Nothing is more embarrassing than a website announcing that something will happen on a particular date — e.g., a product will be released, a feature will be turned on — after the date has come and gone! Even worse, putting things off repeatedly can be a lot of work!
To help such people, I just did a very quick 10 minute hack I’m calling The Vaporizer. It looks like just a date on a webpage. However, if the date originally listed has come and gone, a little bit of Javascript will change the site so that it shows tomorrow’s date instead. Vaporware providers of all types can use it to safely (and effortlessly) put things off without worrying about looking overdue!
I have seen the future, and the future is tomorrow.
Seems a bit broken. August 18 is hardcoded in. The JS checks to see if the date now or future, and if it is, it should leave it alone. Only it doesn’t. It’s replacing an already-future date with a not-so-future (tomorrow, when the hardcoded date is 4 days away) date.
Mackenzie: I think it’s just a bad interface, not broken. The August 18th date is just there so that it display something if there’s no Javascript. If you want to put in a default date, there is an area in the code to do it.
This seems a bit disingenuous. If a date slips a couple days, that’s one thing, but if a project is announced and dies, it’s always on the verge of releasing.
A more suitable method might be to indicate levels of lateness. “We originally targeted the 12th, but it might be a few days late!” and then “This project is a month behind, but fret not!” and finally “This project has stagnated, but we reserve hope that it will rise from the ashes one day”.
Of course, Vaporizer has no way of knowing if you released or not. It’s almost as if the author thinks this is some kind of joke!
Yes jldugger, it’s almost like that.
Great meta-procrastination!
Great idea ahahahaha.
I think microsoft will find it useful. ;)