Gallery of the Lamest Technology Mascots Ever 246
Wired has a gallery of their Lamest Technology Mascots which features some trollish links including Tux and a certain adorable devil. Also featured is the old Java mascot Duke which I always liked, and of course Clippy who these days pretty much exists only in cheesy Top X lists.
Tux rocks (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes he does rock... back and forth... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Too late
Re:Tux rocks (Score:5, Funny)
Funny how all these lists mention clippy, but never the gnu goat-thing. [infohelp.co.nz] It even has a smart-ass smirk on its face like it just finished 'flaming a noob' in a newsgroup.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Tux rocks (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
When is the last time you saw a documentary about gnu's, or saw a gnu exhibit at a zoo, or saw a cartoon about a gnu? Most people in the world have no fucking clue what a gnu even is.
In other words: If you make a red panda your company mascot, don't complai
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Tux rocks (Score:5, Insightful)
Why I dislike Tux (Score:3, Insightful)
What annoys me is that I've never able to satisfactorily put my finger on exactly why I don't like it. Could it be:-
1) Same pose, same expression. Never changes.
2) Glassy-eyed vacant look.
3) Use in certain contexts where it appears unprofessional?
4) Too plasticky? Looks somewhat soulless, like a toy.
5) Childish, but not really "cute".
6) "looks fat, bored, lazy and apathetic and / or immensely stupid" (see parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This [indiana.edu] is what Linus said on that subject back in May 1996:
Re:Tux rocks (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed.
A list that overlooks the Pets.com sock puppet (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Where the hell is Microsoft BOB?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Where are they now: the Pets.com sock puppet (Score:5, Funny)
*sniff*... I loved the Pets.com mascot. How could you not like this face [wikipedia.org]??
Unfortunately, what Wikipedia doesn't cover is why pets.com ultimately failed. The sock puppet, like many celebrities, turned to hard narcotics after he lost his high of the .com era. This, combined with a heavy spat with Triumph the Wonder Dog, pulled the plug on his career. The puppet got so down and out that he almost sold his Timex collar, just for one last hit (either of the narcotics, or on Triumph's head). Luckily, he discovered the Hakan and Associates rehab center, whom made a vain attempt to rescue his career. Not much detail is provided about his 12-step sponsor, 1-800-BAR-NONE or their brief collaboration on car commercials. The Pets.com mascot dropped off of the public radar soon after those commercials.
I heard from a friend that he's studying Buddhism under the Dalai Lama in Tibet in Exile. Apparently, His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso is training the Pets.com puppet to become a Lama who will wander the hills of Tibet looking for the yang srid. It is suggested that, due to resemblance of the Pets.com mascot to a childs toy, the 15th Lama may recognize the roaming monk as a good friend. Time will tell on that one though.
Re: (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpuppet_(Internet
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, I personally hate cutesy mascots. When I was helping revise the Java Tutorial, I wanted to barf every time I saw Duke. But there's no denying that they can be effective. Obnoxious marketing is often effective marketing, because it registers.
Also, you're overlooking the fact that deliberate irony is all the rage these days, not least in a
Gallery: Most Well-Known Technology Mascots Ever (Score:5, Informative)
and tux is not lame. them's fightin words.
Re:Gallery: Most Well-Known Technology Mascots Eve (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Gallery: Most Well-Known Technology Mascots Eve (Score:2)
Recursive (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously (Score:2)
This gallery was hyper-lame. It's like they took the only mascots they could even think of, and said, "Oh ha ha, look it's a dog/bird/cat! So lame!" There was zero wit and zero entertainment value. I feel less funny having read it.
Seriously, this was lamer than a fart at a funeral.
Steve "The Dancing Bear" Ballmer (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Steve "The Dancing Bear" Ballmer (Score:5, Funny)
Also, the butterfly MS used to have as their mascot for MSN isn't lame. It was one of the few honest moves from MS to use a bug as the icon for one of their services.
Re:Steve "The Dancing Bear" Ballmer (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Really, does anyone at Microsoft actually listen to the lyrics of their theme songs? Nothing more fitting than "you'd make a grown man cry" is there? And lets not even touch the family unfriendly rest of the lyrics.
Maybe somebody in Microsoft marketing has a better sense of humor than typically given credit for. It would explain a few things.
Re: (Score:2)
15, or 14? (Score:2)
At any rate, I thought I'd point out that ; winner gets a Wii. [rootly.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I wasn't aware that Mozilla was in the car business now...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Here's one (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, you mean that's not a guy in a rubber suit?
Re: (Score:2)
I just realized some extent of my own prejudice (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
duke was REAL, though (Score:2)
a photo taken at a sun java party in santa clara. (papa java can be seen in the photo, too)
duke is REAL
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Futaba channel (Score:5, Informative)
Number 10 is the OS-Tans which spawned from 2ch (and Futaba, the image board connected to the forms known as 2channel, or 2ch for short). Each edition of windows has a linked character (I haven't seen Vista though) which links to the OS's "quirks". For example XP is a very smart girl who takes care of the rest (a well rounded OS basicly) where as ME is a complete idiot known for weilding leaks and doing the dumbest things she can. The OS-tans became so popular (even to the point of a magazine in Japan stealing their designs and using them without the original authors permission and hence being boycotted by many 2ch users) that other software started to get their own characters.
These range from Norton (who is a perverted old doctor) to the Mac girl (who likes to blow things up). As time goes by these girls all seem to remain popular and have become a solid part of the Japanese image board culture. It's very rarely to check the Futaba art boards (Oekaki and self made) without seeing at least once OS-tan pop up some where.
The author doesn't seem to have much of a clue about the girls and their characters, it's just shooting in the dark at "mascots" when the original author has suggested no such thing. Infact the original character designs are pretty much as open source as you can be with character designs, you can do what you like with them as long as you don't make a profit and don't try to claim you made them/not give credit to the mass community).
People looking for the OS-tans can try Futaba at http://www.2chan.net/ [2chan.net] , you are most likely to see them on the random boards, the main 2 of which are on the third row 2 down ( and
Re: (Score:2)
Windows Vista-tan (Score:2)
There are two competing designs for her, but the screw-in-head exotic girl seems to have won.
Re: (Score:2)
If anyone outside Japan wants to post we have to prove when we find proxies we wish to take part not disrupt. It is that simple. So as long as 4chan keeps being a shit hole Futaba has no interest in other users being there.
OS TANs are _not_ lame. (Score:2)
Click here for more OS-TAN goodness [wakachan.org] (SFW)
Original Japanese site [infoseek.co.jp] (some links inside NSFW)
I don't think you get more lame... (Score:2)
The OS-tan thing is just a bit of otaku-dom that I have just never been able to understand.
The comics are quite delightful. (Score:2)
And I wouldn't call it fetishism. I mean... take XP Home. She's been reinvented into a lecherous, track-suit wearing, yaoi-fanficion writing spinster who can't help but corrupt her younger brother.
That's not fetisihm, that's characterization (lol)
Dogcow?! (Score:2)
Ya gotta love (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
"The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."? Especially since Wikipedia certainly does not die.
Re: (Score:2)
i can take the kharma hit but... (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is sure to get me modded down for flaming, trolling, etc, but its a joke...
Either installing and configuring linux was like an expedition to a cold, stark, barren wasteland, or using it was like living there...
One little aside, my little adventure with linux 5-6 years ago taught me that in order to use a non mainstream OS, you needed to use mainstream hardware... Odd, eh?
Or at least code drivers yourself.
GNU Goat? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:GNU Goat? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.gnu.org/graphics/agnuhead.html [gnu.org]
But, I believe thought every mention of "GNU" meant the software. I have never realized -- until today -- that a wildebeest was also called a "gnu" (pronounced "nu"?!?).
What more can I say? I do apologize. I find the liquid v
Re: (Score:2)
Ah. No. Didn't know about the space coaster (geez I'm 39).
I know GNU is "g'nu" but apparently the wildebeest gnu is "nu."
gnu (pronounced
Going by the wiki article I was hit over the head with....
Re: (Score:2)
These fsf folks is touchy....
Re: (Score:2)
Hell yeah! What's wrong with people today? Doesn't he realise that this is SERIOUS BUSINESS?
Clippy.. granted (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure there are more than 16 technology mascots (these 15 plus the BSD devil), and I can't imagine those are all much better than Tux, Duke, Glenda or Mozilla.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I actually wrote my own search program because I hated XP search so much. And I ain't much of a programmer.
Of course I did have to add regex.
Re: (Score:2)
Layne
What? No Purple Gorilla? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ack (Score:2)
Flesh-eating jester (Score:2)
They Missed At Least One (Score:2, Interesting)
Glenda the Plan 9 bunny (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You may enjoy this list of mascots (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Tux seems to be like a perfect mascot. The author mostly took issue with the creepy empty stare that he has. Well, who can disagree? But then again, who looks mascots in the eye? Also, Larry the Cow is a good mascot. S
Hexley is *not* lame (Score:2)
But to discuss this article, it's nice to see that WIred I first read all those years ago is dead now. To call Clarus or Tux or Hexley or Mozilla "lame", considering what they mean - the history and creativity behind the characters - is completely non-geek, non-tech... tired, as they would say.
Duke = Ouija Planchette (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Missing the wider picture... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Sure, on the outside we're a multi-national billion-dollar corporation but, as this green koala clearly shows, on the inside we live in a playful world of whimsy with chocolate hills and marshmallow clouds."
Give me a break
Re: (Score:2)
Geico Gecko
Budweiser Frogs (and equally successful ferret campaign)
Wendy's Raccoons
MetLife and Snoopy
Advertising isn't about logic. You're not twiddling bits in your customers' heads. It's about visceral associations and name recognition. Some are clever, some are funny, some are moronic, some are annoying; the point is you remember th
Re: (Score:2)
Do you think anyone uses BSD or Linux because of the daemon and Tux mascots? Or that anyone remembers the products any better because of them?
What works in one area doesn't necessarily work in another. As I said, strong branding and recognition are important. Mascots don't do that
Re:Missing the wider picture... (Score:4, Funny)
What? No KickTam? The QuickTime Mascot? (Score:2)
Chris Adamson mentions him at the end of this article [oreillynet.com] and links to this Apple dev page [apple.com] for a picture.
The name "KickTam" came from a developer's young child who couldn't say "QuickTime" properly.
While these other mascots may score between 3 and 7 on the lameness meter, KickTam was an 11.
History of Tux (Score:2)
At least somthing is quotable (Score:2)
Clippy is still around (Score:3, Funny)
Sadly, I still see Clippy every day on the monitor of a couple of the secretaries in my workplace.
Tux is adorable! why is it in there? (Score:2)
On the other hand, when I saw clippy, I felt my skin crawling back and forth...
Classic MAC mascots? (Score:2)
or the accompanying 'sad mac' (system error) mascot/icon? http://www.answers.com/topic/sad-mac-png [answers.com]
Re: (Score:2)
My personal fav is the quark alien, he didn't make the list, which is fine, because I think its cool.
Gooey -- lamest name (Score:2)
http://www.plainblack.com/mascot [plainblack.com]
"Geeko", the SuSE gecko (Score:2)
So Geeko was banished to OpenSuSE.org [opensuse.org], to make way for the new Mono-ized Clippy from their new pals in Redmond. Netcraft confirms it.
What the hell is Duke, anyway? (Score:2)
v/Bear Lame?!? (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey, this was a great operating system for its day, and you should all know something about it. Take a look at Melinda Varian's excellent paper [princeton.edu] (PDF warning) on the history of the great operating system. Twenty years ago, I was running VM systems that ran 20 to 40 mainframe guest operating systems, long before VMware and Xen. VM still has the best implementation of Unix pipes I've ever seen.
I still miss VM and the v/Bear, though I have one on my car's keyfob...
Cox Cable (Score:2)
Bonzi Buddy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Although not quite as notorious as Clippy (but probably close) I think this one definitely ranked higher on the "annoying" chart
Re: (Score:2)
Both you and the author got it wrong! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)