Re: [OT] Live, the Universe and Fish

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tina Hall) wrote in news:MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:

> Arien Malec the Knifefighter ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), a
> Believer of the Recent Nimble Geography croaked:

Oh, my.

>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tina Hall) wrote in
>> news:MSGID_2=3A2437=2F22.13= [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
>> > Arien Malec the Summoner ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
>> > Ha, I wish I could use a sig. [...]
>>
>> That's perhaps a bit scary -- Tina with rampant sigs.
> 
> Um. Why? They'll be 4 lines at most.

Still rampant.
 
> (Hey, how could I've missed that 'rampant' when looking for
> words!?)

Rampant nutjob Godzilla

[rng generator] 
>> Start from phrases:
> 
> I went through my software dictionary, letters r, n and g and
> took those that sounded useful. Starting with 234 "random", 85
> "number", 138 "generator" words, from which the thing that re-
> writes the relevant file choses them.

Is this something built into your newsreader, or something you wrote, or 
what?

>>...
>> Roguelike neanderthal goon
>> Ranting nutcase gudgeon
> 
> I've got among others Random, God, Really, Nice, Guy, and
> Ranting. What are a goon and a gudgeon? Isn't Nutcase a noun?
> I've added Rampant, Roguelike and Neanderthal for now...

Goon: an aggressive and violent young criminal, a stupid rough guy, a 
rough hockey player

Gudgeon: small spiny-finned fish of coastal or brackish waters having a 
large head and elongated tapering body having the ventral fins modified 
as a sucker; a person easily cheated or duped (as in a bait fish)
 
>> OK, um.. go to words.
>>...
>> gent
>> gibbon
> 
> I've got Rational and Rectangular.
> 
> Not sure whether Gent fits, but will add it for now.

You don't think the RNG is a gentleman?

> What's a gibbon? Some kind of ape or monkey?

Right.

You have ghost? Ghoul? Ghast? Gibe? Gibblet?

>> > I thought not thinking was being stupid.
>>
>> If you don't think, but can, that's one thing. But if you
>> think in exactly the wrong way, for absurd reasons, that's
>> stupid.
> 
> Wrong is relative. Who knows, with a little luck (aka with some
> help from the Reeling Neat Ghost) it could have been just the
> thing to do...

Would have been fun. Sort of all guns blazing kind of stuff. Next time I 
do such a stupid thing, I'm at least going to quaff a potion of speed 
first.
 >> [being driven sane]
>> >> Right, but there are an infinite ways of being insane, and
>> >> only a few ways of being sane,
>> >
>> > I'm not sure I buy this as is.
>>
>> Which is the objectionable part?
> 
> The few ways of being sane. That'd mean all the normal people
> were clones of each other, or only a few normal people exist, as
> all people are different.

It depends on if those different people are sane or not.

> [to drive or to taxi, with honorable intentions]
>> >> If that's your type, sure.
>> >
>> > My type? I think you've lost me somewhere, probably fell out
>> > of the car when you tried that U-turn.
>>
>> "A really nice man with honorable intentions" is what a nice
>> girl is supposed to find and go out with.
> 
> Oh, why did never anyone tell me? (I used to be a nice girl.
> Honestly.)

[should be: why didn't anyone ever tell]

Anyway, there are no nice men with honorable intentions, or at least very 
few, so it's rather an impossible task.

>> "Honorable intentions" means that he's willing to wait a
>> socially seemly amount of time for sex.
> 
> My grandmother said you have to wait until married...

But she didn't, likely. Instead, she waited the socially seemly amount of 
time, again most likely, and wore white at the wedding anyway :-) That's 
not based on anything specific about your grandmother, but on folks in 
general.

> Why should I let him drive me anywhere, though? Does that mean I
> have to marry people wo give me a lift? I don't think I'll ever
> get a lift anywhere on that condition.

Oh, the twists of logic. My brain circuits are frying. Yes, to get 
married, you will have to find a nice man with honorable intentions who 
will give you a lift to the courthouse/church/wherever one gets married 
in Germany without first meeting you. This will happen at 14:32 on 
6/5/2006 (take your pick as to whether that's a European date or an 
American).
 
> [nibbled to death because of leaning on key to kill plant]
>> > Oh dear. Didn't you learn anything in Nethack? "Don't lean
>> > on keys.", should be written down somewhere...
>>
>> Right, but hitting plants is dreadfully boring.
> 
> Odd. You don't have to kill them, after all, so I just do it for
> fun.

'Tis the fighting skill I want. But I'm going to give up on that for now. 
Too dangerous (I've lost more promising DEs that way).

>> >> I always think "I shouldn't be doing this" right as I do
>> >> it. That's my definition of YASD.
>> >
>> > I'm not that quick, it only hits me about a second later. :)
>>
>> That's because you *stop* when you think "I shouldn't be doing
>> this". I think "but this time it will work."
> 
> I'm not sure. The second later is when the YASD has happened,
> after all...

When that happens, yes. But when you are thinking "this is a stupid thing 
to do" by evidence you stop doing it, whereas I think *this* time is an 
exception.
 
> [technology != magic and someone's 3rd law]
>> > You'd have to define highly advanced technology then,
>>
>> The kind so far beyond what one is used to that not only do
>> you not know how it works, you can't understand how you might
>> discover how it might work.
> 
> Hmmm... Technically it's still not magic, though, but the theory
> is the same for magic, I think.

If you invert the logic (invalid, but perhaps true), you get the 
statement that magic is just technology that we don't understand. That 
is, it's technology from some point of view that we simply can't 
understand how to understand. Or, to put it another way, if you did learn 
to make things move about with your mind, and could show that you could 
do it, pretty soon, all the scientists would jump on it, physical laws 
would be determined, and it would all stop being magic.

> [the egg was first, because the chicken popped out of it]
>> >> Not eggs in general, chicken eggs.
>> >
>> > That's never mentioned, so I doubt that's it.
>>
>> Sure it is. It's absurd otherwise.
> 
> The whole question is absurd, that's my whole point. :)

Well, it points out the notion of fuzzy borders. (Over hear, it's red, 
over there, orange, but when does red stop and when does orange begin?)

>> >> What was the tong for?
>> >
>> > Tongue. Seemed the reasonable spelling at the time... What's
>> > a tong?
>>
>> A pair of tongs is a device somewhat like scissors,
> 
> I know 'tongs'. 'Tong' sounds like some string, though.

"tong" is a variant of "tongs". It's also the deep peal of a bell (like a 
dong). Or a tine.


Arien