User talk:Nerd42

From Homestar Runner Wiki

Jump to: navigation, search

Contents

[edit] Welcome!

Welcome to the Homestar Runner Wiki! We're glad to have you as a member. If you need any help, feel free to ask anyone on the welcoming committee. You can also post questions on the FAQ talk page.

Here are some tips to get you started:

  • If you need general information, editing tips, or answers to frequently asked questions, check out the help page.
  • Before you do any significant editing, be sure to familiarize yourself with our wiki standards.
  • Read up on the rules and guidelines for your user page.
  • If you're not sure what you can do to help out, head over to The Stick.
  • If you're looking for more community interaction, you can also register over at our forum.
  • Above all, be sure to be bold and have fun!

Feel free to delort this message when you're done reading it. (In general, it's considered poor etiquette to remove others' comments from your talk page, but this message is just here to be helpful. It's fine to remove it once you don't need it.) I hope this information is helpful, and that you'll have a good experience contributing to our knowledge-base and our community.

Sincerely,
Heimstern Läufer and "The Homestar Runner Wiki Welcoming Committee", 04:47, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

hi there. how come there haven't been any strong bad emails for so long? --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  15:14, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

There hasn't been anything in a long time. See the massave discussion about it. By the way, your sig seems a bit long. We're still working out hard and fast rules, but there's been considerable discussion on the matter. Welcome to the wiki, glad to have you aboard. Thunderbird 18:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
aw, it'd be a shame if you couldn't do fancy sigs. --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  18:36, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
You can do fnacy sigs, take a look around, STUFF have a lot of sigs. Just not as long as you have. Elcool (talk)(contribs) 18:39, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Here's a good showcase of acceptable, original, sigs. The "Pie in bub's face" sig is also too long, ignore that one ;) Thunderbird 18:44, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Here's some examples of your sig, a smaller version, an even smaller version that would be preferable, the standard maximum, and my sig:
   Nerd42    email  talk  h²g²  pedia  uncyc 
   Nerd42    email  talk  h²g²  pedia  uncyc 
   Nerd42    email  talk  h²g²  pedia  uncyc 
Image:sigbox.png
Thunderbird
It should be noted that we also discourage background colors in sigs. — It's dot com 20:16, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
OK well I'm on a bunch of different wikis, so if my sig's not allowed on here I'm still interested in suggestions including background colors anyway. Adding the <small> tag was a good idea. :) --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  20:31, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] resolving signature issues

My new sig comes close but still doesn't measure up ... :(

image:sigbox.png
NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  04:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh wait, I fixed it! But now it's too small to read the little teeny words. :( --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  05:03, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Before Censorship

Hey! First of all, as an aside, I think the sig above is great, and adequately legible. But on to what I was going to talk about: I noticed an edit summary on Timeline in which you described "Common Era" as "anti-religious/politically-correct censorship" that (someone) was "trying to pull off." First of all, the issue does come up once in H*R, in lackey, and what appears there is B.C. and A.D. And since the attempt at assigning such dates to 'toons is kinda absurd, I doubt the matter will come up again; if it does, though, I'd actually faver "Common Era." While I'm myself a Christian and a fan both of "passionate orthodoxy" (see Save The Wheel) and any opportunities to glorify Christ, I do also believe that a wiki, as a public knowledge base and as a microcosm of a political community, ought to be religiously neutral. While I personally believe that the cross was in fact the watershed event of the history of the universe, I don't expect members of other religions to share that view; thus my use of the neutral terms would be motivated not by an antagonism to religion but, in fact, by a valuing of freedom of religion!
But wait—I forgot; my main point wasn't whether or not to use them, but that the tone of the edit summary was a little confrontational. That was a real person (in this case Lapper) who made that edit, and he does read edit summaries; he may or may not agree with being characterized as anti-religious and a censor, but I strongly suspect he wouldn't. The problem is that the phrasing speaks not only about the issue but about Lapper's intents and identity. Anyway, your comment was hardly flaming, and was only mildly confrontational—but it would still be a good idea to try to avoid hurting other users. —AbdiViklas 05:33, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, please understand that I did not intend that comment to be directed toward any individual person (to be taken personally) in any way. However, I think that the reason B.C. and A.D. are/were replaced by "Common Era" is specifically to single out Christian traditions in Western culture for censorship and eventual elimination. To replace B.C. and A.D. with "common era" dates seems to me to be exactly like refusing to use Arabic numerals (1234567890) in order to get rid of an implication of Islamic religion. I agree that wikis ought to be religiously neutral. However, that doesn't mean they should change the way that dates have always been written down in order to cater to anti-religious political correct censors who want to rewrite history. If you are offended at the sight of "B.C." and "A.D." then you have serious ideological problems and probably shouldn't be editing a wiki anyway because there is no way you could possibly keep your contributions NPOV.
So, for the record, if I was directing a comment in an edit summary to an individual person, I would have named that person and linked to their user page in the edit summary.
This "save the wheel" thing sounds interesting. Which church in particular is this web site referring to?
Oh, and I'm glad you can read my new Mini-sig even if I can't LOL --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  21:01, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Speaking as a non-Christian, it's not that we have it out for Christianity; it's just that we (or, at least, I) want everyone to be treated equally... and, as it happens, Christianity is currently treated as non-equally as you can get in America. Now, the issue of "BCE and CE" or "BC and AD" is an extremely minor point, and I don't care one way or the other. However, even many Christians realize that the cutoff point has a few errors in it with regards to the predicted birth of Jesus; the date's pretty arbitrary no matter how you look at it, and the number is the same either way.
And, by the way, since when do Arabic numberals have anything to do with the Islam religion? The only connection I see is they came from the same part of the world. --Jay v.2024 (Auld lang syne) 21:11, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
"Christianity is currently treated as non-equally as you can get in America." - Are you sure? Consider that the USA has the largest Christian population of any country in the world. I'd say it's about in proportion. Go figure that it has national Christian traditions. --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  21:20, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry I responded, actually, as I can already see where this is going, and I even bet I can guess some false assumptions you've made about my own views. But here goes: the Constitution itself states that no law with no nonreligious purpose can be made in America, and many such laws are made anyway; for instance, atheists are not allowed to hold office due to some state constitutions, even though the national constitution says that these laws are illegal and has done so for over two hundred years. Now, this isn't a matter of law, I realize; just trying to show what I mean. --Jay v.2024 (Auld lang syne) 21:35, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Where does the (federal) Constitution say any of those things? Because I've read the First Ammendment, and that stuff is quite simply not in there. I personally do not support government-mandated religion requirements for holding public office (except perhaps for excluding members of some extreme violent cults like Satanism and Al Qeda) but the federal Constitution does not say the individual States governments cannot make their own laws in that reguard. Indeed, if it had, the Constitution would never have passed. Most importantly, the phrase "seperation of church and state" does not appear in either the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. Contemporary interpretations of the Constitution are basically the specialty of the Poopsmith.

The reason I don't support government mandated religious requirements is because they simply don't work. I heard somebody say once, "Which would you rather have in the legislature? A man who doesn't believe in God but is too honest to swear to a lying oath or a man who doesn't believe in God and will swear to anything, the truth or a lie? Neither should be in the legislature. But the only man that religious oaths will keep out is the honest man! The liars would all get in anyway. So long as the liars are admitted, let's let the honest men in too." --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  23:12, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I really don't want an inflammatory religious/political debate to emerge here, but I think I can afford adding some. First of all, I must plead ignorance of the exact content of the Constitution, so I can't provide Jay's citation for him. But on the topic of the phrase "separation of Church and State" not appearing in the two documents, I might point out that the word "trinity" never appears in the Bible either. In Alito's hearings this week, we've heard the word "doctrine" frequently; in this context it means a principle that, although not stated explicitly anywhere, can be confidently exptrapolated from multiple precedents. The doctrine of a triune God is all over the Bible even if the word never appears, and I would venture to say that the doctrine commonly referred to as "separation of Church and State" was close to the hearts of the writers of both documents, and that the principle at least appears in the Constitution. As for BC vs. BCE, my initial response on first hearing of it was, like yours, offense and a feeling that people were making an issue of a non-issue; in retrospect, though, I don't see it as analogous to the Arabic numerals analogy because Arabic numerals aren't themselves religious icons. Just in a hypothetical exercise, I would feel quite different if they stood for "Before Mohammed" (aside from the fact that I couldn't say BM with a straight face), and might not see it so much as something not worth changing because it had always been done that way. The issue is not so much that it may be offensive as that it's simply not equitable. Christ was fully aware of his own offensiveness, and the Cross will always be an offense—and again, my theology does indeed mark history from that pivotal moment—but unless academia is to add to its many lamentable qualities that of a theocracy, there's no reason to expect people who don't share that belief to mark history "Before Christ." (Ironically, even if they change the language, they are still dividing history into a "before" and "after" at that point, made further ironic by the fact that it's off by several years anyway, so essentially the timeline is being divided in half at an arbitrary point.)
The Save the Wheel site is a sort of publicity drive for the awesome young-adults conference New Attitude, which is put on by the group of churches Sovereign Grace Ministries. Although I don't go to one of their churches, they've been very influential in my spiritual development ever since I went to the first New Attitude in '99. Although they have a contemporary worship style and other "charismatic" tendencies, they have a strong commitment to the importance of solid theology in daily life, to a degree that you don't typically see in the "charismatic" movement. —AbdiViklas 01:50, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
"there's no reason to expect people who don't share that belief to mark history "Before Christ."" Sure there is - because it's always been done that way and there is no good reason to change it.
The idea os "seperation of Church and State" in the context that the founding fathers believed in it was referring to a plan to limit government's ability to control religion, not to limit religion or religious references in public. --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  04:59, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually, as many of the founding fathers were deists (including Jefferson), it was to do both. As for the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." (that's part of the First Amendment). Sure, the words "Separation of Church and State" never appears (and I'd like to point out that that is not how I worded my previous response), but the meaning is roughly the same. (For what it's worth, the phrase "Separation of church and state" was actually coined by... yeah, I know I already mentioned this guy once in this paragraph, Jefferson.)
And, by the by, while I know there are some ultra-sensitive atheists out there who want to remove all references to religion in public... I'm not one. I don't care what other people worship or how they worship, so long as it doesn't affect other people. While I can sorta see where they're coming from, the BC(E)/CE/AD thing isn't of any particular importance to me as it's not hurting anyone... my response was more about the "singling out Christianity" part of what you said than anything directly related to how the years are named. --Jay v.2024 (Auld lang syne) 05:35, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
And actually, I do agree with you N42, and disagree with Jay, on one point there: that the "founding fathers" intent was no doubt to liberate, not restrict, the practice of religion, and that they probably wouldn't have had a terribly big problem with the public expression of it, either. And personally, I do hope my worship "affects" other people; it would otherwise be either a self-centered exercise, like spiritual aerobics, or a hermetic dialogue between God and myself. The latter has its place, but in my worldview we are not called to be a bunch of individual connections to God, but a network of lateral connections to each other as well. At the risk of blashpemy, this wiki makes a passable analogy: we all share a personal connection with H*R. But it's expressed, deepened, and lived out through our community with each other. We're unabashed, even, about non-H*R fans observing our fandom, (although they definitely don't "get it" sometimes, and we occasionally look like nerds), and our enthusiasm for H*R overflows the realm of private, isolated entertainment. The analogy breaks down in that, um, Homestar isn't God. (Some of us might need that reminder occasionally!)
In response to the first half of your post: Sorry; I ought to let you have the last word on your own talk page, but I just wanted to point out the point on which we obviously must agree to disagree: "there is no good reason to change it." Clearly we both see the same arguments; the difference is I find them sufficient for change and you find them insufficient. Cool; 'nuff said (over what, I think we all do agree, is a relatively trivial matter). —AbdiViklas 23:38, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Who said anything about the founding fathers having a problem with expression of religion? Perhaps the two of us were speaking of different things - the idea was very likely to prevent the government from controlling the churches and the churches from controlling the government (the latter of which didn't really happen, though.) Yes, there are some oversensitive people who think that any inobtrusive display of religion should be banned; I am not such a person, as I frankly don't care. In fact, I kinda roll my eyes when I hear about the exploits of these people... assuming that their actions are not clearly being exaggerated, misinterpreted, or taken out of context.
And when I said "affecting other people," I meant in the "pestering them until they convert, or acting as though they're forcing them to do so." I realize not all (or even most) Christians do this, but there are still some that do and I've personally met them. Or, if a person takes a "holier-than-thou" patronizing attitude as though they feel or act as though they are "better" than someone else due to what they do or don't believe, or make assumptions based on how others of other religions act, this too qualifies in the "affecting other people" category (though a little less directly). If you do public works (cleaning up parks, charities, whatever) for religious reasons, though I may disagree with why you're doing them, I will have no complaints with the end result. And, man, is that one long-winded block of text or what? --Jay v.2024 (Auld lang syne) 08:30, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
LOL; yup, and I apologize for hijacking your user page, Nerd42 for an increasingly tangential discussion! My attribution of that opinion to you, Jay, was based on the beginning of your next-to-last comment, "it was to do both." In the context, I had read Nerd42's previous sentence as "limit religion ... in public", whereas in "both" you were obviously referring only to "limit religion," and your reading meant "limit its control over government." That makes a lot more sense.
By the way, about the two attitudes you discussed above: there isn't much defense for the latter, the "holier-than-thou." Jesus had his own problems with such people, and didn't exactly mince words with them, either! (Unfortunately, some of the beliefs I do agree with can come off that way if the whole picture isn't presented. For instance, I don't think Ned Flanders really believes that he's any "holier" than Homer; or if he does, he's gotten hold of some sub-par theology. But his smarmy, irritatingly unfaultable behavior still might suggest the phrase to his neighbors. Looking "weird" is just part of the package, like the funny looks our H*R enthusiasm gets among the non-H*R goyim. But I do try to avoid saying "-diddly" and wearing sweaters.) And as for pestering people to convert: frantic, confrontational, and ultimately counterproductive evangelism is, once again, usually a product of bad theology. (This is why I like SGM, mentioned above, and their emphasis that theology isn't just something boring to study in seminary, but something that directly and dramatically affects the day-to-day life of every Christian.) Without starting off what could become a conversation far longer than this one, it boils down to your views of who saves whom and who's in charge, and involves fun words like free will. Not gettin' into that today. But my point is, while I too am irked and embarrassed by their hard-sell tactics, seeing it from their point of view makes them much more understandable. In the interest of position-taking, suppose that you believed—sincerely and emphatically, though deludedly—that your town were going to be hit by a meteorite tomorrow. If you had an ounce of integrity, you would not simply evacuate yourself, but would attempt to warn as many as possible. If you seriously believed in the impending horror, and that your friends' lives depended on your persuasion and their agreement, you'd be oblivious to name-calling and might dispense with politeness and delicacy in an attempt to save their lives. Keep in mind that these people not only believe very sincerely in the whole everlasting torment thing, but also that keeping people from it depends on their convincing them. So while that doesn't make their behavior any more palatable, it does to some degree explain it. And even though I'd frequently like to get them to chill, as long as they stay out of the business of legislating, I do think the 1st Ammendment protects even them.
And by now I need to clarify somewhat what I do believe—and I'd really rather not have this wander off from an extraneous civics conversation into an extraneous religion conversation—but I've been sufficiently vague that I run the risk of implying beliefs that I don't want to suggest. I do in fact share the first half of the proselytizers' formula: I do believe in Hell, in the traditional sense of an afterlife of separation from God, and do most definitely want to see people avoid it. Where I differ with them is that, while I do have an obligation to "share the gospel", i.e. lay out the information, it's not my job to "convince" anyone (as if I could "save" anyone myself!). Plus, I personally believe that sharing it with strangers is nowhere near as helpful as cultivating friendships with them, and it's frequently counterproductive. If anyone were to ultimately "lead [Homer] to salvation," it would be Ned, who hangs out with him, before it would ever be Rev. Lovejoy, who preaches at him. —AbdiViklas 20:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Fun History Scavenger Hunt can you find the full text of the letter where Jefferson used the term "seperation of church and state" ??? I think I remember reading it once, and as I said, Jefferson was talking about limiting government, not religion. About guaranteeing freedom of religion to everyone as long as their religion isn't trying to kill mine. And about how God is supposed to be present in the halls of Congress. --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  23:14, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Strong Bad's possible mind powers

Is it just me, or does everybody else realize that every time Strong Bad imagines something, it becomes real. For example, he imagines Trogdor and suddenly Videlectrix comes out with the video games. He sings jams to himself and suddenly he has an album (Strong Bad Sings) He imagines the future and then suddenly that future becomes real. (20X6) This suggests to me that Strong Bad's mind might be like, able to affect reality or transport manipulate Free Country, USA in ways we don't think about. --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  21:11, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Or perhaps every toon is all in his mind. Thunderbird 02:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I've always held that Hamlet creates the reality around him in that way. (I don't necessarily go as far as to say that the whole play is in his head, but that his thoughts and fears become realities and fates that he's then powerless to retract or avoid.) One of these days I'm gonna write me a comparison of Strong Bad and Hamlet. (Or maybe Homestar and Laertes!) —AbdiViklas 02:27, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Somethin like that yeah LOL. Strong Bad also made up Limozeen ... maybe we should make a list of everything Strong Bad made up that sorta became real. I don't think everything's in SB's mind though, because the other characters have made critical comments about him and he is unable to stop things he doesn't like from happening. --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  05:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Idea for a fan cartoon

I'm thinking about trying to make my own Homestar Runner fan cartoon that is a remix of the Strong Bad email "dragon." It would be called "dragon" in leet speech though, cause it's a remix. And uh, the idea is that Trogdor sits down in front of the Trogdor arcade game, and on the screen there is an email that says::

And uh, Trogdor gets a pencil and draws Strong Bad, and sings a song about Strong Bad. Uh, yeah. And that's about it really, except that at the end, Trogdor goes "in the NIGHT!!!" and burninates the screen. Then the camera backs up and it turns out to be one of the Cheat's cartoons, and Strong Bad says it sucked and DELETED!s it. Well, what do you all think?

(this might come in handy ...) --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  05:06, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I say go for it! —AbdiViklas 23:13, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Oh darnit, looks like it's been done before. :( --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  05:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, not exactly. So I wrote it up over at dr460n] --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  19:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] just got started decompiling SWFs!

Wow this is so cool now I can use the orig drawings :D --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  23:12, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your sig

It appears your sig goes over the rule that we have set here. I must ask you to change it so that it is smaller.--H*Bad 20:08, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Um, what rule? Looking above at original conversations of this subject, it seems to be at a good sice now. Shorter than th' blue box and all. Maybe it's your computer, H*Bad. --DorianGray
It seems bigger, well yeah my compy is messed up anyways. Also this rule.--H*Bad 20:41, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
It was my understanding that it now complied with the site's rules. --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  18:29, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not so sure about this, actually. "--" seems to always be in front of your sig, and it appears that it's actually part of it, even though it's not part of your sig file. Loafing 10:24, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

yeah i tyep that part --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  20:27, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your List

Hey Nerd42,

I stumbled upon your list in the project section. Good start and good idea. I think once it is complete, a form of it could be used for a mainspace page. If we strip everything but the file names, it would be a good page. I understand why you did it the way you did for your purposes, but since you put it as a project, I assume that you want as a mainspace page at some point.

I see it looking something like this

Teen Girl Squad
http://homestarrunner.com/tgs1.swf
http://homestarrunner.com/tgs2.swf
http://homestarrunner.com/tgs3.swf

...and so on.

One major missed area though; the first thing that I thought of when I saw your idea in the project section were these more hard to find links.

Let me know what you think. I R F 02:58, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey yeah. Please edit my page and fix it however you need it. Just as long as I can use DownThemAll on it to download all the toons. --NERD42  email  talk   h²g²  pedia  uncyc  16:56, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Using Show Preview

Hello Nerd42, I see that you have made several consecutive edits to the same page. I want to point out the Show Preview button. It's right next to the Save Page button when you edit. You should use it whenever you are making a lot of experimental edits, for example when you are trying to get formatting right. Using the Show Preview button is quicker and easier than saving and clicking "edit" again, and will keep recent changes and page histories from being flooded. Thanks, MichaelXX2 mail_icon.gif link_icon.gif 21:44, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Personal tools