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| Photo gag by an observant Niyaz PK (click on image to enlarge) |
Showing posts with label Humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Humor. Show all posts
Software industry related comics
The software industry inspires cartoonists & vice versa.
Here is a list of software industry related comics from a question on the Pro Webmasters StackExchange forum -
- Dilbert - Keyword search is now available on the site. There is also an unofficial Dilbert Strip Finder which explains its popularity. This strip where Asok, the IIT-ian intern takes a jibe at a senior colleague over how experience doesn't matter in the software industry, garnered 50+ comments.
- Smashing Magazine cartoons - cartoons on web development & design, published every Friday
- xkcd - comic titles & transcripts are searchable
- The Oatmeal
- Abstruse Goose
- Mashable Comics
Book Review: Al Jaffee's Mad Life: A Biography
His childhood was short-lived as he had a neglectant mother (an ultra-orthodox Jew) & a caring but absent father. His mother uprooted him & his three brothers from the US & the twentieth century and moved them to their native country of Lithuania which was still in the nineteenth century in terms of development. His father’s career as a manager at a department store took a hit and progressively went from bad to worse after he had to transport his family back to the US not once but twice. Despite flitting between countries & cultures, Al adapted well to difficult & changing circumstances. The turning point in his life came in 1935 when his drawing talent secured him a place in a prestigious art school in New York. Due to family pressures, he had to turn paterfamilias but all did not go well for him, his father & three brothers.
Al is a survivor who has braved huge odds. Inspite of his personal challenges, he has been regaling comic lovers worldwide with his unique brand of satire.
To me, Jaffee’s style of biting satire & mostly “anti-adult” themes is the cartooning equivalent of British writer Saki’s short stories. The blurb on the book’s cover flap neatly summarizes Al’s achievement -
To date he has pickled three generations of American kids in the brine of satire, and continues to bring millions of childhoods to untimely ends with the knowledge that parents are hypocrites, teachers are dummies, politicians are liars, and life isn’t fair.
This biography is sensitively written by Mary-lou Weisman, a friend of Al Jaffee for thirty years. She touchingly covers the highs & lows of Al’s roller-coaster life. The book of 200+ pages has over 70 original illustrations by Al.
I highly recommend this book to those who love Al Jaffee’s phenomenal work in MAD magazine or have a professional interest in cartooning.
A relatively cheap way of checking Al Jaffee’s work over five decades is to get yourself (like I did) a DVD compilation of over 600 issues of MAD Magazines in digital format from 1952 to 2006. It is titled Absolutely MAD Magazine - 50+ Years & costs less than 30 bucks.
Exaggerated tech terms
"If you can’t dazzle them with your wit, bamboozle them with your bullshit." - Anonymous
My favorites from ComputerWorld's10 most exaggerated tech terms -
Valued Partner: Except when that partner decides not to renew its licensing agreements, and then the vendor treats that valued partner the way Michael Corleone treated his valued brother Fredo.
Don't Be Evil: How 'bout just a teensy, weensy bit evil when we feel like it, because we have good intentions?
Facebook Privacy: FB's privacy policies (automatic opt-in!) seem to change as often as Zuckerberg's T-shirts.
Thought Leader: If you've ever had a decent thought (or perhaps even two or three insights) that you Tweeted or shared on Facebook, that does not make you a thought leader (or guru or influencer or expert).
Generally Available: If a vendor's product is still having its "tires kicked" by a "select set of customers" (otherwise known as beta testers) and has got more bugs than The Roach Motel, then it's not close to GA, folks.
Hey RAM
Having just finished watching the movie Eagle Eye in which a malfunctioning super-computer called ARIA controls virtually anything electronic, I wondered how increasingly dependent we are getting on machines & technology. I remembered this funny poem that is a sort of an anthem for Luddites -
Remember when........
A computer was something on TV from
a science fiction show of note
a window was something you hated to clean and ram was
the cousin of a goat
Meg was the name of my girlfriend
and gig was a job for the nights
now they all mean different things
and that really mega bytes
An application was for employment
a program was a TV show
a cursor used profanity
a keyboard was a piano
Memory was something that you lost with age
a CD was a bank account and
if you had a 3 1/2" floppy you hoped nobody found out
Compress was something you did to the garbage
not something you did to a file and
if you unzipped anything in public you'd be in jail
for a while
Log on was adding wood to the fire
hard drive was a long trip on the road
a mouse pad was where a mouse lived
and a backup happened to your commode
Cut you did with a pocket knife
paste you did with glue
a web was a spider's home
and a virus was the flu
I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
and the memory in my head
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash
but when it happens they wish they were dead.
(BTW, Hey Ram (in Hindi) or "Oh Ram!" or "Oh God!" were the last words of Mahatma Gandhi)
Remember when........
A computer was something on TV from
a science fiction show of note
a window was something you hated to clean and ram was
the cousin of a goat
Meg was the name of my girlfriend
and gig was a job for the nights
now they all mean different things
and that really mega bytes
An application was for employment
a program was a TV show
a cursor used profanity
a keyboard was a piano
Memory was something that you lost with age
a CD was a bank account and
if you had a 3 1/2" floppy you hoped nobody found out
Compress was something you did to the garbage
not something you did to a file and
if you unzipped anything in public you'd be in jail
for a while
Log on was adding wood to the fire
hard drive was a long trip on the road
a mouse pad was where a mouse lived
and a backup happened to your commode
Cut you did with a pocket knife
paste you did with glue
a web was a spider's home
and a virus was the flu
I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
and the memory in my head
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash
but when it happens they wish they were dead.
(BTW, Hey Ram (in Hindi) or "Oh Ram!" or "Oh God!" were the last words of Mahatma Gandhi)
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