215 replies to this topic

[Todd Gross]

Johnny Walker Green Label is great for sore throats.

[Ogul]

[David Meadows]

Cool

[al-x]

Hello:

I learned a few things about the DVR and
what takes the place of a 3.5 floppy drive
on the PC.


Al...

[garjones]

Keep up Al, they stopped selling PCs with floppy drives about 7 years ago.

[Robert B]

Keep up Al, they stopped selling PCs with floppy drives about 7 years ago.

Crazy that it was so recent.

[al-x]

Keep up Al, they stopped selling PCs with floppy drives about 7 years ago.

So what is taking it's place on the PC?


Al...

[Russell H]

Nothing.

[Steve Sensible]

I learned they're renaming St. Stephen's Tower to Queen Elizabeth Tower.

Never heard of St. Stephen's Tower? That's because it's known the world over as Big Ben. As it will continue to be until the end of time, which kind of renders the renaming utterly pointless.

[Ogul]

So what is taking it's place on the PC?

In the 80s, everything was on 5.25 floppies. In the 90s, 5.25s were irrelevant and most stuff was on 3.5 floppies, but we started to get most important stuff on CDs, and DVDs were an option. CD burners and "zip discs" were the preferred rewritable option. By the early aughts, floppies were completely irrelevant and CDs were on their way out, zip discs irrelevant, some things were downloadable, and DVDRWs memory cards were fairly common. By now, CDs are completely irrelevant and DVDs are less necessary, almost anything can be downloaded, blue-ray DVDs are used for large programs like games, and the most common form of manual transport is large scale memory cards and USB drives (and you can buy a USB drive for $10 that holds about a hundred times the data of a 3.5 floppy). Given another ten years or so, everything will be downloadable and we'll have solid state multi-terabit drives that can fit on a keychain for everything else (or perhaps even wireless drives implanted in the body, who knows?). DVDs will be largely obsolete, which we'll regret when EMPs wipe out all non-optical drives.

[Russell H]

I learned they're renaming St. Stephen's Tower to Queen Elizabeth Tower.

Never heard of St. Stephen's Tower? That's because it's known the world over as Big Ben. As it will continue to be until the end of time, which kind of renders the renaming utterly pointless.

The clock tower is called The Clock Tower. (Which isn't really a proper name, more a placeholder.) St Stephen's Tower is the other one.

[Ogul]

They mentioned that on the US news around the time of the Jubilee celebrations, they had someone tour the tower and he pointed out that it was just called "The Clock Tower" and that they were thinking of renaming it, since the other one was apparently named after Queen Victoria. Also that they use old-school pennies to adjust the timing of the clock to keep it right on schedule, which I thought was pretty cool.

[Steve Sensible]

The clock tower is called The Clock Tower. (Which isn't really a proper name, more a placeholder.) St Stephen's Tower is the other one.

It'll still be called Big Ben.

[David Meadows]

So what is taking it's place on the PC?


Al...

Smaller PCs.

[Russell H]

It'll still be called Big Ben.

Oh, exactly. it's just that instead of people calling it Big Ben when it's really called The Clock Tower, they'll be calling it Big Ben when it's really called Queen Elizabeth Tower.

[Mike]

These are the things pub quiz questions and cryptic crossword clues are born from.

[stephanie familiar]

i learned that if you live in canada and you order something from china and something from the u.s, the thing from china will arrive first. and two- three weeks later, maybe you'll get the thing from the u.s.

[Ogul]

I learned something annoying yesterday. Ok, you know about Super Pacs, right? They're those organizations that can take unlimited donations for campaign funding. The (limited) tradeoff is that they have to at least report who these donors are, eventually. Ok, there's another type of thing which is a "dark" Super Pac, and these workd the same, except that they are registered as charities, and allow for anonymous donations (from anyone, even foreign powers or serial killers or whomever). The tradeoff for this is that they're supposedly not allowed to specifically act for or against people, but rather stick entirely to an issue. So the way it's meant to work is, you can't say "Obama's a douchebag," but you can say "The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was a douchey move, repeal it!"

The problem is that a lot of these "dark" Super Pacs are trying to end-run around this rule, by instead saying "President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which was a pretty douchey move. Tell President Obama to stop being such a douche." Then they can claim that it's not an attack ad on Obama, but rather an issues add against fair pay for women. Carl Rove's Crossroads GPS Pac in particular is making a ton of these ads, both in national campaigns and local ones. One that comes up constantly in my market is against Tim Kaine running for senate in Virginia (I've seen this add dozens of times and never once seen an add for or against his opponent). Stop being such a douche, Carl Rove.

[craggy]

i learned that if you live in canada and you order something from china and something from the u.s, the thing from china will arrive first. and two- three weeks later, maybe you'll get the thing from the u.s.

Cliff Clavin notwithstanding US mail is terrible. It seems to take them forever to let things leave their country and they charge an arm and a leg for doing so.


Today I learned that the new My Little Pony show has a character called Derpy Hooves. I that. I may even Less Than Three it.

[Ogul]

from the u.s.
Cliff Clavin notwithstanding US mail is terrible. It seems to take them forever to let things leave their country and they charge an arm and a leg for doing so.

Our international mail kinda sucks. Internally we have a great mail system, where you usually get things within a couple of days even using standard post. There was a period where I was sending and receiving Heroclix all the time, and I rarely had to wait half a week even from California.

Today I learned that the new My Little Pony show has a character called Derpy Hooves. I that. I may even Less Than Three it.

I thought Derpy Hooves was just a meme.