Январь 2010 Февраль 2010 Март 2010 Апрель 2010 Май 2010
Июнь 2010
Июль 2010 Август 2010
Сентябрь 2010
Октябрь 2010
Ноябрь 2010
Декабрь 2010
Январь 2011
Февраль 2011 Март 2011 Апрель 2011 Май 2011 Июнь 2011 Июль 2011 Август 2011
Сентябрь 2011
Октябрь 2011 Ноябрь 2011 Декабрь 2011 Январь 2012 Февраль 2012 Март 2012 Апрель 2012 Май 2012 Июнь 2012 Июль 2012 Август 2012 Сентябрь 2012 Октябрь 2012 Ноябрь 2012 Декабрь 2012 Январь 2013 Февраль 2013 Март 2013 Апрель 2013 Май 2013 Июнь 2013 Июль 2013 Август 2013 Сентябрь 2013 Октябрь 2013 Ноябрь 2013 Декабрь 2013 Январь 2014 Февраль 2014
Март 2014
Апрель 2014 Май 2014 Июнь 2014 Июль 2014 Август 2014 Сентябрь 2014 Октябрь 2014 Ноябрь 2014 Декабрь 2014 Январь 2015 Февраль 2015 Март 2015 Апрель 2015 Май 2015 Июнь 2015 Июль 2015 Август 2015 Сентябрь 2015 Октябрь 2015 Ноябрь 2015 Декабрь 2015 Январь 2016 Февраль 2016 Март 2016 Апрель 2016 Май 2016 Июнь 2016 Июль 2016 Август 2016 Сентябрь 2016 Октябрь 2016 Ноябрь 2016 Декабрь 2016 Январь 2017 Февраль 2017 Март 2017 Апрель 2017 Май 2017
Июнь 2017
Июль 2017
Август 2017 Сентябрь 2017 Октябрь 2017 Ноябрь 2017 Декабрь 2017 Январь 2018 Февраль 2018 Март 2018 Апрель 2018 Май 2018 Июнь 2018 Июль 2018 Август 2018 Сентябрь 2018 Октябрь 2018 Ноябрь 2018 Декабрь 2018 Январь 2019
Февраль 2019
Март 2019 Апрель 2019 Май 2019 Июнь 2019 Июль 2019 Август 2019 Сентябрь 2019 Октябрь 2019 Ноябрь 2019 Декабрь 2019 Январь 2020
Февраль 2020
Март 2020 Апрель 2020 Май 2020 Июнь 2020 Июль 2020 Август 2020 Сентябрь 2020 Октябрь 2020 Ноябрь 2020 Декабрь 2020 Январь 2021 Февраль 2021 Март 2021 Апрель 2021 Май 2021 Июнь 2021 Июль 2021 Август 2021 Сентябрь 2021 Октябрь 2021 Ноябрь 2021 Декабрь 2021 Январь 2022 Февраль 2022 Март 2022 Апрель 2022 Май 2022 Июнь 2022 Июль 2022 Август 2022 Сентябрь 2022 Октябрь 2022 Ноябрь 2022 Декабрь 2022 Январь 2023 Февраль 2023 Март 2023 Апрель 2023 Май 2023 Июнь 2023 Июль 2023 Август 2023 Сентябрь 2023 Октябрь 2023 Ноябрь 2023 Декабрь 2023 Январь 2024 Февраль 2024 Март 2024
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30
31
Game News |

Clippy did nothing wrong

Clippy, Microsoft Word's perpetually upbeat '90s paperclip, is a joke. An embarrassment. A mercifully discarded relic of the distant past. An ugly sweater.

I know that, and I'm sure you know that too. And I'm also sure it's no accident this worthless retro irritant's most visible recent comeback is as a little weapon charm in Halo Infinite, just so everyone can ruthlessly rocket launcher him into splattered Spartan oblivion over and over again. Everybody hates Clippy, the useless failure of a "virtual assistant" who was rightfully dragged into life's recycle bin years ago.

Or do they?

Clippy is good.

This "truth" I've unthinkingly regurgitated for decades vaporised faster than a vital email attachment the instant I saw the wiry little guy in his original habitat again. The secondhand experiences from the internet's bottomless well of memes, the fuzzy memories formed when I was a teenager desperately trying to write an essay the week after it was supposed to be handed in, and this, uh, erotic Clippy fiction I really wish I hadn't stumbled upon when I was looking up Clippy-related quotes this morning, simply don't match up with plain old reality.

Brace yourselves for this cold splash of Windows history-altering reality: Clippy is good.

Last month I had the pleasure of opening up an old Windows 98SE laptop for the first time in literally decades (Microprose's 1997 Magic: The Gathering game really needs a modern re-release, although that's a complaint for another article), and for a bit of a nostalgic giggle I thought I'd start up the machine's old version of Word, ready to point and laugh at all the pathetic things the little paper clip "helper" who lives on as the internet's punching bag was about to say and do.

That laugh never came. Clippy was in fact not a tiny incompetent jester trying to ruin my document via intrusive pale yellow speech bubbles. He was a passive desktop object content to just stand there (as far as a paperclip with no legs can stand) and do nothing. I could even click him into oblivion if I wanted to.

Clippy

(Image credit: Microsoft)

So I did what any person with an imaginary axe to grind against a decades-old digital office feature would do and started typing, trying to goad the Fifth Paperclip of the Apocalypse that was surely lurking just below this benign surface into unleashing its pernickety and no doubt incorrect fury upon my text.

And that's when I got annoyed. Not only because I realised I'd been transported back to a happier time when document creation could be done offline and the program in question didn't expect me to sign up or subscribe to anything, but because the internet, that last bastion of truth and justice, had lied to me. Clippy wasn't an amusing desktop ornament stuffed with meme-able dialogue. He was helpf—OK so maybe he wasn't helpful—but he was trying to be. 

It didn't take long before Clippy either completely misunderstood my text or was out of ideas entirely, but in the cold light of modernity I honestly appreciated bumping up against the edges of his database instead of being immediately funnelled towards similar "services" in a company's "digital ecosystem". He was never eager to push me towards an online "community" for advice, he never tried to nudge me into clicking on an "online training content" icon, he never made me stare at a help page that gave over a good chunk of my screen to a stock image of someone smiling at a laptop placed next to an artistically arranged pile of books. Clippy never asked me to pay up to unlock better advice.

It's this refreshingly simple and personable treatment that has made me a reformed fan of the little guy, to the point where I'd dare to say there's a Clippy-shaped hole in all of our modern office programs. I'd love to be offered bite-sized pieces of information by an amiable little character when I'm elbow-deep in another Google Doc at 4 am, rather than manually fish out some plain text on a flat white background that's been buried in a menu inside a menu.

Wouldn't it be so much better for all of us if we could ask a program's mascot for assistance instead of clicking through a weird adver-help plugin? Why did we scorn Clippy but allow ourselves to get used to performing text-Judo with a chatbot named Tracy every time we need help with something?

Wouldn't it be so much better if we could ask a mascot like Clippy? A mascot who doesn't pretend to know more than he does? Who doesn't masquerade as a human (other than by having eyebrows) at the other end of a sterile chat line?

I know the internet will probably always love to loathe him, but if you ask me that's only because he reminds us of how much we've lost. He's compact offline help; there if I need it, gone the instant I don't, and he isn't falling over himself to scrape delicious, saleable feedback data from every single mouse click or coerce me into giving up yet another email address. Clippy's divisive "personality"—in practice nothing more irritating than an attempt to deliver general tips in a more natural and engaging way—may not be to everyone's tastes, but at least he has one.

Perhaps what Windows 11 needs to be a true success isn't a redesigned Start menu or taskbar. It just needs to give us a friend.



Читайте также

So, looks like Putin's ordered the Russian government to 'consider the issue of organising' domestic versions of the Steam Deck, SteamOS, and Steam itself (with a side order of Steam Machines)

'80s-styled online shooter Ascendant.com is getting a closed beta

Earthblade, the next game from the makers of Towerfall and Celeste, 'ain't coming out in 2024'

Москва

GeekVape в сотрудничестве с Absolute Racing выиграла чемпионат в категории GT3

Новости тенниса



Game24.pro — паблик игровых новостей в календарном формате на основе технологичной новостной информационно-поисковой системы с элементами искусственного интеллекта, гео-отбора и возможностью мгновенной публикации авторского контента в режиме Free Public. Game24.pro — ваши Game News сегодня и сейчас в Вашем городе.

Опубликовать свою новость, реплику, комментарий, анонс и т.д. можно мгновенно — здесь.



Персональные новости

Шапки женские вязаные на Wildberries, 2024 — новый цвет от 392 руб. (модель 466)

Пассажир рейса Москва — Пермь попал в реанимацию

Топливному компромиссу между Украиной и Азербайджаном пришел конец?

Благотворительный фонд «Свет в руках» проведет Всероссийскую акцию «Росток памяти»