Things you should know by now, but only just discovered

Ctrl+Shift then + will change the orientation of a pdf so you can read all those landscape articles.

In other news, the single space after a period blew my mind. I'll join the club.

Squee9 wrote:

In other news, the single space after a period blew my mind. I'll join the club.

For me it was blown away by the fact that double space after period, was a taught thing; until you guys talked about it here I have never heard of it. When was it taught; I took my only keyboarding class (taught on computers) in the early 90's.

Druidpeak wrote:
KrazyTacoFO wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Ghostship wrote:

One space after a scentence. How the hell am I going to break that habit? And how the hell did nobody here ever mention that?

I asked my wife to proof a document. She called me on it. I wouldn't believe her, so I researched it. A habit which is the result of limiting technology. This is particularly galling because of what I do. Architecture schools around here shunned the use of computers for fear of it limiting design. Having learned to use CAD and 3d packages, I've been a proponent of mastering the tool to prevent it from limiting your ability, instead of condemning it for limiting the ability of those who do not master it.

It's also considered an aesthetic error among typesetters.

I have to say, I like the extra space. Change will be hard.

Did I miss any? Had to go back and delete several.

Yeah, a figured this out a few years ago. I still can't break the habit.

Dear...God...I have always used 2 and now I feel like a fool. A fool I say!

Ugh, I've been guilty of this for many years now. I shall have to make a deliberate effort to break myself of the habit. I will, however, defend the Oxford comma to the death. Those non-users are just plain wrong.

trichy wrote:

The fact that saying "I feel nauseous" means that you feel like you are causing nausea in others. If you are suffering from nausea, you are nauseated.

This is the kind of thing that I was fine before I knew it, but now that I do, it may cause me to become an insufferable jackass about it.

What...the...hell. Ruined! I'm ruined now.

I hear the "nauseous" thing all the damned time (as you might imagine), but I take it in the spirit of what is intended. I do use "nauseated" when I'm summing up what they've told me, though, and a number of folks have switched once they've heard the correct term. Amusingly, I'd estimate that the majority of my medical school colleagues still say "nauseous", even though they should certainly know better.

Phishposer wrote:
krev82 wrote:

You can also do sideways, who exactly is this feature for?

Some programmers like to mount their widescreen monitors in portrait orientation so they can see more lines of code at once. If I did more coding I would do that too on my second monitor.

I use this for shmups. Except I did the weird and dangerous thing of hooking my laptop to my TV and then putting my TV on its side leaning up against the wall. Worked though!

Tigerbill wrote:
Squee9 wrote:

In other news, the single space after a period blew my mind. I'll join the club.

For me it was blown away by the fact that double space after period, was a taught thing; until you guys talked about it here I have never heard of it. When was it taught; I took my only keyboarding class (taught on computers) in the early 90's.

I think my first typing instructions in school came around 1986 or 1987, and my last in 1997, and anytime were were expected to type something the double-space rule came up.

For work, I had to switch to using windows as my primary desktop and laptop OS (while still running linux and FreeBSD vm's for those blessed moments when I get to play with code or play system administrator still). I just accidentally discovered what the dreaded windows key + tab does on windows 7. I find it rather nifty.

Coldstream wrote:

I hear the "nauseous" thing all the damned time (as you might imagine), but I take it in the spirit of what is intended. I do use "nauseated" when I'm summing up what they've told me, though, and a number of folks have switched once they've heard the correct term. Amusingly, I'd estimate that the majority of my medical school colleagues still say "nauseous", even though they should certainly know better.

The dictionary seems to acknowledge "nauseous" as a valid form of "affected with nausea; nauseated"... that said, from my own upbringing I agree with your assessment, and I use "nauseous" and "nauseated" to mean very different things.

MonoCheli wrote:
Nicholaas wrote:

I recently learned there is a really hard seed in the middle of an avocado - after spending 5 minutes trying to muscle through it with a knife.

Yeah, here is a tip do a circular cut around the pit the long way then twist the two halves to separate them. Lastly take your knife and whack the middle of the blade into the pit. It should be lightly lodged into the pit. Now turn the knife handle like the hands on a clock around the pit and the pit will just twist out. Super easy. I learned this while I was living in Costa Rica for a semester except there we did it with a machete...

So can I just hit it really hard with a machete?

Tkyl wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:

Awesome find on the windows calculator.

I never knew home electrical color coded the hot wires as black until I went to replace a switch in my house. I figured all electrical would have followed the red = hot, black = ground before that.

Seriously? Black wire in homes is hot? That's just messed up.

Opposite way round in UK (red is live), except in new installations after 2004, now it's brown for live, blue for neutral and green/yellow striped for earth. Just to the add to the fun, in the old standard, blue is used for the third phase, now it's grey.
Just as well that three-phase is rare in the home, unless you are manly enough to own machine tools.

merphle wrote:
Coldstream wrote:

I hear the "nauseous" thing all the damned time (as you might imagine), but I take it in the spirit of what is intended. I do use "nauseated" when I'm summing up what they've told me, though, and a number of folks have switched once they've heard the correct term. Amusingly, I'd estimate that the majority of my medical school colleagues still say "nauseous", even though they should certainly know better.

The dictionary seems to acknowledge "nauseous" as a valid form of "affected with nausea; nauseated"... that said, from my own upbringing I agree with your assessment, and I use "nauseous" and "nauseated" to mean very different things.

There's been an increasing trend in dictionaries to give definitions based on common usage, even if it's technically incorrect. The validity of this depends on your point of view, I suppose, but my major concern is that I'm hearing what my patient is trying to tell me, so they can say whatever they like.

Nicholaas wrote:
MonoCheli wrote:
Nicholaas wrote:

I recently learned there is a really hard seed in the middle of an avocado - after spending 5 minutes trying to muscle through it with a knife.

Yeah, here is a tip do a circular cut around the pit the long way then twist the two halves to separate them. Lastly take your knife and whack the middle of the blade into the pit. It should be lightly lodged into the pit. Now turn the knife handle like the hands on a clock around the pit and the pit will just twist out. Super easy. I learned this while I was living in Costa Rica for a semester except there we did it with a machete...

So can I just hit it really hard with a machete? :)

"It" being the avocado stone, not your hand.

Important clarification, I feel.

The wife taught me the same trick - she learned it in culinary school, and we haven't yet used a machete. Clearly, her culinary school loses points for the lack of machete-usage.

Nicholaas wrote:
MonoCheli wrote:
Nicholaas wrote:

I recently learned there is a really hard seed in the middle of an avocado - after spending 5 minutes trying to muscle through it with a knife.

Yeah, here is a tip do a circular cut around the pit the long way then twist the two halves to separate them. Lastly take your knife and whack the middle of the blade into the pit. It should be lightly lodged into the pit. Now turn the knife handle like the hands on a clock around the pit and the pit will just twist out. Super easy. I learned this while I was living in Costa Rica for a semester except there we did it with a machete...

So can I just hit it really hard with a machete? :)

That's how I eat all of my food.

Jonman wrote:
Nicholaas wrote:
MonoCheli wrote:
Nicholaas wrote:

I recently learned there is a really hard seed in the middle of an avocado - after spending 5 minutes trying to muscle through it with a knife.

Yeah, here is a tip do a circular cut around the pit the long way then twist the two halves to separate them. Lastly take your knife and whack the middle of the blade into the pit. It should be lightly lodged into the pit. Now turn the knife handle like the hands on a clock around the pit and the pit will just twist out. Super easy. I learned this while I was living in Costa Rica for a semester except there we did it with a machete...

So can I just hit it really hard with a machete? :)

"It" being the avocado stone, not your hand.

Important clarification, I feel.

The wife taught me the same trick - she learned it in culinary school, and we haven't yet used a machete. Clearly, her culinary school loses points for the lack of machete-usage.

Yeah, my hand won't be anywhere near the table once I start swinging. Kitchen safety 101.

iaintgotnopants -

That instantly makes me think of Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time.

EDIT:

Guys, guys - I just realized you don't have to type "www" in the address bar anymore! When did this happen?

Nicholaas wrote:

EDIT:

Guys, guys - I just realized you don't have to type "www" in the address bar anymore! When did this happen?

In the late 1980's, I think. Though a lot of folks didn't know how to use wildcard DNS records properly until more recently.

Unless you mean the 'magic' auto-fill function of many browsers. That's very recent. In the past few years or so.

Coldstream wrote:

There's been an increasing trend in dictionaries to give definitions based on common usage, even if it's technically incorrect. The validity of this depends on your point of view, I suppose, but my major concern is that I'm hearing what my patient is trying to tell me, so they can say whatever they like. :)

If people say "I feel nauseous" to mean "I feel like I'm going to vomit", then that's what the word means. Doesn't matter what any dictionary or prescriptive grammarian has to say on the matter.

Nicholaas wrote:

EDIT:

Guys, guys - I just realized you don't have to type "www" in the address bar anymore! When did this happen?

Hotkeys I'd like to bring to your attention as well then;
ctrl+enter (www. * .com)
shift+enter (www. * .net)
ctrl+shift+enter (www. * .org)

Where * = whatever you typed into the address bar prior to hotkey combination.

Hypatian wrote:
Coldstream wrote:

There's been an increasing trend in dictionaries to give definitions based on common usage, even if it's technically incorrect. The validity of this depends on your point of view, I suppose, but my major concern is that I'm hearing what my patient is trying to tell me, so they can say whatever they like. :)

If people say "I feel nauseous" to mean "I feel like I'm going to vomit", then that's what the word means. Doesn't matter what any dictionary or prescriptive grammarian has to say on the matter. :)

In another case, a claim could be made that "we already have a word for that," except we already have a word for the prescriptivist definition of "nauseous," too: nauseating.

Stumbled upon this by accident a while back

Win Key + TAB in windows 7

Totally owns alt+TAB

Sure. But if 9/10 uses of "nauseous" are of the form "I feel nauseous", that definition has pretty much taken over. I don't think I've heard nauseous used to mean nauseating (except in discussions like this one) for over a decade. I hear nauseous used to mean nauseated several times a year.

Hypatian wrote:

Sure. But if 9/10 uses of "nauseous" are of the form "I feel nauseous", that definition has pretty much taken over. I don't think I've heard nauseous used to mean nauseating (except in discussions like this one) for over a decade. I hear nauseous used to mean nauseated several times a year.

I see "you're" and "your" mixed up all the time. Doesn't mean that "you're" is suddenly possessive because people use it that way out of ignorance. I'm all for the living-language point of view, but that doesn't suddenly mean that people can't use words incorrectly.

Coldstream wrote:
Hypatian wrote:

Sure. But if 9/10 uses of "nauseous" are of the form "I feel nauseous", that definition has pretty much taken over. I don't think I've heard nauseous used to mean nauseating (except in discussions like this one) for over a decade. I hear nauseous used to mean nauseated several times a year.

I see "you're" and "your" mixed up all the time. Doesn't mean that "you're" is suddenly possessive because people use it that way out of ignorance. I'm all for the living-language point of view, but that doesn't suddenly mean that people can't use words incorrectly.

Whatever, I do what I eat*!

*To eat-
1. to want
2. to consume food

Radical Ans wrote:

Stumbled upon this by accident a while back

Win Key + TAB in windows 7

Totally owns alt+TAB

"Win Key" + "P" is handy as well for multiple display environments.

KrazyTacoFO wrote:
Coldstream wrote:
Hypatian wrote:

Sure. But if 9/10 uses of "nauseous" are of the form "I feel nauseous", that definition has pretty much taken over. I don't think I've heard nauseous used to mean nauseating (except in discussions like this one) for over a decade. I hear nauseous used to mean nauseated several times a year.

I see "you're" and "your" mixed up all the time. Doesn't mean that "you're" is suddenly possessive because people use it that way out of ignorance. I'm all for the living-language point of view, but that doesn't suddenly mean that people can't use words incorrectly.

Whatever, I do what I eat*!

*To eat-
1. to want
2. to consume food

I eat to go eat lunch.

IMAGE(http://thereifixedit.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/white-trash-repairs-your-fingernails-will-thank-you1.jpg)

KingGorilla wrote:

IMAGE(http://thereifixedit.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/white-trash-repairs-your-fingernails-will-thank-you1.jpg)

OMG. Now I'm going to have to go procure a staple remover.

I always just used a flathead screwdriver, or my thumbnail. This could pose considerably less difficulty, though

Its so obvious in retrospect...

They even make special pliers just to open split rings. But why bother? This is so much easier.

KingGorilla wrote:

IMAGE(http://thereifixedit.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/white-trash-repairs-your-fingernails-will-thank-you1.jpg)

Nice!

KingGorilla, that will save me so many ripped thumbnails. Cheers!

KingGorilla wrote:

IMAGE(http://thereifixedit.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/white-trash-repairs-your-fingernails-will-thank-you1.jpg)

This is great.

I stopped using key rings years ago and have been using a ~5" piece of fine/strong rope from camping that I thread through the keys and then girth hitch to a small carabiner. I hook the carabiner on the edge of my pocket and then the keys dangle in my pocket but because they are not on a ring they lay out flat and don't dig into my thigh. I will say I only have about 5 keys on any one "ring" and just add more rings for different needs like my keys, church keys, work keys, and my parents houses keys. I don't like having a lot of stuff in my pockets so I only carry the keys I need there and add the other rings as needed.

MonoCheli wrote:
KingGorilla wrote:

IMAGE(http://thereifixedit.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/white-trash-repairs-your-fingernails-will-thank-you1.jpg)

This is great.

I stopped using key rings years ago and have been using a ~5" piece of fine/strong rope from camping that I thread through the keys and then girth hitch to a small carabiner. I hook the carabiner on the edge of my pocket and then the keys dangle in my pocket but because they are not on a ring they lay out flat and don't dig into my thigh. I will say I only have about 5 keys on any one "ring" and just add more rings for different needs like my keys, church keys, work keys, and my parents houses keys. I don't like having a lot of stuff in my pockets so I only carry the keys I need there and add the other rings as needed.

That is an awesome idea especially since all I have is my home key and car key. Tonight I will be free from the shackles of key rings! Long live the Triple Fisherman's Knot and 550 cord!