Reub's journey

03 January 2014

Did you know?


Gif (with a hard g like I've always said it, such as in the word "graphic" which is what it stands for) is pronounced gif (with a soft g, such as in the word giraffe, which it does not stand for, but it's cool how illogical this is, and now it sounds like peanut butter.)


This is a gif of my favorite character, Johanna, in the movie Catching Fire. What a great eye roll.


Hey bloggers, or anybody with a Google+ account, did you know *they* go through your photos and create cheesy gifs out of them without your knowledge? Yep! This is what happened to two of my pics:

If you've published anything snowy in the past month, you probably have something like it sitting in your Google+ pictures file. At first I was surprised, then found it hilarious, but now it's just annoying...which is kind of how all gifs are anyway, even if they aren't mine.  Damn you, Google. Just for this I'm gonna start pronouncing your name Joojul.

26 comments:

  1. you have to go into your google menu (or maybe google+ settings) to turn off 'auto awesome' to make them stop the effects and putting your sequenced photos into a slide show. also, turn off the 'auto enhance' while there as they try to fix your photos for you instead of uploading them the way you have them. pushy peeps.

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    1. Until now I have paid zero attention to google+! Auto Awesome? Really? I didn't even know they had these pics. I guess I forgot that photos don't just get dumped in picasa anymore.

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  2. I did know that about Google+. I wish I had the gumption to get out of that loop. On the other hand, I put my pictures on the internet. Really I have no right to complain about cheesy gifs.

    I always pronounce it with a hard G. Am I going to get in trouble?

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    1. I'm curious about what else they might do in the way of gifs. Make it rain? You're right about publishing on the internet: it is not possible to have a hands-off policy.

      I now pronounce it with a hard G only half the time, but feel as though I'm doing it wrong since I now "know better." If you look up the pronunciation you'll find that there is big disagreement. The inventor of gifs calls them jifs!

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  3. The pronunciation of gif was a question on Jeopardy one afternoon and I felt so brilliant when I answered it right. lol I never load photos in G+ so maybe that's why I didn't know about this. Every time I open it up I've got to wade through so many animated gifs that I start getting dizzy. It's so gimmicky and annoying. I only use G+ to 1-up my blog post, not that it does any good. :(

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    1. A great jeopardy question!

      Yeah, that's why I didn't know about this either: I don't use Google+ In fact now that I've left the pics I'm not sure how to find them again! Duh.

      As far as I know, if I 1-up something absolutely nothing happens. Not a soul cares.

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    2. Not sure how they can do this without attribution as we all have legal copyright to our photos!!

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    3. I wonder about that, too. Maybe somewhere in the small print when you sign up for gmail...somewhere they reserve the right to do this.

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  4. I wondered why my snowy photo had more (and moving!) snow in it suddenly. And I will most likely keep pronouncing gif with a hard g - old dogs are notoriously hard to train.

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  5. Ha! Let it snow let it snow let it snow!

    Jif sounds wrong. I agree.

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  6. I went on YouTube the other day and saw a pretty snowing picture and realized first of all, it was mine, and second of all, I was on my own account. Google+ is just so weird and creepy and I guess I've given in and I'm pretty much ignoring that they have their fingers in every aspect of my life now... :(

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    1. Right? This is pretty much where I'm at too.

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  7. This is interesting Kerry. I was unaware of this.

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    1. RR do you have any snowy photos? You should go look in your google pics and see.

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    2. Yes one snowy photo appeared suddenly from out of the blue which you can see in my latest post :)

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  8. I don't think I have a google+ account. Just blogger. At least I have never knowingly created a google + account. But now I see it says below the comment box 'comment as: google account. I did get a gmail which I have never used.

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    1. You may have a google+ account, Ellen. I don't know. It's possible I "signed up" for it a year or two ago when I was diddling around trying to figure out what "circles" were.

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  9. Hrm, that is interesting. i guess it's not exactly Fahrenheit 451 worrisome, but you don't really want Them mucking about with your photos, do you? Although I have to say your snow is more soothing than annoying. Johanna, on the other hand ... love that girl, but I had to hide that gif as soon as it popped up. Gifs make me a little migrainy.

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    1. I can't stare at gifs for long. They are hypnotic and annoying all at once. I can see how they could trigger a migraine reaction.

      Johanna rocks. She was allowed to extemporize during the filming of Catching FIre, and I thought she aced it. Love her.

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  10. Oh dear, oh dear, I'm late, I'm late for a very important century.

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  11. I used to love Joojul (snort.. that was so funny, Kerry) but dislike them intensely now. They have become the passive bullies of the internet. Now, as for pronunciations, I always knowingly mispronounce "meme" which as I understand it should sound like "meh meh" or even "me me" but I always say "mem" which makes perfect sense to me because the word "meme" in French is pronounced "mem" and it means "same." Since memes seem to be everyone's version of the same thing, I'm sticking to it. So there!

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    1. What? THAT'S how they say "meme? I also say the French meme, as in "meme chose" & once had a blog of that name. Then I was told it's meeeeeem, which makes no sense. But meh meh? Wow, I had no idea. Wow.

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  12. Ah now.. Wikipedia (for what it's worth) says it's pronounced the way you've just said. Maybe my son was messing with me-me. But I'm sticking with mem.. if it's all the meme chose to you. ;) It's in my Québec roots.

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    1. I will never ever say me-me. Mem is the only thing that makes sense here! I'm with you Hilary!

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