Persistent, Niggling Questions

[Nate the Great]

The other day I found myself (as is my wont) debating the number of truly pointless questions I keep asking myself from day to day. Questions where having the answers would serve no possible useful purpose, I just "want to know." This thread is just to serve the standard of catharsis. We can all post these issues that bother us, then proceed not to answer them. Maybe it'll even bring us closer together as we found out that we're not the only person to ever wonder about these things.

How come the countries of the world didn't agree on the right side versus left side of the road controversy years ago and just stick with one standard?

How can MMORPG's pretend to have reasonable economies when there's no standard for global resources, nor is there a poor person created for every rich person?

How come so many new shows get the short end of the stick when it comes to consistent programming, releasing new episodes at predictable intervals, getting a guarantee of thirteen episodes to give a fanbase a chance to build up, etc.?

What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about? (I really am sorry, but as a humor writer of sorts, I'm obligated to use this gag. I don't want to be kicked out of the Humorist and Parodist's Guild, do I?)

Additions?

[NAHTMMM]

I know I have some, but my mind continues to be blank on the matter . . . :(

[mudshark]

How come the countries of the world didn't agree on the right side versus left side of the road controversy years ago and just stick with one standard?

By and large, they have. See (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_on_the_left_or_right)?

[catalina_marina]

How come the countries of the world didn't agree on the right side versus left side of the road controversy years ago and just stick with one standard?


For the same reasons we'll never all speak the same language. We'd never agree which option is the best, and changing is a bitch.

[Nate the Great]

Feel free to add your own questions.

As originally stated, I DON'T want this to devolve into a flamewar of "no, I'M right, and I'll tell you EXACTLY why!" Just get these things out, you feel better, move on.

[AKAArzosah]

Why are people always asking how much wood a woodchuck could chuck? IT'S NOT FUNNY ANYMORE PEOPLE!

How much have I really spent on eBay? (You know, the pet rock thing's not far off, I buy crystals)

Why do they call them 'lead pencils'?

How long will Nate's siggy get before Zeke puts a stop to it?

Why are trees GREEN (primarily)?

Why do I hate tomatoes but love tomato sauce?

Will Firefly ever truly be revived?





Why did the forum kick me out so I had to log in again before posting...?

[catalina_marina]

Aw, but I like trying to answer these questions. :p

[Nate the Great]

As for the signature, it's already at about maximum capacity (and there IS a maximum). Awhile back I tried to add a much larger scene and the forum barked at me. If I want anything else, I'll have to chuck something, probably the Bashir line.

Lead pencils used to actually have a lead mixture as the pigment. Graphite was introduced (I think, standard disclaimers apply) because graphite is less brittle and creates a better mark on paper. Plus that whole lead poisoning thing...

How many flaming insult e-mails did Apple get about that inane "do not chew iPod Shuffle" message in the official user manual?

How come Heinz or someone never said "this ketchup versus catsup thing is inane, THIS is how we're going to say it."?

[Chancellor Valium]

Why do people keep sending me junk mail? I don't want a zarking Chinese boat...

[Nate the Great]

If Spider-Man has to wear essentially elastic nylon all over his body to enable his wallcrawling powers to reach through it, how come it's not perpetually dirty? For that matter, why doesn't he just patent his webfluid formula and retire a millionaire?

(I apologize in advance) Why Daylight Saving Time? Just WHY? If the tradeoff for all that hassle is just a couple bucks, wouldn't you all be willing to pay it?

(This one occurred to me just yesterday) How do blind people know what the top or bottom of Braille letters are? Here's a diagram (since the forum can't handle spaces properly, each O is a dot and each X is a space):

OO XX
OX OO
XX OX

Same dot configuration, but different symbol. How can they tell?

[Katy Jane]

(This one occurred to me just yesterday) How do blind people know what the top or bottom of Braille letters are? Here's a diagram (since the forum can't handle spaces properly, each O is a dot and each X is a space):

OO XX
OX OO
XX OX

Same dot configuration, but different symbol. How can they tell?

I'm guessing they would have letters before and after it to compare it too. if the top row of dots lines up with the top row of dots from the previous letter then it's the first one you show and if it doesn't then its the second one.

[Nate the Great]

Even so, it must take a long time to train your mind and fingers to detect such subtle differences and read as fast as a sighted person can. On a related note, I'm still curious about Braille letters on the buttons at a driveup ATM. Backseat banking? Probably the real answer is its easier to mass-produce ATMs if there are fewer differences between vestibule and driveup models.

How long has it been since people used brass brads (or whatever those "punch through and fold out the wings" things are) to actually hold real documents together, as opposed to using them as axles for construction paper windmills and such?

Why order meat rare? Issues of taste preference aside, don't the customers care about their health, and don't the restaurants get worried about food poisoning lawsuits?

Has anyone ever heard someone use the alternative to genericized trademarks? i.e. "I need to buy some facial tissue" as opposed to "I need to buy some Kleenix" especially when they don't intend to buy Kleenix brand?

Why do people make movies that set Shakespeare plays in later time periods, but still use the complete Shakespearean dialogue, which is archaic for the time period? There's gotta be a happy medium between authentic Shakespeare and modern vernacular, right?

How many people know that Mario the plumber was originally Jumpman the carpenter?

[Nate the Great]

I would make this one into a poll, but I've created too many threads lately. Please answer this one if you want...

What's the average number of floors that it takes before a person realizes "whoa, I'm dozens/hundreds of feet up. Yikes! What if the building tipped over?" For me it's about ten. Three or four don't scare me, but ten...

[Katy Jane]

I'd say it's about the same for me, granted i've only been up that high about twice in my life... in a bulding anyway.

[AKAArzosah]

People still BUY brass brads (or whatever) - we sell them and people buy them. Don't know what they use them for though.

And the number of floors up before I freak out, depends on the building and where I am in it. I'm fine if there's a floor below, but if I'm on a balcony or a building on stilts, then I freak. Even on the first storey. I will actually be constantly nervous - how can people handle knowing they're supported by nothing but twig thin beams?
Oh and I won't lean on glass windows. And those 'nothing but a plate of glass' balconies seem incredibly dangerous.

Why do I want more money even though I can't think of anything I want to buy?

Why the hell hasn't everyone done something about global warming and pollution yet?

Should I or shouldn't I go to University?

[Chancellor Valium]

The number of floors don't matter. It's that moment at the top of a very crumbly castle in eastern Europe, when you realise that all that's standing between you and going 'splat' is a single crenellation and a lot of air.

This is also a problem in the Whispering Gallery of St. Paul's Cathedral, and going up into the dome of St. Peter's in Rome.

[catalina_marina]

OO XX
OX OO
XX OX

Same dot configuration, but different symbol. How can they tell?

How do you see the difference between a written l or e? They really look the same, only in a different ratio. The second symbol has twice as much vertical space between the dots as the first one does. Seems easy to me.

Now how your fingers could be trained to be so sensitive, I would not know.

[Nate the Great]

Okay, the O's are the dots. Both of the imaginary Braille letters are two dots with a third below it to the left. The difference is that the first has the triangle at the top of the grid, and the second has the triangle at the bottom of the grid. Therefore, different symbols. A blind person would have no idea which is which without knowing where the top of the line is.

I remember being VERY impressed that Matt Murdock AKA Daredevil's senses are so advanced that he can run his fingers over ordinary printed type and still read it. Think about how complex a letter is, and how hard it'd be to feel the differences in ink placement on a sheet of paper that'd still be impossibly bumpy from all the paper fibers at that resolution.

If you can't think of anything more to buy, then you're dead. There are literally millions of things you can buy. Most of them are unnecessary or unaffordable or embarrassing, but you can still think of them.

Actually, I think I've seen brass brads being used to hold the corners of small stacks of papers, just like staples, only more flexible. But not very often. Plus I'd imagine it's a bear to remove them all the time. You wouldn't just throw away a brass brad like a staple, they must cost ten times as much.

[AKAArzosah]

I can think of lots of things I could buy, just not anything I want to buy that still only costs a realistic amount of money.

[Nate the Great]

So you don't want money to magically appear because you can't think of anything to buy with it at the moment? I myself have often done cost/benefit analysis' based on the premise of "okay, if it's MY money I'd spend X for that, if my dad's buying it I'd let him if the cost was Y or lower (Y>X, of course), if it's coming from a gift certificate I'd buy it at Z (Z>Y), and so on.

The beauty of money as the basis of a bartering system is that (putting aside inflation issues), it will ALWAYS have value. One reason why I prefer gift cards to undesirable gifts OR cash, I'd feel obligated to use cash on boring stuff like food and gas.

[catalina_marina]

Okay, the O's are the dots. Both of the imaginary Braille letters are two dots with a third below it to the left. The difference is that the first has the triangle at the top of the grid, and the second has the triangle at the bottom of the grid. Therefore, different symbols. A blind person would have no idea which is which without knowing where the top of the line is.

Okay, my bad. In that case I have nothing to add to KJ's reasoning.

Have you checked that these things actually exist though? I'm pretty sure not all possible symbols are actually used...

[Nate the Great]

It was simply an example to bring up my niggling question. Strictly speaking, the purpose was simply to get these things off our chests, not try to answer them, so I suppose it's time to move on to something else.

Why do we still broadcast radio on FM and AM on different scales? Don't we have enough stations on one or the other to say "we're only going to broadcast in FM from now on, no more AM?" We'd probably have to build in a transition period so all the AM guys could swap over, but still...

Why do we (in the USA, at least) HAVE to swap over to digital tuners in a few years? Couldn't they just duplicate the broadcast stations in HD on cable channels?

How come some restaurant actually got the rights to use "Kentucky" in their name, thus forcing KFC to go by initials? Seems pretty wonky, it's the name of an entire STATE, after all.

How is George Lucas going to pull off transforming the Star Wars saga into HD, much less 3D? All I can think of is using the existing voice tracks to dub over photorealistic CG characters a la Final Fantasy (only better... :) )

Along similar lines, what's so wrong with Han shooting first? He's a mercenary (of sorts) for hire, right? Discretion the better part of valor and all that. In that situation I'd have shot first.

[catalina_marina]

But I like trying to answer them! :D

They still broadcast on AM?

I don't know. Cheaper, maybe? (I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about, by the way.)

I don't see why anybody would not have that right. Though you'll have to explain to me why this forces KFC to go by initials. Was the full name already taken or something?

[Nate the Great]

I'm confused by the whole KFC thing, actually. Their Wikipedia page doesn't mention it. You'll probably have to look for the answer on one of the urban legend pages. PM for links if you want to look for yourself.

Yeah, they still broadcast in AM. "Radio Disney AM 1440, Golden Valley, Minneapolis, St. Paul."

[catalina_marina]

Well if they still use it, there's probably a reason. I never turn my radio to AM, and I'm not even sure there's nothing there, but most of it is FM here, anyway. They do have some trouble with other countries, near the borders, by the way. They change frequency there, because of those nasty foreign channels. :rolleyes:

[PointyHairedJedi]

As to why the US government might want to switch off analogue radio signals (which I wasn't aware they wanted to do), it'd be for the same reason they want to switch off analogue TV signals - digital signals as I understand it require less bandwidth per channel, and they are sent at different frequencies than analogue signals, meaning that the government could then flog off the resulting frequencies for fabulous sums of money, probably to mobile telephone network companies for wireless internet and such.

[Chancellor Valium]

Are you sure it isn't a Jesuit plot? They're all the rage these days.

[Nate the Great]

I meant analog TV. I'm not sure that they could just "turn off" analog radio. I mean, even if the major stations go HD, anybody with a moderate amount of money could turn themselves into a radio station, right? Less than public access TV, anyway.

[AKAArzosah]

AM radio has greater range, I've noticed. But FM has better sound quality. That's how it is here anyway, and it's why it's mostly news/sports on AM and music on FM.

Of course that could just be how many towers are available to boost the respective signals, or something. I have no idea HOW it works.

[Nate the Great]

Don't tell me that there's actually LOGIC behind the private sector's actions. ;)

[catalina_marina]

Private sector? What's this?

Actually, I'm not sure you're even allowed to make your own radio station, here. It might jam the other stations to much. You'd probably need a special permit.

[PointyHairedJedi]

I meant analog TV.
Ah, well, that makes much more sense.

In the UK it's incredibly hard to set up a new radio station, precisely because there are only a limited number of frequencies available, and the oppertunity to bid for them comes up very very rarely indeed.

[Nate the Great]

Well, I'd imagine that any "real" radio station is able to put out a signal that would drown out any amateur ham operator.

[Chancellor Valium]

Why would radio stations be interested in asphyxiating pig-vets?

[Nate the Great]

Oh, you've unraveled the stitches in my side again. Shame on you.

[Nate the Great]

A few more cathartic questions:

How did it happen (whether God or evolution) that a bee can't sting without dying?

Why do so many people hate dandelions?

Why do people still make lutefisk? The logic for why it was invented no longer applies. For that matter, why do fruitcake lovers persist in believing that fruitcake haters can be converted?

In these days of skin cancer and ozone depletion, what's up with using mirrors to focus MORE sunshine on you?

[PointyHairedJedi]

Well, I'd imagine that any "real" radio station is able to put out a signal that would drown out any amateur ham operator.
Close to a transmitter, perhaps, but further away it would cause serious interference problems.

In these days of skin cancer and ozone depletion, what's up with using mirrors to focus MORE sunshine on you?
Perhaps they wish to contend for the Darwin Awards? It's a pretty feeble way to go about it though.

[Nate the Great]

Naw, no Darwin contention there. It has to demonstrate an astonishing lack of judgment, remember?

[KillerGodMan]

Why order meat rare? Issues of taste preference aside, don't the customers care about their health, and don't the restaurants get worried about food poisoning lawsuits?

Sorry, but as a restaurant worker, I simply MUST answer it

*clears throat*

Escherichia coli (E. Coli) strain 0157:H7, one of the deadliest forms of E. Coli, (and causes of food poisoning outbreaks) is found predominatly in the intestines of bovines, where it is harmless, when humans eat it, however, that's a different story

Beef processing plants are great places for 0157 to spread, because the beef is all processed together, regardless of whether or not a bovine was affected by it. The meat is flash frozen, preserving it for some unsuspecting human to eat it.

This happens, almost only, in ground beef.

Most beef cuts are just big slabs o' meat, with little to no openings for E. Coli to spread further into the meat, so it can only be found on the surface, so really, all it takes is a quick sear to kill any organisms, E. Coli or otherwise

This isn't the case with ground beef, because there are so many pockets for bacterium to hide in, so unless it's cooked well done, there is always a chance of death by E. Coli. This is part of what happened in 1993, when Jack in the Box ran into trouble with E. Coli in their burgers (which were cooked medium rare) It's also why you have to sign a waiver at The WORKS (greatest burger place ever!) if you order you burger anything less then 'completely cooked'

That's why

...wow, my glasses got bigger and nerdier looking...

Why do I continue to keep cats, even though I'm allergic to them?

Why did I completely forget the questions I had in my head whilst answering Nate?

[Nate the Great]

So you argue that rare burgers are much more dangerous than rare steaks. I guess I never thought about it from that angle before.

[Katy Jane]

he's not arguing it, he's just stating a scientific fact. ;)

[Nate the Great]

Darnit Jim, I'm an engineer, not a doctor!

[Nate the Great]

Where did the chicken/road joke come from in the first place?

How did man come up with the idea of milking cows? If you take a step back, it's a bit of an icky concept, right?

Will Paramount ever license and distribute New Voyages and other "professional" fanfilms?

Why is Starfleet Command in San Francisco?

Did humpback whales go extinct again because of an insufficiently diverse gene pool?

United Earth Space Probe Agency? Who would come up with that name?

[KillerGodMan]

Why is Starfleet Command in San Francisco?

Um... because it was Xindi'd when it was in Florda?

Why do hotdogs come in packages of ten, but hotdog buns come in packages of eight?

[Nate the Great]

Thank you! The hot dog conundrum is undoubtedly one reason why I lay awake some nights wondering at the general weirdness in the world.

[Nate the Great]

This is one dead horse that I'm still beating, but I still get ticked off every single time I see "Coca-Cola Classic" on a can or bottle. Why? Everything else is "Coke." Vanilla Coke, Cherry Coke, Diet Coke, etc. Why not a product just labeled "Coke?"

How did artifical raspberry flavor get associated with the color blue? Yeah, yeah, cherry has a monopoly on red and there are blue raspberries, but most raspberries are, in fact, red.

Wouldn't it be a smart idea to have an "Unnecessary 'E' Tax," as posited by Dave Barry (http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/793)?

[Katy Jane]

the reason they put coca-cola classic on the can is because at one point they changed the flavor of coke and called it "new coke" nobody liked it so they changed it back and started labeling it "coca-cola" classic. Everything else leaves off the classic, because its not "coca-cola" classic. ;)

[Nate the Great]

Yes, but there's no such thing as "New Coke" anymore. In those few places where people actually drink it, it's "Coke 2." Ergo, just "Coke" is open and available. It should be used because no one says "Waiter, I'd like a Coca-Cola Classic." Ever.

In fact, the whole thing smacks of paranoia. It's as if the Coke company is afraid that people might confuse normal Coke with New Coke/Coke 2, buy it, and then sue Coca-Cola for selling the wrong product.

[Nate the Great]

Okay, I'd like someone to debunk a theory for me.

I've often thought about the "impossibility" of constructing a perpetual motion machine. Now of course you can't build one that you can actually get energy out of, but what about something that will just go on forever and not stop?

Step One:

Build a sphere out of artificial diamond. Pure diamond, no defects, absolutely uniform crystal lattice in all directions.

Step Two:

Go out into space and find a location where gravitational and electromagnetic effects from all locations are absolutely uniform. It'll probably be midway between two galaxies.

Step Three:

Plant your diamond in that location and give it a nudge to spin it. There you go, a moving object with nothing to stop it. Certainly not a USEFUL machine, but perpetual motion.

[catalina_marina]

the reason they put coca-cola classic on the can is because at one point they changed the flavor of coke and called it "new coke" nobody liked it so they changed it back and started labeling it "coca-cola" classic. Everything else leaves off the classic, because its not "coca-cola" classic. ;)
Because it might be confusing? (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=coke) I don't know...

Okay, I'd like someone to debunk a theory for me.

I've often thought about the "impossibility" of constructing a perpetual motion machine. Now of course you can't build one that you can actually get energy out of, but what about something that will just go on forever and not stop?

Step One:

Build a sphere out of artificial diamond. Pure diamond, no defects, absolutely uniform crystal lattice in all directions.

Step Two:

Go out into space and find a location where gravitational and electromagnetic effects from all locations are absolutely uniform. It'll probably be midway between two galaxies.

Step Three:

Plant your diamond in that location and give it a nudge to spin it. There you go, a moving object with nothing to stop it. Certainly not a USEFUL machine, but perpetual motion.
We have these things. They're called stars, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, interstellar dusts...

[Nate the Great]

Uh-huh. If that logic made any sense at all, ordering a Cherry Coke would result in cherry-flavored charcoal, or cherry-flavored cocaine. Yeah, right.

Astronomical bodies are not man-made machines, and they do have finite lifespans, by the way.

[AKAArzosah]

A spinning diamond doesn't eactly qualify as a machine either. A machine has to have working parts, and that's why it's impossible.

[catalina_marina]

Uh-huh. If that logic made any sense at all, ordering a Cherry Coke would result in cherry-flavored charcoal, or cherry-flavored cocaine. Yeah, right.
Which is why I would think they're only being weird with the original, as that would just be "Coke".

Oh you want it to be man-made? How about those satelites we sent into space then? Not only do they (presumably) revolve around their own axis, they even revolve around the Earth! And sure, they have a finite lifespan. Even if they were meant to stay up forever, the sun would eventually explode into the Earth. But if you really want them to "live" forever, it's probably going to be pretty hard to find a spot, or speed and direction, if you want, so that they never collapse into anything. But yes, theoretically, it's possible. And if they revolve at first, they'll keep revolving until something stops them. It's basically Newton's first law of mechanics.

[Nate the Great]

I thought that Sol was too small to outright explode. I thought it was just going to fizzle out into a brown dwarf.

All manmade Earth satellites will eventually grind slower and slower thanks to tidal effects and burn up upon reentry. Not perpetual.

[AKAArzosah]

When did the USA just become 'America' and why? Just laziness?

How is it that US Citizens call themselves 'Americans' to mean their nationality?

Or are both of these things just an Australian misconception and I should just shut up now?

[Chancellor Valium]

Why is Starfleet Command in San Francisco?
Bah! That's just a front.

It's actually in Llanberis.

[Nate the Great]

No, we USAns are, in fact, that incredibly arrogant. Blame the rest of the world for perpetuating our egotism, though, not us.

[catalina_marina]

When did the USA just become 'America' and why? Just laziness?

I don't know about the when... I would say even before it was founded.

I suppose it happened much in the same way as the United Kingdom became "England" and the Netherlands became "Holland". Yes, laziness.

[Chancellor Valium]

That always bugs me.

England is one nation, not three-and-a-bit, dammit.

On a more ponderous note, why do people assume our civilisation is more 'advanced' than previous ones? Popular culture in the ancient world consisted of races and killing each people and animals in a ring. Now it consists of races and watching people who barely qualify for the term, and do so solely for the purposes of political correctness sit about and wonder which one of the 19-or-so other definitely-not-sub-human(s) they should screw. Less blood, but at least gladiatorial matches don't make your brains want to dribble out of your ears.

?

[catalina_marina]

That always bugs me.

England is one nation, not three-and-a-bit, dammit.

I like the way you think.

I wish the Netherlands were just the 7 provinces they started with. At least then people would never say I'm from Holland.

[Chancellor Valium]

I thought there were originally 17?

[Nate the Great]

Chandler: Holland. That's near the Netherlands, isn't it?
Joey: Yeah, right. You're not going to catch me like that. The Netherlands are this make-believe place where Peter Pan and Tinker Bell live.
Margha: Oh my.
Ross: Enough with Geography For The Insane, okay?

[catalina_marina]

I thought there were originally 17?

:rolleyes:

[Sa'ar Chasm]

I thought that Sol was too small to outright explode. I thought it was just going to fizzle out into a brown dwarf.

It will swell up into a red giant once it exhausts its hydrogen fuel, and then it will fade to a white dwarf after it exhausts its helium fuel. It's not massive enough to undergo any other type of fusion. Brown dwarfs are stars without enough mass to start hydrogen fusion.

[Nate the Great]

Darnit Jim, I'm an engineer, not an astronomer!

[Nate the Great]

Why do so many gas stations have three grades of gas? I've even seen FOUR grade stations. I can understand the mentality behind having a higher grade gas for certain vehicles and situations, but anything between basic and premium seems ludicrous, almost as though it was deliberately supposed to be confusing.

Why are men's and women's bicycles still in different structural styles? I doubt that there are that many women who bike in skirts anymore, and a straight bicycle bar really is stronger structurally, so what's up?

A perpetual scab. Totally unsolvable. Why can't the government just tax the retailers a flat five percent (or whatever) of their total sales, so the retailer can charge flat dollar amounts? Wouldn't it make transactions so much simpler? Even if it has to be tweaked a bit to allow for twenty-five cent intervals to start out with, it'd still save EVERYBODY involved a lot of bother. I've heard two major theorys for the "something bucks and 99 cents" phenomenon. 1. Customers will be fooled that the one cent discount is larger than it really is, perhaps even think that the item really does cost a dollar less. Ludicrous. 2. Having change be required in the operation forces the cashier to open and close the cash drawer for each transaction to get the change, thus removing the option of the cashier simply pocketing the money. Seems a bit odd, as I have a solution to this problem. Scanning the item will generate a receipt. However, if the cash drawer isn't opened and closed within a certain time period, not only will the receipt not print out, a switch could be set up to trigger an alarm. Smart, huh?

[Nate the Great]

Would it really be that much bother to get the entire world onto one voltage and electric outlet type? I suppose the only reason why not to is that eventually we're going to have a united power grid and everyone's going to have to be retrofitted anyway, but still...

Why do so many people hate gift cards? I understand the "it does the same thing currency can, only less efficiently" argument, but for me, that's precisely the point. The inefficiency forces me to buy myself a GIFT, not just food and gas.

Why do some areas split into different geographic areas for new area codes, and others just overlap area codes in the same area? Isn't that a bit of a double standard?

[Nate the Great]

Here's a few from a wonderful book called The Little Book of Stupid Questions by David Borgenicht, 1999, Sourcebooks, Inc.

1. Would the world be a better place if skipping were more common than walking?

2. Which cartoon ability would you rather have:
a. The ability to paint a hole in the ground or a door in a solid wall and go through it;
b. The ability to be run over by a steamroller and shake yourself back to normal, or
c. The ability to fall hundreds of feet off a cliff to your doom and be back in the very next scene?

3. Is life more like the game of Life, Sorry, or Monopoly?

4. What breakfast cereal most describes your personality?

5. If your life story were made into a movie, who would play you?

6. Which of the Seven Dwarves do you most relate to? If you were the eighth dwarf, what would your name be?

7. If you could bring one character to life from your favorite book, who would it be?

8. If you had a theme song, what song would you pick? What if the song were played every time you entered a room or walked down the street? Would this change your choice?

9. What would you say as your last words if you were about to be executed?

[NAHTMMM]

9. What would you say as your last words if you were about to be executed?

"Beam me up, Scotty!" It always works for everyone else . . . ;)

[Nate the Great]

1. Yes.
2. a.
3. Life.
4. Honey Nut Toasted Oats. (I'm nutty, but still good for you!)
5. Daniel Radcliffe. Seriously.
6. Doc. Whacky.
7. Anne Shirley.
8. General theme song, Linus and Lucy. Room entering theme song, The Entertainer.
9. "Shazam!"

[Nate the Great]

(Inspired by Zeke's characterization of "five" as a transitive verb) How would a Schoolhouse Rock song based on transitive verbs go?

Do any other schools use inaccurate anthropomorphic mascots? (My alma mater's mascot Goldy the Gopher actually has very little resemblance to an actual gopher, most consider him a ground squirrel in disguise)

Conrad Birdie? What kind of nutjob would name their child that and/or what kind of nutjob would choose that as a stage name?

How old were you when you figured out that the name Back to the Future was supposed to be a paradox gag? I thought it was pretty self-explanatory: Marty wants to get BACK to the FUTURE.

How creeped out would the average person be if everyone around them suddenly burst into song?

What's the most ridiculous James Bond gadget? There are SO MANY contenders.

[Nate the Great]

How long is it going to be before someone is actually curious enough about the HB=C,A,I! in my sig to ask about it?

[AKAArzosah]

I have a question that someone can answer. It's been bugging me for days.

What side of the road do Canadians drive on?

[Nate the Great]

The right side, as far as I know. I just went there on vacation not two months ago, remember.

[Nate the Great]

Don't worry, the HB=C, A, & I!!!! is gone, I replaced it with yet another wonderful mudshark quote. I think it's a classic. :)

[Chancellor Valium]

It comes naturally to him.


...Who are you, and what have you done with Zeke?

[Nate the Great]

No, that's a real Zeke quote, based on a real mudshark quote! Honestly, Trekkie's honor!

[Nate the Great]

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcredit.html

I'm not sure whether this belongs in the link dump thread or here, but it is a niggling question, so here goes...

To me, safety or not, just putting "Ask for Photo ID" on a card is just asking for trouble. Even if it's "technically safer," I am REALLY not in the mood to explain the logic EVERY SINGLE STINKIN' TIME! And I would have to. "How come you don't have a signature on this?" "Well, I was told that it wasn't safe..." "I'll have to summon my manager." "No, honest, this is my driver's license! I swear! Why didn't I sign the card? Well..." No, thank you.

[Chancellor Valium]

No, that's a real Zeke quote, based on a real mudshark quote! Honestly, Trekkie's honor!


Zeke miss a punning opportunity like that? I'm not that easy to dupe. :p

[Nate the Great]

Would it be alright if I just went mad now?

[PointyHairedJedi]

You're implying that you're not mad already? That's a hairy lie if I ever saw one!

[Katy Jane]

I have a question, why is there a letter that is compleatly dependent on another letter? I speak here of Qu.... why can't the letter Q just automaticly mean Qu? So that Queen would be spelled Qeen?

[Nate the Great]

You got me. But there are words that start with Q that don't have a u after it. Qat comes to mind. (Hey, I'm a Scrabbleholic, what can I say?)

[Chancellor Valium]

"Saqqara", "Qadesh", "Qetesh" (important not to qonfuse), "qhytsonthyd" (archaic spelling of "Whistuntide", IIRC).

In short, it is because "Q" is a redundant letter in English, representing a letter described in Egyptology as "k-with-a-dot".

[mudshark]

... "qhytsonthyd" (archaic spelling of "Whi[ts]untide", IIRC).

Hmm, thot it were hwta sunnandæg, but then, there's no 'Q' in thet'un, so I suppose it wouldn't count.

As mentioned above, Q does occur independently in languages other than English, mostly non-Indo-European ones. The Q-U combination seems to have been imported from Latin via Old French, circa the Norman Invasion in 1066, and has stuck around more out of inertia than anything else.

English is like that -- has lots of relics, artifacts and plain old souvenirs lying around and cluttering things up for no good reason other than that people are used to it being that way and resist changing.

[Chancellor Valium]

Hmm, thot it were hwta sunnandæg, but then, there's no 'Q' in thet'un, so I suppose it wouldn't count.
*eyebrow*

Intriguing.

I read that thing about qhythsonthyd on wiktionary, so it's probably wrong.

As mentioned above, Q does occur independently in languages other than English, mostly non-Indo-European ones. The Q-U combination seems to have been imported from Latin via Old French, circa the Norman Invasion in 1066, and has stuck around more out of inertia than anything else.

English is like that -- has lots of relics, artifacts and plain old souvenirs lying around and cluttering things up for no good reason other than that people are used to it being that way and resist changing.
Like "artic"/"arctic"....

[mudshark]

I read that thing about qhythsonthyd on wiktionary, so it's probably wrong.


Well, "qhythsonthyd" did look to me like it could have been an Old English word, or perhaps Brythonic, but I tried Googling it before making my previous post and didn't turn anything up. I tried Wiktionary just now, under both that spelling and "Whitsuntide", but couldn't find an entry containing it.

I'm not terribly familiar with Wiktionary, though, so I may simply be doing something wrong. If you run across it again, I'd be interested in having a look.

[Chancellor Valium]

So would I :(

[Katy Jane]

I guess i should have said that i figured there was other languages were Q could be used independantly, and I just wondering why it was that why in the english language.

[Nate the Great]

Will there ever be a fiver convention?

[mudshark]

I guess i should have said that i figured there was other languages were Q could be used independantly, and I just wondering why it was that why in the english language.
Just blame William the Conqueror; that should work as well as anything.

Bloody Vikings!

[Nate the Great]

Which format will be 100% DEAD first, audiotape or videotape?

Will they ever work out the rights issues and release the 60's Batman show on DVD?

Would other shows sell better if they released complete series sets a la Friends? Frasier and Home Improvement come to mind.

[Nate the Great]

Puh-huh?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerspace

The address is for hammerspace, but the actual title is Magic Satchel. As a longtime fan of animation, I'm here to tell you that hammerspace is the more prevalent and accurate term. Magic Satchel implies a bag that has no bottom. Hammerspace can be located anywhere: behind a tree, inside a magician's hat, in a cartoon character's back pocket, etc.

Yeah, yeah, I'm obsessive. You already knew that.

[mudshark]

Puh-huh?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerspace

The address is for hammerspace, but the actual title is Magic Satchel. As a longtime fan of animation, I'm here to tell you that hammerspace is the more prevalent and accurate term. Magic Satchel implies a bag that has no bottom. Hammerspace can be located anywhere: behind a tree, inside a magician's hat, in a cartoon character's back pocket, etc.

Yeah, yeah, I'm obsessive. You already knew that.
This has been discussed here before. Note all of the "Hammer" gags from the ENT fivers. See also: "IJD... hammer!"

[Nate the Great]

The Magic Satchel VS. Hammerspace thing has been discussed? I never noticed that.

Then again, I'm seeing that on Wikipedia more and more often: The "official" article name i.e. the one in the URL doesn't match the "common" article name that's in the bold letters. However, those instances don't involve terms that come from completely different realms or scales. "Magic satchel" and "hammerspace" are NOT interchangable, a magic satchel is a VERY small subset of hammerspace.

As a means of lightening the mood, let me relate a humorous story from the Ella Enchanted commentary. The script originally said "Where's my satchel?" but the director's commentary revealed that "nobody" knew what that word was, so they had to replace it with "purse." Given that the movie is chock full of more obscure medievalisms (foyer and origami come to mind), plus Anne Hathaway's voice shouting "where's my satchel" is much funnier than "where's my purse," I'm still tickled at the inconsistency.

[Nate the Great]

Does anyone actually have and enjoy the Gameboy Micro? Not just in this forum, but everywhere. I remember being very aggravated about the whole idea.

[Zeke]

My Micro has been my best friend for about two years now. I bought it just for the cool tech factor -- it's barely bigger than the cartridges it plays.

Zeke miss a punning opportunity like that? I'm not that easy to dupe. :p

Valium is right. I've been meaning to mention this to you, Nate -- read my original post (http://www.fiveminute.net/forums/showthread.php?p=73245#post73245) again.

[Nate the Great]

Yeah, that was nice of you to blackball ID for me, but I distinctly recall that you later acquiesed to the majority of the voters. After all, that's what the entire point of the poll was, right?

[Zeke]

You know that's not what I was pointing out. (But to answer your question, I didn't "blackball" ID permanently, I said we should keep looking. Ultimately I decided it was the best choice -- I did warn you that might happen.)

[PointyHairedJedi]

Democracy is for jerks. So, unfortunately, is every other system of government. Someone hurry up and build Colossus already!

[Nate the Great]

Well, as Dr. Crane and Dr. Crane would tell you, blackballs aren't necessarily permanent.

No, I don't know what you're pointing out. Honestly, I'm lost.

I click the link and it goes to the Announcement thread, your post of April 22nd:

"It comes naturally to him.

Seriously though, I'm torn here. On the one hand, Independence Day would be an excellent choice. On the other hand, I gotta say I sympathize with Nate's situation. If he didn't get to participate last time -- all four years of last time -- it's perfectly fair for him to bring that up. So let's put Independence Day to one side for now. It may well be what I go with, but for now let's discuss the alternatives."

So you tell me what I'm supposed to get out of that.

[NAHTMMM]

I see an extra letter in there. Has it finally happened? Has Nate spent too much time around here, been overloaded, and gone pun-blind?

[Nate the Great]

Pun-blind? Are you sure I'm the one who's been nipping away at the vanilla?

[NAHTMMM]

No, I'm just accusing you so the real culprit will let his or her guard down so we can have a properly dramatic denouement.

Don't let it get around, though.

[Zeke]

Nate, unless you're pulling my leg here, something very odd is going on. Is there seriously no E in "nateurally" when you look at that post?

[mudshark]

It's there for me. Perhaps Nate is using a rather more aggressive spell-checker than most of us do?

[Nate the Great]

Ooooooooooohhhhhhhhh.....

I must've automatically spellchecked that. No, I can see the "nate" in "nateurally" now. Very subtle gag. I should fix my sig to reflect that. Very nice.

PS. Must stem from the same condition that makes me unable to see Magic Eyes.

[Chancellor Valium]

Nate, unless you're pulling my leg here, something very odd is going on. Is there seriously no E in "nateurally" when you look at that post?


I knew the quote in his signature couldn't be right....

[Nate the Great]

Oh, sure, NOW everyone else is all "Wile E. Coyote, Suuuuuuper Genius."

[NAHTMMM]

*checks his fortune cookie to see if it says "anvil", "safe", "boulder", or anything similar*

[Nate the Great]

No, it says "cracked bowl catches no rice."

Okay, let's see somebody ID this one without search engines!

[Nate the Great]

Am I the only one who can't get invested in live-action/CG films because all the exciting stuff that happens is clearly completely made out of fake stuff? I just saw Transformers for the first time, in case you were wondering.

Will they ever perfect CG humans such that you really can't tell the difference?

Will I ever stop wondering how a normal-sized Camaro (volume perhaps a dozen cubic yards) turns into a thirty-foot high robot with easily ten times the volume?

Will I ever know why the creators thought that Optimus Prime needed a mouth? I was just fine with the faceplate moving up and down, thank you very much.

How come the Matrix of Leadership neutralized the Allspark without killing Optimus Prime? Old Primey sure thought it'd kill him, and if HE doesn't know, who would?

Would it have killed the Autobots to refer to the Decepticons individually by name once in awhile? Cybertronian translated subtitles (used only once) really don't help me remember these guys' names.

How come the Allspark being destroyed stranded our heroes on Earth while still allowing other Cybertronians out there to get here without EVER having it?

Is Witwicky the most outlandish sidekick name you've ever heard, or what? It makes Snapper Carr sound positively biblical.

[Nate the Great]

Oh, and these have been REALLY persistant and niggling...

What constitues an "active" member of this forum?

How come people who joined four years ago but never actually posted are still on the books? Seems like a terrible waste of cyberspace. I love double punchlines.

[LtFielding]

Why can't I use the quick reply box?

Why does everyone think I'm crazy when I say global warming can cause an Ice Age?

What in the world is Team Stargate?

Why did I sign up for Team Stargate if I don't know what it is?

What is the purpose of http://www.isitchristmas.com/?

Why did I know more about physics when I was ten than my dad did?

[Sa'ar Chasm]

Will I ever stop wondering how a normal-sized Camaro (volume perhaps a dozen cubic yards) turns into a thirty-foot high robot with easily ten times the volume?

It doesn't. They took great pains in that film to make sure the laws of conservation of mass were obeyed. That's why Jazz is such a runt, since GM only gave them a tiny car to work with.

What you should worry about is how a 30-foot-tall robot turns into a ghetto blaster small and light enough to be picked up by a human, or how Optimus can transform into robot mode and abandon his trailer, run halfway aroound the world, transform back and then have his trailer roll up out of nowhere. That bugged me even when I was six and incredulous (just like how I wondered why the Autobots' robot modes were made out of Earth cars even before they got to Earth).

Will I ever know why the creators thought that Optimus Prime needed a mouth? I was just fine with the faceplate moving up and down, thank you very much.

It's hard to emote from behind a faceplate.

How come the Matrix of Leadership neutralized the Allspark without killing Optimus Prime? Old Primey sure thought it'd kill him, and if HE doesn't know, who would?

It didn't. It killed Megatron. Did they even mention the Matrix in this movie?

Would it have killed the Autobots to refer to the Decepticons individually by name once in awhile? Cybertronian translated subtitles (used only once) really don't help me remember these guys' names.

No kidding. Although, it's not like there were any properly applied names from the cartoon, apart from Megs and Starscream.

How come the Allspark being destroyed stranded our heroes on Earth while still allowing other Cybertronians out there to get here without EVER having it?

It didn't strand them. They can leave at any time, only there's no point is leaving 'cause Cybertron is doomed. Starscream buggered off during the closing credits.

[Nate the Great]

Okay, cue the math music! Note that I'm more or less guesstimating each solid into a box shape to make calculations easier.

Camaro: 4 ft X 6 ft X 15 ft=360 ft^3
Bumblebee: 30 ft X 8 ft X 4 ft=960 ft^3

Truck: 8 ft X 10 ft X 30 ft=2400 ft^3
Optimus Prime: 50 ft X 15 ft X 6 ft=4500 ft^3

Unless these giant alien robots are mostly air, this is not conservation of volume.

Emoting without lips? That's what proper voice acting is for! Not to mention body posture, eye emoting, etc. How many seasons of Power Rangers have we had that don't have any facial expressions at all? Plus you got Iron Man, Steel, and so forth in the comics.

"If I cannot defeat Megatron, you must shove the cube into my chest! That will destroy it!" More or less. The only things in Optimus Prime's chest are his Spark and the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. I doubt that his Spark could neutralize the cube, so what's left?

For that matter, what did kill Megatron in the end? I watched the climax twice and that's still bugging me.

[NAHTMMM]

"If I cannot defeat Megatron, you must shove the cube into my chest! That will destroy it!" More or less. The only things in Optimus Prime's chest are his Spark and the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. I doubt that his Spark could neutralize the cube, so what's left?
Gremlins.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

Okay, cue the math music! Note that I'm more or less guesstimating each solid into a box shape to make calculations easier.

Camaro: 4 ft X 6 ft X 15 ft=360 ft^3
Bumblebee: 30 ft X 8 ft X 4 ft=960 ft^3

Truck: 8 ft X 10 ft X 30 ft=2400 ft^3
Optimus Prime: 50 ft X 15 ft X 6 ft=4500 ft^3

Unless these giant alien robots are mostly air, this is not conservation of volume.



Where are you getting these numbers from? I read that the producers took great care to ensure that every transformation was feasible, and that the giant robots could indeed fold up into those cars. I think your solid boxes are introducing gross errors into the calculations. Was Bumblebee really 30 ft tall and only 8 ft wide? Seems awfully unstable.

While I'm on the subject, what are these strange foreign units you call "ft"?

[/quote]Emoting without lips? That's what proper voice acting is for! Not to mention body posture, eye emoting, etc. How many seasons of Power Rangers have we had that don't have any facial expressions at all? Plus you got Iron Man, Steel, and so forth in the comics. [/quote]

Speaking as an actor...mouths and eyes are two of the most important tools an actor has to convey expression. That's why all the aliens on Star Trek look like humans peering out and speaking from behind latex.

"If I cannot defeat Megatron, you must shove the cube into my chest! That will destroy it!" More or less. The only things in Optimus Prime's chest are his Spark and the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. I doubt that his Spark could neutralize the cube, so what's left?

In the comics, he's got the Matrix of Leadership. I don't think they even mentioned the concept in the movie (wanted to avoid confusing people with Keanu's movie). Prime was going to merge his Spark with it, destroying them both. One Spark will serve just as well as another. Megs just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

For that matter, what did kill Megatron in the end? I watched the climax twice and that's still bugging me.

The MacGuffin.

[Nate the Great]

I guesstimated the numbers! I thought I'd made that clear. It's even right there in the thing you quoted!

Optimus has eyes. I'm not complaining about telescoping lenses.

If we're going to say that the Autobot Matrix of Leadership wasn't involved and we're treating the cube as a sort of Spark-specific antimatter, then why was Optimus talking about suicide missions?

Foreign units...hah. So I'm stubborn. I have to deal with meters enough in my engineering work enough to want a break from it. Besides, our official engineering specs are still in feet, so there.

Oh, come on, matrix has umpteen meanings. The target audience is the twenty- and thirtysomethings who remember the heyday of Transformermania in the eighties, right? We know what a matrix is.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

I guesstimated the numbers! I thought I'd made that clear. It's even right there in the thing you quoted![quote]

I know you guesstimated them, I'm just wondering about how you arrived at those numbers.

"Michael Bay stated in an early interview that Bumblebee stands about 17 feet tall [5], but the scale of his Deluxe concept toy suggests he stands closer to 18 feet tall." <-- Wikipedia

I don't know where you got 30 from. Bumblebee didn't appear to be six times as tall as the squishy meatbags he was running around with.

[quote]If we're going to say that the Autobot Matrix of Leadership wasn't involved and we're treating the cube as a sort of Spark-specific antimatter, then why was Optimus talking about suicide missions?

'cause it's an Optimus thing to do. Noble self-sacrifice and all that.

Foreign units...hah. So I'm stubborn. I have to deal with meters enough in my engineering work enough to want a break from it. Besides, our official engineering specs are still in feet, so there.

Pffft, engineers. You're just too lazy rip up the entrenched foundations on which the entire construction industry is built upon and throw everything into chaos by redefining the 2x4.

Oh, come on, matrix has umpteen meanings. The target audience is the twenty- and thirtysomethings who remember the heyday of Transformermania in the eighties, right? We know what a matrix is.

Don't talk to me, talk to the producers. There's nothing so simple that Hollywood will fail to get the point.

[Nate the Great]

First of all, I'd like to point out that phrase "concept toy," emphasizing "concept" as "not final." For another thing, an action figure will not have the same internal structure as a Transformer.

Well, maybe I did get dimensions wrong, but I stand by my original Persistant Niggling Question. To my eye it looks like additional solid mass was obtained during the transformation process.

Oh, and here's another PNQ (let's just save space, shall we): How many other people noticed the transformation from real car to the CG car right before transformation? I could. I was quite tickled by that. No matter how much these studios trump about the superiority of CG, when in fact it's not.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

Well, maybe I did get dimensions wrong, but I stand by my original Persistant Niggling Question. To my eye it looks like additional solid mass was obtained during the transformation process.

I watched the same transformation process you did, and my hyperactive sense of "That Violates The Laws Of Physics" didn't twig. Maybe I should watch it again with a more critical eye.

[Nate the Great]

Hey, you should hear my rant about Pokemon technology. One of my cyberpenpals was quite tickled that I would watch an enjoyable cartoon and still go "that technology is totally bogus."

[Sa'ar Chasm]

Hey, you should hear my rant about Pokemon technology. One of my cyberpenpals was quite tickled that I would watch an enjoyable cartoon and still go "that technology is totally bogus."

That is totally bogus.

Pokemon is not an enjoyable cartoon. :P

[Nate the Great]

Oooooooooohhhhhhh.....

Anime is one of my "I'm getting angry, you won't like me when I'm angry" buttons. Especially the first two I ever saw, Pokemon and Digimon. They are sacred, you'd be best to move along.

Now some brand-new PNQ:

What's up with the edge lettering on the new Presidential Dollars? Won't those words get worn away in no time?

Even at only 0.25c, wouldn't full impulse create some nasty time dialation effects for starships? I'd imagine that they still function on some equivalent of Greenich Standard Time. For that matter, what about when the Enterprise goes to a planet where a day is the equivalent of 13 or 37 hours? Wouldn't matching itineraries become agonizing relatively quickly?

[catalina_marina]

Why are men's and women's bicycles still in different structural styles? I doubt that there are that many women who bike in skirts anymore, and a straight bicycle bar really is stronger structurally, so what's up?
As an (Evil) Dutch Woman, I feel I should respond to this.

Women do, actually, still wear skirts sometimes. Even women like me.
More importantly, it's not necessary. Sure, it might be stronger, but it never breaks either way. At least, not until every other inch of the bike has broken down at least thrice. You're getting a new bike LONG before that ever comes close to looking like it's not in top condition.
Also, I happen to think women's bikes are easier to get on, but that might just be me being used to it.
Then there's the point that, if you borrow a bike from someone, and it's slightly too big for you, it's easier to bike on it if it's a women's bike. Less painful, too, if ever you need to stop suddenly.

[PointyHairedJedi]

^ With this, I very much agree. At the moment I can't dismount a mountain bike without half falling over at the same time.

Why does everyone think I'm crazy when I say global warming can cause an Ice Age?
I don't. If the Gulf Stream goes, where I live is going to get very cold very quickly.

[Nate the Great]

How come the name "Mississippi" got attached to the northern branch instead of what we call the Missouri River? Surely convention would dictate that the same name be used for whichever path is the longest, right?

[NAHTMMM]

I imagine it's because, for it to be the Missouri River, it's making an awfully sharp turn at the point where it meets the not-Mississippi River, and anyone looking at a map would ask "Why isn't that part of the not-Mississippi River? That would be so much more natural."


Besides which, Missouri has several pro sports teams, the Arch, the Ozarks, the Missouri River . . . it even has me. Mississippi has the Mississippi River aaaaand . . . um, well. ;)

[Nate the Great]

What's the international allure of the name Wii anyway? After all, the reference only works for the small minority of the world's population that's fluent in English.

[Nate the Great]

Am I the last person to know that you can hold Control and scroll up and down with a mouse's scroll wheel to change the font size in certain web pages? (the handle from my mug was holding it down without me knowing about it)

[AKAArzosah]

It doesn't change the font size, it zooms in and out. It works in MS Word too, and a few other programs, which I can't remember.

[Nate the Great]

No it doesn't. Look, I go to the Star Trek page on Wikipedia. The first paragraph starts with "Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment series and media franchise. The Star Trek fictional universe created by Gene Roddenberry is the setting of six television series including the original 1966 Star Trek..."

As originally loaded (on my screen, 1028X768), the first line break is after the second "Star Trek." One click up holding Control puts it after "fictional", another puts it after "created by." One click down holding Control puts it after "series and," another puts it after "science fiction." The picture of Kirk and Spock always stays the same size, so only the size of the text is changing, changing the number of words in the lines in the process.

[Tate]

Fascinating.
I have repeated Nate's experiment using both Firefox and Internet Explorer. In IE, the page zooms in and out, but in Firefox, just the text size changes. (A few other things change size as well, but the point is that the pictures remain the same).
Also, with Internet Explorer, scrolling up zooms in and down scrolls out. It's the opposite with Firefox.

[Nate the Great]

Thank you.

Oh, I suppose I forgot to mention that I'm using MSN Explorer for all of this. Perhaps that accounts for part of it.

[PointyHairedJedi]

You poor, poor thing. Opera has a similar feature for expanding images and text (whilst distorting the rest of the page about them), but I never use it intentionally, only accidentally when I'm trying to use the scroll wheel to cycle through the tabs.

[Nate the Great]

Oh come on, what's so wrong with MSN Explorer (besides the occasional problem with the windows accidentally closing whenever an error occurs)? I'd use Internet Explorer, but A. all my favorites are on my MSN account and B. since I have to use MSN to sign on anyway, might as well use it for browsing.

[catalina_marina]

^ With this, I very much agree. At the moment I can't dismount a mountain bike without half falling over at the same time.

Of course, you fall over no matter what bike you're trying to get on of off, but that's hardly the point, is it?

[Nate the Great]

Am I the only person in the forums who knows what a juicy lucy is without looking it up?

[catalina_marina]

*Looks up juicy lucy*

[Chancellor Valium]

Why do people presume to tell me about the pyramids when they don't even know who Flinders Petrie is?

[Nate the Great]

Has to be done. Who?

What's the silliest argument we've ever had in the forum? I tend to think it was the great clear vs. colorless debate.

[Wowbagger]

I only post to the forums when there's an update vacuum, so I really can't say. That sounds good, though. I can support that.

[catalina_marina]

What's the silliest argument we've ever had in the forum? I tend to think it was the great clear vs. colorless debate.

I seem to have missed that. But scientifically, there's a great difference, so I wonder why it would be silly.

[Nate the Great]

http://www.fiveminute.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1322&highlight=colorless+transparent&page=4

Yikes was that a loaded issue. I've changed my opinion somewhat, but still have a few problems with the definitions that the others came up with.

[PointyHairedJedi]

Of course, you fall over no matter what bike you're trying to get on of off, but that's hardly the point, is it?
Damn straight! And, as it happens, one of my favourite TV quotes is "You win again, gravity!", just because it's applicable to so very many situations.

[Nate the Great]

Who was the first person to wear their baseball cap backwards, and who was that second person that thought it actually looked good?

How aerodynamic are pie plates anyway?

Why are so many people anti-pulp in their juice?

[NAHTMMM]

I think Ken Griffey Jr. popularized the backwards cap thing to some extent.


Pulp is icky. When I have a glass of lemonade, I swirl it every so often so the pulp doesn't all collect at the bottom.

[Nate the Great]

Pulp is icky?

[PointyHairedJedi]

Only if it's toad pulp. Or maybe squirrel pulp.

[Nate the Great]

Okay, did not need THAT mental image...

[Nate the Great]

If Douglas Adams had chosen a number other than 42, would the fans have been able to find nearly as much other stuff to "justify" it? It's an interesting question. One major facet of the whole 47 phenomenon is that, aside from the obvious placements by Trek creators, most so-called "sightings" are coicidence and extrapolation.

[Nate the Great]

How could a mirror really end Ella of Frell's curse? After all, would the curse really be fooled that Ella's order really came from someone else? I'd imagine that an implied clause in the original curse would imply some form of "you can't remove it from yourself." Then again, would some form of the solution Elisa used in Gargoyles work for Ella? Remember that whoever held the page of the Grimorum Arcnorum that contained an obedience curse could order the victim of said curse to do anything. Elisa said, in essence, "for the rest of your life you will act as though you are not cursed." Couldn't Mandy just order Ella to act under her own free will at all times?

Yes, this is nitpicking of the most inane precision and obsession, but it IS a PNQ, so there.

Just how could you put the Sorceror's Stone INTO a mirror? It's a stinkin' mirror! Two-dimensional! Was the SS just put into some sort of transporter suspension by Dumbledore, activated by a semisentient spell put onto the mirror?

[LtFielding]

If Douglas Adams had chosen a number other than 42, would the fans have been able to find nearly as much other stuff to "justify" it? It's an interesting question. One major facet of the whole 47 phenomenon is that, aside from the obvious placements by Trek creators, most so-called "sightings" are coicidence and extrapolation.

I've got a better question, If Douglas Adams picked a number besides 42 would I have hidden that number in my English Paper?

[Nate the Great]

Really? That's ... different.

Here's one for you: Can you really have any such thing as Eggshell White, Antique White, etc. etc. Isn't White, like Black, sort of an absolute color? You really can't have any shades of an absolute, can you? Anything else would be very very light yellow or very very dark blue, etc.

[Chancellor Valium]

You can if you are a pretentious paint-namer. And you have a hundred-and-one thousand tints of cream to label.

Why do I always forget something I meant to say/post?

[Nate the Great]

Okay, so...

Why manufacture 1001 different kinds of cream paint?

What's your favorite paint color? We just sort of sequed there. My favorite is called Winter Solstice, and it's the color of my room. It's glorious. It's a very light blue, almost but not quite bordering on lavender. Imagine the shade of the background to this entry, but lighter and with just a hint of purple.

[NAHTMMM]

Just how could you put the Sorceror's Stone INTO a mirror? It's a stinkin' mirror! Two-dimensional!

Project the three-dimensional Stone into the two-dimensional mirror.

If you don't want to bother with such trifling mathematical chicanery, I think Alice will be heading that way in a few minutes, so just give it to her to take along.

[Nate the Great]

Which line should I ditch from my sig to include

Adam Savage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_reject_your_reality_and_substitute_my_own): I reject your reality and substitute my own!

The two references to me from this forum are off-limits, but other opinions are welcome. I'm edging toward chucking Hanlon's Razor, but opinions are welcome.

[Chancellor Valium]

"(Inspired by a quote by Jim Guigli) My motivation for writing fivers is to find a constructive outlet for my dementia."
This I would recommend for ditching.

EDIT: This one has been niggling at me persistently on and off for about five years now - what the can-you-afford-to-board is a lapazoo?

As in:

Charleston, Charleston,
Made in Carolina
Some dance, some prance,
I'll say there's nothing finer than the
Charleston, Charleston,
Lord how you can shuffle
Ev'ry step you do
Leads to something new,
Man I'm telling you
It's a lapazoo,
Buck dance,
Wing dance,
Will be a back number,
But the Charleston, the new Charleston,
That dance is surely a comer,
Sometime,
You'll dance it one time,
The dance called Charleston,
made in South Caroline.

Help?

[Nate the Great]

Really? But dementia is so fun! ;)

[mudshark]

EDIT: This one has been niggling at me persistently on and off for about five years now - what the can-you-afford-to-board is a lapazoo?

Can't seem to find any explanation for it anywhere. All I can figure is that it was probably originally "le Pazou" (which seems to be used as a nickname -- possibly of West African origin?) or perhaps a variant of "lollapalooza (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lollapalooza)". Seems to have been something pretty nifty, anyway.

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching Batman Begins again, so here's a question:

What would be the fear that Scarecrow's gas would evoke in you?

For me, it'd be stuffed animals coming to life and attacking me. I've long been phobic about taxidermy in general. Not just stuffed and mounted animals, either, just a few bugs pinned into drawers creep me out no end. Ugh.

[Chancellor Valium]

Can't seem to find any explanation for it anywhere. All I can figure is that it was probably originally "le Pazou" (which seems to be used as a nickname -- possibly of West African origin?) or perhaps a variant of "lollapalooza (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lollapalooza)". Seems to have been something pretty nifty, anyway.


Interesting. Thanks.

[Nate the Great]

Would Assignment: Earth have made an interesting show?

[Nate the Great]

How come I only just now noticed that the hyperlink from the main page to the forums still says "The Five Minute Voyager Forums?"

[Nate the Great]

How long can a person pine for the fjords without getting hungry, or having to take a bathroom break, or taking ten minutes to change the blurb or something? :)

[PointyHairedJedi]

I guess until they decompose beyond the point where they are recognisably human and not just a skeleton and some goopy smelly mess.

[Nate the Great]

Do we need a combination PNQ/Link Dump thread? A lot of posts I create for either seem to imply a combination of the two is necessary, usually based around "post a link, then ask a question about it."

[Nate the Great]

Why is text messaging so popular? Seriously, you have a cell phone, your friend has a cell phone, why not TALK?

[NAHTMMM]

Can't call a phone from a computer. Can text-message via IM.

Aside from that . . . I dunno.

[Nate the Great]

It's a Theme Day here in the PNQ Thread! Today is Christmas lore:

Where did this idea of flying reindeer come from? I suppose it follows a line of "logic" from Pegasus to reindeer (a more logical quadraped to be found in the North Country), but still...flying reindeer?

I've seen versions of the Santa legend that state one immortal jolly dude and others that state a sort of generational legacy. Some even posit the existence of a "throne" at the North Pole. Saint Nicholas the XXXVI or whatever, and Santa a hereditary title. Which do you prefer?

I'm still a little curious about this bit of Santa having to lay one finger alongside his nose to go up the chimney. Given the sizes and shapes (and nonexistence, for some) of chimneys, I'd imagine some sort of autonomous teleportation a la Q would come into play. Thus a finger snap, wink, or some other, more expedient and simple method of physically indicating you are about to change position.

So how would Santa's pack work? Someone once calculated that even if every child only recieved a one-pound LEGO set, we're still talking thousands of tons. I suppose that if we're positing flying reindeer, a normal sack being a doorway into hammerspace (i.e. a Bag of Holding) would also work. Perhaps Santa has a bunch of elves in there with clipboards and forklifts finding the correct toys for each house.

[catalina_marina]

Why do people always insist on starting the Christmas thing before Sinterklaas has come and gone?

[PointyHairedJedi]

I dunno. For the same reason that you can practically buy your Easter Eggs on January the 1st, I suppose.

[LtFielding]

Why does everyone think I made up the word quasihemidemisemiquaver?

[Nate the Great]

The whatnow?

[Nate the Great]

Let's see if we can dissect and translate it:

quasihemidemisemiquaver

quasi=sort of, not quite
hemi=half
demi=half
semi=half
quaver=tremble

Not quite an eighth of a shudder? Okay... :)

[Nate the Great]

http://teh-no.livejournal.com/125561.html

Who is this guy? Is he on this forum under a different name, or what? The "fivers" are nice enough as they go, but the incorrectly spelled names put me off a bit.

[LtFielding]

Let's see if we can dissect and translate it:

quasihemidemisemiquaver

quasi=sort of, not quite
hemi=half
demi=half
semi=half
quaver=tremble

Not quite an eighth of a shudder? Okay... :)
A quasihemidemisemiquaver is an 128th note.

[LtFielding]

Why doesn't anyone ever want to talk aboutPHYSICS

[mudshark]

A quasihemidemisemiquaver is an 128th note.

I could have told you that. Not something you see very often, though, except on some of those insane black-page pieces which no one ever actually performs.

[LtFielding]

Why do people like rap?

[Nate the Great]

Beats me. Why do people like opera when they can't understand the words?

[LtFielding]

Beats me. Why do people like opera when they can't understand the words?

It doesn't give me migranes

[Nate the Great]

But do you LIKE it?

[Chancellor Valium]

Yes.

It's about the whole experience, not just that someone is singing in another language.

And if you have an understanding of a foreign language like Italian, you can probably understand at least some of an opera.

[NAHTMMM]

Sometimes the inability to understand the words helps ;) I can think of a LOT of "pop" songs that I might enjoy much more if I didn't know what the words were supposed to mean . . .

[Nate the Great]

How many people know that (at least at one point) the most hotly debated Dear Abby/Ann Landers topic was toilet paper orientation? Those were the days, huh?

What's the oddest thing you've ever seen served on a stick? You see, at the Minnesota State Fair (The Great Minnesota Get Together!), stuff on a stick is a cherished tradition. We go way beyond hot dogs and their derivatives.

What's that one custom flavor of ice cream that you've seen on a shelf that's made you go "huh? What inspired THIS one?"

Do you think there are more pro-pulp or anti-pulp people in the world?

[PointyHairedJedi]

What's the oddest thing you've ever seen served on a stick? You see, at the Minnesota State Fair (The Great Minnesota Get Together!), stuff on a stick is a cherished tradition. We go way beyond hot dogs and their derivatives.

What's that one custom flavor of ice cream that you've seen on a shelf that's made you go "huh? What inspired THIS one?"
My answer to both of those is khav khalash.

[Nate the Great]

Who's the single most powerful (mortal) being in Trek? If we include immortal, the Q/Organian debate could be quite messy. I'm not sure if a Borg Queen quite counts, because she needs the entire Collective and Borg infrastructure for her power, plus we've seen indications that even though individual host bodies are mortal, the Queen herself is a specific personality that occupies a series of bodies.

[Chancellor Valium]

Easy: The Sisko.

[Nate the Great]

Are Prophets mortal?

[Chancellor Valium]

This begs another question: Is Sisko a Prophet?

I'd say 'no', given that he appears not to have assumed their habits of speech, noncorporeality, or habit of turning up looking like people you're acquainted with.

[Nate the Great]

I'd assume that's more along the lines of "he knows better than to be one of those obstrusely incomprehensible omnipotent beings."

Okay, this isn't really PNQ, but maybe someone knows. This (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SasamiSyndrome) page says that Archie and Veronica are the Official Couple, not Archie and Betty. Huh? Putting aside the fact that the Love Triangle will never be resolved, how would an Archie/Veronica marriage last anyway? I'd have to imagine that it's the chase that intrigues Veronica, not to mention sheer stubborness. Could he really make her happy? And vice-versa for that matter. Hey, so I'm an Archie/Betty shipper (http://www.fiveminute.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1413&highlight=betty+veronica), so what?

[PointyHairedJedi]

Who's the single most powerful (mortal) being in Trek?
Chuck Norris. Just because we've never actually seen him on screen or in print, doesn't mean he isn't in there somewhere punching Borg and shooting Klingons.

[Nate the Great]

Um, okay...

Okay, here's a real PNQ...

Why do Canadians use the name Kraft Dinner? Putting aside the fact that macaroni and cheese isn't quite a full meal by itself (at least it's not SUPPOSED to be...), Kraft Dinner isn't really descriptive of anything in particular, least of all a specific style of macaroni and cheese.

[mudshark]

Okay, here's a real PNQ...

Why do Canadians use the name Kraft Dinner? Putting aside the fact that macaroni and cheese isn't quite a full meal by itself (at least it's not SUPPOSED to be...), Kraft Dinner isn't really descriptive of anything in particular, least of all a specific style of macaroni and cheese.
Becaaauuuse:

The product was originally marketed as Kraft Dinner, but is now known in the United States and other countries as Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. In the United Kingdom it is marketed as Cheesey Pasta, while in Canada it has retained its original name of Kraft Dinner.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_Dinner
Canadians just stuck with the original name under which it was marketed by Kraft. Neither P nor N, particularly.


Your turn to look up something to which the answer can be found easily in seconds.

[PointyHairedJedi]

Putting aside the fact that macaroni and cheese isn't quite a full meal by itself...
I could live on macaroni cheese. Granted, I wouldn't live for very long, but once I did die my bloated cheesy corpse would be wearing a smile.

[Nate the Great]

That answered absolutely nothing. I wasn't asking WHETHER, I was asking WHY. As in "WHY is it called Kraft Dinner?" I'm not bashing the product (in fact, both as a poor college student and now a poor ex-college student, it is a staple), I'm just asking why it's called what it is in Canada.

[Nate the Great]

Would Ocarina of Time have been more fun or too easy if the Iron Boots and Hover Boots had been equippable as C-items instead of having to manually switching them in the subscreens?

[JVTruman]

That would have been a significant improvement. I remember without that, it went something like:

5 Open menu
10 Equip Iron Boots
15 Close menu
20 Fall past where you're supposed to go
25 Open menu
30 Remove Iron Boots
35 Close menu
40 Rise above where you're supposed to go
45 GOTO 5

for two or three loops.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: Am I the only person not versed in EVERY archaic computer language? I learned the rudiments in college, before which I knew squat. Absolute squat.

[PointyHairedJedi]

I only know SQUIDTRAN myself, and that's purely by dint of having made it up this instant.

[Nate the Great]

Does anyone here know why the new season has to grind to a halt because of a Writer's Guild strike? Couldn't everyone just keep working and get their new benefits recursively? I'm just asking because the final season of Scrubs deserves better than the treatment they're getting.

[Chancellor Valium]

The only scripting I understand is basic HTML, some VERY rudimentary BASIC, and a fair knowledge of NWScript, myself...so no, you aren't the only one. :)

[PointyHairedJedi]

I should send them them my not-quite-BAW, just to show I could write all those season finales no problem, if they wanted me. And let's face it, who wouldn't?

[Nate the Great]

Are there actually any public groups in the forum? Go to a member profile page, and there it is, "Group Memberships: X is not a member of any public groups." I've yet to find a profile that actually lists any.

[mudshark]

Does anyone here know why the new season has to grind to a halt because of a Writer's Guild strike? Couldn't everyone just keep working and get their new benefits recursively?
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g223/mudshark58/smilies/umyeah.gif

[Nate the Great]

Okay, here's one: what's your favorite nextgen TV technology: plasma or LCD? What I read about the issue frankly worries me, what with all the issues about burned pixels and blacks-that-aren't-really-black and so on and so forth.

[AKAArzosah]

Um... what is a strike if you're not on strike? It sure as hell isn't a strike, that's for sure.

My question is WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH TETRIS? Why do people BUY that game? ON IT'S OWN!

Get any good '10,998,765,421 games in one' game and it's on there in twenty two variations!

And why do people like it anyway? BOR-ING

This rant brought to you by the Australian postal system. 'Not giving me a holiday since 2005.'

[Nate the Great]

Oooooooooo.....

I bought Tetris on it's own. Original B&W Gameboy Tetris, too! It continues to be a classic of the gaming world. Watch where you stick those pointy sticks.

[Nate the Great]

Would the following make a good blurb for the front page to replace the fjord thing?

Douglas Adams (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Douglas_adams): I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they go by.

[mudshark]

No.

[Nate the Great]

Aw. Really? I guess you have to appreciate the humor on it's own level...

[Nate the Great]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpecialEffectFailure?from=Main.SpecialEffectsFailu re

Okay, I've known about this one for awhile, but I'm asking now. So in creating the Babylon 5 DVD sets, they lost the original CG models, so they're stuck using the recordings of the models. Why is this? I'd imagine that over five years we'd have seen all angles of these things, so why not recreate the CG models? Even if the ships turned out slightly different than originally intended, who's to know? The shots will still be consistent, right?

[Chancellor Valium]

I realise I'm going out on a limb with a wacky theory here, but I'd guess for reasons of cost and time. ;)

[mudshark]

I'd imagine that over five years we'd have seen all angles of these things, so why not recreate the CG models? Even if the ships turned out slightly different than originally intended, who's to know?
The rabid sci-fi fanboy community, notice infinitesimal changes in detail?

*snort*

Naah. Never happen.

[Nate the Great]

Before I go off on one of my rants, I'd like you to clarify your opinion.

[LtFielding]

Why would Wowbagger, upon becoming immortal, go on a quest to insult everyone in the universe in alphabetical order?

[Chancellor Valium]

Have you not read the book?

[LtFielding]

I think it is a stupid thing to do, why not throw a random heavy object at everyone in alphabetical order? That seems more insulting and exciting.

[Nate the Great]

Well, what else is there for an imortal being to do once you're done getting rich and "outliving the heck out of everybody?" Not terribly much.

Wow, a cross-thread post! We don't get those everyday.

[Nate the Great]

40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection (http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/40_Years_of_Star_Trek:_The_Collection)
It's a Wrap! Sale and Auction (http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/It's_A_Wrap!_sale_and_auction)

Am I the only Trekkie in the world that feels uneasy about the mere existence of these auctions? Seriously, these objects are part of Trek history, it just seems wrong to me to put them on an auctioneer's block as though they were reposessed cars. I'd prefer items like these to either belong to the original actors associated with them or exist in some sort of Star Trek museum for the world to enjoy.

[LtFielding]

40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection (http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/40_Years_of_Star_Trek:_The_Collection)
It's a Wrap! Sale and Auction (http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/It's_A_Wrap!_sale_and_auction)

Am I the only Trekkie in the world that feels uneasy about the mere existence of these auctions? Seriously, these objects are part of Trek history, it just seems wrong to me to put them on an auctioneer's block as though they were reposessed cars. I'd prefer items like these to either belong to the original actors associated with them or exist in some sort of Star Trek museum for the world to enjoy.

The problem is that Star Trek has a worldwide fan base so, it would be hard to put them in enough museums, and also a lot of the actors are dead.

[Nate the Great]

What, you wouldn't take a vacation to Trekburg to see a museum full of this stuff? I would.

[LtFielding]

Why isn't there a city dedicated to Star Trek?

[Nate the Great]

Beats me. Personally, I'd build it near Riverside, Iowa.

[PointyHairedJedi]

Am I the only Trekkie in the world that feels uneasy about the mere existence of these auctions? Seriously, these objects are part of Trek history, it just seems wrong to me to put them on an auctioneer's block as though they were reposessed cars. I'd prefer items like these to either belong to the original actors associated with them or exist in some sort of Star Trek museum for the world to enjoy.
If they can auction copies of the Magna Carta and Picassos and Rembrantds and such then I don't see why this mysterious they can't also auction bits of Trek history.

Also, I don't think mudshark was refering to you in his post, but rather making generalities. People do pick up on this kind of stuff - there are pages and pages on the web devoted to variants of Trek ships alone, trying to make them fit into continuity in what I can only describe as the sheerest, obscurist kind of conjecture. I love Trek, but even so I'm not going to get my knickers in a twist over some scaling problems of Oberth class which then must be hammered into a theory about there being two different sized versions of it, and then speculate on the differing capabilities and mission profiles of each. That's... pretty anal. And so, knowing all that, I don't doubt that there would be some pretty good hissy fits if the B5 models were to be recreated with the differences that would entail. At the very least, it would spawn websites full of detailed comparisons, enough to make your eyes bleed.

[mudshark]

Also, I don't think mudshark was refering to you in his post, but rather making generalities.
Quite right. Even at his most dizzyingly, blindingly, stupendously whatever-it-is, Nate has never (all by himself) constituted a community.

People do pick up on this kind of stuff - there are pages and pages on the web devoted to variants of Trek ships alone, trying to make them fit into continuity in what I can only describe as the sheerest, obscurist kind of conjecture. I love Trek, but even so I'm not going to get my knickers in a twist over some scaling problems of Oberth class which then must be hammered into a theory about there being two different sized versions of it, and then speculate on the differing capabilities and mission profiles of each. That's... pretty anal. And so, knowing all that, I don't doubt that there would be some pretty good hissy fits if the B5 models were to be recreated with the differences that would entail. At the very least, it would spawn websites full of detailed comparisons, enough to make your eyes bleed.
Nate, all of the above is exactly what I meant. Check out the TrekBBS "Future of Trek" and "Trek Technology" forums (or just about anything written by Dixon or Whettestone) for enough examples to put you off your lunch for the rest of your life, if not longer.

[Nate the Great]

Who are these people that would have a hissy fit? Personally, I feel no pity whatsoever for people that wouldn't want to see highdef B5 on a highdef TV when it's possible, hang the minutae.

So I'm obsessive. What else is new? Personally I prefer "passionate," but sometimes that's what's necessary.

[Chancellor Valium]

The kind of people who use the word 'fanboy' in cold blood while posting their thoughts on how WONDERFUL an episode of something is and doing-down all nay-sayers on an internet forum?

[Nate the Great]

What's so wrong with calling Jean Grey Marvel Girl? I mean, it's a little annoying to see X-Men Evolution episodes (and that's the tip of the iceberg) just saying "Jean" all the time. I mean, don't these people use codenames for a reason? If you can say Jean all the time to anybody, why do any of the others use codenames?

[AKAArzosah]

I think the answer to that is pretty clear. They do it to annoy you.

No wait, that's ME always only calling you Nate instead of by your 'full name'. :)

Ok well, I know nothing about the comics or the animated series or whatever, I've only seen the movies. In the movies, she's well known as a mutant so a codename would be pretty pointless, I don't know if it's the same in Evolution.

[Nate the Great]

Ugh. If the faculty at Xavier's school are well-known to be mutants, then why have codenames? Or uniforms? Or invisible jets under basketball courts?

[Chancellor Valium]

No wait, that's ME always only calling you Nate instead of by your 'full name'. :)


Actually, I do it too.

And inventing new nicknames for him.

Ain't that right, Gnat?

[Nate the Great]

Oooh, gnat. Never heard THAT one before. Ugh.

[Chancellor Valium]

Heheheh.

@Arzosah: (I think Gnat's annoyed. :p )

[Nate the Great]

I'm so irked I'd almost (ALMOST) rather you go back to II. To coin a phrase: "I wouldn't mind so much if you turned me into a hawk or a lion. But always a repulsive little insect...

[Sa'ar Chasm]

Nate, all of the above is exactly what I meant. Check out the TrekBBS "Future of Trek" and "Trek Technology" forums (or just about anything written by Dixon or Whettestone) for enough examples to put you off your lunch for the rest of your life, if not longer.

I know James Dixon. I used to post in a Fidonet Echo that he frequented. His slavering hatred of James Okuda and everything he designed from TNG onwards is legendary. James considers anything that contradicts the FASA materials and the Starfleet Technical Manual that came out in the 70s to be non-canon. I've also seen him advance the theory that there were three different classes (or maybe it was just refits) of the TV series Enterprise, based on what the back of the nacelles looked like.

[LtFielding]

Why can't Truckee California change it's name slightly to a better name?

[mudshark]

'Cause "Tru-ki-zo" (name of local mid-19th-century Paiute chief) would cause even more trouble and "Tro-kay!" just means "Hello!"

[LtFielding]

No, I mean Trekkie.

[Nate the Great]

I'd pontificate about the stupidity of rigidly adhering to Trek canon circa late '70s, but since I'm rigidly adhering to Trek canon circa late '90s (no ENT or Nemesis for me, thank you), I don't have an apple box to stand on.

[mudshark]

No, I mean Trekkie.
Oh. Maybe when Trek does a "trapped in frozen wasteland and eating our redshirts" story?

[Nate the Great]

Why do so many guys insist on using the word "journal," dismissing "diaries" as sissy books that only girls write in?

How come the word "gal" never took off as much as "guy" did?

Ditto for "dudette."

Must cough syrup have that awful metallic taste?

Will we ever have a true unification of all of the nations of the world into a single political infrastructure?

[PointyHairedJedi]

Will we ever have a true unification of all of the nations of the world into a single political infrastructure?
Yes. Oh my, yes.


MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

[Nate the Great]

Oh, I can see the posters now: "PointyHairedJedi for Dictator of the Earth!" You might have to stand in line behind Dogbert, though.

[Chancellor Valium]

Yes. Oh my, yes.


MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Provided the power-brokering-deal with the Illuminati goes through. The J's may not be too happy about it, though.

[Nate the Great]

Do people really have nothing to post about? No links, no PNQs, nothing? I thought that these two threads could sort of be perpetually active, if only so you could say "I checked out that link, it was nice!" or "I've thought about that, too!"

[NAHTMMM]

Why do we open cans, bottles, toothpaste tubes, etc. by turning counter-clockwise but increase the volume on a radio by turning the knob clockwise?

Seems a bit inconsistent to me. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v27/Sloublues/Smilies/pd_thinking.gif