Month: September 2019

I bet you didn’t know that it was a platypus, that strange amalgamation of twenty or so animals, who first discovered copy and paste. He was walking along, minding his own business, when he found it, just lying there. “Whoah!” he thought (in platypese of course) “Do you mean to say that if I copy this and paste this He was walking along, minding his own business, when he found it, just lying there. “Whoah!” he thought (in platypese of course) “Do you mean to say that if I copy this and paste this He was walking along, minding his own business, when he found it, just lying there. “Whoah!” he thought (in platypese of course) “Do you mean to say that if I copy this and paste this He was walking along, minding his own business, when he found it, just lying there. “Whoah!” he thought (in platypese of course) “Do you mean to say that if I copy this and paste this He was walking along, minding his own business, when he found it, just lying there. “Whoah!” he thought (in platypese of course) “Do you mean to say that if I copy this and paste this He was walking along, minding his own business, when he found it, just lying there. “Whoah!” he thought (in platypese of course) “Do you mean to say that if I copy this and paste this He was walking along, minding his own business, when he found it, just lying there. “Whoah!” he thought (in platypese of course) “Do you mean to say that if I copy this and paste this He was walking along, minding his own business, when he found it, just lying there. “Whoah!” he thought (in platypese of course) “Do you mean to say that if I copy this and paste this

Moral: With great power comes great responsibility.

They seemed so cute at first. They were always pointing the direction you wanted them to point. They really seemed to tie the room together. The wizard Zombardo had just finished banishing this helpful, letter-writing demon and was all set to write up some sweet magical spells. So he did. They were gonna be so sweet! He was especially looking forward to Minacora’s Effluveant Effervescence, boy that was gonna be fun! Well, anyway, he wrote some spells. But none of them worked. Upon closer inspection, to his horror, all his straight quotes had been replaced with curly ones. Also, weirdly, some words were underlined in red. The puissant wizard flung wide his shutters only to gaze upon true terror. Not his, everyone else’s. A baby cried somewhere. Cows and llamas rampaged. The shoemakers were all up in arms. Basically, just general unrest and mayhem. It was a bad scene. The wizard sobbed.

Moral: Turn off your curly quotes.

JSON was this mighty hero who found this pretty sweet-looking golden fleece. This chick, Medea, totally helped him out a bunch and JSON was totally gonna marry her because they had some kids and stuff. Unfortunately, he liked this other chick better, Creosote or something, which was an appropriate name, considering what happened later. So anyway, JSON was gonna marry Creosote and Medea was like, I’m not mad, see, I got Creosote this sweet wedding dress! Creosote was all, yay! But then she put on the dress, which burst into flame, and fried her (not-literal) bacon. It was a curst dress you see. Anyway, JSON was pretty bummed. Medea was all, I’m out! and flew away in a (literal) sun-chariot. JSON got super old and then his boat fell on him and killed him.

Moral: Invalid JSON has some bad consequences.

Once there was a forgetful walrus. He forgot his shoes once. He also forgot to eat breakfast a couple of times. One time, he even forgot he was a walrus.

Moral: You too can forget you are a walrus. And maybe you have?

Once there was a peacock who was most ethical and virtuous. He made no bones about letting everyone know exactly how ethical and virtuous he was. Indeed, all the animals in the forest knew who the most ethical animal was and where to find him. Including the Insatiable Hungry Python. Last Tuesday, the Insatiable Hungry Python ate the Most Ethical and Virtuous Peacock for lunch.

Moral: It’s easy to be ethical and virtuous when you’re dead.

Once upon a time there was a book that had all the answers to everything in it. Unfortunately, it was so badly written that no one wanted to actually read it. Some rats eventually made it into a nest.

Moral: If your content is a rat’s nest, it might as well be one.

One time there was this robot that looked like a snake. There was also a snake that looked like a snake. (A python, but not the Bi-Colored Python Rock Snake.)

The robot arched sinuously. “I can do that too,” said the snake, and did.

The robot charged up an electric car. “Welp, I can’t do THAT,” the snake said and wept a bitter tear.

A little door in the robot opened up and a tiny snake poked its head out (a garden-variety garden snake, if you must know), and said, “Hey, you sure can. Just get yourself one of these babies!”

The python got its own robot suit and spent the rest of its days “happily” charging up electric cars.

Moral: Just because you look like a robot, doesn’t mean you are one.

One day, the aardvark reminisced about all the fun he’d had as a child playing with rag dolls. There was Marianne, Lucinda, and Claire. Oh, and Sally and Clarissa. (Don’t forget Mortimer!) Oh, he didn’t. The aardvark was just walking along, minding his own business, thinking fondly of his childhood, when along came a terrible human.

Now, the human wasn’t terrible for any unusual reasons, it was only terrible for all of the usual reasons. You know, like failing to floss regularly and getting fixated on minor irrelevancies when much larger problems were occurring with dire and increasing frequency. Like, hey, there’s a fire over here, HUMAN, why don’t you stop rearranging those sticks from smallest to thickest?

Anyway, this terrible human had found a rag doll (Mortimer) and was sort of idly playing with it. “Why don’t you play with some sticks, FLOYD? I’ve arranged them from smallest to thickest!” Along comes the Aardvark and he’s like, oooh! What do I do? That’s Mortimer the Hungarian Lion Tamer with (optional) deluxe tea service and this terrible human obviously doesn’t know that, but if I admit that I know that then that terrible human will know that I know that and possibly wonder how I could possibly know that! The most likely reason being that I played with rag dolls when I was a child which, as it turns out, is the ACTUAL reason. And everyone, EVERYONE, knows aardvarks don’t play with rag dolls.

The aardvark ate some ants and ruminated on this dilemma. Meanwhile, the terrible human continued to play with Mortimer the Hungarian Lion Tamer rag doll sans deluxe tea service. The house finished burning down.

Moral: Never let a little proubarrassment get in the way of enjoying yourself.

One day this grasshopper was hopping around and landed on the brow of a sturdy lion tamer.

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” the lion tamer cried, sweat curling his luscious locks.

“Come plaaaay!” the grasshopper said. “The sun is warm and all the swans are gamboling and frolicking in the fens and meadows. Not to mention, we’re having this fantastic brunch later.”

“Argh!” the lion tamer groaned, as his XML continued not to parse correctly. Unbeknownst to the lion tamer, he’d left himself open to an XML exploit.

The grasshopper had a great time.

Winter came. The lion tamer shivered in the cold, exploited by the elements and some guy in Russia. The grasshopper and his friends sat inside, having a marvelous brunch.

Moral: Don’t write your own parser!

Once upon a time there was a wizard. He made some pretty cool stuff–like a flying carpet and a self-propelled cart. One time this merchant, call him Floyd, showed up and was all, “Hey, make me this cool magical thing. It should do some cool magical things!” As Floyd walked out the door, he turned to say, “Yo!”

The wizard (his name was Zombardo) shuddered, but, hey, money, right? He worked feverishly deep into the night for at least a fortnight (that’s 30 wizard-years) and finally finished this sweet-looking crystal ball. “I’m gonna call this CrystalBall.” He put CrystalBall into a box and gave it to one of his flying monkeys to deliver. In the box, he’d put a note: “To activate CrystalBall, polish.”

A week later (he was pretty worried about his flying monkey, Zognarb), his flying monkey returned with a note from the merchant. “CrystalBall not working.” The wizard wrote back: “Have you tried polishing it?”

Merchant: “Yes.”

Wizard: “What happened when you polished it?”

Merchant: “It got shiny.”

The wizard sighed: “What color is it glowing?”

(Zognarb was getting tired of flying back and forth.)

Merchant: “It’s not glowing at all.”

The wizard put his wizard hat on frumiously and stormed out the door. He whirled in through the merchant’s door in a very wizardy way and squinted at the merchant, who was furiously polishing the note the wizard had included with the CrystalBall. It was very shiny. The wizard took his CrystalBall and went home.

Moral: Don’t sell your wizardy stuff to merchants.