Be Excellent To Each Other

Have you got/tried a laser mouse? They're like optical, but are a lot less fussy about surfaces. I use one on my tv computer (e.g. right now) and just use the mouse on the sofa itself next to me. Not really tried it on the sofa for games though, to be fair.

That's the right word.

Doesn't that make them squeak?

No. They're dead.

My hands stink though.

You're right, it'd work -- but I imagine it'd cause nasty pains in your hand after a while. Using it on the surface of the sofa next to you will squish your carpal tunnels up. And my sofa has really narrow arms, so I couldn't use it their either.

The OED lists both "mouses" and "mice" as acceptable forms, I think.

You are all way too focused on the competitive side of things. Like, if everyone uses a controller, then that's ok. I rarely play multi-player, but i still find playing with a mouse way more fun. It's much better at controlling the speed of turning and much more intuitive. It's one of those systems where is almost like second nature.

And i played some FPS with controller. Metroid Prime 1 & 2 for example. And that uses old-school controls. Twin-Stick methods are even less intuitive. I was trying Dead Space with the x360 controller, just because the stupid game wasn't optimized for mouse controls, and it was horrible. Myp, you are saying that people who criticize FPS with a controller are the ones who never play with it. But why should i? It's like playing football with crutches.

No, I said the people who criticise it are people who are no good at using them. You're confusing me with markg.

Are you now saying that the Paralympics aren't worthwhile? That's disgraceful.

They can get to fuck, "mouses" sounds completely belmed.

The OED put that in there just to fuck with you.

Not necessarily - I have the advantage of having a massive sofa, so am able to use the mouse with my arm stretched as far as I like.

Obviously it's in no way disproportionate to consider upgrading one's sofa for mouse-using purposes.

I have the biggest sofa that fits in my modest living room.

Hmmm.

To the estate agents!

What? Is there any football with crutches on paralympics?

The OED is Enola Gay

(Plissken please check band reference)

No, but there's basketball in wheelchairs.

And there is wheerchair rugby..

Yeah, but you must realise that people who do this sound like patronising dicks, no?

The problem is 'mouse' is a backronym, where the acronym was made up after, so technically the name is MOUSE and the plural is MOUSEs.

Manually Operated User Selection Equipment? Get the fuck to fuck.

Note to self... stop saying this to lager drinkers

No offence, chap. I drink real ale, too.

You're allowed to make fun of Curiosity though, as he drinks girlie drinks.

Even my wife used to drink real ale

It was frustrating to find that even that Crossword XBLA game didn't support a keyboard. Yes, it would give an advantage when you're against the clock but perhaps they could have different leaderboards dependent on control method used?

Discussions of keyboards/pads always leads me to think of Outtrigger on the Dreamcast. Not a bad game, but try and play it with just a pad at your peril when movement is on d-pad and aiming on the stick, both of which are on the left side of the pad.

Yuck! I have never heard that before. It's called a mouse because the early ones looked like mice.

I've never played it, but that just sounds like terrible game design.

Hence the BACKronym. I guess someone at IBM had a quiet day to fill.

Either way, it's MOUSEs or mice. Them's your choices.

An interesting fact: 'DVD' is a backronym.

I should have had a poke around the options really (Fur Fighters used the buttons for movement if I remember rightly) but I managed to get through a few levels using my thumb to try and control both pad and stick at the same time.

Mouse as in computer mouse is a headless noun, so mouses is fine.

I think it's dubious whether it's a headless noun or not, so call it whatever you like basically.

An mouses.

Hmmm. You're referring to the fact that the V changed from Video to Versatile, yes? Wikipedia says a "backronym (or bacronym) is a reverse acronym, a phrase constructed after the fact to make an existing word or words into an acronym". I think that means DVD isn't a backronym, as it didn't start life as a normal word.

DVD doesn't actually stand for anything. They made it up first and then came up with what it stood for afterwards.

[citation needed]

The DVD standard was formalised in Dec 1995, eleven months later. This shows the phrase "digital videodisk" was already in usage, and attached to these technologies, before the DVD forum was created.

Check the official DVD specifications. You like stuff like that, I thought?

Ok, so I'm wrong. DVD doesn't stand for anything now, however.

http://digvid.info/media/dvd.php
http://digvid.info/media/dvd.php
http://digvid.info/media/dvd.php

Sure it does - you can't create an acronym (even if it was two separate acronyms), then keep the word and unilaterally decide that it doesn't mean anything any more.

Yeah you can.

Nuh-uh.

Are they freely available? I was under the impression they were not.

You can. They did it, ergo you can.

See also: Windows NT.

The Wikipedia history page summaries this well, and has some contemporary citations that check out (like the NYT article I quoted above). This is from a FAQ written by an industry figure Jim Taylor:
It's pretty obvious it was Digital Video Disc, even if the forum itself has never accepted that, and had to later claim that it never stood for anything.

Ergo, it doesn't stand for anything. You can't be quoting USB forum stuff one day and disregard the DVD forum the next.

You berk.

DVD didn't stand for anything when it first came out, IIRC.

Edit: Yup.

Riiiight, so it's just coincidence they chose the initials DVD when everyone was calling it Digital Videodiscs? Come off it, it's pretty obvious that's why they chose those letters. I don't care what their official statements say, you can't claim the phrase "digital videodisk" wasn't in their heads when they chose DVD as the name of the standard.

Welcome to fifteen posts ago!

Yeah, it's my turn to "be" Mr Chris today.

You obviously didn't read what I posted either, Mr Chris. It used to have two separate entities working on the technology, both with different names. When they both merged, they dropped both names. Hence it doesn't stand for anything.

What's ET short for?

Cos he's only got little legs!

YEAH! You tell 'im, myp!

It's Dependable Video Discus anyway.