"It is what it is" always struck me as a totally prosaic b-school jargon re-phrasing of "no use crying over spilt(sp?) milk".

Also, where that to happen, it'd sort of be against the whole idea of peer review and academic meritocracy. In general you want to discourage people from thinking "this guy is a great scientist. I look forward to his next paper" because ideally each time a scientist publishes he is to be thought of an an anonymous…

The comparison to band names seems to sort of suggest that the public would start "following" academics just like they follow their favorite bands, if only those academics had their names in more articles, which I'm sure you'll agree, is probably not the case.

That's an interesting point, alurin.

I'd guess some folks hatred of "my bad" probably has to do with it's co-option by unctuous types that use it in an effort to sound cool and "urban". But the phrase will always have a place in my heart. Used off the court, it does seem a little strained, I guess, like, "look at me! I am down with black culture!"

Here's a long, probably wrong pseudo-history of "my bad"

Yeah… they used to all be used interchangeably, before some spaz came along and ruined it.

In the last decade or so, I think maybe there's been a general trend of folks that aren't all that geeky, nerdy, dorky to more readily self identify as geeky, nerdy, dorky.

I had a feeling my comment might spark the coolest discussion in the history of discussions.

on geeks and geekdom
Doesn't the current popularly accepted definition of "geek" generally include technical stuff?

A game receiving scores of 50/100 in general does not mean "average". In general 50/100 is though of as a terrible score, hence all the anger at the onion reviewer for "giving SFIV a 67" (which he never did).

The av grades correspond roughly to US school grades, with an A being excellent, a B being good, a C being satisfactory, a D being sub par, and an F being a terrible failure.

This site did not give the game a 67. This site gave the game a B-, which would translate to an 80-83 or so.

Since when does a B- grade = 67%?

Noel missed the boat on this one
I found the subdued, dull, dreary beauty of the photography really cool. I was also pleasantly surprised by the tastefulness and subtlety of the acting. Hacky overreaching is in no short supply in most movies. I find the notion of pining for what a more "colorful" director would…