pet peeve thread

[mycroft]

FOX Television != FOX News, except for where the money goes.

 

FOX Television has been known for a lot of shows for years that the DS/CR audience have religiously watched. Some of them even watch FOX Sports. The D(r_)ead Hand of Murdoch doesn't interfere too often in the politics of the FOX non-News shows (when it does, everybody hears about it!) So unless you're a "Never give FOX anything because they funnel it into Faux News" type, I don't see why it's a problem.

[barmar]

FOX Television != FOX News, except for where the money goes.

Indeed -- "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy" have been known to make fun of Fox News.

[gwnn]

'there are few' when they mean 'there are a few'

[onoway]

People you have barely met who feel free to try to involve you in their personal dramas to the point of making a choice necessary;1. to be rudely direct (since anything less is ignored) and hope their weirdness doesn't then become directed at you, or 2. to try to walk a thin and stressful line of being polite while hanging onto some degree of distance with a death grip. This means continuing to be subjected to painful play by play recaps of everything they are going through ad nauseum. (Of course nothing constructive ever ever comes out of any of it, that's clearly not the point.)

 

It's nice to have the forums to vent in, thank you BBO!

[gwnn]

Inexplicable animated gifs from the Muppet Show.

[kenberg]

A few days ago my Windows 7 decided that searches would be done by something like MyWebSearch, powered by Google. I got rid of it, I am back to Google powered by Google. More recently, my XP machine had a new background display with the word BING on it. I got rid of it. This morning the XP decided to search using Yahoo. I restored Google.

 

Let me explain how I decide these things. If some program somehow becomes a default without my conscious intent of making it the default, I not only get rid of it but I take a vow never to use it. Apologists can always explain why their program has behaved correctly and that I somehow, although unintentionally and unknowingly, brought the change about. OK, but I get rid of it. The above three examples are simply the most recent. The browser wars are getting ugly.

[mike777]

I am waiting, without a lot of hope, for some search engine which will not try to filter results on whatever they have decided my interests to be. The internet is much much less interesting now that lovely random things are prevented from popping up as the search engines insist of giving you 15 sites with precisely the same information as the first one you looked at, and usually with some sort of commercial association.

 

Listened to a talk the other day about how a guy asked two of his friends, one a liberal sort and the other a conservative, to google a phrase about Egypt. The results for exactly the same phrase were entirely different,depending on the person's assumed interests and values, with virtually no cross pollination at all. The joy and fascination which used to rest in serendipity have been chopped off at the knees by this "your results have been personalized" business and I hate it.

 

 

not sure what your point is

 

 

I mean free will might just be a computer code so...what is your point?

[onoway]

I am waiting, without a lot of hope, for some search engine which will not try to filter results on whatever they have decided my interests to be. The internet is much much less interesting now that lovely random things are prevented from popping up as the search engines insist of giving you 15 sites with precisely the same information as the first one you looked at, and usually with some sort of commercial association.

 

Listened to a talk the other day about how a guy asked two of his friends, one a liberal sort and the other a conservative, to google a phrase about Egypt. The results for exactly the same phrase were entirely different,depending on the person's assumed interests and values, with virtually no cross pollination at all. The joy and fascination which used to rest in serendipity have been chopped off at the knees by this "your results have been personalized" business and I hate it.

[gwnn]

I am waiting, without a lot of hope, for some search engine which will not try to filter results on whatever they have decided my interests to be.

www.duckduckgo.com ;)

[barmar]

I am waiting, without a lot of hope, for some search engine which will not try to filter results on whatever they have decided my interests to be.

I appreciate that they do this.

 

I do lots of google searches for software-related topics. Many words that we use in computer science have non-computer meanings as well, so a simple word search would bring up lots of pages with these other uses of the words. But Google knows I usually search for computer stuff, so it gives these uses higher priority, and I get the answers I really want.

 

I also do lots of TV searches. I can type "glee", and it knows I'm talking about the TV show.

[Trinidad]

I appreciate that they do this.

The least they could do is to have two search buttons: One "personalized search" and one "open search".

 

I agree with barmar that it is good to have the possibility to perform a personalized search. I used to do research with rubber. There are a lot of web pages about rubber, and -though they may be interesting for inquisitive minds- they didn't have much to do with the topic of my research.

 

Rik

[helene_t]

is there a way to "hide" your computer so that search engines do not know who is doing a search?

Yes, there are several ways to do that. Let me google it for you:

personalized search google cookies IP-address

gives me (ok, it might give something difference for you :) )

 

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/face-off-4-ways-to-de-personalize-google

 

An explanation on how Google personalization works is:

http://blog.photoshelter.com/2012/02/how-google-gets-personal-why-you-need-to-know-about-it/

 

Basically, you can remove cookies and sign out of google to get rid of the personalization, but it will still use your location (from your IP address) so that you will get predominantly UK information.

[Vampyr]

The least they could do is to have two search buttons: One "personalized search" and one "open search".

 

That is a very good idea. Lacking that, is there a way to "hide" your computer so that search engines do not know who is doing a search?

[gwnn]

Am I still on everyone's ignore list?

[Trinidad]

Am I still on everyone's ignore list?

Who are you?

 

Rik

[Aberlour10]

Am I still on everyone's ignore list?

 

 

over a year of the Dutch cuisine und you are still alive?

[helene_t]

over a year of the Dutch cuisine und you are still alive?

Reminds me of a silly yahoo question from many years ago:

http://de.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AvAnNxUzIWTecHzxlAmGejoJCgx.;_ylv=3?qid=20060911111411AAxxn8l

[Fluffy]

Let me explain how I decide these things. If some program somehow becomes a default without my conscious intent of making it the default, I not only get rid of it but I take a vow never to use it. Apologists can always explain why their program has behaved correctly and that I somehow, although unintentionally and unknowingly, brought the change about. OK, but I get rid of it. The above three examples are simply the most recent. The browser wars are getting ugly.

I try to do this also, and I hate commercials that comand me to do buy somthing, I never buy anything that has a 'buy' command somewhere, nor do I share/like anything on the net that commands me to share/like it. In general whenever something without authority tries to command me to do something I try my best to do the opposite.

 

But I gotta be a minority, or else there wouldn't be so many commanders around.

 

 

 

[GreenMan]

In general whenever something without authority tries to command me to do something I try my best to do the opposite.

 

Great approach. Keep it up! :)

[Cyberyeti]

In general whenever something without authority tries to command me to do something I try my best to do the opposite.

 

 

Yeah, partner keeps telling me not to open on crap ...

[blackshoe]

"try and <verb>". It's "try to <verb>", "to" being part of the infinitive form of whatever verb is involved. "And" is not part of any infinitive form of any verb. I have no idea where this idea of using "and" here comes from - it makes no sense.

[mike777]

pet peeve when I cuebid opp suit and pard has no idea that means i have a max pass and support for his bid suit.

 

Later when I tell him that he says he never heard of such a thing...and I am just making stuff up.

 

peeved

[GreenMan]

"try and <verb>". It's "try to <verb>", "to" being part of the infinitive form of whatever verb is involved. "And" is not part of any infinitive form of any verb. I have no idea where this idea of using "and" here comes from - it makes no sense.

 

"try and <verb>" has been part of English since the 17th century or so; at least one good usage dictionary (M-W) says it may be *older* than "try to". Language doesn't evolve according to strict rules; sometimes it's idioms all the way down. Logic is the weakest argument against any given usage.

 

BTW infinitives don't require "to".

[mike777]

"try and <verb>" has been part of English since the 17th century or so; at least one good usage dictionary (M-W) says it may be *older* than "try to". Language doesn't evolve according to strict rules; sometimes it's idioms all the way down. Logic is the weakest argument against any given usage.

 

BTW infinitives don't require "to".

 

 

We really need a forum for these english lessons.....

 

We have brilliant Phd...now if they know how to teach .so much the better

[Winstonm]

It really does rhyme...

 

emphasis added:

In 1937, after five years of sustained economic growth and a steadily declining unemployment rate, the Roosevelt Administration began to worry more about possible inflation and the size of the federal deficit than the ability of the economy to sustain the recovery. As a consequence, in the fall of 1937, FDR supported those in his administration who advocated a reduction in federal expenditures (i.e. stimulus spending) and a balanced budget. The results — which included a massive reduction in the number of people employed by such programs as the WPA — were catastrophic. From the fall of 1937 to the summer of 1938, industrial production declined by 33 percent; wages by 35 percent; national income by 13 percent; and not surprisingly, the unemployment rate rose by roughly 5 percentage points, with an estimated 4 million workers losing their jobs.