Disqus - Latest Comments for John

Re: What Revolves Around the Earth? [ The French Answer ]

John — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 23:02:55 -0000

"don’t make fun of a culture if you yourself cannot extend the reason around your own languages grammatical structures.

Comment by robeph"

That should of course be "language's", unless you happen to be patronising a polyglot, when "languages'" might be appropriate. Feeble-minded amateur grammar Nazis (the sort who correct single-character mistakes that could easily be typos) are often troubled by confusion stemming from the similarity in form of possessives (which generally take an apostrophe in English) and plurals (which don't). Do take better care next time...

Re: On being open minded

John — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 13:03:03 -0000

Rather irritating that the word agnostic has ceased to refer to that excellent philosophy and has been appropriated by "weak atheists" (those that do not actively believe there is a god, as opposed to so-called "strong atheists" who are sure there isn't) in an apparent effort to not offend the religious. Although to be fair "weak atheist" is not the most flattering label in the world, I suppose it makes sense they want to call themselves something else.

Re: The IT Crowd: The Work Outing

John — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 01:14:19 -0000

Dave - so it's not as long as some TV series?

Re: Blue Screen of Death

John — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:15:49 -0000

How do you know? It has a brain, doesn't it...

Re: Scientists successfully create human-bear-pig chimera (manbearpig)

John — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:55:29 -0000

You've created simultaneously the smartest, most deadly, and most delicious land mammal ever...

YOU MANIACS! How many men will lose their lives in a vain attempt to hunt down this mouthwatering killing machine? And it will learn from each encounter, and grow stronger - you've doomed us all.

Re: Verbing Weirds Language

John — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:15:34 -0000

Martti - go ahead, take your Big Book Of Unquestionable Rules of English and knock yourself out telling people what's "correct". Oh that's right, there's no such thing. There is "standard" usage (although even that changes over time, albeit at a slightly slower rate), and I agree that there is a benefit to having a dialect that can be understood by everyone in a given country - provided it's equally available to everyone. But don't kid yourself that it's any more "correct", any more logical, any more objectively understandable or any more expressive.

Having said that, everyone's allowed their subjective opinions of creative use of the language. Some noun-verbing is fun, useful, humorous or artistic but its overuse in government-/corporate-speak is like fingernails down a blackboard to me. You're not "regime-changing Iraq", you're changing Iraq's regime - its *exactly* as easy to say!

PS: "business-jargony"? Some language-purist you are :P

Re: Vending machine prints any book in minutes - Odd News | newslite.tv

John — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:58:00 -0000

It says in the article it has a library of 500,000. But no doubt it won't be long before it, or something like it, can access internet resources or simply print any file you give it. Meanwhile you go and enjoy a different kind of espresso!

Re: Field of Battle

John — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:47:59 -0000

I love the black pawn's outfit, very Les Mis. What does the black army look like - do the king and queen have heads?

PS - if you ask me, the whole religion/science debate is just one big stalemate... (see what I did there?)

Re: Visiting Hours

John — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:17:26 -0000

Hmm. I kind of agree with Nate and Amy earlier - it's a little self-important to release a comic you realise is "incomprehensible" and challenge people to work it out. I'm not one of these people who think that you owe your readers anything, just saying a good piece of art tells its own story, and doesn't need to be explained. A little ambiguity can be good, but from the comments it looks like nearly everyone was mystified.

Re: No Ordinary Fish

John — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:40:31 -0000

Well done actually looking up a real language! I saw an SNL skit yesterday which involved a guy reading the news to ZImbabweans, and he just talked jibberish and smacked his lips a bit. I mean it was pre-Internet, so it would have taken a bit more effort to look up a couple of lines of a foreign language than it would now, but still... (Ironically, according to Wikipedia the news in Zimbabwe is mostly transmitted in English anyway)

Re: Square peg, round hole

John — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 03:58:27 -0000

Not exactly new... they mentioned this on the Simpsons years ago (and if that's anything to go by - don't buy one, as they soon pop back into roundness, making you drop them on the pavement)

Re: Taking a swim in the Devil’s Pool

John — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:44:04 -0000

I really don't think it's any more dangerous for (bright and well-behaved) children than it is for adults, given that the only accident that's likely to befall you is the cliff-face eroding away beneath your feet.

Course that f*ing stupid Bryony in Atonement is a different matter.

Re: Cool Stuff: How did R2-D2 Get His Name?

John — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 17:54:00 -0000

Simpsons Reference Number 1: This just reminds me of "Max Power? Cool name" "Hehe, thanks. I got it off a hairdryer"

Simpsons Reference2 : This sounds so much like Comic Book Guy it's unreal...
"Andras Says:
Wow - thatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s real breaking news. Especially if you ignore that it was in Ã¢â‚¬Å“SkywalkingÃ¢â‚¬Â, the unofficial George Lucas biography about 20 years ago."

Re: What Revolves Around the Earth? [ The French Answer ]

John — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 23:02:55 -0000

"don’t make fun of a culture if you yourself cannot extend the reason around your own languages grammatical structures.

Comment by robeph"

Re: 6Music: Leading the fight or losing its way?

John — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 00:27:48 -0000

Aw, shame I missed the 3rd of march, flooding a radio show's text service with "Hang the DJ" is possibly the best protest idea I've ever heard! I'll have to use that one in future, Jeremy Vine certainly deserves a "suspended sentence".

Re: 6Music: Leading the fight or losing its way?

John — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 00:32:15 -0000

Incidentally it looks like what they're doing with radio 6 DJs is exactly what they're doing with BBC3 comedy - test it out on the lower-audience/lower-risk digital service, if it's popular upgrade it to the mainstream. Basically anyone who has a clear interest in new, interesting comedy or music is being used by the BBC as a guinea pig for their majority viewers.