Random randomness

[dbt1949]

On this date in 1994 my wife and I met for the first time. Ah, memories.

[Daehawk]

Congrats to memories. I share mine on this day with you. Best to ya.

[Unagi]

What does your Alexa say when you say: "Alexa, you are getting cheeky".

[Pyperkub]

Stepped into a co-workers office today to borrow something and noticed he had brought in a personal laptop and was watching porn on it.

I'm only posting because I'm a bit miffed and had to vent- he makes over 20k/year more than me and does about half the work for effectively the same job.

[Isgrimnur]

Stepped into a co-workers office today to borrow something and noticed he had brought in a personal laptop and was watching porn on it.

I'm only posting because I'm a bit miffed and had to vent- he makes over 20k/year more than me and does about half the work for effectively the same job.

Report him to HR.

[Zarathud]

Everyone has their own deal.

That deal ends in termination when you’re watching sex content at work. Unless you’re in the sex industry. Or own the company.

[stimpy]

Stepped into a co-workers office today to borrow something and noticed he had brought in a personal laptop and was watching porn on it.

I'm only posting because I'm a bit miffed and had to vent- he makes over 20k/year more than me and does about half the work for effectively the same job.

Maybe he was mourning the loss of Raquel Welch....

[GreenGoo]

I realized recently that not only am I pedantic (I've known for years), but I LIKE being pedantic. I like when others are too, especially around language usage. It's fun.

Words mean things! Say what you mean, damn it!

[Jaymann]

[Jaymon]

Hell is other people.


I never wanted that to be true, but people keep proving it over and over.

[Isgrimnur]

[Pyperkub]

Stepped into a co-workers office today to borrow something and noticed he had brought in a personal laptop and was watching porn on it.

I'm only posting because I'm a bit miffed and had to vent- he makes over 20k/year more than me and does about half the work for effectively the same job.

Maybe he was mourning the loss of Raquel Welch....

Was reading one of her obits, and I had no idea that she was part Bolivian. She was just ALL Raquel Welch to me...

[Kraken]

I was walking my cat when a skunk came waddling at us from next door. Of course Warren wanted to charge in for battle, or maybe to make friends, so I scooped him up and retreated indoors. Seeing its quarry get away, the skunk went into my garage instead...where it might still be. I haven't been watching continuously but I haven't seen it leave. I need to take out the trash and then drive my motorcar, but at the moment I'm being held hostage by a skunk that might or might not be there.

I'll give it another 20 minutes, and then I have to brave the garage to complete my Thursday chores.

[dbt1949]

Pretend to be ill and have your wife do it.

[Madmarcus]

I've been seeing kids on TV about a year olde who are wearing glasses. How in the world can adults tell if a kid that young can see better?

I know this comment is ancient in internet terms but I feel compelled to mention that I got glasses at before I was one. Prior to that I didn't crawl. It seems that if everything outside of arms reach is a blurry mess there is no reason to go anywhere!

[dbt1949]

I'm glad you got them early and they helped you so well but this sort of thing is brand new to me!

[Max Peck]

I was curious about how they determine the prescription for an infant's eyeglasses, so I went looking and found this article that provides some basic information.

Frequently Asked Questions: how do eye doctors determine the prescription when a child can’t talk or read an eye chart

One of the questions that you run in to a lot when you have a very little one in glasses is how an eye doctor can determine the prescription of kids who can’t read letters yet — and in many cases, aren’t verbal yet. It was one of the things I wondered about when we took Zoe in at 9 months old. It turns out that eye doctors (optometrists and ophthalmologists) have a number of tools to help them do this. At Zoe’s early appointments, they used Teller Cards (grey cards with black and white lines on them) as well as dilating her eyes and using the retinoscope to look at the shape of her eye. The Teller cards are an example of a subjective measurement of her acuity – it requires some response from her, in this case, it was whether or not she looked at the black and white squares. Other examples of subjective measurements include eye charts, which can use letters or symbols. The retinoscopy was an objective refraction. That is, it looked at the shape of her eye to see how well she could focus without requiring a response from her.

[GreenGoo]

and then drive my motorcar

[wonderpug]

I realized recently that not only am I pedantic (I've known for years), but I LIKE being pedantic. I like when others are too, especially around language usage. It's fun.

Words mean things! Say what you mean, damn it!

Since you’re choosing to use parentheses to insert that extra information, the parentheses alone are enough to do it. You don’t put a comma after the closing parentheses.

[Holman]

I realized recently that not only am I pedantic (I've known for years), but I LIKE being pedantic. I like when others are too, especially around language usage. It's fun.

Words mean things! Say what you mean, damn it!

Since you’re choosing to use parentheses to insert that extra information, the parentheses alone are enough to do it. You don’t put a comma after the closing parentheses.

You do, however, need a comma before a coordinating conjunction (in this case, "but").

[Unagi]

I once read that the period should be kept inside the parenthesis (but I'm not sure if that's correct.)

EDIT:
OK, I checked... It's situational... And you did it perfectly fine Holman.

As a general rule, the period should fall inside the parentheses if the entire sentence is inside the parentheses. In contrast, the period should fall outside the parentheses if only a part of the sentence is inside the parentheses.


Outside:
The athletes competed in several events (biking, running, and swimming).

Inside:
The athletes competed in biking, running, and swimming. (Several other events were offered to the athletes, but they were not chosen as official events by the students.)


I'm glad I looked that up. I remember when I heard that rule (inside), I thought - "that can't be right."

[ImLawBoy]

I'm glad you got them early and they helped you so well but this sort of thing is brand new to me!

Congratulations! I didn't even know you were expecting!

[Isgrimnur]

https://www.geekyjerseys.com/product.php?id=272

[stessier]

I realized recently that not only am I pedantic (I've known for years), but I LIKE being pedantic. I like when others are too, especially around language usage. It's fun.

Words mean things! Say what you mean, damn it!

Since you’re choosing to use parentheses to insert that extra information, the parentheses alone are enough to do it. You don’t put a comma after the closing parentheses.

You do, however, need a comma before a coordinating conjunction (in this case, "but").

As I recall, only if it separates two independent clauses. The first clause, as written, is not independent.

[Skinypupy]

Today's interesting observation regarding generational communication styles came as I was submitting my expense report for the phone bill. I happened to look at the usage from my phone vs Little B 13.11.

- My phone: 160 text messages and 1,520 talk minutes (I use my cell as my work phone)
- Little B's usage: 4,513 text messages and...6 talk minutes

[coopasonic]

Today's interesting observation regarding generational communication styles came as I was submitting my expense report for the phone bill. I happened to look at the usage from my phone vs Little B 13.11.

- My phone: 160 text messages and 1,520 talk minutes (I use my cell as my work phone)
- Little B's usage: 4,513 text messages and...6 talk minutes

Over the same period:
Coop: 50 text messages, 10 talk minutes

A wild guess because I have no idea how to access those stats.

My phone is an MFA device with a few apps to order food without interacting with people and little else.

My 16yo: 20 text messages, 0 talk minutes, 5000 mobile game minutes

[Kraken]

Thanks for reminding me to look for my phone.

[Pyperkub]

Today's interesting observation regarding generational communication styles came as I was submitting my expense report for the phone bill. I happened to look at the usage from my phone vs Little B 13.11.

- My phone: 160 text messages and 1,520 talk minutes (I use my cell as my work phone)
- Little B's usage: 4,513 text messages and...6 talk minutes

Are those talk minutes you and the missus?

Sent from my SM-S908U1 using Tapatalk

[Daehawk]

Didn't even realize Con Nooga was going on this weekend. Horrible name.

http://www.connooga.com/

[Jaymann]

In the middle ages aluminum was considered more valuable than gold. Now we use it to wrap ears of corn on the barbecue.

[Unagi]

I don't think the metal we know as aluminum was 'discovered' until well after the middle ages.

And I grill my corn still in its original husk wrapper.

[Blackhawk]

I don't think the metal we know as aluminum was 'discovered' until well after the middle ages.

And I grill my corn still in its original husk wrapper.

This is true. The version they had in the middle ages was just alum.

[Daehawk]

WHAT THE TECH? New technology allowing people to appear as holograms instead of in-person

[LordMortis]

I don't think the metal we know as aluminum was 'discovered' until well after the middle ages.

And I grill my corn still in its original husk wrapper.

That's how I microwave it. I pretty much stopped eating corn on the cob until I discovered microwaving it. Oddly, I almost never use the microwave, as it seems to ruin most foods with uneven cooking. But CotC? Easy peasy and awesome. Come July, when I can get 16 ears of corn for $3 straight from the field, CotC becomes a staple for the next two months.

[Holman]

I realized recently that not only am I pedantic (I've known for years), but I LIKE being pedantic. I like when others are too, especially around language usage. It's fun.

Words mean things! Say what you mean, damn it!

Since you’re choosing to use parentheses to insert that extra information, the parentheses alone are enough to do it. You don’t put a comma after the closing parentheses.

You do, however, need a comma before a coordinating conjunction (in this case, "but").

As I recall, only if it separates two independent clauses. The first clause, as written, is not independent.

You're correct. That slipped by me.

But I function reflexively as an Oxfordian comma maximalist. If a comma is optional, I include it.

[MHS]

I was curious about how they determine the prescription for an infant's eyeglasses, so I went looking and found this article that provides some basic information.

Frequently Asked Questions: how do eye doctors determine the prescription when a child can’t talk or read an eye chart

One of the questions that you run in to a lot when you have a very little one in glasses is how an eye doctor can determine the prescription of kids who can’t read letters yet — and in many cases, aren’t verbal yet. It was one of the things I wondered about when we took Zoe in at 9 months old. It turns out that eye doctors (optometrists and ophthalmologists) have a number of tools to help them do this. At Zoe’s early appointments, they used Teller Cards (grey cards with black and white lines on them) as well as dilating her eyes and using the retinoscope to look at the shape of her eye. The Teller cards are an example of a subjective measurement of her acuity – it requires some response from her, in this case, it was whether or not she looked at the black and white squares. Other examples of subjective measurements include eye charts, which can use letters or symbols. The retinoscopy was an objective refraction. That is, it looked at the shape of her eye to see how well she could focus without requiring a response from her.

This is so weird. The passage you linked was written by the wife of an OOer. It's her website. The world and internet are definitely small places.

[Max Peck]

There was a time when aluminum was considered more valuable than gold. Now we use it to wrap ears of corn on the barbecue.

Mortoned, because:

Attempts to produce aluminium metal date back to 1760. The first successful attempt, however, was completed in 1824 by Danish physicist and chemist Hans Christian Ørsted. He reacted anhydrous aluminium chloride with potassium amalgam, yielding a lump of metal looking similar to tin. He presented his results and demonstrated a sample of the new metal in 1825. In 1827, German chemist Friedrich Wöhler repeated Ørsted's experiments but did not identify any aluminium. (The reason for this inconsistency was only discovered in 1921.) He conducted a similar experiment in the same year by mixing anhydrous aluminium chloride with potassium and produced a powder of aluminium. In 1845, he was able to produce small pieces of the metal and described some physical properties of this metal. For many years thereafter, Wöhler was credited as the discoverer of aluminium.

As Wöhler's method could not yield great quantities of aluminium, the metal remained rare; its cost exceeded that of gold. The first industrial production of aluminium was established in 1856 by French chemist Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire Deville and companions. Deville had discovered that aluminium trichloride could be reduced by sodium, which was more convenient and less expensive than potassium, which Wöhler had used. Even then, aluminium was still not of great purity and produced aluminium differed in properties by sample. Because of its electricity-conducting capacity, aluminium was used as the cap of the Washington Monument, completed in 1885. The tallest building in the world at the time, the non-corroding metal cap was intended to serve as a lightning rod peak.

So, yes, there was a time when aluminium was more valuable than gold, but that time was a bit more recent than the Middle Ages.

[Jaymann]

Correct. However the aforementioned alum was more valuable than gold, used to dye wool. In the middle ages.

[Max Peck]

I didn't find a specific citation for the value of alum dye relative to gold in any period of time, so I cannot confirm or deny the veracity of that statement. However, I strongly suspect that the seed of the idea that aluminium was more valuable than gold "in the middle ages" lies in the factoid about the actual value of the metal while it was still rare.

[Unagi]

I don't think the metal we know as aluminum was 'discovered' until well after the middle ages.

And I grill my corn still in its original husk wrapper.

That's how I microwave it. I pretty much stopped eating corn on the cob until I discovered microwaving it. Oddly, I almost never use the microwave, as it seems to ruin most foods with uneven cooking. But CotC? Easy peasy and awesome. Come July, when I can get 16 ears of corn for $3 straight from the field, CotC becomes a staple for the next two months.

Steaming broccoli is also another microwave gem.