The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by graycyn

People lived in fear of Sister Laurentia's math classes and reciting the times tables. Because if you couldn't rattle 'em off fast enough ... WHACK!

Oh man, I was never able to memorize the multiplication tables (possible undiagnosed dyscalculia — numbers tend to jumble up for me).

[Apache]

Originally Posted by graycyn

We had a nun who whacked a guy so hard over the head with her ruler (your basic 12" wooden job), she cracked it in half!

I'm thinking you don't get away with that so easy these days. But back when I was in grade school, it had no repercussions whatsoever, LOL!

People lived in fear of Sister Laurentia's math classes and reciting the times tables. Because if you couldn't rattle 'em off fast enough ... WHACK!

Admittedly, you only got the head shot if you were especially dumb. She mostly only used that on the guys. Otherwise it was the hand.

My wife got in trouble because she would pull her hand back when the nun would swing the ruler. She even called in her parents because of it.
A friend got wacked on the head so hard we used to joke that it would stunt his growth. It must not have, he is 6'5" now.
Apache
Apache

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by graycyn

We had a nun who whacked a guy so hard over the head with her ruler (your basic 12" wooden job), she cracked it in half!

I'm thinking you don't get away with that so easy these days. But back when I was in grade school, it had no repercussions whatsoever, LOL!

People lived in fear of Sister Laurentia's math classes and reciting the times tables. Because if you couldn't rattle 'em off fast enough ... WHACK!

Admittedly, you only got the head shot if you were especially dumb. She mostly only used that on the guys. Otherwise it was the hand.

Nuns on the run, man. You can still see some cuts and the like in my hands, but bygod, I learnt. (You probably remember this--did you have to learn two tables/night? Up to what, 15-16x? That's what we did.)

Ah, the good old days.

Hitch

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Nuns on the run, man. You can still see some cuts and the like in my hands, but bygod, I learnt. (You probably remember this--did you have to learn two tables/night? Up to what, 15-16x? That's what we did.)

Ah, the good old days.

Hitch

Nuns were mean.
Apache

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Apache

Nuns were mean.
Apache

Yabbut if we keep talking about this, we'll get knuckle-wrapped for OT. :-)

I'm glad that they taught me--I learned. My sibs, who went to different schools, did not.

Hitch

[Apache]

Pain can be an effective learning tool. It teaches you not to get hit when learning the martial arts.
Apache

[ownedbycats]

JPEG compression artifacts in high-resolution covers. Argh!

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Yabbut if we keep talking about this, we'll get knuckle-wrapped for OT. :-)

Yep, got my virtual ruler in hand. It’s time to can the nun comments and not even so much because they’re OT as that the prolonged (and tired, let’s face it) gags about religious figures are starting to make me uncomfortable. I know it’s all in good fun, but it could be offputting to some.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by issybird

Yep, got my virtual ruler in hand. It’s time to can the nun comments and not even so much because they’re OT as that the prolonged (and tired, let’s face it) gags about religious figures are starting to make me uncomfortable. I know it’s all in good fun, but it could be offputting to some.

Sorry, I did not mean to make anyone uncomfortable. most of the Nuns I have known have been very nice, even the strict ones. Unfortunately, our church retired all of the nuns a few years ago and the school has suffered academically. They shipped them off to a Catholic Retirement Home right before covid. Sister Justine came down with covid and died there instead of around all of the people she influenced in her life.
Apache

[Uncle Robin]

I'm sure I've mentioned this one before, but it's beginning to irk me - which is a real achievement as I tend to be very laissez-faire about such 'errors'. But someithng about the increasingly widespread use of "discrete" for "discreet" really pushes my buttons

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

JPEG compression artifacts in high-resolution covers. Argh!

I would think that the EPUB standard would allow PNG covers, but I've yet to see one.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

JPEG compression artifacts in high-resolution covers. Argh!

As a mystery reader, I'm hoping to one day solve the mystery of why I invariably go for the largest and highest resolution cover images I can find for epubs destined for my 8-inch eink reader.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

I'm sure I've mentioned this one before, but it's beginning to irk me - which is a real achievement as I tend to be very laissez-faire about such 'errors'. But someithng about the increasingly widespread use of "discrete" for "discreet" really pushes my buttons

On several occasions. See message #533 in this thread where you wrote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

The one that surprises me with its frequency is "discrete" for "discreet". "Loose" for "lose" is widely looked down, yet even authors (and their editors) who display far too much wordcraft to make that error, still fail to separate the other two.

I seem to remember your complaining about discrete vs. discreet on several other occasions. I just classify that word pair as yet another issue with homonyms that many authors have issues with.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by DNSB

On several occasions. See message #533 in this thread where you wrote:



I seem to remember your complaining about discrete vs. discreet on several other occasions. I just classify that word pair as yet another issue with homonyms that many authors have issues with.

Thanks for confirming that I was correct, I am becoming Abe Simpson.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

JPEG compression artifacts in high-resolution covers. Argh!

I assume what you're talking about here is where they've taken a small image and tried to blow up to the minimum required by sites like Apple, rather than producing a new original image of the right size and compression. Most of the time I find the opposite, where the covers are high-res and saved at super high quality so the available quality far exceeds anything but the most detailed inspection. And sometimes these resource hogs are sitting on short stories!

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

I would think that the EPUB standard would allow PNG covers, but I've yet to see one.

I've had far too many - PNG covers, and PNG internal images. PNG is great in the right situation, but too often it's used as just an inefficient way to present what should have been a JPEG saved at a quality appropriate to the content and intended use.

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

As a mystery reader, I'm hoping to one day solve the mystery of why I invariably go for the largest and highest resolution cover images I can find for epubs destined for my 8-inch eink reader.

Indeed. And then you get epubs with internal images* I have one that downloaded at 232MB and many in the 20MB to 90MB range. Most of these I've been able to drop the size down to something sane (like 10% of original size or even less) by a simple conversion to JPG and/or quality adjustment on the embedded images. And short of someone zooming in on an iPad or something, no one else is ever going to notice the difference. And these are mostly supposedly professionally produced for tradpub, you'd think they'd hire someone that knew what they were doing, but apparently they don't think epubs are worth that effort.


* And they have these hi-res images embedded in such a way that under normal epub display they show up as a half-inch square, or something equally ridiculous, so that unless you are using kepub or something you're never going to see it properly anyway.