gdp's Comments

Crasstalk : Tuesday Open Thread

Wed, 6 Nov 2013 03:07:03 +0000

The nike move ad: [youtube VP4C0XCJpmg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP4C0XCJpmg youtube] So good, almost makes you buy sneakers and go running. Almost.

Crasstalk : Saturday Open Thread

Sun, 4 Aug 2013 13:56:02 +0000

My restraining order does not allow much of either.

Crasstalk : Saturday Open Thread

Sat, 3 Aug 2013 14:01:14 +0000

Greetings, fair people! I come bearing legal tender issued by the government of the United States of America. Please take me to the woodworking interwebs page of lastcigaretteme where I may exchange this tender for high-quality, handcrafted receptacles and furniture at a reasonable price. Should you fail to comply, I will not buy anything. (pretty pretty please, esp. SteveHoltsMtr?)

Crasstalk : Wednesday Open Thread

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 23:28:15 +0000

Yes, you did. It was either Ross announcing going into surgery and people wishing him luck or him coming out of surgery. I don't remember any comments that hit 69 fonzes and stayed there though. Sad.

Crasstalk : Saturday Open Thread

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 00:45:50 +0000

I hate to break this to you but your comments often read as mean and spiteful with no constructive saving grace. I do grant that you are often funny. "But it's far more pleasant for everyone when we don't run around playing Hall Monitor with the comments of those we don't like." - Pot, kettle, log in your eye.

Crasstalk : QOTD: Who Should Be Fined?

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 04:41:41 +0000

But where? Down your mouth that looks so much like a sphincter?

Crasstalk : QOTD: Who Should Be Fined?

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 19:21:59 +0000

My two rules on determining correctness of some usage 1. Is it clear? 2. Do enough modern, educated people use it? If "yes" to both, I assume the usage is correct. I ignore what language mavens prescribe and go by how they use it, because the so called "mavens" get it wrong themselves too often to count. One example (a stylistic guide, but still) I particularly like is the injunction against passives in Strunk & White. Pullum has a good take down of how Strunk&White misidentify passives then states rules about not using passives http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-G... . It's kind of like telling someone not to commit larceny when you have no idea what larceny is.

Crasstalk : QOTD: Who Should Be Fined?

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 18:37:34 +0000

I have no language peeve except for excessive use of "like" in conversation so personally I'm not bugged when people modify "unique" And resorting (or copy/pasting) to OED as the authority, some notable people/publications have used "unique" with modifiers so your rage should be directed at these people as well: 1908 K. Grahame Wind in Willows viii. 168 ‘Toad Hall,’ said the Toad proudly, ‘is an eligible self-contained gentleman's residence, very unique.’ 1912 G. K. Chesterton Manalive i. iii. 86 Diana Duke..began putting away the tea things. But it was not before Inglewood had seen an instantaneous picture so unique that he might well have snapshotted it. 1938 Burlington Mag. June 259/1 Ingres was..too unique to be a chef d'école.

Crasstalk : QOTD: Who Should Be Fined?

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:29:44 +0000

BBQ, I love you as a lurker, but I literally can't keep my dander down when people bring up the "literally" canard. According to an editor of the Oxford English Dictionary ( http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/... ) some extremely notable people who have used "literally" as an intensifier and offend our modern sensibilities: Jane Austen, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Charles Dickens. If "literally" as an intensifier is good enough for these people, it's good enough for me. There's a name for this dander getter-upping and it's called the recency illusion ( http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archiv... ) a language specific version of "get off my lawn". And since I"m figuratively bored, here's another one people knot their thongs over. The original meaning of "disinterested" used to be "uninterested" and "uninterested" used to mean "disinterested". Then they swapped places in America ( href="http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=511 ). So if you want to correct people misusing "disinterested", you might be right according to modern usage in the US, but don't bring up historical usage to back you up and say that it's an instance of language deteriorating or people being stupid.

Crasstalk : Sunday Open Thread

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:45:10 +0000

Digby has deleted his account before and then come back (at least twice by my count). I asked him about this and he said he needs to take a break once in a while and deleting his account makes it easier. So it's not your fault. But if you want to make it your fault, I'll toss gawker's latest snafu and the breaking border skirmish between north and south Sudan at your feet as well. You're equally culpable of all those things.

Crasstalk : Sunday Open Thread

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:43:56 +0000

I've been in love for long With what I cannot tell And will contrive a song For the intangible That has no mould or shape, From which there's no escape. This love a moment known For what I do not know And in a moment gone Is like the happy doe That keeps its perfect laws Between the tiger's paws And vindicates its cause. - Edwin Muir

Crasstalk : Friday Open Thread

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 01:53:58 +0000

I don't know the curriculums of the respective programs, so there will be some variance in what courses there mean by lin. alg. and matrix alg. But going by the books I have on my shelf and the one university course load that I do know, matrix alg will be quite a bit more scary than lin alg. One word of advice I can give you is this. Linear algebra (since you should take this before taking matrix alg) is a subject that is very difficult to make interesting at the beginning stages. It will be drier than a vagina staring at Rick Santorum. It will be painful, so my only advice to you is to grit your teeth and bear it. Once you get past a certain point (in my case, two years) you will see that it is the single greatest field of mathematics that makes everything in the modern world possible. And by everything, I mean everything. Linear algebra is what separates us from the 1950s. It's rise coincided with the rise of feminism so it's not entirely happenstance.

Crasstalk : Friday Open Thread

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 00:23:08 +0000

If I understand you correctly, you seem to be under the impression that lin. alg. is more advanced than matrix alg. It's actually the other way around. Or better stated, matrix alg. is a more specialized form of linear algebra. And so I think it makes more sense to learn lin. alg before doing matrix alg. I really can't say much for the pre-reqs for lin. alg. or matrix alg. but it's perfectly possible to teach lin. alg. only with pre-calculus. I've actually met several academic mathematicians who advocate for teaching lin. alg. before any calculus is encountered. And I agree with them. But as a woman, liberal, and feminist, I believe this would be hard for you to understand. (THIS IS COMPLETELY A JOKE. PLEASE DON'T BAN ME. I DO NOT BELIEVE EVEN A SEMEN'S STAIN OF WHAT I JUST WROTE)

Crasstalk : Friday Open Thread

Sat, 7 Apr 2012 02:12:28 +0000

As a hetero person who would untz all ya's, I just had a drink(s++++), am a little untzy, am untzy towards y'all, and my repressed desires towards all y'all are: <img src="http://i.imgur.com/sL7Nx.jpg"/>

Crasstalk : Monday Open Thread

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 02:52:08 +0000

As a lurker who has career destroying, comprehensive spreadsheet entries on all you's (hey bots), I wholeheartedly support any and all endeavors by MonkeyBiz to eradicate his ne'erdowell roommate. <img src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/381596_339272456088763_272251539457522_1606992_570181498_n.jpg"> I'm also drunk on nearly winning trivia night tonight.

Crasstalk : Wednesday Open Thread

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:54:03 +0000

I tried it without the \"var property;\" line and it worked. So it doesn't seem as if that line does anything. As far as I can tell, declaration of variables happens in the line \"for (property in nyc)\" so declaring it the line above is redundant.

As for how the property variable gets assigned, the statement \"for (property in nyc)\" is actually code for telling the program to iterate over the keys (i.e. fullName, mayor, ...) of nyc. So it looks at the set of keys or properties that the nyc object has and then iteratively assigns these to the \"property\" variable.

I'm not a javascript expert, but that is what generally happens in some other languages I know.

Crasstalk : Wednesday Open Thread

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:04:10 +0000

What about them?

Crasstalk : Thursday Open Thread

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:22:15 +0000

<img src="http://i.imgur.com/9iZnw.jpg"/> Either Conan is trolling or Santorum really tweeted then deleted it.

Crasstalk : Saturday Open Thread

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:48:41 +0000

Fir real? I pine for the days when I could bark up any tree without consequence: <img src="http://poorlydrawnlines.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/the-giving-tree.jpg"/>

Crasstalk : Thursday Open Thread

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:22:41 +0000

Please don't mind mind my soft focus in bed: [youtube 5ETENrv8cnU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ETENrv8cnU youtube]