some of the most brilliant posts on/. come form "anonymous cowards" sitting in their offices at MIT.
Really? I've read a few interesting posts from AC's, but not a single one that I would consider brilliant. We may be using different units of measure, but I'd certainly be curious to read a few of these brilliant AC posts.
...will be officially opened tomorrow when Windows Media Player 10 is released.
I download Windows Media Player 10 today, from a link at the MSN Music Store.
It isn't a beta, and seems fully functional. Not, I'm not suggesting that the online music store is functional, only that Windows Media Player 10 is.
1337 5k1ll2 in baking banana bread?
on
Banana Power!
·
· Score: 4, Funny
1337 5k1ll2 in baking banana bread?
Like, stirring a few ingredients together and throwing it in the oven?
If those are 1337 5k1ll2, then my cat, Fluffy, is a forking genius, I taught her to do just that this morning. Shit, she's been making me breakfast for years!
Granted, she really disliked mushing the bananas with her paws...
Space Opera is considered as a category of SF, and yes, Star Wars is Space Opera-ish, but I don't agree that it qualifies as SF. It has the trappings of SF, but is set squarely in a Fantasy universe.
I have great affection for Doc Smith, but very few would consider him "one of the greatest SciFi writers of all time." He was a hack who spun amusing stories, and I'd be willing to bet that, percentage-wise, very few SF fans even know who he is.
Fantasy is not a sub-category of SF, and I don't have to be a snob to know so. Fantasy and SF are both subsets of Speculative Fiction.
I might have been responding to a troll, which I do consider a vile habit, but maybe not. Oh, well.
I've never used a grammar checker that was not an abomination.
Here is a grammar-checker true story:
I'm sitting in a supply hanger in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War. A young airman has received a letter from his beloved, and is composing a reply. He is proud of his efforts, and keeps reading them to all assembled. However, the young man is making three mistakes. First, he trusts the grammar-checker implicitly, so soon his love letter sounds like something that Spock might have composed. Second, he is using the thesaurus to search for words to give his writing more color. He doesn't know what any of the suggested replacements mean, so he uses them at random. Third, he takes our grins and laughter as approval, so he seals the letter and sends it to his sweetheart exactly as the grammar-checker mangled it.
The point is, if you have good grammar, or even middling-to-adequate grammar, a grammar-checker is a useful tool: likewise a thesaurus. If you don't - and this encompasses the vast majority - you don't know when it is fucking up your prose instead of correcting it.
I didn't use a grammar-checker to compose this, so all of the mistakes are my own.
As I get older, reading texts on-screen gets easier. My vision is still 20/20, but I now require reading glasses, which are generally out of reach when I need them. Project Gutenberg has come in as a real lifesaver (well, sanity-saver) now that I'm turning into a geezer. That, and the price is perfect!
Does anyone else remember the series by Stephen R. Donaldson, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, and its sequel series, The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant?
Well, its being continued in The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and the first volume (of four) comes out on 14 October 2004! Read an excerpt here
I've submitted this twice, but the powers-that-be aren't well-read enough to recognise it as newsworthy.
Does anyone else remember the series by Stephen R. Donaldson, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, and its sequel series, The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant?
Well, its being continued in The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and the first volume (of four) comes out on 14 October 2004! Read an excerpt here
I've submitted this twice, but the powers-that-be aren't well-read enough to recognise it as newsworthy.
Does anyone else remember the series by Stephen R. Donaldson, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, and its sequel series, The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant?
Well, its being continued in The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and the first volume (of four) comes out on 14 October 2004! Read an excerpt here
I've submitted this twice, but the powers-that-be aren't well-read enough to recognise it as newsworthy.
I've worked IT for over two decades, and only the young'uns use "l33t speak," and even then it is only when they are feeling playful.
I tend not to underestimate someone for the phrases they use.
I try not to underestimate anyone, but I do use the words that come out of their mouths to gauge them. If they sound like cretins, they usually are, which isn't a dangerous thing to know, but a useful one.
Of course, there are exceptions. In Japan, there is a gentleman (Issei Sagawa) who is notorious for killing and eating a Dutch co-ed. This may be folklore, but I believe that Issei Sagawa authored a cookbook, and thereby profited from his crime.
No, I wouldn't buy his cookbook. But I would buy his book on bicycle repair (assuming that he had written one), if the book were otherwise worthy of purchase.
Because those reviews are obviously from people who haven't read the book.
The choice is not whether one has read the book, but *is it helpful* - as in does it help you make the selection in buying the book.. To answer *No* it is not required that one already have ready the book.
The "x of x people found the following review helpful" info is not a review, which renders your point moot.
If you think Amazon's data is not already skewed and therefore in need of *unfucking with* - Then consider what has been business-as-usual for Amazon (they have had the ability to know of the practice since the database contains the necessary information):
Isn't this sort of like arguing that two wrongs make a right? Or, more germanely, that one shouldn't try to fix a problem at all, because it will still be fucked up, anyway?
The review was up for a while, and then they dropped it!
As they should have. The mistakes that an author makes in his or her personal life have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the content of the book. Even if the book had been about raising kids, the advice in the book still might have been valid. Judge a book by its content, and nothing more.
I am saddened and shocked that a point this obvious should even have to be discussed.
Thanks for this information. I'd never heard it before I moved to England, and I'm fairly widely traveled within the US, so I'd always assumed - apparently incorrectly - that it was a UK-centric term.
There have been few books I have read more than once
So, you first state that there exist a few books (a handful?) which you have read more than once...
and LOTR is one of them
And LOTR is one of them. THEM, of course, referring to that exclusive handful of books which you have read on more than one occasion.
Then you write:
in fact, I found it completely uninteresting and only made it 3/4 of the way through. It's just not my type of book....which completely contradicts what you wrote earlier in the same sentence.
Which is it? LOTR is one of the handful of books which you have read multiple times (more than once), or you only made it 3/4 of the way through?
Unless you are implying that you commenced reading it more than once, only to fail every time?
Do you all need to be told that RHETORICAL means that I didn't NEED an explanation?
I understand the definition of RHETORICAL, yes. However, as I did not quote your entire remark, I included the explanation of "prolly" for those who might not have been following the thread closely.
In other words, my intention was politeness, which you interpreted as lack of attention.
Just what the hell is "prolly" supposed to be anyway?
"Prolly" is UK slang (meaning probably), and long pre-dates IM'ing. In the UK, "brolly" is substituted for "umbrella," and "telly" for television.
Language evolves that way. EQ'ers frequently say "pally" instead of paladin, and "shammy" instead of shaman, so this cutesification of language is quite common.
I've even heard people say that shaman sounds stuck-up, so go figure.
Well, how about Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, and Tom Wilkinson?
Those are all great actors, as is Liam Neeson, who, though not technically British, is still a resident of the United Kingdom, which is the same thing in the minds of most USians.
Slashdot Mirror
He wants Apple to let him install his music on the iPod, but won't let us install it on our Mac OS computers.
Are you a complete fucking moron? You don't see the difference between developing for a platform and letting/allowing?
And this post was positively moderated how? Oh, I see. By other fucking morons.
some of the most brilliant posts on /. come form "anonymous cowards" sitting in their offices at MIT.
Really? I've read a few interesting posts from AC's, but not a single one that I would consider brilliant. We may be using different units of measure, but I'd certainly be curious to read a few of these brilliant AC posts.
Provide links, please.
I download Windows Media Player 10 today, from a link at the MSN Music Store.
It isn't a beta, and seems fully functional. Not, I'm not suggesting that the online music store is functional, only that Windows Media Player 10 is.
1337 5k1ll2 in baking banana bread?
Like, stirring a few ingredients together and throwing it in the oven?
If those are 1337 5k1ll2, then my cat, Fluffy, is a forking genius, I taught her to do just that this morning. Shit, she's been making me breakfast for years!
Granted, she really disliked mushing the bananas with her paws...
Space Opera is considered as a category of SF, and yes, Star Wars is Space Opera-ish, but I don't agree that it qualifies as SF. It has the trappings of SF, but is set squarely in a Fantasy universe.
I have great affection for Doc Smith, but very few would consider him "one of the greatest SciFi writers of all time." He was a hack who spun amusing stories, and I'd be willing to bet that, percentage-wise, very few SF fans even know who he is.
Fantasy is not a sub-category of SF, and I don't have to be a snob to know so. Fantasy and SF are both subsets of Speculative Fiction.
I might have been responding to a troll, which I do consider a vile habit, but maybe not. Oh, well.
If Ludlow initially filed [copyright] in 1956 and renewed in 1984, why isn't their copyright valid? According to my math, it should be.
I've never used a grammar checker that was not an abomination.
Here is a grammar-checker true story:
I'm sitting in a supply hanger in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War. A young airman has received a letter from his beloved, and is composing a reply. He is proud of his efforts, and keeps reading them to all assembled. However, the young man is making three mistakes. First, he trusts the grammar-checker implicitly, so soon his love letter sounds like something that Spock might have composed. Second, he is using the thesaurus to search for words to give his writing more color. He doesn't know what any of the suggested replacements mean, so he uses them at random. Third, he takes our grins and laughter as approval, so he seals the letter and sends it to his sweetheart exactly as the grammar-checker mangled it.
The point is, if you have good grammar, or even middling-to-adequate grammar, a grammar-checker is a useful tool: likewise a thesaurus. If you don't - and this encompasses the vast majority - you don't know when it is fucking up your prose instead of correcting it.
I didn't use a grammar-checker to compose this, so all of the mistakes are my own.
As I get older, reading texts on-screen gets easier. My vision is still 20/20, but I now require reading glasses, which are generally out of reach when I need them. Project Gutenberg has come in as a real lifesaver (well, sanity-saver) now that I'm turning into a geezer. That, and the price is perfect!
OFF-TOPIC POST
Does anyone else remember the series by Stephen R. Donaldson, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, and its sequel series, The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant?
Well, its being continued in The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and the first volume (of four) comes out on 14 October 2004! Read an excerpt here
I've submitted this twice, but the powers-that-be aren't well-read enough to recognise it as newsworthy.
OFF-TOPIC POST
Does anyone else remember the series by Stephen R. Donaldson, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, and its sequel series, The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant?
Well, its being continued in The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and the first volume (of four) comes out on 14 October 2004! Read an excerpt here
I've submitted this twice, but the powers-that-be aren't well-read enough to recognise it as newsworthy.
OFF-TOPIC POST
Does anyone else remember the series by Stephen R. Donaldson, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, and its sequel series, The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant?
Well, its being continued in The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and the first volume (of four) comes out on 14 October 2004! Read an excerpt here
I've submitted this twice, but the powers-that-be aren't well-read enough to recognise it as newsworthy.
This isn't a part of history of which I am much aware.
Thank you for the education/link.
Why were we attacking Canada?
I've worked IT for over two decades, and only the young'uns use "l33t speak," and even then it is only when they are feeling playful.
I tend not to underestimate someone for the phrases they use.
I try not to underestimate anyone, but I do use the words that come out of their mouths to gauge them. If they sound like cretins, they usually are, which isn't a dangerous thing to know, but a useful one.
Honestly? Yes, I would.
Of course, there are exceptions. In Japan, there is a gentleman (Issei Sagawa) who is notorious for killing and eating a Dutch co-ed. This may be folklore, but I believe that Issei Sagawa authored a cookbook, and thereby profited from his crime.
No, I wouldn't buy his cookbook. But I would buy his book on bicycle repair (assuming that he had written one), if the book were otherwise worthy of purchase.
Because those reviews are obviously from people who haven't read the book.
The choice is not whether one has read the book, but *is it helpful* - as in does it help you make the selection in buying the book.. To answer *No* it is not required that one already have ready the book.
The "x of x people found the following review helpful" info is not a review, which renders your point moot.
If you think Amazon's data is not already skewed and therefore in need of *unfucking with* - Then consider what has been business-as-usual for Amazon (they have had the ability to know of the practice since the database contains the necessary information):
Isn't this sort of like arguing that two wrongs make a right? Or, more germanely, that one shouldn't try to fix a problem at all, because it will still be fucked up, anyway?
The review was up for a while, and then they dropped it!
As they should have. The mistakes that an author makes in his or her personal life have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the content of the book. Even if the book had been about raising kids, the advice in the book still might have been valid. Judge a book by its content, and nothing more.
I am saddened and shocked that a point this obvious should even have to be discussed.
Thanks for this information. I'd never heard it before I moved to England, and I'm fairly widely traveled within the US, so I'd always assumed - apparently incorrectly - that it was a UK-centric term.
Again, thanks for the info.
There have been few books I have read more than once
...which completely contradicts what you wrote earlier in the same sentence.
So, you first state that there exist a few books (a handful?) which you have read more than once...
and LOTR is one of them
And LOTR is one of them. THEM, of course, referring to that exclusive handful of books which you have read on more than one occasion.
Then you write:
in fact, I found it completely uninteresting and only made it 3/4 of the way through. It's just not my type of book.
Which is it? LOTR is one of the handful of books which you have read multiple times (more than once), or you only made it 3/4 of the way through?
Unless you are implying that you commenced reading it more than once, only to fail every time?
Do you all need to be told that RHETORICAL means that I didn't NEED an explanation?
I understand the definition of RHETORICAL, yes. However, as I did not quote your entire remark, I included the explanation of "prolly" for those who might not have been following the thread closely.
In other words, my intention was politeness, which you interpreted as lack of attention.
Just what the hell is "prolly" supposed to be anyway?
"Prolly" is UK slang (meaning probably), and long pre-dates IM'ing. In the UK, "brolly" is substituted for "umbrella," and "telly" for television.
Language evolves that way. EQ'ers frequently say "pally" instead of paladin, and "shammy" instead of shaman, so this cutesification of language is quite common.
I've even heard people say that shaman sounds stuck-up, so go figure.
Could an open source project like this bring rapid deployment of RFID like Apache did to the net?
Apache brought the rapid deployment of RFID to the net?
Really? This must be a development I missed...
How about:
1. "Sewage Workers Appreciation Day" - the fine men and women who recycle our shit surely deserve a special day of their own.
2. "Road Kill Removers Appreciation Day" - Ditto
3. "Crime and Accident Scene Cleaners Appreciation Day" - Double ditto.
4. "Proctologists and Gynecologists for the Morbidly Obese Appreciation Day" - Triple ditto.
So, Microsoft re-packages Grep with a GUI, and suddenly this is news?
What am I missing?
Well, how about Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, and Tom Wilkinson?
Those are all great actors, as is Liam Neeson, who, though not technically British, is still a resident of the United Kingdom, which is the same thing in the minds of most USians.
My first impression is that the original poster has no idea what a vigilante is...
But perhaps that is just semantic quibbling?