Archive for 4: UUppercase 2
On most computers running the UNIX operating system, there's a directory named /etc. Some people pronounce that directory name as "etcetera"; others simply say /'Et si/. Some may even spell it out as /'i 'ti 'si/. Another standard UNIX directory name, /usr, is generally pronounced like "user," but sometimes spelled out to avoid confusion with […]
Sometime around the early 1980s, Logical Business Machines (creators of computers with names like David and Goliath, and a programming language called English) released a computer system called Mike. This system came with speech-recognition software and a microphone. An executive of the company attempted to demonstrate the product on a television show; he stood at […]
When two groups of humans who don't share a language come together, they generally try to communicate. Often, the result is a pidgin—a simplified language that combines features of the groups' languages while leaving out the more difficult parts, allowing the groups to speak to each other. This sort of lingua franca is often used […]
The game of Botticelli is played like this: One player, the chooser, thinks of a famous person (living or dead, real or fictional). The chooser says the initial letter of that person's last name (or of the person's only name if there's only one). The other players then try to guess who the chooser is […]
Okay, is there anyone here who doesn't know that an anagram is a rearrangement of letters from a word or phrase, ideally resulting in another word or phrase that has some bearing on the original? Didn't think so. The Net is full of anagrams; they're so common that I'm surprised it's taken me a year […]