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“Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?”

english.stackexchange.com

31–40 of 166 posts

Re: “Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?”

#32
post #20
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame that the internet devolved into cat pictures, pervasive advertisements, and political shouting matches. On the other hand, there are still some great communities out there for great discussion. I consider HN to be one of them.

Perhaps unintuitively, the Something Awful forums are another relatively small, intelligent community.

I genuinely worry about the day the SA forums get shut down for whatever reason. I've been posting there since 2003 and it's my first stop on the 'daily internet check' ritual.

Re: “Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?”

#33
post #23

This is the kind of deep investigation of a super specific issue I always enjoy reading. This is what I thought the internet would be, 20 years ago.

It's a sign of a "cognitive surplus", because we have more educated people now than we have jobs for them to do. Also it's a sign of how these sites get people to work for them for free, and concentrate huge amounts of other people's work for their own benefit. This poster got nothing for all that work, but SE still gets advertising revenue driven by interest in the content.

another example that there is not enough work to go around is that if you go into any downtown anywhere in the world at 7 pm to 8 p.m. you will see people drinking beer in bars.

These same people could still be working, since there is no reason they shouldn't be in an office, factory, etc, for a full 14-hour workday. Clearly there is just not enough work to go around, which manifests itself as people sitting around drinking or going on fun Internet sleuthing that nobody would mistake for work.

(well, except that one guy.)

Re: “Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?”

#34
The top answer is a picture of the use of Yxa in a Swedish alphabet learning book, yet there's still people here clinging to the yellow paint tube theory.

Incredible. Not sure what cognitive bias is at play here (or more charitably: perhaps they didn't scroll down).

EDIT: Some say these are pictures of a paint tube and some yellow paint: https://jimthechairmaker.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/my-carving...

The fact that an axe is used in the exact same way in the Swedish book is very strong evidence. There's prior art.

Re: “Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?”

#35

This was such a delightful read. A quote from the wonderful Okja recently released on Netflix: "Never mistranslate!"... unless you make balls for toddlers!

In fairness, there aren't a lot of good choices for Y.

year yell yacht yellow yearling yeti yoga

I'd probably go with yoga, myself.

Re: “Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?”

#36
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a sign of a "cognitive surplus", because we have more educated people now than we have jobs for them to do. Also it's a sign of how these sites get people to work for them for free, and concentrate huge amounts of other people's work for their own benefit. This poster got nothing for all that work, but SE still gets advertising revenue driven by interest in the content.

another example that there is not enough work to go around is that if you go into any downtown anywhere in the world at 7 pm to 8 p.m. you will see people drinking beer in bars. These same people could still be working, since there is no reason they shouldn't be in an office, factory, etc, for a full 14-hour workday. Clearly there is just not enough work to go around, which manifests itself as people sitting around d…

Children are the same way. All that time they spend playing could be spent in a factory making sneakers.

Re: “Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?”

#37

This is the kind of deep investigation of a super specific issue I always enjoy reading. This is what I thought the internet would be, 20 years ago.

I'm happy to report there is a website specifically for investigations like this:

http://nounsstarting.com

Oh internet, never change.

Re: “Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?”

#39
post #23

This is the kind of deep investigation of a super specific issue I always enjoy reading. This is what I thought the internet would be, 20 years ago.

It's a sign of a "cognitive surplus", because we have more educated people now than we have jobs for them to do. Also it's a sign of how these sites get people to work for them for free, and concentrate huge amounts of other people's work for their own benefit. This poster got nothing for all that work, but SE still gets advertising revenue driven by interest in the content.

Oh please. It's just someone enjoying a challenge and hunting down something for gratification. Let's not make it out to be more than it is. There have always been people that go above and beyond for intellectual gratification and out of nothing more than curiosity.

There have always been people willing to do things like this for "no good reason" and for nothing in return since time immemorial. I don't want to live in a world devoid of such awesomeness. I've done it myself and hope to continue to do so, even being cognizant as I am that someone may benefit from my toils without my making a buck. If I spend a month developing an open source library that does something novel and release it under a liberal license (MIT, BSD) on GitHub, am I not doing the same sort of thing every day?

This SE answer is awesome and it's helpful and insightful; but it isn't an example of capitalism at work and poor people being fleeced out of their time and money so the big guy can make a buck.

Respect to the poster. That was some legit research.

Re: “Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?”

#40

This was such a delightful read. A quote from the wonderful Okja recently released on Netflix: "Never mistranslate!"... unless you make balls for toddlers!

In fairness, there aren't a lot of good choices for Y. year yell yacht yellow yearling yeti yoga I'd probably go with yoga, myself.

The original Hedstrom ball used a yo-yo.
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