Pfft, the YouTube ones are by and large horrible.

You need the Something Awful ones. <a href="http://forums.somethingawful.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=191">In progress.</a> <a href="http://www.letsplayarchive.com/">Complete.</a> Animal Crossing is highly recommended.

If written music can be said to be equivalent to written language, this guy's white-board scribbling is like a crude sentence diagram. He's drawn a sketch showing different sections of a simple piece in relation to each other and spelled out what the sections contain, but you wouldn't want to put something like that white-board in front of a musician and tell them to play it.

This "piano lesson" is akin to the tripe purveyed by the "play piano in a flash" guy on PBS, and is aimed at the person who "always knew I felt musical" but couldn't be bothered with putting in a little time and effort to acquire basic music-reading skills. Strictly home-recreation and self-amusement stuff, this.

Yeah, I'm in a Catholic Studies class that would benefit enormously from the ability to make that allusion on a regular basis. It would be a genuine help. It would also be beyond awesome.

Thanks for the pronunciation shot.

Crap. I hope you meant this Tuesday.

I've always pronounced it basically as written: "duh-SOCKED-patch". And if anyone's curious, it was totally random -- doesn't mean anything, or at least I don't remember it meaning anything.

deh-soak-pach. At least that's how I'd say it.

True, but he has done some (moderately) more complex stuff as well, like the Chopin C sharp minor waltz.

I'm sure you could get away with just mentioning the fall of a once wallstrait oldparr. :p

Dammit! I just sent off my "guide to pronouncing dsokpach" to Larry a few hours ago! I'll tack this on to my note as an addendum.

No, it doesn't mean anything. I know this because I have gone through every single mention of the word ever referenced by Google in an effort to answer this question. It is, however, a hilarious word which I have always wanted used in an oral context. It also scared the pants off Larry when he saw it in his script. :P

I was pleased, incidentally, to find that VVS8/9 has gotten itself archived over at Trekipedia. I thought it was just gone forever, which would have peeved me considerably.

How come whenever you double-click a file to open it in Quicktime, you still have to press Play? Most other programs have autoplay, so why not Quicktime?

By the way, some people have been "misspelling" the word here, if such a thing is possible. It's dsokdpach.

I noticed this recently too. Unfortunately, I've been unable to reach the people who used to run the site. I'm glad to hear it's archived at Trekipedia; you can also use the Wayback Machine to get it. All the links still work as far as I can tell, and even the forum is preserved.

I was thinking about hosting VVS here if the site wasn't going to come back, but now I know it's in good hands. Trekipedia is an excellent Trek site, and not just any -- it's the work of Jeff Harlan, who was on the VVS team. He'll take good care of it.

I just saw an incident on Scrubs that bugs me. Turk orders fries with his lunch, Carla does not, ostensibly because they're unhealthy. Carla proceeds to steal fries from Turk's plate. Turk is incensed. Why didn't she order fries for herself? Because she can't have fries, they're unhealthy.

PNQ: Is this common when dealing with women? 'Cause I know if that ever happened to me, I'd say "If you have the opportunity to order fries, choose not to, then attempt to steal mine, then you are being selfish and self-deceiving. I'm dumping you."

Well, one time I went to a movie with a girl who was allergic to popcorn, and that's why she wouldn't get any. But she wanted me to get some so that she could have some of mine. I didn't really get that one.

Okay, I look and I look, and I just can't find. Does anyone know of a free audio recording software out there on the Internet? I don't need whistles and bells, I know I'd have to pay for those, I just want to be able to record two hours of my voice in a row for a commentary without nagware popping up!

yes, dear. It is self-deceiving, and it is both perfectly normal and staggeringly common. The subconscious idea is that food isn't unhealthy if it originated on someone's plate. It's the same logic which dictates that raw cookie dough has no calories (because it's not baked), leftovers eaten directly out of the Tupperware over the sink don't count (because it's not on a plate), and broken cookie parts aren't fattening (because the calories all leaked out when the cookie broke).

If you're going to dump every girlfriend who orders a salad and then snags one of your fries, Nate, you're in for a cold and lonely existence. I suggest you re-examine either your standards or your sexuality.

It has yet to happen to me, I was just wondering. And maybe I wouldn't break up with a girl after one infraction like this, but she will be getting a (gentle) lecture from me. And if she dumps me for overreacting, fine. I wouldn't want to be with her anyway.

Understand, it's not the fries itself, it's the principle of the thing. I read somewhere that you should never go anywhere on a date without being prepared to buy two of the most expensive entrees on the menu. I'm fine with that. If my date wants to order TWO orders of fries on the side, fine, as long as she eats them. But blatant self-deception is something I will not allow. If that means I die alone, fine.

Oh, and don't think I won't say "if they were too unhealthy for you five minutes ago, they are too unhealthy for you now. Make up your mind."

Well, your statements are reasonable enough, but I predict you may have a bit of a time finding someone who lives up to that standard. Not impossible, just a challenge. And my guess is that she's going to be over 30. If you're not, you may have a wait ahead of you.

Well, I'm 27 now, so over 30 isn't too far of a stretch. And is being honest with yourself really too much to expect?

When it comes to women and food...yes. American culture has done terrible things to our psyches. But I have some hope for the millennials.

Ignore.

Re: the audio software
 

Audacity should do the trick, I believe.

Yeah. I already had it installed. I forgot about it.

It does sort of lurk in the background...

So I keep a lot of stuff on my jump drive. To bad using Start->Run->Browse->(My jump drive) only reveals programs and folders unless I specifically choose to look at files as well.

PNQ: Is there a way to tell Browse to show me all files as a default?

Umm . . . Run is of course intended for running programs, so . . . I really don't know whether there would be a setting for that.

Too bad I can't supplement the My Computer icon on the Start menu with icons for each drive.

PNQ: As a lifelong Kid Radd fan, I gotta ask...

Why in the name of all that is webcomic are newer versions of web browsers incompatible with the comic? How can the implementation of code have changed so much? Is it impossible for browsers to have full backwards compatibility?

Following up on my two-month-old post about "dskodpach":

I was (not surprisingly) using the word in an episode of Star Trek: Excelsior, my fan show linked from my sig. Now our audience of thousands has heard the word! Now Fiveminute.net's cultural supremacy is assured! Mwahahahaha!

If you care, you can hear the episode at StarshipExcelsior.com. It's called "The Manchurian Officer," and the "dskodpach" use is within the first five minutes. Probably not worth downloading just for the 5MV reference, but it's a good ep in its own right. So yeah. Halfway-shameless plug.

A British character in a movie I'm watching refers to a food called "chop 'n' chips" or something like this. I can't find any reference to this, or maybe I'm just not spelling it right. I know that "chips" mean French Fries, but "chop?" Chopped steak? A hamburger?

So I'm trying to find a browser that's compatible with my archive of Kid Radd. The main page says that the thing was designed for Internet Explorer 4-6. Why modern browsers can't make themselves backwards compatible for all webpages I'll never know. So I download the installer for IE 4, and it won't let me install it 'cause I have a newer version of IE already. What does that have to anything? If I want to I should be able to have five different versions of IE in five different folders, right? A little help here?

Switch to Safari. Or Firefox. Honestly, why are you still running that stone-knives-and-bearskins browser? It doesn't work because it's <i>Microsoft,</i> that's why.

I do use Firefox for my main browser needs, but guess what? It doesn't work either! Why is this so hard? It's triggers for different images on the same webpage, along with a few simple animations and midi soundbytes. It should not stop being compatible with browsers as they get more advanced! A webpage built in the Internet Explorer 4 to 6 days should work in Internet Explorer 8 that have now, or Firefox, or MSN Explorer, or Opera, or Safari, or whatever else I want to use!

Is 100% backwards compatibility too much to ask? Is it?

Maybe the version of Netscape from the same time would work?

Why is the ten minute YouTube limit still necessary? Couldn't they just require people to post a segmented version as well, just in case there are still people in dialup purgatory, but allowing highspeed people a single segment?

PNQ #2: Do you know anyone who still watches YouTube on dialup?

In reading Tsubasa Resevoir Chronicle I'm starting to get confused about this Syaoran and his clone business. So am I right that the first Syaoran we meet is the clone? But which one is technically called "Syaoran" continues to confuse me.

Oh god, Tsubasa.

Don't worry. No one understands Tsubasa. Brains have been destroyed trying. It's like Eva on crack.

Last I checked, YouTube was shedding money faster than an onionmonger sheds tears. That's why they have the ten-minute limit. I would not be at all surprised to see that limit contracted this year to five -- it saves bandwidth and server space.

We'll see, though. They started offering HD, which ran sharply counter to my expectations.

I thought the ten-minute limit was so that dialup people don't have to wait 'til the end of time to see anything. Thus my question. How many YouTube-intensive people are still on dialup?

Is it possible to simultaneously use YouTube intensively and be stuck with dialup?

Okay, rephrase it. How many people who WANT to be YouTube intensive are stuck with dialup?

The world may never know. :(


(Alternate answer: Probably about as many who would like to be internet-intensive but are stuck with dial-up.)



I would guess that another reason for the limit, besides the issues raised already, is so that people can't upload an entire episode at one go. No, it probably doesn't help much, but I imagine the lawyers feel a little happier.

I have no problem with limits for shows you can go to a store and buy, but when the show just out and out does not exist on DVD, the fans should be able to have entire episodes in one segment. Yes, I'm looking at you, Batman 1966.