Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Asks: What Are You Doing For Hallowe'en?
Hallowe'en is my favorite holiday: I like seeing costumes (and walking around in my own), and seeing what people do to decorate their houses, yards, etc. For the second year in a row though, I've failed to come up with a really good scheme for making my own place appropriately spooky. So, in hopes of loosing some inspiration for myself and others, I ask today what you're doing to spookify your surroundings (or your person) tomorrow, especially if it means using technology in interesting ways. Sensor-activated scary sounds or lights? An Arduino or Raspberry Pi-controlled costume? Elaborate trap-door? Infrasonic hackle-raising subwoofer install? Maybe one year Alek Komarnitsky will switch to Hallowe'en instead of Christmas, and offer a webcam-equipped remote-controllable haunt.
I will be yelling in the streets telling everyone who will listen that's there's no reason to put an archaic apostrophe in the word Halloween.
Halloween is a contraction of "All Hallows' Evening", the night before "All Hallows' Day"/"All Saints Day" on November 1. "Evening" is often shortened to "e'en" in Gaelic dialects. Both Halloween and Hallowe'en are acceptable spellings.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
It's the hipster spelling of the holiday. You know, how it used to be spelled before Halloween went mainstream.
It might be considered "acceptable", but it still manages to annoy me. I don't speak Gaelic dialects, you see, so I don't see a reason in English to stick a seemingly-random apostrophe in the middle of the word. They also completely leave out the word "all" and drop the "s". "Halloween" makes sense as an English word that can trace it roots to other words, but I don't see a reason to alter the spelling to necessarily reflect that. It seems pompous to insist on the apostrophe.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
FFS, load the thing.
Personally, I hate Halloween. I have enough identity issues that I don't need to be wearing costumes and masks. The only time I put a mask on these days is when a safe word is involved.
You literally sound as fun as a blanket party.
Furries make the internet go.
I simply don't answer the door.
In the UK, It's only kids (and their parents) who watch too much American crap on TV, who do it.
Personally, I despise this ridiculous 'holiday'. The last thing we need are more shipping containers, full of Chinese plastic crap arriving at Felixstowe - being imported and sold by the supermarkets - who are desperate to encourage a new yearly orgy of consumerism.
Modern Halloween is yet another bewildering American concept, borrowed from traditional European practices (mostly from Celtic Samhain, some early Pagan/Christian crossover, bits of Roman stuff), but distorted grotesquely by the lens of capitalistic greed.
Bonfire night is so much more fun - and I mean a proper bonfire. The fireworks are, and should be, a sideshow. A proper echo of Samhain etc. - the celebration of the end of harvest and the start of a risky, cold, non-productive season. There is something wonderful about a good bonfire on a crisp Autumn night.