TechnoLust's Journal: Seriously guys, WTFSoF? EVERY Wednesday?

Ever since blinder bought me a subscription, I have not used http to access slashdot. Today, I was logged in via https and trying to reply to Some Woman's JE when all of a sudden I got a strange error. I looked at the top of the screen and it said, "Login". I thought, that's odd, I am logged in. Upon further inspection, I noticed it said http instead of https. I thought, someone must have given a full URL instead of relational link! But then I tried to go back and I could tell it was trying to access the https and then redirecting to http.

I thought, my subscription must have ran out, but it shouldn't because of my settings. I should have at least another couple* years. A quick check says that I have about 1500 page views remaining. No, it turns out that if I go to https://slashdot.org/ I'm sent straight to http://slashdot.org/ with no warning. Now if I LOG IN to http://slashdot.org/ and THEN go to https://slashdot.org/, it lets me use it. WTF guys?

*Tangent: I was in a meeting the other day, giving estimations [to a native English speaker] for project tasks. On one of them I said, "Oh, that's not a very large change, I should be able to do it a couple of hours."
"How many?"
"A couple."
"No, I need the exact number."
"A couple means 2."
"Are you sure? I thought a couple meant like any small number."
"No, that's a 'few'."
"I thought a few meant 3."
"Are you smoking crack?"
"Not right now."
Ok, so the last part didn't happen, but that was the general thought running through my brain. UPDATE: I just noticed that the page has 666 in parenthesis, in a green bar. Weird. Slashdot is the mark of the beast.... I never saw it coming.

Heh...

[Pancho Pistolas]

Regarding that last exchange about time estimates...if anything else, Mr. couple/few-fries-short-of-a-Happy-Meal just made your argument for you; namely, why actual numerical estimates are more useful/meaningful.

Can't help you on the /. issue-- I can't even get their pages to appear properly on my regular browser; fat chance I'll ever trust them with anything involving money.

Couple

[MyHair]

Although not technically correct, I've always considered "couple" to be in the same vein as "a few". Well, except when talking about coupled people/elephants/frog and pig/whatever. I know it's not technically correct, but it seems to be a generally accepted fudge that a couple of something may be more than two.

For me personally it goes back to childhood: "Can I have some cookies?" "A couple." Of course I had to find out how much a couple was and try to embrace and extend the number. So eventually the answer

Re:

[Tet]

I know it's not technically correct, but it seems to be a generally accepted fudge that a couple of something may be more than two.

I can only assume that's a localized thing to you and your circle of acquaintances. Certainly in my universe, "couple" means strictly two. If you don't mean two, then you don't use the word "couple".

Re:

[subgeek]

sadly your assumption is incorrect. i have heard people from all over use "a couple" to mean an undetermined small number. i've also heard it used by many different people to mean "probably two, but maybe more or fewer."

the same thing happens in german. i was frequently confused when people said, "ein Paar" (a pair), but did not mean exactly two.

Re:

[MyHair]

Hmmm....

a small indefinite number; "he's coming for a couple of days" [google.com]
a couple may mean two or a quantity more than two, but not many. [wikipedia.org]
In the U.S., "a couple of things" or people may mean two of them, but it often just means any small number [wiktionary.org]
Informal. A few; several: a couple of days. [answers.com]
http://www.google.com/search?q=couple+definition [google.com]

Re:

[MyHair]

I can only assume that's a localized thing to you and your circle of acquaintances.

Oh, and I have no acquaintances anymore. They got pissed because I kept taking too many cookies and beers. Wish I had those web links then. Fridays and Saturdays are so lonely now.

;-)

A couple is two.

[pythorlh]

But if you want to have fun with some "Bible is literally correct in every word" Christians, ask them how many a few is. Then show them that it is specifically 8. It's in the new testament somewhere when speaking of the flood that "a few, that is, eight" were saved.

Re:A couple is two times 4

[PreviouslySeen]

Heh, Ill have to try that on my father in law. (assuming the unfortunate happens and he decides to speak to me again).

Wigglespeak

[Shadow Wrought]

In the legal realm it is quite the no-no top actually get tied down to something like a number. Then you can actually measure performance. Silly TL;-) Couple means 2, Few means 3, Several means 4, Lots means 5+, Tons means 10+, and Half-a-Dozen has no meaning witht he suffix, "or so."

Re:

[TechnoLust]

THat's why for one of the projects I said, "A metric fuck-ton" of hours. (We actually settled on 1500 hours later.)