Evan and I worked together at IMVU, and at one point a senior engineer heard one of my (appallingly bad) ideas and replied "You're fired." and went back to work.
A few weeks later I, apparently, made a terrible joke. Seconds later this shows up in my inbox:
Dear Timothy,
After careful deliberation, it's been decided that you need to be fired.
Reason: telling not funny jokes
You may take one (1) Odwalla for the road.
Thanks,
The Firing Committee
Not only was it hilarious but while I suspected Evan, he hadn't had time to type that whole message! Over the next few weeks I received quite a few of these e-mails, but with different messages:
Reason: distracting Evan from his conversation with Luc
Reason: Asking too many questions
etc.
It turns out that not only did Evan find the need to write a formal you're fired letter; he wrote a web service to send formal you're fired letters. To me.
I've clearly missed something. Other than being a baroque way to generate an approximation that doesn't really mean much, I guess I don't see what makes it so funny?
Well, with the caveat that the surest way to kill humor is to explain it, I thought it was funny because option 1 was a super-simple equation, option 2 was a super-simple equation, and the "right" answer was Quantum Rocket Surgery.
(I suppose it's funnier if you've done research. Roughly 88.69% of all research literature is some dude trying to "improve" a simple model with pages of mathematics. Not that this guy was wrong -- it was just evocative.)
Comments
This is, I think, the bestest funniest post to hit Hacker News in awhile.
Evan and I worked together at IMVU, and at one point a senior engineer heard one of my (appallingly bad) ideas and replied "You're fired." and went back to work.
A few weeks later I, apparently, made a terrible joke. Seconds later this shows up in my inbox:
Dear Timothy,
After careful deliberation, it's been decided that you need to be fired.
Reason: telling not funny jokes
You may take one (1) Odwalla for the road.
Thanks,
The Firing Committee
Not only was it hilarious but while I suspected Evan, he hadn't had time to type that whole message! Over the next few weeks I received quite a few of these e-mails, but with different messages:
Reason: distracting Evan from his conversation with Luc
Reason: Asking too many questions
etc.
It turns out that not only did Evan find the need to write a formal you're fired letter; he wrote a web service to send formal you're fired letters. To me.
he wrote a web service to send formal you're fired letters. To me.
You're fired, for dragging down the average amount of awesome in any room Evan is in.
i think tptacek's account has been compromised
You didn't laugh out loud when you got to "the correct solution"?
I did. The way it was presented was rather classic.
I've clearly missed something. Other than being a baroque way to generate an approximation that doesn't really mean much, I guess I don't see what makes it so funny?
Well, with the caveat that the surest way to kill humor is to explain it, I thought it was funny because option 1 was a super-simple equation, option 2 was a super-simple equation, and the "right" answer was Quantum Rocket Surgery.
(I suppose it's funnier if you've done research. Roughly 88.69% of all research literature is some dude trying to "improve" a simple model with pages of mathematics. Not that this guy was wrong -- it was just evocative.)
Alright thanks... To be fair, I am really really bad at picking up humor online. I have some kind of internet autism or something.