Here's what I learned today that helped me be cooler.

[NeuroTypical]

The acronym CAPTCHA stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart".

[jerome1232]

The computer industry and it's acronyms...

[Wingnut]

I didn't even realize it was an acronym.

[Backroads]

I feel that much smarter.

[pam]

And here I thought you were going to give tips how to stay cooler for those of us that are suffering triple digit temps.

[NeuroTypical]

I feel that much smarter.

Not smarter, COOLER! (Only not the kind of cooler that Pam wanted.)

[Finrock]

The acronym CAPTCHA stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart".

This is how dense I am. I spent the first five minutes trying to understand how knowing this acronym has helped you to be cooler (as in body temperature cooler).

Its hot and muggy here at home and I was ready to try some "CAPTCHA" if it was gonna help me be cooler.

Regards,

Finrock

[dahlia]

I'm sure I'm the only one on this board who watched this show, but last night I saw 'How Sex Changed the World,' and one of the segments was on Alan Turing. I knew of him from my info science background; we had to make a little manual Turing machine in one of my classes.

Anyway, Turing (a genius) was gay, arrested (being gay was against the law in England), and given the choice between chemical castration or going to jail. He was afraid jail would ruin his academic career and took the drugs, but they negatively affecting his thinking. In the end, he committed suicide. What would the world look like now if Turing had lived a long life and continued to contribute to technology?

And yeah, I wondered how CAPTCHA was going to keep us cool.

[Mahone]

Anyway, Turing (a genius) was gay, arrested (being gay was against the law in England), and given the choice between chemical castration or going to jail. He was afraid jail would ruin his academic career and took the drugs, but they negatively affecting his thinking. In the end, he committed suicide. What would the world look like now if Turing had lived a long life and continued to contribute to technology?

There is also a lot of evidence to suggest that he didn't actually commit suicide, but that his death was an accident. The original investigation was performed so badly, even for the standards back then, that we'll probably never know what really happened. There was a general assumption on the part of the investigators that he was a broken man, and therefore suicide was a logical conclusion. There is actually a lot of evidence to suggest he was intellectually amused by his treatment with oestrogen and the physical side effects that resulted (breast enlargement etc.), and had no known negative effects on his mental state.

Suffice to say that, if the same incident had occurred today, the evidence used to conclude that he had committed suicide would not be sufficient, and much further investigation would have had to take place.

[NeuroTypical]

Ooh! Deviance, mystery, controversy, and intrigue! The coolness is increased!

[Backroads]

Not smarter, COOLER! (Only not the kind of cooler that Pam wanted.)

You just keep telling yourself it's cooler.

[mordorbund]

I'm sure I'm the only one on this board who watched this show, but last night I saw 'How Sex Changed the World,' and one of the segments was on Alan Turing. I knew of him from my info science background; we had to make a little manual Turing machine in one of my classes.

Anyway, Turing (a genius) was gay, arrested (being gay was against the law in England), and given the choice between chemical castration or going to jail. He was afraid jail would ruin his academic career and took the drugs, but they negatively affecting his thinking. In the end, he committed suicide. What would the world look like now if Turing had lived a long life and continued to contribute to technology?

I'm sure that, given enough time, he would have accomplished every computable sequence.

[slamjet]

Acronyms? Did someone say acronyms?

Here's a list off the top of my head:

AGP

BIOS

BASIC

CMOS

CCD

DIMM

DSL

DVD

EIDE

EXIF

GUI

IDE

IDE-X

IMAP

IRQ

JPEG

LAN

KVM

MAC (NOT THE FRUITY KIND)

MBR

NAT

NIC

NTSF

PDF

PNG

POP

PPPoE

PCI

SATA

SMTP

SSD

SSH

SSL

TCP/IP

TIFF

TWAIN

UPnP

UPS

URL

USB

VGA

VoIP

VPN

WAN

WEP

WiFi

WPA

XML

And just for grins: FORTRAN

Just to name a few.

[Lakumi]

I learned to be 20% cooler (ha)

[NeuroTypical]

Now Lakumi, if we start brohoofing each other in this thread, people will die from coolness overload.

One step at a time.

[Lakumi]

[SanctitasDeo]

Um, that is very cool. I feel much cooler now.

[NeuroTypical]

This week's installment of "what I learned today that helped me be cooler":

If you're like me, you're still ticked off at the Alanis Morrisette song

. Because it's such a good song, made by such a talented singer. But even though the song is all about ironic situations, Alanis totally fails to give a single good example of irony. You want to like it, but the fatal disconnect between what she's trying to sing about, and what ends up getting sung about, is just too much for you. This state of affairs is more an example of dumbness produced by the music industry, than it is an example of irony.

Anyway, you've been able to stay ticked off for the last 18 years. Yes, it came out in 1995. And yes, 1995 really was 18 years ago. I can't help you there. But I can help you with this:

This girl is still growing into her talents, and her remix isn't as professionally done. But for the love of pete, it's nice to finally hear real examples of real irony in the song.

Now you know, and you are also now cooler.

[Dravin]

If you're like me, you're still ticked off at the Alanis Morrisette song "Ironic". Because it's such a good song, made by such a talented singer. But even though the song is all about ironic situations, Alanis totally fails to give a single good example of irony. You want to like it, but the fatal disconnect between what she's trying to sing about, and what ends up getting sung about, is just too much for you. This state of affairs is more an example of dumbness produced by the music industry, than it is an example of irony.

While I doubt the song is this subtle, one could consider a song entitled "Ironic" not containing any examples of irony to be kinda... ironic.

Edited July 17, 2013 by Dravin

[Canuck Mormon]

This week's installment of "what I learned today that helped me be cooler":

If you're like me, you're still ticked off at the Alanis Morrisette song

. Because it's such a good song, made by such a talented singer. But even though the song is all about ironic situations, Alanis totally fails to give a single good example of irony. You want to like it, but the fatal disconnect between what she's trying to sing about, and what ends up getting sung about, is just too much for you. This state of affairs is more an example of dumbness produced by the music industry, than it is an example of irony.

Anyway, you've been able to stay ticked off for the last 18 years. Yes, it came out in 1995. And yes, 1995 really was 18 years ago. I can't help you there. But I can help you with this:

This girl is still growing into her talents, and her remix isn't as professionally done. But for the love of pete, it's nice to finally hear real examples of real irony in the song.

Now you know, and you are also now cooler.

Isn't it ironic that her song about irony isn't actually ironic? {mind blown}

[Guest]

and my contribution:

PEBCAK error = Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard.

ID-10-T error = ID10T, get it?

LOL.

[Guest]

This week's installment of "what I learned today that helped me be cooler":

If you're like me, you're still ticked off at the Alanis Morrisette song

. Because it's such a good song, made by such a talented singer. But even though the song is all about ironic situations, Alanis totally fails to give a single good example of irony. You want to like it, but the fatal disconnect between what she's trying to sing about, and what ends up getting sung about, is just too much for you. This state of affairs is more an example of dumbness produced by the music industry, than it is an example of irony.

Anyway, you've been able to stay ticked off for the last 18 years. Yes, it came out in 1995. And yes, 1995 really was 18 years ago. I can't help you there. But I can help you with this:

This girl is still growing into her talents, and her remix isn't as professionally done. But for the love of pete, it's nice to finally hear real examples of real irony in the song.

Now you know, and you are also now cooler.

One would think that the irony is that there's not a single irony in a song titled Ironic... but the ditty about the guy crashing on an airplane and making his sarcastic comment in the end, "Well, isn't this nice?"... is totally ironic.

So yeah, even that is a fail. LOL.

[NeuroTypical]

Oy. No.

People! Let me try again to help spread the coolness.

Calling something something, when it really isn't something, is NOT an example of irony! It's just an example of being wrong about something. Or trying and failing. Or being ignorant of a word's defnition. (And NO, none of those are examples of irony either.)

Greatness loses something when you have to explain it, but here goes:

Alanis' non-ironic bad example of Irony: "An old man turned 98. He won the lottery and died the next day".

Rachel H's fix: "An old man turned 98. He won the lottery and died the next day (from a severe paper cut from his lottery ticket)".

Alanis bad: "It's a black fly in your Chardonnay"

Rachel good: "It's a black fly in your Chardonnay (that was specifically purchased to repel black flies)."

Boo: "It's a death row pardon, 10 minutes too late."

Yay: "It's a death row pardon, that causes your demise (because you leave the jail and get hit by a bus)."

It's possible that some cultures and people just struggle to understand and identify irony. Maybe they're like conspiracy theorists, where they see irony everywhere, when there really isn't that much out there to be seen.

Here's irony: LM starts a thread on what makes him cooler, only to lose his cool by getting all hot under the collar arguing about the definition of a word.

[LittleWyvern]

Here's irony: LM starts a thread on what makes him cooler, only to lose his cool by getting all hot under the collar arguing about the definition of a word.

...cool story.

[NeuroTypical]

Lyrical irony. Remember, you heard the term here first.