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Bug of the moment 2007-05-19


Some of us are ahead of the game, and some of us – myself included – lag far behind. By the time we discover something really cool, and share it with “friends”, a nearly derisive “seen it” is the most we can expect. (Obviously, no-one cares that we made an effort to entertain them – I guess we’re not needed.)

The following images, I stole from silvestrij’s site (with the cunning use of flags), and they go back a bit, so do forgive me if you’ve seen them all before. I guess that’s one advantage of not having a comments feature on here – people can’t complain! (The real WTF is always in the comments.)

The joke is always on these contextual adverts that companies like Google champion. I suppose that artificial intelligence will one day reach the point where Google won’t be showing us the way to African slaves on eBay, but in the meantime, you could use a spot of awful plastic surgery:

A search results contextual ad offers 'awful plastic surgery'

As a user of multiple platforms, it’s not only hard to remember where each computer put all the keys, but to distinguish screenshots of a different graphical interface from the one you’re currently using. It’s pretty hard for many people to notice that a screenshot is not of your own machine (widget set, colour scheme, skin, etc.) and people prey on this:

View full-size screenshot

There is a method to the above, considering the prevalence of Windows XP and the default blue Luna theme. It looks a little bit out of place on Debian GNU/Linux running Windowmaker.

The following screenshot however, is beyond words. I won’t tell you what’s wrong with it; I’ll give you the fun of counting them all:


Posted 19th May 2007 – Comments and questions?