Comment On Refresh Your Virus Scanner

Steve:

Wow, over 90 comments and no one noticed the error in Remy's comments.

There tend to be so many to choose from.

Why couldn't Lassie leave that little brat in the well?

Unlogged:

No, any word that ends with -us has a plural form of -ii; for example, the plural of Jesus is Jesii.

However the *singular* of "us" is "I". Meditate upon this wisdom.

It depends on the language. In latin, the plural is virus.

da Doctah:

Unlogged:

No, any word that ends with -us has a plural form of -ii; for example, the plural of Jesus is Jesii.

However the *singular* of "us" is "I". Meditate upon this wisdom.

No, the singular of "us" is "me."

Some Jerk:

Cbuttius:

the one up there who decides what comments should be featured, are you still with us? I have typed loads of comments here and you haven't featured any of them.

and don't you dare feature another some jerk comment. He can't even be bothered registering and you feature his all the time.

While we are on that subject... did you ever notice how he seems to favor comments that are ACTUALLY ABOUT THE ARTICAL when he features them? I am happy that he likes some of my thoughts... so I understand other people wanting to experience that. What I don't understand is how you are going to post a dozen comments about oranges on a thread about apples and complain that you aren't getting featured.

really, so how is the plural of virus on the subject of what we are discussing here?

And if you look at the comments in the Kentucky Fried Cat Error'd you will see that I made the same point as two of the comments that got featured before they did.

Some Jerk:

F13 downloads Victoria's Secret models into your bedroom.

For those of you who have a Microsoft keyboard, or some other similarly lame brand with no F13, you can soft-emulate the F13 key by the following sequence:

1. Hold down the LEFT control key

2. Hold down the RIGHT enter key (the one next to your numeric keypad)

3. Press F10

Thank you for helping out, Mr. Internet Crossing Guard.

Besides, the plural form of 'virus' would be 'viri', not 'virii'.

I'm sure, but those aren't safe assumptions at all. Almost no real world service is based on pure CPU processing; IO, often but not just from databases will usually take a good chunk of the request/response time, leaving the CPU free for other threads or processes. You don't need a multi-core CPU for this.

If you are speaking to Jesus you would address him in the vocative so Jese.

If Jesus is the object, i.e. something is being done to him, (like being crucified) you would use Jesum.

If it his possession it would be Jesi but as you give him the object it would be Jeso.

I did this some ten years ago onpurpose. No, not a DOS attack, but keeping akey pressed down mechanically (I stuck a tea spoon between the keys, so that it'd keep the one key I needed pressed down). This caused our programm to execute a simple "next" in its viewer, but had the side effect of fixing some error in the corrseponding data. I knew it were just about 100 data sets corrupted and didnt bother to write a special routine to apply the fix in batch mode. We called this the "tea spoon update method".

Unlogged:

No, any word that ends with -us has a plural form of -ii; for example, the plural of Jesus is Jesii.

Ignoramus. Everyone knows the plural of Jesus is Christopuses.

just me:

Meep:

Stev:

Sebastian Buchannon:

So what? it has a long tail. What are you some kind of virii noob?

I don't know if you're deliberately using that word, given the context, but I just want to point out that "virii" is not a real word and never has been. Anyone that uses "Virii" to mean the plural of "Virus" is, frankly, an idiot trying to sound smarter than they really are. The plural of "Virus" is simply "Viruses".
Once again, if you were using the word in an ironic sense, that is fine, but if not - by all means go look it up in a dictionary: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/virii?s=t

These are the same people who think the plural of box is boxen.

Yeah, everybody knows it's spelt "boxxen".

I thought it was boxii?

Maltz:

I highly doubt that he was thinking of the B1 Lancer. In fact, I suspect he was thinking of the B-17, which actually HAS flown missions over Europe in large numbers, unlike either the B1 or the B2.

But frankly, the whole argument is pretty pedantic...

Oh, the B-17, what great memories of burned german cities this name brings to me! But for cold war bombing, give me the faithful B-52...

not sure you can really pluralise a name but Jesus is indeed a Latin name, so the plural would be Jesi in subject (nominative) and also vocative form, Jesos in accusative (object) form, Jesorum in genitive (belonging to them), and Jesis in plural ablative and dative (to and for them)

In full:
Jesus, Jese, Jesum, Jesi, Jeso, Jeso,
Jesi, Jesi, Jesos, Jesorum, Jesis, Jesis

that's how I learnt it at school...

It is highly likely that Jesus spoke Latin too as well as Hebrew where his name was Yehoshua (Joshua).

I'm not alone: how to decline Jesus:

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071006050152AA9DJrO

Unlogged:

No, any word that ends with -us has a plural form of -ii; for example, the plural of Jesus is Jesii.

That's good; that makes us all geniii here.:-)

sagaciter:

Unlogged:

No, any word that ends with -us has a plural form of -ii; for example, the plural of Jesus is Jesii.

That's good; that makes us all geniii here.:-)

wtf? spelling theory and religeous spelling theory have totally dominated this thread. I didn't know that programmers were capable of such right-brained debates. I'm glad I managed to sleep so long... I might have gone into ceasures if I was bored enough to try to follow this thread.

Because it's a very boring WTF.

I'd maintain the ironic version of virii would be viriises.

Maltz:

Poor Suffering Bastard:

$$ERR:get_name_fail:

and they swooped over the situation like B1 bombers over Eastern Europe.

Don't want to nitpick*, but I think you mean a B2 bomber. There is no such thing as a B1 bomber.


*who am I kidding? Sure I want to! Nitpicking is the reason I am reading this website!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_B-1_Lancer

orly?

I highly doubt that he was thinking of the B1 Lancer. In fact, I suspect he was thinking of the B-17, which actually HAS flown missions over Europe in large numbers, unlike either the B1 or the B2.

But frankly, the whole argument is pretty pedantic...

The B-17 didn't operate much over eastern Europe, that was mostly where the Russians came after Germany. Also the B-17 and B-2 doesn't really swoop very well unlike the B-1B which flies almost like a fighter despite its large size.

Cbuttius:

No, virii has been commonly adopted as a plural form for virus in the computing context, although it is not used in the normal biological context of virus. It is rather strange that it is commonly spelt with a double 'i' as the normal Latin plural if there were one would simply be viri.

Except it hasn't been adopted by anyone other than people who either read it somewhere else and went with it or just want to sound flashy. There's not a single person in the computing security industry that uses the term. It's origin does come from someone trying to pluralize the Latin word and getting it slightly wrong, which just lends to the fact that it's not a real word. The reason it's not being adapted as a word is because "Viruses" is the correct word to use and means exactly the same thing - there's no need for another "new" word.

Rootbeer:

"I just want to point out that "virii" is not a real word and never has been."

Neither is "mouses" a proper pluralization of "mouse", nor "boxen" of "box", and yet in the context of information technology both are common and accepted (if slightly whimsical) terms.

Incorrect, "Mouses" is a real word as defined here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mouses?s=t
As for "Boxen", it's a completely different kettle of fish in that it's a real word with a very specific meaning (Unix Boxes). It isn't the plural of a Cardboard box because cardboard boxes are not interchangeable, whereas (so the rhetoric goes) Unix Boxes are, hence the word "Boxen". It's technically not a real word because it's (as someone else already pointed out) "Jargon".

Um, "virii" isn't a word in English, but it IS the plural of "virus" in Latin, from which the English word is derived. Of course, in Latin, "vir" literally means "man," so maybe it's just better not to go there.

I'd just like to thank Stev for the tireless work he does day in and day out scouring the internet for spelling and grammatical errors. Think of what a terrifying and uneducated place this world would be if the internet didn't have Stev the self appointed copy editor.:)

Some Jerk:

pages with anything more than the most basic of server functionality... 118ms - 200ms response time is considered reasonably good. a 5 year old computer would likely be in the 350-450 range at best. That is roughly 5-10 requests/second for a newer system, 2-3 request/second for their own.

F5 reloads *all* of the page resources including images and CSS files. (there should really be a refresh button which just loaded the base HTML) In this case, you could have a page with 7 images, and you'd get 20 requests per second. Could also be that the page has a huge amount of images, and the page was reloaded every few seconds (the "pause" in the story)

Maltz:

Poor Suffering Bastard:

$$ERR:get_name_fail:

and they swooped over the situation like B1 bombers over Eastern Europe.

Don't want to nitpick*, but I think you mean a B2 bomber. There is no such thing as a B1 bomber.


*who am I kidding? Sure I want to! Nitpicking is the reason I am reading this website!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_B-1_Lancer

orly?

I highly doubt that he was thinking of the B1 Lancer. In fact, I suspect he was thinking of the B-17, which actually HAS flown missions over Europe in large numbers, unlike either the B1 or the B2.

But frankly, the whole argument is pretty pedantic...

Not just pedantic, but you're all missing the real point: Managers don't swoop like bombers. They swoop like seagulls.

Cbuttius:

The F keys were put on the computer keyboards so that the alphabetic characters could retain their purpose of typing the letter they have printed on them. Unlike in vi where that depends on what mode you are in.

And the key with the left arrow was put there to erase your last input character, not to put a Ctrl^H on your screen unless you "remember" to stty erase first.

I don't have to stty to make the console print an A when I hit the A key, so why do I have to stty the erase?

Years of evolution, and we are stuck with vt100 terminals. I hate linux so much, i know, can be configured, but its boring to hell, i prefer to my O/S work all by itself instead i can play games and forget about that shit.

fa2k:

Some Jerk:

pages with anything more than the most basic of server functionality... 118ms - 200ms response time is considered reasonably good. a 5 year old computer would likely be in the 350-450 range at best. That is roughly 5-10 requests/second for a newer system, 2-3 request/second for their own.

F5 reloads *all* of the page resources including images and CSS files. (there should really be a refresh button which just loaded the base HTML) In this case, you could have a page with 7 images, and you'd get 20 requests per second. Could also be that the page has a huge amount of images, and the page was reloaded every few seconds (the "pause" in the story)

I suspect that the rate (20/second) is related to the typematic rate in the BIOS/operating system.

Pete Zicari:

Um, "virii" isn't a word in English, but it IS the plural of "virus" in Latin, from which the English word is derived. Of course, in Latin, "vir" literally means "man," so maybe it's just better not to go there.

Wrong. If virii were a genuine Latin plural it would be the plural of virius.

Also nothing to do with vir=man, vīrus (ī denoting long i, unlike the short i in vir) is a mass noun (meaning "poison; venom") and as such has no Latin plural.

CAPTCHA: ludus -- one ludus many ludii?

Some Jerk:

Maltz:

Poor Suffering Bastard:

$$ERR:get_name_fail:

and they swooped over the situation like B1 bombers over Eastern Europe.

Don't want to nitpick*, but I think you mean a B2 bomber. There is no such thing as a B1 bomber.


*who am I kidding? Sure I want to! Nitpicking is the reason I am reading this website!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_B-1_Lancer

orly?

I highly doubt that he was thinking of the B1 Lancer. In fact, I suspect he was thinking of the B-17, which actually HAS flown missions over Europe in large numbers, unlike either the B1 or the B2.

But frankly, the whole argument is pretty pedantic...

B-52 is far more popular, if we aren't thinking strictly WWII anyway. It is easily the most well known stratigic bombing craft... and has a cool nickname to boot (BUFF-Big Ugly Fat Fucker) - you can wikipedia that if you don't believe me.

To my knowledge, it also has a nicer nickname that even fits the situation better: "Aluminum Overcast"

The F5 key reminded me of a time when I was rewarded with a bottle of Cuervo Gold for taping down an Escape key. Of course I had also written a VBScript macro for Word that displayed a useless, yet impossible to avoid, dialog box. Esc closed the dialog.

fa2k:

Some Jerk:

pages with anything more than the most basic of server functionality... 118ms - 200ms response time is considered reasonably good. a 5 year old computer would likely be in the 350-450 range at best. That is roughly 5-10 requests/second for a newer system, 2-3 request/second for their own.

F5 reloads *all* of the page resources including images and CSS files. (there should really be a refresh button which just loaded the base HTML) In this case, you could have a page with 7 images, and you'd get 20 requests per second. Could also be that the page has a huge amount of images, and the page was reloaded every few seconds (the "pause" in the story)

turn caching on if you want that.

Ah, the ugly ghost of Tom Christiansen's rant resurfaces.

At one time, clever computer scientists used the plural form "virii" (which is actually no more or less incorrect than "viruses", since both words are created by applying a non-latin postfix to a latin root) so they could trivially distinguish between papers written about biological viruses and computer virii using text search utilities and web search engines. It was a commonplace example of expert jargon, like using the word "nibble" to mean a 4-bit object (because a nibble is half a byte) or using "vaxen" to refer to multiple VAX computers.

But then one day Tom Christiansen, a superb perl hacker, published a rant in which he made specious claims to etymological expertise, claiming to prove that differentiating between these two different things was <i>wrong</i> and <i>bad</i> because <i>virii is not a real word</i>.

And so progress will always be retarded by the zealous but tedious followers of obsolete rules. Free your mind.

Some Jerk:

Watching programmers debate grammer is like watching monkeys debate mathematical proofs. It's just wierd. And really... WHO GIVES A SHIT!?

Not you obviously

Charlie:

using the word "nibble" to mean a 4-bit object (because a nibble is half a byte)
................
zealous but tedious followers of obsolete rules. Free your mind.

I thought it was "nybble", to distinguish it from the non-IT usage.

Yeah free your mind, maaan, from those petty syntax rules enforced by fascist compilers - they should just know what your code means & who can say what is "right". Rules are for uptight dudes like computer programmers, er.....

A. Nonymous:

I did this some ten years ago onpurpose. No, not a DOS attack, but keeping akey pressed down mechanically (I stuck a tea spoon between the keys, so that it'd keep the one key I needed pressed down). This caused our programm to execute a simple "next" in its viewer, but had the side effect of fixing some error in the corrseponding data. I knew it were just about 100 data sets corrupted and didnt bother to write a special routine to apply the fix in batch mode. We called this the "tea spoon update method".

Hehe.. I've had users actually ship their computer away, when they simply had pushed the keyboard tray too high up and it was pressing a button when put away. "It's making an awful beeping sound, it must be broken..." Sigh.

I know, this has nothing to do with the argument about how to spell, conjugate, but I thought it was funny.

Did you bother to look?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B1_bomber

The Bone is one of the sleekest bombers, I've ever had the pleasure to see.

"virii" has always been used as plural in the virus development community and I first read it even long before the internet was publicly available. You should just regard it a technical term, like the similarly "wrong" but for IT people well established "boxen" or "unices".

Honestly, I feel bad that their server was getting hit so hard by someone holding F5. They should get that looked at. That would mean that 1 person in their house could "hack" their servers.... Hold F5...

Also, wouldn't you usually use the singular to refer to a general subject anyway? e.g. "shoe noob" vs "shoes noob".

Stev:

Sebastian Buchannon:

So what? it has a long tail. What are you some kind of virii noob?

I don't know if you're deliberately using that word, given the context, but I just want to point out that "virii" is not a real word and never has been. Anyone that uses "Virii" to mean the plural of "Virus" is, frankly, an idiot trying to sound smarter than they really are. The plural of "Virus" is simply "Viruses".
Once again, if you were using the word in an ironic sense, that is fine, but if not - by all means go look it up in a dictionary: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/virii?s=t

Quite apart from the fact that the plural of most Latin words ending in '-us' is '-i' (at least in the nominative case; other cases have other endings such as '-o' and '-um') and not '-ii'.

If you don't know Latin, don't attempt to use it. Pretty much the same thing as with programming languages.

Especially since the proper Latin pluralization would be "viri". But then, it might just have been a problem of holding the down the 'i' key a few milliseconds too long.

I remember a similar story which originated from Helsinki Department of Transportation. They still have a 20 year old system operating every traffic light in the capital of finland.

The system of course is very expensive to maintain, even spare parts require a great deal of detective work.

One particular morning the system crashed, big time. Every traffic light in the city of 600 000 people went dark. The system didn't wake up despite of frantic attempts of repair and reboot. Long story short, the culprit was a paperclip which had wedged the spacebar, filled the keyboard buffer and thus kept the big old system crashing.

Says Brian Regan. Dur her her!

I think he was meaning the comedian Brian Regan. Watch the clip. Its hilarious.

Much, much better than spanking the CPU cabinet to see if the problem persists. Sadly, I have seen that tendency in more than one 'System admins'.