• (disco) in reply to apapadimoulis
    apapadimoulis:
    This way, everyone wins, and there's no authoritarian standards committee to dictate how you want to use it.
    And therein lies the issue; there's *zero guarantee* that Markdown will work the same on here as it does on, say, GitHub or Assembla.

    OK, HTML/CSS/JS isn't 100% consistent either, but still, a <b> tag is a <b> tag is a <b> tag, no matter the browser.

  • (disco) in reply to RaceProUK
    RaceProUK:
    OK, HTML/CSS/JS isn't 100% consistent either, but still, a <b> tag is a <b> tag is a <b> tag, no matter the browser.

    b { font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; }

  • (disco) in reply to Lorne_Kates

    …OK, have a Like just for the sheer cheek :stuck_out_tongue:

    Maybe I should have used a BBCode example instead…

  • (disco) in reply to RaceProUK
    RaceProUK:
    Maybe I should have used a BBCode example instead…

    still vulnerable to CSS

  • (disco) in reply to accalia

    No more than cooked Markdown :stuck_out_tongue:

  • (disco) in reply to RaceProUK
    RaceProUK:
    And therein lies the issue; there's zero guarantee that Markdown will work the same on here as it does on, say, GitHub or Assembla.

    Only an issue if you don't access all web services using RESTFUL APIs with curl!

  • (disco) in reply to Lorne_Kates
    Lorne_Kates:
    (Because who doesn't want their ringtone to be Alex saying "Hey! That's my mouse!" over and over?!??!?!?)

    I prefer the "Phone support!" one better actually.

  • (disco) in reply to Zacrath
    Zacrath:
    (Because who doesn't want their ringtone to be Alex saying "Hey! That's my mouse!" over and over?!??!?!?)

    I prefer the "Phone support!" one better actually.

    But there's only one instance of "Phone Support!" vs. dozens of "That's My Mouse". I know where you fall on the quality vs. quantity debate.
  • (disco)

    Somewhere there is a skeleton, in a room, undiscovered for years, covered in dust and cobwebs, holding a phone receiver to where its ear would have been. He was the very last person to call for Initech Personal Computer support.

    He was put on hold so they could do a quick meeting with the manager. But the quick meeting turned out to be in the building across the square...and as soon as the last (former) employee was out, they locked the door on his heels;and posted a sign that the company was "bank-bustered" and for back wages call "Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe" (with apologies to Jake Vest).

    So no one ever got back to the poor caller for Initech Personal Computer support.

  • (disco) in reply to blakeyrat

    I've been using *italics* or _italics_ since the AIM days. I've also used "# Header" a bunch too. > as a blockquote character is something anybody who has ever used text-only email already does. Making boldface be double italics may be a bit annoying, but it makes a vague sense. * * * for a horizontal rule comes straight from the way books are often typeset.

    I literally had notes that were in something very close to Markdown syntax before there was a Markdown syntax.

  • (disco) in reply to Remy

    *foo* and _foo_ aren't italics, they're <em>phasis. Similarly, **foo** and __foo__ aren't bold, they're <strong>er emphasis.

  • (disco) in reply to HardwareGeek
    HardwareGeek:
    Heck, you could even recognize `\r`, just in case some old Mac wienie mailed you a text file.

    FTFY

  • (disco) in reply to tarunik
    tarunik:
    I spent a period of time in that position on one of my boxes, but *that* was because I hadn't bothered to plug in speakers, headphones, or a headset :P
    Steve_The_Cynic:
    There are reasons why I don't have such a thing. Those reasons aren't even remotely valid, and aren't even my fault either, but they are reasons.
    You have piqued my curiosity...
    Perfectly ordinary Dell deskbottom(1) PC, but running FreeBSD because, well, because. And the PC's sound hardware, well, I can't tell if it actually works because FreeBSD isn't set up right or something, and so I can't get any sound out of the machine. Usually it isn't important.

    (1) I don't understand why we call them desktop machines when we usually put them on the floor under the desk. And for that matter why we call them laptop machines when they are majoritarily used on top of desks... Maybe this is like the "portable" televisions you used to see in the US back in the CRT days. A 30-inch CRT TV is "portable" if it has a handle on top... (The 21 inch Iiyama CRT monitor I installed on a work PC in 1995 weighed something like 70 pounds and took two people to install if you wanted to avoid workplace injuries when picking it up...)

  • (disco) in reply to Onyx
    Onyx:
    Steve_The_Cynic:
    not everyone has access to working sound hardware that's supported by the installed OS. (There are reasons why I don't have such a thing. Those reasons aren't even remotely valid, and aren't even my fault either, but they are reasons.)

    Linux hardware?

    Close, or rather not so close. In this case it's FreeBSD software on generic hardware.
  • (disco)

    For those who are truly curious, think about http://thedailywtf.com/articles/CompuMart-Support,-Part-1-Windows-96%C2%BD--More

    And the pink ("salmon-coloured"?) posting style advice box can fucking fuck the fuck off.

  • (disco) in reply to VinDuv

    Once you've gone to the effort of supporting \n and \r\n, you might as well support \r as well; the effort is about the same.

  • (disco) in reply to apapadimoulis
    apapadimoulis:
    This way, everyone wins, and there's no authoritarian standards committee to dictate how you want to use it.

    Don't make fun of this awful shit you inflicted on us. Fuck you.

  • (disco)

    I think the transcript may have set a record for typos in a single :wtf:

  • (disco) in reply to Remy
    Remy:
    I've been using *italics* or _italics_ since the AIM days.

    What did you use for bold or underline, then?

    Remy:
    * * * for a horizontal rule comes straight from the way books are often typeset.

    99.5% of people have never typeset a book, I have no idea why you would assume the general public would know that.

    EDIT: also good quoting there, thanks Discourse.

    Remy:
    I literally had notes that were in something very close to Markdown syntax before there was a Markdown syntax.

    Ok? You get a cookie? Meanwhile, I had never seen anything like this before, it was like it was beamed down from aliens.

    Oh hey, now try to justify why it doesn't make en-dashes or ellipses. Is that a convention when typesetting books? Because I usually see en-dashes and ellipses in books.

  • (disco) in reply to CarrieVS

    I'm glad to see my skills as an editor did not go unnoticed or unrewarded.

    :laughing:

  • (disco) in reply to CarrieVS
    CarrieVS:
    I think the transcript may have set a record for typos in a single

    Sure, but how many of those typos did you HEAR?

    Also: Discourse doesn't quote smiley. Fucking Discourse.

  • (disco) in reply to Lorne_Kates
    Lorne_Kates:
    Sure, but how many of those typos did you HEAR?

    None, whatever the audio is hosted on is blocked by my work. It took me some time to realise there actually was audio and not just an article written in the style of a script for some unfathomable reason.

  • (disco) in reply to CarrieVS
    CarrieVS:
    None, whatever the audio is hosted on is blocked by my work. It took me some time to realise there actually was audio and not just an article written in the style of a script for some unfathomable reason

    The direct downloads of the .mp3 are hosted on thedailywtf.com, for your convenience: http://thedailywtf.com/images/remy/Radio%20WTF%20-%20Quantity%20of%20Service%20(192k).mp3

  • (disco) in reply to blakeyrat

    I prefer SciTE.

  • (disco) in reply to accalia

    Your skills might, however, have gone uninclused.

  • (disco) in reply to VinDuv
    VinDuv:
    FTFY

    Thanks. I was going from vague memory. I've never had to deal with Mac line endings personally.

  • (disco) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic
    Steve_The_Cynic:
    And for that matter why we call them laptop machines when they are majoritarily used on top of desks.

    I had a laptop some years back that had a warning not to use it on your lap, because the bottom got so hot (INB4 :giggity:; the bottom of the computer) that it could potentially cause burns. The hot air blowing out the ventilation openings was useful for keeping your :fa_coffee: warm, though.

  • (disco) in reply to HardwareGeek
    HardwareGeek:
    I had a laptop some years back that had a warning not to use it on your lap, because the bottom got so hot (INB4 ; the bottom of the computer) that it could potentially cause burns.

    Oh, it was awful when they used to have fans that blew the air out the bottom instead of out the side.

    Though, they still don't have it quite right... it's always on the left-hand side, because when it's working hard it can be quite uncomfortable to have your hand in the stream of hot air.

    For instance, if you're left-handed...

    I didn't notice until three months ago, because I used the trackpad, but I spilled tea on it and underestimated how long it would take to dry out, and fatally shorted it. Now I'm in danger of first-degree burns if I play FTL for more than 20 minutes.

    (And the person in the shop I took it to could only find one supplier for (what he's sure is) the trackpad for my computer, and they twice sent a trackpad that was clearly wrong (the same one, hence why I suspect he had got a wrong part number), so he's given up. I would like to look for the part myself but I know b*gger-all about hardware and can't work out what to search for or how to know if any of the results are the right thing, so I'm stuck with a broken trackpad until I next replace my laptop.)

  • (disco) in reply to Remy
    Remy:
    WordPad was terrible. The only thing worse than a word processor is a *bad* word processor. Give me plain text, or give me death!
    Do you know why WordPad exists?

    As I heard it[citation not available], way back in the Windows 2.x days, Microsoft lost the source code for the 16-bit Windows Write that preceded WordPad. So they kept on patching the required-version bytes in write.exe's NE header so that it would run correctly on successive versions of 16-bit Windows. Then they wanted to barf Windows 95 all over our computers(1), and having a mangled 16-bit antique just wouldn't do, so they had to build a new word subprocessor from scratch.

    Instead, they built WordPad.

  • (disco) in reply to Lorne_Kates
    Lorne_Kates:
    DOS> copy wordpad.exe notepad.exe

    Problem fucking solved.

    Not quite, you actually need to copy it into both %windir%\notepad.exe and %windir%\system32\notepad.exe. Why are there two copies of notepad?

  • (disco) in reply to Remy
    Steve_The_Cynic:
    (1) I don't understand why we call them desktop machines when we usually put them on the floor under the desk. And for that matter why we call them laptop machines when they are majoritarily used on top of desks... Maybe this is like the "portable" televisions you used to see in the US back in the CRT days. A 30-inch CRT TV is "portable" if it has a handle on top... (The 21 inch Iiyama CRT monitor I installed on a work PC in 1995 weighed something like 70 pounds and took two people to install if you wanted to avoid workplace injuries when picking it up...)

    This is now kind of an anachronism. But it goes back to the day when even a modest computer was two rack-mount cabinets side-by-side that weighed about 800 pounds. Naturally, these sat on the floor. (My mental vision is of the HP-3000 Series II.)

    So when PC's came out, they were designated "desktop" because you could, actually, put them on a desk. Though not everyone did, even then.

    Remy:
    I've been using *italics* or _italics_ since the AIM days. I've also used "# Header" a bunch too. > as a blockquote character is something anybody who has ever used text-only email already does. Making boldface be double italics may be a bit annoying, but it makes a vague sense. * * * for a horizontal rule comes straight from the way books are often typeset.

    I literally had notes that were in something very close to Markdown syntax before there was a Markdown syntax.

    Not everyone came up through that environment. I've seen * * * for books, yes, but all that other markdown was invented for use on the web, and you'd be surprised how few people these days have used it. That's due to a combination of WYSIWYG editors and practice outside of books. YELLING and *emphasis* and _underline_ were all invented by netizens for communication in environments that didn't support the more traditional means.

    I doubt if one-in-ten of my office associates would be aware of all of these practices, and even I (who've been hanging around the web in some form for 30 years now) sometimes still have trouble understanding or acquiring these things.

    Take _: Until yesterday, I hadn't found the FAQ that let me know how to escape it here in this environment.

    Sometimes it's hard for us, living within our respective expertise, to understand that others don't hold that same expertise. But you should try.

  • (disco) in reply to CoyneTheDup
    CoyneTheDup:
    Sometimes it's hard for us, living within our respective expertise, to understand that others don't hold that same expertise. But you should try.

    A voice of reason. On TDWTF. :wtf: WTF do you think you're doing? You're not allowed to be reasonable here!

  • (disco) in reply to HardwareGeek
    HardwareGeek:
    A voice of reason. On TDWTF. WTF do you think you're doing? You're not allowed to be reasonable here!

    Someone has to play straight man for the trolls.

  • (disco) in reply to HardwareGeek
    HardwareGeek:
    A voice of reason. On TDWTF. WTF do you think you're doing? You're not allowed to be reasonable here!

    In the land of the unreasonable, the reasonable are unreasonable.

  • (disco) in reply to HardwareGeek
    HardwareGeek:
    A voice of reason. On TDWTF. :wtf: WTF do you think you're doing? You're not allowed to be reasonable here!

    Agreed! Flagged for inappropriate!

  • (disco) in reply to Onyx
    Onyx:
    Agreed! Flagged for inappropriate!

    Is there a badge for that?

    If there isn't, maybe there should be one: "Reasonable on TDWTF". It would only have to be given to a few people.

  • (disco) in reply to CoyneTheDup

    Special snowflake may apply.

  • (disco) in reply to Onyx
    Onyx:
    Special snowflake

    Warning: Truly special snowflakes may be subjected to cryogenic storage.

  • (disco) in reply to Onyx
    Onyx:
    Special snowflake
    Should be reserved for those users who aren't just unique, but *unique*…
  • (disco) in reply to HardwareGeek
    HardwareGeek:
    Warning: Truly special snowflakes may be subjected to cryogenic storage.

    That was the very next post I read (the other one where you said that) and had this strange "voodoo" feeling again.

    RaceProUK:
    Should be reserved for those users who aren't just unique, but *unique*…
    HardwareGeek:
    reasonable

    I rest my case, Your Honour!

  • (disco) in reply to HardwareGeek
    HardwareGeek:
    ...cryogenic storage

    Ummm...I'm sorry I was reasonable.

  • (disco) in reply to CoyneTheDup
    CoyneTheDup:
    I'm sorry I was reasonable.

    That's a very reasonable thing to say.

  • (disco) in reply to HardwareGeek
    HardwareGeek:
    That's a very reasonable thing to say

    I guess I'm just a hopeless case.

  • (disco) in reply to CoyneTheDup
    CoyneTheDup:
    This is now kind of an anachronism. But it goes back to the day when even a modest computer was two rack-mount cabinets side-by-side that weighed about 800 pounds. Naturally, these sat on the *floor*. (My mental vision is of the HP-3000 Series II.)

    So when PC's came out, they were designated "desktop" because you could, actually, put them on a desk. Though not everyone did, even then.

    I remember when the IBM PC (the 5150, not the XT) came out. They were just personal computers (because there wasn't any other form-factor for a personal computer at the time), and computers that could be used *on the desktop* had already existed for several years, including the DEC PDT-11/110 and /130, the guts of a PDP-11 in the card cage of a VT-100 enclosure, released in 1978 or so.

    And I also remember when purpose-designed tower cases (not all meant to be used on the floor, by the way - if the floppy and CD drives are at the bottom of the tower, it is meant to be on the desk, duh) started to become available, at which point there were desktop and tower cases (desktop == horizontal, tower == vertical).

    And the point about tower-mode on early PCs is well-taken: the PC/AT had an optional tower-mounting kit available, and IBM's attention to detail was such that the instructions for mounting the machine in the tower kit included a step where you rotated the PC/AT badge in its housing so the lettering was still upright.

  • (disco) in reply to CarrieVS
    CarrieVS:
    Though, they still don't have it quite right... it's always on the left-hand side, because when it's working hard it can be quite uncomfortable to have your hand in the stream of hot air.

    For instance, if you're left-handed...

    What is your left hand doing on the left of the laptop? My complaint with the fan blowing out the left side is that is where my USB ports and video adapter is and it gets pretty hot. (I'm left handed but use my right hand for the mouse as well as other tools that are ergonomically made for the right hand).

  • (disco) in reply to Nprz
    Nprz:
    I'm left handed but use my right hand for the mouse as well as other tools that are ergonomically made for the right hand
    Most mice are symmetrical, and can be configured for southpaws ;)
  • (disco) in reply to Nprz
    Nprz:
    What is your left hand doing on the left of the laptop?

    If you train yourself to use the touchpad properly, you keep your hands on top of the machine, not at the side. :smiley: :trolleybus:

    And the vent on my machine is at the rear…

  • (disco) in reply to RaceProUK
    RaceProUK:
    Most mice are symmetrical, and can be configured for southpaws

    I don't recall seeing any ergo mice, which are not symmetrical, that are made for left-handers; I certainly didn't when I was shopping for a new mouse recently (at $discount_consumer_electronics_store, so the lack of specialty items was not surprising).

    However, I use the symmetry of mice to my advantage. I'm fairly ambidextrous, and to minimize the discomfort of my (usually) mild RSI, I freely alternate mouse usage between my hands. I don't swap mouse buttons; that would get really confusing.

  • (disco) in reply to dkf
    dkf:
    If you train yourself to use the touchpad properly,

    Impossible!

  • (disco) in reply to CoyneTheDup
    CoyneTheDup:
    If you train yourself to use the touchpad properly,

    Impossible!

    Now now, Stockholm Syndrome _is_ a real thing...

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