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speerer commented on The Useful Personal Computer   technicshistory.com/2025/... · Posted by u/cfmcdonald
speerer · a month ago
> To market their new products to people who had not already spent years pining for a computer of their own, the creators of the second wave of microcomputers had to face head on the question of what the microcomputer was actually good for.

This is exactly the task of ChatGPT's current consumer advertising campaign in the UK. Lots of small use cases.

speerer commented on Ripgrep 15.0   github.com/BurntSushi/rip... · Posted by u/robin_reala
restlake · 2 months ago
genuinely curious what smithing means in this context!
speerer · 2 months ago
"something" I expect.
speerer commented on Old Stockholm Telephone Tower   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old... · Posted by u/ZeljkoS
jcrawfordor · 2 months ago
When the tower was constructed in 1887, multiplexing technology was probably not available (I'm not so sure of the timeline in Europe). By 1913 it likely would have come into use. However, multiplexing really isn't a factor here, as the tower seems to have been built to serve local loops. Since these loops go to subscriber telephone sets, there's no option for multiplexing without expensive and maintenance-intensive equipment at customer premises. Multiplexing of local loops is called "pair gain" and wouldn't be developed until later, and it was never really that popular in most phone systems. Outside of suburban areas, it's typical that each copper pair runs directly to the exchange. Historically, and today, there is rarely any active equipment (or since the 1950s or so even passive conditioning) on local loops, they're just wires from the exchange to the phone.

As for why you didn't see similar constructions in other cities, this was definitely an unusually large telephone office for the time. In the US, a city exchange of the late 20th century would usually have just hundreds of lines, many of them multi-party. Telephone companies scaled up by building more exchanges, rather than a single very large one. When they got into these kinds of subscriber numbers at an exchange, the F1/F2 cable scheme was in use to avoid this kind of wiring. It does seem to be the case that telephone adoption was unusually rapid in Sweden, I find one (poorly sourced) claim that there were some 4,800 telephone subscribers in Stockholm in 1886 which would very likely make it the most telephone-rich city in the world. The situation of the tower seems to have developed in part because its builder, Allmänna, was consolidating the Stockholm telephone market through acquisitions and made a decision to centralize the many acquired customers onto on exchange.

What I'm a little confused about here is the lack of cables. The other big reason you didn't see constructions like this in the US, even in places like New York City, is because subscriber loops were quickly moved into lead-sheathed, paper-insulated multi-pair cables. These could contain hundreds of pairs. Cables were pretty much reaching maturity when this tower was built. I am curious as to the reason that multi-pair cables were not adopted more quickly in Stockholm, but it may be as simple as the considerable investment in this tower making open wire the preferred option for its short lifespan. In any case, the common claim that underground cables obsoleted the tower rings hollow to me, or at least misses an important detail, as aboveground cables were already in use in the 1880s. I suspect that modernization to cables was just deferred in Stockholm until it happened to also make sense to move to duct or pipe systems. In the US, it was more common that telephone exchanges switched to overhead (aerial) cable to manage exactly the wire sprawl issue that this tower exemplifies, and then only later (if ever) started to bury cables.

This article has more photos of the tower, but unfortunately not much more technical history: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/the-stockholm-telephone-tow...

And this includes some photos of other parts of the Stockholm telephone network. The tower was not the only impressive construction required to manage this many open-wire pairs: https://thehistoryinsider.com/when-the-sky-over-stockholm-wa...

speerer · 2 months ago
I just wanted to say that after the first paragraph, I wondered who this comment was written by, and then I realised I knew the answer already. There was no need for me to even check.
speerer commented on Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement   wsj.com/business/airlines... · Posted by u/bookofjoe
parineum · 2 months ago
It's listed there as a way that people use it and then calls that usage objectionable and a misunderstanding.

I don't dispute that people use it that way but it's objectively a misuse. The phrase's misuse implies that evidence against a statement supports the statement.

> In many uses of the phrase, however, the existence of an exception is taken to more definitively 'prove' a rule to which the exception does not fit.

> In what Fowler describes as the "most objectionable" variation of the phrase,[1] this sort of use comes closest to meaning "there is an exception to every rule", or even that the presence of an exception makes a rule more true; these uses Fowler attributes to misunderstanding.

speerer · 2 months ago
> The phrase's misuse implies that evidence against a statement supports the statement.

The original meaning of 'prove' was more like 'test'. The original sense was therefore opposite to this.

speerer commented on Which colours dominate movie posters and why?   stephenfollows.com/p/whic... · Posted by u/FromTheArchives
cauliflower2718 · 3 months ago
I think the author's line between pink and purple is also not very clear. For example, teen spirit appears in both.
speerer · 3 months ago
That particular poster has pink on the left and purple on the right.
speerer commented on Japan's Creepiest Station   tokyocowboy.co/articles/d... · Posted by u/ewf
ape4 · 4 months ago
Can anyone translate the sign?
speerer · 4 months ago
Autotranslate below. The 'unclear' was added by me and originally read "Welcome to Japan's No.1 Google", which seems like it might be ab error.

Welcome to "Japan's No.1 [unclear]"

・This staircase is 338 meters long and has 462 steps. Climb up the steps and go through a 143 meter (24 step) connecting passage to reach the ticket gate.

Also, the altitude of this downhill platform is 583 meters above sea level, and the altitude is 653.7 meters, and there is a difference in elevation of 70.7 meters between this and the downhill platform.

It takes approximately 10 minutes to reach the ticket gate.

Please be careful where you step.

speerer commented on Microsoft keeps adding stuff into Windows we don't need   theregister.com/2025/08/1... · Posted by u/rntn
speerer · 4 months ago
Beyond the headline, this is an interesting article listing ideas for useful features people might want.
speerer commented on Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act   bbc.com/news/articles/cjr... · Posted by u/phlummox
mathiaspoint · 4 months ago
Right of course every state has a "constitution" but the contemporary connotation of the word means an enforceable law that meaningfully constrains the state's power.
speerer · 4 months ago
Do you mean in the USA, perhaps? It's used more prevalently there, I think it's more likely for an average citizen to refer to a document than a collection of laws and customs. But I don't think that contex overtakes the original meaning.
speerer commented on Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act   bbc.com/news/articles/cjr... · Posted by u/phlummox
mathiaspoint · 4 months ago
A British constitution makes no sense, power is delegated from the king not from the member states like in the US or Canada. The only way the UK could end up with a constitution that's meaningful and not performative would be after a civil war.
speerer · 4 months ago
We already have a constitution. It just isn't a written constitution:

> The United Kingdom constitution is composed of the laws and rules that create the institutions of the state, regulate the relationships between those institutions, or regulate the relationship between the state and the individual. These laws and rules are not codified in a single, written document.

Source for that quote is parliamentary: https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/documents/commons-com... - a publication from 2015 which considered and proposed a written constitution. But other definitions include unwritten things like customs and conventions. For example:

> It is often noted that the UK does not have a ‘written’ or ‘codified’ constitution. It is true that most countries have a document with special legal status that contains some of the key features of their constitution. This text is usually upheld by the courts and cannot be changed except through an especially demanding process. The UK, however, does not possess a single constitutional document of this nature. Nevertheless, it does have a constitution. The UK’s constitution is spread across a number of places. This dispersal can make it more difficult to identify and understand. It is found in places including some specific Acts of Parliament; particular understandings of how the system should operate (known as constitutional conventions); and various decisions made by judges that help determine how the system works.

https://consoc.org.uk/the-constitution-explained/the-uk-cons...

speerer commented on One Million Screenshots   onemillionscreenshots.com... · Posted by u/gaws
kachapopopow · 4 months ago
This just makes me realize that entirety of the internet has just become a gateway to sell you something.
speerer · 4 months ago
Take heart: I checked this by taking a random screenshot, and browsing down to see how long it took me to find a commercial page. A quick sense of my trail was really encouraging:

- Open source wasm runtime

- Science transparency campaign

- Netherlands gov anti-climate change program

- open thesaurus

- GNOME conference

- France's portal of towns and cities

- Scientific measurement standardistion page

- Scientific journal

- free eBook library

- parked domain

- Linux community

- Open source graphics library

- placeholder/template blog

- A book publisher (selling books!)

It took quite a while to find a commercial site,and that itself (a bookseller) is a positive thing itself.

u/speerer

KarmaCake day366September 14, 2024View Original