Right. Now that we've been through a full month of IDR, it is clear we need a few effin' changes to the format. The first will be a great new piece of technology that Spaz has worked up called the Fame-Martin limiter. It will strictly limit all answers to 500 characters or less. Which is not the same as 500 characters.If you can answer it in 40 characters that's even better.
The second invention is the Weasel-Word filter. It automatically eliminates phrases like "some people think that", "it might be", and "perhaps...". It also notices when you are listing a bunch of possibilities like "Maybe it is a or maybe it is b or maybe it is c" and turns it into "The answer is a". And it does it seamlessly in real time!
Finally, Spaz has perfected the noise filter which eliminates large chunks of cut and paste wikipedia text. Remember the goal is to learn the stuff which isn't in the effin' wikipedia, not just repeat it out loud over the phone. It also eliminates chunks of text which are gratuitous efforts to bring in data that might be interesting on its own, but really isn't at all germane to the question at hand.
Ya gotta love that Spaz guy! Nice! Sure wish we'd had some of these for February. Oh well.
Nigel Barf
Barf University
Streamlining the IDR process for over 50 minutes now
So how will I know when I have reached the 500 character limit? It is possible that it could be that a. I run out of room in the blue book, b. i have a Spaz mastic counter that tells me the limit is up, or c. a bunch of Gregory Runcic IMF gold lands on my head crushing me as soon as my keyboard hits character 501? And another thing, cutting and pasting isn't just for large chunks of text one finds on Wikipedia, no no no. What could happen is someone reads a whole bunch of articles, synthesizes the content, puts together a beautiful term paper in a decent word processing program, and THEN drops it into one of those little windows that serve as an IDR phone transmission minute. Finally, if I am in an IDR session, but then I get to talking about my latest game of Yaks and Yetis with Inga, that is more interesting than who sunk Atlantis anyway, the rest of the IDR class is hanging on every word. Well that kind of stuff is good for morale. Why do you think the paid Dickens by the word? So lighten up, or I am going to read the phone book to the rest of the round table. You know, actually, that was Andy Kaufmans trick. Why I remember, back in my standup comedy days...
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