I can not overstate what a completely worthless piece of shit I have been the last 48 hours. Other than sporadically checking email, I have accomplished nothing. Slept in until ten am, messed around on the computer, watched some tv, and that is about it. It’s been very nice. I think my travel anxiety has finally subsided and I am back to a new normal. Looking forward to some productivity tomorrow.
Some site stuff- what the hell is going on with you all the emoji use in the comments? I never wanted the god damned things in the first place, as I have already endured turbonerds sending messages in binary, learned all the new lingo on usenet, and then suffered through fucking the popularization of l33t speak, and after that I was done. Fuck emojis. If it is too long to text, don’t send me a fucking picture I can’t see without my readers and then when I do have no idea what it means. Just call me. You are literally holding the phone right fucking now.
At any rate, let’s tone that shit down. You don’t need to reply to a fucking comment with just an emoji- this isn’t myspace or some shit. If you don’t have anything substantive to say, don’t say it. I already have told you there will never be a like button or nested comments as long as I draw breath, don’t make me ban emojis. Fuckers.
In other news, Thurston is a completely different dog with his thunder jacket on. We’ve both realized the fucker has had anxiety for seven years or however long I have had him, because with this jacket on he is relaxed, leaves Joelle’s side and sleeps in his dog bed that he has never used before, etc. No barking at every random thing.
Who knew (and this is where one of you chimes in and notes that you knew and said something forty times in the comments which I never saw or promptly disregarded). Speaking of pets, don’t forget to submit your pictures for the Balloon Juice Calendar.
New episode of Landman tonight.
They Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To
Nukular Biskits
Uh … if you can’t see the emojis without your readers, HTF are you reading the text?
Baud
🖕
Parfigliano
@Baud: haha
Nukular Biskits
@Baud: 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Omnes Omnibus
Laugh now, you guys. Cole will do it. And then you’ll have to type. I pretty much hate emoji too, so I am down for the carnage.
stinger
That’s because it was said in Emoji.
mrmoshpotato
Congrats on the realization that Thurston is a reindeer.
Kelly
November in Oregon is meant for sleeping. Tomorrow I have to get up 2.5 hours early to drive into town for my first day of Grand Jury duty. The only thing I know about Grand Juries is that a prosecutor can get a Grand Jury to indict a ham sandwich.
H.E.Wolf
A thunder jacket sounds very appealing.
[looks at zip-up fleece cardigan that is my daily wear in the winter]
…maybe I have one.
Omnes Omnibus
@mrmoshpotato: Thurston is a furry and he is finally getting his chance to live his authentic life. Good for him.
Edited.
mrmoshpotato
@Omnes Omnibus: Haha, yes!
RevRick
@Baud: No wonder this Cole guy keeps saying mean things about you.
Leto
🫵💊👌
RevRick
Currently watching The Diplomat. Great series.
HeleninEire
@Baud: You did not… 😆
Leto
@Nukular Biskits: he also doesn’t give out his phone number so HTF are we suppose to call him?
Also “l33tspeak” and “MySpace”? What is this, 2002? Jeebus…
Martin
Damn you watergirl for eating my formatting on the back end.
Nukular Biskits
@Leto:
I missed that ’cause I was laughing so hard at Baud. Good questions, though.
I fear Cole may permaban us for mocking him … assuming he will ever come back to read the comments. LOL!
ETA: I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure I’m several years older than Cole. I kinda empathize … but there are strong “OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD” vibes here.
Kayla Rudbek
@Nukular Biskits: the details of the emoji are smaller than the text, so I concur with Cole because I can’t tell what the emoji means on my phone although I can read the text just fine (as a proper GenXer does)
sab
@Leto: I am an old and I have no idea what you mean.
Almost Retired
I would totally post an emoji that expressed my complete agreement about the cheapening of discourse on the blog by overuse of emojis. But I’m using my words instead.
Leto
@Nukular Biskits: I feel like Thurston isn’t the only one who needs an thundershirt :p
Edit: @sab: you + chill pill = you’ll be ok. He needs one of his edibles.
Chetan Murthy
@Kayla Rudbek: Alla youse wit’ de good eyes! Us oldsters, we just see dirty yellow blobs, can’t actually see what they mean! Hey, check out this onion on my belt! It was the fashion at the time!
Gin & Tonic
It seems to me that in the last year or two the verb “to nut” (meaning male sexual ejaculation) has become widespread. I don’t remember it being so. Does anyone know the origin?
Nukular Biskits
@Kayla Rudbek:
Continuing with the I’M AN OLD theme in my response to Leta above, I seldom use my phone for interacting on here or social media. I’m more comfortable using my laptop. The yutes use their phones for everything. I use mine for stuff like this only when necessary or when using my laptop is impractical (such as when traveling).
TheOtherHank
@sab:
You pillock?
Nukular Biskits
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m curious as to how the subject matter of Cole’s post and the resulting mockery led you to asking that question.
But, then, maybe I really do not wish to know.
Doug R
I see Bluesky has introduced nested comments.
But what do I know? (insert shrug emoji)
Leto
@Nukular Biskits: I mean, we’re not seeing a lot of the commonly used emoji’s here. It’s basically party hats, smiley faces, music symbols, and thumbs up. No eggplants, no water droplets, nothing that requires actual context to grok. Just a lot of olds complaining about grammar, and textual originalism.
Gin & Tonic
@Nukular Biskits: It’s an open thread.
Chetan Murthy
@TheOtherHank: I would never have guessed, but with the answer, it’s HI-larious! Very good! Very good!
The Audacity of Krope
Hey, John, I’m with you. 👍💯
Steve LaBonne
@Nukular Biskits: I use my 11 inch tablet. I can’t type for shit so predictive typing on a virtual keyboard works well for me. The tablet is also how I do 99% of my book and magazine reading because I have vision issues that make reading dead-tree publications somewhat uncomfortable. Plus it’s pretty cool to be able to check out a library ebook, or if unavoidable buy one, while sitting on the couch, and be able to start reading it immediately.
WaterGirl
@Martin: Totally perplexed – what did I do?
The Audacity of Krope
I need to both get my mind out of the gutter and read the word that cut to the next line.
lowtechcyclist
@Leto:
I have no idea what the first emoji is, let alone what meaning it might have in context. To me, it’s just an irregularly-shaped yellow blob.
The second one’s a pill, the third one I think is a diamond ring. Can’t say that provides enough context to give me a clue about the blob.
Suffice it to say I agree with Cole on this one. Too many emojis try to stuff a complex picture into a space the size of a capital letter.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I have never heard “to nut”. But I will confess that there isn’t a lot of random talk about male ejaculation in my circles.
The Audacity of Krope
The right amount of emojis convey something words can’t as well, if at all.
Emotions come immediately to mind.
KatKapCC
What if instead of the emojis, we type out its name in brackets? [thinking face] That’s way less annoying! [grinning squinting face] Plus probably easier for people who use screen readers. [microphone]
WaterGirl
@Doug R:
Oh, ugh. Is that something the user can turn off?
Steve LaBonne
@The Audacity of Krope: LOL
Nukular Biskits
@Gin & Tonic:
Oh, I got it and not complaining. Just thought the juxtaposition was funny.
lowtechcyclist
@The Audacity of Krope:
I don’t know what the right amount of emojis is, but ISTM that there is no right amount of emojis that are a challenge to make head or tail of.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: It might be something you need to turn on.
UncleEbeneezer
@Gin & Tonic: I remember rapper Eazy-E using the term in the 80’s on his album Easy Does It. It may go back even further than that.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I thought it fit right in with the discussion.
The Audacity of Krope
The first and last ones are both hands; the first pointing directly at the reader, as in “you,” the third is making an “OK” sign.
So Leto is telling Cole he’ll feel better when he medicates.
Eric S.
On an obtuse tangent to using a mobile device, I was at a restaurant for breakfast this weekend. In addition to the normal menu the gave me a Specials menu. As I neared the bottom I slid my thumb up the side as I was holding it. As if to scroll my tablet. Needless to say, the text didn’t move.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I hope so.
HinTN
@Kelly: You, the Grand Jurors, have the final say. If you agree to disagree with the charge, there is nothing the prosecutor can do about it.
The Audacity of Krope
@lowtechcyclist: This brings me to the confusion that acronyms often cause.
I could look it up, but I’ll ask, ISTM?
WaterGirl
@Eric S.: I laughed out loud at that, in fact I am still laughing.
UncleEbeneezer
This right here is why Dems are losing young voters
[laughing/crying face emoji]
Booger
Well I just love me a good old s.n.o.t.
WaterGirl
@The Audacity of Krope: Yes, Acronyms are the devil.
I figured that one out – it seems to me.
Eric S.
@WaterGirl: I LOL’d too and, naturally the people near me gave side-eye.
Chetan Murthy
@The Audacity of Krope: It Seems To Me
The Audacity of Krope
@WaterGirl: @Chetan Murthy: Got it. Thank you very much.
Another Scott
@Baud: echo ^G ^G ^G
Best wishes,
Scott.
Leto
@lowtechcyclist: it was answered at 22, but again, like I said later nobody is doing anything that requires 1) vision to see the correct emoji or 2) current cultural context. 😀
The Audacity of Krope
Props for not throwing an ‘s’ on that just because it’s plural.
KatKapCC
@Eric S.: I’ve been reading more on my Kindle lately, and a few times when reading a paper book, I have tried to “highlight” text with my finger. And then I want to crawl into a hole and never come out.
KatKapCC
@The Audacity of Krope: First time I saw someone use it, I was like “I swear to…Mother? Mothra? Moses?”
Another Scott
@Kayla Rudbek: Yeah, it’s a pain to zoom, but I’ve accepted that it’s part of the communication zeitgeist these days.
Maybe we should be happy that <a href=”https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18105152/alternative-for-blink”>[blink]</a> went away??
Best wishes,
Scott.
frosty
Substitute blogs for email, books for tv, and you’ve just described my retirement life!
Steve LaBonne
@frosty: And mine. The joy of slothful retirement more than makes up for the creaky joints and occasional missing words and names.
sab
@The Audacity of Krope: Actually my husband, who is older than me but has kids not stepkids, interpreted it as: 1) hand pointing means “you”, 2) pills might have something to do with Matrix movie, possibly gone to wrong side?, 3) Is that a white supremacist hand sign?
So jokingly calling Cole a white supremecist? Or your interpretation.
That’s kind of Coles point. Who knows what it means?
Martin
@WaterGirl: I had something that displayed in the editor that I think you stripped tags after submission. It’s fine. Lost opportunity to troll Cole.
Soprano2
I worked in the yard today because it was nice weather. Got my strawberries weeded and strawed, and weeded and strawed my blackberries and raspberries. I’m still getting ripe raspberries, it’s crazy!
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Ack! Visual Editor tab strikes again.
[blink]
Best wishes,
Scott.
Leto
@frosty: six years into retirement life and I decided to go back to school. Also a lot of dog walking. Little man needs his exercise.
The Audacity of Krope
@sab: Personally, I never use emoji in that manner, like a pictogram puzzle. I will often use them to clarify or emphasize the emotion meant to be delivered by the text.
JCNZ
“I already have told you there will never be a like button or nested comments as long as I draw breath…
WTF not? (Insert bewildered emoji here)
ColoradoGuy
@Gin & Tonic: Origin of the phrase goes back to gay porn. Been around for at least forty years, and usage has diffused into the straight world over time.
Not going to explain eggplants or peach emojis.
Memory Pallas
What about LOLcat? I feel like Balloon Juice was kinda pro-LOLcat back in the day. Pets and all.
Martin
If small emoji is a problem, I have to think it wouldn’t be too hard to do the thing I accused WG of which is to wrap emoji on the back end in a span/size tag and make them bigger. I have to think a plug-in to do exactly that already exists out there.
rekoob
@Gin & Tonic: As with acronyms and various slang terms, Urban Dictionary is your friend. Apparently, the origin is “busting a nut”, when the semen ejaculates from your testicles (“nuts”). William Safire famously said, “Don’t verb nouns”, but here’s another example.
Martin
@sab: I took it as a vote that Cole would benefit from medication (you medicine good).
Leto
@sab: I mean, it was answered at 22 in direct response to you. Krope got it. But that’s the most complex emoji combination that I’ve seen here. Also I’m trolling Cole, much like the rest of us always do. 👍
mrmoshpotato
Sounds great.
Gloria DryGarden
@Leto: oh!
i thought it meant “you, take your f_king meds, ok?”
Baud, you have made me laugh so hard!
nuklear biscuits, and Leto, you fit too.
I’d rather get an emoji, than nothing at all, but sometimes it can go too far. It’s the hashtags, however, at the beginning of phrases and sentences , that throw me off the rails…
different-church-lady
☹️
KatKapCC
@Memory Pallas: The quest has been completed.
Repatriated
Verbing weirds language.
Another Scott
@Repatriated: +1
Best wishes,
Scott.
JWR
@UncleEbeneezer: Yep. I remember “busting a nut” having the same meaning back in the 1970’s, in high school.
sab
Today I washed dishes, fed the cats their breakfast, cleaned their litter boxes and swept their whole basement, finished hemming three more sets of window curtains while watching tv, went to the basement workroom and measured, cut and pinned for sewing two more sets of curtains under the supervision of the world’s largest housecat, went out to the country with husband to buy cider for Turkey Day, and then came back for burgers at our local famous drive-in restaurant and found it temporarily closed because some idiot (30 year old woman) had rammed her car into it at a high rate of speed.
Everyone else in the neighborhood was out blowing leaves into the street for tomorrow’s annual leaf pickup, but first year ever we have hired a lawn service, and they did that last week. Yay.
laura
New episode of Landman tonight.
Roadie Brother the Younger got to work on set and thinks that this was a great opportunity to see the alchemy of great writing, excellence in casting and set workers who get the whole enchilada off the ground. He also got his legs bit to shit by chiggers.
Suzanne
Way longer than that.
My age cohort also used “bust a nut”.
I mean, I didn’t. I don’t discuss such things.
Repatriated
@Another Scott: We do need to move away from Gerundtocracy.
Leto
@different-church-lady:
🙃
@Gloria DryGarden: I mean, I’m not going to suddenly start communicating in all emoji like my 18 year old university counterparts. I also know that within my peer group, we can have entire conversations with gifs. I wouldn’t advocate for that here due to the fact that conversations/threads get derailed over grammar usage, can’t image what would happen over moving pictures!!! The horror!
@ColoradoGuy: luuuuul
WaterGirl
@Martin: Hmm. If it was an edit to a comment, there is a bug that strips color and some other stuff. But if it wasn’t an edit, I don’t know anything that would show and then get stripped.
WaterGirl
@JCNZ: You never give up on that, do you? :-)
sab
@Leto: So my guess was closer than husband’s overthinking, but how is a yellow/red pill a chill pill?
Suzanne
Man, this discussion about busting a nut is making me flash back to the Afroman song. That was from 2000.
Gloria DryGarden
@The Audacity of Krope:
grammar, what a bitch
The Audacity of Krope
@sab: That’s the pill the library provides.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: None of this will end well.
sab
@Martin: Actually, that is how I took it until I asked husband. He does overthink stuff, but I tend to be clueless on popular culture.
Leto
@Suzanne: it’s taking me back to middle school, so circa 1987. /shrug 🤷♀️
@sab: because my phone doesn’t offer a blue- white pill. 🥶💊
Martin
@WaterGirl: Oh, might have been an edit. Can’t remember. Not a big deal.
mrmoshpotato
🐕🦺🤝🇻🇦moly!
ETA – 😲👋
Leto
@mrmoshpotato: how could you say that? Omg! 😱
frosty
@Leto: I’m not going back to school*. Two MS degrees was plenty. However, I stayed available part-time if anyone at my old job needed me. I got a couple of calls to help out but since there were none since August 2023 I emailed my (much younger) boss and told him I was ready to pull the plug.
Uh-oh. He answered that there was a project that fit me better than anyone else. I put together a schedule including two months off at the beginning, and they agreed. I suddenly find myself with a day or two of work every week for the next eight months. I don’t even know if I know how to work any more!
I hope they have a Plan B if I just can’t do it!
*Ms F and I are taking online Spanish lessons, and I’ve been taking harmonica lessons for almost two years now. Does that count as school? No tests, no grades.
SixStringFanatic
We don’t call it “being a worthless piece of shit” anymore, we call it “recharging”.
mrmoshpotato
@Leto: Because, for months, I had the tune to Mony Mony running through my head, but couldn’t remember any lyrics – so I made my own (with no apologies.)
🎵Asses will shake like holy moly!🎵
The add-on is “TOTALLY SLAPS!”
John Revolta
@Gin & Tonic: @Suzanne: @UncleEbeneezer: I know Black people in Chicago were saying it in the ’70s. I know this because I drove a cab for a while, and cab drivers used to say “make your nut” to mean “earn enough money to pay the nightly lease on your cab”, which led to an embarrassing misunderstanding for yours truly one time…………………
Gloria DryGarden
made me giggle. Yeah, not a common topic of conversation. Nope.
Leto, the gifs aren’t really my thing either, but friends send them. My first basic smart phone couldn’t even handle them… two words with moving sparkles. A cupcake w a flickering candle. A heart with dancing swirls. Why? Just why? At least emojis are still.
JWR
@WaterGirl:
There’s something that allows one to see the effect in the comment window, I think it’s both in Visual and in Text mode, but disappears once the comment is published. And I’ll be damned if I can remember what it was, but I can sort of visualize the sentence I used it on. :-/
Lethe
@JWR: I remember mechanic friends in the early 70’s saying they busted a nut trying to get something loose in a vehicle, with the connotation they had burst a nut from strain (and not in an enjoyable way…)
side note: I am proud that my son has complained I’m the only person he knows that uses oxford commas in my texts.
mrmoshpotato
Another Scott @64, you scurvy dog!
Leto
@frosty: after two associate degrees I wanted to finish out my bachelors degree. I had a few people my age, and a bit older, essentially ask why the hell was I there? They’re in the same boat as you: degree’d and done with it. I have a few years left to use my GI Bill. You have 10 years to use it before you permanently lose it. I paid $1200 over my first year in service to have it, so I’m doing it.
It’s been good so far. Good professors, interesting material (so far), and I came in as a junior. One semester down, three to go.
Edit: if they do wind up stripping me of my benefits, as they’re proposing, the additional education will, I guess, be useful when I’m sent back to
the gulagwork. I thought 30+ years would be enough, but we know better.frosty
@Leto: Seems like a good plan to me, especially if the classes and professors are good. Why leave that GI Bill money on the table?
Leto
@frosty: yup. Plus I didn’t transfer the benefit to my kid because, “I earned it, I’m damn well using it.” I’m down the road at Alvernia University. Finally have the time/ability to pursue the history degree I started decades ago. Little things like deployments, work, and the likes kept popping up. No excuses now!
sab
My husband says Echo the cat is a figment of my imagination because after three months she still won’t come out from under the bed to meet him.
She climbs into bed with me every night when everyone else (husband, pitbull) is asleep. She is getting used to the pitbull, but husband watches football on tv and shrieks along with his visiting friends. Scary.
Half Past
❤️
Martin
@Leto: We always had a tidy pile of vets on our programs. They’d silo themselves off from the rest of the student body not because they were of different age, but because after a few years in the military the process of ‘let me explore my independence’ that so many young people do in college wasn’t that entertaining to them. Getting shot at does clarify what’s important in life.
They had some distinct challenges, but were almost universally excellent students. The key to college isn’t being smart – it’s being disciplined. If you’re curious and a hard worker, anyone can do the program.
I used to hire the vets to proctor our open labs. We didn’t want to trust a bunch of undergrads to go in and not fuck off around the equipment, and we couldn’t really afford to hire people who were paying a mortgage, but the vets needed study time and I could pay them to sit in a lab and study and keep an eye on things. They were generally immune to peer pressure as well. There was never a time we didn’t have a bunch of undergrads in their 40s and 50s tying off a degree they didn’t finish, or doing one they always wanted. In fact, my mom got her BA the year before I got my BS.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Acronyms are the devil. Someone will drop an acronym into some long, windy comment like all of a sudden their fingers are too tired to type out 3 or 4 entire words. Drives me crazy!
The aspect of insiderism also rubs me the wrong way. I don’t think acronyms are neccesarily intended that way, but they still remind me of that Dobie Gray song: “I’m in with In Crowd, I know what the In Crowd knows…”
I use flag emojis on Twitter some, especially for Azerbaijan. A 🇦🇿 saves nine characters, and it looks so nice I’m thinking of buying an Azerbaijani flag for my living room. A pleasing color combination.
I’m not character limited here though, so when I comment I’ll flog my exhausted fingers through the entire name. No one’s gonna recognize an Azerbaijani flag emoji anyway.
JWR
@Lethe:
Yeah, busting a nut, AKA cracking a nut. There’s also busting a gut, connotating hard, physical work. But if the kids are bringing it back in a sexual way, more power to ’em!
Melancholy Jaques
@rekoob:
Safire was a prig, English speakers have been turning nouns into verbs since the Plantagenet Era.
The Audacity of Krope
See? I always thought busting a gut referred to laughing.
sab
@Leto: My husband started his degree, got married, had kids, supported a family, and only finished his undergrad degree twenty years after he started because meanwhile he had a life.
He got his degree mostly to be an example for his kids, but he learned stuff that was very helpful for me (wife two) when I had questions from miy line of work. And he is proud he got the degree. His parents were very bright people who never went beyond high school.
Yutsano
Just give in to the inevitable ya old coot.
Harrison Wesley
I hope I’m not the twentieth person to post this, but there’s an interview with Rev William Barber at the CNN website that I found very interesting. May be for those who are not totally sick of politics yet.
zhena gogolia
@RevRick: I missed this thread because we were watching it!
Beautiful scenes of St. Paul’s.
JWR
@The Audacity of Krope:
Yep, there’s that interpretation, too. Englishing is such hard work!
Leto
@Martin: the discipline portion for me definitely marks the difference between my first go at college, and the subsequent times. The expectations levied upon me, by me, when I entered the military (if I don’t succeed at this, my family will go hungry/wont have a place to live) have never gone away, even though that’s not the case anymore. At this point it’s ingrained, it’s just who I am.
sab
@Melancholy Jaques: Did they even speak English in the Plantagenet era? Kind of proves your point.
Gloria DryGarden
@frosty: con español, tanto que con música, el aprendizaje puede ser un tipo de juego, o un placer.
and on the topic of games, pleasures, and other engaging fun festivities, what are people doing to celebrate the things you got done but didn’t want to, or any tasks you accomplished? Do you have a treat, or play music, or tell yourself yay you?
my bigger ongoing question, beyond celebrating every little win and job well done ,
what random or deliberate acts of kindness and generosity have you been around this week?
I had a pleasant time community building with children at schools this week. Several mini successes.
Community building and relationship building seems like the main thing I’ll be able to do, these next 4+ years, to create a light in the darkness and feel effective rather than futile. (Doesn’t mean I won’t also be calling my reps and senators, and maybe yours.)
At the drumming fire circle last night I heard back that my dancing changes the energies, and feels nourishing. I know I’m working my ass off, (and my knees, poor things) to do all that, but it feels so important: to create intentions into woven energetic thought forms. It’s like sculpting light and color, as if it’s clay, building it up, then sending it where it’s needed. Maybe it’s just making alignments. Whatever this work is that I’m called deeply to do at the drumming circles, it feels very life affirming. It makes the light brighter.
Last month I did a dance for Israel Palestine, asked the group that the next round be dedicated to that. We brainstormed qualities that could be useful, and I danced all that. I asked the Israeli guy who came last time, if it had made any difference, and he said what I did last month felt incredible. He said maybe it just shifts the stuck energies for a moment. Nothing like feeling validated! And useful! Maybe a few people here can understand this.
Are any of you having sweet connections within your community, little kindnesses, little things that build goodwill and care?
In the face of deep despair and the helplessness that I’ve been feeling, it’s perhaps all I have left.
that, and laughing with all you-all’s snarking mockery (picture of smiling emoji, picture of heart, picture of shrug)..
Quinerly
Had the pleasure to catch a band today that attempted “Midnight at the Oasis,” 1973 classis by Maria Muldaur. (Check out all her albums since. Fantastic. plus she puts on a great live show).
Anyway, hearing that song brought back memories of my father’s favorite Carol Burnett skit….I can still see him grin.
Doris Day, Tim Conway, John Denver. 1973
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cznySoBnErA&pp=ygUfZG9yaXMgZGF5IG1pZG5pZ2h0IGF0IHRoZSBvYXNpcw%3D%3D
Leto
@sab: that’s really cool! One of my professors was talking to me about pursuing a masters after this, and I told him he must be out of his damned mind. Ofc I said it nicer than that but yeah. I’m happy to earn a BA, then go back to a quiet retirement life.
rekoob
@Melancholy Jaques: Indeed! Safire could be overwrought at times, but his Fumblerules were entertaining. I suppose we can add Eric Blair/George Orwell’s rule (vi) to the discussion:
“Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”
Martin
@Leto: One reason why college admissions has leaned away from standardized testing to grades is that grades are a better indication of discipline.
Everyone is hung up on intelligence being the thing that makes you more meritorious for admission, but it’s really discipline.
Also part of why women get admitted at higher rates than men and graduate at higher rates yet. Men generally developer a bit later than women, and don’t get that discipline until later. It’s not that the military make that faster, it’s that the military put much brighter lines around behavior to compensate for young men being kind of impulsive dumb-asses.
BigJimSlade
Wait until you get Thurston a motorcycle, then you’ll see how cool he really is.
Also, I give this post a thumbs up and big smiley face.
Kayla Rudbek
@lowtechcyclist: there’s a reason that the alphabet won versus hieroglyphics
Kayla Rudbek
@SixStringFanatic: human beings are mammals and we were born to work for 3-4 hours per day. We work a bit more than cats do.
NotMax
Other than smiley faces or musical notes most all the others look like indecipherable blobs to me. Conveying naught but blobosity.
;)
Geminid
@Melancholy Jaques: William Safire wrote a decent Civil War novel titled Freedom. It’s long and well researched, and seems to follow the actual events and characters fairly faithfully. Although, Safire makes up a lot of dialogue and a sexual affair.
Anna May Carroll, the Maryland-born journalist, is a central character. In the 1850s, Carroll was a political operative and pampleteer for the American Party, also known as the “Know Nothings.” When the novel begins, Carroll has become a staunch Unionist and is working hard to keep Maryland from seceding.
Carroll is also having long arguments about Secession with her boyfriend as they drive around Maryland by carriage. He happens to be Kentucky Senator John C. Breckinridge. But Carroll cannot convince Breckinridge to remain with the Union, and the lovers part. Breckinridge goes off to fight at Shiloh and Stone’s River while Carroll remains in Washington, hustling pamphlet commissions and persuading her Know Nothing and War Democrat contacts of the merits of Emancipation.
Like I said, Freedom is long. It ends January 1, 1863 at the White House with President Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation into law.
Avalune
I guess Cole was never a fan of Classic Concentration.
cain
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t think you can actually ban emojis unless you limit the font to something very specific, meaning you’d use something other than UTF-8, but then that would mean you couldn’t insert hindi or other language texts not that I’ve seen that.
Eh.. I use emojis a lot, we use it like voting functions :) With me being older than Cole, I’m not even sure I can say GenX on down use this stuff all the time lol.
cain
@John Revolta:
on blackpeoplestwitter on reddit, black folks were lamenting about how all their shit has been stolen. :) It’s like we get all our lingo from black folks.
Melancholy Jaques
@sab:
Yes, Middle English. They yede ofte nounes into verbes.
Stuart in Austin
@Kelly: You can feel confident that, since you are part of the grand jury, you are not the ham sandwich!
smike
@Repatriated:
That was tasty.
Gloria DryGarden
@Lethe: i love the discussion of commas in “Eats Shoots and Leaves” a humorous book on punctuation. When in doubt, I’d rather use the extra commas for clarity. There’s a line in the chapter on commas, where James Thurber remarks on some extra commas his editors insisted on adding. It’s a priceless comment.
If you don’t have that book, I’ll paraphrase it for you later.
yours is the use I’m more familiar with, busting a nut, meaning straining. I always see it as trying to break loose a very tight nut bolting something together in a car. I always though it meant work hard. A little like breaking balls, only you did it yourself…
Gloria DryGarden
@Kayla Rudbek: when can I start on this schedule? It’s really plenty, when I’m not at a job, and am doing things in my own rhythm. I hear tribal folks say, 20 hours a week of work, and the rest is community building, ceremony, relationships. Makes more sense, for human life.
hells littlest angel
I don’t use emojis. I’m strictly a “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” kind of guy.
NotMax
@hells littlest angel
“Temba, his middle finger extended” was, sadly, never used in that episode.
:)
Ramona
@RevRick: what a bracing ride! And I love the name Trowbridge!
Ramona
@Eric S.: Has happened to me too…
TBone
I’d announce my departure before flouncing off with a meangirl kissy emoji, but this isn’t an airport.
And I don’t know how to flounce well.
TBone
@Quinerly: I woke up thinking about that song today (had not seen any of this post yet) and it is my earworm this morning. Why??? Thanks for sharing, I feel vindicated.
I am an unabashed Doris Day fan girl.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
I know two languages well, and have enough memory of a third to maybe survive, but emojis aren’t one of those languages (aside from the blindingly obvious stuff like thumbs-up). As for abbreviations, I’m in a profession where clarity, or lack thereof, can have serious consequences (ranging from clients losing deals to clients going bankrupt to clients going to prison). Emoji communication fundamentally lacks clarity.
(I’ll make allowances for communications media where data compression is required, like text messaging a decade ago with the 160-character limit, or old-style telegrams that charged by the word. But if I’ve got the room to spell it out, I prefer to spell it out. At least the first time.)
TBone
Have A Nice Day
Big yellow face circle with smile, invented in the 1960s.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/who-really-invented-the-smiley-face-2058483/
Evolution is a bitch.
TBone
It is turkey choosing day.
MagdaInBlack
Now I can’t use emoji’s either? Fuck that. Deal with them. 🌻🌻🌻🌻
P.S. Is fun allowed now or no?
Liminal Owl
@rekoob: And Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) said “Verbing weirds language.”
And then a friend of mine made a button that said “It’s not the verbing that weirds language, it’s the renounification.”
I am happy to have a community where people will appreciate this.
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: Dickhead Chuck Woolery has died in Texas if that helps.
Daddy didn’t take my TBone away!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MHuIEl2-lzs
Woolery was an outspoken supporter of Trump on his podcast Blunt Force Truth, which he had co-hosted with Young since 2014.
In a 2017 interview with The New York Times, he described himself as a “conservative libertarian and constitutionalist.”
L.O.L.
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: Chuck was a dick
Eta: yeah he was a dick.
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: I just added why to my comment above
Splitting Image
@TBone:
Dennis Prager is on death watch, too. He suffered a severe back injury in a fall and developed pneumonia.
I’m eager to read this guy’s obituary, but in the meantime I am content to hear that he is suffering horribly.
TBone
@Splitting Image: insert smiley emoji showing teeth!
TBone
Food fight at the food court! You only get what you give.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DL7-CKirWZE
MagdaInBlack
@Splitting Image: Gods will. I’m sure Preacher Prager would agree.
Liminal Owl
@sab: Chaucer was in the Plantagenet era, so definitely yes. (But royalty and nobility spoke French, of course.). English has been written since at least the eighth century C.E. and spoken for three or four centuries before that.
(I wish I could go back to school!)
MagdaInBlack
@MagdaInBlack: Oh no, I used a pluralized emoji. Send me to the re-education camp now.
TBone
Donold sold a whopping fifteen schlocky wristwatches.
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: 😆💜
Pry my hearts from my cold, dead fingers.
You did see Baud at #2?
Liminal Owl
@Gloria DryGarden:
Ето мне нравицся!
(Please correct my spelling if you know better. I’m too lazy to look things up and I need to get ready for work.)
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: I sure did. He is exactly the bad influence I needed 😊
TBone
Fuck. Josey Wales of the Nicked Ear stopped eating for the most part. A few days ago I noticed he’s losing weight. He came to us with only one canine tooth in his mouth but has loved the tiny pieces of Rachel Ray kibble and always gobbled them right down. He also gets Fancy Feast grilled with gravy canned food.
I have Fancy Feast kitty soup packets from when my beloved Einstein stopped eating solid food due to feline dementia.
And off to the vet we go…
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: I use hot water to make the fancy feast pate into a slurry soup for my semi-toothless finicky Gordita. But ya, off to the vet you go. Best wishes to Josie
And off to commuting hell I go. Yay.
lowtechcyclist
@The Audacity of Krope:
Glad someone can read them.
satby
@MagdaInBlack: Just a guess, but I think John’s comment was directed at the kind of spam that is a single emoji answer to individual comments, over and over. And I base that guess on the “no like button” statement too. And I use emojis here and have for years, without complaint from the blogfather.
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: thank you for that idea! Josey just ate some pate style Hill’s Science Diet prescription food I had leftover, so I know it’s not his toothlessness bothering him although it could still be mouth pain (he twitches his mouth and whiskers a lot, always has since we’ve known him). After that can is gone, I will make a slurry and see…but I hope vet can diagnose whether he has developed into a finicky eater or has a health problem. I see thousands of dollar signs ugh
When he twitches, it reminds me of Josey Wales spitting tobacco
sab
@MagdaInBlack: What a good idea. My cats hate pate’ but on the other hand Dobby keeps dropping cat chow kibbles in his water to flavor it. Maybe runny pate would appeal to him and the some of the others.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@TBone:
Which is saying “asshole asshole”.
I saw yesterday that he croaked. Didn’t know he was a supporter of Hair Furor. Glad he’s gone.
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: I thought that comment referred to “taking a chill pill.”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Melancholy Jaques:
One of the best classes I had as an undergrad or grad student was an upper level English course, Chaucer. We had to read everything in Middle English. Some of us also learned it helped to have a little pot before reading. My fellow classmate that turned me onto that pro tip went on to get his PhD in English.
The prof was a brilliant lecturer and spent the first 10 minutes of the first class deftly explaining the meaning of the word “queynte”. ;)
sab
@satby: That’s what I think too. We have had a couple of threads that looked controversial but weren’t, because there were nothing but emojis, kind of like last summer when there were threads with nothing but pastry (for those of us who use the pie filter.) Friendly but boring.
So far we haven’t had a problem with sophisticated incomprehensible emojis. I kind of like the thumbs up and smiley/sad/whatever faces. And hearts, balloons, fireworks, birthday cakes.
ETA Leto beat me to it back at #29.
lowtechcyclist
@TBone:
Yes, someone did translate it from emoji to English.
Still find two of the three to be unreadable at normal print size. Again, it’s just too much detail in too small a space. If you shrink the Mona Lisa to the size of an emoji, would you even know it was the Mona Lisa?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I admire your teacher for explaining that to a bunch of students. It took 10 minutes?
Kay
The HOA of Ballon Juice must have complained about the emojis. Insufferable.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
It took that long because he had a brilliant overall intro written that went all over the place ending up with that one word. I can’t do it justice, then or now.
sab
I don’t know the answer: which language has a longer written history? English or Gaelic (Irish or Scottish)?
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: my dumbphone, an unsophisticated Samsung, allows me to enlarge almost anything by using my fingers to “zoom in.” Like dragging and dropping but different. But because I am familiar with the emojis in my keyboard options, I just recognize them right away, usually. I wasn’t a big fan until friends started using and I had to get caught up.
Now I hear Rod Stewart, Every Picture Tells A Story
TBone
@sab: made me look
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittonic_languages
jowriter
@TBone: One of my favorite videos ever. They were one-hit wonders, but what a hit. Always makes me feel happy. I need that today. Thank you!
TBone
@jowriter: awww, I’m glad!
WaterGirl
@Martin: The process of completing my master’s degree taught me the reason that there is a strong correlation between success and having an advanced degree.
It’s not because you’re smarter and I’m not convinced that it’s related to anything you learn.
It’s because in order to make it through you have to be willing to hold a virtual gun to your own head and force yourself to complete your fucking project or dissertation when, at some point, it is the last thing in the world that you want to do.
So yeah, it’s absolutely about discipline.
WaterGirl
@BigJimSlade: You are bad.
Geminid
Former New York Assemblyman Michael Blake is running for New York Mayor. The 42 year-old Blake served six years in state legislature and two years in the Obama administration. He is from the Bronx and is the son of Jamaican immigrants.
I found this item in this morning’s Politico Playbook, which linked to a NYT article about Blake’s announcement.
This morning’s Playbook began with a discussion of Vice President Kamala Harris’s political future. One possibility: a run for California Governor. Polling indicates Harris would be an early favorite if she chooses that path.
TBone
More mood music. Swagger!
https://youtu.be/GhlIrPHzQ5E
sab
@TBone: Seriously you wanted us to see that? I bailed at the second offensive ad.
Kay
Biden Administration actively intervening to protect Netanyahu from criminal prosecution for war crimes today.
Really difficult to believe they ever sincerely tried to end this slaughter. Looks more and more like they provided cover to the Israeli Right to finish off Gaza and Gazans, while telling the US public they were opposed to the Israeli ethnic cleansing policy. There will be a trial eventually. It’s all going to come out, no matter how hard the Biden Administration and some Democrats in Congress try to shut down process or debate. An ethnically cleansed Gaza will a fact on the ground and it will be covered by non US media. Anyone (still) denying it will look like a crazy person. I hope Samantha Power is held accountable in an international court. One shouldn’t be able to put themselves out as an expert on genocide while backing one. She’s repulsive.
frosty
@WaterGirl: Ha! Perfect. Sez the guy who wasn’t miserable enough after one MS but decided to go on to get another one.
Corollary: To become an Eagle Scout, you have to be the kind of person that, if given a list of things to do and an award if they’re done, you’ll get right on to completing the list.
Kay
Everyone who objected to the pro Palestinian protestors saying “from the river to the sea” must also object to the Biden and Trump Administration backing of a “Greater Israel” that removes Palestinians, right? Because that’s “from the river to the sea” and the US is enthusiastically backing it. Every accusation is a confession.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@WaterGirl:
Waaay back when I got out of grad school and became an intel officer, one of my contemporaries (couple of years younger with a BS), was always dealing with former admin folks who’d moved up the chain to be ‘technicians’ which basically meant they knew the material we were dealing with, helped organize, sort, etc. The satellite imagery ‘readers’ didn’t need a college degree as an example of being in the “technician” category. They’d always bitch about how it was ‘unfair’ that in order to go any higher they needed a college degree.
So, some managers would give them small projects to do and without fail, they’d need massive amounts of help to finish them because they’d generally flail from the gitgo. They couldn’t analyze, just describe things.
My friend would then always say:
“College is about one thing, you learn that projects have a beginning, a middle and an end.”
Kay
The despised pro Palestinian protestors are probably due an apology. Everything they warned about has come to pass. Every single thing. Betting against college students on US war crimes/warmaking is a fool’s game. They’ve been right for the past 70 years and they were right on this too. No wonder both Democrats and Republicans went after them to shut them up. US Gaza policy is indefensible so they killed the dissent. Heck, I’d be ashamed too if I were a backer of this fucking nightmare.
Anyway
Contrarian here – I enjoy figuring out acronyms in comments – it’s like a little puzzle. The comments can get somewhat repetitive and tedious and the acronyms make it fun. It’s not a term paper or a newspaper column – they are perfectly ok in blog posts.
Miss Bianca
@Geminid: that’s just about the only thing that would cheer me up after this whole election shambles, hearing that KH had succeeded to the governor’s mansion in CA.
The Other Bob
That sounds super productive to me. Good job.
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: I feel the same way. Harris is well-qualified, and it’s one of the most powerful positions in the nation. If Harris wants it I’m guessing Californians will want her, unlike Richard Nixon in 1962.
TBone
@sab: I use an ad blocker. Duck Duck Go privacy browser has one built in.
I would never YouTube without it.
It’s like pissing on Cheerios otherwise.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: Is the current CA governor term limited?
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Gavin Newsome must be term-limited, because Californians are being polled as to potential successors. Besides Vice President Harris, HHS Secretary(?) Becerra and Rep. Katie Porter are in the mix
Ed. This morning’s Politico Playbook has more details. That seems to be a good daily source, with plenty of links to articles from various newspapers. I think you have sign up with an email address now. Then access is automatic.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: Gavin N. has been a great governor!
The Unmitigated Gaul
@WaterGirl: 😂😂😂
WaterGirl
@The Unmitigated Gaul: You guys are just begging for Cole to take away the emojis
Another Scott
@WaterGirl:
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[ muahahah ]
Best wishes,
Scott.
steverinoCT
@TBone: This was an inspirational song for Beau Biden. So the band got back together...
TBone
@steverinoCT: glad I checked back in to see your post, thank you!
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: At least it’s big enough for Cole to see.
JCNZ
@WaterGirl: 😂😂😂