Melaroo says 'goodbye' to Lorem Ipsum

Blog by Melaroo - Melaroo News
Written by Ted Hawkes   
Wednesday, 01 September 2010 09:17
Perpetuating the Melaroo tradition of constantly improving on the status quo, Creative Director Ted Hawkes has developed a new line of placeholder text that promises to replace Lorem Ipsum as the default type plugin for printers and designers. Lorem Ipsum, the international default placeholder, dates back to 45 BC as a text. It is an extract from Cicero's de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum and has enjoyed status as the dominant English language placeholder text since the 1500's, when an unidentified printer set the letters to test his new moveable type machine.
Other texts have attempted to usurp its place as the go-to placeholder, such as Charles Weller's "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country" from 1867, and the more recent "text goes here text goes here text goes here", which became a favorite of lazy web designers toward the end of the 20th century. "Lorem Ipsum has enjoyed a nice run, but it's time for the old dog to roll over," Hawkes stated in a press conference Tuesday. The website Lipsum.com, described by opponents as an "apologistic forum", declined to comment on the matter.

The new placeholder Melaroo has presented is an original passage scripted by Hawkes while testing a licensed slideshow extension for a web site. A picture of unknown origin, featuring two heavily armed cyborgs at battle, inspired the following text:

Robot warriors are one of the coolest inventions of the 20th century. Their creators should be lauded for their ingenuity, innovation, and impact on the world culture. While it's true that medical advances such as vaccines for polio and AIDS have benefitted society greatly in recent times, and communication advances like radio transmission, the Internet and teleportation have enabled monumental advances in science and our general quality of life, nothing is so useful across the broad spectrum as robot warriors. Nations–rogue and otherwise–employing these cyborgs as soldiers benefit from reduced human casualties and enhanced destructive capability, while those on the receiving end of their aggression have the rare opportunity of being destroyed by robots warriors, where they would likely otherwise perish from chronic injury, disease, or at the jaws of wild beasts. Revolutionizing warfare and popular culture alike, robot warriors are truly a remarkable innovation.

"It was one of those things that just clicks," Hawkes stated on Larry King Live, adding that he wrote the entire passage without a single revision. "Some people call it effing genious, but it's really much more than that." Hawkes declined to respond to charges that the text, while showing some mastery of the English language, was juvenile and lacking in sensitivity, offering simply "Have you ever heard anyone complain about being destroyed by cyborgs? Yeah, me neither."

Robot Warriors, as the text is called, is available on an open-source license at Melaroo's web site, www.melaroo.com.


Ted Hawkes
Written on Wednesday, 01 September 2010 09:17 by Ted Hawkes

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