The Little Chikapoo that Could

[Virgil Showlion]

A short, short time ago, on a support board far, far away...


Shadow Chikapoo: A need to download a metric ton of data to every single user's browser on every single page view on my board. How do I accomplish this elegantly?

Slugtropolis (Moderator): Um... you can't. It's an extremely bad idea.

Shadow Chikapoo: I see. Well then, may I request it as a feature?

Tom "Dream Crusher" (Proboards Guy): Never going to happen. We simply can't allow boards to pull down that much data.

Shadow Chikapoo: No worries. I've already found a workaround using gizmo A and gizmo B, and I've used them to fix the problem myself.

Tom "Dream Crusher": Here's our developer guidelines. Note how gizmo A and gizmo B are banned in big red letters.

Shadow Chikapoo: What if I only downloaded 90% of a metric ton of data? Or... or here... 85% of a metric ton? I realize it's totally against your terms of service and screws your advertisers, but the government does this all the time. And what about Google? This would be handling less data per second than Google's servers. Work with me here?

Tom "Dream Crusher": No. If you want it so bad, you can get your own server on the cloud for like $5 a month.

Shadow Chikapoo: I think we got off on the wrong foot. I really want to work this out because I want to break the TOS for all the right reasons. How can people be creative if you don't let them break the rules? And how about this one time offer: I only use gizmo A to download a metric ton of data once per second. Just once per second. And you can totally trust me. I know what I'm doing.

Several Posters: (Offer numerous alternative suggestions...)

Shadow Chikapoo: Those are all great suggestions, but they still don't let me pull down the ridiculous quantity of data I need. I really don't like limitations. Anyway... I'll use all my wits to figure something out.

Shadow Chikapoo (12 Hours Later): #$%@&. I really, really need to break the rules to make this work. Can I break them in a box? Can I break them with a fox? Can I break them on a train? Can I break them on a plane?

Tom "Dream Crusher": You can break them when monkeys fly out my-

Virgil Snowslayer: Maybe you could use gizmo C, which isn't prohibited. That would give you what you need.

Shadow Chikapoo: Very interesting suggestion. Very interesting indeed. But anyway... can I break them with a goat? Can I break them on a boat? ...

Tom "Dream Crusher": You cannot break the developer guidelines.

Shadow Chikapoo: So that's how it's going to be then, eh? You're not going to work with me on this? Do you even know who I am? I programmed a Chikapoo Voice AI! And it sounds realistic. Yeah, that's right. Also I programmed this thing that spins straw into gold. No foolin'. And... and...

Tom "Dream Crusher": You've been given 80 different workaround suggestions. Use one of those. No breaking the rules.

Shadow Chikapoo: OK. So I'm hearing a "maybe" then on breaking the rules. Here's my new proposal on how I break them with a fish... on a dish. Now don't be a dimwit and tell me I can't do this. If the problem is your advertisers, I know a great way we can screw them and get you some extra revenue by hiding little tiny ads that nobody will see on my site. As long as they don't find out about it and sue you back to the stone age, everybody wins!


And... the epic conclusion.

[Opti]

Is IowaSwirl in the house?
I think I need a translation! (Or more backstory.)

[Jaguar]

Virgil Showlion

Yeah I've been following this too.

[The Captain]

and I thought you mods had it rough sometimes...

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

I was in tears from laughing so hard by the time I got to the end.

I'm a little late - maybe he can break them with a plate.

[Opti]

Guess I'll have to read the epic conclusion/start to get it.
Dark Pikachu. Sounds like something Dark would pick. 

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

Except it's "Shadow Chickapoo" - not Pikachu

[Opti]

When I click on the "Epic Conclusion" Shadow Chickapoo
seems to reference a poster, Dark Pikachu. Just my take
on a quick URL thread skim.

[Opti]

SL, I'll make it easy. I'll say Coke and you can say Pepsi, soda
or whatever. 

[Virgil Showlion]

You don't mess... with Shadow Chikapoo.

Poor kid is going to end up a lawyer or a politician.

[sesfw]

The only thing I got out of this is chicky is trying to pull a fast one.

Over my head.

[mmhmm]

  I'd seen this, too.  Gotta  love that Dream Crusher! 

[moon/Laura]

Oh it's so disappointing that the thread is locked. I really wanted to ask him "what part of the word NO don't you understand?"

[mmhmm]

I think he understood the "N", but the "O" caused a synapse collision. 

[toomuchreality]

How much time do YOU have one YOUR hands?!

I think they tried it out on me (beta?), when I installed the last bunch of updates.     
Slow. VERY slow.

[Deleted]

Trolling, trolling, trolling, keep that trolly trolling.

[Virgil Showlion]

He's just a clueless kid.

In fairness, a few of his proposals are tolerable when considered purely from a technical standpoint. He's learning a tough life lesson that rules are rules, no matter how close to not breaking them he comes.

It's also obvious from his posts that he's a novice programmer, he's already spent time building his rule-breaking plugin, and (I suspect) he doesn't know how to program it in any other way. Giving up would mean abandoning the feature and losing a great deal of work in the process, which would explain some of his persistence.

But... little coders have to grow up sometime.

He's going to look back at this in ten years after completing a computer science degree and be very glad that the whole thing happened under an anonymous alias.

[Virgil Showlion]

*lol* He's still at it. He started a new thread.

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

Poor Chickapoo - even after getting the memo, he still doesn't understand.

[mmhmm]

Gotta give it to Chickapoo.  He's hilarious, if nothing else! 

[Jaguar]

He loves breaking rules like I love Human Plus Function Commands. LOL

[Jaguar]

Mar 20, 2014 18:15:49 GMT -5 mmhmm said:

Gotta give it to Chickapoo.  He's hilarious, if nothing else! 

I think it's called being really impatiently persistent.

[mmhmm]

As Virgil said, he's obviously just a kid learning about life.  At least for me, rules were one of the hard things to get through my head.

[NoNamePerson]

Mar 19, 2014 20:42:29 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

Trolling, trolling, trolling, keep that trolly trolling.

Rawhide 

[Wisconsin Beth]

Mar 19, 2014 18:19:19 GMT -5 Jaguar said:

Virgil Showlion

Yeah I've been following this too.

I thought you were Princess.   

I got about 1 word in 6 on the link.  I am so NOT a programmer.  And I can live with that. 

[Jaguar]

No I'm Sugilite on freaking everywhere.