I find cruise control a blessing on long drives. I can concentrate on other things, like the environment around me. Speeding tickets are also a non-issue.

My last rental car (in Texas for the eclipse) had adaptive cruise control, which I really like. I've looked in to retrofitting this to my own car (a 2016 Golf with dumb cruise control) but decided it's not worth the hassle. It also had lane assist. This showed me what it would be like to drive with an autopilot, though if it got angry with me if I took my hands off the wheel for more than 10 seconds. Nevertheless, I see the attraction.

...laura

And modern music is no exception. Some songwriters have more of a way with words. "Around The World" is one extreme to great effect - it's a neat song. Then there's song verses like:

Dive bar on the East Side, where you at?
Phone lights up my nightstand in the black
Come here, you can meet me in the back
Dark jeans and your Nikes, look at you
Oh damn, never seen that color blue
Just think of the fun things we could do...

You Know Who at her (IMHO) best. The notion that the only good music was performed in the 1970s by men with guitars is, at best, circular reasoning. De-valuing Taytay's music because her music and persona appeal primarily to women is nothing more than misogyny.

...laura

I got a pair of real eclipse glasses with my copy of Sky & Telescope's eclipse guide. They don't work very well with my glasses so I'll do the pinhole camera thing for the partial phases.

Loved Dr. Becky's collander.

...laura

I have a landline. Sort of. But it's not copper. The last mile is fiber that carries my phone and my internet.

...laura

Companies would rather hire young people because inexperienced people are cheap. Hence also the huge numbers of H-1B and TFW visas - despite the hype, people knew damned well that the only reason Microsoft built their facility in Vancouver was so they could hire temporary foreign workers once they had exhausted their H-1B quota in Seattle. Cheap, do as they're told, work 70 hours a week.

When my current employers show me the door (or I walk) I know I'll be unemployable in tech at 62. So be it; I've had a good run and have a huge backlog of other things I want to do.

...laura

All these sites have been shadow-banned by the usual search engines. I'd love to see one so I know what to watch for.

...laura

What technology did you have in mind?

We have far better control systems and radios and things, but making rockets that don't blow themselves to kingdom come if you look at them the wrong way is as hard in 2024 as it was in 1977. Or for that matter, 1969.

...laura

I'll remember that the next time I'm tired and emotional.

I was all set ot load VMWare on my new laptop so I could more conveniently dual-boot Windows and Linux. Those plans have now changed. It's a good product but it's just not worth that much to me, especially with cheaper solutions available. I used Virtual PC back in the day and it worked well. My work laptop booted XP (company politics plus driver compatibility), but to do anything real I booted Slackware under Virtual PC.

At work we use VMWare extensively. I haven't discussed the licensing changes with my boss.

...laura

Pilots used to navigate with ground-based beacons (VOR, NDB), inertial references, and, sometimes, by simply looking out the window. Everybody is so in love with GPS (it is handy) that they've de-emphasized backup technologies.

...laura, private pilot who flies mostly by looking out the window

I've never used Ogg much (if at all), though I'm certainly aware of it.

I'm currently doing some mobile application development. Android will have a go at playing just about anything as a ringtone or notification sound, but since the system sounds are all in Ogg (maybe this is a Samsung thing?), I've included our custom alert sounds as Ogg in the app.

...laura

My employers closed a couple of offices for good in 2022 and 2023. Work from home or quit. Since I work very remotely (head office in Dallas, me in Canada) work from home is here to stay. We tried a shared packaged office space a few years ago but decided the costs didn't justify the benefits.

The Powers That Be decided this year that it would be a good idea for remote people to be seen in person every now and then, so I spent a few days in Dallas early in December. It was good to interact with the voices on the computer. And far less expensive than maintaining a remote office. Perfect weather and good food didn't hurt.

...laura

It doesn't matter how the information is stored, on paper or in a computer. People need to trust the system. If they don't trust the system it's game over.

I've seen lots of FAA 8130-3 and Transport Canada Form One maintenance releases. A human actually signed the form and accepted legal responsibility for the parts or work on them being done right. I'm trusting my life to them.

...laura

Genres come and go. The superhero genre has run its course. Poor writing hasn't helped. M-She-U, anybody? Ugh!

Give people something entertaining and they'll pay to watch it. Barbie and Oppenheimer weren't superhero movies. Nor was The Eras Tour. All three made a bundle.

...laura

If women aren't interested in such careers, who cares? We're all different.

If there are barriers to womens' participation in technology, that is a problem. Some workplaces are a little too much of a frat house atmosphere. This is a bona fide problem, but it's not the subject of this silly article.

Yes, sometimes I get tired sometimes of being the only woman in the office or in meetings. It's a rare treat when there are other women around, whether we go for coffee and doodle equations on napkins, discuss fashion trends or DSP algorithms over lunch, whatever.

...laura