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Author Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O  (Read 14849967 times)

Frumple

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #78120 on: June 01, 2015, 09:56:13 am »

That... that's more or less what PoH said, Ree.
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Reelya

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #78121 on: June 01, 2015, 10:03:22 am »

I don't think it's the same thing at all.

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Uncle Tom's Cabin is pretty interesting. It uses minstrel show characters to try and subvert racist views of slavery, but racists missed the point and minstrel show versions of Uncle Tom were really popular.

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It uses minstrel show characters to try and subvert racist views of slavery,

First, it's from the book. It didn't use minstrels at all. Those shows were not sanctioned by the author, but they got away with it because copyright protections in the 19th century barely existed.

The shows were still racist by any stretch, all the shows. The book itself is even pretty racist to modern readers. The book was anti-slavery but still had old fashioned racist views of black people. The shows were full of negative charicatures of black people, even the anti-slavery versions of the shows. Everyone thought that was normal back then. So, this was not about subverting racist views of slavery, that just wasn't how people viewed things back then. You shouldn't mistreat the inferior races, the same as you shouldn't beat animals. It was racist paternalist thinking, that happened to be anti-slavery. We shouldn't conflate how people viewed the issue back then with our moden views.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2015, 10:14:11 am by Reelya »
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Rolan7

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #78122 on: June 01, 2015, 10:20:01 am »

Blur, the Wendy's drive through has this stupid recorded intro which isn't obviously an intro.  As I recall it's "Welcome to Wendy's!  Would you like to try our new ghost pepper fries?" or something like that.  I replied to it once thinking it was just an oddly (or forcedly) enthusiastic employee.  Which felt really embarrassing once the actual person came on.

It's still bugging me though, because I kinda feel like I'm supposed to reply to alert the actual person.  Even though they obviously have cameras and all, and if I say nothing they ask for my order after a few seconds...  Not sure.  Last time I just said "Hi" in a really casual way and I hope it didn't come off impatient or passive aggressive.

Stupid recording!
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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #78123 on: June 01, 2015, 11:15:28 am »

I don't know if I should put this in the happy thread or not, but all of a sudden I start hearing the sound of rain on the rooftop. It's absolutely pouring.


Probably shouldn't go into the happy thread after all, since it's already mostly stopped while writing this, and I have to walk in it.
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Radio Controlled

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #78124 on: June 01, 2015, 11:32:53 am »

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Yes, but if you're gonna pronounce them, then having at least an approximation for alien sounds is better, no? When you try to pronounce something foreign, you try to approximate since presumably, native speakers need to understand you. I mean, if you have no spiracles, you can just tap your sides with your arms and hiss, but just making a pause there isn't really the best idea. Why would he address her as ma-pause-ry if that adds nothing for both of them - for him it'd be easier without a pause, and she presumably knows that he has no spiracles and can't pronounce it, so why not just drop it altogether?
I must also reiterate that creatures that share most of their phonetic inventory with humans but have additional sounds that humans can't even begin to approximate are pretty improbable in the first place.
The last argument holds some weight, but then there are races that were supposedly familiar to mankind for a long time. For those, the "not mapped yet" hypothesis makes no sense. Besides, really, the more such unpronounceable sounds your aliens have, the less point there is for a human to speak their language instead of just writing on a markerboard or something, because with the number of unpronounceable and unadapted fragments increasing, his comprehensibility to them would decrease.
Sorry, I'm just feeling argumentative today.

Yeah, but again, what if some of their sounds are beyond human hearing by a few hundred hertz or something? Hard to reproduce a sound you can't even hear (though that loses some weight since it appears to be a sci-fi setting, they could use equipment to record it and then try to find some way to emulate it, maybe).

As to what it adds: say the alien couldn't make the letter 'r' in any way. If it said 'both' it might mean 'both' or 'broth', and I wouldn't be sure. If it said 'b'oth' then I know there's supposed to be a sound there, so I might understand him a bit easier, cause the list of words it might have meant decreases. I admit the example with the name wasn't the best one, but still, you see my point? There's loads of words in English where, if you drop a letter/letters, you get a different word. Might also be for the alien language. So, the pauze indicates missing letters/characters/sounds/whatevs to help interpretation. Note that the 'missing sound' indication doesn't really have to be a pauze, they might waggle their eyebrows instead, and this is indicated with the '.

True about the fact that sharing most of the phonetic inventory 'except some extra bits' might not be extremely plausible, but then again, you're reading sci fi with aliens. You want it hard? Go read the NASA webpage  :P

That last point I can easily concede, cause I don't actually know for sure what novels you were talking about (did you mention it yet?), so I dunno how familiar they 'ought' to be. I don't even know if they are actually speaking said language, or just found a voice recording of it they were transcribing, or if they know the aliens so well they get together for drinks on the weekend. Without context, I'm kinda arguing in a void, so I presumed a very general case.

And don't worry about it, not like you aren't right in saying it's probably lazyness of the author. Even if we find a reasonable explanation, it's unlikely that's what he actually had in mind.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2015, 11:36:37 am by Radio Controlled »
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #78125 on: June 01, 2015, 11:49:10 am »

Wtf my killing in the name of the Buddha thread got locked overnight, without any word from Toady on it.

If I had to guess, it would be because Loud Whispers said fucking fuck too fucking many fucking times in his replies :(
Fucking sorry m8, it's such an evocative word

Neonivek

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #78126 on: June 01, 2015, 12:27:16 pm »

UGH!

I know Windows 10 is going to suck just like Windows 8 did...

But if I don't upgrade my computers while it is free my dad is going to kill me... this sucks.

It has the EXACT same problem Windows 8 did... it is made for TABLETS and not for a Personal Computer

It even has a store built right into it... >_<

And the start menu? Isn't a start menu it is the stupid Windows 8 starting menu at a button... DEAR STUPID GOODNESS CRUD GARBAGE AHHH!

WTF when did the definition of UPGRADE become something that is worse in every respect but is forced upon you?
« Last Edit: June 01, 2015, 12:30:31 pm by Neonivek »
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Neonivek

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #78127 on: June 01, 2015, 12:37:29 pm »

The windows 10 start menu is going to be a traditional/Win8 hybrid. Basically, it has the menu at the side, then the win8 start menu stuff next to that, so you can choose whichever is convenient.

If you actually check the screen shots of Windows 10 you will see that it isn't the standard start menu with the thing to the side.

Not unless it comes with a bunch of useless crud
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Bohandas

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #78128 on: June 01, 2015, 12:49:04 pm »

UGH!

I know Windows 10 is going to suck just like Windows 8 did...

But if I don't upgrade my computers while it is free my dad is going to kill me... this sucks.

It has the EXACT same problem Windows 8 did... it is made for TABLETS and not for a Personal Computer

It even has a store built right into it... >_<

And the start menu? Isn't a start menu it is the stupid Windows 8 starting menu at a button... DEAR STUPID GOODNESS CRUD GARBAGE AHHH!

WTF when did the definition of UPGRADE become something that is worse in every respect but is forced upon you?

Never EVER buy an even numbered version of Windows.

(also, why the hell wasn't there a Windows 9. Microsoft has reached the point where they're worse than Lucasfilms in terms of numbering things out of order)
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BlitzDungeoneer

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #78129 on: June 01, 2015, 12:54:35 pm »

Bohandas, I consider your opinion misinformed and feel you should reconsider.
I actually quite like Windows 8.1.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2015, 12:56:53 pm by BlitzDungeoneer »
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GiglameshDespair

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #78130 on: June 01, 2015, 12:55:47 pm »

With 8.1, to be honest, I'd had no problems and it's worked fine.
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Bohandas

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #78131 on: June 01, 2015, 12:57:25 pm »

With 8.1, to be honest, I'd had no problems and it's worked fine.

Well that's not an even number. It's not even a whole number.
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wierd

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #78132 on: June 01, 2015, 12:57:49 pm »

Microsoft stopped following thier own slogan, "where do you want to go today?" and replaced it with "We want to drive you here today, and you WILL like it."

That's been happening since XP actually.  Many corporate users preferred the no-frills, no-nonsense UI of NT4/Win2000 (just the UI design mind, not the lack of features.) To placate them, aqua (The UI in XP) was optional and could be turned off. A LOT OF PEOPLE DID.  Did this disuade microsoft from making "Blast your eyeballs out with eye candy!" the default, and later ONLY choice in windows vista and win7?  no. No it did not. instead, you had the choice of Aero (the UI used there) and a kludgy looking aqua clone.  (because the older UIs were just too old, and marketing wanted FRESH and NEW and also because it played into the apple levied stereotypes of the mac vs pc commercials where the eye candy was shown as a feature, nevermind the different market demographics.)  Then out came the UI formerly known as Metro. Pretty much universally, everyone hated(/s) it. Did microsoft concede? only slightly with the 8.1 upgrade. Will they listen and stop the horseshit? Not if 4 prior versions of windows are any indicator.

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Neonivek

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #78133 on: June 01, 2015, 01:01:39 pm »

I honestly shouldn't be looking at Windows 97 and saying to myself "Well, this seems like a much more convenient UI then the one made twenty years later"

I don't want advertisements right on my screen by default...

So if I want to change my screen resolution for example... I click on the start menu, click on control panel, and then click on display... DONE

Three clicks.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2015, 01:03:38 pm by Neonivek »
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Rolan7

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #78134 on: June 01, 2015, 01:04:28 pm »

It's fine to like Windows 8, but the switch to a mobile-style interface was very grating for... I think it's safe to say *most* people.

I think age is a major factor, and not in a disparaging way.  My peers and I are used to a different style of interface, so of course adjustment would be difficult.

But, in this case I think it's also true that the new UI in 8 is objectively worse for personal computers with mice.  I'm sure it's fine or touchscreens and mobile devices, but not mouse+keyboard.  In other words, unlike the previous OS adjustments we've had to make, I've yet to see a compelling argument that this one would pay off in any way.

Windows 10 seems to have shunted the mobile-centric UI away a bit, which is encouraging, but I'm not really paying attention to it yet.  Windows 7 works perfectly well for my needs, and probably will do so until Microsoft starts forcing upgrades by intentionally breaking DirectX.  Like they did to sell Vista, another horrible upgrade nobody wanted.  They eventually fixed Vista and relabeled it as 7.  Is 10 the new 7?  I don't know and they haven't forced me to care yet.
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