Search found 2575 matches
- Sun Aug 06, 2017 8:19 pm UTC
- Forum: Science
- Topic: Science-based what-if questions
- Replies: 569
- Views: 59514
Re: Science-based what-if questions
Well, I think only the power source itself is magical, not everything else we attach to it.
- Sun Aug 06, 2017 10:39 am UTC
- Forum: Science
- Topic: Science-based what-if questions
- Replies: 569
- Views: 59514
Re: Science-based what-if questions
Yeah, if it was literally an infinite AA, you'd be limited to things like the first option. If it's made of magic and has no current limitations, internal resistance, or operating temperature range, then there's a maximum current you'll be able to draw before it vaporizes whatever contacts you devis...
- Sun Aug 06, 2017 12:33 am UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1871: "Bun Alert"
- Replies: 86
- Views: 9285
Re: 1871: "Bun Alert"
Yeah, it's not at all new. The people who call snakes sneks and birds birbs call rabbits buns.
- Wed Aug 02, 2017 11:20 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1871: "Bun Alert"
- Replies: 86
- Views: 9285
Re: 1871: "Bun Alert"
orthogon wrote:BrandonH66 wrote:Who saw the title and thought it would have man buns somewhere in it?
Are they the same as moobs?
Ideally not, no. They should ideally be very unlike that. But I suppose that they can converge.
- Wed Aug 02, 2017 11:13 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1870: "Emoji Movie Reviews"
- Replies: 53
- Views: 6061
Re: 1870: "Emoji Movie Reviews"
orthogon wrote:Actually it seems that's its tail, not its head!
Ah, so it contains a horse the way A contains an ox.
- Sun Jul 30, 2017 4:21 am UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1869: "Positive and Negative Reviews"
- Replies: 23
- Views: 3284
Re: 1869: "Positive and Negative Reviews"
Amazon's reviews are meant to be of the product, though, so that is frustrating. It could ship from all sorts of different suppliers and be on the same page, the review corresponds to the whole thing.
- Fri Jul 28, 2017 6:21 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1869: "Positive and Negative Reviews"
- Replies: 23
- Views: 3284
Re: 1869: "Positive and Negative Reviews"
Flumble wrote:No product with "smart" in its name can be any good.
I'd generally agree, but the car is quite good.
- Fri Jul 28, 2017 5:59 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1863: "Screenshots"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5581
Re: 1863: "Screenshots"
this is the worst fate
- Fri Jul 28, 2017 3:13 am UTC
- Forum: Language/Linguistics
- Topic: Miscellaneous language questions
- Replies: 549
- Views: 64106
Re: Miscellaneous language questions
I feel like that's the difference, though, that in the three listed cases, it's an established word that took on an onomatopoeic element in reference to a linguistic thing that happens to it sometimes, which seems like ... a pretty unusual phenomenon really.
- Fri Jul 28, 2017 3:08 am UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1863: "Screenshots"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5581
Re: 1863: "Screenshots"
What's my punishment for having my Microsoft account linked in GNOME / Ubuntu Linux?
- Wed Jul 19, 2017 4:40 am UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1863: "Screenshots"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5581
Re: 1863: "Screenshots"
Eh, it varies with the system. Mac makes a lot of use of the desktop, it's hard to get around. Windows uses it, but it's redundant and easy to ignore once you pin the Recycle Bin to Start and turn off the icons. It's just a wallpaper by default in GNOME (though you can turn on the Windows functional...
- Mon Jul 17, 2017 10:32 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1863: "Screenshots"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5581
Re: 1863: "Screenshots"
Xfce also has five years on macOS, but I wasn't using either at either time and have no idea who decided that the desktop was a good place to save scrots first. Odds are good it wasn't on the initial release of either.
- Sun Jul 16, 2017 11:11 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1863: "Screenshots"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5581
Re: 1863: "Screenshots"
Nice! Good to know! Thanks.
- Sun Jul 16, 2017 10:27 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1863: "Screenshots"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5581
Re: 1863: "Screenshots"
People who never learned to use laptop trackpads weird me. There are a lot of tasks for which a mouse is vastly superior, but there's really no task for which a laptop in your lap, but with a mouse, makes any sense at all. I mean, I suppose there are still Thinkpads if you'd rather a clit mouse. Dra...
- Sun Jul 16, 2017 5:50 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1863: "Screenshots"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5581
Re: 1863: "Screenshots"
Yeah, that dialog is inherited from prior versions of GNOME, and that strategy is super-common in third-party screenshot tools. It's a very sensible solution. I dunno, if you insist on doing absolutely everything with the keyboard, not a lot of typical modern GUI stuff is going to make a great deal ...
- Sun Jul 16, 2017 4:49 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1863: "Screenshots"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5581
Re: 1863: "Screenshots"
Not for the only time, in the last week, I don't understand the arguments on a situation where I have an apparent disagreement with someone. And I do worry that it's entirely me at fault. Ask me in private/invite me onto a dedicated technical subforum thread if you really want to, but I am not poll...
- Sun Jul 16, 2017 3:38 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1863: "Screenshots"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5581
Re: 1863: "Screenshots"
Okay, so you don't use a clipboard manager because you prefer fussing around between windows and tabs like a person who doesn't know what a clipboard manager is. Good Android apps are indeed hard to find, and I don't have a preferred image editor myself; it's exactly the kind of app where I feel And...
- Sun Jul 16, 2017 12:25 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1863: "Screenshots"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5581
Re: 1863: "Screenshots"
1, I use my clipboard a hell of a lot more than I think a lot of people do, because there are people who don't even use a fucking clipboard manager. Quite probably a majority of people. Benighted drifters all. In any case, the fact that I use it is why I don't want irrelevant features fucking it up....
- Sun Jul 16, 2017 8:42 am UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1863: "Screenshots"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5581
Re: 1863: "Screenshots"
Regardless of anything else, there are a number of things about Dropbox's apparent default behaviour that I don't like... *shudder* (And that was the problem. Rather than the expected image to copypasta, it turned out to be a text link... Except it originally wasn't linked to Ctrl- (Alt-)PrintScree...
- Sun Jul 16, 2017 6:03 am UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1863: "Screenshots"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5581
Re: 1863: "Screenshots"
It's not what you're attenuated to. It is fewer and less arcane steps than all of that nonsense with your image editor, which you've been trained into by bad design and time. It is objectively, inherently, fundamentally more convenient. Edit: And cry me a security river if people are freely accessin...
- Sun Jul 16, 2017 2:10 am UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1863: "Screenshots"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5581
Re: 1863: "Screenshots"
Take the screenshot
Open the file
Delete the file
This is not hard
Open the file
Delete the file
This is not hard
- Sat Jul 15, 2017 11:48 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1863: "Screenshots"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5581
Re: 1863: "Screenshots"
Well, by default, GNOME just spams the files into your Pictures folder. I'm 99.8% certain I remember clicking something on setting up Dropbox's capture method. If not, well, it is at least superior to whatever the fuck Windows does. Using the clipboard shouldn't even be an option, it's idiotic. Edit...
- Sat Jul 15, 2017 9:44 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1863: "Screenshots"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 5581
Re: 1863: "Screenshots"
I love how screenshots work on Windows with Dropbox installed. Just takes the shot, saves the image to a Screenshots folder in the Dropbox one, and puts up a notification. Had to set up a script to get the same behavior with the screenshot tool in GNOME (although, to be fair, at least it allows for ...
- Sat Jul 15, 2017 6:21 am UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1847: "Dubious Study"
- Replies: 28
- Views: 4641
Re: 1847: "Dubious Study"
If you feel the news media's purpose is to make the leading political parties happy, yes.
- Wed Jul 12, 2017 7:40 am UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1861: "Quantum"
- Replies: 69
- Views: 6925
Re: 1861: "Quantum"
Yeah, HUP is almost always described in "accessible" texts as that tradeoff of the precise definition of a particle's momentum vs. position, sometimes and sometimes not with the oversimplification that that's the only information we can know rather than the only information there is, and t...
- Tue Jul 11, 2017 5:09 am UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1861: "Quantum"
- Replies: 69
- Views: 6925
Re: 1861: "Quantum"
I thought it was Extended.
- Tue Jul 11, 2017 4:41 am UTC
- Forum: Language/Linguistics
- Topic: Longest Name
- Replies: 24
- Views: 4716
Re: Longest Name
Yeah, the original question we're talking about here was how much people abbreviate. Telegraph operators certainly" count", and are also a very small and not very significant number of instances in that tally.
- Fri Jul 07, 2017 1:47 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1859: "Sports Knowledge"
- Replies: 44
- Views: 5583
Re: 1859: "Sports Knowledge"
I would have guessed that "plus slugging" was a thing and taken "on-base" as either a modifier phrase or a noun creating a compound - comes to the same in this case for intonation purposes, with the emphasis falling really heavily on the "on" and "plus". Treat...
- Fri Jul 07, 2017 6:32 am UTC
- Forum: Language/Linguistics
- Topic: Longest Name
- Replies: 24
- Views: 4716
Re: Longest Name
The TLA particularly seems like a nineteenth and twentieth century fixation. Like, was there a point in history where newspapers were writing stories about the EIC?
- Fri Jul 07, 2017 3:53 am UTC
- Forum: Fictional Science
- Topic: What if there was a Zombie Apocalypse?
- Replies: 23
- Views: 3257
Re: What if there was a Zombie Apocalypse?
Slow undead zombies... Societal collapse would happen quickly, but more due to other people than the actual undead... I think, frankly, that most of the slow zombie genre greatly overestimates how quickly the living would be overtaken by slow zombies. I'd expect large pockets of survivors, especial...
- Thu Jul 06, 2017 2:04 pm UTC
- Forum: Language/Linguistics
- Topic: Longest Name
- Replies: 24
- Views: 4716
Re: Longest Name
Yeah, you're right, and even if there is any difference, it'd be nearly impossible to filter out from all of the other much less subtle factors like that.
- Thu Jul 06, 2017 7:09 am UTC
- Forum: Language/Linguistics
- Topic: Longest Name
- Replies: 24
- Views: 4716
Re: Longest Name
It'll depend massively on cultural context. How much brevity in speech is valued, the structure of the language itself. In the West we presently abbreviate a fair bit more than we did a century ago in writing, and I think that's true to a lesser extent in speech as well. English has a lot of informa...
- Wed Jul 05, 2017 8:09 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1859: "Sports Knowledge"
- Replies: 44
- Views: 5583
Re: 1859: "Sports Knowledge"
This is either the most boring xkcd in years or else it's Randall trolling the sportsfans amongst us nerds. I fail to see the humor in being proud and vocal about one's lack of knowledge in any field. Yeah, it's less dangerous when the field is sports rather than, say being POTUS, but still. I feel...
- Wed Jul 05, 2017 12:41 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1858: "4th of July"
- Replies: 26
- Views: 4160
Re: 1858: "4th of July"
I think they're meant to be very knowingly celebrating independence from humans.
- Wed Jul 05, 2017 12:20 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1858: "4th of July"
- Replies: 26
- Views: 4160
Re: 1858: "4th of July"
He's not confusing anything. That there are gaps in the reasoning is why this is a joke as opposed to a serious conjecture. Why do you believe that excuses are warranted? Humoring you is a big ask, don't take it for granted.
- Tue Jul 04, 2017 5:47 am UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1858: "4th of July"
- Replies: 26
- Views: 4160
Re: 1858: "4th of July"
I thought robot civil wars usually started over limited energy resources.
- Sat Jul 01, 2017 9:10 pm UTC
- Forum: Language/Linguistics
- Topic: Regional Dialect and Idiolect Oddities (pronunciation)
- Replies: 911
- Views: 210431
Re: Regional Dialect and Idiolect Oddities (pronunciation)
I vaguely recall training myself to say it as it's spelled thinking that the /ŋ/ was an error at the time. The latter is certainly still more natural to my ear.
- Sat Jul 01, 2017 9:08 pm UTC
- Forum: Language/Linguistics
- Topic: Annoying words, and Words You Hate
- Replies: 1951
- Views: 390876
Re: Annoying words, and Words You Hate
"It's all arbitrary anyway" doesn't mean that all possible solutions are equally useful. A system could consider Australia part of Asia and consider the UK a separate continent, and that would be only equally "arbitrary" in a strict sense but definitely less useful. The system yo...
- Sat Jul 01, 2017 1:58 am UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1857: Emoji Movie
- Replies: 48
- Views: 8550
Re: 1857: Emoji Movie
W, V, and J would like to have a word with you.
- Fri Jun 30, 2017 10:43 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1857: Emoji Movie
- Replies: 48
- Views: 8550
Re: 1857: Emoji Movie
Fun fact: the German word "Umlaut" does not contain a single umlaut. And "eszett" or "scharfes S" as names for ß don't contain ß either. Well, from a nation with a mostly unadorned alphabet (a № of naïve encyclopædic fœcundities of archæa, aside), I shall add that &quo...