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Comment by cercatrova | Hacker News Reader

Reminds me of several years ago when the extension Cloud to Butt was popular, which (predictably) replaces mentions of the "cloud" with "butt" [0]. It created at least a few funny stories [1].

I guess when the cloud hype blew over, new hypes emerged only to be tackled by extensions like these.

[0] https://github.com/panicsteve/cloud-to-butt

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/3zdnoh/tifu_by_forget...

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I remember when some AWS employees had that extension installed in their browser and unintentionally wrecked havoc on the internal wiki with it. There were these various trails of devastation until the word got out that maybe this extension is a bad idea when you work for a cloud.

The existence of cloud->butt is kind of humorous. "Look, this thing is overhyped by people who don't understand it. What if we :s/cloud/butt/g, but like in an addon?" Yeah, I get it. Very clever.

I don't understand actually using it though. I mean, I sort of get it. Perhaps, deep down, everyone is easy to amuse; it's just a question of what domain are they easily amused by. But do you really want to give yourself programmatic word aphasia?

Doing it a second time, years later, feels more strange. Like watching a child who copies a joke made by an adult without understanding the structure or semantics of the joke, I find myself nervously smiling at the presentation before me.

And then you come along, "AWS employees ... extension installed ... wrecked havoc ...". Yes, that seems like a predictable result. Thank you for your anecdote, I kind of expected that to be the case and it at least feels good to hear that my understanding of the world matches someone's experience.

Placeholder text will find a way into production -- make it safe. Lorem ipsum exists for a reason.

>I don't understand actually using it though.

Why not? Some people can "Yeah, I get it. Very Clever." just from the description. Some people CAN'T. The proof of this is in math class where people struggle with word problems. You are in the category of people that get it from description only. Have empathy for the people that need to see it in action.

Also, you know, it's fun. Don't ruin it for others because you can't/won't/don't

> Have empathy for the people that need to see it in action.

With the full context of my comment, I feel that I've given sufficient empathy for people who aren't me.

> I mean, I sort of get it. Perhaps, deep down, everyone is easy to amuse; it's just a question of what domain are they easily amused by.

Is this not an allowance?

> Also, you know, it's fun. Don't ruin it for others because you can't/won't/don't

I hope I wasn't ruining anyone's fun by being unable to properly comprehend how they choose to have it and verbalizing that incomprehension. Although, if speaking with uncertainty about a topic is enough to ruin someone's fun, then I feel I should note that I find fun in making overly wordy comments about how I don't understand other people. I implore you not to ruin my fun because you can't/won't/don't.

Although, I suspect my fun has never wrecked an internal wiki. I'll leave it to historians to judge between my fun and theirs.

The fun thing about cloud->butt for me was that is showed up infrequently enough that I would forget about it and occasionally be really confused. Like when a company called cloudplugs showed up on tech news sites. Everyone needs a little chaos in their work day.

I like to play a game with my future self by laying down little traps I know I’ll fall into and be confused by. I call it singleplayer pranking, it’s great!

I've had friends install it on various machines maily as a prank - and I laugh like I'm 12 every time.

The term is WREAKED havoc, FYI.

TFA:

> Inspired by and adapted from the infamous [cloud-to-butt](https://github.com/panicsteve/cloud-to-butt) extension, as originally released under the WTFPL (here BSD0)

Ah I didn't see the About this Extension part, just read the description underneath the title.

Did the "cloud hype" really "blow over"? Seems to be a pretty big thing nowadays.

It's passed through the hype cycle to now be mainstream - whether that's a good or a bad thing is left up as an exercise to the reader. All major companies I've worked with / for are in the cloud now.

AWS must be laughing, those sly dogs.

Some of the hype has disappeared too. I remember when there was a general idea that cloud would "eliminate" your need to have ops teams, because you won't need them, Amazon just takes care of it for you! Now everybody knows that's not true. It might reduce it vs. a datacenter but certainly you need people setting up cloud resources and diagnosing problems. I also remember when the idea was floating around that simply being in the cloud made your software resilient, period. Now I think there's a greater understanding you still need to do some things to get that result, even if it's easier than doing it all yourself.

Also haven't heard as much about it being cheap. Again, it might still be cheaper than some other options, but it certainly isn't the case that it's just magically cheaper. The thriving field of companies who help you reduce your cloud spend is evidence of that....

I remember it was also that cloud as a term was pure marketing hype. Unnecessary rebranding of a thing we already had a good name for, servers. And also to pick such a irrational name ”cloud” which didn’t relate to technology at all. You could hear everyone use it in nonsense high flying keynotes. All the hands-on computer people laughed at it and I think cloud to butt was part of that.

In the end it’s actually really good word for newish concept and using it does not feel silly to me anymore.

"There is no cloud. It's just someone else's computer."

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