Category Archives: Humour

The Website Obesity Crisis

Incredibly humorous, well-written and researched article by Maciej CegÅ‚owski about bloated website size — branching into Russian literature, Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages and Facebook’s Instant Articles. It’s the text version of the talk he gave on October 29, 2015, at the Web Directions conference in Sydney.

Topics covered include:

  1. The Crisis
  2. Fake Fixes
  3. Fat Ads
  4. Fat Assets
  5. Chickenshit Minimalism
  6. Interface Sprawl
  7. Heavy Clouds
  8. Stirring Conclusion

via idlewords.com

The Blockchain Institute: Beyoncé vs Bitcoin

I wonder how long it will be before this form of e-parody explodes.

If you look on Twitter, you will find that someone set up the Blockchain Institute. Perhaps this official-sounding organisation will come up with some good ideas as to the practical application of blockchain?

A quick look through the institute’s Twitter mentions shows people thanking it for sharing conferences and blogs, criticising it for not crediting imagesincluding it in conversationsconnecting it with friends, and asking it questions. But the Blockchain Institute is a computer program. Not only that, it’s a program that tweets nonsense.

It replaces the word blockchain with Beyoncé and bitcoin with feminism. If it sees a tweet that says “blockchain is a star because of bitcoin” it changes it to “Beyoncé is a star because of feminism”. There is no new content. The computer program does word substitution. Nothing more complex. Yet people are struggling to spot that it’s simply copying other people’s thoughts, words and ideas and – for some reason known only to its creator – adding in a bit of extra Beyoncé and feminism.

People are trusting opinions without recognising they are coming from a machine, or that they don’t actually make any sense.

via marketingmagazine.co.uk and twitter.com

Ze Frank: My web playroom

On the web, a new “Friend” may be just a click away, but true connection is harder to find and express. Ze Frank presents a medley of zany Internet toys that require deep participation – and reward it with something more nourishing.

via zefrank.com

“Exactshit” video mashups (by Hexstatic)

‘Exactshit’ and ‘Now Thats What I Call Exactshit DVD 2’ are bootleg mashup DVDs released by Hexstatic (Exactshit is an anagram of Hexstatic).

Featuring samples of popular hit songs, only 200 copies of Exactshit were made available at the Big Chill Music Festival 2003 and from the Ninja Tune online store. It has since been more broadly distributed through online file sharing. In late 2006, a second DVD, Now That’s What I Call Exactshit DVD 2 was released. The album was widely praised by music critics.

via Hexstatic’s vimeo channel

Lyrebird imitating construction work

We think we can hear the following sounds:

  1. Hammer
  2. Chainsaw
  3. Jack hammer
  4. Lawn mower hitting sticks
  5. Leaf blower starting
  6. Power drill
  7. Wood saw
  8. Human voices
  9. Two-way radio
  10. Worker whistling

He makes lots of different bird calls as well. What can you hear?

The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation

Nobody should be surprised that PowerPoint does not measure up to the great speeches of history, such as Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. And it is certainly a shame when a potentially interesting presentation is dumbed down by another formulaic over-application of PowerPoint. But when PowerPoint leads not just to boredom but to bad decisions, it is a tragedy, not just a shame.

via norvig.com

The Urinal Game

The first piece of Flash animation I ever saw. The object of this game is to text your knowledge of Men’s Room etiquette. You will be presented with several scenarios. In each one, you must select the proper urinal to use.

Get Adobe Flash player

via albinoblacksheep.com and gamescene.com

What would Tyler Turden Do?

Source for the latest celebrity news, gossip, rumors, hot photos and videos of your favorite stars. Tongue firmly in cheek – but still NSFW.

via wwtdd.com

Photoshop Disasters

Have you seen a truly awful piece of Photoshop work? Clumsy manipulation, senseless comping, lazy cloning and thoughtless retouching are our bread and butter. And yes, deep down, we love Photoshop.

via photoshopdisasters.com