T w e n t y S i d e d
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- Call Dan an idiot. (No, really. They began their letter to him with the phrase “You are an idiot.”)
- Threaten to sue.
- Demand, more or less, that Dan give them back their lunch money and stop picking on them.
The most amusing thing they’ve done so far is demand that Dan stop linking to their promotional materials. I can’t find a permalink on his site, but you can see the post on his main page. (Look for the 19th February 2008 post.) This is, of course, akin to demanding people stop pointing and laughing at your billboard. This is made all the more giggle-inducing by the fact that they demanded that he publicize the thing in the first place.
Anyway, Dan has responded to this foot-stamping according to the ancient traditions: He’s made the thing available on a Torrent, where it will be seeded and shared all over the place by people who would otherwise never have taken an interest. If we’ve learned anything from people trying to sue the internet, it’s that the quickest way to get lots of links is to threaten to sue somebody for linking you. I just realized that this is a fantastic way to boost your popularity and bring new people to your site. I’m going to try it:
Furthermore, I demand that all websites stop linking to this post, as you are infringing on my right to not be made fun of when making an ass of myself. It is forbidden to link to this post and if you do so I will be forced to take legal action within 48 hours of my lawyer sobering up after I bail him out of the drunk tank. Again.
I should have thought of this ages ago. I’m going to be famous!
Mass Effect Retrospective
A novel-sized analysis of the Mass Effect series that explains where it all went wrong. Spoiler: It was long before the ending.
Object-Disoriented Programming
C++ is a wonderful language for making horrible code.
Fixing Match 3
For one of the most popular casual games in existence, Match 3 is actually really broken. Until one developer fixed it.
The Best of 2015
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2015.
If Star Wars Was Made in 2006?
Imagine if the original Star Wars hadn't appeared in the 1970's, but instead was pitched to studios in 2006. How would that turn out?
I’m suing.
OK, I am suing. Reading that resulted in coffee in my nasal cavity. While this may indeed result in weight loss you failed to mention the excruciating pain involved in the process. ;)
I expect to year from your attorney if you can get him sober this week :)
It is all true! I came to TWENTYSIDEDTALE and now I am taller, smarter, thinner and more attractive. I’ve tried lots of websites with CSS, but none worked until I read TWENTYSIDEDTALE. The unique blend of upper lumbar neural stimulating CSS agents at TWENTYSIDEDTALE is great!
Wheres my super enhancements of completely fictional?! >:(
:P
Good start, Shamus, but there’s more to do. You’re only halfway there – what you need to do next is to upload tons of customer reviews backing up your claim :P Fake or bribe, whatever strikes your fancy :P
The date on the lab results interpretation was written before the lab results came back, according to the dates on the PDF. Oh dear XD
early morning, bad grammar. Apologies.
You are an idiot. I have probably gained 20 pounds since I started reading Twenty Sided. This is in no way a result of poor eating, stress and lack of sleep, and is in fact a direct result of consumption of Twenty Sided reading material.
You will be hearing from my lawyers, sir.
Dear Mr. Shamus:
This is a letter of cease and desisting of your internet hilarity. You have been found guilty of the soiling of many computer monitors, keyboards, portions of desks, and the occasional pants. There is one account of burned nasal cavities. This is in addition to the countless accounts of loss of productivity, weight gain, loss of jobs, and emotional distress brought on by not being about to stop laughing. Should you ignore us we will go all “Jack Thompson” on you, and possibly as far as “Church of Scientology,” too.
You have until the Sun goes nova to comply, by which case it falls under the statute of limitations, and we give up in boredom.
We are willing to settle out-of-court for the price of a lifetime supply of ramen, Mountain Dew, and pocky.
Want me to get all pouty and blog about it, complete with links to your unfounded claims? Sadly it won’t work. The problem is that you’re too intelligent. Attention farming like that only works if you’re stupid and unintentionally funny.
But I still advertise for you all over the place. I’ve blogged, complete with links, no fewer than four times and you’re a permalink on my Myspace (I really hate that redundant “my”) profile.
(Having failed to do the nifty trackback in the title thing that everyone else seems to have going, I quote from here):
[…]Furthermore, he claims to have discovered either a) the secret to weight loss and sexual attraction, or b) the secret to popularity on the net. I forget which, but I can see how they’d be mutually exclusive. I’m linking this as part of an empirical scientriffic test to prove whichever it was. Or wasn’t. You can trust me; I’m wearing a white lab coat! (Also, I’m suing.)
Actually, since the humorous tidbits Shamus places on his site induce laughter, which relieves stress. A good, long laugh has been proven to be the equal of roughly ten minutes of running, without the sore legs and worrying about foot and joint damage. Laughter also brings a person’s spirits up, giving them a positive benefit that could last for days.
So, let’s see. Shamus’ site provides Stress Relief, Excercise, and Higher Spirits. So, Stress Relief = Less Lost Hair, and fewer grey ones, Excercise = Weight Loss, and Higher Spirits = More confidence in flirting.
How can his claims not be true? :)
(After all, it doesn’t mention the side effects, such as trouble breathing, wheezing, temporary insanity, tears of joy, spewing of liquids, loud gaffawing, and accidents occuring in the immediate area or to those within earshot.)
Spam much?
Notice how the four entries by the dude (I’ll go so far as to say bot) that posted those all have the same wavatar, which leads me to believe that they all originated from the same email, which, since all those posts copy/paste parts of the very same blog entry, leads me to further believe the presence of a botacular proliferation of botacism.
I’m suing as well: not for making false claims about the beneficial aspects of reading TST, but rather for patent infringement. You see, my company owns the US Patent for a process we’ve dubbed “A Method For Human Enhancement Through Interaction With Browser Technologies”, which include, but are not limited to: CSS, HTML, XHTML, PHP, MySQL, Flash, Shockwave (deprecated), Java, RSS, Cache, and Cookies.
It’s clear to all but the most acluistic of Idiots that Twenty Sided is employing many, if not all of the methods covered in our Patent for both financial, as well as emotional gain.
You’ll be hearing from our lawyers, sir!
Would you mind letting them know we’re waiting for them, when you go to bail your own out of that drunk tank? Thanks.
That is seriously one of the greatest things I have ever read. Seriously.
I find this all hilarious, mainly because the company who threatened legal action was asking for it. The attention they will get is NEGATIVE attention, which will label them idiots and whiners. If they want decent people to buy their products, they should ignore the taunts and bullying.
I feel sad that things like people hating YouTube enough to cancel their accounts and stuff like this gives the Internet a bad name.
I know this is a joke, but I have a weird sense of humor. :(
Darn it, I’ve totally gained ten pounds since I stared visiting your site. Obviously I’m doing something wrong, do you know what it is? Is IE a more sliming web browser than Firefox? Where does Safari fall in?
It’s not a new phenomenon, it’s called the Streisand Effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
It has even been used to accuse the person you’re suing of profiting from the attention you brought him by suing him:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20060713/0332234.shtml
I would like to complain. I ordered a +2 Girdle of Sveltness from this website, 9 weeks ago. My credit card was billed, and I have never received the product. I would like to have a human being, gnoll, troll or any other being from your customer service department contact me as soon as possible!
The site with the pictures of the coast that lead to the phrase “Streisand Effect” is really cool.
I’m looking up all the beaches I’ve taken my kids to as well as all the places I played when I was a yute.
Oh, Dan updated his site…I haven’t visited in about a year! Super guy, really funny and full of useful facts with a good dose of common sense (okay, and nonsense). I’ve been reading his site since before I even picked up my first Atomic MPC magazine for which he writes articles.
Well done for linking, Shamus – and make sure you keep up those threats =)
Avaz, I will admit up front to my limited knowledge of things blog-y, but I think those “spam” listings are actually some sort of automated link either gathered by a bot of Shamus’s or created by some sort of automated process when another blogger links to this site. I think the term is backlinking, or something like that.
And, bargamer, the formatting left “Mountain Dew, and pocky.” on the last line of your (hilarious) letter of intent. My brain assumed this was a signature and read it as “Mountain, Dew, and Pooky” as in “The Law Offices of”. Excellent. :)