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 Reflections on the name of CMU's new electronic payment system, ''PlaidCa$h'' (27 Oct 2005 at 13:22)
Carnegie Mellon has just rolled out a new electronic system for paying for printing and copying on campus. This is good, since it will probably reduce the common practice of pointless, abandoned print jobs, and because our quota (which I need none of) will let me also use the nice color poster printers in a end-of-semester billboarding binge without any freeloading-socialist guilt. [Stay tuned for the results!]

Thing is, they named this system, or some aspect of it, "PlaidCa$h." What the hell is wrong with them? I'm talking particularly about the dollar sign used in place of a regular old 's'. This is even worse than the pejorative '$' used when spelling "Micro$oft" or "Mother Tere$a"—a practice that is obnoxious enough on its own—because in this case it conveys no extra meaning. Do we call it an exclamat!on point? An ampers&? Em@il? S/ash? Of course not! Why? Because these words already say what they are, and there is no need to evoke the "cash" image with a dollar sign when the name of the damn thing already says "cash" in it!!

- Tom Se7en
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t		 Mike Nolan (207.160.210.253) – 10.27.05 13:54:30
It's very unfortunate that the dollar sign looks like an S.

I don't think it's a big deal, though. A style argument could be made. The letters in your font sample reflect the name; "Potassium Scandal," for example. The dollar sign serves the same purpose. That said, it should probably be kept out of the actually name, and instead just used in logos or something. Or maybe we should stop resisting the coming fusion of ASCII and alphabet.
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t		 Andrew (brandy.cs.yale.edu) – 10.27.05 14:08:34
Have you seen this "Experimental Gameplay Project" some people at CMU in the ETC are doing? It seems like it would be right up your alley.

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051026/gabler_01.shtml
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t		 Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 10.27.05 14:31:24
No, of course it's not a big deal, but I gotta find something to post about, right? I just love to get fired up about little things.
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t		 Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 10.27.05 14:33:20
Andrew: Yes, this is sweet. I think these guys are pretty slow, though. 7 days? Gimme a break.

Jason and Adam and I want to throw a "weekend game programming competition" some time soon, the main obstacle is that we want to rig the rules so that we can enter it too. ;)
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t		 Anonymous (cache-dtc-ae02.proxy.aol.com) – 10.27.05 14:33:44
Would you mind if I file copyrights on your four examples above. Might bring in some extra cash while our language and culture crum
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t		 Andrew (brandy.cs.yale.edu) – 10.27.05 16:22:52
I saw some kind of "24-hour game contest", too. I'd be vaguely interested in kicking out a small game like this (not in a competition, just on my own), but I have 0 graphics knowledge. So oh well.
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t		 jcreed (wittgenstein.wv.cc.cmu.edu) – 10.27.05 16:52:40
"Tower of Goo" is pretty sweet.
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t		 Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 10.27.05 17:11:38
Anon: Yes, but I think you mean "trademark."

Andrew: I'd recommend flash, since you don't need to do hardly any graphics programming, but then again, you have to program in actionscript.
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t		 jetfuel (rhydon.omnigroup.com) – 10.27.05 19:06:44
I think you should pronounce it PlaidCadollarh.

The dollar sign is much abused; my favorites are things like "$10 bucks" (ten dollars bucks) and "Make some $$$" (make some dollar dollar dollar).
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t		 Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 10.27.05 21:27:12
dolla dolla bills y'all
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t		 jcreed (pool-151-201-133-253.pitt.east.verizon.net) – 10.28.05 00:53:56
Speaking of "Se7en": http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2005/3/4gavaler.html
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t		 Cortney (chiggins.ce.cmu.edu) – 05.26.06 14:45:37
You'll love the new ETC software, then, Gamenomic$ (featured on the CMU mainpage today)
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