30,000th post - GoodBye!

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'Fnord' first appeared on WrongPlanet on May 06, 2008 at 5:00 pm. While it may seem fitting to some that I bring my active membership to a close with a bang (of sorts) rather than a whimper, it seems to me that I've posted everything that I've needed post on nearly every active topic. Re-posting the same old replies indefinitely without any focus or goal just seems pointless.

I want to thank all of my readers and fans out there, whether you've been there from the start or discovered WrongPlanet more recently. You all are the power that helped me keep interested this long, and you all helped me to develop a more global outlook on Autism Spectrum Disorders, Asperger's Syndrome, and my own personal development.

While this is intended to be my final post on WrongPlanet, I can not guaranty that you'll never hear from me again. I may lurk for a while, and sporadically send PMs or click the 'Report' button if needed; but otherwise, my activity on this website will be minimal.

Thanks again to everyone. I can only hope you enjoyed the eight-year ride anywhere near as much as I did.

See you on the radio!

73

Fnord

thanks for the laughs and snarky humor,
have a good after wp-life

Always appreciated your comments in threads, your logic and reasoning were always on point. I am a fan.

Enjoy your lingering.

Btw, I don't get what the "73" and "See you on the radio" meant... maybe someone will explain, or maybe I'm not supposed to get it.

Farewell. You will be missed. Even though I didn't always agree with you, I liked some of your posts. If you ever decide to come back, we'll still be there.

@Fnord

Naturally, I respect your right to self-determination and to NOT have to justify your decisions, but I would sure like to understand what you are thinking/feeling and why you are leaving.

Did you make your 30 000 posts to help us all see something we refused to see, causing you to feel a sense of failure?

I, for one, have always considered your remarks to be erudite, articulate, and fearlessly rational.

You have my respect, and I know I am not alone in that view.

Selfishly, I wish that you'd reconsider and stay.

This f*****g site has lost and/or driven away SOOOO many first rate people over the years, and in losing you it will have lost, by far, one of its finest.

Thank you for being part of this community.

May you and your family have many years of peace at Stendec.

Respectfully ,
slave

(of course, you could PM a response should you wish to render one)

It is possible that Fnord is referring to this.......... "Sheldon’s 73 Shirt can be seen on Dr. Sheldon Cooper on the Big Bang Theory.

The 73 reference is from Season 4, Episode 10 (The Alien Parasite Hypothesis), when Sheldon says “The best number is 73…. 73 is the twenty-first prime number. Its mirror, 37, is the twelfth and its mirror, 21, is the product of multiplying (hang on to your hats) 7 and 3…. In binary, 73 is a palindrome: 1-0-0-1-0-0-1, which backwards is 1-0-0-1-0-0-1.”

Jim Parsons was born in the year 1973. “The Alien Parasite Hypothesis” is the 73rd episode of The Big Bang Theory."

source: Shirtoid website

I, obviously, cannot know for certain, given my regrettable lack of telepathy.

Again I do not speak for Fnord, but perhaps this is the source of his statement.

"CBS News Sunday Morning Anchor Charles Osgood playfully explains why his catch-phrase,"See you on the radio," still applies to our modern world.

See you on the radio. I say that every week. A peculiar phrase, some people think, for anyone to speak.

I've got a piece of mail or two, up on my office shelf.
Complaining that the sentence seems to contradict itself.

"Dear Mr. Osgood," someone wrote, "That sign off is absurd. Radio is for the ear...the song or spoken word.

The medium for seeing us, without a doubt, TV. We therefore call it video, that's Latin for 'I see.'

So please don't say that any more. You really should know better." That's a gentle paraphrase of what was in this viewer's letter.

"Dear Sir," I then wrote back to him, and this was my reply: I do believe that you are wrong, and let me tell you why.

I've worked some years in radio, and television, too. And though it's paradoxical, it nonetheless is true.

That radio is visual, much more so than TV. And there's plenty of good reason why that paradox should be.

You insist that on the radio there are no pictures there. You say it's only for the ear, but I say au contraire.

There are fascinating pictures on the radio you see, that are far more picturesque than any pictures on TV.

No television set that's made, no screen that you can find, can compare with that of radio: the theatre of the mind.

Where the pictures are so vivid, so spectacular and real, that there isn't any contest, or at least that's how I feel.

The colors are more colorful, the reds and greens and blues. And more vivid yet more subtle than television's hues.

The dimensions of the radio are truly to be treasured, infinite the size of screen diagonally measured.

With resolution so acute, TV can not compare. We can whisper in the listener's ear and take him anywhere.

And you tell me that I cannot see the audience I touch? Let me tell you now a secret...my experience is such.

That although the room I work in may be very plain and small...in a way that's quite miraculous, it isn't small at all.

I am there inside the radio, the one beside the bed. And it's me you hear when it goes off...come on now, sleepyhead.

I can see you in the morning...I can see you coast to coast, as you sip your glass of orange juice and bite into your toast.

I am with you as you brush your teeth and as you shave your face. You may think you are alone, but I am with you everyplace.

And I see the lines of traffic stretching endlessly for miles. Not a hundred or a thousand miles...a million there must be. And I'm riding along with them. This is radio, you see.

And I'm on the Jersey Turnpike, on the Throughway and the Hutch, and the Eisenhower expressway, helping people keep in touch.

And the California freeways, and the Houston traffic funnel. I may lose you for a little while as you go through the tunel.

But suddenly I'm there again, some episode to tell. To nobody's surprise, because they know me very well.

For my voice is with them every day and when it disappears, they know it comes right back again, it's been that way for years.

I've been riding with them every day for such a long, long time. They are willing to put up with me when I resort to rhyme.

And that may be the ultimate and quintessential test, that proves beyond the slightest doubt that radio is best.

A friend will always stick with you, though your poems may not scan. I'll see you on the radio...I can, you see, I can.


Written by Charles Osgood
Copyright 1999 CBS. All rights reserved. "

I liked the homage to Charles Osgood, in the OP!

@ Slave: Thank you for your hypothesis, I suspect both explanations are correct.

Your quite welcome

Oh, bite me! Too much drama!

I thought Osgood was old even when I listened to WCBS in the 1960s. He was always a witty guy.

I wish you good luck, Fnord, for at least the duration of your earthly life,

Thanks Fnord, Maybe we'll QSO sometime on the air. Then again we'll never know we were each other. It'll be a mystery. That's fine.

People are wondering what radio and 73 mean.

Fnord is a ham radio operator (I am too). So, if you use ham radio, you might speak to him on the radio sometime. The lower frequencies can go all over the world with a relatively modest setup. But we don't know his call sign, so you'll never really know it was him... so it's a mystery.

And, 73 is a ham radio way to say "all the best" or the like. It sounds cool in morse code, but people say it out loud now too.

Nine7752, would 30,000 be symbolic too?

And... no, Fnord might be tired of repeating, but cheerleaders without substance don't at all...