fung.png
Since when is this a verb?

I saved the best for last, which is the auto-complete results for “is it legal to,” a horrifying look into modern culture:

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The answer is a categorical NO!

There’s an indication that this data is filtered–try starting lesbian, for example–so I’m not sure if I believe these results. My operating assumption is that this is a marketing gimmick to try and get some churn on the blogosphere and free PR. It wouldn’t be hard to drop in a single unlikely phrase to spice things up, now would it?

p.s., don’t type “how should I” or “can I sell my” or “ask me about” because they’re sophomoric. I bet Google’s users are equally idiotic, but they certainly don’t go out of their way to show that to us!

Feature or Bug?

Posted in Code, Humour, Photo by Elliott Back on August 25th, 2007.

You always wonder when you’re writing code if the undocumented part of the API which produces a bizarre side effect is a carefully thought out feature, or a bug. Well, now thanks to this lovely photo by Dratz you know:

feature-or-bug.jpg

It was a feature all along.

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