Parody & Satire

In an attempt to help understand why there is so much absolute dreck on the web, I suggest that we establish SITI — the Search for Intelligence on Teh Internet, roughly based on the model of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence).

This is a project that is long overdue, and with any luck, we will have more luck finding intelligence than SETI.

The SETI movement was energized in the 1960s by Dr. Frank Drake, when he came up with an equation to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy. Now, I’d like to (modestly) propose we use his equation to estimate the number of intelligent website we may be able to find on the net.

The Drake “equation” states that:

n= the total number of intelligent sites out there
R* is the rate of website formation on the Internet
fp is the fraction of those websites that have weblogs
ne is average number of weblogs which can potentially support coherent thought
fl is the fraction of the above which actually go on to demonstrate coherent thought
fi is the fraction of the above which actually go on to show a sense of humor as well
fc is the fraction of the above which are willing and able to communicate
L is the expected lifetime of such an intelligent website.

Yes, some may argue that looking for coherent thought on a weblog is misguided, but I believe it’s our best shot.

Prove me wrong.

No doubt some boffins will now take this flash of brilliance, and give us a script to help us figure it out in real time. However, let me give you my best guess:

6 million new websites each year
X .5 (% with weblogs)
X .5 (% capable of supporting coherent thought)
X .001 (% demonstrating coherent thought)
X .001 (% showing a sense of humor)
X .6 (willing and able to communicate)
X 3 (lifetime of website, in months)
= 2.7

Hmm. Well, if I assume The Skwib is one of the 2.7, then who are the other 1.7? My guess is that they’ll be found on humor-blogs.com or perhaps alltop. Hey, you can’t argue with this, this is science!

Obligatory link to Wikipedia article on the Drake Equation, if you’d like to know what those things really stand for. Thanks to Garette for the toothy alien.

Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m a weasel — I couldn’t pick three out of the thirty excellent submissions on the gallery. I had trouble getting it down to ten, and there are still some that I wish I could include. Here is the short list of finalists, and a web thingy you can vote with — remember, you can pick your favourite three! (You can click on the thumbnails for a larger view.)

(And if any of the artists would like to explain why their submission is superior, please feel free to do so in the comments.)

Pan-Galactic

Spindizzy

Spice

451

Palanquin

Carousel

E-Secretaries

Soma

Nexus 6

Holodeck

There are prizes!

What, pray tell is the prize? Well, if you win, you can choose from:

• a prominent walk-on role in my next novel
• a copy of THE AMADEUS NET
• a “mystery” item from within the bowels of my desk.

The second-place winner will choose from the remaining prizes, and the bronze winner gets whatever is left.

Voting ends at 8 am, April 28th!

The full gallery of entries is here. Everyone from humor-blogs.com is invited to vote early and often.

Any fans of Samuel Beckett will want to check out this little gem on YouTube. It’s strongly reminiscent of the absurdity of Waiting for Godot:

Estragon: I can’t go on like this.
Vladimir: That’s what you think.

The premise is that Charlie Rose is interviewing Charlie Rose about technology. (And its absurdities.)

Via Very Short List, which has this to say about their favourite moment: “One Charlie successfully unnerves the other with a simple “Steve is not happy” — hands-down the most portentously sinister non sequitur since “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?”". Humor-blogs.com has recently been in non sequitur mode too, but it seems better now.

The last updates are on the gallery page.

Thanks to everyone who has put together a product, service or concept from a fictional future with a vintage ad — there are 30 entries all told, and boy the judging is going to be tough. I’ll post the finalists tomorrow morning, and then let you all vote on who wins. What are the stakes? Well, they’re listed below.

In an effort to keep this page from crashing again, I’ve done a collage of just a few of the entries. Click on it, or here, to see all 30 entries:

The Rules:

So, find some vintage ads, and then insert a product from a fictional future — it can be from a book, movie, TV, etc. The only proviso is that it has to have been written by someone else, so none of your own bizarre fictional futures. (Someone else’s bizarre future is fine, so all you William S. Burroughs fans are not barred from competition.)

1. create your masterpiece
2. post it to your blog
3. link to this post (or better yet, let me know where it is via email or in the comments)
4. wait for the aplomb and/or ridicule of your peers.

There are prizes!

What, pray tell is the prize? Well, if you win, you can choose from:

• a prominent walk-on role in my next novel
• a copy of THE AMADEUS NET
• a “mystery” item from within the bowels of my desk.

The second-place winner will choose from the remaining prizes, and the bronze winner gets whatever is left. Worth playing for? The contest will run until (Sunday, April 20).

You may want to check out plan59.com or Flickr or Photobucket for inspiration.

You can find my original post about this here. All the artists at humor-blogs.com are invited!

We’re running a contest. The idea is to find a vintage ads (the one pictured above is from an 1975 USPS stamp ad), and then insert a product (or service) from a fictional future (or past) — it can be from a book, movie, TV, etc. The only proviso is that it has to have been written by someone else, so none of your own bizarre fictional futures. It doesn’t have to be as grim (or unlikely) as THE POSTMAN, by the way. If you’re more of an optimistic Star Trek kind of person, then I’m happy to see Oil of Olay ads featuring Warf, or ear-hair trimming systems endorsed by Quark. Or you may be interested in zombies.

Original image. More info about The Postman [wiki]

The Rules:

1. create your masterpiece
2. post it to your blog
3. link to this post (or let me know where it is via email)
4. wait for the aplomb and/or ridicule of your peers.

What, pray tell is the prize? Well, if you win, you can choose from:

• a prominent walk-on role in my next novel
• a copy of THE AMADEUS NET
• a “mystery” item from within the bowels of my desk.

The second-place winner will choose from the remaining prizes, and the bronze winner gets whatever is left. Worth playing for? The contest will run until (Sunday, April 20).

For more information, you can check out the original contest here. I fully expect most of the wackaloons at humor-blogs.com to enjoy this one, especially the zombiephiles. Note this is not a meme. There are prizes; that makes this a contest, so I don’t want any sword-wielding, hobbit-torturing, cubicle ghosts coming after me.

The natural world was not a mystery — when it rained, they got wet. If they were in the mountains, rain was dangerous because it would swell the streams, making them difficult or impossible to cross. Rain made hunting more difficult, as it tamped down the signs of prey.

For Thag, these things were evident, not a cause of mystery. They were cause and effect.

But for others in the Thunka Grunka Clan, rain was one of a thousand mysteries that only their shaman, Weasel-Scratch-Face-Brother, could guide them through, as he did that morning, while a deluge teemed outside the cave.

“So where does the rain come from,” the shaman asked. It was a rhetorical question — even Dubyag, the unfortunate hunter who had been kicked in the head by an enraged wooly rhino knew that.

“The rain,” Weasel-Scratch-Face-Brother paused for dramatic effect, “comes from the Sky God.”

Thag snorted. He could not help himself. “Come from sky. What be this god?” he asked the shaman, not at all rhetorically.

“A God is the Prime Force. The powerful being that causes such things as rain to happen. There are many Gods. Sky. Earth. Water –”

“So why Water God not make rain?” Thag asked.

There was a rustle in the assembled Thunka Grunkas. That WAS a good question. Why was rain from the Sky God, not the Water God?

“Because it comes from the sky,” the shaman answered patiently. Others nodded in understanding.

“What when rain come in face — from side?” Thag asked. All of the hunters knew this phenomenon, especially when they made it out to the steppes, hunting the mammoth.

“It is only coming sideways because of the Wind God,” Weasel said. He was getting upset. “It still falls from the Sky God first.”

“So rain come from sky god, unless wind god make go sideways. Then take wind god. What when rain hit calm pond and bounce out of water? Then water god make that?”

Shaman nodded his head in agreement.

“So rain come from sky god, unless wind god, or water god make do something to rain? What else rain do?”

“It freezes sometimes,” a helpful Dubyag suggested.

“Oh, and it sometimes doesn’t hit the ground, even though you can see it falling,” another hunter said.

“So make cold god and earth god sometimes help rain,” Thag said as he counted fingers. “So sky, wind, water, earth, cold . . . five gods for rain. Maybe rain just rain.”

Everyone in the Thunka Grunka Clan laughed.

“No, you don’t understand,” the shaman said. “It is a mystery known only to the Thunka shaman.”

“Mystery is why listen to you. Rain come from somewhere. Must be simple answer. Better answer,” Thag said, pleased to have won this argument. “Let’s groom.”

The group seemed to think that was a good idea, and spent the rainy afternoon grooming one another. Even his estranged mate, Onga, joined him in the activity — the first time in many months.

Thag could hear the shaman’s teeth grinding above the din of the rain.

Details on How evolution found God. These folks grok comedy. Photo by Gabu-chan

Readers who’ve only discovered The Skwib in the past couple of years may have missed the series we’ve done on the Beijing Olympic Mascots, and a number of demonstration sports planned for Beijing this summer. As we can see from the news, the Chinese government has really started training hard for the first sport:

Tibetan Dissident Biathlon

50-Meter Land Requisition Event

Organ Relay

Hu Flung Falongong

Forced Sterilization Footy

Press Clubbing

Amnesty International has more (less satirical) information on human rights in China and the Beijing Olympics. This group of humor athletes is training hard for the new demonstration sport: “causing beverage to shoot through the nose”.

When her friends invited her to the Harry Harrison Make Room! Make Room! Noodle Bar, Stacy expected a fun night out. Perhaps they would drink too much sake, eat some noodles tinted with green dye (that they would jokingly call “soylent green”) and forget about the tiny zombies rampaging through the city.

To her horror, she was presented with tofu.

More terrifying tofu here. Thanks to Betenoir for the photo.

Yeah, you know it’s pure and good. Just like humor-blogs.com. Not like that evil Flavor Aid.

Even radioactive mutants need love. Happy VD!

Will you still love me when Seth releases me from the underworld? Cause I’ll find you. Happy VD!

Last night I had the strangest dream … I was filling bottles … thousands of bottles … and when I awoke, all I could think of was you. Happy VD!

Humor-blogs.com are mutants undead who also make us fill bottles.

A new poll shows that men feel they know more about security than women, yet both sexes are equally vulnerable to malware and other online terrors.

According to Crazy Apple Rumors:

Most people will not find this surprising. Also not surprisingly, Crazy Apple Rumors Site has learned that the researchers also found that Mac-using men are even more overconfident, both about online security and other things.

“I’d be concerned about online security,” said Your Mac Life host Shawn King, “but I already know that I’m totally impervious to malware. Because I’m using a Mac. I mean, duh.

“I also have a very large penis,” King added. “Really quite tremendous.”

Survey here. Ful Crazy Apple Rumors story here. Hat tip to Mr. Snitch for blowing this story out of proportion, so to speak. And you may find some overconfident souls here. Photo credit: J Kyle

Dr. Ganglia Intrusion Finger did not inspire confidence.

He had an impeccable bedside manner and a truly impressive CV. He’d graduated first in his class, and then gone on to study experimental neurosurgery at John Hopkins before ultimately deciding that he “wanted to practice ‘real medicine’ and not be a simple ‘meat mechanic’.”

Of course, Dr. Finger was being somewhat disingenuous when he said so; his nurse practitioner and general manager always took some care with new patents to explain about his failed attempt to do a right hemispherectomy on himself to “take the edge off.”

Sure. The hat was distracting. Not to mention odoriferous. And yes, the lit match was a worry, but his practice was in Ontario, so most of his patients were just happy to have any family doctor at all.

Photo Credit: Bolandrotor. Also not qualified to practice medicine. Do you have a family doctor, ’cause I’ve heard Dr. Finger is still accepting patients.

In her high school class yearbook, Brittany had been deemed “the most likely to be found dead in a dumpster”, but she had confounded her critics.

First she had joined the circus, where her extensive tattoos and devastating overbite had earned her the title “Brittany the Blighted Beauty of Body Modification.”

As a bona fide freak, Brittany had a certain dignity and gravitas. But she threw it away when she became the long-term courtesan of the Prince of Wales.

Photo credit: Odegaard. | Voted most likely to cause you to shoot milk out your nose