Posts tagged: FUN

In 1981, I was 13 years old and teaching myself BASIC on my TRS-80 Model III from official Radio Shack manuals – accurate, comprehensive, and terminally bland.

Into that gray scene came the book Basic Computer Games: Microcomputer Edition (edited by David Ahl of Creative Computing magazine). It changed my life.

I can’t remember now where it came from. Neither my parents, nor my friends, nor my teachers knew much about the home computer scene. It’s possible that I found out about it in Creative Computing magazine and ordered it by mail, or “borrowed” it from somewhere and forgot to return it. The book, subtitled “101 great games to play on your home computer,” was 8-bit-nerd heaven. Pages and pages of program listings in tiny, all-caps, dot matrix type, with brief introductory paragraphs. Plus, funny illustrations of strangely plausible robots. Don’t underestimate the appeal of the robots.

Over on the Well, in a what-is-this-web-2.0-thing-anyway topic, I posted:

I’ve been thinking about starting a joke social networking/sharing site called “huester” where you can post your favorite colors, tag them, make RSS feeds of them…

Within a couple hours Jeffrey had posted a link to colorcombos.com. It’s a site that lets you post your favorite color combinations, tag them, make RSS feeds of them… The only thing it’s missing is friending.

Half an hour later Laura posted a link to colr.org. Tags, RSS feeds, and Ajax! They get bonus points for Ajax. And for omitting that last vowel.

$ grep ub$ /usr/share/dict/words
    | ruby -ne "print split(/(\s+)/).map{|w|w.capitalize}" 
    | xargs -I FOOB echo "FOOBuntu" 
    | column

Bathtubuntu     Interclubuntu   Strubuntu
Bedaubuntu      Knubuntu        Stubuntu
Bedubuntu       Misdaubuntu     Subuntu
Beelzebubuntu   Moneygrubuntu   Subshrubuntu
Blubuntu        Nubuntu         Succubuntu
Bubuntu         Ouroubuntu      Swilltubuntu
Cherubuntu      Overscrubuntu   Trillibubuntu
Chubuntu        Pubuntu         Trubuntu
Clubuntu        Redaubuntu      Tubuntu
Cubuntu         Redubuntu       Unclubuntu
Daubuntu        Rerubuntu       Undaubuntu
Disdubuntu      Rescrubuntu     Underclubuntu
Drubuntu        Resnubuntu      Undergrubuntu
Dubuntu         Reubuntu        Underscrubuntu
Flubuntu        Roubuntu        Undershrubuntu
Flubdubuntu     Rubuntu         Undertubuntu
Fubuntu         Sandclubuntu    Undubuntu
Gaubuntu        Scrubuntu       Washtubuntu
Glubuntu        Semishrubuntu   Woodgrubuntu
Grubuntu        Shrubuntu       Zebubuntu
Hubuntu         Sillabubuntu    Zermahbubuntu
Hubbubuntu      Slubuntu
Inrubuntu       Snubuntu

I got the idea for this after listening to a recent LugRadio podcast. They’re all about Ubuntu. If you didn’t know, Ubuntu is a Linux distribution that has begun sprouting similarly-named offshoots like Kubuntu and Edubuntu and whatnot.

A few years ago I started collecting Google searches that uncovered common web authoring mistakes or hosting snafus. You won’t believe how many pages on the web are titled “Welcome to Adobe GoLive,” for example. Amaze your friends and scare your clients with other examples from the full list.

My old scam-and-hoax search engine project, Purportal.com, grew out of a longstanding morbid fascination with the variegated forms of fraud, especially those that have flourished in email and on the web. The other day I came across a form letter I used to send in response to “419” gambits, also known as “advance free fraud.” Excerpt:

The fund you speak of, in the South African Mining Corporation, is of great interest to me since my recently deposed brother-in-law, erstwhile shoeshine boy to the one-time International pie-eating champion’s third cousin twice removed by marriage…