george57l

bio:The Lego (not legos) pedant!

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Commented on TV vs Web: consumption characteristics
"On cranky usability guy Jakob Neilsen's Alertbox there is this wonderful chart on the relative "consumption" characteristics of TV vs the web." There - all fixed now....
Commented on Associated Press loves fair use (we just wish they'd share)
Boing Drogue ?...
Commented on Murdoch-Microsoft deal in the works
When "news is sold not told" ?? Well some of it may APPEAR free (e.g. if your local newspaper is freely distributed with no cover price - but the ads still fund it and those ads cost money that goes...
Commented on Hurting Google
"The Graun"???? WTF? Where did THAT come from? Those with long memories who remember the old days when The Guardian did have more than its fair share of typos will be familiar with "The Grauniad" - but "The Graun"? Really?...
Commented on TSA doesn't understand what "random" means
Well that link really helped. (Not) "In mathematics and physics, the adjective ergodic is used to imply that a system satisfies the ergodic hypothesis of thermodynamics or that it is a system studied in ergodic theory." Seems a bit self-referential...
Commented on Toronto Star copyeditor edits memo announcing the elimination of copyeditor jobs
Antinous I half agree. Indians speak Indian English, as opposed to British people speaking British English and Americans speaking American English. As a British English writer often called on to edit Indian English output let me tell you they do...
Commented on 20-year old Iraqi woman dies; father ran her over for being too Westernized
Totally agree, Antinous, but "We should stop condemning Islam and start condemning the devaluation of women." And how much of this devaluation of women arises from (medieval) religious beliefs? Islam being not the only one, but one of the more...
Commented on 20-year old Iraqi woman dies; father ran her over for being too Westernized
"And if a Christian man kills his daughter because she violates his values (which isn't that rare), should we then ban Christians from North America?" Well, it would be a start, at least......
Commented on BREATHE DEEP AND LET GO OF THINGS -- alternative to "Keep Calm and Carry On"
"Breathe deep" is not correct unless "deep" is a noun. What is this "deep" thing of which you speak and how do I breathe it? Breathe deeply. And what has a picture of an old-fashioned ship's wheel got to do...
Commented on BREATHE DEEP AND LET GO OF THINGS -- alternative to "Keep Calm and Carry On"
Pedantry alert "... and Let Things Go" reads/sounds better. I'm less bothered, but the grammar nazi in me prefers "Breathe deeply" But on balance I'd buy it if it said "Take a Deep Breath, and Let It Go" I really...
Commented on Yahoo hires lap-dancers to entertain at its open, inclusive Hack Day event
I don't disagree with Cory in general on this but ... (and I'm just saying) this is posted by the same guy who thinks cartoons of sexy nubile nude male magazine fantasy type girlies are ok because they were in...
Commented on In praise of IBM ThinkPad warranty service
How do you know I left it discharged for any period? You don't. And I didn't. I treated it the same way as every other laptop battery I've never had any problem with....
Commented on Boing Boing: The World's Greatest Neurozine!
Oh right - well thank you for the information in your dour and unentertaining post. But I still don't get why numbered posts aren't a shoe-in - they are an incredibly important visual clue to navigating threads. And I STILL...
Commented on Boing Boing: The World's Greatest Neurozine!
HERE IS A COMMENT I JUST POSTED ON ANOTHER THREAD WHERE I USED THE NEW 'REPLY' THING: This new 'reply' thing simply does not work. At the end of the thread it says I replied to anonymous - no way...
Commented on In praise of IBM ThinkPad warranty service
Yes it has survived. Two days after getting the phone call I referred to above, to ask if all was ok, I got an email with a link to a cust sat survey which would clearly track bak to the...
Commented on In praise of IBM ThinkPad warranty service
Inconsequential back-up to this praise of service standards: I have the bog std warranty on my IBM Thinkpad. Some time ago the power block stopped working. As I had a spare I left it alone and did nothing. But then...
Commented on Boing Boing: The World's Greatest Neurozine!
Hmm - sorry - can't stop scratching at the itch...(and sorry if this shows up twice - time-out and temporary marble displacement) Judging by the amount of quite detailed, technical 'constructive criticism' from people claiming to have some real professional...
Commented on Boing Boing: The World's Greatest Neurozine!
Ok - so "Read rest" works (apart from being about 2 or 3 posts out of date) and looks much more like the old pure 'white space' model. Please make it bookmarkable as an alternate 'home page' for BB or...
Commented on Boing Boing: The World's Greatest Neurozine!
"So you let Rob fuglify BB Gadgets, and now you've let him fuglify Boing Boing. Great. Just great. Never heard "if it ain't broke don't fix it," have you?" Whoever said that got it spot on. Same thing people said...
Commented on Banned Books Week and "most challenged titles" of 2008!
Editing is censorship? Even a time-served pedant like me finds that a bit much. So every time someone "edited" one of the sci-fi anthologies on my bookshelf, they were censoring, eh? Nice to know - thanks....
Commented on UK Border Agency's pseudoscientific "race-detection" DNA/isotope tests has scientific experts "horrified"
Well apart from the erroneously assumed state handouts, and the free NHS, maybe it is just the fact we speak ENGLISH? The most likely 2nd language for many migrants to have a grasp of?...
Commented on Are Muslim Women Oppressed? Ask One
So many people missing the point ... So nobody is forcing Aman Ai to wear or not wear anything, in the USA. Well that's just peachy. Try pretending that in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan and see how unoppressed you...
Commented on We don't pay for "content," we pay for "form"
"The reason they are making less money now is that advertising has plummeted." Well, yes - but for 2 reasons 1 - because there is less being spent on advertising overall 2 - even if 1 were not true, newspapers...
Commented on Student kills burglary suspect with Samurai sword
Church I think you really wanted to say pedanterize. ;-)...
Commented on Student kills burglary suspect with Samurai sword
@ #17 and #34 I'm with #17. Stop using burglarize unless committed by burglarizers. If committed by burglars use burgled. Eaters don't eaterize, they eat; editors don't editorize they edit; contributors don't contributorize, they contribute' spellers don't spellarize, they spell;...
Commented on BBC wants to put DRM on the TV Brits are forced to pay for
I just rattled his inbox too. Not just about the issue but the disgrace of a so-called consultation that was not public and was open for only 2 weeks. Whose side are Ofcom on? (Oh - wait ...)...
Commented on Steampunk rugged corset
Not steampunk - but non-steampunk garment on a teampunk-maker. Another case of Cory's headline crafting going a bit beyond the actual content of the article. He should get a job with the News of the Screws....
Commented on Rumored Canon G11, angry at own mediocrity, flips out
Good to see the G series bringing back the flip-out screen. Still have a G3 with that, and this feature alone means it still gets used sometimes. Couldn't believe they left it out of later models....
Commented on Movie/record industry rep says that you shouldn't expect to be able to play your media for as long as you own it
@ #15 Some good questions but surely you DO understand why ... Because they think like this. a) Copyright for 50 years, sell the punter one CD with perpetual licence = 1 x revenue unit b) copyright for 1000 years,...
Commented on What real piracy looks like: biopirate loses patent over century-old latinamerican staple crop
If Latin America is too much to type, what with all those different case letters and spaces and all, why not just type LA? Oh, wait ......

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William C Bonner commented on TV vs Web: consumption characteristics
At first glance I was intrigued. Then I saw that the TV watching experience was so outdated by not using a DVR. (The only time I pick a show and sit back for half an hour, watching all of the commercials, is when I'm working on my laptop, so the TV has less than 50% of my attention already.) Then I saw that the social experience of the web was outdated by not including IM or social media. Then I saw that the modern web experience was outdated by not having any comment space for social interaction. After all that,...
holyalmost commented on TV vs Web: consumption characteristics
Exactly what I thought too when reading the 'passive' user experience thing. As soon as you start imagining extended scenes and your own desired character interactions it's not passive anymore. In front of the tube is practically my drawing studio. This would probably count as Distraction too. The TV column may need some more thought in order to be more accurate. I have to love a show to pay attention to it unwaveringly. The dinner table and the TV room is just the place our family spends time together, it doesn't mean we're really watching what happens to be on...
Tania commented on TV vs Web: consumption characteristics
This is bizarrely out of date. Tivo? Netflix? The list doesn't even take into account the age of cable; everyone watches the same basic channels so the programming is bland? The Daily Show, Lost, the Wire, the X-Files, MST 3K, in fact, the Twilight Zone, these things were bland? I know they lack LOLcats, but still. And as for supposed lack of distractions on TV, the innovation I hate most in TV news is the proliferation of little windows and scrolling text here and there; you have to evolve a kind of tunnel vision to keep your mind on the...
nomnomdom commented on Murdoch-Microsoft deal in the works
Any argument that begins by making observations about the qualities of dedication and bravery and high professional standards displayed by the noble journalists employed at AP, and then goes on to attempt to draw conclusions that relate to the lying sleazy utterly dishonest fantasists and delusional confabulators who work for Murdoch's tabloids and sit safely at home in the office fabricating stories from bare-faced lies and fiction, is utterly fallacious. Um, wow... That's a little harsh. I don't like News Corp's opinion pieces either, but their journalists do very good work. Daniel Pearl worked for the Wall Street Journal....
nomnomdom commented on Murdoch-Microsoft deal in the works
Hurray! No more Newscorp b*llshit on Google is a Thanksgiving gift, is it not? And I've been using Puppy Linux (fast, trouble-free and chock full of goodies, a speed-demon on a 600mhz processor with 256megs of ram, virus free) for the last two years everyday. It does everything Microsucks does and at no cost. Is there a version of Godwin's Law for Microsoft? Any thread about Microsoft, no matter how tangential, will eventually include someone mentioning that their Linux build is better than Windows. ;)...

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