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Wub: Now Buy Me A Beer
by MARC SIDWELL
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Reading this column will TRIPLE your efficiency.
The secret I am about to share with you is almost too good to disclose. As so often
happens with the internet, there is no obvious way for me to make money from
revealing it.
Economics can be cruel. Here I am, inventor of a way you can massively boost the
amount of time spent in the pub, but you can’t pay me – so there’s no motivation to
share my extraordinary insight and change your life. Nobody gets a pint.
Some people praise Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the worldwide web, for making
his idea available for free and waiving the royalties. For those of us left trying to
make enough to pay for our round, Tim’s generous gesture looks more like a raised
finger.
Some claim advertising is the answer, but don’t you believe it. Look at the ads on
the left of this column. All you’d have to do is click on one to earn me a few pennies,
but I cannot ask you to do so – in fact I must encourage you not to click on these
links, by order of the provider.
Since I must urge you once again not to click on the adverts to earn me money, why
should I tell you my efficiency-tripling system?
I have worked out an answer. Unfortunately, I feel it may be even more significant
than the amazing idea that I am about to unveil to you that will triple your efficiency.
That of course raises an additional problem.
I may have come up with a miraculous idea (to triple your efficiency) and then come
up with an even more amazing idea (so I can afford to share it with you), but do I
now have to come up with a way for you to pay me for the idea about how you can
pay me back for the efficiency-tripling idea?
My head hurts.
In fact, I need a drink. I often do. And that is going to solve all our problems.
But only if I first triple your efficiency.
So here it is: wub.
For too long, the world has been cursed by a name for the centrepiece of the
internet that is not only long and unwieldy, but has an acronym twice as long as
itself.
“Worldwide Web”
“Double-you double-you double-you dot”
This absurd situation cannot be allowed to continue. We need a new abbreviation.
“Wub” replaces three double-yous, with one concise, unambiguous syllable: thus
tripling your efficiency.
Consider, instead of saying in your important board meeting
“Double-you double-you double-you dot Lizard Magazine dot com”
You need only say –
“Wub Lizard Magazine dot com”
– then shake the chairman’s hand and take your secretary out for an early
snakebite-and-black.
In fact, I can do better.
If we also replace “dot com” with “Mm”, pronounced with the back of the throat, or
“!K”, clicked with the tongue on the roof of the mouth, you can watch your superiors
gape with amazement as you rattle off
“Wub Lizard Magazine Mm”
“Wub lizardmagazine is a dot com not a dot co dot uk !K”
This has the pleasant side-effect of importing into English sound combinations
previously restricted to other tongues (the !K particularly reminiscent of the South
African Xhosa language), adding piquancy to the national conversation.
If these few simple sounds spread widely enough, it is clear the Western world will
be vastly improved.
However, unlike Tim Berners-Lee, I need some payback for my epoch-shattering
discovery. Luckily, I think I’ve cracked the even greater riddle of how to get money
out of sharing an idea on the internet.
Buy me a beer.
If you think it’s a good idea, if your business has suddenly doubled its stock value
thanks to the use of “wub” in board meetings, or maybe just because you were
grateful for the warning not to click on the adverts alongside this column, next time
you see me, just buy me a beer.
After all, that’s what I’d spend the money on anyway. It seems a very elegant
solution, and I look forward to its worldwide adoption.
But I still need a way for all of you to pay me for the even better idea of introducing
the beer-for-content payment system. Luckily, I think I see a way through.
Buy me another beer.
Beer is the answer to most things in life, and now it seems it can even solve one of
the greatest riddles of the wub.
Mine’s a pint.
© lizardmagazine.com, 2008
Back to the homepage
by MARC SIDWELL
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Reading this column will TRIPLE your efficiency.
The secret I am about to share with you is almost too good to disclose. As so often
happens with the internet, there is no obvious way for me to make money from
revealing it.
Economics can be cruel. Here I am, inventor of a way you can massively boost the
amount of time spent in the pub, but you can’t pay me – so there’s no motivation to
share my extraordinary insight and change your life. Nobody gets a pint.
Some people praise Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the worldwide web, for making
his idea available for free and waiving the royalties. For those of us left trying to
make enough to pay for our round, Tim’s generous gesture looks more like a raised
finger.
Some claim advertising is the answer, but don’t you believe it. Look at the ads on
the left of this column. All you’d have to do is click on one to earn me a few pennies,
but I cannot ask you to do so – in fact I must encourage you not to click on these
links, by order of the provider.
Since I must urge you once again not to click on the adverts to earn me money, why
should I tell you my efficiency-tripling system?
I have worked out an answer. Unfortunately, I feel it may be even more significant
than the amazing idea that I am about to unveil to you that will triple your efficiency.
That of course raises an additional problem.
I may have come up with a miraculous idea (to triple your efficiency) and then come
up with an even more amazing idea (so I can afford to share it with you), but do I
now have to come up with a way for you to pay me for the idea about how you can
pay me back for the efficiency-tripling idea?
My head hurts.
In fact, I need a drink. I often do. And that is going to solve all our problems.
But only if I first triple your efficiency.
So here it is: wub.
For too long, the world has been cursed by a name for the centrepiece of the
internet that is not only long and unwieldy, but has an acronym twice as long as
itself.
“Worldwide Web”
“Double-you double-you double-you dot”
This absurd situation cannot be allowed to continue. We need a new abbreviation.
“Wub” replaces three double-yous, with one concise, unambiguous syllable: thus
tripling your efficiency.
Consider, instead of saying in your important board meeting
“Double-you double-you double-you dot Lizard Magazine dot com”
You need only say –
“Wub Lizard Magazine dot com”
– then shake the chairman’s hand and take your secretary out for an early
snakebite-and-black.
In fact, I can do better.
If we also replace “dot com” with “Mm”, pronounced with the back of the throat, or
“!K”, clicked with the tongue on the roof of the mouth, you can watch your superiors
gape with amazement as you rattle off
“Wub Lizard Magazine Mm”
“Wub lizardmagazine is a dot com not a dot co dot uk !K”
This has the pleasant side-effect of importing into English sound combinations
previously restricted to other tongues (the !K particularly reminiscent of the South
African Xhosa language), adding piquancy to the national conversation.
If these few simple sounds spread widely enough, it is clear the Western world will
be vastly improved.
However, unlike Tim Berners-Lee, I need some payback for my epoch-shattering
discovery. Luckily, I think I’ve cracked the even greater riddle of how to get money
out of sharing an idea on the internet.
Buy me a beer.
If you think it’s a good idea, if your business has suddenly doubled its stock value
thanks to the use of “wub” in board meetings, or maybe just because you were
grateful for the warning not to click on the adverts alongside this column, next time
you see me, just buy me a beer.
After all, that’s what I’d spend the money on anyway. It seems a very elegant
solution, and I look forward to its worldwide adoption.
But I still need a way for all of you to pay me for the even better idea of introducing
the beer-for-content payment system. Luckily, I think I see a way through.
Buy me another beer.
Beer is the answer to most things in life, and now it seems it can even solve one of
the greatest riddles of the wub.
Mine’s a pint.
© lizardmagazine.com, 2008
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