Ask dumb questions here!

[Sgt PSN]

You may wind up with some half-gay dogs though.
From what I understand from listending to Fox news, anything associated with the French, including thier language and french fries, can you make you go Fag in about two seconds.

This is funny because as I was reading this I was just finishing the final fry from my dinner.    Too bad it's not true.  Now if you'll excuse me, I just got a sudden urge to download Yani from Limewire. 

[Geowhizzer]

when is hurricane season, i am taking my family on vacation to Florida from July 29 to August 5.  is that a trouble time?

Technically, hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30.  Is there a chance then?  Yes, but  you'll usually have plenty of warning to decide if you need to get out of Orlando.  Just start keeping an eye on the Weather Channel about a week before you leave, and you'll be OK.  The bad ones we've had were in the middle of August or later (I think Charley was the earliest- around August 13, 2004, and Andrew was August 24, 1992.

Coincidentally, Orlando is proabbly the closest Florida has to a true "inland" city.  It's smack dab in the middle. Of course, with some of the doozies we've had the past few years, that hasn't mattered.  You should be OK, but keep an eye on the weather.

[Cerevant]

There is no Chinese Keyboard.  They had to use a source code for each symbol years ago, but I think they now use a touch pad with an electronic pen, and the computer translates the symbol from what the author draws.

Russians have a separate keyboard I believe.

I know this is old, but I can't resist.

While I can't speak specifically to russian or chineese keyboards, in Japan they have a QWERTY keyboard with a special shift key.  They hit the special key, and type 2 or 3 keyboard characters to create one Japanese character.  While the translation is different, it is my understanding that the Chinese and Japanese "alphabets" are much the same. 

[MadMarchHare]

Actually, C, I believe the Chinese "alphabet" is considerably larger than the Japanese one.

I'll check on this and get back to you.

[Cerevant]

Actually, C, I believe the Chinese "alphabet" is considerably larger than the Japanese one.

I'll check on this and get back to you.

My understanding from the guys in Japan was that there are 3 character sets the Japanese use, and 2 of them were chinese characters, and the other was a phonetic alphabet.  Now you have me curious

[MadMarchHare]

I'm trying to find it online, but I can't find exactly what I want.

Wikipedia is describing it as 5 different dialects based originally from the Han Chinese, and then 5 styles from there (which is apparently based on how fast you needed to write it ).  And each symbol has inflections which determine pronunciation and context.  I can see how that'd get out of hand real quick.

[SunMo]

i got a tax question....

previously, when my wife worked part-time.  we worked our deductions so that i claimed everybody and got my full amount, she claimed nobody, got the taxes taken from her check and we wound up with around a $1,500 refund.  this past year, she went full-time and we kept the same deductions.

should i expect more refund money because she got more taxes taken out?  or does working full-time instead of part-time change something.

[MadMarchHare]

That would depend on how much more money she made.  If her increased income bumped you to the next bracket, it may actually hurt you, even with the increase in money taken out.

[SunMo]

what are the brackets?

[SunMo]

i was looking online and i found this bracket for a married couple filing jointly:

$14,600 - $59,400

if that's correct, my wife doens't make enough to bump us over that $59,400, so we'll get taxed the same amount.

[Father Demon]

There is no Chinese Keyboard.  They had to use a source code for each symbol years ago, but I think they now use a touch pad with an electronic pen, and the computer translates the symbol from what the author draws.

Russians have a separate keyboard I believe.

I know this is old, but I can't resist.

While I can't speak specifically to russian or chineese keyboards, in Japan they have a QWERTY keyboard with a special shift key.  They hit the special key, and type 2 or 3 keyboard characters to create one Japanese character.  While the translation is different, it is my understanding that the Chinese and Japanese "alphabets" are much the same. 

The keyboards I used while in Ukraine have sets of characters on them.  One is the US QWERTY keyboard, and if you click some magic button on the screen, you type in the Russian/Ukrainian characters, which are on the upper-right of each key.  And this magic button is kinda invisible, because I clicked it accidently a few times while I was there, and all my stuff was in Russian.  I had to have some Ukrainian kid get me back to English.

[Cerevant]

I'm trying to find it online, but I can't find exactly what I want.

Wikipedia is describing it as 5 different dialects based originally from the Han Chinese, and then 5 styles from there (which is apparently based on how fast you needed to write it ).  And each symbol has inflections which determine pronunciation and context.  I can see how that'd get out of hand real quick.

Here's what I came up with:

Kanji is the most complicated script in Japanese. First brought to Japan by Buddhist monks more than 1200 years ago, these Chinese ideograms number in the thousands, each one representing a different idea, not necessarily a different sound as is the case with katakana, hiragana, and romaji. In fact, most of the characters have more than one possible reading. The ideogram for person can be read as jin, nin, hito, bito, ri, and several other sounds.

I can't find something that says it outright, but my Japanese collegue said that Kanji was the same set of characters as Chineses, but with slightly different translations (dialect?).

[MadMarchHare]

Reminds me of that Next Gen episode where the alien race spoke only in analogies.  shtein, I barely speak English.

[Tomahawk]

Which is the best cable to hook your components to your receiver? Optical? S-Video? Coaxial? That other one?

[Reidme]

Did anyone else know that pseudo hippie chick Alanis Morrisette was actually a card carrying eighties chick at one point? Recognize the other guy in this video?

http://www.youtube.com/?v=ilnb_0PpgSE