/dev/null/kevin

Redundant phrases like "ATM Machine" any "PIN Number" have annoyed literalists like myself for decades now.  Most people are so oblivious to them that I can sarcastically use phrases like "automatic ATM machine" or "personal PIN number" and they won't even flinch.

When several new redundant phrases started cropping up here at Sun I wanted to name them.  Irony demanded that the term also be a redundant phrase using a three letter acronym (TLA).  After a minute of thinking I realized that this meme was so old that there must already be a term for it.

Wikipedia to the rescue!

There is a term: RAS Syndrome: Redundant Acronym Syndrome Syndrome

Also popular is PNS Syndrome, PIN Number Syndrome Syndrome (which is actually Personal Identification Number Number Syndrome Syndrome).

The Wikipedia article lists some good examples, as do fun-with-words.com. and nanday.com.

Anyway...

Here are the PNSs floating around Sun these days:

• ORI Index (Operational Risk Index)
  
• BAR Report (Baseline Analysis Report)
  
• SOA Account (Sun Online Account)
  

The latest iPhone commercial tells me it's great to have an iPhone because I can "see the trail map while I'm on the mountain."

Really?

I feel so foolish carrying around that free paper map!

<sarcasm>
When I'm sitting on a chair lift, 50 feet over deep snow and wearing bulky gloves, my first inclination is to take out my $600 iPhone to look at the trail map.  After I drop it, I'm sure that, in four months after the snow has melted, the friendly hikers bears who find it will return it to me.
</sarcasm>

Also, does anyone really expect to get 5 bar signal strenth and WiFi at the top of a mountain?

This is almost as bad as Bryce, the pilot, who had the tower move up his plane's departure time because he could see weather maps on his phone.

A while ago I noticed that a prescription drug had a demonic name. I did a little checking and found that drug and demon names are pretty much interchangeable. So I put together this little quiz. Can you tell the difference?

If the blogging software messed up the quiz, try the stand alone test.

What do you think, Han Solo action figure #7, should we add Star Wars to our Netflix queue?

Since a Twitter post is called a tweet, what is a Pownce post called?  I "pownced" that question, but the audience was too small.  I'm hoping to get more answers here.

Possible Pownce "Tweet" Names

• poonce?
• pownce?
• ponch?
• punch?
• paunch?
• pinch?
• poop?
• pop?
• poot?
• puff?
• pump?
• pout?
• peet?
• pee?
  

With Twitter broken (not delivering all tweets), a few of us have been trying Pownce.  We tried Pownce once during its beta, but it didn't catch on.  Our return trip hasn't been much better, but perhaps I'll write about that later.

Men don't understand women, or so my wife tells me when I'm actually listening.  Women are even harder for most geeks for grok.  So when I was going through the HTML response codes, I noted that some of them could be used by a women when a man uses a pickup line on her.

Ladies, won't it be great to get your point across easily and with no confusion?  Men are clueless and can't take a hint.  Now there won't be any more mixed signals.  Keep the guys you want and get rid of the rest.

Men, we're good with numbers, right?  We are men after all.  But women?  Do we ever know what they really want?  No means yes.  Yes means no.  A or B?  No!  It's secret option C!  WiFi encryption was easier to crack.  But we're the Japanese navy and they're the Navajos.  So, wouldn't it be great if if we could get clear and meaningful responses from them?  Why waste time with a girl who doesn't dig us when Miss Right Now could just be around the corner.

Great!  Now that we're all in agreement, I present...

Is happiness a warm puppy?  No!  It's a clove of garlic. 

I needed a good public domain image to represent love or dating (stay tuned for future post).  This is what I found when searching for "love" at public-domain-photos.com:

 That's the entire match set, by the way.  My favorite is matching the misspelling flover.