eheh, I'm glad the concept of "technological parody" is giving so much to discuss :)

We should put up a twitter account with the #technologicalparody (kidding)

M

I caught on to it, just because I liked the phrase so much.  But there are some real examples--Rube-Goldberg machines come right to mind, but you never see them in real life as anything other than comedy.

There may be more real-life examples from hacker/builder communities--like, say, a robotic fridge designed to fire a can of beer into the air.  Although it may be an awesome novelty, it's not actually practical.  Hence, it's nearly a mockery of robotics to build it.  No offense to the creators of beer can canons--but you knew it was going to be a joke before you started.

So, there's a clear comparison between Pd and Guitar Hero that illustrates the difference.  With Guitar Hero on your favorite console, you have a specialized controller, useless for any other "games", that only plays canned guitar riffs from a CD.  Moreover, the software has to run on particular hardware.  Then, a clever programmer with Pd can take that same ridiculous controller and use it for whatever he/she wants. 

Chuck