26 miles across the sea
Santa Catalina is waiting for me.
Santa Catalina, the island of romance.

But, um, 26 miles *from where*?

Well, after eventually guessing the correct spelling (Is that "san" or 
"santa"? "cataline" or "catalina" or "catarina" or...? Is that with a C 
or a K?) I eventually discovered [as presumably everybody except me 
already knows] that it's a small island off the coast of California. 
Wikipedia claims that it's actually 22 miles off the coast, presumably 
measured from the nearest point, so the "40 kil-o-meters in a leaky old 
boat" must be from somewhere further along the coast. (Or perhaps 
inland, although "26 miles *across the sea*" implies that the ocean part 
specifically is 26 miles.)

Next topic: WTF is "huckleberry", and does it taste good?

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On 4/21/2011 2:45, Invisible wrote:
> 26 miles across the sea
> Santa Catalina is waiting for me.
> Santa Catalina, the island of romance.
>
> But, um, 26 miles *from where*?

Los Angelos.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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>> But, um, 26 miles *from where*?
>
> Los Angelos.

Impressive... And I bet you don't even live anywhere near there?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 19:19:42 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> But, um, 26 miles *from where*?
>>
>> Los Angelos.
> 
> Impressive... And I bet you don't even live anywhere near there?

Well, from Darren's signature, you should know where he does live, and 
it's pretty trivial to see how far it is from one place to another.

Jim

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> On 4/21/2011 2:45, Invisible wrote:
> > 26 miles across the sea
> > Santa Catalina is waiting for me.
> > Santa Catalina, the island of romance.
> >
> > But, um, 26 miles *from where*?

> Los Angelos.

  There seems to be no such place. Or is that some kind of local slang?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 4/21/2011 12:21, Warp wrote:
> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom>  wrote:
>> On 4/21/2011 2:45, Invisible wrote:
>>> 26 miles across the sea
>>> Santa Catalina is waiting for me.
>>> Santa Catalina, the island of romance.
>>>
>>> But, um, 26 miles *from where*?
>
>> Los Angelos.
>
>    There seems to be no such place. Or is that some kind of local slang?

No. It's not typing carefully.  You really didn't recognize the name of the 
second (or first, depending on how you count) biggest city in the USA? 
Especially given "California" in the original email?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 4/21/2011 2:45, Invisible wrote:
> Next topic: WTF is "huckleberry", and does it taste good?

I wonder if I can hack into Andrew's email server, find any outgoing 
messages with the string "WTF is ..." and mail back a link to the third word 
on wikipedia automatically.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:27:18 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 4/21/2011 12:21, Warp wrote:
>> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom>  wrote:
>>> On 4/21/2011 2:45, Invisible wrote:
>>>> 26 miles across the sea
>>>> Santa Catalina is waiting for me.
>>>> Santa Catalina, the island of romance.
>>>>
>>>> But, um, 26 miles *from where*?
>>
>>> Los Angelos.
>>
>>    There seems to be no such place. Or is that some kind of local
>>    slang?
> 
> No. It's not typing carefully.  You really didn't recognize the name of
> the second (or first, depending on how you count) biggest city in the
> USA? Especially given "California" in the original email?

"Los Angeles" I think is what you meant to write. ;)

Jim

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On 21/04/2011 08:28 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/21/2011 2:45, Invisible wrote:
>> Next topic: WTF is "huckleberry", and does it taste good?
>
> I wonder if I can hack into Andrew's email server, find any outgoing
> messages with the string "WTF is ..." and mail back a link to the third
> word on wikipedia automatically.

No, you can't.

You *might* be able to hack into my ISP's server, however... ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> Impressive... And I bet you don't even live anywhere near there?
>
> Well, from Darren's signature, you should know where he does live

Damn. I never even noticed that...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> On 4/21/2011 12:21, Warp wrote:
> > Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom>  wrote:
> >> On 4/21/2011 2:45, Invisible wrote:
> >>> 26 miles across the sea
> >>> Santa Catalina is waiting for me.
> >>> Santa Catalina, the island of romance.
> >>>
> >>> But, um, 26 miles *from where*?
> >
> >> Los Angelos.
> >
> >    There seems to be no such place. Or is that some kind of local slang?

> No. It's not typing carefully.  You really didn't recognize the name of the 
> second (or first, depending on how you count) biggest city in the USA? 
> Especially given "California" in the original email?

  I guessed you were talking about Los Angeles, but had to double-check
with a quick google search to make sure I wasn't making a wrong assumption.
You never know. There are like five million place names in the US, so
anything is possible.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 4/21/2011 14:41, Warp wrote:
>    I guessed you were talking about Los Angeles, but had to double-check
> with a quick google search to make sure I wasn't making a wrong assumption.

That's fair. Just to be clear, I wasn't criticizing. I was honestly 
interested if educated folks in northern europe recognized the name or not.

I've given lectures where I'm trying to tell people where I'm from (back 
when I was in Delaware), and there would be people who hadn't heard of 
Philadelphia or Boston, so you'd have to say "halfway between NYC and 
Washington DC", which most everyone had heard of, at least outside of Asia.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> On 4/21/2011 14:41, Warp wrote:
> >    I guessed you were talking about Los Angeles, but had to double-check
> > with a quick google search to make sure I wasn't making a wrong assumption.

> That's fair. Just to be clear, I wasn't criticizing. I was honestly 
> interested if educated folks in northern europe recognized the name or not.

  Your film industry has made pretty sure that we know the major coastal
cities there... :P (For some reason non-coastal cities are rarer in
Hollywood movies. Las Vegas and Chicago might be about the only
counter-examples. And even then Chicago is technically speaking a coastal
city, although not to the ocean.)

  (Ironically most Hollywood movies are nowadays filmed in Canada, yet
movies seldom depict Canadian cities, and knowledge about them is pretty
scarce.)

> I've given lectures where I'm trying to tell people where I'm from (back 
> when I was in Delaware), and there would be people who hadn't heard of 
> Philadelphia or Boston, so you'd have to say "halfway between NYC and 
> Washington DC", which most everyone had heard of, at least outside of Asia.

  Btw, is just us who are confused by Washington DC and the state of
Washington being at almost opposite ends of the country?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 4/21/2011 15:39, Warp wrote:
>    Your film industry has made pretty sure that we know the major coastal
> cities there...

Hey, San Diego is the sixth biggest city in the country and I think there's 
maybe 2 movies where anything happens here. You should have heard the cheer 
here when the Jurrasic Park dinosaur swam ashore.  (Or was that Godzilla?)

> :P (For some reason non-coastal cities are rarer in
> Hollywood movies.

I'm having trouble thinking of any "major" cities that *aren't* on the coast 
here, besides those you mentioned. I'd actually have to look at a map of 
cities to be reminded of them.

>    Btw, is just us who are confused by Washington DC and the state of
> Washington being at almost opposite ends of the country?

It can get confusing if someone's talking about both or something. People 
here have to distinguish "DC" from "Washington state" if it's not clear, 
yeah. I don't think the geography of it has anything to do with it, tho.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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Le 2011-04-21 19:14, Darren New a écrit :
> On 4/21/2011 15:39, Warp wrote:
>> Your film industry has made pretty sure that we know the major coastal
>> cities there...
>
> Hey, San Diego is the sixth biggest city in the country and I think
> there's maybe 2 movies where anything happens here. You should have
> heard the cheer here when the Jurrasic Park dinosaur swam ashore. (Or
> was that Godzilla?)
>
>> :P (For some reason non-coastal cities are rarer in
>> Hollywood movies.
>
> I'm having trouble thinking of any "major" cities that *aren't* on the
> coast here, besides those you mentioned. I'd actually have to look at a
> map of cities to be reminded of them.

Philadelphia?  Phoenix?  Austin?  St-Louis?  Memphis?  Nashville?

(Honestly don't know how big they are, but I think most people will have 
heard of them, once or twice.)

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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On 4/22/2011 8:11, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Philadelphia?

I'd consider that a coastal city, almost.

 > Phoenix? Austin?

Yeah, OK. Dallas and maybe Reno, too. A few cities in the south west would 
count.

> St-Louis? Memphis? Nashville?

Kind of small. Saint Louis is probably the biggest of them. The others are 
only well known because famous performers came from there.

But yeah, as I said, I would have to think about it to come up with those as 
"major" cities.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 4/22/2011 8:59, Darren New wrote:
> Yeah, OK. Dallas and maybe Reno, too. A few cities in the south west would
> count.

Actually, Boulder and Denver spring to mind as well, both of which are way 
up in the mountains (and pretty muck known for that fact, as in skiing).

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 21/04/2011 10:41 PM, Warp wrote:

>    I guessed you were talking about Los Angeles, but had to double-check
> with a quick google search to make sure I wasn't making a wrong assumption.
> You never know. There are like five million place names in the US, so
> anything is possible.

Apparently there's a city named "Toast"...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On 4/23/2011 1:43, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> On 21/04/2011 10:41 PM, Warp wrote:
>
>> I guessed you were talking about Los Angeles, but had to double-check
>> with a quick google search to make sure I wasn't making a wrong assumption.
>> You never know. There are like five million place names in the US, so
>> anything is possible.
>
> Apparently there's a city named "Toast"...

That's not even one of the odd ones. We have Hell, we have Intercourse about 
30 miles from Blue Balls. We have cities with welsh names I grew up 30 miles 
from that I don't even remember how to spell. And that's all just in 
Pennsylvania.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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Le 2011/04/23 12:33, Darren New a écrit :
> On 4/23/2011 1:43, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> On 21/04/2011 10:41 PM, Warp wrote:
>>
>>> I guessed you were talking about Los Angeles, but had to double-check
>>> with a quick google search to make sure I wasn't making a wrong
>>> assumption.
>>> You never know. There are like five million place names in the US, so
>>> anything is possible.
>>
>> Apparently there's a city named "Toast"...
>
> That's not even one of the odd ones. We have Hell, we have Intercourse
> about 30 miles from Blue Balls. We have cities with welsh names I grew
> up 30 miles from that I don't even remember how to spell. And that's all
> just in Pennsylvania.
>

There are about 50 cities named Y in one country. Who can tell what 
country it is? They are diferenced by ther administrative regions.


Alain

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Le 2011-04-22 19:40, Darren New a écrit :
> On 4/22/2011 8:59, Darren New wrote:
>> Yeah, OK. Dallas and maybe Reno, too. A few cities in the south west
>> would
>> count.
>
> Actually, Boulder and Denver spring to mind as well, both of which are
> way up in the mountains (and pretty muck known for that fact, as in
> skiing).
>

There's also that place in the desert, with all the casinos... Las 
Somethingorother ;)

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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On 4/25/2011 5:59, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Le 2011-04-22 19:40, Darren New a écrit :
>> On 4/22/2011 8:59, Darren New wrote:
>>> Yeah, OK. Dallas and maybe Reno, too. A few cities in the south west
>>> would
>>> count.
>>
>> Actually, Boulder and Denver spring to mind as well, both of which are

>> way up in the mountains (and pretty muck known for that fact, as in
>> skiing).
>>
>
> There's also that place in the desert, with all the casinos... Las
> Somethingorother ;)

Yeah. We already mentioned that. And Reno. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> > Apparently there's a city named "Toast"...

> That's not even one of the odd ones. We have Hell, we have Intercourse about 
> 30 miles from Blue Balls. We have cities with welsh names I grew up 30 miles 
> from that I don't even remember how to spell. And that's all just in 
> Pennsylvania.

  There are places in the US named Finland, Sweden and Norway. And they are
close to each other. I think Denmark was there as well.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 25/04/2011 08:42 PM, Warp wrote:

>    There are places in the US named Finland, Sweden and Norway. And they are
> close to each other. I think Denmark was there as well.

What I want to know is, where the hell is *new* zeland named after?!

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 21:56:56 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> On 25/04/2011 08:42 PM, Warp wrote:
> 
>>    There are places in the US named Finland, Sweden and Norway. And
>>    they are
>> close to each other. I think Denmark was there as well.
> 
> What I want to know is, where the hell is *new* zeland named after?!

Wikipedia can answer that question for you - look at the main article on 
place names for New Zealand.

I'll resist saying "GIYF"....whoops. ;)

Jim

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On 25-4-2011 22:56, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> On 25/04/2011 08:42 PM, Warp wrote:
>
>> There are places in the US named Finland, Sweden and Norway. And they are
>> close to each other. I think Denmark was there as well.
>
> What I want to know is, where the hell is *new* zeland named after?!
>
http://bedandbreakfast.bbnl.nl/map_zeeland.gif

-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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On 4/25/2011 13:59, Jim Henderson wrote:
> I'll resist saying "GIYF"....whoops. ;)

My favorite was when my brother asked me a question by email, and I gave him 
the link to the answer with "GIYF" at the bottom of the message. He sent 
back "What does GIYF mean?"

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 25-4-2011 23:14, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/25/2011 13:59, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I'll resist saying "GIYF"....whoops. ;)
>
> My favorite was when my brother asked me a question by email, and I gave
> him the link to the answer with "GIYF" at the bottom of the message. He
> sent back "What does GIYF mean?"
>

The paper version of that in the 80's was in my university that if 
someone asked what an acronym meant, the canonical answer was: look it 
up in the ALUVA. I guess you'll understand what the acronym means 
without knowing what the letters stand for.


-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:14:08 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 4/25/2011 13:59, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I'll resist saying "GIYF"....whoops. ;)
> 
> My favorite was when my brother asked me a question by email, and I gave
> him the link to the answer with "GIYF" at the bottom of the message. He
> sent back "What does GIYF mean?"

LOL

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> > What I want to know is, where the hell is *new* zeland named after?!

> Wikipedia can answer that question for you - look at the main article on 
> place names for New Zealand.

> I'll resist saying "GIYF"....whoops. ;)

  I get the feeling that Andrew wants to engage in smalltalk, as if we
were all talking in person in the same room, in which case such questions
would make sense. (This might also explain the grammar problems.) Of course
since this is not a live conversation done in real-time, and the very means
by which the question is posted can be used to search for the answer (ie.
the internet) makes the question just sound lazy.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 17:32:43 -0400, Warp wrote:

> I get the feeling that Andrew wants to engage in smalltalk, as if we
> were all talking in person in the same room, in which case such
> questions would make sense.

Hmm, that's a perspective I hadn't considered. :)

Jim

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On 25-4-2011 23:32, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson<nos### [at] nospamcom>  wrote:
>>> What I want to know is, where the hell is *new* zeland named after?!
>
>> Wikipedia can answer that question for you - look at the main article on
>> place names for New Zealand.
>
>> I'll resist saying "GIYF"....whoops. ;)
>
>    I get the feeling that Andrew wants to engage in smalltalk,

Nowadays mostly in Haskell.

> as if we
> were all talking in person in the same room, in which case such questions
> would make sense. (This might also explain the grammar problems.) Of course
> since this is not a live conversation done in real-time, and the very means
> by which the question is posted can be used to search for the answer (ie.
> the internet) makes the question just sound lazy.

1) he spelt it wrong, that precludes googling.
2) the first hit for Zealand is the Danish Island, which is not the answer
3) the second line in that wikipedia article is:'Not to be confused with 
Zeeland, the Dutch province after which New Zealand is named.'
4) yes he is lazy


-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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