Archive for the ‘Bookmark’ Category

Bookmark: Auto-Tune the News

August 5th, 2009

Auto-tune is the latest pop music novelty. Thanks to auto-tune, singers like T-Pain sound like a robot designed to output R&B hits.

Michael Gregory (no relation, afaik) has taken auto-tune to a new extreme: singing along with the news.

And it’s amazing.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. I’ll stop typing and let you see for yourself.
 

Auto-Tune the News #7: texting. rhyming. pat buchanan fail.

 

Auto-Tune the News #6: Michael Jackson. drugs. Palin.

 

Auto-Tune the News #5: lettuce regulation. American blessings.

 

Auto-Tune the News #4: spa regulation. serbians. sotomayor.

 

Auto-Tune the News #3: cuba. afghan friendship. 2-party woes.

 

Auto-Tune the News #2: pirates. drugs. gay marriage.

 

Auto-Tune the News #1: march madness. economic woes.

 

For future Auto-Tune the News videos, see this YouTube playlist.

Bookmark: TheDailyWTF

August 1st, 2009

It wasn’t so much that Richard, a software engineer, sat in his cubical making animal noises all day — as it was that he was getting very little done.  And what he had been doing needed a sort of Rosetta Stone to explain.  If you never considered how one variable might be a “ghost” and another might be a “warrior,” and how each might be referred to  using a cryptic dialect you made up, then you must not be Richard.

There are many such tales of absurdity in the world of professional software development.  Richard’s boss, Taka, had to sort through that mess after Richard was let go.  In an industry that wavers between extreme stress and extreme boredom, it’s cathartic to here about someone who’s in a worse position than you.  And Taka is definitely one such engineer who knew about stress.

This aforementioned story, titled “A Peculilar System,” is one of many excellent tales collected by a programmer humor website called The Daily WTF.  I read their site religiously and find it educational, hilarious, and, well, calming — all at the same time.  If you’re a computer programmer with a sense of humor you’ll definitely enjoy The Daily WTF.

Here’s a few of my favorites from their site:

Bitten by the Enterprise Bug.  Why develop a simple in-house tool when a third party “consultant” can write the same application with substantially more complexity?

The Virtudyne Saga.  Sure, there’s Microsoft Office.  But you’ve got a lot of money and could do better, right?  Warning: several pages long, and completely insane.

Just a Wiring Problem.  You’re familiar with the term “ad-hoc network”?  Well if this network isn’t ad-hoc, I don’t know what is.  If you’ve ever done any type of IT or repair for a living, and dealt with crazy clients, you can relate to this story.