The professors I know say that "technology" has had a bigger effect on their students than it has on themselves -- specifically, their lack of concern with plagiarism. Having grown up with Google and the Internet, when asked to write a paper discussing, say, the contributions to Twentieth-Century culture of recently-deceased Lithuanian tennis champions, the students' normal way of research is to Google the topic, find a relevant web site, copy the material, and present it.

They're often shocked when the plagiarism is noted and the fail the assignment because, after all, the paper is on-topic and factually true (let's suppose); what's the issue? The concept that one needs to come up with his own ideas and opinions is often a foreign one to someone who has grown up using the web as an immediate source of all the world's knowledge. I suspect, but of course cannot prove, that developing one's own opinions was an easier and more natural thing when one had to search multiple libraries for bits and pieces of the subject matter here and there; often your opinion developed over time, based on the facts you were able to find, and the order in which you found them.

Students (and professors) have been plagiarizing since the second piece of paper was made, of course; the new issue is that many students today do not see a problem with it. Because of this, the highest level of technology some professors use is their plagiarism-detect software.

Yeah, I know, having done the same myself, but I was trying to think of the reason it felt much more exclusive to be flying in the 1960s than it does to be flying international First Class today, and I guess I didn't hit it. Maybe it was that in the 1960s there were no class upgrades, so the people in First Class paid for their tickets? Or that fewer people flew, so that First class was a small fraction of a smaller fraction of the population (the rest of which could be seen down below, traveling on the ground)? Or that you were in such luxury, even though you were only flying from Cleveland to Chicago?

That was one of the amusing things about flying the Concorde out of Heathrow: Concorde-only ticketing, Concorde-only security station, Concorde-only gate area -- you made the whole journey without seeing so much as a BA First Class passenger on any other flight. It was like you had your own private airport (which, I suppose, was the intent).

Formal dress was de rigueur because, at the time, it wasn't a "simple transportation event." You were flying, something that only the upper class did, so you dressed as if you were a member of the upper class (or as close as you could get). Once jets came in in the 1950s, you were not only flying, you were part of the "Jet Set"!

Besides, you were being seen by the public, and who wouldn't want to make a good first impression on someone you just met? After all, this was an era when people wore suits and ties to baseball and football games.

If you think today's US domestic First Class is the same as flying in the 1960s, you need to go back to the 1960s and have another look. Stewardesses called you by your name -- "Mr. Smith, Mrs. Jones." It was a different era -- and not only because one had "stewardesses" instead of "flight attendants."

The last time I had service similar to 1960s US domestic First Class was on the Concorde, and we all know how that turned out. The closest thing now is international First Class on some of the Asian airlines, like Singapore Air and Malaysia Air.

We would look forward for weeks to a flight, and wear our best clothes. There was no security hassle, and you waited in the departure area for your flight to be called, then walked outside to the gate in the chain-link fence that led to the planes. Somebody pointed out which one was yours, and you went up the stairs and got in. The rest of your friends and family who were there to see you off stayed behind the fence, and waved at you, and watched the door close, the engines start, and your plane taxi away. If it was a reasonably small airport your friends could wait and try to identify your plane as it took off.

Ah, those were the days. (Sniffle.)

Given any thought to doing voice-overs for movie trailers? There's an opening.

I would have gone the other way with this one. The AL programmers I know like it precisely because they have more control of the machine (e.g., they can name specific registers and memory locations for storage) than if they were using a higher-level language, where they would be at the mercy of the compiler, and its unknown decisions. If "we regard political conservatism as an ideological belief system that is significantly (but not completely) related to motivational concerns having to do with the psychological management of uncertainty and fear," then these guys manage their uncertainty and fear of the compiler by doing everything themselves, and therefore fit the definition of conservative. Yes, they're typically older; I haven't met Mel, but he's of this type -- although because he' uses machine language, he's perhaps even more extreme. One wouldn't call him liberal, correct?

I suppose it's possible that the spectrum line is actually more of a circle, and batshit liberal and batshit conservative are either the same, or next-door neighbors.

Zenna Henderson, for her "People" series.

He's probably mixing up the state of New Mexico and the country of Mexico -- something more common than one would think. Who knows why. . . .

Oh, well. I guess I'll have to join the 21st Century, like everyone else.

FWIW, Tokelau is on the US Department of State's list of "Dependencies and Areas of Special Sovereignty", as well as the United Nations' list of "Non-Self-Governing Territories", the latter because it is considered to be a colony of New Zealand.

That's one possibility, to be sure, but I would have preferred:

I'm still not wild about "hovering", especially for such a transient phenomenon, but none of the alternatives that come to mind (replacing with "appearing" or "visible", or just deleting the word) fill me with enthusiasm, so it gets a shrug for now.

You see, this is the kind of poor journalism that gets me upset: The International Space Station somehow manages to come to a complete stop in its orbit and hover -- or somehow move out to the Clarke Belt, and stay geosynchronous -- and what does the reporter think is newsworthy? The pretty photograph it took while it was there.

If I'm missing the point, why does the submission end with the question, "So, does grammar matter anymore?"

I would say that was the point.

Whether grammar matters or not depends on the recipient of the message, not the originator. As anyone who has designed a compiler will tell you, it's an error-prone PITA to have to pre-process input before it is in a useable form. If the recipient can do this, no harm is done, except that the recipient is aware that the sender gave him more work to do than was necessary -- something usually not considered a compliment.