Edit: just realized it was cleverly modified to include "leet". And edit 2: which I then realized is a shibboleth inside a shibboleth.
2) IPA is tough, but in Wikipedia's case, if you mouse-over each IPA symbol, it'll give you a "/ʃ/ 'sh' in 'shy'" and so on.
My HN name is "memset", and if you've ever written C, you are quite familiar with this function. So if this comes up in conversation with other tech people, and they don't "get it", it tells me something about them. "Hm, we don't have the same background."
It remains to be seen how useful this is as a way to decide what kinds of people I feel I could learn from or want to work with in the future.
...or perhaps because you just wouldn't stop arguing. Making a relationship work requires adaption from both partners.
I think it's just a way of showing off. Case in point:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12532552/what-part-of-mil...
The guy has no idea what the notation means by still wants to wear the t-shirt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory
Your Star Wars or Hindley-Milner t-shirt tells people who see it that you're a particular kind of person. This encourages people who are like you to approach you, because it signals that you're safe -- you're "one of us." Likewise, it discourages those who are unlike you from doing the same, sparing you from having conversations with people you find boring.
If you work in a community where high intelligence is seen as socially valuable -- i.e., where a way the high-status individuals distinguish themselves from the rest is by highlighting their intelligence -- like tech, it's not surprising that you'd want clothing that would signal that you are a high-intelligence person, even if you aren't one. It's an attempt to get your foot in the door of social groups that would otherwise be closed to you, by camouflaging yourself as "one of us."
I'd read that SO post again, you seem to have misunderstood.
Oh and yeah. I wanted the t-shirt so other hackers would know I was part of their group. Because I was a girl I felt it wasn't obvious.
I'm not sure about that. I think people tend to wear things they feel good about. Sport jerseys, political shirts, or funny t-shirts just make us feel good. Some people feel better when were the in-crowd things, some are our for themselves.
// this is my favorite http://www.openbsd.org/tshirts.html#30 the 4.4 t-shirt
Both of these things can be true. There are deep-seated reasons that people seek to project their identity through personal appearance and other techniques... :)
I did finally watch the original trilogy after I was married. It's OK I guess...
Not quite as brilliant as the hype suggests after all this time, sure, but at the time all that stuff about the force and, yes, LASERS! and SPACE SHIPS! was pretty spectacular in its own right. But most of what keeps Star Wars going, I think (apart from, obviously, merchandising merchandising merchandising) is that thin vapor of pop-philosophy and Ralph McQuarrie's visual legacy. It looked like nothing anyone had ever seen.
Read this: http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1bp44q/til_ge....
Basically, Lucas did the funding on his second movie, which encouraged him to use clever marketing strategies (since the profit was all for him).
So he came up with this idea of selling his boring movie to nerds (even though it's entirely unrelated) and it worked! He simply spotted an under-exploited demographic, an age-old business strategy. He's comparable to Steve Jobs, who found the hipster design demographic, for fabulous marketing genius.
L Ron Hubbard
As for Steve Jobs, people have always loved beautiful and desirable objects. As long as there have been objects to love. And designers were hipsters way before Jobs' return.
The modern incarnation of My Little Ponies is substantially more intellectually challenging than you might expect.
Not defending Bond movies. I agree, they're pretty damn stupid. (Although at least the earlier ones were done with a sense of fun. I like stupid fun.) But... ewoks.
Even living in the PNW, I still get plenty of waves and cries of "Go Pack!" whenever I wear a hat or shirt supporting the Packers. I wear the memorabilia for myself, but the social benefits don't go unnoticed.