

No more lolcats in tech presentation, plz - bdotdub
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1614-no-more-lolcats-in-tech-presentation-plz

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igorgue
DHH likes to complain pretty much about everything!

Now because of that in my next presentation I'll use LOLdogs.

BTW, I love Federico Mena FAIL!s in his presentations.

~~~
unalone
Oftentimes, the people complaining about everything are the people classy
enough to recognize how many things are worth complaining about.

Do you have a link to one of Mena's presentations?

~~~
igorgue
<http://www.gnome.org/~federico/#conferences>

Document-centric GNOME is pretty good.

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rufo
I find this odd coming from someone who is known for highlighting profanity in
presentations - which seems at least as much of a gimmick as a LOLcat.

Not that I care - I enjoy Rails and generally find DHH a fine speaker when
I've seen him at RailsConfs - but it does seem mildly hypocritical to me.

~~~
unalone
Swears aren't a gimmick. They're a part of the English language.

When DHH tells a hypothetical person to fuck off, that carries certain
undertones. We're all aware of those because it's part of the English
language. Same with him calling a product a piece of shit. If he said "This
product is severely lacking," that _means_ something difference than "This
product is a piece of shit."

I don't know where this taboo against professional swearing comes from, but
curse words are a natural part of the English language and should be used as
such.

Meanwhile, using LOLcats says nothing good about you. "Hi, I'm immature enough
that while you're supposed to regard what I'm saying, I still think that text
attached to cats is funny." "Hello, I missed the meme bandwagon and I'm
catching up three years later." I would respect somebody using "All Your Base"
more than I'd respect LOLcats, and that's not saying I'd respect AYB at all.

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sethg
Mark-Jason Dominus proposed a different gimmick, long before LOLcats were
invented:

[http://perl.plover.com/yak/presentation/samples/slide024.htm...](http://perl.plover.com/yak/presentation/samples/slide024.html)

