Domain: visualthesaurus.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to visualthesaurus.com.
Comments · 9
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Re:What are the chances
Full Definition of electrocute
transitive verb
1 : to execute (a criminal) by electricity
2 : to kill by electric shockNotice that the definition of electrocute involves dying? When you say "mild electrocution", you're saying "mildly dead", which doesn't really make a lot of sense.
It's not that clear cut.
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Re:Spoilers
Maybe next time use the normal phrase instead of some screwed up version you misheard, mmh sunshine?
Actually, the phrase "could care less" dates back roughly 60 years in English, and the phrase "couldn't care less" is perhaps only 10 years older.
So, they basically emerged around the same time and always mean the same thing, i.e., "I don't care." As that link discusses, there are plenty of other English idioms that have similarly irrational constructions. Grammatical logic does not trump idiomatic usage.
And as for your contention that it's a "screwed up version," you might have a look at this article, which include statistics showing that even in the New York Times (usually somewhat conservative in usage matters), the two phrases have become almost equally common since 2000. And recent databases of spoken rather than written English show that (the supposedly "screwed up") "could care less" is roughly five times more common than (your supposedly "correct") "couldn't care less." Whether you like it or not, the usage you claim is "wrong" has become quite standard.
Regardless, this whole "grammar police" discussion is pointless. As usual with these sort of things, language marches on, and the grammar wackos are the ones who make trouble for everyone. Without you folks, we'd likely transition to "could care less" completely in a few decades, and "couldn't care less" would mostly die out. But no -- you'll keep it alive, because you think it's "more logical," and in 30 years nobody educated will be able to use either phrase, because "couldn't" will have become so rare as to sound weird, and "could" will be branded as "wrong" by the few wackos still holding the line.
Whatever. I could care less... or, actually, ya know, I really couldn't....
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Re:Mixed FeelingsReally? I've never noticed that. Interesting. Honestly, they both make sense, since it's a single entity, but by definition is composed of lots of people. Do the Brits do this with all collective entities?
On second thought, American English makes no sense; sports teams are plural, corporations are singular, and the "United States of America" is singular.
Ok, so I looked it up, there's a nice history of the whole thing here: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/1907/
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Re:Good job, too
At a glance the site is a little crowded. Something more akin to visual thesaurus.
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Re:Google + Thesaurus?
This is Java based and it's not free - it used to be at least unlimited - but it's a lot more interesting than www.thesaurus.com:
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/ -
Re:Namebase and touchgraph java diagrams
also, this http://www.visualthesaurus.com/?vt is actually quite useful and fun.
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Re:The Good and The Bad'Did anyone check out that graphical linking system?'
It doesn't seem to work for me, but it looks like it might be kind of like The Visual Thesaurus. It's pretty neat, and I've been wondering when someone else would license their "thinkmap technology" for other things.
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Not impressive enough
It's cool, yeah, but not impressive enough for me to drop $300 on. Right now it just looks like another theme for XP.
What I'd like to see is something like Visual Thesaurus, where files could be linked not only by their location within the directory structure, but also by their relationship between each other (related by author, date created, content relevance to a search phrase, etc).
Chip H. -
we are seeing the tip of the iceberg for BI
It needs to be said here is that BI is a new field and it is evolving. Are 100 million people going to use data visualization tools on a daily basis? Probably not however one can say that the adoption rate of such tools will increase in 5 years. I used to think that BI was just marketing spin until I started doing it a few years. Basically 10 years ago BI was not possible - companies could afford to create their own terabyte databases then mine that information. Today that is possible and tools such as Oracle Discoverer allow non-technical employees to execute complicated queries. That itself is crazy and it gets better. BI will make the decision making process faster and more accurate. Getting there will take time but it will happen. Dashboards are already a common name. For a glimpse into the future check out the following sites:
http://www.thebrain.com
http://www.visualthesaurus.com
http://www.smartmoney.com/marketmap
http://www.earthviewer.com
My favorite is the sector map offered by SmartMoney. It's an awesome tool however it is pricey and put this in front of your average sales person and they will freeze due to information overload.