Posts by jake 26680 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007
That language is included for people who use their personal cars on company time. It's to ensure the employee is not ripping off the employer on mileage and/or time.
Personally, as an employer, I either trust my employees or I fire them. On the rare occasion that the Government requires an exact accounting, they use a company vehicle. Easier that way.
The so-called "license plates" exist purely as a revenue generator. The cops don't pay much attention to them, except as a first-glance approximation. What they go by is the vehicle ID number, or VIN.
Our measurement system works fine, for the most part. That's why you lot still use it, too. For example, how many miles would you drive to get that perfect pint, instead of jogging to shed the couple stone you picked up in these sedentary Covid Times?
Here in California, the plate doesn't have to change once issued, unless the vehicle owner decides otherwise. I have cars and trucks that were first registered before I was born that have their original plates on them (in some circles, this increases the value of the vehicle). Likewise, I can choose to get another plate (custom or generic) any time I like. Or, I can pay to have an extra plate in my name, and use it whenever, as long as the DMV is notified appropriately prior to use. In theory, I could have plates that differ according to season, and pay to legally swap them as I see fit. I do not know of anybody doing this.
Most drivers in California only think about their plates once per year, when they put the new validation sticker on the back plate. These new plates only offer one real benefit to the driver ... SHINEY!
They offer many benefits to the company making them, and the politicians getting bribes kickbacks the manufacturing facility built in their district. And to advertisers, of course ... The local news was showing the plates flipping through advertising. Joy.
Personally, I want nothing to do with digital plates. It's only a matter of time before miscreants figure out how to fuck with them. And they will, once there are enough of them about. If they haven't already. It'll hardly be rocket surgery.
"And one would have to wonder what an internet in the USSR would look like if the USSR had survived beyond Reagan."
We had X.25 connections into the Soviet Union through hosts in Austria (IIASA and IAEA(??)), with VNIIPAS on the Soviet side. That started in roughly 1980. For "the real Internet", or at least the Usenet portion of it, look up the later (1983ish?) SFMT (San Francisco Moscow Teleport), also through VNIIPAS, sometimes called "Soviet-American net" or sovamnet.
So to answer your question, it probably would have looked a lot like what we in the West had ... in a stunted, censored kinda way. Kinda like what they actually have today. Whodathunkit.
And of course there was always the mighty kremvax ...
We called the ARPANET "the internet" at least by 1970, mainly because it had become an internet ... By 1974, the word "Internet" was even ratified in the RFCs ... See Cerf & Kahn's take on the subject in RFC-675 ... and note that the research (read "bullshit sessions") that resulted in RFC-675 had started several years earlier. The name was already embedded in the collective psyche by about then.
Online ads started (in my life, anyway) when a student at Stanford sent every email account on campus a "wanna buy my bike?" email back when I was stanford!sail!vax!jake (name changed to protect the guilty; I'm archived at DejaGoo under the real name (if the alpha goo kids haven't destroyed that archive entirely)) ... Probably 1982 or thereabouts. He got yelled at, loudly, and had computer privileges revoked for the rest of the year. I'd have hung him from his thumbs in the quad if I had my way.
Footnote to history ... According to some sources (and repeated in this very august publication), HMQE2 personally sent an email addressed to "everybody on the ARPANET" on March 26, 1976. If true, this unsolicited mass emailing touting the Coral 66 compiler would be the first example of spam that we can place a name, face, product and date on. However, I doubt it's true for a number of reasons. First of all, there was no mechanism to "email all" on the ARPANET back then. Still isn't. Thankfully. Second of all, I have searched my archives, and despite having many emails from around and on that date (including roll accounts at around a dozen hosts), I see none that would correspond to the mythical "HME2" email. Gut feeling is that it was merely sent to the list of accounts on that particular machine.
So I'm happy to report that HMtheQ (RIP) was probably not an unwitting international spammer.
Skywriting still exists. I know a couple dudes who do it here in Northern California. My much modified A152 has smoke capability, but I've never seen a need for it. I should probably pull it to save a couple pounds.
The "dot matrix" version is called "sky typing", and also still available.
Towing banners goes back to the dawn of flight.
I've never seen an airplane towing a blimp, and is still available.
Have a beer for that last one ...
About fifteen years ago (or thereabouts) a company called "Moon Publicity" was going to sell advertising on the Moon itself, using a technology they called "Shadow Sculpting". These forever visible adverts were supposedly going to be sold for as little as $46,000 each.
I have no idea what happened to the company, I assume they folded after "suddenly" discovering that it would cost far more than $46,000 just to survey the regolith to be sculpted ... But not before the owners trousered a couple million from credulous investors, of course.
"This seems to show that there is a bit of a single point of failure by having one (albeit very dedicated and thorough) person to have the ultimate say over something so important."
It's been addressed. Over two decades ago, on segfault.org (February 23rd, 2000) ... and more recently (and seriously) every couple of years ever since. Seems that kids today don't learn history, and wouldn't believe it if they did, so it gets re-hashed ad nauseum.
Use the search engine of your choice and look up "What happens if Linus gets hit by a bus?".
"What sort of neighbourhood do you live in?"
For scorpions? Pretty much anywhere South of the Northern version of the 50th Parallel, with the exception of the Great Lakes & North Eastern US, and New Zealand. Why? Where do you live?
Not dinner, rather a snack. Crickets, anyway ... the dried ones taste & crunch almost exactly like popcorn with a hint of dried shrimp[0]. I toss 'em with a little salt and some chili powder[1], and sometimes throw in a little lime zest. Tasty, cheap, and nutritious. What's not to like? You can easily find them online as "Chapulines", if you have the mind to do so.
Yes, they go well with beer.
I've never tried cockroaches, nor is it high on my list of things to do. Somehow I suspect that laser braising isn't going to change this anytime soon.
[0] The ones a friend sends me from Mexico, anyway.
[1] Often jalapino, but sometimes I'll go hotter. Depends on who I'm sharing with.
I've been accused of crashing servers after looking at, not touching, a desktop computer on the same network in the last day or so. Has happened more than a handful of times.
It seems to be a genetic flaw in humans ... We always have to find somebody other than me or us to place the blame upon. You or them works nicely, if not logically, no matter how tenuous the link.
Well, to be fair USB is a serial port (the first clue is in the name ... ), so yer grandad wasn't really all that far off the mark.
They make 15-pin analogue joystick to USB adapters. I've seen 'em for under 20 bucks ... but I'll bet that you could make a more flexible variation on the theme with a couple connectors and an AtMega 328 (or Arduino).
Many moons ago, I dated a gal who had been married to a gynecologist. At some point the obvious subject came up. She seemingly changed the subject, and asked if I would look at her new computer, she couldn't get Procomm to cooperate with BIX. I asked something brilliant, like "What, now? I thought we were going out!" ... then the ball dropped.
There is a reason that jokes about the mechanic's car not running, the plumber's pipes leaking and the electrician's fuses blowing exist ...
Not just American, but proper English, too.
I believe it was Henry Watson Fowler (the great English lexicographical genius) who wrote "solder without the "L" was the only pronunciation I have ever heard, except from the half-educated to whom spelling is a final court of appeal ... " and was baffled by the OED's statement that it was the American usage.
As the OED puts it (paraphrasing to avoid copyright hissy-fits): The modern form in English is a re-Latinization from the early 15c. The loss of the Latin L in that position in Old French is regular, as poudre from pulverem, cou from collum, chaud from calidus.
"Not ideal for long-distance travel."
Depends entirely on what you are hauling and what you mean by long distance.
Mom, dad, 2.7 kids+dawg(s), towing a boat, with kit for a three day weekend ... I see this combination by the hundreds on Hwy 121 and 128, heading for Lake Barryessa on warm summer weekends (9 or 10 months of the year here in Northern California). Even more on Hwy 80 heading for Tahoe, or on 50 heading for Comanche, and more heading to all the other lakes in the Sierra. Sadly, the station wagon is long gone.
And of course, EVs are shit at towing ... Well, to be more accurate, they are GOOD at towing (gobs of low end torque, and they are heavy with a low center of gravity), but their range goes to shit in a hurry, making them all but useless as tow vehicles.
But feoll was a part of Old English right from the git-go. If that's not English, I don't know what is.
Remember, Modern English is mostly an amalgam of Celtic, Latin, Greek, Ænglisc ("Old English"), Saxon, Frisian, (old)Norse, (old(high)) German, (old)Dutch, and French. Not necessarily in that order.
Yes, there are other languages involved. I said "mostly" for a reason.
"Autumn" is from the Latin, via French, and is not English at all.
"Fall" is from the Old English "feoll", and is very English indeed, although the time of year was more often referred to as "harvest", or hærfest, back then.
Pardon while I get back to work ... we're in the middle of crush at the moment. Cheers!
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