
Clippy.JS - Add Clippy and friends to any website - giladvdn
http://www.smore.com/clippy-js
======
breckinloggins
I had a lot more fun playing with this Clippy than I thought I would. I
remember HATING Clippy and now I'm questioning why I did.

The only conclusion I can make is that it wasn't the actual character and its
animations that I hated. They are, if I'm being honest with myself, kind of
cute and endearing. The reason I hated Clippy was that it was _condescending_.

"I see you're trying to write a letter. Would you like me to help you with
that?"

Hindsight is 20/20, but Microsoft should have realized there's no way to
phrase that and not insult the intelligence of 90% of your users.

Interestingly, I see an analogy here with today's GPS software. No matter how
nice they make the voice sound, they never fail to sound condescending when
you veer from the pre-calculated route. I love MotionX GPS Drive for the
iPhone (other than the fact that it crashes every time I go to another app),
but the default voice manages to make me physically angry every time she says
"Rerouting". You can almost hear the disappointing frown on her face, as if
she's saying " _sigh_ I guess I'm going to have to plot a new course since
you're obviously not smart enough to stay on the one I made for you."

How hard would it be to make a GPS system that just assumed I might want to
get gas or stop for a bite to eat if I took an unplanned exit off an
interstate with hundreds of miles to go on my journey?

I think Clippy and rude nav systems are different manifestations of the same
problem. It's a kind of "uncanny valley of human-computer interaction",
although here the revulsion is not triggered by looks or movement but by
BEHAVIOR. It's behavior that is almost, but not quite, human. Specifically, I
think it's triggered when a computer system takes a tone of intellectual
superiority over its user.

Because most of us know that our technology is nowhere near the level of
intelligence needed to actually be wiser than we are, we feel the same kind of
indignation and resentment at the posturing of the system as we do when a
small child insists that we don't know what we're talking about while
answering their question about why the sky is blue.

~~~
Corrado
>How hard would it be to make a GPS system that just assumed I might want to
get gas or stop for a bite to eat if I took an unplanned exit off an
interstate with hundreds of miles to go on my journey?

Just as a side note, I really like Google Maps' routing system. If I stray
from the computed route it just silently recalculates and let's me know where
to turn next. There is no "Recalculating" phrase at all. :)

~~~
olex
Same with the Mercedes COMAND navigation, it'll just announce the next turn
whichever way you are going. I generally like the way Mercedes do things in
this regard.

~~~
Tloewald
Mercedes invented the much imitated seat adjustment controls now found in many
cars (control shape and layout matches seat, required motions mirror desired
adjustment). Don Norman uses them as an example of excellent mapping in The
Design of Everyday Things.

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TazeTSchnitzel
Ooh, Microsoft Agent support in JavaScript!

I had a lot of fun playing with the MSAgent API as a kid.

Microsoft Agent was pretty cool. Not terribly useful, but there's a huge
variety of available agents. It had text-to-speech as well as voice
recognition. You could completely programatically control it.

Internet Explorer even supported MSAgent in the browser. There were a few
sites that used it for various fun animations or greetings cards. Perhaps this
could make them usable again.

In fact, you could also use it in PowerPoint to add an agent to your
presentations. That was fun.

~~~
mbq
Me too! I have even drawn and assembled my own character in this "ACE" editor
MS has published...

Anyway, I think it was a great technology -- it could work perfect just as a
async-capable and timeout-dismissable replacement of all those stacked
messageboxes and dialogs Office uses, and they made it a fancy help search box
:-(

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evan_
What's the difference between Clippy and Siri? Maybe it's just that Siri is
out of the way until you call her, but Clippy was always there, commenting on
what you were doing, _judging you_.

Maybe Agents would've taken off if you had to press the Windows key or
something to summon them.

~~~
breckinloggins
Siri tries very hard to be a true "agent"; that is, the makers of the
technology strived to make Siri something that would perform tasks on your
behalf and at your command.

Clippy was also intended to be an "Agent", but it failed spectacularly at it
because:

1\. It tried to help you when you didn't want help, like an annoying intern
who won't leave you alone.

2\. When you actually wanted it to help you, it was invariably unable to
perform the tasks you wanted.

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Rexxar
Interestingly, there's only one big image per agent :

-> <http://clippy.js.s3.amazonaws.com/Agents/Clippy/map.png>

-> <http://clippy.js.s3.amazonaws.com/Agents/Links/map.png>

-> <http://clippy.js.s3.amazonaws.com/Agents/Merlin/map.png>

-> <http://clippy.js.s3.amazonaws.com/Agents/Rover/map.png>

~~~
jwatzman
Spriting is very common. For example, here's how the Facebook logo on the
homepage is rendered:
[https://s-static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v1/yO/r/_2cdInypv2b.p...](https://s-static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v1/yO/r/_2cdInypv2b.png)

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soulclap
Perfect project to get some attention/traffic to their actual product. Not
hating at all, just saying that it's a good move. Made me check out their
project because I wanted to know what else these guys are up to.

------
egypturnash
Oh my god that cat is so much cuter than any of the 3D-rendered assistants.
The "GetArtsy" animation makes me so happy to watch with how it plays with the
fourth wall.

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tazsingh
Is there a Google Docs plugin for this?

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gouranga
kill it - with fire!

It reminds me of my now aged mother shouting at me down the phone "how do I
get rid of that little bastard paper clip that pops up and tells me what I
should be doing every 2 seconds".

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GBKS
The designer of Clippy gave a speech at ROFLCon a few years ago and gave some
insight into how Clippy came about. There's a video of it here
[http://blip.tv/roflcon/it-looks-like-you-are-giving-a-
keynot...](http://blip.tv/roflcon/it-looks-like-you-are-giving-a-
keynote-3695930)

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laconian
This makes me super happy. I would like to add some sort of dialogue tree
support to it.

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mindcrime
Sung to the tune of "Hells Bells" by AC/DC

    
    
        I'm rolling suggestions, pouring pain
        I'm coming on like a hurricane
        My avatar's flashing across the sky
        You're not young but you're gonna die
        I won't take no users, won't spare no lives
        Document's putting up a fight
        I got my clip I'm gonna take you to hell
        I'm gonna get ya, Clippy get ya
    
        Hells bells
        Hells bells, you got me ringing
        Hells bells, my temperature's high
        Hells bells
    
        I'll give you black sensations up and down your spine
        If you're into evil, you're a friend of mine
        ...

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singular
I going to burn karma here, but obligatory comedy video -
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Rl5SOuq6-g>

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pipecork
Sadly disappointed that Bonzi Buddy didn't make a cameo.

~~~
angry-hacker
We need bonzi buddy. It was the first thing I installed on my reformatted pc
everytime my whole family loved him.

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wvenable
I've wanted this for a long time! I can't wait to code this, as a joke, into
one of my sites and have clippy popup on a few key words.

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WiseWeasel
I was hoping someone would make this, so I didn't have to. I have a feeling
we'll see this turn up a lot sometime around 4/1/13.

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josscrowcroft
Come next April 1st this is going to be _everywhere_

And it can't come soon enough :o)

 _"I see you're sending an email. Would you like help with that?"_

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whather
Oh cool, didn't realize the bold, italic, underline, undo and redo buttons
work in the header. Well done! ;)

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zzzeek
copyright lawyer invasion in 3...2...

~~~
jamesu
Also worth noting there are several patents relating to Microsoft Agent.

e.g. <http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US5682469>
<http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US5880731>

~~~
drivebyacct2
I noticed you're filing a patent suit, would you like help with that?

Alternatively, the judge sees the suit and laughs Microsoft out of court.

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protolif
Cute. Potential lawsuit. Confusing name choice. [Clippy][1] is already a
thing. It's the open source 'copy to clipboard' swf by mojombo.

[1]: <https://github.com/mojombo/clippy>

~~~
skeletonjelly
Right but Microsoft would have been first right?

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_seininn
one of the few things I've been searching for is oneko.js. seeing this, I have
new found hope.

as for clippy, it would be more entertaining if it made suggestions when
someone typed something in a text field, or so I would think..

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roshangry
This is the first time I haven't tried to knock it off my screen immediately.

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bergerj
Are Clippy and co. property of MS or free to be used freely?

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quaz3l
I feel so much more at home! In... 1998.

~~~
atyi
Actually it looks better than the real one!

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mistercow
What kind of sick person would do this?

~~~
huskyr
Looks pretty cool for a Konami code easter egg :)

~~~
jgroome
Or as an IE6-8 only "feature" ;)

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DigitalSea
_Nostalgia_ is a hell of a drug.

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deltadj
Just Wow!

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mdennewitz
this is great. "print" is especially horrifying.

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prehnra
no. No. NO. Just no.

