Nobody’s going to understand this one…

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…but every time I see one of the recent tech weblog posts about “RDF in RSS” (which, to be honest, I barely understand myself), I keep thinking that RDF stands for Steve Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field:

reality-distortion field n.

An expression used to describe the persuasive ability of managers like Steve Jobs (the term originated at Apple in the 1980s to describe his peculiar charisma). Those close to these managers become passionately committed to possibly insane projects, without regard to the practicality of their implementation or competitive forces in the marketpace.

No matter how many times I see it, it always takes a slight moment for my brain to switch tracks after that.

The funniest thing is how some of these posts read if you use the incorrect definition. You don’t need to understand the technobabble — I often don’t — just reading RDF as ‘Reality Distortion Field’ lends a whole different feel to some of the suggestions.

They say the [Reality Distortion Field] in RSS 1.0 will let people do cool things. They say the [Reality Distortion Field] in RSS 1.0 will allow for unexpected connections.

— Phil Ringnalda

I’m not trying to downplay other’s concerns or existing work or effort, and I realize that I have a better understanding of [Reality Distortion Field(s)] than most of you (not bragging, but give me this as an accepted for discussion purposes at this moment) and that this gives me an edge when working with [Reality Distortion Field(s)].

— BurningBird

Keeps me amused, at least.

Top 25 lines from Star Wars…

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…that are improved by substituting the word “pants”:

  1. A tremor in the pants. The last time I felt this was in the presence of my old master.
  2. You are unwise to lower your pants.
  3. We’ve got to be able to get some reading on those pants, up or down.
  4. She must have hidden the plans in her pants. Send a detachment down to retrieve them. See to it personally Commander.
  5. These pants may not look like much, kid, but they’ve got it where it counts.
  6. I find your lack of pants disturbing.
  7. These pants contain the ultimate power in the Universe. I suggest we use it.
  8. Han will have those pants down. We’ve got to give him more time!
  9. General Veers, prepare your pants for a surface assault.
  10. I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants back home.
  11. TK-421…why aren’t you in your pants?
  12. Lock the door. And hope they don’t have pants.
  13. Governor Tarkin. I recognized your foul pants when I was brought on board.
  14. You look strong enough to pull the pants off of a Gundark.
  15. Luke…help me take…these pants off.
  16. Great, Chewie, great. Always thinking with your pants.
  17. That blast came from those pants. That thing’s operational!
  18. Don’t worry. Chewie and I have gotten into a lot of pants more heavily guarded than this.
  19. Maybe you’d like it back in your pants, your highness.
  20. Your pants betray you. Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for your sister!
  21. Jabba doesn’t have time for smugglers who drop their pants at the first sign of an Imperial Cruiser.
  22. Yeah, well short pants is better than no pants at all, Chewie.
  23. Attention. This is Lando Calrissean. The Empire has taken control of my pants, I advise everyone to leave before more troops arrive.
  24. I cannot teach him. The boy has no pants.
  25. You came in those pants? You’re braver than I thought.

Thanks to Demented Kitty

Lost in linguistic labrynths

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My name (Michael David Hanscom) in Babylonian cuneiform:

MDH

In the same MetaFilater post I got the cuneiform from, there were a few other language-related links, including one to the English Grammar FAQ — which actually provides for some fairly interesting reading (at least if you’re at all concerned about using the English language correctly, something that my parents did their best to instill in me).

Additionally, a couple weeks ago (I meant to post about it then, just spaced it until today) andersje remarked on a couple newspaper stories where people had either lost their jobs or were being threatened with the loss of their job because they used the word ‘niggardly’.

nig – gard – ly adj.

  1. Grudging and petty in giving or spending.
  2. Meanly small; scanty or meager: left the waiter a niggardly tip.

— Dictionary.com

At first I couldn’t believe what I was reading — bascially, these people were being penalized for being able to use the English language correctly. But when I started talking about it at work, none of the three people I mentioned this to had ever heard the word ‘niggardly’ before, and they all made the immediate assumption that it was related to the derrogatory slang ‘nigger’. It really caught me off guard — admittedly, it’s not a word I’ve used often (if at all), but I did know it, and didn’t really realize that it was so rarely used as to be nearly unknown.

Pros and cons to having been gifted with an unusually large vocabulary, I suppose. Not that I mind in the least — I just thought all this was pretty fascinating.

Dance, Spider-Man, dance!

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I think this has been going around on the ‘net for a while, but I just stumbled across it again. I don’t know who made it or where it’s from…but it amuses me.

Dance, Spider-Man, dance!

…says God

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And it came to pass that God visited the earth, and He did behold a series of billboard ads attributing to Him utterances of such banality that they would never pass His lips in a billion years. And it came to pass that God in His wrath considered a libel suit, but in the end opted simply to mount a cantankerous, self-contradictory ad campaign of His own…

I never said, “Thou shalt not think.”

I don’t care who started it. Just stop it.

You’d better have stopped fighting by the time I get back, or you’re all grounded.

There is no such thing as killing in my name.

Stop smirking, America. I’m talking to you, too.

(Found via Boing Boing)

iCal questions

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It’s been out for a couple days now, but I just donwloaded iCal, Apple’s new calendar/scheduling application. I haven’t even got it installed yet, and I’m coming up with curiosities.

  • Why use a .pkg installer?

    One of the great things about having a Mac is how easy most programs are to install — just drag them over to your Applications folder. Apple even touts this in an article aimed at Windows programmers moving to developing for the Mac:

    The commonly used “Setup” application, along with Install Wizards, are discouraged on Mac OS X. Use a drag install instead, which is simpler and preferred by Mac users.

    So why is it that Apple’s own programs (such as iCal’s, .mac‘s Backup, and so on) are distributed using .pkg files, requiring the use of the Apple Installer program?

  • Why does it need my password?

    Tied into using the Installer, why is Administrator access needed to install iCal? Is it really that tied into the system itself? Just seems odd.

Maybe these questions will be answered as I go along…I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

I don’t ‘forward’!

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I get a lot of things sent to me by the people I know, and that have my e-mail address. Some (many) annoy me, but at times I get sent stuff that I actually like, or find amusing, or some such.

Going through and cleaning up my hard drive after upgrading my system, I figured that a blog would be good way to keep all these things around in a central place…so, that’s what I’ve done! There’s only a couple things up there now (and they’re both pretty long), but more will appear as I keep digging through all the stuff I’ve got scattered around my drives.

So without further ado — I don’t ‘forward’!