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desktop annoyer

Clippie taken to its logical conclusion
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You know that annoying talking paperclip in Microsoft Office? I'd like to take it one step further. After all, if you're going to be irritating, you might as well be as completely irritating as you can possibly be. So I'd like to make a replacement Desktop Assistant in the form of Jar Jar Binks.

Ideally, he'd also automatically translate any help he gives you into Gungan dialect.

baf, Jun 02 2000

Bob the Angry Flower: Soft War http://www.angryflower.com/softwa.gif
You mean, like this? [egnor, Jun 02 2000, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Vigor http://www.red-bean.com/~joelh/vigor/
The "vi" text editor with a paperclip. "Are you sure you want to move left?". [g, Jun 02 2000]

Vigor http://vigor.sourceforge.net/
The "vi" text editor with a paperclip. "Are you sure you want to move left?". [g, Oct 04 2004]

[link]






       Jar Jar isn't so bad. For one thing, he sure took the heat off the Ewoks.
centauri, Jun 02 2000
  

       Jar Jar sucked so you're idea would really suck, but since that's the point I suppose it's a really good idea. Nice job!
warped1974, Jun 29 2000
  

       This Desktop Assistant would have no "Hide" function and is stuck with "Animate" ON.
caravanserai, Jun 30 2000
  

       Mesa like Baf-man's idea! Meana big residuals for Mesa! Jar-Jar been lookin' for way to break into big sof'ware money, and dis be it!!
Allrighty, Jun 30 2000
  

       Does anyone else see the connection with Jar Jar's 'dialect' and ebonics? *edit* - No, I realized that's being too harsh...on ebonics.
Legend, Jun 16 2001
  

       There have been people complaining of the racial stereotypes in the movie, Jar-Jar being the most egregious offender, a 'Steppin Fetchit' type...Yeah, I saw it too.   

       I don't care, though; treating 'ebonics' as if it was a real language deserves to be ridiculed.
StarChaser, Jun 16 2001
  

       Why? Do you understand the academic arguments for it? I'm not saying whether it should be taught in school, but dialects do exist, and in many cases have their own grammatical rules that are just as internally consistent as mainstream English (if not more so).
egnor, Jun 16 2001
  

       Dialects are one thing, teaching school in it is another. It has been described by people who PROMOTE it as 'spoken by illiterates'. <Don't ask me where. I saw something about it in the paper a long time ago and trashed it in disgust.>   

       I am of the opinion that if one wants to be a citizen of a country, one should at least make an ATTEMPT to learn that country's language. Whether or not they were born here.
StarChaser, Jun 16 2001
  

       [StarChaser], what's wrong with describing a dialect as "spoken by illiterates"? It may, in fact, be statistically true; as I understand it, this premise is central to the arguments for teaching Ebonics -- specifically, that doing so may provide a path to literacy for people who might otherwise grow up illiterate.
egnor, Jun 17 2001
  

       The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology gets a smack on the head for using 'foreground' as a verb.
angel, Jun 17 2001
  

       As Mephista's article shows, it promotes stereotypes. 'Ebonics is spoken by black people. Ebonics is spoken by illiterates. Black people are illiterate'.   

       Tolerating it until someone can learn a real language is one thing. TEACHING it, and treating it as if it is a language on it's own is another. Or another couple of things...
StarChaser, Jun 17 2001
  

       You're right, actually...I guess I misread it the first time.
StarChaser, Jun 18 2001
  
      
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