2G2BT - Too Good To Be True - A Lesson in Texting

Photo by donncha@inphotos.org

These are so unique, useful, and funny they had me ROFL (Rolling On The Floor Laughing). TBH (To Be Honest), some of them had me SMHID (Scratching My Head in Disbelief). WDYT? (What Do You Think?)

Click below to become an expert in texting

? I have a question
? I don't understand what you mean
?4U I have a question for you
^^ Meaning read line or message above
<3 Meaning sideways heart (love, friendship)
2G2BT Too good to be true
2MOR Tomorrow
411 Meaning 'information'
4EAE Forever and ever
4NR Foreigner
^5 High-five
6Y Sexy
A
A3 Anytime, anywhere, anyplace
AAP Always a pleasure
AAS Alive and smiling
AATK Always at the keyboard
ABT2 Meaning About to
ACD ALT / CONTROL / DELETE
ADN Any day now
AEAP As early as possible
AFAIK As far as I know
AFAP As far as possible
AFK Away from keyboard
AIR As I remember
AISB As I said before
AISI As I see it
AITR Adult in the room
AML All my love
AOTA All of the above
AQAP As quick (or quiet) as possible
ASAP As soon as possible
ATM At the moment
ATSITS All the stars in the sky
AWC After awhile crocodile
AYDY Are you done yet?
AYEC At your earliest convenience
AYOR At your own risk
AYSOS Are you stupid or something?
AYT Are you there?
AYTMTB And you're telling me this because
AZN Asian

B
B/F Boyfriend
B/G Background (personal information request)
B4 Before
B4N Bye for now
BBN Bye, bye now
B/C Because
BC Be cool
BCNU Be seeing you
BCOS Because
BD Big deal
BFFL Best friends for life
BFD Big freaking deal
BFN Bye for now
BHL8 Be home late
BIF Before I forget
BION Believe it or not
BLNT Better luck next time
BM Bite me
BM&Y Between me and you
BOL Best of luck
BOLO Be on the look out
BOOMS Bored out of my skull
BOYF Boyfriend
BPLM Big person little mind
BRB Be right back
BRD Bored
BRT Be right there
BTA But then again
BTDT Been there, done that
BTW By the way
BWL Bursting with laughter
C
CLAB Crying like a baby
CM Call me
CMIIW Correct me if I'm wrong
CMON Come on
COS Because
CRBT Crying really big tears
CRS Can't remember stuff
CSG Chuckle, snicker, grin
CSL Can't stop laughing
CU2 See you too
CUA See you around
CUL See you later
CUL8R See you later
CWOT Complete waste of time
CWYL Chat with you later
CYA See you
CYAL8R See you later
CYE Check your e-mail
CYO See you online

D
DLTBBB Don't let the bed bugs bite
DM Doesn't matter
DTS Don't think so
E
E1 Everyone
EF4T Effort
EG Evil grin
EMA E-mail address
EMSG E-mail message
ENUF Enough
EOD End of day
EZY Easy

F
FBF Fat boy food (e.g. pizza, burgers, fries)
FBM Fine by me
FC Fingers crossed
FIMH Forever in my heart
FOMCL Falling off my chair laughing
FRT For real though
FTBOMH From the bottom of my heart
FUBB Fouled up beyond belief
FWIW For what it's worth
FYEO For your eyes only
FYI For your information

G
G/F Girlfriend
G2CU Good to see you
G2G Got to go
G2R Got to run
GA Go ahead
GAL Get a life
GB Goodbye
GBU God bless you
GFI Go for it
GF Girl friend
GFN Gone for now
GG Gotta Go
GIAR Give it a rest
GJ Good job
GL Good luck
GL/HF Good luck, have fun
GMTA Great minds think alike
GN Good night
GNSD Good night, sweet dreams
GOI Get over it
GR8 Great
GRATZ Congratulations
GRL Girl
GT Good try
GTG Got to go
GTRM Going to read mail
GTSY Great (or good) to see you

H
HAU How about you?
H&K Hugs & kisses
H2CUS Hope to see you soon
H8 Hate
HAGN Have a good night
HAGO Have a good one
HAND Have a nice day
HB Hurry back
HF Have fun
HHIS Head hanging in shame
HOAS Hold on a second
HRU How are you?
HTH Hope this helps
HV Have

I
IAC In any case
IANAL I am not a lawyer
IB I'm back
IC I see
ICAM I couldn't agree more
ICBW It could be worse
ICEDI I can't even discuss it
IDK I don't know
IDTS I don't think so
IDUNNO I don't know
IG2R I got to run
IIRC If I remember correctly
IK I know
IKR I know, right?
ILBL8 I'll be late
ILU I love you
ILUM I love you man
ILY I love you
IMHO In my humble opinion
IMO In my opinion
IMS I am sorry
IMSB I am so bored
IMTM I am the man
IMU I miss u (you)
INAL I'm not a lawyer
IOW In other words
IRL In real life
ISLY I still love you
IWALU I will always love you
IYKWIM If you know what I mean
IYO In your opinion
IYSS If you say so

J
j00r Your
JAC Just a sec
JFF Just for fun
JIC Just in case
JJA Just joking around
JK Just kidding
JTLYK Just to let you know
JW Just wondering

K
K Okay
KISS Keep it simple, stupid
KIT Keep in touch
KOTL Kiss on the lips
KNIM Know what I mean?

L
L8R Later
L8RG8R Later, gator
LEMENO Let me know
LHM Lord help me
LHO Laughing head off
LMK Let me know
LOL Laughing out loud
LOLH Laughing out loud hysterically
LQTM Laughing quietly to myself
LSHMBH Laugh so hard my belly hurts
LTNS Long time no see
LTS Laughing to self
LY Love ya
LYLAS Love you like a sis

M
MNC Mother nature calls
MorF Male or female?
MOOS Member of the opposite sex
MOS Mother over shoulder
MOSS Member of same sex
MSG Message
MTF More to follow
MTFBWU May the force be with you
MUSM Miss you so much
MYOB Mind your own business

N
N1 Nice one
NALOPKT Not a lot of people know that
NBD No big deal
NE Any
NE1 Anyone
NFM None for me / Not for me
NM Nothing much / Never mind
NMH Not much here
NMU Not much, you?
NO1 No one
NOYB None of your business
NP No problem
NVM Never mind
NW No way
O
OB Oh baby
OIC Oh, I see
OL Old lady
OM Old man
OMG Oh my God
OMGYG2BK Oh my God, you got to be kidding
OMW On my way
ONL Online
OO Over and out
OOH Out of here
OOTD One of these days
ORLY Oh really?
OTB Off to bed
OTFL On the floor laughing
OTOH On the other hand
P
PAW Parents are watching
PCM Please call me
PEEPS People
PLMK Please let me know
PLS Please
PLZ Please
POS Parent over shoulder
PRT Party
PTL Praise the Lord
PTMM Please tell me more
PXT Please explain that
PZ Peace

Q
QIK Quick
QL Quit laughing
QT Cutie

R
RL Real life
RLY Really
RME Rolling my eyes
RMMM Read my mail man
ROFL Rolling on floor laughing
ROFLCOPTER Rolling on floor laughing and spinning around

ROTFLUTS
Rolling on the floor laughing unable to speak
RU Are you?
RUOK Are you okay?

S
SBT Sorry 'bout that
SETE Smiling Ear-to-Ear
SH Same here
SHID Slapping head in disgust
SICNR Sorry, I could not resist
SIG2R Sorry, I got to run
SIT Stay in touch
SLAP Sounds like a plan
SMHID Scratching my head in disbelief
SOL Sooner or later
SOT Short of time
SOTMG Short of time, must go
SRSLY Seriously
SPST Same place, same time
SPTO Spoke to
SRY Sorry
SS So sorry
SSDD Same stuff, different day
SSIF So stupid it's funny
SSINF So stupid it's not funny
ST&D Stop texting and drive
STW Search the Web
SUITM See you in the morning
SUL See you later
SUP What's up?
SWL Screaming with laughter
SYL See you later
SYS See you soon

T
T+ Think positive
TA Thanks a lot
TAFN That's all for now
TAM Tomorrow a.m.
TAU Thinking about u (you)
TBC To be continued
TBH To be honest
TC Take care
TCB Take care of business
TCOY Take care of yourself
TGIF Thank God it's Friday
THX Thanks
THNX Thanks
THNQ Thank-you
TIA Thanks in advance
TIAD Tomorrow is another day
TILIS Tell it like it is
TLK2UL8R Talk to you later
TMB Text me back
TMOT Trust me on this
TMWFI Take my word for it
TNSTAAFL There's no such thing as a free lunch
TNT Til next time
TOJ Tears of joy
TOY Thinking of you
TPM Tomorrow p.m.
TSNF That's so not fair
TSTB The sooner, the better
TTLY Totally
TTTT These things take time
TTYAFN Talk to you awhile from now
TTYL Talk to you later
TTYS Talk to you soon
TU Thank you
TY Thank you
TYS Told you so
TYT Take your time
TYSO Thank you so much
TYVM Thank you very much

U
UCMU You crack me up
UGTBK You've got to be kidding
UKTR You know that's right
UL Upload
UR Your / You're
URH You are hot (U R Hot)
URTM You are the man
UV Unpleasant visual
UW You're welcome

V
VGC Very good condition
WITP What is the point?
WK Week
WKD Weekend
W/O Without
WRK Work
WRUD What are you doing?
WTB Wanted to buy
WTF What the *freak* ?
WTH What the heck?
WU? What's up?
WUCIWUG What you see is what you get
WUF? Where are you from?
WWYC Write when you can
WYCM Will you call me?
WYD What (are) you doing?
WYGAM When you get a minute
WYHAM When you have a minute
WYLEI When you least expect it
WYSIWYG What you see is what you get

X
X Kiss
XOXOXO Hugs & Kisses
XLNT Excellent

Y
Y? Why?
Y2K You're too kind
YBS You'll be sorry
YCLIU You can look it up
YCMU You crack me up
YGTBKM You've got to be kidding me
YGG You go girl
YIU Yes, I understand
YKWYCD You know what you can do
YL Young lady
YNK You never know
YT You there?
YTG You're the greatest
YW You're welcome
Z
Z Zero
ZZZZZ Sleeping (or bored)

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The Trouble with Serious Video Games

Double click on any word to see the meaning.



Ever since video games were invented, parents and teachers have been trying to make them boring. Any child of the 1980s and 1990s will remember Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and Math Blaster Mystery: The Great Brain Robbery, games that promised to make skills acquisition fun. They'll also remember ditching Mavis Beacon for something with guns as soon as their parents' backs were turned. Making games educational is like dumping Velveeta on broccoli. Liberal deployment of the word blaster can't hide the fact that you're choking down something that's supposed to be good for you.

Click below to read the full article about educational games.

With video games starting to eclipse movies in revenues and popularity, the educational-gaming movement has gone into overdrive. Industry bigwigs and civic-minded intellectuals are increasingly peddling the idea that video games can cure society's ills. There's a booming subgenre of games, like the Nintendo DS title Brain Age, that claim to stave off senility via simple puzzles and arithmetic problems. A Harper's cover story last year asked whether video games were the best way to teach kids to read. (Short answer: maybe.) There's even a D.C.-based group called the Serious Games Initiative that advocates for "a new series of policy education, exploration, and management tools utilizing state of the art computer game designs." Take that, Reader Rabbit!

All of these ideas are premised on the notion that video games can and should be more than mindless fun. But all of this noodling about games' untapped potential raises some philosophical questions: When does a game stop being a game and turn into an assignment? Can a game still be called a game if it isn't any fun?

The company Persuasive Games makes for an interesting case study. Persuasive has gotten a lot of press due to its recent collaboration with the New York Times on "newsgames." Persuasive's releases are essentially the Blaster series for the new millennium but geared toward adults instead of children with overprotective parents. Cartoonish and uncomplicated, with graphics reminiscent of old, 16-bit gaming systems, these games generally play like Sims expansion packs that were too boring to be released. Persuasive's first game for the Times, Food Import Folly (TimesSelect subscription required), is a rousing examination of the ins and outs of FDA import inspection. Newsgames are an interesting idea, but this one is less informative than a simple article and less fun than doing the Jumble. Food Import Folly didn't make me think long and hard about FDA policy—I just ended up left-clicking furiously in a half-assed attempt to "win."

In taking the fun out of video games, companies like Persuasive make them less alluring to people who love games and more alluring to people who don't. Your boss, for example. Many of Persuasive's projects were commissioned by corporations as nontraditional job-training tools. "Our employees learn without realizing they are learning," Cisco's director of certification told BusinessWeek—a highly dubious statement. The training games that I tried are unsparingly, terrifyingly banal. Take Stone City, a game Persuasive wrote to train Cold Stone Creamery employees. You play a scoop jockey who has to fill customers' orders. At the end of the game, you're told just how much ice cream you wasted, and how much your poor performance will end up costing Cold Stone over the span of one year. The only fun to be had in Stone City comes from deliberately mishandling the orders. (At my Cold Stone franchise, everyone gets strawberry.)

Compared with the video-gamelike widgets that other companies are peddling, Stone City is Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The California-based company called Seriosity, for one, claims to be brainstorming a virtual work environment that mimics online worlds like Second Life and World of Warcraft. "[T]oday's multiplayer games," the company explains, "embody tasks that are analogous to corporate work." Imagine: a virtual office, with virtual paper to be filed, virtual meetings to be dreaded, and virtual gossip to be shared over virtual coffee. I have seen the future, and it makes me want to go back to chisels and stone tablets, or at least get a job working construction. This is not fun. This. Is. Evil.

The graphics and game play in modern edutainment software have certainly improved since Mavis Beacon's heyday. But the fundamental conceptual problem still remains: Animating mindless, boring repetition doesn't make the repetition any less mindless or boring. No sane Cold Stone employee will be fooled into thinking that Stone City is anything other than a soul-crushing training exercise. Can't there—please, God—be some better way to do didactic gaming?

I think game designer and theorist Raph Koster has it right. "[J]ust strapping an incentive structure on rote practice doesn't work very well, compared to ... building a long-term goal structure, and then presenting challenges on the way," Koster writes on his personal blog. The perfect embodiment of this idea is Sid Meier's Civilization series. In these games, players build a society from the ground up, interacting with other, competing civilizations along the way. It's addictively fun, and you learn a lot about history along the way. I have learned that a trireme will sink if it ventures more than one mile off shore, and I know not to trust Mohandas Gandhi if he offers me an armistice. Civilization is goal-driven, instructional without being unctuous, and fun without being mindless. It's a considerable accomplishment, and one that the socially conscious game developers would do well to emulate.

The basic issue here is that it's easier to make a fun game educational than it is to inject fun into an educational game. In his 2005 book, Everything Bad Is Good for You, Steven Johnson argues that games like The Sims and Grand Theft Auto make us smarter by training the mind in adaptive behavior and problem-solving. Most overtly educational software, though, ignores the complexities that make games riveting and enriching. The serious-gaming types think they can create educational software from whole cloth. In reality, they have a lot to learn from Grand Theft Auto.

Original Article here.

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Everything is better on an iPhone

I can't imagine that anyone could text faster than this on the old-style cell phone keyboards.


How long does it take you to text that message? Click below for a transcript.
I know a great place a couple of blocks away. I will make a reservation for three. Read more!

Super Texting

How long does it take you to text the same information?


Click below for a transcript so you try it and time yourself.


Yo matt what is up man? huh? so anyway how is everything. K. Anyway peace.
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The Nintendo Wii

Most people like to be doing something active when they aren't watching TV, playing video games, or using a computer. If I had a Wii, I might never go out -- and you would probably see a lot fewer blog posts. How much do these cost anyway?


This is the end of the post. Don't click below.
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