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The Bizarre Cathedral - 18

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Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral. A little obvious but I couldn’t let this one pass.

( See here if you missed the entertainment as it happened. )

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This entry is (C) Copyright by its author, 2004-2008. Unless a different license is specified in the entry's body, the following license applies: "Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved and appropriate attribution information (author, original site, original URL) is included".

Biography

Ryan Cartwright: Ryan Cartwright heads up Equitas IT Solutions who offer fair, quality and free software based solutions to the voluntary and community (non-profit) and SME sectors in the UK. He is also a free software advocate and you might find him on the GLLUG mailing list.

mjjzf's picture

Cheap

Submitted by mjjzf on Tue, 2008-08-19 06:12.

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This is, and I think that this is the case with several of these stripes, an extremely cheap shot.
If we were to contrast this with all the times that an X server died, we would not be particularly proud.
The previous cartoon where he stashes a live CD in the computer when he returns it was great, though.
__
FSF member no. 6426

Ryan Cartwright's picture

Of course it is

Submitted by Ryan Cartwright on Tue, 2008-08-19 10:04.

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Hi,

you are right that it’s a cheap shot but it’s cartoon humour (well it’s supposed to be) and it’s about the battle of words between these two particular fanboys. This kind of “cheap shot” jibe happens quite a bit between me and my Windows using friends - in Britain we call it banter. As it happens most of my Windows using friends thought the Olympics BSOD was hilarious and one of them sent me the link to the image as I missed it.

Yes I could cite several situations where my X-server has died unceremoniously but I can’t honestly think of a three panel strip to write about them. Also I don’t know of any so public as this which was probably the “entertaining” bit. It could be said that the previous strip was a cheap shot at Debian users as well.

I’m aware that the strips so far are a little one-sided but this is Free Software Magazine after all. Also I am planning to redress the balance a little as I did in strip 17.

thanks for your feedback though.
Ryan

Terry Hancock's picture

Debian?

Submitted by Terry Hancock on Tue, 2008-08-19 17:43.

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Did you mean “against SuSE users”?

Otherwise, the Debian slam just went right over my head.

Of course this was a cheap shot, but what else are political cartoons for?

Based on the link you posted though, it was unclear to me whether this BSOD thing at the Olympics really happened or not. An awful lot of the posters on that site seemed to think it was faked. OTOH, some claimed to have “confirmed” it. Unfortunately, I have no idea whether to trust any of their opinions.

It is kind of scary how “photographic documentary evidence” just isn’t as trustworthy as it used to be. I mean I understand it would be hard to fake something like this — but then, I could probably do it if I really wanted to. Once upon a time we accepted a photo as nearly absolute proof. Not anymore!

Ryan Cartwright's picture

No I meant Debian

Submitted by Ryan Cartwright on Tue, 2008-08-19 19:23.

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What I meant was that it could be considered to be a cheap shot at the fact that most Debian users value the freedom it gives and thus would consider it an outrage to have their machine “infected” by SuSE. Personally I don’t know any Debian users who would react that strongly - but caricature is a basic cartoon device.

But my real point was that I wasn’t being that deep. It was just supposed to be that the sheep found a good way to get back at the dog. Similarly this strip wasn’t directly being some political comment on how often or publicly Windows gives the BSOD, it was just banter between a Windows and Debian user. If I wanted to make a political statment about Windows I wouldn’t choose BSOD.

WRT the photo, yes it is true that we can no longer trust photo as authentic but that’s been the case for many years. I refer you to the case of the Cottingley Fairies in 1917 but true it is a great deal more prevalent now. Can I guarantee this isn’t a fake photo? no. Does it really matter in relation to this dialog in a cartoon? I don’t think so as there have been several very public BSODs about which the Dog could make the same statement.

cheers
Ryan

Ryan Cartwright's picture

did it happen?

Submitted by Ryan Cartwright on Wed, 2008-08-20 08:22.

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A bit of googling turned up this blogger who claims to have been there and took photo’s.

http://rivercoolcool.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!D6F05428A2B8CB48!1570.entry

Again it comes down to trust - the EXiF on at least one of the photos has the correct date and time but can EXiF be faked??? Perhaps we should get him to have his photo’s signed by a CA (oops was that another cheap shot? ;-) )

cheers
Ryan



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