Modern Vespa

Sorry! (in my best Canadian impression....).

Off topic-ish, but on my recent scooter adventure, a guy came up to me at our motel to chat about my BV and riding. Turns out he was Canadian, but it wasn't at all obvious from our conversation, but I head one word, and thought, "yep!"

At one point I had two Canadians working for me at Apple, and for the most part they were very good at blending in with the Americans. They did have a couple of tells that I picked up over the years, though, and now use these to identify other Canadians hiding in plain site.

Ignoring the tell that everyone knows "about" (and which Canadians insist they don't pronounce like that, even though they clearly do) my favorite secret Canadian detection word is "Pasta", which is pronounced by Canadians as "PAST-a" with a nasal tone instead of "pah-sta".

I was on a project once working with Joni Mitchell and her paintings when she asked me where the washroom was, which had the effect of instantly reminding me of her national origin.

All you can hear is crickets.

All you can hear is tumble weed.

And Simon and Garfunkel.

And Buddy Holly.

Just the wind.

My Dad "Amos" was born in Canada to USA parents who moved there from Chicago and stayed. After School, Dad moved down to the USA and married my Mom. He lost all of his Canadian Twang. When we visited his family in Canada, they all had the (don't Sha Know) Canadian speak. As a kid, I noticed my Dad slip back to the Canadian speak when we visited that side of the family.

Bob Copeland

Oh yeah, definitely. I picked up a bit of a Texas accent when I lived there for 6 years (mid HS to college) which I have mostly since lost. But if I talk to someone from Texas, it comes right back.

I tend to pick up the accent of anyone I talk to for a time. I have to watch it, as I don't want them to think I'm mimicking them.

While I never got to travel much myself my Dad and my Mom traveled extensively for his work.

On occasion the brother younger than me went and the youngest always went (He was born in Darwin Australia when Dad was working there).

They lived in Australia, Columbia, Scotland, and Malaysia. I got bounced to a bunch of different relatives growing up while Mom and Dad were gone for usually just over a year at a time but home when I was home was a (then) small town just south of Santa Barbara CA.

My Mom's favorite place was Scotland and they made friends with people Dad worked with from all over the world and when they were in the USA they would visit.

There was one couple who were native to Scotland that had emigrated to South Africa and they came to visit us with their young children in Summerland when I was about 16 or so.

At one meal that was extra fancy because of company I had quite a bit to eat and at the end of the meal commented "I'm stuffed" which the young kids from South Africa thought was really funny...lots of giggles at the table.

But the other time I will never forget is when the kids were acting up and pushing Mom's buttons and they managed to get her a little pissed off and that Scottish brogue came out so thick you could cut it with a knife!

That wasn't the way she normally talked but when she was angry and belted out "Dinna ya talk to me like that" it was pretty easy to tell where she came from.

If we're talking about speaking Canadian, I believe the proper vernacular is "Oh yeah for sure!"

If Lance Stroll is to be believed anyway.

Brits are downright vicious about it. Worked with them for a few years, including a couple of trips to London and Belfast. Growing up on a steady diet of Beatles and Python, it's almost impossible for me to be around Brits for any length of time and not pick up on some of it. Unfortunately my accent is kind of a mishmash and they tend to get pretty incensed about it.

Me too! Llllll
I'd assumed everyone did that, but I have my doubts. I've considered/ hoped it hasmd an advantage in learning languages.

There's also a kind of person, some of whom are members of my family, who can move from, say, Boston to, say, California and fifty years later can be heard speaking with the exact same accent they had the day they left their ancestral neighborhood.

I thought so too, then you meet the person from NY or EU and the accent is the same 40 years later.

The compulsion for an American to do an impression of an English accent has often puzzled me.

You can't do it.

Only Gwyneth Paltrow can do it.

Some of us are quite good at recognizing a fake American accent, too. I'm sure it sounds convincing to a BBC-centric audience, but it's not fooling me.

Watch an episode of Murder She Wrote when they try to get American actors to do Irish accents.

It's golden.

When you discover that both brake leavers are worn so badly that the brake light doesn't consistently turn off when releasing the levers. 60,000km of use. Top quality.

Why not just employ Irish Actors ?

Because they want sober people?

Zing!

Bloody snowflakes!

Definitely. My Darling Bride was born in Trinidad, but has been in Canada since she was 2 years old (that's more than 5 decades ago). She has no trace of a Trinidadian accent, but put her in a room with family who still live on the island, and you'd think she never left.

I grew up in WisCAHnsin, and after graduation HS, I moved out of the state. I lived in Florida for a (school) year, then the Los Angeles area (Inglewood & Playa del Rey) for a year and a half. Then I moved to Dallas, where I've lived since April 9, 1989.

I think I still have my Midwest accent, but when I visit family in Wisconsin, I hear the twang. I've picked up a few words & phrases that I never used before, notably y'all. My Dad says that the way I pronounce "insurance" is different than the way it should be pronounced.

Dallas is weird, accent-wise. Some life-long residents have the same neutral accent that we hear newscasters use on TV. But they'll have a sibling who will have a strong Deep East Texas twang. I worked with a Latino who sounded like me. He told me that his sister's accent makes her sound like "she just swam the Rio Grande" to get here (his words, not mine). They are only a year or two apart in age, and grew up in the same home, and spent all their time in Dallas.

I have also lost some of the words I grew up using. I say "soda" not "pop". I can't remember the last time I used "bubbler" non-ironically.

Dated, but accurate in it's time. "This Hour has 22 Minutes" used to have a great recurring sketch of people sitting around a table in a Tim Horton's, and the conversation was liberally punctuated with "Oh yeah, For Sure", "Tell me about it" and other distinctly Canadians mannerisms. Tried to find one to post here, but couldn't come up with one that old.

Robot's continued posting of videos telling people to use the psi for *max bike load* instead of recommended psi for typical load. max ≠ recommended

If we're talking about speaking Canadian how can we omit the MacKenzie Brothers eh?

My favorite part of Strange Brew is at 33:00 into the movie when they get back to the locker room after playing Hockey. I had the close captioning on and they spelled it "somebody harked our clothes" ...

I use that phrase whenever I get the chance just to throw people off. The other day at the grocery store I left my cart at the end of the aisle because of heavy cart traffic to go down really quick and grab something and when I got back my cart was gone.

I complained to the clerk at checkout, "somebody harked my cart"!

On the video of his that I watched today, he did recommend lower pressure in the rear tire. It's apparently a new vid about care and feeding of (I think) the 2024 GTS. He's starting to get it.

I grew up in mid New England, Massachusetts to be precise, but far enough away from Boston to laugh at their accents. I left after HS, met an Arizona girl, and I brought her home. Granny was there, and talking about my sister in law's shots. Girlfriend, concerned, asked about said shots. Everyone laughed, except granny who was kinda out of it by now. Girlfriend huffed and everyone at once explained that shots was actually shorts. Apparently SIL had some short shorts.
Like several here, if I go back I'm talking like them in a week. When I return home I talk like myself again in days.

He does give his own recommendation but TWICE he says the vin plate gives recommended (at 5.40 and 10.00)

ChatGPT pissed me off earlier this week.

We had a large banner job to print, and I needed to see how much stock we had to find out if we had enough to print the job. I knew the thickness of the material (15 mil), the outer diameter of the core that it was wrapped around (3.2"), the outer diameter of the partial roll (6.5"), the outer diameter of a full roll (7"), and the length of the material on a full roll (165'). I figured I'd give ChatGTP a shot at giving me either the result, or a usable formula.

I asked the question, providing all the known information. The first result said that there was approx. 225' left on the roll.

I responded to it that that was impossible, because that length was more than what it started with.

It responded with basically a "my bad" and recalculated. It then came up with 350' was left on the roll.

I told it that again, that could not possibly be correct.

It apologized, and after a third attempt it came up with a more plausible answer (~135').

I then did a google search for roll length calculators and found a few answers. A couple were just the formula, a couple were actual Excel spreadsheets with the formula. I checked them all, and they all came up with ~135' on the first try.

When I ran the job, I kept track of the length being used, and ended up with ~140'.

I should have just gone to google to begin with.

I've also saved the excel spreadsheet formulae for future use.

This.

ChatGPT hallucinates frequently, and gaslights you when you correct it. It's infuriating.

Never, ever depend on ChatGPT for factual answers.

I need to edit a PDF. I don't do that a lot, but I might be doing it more. In order to do that, I signed up with Adobe to subscribe to Acrobat. You get one week free before they start billing you. I gave them my credit card info and figured if it works out and I think I'll be needing it, I'll stick with it and if not, I'll cancel. So far so good.

The problem is, when I signed up, I got one letter wrong in my email address. When I try to sign in to do anything at all, they ask me to send them the code they just sent to my email address. I don't have that code because I don't have that email address. When I try to go to customer service, they ask for the code they just sent to my email address. When I try to get on their site and find a phone number, they ask for the code they just sent to my email address. Trouble signing in? Click here and we'll search for your email address, which doesn't exist (I know because I sent a message to it and it didn't work). Is there some obvious solution that I'm missing?

It's my fault, of course, but are they going to be billing me after the grace period? Aren't they supposed to verify these things before doing so? I sure hope so because this is pissing me off today.

I used it for an IDS-105 class assignment once. I had to "remember a conflict I saw in a movie, TV show, or read in a book" and explain how the characters could use "restorative communication techniques" to resolve the conflict. I ultimately decided on the movie "The Outsiders" and used ChatGPT to refresh my memory about the various conflicts in the movie. All my work was my own, and I compared ChatGPT's summary with IMDb.com's summary (and cited IMDb.com). I got 100% on the assignment.

But yeah, if/when I use ChatGPT, I mainly use it for inspiration, or initial guidance. I know that its knowledge base is (at this point) a year out of date.

I want some shots! Give me some shots!

That is funny!

The decline of the internet right before our eyes. Not only can't you believe anything on the internet anymore but then it is going to argue with you about it.

Well, I mean, the old internet (pre-AI) would argue with you about it too. So that's not really any different.