Simon Collison Dragged into more Discussions He Couldn’t Care Less About
Photo by patrick h. lauke
He of the fancy name – Paul Robert Lloyd (who also lives near the inexplicably hilariously named Climping, in England) chose to take the opportunity today to moan about web conferences. He specifically mentioned the good work Simon Collison is doing running affordable one-day conferences in Nottingham, England. His complaints – that the same speakers seem to be appearing at each of the conferences world-wide – seems to completely disregard the fact that they continue to be booked because they are popular, speak well, and are generally qualified as speakers overall.
Being unable to choose between any of the three Christian names he has had since birth, Lloyd has grown up a bitter and twisted individual. Moaning about the cost of the iPad and taking that opportunity to donate to charity, Lloyd made absolutely certain that we all *knew* he was donating to charity. Whether or not this undid the selflessness of the selfless act was neatly glossed over.
In another post by Brendan Dawes, Dawes whined about designers being nice to each other. His self-indulgent rant also managed somehow to portray poor Collison in a negative light, since other people apparently liked his website. A schoolboy error, Simon.
Simon Collison was unavailable to comment, since he was busy demonstrating the best use for his iPad – namely beating Lloyd about the head with it whilst it announced “bitch” with each multi-touch strike. Also, he said bad things about your mum.
TheTAPIR’s Staff Have Hissy Fit at Each Other
Photo by yum9me
Our apologies. We are afraid you have been caught up in a minor spat between our very own Ashley and Imogen. Ashley’s hatred for Smashing Magazine (and in fact, everything) and Imogen’s need to be lovely to everyone have caused a chaotic rift in the offices of TheTAPIR and it has fallen upon myself and the management to try to rectify this tiff. To that extent Ashley and Imogen are now both sitting in the corner until they have thought about what they have done.
As soon as they are both able to apologise to each other and have a cuddle, we expect our normal service of relentless (and potentially career damaging) web celebrity journalism to resume.
A Correction: Another Innocent Editor Falls Prey to Sarah Lane
Photo by TheOriginal_kevie
Late yesterday, you may have seen something approaching a genuine news article on theTAPIR; this is not our typical approach and for this we are deeply sorry. Not only did Ashley Holland misunderstand the facts at hand, he completely misrepresented them to you, and we apologise. Further details — and the truth! — have been brought to light and we present them to you now as we hope you have come to expect from us.
Hackers and terrorists ruthlessly, callously and without mercy attacked the Smashing Magazine website. These hackers represented the evil and malicious Sarah Lane who (as I’m sure our educated and well adjusted readership will know) likes nothing better than humiliating editors of popular weblogs to provide herself with material for This Week in Fun, her latest web presenting escapade (although she does have very good taste in shoes). These hackers placed a picture — taken under unknown but possibly threatening circumstances — of Vitaly Friedman playing golf, naked but for a strawberry beret and a false Mexican moustache, on the homepage of Smashing Magazine. The techniques (which theTAPIR certainly does not condone) employed by the hackers were sophisticated enough that the only solution Smashing Magazine could find to this emergency was to redirect the entire site to another page.
Never one to miss an opportunity, Vitaly astutely placed an ad on this replacement site for a book he had invented only moments before for this very circumstance. Sadly, this book did not yet exist except in Vitaly’s ingenious mind, so users were met with error after error if they tried to place an order for it. Friedman, in his infinite wisdom, knew this would only create further publicity for Smashing Magazine, and tens of thousands of extra hits were logged whilst potential advertisers rubbed their hands together in glee. Sarah Lane cursed his very existence and prepared new and more devilish plans against Jeffrey Zeldman and Erin Kissane (and also purchased a fantastic new strapless evening gown which really brings out her eyes).
Having skilfully avoided personal embarrassment, Vitaly signed on ten more talented writers to underpay, and tripped over his own piles of money on the way to the bar.
Smashing Magazine Puts us All in the Naughty Corner
Photo by Ante todo, Pablo Zárate
Smashing Magazine – not happy with releasing mediocre content and being suspiciously delighted about it – have reached the end of their tether. Who are we to consume their content for free, merely using the tried-and-tested (by every other site in the known universe) business model of in-page advertising? Who are we to think that the Internet is an open and fair medium for each to enjoy as much as the other? Who are we to notice the fact that entire IPTV networks seem to exist contentedly on an ad-supported and donation based business model?
No-one, that’s who. We are bad, bad people and need (apparently) to be taught a lesson.
To show us the error of our ways, Smashing Magazine deigned to take our toys away. We were left with nothing but a single page showing us their latest PDF book (a regurgitation of articles we have already read for free). No matter which page you tried to access, no matter how hard you tried to escape, the book loomed in front of you, demanding you make amends for being such a selfish and spoilt child web designer by giving them some money. So much traffic was created by this technique, that it eventually became impossible even to purchase the book. It was a bit like your girlfriend promising you sexual favours for chocolate and refusing to open her mouth.
Paul Scrivens, after reminding us (as always) that he is the publisher of Splashpress Media and kind of a big deal, mentioned these very points but in such a hugely apologetic and diplomatic manner that it becomes hard for the reader to understand whether he is impressed by Smashing Magazine, finds them abhorrent, or is going to the shops to get a cucumber and cream cheese sandwich and mindlessly mumbling to himself on the way.
Never fear, dear reader. We will always report the (vaguely true) truth without fear of offence. Or fear of telling the truth.
FourSquare vs Gowalla in Race to be Most Worthless App
Photo by whatleydude
This morning at a meeting in the FourSquare offices a hot issue was the subject of debate. The very real danger of Gowalla becoming even more pointless than FourSquare was rearing its ugly head. Emergency measures needed to be taken. Some of the useless features that were brainstormed include:
- Anyone able to check in on the moon would get a “rapid decompression death imminent” badge.
- The first person to check in in Somali waters would be allowed to live by Somalian pirates.
- “Mayors” of particular locations could be challenged to a battle to the death. The winner would get a “savage blood letting” badge.
Satisfied that Gowalla would have to really put the hours in to compete with these essentially purposeless additions to the service, the staff immediately checked in at their local strip club while opportunist thieves emptied their houses.
SXSW Demos Daring New Direction
Photo by adrants
TheTAPIR was proud to be present at SXSW Interactive this year, although there was a slight change of format to accommodate the feedback of previous attendees. The talks, discussions and presentations were relocated to a cubicle in the disabled toilet to make room for the barbecues, bars and parties that were made the focus of the event. Speakers danced on the tables at night, and gave lengthy discussions on their hangovers the following day interspersed with drizzled ribs clearly butchered from some kind of genetically altered yak.
Bruce Lawson and Christian Heilmann were spotted slow-dancing together and wearing policewomen’s helmets, fishnet stockings and a sign proclaiming “No through traffic”. Jina Bolton narrowly avoiding being tackled by Leo Laporte on his descent from a crowd-surfing extravaganza gone wrong. And the entire staff of Gowalla were caught with their arms around each other belting out a rousing rendition of “Man in the Mirror” (after which they burst into tears with cries of “but our app has no point!” and consoling coos of “I love you, man”).
Also, some people might have spoken about some web stuff.
Everyone is stupid. And arrogant. No, wait…
Photo by Aislinn Ritchie
As is common these days, Paul Graham had a good old fashioned moan about Apple’s app store approval process. Choice excerpts include “The App Store is an ongoing karma leak”, “they [Apple] don’t understand software” and “they [Apple] get away with maltreating developers”. Joining the ranks of such as Trent Reznor and John Gruber, Graham is not alone in his complaints.
Following on from the delay in approval of necessary bug fixes, new apps being rejected because they show unfiltered Internet content (like, uh, Safari) and other apps being rejected seemingly at random – one company even tried emailing Teh Steve directly. Since they had infringed an Apple trademark in their app’s name (iPodRip) Jobs’ reply seemed obvious, and you have to wonder why these people thought it would be okay to doing the equivalent of naming an app “iApple”. (Gizmodo reports in more detail here.)
Peter-Paul CKoch responded to Graham’s seemingly reasonable points by stamping his feet and declaring that everyone is stupid. Faruk Ateş followed up declaring that they’re not stupid, but couldn’t let it go without declaring them arrogant instead. Dion Almaer responded saying that they are neither stupid nor arrogant. PPK followed up saying that maybe everyone is not stupid, but declared that they might become stupid later and so he probably wasn’t really wrong after all. Finally (so far) Ateş followed up the reply to the follow up to the reply to the follow up seemingly unsure to whether or
not everyone is stupid and/or arrogant. However, all these authors seem to have been careful to be apologetic to each other throughout this process and are probably now having a cuddle somewhere.
We think they’re stupid though. And arrogant. Actually, sorry, we take that back.
No, we love you the most. No, you hang up.
Wisconsin village reclaims its idiot
Photo by Jemima G
A village in rural Wisconsin has finally won a four-year long legal battle to have their idiot returned to them. To make him feel at home they have had a plastic farmhouse erected with lots of crayons in the drawers. They have also spent out on a toy push-along tractor in bright fun colours.
“I am really excited about mowing fields. Next year, I want to plant an acre of corn. Or an acre of something[…]” quoth the idiot in question, amongst reassuring nods and cooing sounds.
For some of the more insightful statements of the man, this site is fast becoming one of our favourite sources of random anti-wisdom.
A perfect example of something that sounds like it might be clever but means nothing whatsoever can be found here. Don’t go changing to try and please us, Jason Fried. We love you just the way you are.
Robot Ryan slips under the radar
Photo by chegs
Attendees at The Future of Web Apps ‘09 last week were surprised to spend the same amount of money as previous years for a smaller venue, less freebies, off-site parties and no live DiggNation filming. Although the live Twitter stream (filtered by the hashtag #fowa) projected onto the big screen while Kevin Rose and Gary Vaynerchuk gave the last presentation ensured that the room quickly descended into crowd-sourced chaos, this did nothing towards answering the questions the crowd had. Even the event passes were just programmes that the attendees had to write on themselves with supplied sharpies.
Why was FOWA at a smaller venue? Where were the freebies? Why did the wifi fail so utterly to work for the third year running?
All of these questions are answered by one further question:
Where was Ryan Carson’s hat?
It transpires that Ryan’s hat was unseated in a tragic showering accident. Of course, his skull thereupon collapsed in on itself requiring immediate surgical attention.
We have reported before on Carson’s skull deficiency condition. We can reveal that Carson paid huge sums of money to have created in the Carsonified laboratories a perfect imitation android of himself. This android was capable of the three things needed to pass as the genuine Ryan Carson:
- Introduce every speaker as “one of the most talented people I know”.
- Smile, and shake hands.
- Apologise for the defective wifi.
With Ryan Carson in hospital having a transplant of skull tissue from Jeremy Keith (who has more than one man could ever need), the doppelgänger was the perfect way of veiling his absence. Although Carson could not bear to be apart from his hat, so many of the attendees were occupied with either planning and travelling the 600 miles to the after-party on the Thursday or trying to crush into a tiny pub in Kensington with 800 other attendees for the after-party on the Friday that they scarcely noticed.
The same may apply to Gary Vaynerchuk as he was not frothing at the mouth, which seems very out of character.
Wil Harris can forgive and forget – at a price
Gary Vaynerchuk is a rabid psychotic madman. Kevin Rose lusts after anything with at least one limb. Paul Boag is a bit too eerily forthcoming with his christianity. So, everything is completely normal in web celebrity world, and there has been very little for us to report.
Except this little gem. Outed by TheTAPIR last week for his soreness at Leo Laporte, Wil Harris has been in communications with Laporte to make amends. In response to Laporte’s asking what he could possibly do to make up for his indefensible British accents Harris attempted (and failed) to DM this tweet:
Harris immediately deleted the tweet, but it was too late. Our sources overheard him saying “Well, the BBC accent was actually jolly good. Gosh, it certainly got me in the mood for frilly undies.”. We are very glad this rift seems to be healing itself, and wish the two podcasters every good fortune in their future lives.
Now – come on, Internet. Let’s have a little scandal please.