Microsoft’s Talking Paperclip is Back Like a Bad Penny

Remember “Clippy”? That was the single least helpful idea in computing, a virtual assistant that used to pop out of the ether like a zombie bursting from his grave to “help” the user of Microsoft products. Finally, in 2006, he was discontinued.

But in much the same way that under-cooked poultry or bad shrimp has a way of coming back on you, Clippy has returned.

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Clippy was universally hated. In addition to being cutesy (and who doesn’t enjoy that when they’re trying to get work done?), it seemed to specialize in asking you if you wanted to do the one thing noone sane would or offering to help you with something you clearly were already in the process of successfully doing and would probably be done with if you didn’t have to stop to shut the asinine thing down. Everyone from the Smithsonian Magazine to programmers at Microsoft itself loathed the contemptible doodad

Well, now those high-larious Gallifanakii at Microsoft’s Office Labs have resurrected the horrible thing for their company training video game, Ribbon Hero. The sequel, “Ribbon Hero 2: Clippy’s Second Chance” is available. To the public!

Don’t these monsters know what they’ve done? Their winky stab at irony means they like this thing. If the game it’s in proves successful, and according to Geek Wire the first iteration of Ribbon Hero was surprisingly so, someone somewhere in the translucent underground command hexagon in Redomond is going to say, “You know, I bet we could do it right this time.” And the proposal will, inevitably, percolate up through the barriers of charcoal, strontium 30 and magic that guards the MS HQ and Clippy will be loose once again. This time, he will be immune, mutated as he is from his passage through the bone, rowan and oak of Microsoft and nothing will ever be the same again. People will remember the sun and howl in despair.

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