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credburn posted:Haha, it was a long time after I got Windows 10 that I saw the Cortana thing, and I kept thinking that name was weirdly familiar but I couldn't remember why until my ex reminded me it was that voice from Halo (I only played the first one; didn't they sexy her up or something later?) I think so, but playing the first one again her dialogue, even then, is often trying to be sexy.
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# ? Jun 16, 2022 00:24 |
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# ? May 14, 2024 05:06 |
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Not to beat a dead horse, but... This whole discussion has got me thinking about that particular phrase. The metaphorical meaning of it is pretty clear, but I've offhandedly wondered "why a horse?" And what I'm just figuring out is that the phrase is probably based on the assumption that beating a living horse would actually be useful, i.e. it would compel the horse to do something. As I'm not particularly in the habit of beating horses myself, this implication didn't really cross my mind. I just figured well yeah, of course that's a useless thing to do, the horse is already dead after all. Hell's wrong with you. You could probably make the idiom more palatable to modern audiences by specifically sticking to the "you can't beat a dead horse" phrasing, with emphasis on the idea by beating the horse, the owner has killed it, and perhaps they should regret beating it at all. It's a bit of a long walk, but it could work I guess. Like killing the goose that laid the golden egg or whatever.
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# ? Jun 16, 2022 13:12 |
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You can't make an omelette without beating a horse.
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# ? Jun 16, 2022 13:26 |
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At the end of the day, when you get out of bed in the morning...
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# ? Jun 16, 2022 14:19 |
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One I learned about today on these very forums is that the phrase "just deserts" is not spelled "just desserts" even though it's pronounced like the latter. It comes from an older meaning for the word desert, describing the reward or punishment you deserve. I thought it was kinda funny that I was wrong about the phrase, but the meaning is close enough to something that could be described by desserts as a metaphor that the phrase feels like it works equally well either way.
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# ? Jun 16, 2022 16:46 |
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Captain Hygiene posted:One I learned about today on these very forums is that the phrase "just deserts" is not spelled "just desserts" even though it's pronounced like the latter. It comes from an older meaning for the word desert, describing the reward or punishment you deserve. I thought it was kinda funny that I was wrong about the phrase, but the meaning is close enough to something that could be described by desserts as a metaphor that the phrase feels like it works equally well either way. Ok that's it, the English language needs to go in time-out. Frickin ridiculous
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# ? Jun 16, 2022 18:06 |
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I've never, ever, ever understood how one is even supposed to "pull yourself up by your boot straps" but I listened to boomers tell me this for thirty years. Turns out, the original phrase was meant to be a sarcastic metaphor illustrating the futility of trying to accomplish an impossible thing, but it's been mangled to suggest independence or to condemn those who rely on others for aid? Argh
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# ? Jun 16, 2022 18:25 |
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credburn posted:I've never, ever, ever understood how one is even supposed to "pull yourself up by your boot straps" but I listened to boomers tell me this for thirty years. Thing, is, the kind of person who would sincerely tell someone to 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' absolutely does not understand sarcasm. You see them online all the time, telling each other the same 'joke' over and over again.
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# ? Jun 16, 2022 19:08 |
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Captain Hygiene posted:One I learned about today on these very forums is that the phrase "just deserts" is not spelled "just desserts" even though it's pronounced like the latter. It comes from an older meaning for the word desert, describing the reward or punishment you deserve. I thought it was kinda funny that I was wrong about the phrase, but the meaning is close enough to something that could be described by desserts as a metaphor that the phrase feels like it works equally well either way. Also all 3 words have separate Latin etymologies. It's not that weird when you think about it, you could easily say to yourself "I deserve dessert after walking across that desert" and then dessert would be your desert desert.
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# ? Jun 16, 2022 19:50 |
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credburn posted:I've never, ever, ever understood how one is even supposed to "pull yourself up by your boot straps" but I listened to boomers tell me this for thirty years. Yeah, "lifting yourself out of poverty is as simple as lifting yourself by your bootstraps." The point is that it sounds easy because you're framing it like it's easy, but it's not actually a practicable thing.
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# ? Jun 16, 2022 21:31 |
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This is more of a stoned thought but I felt this thread was a good place for it. It's weird how "next weekend" means something different depending on what day it is. If it's currently the weekend, and you say something is happening next weekend, it means the coming weekend. If it's Wednesday, and you say something is happening next weekend, it means the weekend after the coming weekend. Thanks for your time.
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# ? Jun 17, 2022 05:23 |
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run on sentience posted:This is more of a stoned thought but I felt this thread was a good place for it. Or saying "last week" on the weekend, do you mean "in the last week" because it's the end of the week or is it the previous week like if it was Wednesday
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# ? Jun 17, 2022 05:43 |
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Working years in the graveyard shift, I found I had a very different understanding of the AM / PM differential as to how it affected what "tomorrow" meant. Since I was going to bed at probably 10 AM, your "tomorrow" at 1 AM is very different than my "tomorrow". It'll be tomorrow for you before today ends for me.
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# ? Jun 17, 2022 06:49 |
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Wait, hang on, I misread that. Never mind
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# ? Jun 17, 2022 07:25 |
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credburn posted:Working years in the graveyard shift, I found I had a very different understanding of the AM / PM differential as to how it affected what "tomorrow" meant. Since I was going to bed at probably 10 AM, your "tomorrow" at 1 AM is very different than my "tomorrow". It'll be tomorrow for you before today ends for me.
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# ? Jun 17, 2022 11:30 |
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run on sentience posted:This is more of a stoned thought but I felt this thread was a good place for it. No it's not. If you're at intersection A, "next intersection" will refer to intersection B (or whatever). If you're on the stretch of road leading to intersection A, the "next intersection" will be A. Unless you cut across an empty lot and hit intersection C instead!
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# ? Jun 17, 2022 13:03 |
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run on sentience posted:This is more of a stoned thought but I felt this thread was a good place for it. Same thing for "this weekend." If it's the weekend, then you mean before the current weekend is over. Otherwise you mean the coming weekend. 3D Megadoodoo posted:No it's not. If you're at intersection A, "next intersection" will refer to intersection B (or whatever). If you're on the stretch of road leading to intersection A, the "next intersection" will be A. English can be ambiguous. "Next Wednesday" can mean this coming Wednesday, or it can mean the Wednesday after that. If it's Monday and someone says that whatever will happen next Wednesday instead of this Wednesday, I'll assume they mean Wednesday next week. The fun part is sometimes people don't mean that and just say next Wednesday to mean the next time it's Wednesday, even if that's tomorrow!
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# ? Jun 17, 2022 20:03 |
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Yeah due to the confusion, I usually end up clarifying with "the weekend of June 25th" or something.
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# ? Jun 18, 2022 00:31 |
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I actually learnt this about a year ago but whatever: Unlike how it was explained to me when I was young, a plane doesn't create a single sonic boom at the instant it breaks the sound barrier. There's a sonic boom following it for the entire time it's flying supersonic, hitting everything for 20HP damage. Baron von Eevl posted:Same thing for "this weekend." If it's the weekend, then you mean before the current weekend is over. Otherwise you mean the coming weekend. When I taught English, I would explain it like this: If it's a weekday (preferably Monday) and you use the expression "this weekend" and a past tense, you obviously mean the one just gone. If you use "this weekend" and "will" or "going to" or the present continuous (e.g. "I'm seeing a film...) then you obviously mean the one coming. Captain Splendid has a new favorite as of 10:55 on Jun 18, 2022 |
# ? Jun 18, 2022 10:52 |
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Captain Splendid posted:I actually learnt this about a year ago but whatever: Oh wow, that makes sense but something I never considered. If it is just breaking the sound barrier, is the sonic boom quieter than if it was +100 mph greater than the sound barrier?
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# ? Jun 19, 2022 06:59 |
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credburn posted:Oh wow, that makes sense but something I never considered. If it is just breaking the sound barrier, is the sonic boom quieter than if it was +100 mph greater than the sound barrier? Apparently the truth is weirder The power, or volume, of the shock wave depends on the quantity of air that is being accelerated, and thus the size and shape of the aircraft. As the aircraft increases speed the shock cone gets tighter around the craft and becomes weaker to the point that at very high speeds and altitudes no boom is heard.
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# ? Jun 19, 2022 10:02 |
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Captain Splendid posted:Apparently the truth is weirder This is the reason the dream of regular supersonic commercial aviation is still alive. Building weird stuff like this and this can mitigate the sound of sonic booms on the ground. Then they’ll need to overcome the cost of fuel, as it’s still really fuel intensive to fly supersonic.
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# ? Jun 19, 2022 10:50 |
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St_Ides posted:This is the reason the dream of regular supersonic commercial aviation is still alive. Building weird stuff like this and this can mitigate the sound of sonic booms on the ground. Telling air to gently caress itself off takes a lot of energy. The noses and leading edges of wings and tails on supersonic vehicles get insanely hot just from shoving through it.
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# ? Jun 19, 2022 14:07 |
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Captain Splendid posted:I actually learnt this about a year ago but whatever: The sound of a passing supersonic object is silence then You don't necessarily hear thunder, it's just that all the sound of the jet stacked up till the moment the sound passes sounds like thunder. Wasabi the J has a new favorite as of 16:27 on Jun 19, 2022 |
# ? Jun 19, 2022 16:24 |
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Oh for gently caress's sake. I've just realised 20 hours in, and confirmed, that Subnautica: Below Zero takes place on the same planet as the first game. That's meant to be part of the premise, not some hidden revelation. The planet is just called 4546B, which isn't exactly memorable. I remember seeing the name of the planet in BZ as an alphanumeric string and thinking, "oh, same sort of naming scheme as the last planet..." I mean, (spoilers for the first game, not BZ): I found logs on a crashed ship describing what happened to cause the crash: exactly what happened to the Aurora and every other ship trying to land on or leave the planet: shot by the alien anti-spacecraft weapon, to maintain the quarantine. And I thought "oh holy poo poo, that's happened on this planet too?!" ... I did wonder why some of the fish and plants were similar or identical, despite having evolved on a totally different planet. I just shrugged and concluded it was a deliberate game design decision to keep familiarity and/or reuse assets, and suspended my disbelief. Hyperlynx has a new favorite as of 01:13 on Jun 20, 2022 |
# ? Jun 20, 2022 01:07 |
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In Earthbound, when you first meet Jeff's father, Dr. Andonuts, he mentions that Jeff wets the bed sometimes. Jeff doesn't actually wet the bed. The doctor just thinks that because he's been completely absent from his son's life and hasn't seem him since he was a toddler.
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# ? Jun 23, 2022 04:26 |
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Wasabi the J posted:You don't necessarily hear thunder, it's just that all the sound of the jet stacked up till the moment the sound passes sounds like thunder. It's not even quite that. Any fluid has a natural speed at which waves travel through it. An object passing through a fluid faster than that speed creates a wake behind it as all the fluid it's displacing gets squished together, like the two single high waves you get behind a boat. In the case of supersonic planes that's a big wall of compressed air that sounds like thunder, because waves of compressed air are what sound is. Even if the jet's engines were somehow completely silent, just travelling above the speed of sound would create a sonic boom.
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# ? Jun 23, 2022 11:13 |
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Yes that's a more apt description than whatever the gently caress I was saying lol
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# ? Jun 23, 2022 22:11 |
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Several United States of America have their own armies. (No not those ones.) In Colorado it's literally just one guy.
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# ? Jun 24, 2022 03:21 |
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Something I just learned from a fucken reddit thread: The old CD-burning software was called "Nero burning ROM", as a reference to the Roman Emperor Nero. Works even better because they're a German company who would natively spell the city as "Rom"
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# ? Jun 24, 2022 09:39 |
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Failed Imagineer posted:Something I just learned from a fucken reddit thread: Nero is blamed for the great fire of Rome, that is to say, Nero burned Rome.
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# ? Jun 24, 2022 11:41 |
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pik_d posted:Nero is blamed for the great fire of Rome, that is to say, Nero burned Rome. Yeah that was my exact point
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# ? Jun 24, 2022 11:54 |
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I always had to fiddle with Nero to make it work
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# ? Jun 24, 2022 12:23 |
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HE WAS ACTUALLY PLAYING DOKI DOKI PANIC BECAUSE FIDDLES HADNT BEEN KNVENTED YET!.!?!?
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# ? Jun 24, 2022 19:59 |
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3D Megadoodoo posted:HE WAS ACTUALLY PLAYING DOKI DOKI PANIC BECAUSE FIDDLES HADNT BEEN KNVENTED YET!.!?!? Help me can't believe I just figured out what you're talking about.
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# ? Jun 25, 2022 02:52 |
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People say Nero fiddled but the Violin was not extant. Rather he supposedly used a Lyre, Mr.Megadoodoo conflates this with the common trivia of Mario 2 being Doki Doki Panic in Japan for the purpose of Humor
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# ? Jun 25, 2022 02:58 |
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Gaius Marius posted:People say Nero fiddled but the Violin was not extant. Rather he supposedly used a Lyre, Mr.Megadoodoo conflates this with the common trivia of Mario 2 being Doki Doki Panic in Japan for the purpose of Humor so you're saying everyone who said he fiddled was a lyre.
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# ? Jun 25, 2022 02:59 |
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Captain Monkey posted:so you're saying everyone who said he fiddled was a lyre. that pun is violin-ce
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# ? Jun 25, 2022 05:08 |
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Benedict Wong is the name of the actor who plays Doctor Strange’s sidekick guy. It is not BD Wong’s full name.
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# ? Jun 25, 2022 07:48 |
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# ? May 14, 2024 05:06 |
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Shifty Nipples posted:that pun is violin-ce What're you gonna do, string me up?
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# ? Jun 25, 2022 07:57 |