Todays random news stories

[Wraith]

Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with Alzheimers. Very sad news this as I'm a big fan of his books. I wish him well.


The decline of the English language continues. I have to dispute the comment of

This is simply a different and more efficient way of representing the alphabetical character.

How is replacing two letters with two numbers "more efficient"? Moron.


This sounds like a great idea. If only it didn't require being awake at 6am.....


Big trouble for some RAF guys. What makes this worse from a personal viewpoint is that these guys are some of my brothers squadron mates and very good friends of his. I've actually met one of them and he is a really nice guy (as are all of the RAF guys I've met). It's really shitty how much trouble they're going to be in. I know that given the situation they don't deserve much leniency, but it's still horrible nonetheless.

 

[Ronin Storm]

Thanks for those, Wraith. An interesting menagerie.

 

[VibroAxe]

whats saddest, is that i'm pretty sure (95%) that w00t is not derived directly from whoot, but actually from old school hackers being whoot i got root. so i suppose, it kinda is derived from whoot, but nothing really todo with gamers, it's just been adopted!

*EDIT*
hmm having done some research

The origin of the term is widely disputed. Some claim that word originated in competitive online gaming as an acronym for "we own other team". Others trace the current usage of the word "w00t" to hackers in the early to mid-'80s who used it as a term of celebration for gaining root access in Unix systems; see leet. Still others attribute the term to players of Dungeons and Dragons as being shorthand for "Wow, loot!"

Regardless of the origin, the term has been adapted to mean a general expression of elation.

so, my logic was good, although there are 2 other abreviations i didn't know about, neither of them stems from whoot. So bah to reporter!