Dead Programmer's Cafe

Author: deadprogrammer

  • Greenstein Plumber

    A drying machine duct that serves both as an advertisement and a piece of artwork.

  • Tremendous Gobbling Capability

    Fowler’s custom gobble tubes “make excellent yelps and clucks but are noted for the tremendous gobbling capability. ”

    “Once you have mastered the yelp you should now be able to make the notes necessary to gobble. With the call positioned the same as the yelp, begin by saying the notes “ticka” “ticka” “tooka” “tooka” “tooka” “tooka” “tooka” “tooka” with more emphasis placed on the first note and less as you move to the end.”

    TiVo® Newsletter, Volume 50 on “TiVocabulary”:

    “tooka-tooka (too’ka-too’ka), n., v., —n. 1. the sound the TiVo® service makes in 2x fast-forward or rewind (or 3x, in the interest of brevity). 2. the desire to speed past acts, events, or people that don’t interest you. —v., 3. to skip past the boring stuff, such as when Ryan Seacrest won’t shut up during American Idol. “

  • Piled Higher And Deeper

    I visited my college recently to pick up my diploma. As usual I looked through the college newspapers.

    Well, the political climate is rather interesting at good Old BC. There are two political parties – PHD (conservative) and USL (liberal). For most of my college career PHD, which name as far as I know is not an abbreviation, but like Häagen-Dazs® just a pleasing combination of letters had a long winning streak. That streak ended right after I had a pleasure of being quoted by a college newspaper reporter saying something to the effect that I think that PHD will win again.

    What is interesting to note is in the last election United Students League had a very narrow victory amongst allegations of running a smear campaign. By just 21 votes Mohammed L. Hussain won over Yehuda Katz. I am not making this up, people.

  • Summer At Brooklyn College


    (a dude stuffing himself with McDonalds and two benches were photoshopped out erased using Adobe® Photoshop® software)

  • Still Round The Corner There May Wait

    Sign of the door of my favorite professor’s office.

  • Brooklyn Signage


  • The Worm Oroborous

    I was reading Barrington J. Bayley’s The Knights of the Limits which Amazon in its wisdom recommended for my consumption. The title story is about space travelers from a universe which inhabitants move in patterns through discrete points in space, like chess pieces.

    This got me to think – 5 days a week a stainless steel worm moves me in a roughly L shaped pattern, from one tower into another, from one island onto another. And in both towers there are two computer screens and a chair. The two Ls form a Kekule snake, the Worm Oroborous.

    I like to think that I am a Knight, but I am really a Pawn.

  • Lunchtime Observations

    Girls who work at Wendy’s downstairs have the coolest names: Tenece, Girly, India, Carlotta.

    There used to be a poster signed by Dave Thomas there, but after Dave died it was replaced by a different poster of him waving goodbye with a spatula.

    At Wendy’s customers are always referred to as “guests”. I wonder if that is true in all other fast food places.

    Mike’s lunch: two pieces of GG Brand Scandinavian crispbread + Classic Triple® with cheese – onions – buns.

    789 calories + 6 net grams of carbs. Interesting, the patties contain 40% of daily value of iron and 6% of calcium. What’s in them? Teeth and cowbells?

  • Man, Am I Tired Of This

    Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise Architect. That’s a mighty fine product, but I’d like to see more variety: Enterprise Plumber, Enterprise Electrician, Enterprise Carpenter, Enterprise Mason.

  • What Makes a Man Turn Neutral?

    Galen R. Frysinger’s travel pages yield an amazing selection of photos. Amongst them is what I was looking for for a long time: Turkmenbashi’s fabled Arch of Neutrality. Doesn’t the arch remind you of something? Exhibit A and Exhibit B:

    The mechanism turns Turkmenbashi’s golden likeness so that he always faces the sun. I’ve heard that the statue is made of solid gold, but I doubt that a little. On the other hand, it’s the Great Serdar we are talking about.
    Click on the image to see other amazing pictures of Turkmenian monuments.

    Now, another amazing monument was created by Zurab Tsereteli, a serial sculptor terrorizing Moscow with his horrible creations.
    Exhibit A and B:

    Don’t worry, the statue of Putin in judo gear is not full size. It’s just a sketch, the real thing will be much, much bigger.

    Mr Tsereteli wants to give this other monument as a gift to New Jersey. It’s supposed to be a monument to 9/11, but somehow I see very different symbolism in this “statue”.