I've been following this site (praised be its name) for a bit now and thought an eye catching title might be a good way to start. So, 'I hate ITM' - not the music, of course, that's marvellous; no, literally 'ITM', the bloody acronymn!
This is the first place I've ever come accross Irish music referred to as 'ITM' and it took a little while to work out what it meant.
I work in a computer environment which is awash with acronymns and so naturally I detest them; particularly when you come accross one in the middle of an article, say, 'WTPA', and search as you might you can't find any sign in the text of what it stands for because in his arrogance the author presumes everyone in the world who isn't an idiot must know what 'WTPA' means!
This is just my pet hate. I know we'll ever get rid the acronymn but how about at least making it interesting? There's no difference between 'Irish Traditional Music' and 'Traditional Irish Music' - which gives us 'TIM'. You could give Tim a character, make him a family man, develop a biography; the possibilities are endless.
So, what kind of a fellow is Tim?
Thankfully this is not an area full of acronyms and I would have thought that ITM is one of the few found here. I, for one find it useful but we have discussed alternatives here before.
"The Music" is quite a nice one or "Ceol" is another that some do use in Ireland. But they may be just as obtuse to some and depending on the context could be easily misunderstood.
My motto is if you don't like something then start by coming up with what you think is a better alternative.
Let's hear what others think.
Cheers
Donough
"TIM": my first mental picture is Tiney Tim, the ukelale playing Rock star of the 70's. We could replace his ukelale with a miniaturized bouzouki. "Prancing through the tulips de diddley de diddley dum." If he was representative of our discussions here, he would need to hear several voices at a time, most of which disagree.
TLAFTIM? Kinda looks Gaelic. Three Letter Acronym For Traditional Irish Music. I suppose if it is Irish and traditional, the Gaelic "Ceol" would make sense. Or (I offer myself in humble service and shameless self promotion) Ceol Cairdeas (music friendship ).
If you say "ITM" in America, people stare at you or say "Huh?" or think it is some new type of ATM (Automatic Teller Machine for banking).
Maybe Jeremy can somehow work the Java Script so that a key-stroke would automatically write out "Irish traditional music" for us. He did it with these silly smiley faces, so why not ITM?
I have in the past droned on at great length about how much I detest the flagrant overuse of that stupid 3-letter acronym. So I'll say no more other than to salute "from the land..." for reaching the same conclusion as me independently. Particularly when many of the persons who overuse the term are obviously capable of churning out sufficient volumes in their posts, so maybe writing out "the music" or whatever wouldn't impact too much on their time spent here. One of Jeremy's rules is "be civil" - well, why don't we be civil to the music we play by calling it its own name.
I never did find out. Having failed to find any explanation of it in the text I read no more of the article and in a rage tore it to shreds scattering the fragments to the four winds. I felt much better afterwards and for a few days after that my fiddle playing actually improved.
KFG
Please tell us how to write a macro that will work while typing in a message on the "mustard board". I know how to do it in MS Word.
Cheers
Donough
This post was input to the Yellow Board, in its entirety, from a text macro at the click of a mouse button. If I had wished I could have done it by pressing F9 or F11 instead (or some other key sequence of my choosing, maybe ctl-alt xyz).
Text macros are system level, not application level. Every shell that I commonly use, both text and graphical, UNIX, Windows or MacOS, has a simple text macro built right into the shell. It's called cut/copy:paste. When you cut/copy something the computer stores that something in a portion of memory commonly called the clipboard. A button and/or key sequence is assigned to the clipboard and when you press the button/key sequence assigned to the clipboard the contents in memory are fed into the data stream exactly as if they had been fed in through "normal" means, in the case of text, exactly as if it had been typed in at the keyboard. The application, or the Yellow Board (or Mustard Board, if you prefer), cannot tell the difference between data fed in from memory or that fed in directly from the keyboard. It's just data. You can input any sort of binary information that the application supports directly from memory, including command sequences. The Yellow Board text input box only accepts ASCII characters. That is why Jeremy has to have a Javascript utility to display graphical elements, stored on Jeremey's server, in the place of ASCII characters input by the users.
Some shells have multiple user assignable clipboards built in. The standard Windows shell only has the one. To deal with this you can write a script in vbs (the standard scripting language built into the Windows shell), python, perl or a simple program in Visual C, or C that acts just as if it were an original system command program. What you do is create memory assignments to hold keyboard input, make your own clipboards, and link those assignments to a button, key or key sequence. It's just the same thing as copy/paste, except you get to choose what inputs the text in memory back out as if it had just come from the keyboard.
Or, you can do it the easy way, and simply download/buy one of the literally dozens of such scripts/programs that have already been written and made available to do this. Many of them will even work inside games and other applications, because they are system level, not application level.
Just type "[your OS here] macro utility" into Google and take your pick.
"It is necessary for Jeremey to write such a script. . ."
Actually, I assume he simply downloaded the module that someone else had written. They are a standard forum "enhancement."
A while ago I was involved in a research project where everything was reduced to acronyms - doing electron microscopy (EM) on glial cytoplasmic inclusions (GCI's) in multiple system atrophy (MSA), a disease similar to Alzheimer's Disease (AD).
Actually, based on his post above, together with his unbelievably encyclopaedic knowledge of the universe, I'm daring to suggest he's not of our species at all - more like another famous individual who had an acronym for a name.
Strictly speaking (and aren't we always? ), KFG would not be an acronym because it doesn't form a pronounceable word. Unless maybe it's pronounced Kay Fug? Hey, maybe that's a clue! Maybe Kevin is one of the Fugs!
Hey Grego - I heard that's why they called it HAL - because they couldn't use the acronym IBM (since HAL's actions weren't good PR for PC's) so they shifted the letters one back...could be an urban myth though.
Strictly speaking, yes, although it's remarkable some of the linguistic acrobatics people will use to make an acronym "pronounceable" -- like WYSIWYG, for instance. However, a great many of the "acronyms" used are simply shorthand for common phrases of a group - WB for "welcome back" is one I remember from the old chatroom days, but it would be mystifying for anyone here.
Not only should it be pronouncable, but it should be spelled as any other word is. Laser, for instance, which is a legitimate acronym, and laser. Scuba is another common one.
So, ironically, TLA isn't an A, and should really be spelled T.L.A., because it is an abbreviation, but standards are slipping.
KFG are my initials, and also my monogram and legal mark, but not an acronym. If it were it would be pronounced "That pipe smoking son of a bitch," in the Saratoga Springs dialect.
I can't recall that I've ever been accused of being a computer before, but I have been accused of being a genetically engineered brain, kept alive in a solution in a vat and wired to the internet, sucking up the knowledge of the universe (except spelling). People who know me IRL know better, of course. They just accuse me of being a genetically engineered brain sucking up the knowledge of the universe and leave it at that.
Unless they're accusing me of being a "pipe smoking son of a bitch," (PSSOAB, pronounced "herbert," because I've always liked the name herbert for some reason), but that was just one bartender, whose primary objection to me, so far as I can tell, was that I always sat in a booth instead of at the bar, so the waitress always got the tip.
The idea that I could be sucking up the knowledge of the unvierse from the Internet is silly prima facie. I find it useful as a reference almanac, although much of it is in error, but it contains very little real knowledge. I find I still have to rely on primary sources, books and empirical experience for that. And so you find me here today, on the internet on the one hand, and sucking on a book with the other. I prefer soy based inks.
Monday nothing. Tuesday nothing. Wednesday, Thursday nothing. Friday for a change, a little more nothing. Saturday, Sunday. . . nothing.
BTW, there's been some rather A-R discussion before on whether it's more properly "Irish Traditional Music" or "Traditional Irish Music" -- the proponents of the former say that "Irish" places the "traditional music", and the proponents of the latter say that it's all music, and it is modified by the "traditional Irish". Opinions here?
I hate ITM
I hate ITM
I've been following this site (praised be its name) for a bit now and thought an eye catching title might be a good way to start. So, 'I hate ITM' - not the music, of course, that's marvellous; no, literally 'ITM', the bloody acronymn!
This is the first place I've ever come accross Irish music referred to as 'ITM' and it took a little while to work out what it meant.
I work in a computer environment which is awash with acronymns and so naturally I detest them; particularly when you come accross one in the middle of an article, say, 'WTPA', and search as you might you can't find any sign in the text of what it stands for because in his arrogance the author presumes everyone in the world who isn't an idiot must know what 'WTPA' means!
This is just my pet hate. I know we'll ever get rid the acronymn but how about at least making it interesting? There's no difference between 'Irish Traditional Music' and 'Traditional Irish Music' - which gives us 'TIM'. You could give Tim a character, make him a family man, develop a biography; the possibilities are endless.
So, what kind of a fellow is Tim?
Michael
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by bong tree
Re: I hate ITM
None of us like the term ITM, as we've discussed here many's a time. However, it looks like we're stuck with it.
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by Johnny Jay
Re: I hate "ITM"
Thankfully this is not an area full of acronyms and I would have thought that ITM is one of the few found here. I, for one find it useful but we have discussed alternatives here before.
"The Music" is quite a nice one or "Ceol" is another that some do use in Ireland. But they may be just as obtuse to some and depending on the context could be easily misunderstood.
My motto is if you don't like something then start by coming up with what you think is a better alternative.
Let's hear what others think.
Cheers
Donough
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by Donough
Re: I hate ITM
So, you hate ITM but love TIM?
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by Folkie Junkie
Re: I hate ITM
'So, you hate ITM but love TIM?'
Well, actually, Tim's the guy for me!
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by bong tree
Re: I hate ITM
well, what does WTPA mean?
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by bt
Re: I hate ITM
"TIM": my first mental picture is Tiney Tim, the ukelale playing Rock star of the 70's. We could replace his ukelale with a miniaturized bouzouki. "Prancing through the tulips de diddley de diddley dum." If he was representative of our discussions here, he would need to hear several voices at a time, most of which disagree.
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by CeolCairdeas
Re: I hate ITM
Hey, It's just another TLA (three-letter-acronym)!
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by Innocent Bystander
Re: I hate ITM
TLAFTIM? Kinda looks Gaelic. Three Letter Acronym For Traditional Irish Music. I suppose if it is Irish and traditional, the Gaelic "Ceol" would make sense. Or (I offer myself in humble service and shameless self promotion) Ceol Cairdeas (music friendship ).
If you say "ITM" in America, people stare at you or say "Huh?" or think it is some new type of ATM (Automatic Teller Machine for banking).
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by CeolCairdeas
Re: I hate ITM
Do like I do, and just don't use it. Simple enough. Cheers
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by nfiddle
Re: I hate ITM
I love ITM, what does it mean?
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by gian marco
Re: I hate ITM
Italian Traditional Music, I suppose.
Or Indonesian?
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by gian marco
Re: I hate ITM
Itinerant Traditional Music (ITM) would mean all of the above.
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by CeolCairdeas
Re: I hate ITM
Workers' and Trotskyites Political Alliance.
WTPA. And I know nothing about computers.
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by bodhran bliss
Re: I hate ITM
What The Purists Advocate (WTPA) just to keep on a musical theme.
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by bodhran bliss
Re: I hate ITM
Maybe Jeremy can somehow work the Java Script so that a key-stroke would automatically write out "Irish traditional music" for us. He did it with these silly smiley faces,
so why not ITM?
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: I hate ITM
I have in the past droned on at great length about how much I detest the flagrant overuse of that stupid 3-letter acronym. So I'll say no more other than to salute "from the land..." for reaching the same conclusion as me independently. Particularly when many of the persons who overuse the term are obviously capable of churning out sufficient volumes in their posts, so maybe writing out "the music" or whatever wouldn't impact too much on their time spent here. One of Jeremy's rules is "be civil" - well, why don't we be civil to the music we play by calling it its own name.
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by Rudall the time
Re: I hate ITM
Hey, great idea, Jack! LOL -- cure for the muso's laziness! *smirk*
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: I hate ITM
'well, what does WTPA mean?'
I never did find out. Having failed to find any explanation of it in the text I read no more of the article and in a rage tore it to shreds scattering the fragments to the four winds. I felt much better afterwards and for a few days after that my fiddle playing actually improved.
Michael
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by bong tree
Re: I hate ITM
It is necessary for Jeremey to write such a script to display otherwise unsupported graphical elements.
Since, however, "Irish traditional music" is plain text you need only program it to a macro key yourself and it will display quite nicely.
KFG
# Posted on April 3rd 2005 by KFG
Re: I hate ITM
KFG
Please tell us how to write a macro that will work while typing in a message on the "mustard board". I know how to do it in MS Word.
Cheers
Donough
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Donough
Re: I hate ITM
"It is necessary for Jeremey to write such a script to display otherwise unsupported graphical elements."
It is?... ok
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: I hate ITM
This post was input to the Yellow Board, in its entirety, from a text macro at the click of a mouse button. If I had wished I could have done it by pressing F9 or F11 instead (or some other key sequence of my choosing, maybe ctl-alt xyz).
Text macros are system level, not application level. Every shell that I commonly use, both text and graphical, UNIX, Windows or MacOS, has a simple text macro built right into the shell. It's called cut/copy:paste. When you cut/copy something the computer stores that something in a portion of memory commonly called the clipboard. A button and/or key sequence is assigned to the clipboard and when you press the button/key sequence assigned to the clipboard the contents in memory are fed into the data stream exactly as if they had been fed in through "normal" means, in the case of text, exactly as if it had been typed in at the keyboard. The application, or the Yellow Board (or Mustard Board, if you prefer), cannot tell the difference between data fed in from memory or that fed in directly from the keyboard. It's just data. You can input any sort of binary information that the application supports directly from memory, including command sequences. The Yellow Board text input box only accepts ASCII characters. That is why Jeremy has to have a Javascript utility to display graphical elements, stored on Jeremey's server, in the place of ASCII characters input by the users.
Some shells have multiple user assignable clipboards built in. The standard Windows shell only has the one. To deal with this you can write a script in vbs (the standard scripting language built into the Windows shell), python, perl or a simple program in Visual C, or C that acts just as if it were an original system command program. What you do is create memory assignments to hold keyboard input, make your own clipboards, and link those assignments to a button, key or key sequence. It's just the same thing as copy/paste, except you get to choose what inputs the text in memory back out as if it had just come from the keyboard.
Or, you can do it the easy way, and simply download/buy one of the literally dozens of such scripts/programs that have already been written and made available to do this. Many of them will even work inside games and other applications, because they are system level, not application level.
Just type "[your OS here] macro utility" into Google and take your pick.
"It is necessary for Jeremey to write such a script. . ."
Actually, I assume he simply downloaded the module that someone else had written. They are a standard forum "enhancement."
KFG
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by KFG
Re: I hate ITM
I stick wit diddley. diddly would be for scottish music.
Padraig
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Pádraig
Re: I hate ITM
I read all the thread and I thought WTF?
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: I hate ITM
FWIW, IKWYM, Showaddy.
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Q
Re: I hate ITM
Shut TFU, U2!
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Rudall the time
Re: I hate ITM
[witty riposte]
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Q
Re: I hate ITM
IMHO, you are SOL, FTLWTBTG.
TTFN
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: I hate ITM
random letters don't count, Kerri.
G, D & R
%7P
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Q
Re: I hate ITM
A while ago I was involved in a research project where everything was reduced to acronyms - doing electron microscopy (EM) on glial cytoplasmic inclusions (GCI's) in multiple system atrophy (MSA), a disease similar to Alzheimer's Disease (AD).
ie, EM of GCI's in AD-like MSA.
True.
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Rudall the time
Re: I hate ITM
Don't blame be for your failure to GWTP, Q.
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: I hate ITM
Hmmmm. KFG *is* an ancronym. Right?
Actually, based on his post above, together with his unbelievably encyclopaedic knowledge of the universe, I'm daring to suggest he's not of our species at all - more like another famous individual who had an acronym for a name.
"Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer doooooooo..."
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by grego
Re: I hate ITM
Wot, IBM?
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Rudall the time
Re: I hate ITM
Move each letter back one in the alphabet, and you have it Pingu.
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by grego
Re: I hate ITM
Oooooh, and maybe KFG is really "Jef"?
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by grego
Nit Patrol
Strictly speaking (and aren't we always?
), KFG would not be an acronym because it doesn't form a pronounceable word. Unless maybe it's pronounced Kay Fug? Hey, maybe that's a clue! Maybe Kevin is one of the Fugs!
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Bob himself
Re: I hate ITM
Hey Grego - I heard that's why they called it HAL - because they couldn't use the acronym IBM (since HAL's actions weren't good PR for PC's) so they shifted the letters one back...could be an urban myth though.
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Rudall the time
Re: I hate ITM
Ah, now. PC's were as likely to happen as shoe phones back then (we're talking the original movie, remember.)
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by grego
Re: I hate ITM
But yes, I heard it was intentional. More of an in-joke than a copyright kind of thing.
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by grego
Re: I hate ITM
And Bob, you're educating me here - I didn't know acronyms had to be pronouncable. See, the day wasn't entirely wasted after all!
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by grego
Re: I hate ITM
Strictly speaking, yes, although it's remarkable some of the linguistic acrobatics people will use to make an acronym "pronounceable" -- like WYSIWYG, for instance. However, a great many of the "acronyms" used are simply shorthand for common phrases of a group - WB for "welcome back" is one I remember from the old chatroom days, but it would be mystifying for anyone here.
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: I hate ITM
Is KFG an acronym?
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Cath
Re: I hate ITM
Not only should it be pronouncable, but it should be spelled as any other word is. Laser, for instance, which is a legitimate acronym, and laser. Scuba is another common one.
So, ironically, TLA isn't an A, and should really be spelled T.L.A., because it is an abbreviation, but standards are slipping.
KFG are my initials, and also my monogram and legal mark, but not an acronym. If it were it would be pronounced "That pipe smoking son of a bitch," in the Saratoga Springs dialect.
I can't recall that I've ever been accused of being a computer before, but I have been accused of being a genetically engineered brain, kept alive in a solution in a vat and wired to the internet, sucking up the knowledge of the universe (except spelling). People who know me IRL know better, of course. They just accuse me of being a genetically engineered brain sucking up the knowledge of the universe and leave it at that.
Unless they're accusing me of being a "pipe smoking son of a bitch," (PSSOAB, pronounced "herbert," because I've always liked the name herbert for some reason), but that was just one bartender, whose primary objection to me, so far as I can tell, was that I always sat in a booth instead of at the bar, so the waitress always got the tip.
The idea that I could be sucking up the knowledge of the unvierse from the Internet is silly prima facie. I find it useful as a reference almanac, although much of it is in error, but it contains very little real knowledge. I find I still have to rely on primary sources, books and empirical experience for that. And so you find me here today, on the internet on the one hand, and sucking on a book with the other. I prefer soy based inks.
Monday nothing. Tuesday nothing. Wednesday, Thursday nothing. Friday for a change, a little more nothing. Saturday, Sunday. . . nothing.
But I'll deny it until my dying day.
KFG
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by KFG
Re: I hate ITM
KFG = Kentucky Fried Goose
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: I hate ITM
This thread is absolutely fubar.
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: I hate ITM
Hmmm, he didn't deny being one of The Fugs.
Grego - as a friend of mine says, you learn something every day, if you're not careful.
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Bob himself
Re: I hate ITM
RIP
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by ∅
Re: I hate ITM
BTW, there's been some rather A-R discussion before on whether it's more properly "Irish Traditional Music" or "Traditional Irish Music" -- the proponents of the former say that "Irish" places the "traditional music", and the proponents of the latter say that it's all music, and it is modified by the "traditional Irish". Opinions here?
# Posted on April 4th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: I hate ITM
How much does this count towards our final grade, Zina?
# Posted on April 5th 2005 by grego
Re: I hate ITM
There's a final grade!? Nobody told me that! Bloody hell!
# Posted on April 5th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: I hate ITM
Well what on earth did you think your permanent record was being kept for?
KFG
# Posted on April 5th 2005 by KFG