» 2004 » March
Article posted on Mar 28
Another goddamn poll
- Posted by Ryan Finnie on March 28, 2004, 11:00 am
My dialect is 50% popular!
I answered 122 out of 122 questions, with 72 out of 122 (59%) answers the same as the United States' most popular answers, according to a Harvard dialect survey. This is a 50% weighted average (taking the percentage of survey respondents who pick each answer into consideration).
Yeah, another poll has been unleashed upon the world, but this time *I* made it. I saw the Harvard dialect survey a couple years, but forgot about it until recently. I was having trouble remembering which parts of the survey I alread looked at and how my own preferences related to them. So I decided to just parse and import the questions, answers and high-level statistics and do some PHP-fu.
Some observations...
* There are a lot of words that, when I say aloud, could go either way. Such as quarter, spigot, etc.
* Several of the questions deal with how words are stressed (insurance, New Haven, umbrella). I realized that much of the time, I do not stress words like that at all. I think this is a midwest accent thing. For example, "Green Bay" is properly pronounced with no stress. You could tell if somebody was from out of town because they would stress "Green". Anyways, for times when I do place stress on words like that, it depends on the context in the sentence.
* What do you call the thing from which you might drink water in a school? I chose "bubbler", with a whopping 3.84% of respondents! If you look at the map, there are only 2 places in the country that use "bubbler": Wisconsin and New England. (I'm from Wisconsin, and most of my extended family is from New England.)
* Speaking of Wisconsin-isms... There is an ATM network in the midwest (Wisconsin mostly) called Tyme. It was a large enough network that Tyme became a generic word for ATM, and hearing "I'm going to go to the Tyme machine" was commonplace. When I moved to California, I got many weird looks because of that.
* What do you call a public railway system (normally underground)? "BART" is an option, which is stupid. Yes, BART is a rail system, but it hasn't become a generic word. Oh well
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Article posted on Mar 23
The world according to fo0bar
- Posted by Ryan Finnie on March 23, 2004, 10:47 pm
A gigabyte (GB) is 1,000,000,000 bytes. [1] (Summary: Hard drive manufacturers are right, nearly everybody else is wrong.)
A gibibyte (GiB) is 1,073,741,824 bytes. [2]
Aggregate transfer: "I've transferred 5 gigs so far" means 5GiB, 5,368,709,120 bytes, not bits.
Instantanous transfer: "I have a 5 meg pipe" means 5Mibps; 5,242,880 bits per second, not bytes per second.
Anyone who disagrees with me can kiss my ass.
[1] See http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/prefixes.html
[2] See http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
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Article posted on Mar 15
Another fo0bar-patented(TM) innovation!
- Posted by Ryan Finnie on March 15, 2004, 6:45 pm
fo0bl is now up and running! Try it out! Impress your friends!
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Article posted on Mar 13
Where in the world is fo0bar?
- Posted by Ryan Finnie on March 13, 2004, 6:59 pm
So, one of these days I'll post some more info, but for those of you who haven't been following my life, here's a rough timeline:
fo0bar was laid off in the beginning of february.
fo0bar is quite happy with being unemployed. ("Are you looking for work?" "Not if I can help it.")
fo0bar moved out of $875 2br/2ba/1200sqft in southwest reno at the end of february.
fo0bar didn't think too far beyond that, and hence spend the week after that sleeping on people's couches.
fo0bar moved into a $400 250sqft studio across from UNR.
fo0bar is currently spending a week in seattle, and might possibly move there.
That is all.
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Article posted on Mar 9
From one ex-burger jockey to another...
- Posted by Ryan Finnie on March 9, 2004, 8:32 pm
I just read this "composition" from a guy who used to work at the Jack in the Box by the CA/NV state line. Some of it is insightful, but other parts are just whining. Standard disclaimer: I worked at McDonalds for 3 years, so I am qualified and permitted to make this rebuttal :)
The truth is, there is no "Jack" button 5cm in diameter sitting next to the register that calls Jack on his cell phone as he's flying over Vancouver.
Oy, I feel sorry for you if people actually ask those questions.
Also, our tacos are 2 for 99ยข EVERY DAY, and we serve breakfast all day long.
First of all, the taco thing I can imagine. JITB would hype the 2 tacos for $.99 for YEARS as a "limited time offer". I think about 2 years ago they just gave up and made it a permanent addition. As for breakfast, they deserve some leeway; all other fast food places show breakfast on their menu all the time, but JITB is the only one that actually serves it all day.
Maybe not for them, but at JIB we also allow you to get a shake, orange juice, coffee, milk, etc. as part of your combo.
I think they all also do. Certainly McD.
So before you open your mouth and ask yet another foolish question like "Why am I being charged for my root beer?" or "Doesn't that come with the number 5?" why not take a look at the price of the burger&fries part on the screen and compare it to the one on the menu.
McD would also do that (because of aformentioned choice of any kind of drink), so if you wanted a shake instead of a medium coke the price would be (meal - medium drink + shake). However, I never heard anybody complain about it.
Somehow, some people got the idea that they can tack on an extra order of curly fries or chicken nuggets (chickens don't have nuggets, by the way) at the window.
That probably has something to do with the decals at the window that say like "add a slice of pie to your order! here! at the window!"
This is not McDonald's where we can go pull something that was made a day ago out of the warmer and stick it in your bag. We don't make it 'til you order it, dumbass.
Great job, dumbass. You write a "paper" on proper ettiquite at a fast food place, then you spread false shit about another fast food place. True, McD makes some food "ahead of time", but it's always less than 15 minutes ago (7 minutes for fries). News flash: it probably takes you more than 15 minutes to get home and eat it.
If you don't understand the question I'm asking, don't just ignore me and repeat your entire order.
Conversely, I encounter this most often:
- Speaker:
- Can I help you?
- Yes, I'll have a number 2, without onions, and a diet coke.
- A number 2, what to drink with that?
- Diet coke. And no onions on the burger.
- Number 2 with a coke. Anything else?
- Diet coke, and no onions on the burger!
- Okay, I'll have your total at the window.
- Window:
- Okay, that was a number 4 with a coke. $35.08.
- Please tell me you'll never have children.
Don't just place the blame on me because I was the one you talked to, that's just a sign of your own immaturity and irresponsibility.
Who shall I blame instead? "Oh mythical griffin, it is your fault that my cheeseburger came with onions!" Sorry to tell you, but you are a representative of Jack in the Box. If it was somebody other than you who screwed up, just suck it up, but don't call the customer immature. Pot, meet kettle.
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Article posted on Mar 6
Scientific research is difficult, but somebody's gotta do it
- Posted by Ryan Finnie on March 6, 2004, 4:25 pm
Last night I conducted an experiement. Samples were taken, results observed, and a graph was plotted. Here are my results:
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Article posted on Mar 5
The moment you've all been waiting for!
- Posted by Ryan Finnie on March 5, 2004, 12:16 am
The value of all my coins was $45.03. girlvinyl was the closest with $40.00.
Ummm, yaaaaa!
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Article posted on Mar 2
Win a washer/drier pair!
- Posted by Ryan Finnie on March 2, 2004, 6:20 pm
So, I am 99.5% done moving out of my apartment. Part of the process was going through the carpets and finding the vast sums of coins that I drop when I empty my pockets. So let's have a little contest...
Quick link: current answers here.
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