The Onion in 2056 387
agonist writes "Has anyone seen The Onion in 2056? I accidentally ran across it after clicking on one of the hyperlinks in my weekly Onion email." It's been awhile since we link The Onion. Always good for numerous laughs.
Click here to download plugin (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Click here to download plugin (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Click here to download plugin (Score:2)
Re:Click here to download plugin (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Click here to download plugin (Score:5, Insightful)
For those entirely missing the point, the problem is the old maxim that over time the usefulness of proprietary software (and also proprietary plugins) drops inexorably to zero.
A simple example - I'm running a 64-bit version of Firefox on Linux. There is no Flash plugin available for this platform, and there is nothing I or anyone else can do about it because only Macromedia make the plugins (yes, I know you could reverse-engineer the thing...)
So, I can't see the content, now in 2005. What will it be like in 2056? What are the chances of Macromedia still producing a plugin or supporting a 60 year-old technology? Flash content has an unknown lifespan completely out of your control.
HTML is an open standard. There are free programs available now which can parse it. When you use HTML you can be sure that in the future there is a very good chance of it still being accessible because even if the standard falls into disuse you can still go back and read the open spec and recompile / reuse the free code out there.
Flash in 2056? It's true irony...
Re:Click here to download plugin (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually took this to be part of the joke. web content out of control, contributing to the hellishness of dystopia.
more accurately, I didn't take it as a direct slam on Flash, but rather a statement on how we seem to move toward complexity instead of simplicity. (cell phones are a good example.)
gadgets gone wild, you know.
Ironically (Score:4, Informative)
Which leads me to think that the Onion is perfectly well aware of the issue...
Re:Click here to download plugin (Score:3, Interesting)
Given the truly staggering amount of Flash content out there, the idea that some kind of support for it won't exist in 2056 is daft. It may be running under 15 layers of emulation
Re:Click here to download plugin (Score:2)
If all it was, was static images and the sort then simple PNG and text would have sufficed and they would hit a larger audience.
Now because I can't see the joke and their site bothers me I'll never come back. No ad revenue from this visitor.
Tom
Re:Click here to download plugin (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Click here to download plugin (Score:2)
22 flash items. 22 . fucking . flash . items.
The article should have come with a warning:
Besides, I seriously doubt people will be running Flash 7 (or ANY version of flash) in 2056.Re:Click here to download plugin (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Click here to download plugin (Score:2, Funny)
Thanks a lot, jerks (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Thanks a lot, jerks (Score:2)
Re:Thanks a lot, jerks (Score:3, Informative)
nah it's easy (Score:2)
The absolute best parts of the Onion are the columns by Anchower, Kornfeld, et al., the Infographic, The Onion Presents, and the What Do You Think?
That and the mini headlines at the left. Last week's was the best: Plan To Trap Boyfriend Aborted.
That's pisser.
Slashdot 2056 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Slashdot 2056 (Score:2)
As long as it doesn't look like this [slashdot.org], I'll be happy.
Re:Slashdot 2056 (Score:5, Funny)
* Google OS XVII Out (Still in Beta)
* Linked Content Caching System Finally Implemented
* Linux Torvalds sues Apple for Patent Infringement
* Microsoft Assets Being Auctioned
* Spam Has Decreased 0.3% since 2005
Re:Slashdot 2056 (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Slashdot 2056 (Score:2)
You forgot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And don't forget... (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot 2056 (Score:5, Funny)
CmdrTaco: What happen ?
Hemos: Somebody set up us the dupe.
Hemos: We get broken HTML.
CmdrTaco: What !
Hemos: Main page load on.
CmdrTaco: It's you !!
AC: How are you insensitive clods !!
AC: All your CowboyNeal are belong to us.
AC: You are on the way to slashdotting.
CmdrTaco: What you say !!
AC: You have no chance to mirrordot make your time.
AC: Ha Ha Ha Ha
Hemos: Captain !!
CmdrTaco: Take off every 'In Soviet Russia' joke!!
CmdrTaco: You know what you doing.
CmdrTaco: Move 'In Soviet Russia'.
CmdrTaco: For great +5 Funny.
(yep somebody is really bored at work...)
Re:Slashdot 2056 (Score:5, Funny)
How the Mandatory Free Hard Core Pr0n Everywhere Act(MFHCPEA) isn't going far enough.
Re:Slashdot 2056 (Score:2)
President Jenna Bush invades Canada!
Re:Slashdot 2056 (Score:2)
In the future... (Score:5, Funny)
Hah, good one! (Score:5, Funny)
20 separate flash applets... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:20 separate flash applets... (Score:5, Funny)
I can literally hear my computer huffing and puffing to keep up with this page, because the temperature-controlled fan turned on as they rendered.
It might be time to splurge and pick up that new 386 with 8 megs of RAM that you've had your eye on...
Re:Hah, good one! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hah, good one! (Score:2)
What was worse is that I've got flash-click-to-play, and had to click a couple dozen (f)'s to see the site in all its painful flashy glory.
But it was definitely worth it. That's one of their best efforts in a long time.
Re:Hah, good one! (Score:2)
Re:Hah, good one! (Score:2)
Re:Hah, good one! (Score:2)
Flash (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Flash (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Flash (Score:2)
But if you want a real glimpse of the future, point your Information Resource Gathering Tool on your IPv12 network to IRGT://onion.news/index.vi (must support virtual info format; best seen with dual 3d screens).
Re:Flash (Score:2)
You mean in 2187, Slashdot's HTML will actually meet a standard!?
Seems far fetched. (Score:5, Interesting)
(Above irony aside, if you read one of the Onion books, they have an issue from 2000, post election. The have a humorous forecast of the what the Bush presidency will bring which is eerily prophetic - "atleast one Desert Storm sized war", recessione etc.)
Re:Seems far fetched. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Seems far fetched. (Score:2)
(Look back at the 2000 debates, Bush had a strange and disturbing twinkle in his eyes.)
Herro (Score:5, Funny)
The Onion's ad revenue love you long time.
The future is Flash? (Score:2, Interesting)
Since I'm running Debian and Flash is not installed I was refreshing the page for like 5 minutes (while reading slashdot in the other tab) before I realized that the top of the page was simply made out of interlaced flash animations which would not load. I had to scroll down 3/4 of the page to actually see anything remotely readable.
So let me guess - in 50 years everyone will be having a T3 line or some fiberoptic monstrocity so people wont even bother with HTML and make pages entirely in flash? You know
Re:The future is Flash? (Score:2)
you mean any IGN site for the past two years?
Relax, dorks... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fer chrissakes... so it's in Flash... turn off flashblocker for 5 friggin' minutes and read some of the stories... they're quite good.
Re:Relax, dorks... (Score:2)
Maybe they're making the point that in 2056 web designers will still think that bandwidth is there to be exploited.
Re:Relax, dorks... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ununhexium weapons program, eh? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Ununhexium weapons program, eh? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Ununhexium weapons program, eh? (Score:2)
Ununhexium is one one six (atomic number 116).
Hexium would be just atomic number 6 (carbon).
damn you slashdot (Score:4, Funny)
Stopped reading it when it got so political... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Russian Scientists aboard Mir conduct experiment on effects of terror in space."
and
"Area man confused by buffet procedure."
Sure a little politics is humorous, and the American Civil War (Bush/Gore 2000) and Holy Fucking Shit: America at War was really really great. But now every single time it's: "Bush is an idiot, hee hee, Iraq whatever, blah blah blah." Yeah, we get it already.
Haven't read it in over a year... just died out of my rotation naturally...
Re:Stopped reading it when it got so political... (Score:2)
I thought this thread was about The Onion, not Slashdot comment threads.
Re:Stopped reading it when it got so political... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stopped reading it when it got so political... (Score:3, Interesting)
I wondered if someone would say that. Please re-read my post. I never said it was biased... I just said the Onion got MORE political and it got old after awhile... you always knew what you were going to see. I went there looking for silliness... not commentary.
You are absolutely right that it started with the whole Lewinsky fi
Re:Stopped reading it when it got so political... (Score:4, Informative)
I find it extremely humorous that the same network that delivers Fox News also delivers 'The Simpsons', 'Family Guy', and that new show about the CIA Dad, with the Extra-Terrestrial live-in etc...
My favorite (Score:4, Insightful)
Those wacky humanoids.
million robot march (Score:5, Funny)
Re:million robot march (Score:5, Funny)
A Much More Accurate Look Ahead (Score:2)
I guessed Slashdot, how sad is that... (Score:2)
I bet this gets duped in 50 years (Score:4, Funny)
Preemtpive slashdot cacheing?
On the front of the actual article, I laughed, the use of flash actually gave is a 2002 look, but lets pretend it was futuristic!
My fav by a hair was:
Menstruation cured!
At last...
Least Literate Editors Ever? (Score:2, Funny)
Perhaps that word simply doesn't mean what I think it means.
Newsflash: Onion Still Only Skin Deep (Score:2)
Best quote... (Score:3, Funny)
Classic.
Subtle Economic Satire (Score:3, Insightful)
The era of a dollar-dominated world is ending.
Still using dial-up in 2056 (Score:3, Funny)
* 5X Faster Dial-Up- only $7.95/month
* Get 12 CDs for the price of 1 - from BMG!
Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there (Score:2)
Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there (Score:2)
Herbert Kornfeld is teh d00d.
Now, wouldn't they make a great presidential ticket?
Can't devolve much from where we are now...
Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there (Score:2)
But I kinda like Smoove too.. and then I will fuck you like a wildebeast.
Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there (Score:2)
And I think Jean Teasdale would do for Attorney General.
Really gotta resurrect ol' T. Herman Zwiebel himself for Secretary of Defense, though.
Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there (Score:2)
Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there (Score:5, Insightful)
Globalization has been happening for several hundred years. Start with China's and Spain's silver trade [learner.org] for one. Nothing new, just no one noticed it until recently.
Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there (Score:2)
Seriously, though, changes don't happen at as fast a pace as you may believe that they do. Especially when they concern the whole society (or the whole bloody world). The English still don't get along with the French too well, just like they haven't gotten along ever since when. Not even the Channel Tunnel has changed that. They will still not be getting along 50 years from now --
Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there (Score:2, Interesting)
Global warming, pollution, shifting global powerbalance (china and India establishing as major world powers!), massmigration, falling birth numbers in the western world,...
I'd say, in fifty years I'll still be working to get some money on the table while our asian overlords decide which kind of rice we should
Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there (Score:2)
I agree with you that in 50 years, things will probably be quite similar to how they are today, but it cannot be taken for granted, as many who tried to predict the future in 1905 discovered.
Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there (Score:2)
Well, our amazement factor with new technology could be logarithmic too in order to compensate, but I don't think so
Go easy on him, guys (Score:2, Funny)
Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there (Score:2)
At that point, if I can remember not to piss in my pants, that'll be a good day.
50 years is a LONG time (Score:2, Insightful)
OK, so you don't get the joke. BUT. Aside from that, you are quite simply wrong. Look at 1955 compared to today. Try taking someone from 1955 and explaining to them what the internet is. Email? TV was new an emerging technology then. GPS. The cold war, the Vietnam war, the farce going on in Iraq right
Re:"Stuff that matters" (Score:2)
I on the other hand can't view the page in question as it is blocked by my company's proxy server (and virtually all online proxy sites are blocked as well). So make sure you laugh double for me.
Re:"Stuff that matters" (Score:2)
I'm thinking perhaps you've missed the purpose of Slashdot.
That is our future (Score:5, Funny)
I have a fix (Score:2)
Re:What. (Score:5, Funny)
Need up upgrade their TiFi connection. (Score:5, Funny)
I think they need to upgrade their TiFi connection. It could be a lot faster, if those time cops did not restrict bandwidth in the name of "safety". Too much chroniton particle contentration, and next thing you know it's velociraptors popping up in your shower.
Re:Slow. (Score:2)
In the future (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Must be a time slow news..... (Score:2)
Hey, this will be the time when Warner's will have taken over everything. Every single movie released will be required to have Batman in it.
Re:50 years in the future... (Score:2)
Re:AYBABTU (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Slashdot is being sued (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm disappointed - the only people named on slashdot are "John Doe" 1 through 200. Shit - how do I get this loser/fucking moron/asswipe to sue *me* sometime before the year 2056?
Maybe this will work: Merkey - you're a fuckwad loser, a poser, and a total asshole. Sue me. PLEASE SUE ME!
Re:Now I'm Confused! (Score:2, Funny)
God is it ever funny to see geeks fume about the existence of animation on the internet. If it's not static 9pt courier, it's wasting our time! blah blah blah.
Re:I Used to Love the Onion (Score:3, Informative)