console foreplay

The tricks you do to a failing console in order to make it play games. Usually the tricks make the problem worse in the long run, resulting in longer periods of foreplay as time passes. Here are some examples:

-Constantly restarting a PS1 or playing the in-game music as an Audio CD 'till the PS1 finally starts the game. Sony used poor quality CD drives for the original Playstation and the PSOne, which failed after some years, resulting in the console not being able to start a game (it either throwed an error, or read the game CD as an audio CD). The trick mentioned above warms up the drive and temporarily solves the problem. Unfortunately, those constant start-stops of the CD drive make it wear out faster.

-Blowing on a NES cartridge so the NES can "see" it. Nintendo made the American version of the NES look like a consumer electronics device, including a VCR-like loading mechanism. Needless to say, it was poorly made and failed over time, and the pins of the cartridge didn't made proper contact with the pins of the console anymore. By blowing into the cartridge, you sprayed a thin layer of humidity on the pins, which helped them made contact (though most people thought it was dust being blown away). Unfortunatelty, the humidity gradually oxidized the pins and made the problem worse.

Not to be confused with go wild with the solder iron, which involves an real attempt at repair instead of silly voodoo tricks like the above, and may actually result in a pernament fix.

Guy 1: While I blow on this NES cartridge, you keep restarting that PS1...
Guy 2: Damn console foreplay. Maybe we should buy a new NES and PS1 from ebay.
Guy 1: Nah... they will probably have the same problems.

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Ubuntu

Microsoft's inside man in the Linux camp. While Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu Linux) appears to be a pro-open source company, in reality they are a Redmondian agent trying to kill Desktop Linux. The Linux crowd, desperate for corporate support as always, fell for the ploy, ignoring all the warning signs:

-In their first steps, Canonical tried to be subtle. They just repackaged Debian -UNSTABLE (read: buggy, incomplete code) instead of Debian -STABLE, and adopted a 6 month release schedule, to ensure bugs won't get ironed out. The Linux crowd ignored these little details and cheered for them.

-Some time later, they started bundling bleeding edge stuff like PulseAudio, and also made sure that clicking the "upgrade" button will trash your computer. "Have we gone too far and risk of our ploy being exposed?" Shuttleworth (Canonical's CEO) thought. However, the Linux crowd mumbled something about "teething problems" and continued to cheer for Ubuntu and Canonical. Shuttleworth was happy.

-Taking it another step too far, Canonical started to mangle the Gnome UI, and then released the worst interface ever (Unity). Surprisingly, this time 'round, the Linux crowd woke up and abandoned Ubuntu. Instead, they moved to Linux Mint, an Ubuntu-based distro which has all the problems Ubuntu has but lacks the Software Center (for whatever it's worth). You can't make that stuff up.

What about Debian -STABLE? It still exists. If you are smart enough to ignore the Ubuntu/Mint fanboys.

Ubuntu fanboy: Look how cool my Ubuntu is. Wha... Where does this Xserver crash came from? Anyway, I guess I can live with that. (6 months later) Look a new version called Ubuntu 13.04 "Sleeping Skunk" came out, I ll just click the upgrade button and... Oh noo!!! (computer fails to wake up after the upgrade, and after a 3 day expedition on ubuntuforums the computer now boots without WiFi and sound). I hate Ubuntu and the Linux operating system. Windows foravar!

Me: Have you tried Debian? You do know that Ubuntu is based on Debian -UNSTABLE which means buggy and incomplete code?

Ubuntu fanboy: But some guys on the internet told me Ubuntu is da shit!

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