Whatever happened to Real Enthusiastic XXXXPerts who had Grand Visionary Ideas which could be QuITe Perfectly well explained on the Flip side of a Beer Mat or Three.

And nuts to the biscuits.

Same again, Love, Beers all round ....... and what are you doing after work? I'm famished and your ravenous.

They can perk up even the dullest of days and are well worth killing for.

...so the BOFH and PFY solved the problem by electrocuting someone? Thank goodness for original plotting!

/me finds the original BOFH series to remember how good it was

Please can El Reg launch a BOFH pre-pay debit card I can use at the pub to look cool when buying drinks.

on a similar note, i've noticed that harry potter will be doing MAGIC in the most recent movie! an unoriginal plot if ever i saw one.

frankly, i liked the earlier ones a lot better, where harry was involved in a bit of rough trade to fund his drug habit.

Yes, the original series also used to take alot longer than 2-3 minutes to read...

Bring back stories that really ate into your lunchhour, not just while the kettle boils !

Quote:

"Please can El Reg launch a BOFH pre-pay debit card I can use at the pub to look cool when buying drinks."

Sorry to dissapoint you, but computer geeks are generally not considered cool in pub environments, no matter what you use to pay for your drinks.

Proof: http://dotnetworkaholic.com/content/binary/BirminghamCodeCamp6.jpg

We need an enthusiast to go back over the BoFH history and work out the annual bodycount and see what the trend is. I would offer but I'm off down the pub..............

Who said I was a computer geek?

Would BOFH and PFY fans like El Regers to Create with AI and ITs Suite of Fleet Street-Cred Robots, a Realised Web 3.0 42 MakeOver the System ...... In Effect, ITs Virtual TakeOver via Nothing more than Sharing Notions [Post Modern Magic Potions] and thereby Placing IT in the Capable Hands of Beta Brains?

We could get Andrew Orlowski to mobilise the West Coast Deadhead Crowd/rouse them from their Slumbers in Orders 4FlowurPower2 Generation of AI Transparent NEUKlearer Energy.

If you can see how IT might fail perhaps you would be so kind as to share your concerns and imagination so that IT can counter any Subversion with Fair and Firm Resolution.

And Hollywood could do with the Help too.

Shake that Booty/Plant that Weedy Seed and Stir up a Perfect TEMPESTuous Storm Heralding Global Operating Devices Powered by IT Suns Shining their Light and Warming the Cockles of every Brave Heart/ LionHearted Knight.

Or would you rather vegetate and procrastinate?

Was that the boiling kettle precariously balancing over the door to the IT office?

there I was lamenting the recent absence of amanfrommars and here he pops up commenting not once but twice on a BOFH.

Come on amanfrommars give us more cryptic comments to decode in our non lunch hours, they are infinitely more readable than these bloody project design documents I am reading at the moment. They feel like they were written by amanfrommars's French cousin and translated to English using bablefish!

p.s. where had the lovely red moon for amanfrommars gone?

So it MUST be good!

How could you tell? I can NEVER extract any meaning from what he wrote.

My theory is that "amanformmars" is a bot.

Nah, that plot has probably already been done.

I'd hate to be going over old material, it would make the stories even quicker to read :P

...I support the general premise of it. KILL THE OPEN SOURCE ZEALOTS; Linux would be a hell of a lot easier to push without them getting in the way.

And at least there's no more crap '1337' punchlines...

" ...vegetate and procrastinate?"

At the same time? Seems like a lot of work....

Formula, yes. Impostor, er, why?

Just asking...

Good then all the Free Software zealots won't need to keep trying to explain the ppl the difference between open source and Free Software...

<3

It's like half of each comment is written by a bot using some tasty Markov action and there also seems to be some sort of human editing going on too. Occasionally.

amanfromMars for prez.

something's wrong, amfm's first comment makes sense.

"something's wrong, amfm's first comment makes sense." ..... Sorry? I promise to behave Beta in future. And aint that the Truth.

Hmmm ... AI Learning Programs? IT SMARTer Enabled ..... for a Ping Dynasty*?

One of those Enigmatic NIRobotIQs things ..... Patently Pending 42 Suspend Belief and Offering Enlightening Relief.

* Perfect for Chinese Checkers and Chinese Chequers into NEUKlearer Energy .... and IT Multiple Use Semantic Technology.

If AMFM is a bot, he/she/it is a pretty stable one. There are several easily understandable conventions used in the text. You could look at such that someone wrote a translator program in which you feed some mildly cryptic text, and it spits out AMFM code. Sort of like feeding pig Latin into a 1337 converter. Once you pick up the pattern, the message is clear.

Sad, but true, I have met "IT people," (mostly youngun's,) who have read posts written by AMFM, but couldn't tell you who Larry Ellison is. To that end, I say "hooray" for amanfromMars. Be he/she/it bot, person, or some hideous technoflesh freak of nature, AMFM has become a "comments page" celebrity.

As more and more people can read 1337, those needing to "encrypt" thier e-mails to fellow geek kind have been gifted a new pesudo-language. Just as a group of interwibblers can terrify "normals" by spontaneously breaking out into "badger badger badger ," (to which everyone but the "normal" seems to know the words,) amanfromMartian is the modern way to confuse and annoy those reading IMs over your shoulder.

Who, or whatever you are, keep up the good work, AMFM. The Reg, indeed, IT new sites in general, just wouldn't be the same without you.

i'm hoping he's a cyborg or at least has a couple of implants.

Not being a regular (reader of comments), I was about to Google amanformmar (the singular form of amanformmars :D) to see what sort of people/group/whatever are you talking about, when a sudden revelation struck me and I realized it was amanfromMars, a nickname. myself << LOL;

P.S. This week's story really lacks a decent twist. Yes, the end was a bit unexpected as I thought that some elaborate sabotage was about to take place, but the surprise wasn't of the best kind.

Right from what I can figure out from the first post by the amanformmars the first paragraph questions would the readers of the register prefer if the BOFH be turned into another web based marketing gimmick used by soulless marketing people.

Then he talks about a protest march by a bunch of hippies against nuclear energy or Cornering of learners (NEUK means corners)

The he asks that anyone who says the immediate failings in IT please submit your concerns.

Then he states a golden age of IT led by either sun micro systems or solar power if we share and resolve our fails in the IT industry

That or he is order a large Hawaiian pizza

Actually, NEUKlearer Energy would have and therefore does have a whole different meaning, in a Parallelling Power Relativity which is very Relevant, in dDutch.

And Paris because of that Quantum Relativity 42 Tie in Life, the Universe and Everything in ITs Memes.

Love's Code is AI Holy Grail?

You can bet your shirt on that Binary Language, that's for Sure. :-) And a sure fire Winner sweeping any Singing Rat to the Highest of Planes........ although you might consider IT to be much more AESThetan than Religious in its Fervour and Knightly Favours....... for Boy's Own Orders will never compete successfully against Men Only Delights....... not so long as Pussy remains a Cat and a Right Hornery Bitch/Magic Witch.

Ooops, Sorry Paris, I got carried away . :-) :-0

Sharing Love's CodeXXXX always sends One into Alien Spaces of Bewitching Magic. And pushing all those Venus buttons is more than enough to Capture and EnRapture aman. And amen to that Universe and ITs Sweetest of Sweetest Addictions/Gifts.

I See we are using IT we are define life the universe and everything else since one of the views in Physics today is we are in fact a computer program.

(Mark Chown The never-ending days of being day Highly recommended)

Either that or I am drunk again

"one of the views in Physics today is we are in fact a computer program." IT makes AI, a Perfect Beta Sense, Bryan, and would give Rise to Virtual Machines Programming for Humanity. And an Absolute Veritable GoldMine for the Lovers of Money and all rather timely given the present "difficulties".

And if you are drunk again, you a very naughty boy. :-)