The Eye - Latest Comments

Re: Marilyn Monroe Or Albert Einstein?

Eyebee — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:05:07 -0000

Oh yes, Chuck. Pray tell, what is a hexathingummyjig?

Re: Marilyn Monroe Or Albert Einstein?

Eyebee — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:04:35 -0000

Heck, most Englishmen of my age don't think in metres either. It was forced upon us by a government hell-bent into becoming 'European'. It was embedded in the graphic that got sent me, so that's how it ended up in the post.

Now, where's me pint gone?

Re: Marilyn Monroe Or Albert Einstein?

chuckboyd — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:04:52 -0000

I kept walking away from my computer screen (Americans don't think in "metres") and the picture did finally change.

I think I was about an hexagramaton away.

Re: Advice From A Retired Husband

vessel sink — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:02:45 -0000

symptom of aging is complaining,in which there is better way to help women because they are not able to do work as before.

Re: 101 Things You Are Bursting To Know!

vessel sink — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:08:08 -0000

the 101 thing's that bursting to know are best thing's.

Re: A Very Short Fairy Tale

Eyebee — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:15:15 -0000

It couldn't last longer than one day could it? LOL

Re: A Very Short Fairy Tale

Eyebee — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:14:53 -0000

ROFL!

Re: Stella Awards

Eyebee — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:11:16 -0000

Oh yes, I already mentioned above that it was for entertainment only.

Re: Rockferry

teachtw — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:52:40 -0000

Good read. I have made a twitter post about this. Hope others find it as interesting as I did.

Re: Unacceptable Words

app103 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:33:00 -0000

I am reminded of the famous piece by Mark Twain, in which he proposes how to simplify the English language. Some of the rules he came up with resemble what today's youth do when communicating with each other in casual settings.

And I think that is the key here, the context in which one is communicating. It is perfectly acceptable to condense your thoughts to fit within a character limit, by whatever means necessary, provided your abbreviations can be understood by those you are communicating with.

I think it only becomes a real issue when those abbreviations pop up where they are not understood, not considered the norm, and do not fit into the writing style one would expect in the given situation.

An example would be how the name DonationCoder is abbreviated on that community's forum or within their chatroom, as simply DC. We, the members understand that, but to an outsider in another setting, they might mistaken DC to mean Washington, DC, so one has to be careful not to use that type of abbreviation in settings where the meaning isn't so obvious.

Another example is how Friendfeed users abbreviate their community name to just FF, which on Twitter could be mistaken to mean Follow Friday, or in another setting could even be mistaken to mean the Firefox browser.

I do not believe that some day we will be reading long news articles where everything is abbreviated like an SMS message. The kids of today do not turn in their homework written in this manner, because they understand the time and place for such language, and that isn't when there are no restrictions on length or one is expected to express oneself to a certain standard.

I believe the people that use such abbreviations are a lot smarter than other people give them credit for. For one, they know how to effectively communicate within the restrictions of any given technology. This does take some thought. It goes against everything they have been taught is correct. They not only invent their own form of the English language, they are also quite good at deciphering it, too, and within the context in which it is expressed.

Re: Cellphone Complaints

Eyebee — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:39:57 -0000

I would suggest that you speak to somebody involved in Consumer protection in South Africa. There must surely be such an organization in the Pretoria area.

Re: Cellphone Complaints

vjmhouzet — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:25:34 -0000

Dear Friends,

I am a 72-year old social welfare pensioner existing on R1010 per month.

I am using an old laptop computer that was given to me as a gift about 3 years ago by my eldest daughter who lives in Port Elizabeth. I have always since then had the ambition of getting connected to the Internet but never did so because I could not afford it. A computer "geek" whom I know suggested to me about three months ago that I could get connected via a cellphone so I bought an old second-hand Nokia cellphone with GPRS capabilities from a cellphone dealer here in Ladysmith for R600. I could not really afford it but my desire to get onto the Internet was stronger than my poverty at the time.

After spending much money on standard prepaid airtime rates I realized that this was a very expensive game that I could ill afford to continue. I spoke to my computer "geek" friend again and he suggested that I not use the standard prepaid airtime but that I ask for a "data bundle" to be loaded onto my cellphone in future. So on about 8th September, 2009 I visited an MTN shop at the Game Centre in Ladysmith and had 500 megabytes of data-bundle loaded onto my old Nokia. By the beginning of October I noticed that my data-bundle was running low so I decided to visit another MTN shop at the Pick n Pay Centre because it is nearer to where I stay and not so far to walk (I don't own a vehicle).

The two assistants in the MTN shop suggested I buy a 2 gigabyte (2000 megabytes) data bundle as this would work out cheaper (only 19cents/megabyte as opposed to 23cents/megabyte) in the long run and would last for a whole 60 days instead of expiring after only 30 days. Although I could ill-afford it I decided to buy the 2 gig data bundle for which I paid about R390. This was on 5th October, 2009.

This morning (6th November, 2009) I received an SMS on my cellphone from MTN informing me that my data bundle would be expiring on 8th November (coming Monday)! I immediately tried to get in touch with MTN but they did not acknowledge my calls in spite of my trying for several times. I then walked down to the MTN shop where I had bought the data bundle and insisted that they rectify their "mistake" which is tantamount to fraud. They got through to their principals after much waiting and I was eventually told that there was nothing that could be done to rectify the matter.

Where do I stand?

Yours sincerely,

VJM HOUZET
c/o 9a Kudu Street, Observation Hill, Ladysmith, 3370
Mobile: 0780872666
merlinhouzet@gmail.com

Re: The Snore Monster

Eyebee — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:16:37 -0000

I am, at this time, still alive and kicking.

Re: The Snore Monster

Eyebee — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:16:01 -0000

I like to live dangerously. It's more fun.

Re: The Snore Monster

carnellm — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:56:37 -0000

Why do I believe you are a dead man??

Re: Choose Your Fonts Wisely

hawaiiquote — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:20:22 -0000

Be careful of that Aloha Arleen woamn, she is a scammer http://damontucker.com/2009/09/09/wheres-the-al...

Re: PsykNyne

mikeytimons — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:50:27 -0000

Nice one. I have stumbled and twittered this for my friends. Others no doubt will like it like I did.

Re: Riverfront Park North Charleston, SC

alexa24 — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:46:31 -0000

please feature this on the bizymoms North-charleston community page.

Re: Eric Person

swingtrading — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:34:51 -0000

Interesting post. I have stumbled this for my friends. Hope others find it as interesting as I did.

Re: Embarrassing Situation

Eyebee — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:08:33 -0000

I found the story really amusing. It was a great payback!

As for arguing over Haggis, well perhaps not over the price but the origins. I read recently in a BBC article ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8180791.stm ) that Haggis originally came from England. That would be a good way to start an argument in a Glaswegian pub.

Re: Embarrassing Situation

Chuck Boyd — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:26:35 -0000

Now, THERE'S another case where haggling would be appropriate. Let the bargaining begin!

(Think anyone in Scotland would ever haggle over haggis?)

Re: How To Help The US Economy

Eyebee — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:56:29 -0000

We haggled and decided to go Dutch on the beer, so that blew the whole American thing out of the window...

Re: How To Help The US Economy

Chuck Boyd — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:19:53 -0000

I usually make a lower offer than posted at yard/garage sales. Did you "haggle" with your new tatted sports-minded friend? Who's paying for the beer?

Re: Anti? Not Really, Just Not Pro Either!

Eyebee — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 12:07:32 -0000

I bought my first 'IBM-Compatible' PC back in 1986. It came with MS-DOS 3.3 and a set of half a dozen 3.5 floppies marked "Windows 1.0" I installed them, and played with this pretty looking thing for a while. It had a notepad type orgram in it, and a paint program, and, as I recall, not much else. There were no other applications back then.

I got bored with it after a short while, and deleted it.

I upgraded a few times over the next few years, but it wasn't until some time in early 1994, when I finally installed Windows 3.1 on my computer. I was more than happy with DOS, and it was, for the time, quite fast and responsive on my 386-based machine with a huge 8MB RAM. Windows turned it into a relative slug, so much of the time, I stayed in DOS anyway.

I've always thought that those DOS days were of great benifit, as I've never been unable to use, or been intimidated by a command line prompt.

Re: Anti? Not Really, Just Not Pro Either!

Chuck Boyd — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:50:31 -0000

Years ago when a buddy was "teaching" me how to use a computer, we were using DOS. I had the little template sitting above the keyboard and each key offered 3 different steps as you shifyed. Had to jot down lots of notes to myself.

I asked him about this new "windows" thingy I had heard about and he laughed and said it was just a fad. "Hard to do better than DOS, " he concluded.