HRWiki:STUFF/Archive/myths & legends

A dingo took my baby!

NOTE: The portions of this item that have been struck out are unnecessary for our purposes. All of that information is amply covered on the Wikipedia article.

From: myths & legends
Posted on: 21:02, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Arguments for:

• It's a well-known case of a baby getting allegedly stolen in popular lore.
• A precedent to referring to this incident already exists in the Homestarniverse, in the form of the Videlectrix game King Dingo.
• Just like crop circles ("evidence of destroyed crops") and Bigfoot, it's a modern case of a disputed myth or legend. There's still a lot of argument over whether the baby was stolen by dingos or whether it was a hoax, and even whether dingos are capable of doing such. It's discussed in video series on cryptozoology along episodes on Bigfoot, and on forums dealing with "unexplained mysteries" and paranormal topics.
• It's a well-known case which spawned lots of pop culture references, yet at the same time as the story has become popular legend the original incident has become trivia.
• This is an email about myths and urban legends, right? Well, if that T-Shirt isn't about the dingo, what else could it possibly retain to?
• This fun fact was accepted on the King Dingo page.

Arguments against:

• It's a stretch to draw a direct connection between "baby-stealing" and Azaria Chamberlain. It could as easily refer to goblins stealing babies in old European folklore.
  • The rest of the email refers to modern folklore or legends like Bigfoot, crop circles, and UFOs, things which are still disputed in popular culture. Goblins in old folklore don't fit.
• Strong Bad describes "evidence of destroyed crops, stolen babies, and family bike-rides" in the email, and this T-shirt is clearly a reference to that. Even if the dingo was on TBC's mind (which is speculative) it's irrelevant.
• There have been numerous child disapperances. Why is this one necessarily the Real-Life Reference?
  • If anything, this is probably a reference to the kidnapping and hazing of Louis and Gilbert by the Alpha Beta fraternity in Revenge of the Nerds.
  • Because there haven't been numerous mysterious disputed child disappearances with Oscar and Golden Globe nominated movies made about them, for one thing.
• If they wanted to reference it, they could have done so far more clearly, with a T-Shirt saying something like maybe "the Bear-Shark Stole my baby"
  • Umm, they DID. Did you see the shirt? It says "My baby got stole by the Bear-Shark."
• A complete and utter coincidence, with way too much information.
  • Agreed. I just don't see much connection between the two beyond an offhand mention of "babies being stolen". And even if there is a connection, that fun fact does ramble. "The parents of two month old Azaria... etc" isn't particularly necessary, as it can all be found in the articles linked to.
• Just because a similar fact was accepted on the Kind Dingo page doesn't mean there's a connection here.
  • The key difference is, King Dingo is clearly a very direct reference to this incident. It's a "game" about a dingo kidnapping "mother-in-law". You don't get much more blatant than that. Here, however, we have "...babies being stolen", and a T-Shirt that says "My Baby Got Stole!". There is nothing beyond pure speculation, and mentions of the totally unrelated King Dingo, to link those two lines to the Azaria Chamberlain disappearance.

Additional comments:

• this is too obscure
  • The Azaria Chamberlain disappearance isn't even remotely obscure and is most definitely a part of the cultural landscape that TBC draw their material from.
    • That is a presumption. I know I never heard of it before its mention here. It's entirely likely TBC didn't either.
      • It's hardly likely that TBC didn't know, considering that they reference it in Videlectrix's King Dingo. Even if you claim you haven't heard of the original before, it clearly a part of pop culture, partially because of the books and the movie.
        • i really dont see how king dingo references A. i mean, i see the text on the page, but i dont see how the text describing the game jives with Azaria's dissapearance. is there a reference to back up the link between king dingo and A? also its a stretch to link the two.
      • It was referenced in a Seinfeld episode. That was a pretty popular show not that long ago. TBC have used more obscure references than this
• Could this fact benefit from the inclusion of the phrase, "A dingo took my baby!"? I hardly knew anything about the case, much less the name Azaria Chamberlain, but I've known and appropriated that phrase for years. I'm not sure about the best way to integrate this line, but I'm open to ideas. The line itself people remember from the 1988 movie A Cry in the Dark.

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Shorty

From: myths & legends
Posted on: 21:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Arguments for:

• It's true, and it's very fun to the average reader.
• We also have similar facts (see flashback), such as:
  • "This email has the most Easter eggs in any email to date..."
  • "This is the longest Strong Bad email, with a time of 5 minutes..."
• This is not as easily seen on the Strong Bad Email Length list, unless you remember which email is on which computer.
• This is an accomplishment of the toon. It is a fact that you will not find on any other email.
• This fact can be considered fun by some people. It's likely that many people reading this fact would find this to be an interesting note.

Arguments against:

• We have a page for email lengths.
  • It has also added a section about the longest and shortest e-mails for each computer.
• It's true, TODAY. It might not be true tomorrow or next week or next month. Fun facts that are likely to change are not good facts.
  • Three of the last six e-mails have been the "shortest Lappy email to date".
• Again, this argument against just isn't very fun.

Additional comments:

• This is a wiki. Content changes every day. Yes, sometimes it's a hassle to keep up with things like this, but there is almost always someone willing to do it.
  • True, but according to the STUFF guidelines facts that become easily dated don't make good facts.
    • This isn't easily outdated. There have already been nearly 30 Lappy emails, the shortest out of 30 is likely to stay the shortest for quite some time, likely only changing once or twice in the future if at all.
      • Actually, someone tried to add this to last week's e-mail. If it had been kept then, it would have been outdated a week later!
• Instead of mentioning this on the email pages (or in addition to that), why don't we have a section on Strong Bad Email Statistics that lists info like this? That way, there's a central place to look for the info, and updating it is easier.
  • We could do that, but it may still be a good idea to put the fact on the page. How will people know that it is the shortest Lappy email without searching around?
  • As a noob to the wiki (and wikis in general), coulnd't those sorts of stats be used to auto-update "shorest/longest"and other stats on email pages?
• Can we just say that it's the shortest lappy e-mail as of its creation?
  • Too easily outdated. E-mail #146 could be even shorter, rendering this immediately incorrect.
    • Not incorrect, but redundant just the same. I'd go with the original wording.
      • I'd just leave this sort of thing out, myself. It'd get removed when a shorter Lappy e-mail is released anyhow, and wasn't this same argument knocked down before it even got STUFFed in highschool?
        • Never mind. I thought this was brought up in said talk page, but I couldn't find anything.
• It's too bad that this fun fact won't be on the page when it really matters. Asserting that some people would enjoy reading it, the time that counts to have it on the page is now. After the initial two-three day hype dies down, this fact will no longer have its appeal. I want to speedy accept it now, then delete it when nobody cares about it. But, seeing how the votes are heavily split, this will sit in STUFF too long, which will then make me painfully decline it.
  • Although the below reminder is true, it's difficult to imagine users "enjoying reading" this trivium. If they're the type of Homestar Runner fan who will not only find it noteworthy but pleasurable to know that this is the shortest (not overall, just of Lappy), then they're probably also the type willing to hunt it down in SBEmail Stats. If they're not this type, chances are they wouldn't particularly care.
    • With the information that Thunderbird put on Strong Bad Email By Length, and the lack of appeal and irrelevence of this fun fact at the time it might get accepted, I am chaning my vote to decline.
      • Due to further arguments against, as well as my summary at the afore mentioned page, I to am swinging my vote.
• People really need to stop using "this fact isn't fun" as an argument against.
• Don't you think it's kind of asinine to spend more time arguing about the possibility and inconvenience of change than it would take to actually implement this and keep it current?
  • This should be used as a precedent, then. If it's accepted, whether it's still relevant or not, we can use this as evidence why these facts should not be STUFF'd but rather just accepted outright; or, if it's declined, well, vice versa. No more STUFF-ing change-sensitive facts that way.
• this one has a lot of comments.
  • It also has a lot of votes! 53 54 55!

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Haggling over Aunt Gert

From: myths & legends
Posted on: 17:32, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Arguments for:

• Yeah, it sort of does. Some colors are the same, and the basic shape.

Arguments against:

• The light-colored shape on the ice cream's head is shark-shaped. Aunt Gert wears a knit hat with ear flaps.
  • I believe that's supposed to be her hair, done up in an old-lady style.
• Some colors don't match, like the eyes and the mouth.
  • Ice cream bars never look EXACTLY like the thing thay're suppose to look like. Many times the colors will be diffrent,or the shape.
• "Bearing a resemblance" doesn't mean it's a deliberate reference.
• Not enough resemblance. put it on the talk page.

Additional comments:

• Can anyone put up screenshots for comparison?
  • Done.
• It also looks kind of like Morgan Freeman, especially in Shawshank Redemption...
• Re: "not enough resemblance"... all it said was there was a resemblance. It's clear here that even though it may not be much of one, there is a small resemblance.

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118n

From: myths & legends
Posted on: 04:30, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Arguments for:

Arguments against:

• A stretch.
• No, it's a latitude. Or longitude.
  • It's neither. It would be a latitude, since it's N/S, but latitude only goes to 90 degrees wither way.
    • Well it's a pretend latitude. That's the way they show them on those star globes.

Additional comments:

• This is leetspeak. Pretty impressive, huh? I bet you're pretty impressed.
  • Quite.
    • Very interesting. Quite.....Elequent. I think.
      • Wait. How is this leetspeak? It'd be something like, "IIBN" or "LLBN", neither of which make sense... unless I need to catch up on my acronyms.
        • Leetspeak (or more generally, Internet Slang, allows for abbreviations as well as substitutions. "omg" and "lol" are popular examples.
          • "omg" and "lol" as leetspeak seems like a stretch. Imo, '13375P34K' is usually more obfuscated.
            • Indeed. I always assumed "leetspeak" was the act of replacing letters with numbers. "OMG", "WTF", "LOL", "ROTF", etc. are just computer "shortcuts". They're in the same basic catagory, but are different. Similarly, I wouldn't count people using "u" for "you" and "r" for "are" as leetspeak. (I just call that pure laziness... but that's a tangent for another time.)
  • Let's clarify: "i18n" and "l10n" are not leetspeak, nor are they slang. They are widely-accepted abbreviations that you will find even in academic and technical literature. They're used simply because "internationalization" and "localization" are extremely cumbersome words, but they're ubiquitous when you're trying to talk about writing software (and more) that can be adapted for use in more than one locale.

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