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#2098 05/09/2000 6:59 PM
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Cyberclutter - the garbage that fills up our mailboxes, and usually gets deleted. What a waste of bandwidth!


#2099 05/09/2000 8:04 PM
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Cyberclutter
Love it - just spent ages going through my redundant (but don't tell them) Hotmail Account - pages and pages of junk - added all to junk senders etc etc but still expect more (no "I love yous" though - perhaps no-one does)


#2100 06/14/2000 7:32 PM
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I thought this was a word that I had coined, until I entered it in my favourite search engine:

http://www.google.com

I find eleven sites containing the word! I have no connection to any of them!

This leads me to think that the notion of "universal consciousness" is in operation here. Or is it pure coincidence?

Anyone want to comment?


#2101 06/14/2000 7:54 PM
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some concepts are universal, some words inevitable; to wit:
cyberchondriac - (after "hyperchondriac") a user who always thinks there is something wrong with his computer.

cybercrud - 1) the computer equivalent of bureaucratese 2) incomprehensible stuff embedded in e-mail


#2102 06/15/2000 12:30 PM
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So what is the word for an upgrade junkie (I married one).


#2103 06/15/2000 3:48 PM
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>>(no "I love yous" though - perhaps no-one does)<<
Well, Jo, I love you, but if I send that message by e-mail,
you might think I was a virus!
I've thought of two words, though surely someone has used the first one already: cyberphobic, and then:
hyperlative--I have no idea of what that could mean, but I
rather like the sound of it. Tsuwm, any ideas, or are you
going to tell me this is well-used already?
"Upgrade junkie"=a hyper cyber/cypher? If I think of
something better I'll post it. That was pretty lame,I know.




#2104 06/15/2000 4:58 PM
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>Tsuwm, any ideas, or are you going to tell me this is well-used already?

well, far be it from me to suggest such a thing -- I would only suggest that you try doing a 'google' search for hyperlative (or cyberphobic (or even cyberclutter), for that matter).

http://google.com

#2105 06/15/2000 7:01 PM
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I was thinking that the latest software could be described in cyberlative terms. Just a little cyberbole (that one has been googled).


#2106 06/15/2000 7:15 PM
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>>that one has been googled<<

Googled! The first use of URL-as-verb?




#2107 06/15/2000 7:22 PM
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'googled' gets 35 hits (at google.com). :-D


#2108 06/15/2000 7:28 PM
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And I thought I'd made it up all by myself!

Oh to have lived in the days before Everest had been climbed, when no-one had been to the North Pole or had crossed the Atlantic by balloon. Our ambitions seem so small now, just a teeny weeny word that no-one has ever said before.

Did you hear that the Internet had finally disproved the idea that if you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, one day one of them would write "Hamlet"!


#2109 06/16/2000 12:13 AM
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>>Did you hear that the Internet had finally disproved the idea that if you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, one day one of them would write "Hamlet"!

drat! another core belief debunked... next you'll be telling me that there can be identical snowflakes.




#2110 06/19/2000 9:25 AM
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All right, I give up! It's a noun and a verb and I still don't know what it means. What is a google search? I've heard of google as a mathematical term, some sort of very large number I believe, but that doesn't really help.

Nor it seems does the AWAD spell-check. It thinks I mean goose, or is it trying to tell me I am a goose?

Bingley


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#2111 06/19/2000 9:28 AM
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... and what a humiliating way to get promoted from stranger (so unfriendly, Anu, dear) to newbie.

If I take too long to get my next promotion, will I become an oldbie?

Bingley


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#2112 06/19/2000 10:07 AM
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Sorry - to save you looking back through hours and hours of A Word A Day, there was a strand where twusm suggested that we stopped asking silly questions that could be looked up easily by typing in http://www.google.com. We've all been (sorry, some of us have been) taking his advice since then - a very good search engine it is too!

If anyone finds us refering to old strands a quick way to find things is via the search form at the top of the page.

Good luck!



#2113 06/19/2000 10:10 AM
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> I've heard of
google as a mathematical term, some sort of very large number I believe, but that doesn't really help.

Bingley,

A googol is the mathematical term for a million million or a million squared. Close though.


#2114 06/19/2000 11:08 AM
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What we used to call a billion in fact.

Bingley


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#2115 06/19/2000 11:22 AM
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jmh Offline
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No it is even bigger

http://public.logica.com/~stepneys/cyc/g/googol.htm

I checked it out recently whilst estimating my vocabulary!




#2116 06/19/2000 11:37 AM
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jmh, I'm sure you're being overly modest.

Bingley


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#2117 06/19/2000 12:53 PM
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> What we used to call a billion in fact.

Duuuuhhhhhh! I feel not unlike a fool. Let me get my facts straight. a thousand million in North America is a billion. Everywhere else (presumably) it is a million million.

A googol is 1 followed by a hundred zeros.

Yes, that seems to make sense.


#2118 06/19/2000 1:57 PM
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google = the # of hits you get at google.com on the word 'fool'...


#2119 06/19/2000 3:34 PM
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I think I read somewhere that we had withdrawn our claim to a billion being 1 with 12 zeros and had acceded to American superior thinking on this point. (I think people just got fed up of explaining that our billion was different and we needed a term for Richard Branson – he’d never be a billionaire if we didn’t change the meaning of the word.)


#2120 06/19/2000 4:36 PM
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Two things, Jo: 1.)who is Richard Branson? (Well, I just
got through saying in another thread that I am ignorant of
many things!) Is he your-all's counterpart to Regis?
2.) Sorry, but we don't ALL google-search. I never have, and
had no idea of what it is. Clearly I missed the significance of Tsuwm's post.


#2121 06/19/2000 7:40 PM
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Ok

(i) Richard Branson is the man behind Virgin Airlines and lots of other Virgin things (records, trains etc). I was just trying to think of an example of a rich Brit. He's a long way from Bill Gate's squillions but doing quite nicely thank you.
(ii) I've amended the mention of google to say that some of us have been googling (it is very good though).


#2122 06/20/2000 4:48 AM
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If it comes to that, Jackie, who is Regis? A pet name for the erstwhile President?

Bingley


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#2123 06/20/2000 6:06 AM
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Looking at the pictures I think that Richard Branson has a much nicer beard. I did read somewhere that it is impossible to be successful in the USA if you have a beard.

Own up those who proudly possess a beard. Rubrick? Twusm (I think not), David 108 ....

http://tvtalkshows.com/regisandkathielee(Have they both had face lifts?)
http://www.execpc.com/~shepler/branson.html




#2124 06/20/2000 10:42 AM
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Ahem! says I sheepishly.


#2125 06/20/2000 12:08 PM
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>Twusm (I think not)

I have had a beard continuously since 1973; it has gone in and out of fashion numerous times -- it was the former when I first grew it.... :-{)>


#2126 06/20/2000 1:35 PM
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Regis Philbin, in addition to his years of hosting a talk
show, began last summer, I believe, as the host of a new
game show, the talk of which has swept the U.S.:
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?


#2127 06/20/2000 1:40 PM
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>>) Richard Branson is the man behind Virgin Airlines and lots of other Virgin things (records, trains etc). <<

Man, I'd read that before! Geez! One of the great many things that seem to slip into and out of my one brain cell,
leaving no discernible trace.


#2128 06/20/2000 1:44 PM
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My guesses:
paulb's beard=artsy
tsuwm's= rebellious

Feel free to correct me, guys (as though you needed my permission!).


#2129 06/20/2000 2:55 PM
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It was only a guess!!!

Now I need to know is it a bushy beard or a restrained beard. I'd be surprised if it were one of those goatee ones, I'm not sure they were so popular in 1973, I'd have thought that you were around twelve then - was it allowed at school????


#2130 06/20/2000 2:56 PM
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Ahem , noted.


#2131 06/20/2000 3:11 PM
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variable... I trim it at least as often as I have my hairs cut.

are you a pogonologist??

(I can hear the questions now: what is pogonology?

choose one:
a) the study of fog
b) the study of pogs
c) the study of beards
d) the study of comics
e) the study of lipography
f) the study of jumping?!)


#2132 06/20/2000 6:43 PM
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>>Own up those who proudly possess a beard<<

No beard here - in fact I seldom see them here in Aotearoa.

There is a Maori custom where men and women have their faces (and bodies) tattooed. Men can look quite fearsome, with full-face tattoos - women's seem to be more restricted to the lower lips and chin

http://www.mala.bc.ca/~soules/media112/zine99/tasha/maori.htm


#2133 06/20/2000 7:18 PM
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I'd like to go with fog but I suspect there is more testosterone involved in this question. I noticed there was a book which had a female in the title - would that be getting warm?


#2134 06/21/2000 6:02 AM
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Sorry, Jackie, just a fear of shaving (is there a word for that?). OK, OK, I grew it on our honeymoon in 1964 and my wife and I kinda got used to it. My kids were always kidding me about my pre-marriage photos -- Hey, mum who's the cool dude with the beard? And it has nothing to do with one of my favourite movies, the Marx Bros' A night at the opera!
Isn't there a saying: "Hirsuteness is next to godliness"?


#2135 06/21/2000 12:41 PM
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I don't know about that but I've heard that:
"Kissing a man without a mustache is like eating an egg without salt."
(Mustachioed newbie here. Grew it when Groucho died, shaved it briefly when Elvis died.)
BTW, I think that Virgin guy is a heck of a lot more fun than Gates, with round-the-world ballooning attempts, transoceanic speed record attempts, etc. I do have the right fellow, don't I?


#2136 06/21/2000 1:37 PM
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>>'d like to go with fog but I suspect there is more testosterone involved in this
question. I noticed there was a book which had a female in the title - would
that be getting warm?<<

it wasn't a trick question (maybe that threw you off? ;) -- pogonology is the study of beards. now, what's all this about a book....


#2137 06/21/2000 2:20 PM
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>now, what's all this about a book....

The only place I could find it when I googled was in the web site shown below. I wondered if you were trying to imply anything!!!

http://www.hillstreetpress.com/ToCS99-2.html


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