Recent Threadjacks

The catch-all forum for general topics and debates. Minimal moderation. Rated PG to PG-13.
User avatar
Jersey Girl
God
Posts: 6828
Joined: Mon Oct 26, 2020 3:51 am
Location: In my head

Re: Recent Threadjacks

Post by Jersey Girl »

IHAQ wrote:
Tue Jun 08, 2021 9:42 am
Dr. Shades wrote:
Tue Jun 08, 2021 7:32 am
Seemingly nine times out of ten, the person who reports a thread jack does so only after he or she has responded to the thread jack half a dozen times.
Are you saying the moderators will only respond to off topic notifications providing the notifier hasn't responded to the off topic posts being reported?
Moderators?
We only get stronger when we are lifting something that is heavier than what we are used to. ~ KF

Slava Ukraini!
User avatar
malkie
God
Posts: 1478
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2020 2:41 pm

Re: Recent Threadjacks

Post by malkie »

My conclusion:

a. It isn't only me, but
b. most people are OK with derails

Thanks for your (mostly on-topic) comments :lol:
You can help Ukraine by talking for an hour a week!! PM me, or check www.enginprogram.org for details.
Слава Україні!, 𝑺𝒍𝒂𝒗𝒂 𝑼𝒌𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒊!
User avatar
Doctor CamNC4Me
God
Posts: 8980
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2020 2:04 am

Re: Recent Threadjacks

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

malkie wrote:
Tue Jun 08, 2021 5:40 pm
My conclusion:

a. It isn't only me, but
b. most people are OK with derails

Thanks for your (mostly on-topic) comments :lol:
Image

- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
Lem
God
Posts: 2456
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2020 12:46 am

Re: Recent Threadjacks

Post by Lem »

Physics Guy wrote:
Tue Jun 08, 2021 9:40 am
My experience is that different boards, and different people on the same board, often have different ideas about what threads are supposed to be. Some think that a thread is supposed to stick to its original topic and when it runs dry, die with honor. Others think of message board threads as conversation topics which just naturally drift. The original topic is for time only, as it were.

There are things to be said for both approaches, I think. For what it's worth I'd rather err on the side of having too much threadjacking, because at least that's more lively. Erring on the opposite side tends to reduce board activity overall, it seems to me. If a thread gets jacked there's always the option of jacking it back again, and reverting to the original topic with a post that attracts more attention.

(Seeking a term for that, I considered "threadjilling", but even apart from another tendentiously gendered term being the last thing we need, I find it just hard to say. I propose "backjacking" for how it rolls off the tongue.)
:lol: Good call. Defining 'jilling' as cleaning up after 'jacking' opens up the possibility for just WAY too many gendered tendentions!!!

Backjacking seems pretty appropriate. Or maybe jackcrowning/jacktumbling, considering the origins of the rhyme.
User avatar
Physics Guy
God
Posts: 1557
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2020 7:40 am
Location: on the battlefield of life

Re: Recent Threadjacks

Post by Physics Guy »

That is an awesome clip that I might want to show for a class some time. Entropy, people: do not try to mess with it.
I was a teenager before it was cool.
User avatar
Physics Guy
God
Posts: 1557
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2020 7:40 am
Location: on the battlefield of life

Re: Recent Threadjacks

Post by Physics Guy »

Yes, rejecting “jilling” just seems like a better call the more I think about it. But some kind of snappy term would be useful for something that’s often going to be useful to do in a snappy way.

I read somewhere that “hijack” is supposed to come from bootleg liquor shipments getting taken over at gunpoint by rival gangsters with the somehow traditional greeting, “Hi, Jack!” instead of such another catchphrase as, “Hands up!” It’s credible, barely, but hardly convincing.

It might be worth keeping “hijill” in mind for some possible use, if one appeared that seemed a reasonable parallel.
I was a teenager before it was cool.
Lem
God
Posts: 2456
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2020 12:46 am

Re: Recent Threadjacks

Post by Lem »

Physics Guy wrote:
Tue Jun 08, 2021 8:35 pm
Yes, rejecting “jilling” just seems like a better call the more I think about it. But some kind of snappy term would be useful for something that’s often going to be useful to do in a snappy way.

I read somewhere that “hijack” is supposed to come from bootleg liquor shipments getting taken over at gunpoint by rival gangsters with the somehow traditional greeting, “Hi, Jack!” instead of such another catchphrase as, “Hands up!” It’s credible, barely, but hardly convincing.

It might be worth keeping “hijill” in mind for some possible use, if one appeared that seemed a reasonable parallel.
I think you're onto something, here. Add your notes on hijacking and 'hijilling' to the sci fi book you're writing, I can see a really interesting application arising, along the lines of Pat Cadigan's approach, for example: "The Girl-Thing who Went Out for Sushi"
User avatar
Sledge
Area Authority
Posts: 605
Joined: Tue May 04, 2021 10:30 pm
Location: The Athenaeum
Contact:

Re: Recent Threadjacks

Post by Sledge »

Physics Guy wrote:
Tue Jun 08, 2021 8:24 pm
That is an awesome clip that I might want to show for a class some time. Entropy, people: do not try to mess with it.
What is going on in that clip?
Philo Sofee
God
Posts: 5017
Joined: Thu Oct 29, 2020 1:18 am

Re: Recent Threadjacks

Post by Philo Sofee »

malkie wrote:
Tue Jun 08, 2021 4:04 am
Is it only me, or does anyone else notice a pattern here.

1. Someone starts a thread.
2. Others comment on topic.
3. Someone highjacks the thread, usually with some little quibble.
4. Half the thread devolves into side discussions that are completely off topic.
Oh, that's just MG doing his Mormon testimony thang.... be patient, it shall pass... He knows deep down he is bankrupt. We know right up front he is bankrupt. As a Mormon he has to pretend there is still something there for a little while. He's almost as good a master pretender as Peterson and Midgley... almost.
User avatar
Physics Guy
God
Posts: 1557
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2020 7:40 am
Location: on the battlefield of life

Re: Recent Threadjacks

Post by Physics Guy »

Sledge wrote:
Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:14 pm
What is going on in that clip?
I'm pretty sure it's a jar of supersaturated solution of something—I think it might even be obvious what, if I knew more chemistry. The solution can sit in the jar for hours at least, maybe even much longer, as an apparently stable clear liquid. It isn't really stable, though, only what's called "metastable". If it gets even a small disturbance of the right kind, the transition to the real stable state will begin and take off like an avalanche. The jar fills up with precipitate.

It's a common lecture demonstration in chemistry. I've seen it myself years ago, with a similar-sized jar of the stuff. The lecturer also had a few grains of the solute in solid form, and simply blew these through a straw at the jar, from a few feet away. One or two of them fell into the jar and suddenly all this puffy white stuff just appeared. Conceptually similar transitions from metastable states, though with different detailed mechanisms, are used in physics as sensitive detectors of various kinds. Cloud chambers and bubble chambers are used to detect charged particles, and photomultipliers are used to detect photons. The general phenomenon is important.

It looks in this video as though the precipitation process is significantly exothermic or endothermic, so that the jar gets quite hot or cold pretty quickly as the white stuff appears. It looks as though that's why the guy freaks and pulls his hand out so fast.
I was a teenager before it was cool.
Post Reply