Redundancy

[wartjr2373]

Why didn't he try floppy disks? They never fail, right? I also would have chiseled the presentation into stone, just to be safe.

What is Band Land? I want to obtain maximum LRR while I'm at PAX.

[TomBrend]

Ben laughing at the punchline kind of killed it for me, though, despite him being in character.

That laugh made the video for me. I didn't think his character was amusing until that laugh, it just pushed the joke over the edge from "ehh" to "hahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa awesome".

[Tim]

Band Land is basically an area for merch tables, but different groups cycle in and out at different times, I think.

[keswickgallagher]

I'm going to comment on the editing and camera work in this one

I actually think you may of over uses the over the shoulder shots in this one I don't think it worked as well for the office environment the over matts should shoot worked perfectly but most of the others seem a bit redundant

[Matt]

Band Land is basically an area for merch tables, but different groups cycle in and out at different times, I think.

it's an area of tables for bands and groups that come and go and who don't want to have to stay at a table all the time or have a booth. But the tables are assigned by group, they don't typically change out or cycle through.

Typically the guild and Wil Wheaton are in band land. So will we be...

-m

[Vigafre]

So I had already watched this once today, but I just re-watched because:
1) I completely didn't remember what happened
2) I wanted to know who wrote it

The second reason was the main one, so I analyzed the dialog closely. I thought at first it was a Graham (just as a first assumption), but, in no offense to Graham, some of the dialog seemed too smart for a Graham script. For some reason Paul didn't pop into my head, but when I read "Alex Steacy" in the credits, I was like "What? Really?" I don't even know why Alex didn't cross my mind either, as it did actually sound like a script he would write. Nice job, Alex.

And nice job to everyone else too. Jer and Ben, mostly.

[Graham]

"Too smart"? Ouch, man

I've written smart stuff, you know.

[yourfriendrick]

For me the punch line was a bit lost.

This was one of those slow-and-entertaining ones for most of it, much like "Omnilingual," IMHO.

I thought the basic punch line was okay, but then when they cut to credits I was thinking, "Wait, there are a couple of layers to that punchline...

Number 1 {highlight text to reveal spoilers}
He's trying to eliminate redundancy but he put his name twice

Number 2
He had highly redundant backup methods but none of his backups provided the actual redundancy, so he eliminated redundancy in a BAD way


And if I watch it again I'm sure I'll find deep layers of literary meaning, not unlike a Shakespeare comedy.

When I initially watched it, the two punchlines hit me about one second apart, so that was a weird lead-in for the stinger.

Comedy should be weird, IMHO. That is why I watch LRR. It brings the weirdness.

[Lord Chrusher]

What would have really happened: Stephen would have his presentation on his laptop but he would have forgotten his Mac's VGA adapter.

A few of my undergraduate profs (some of the older ones) were still using overhead projectors.

[Vigafre]

"Too smart"? Ouch, man

I've written smart stuff, you know.

Hey, I never said you didn't. I was just saying it didn't sound like something you would write to me, and I couldn't think of the right words to use.

[Septavius]

Thought I'd put in my two cents regarding Ben's laugh.

For me, it punctuated the exquisite absurdity of a man failing to produce a presentation in spite of increasingly insane backups, when that presentation was on data redundancy(regardless of the fact that it was on ELIMINATING it).

On the other hand, he might just be really amused by the fact that Jer's character was too stupid to resort to the hard copy after the first couple of failed backups.

[Mad Madam Mimm]

Not to mention his character was supposed to be stoned.

[Unclever title]

Awesome. My only question is how many understudies did you have?

One thing I thought was missing was say a ridiculous number of people in the credits.

[Mad Madam Mimm]

Why didn't he try floppy disks? They never fail, right?

Question- The floppy disk has been dismissed as a useless piece of technology, to the point where I don't think they're manufactured any more. So why is it still the symbol for "save" on microsoft word?

[Vigafre]

Question- The floppy disk has been dismissed as a useless piece of technology, to the point where I don't think they're manufactured any more. So why is it still the symbol for "save" on microsoft word?

Because tech support would get a ridiculous amount of calls asking where the save button went.

[Master Gunner]

It's the symbol for save in pretty much everything that has a symbol for that. It's just part of tradition and the computing unconscious now.

[wartjr2373]

Also, most people don't know what their computer's hard drive looks like.

[Mad Madam Mimm]

I was thinking more a picture of a USB stick, but ok.

[Master Gunner]

Vigafre hit it on the head though. Schools (at least around here) held back for a couple years before upgrading from IE6 to IE7, because the IT department knew that they'd be getting complaints from teachers who all of a sudden wouldn't be able to find or do anything, despite the two versions being functionally identical to people like us. Even once schools get the money to upgrade their machines, I doubt very many (of the ones I have experience with) will be switching over to Windows 7 for at least 5 to 10 years.

While computers may be second-nature to you or I (when it comes to basic functionality, anyways), they're still magical and scary beasts to a large portion of the population.

[wartjr2373]

When I was in elementary school, most machines still had Windows 95, and the browser of choice was Netscape Communicator.

This was in 2001.

[Master Gunner]

I know some high schools that didn't do away with their Win95 machines until '05/'06.


To the crew: Any thoughts on updating the front page?

[Emperor Gum]

I agree that the punchline wasn't punchy enough, although it was clever. Good script, Paul and Jer were excellent.

[The R]

Blog post seems to be updated, but even I missed that the white text was a link.

[Tim]

Yeah the links can be kind of hard to see on our blog posts... I'll bring it up.

[concupiscentcrustacean]

What would have really happened: Stephen would have his presentation on his laptop but he would have forgotten his Mac's VGA adapter.

A few of my undergraduate profs (some of the older ones) were still using overhead projectors.

me too. Also, slides.