Most of us work with software. Most of us have an opinion of the software we work with. Love it, hate it, well it does the job…
It’s nothing new, but new to me: (thing)-tan. Yet another strange Japanese thing: personification of stuff. Animals, things, places, software. Okay, I knew about cat-girls but Opera-tan??
I’ve had ideas about the software I use. I once planned to draw a bunch of browsers as characters: IE would be the “I’m a Mac; I’m a PC” PC guy, puffing behind everyone else in his suit. Firefox would be (of course) a fox straining under a huge sack of plugins on his back. Konqueror would be a little Tux penguin with a hardhat with the KDE gears on it.
I think it would be neat for people to post their personifications of the software (or hardware) they use. OSes, browsers, editors, applications, mobile phones. What do you think of the stuff you use?
Post drawings, doodles, or write a description of “What if (software X) were a person/animal”? Would be fun, and maybe a nice chance to vent : )
And just saw someone (or some group) has done a personification of the railway stations in Japan, based on when they were built, what they were built over, what other buildings or attractions are nearby (one is a blond-haired blue-eyed military guy, because that station is a US Army base) etc.
It’s a cat without hair (another breed is called a Rex). Useful for those allergic to cat hair who want a cat. But they get cold easily so they need to wear little sweaters and things, and they don’t help if you’re allergic to cat dandruff or other cat allergens.
I’m itching to do something with mutt. It’s one of the email client-interfaaces I use and the man pages say “mutt doesn’t have any bugs. Dogs have fleas.” lawlz.
Also thinking of vi vs emacs. Vi is a guy who can just stand in place (doesn’t leave Home) and change a document super fast. Emacs is a obese guy with a Unix beard sitting in a chair with all these home-made little buttons and switches that do everything for him… and he’s got a toggle switch for making coffee.
The users are nagging wives : ) “Do this, change that… make me coffee!”
I can’t think of any characterizations off the top of my head.
However, my mother in her wisdom (read foolishness) bought an OpenVMS based system for a business that has had at most 35 employees. This thing is so overpowered and expensive. I picture it as some aging bare knuckler from long ago, unchallenged and going to seed. I mean this thing can run multinational banks and gov’t defense agencies, and she has it doing stuff a good smartphone could do these days!
