Questions you want answered.

ukickmydog wrote:

Yes the Commandments are spiffy, but nowhere on there (that I can find) or the User Guide does it answer my question... It just says 1000 is a custom one, which I already knew.

I believe they keep it ambiguous deliberately.

If you're gonna play in Texas, do you really need a fiddle in the band?

Serengeti wrote:

If you're gonna play in Texas, do you really need a fiddle in the band?

No. Most of the bands playing at SXSW this year don't have fiddles. How do I know? I looked at every single freaking page for the two-thousand-odd showcasing artists.

Serengeti wrote:

If you're gonna play in Texas, do you really need a fiddle in the band?

It depends on if the lead guitar is hot, and if you are a Louisiana man.

Typing of Texas, why should one not mess with Texas? Do they really think they can withstand the might of the Union should they decide to seceed? Or if someone decides to mess with another from Texas, will they all rise up in defense of that Texan?

Grenn wrote:

Typing of Texas, why should one not mess with Texas? Do they really think they can withstand the might of the Union should they decide to seceed? Or if someone decides to mess with another from Texas, will they all rise up in defense of that Texan?

The answer is Chuck Norris. To everything.

Why am I so bad at street fighter?

casual_alcoholic wrote:

Why am I so bad at street fighter?

casual_alcoholic wrote:

Video Games + Alcohol = Success

Why is it never the day i want it to be on the day that it is?

NSMike wrote:
ukickmydog wrote:

Yes the Commandments are spiffy, but nowhere on there (that I can find) or the User Guide does it answer my question... It just says 1000 is a custom one, which I already knew.

I believe they keep it ambiguous deliberately.

I do believe you are correct. It prevents forum spam, same reason we can't see our own post counts.

adam.greenbrier wrote:

What's the best way for me to play System Shock (1) without pirating it?

IIRC there is actually a legit, free download available somewhere. I'll try dig it up in the morning, otherwise give google a bash.

adam.greenbrier wrote:
Grenn wrote:

What is non sequiter? Is it a noun, verb, adejctive, what?

Non sequitur is Latin for "it does not follow." The term itself is a noun.

The "it" there is implied. I've seen the term used as an adjective as well, but less commonly.

wordsmythe wrote:
adam.greenbrier wrote:
Grenn wrote:

What is non sequiter? Is it a noun, verb, adejctive, what?

Non sequitur is Latin for "it does not follow." The term itself is a noun.

The "it" there is implied. I've seen the term used as an adjective as well, but less commonly.

Interesting. None of the sources I looked at listed its use as an adjective and all listed the translation as "it does not follow." However, I'm lousy with Latin, and I don't have an OED, so I might be missing something on both fronts.

adam.greenbrier wrote:

and I don't have an OED

You have Wordy. Pretty close.

Why is Nebraska so freakishly empty?

St.Hillary wrote:

Why is Nebraska so freakishly empty?

Nobody wants to live there.

Are there any Playstation 3 models that still have backward compatibility? Has it been removed from the system entirely, or has it just been shunted over the software emulation? Is the software emulation bad?

Edit: Nevermind. I answered my own question.

Here's one: why is there a modifier key called 'control' on the keyboard? 'shift,' 'option,' and 'alt' are all okay with me, but 'control' doesn't even make sense.
'Command' kind of sucks too, but 'control' is the worst offender.

Novocain wrote:

Here's one: why is there a modifier key called 'control' on the keyboard? 'shift,' 'option,' and 'alt' are all okay with me, but 'control' doesn't even make sense.
'Command' kind of sucks too, but 'control' is the worst offender.

Fun fact: the Control key has its own Wikipedia article.
Short version: it was first used for typing control characters.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
adam.greenbrier wrote:

What's the best way for me to play System Shock (1) without pirating it?

IIRC there is actually a legit, free download available somewhere. I'll try dig it up in the morning, otherwise give google a bash.

I remember Home of the Underdogs had the CD-version of System Shock 1 up for grabs, but since it went belly up it's not an option anymore. I do have the original CD version of SS1, PM me and we can work out some way of sharing it (I'm not willing to sell it, mind you, too much nostalgia).

To whoever invented the spelling of numbers...

Why did you put a 'w' in "two" where it makes no sense and isn't used, and leave it out of "one" where it's actually needed?

We are frequently reminded that people misuse the word "irony." Alanis Morrisette's "Ironic" song contains a string of unfortunate coincidences, and none of them are actually ironic. This abuse of the word formed a running gag in an episode of Futurama. The generally accepted definition of irony is a statement or situation in which there is a disconnect between the explicit and implicit meaning; what is said is not what is meant. It gets kind of murky when you get into dramatic/cosmic/situational irony, in which the nature of a situation is other than it would seem.

So my question is, what word do you use for those particularly fitting, unexpected events? When we misuse "ironic," what word should we be using? I've heard recommendations of "coincidence," and "hypocrisy," and even just general "misfortune," but it strikes me that if any of these words were adequate we wouldn't have needed to usurp "ironic."

LobsterMobster wrote:

We are frequently reminded that people misuse the word "irony." Alanis Morrisette's "Ironic" song contains a string of unfortunate coincidences, and none of them are actually ironic. This abuse of the word formed a running gag in an episode of Futurama. The generally accepted definition of irony is a statement or situation in which there is a disconnect between the explicit and implicit meaning; what is said is not what is meant. It gets kind of murky when you get into dramatic/cosmic/situational irony, in which the nature of a situation is other than it would seem.

So my question is, what word do you use for those particularly fitting, unexpected events? When we misuse "ironic," what word should we be using? I've heard recommendations of "coincidence," and "hypocrisy," and even just general "misfortune," but it strikes me that if any of these words were adequate we wouldn't have needed to usurp "ironic."

I don't think anyone "usurped" ironic, just misunderstood it. Morrisette's "Ironic" song is actually genius, because It's a song about supposed "ironic" situations, yet the songwriter apparently has no idea what irony is. The whole thing is actually a commentary on the general misunderstanding of irony, as being used for unfortunate situations and coincidences.

Yeah, I don't know if that was intentional.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Yeah, I don't know if that was intentional.

That's the beauty of art. Sometimes the original intent just doesn't matter.

LobsterMobster wrote:

We are frequently reminded that people misuse the word "irony." Alanis Morrisette's "Ironic" song contains a string of unfortunate coincidences, and none of them are actually ironic. This abuse of the word formed a running gag in an episode of Futurama. The generally accepted definition of irony is a statement or situation in which there is a disconnect between the explicit and implicit meaning; what is said is not what is meant. It gets kind of murky when you get into dramatic/cosmic/situational irony, in which the nature of a situation is other than it would seem.

So my question is, what word do you use for those particularly fitting, unexpected events? When we misuse "ironic," what word should we be using? I've heard recommendations of "coincidence," and "hypocrisy," and even just general "misfortune," but it strikes me that if any of these words were adequate we wouldn't have needed to usurp "ironic."

I've been pondering this quite a bit myself, lately (so much so that my wife leaves the room whenever I mention it...or maybe that isn't related). I think we may have to create a new word to express what the modern colloquial lexicon describes as "irony".

NSMike wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Yeah, I don't know if that was intentional.

That's the beauty of art. Sometimes the original intent just doesn't matter. :)

Except that verbal irony is a disconnect between expression and intention. The author or speaker has to explicitly mean for it to be interpreted one way by one group of people and another way by another group of people, with the difference generally being a knowledge of something in one group that the other does not possess. I have a hard time believing that a 14-year-old girl who was banging her producer would have quite that high of a concept in mind...

Except that verbal irony is a disconnect between expression and intention. The author or speaker has to explicitly mean for it to be interpreted one way by one group of people and another way by another group of people, with the difference generally being a knowledge of something in one group that the other does not possess. I have a hard time believing that a 14-year-old girl who was banging her producer would have quite that high of a concept in mind...

Something can definitely be ironic without the originally expressed idea intentionally being so.

I'm of the opinion that rather than finding a word to use in place of "irony" when referring to tragic coincidence, the meaning of "irony" will simply change with its current definition becoming a co-definition or a technical definition used only by English professors. In the war between language and people, people will always win.

Then again, I believe that the correct pronunciation of "forte" (not the musical term) has been lost to the sands of time and that "nuclear" will inevitably join it.

NSMike wrote:
Except that verbal irony is a disconnect between expression and intention. The author or speaker has to explicitly mean for it to be interpreted one way by one group of people and another way by another group of people, with the difference generally being a knowledge of something in one group that the other does not possess. I have a hard time believing that a 14-year-old girl who was banging her producer would have quite that high of a concept in mind...

Something can definitely be ironic without the originally expressed idea intentionally being so.

Sure, but then it's situational irony, which some people would argue isn't irony at all. I suppose it could be dramatic irony, but that's generally something that an entire audience is supposed to understand (and is usually intended by the original writer) but the speaker does not.

Maybe the problem is the definitions just suck.

Minarchist wrote:
NSMike wrote:
Except that verbal irony is a disconnect between expression and intention. The author or speaker has to explicitly mean for it to be interpreted one way by one group of people and another way by another group of people, with the difference generally being a knowledge of something in one group that the other does not possess. I have a hard time believing that a 14-year-old girl who was banging her producer would have quite that high of a concept in mind...

Something can definitely be ironic without the originally expressed idea intentionally being so.

Sure, but then it's situational irony, which some people would argue isn't irony at all. I suppose it could be dramatic irony, but that's generally something that an entire audience is supposed to understand (and is usually intended by the original writer) but the speaker does not.

Maybe the problem is the definitions just suck.

You're not exactly getting into different definitions there. Calling something "situational irony" and "dramatic irony" is the same as the difference between a "red car" and a "blue car." Both are cars, but they're different colors. The root definition of irony is not nearly so specific.

NSMike wrote:
Except that verbal irony is a disconnect between expression and intention. The author or speaker has to explicitly mean for it to be interpreted one way by one group of people and another way by another group of people, with the difference generally being a knowledge of something in one group that the other does not possess. I have a hard time believing that a 14-year-old girl who was banging her producer would have quite that high of a concept in mind...

Something can definitely be ironic without the originally expressed idea intentionally being so.

I don't know. This sounds like the same "read the poem and tell us how it makes you feel" BS that totally turned me off to most forms of art in high school. Wasn't till college when we started examining what the artist was doing (and to hell with how moody teenagers feel about it) that some of that damage was undone.

I will agree that artists create for reasons other than we experience, and that the meaning of a work can change independent of the artist. However, I still believe that art is, at its core, a means of communication. A misinterpretation, no matter how meaningful, does not change what the artist tried (unsuccessfully) to convey.

NSMike wrote:

You're not exactly getting into different definitions there. Calling something "situational irony" and "dramatic irony" is the same as the difference between a "red car" and a "blue car." Both are cars, but they're different colors. The root definition of irony is not nearly so specific.

Among academics, there is some dispute over whether or not situational/dramatic/cosmic irony are technically "ironic," and the aforementioned unfortunate, "pseudo-ironic" situations that puzzle me tend to come closer to these sorts of irony than any other. So you see, if a situation falls on the fringe of being dramatic irony and it's up to debate whether or not dramatic irony is actually irony, it's a stretch to call that situation simply "ironic."

NSMike wrote:

You're not exactly getting into different definitions there. Calling something "situational irony" and "dramatic irony" is the same as the difference between a "red car" and a "blue car." Both are cars, but they're different colors. The root definition of irony is not nearly so specific.

And yet they'll have rather different rates for car insurance

I don't have much to add, Lobster said it better anyway.