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posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 01:47pm on 2005-02-11

Improper lane changes constitue an especially annoying subset of dangerous examples of Δv. (Admittedly, factors such as scar1scar2 and tsignal (if a turn signal is used at all) contribute significantly to the danger associated with that small Δv.)

Sometimes spelling matters. A Bain Sidhe foretells a death, but a Baen Sidhe is probably to publishing what the Keebler elves are to cookies. (I'm picturing little proofreaders who live in a tree.)

Speaking of writing, and since I'm not sure when I'll get around to another link-sausage post (you should see my to-do list -- oy!), here's something that will probably offend a few of my friends (but they'll probably be laughing too hard to hurt me much), as linked to already by a couple of other folks: The Tech Writer's Style Guide. Read to the end (after putting down your drink). You don't want to bail out before the writing example at the end.

I'm feeling much more energetic than I was when I was accidentally ingesting all that caffeine, but today I have a rather painful headache (thus very slow progress on the aforementioned to-do list). This may or may not be taken as an excuse for the preceeding portions of this entry.

One thing I did do was wrestle with the wireless router yet again. This time I got spectacularly inconsistent results (as opposed to having it consistently ignore me) and eventually got connections out through it via 10baseT, and even got a PDA[*] to sortakinda connect via WLAN. It was exciting to see the first few lines of my journal appear on the screen ... until it stalled and didn't show the rest of the page. I'll keep trying after a battery recharge.

[*]I was given a Handspring Visor, which I dropped and broke after having gotten sufficiently accustomed to it to depend on it. Then I was given a Sony Clie, which I like better in most respects, Then I was given a wireless Ethernet frob for the broken Visor. Most recently I was given another Visor to try the wireless frob with. The plan is to learn how it works and what it is and is not good for, play with it a while, then decide whether it's a useful enough tool to warrant having two PDAs, or to pass it along to someone even farther behind the curve on modern tech-toys than I am -- basically, to make sure it does somebody some good, rather than gather dust. (Already I find myself wondering whether I can obtain a wireless module for the Clie, but I need to play with a Telnet client on the Visor for a while before I decide whether that's a high priority.) Right now it's the only 802.11 device in the house, though it'll be nice to have the router behaving (and more or less sortakinda secured -- not that I'd expect much war-driving in my neighbourhood, but better safe, eh?) the next time [livejournal.com profile] anniemal comes to visit.

There are 12 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 
posted by [identity profile] silmaril.livejournal.com at 07:47pm on 2005-02-11
Spelling always matters.

Speaking of being given things, I should get to reconnecting the monitor and keyboard to X-Wing so that I can make sure I've got everything I wanted to off its hard disk, so that you can pick it up.

I also am in possession of many memory cards, courtesy of old lab clearouts. Most of them are PC-33 and PC-100 and maybe PC-133. Wanna?
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 08:27pm on 2005-02-11
"Spelling always matters."

Well, generally, yeah -- I was being cute. But tehre was that insertteing study that shwoed how txet with intiial and final lettres correct but intrenal ones jubmled was still surprisingly intlleigible ... (Yah, I know -- readable but bloody annoying.) And then there's pre-standardization-of-spelling historical documents and literature, and transliteration between languages using different alphabets where no consistent standard has been adopted. So I'd say that spelling usually matters (but that it often matters quite a lot when it does matter).

As for the memory cards, I'll need to go peer into cases to see which machine needs what, but I'm pretty sure most of those will be useful. Thanks.
 
posted by [identity profile] realinterrobang.livejournal.com at 10:31am on 2005-02-12
Don't do that to me!!!

I want to copy-edit your post! Besides that, it scrambles my synapses.

I'm going to link to that tech writing humour page on my website, with a comment that's a cleaned up paraphrase of "Just shoot me if I ever write something like that!" (I'm going to go broke doing this, aren't I? *sigh* )
 
posted by [identity profile] anniemal.livejournal.com at 08:33pm on 2005-02-11
Thank you for fixing my spelling. I was just too sleepy to put in the care I should've. I was busy listening to the wind, and thinking about the sound. I'm wondering whether it has something to do with direction of the wind and the new cable rewiring.

And now I've got proofreading elves racing back and forth to the oven and devouring Pecan Sandies.

The wind was a definite Bain Sidhe. I had the meanest gym teacher in 7th grade named Cheryl Bain, and by gum, she lived her name. Bane she was.
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 08:40pm on 2005-02-11
"Banshee" is an acceptable spelling of "Bain Sidhe", a related word derived from it, or a translation into English (I'm not sure which). So I wasn't really fixing your spelling. But your LJ entry was probably the reason the word was rolling around my brain waiting to be played with and perverted.
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 08:43pm on 2005-02-11
Oh, and if the wind was in fact a Bain Sidhe, I think I know whose death (http://www.livejournal.com/users/evawhitley/54350.html) it was keening. *sigh*
 
posted by [identity profile] anniemal.livejournal.com at 09:01pm on 2005-02-11
I do not know a Jack who died. Arthur Miller left us yesternight. The Bain Sidhe howls for all, I guess.
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 09:16pm on 2005-02-11
Oh, that's right -- two authors gone. Fortunately, when it comes to writers, they leave an awful lot of themselves behind for others to discover or share later.
 
posted by [identity profile] anniemal.livejournal.com at 10:01pm on 2005-02-11
And plenty for the Bain Sidhes to howl about. I acted in "The Crucible" in high school. Just a minor, but I loved that play. I only read "Death of a Salesman" and a couple of other things. Much left behind, much to have missed.
 
posted by [identity profile] msmemory.livejournal.com at 08:48pm on 2005-02-11
OK, I've just got to save that quote, since I do proofreading...
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 09:17pm on 2005-02-11
Enjoy! ;-)
 
posted by [identity profile] juuro.livejournal.com at 07:18pm on 2005-02-12
I started skimming and skipping when I realised you had taken me to a Dangerous Place. I only did two paragraphs of the exemplar enclosed, and still ended up hyperventilating.

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