The Daily Smartass

Imitation is one of the highest forms of flattery. Lift your style or prowess by leveraging someone’s tricks of the trade and usually that’s ok, provided you openly lay the cards on the table. All hard work deserves credit and, you’ve got to pay your dues. Most don’t react well to their ideas re-packaged, especially when the guilty party extols the highest virtues:

The VCE exam body has been accused of plagiarism and breach of copyright in a contentious English paper sat by more than 40,000 students. The English exam featured a column on tattoos by Melbourne writer Helen Razer without her permission and without acknowledging she was the author – The Age

On face value, it would seem that some overly hasty clicking has landed the VCE exam body in a spot of bother. Try as I might, I can’t help but draw comparisons to an ill-prepared student on the eve of an assignment due date: A quick Google and a few swift clicks and edits later, and you’ve got yourself something worthy of submission. You might even get away with it too, if your teacher has never used a computer or thinks the Internet is something seen on a tennis court.

As a body crafting a paper to test skills in English, it might not have been the smartest move.

In the spirit of a fair fight, and to immediately jump on the moral high-horse, let’s assume an innocent clerical error is at fault here. After all, it’s not as if basic referencing skills (let alone those for new media) have existed for that long.

But, If you’re putting together a paper that’s so devoid of content (and the masses of printed material doesn’t fit your appetite for choice) that you find yourself trawling the blogosphere for an article with some teeth, don’t sell the idea short. Leverage the worlds’ largest network computers as you will, but don’t stop at snipping and re-working just a single blog post.

Push the envelope to keep an exam on Australian-English relevant and engaging for the students sitting it. How about a passage written entirely in net-lingo (OMG, srsly!?)? Or, a Twitter-esque component, challenging students to answer a study question in 140-characters or less (with bonus points for a celebrity mention or inventive smiley emoticon).

If the sole intent here is to ensure the paper is relevant and engaging for students, it’d be irresponsible to head in any other direction.

As for the gold pot of ideas? Don’t worry, you can thank me later.

I hate conceding defeat. If I’m wrong, I won’t admit it. Catch me out and I’ll swear until I’m blue in the face that you misheard me, or have taken something I said out of context. Worse still, I hate admitting it. That sly, smarmy look the victor has on their face when they know they’ve you by the scruff; it’s enough to make you want to summon Goliath-like strength and slap it right back in their faces.

The voyeur that I am, though, I can’t resist being the smug fly-on-the-wall when somebody else has an about-face:

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. – Adobe, speaking to ZDNet about Flash

Let us all bow our heads for a sombre moment, mourning the loss of what was surely a feature-killer for the Android and Blackberry platforms.

With those camps now pushed to the back and crying over spilt binary, the folks on iOS devices sit perched atop the winners chair, having comfortably taken this round. It would seem that things like better overall user experience and battery life do, indeed, count for something.

Better still, Adobe has reaffirmed its support for HTML5, something that will benefit all users (regardless of platform) in the long run.

I know it’s tough. But, we must band together and maintain a stiff upper lip. And, at the end of the day, it’s not all bad news.

Flash will continue to exist on other computing platforms, like the PC and Mac. You’ll still be able to play those annoying games on Facebook and watch the latest YouTube sensation chant tone-deaf pop songs into their hair brushes.

Nothing, in that respect, has changed.

And, as an extra cherry, Flash will continue to chew your resources and crash your machine -  just as it always has.

Anyone who knows me, know’s I love my coffee. Most mornings, it’s impossible to function without it. I’m not usually a volatile mess, I’m just not likely to make much sense until I’ve been worked-over with some caffeinated goodness. Sometimes, I wish I had emergency supplies so I could kick start the hit on the way in to work.

It sounds like someone on CityLink this morning had the same idea (almost):

“Melbourne drivers received a morning caffeine hit with a difference when a promotional vehicle towing a large replica espresso machine jack-knifed and rolled on CityLink.” – The Age

CityLink is one of Melbourne’s busiest motorways – one where motorists pay for the privilege. I can’t imagine that those on the way to work would’ve been that impressed with the slow trip into work this morning, especially with no coffee in toe.

Luckily, no one was seriously injured. More astoundingly, no one’s quite sure what happened. Now, I don’t drive and I wasn’t carpooling on the Link this morning, but, I’ve got a bit of a theory on this one:

Scores of motorists use the tollway daily, especially in peak times. It can become quite congested at times and is no stranger to maintenance or other roadworks.

It’s possible (albeit, unlikely) that drivers mistook the giant cappuccino machine as an offering from TransUrban to it’s passengers.

It’s also conceivable (if you squint and distort the realms of reality) that, so transfixed where drivers by this gorgeous monument to caffeine, that they converged on it in a trance, as if programmed to do so. The subsequent events resulted in chaos, where the coffee was flowing anything but freely.

Surely, an accurate account of the actual event will be revealed in due course. Still, it’s fun to think that the ~$6.50 toll you paid to use CityLink this morning could’ve served not only for a lacklustre and frustrating trip but also a mediocre cup of coffee.

Milk, however, would be a costly optional extra.