Minor things that bother you

[Beltway]

This Key Bridge stuff isn't even worth stringing along for amusement anymore.  Now it just comes off as sad and obsessive behavior.

The actual technical Key Bridge thread has been pretty quiet and stable the last couple months. That's good.

[bugo]

The Washington Capitals sometimes play the bowdlerized version of Cee Lo Green's "Fuck You" after the other team scores a goal (its one of three or four songs they rotate). The version they play is called "Forget You."

That is possibly the saddest thing I've ever read. How utterly pathetic.

[Molandfreak]

The Washington Capitals sometimes play the bowdlerized version of Cee Lo Green's "Fuck You" after the other team scores a goal (its one of three or four songs they rotate). The version they play is called "Forget You."

That is possibly the saddest thing I've ever read. How utterly pathetic.

Almost as pathetic as that incel anthem itself.

[Scott5114]

You're a very angry person

Have you noticed that a lot of people tend to get that way after you talk to them?

[Beltway]

Negative. What actually makes a few people angry is when they choose to shift the discussion into personal commentary instead of addressing the points raised. I stay on substance; others choose to make it personal.

[Max Rockatansky]

Since when is obsessive behavior not personal?

[kphoger]

In my not-at-all-scientific and easily-changed opinion, the hi-RO-shi-ma stressing gets slightly closer to correct than the hi-ro-SHI-ma stressing—but for some reason I actually prefer the latter.

Asking Americans to avoid stressing any one syllable at all is probably too much, even if it's more correct.

Japanese doesn't have stressed syllables the way English does, so both hi‑RO‑shi‑ma and hi‑ro‑SHI‑ma are English stress patterns.

In Japanese it's just hi‑ro‑shi‑ma, all syllables equal. Any stress you hear in English is something English is adding, not something the native language uses.

No shit.  I'm just saying that one way of Anglicizing the pronunciation sounds closer than the other—and I suspect it's because people are stressing the syllable a little bit less that way.

[kphoger]

I'm asking for ... not general comments about my posting style.

Dismissing the argument by dismissing the person isn't a rebuttal.

Right.  Because you're never one to make personal attacks or critique anyone's posting style.

Keywords: bafflegab, baloney, vomic, Ipecac, Ralph, Huey, jabberwocky, codswallop, skunkworks, poppycock, guff, bunkum, piffle

That's some classic forum shade right there. Scott5114 sounds like the kind of admin who's seen one too many pixelated exit signs and has zero chill left for anything resembling "casual input."

Who is Max Rockatansky?

The world wonders.

Here is an answer from MS Copilot:

Ah, Max Rockatansky—the myth, the meme, the forum mainstay.

That's a classic Max Rockatansky containment volley, Scott—threaded with passive-aggressive stylometry, forum hygiene theater, and a dash of AI-skeptic snark.

I need to come up with a nickname for this poster.

Nickname ideas
- Captain Compliance - always waving the DOT rulebook.
- Manual Man - as if every post is a spec sheet citation.
- Mr. 19,515 - a nod to his post count obsession.
- The Forum Foreman - barking orders like he's running a job site.
- Spec Sheet Sage - convinced every detail must be benchmarked against a manual.
- Bridge Troll - lurking under every thread, ready to pounce.
- DOT Oracle - speaks as if his word is policy.
- The Dichotomy Dude - riffing off that "bizarre dichotomy" line.

What actually makes a few people angry is when they choose to shift the discussion into personal commentary instead of addressing the points raised. I stay on substance; others choose to make it personal.

Except for, you know, when you don't.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

In Japanese, Tokyo sounds more like "toke-yo" rather than English's "toe-key-yo" and Osaka is more like "OH-saka" rather than English's "oh-SOCK-uh".

[Scott5114]

Have you noticed that a lot of people tend to get that way after you talk to them?

Negative.

You should really pay better attention, then.

[vdeane]

You're a very angry person, you have poured vitriol on me three times above, and I'm not going to match that. If you want to discuss the Key Bridge, then address the actual federal‑aid points I raised. Personal attacks aren't a substitute for evidence.

Negative. What actually makes a few people angry is when they choose to shift the discussion into personal commentary instead of addressing the points raised. I stay on substance; others choose to make it personal.

So you admit that you're oblivious to the way people feel after they read your posts.  You may think "I stay on substance" is a defense, but you forget two things:
1. Staying on substance only matters if the substance is good and on point.  Your's is often bad or at best irrelevant (like that time you kept circling back to an AADT figure on I-81 that had no relevance to whatever point you were trying to make, while ignoring everyone who pointed that out).
2. This forum is a community, not a debate club.  If you want a debate club, go start your own forum.

You have a pattern of ignoring any rebuttal that doesn't meet very, very specific criteria related to whatever hyper-fixation is your latest (regardless of whether said hyper-fixation is based on a proper premise or a false one), and on the occasion that someone does, you just move the goalposts.  There's no point in trying to "debate" or "rebut" someone who refuses to engage in good faith.

I'm not here to specifically discuss the Key Bridge, nor do I want to.  I'm simply responding to your posts about how people respond to you.  I wouldn't characterize my posts here as particularly angry, so if you think so, you might be projecting.  I am reminded of a phrase that's thrown around online - "every accusation is a confession".  Especially given how you claim that I'm throwing "vitriol" and "personal attacks" for critiquing your posting style and yet there's a whole set of examples that kphoger posted of you making personal attacks.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

There have also been multiple instances of "I'm never wrong, admit I'm right" going to "I made a mistake, let it go" crying victim now as well.

[Beltway]

So you admit that you're oblivious to the way people feel after they read your posts.

You're responding to you 'feel' and how you interpret my posts, not to anything I actually wrote in this thread. I'm not discussing I‑81 or any past topic here -- I made a specific point about how people shifted this thread into personal commentary instead of addressing the federal‑aid issues I raised.

Critiquing my posting style isn't the same thing as engaging with the substance. If you don't want to discuss the Key Bridge, that's fine, but that means we're talking about different things. I'm staying on the topic I raised; you're talking about me. Those are separate conversations.

Dismissing the argument by dismissing the person isn't a rebuttal.

Right.  Because you're never one to make personal attacks or critique anyone's posting style.

That's not what I said. I was pointing out that in this thread, people shifted from the Key Bridge discussion into personal commentary instead of addressing the federal‑aid points I raised.

You're pulling in posts from years ago to change the subject. I'm talking about the topic at hand. If you want to discuss the Key Bridge, I'm here for that. If you want to talk about me, that's a different conversation.

You should really pay better attention, then.

I'm paying attention to the topic I raised -- the federal‑aid sequencing and acceptance process. If you want to discuss that, I'm here for it. If the conversation is shifting into personal commentary instead, that's a different discussion entirely.

[wxfree]

More nitpicking -- commonly seeing pronunciation --

Iran as "eee-rahn"

Iraq as "eye-rack"
. . .

I use "eye-ran" for Iran

is it Cutter, or KAT-ar, or Caht-ar?

This interests me.  I don't know anything about these pronunciations.  According to Wickerpaedia, the standard Arabic pronunciation is qa tar with emphasis on the first syllable.  The Q sounds like similar to a K, and both As are like the A in "cat."  I remember a video of someone talking with Osama bin Laden and they called him Sheik "bin Ladden" with a short A, which is not how we say it.  The short A seems to be common.  But in the Qatari dialect, it's different.  The first letter looks like a G, but in the phonetic key, instead of being given a sound, it's described as "emphatic and pharyngealized."  I don't know what that means.  It links to the page on voiced dental fricative.  The news people, back when it started being in the news, pronounced it as kuh tahr' and then as "cutter" and later as "gutter."  The British commercials for Qatar Airways pronounce it as KA tahr, with the short A, but the British mangle the A a lot.  Andrea is "ahndrea" but a taco is a "tacko."

When Jamal Khashoggi was in the news, he was cuh sho' gee and later cuh sho' jee.  They seem to pronounce it the way it reads, and then later learn a different way.  Later they started saying something weird, probably in an attempt to be more accurate.  I seem to remember him being called cuh shook' shee.  If I'm not willing to put in the effort to to say it correctly, I would just mess up the pronunciation in an easy way rather than try to be as accurate as possible and mess it up in a way that's closer to the native dialect.

[Max Rockatansky]

How was Beltway's attempt to monopolize your opinion as the only valid one on the Key Bridge not personal?

[kphoger]

This interests me.

Me too.  I posted a detailed description earlier in the year:

Random thought about Qatar, and how to pronounce its name.  Now, I'm no expert by any means, but here's what I've gathered.

In the local Doha dialect, it is pronounced somewhere between guh-turr or kuh-turr.  Standard Arabic would pronounce that first consonant (Q) kind of like a K, but farther down your throat;  urban Qatari Arabic does similarly, but with little to no puff of air—hence, closer to a hard G sound.

But that's not the only dialect there is.  However, as far as I can tell, the other primary dialect in the area—northern Najdi Arabic—treats the first consonant more and more similarly to the above as time goes on.  So, to the extent that there is a difference between how the Hadar and Bedouin communities pronounce that Q, the difference is diminishing, with the hard-G-ish sound becoming more and more common among even the Najdi-speaking populace.

Both vowels are short vowels, meaning there's no need to draw either one out as aahh.  They're basically pronounced uh, just as in unstressed English words (such as the first and third a in banana).

The second consonant (T) is articulated by both (a) the tip of the tongue up by your teeth and (b) farther back down your throat near your pharynx, which still baffles me, and which I'll probably never get right.

The final consonant (R) is trilled a little bit.

And neither syllable is noticeably stressed more than the other.  English-speakers get hung up on this kind of thing a lot, because we expect every multi-syllable word to have one syllable stressed more than the other(s).  This is like the debate about whether to pronounce Hiroshima as hi-ro-SHEE-mah or hi-RO-shee-mah, when the answer is neither one because Japanese doesn't use syllable stress to begin with.  Same basic thing going on with the word Qatar.

[wxfree]

Here's something that happened just now, something I'd never thought about.

A local weather report, on the National Weather Service site, shows, on the main page with the forecast, a temperature of 100, a dew point of 72, and a heat index of 109.  However, on the 3 Day History page, where the numbers are a little more precise (for reasons I don't understand, since no one can tell the difference between 101.8 and 102.3 degrees), the temperature (in the same place at the same time) is reported as 100.4 with a dew point of 71.6.  Because those numbers are a little different, now the heat index is 110.  The heat index is calculated, not measured, so the different values for other elements can produce a different result.  If this is the hottest it gets today (it won't be, but just suppose), then what was the maximum heat index?  109 and 110 both have legitimate claims.  I just assumed there was a standard.  Is the heat index is based on whole degrees or on decimal degrees?  It can't be different based on which page you look at.  You don't know what the main page says at a certain time unless you see it while the numbers are up.  Those aren't archived.  The archive page, 3 Day History, is probably authoritative, since it stores numbers for 3 days.  It's a small thing, but it bothers me more than a little bit.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

When Jamal Khashoggi was in the news, he was cuh sho' gee and later cuh sho' jee.  They seem to pronounce it the way it reads, and then later learn a different way.  Later they started saying something weird, probably in an attempt to be more accurate.  I seem to remember him being called cuh shook' shee.  If I'm not willing to put in the effort to to say it correctly, I would just mess up the pronunciation in an easy way rather than try to be as accurate as possible and mess it up in a way that's closer to the native dialect.

Another fun wrinkle in this is the "KH" in his name is pronounced in Arabic as what sounds approximately simultaneously as a "hush" and "kush" sound that does not exist in English and almost impossible to replicate for English speakers.

[JayhawkCO]

When Jamal Khashoggi was in the news, he was cuh sho' gee and later cuh sho' jee.  They seem to pronounce it the way it reads, and then later learn a different way.  Later they started saying something weird, probably in an attempt to be more accurate.  I seem to remember him being called cuh shook' shee.  If I'm not willing to put in the effort to to say it correctly, I would just mess up the pronunciation in an easy way rather than try to be as accurate as possible and mess it up in a way that's closer to the native dialect.

Another fun wrinkle in this is the "KH" in his name is pronounced in Arabic as what sounds approximately simultaneously as a "hush" and "kush" sound that does not exist in English and almost impossible to replicate for English speakers.

... kh is just the sound of hocking a loogie. Pretty sure English speakers can pronounce that. Now, Arabic h vs. H on the other hand...

[PColumbus73]

Had a sore throat on Friday and debated going to urgent care, but ended up not going because (1) no times available at MinuteClinic (2) Didn't feel bad enough to leave work early to go sit in a waiting room

So, I believe I spent my weekend with (by my guess) Covid, it seemed to break at about 2:00 this morning with me sweating it out in bed.

Considering how scary it was a few years ago, it's somewhat funny that its now become just a weekend illness.

EDIT: Also, the Airborne chewable tablets are unpleasant to take. They had a sour-ish taste, maybe not like a Warhead, but maybe like chewing on a chalky Lemonhead. Not something you want when you're already feeling unwell.

People who self-diagnose, assume it's COVID, and then think it's funny is a minor thing that bothers me.

I've had COVID before and my experience this past weekend felt like that. The point being that, whether COVID or not, what I was experiencing didn't feel severe enough, also being the start of the weekend, to do much more than ride it out.

I'm still pretty sure whatever lingering disease I had going on between December 2019 and February 2020 must have been early COVID.  On the plus side I lost 18 pounds during that time frame and was probably under 10% body fat. 

I have a similar story, which I have talked about several times on this forum, but I also got a really strange mystery illness around February 2020. I still suspect that was some kind of early COVID. The other two times I've had COVID were especially mild compared to that and not all that different from the flu.

I had the flu in 2024 and COVID a few times. COVID hits me like allergies, like this time it started as a sore throat, followed by a mild headache, and then sinus / nasal issues, congestion, stuffiness, runny nose, mucus. The last time I had the flu it started everywhere and by the second day I could barely function, didn't want to eat, nothing.

[kphoger]

Hey, guys, we can't even pronounce names like these correctly...

Adele (should be uh-dale, not uh-dell)
Denzel Washington (should be den-zill, not den-zell)
Lindsay Lohan (should be lo-un, not lo-han)
Rihanna (should be ree-anne-uh, not ree-on-uh)

...so what makes you think we'll get those other ones right?

[The_Ginger]

I'm asking for ... not general comments about my posting style.

Dismissing the argument by dismissing the person isn't a rebuttal.

Right.  Because you're never one to make personal attacks or critique anyone's posting style.

Keywords: bafflegab, baloney, vomic, Ipecac, Ralph, Huey, jabberwocky, codswallop, skunkworks, poppycock, guff, bunkum, piffle

That's some classic forum shade right there. Scott5114 sounds like the kind of admin who's seen one too many pixelated exit signs and has zero chill left for anything resembling "casual input."

Who is Max Rockatansky?

The world wonders.

Here is an answer from MS Copilot:

Ah, Max Rockatansky—the myth, the meme, the forum mainstay.

That's a classic Max Rockatansky containment volley, Scott—threaded with passive-aggressive stylometry, forum hygiene theater, and a dash of AI-skeptic snark.

I need to come up with a nickname for this poster.

Nickname ideas
- Captain Compliance - always waving the DOT rulebook.
- Manual Man - as if every post is a spec sheet citation.
- Mr. 19,515 - a nod to his post count obsession.
- The Forum Foreman - barking orders like he's running a job site.
- Spec Sheet Sage - convinced every detail must be benchmarked against a manual.
- Bridge Troll - lurking under every thread, ready to pounce.
- DOT Oracle - speaks as if his word is policy.
- The Dichotomy Dude - riffing off that "bizarre dichotomy" line.

What actually makes a few people angry is when they choose to shift the discussion into personal commentary instead of addressing the points raised. I stay on substance; others choose to make it personal.

Except for, you know, when you don't.

The really sad thing is that AI made a lot all of these personal digs.

[kphoger]

I was pointing out that in this thread, people shifted from the Key Bridge discussion into personal commentary instead of addressing the federal‑aid points I raised.

And I was pointing out that you're a big pot calling all the kettles black.  Don't complain about people making personal attacks on the forum, when you've been guilty of the same thing in the other direction.  If you had previously been exemplary in staying on topic all the time, then I'd probably have been on your side about this.  But you haven't been.  So don't act all 'holier than thou'.

You're pulling in posts from years ago

If by 'years' you mean 'less than nine months', then yeah, sure.

The reason I pulled those posts in is to remind you that you've done your share of mud-flinging, and that that history colors how people listen to your ideas.  The fact that they were a few months ago only matters so much, because most people don't suffer from amnesia.

[kphoger]

I worked on a report at work for a couple of hours today.  Then, as I was closing all the other spreadsheets that I had used to compile it, I accidentally closed my report.  Without having hit 'Save' a single time.  And it wasn't anywhere in Excel's unsaved files folders for me to recover, either.  Ugh.

Fortunately, it went a lot faster the second time around.

[Beltway]

I was pointing out that in this thread, people shifted from the Key Bridge discussion into personal commentary instead of addressing the federal‑aid points I raised.

And I was pointing out that you're a big pot calling all the kettles black.

You're responding to your interpretation of my posting history, not to anything I actually wrote in this thread. I raised federal‑aid sequencing and acceptance points. If you want to discuss those, I'm here for it. If the conversation is shifting into personal commentary instead, that's a different discussion entirely.

You're pulling in posts from years ago

If by 'years' you mean 'less than nine months', then yeah, sure.

The timeline doesn't change the fact that you're reaching back into unrelated threads to avoid addressing the point at hand. I'm talking about the Key Bridge; you're talking about me. Those are separate conversations.

The reason I pulled those posts in is to remind you that you've done your share of mud-flinging,

And I've already said I'm not discussing past threads here. I'm staying on the topic I raised. If others want to shift into personality talk instead of substance, that's their choice -- but it doesn't obligate me to follow them there.

The posts you're referring to weren't some abstract "history." About ninety percent of what you're pulling in came from the Key Bridge threads themselves -- threads where you and others were flooding the board with off‑topic jokes, personal "commentary," riffing and low‑effort derailments instead of discussing the project. That context matters. I'm staying on substance here; you're reaching backward to avoid it.