Category: humor

Stuff I found that was funny.

Sometimes they really are indistinguishable

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
—Arthur C. Clarke

When a non-techie friend of mine moved to San Francisco, she overheard two guys talking next to her.

“What are you up to,” one of them asks?

The other replied, “Oh, I’m trying to learn Python.”

“Excuse me,” my friend interrupted them. “But I believe it’s called Parseltongue.”

(After living here for a while longer, she became very embarrassed. And though it wasn’t exactly what he meant, I still think Mr. Clarke would approve.)

Posted on by tychay 0

Grabbing “tea”

Me: Does your wife drive a light blue SUV?

M—: Yeah.

Me: I think I saw her crossing Geary, but some other dude was in the passenger side, so I didn’t want to give her up in case she was cheating on you. Lol!

M—: But then you conscience started to nag? 🙂

Me: No. It occurred to me you probably have an open relationship. 😀

Me: I think it was a coworker. Maybe they were going to lunch?

M—: Ah yes, I think she went to some boba tea place on Geary.

Me: Makes sense. The old ice cream place and the Thai restaurant both switched to tea places. She needs to take a different route there or I’ll basically become your informant: “Hey, I saw your wife grabbing ‘tea’ again!”

M—: It’s all good, I constantly stalk her with the Find Friends app — zero trust.

Me: Lol! I forgot about that. Need to remember to turn that shit off when I start cheating. I wonder if there is a service where I can pay someone to walk around with my iPhone when I’m getting it on with my mistress.

Me: New startup idea!

M—: Isn’t that what TaskRabbit is for?

Me: Yeah, but it needs in-app purchasing under some innocuous name so the S.O. doesn’t notice it in my accounting software. “Honey why do you keep getting those Costco packs of iTunes gift cards?”

Posted on by tychay Chat 0

Notes from: Transitions: Making sense of Life’s Changes by William Bridges

Prefaces

William Bridges wrote the first edition in 1971 and is an ex-literature teacher.

The difference between change and Transition

  • change is situational (new job, move, birth, death); transition is psychological
  • first are events, but latter has inner reorientation and self-redefinition
  • modern society focuses on change, but if the change doesn’t “take” it won’t work

Other societies had rituals (“rites of passage”) to help individuals manage transitions at specific times.Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 0

So I got a PS4 and here's why

[This…](http://www.idigitaltimes.com/articles/21763/20140203/xbox-one-is-terrible-five-reasons-regret.htm)

> The Kinect Can’t Tell A Dog’s Ass From A Human Hand

> I wish that headline was hyperbole. I wish I was exaggerating. But in the two months of having an Xbox One it constantly confuses my dog’s ass for a human hand. Whenever one of my dogs hops on the couch, or even walks past it, the Kinect (more often than not) interrupts whatever I’m watching (because there’s no games, remember?) with a hand gesture icon. It doesn’t select anything, thankfully, but remains on the screen for a few moments and is generally just annoying. And the more it happens the more annoying it gets.

> And it’s not just my dog’s ass that the Kinect has problems with. Microsoft apparently failed to realize that actual human beings sitting on a couch might, occasionally, use their hands. I guess the Kinect test couch was in a setting without cellphones or snacks or lively conversation. If my wife makes a gesture while telling me a story, or I pull my phone up to send some texts, I usually hear the telltale “ding” and my screen goes dark and there’s the hand icon floating on the screen. And, according to Xbox support, there’s really no way to stop this from happening.

> So (nearly) every time my wife talks, or I send a text or my dog crosses the room I have to throw up a “Heil Hitler” gesture at my Kinect so I can continue watching what I want.

(I’ll tell you when it’s actually worth owning over a PS3. Right now, I’m still in [the first stage of grief, the best stage :-)](http://terrychay.com/article/relationship-clubs.shtml).)

Posted on by tychay 0

Mailing list talk has consequences

One of my engineers was leaving the building for a late lunch and held the door open for me and another director. Before we parted, we had a short chat in the doorway about approvals on a purchase order.

“Hey, I need to see your ID!” Building security yelled at us.

“Huh? What?” H— replied?

“That’s the new policy. I need to ask to see everyone’s keycard.”

“It must be related to that mailing list thread.” I told H—, matter-of-factly. (For over a week now, an internal mailing list thread has been going on about building security. I stopped reading when someone suggested that the only way to solve this was to install lasers to detect when two people enter with one card, and another one argued that we should just make an HR policy to fire anyone who lets anyone in without proper ID. The reason I stopped was because neither post was trolling us in jest.)

The building security guy continued indignantly, “Even if I know you, even if you’re a manager—and I know you two are managers. L—, the head of the company, said I must to ask for your ID or call her down to greet you in the lobby.” (Sidenote: L— is not the head of the company. On the other hand, poor L— suggested on the mailing list that any solution hopeless because building security is seriously underpaid by the owners, perhaps to the point of illegality.)

I joked, “Even if I thought the discussion that touched off this policy was a waste of everyone’s time?”

Building security apparently has about as much humor as our company mailing list. So I reluctantly dug through my wallet and and pulled out a blank white piece of plastic, that may or may not have been my car parking card—they’re identical and I do not have an RFID reader on my person.

He let me through anyway.

That’s good, because to this day I do not know the average airspeed of an unladen swallow.

Posted on by tychay 0

Happy Holidays: Web Programmer Complains SF Is Full of People Just Like Him

[Hat tip to the literary genius “founder” of DickWhack or whatever-the-fuck-it’s-called](http://valleywag.gawker.com/happy-holidays-startup-ceo-complains-sf-is-full-of-hum-1481067192):

I just got back to SF. I’ve traveled around the world and I gotta say there is nothing more grotesque than walking down (almost all) of San Francisco. Why the heart of our city and surrounding environs has to be overrun by crazy, entitled, money-grubbing, startup hipsters I have no clue. Each time I pass by one, my love affair with SF dies a little.

The difference is in other cosmopolitan cities, this lower part of society keep to themselves. They sit in their parent’s basements, eat cheetos, program quietly, and generally stay out of your way unless you need a leash in League of Legends. They realize it’s a privilege to be in meatspace and view themselves as guests. And that’s okay.

In downtown SF these ironic-t-shirt-wearing lib(ertarian)tards multiply like tribbles, give you the evil eye (when they bother to look up from their iPhones), and act like they own the city — as if it’s their place of leisure, gluten-free, grass-fed restaurants, and Belgian craft microbreweries… In actuality it’s the live-work city for a hell lot more than a bunch of VC-funded beggars trying to make a business model around helping similar lowlifes securely send dick pics to one another. It’s a disgrace. I don’t feel safe planning out my next meal without having my eyes accosted by their shitty reviews on Yelp or nasty “tips” on FourSquare on whether or not the place accepts BitCoin.

You can preach compassion, equality, and be the biggest lover of humanity in the world, but there is an area of town for self-entitled worthless drains and an area of town for the people trying to actually get shit done without being secretly stalked by some dude wearing Google Glasses. There is nothing positive gained from having them so close to us with their hooded sweatshirts flaunting their fly-by-night social mobile gaming startup when their business is on the Internet and their money comes from Sand Hill. They can eat and “work” somewhere else. It’s a burden and a liability having them so close to us sucking up our LTE/3G bandwidth with their Instagrams of their latest bacon and truffle-oil infused lunch. Believe me, if they added the smallest iota of value I’d consider thinking different, but the young trust fund white male ordering a code monkey to make a website designed for other white 1%ers like them hasn’t made anyone else’s life better in a while.

Posted on by tychay 1

Combining

“I am so tired of stupid people, Terry. So tired of the people that say stupid things like, ‘Combining fruits and nut butters is dangerous for your health because… [food combining](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_combining)!’”

Me: “Just tell them that ‘combining your brain and your mouth is dangerous for **my** health because… the stupid: **it burns**!”

Posted on by tychay 0

Irony

So, the weather got decent in San Francisco (which has been rare).

On this beautiful Friday, as a way of getting myself unstuckavoiding work, I am trying out [Unstuck][]…

Unstuck's Pick 3

It asks me if I’m using Wikipedia as a way of avoiding work. (I am using Unstuck app a way of avoiding work I should be doing at [Wikimedia Foundation][wmf].)

The irony is thick with that one.

…

Update: It appears that the app is useful if you are only stuck creatively, not if you’re just procrastinating. Helping me be more creative? That’s the exact opposite of what I need.

[Unstuck]: http://www.unstuck.com “Unstuck iPad app: How to live better every day”
[wmf]: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home “Wikimedia Foundation”

Posted on by tychay 0