Fun_People Archive
11 May
TBTF bits - 5/11/98: Lizard lips

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon, 11 May 98 04:23:43 -0700
To: Fun_People
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Subject: TBTF bits - 5/11/98: Lizard lips

X-Lib-of-Cong-ISSN: 1098-7649
Excerpted-from: TBTF for 5/11/98: Lizard lips

This issue: < http://www.tbtf.com/archive/05-11-98.html >

..Microsoft news


    ..Hotmail still running on Solaris and Apache

    A leaked report [14] claims that after purchasing the Hotmail free
    email service, which has 10 million subscribers, Microsoft tried and
    failed to move it off of Solaris hosts and onto Windows NT. A source
    is quoted as saying, "NT couldn't handle it. The issue is being es-
    calated." The Web server in use on Solaris is Apache 1.2.1, which
    does not run on NT due to technical and other difficulties encoun-
    tered by the Apache team. This report first appeared in Network News
    (4/22/98), but I could find no online source for it.

    [14] http://www.news.com/Rumors/0,29,,00.html
    ________________

    ..Gaming site opens to Netscape's browser

    Microsoft's Internet Gaming Zone [15] opened its gates to Netscape
    users yesterday, rolling out a new version of its software that will
    support the Netscape Navigator Web browser. This is the site that
    originally inspired the TBTF Exclusionary Sites Hall of Shame [16].

    [15] http://www.techweb.com/news/story/TWB19980427S0019
    [16] http://www.tbtf.com/exclusionary.html
    ________________

    ..Is Microsoft buying academia?

    A professor who mentions Microsoft programming tools in a scholarly
    presentation, or even just uses the tools, can get a check for $200
    from Microsoft. The company extends this offer on the Web page of
    the Academic Cooperative [17], a Microsoft "speakers' bureau" for
    computer-science professors. Ethics watchdogs call the program a
    baldfaced attempt to turn professors into advertisers. Microsoft
    says it's a well-intentioned effort to help faculty members cover
    their conference costs, and notes that $200 is not that big a deal,
    anyway. But it's a bigger deal for a professor in a public insti-
    tution than for a stock-optioned Microsoft employee. "We're so
    strapped, we don't look a gift horse in the mouth," says a CS pro-
    fessor at U.Mass-Lowell.

    Thanks to Jon Callas &lt;jon at worldbenders dot com&gt; for the
    forward.

    [17] http://academicoop.isu.edu/Colleges/FacultySpeakersProgram.html
    ________________

..Lizard lips


  How to pronounce http://www

    I've long been a fan of pronouncing "www" as "triple-dub," a neo-
    logism proposed in one of Wired's first Jargon Watch columns. Sev-
    eral other suggestions for verbalizing URLs appeared recently on
    the newsgroup alt.religion.kibology, whose chaos is presided over
    by James "Kibo" Parry <kibo@world.std.com>. The newsgroup sprang
    up in the days before the Web out of the conviction that Kibo must
    be God. Parry had set up filters on a full Usenet newsfeed and was
    known for sending email, posthaste, to anyone who used the word
    "Kibo" in any Usenet posting. Kibo's posting is an object lesson
    in quoting a discussion thread and running it off a cliff. See why
    they think he's God?

      >>:>I want to invent a time machine just so I can kill the guy
      >>:>who named the letter W and have its named changed to "wee."

      >>:You know, I've always been meaning to introduce "wee wee wee"
      >>:as a pronunciation of "www", but I've had such little occa-
      >>:sion to pronounce an URL aloud.

      >>I've gotten a couple of other DJs at the radio station to an-
      >>nounce our URL as "hut-up wow", but I haven't heard anyone
      >>else say it that way yet.

      >My preferred pronounciation is "Hat Tip, Woo Woo" but I can't
      >get anyone to use it. Maybe if I actually paid them to do it.

      But this skirts the real issue:  what's the name of "://"?
      I like to call it "lizard lips" because we all know that
      sideways lizard faces have diagonal lips. Nowadays most
      smileys are too kissable.

      :-X  <-- DO NOT KISS MY SMILEY

    Notice, in the second quoted passage, that the writer appears to
    believe that "URL" is pronounced "earl." Must be a newbie. Coming
    to you live from hat-top, lizard-lips, triple-dub, tbtf dot com,
    I remain, yrs. sincerely, &tc.
    ________________________________________________________________________

[FWIW, I like the idea of using "lizard lips" to mean "http://www." so that  
my home page can be reached as "Lizard lips langston dot com" -- catchy, eh?   
Wide-spread use of lizard lips might make Dave Yost's campaign to replace  
"www" with "web" unnecessary.  Of course must browsers supply the lizard lips  
for free when you type a URL...  A URL...  And while we're on the subject of  
identifying newbies by their lack of techno-grammar, saying "send an email" is  
about as with-it as singing "My baby, she wrote me a mail."  Don't get me  
started... ... okay, I'm better now.  -psl]

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