Author Topic: You know you're middle aged when  (Read 186590 times)

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #525 on: 06 March, 2018, 08:18:53 pm »
I spent 10 mins looking for the shed keys so I could lock it up and go for a ride.  Back Pocket  :facepalm:

I still cant find my steel rule, which was also in the shed
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #526 on: 06 March, 2018, 08:32:05 pm »
Nooooo, don’t cancel!  I’ve bought you flowers and stuff!
Ooh, in that case, I'm just slipping into my most elegant bibshorts.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Oscar's dad

  • aka Septimus Fitzwilliam Beauregard Partridge
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #527 on: 06 March, 2018, 09:13:49 pm »
Nooooo, don’t cancel!  I’ve bought you flowers and stuff!
Ooh, in that case, I'm just slipping into my most elegant bibshorts.

I shall polish my helmet with renewed vigour.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #528 on: 07 March, 2018, 12:16:28 am »
I spent 10 mins looking for the shed keys so I could lock it up and go for a ride.  Back Pocket  :facepalm:

I still cant find my steel rule, which was also in the shed

Did I mention the time I searched a campsite washblock, my tent and a decent quantity of mud in between for my missing head torch?  You already know how this one ends.

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #529 on: 07 March, 2018, 08:04:48 am »
Found it - I tidied the workshop  :-[

“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #530 on: 07 March, 2018, 08:13:45 am »
... the internet is full of illiterate n00bs who wouldn't know RFC1855 if an avian carrier dropped it on their heads ...

I have long been very impressed at the breadth and depth of your knowledge on so many topics, Kim.

Having no idea (without searching) what a RFC1855 is (a capacitor, perhaps?) nor an avian carrier (a ship that carries aircraft or a means of passing on influenza?) I can now be identified as an illiterate n00b!

IIRC the Royal Flying Corps was founded a little later than the Crimean War, so that makes two of us. (I was hanging back in the hope that someone else would ask first.)
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #531 on: 07 March, 2018, 08:42:30 am »
Avian carrier?  Surely that's the basket the chicken goes in at the square dance?
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Tim Hall

  • Victoria is my queen
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #532 on: 07 March, 2018, 08:54:13 am »
Avian carriers is RFC1149 I think.
There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can
"overhaul" it, or you can ride it.  (Jerome K Jerome)

Basil

  • Um....err......oh bugger!
  • Help me!
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #533 on: 07 March, 2018, 09:00:59 am »
I assumed that avian carriers referred to birds picking up whatever a RFC1149 is and dropping it on your head.
Admission.  I'm actually not that fussed about cake.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #534 on: 07 March, 2018, 09:01:34 am »
Mine was like this:
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

clarion

  • Tyke
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #535 on: 07 March, 2018, 09:20:10 am »
Found it - I tidied the workshop  :-[


Now, I am a long way from OCD, but that photo is just mean.... ;DD
Getting there...

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #536 on: 07 March, 2018, 09:32:09 am »
Ironically I only tidied it because I had tools every where and couldn't find what I was looking for...
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #537 on: 07 March, 2018, 01:59:56 pm »
A nurse appears to have borrowed your scissors to fettle a troublesome patient/doctor/secretary of state for health and social care.


As for RFCs, they're the documents "Request For Comments" that define the standards that make the Internet work.  Most of them are boring protocol specs, but 1855 is more like a combination of a style guide and best practice guideline.  It's one of the ones that provides guidance on how to write messages for optimal clarity, readability, compatibility, and without wasting too much bandwidth (back in the days when a few kilobytes here and there added up to real money in network/storage costs) - the sort of thing that went straight out the window when Microsoft came along and made Outlook (which breaks most of this stuff) the de-facto standard for business (and for a time, home) email users.

There's a tradition of joke RFCs being published on April 1st.  RFC1149 "IP over Avian Carriers" is probably the most famous, it being a protocol specification for implementing an internet connection over carrier pigeons.  It's useless, but it's amusingly compelling enough that it's been tested and it does actually work.

"n00b" is gamer-speak for "newbie", a common term from the heyday of Usenet and BBSes for someone who had yet to learn the technical and cultural aspects of harmonious online socialisation.  It's not inherently derogatory, but does get used as a slur against people who ought to know better when indulging in newbie-like behaviour (bad quoting, me-tooing, asking questions that have already been answered, that sort of thing), and is occasionally used self-deprecatingly as a statement of ignorance in a given field.

I don't think anyone on here qualifies as illiterate, but if you've ever had email dialogue with a Mistake Agent or similar, you'll have an idea of what I meant by "illiterate n00bs who wouldn't know RFC1855 if an avian carrier dropped it on their head".  Sort of people who quote your entire email (even though they've only read the first paragraph) then add a single line at the top to "advice" you of something, usually in HTML and with broken references and sig separators.  That this is now how email is normally used, and that my ramblings about nettiquette seem hopelessly dated is clearly a sign of being middle-aged.

Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #538 on: 07 March, 2018, 02:17:37 pm »
Ahem. It is rare that I feel the need to correct teh Kim, but there is a subtle and vital distinction between 'newbie' and 'n00b'.

A 'newbie' is someone who has only just started playing a game. They are forgiven mistakes in gameplay and having inadequate gear.

A 'n00b' is someone who continues to play in an ignorant manner (usually this insult is flung at team mates who make mistakes or who have inadequate gear) but who has played for a while. Or, they have committed the cardinal sin of paying for advancement in a game and hence have reached exalted levels but have no idea of how to play.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #539 on: 07 March, 2018, 02:25:29 pm »
Interesting.  That's presumably a gaming-specific dialect thing that I've managed to miss (I'm not a gamer, but some of my best friends are gamers).  I only usually encounter "n00b" in the ironic or self-deprecating sense.

Ties in with a twitter thread [contains images of text] and an article I was reading yesterday about internet linguistics, which may be of interest to those who are middle-aged.

(I was particularly interested in the convention of a single full stop expressing annoyance, except when the sentence is capitalised and punctuated according to traditional grammar rules, which functions as a kind of escape sequence.  That's something I've been fluent in for years, but have never really thought about.  Teh Kidz also appear to be using ellipses in exciting new ways[1].)


[1] I'll use "..." at the end of a sentence in more or less the traditional manner.  Surrounded by whitespace it translates as roughly "what the actual fuck?", often found alongside a URL to an article containing the latest instalment of brexit'n'trump, or similar.  I don't use ".." at all, and always assumed ",,," was a typo.  I was on an IRC channel for a while where "." on a line of its own was used as a sort of shorthand for "I'm still paying attention and I understand/feel for what you're saying, but I don't have anything useful to contribute at this point." - it allowed people to provide encouragement without affecting the clarity of long explanations.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #540 on: 07 March, 2018, 02:52:50 pm »
The angry full stop has appeared in these august pages, probably in the Grammar Cringe thread.

Also, the peculiarity of the way language is used on the internet has been remarked on by linguists etc since at least 2000. Certainly well before "to can"*. Consensus is/was that it's due to it being mostly speech in written form, but unlike speech or other writing, you can go back and alter what you said in the past, and everything you say is said to a crowd, even if addressed to a specific individual.

*Of course, English is a fairly odd language in not having "to can" as a regular word. But then, that's only the root of the meaning expressed here.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Beardy

  • Shedist
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #541 on: 07 March, 2018, 03:17:24 pm »
'to can' confuses me. No, that's wrong 'to can' has me completely confounded.

The only thing I can think for it is in putting food or similar in a tin can, 'to can food', but how this fits into the context of the sentence I can't work out and why we would want a word specifically for something as none day to day as canning food, I can't even begin to comprehend. All this would lead me to the conclusion that I have completely missed the point, and Google has only confused me further.

Of course, my general lack of English skills (as apposed to language skills) and dyslexia don't help at all.
For every complex problem in the world, there is a simple and easily understood solution that’s wrong.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #542 on: 07 March, 2018, 03:24:22 pm »
It's not really to 'can' it's to 'can even', which is the playful logical opposite[1] of 'can't even' as it appears in "I can't even...", a common construction denoting speechlessness with the actual verb (probably something like "begin to explain how I feel about this") being left as an exercise for the reader.

So being able to can even suggests that you're full able to articulate your emotions.  Or something.


[1] See also: Molish

Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #543 on: 07 March, 2018, 03:27:17 pm »
Interesting.  That's presumably a gaming-specific dialect thing that I've managed to miss (I'm not a gamer, but some of my best friends are gamers).  I only usually encounter "n00b" in the ironic or self-deprecating sense.
Calling oneself a n00b is a shorthand way of saying "I was a complete twit without any valid excuse"
<i>Marmite slave</i>

robgul

  • Cycle:End-to-End webmaster
  • cyclist, Cytech accredited mechanic & woodworker
    • Cycle:End-to-End
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #544 on: 07 March, 2018, 05:40:45 pm »
Found it - I tidied the workshop  :-[


Now, I am a long way from OCD, but that photo is just mean.... ;DD

I don't like to brag but . . . . . from my man-cave with everything in its place and a place for everything.


The woodworking department is on the other wall!

Rob

Torslanda

  • Professional Gobshite
  • Just a tart for retro kit . . .
    • John's Bikes
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #545 on: 07 March, 2018, 05:58:47 pm »
You don't want to see my workshop!
VELOMANCER

Well that's the more blunt way of putting it but as usual he's dead right.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: You know you're RETIRED when
« Reply #546 on: 08 March, 2018, 09:07:52 am »
Oh well...



It took 30 years to get this messy.

Bike fettling down at the end, next to the Picasso.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #547 on: 08 March, 2018, 09:10:16 am »
I don't like to brag but . . . . . from my man-cave with everything in its place and a place for everything.

The woodworking department is on the other wall!
Rob
Is there any logical reason why the WD40 and GT85 are on different shelves?  ;)

Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #548 on: 08 March, 2018, 09:28:22 am »
Is there any logical reason why the WD40 and GT85 are on different shelves?  ;)
Solvents on one shelf, lubricants on another?
<i>Marmite slave</i>

clarion

  • Tyke
Re: You know you're middle aged when
« Reply #549 on: 08 March, 2018, 10:42:52 am »
My workshop is currently my parents' dining room.

Shhhhh!!!  Don't tell!
Getting there...