tragomaskhalos

It's a shame that the tyranny of volumetrics referenced in the article means that in the UK some of my favourite crisp flavours have been brief one-off novelty runs - coronation chicken, baked bean, and numerous flavours rolled out for world cups in the form of nationality-themed assortment bags.

When it comes to Christmas songs, I'm afraid you will have to prise Slade from my cold dead fingers

Built-in graphics commands are a massive win, and a big gap in today's standard language offerings for kids. Any old timer will tell you that the ability to trivially get sprites up on the screen, or hell even a coloured circle, is the clue to the young programmer that putting together a simple game is within their immediate grasp, and this is very much the gateway drug to programming in general.

see also: microwaves

A microwave needs two dials - one for power level, and one for time. Not a calculator keypad, not buttons with +1 and +10 on them or any of that nonsense - dials please. And start/stop buttons if you insist. That's it. It does not need a 'defrost chicken drumsticks' programme cluttering up the ui, because that function is far better fulfilled by a human repeatedly running the thing at low power for a few mins then poking the food with a finger

many years ago an older relative went on a holiday to Spain and was outraged that their apartment did _not_ have carpet. I deemed it futile to point out that carpeting is desirable here because our climate is so wretched, but as flooring in a hot country would actually be pretty icky.

I had no idea that each 'Spoons has its own custom carpet design. They are a much-derided chain but this is a nice detail, and by keeping drinking affordable they ensure the next generation of Britons can keep alive the vital tradition of a night in the pub laughing and talking bollocks.

In the UK a misplaced apostrophe (in a plural or in possessive its) is called a "greengrocers' apostrophe", presumably due to folks in that trade being particularly susceptible to errors in their signs, in turn partially due to the slightly unusual nature of the nouns they are pluralising; "bananas" is slightly teasing you to stick one in, but "mangos" more so as just looks like a Greek island otherwise, unless you opt for the -oes form.

I would have crashed the Greek paper because we were not taught accents, but the instructions make it very clear the answers require them!

It's worth reiterating that Go was created by Google to solve Google's problems. If it also solves your problems, or a worthwhile subset thereof, then that is a happy serendipity, but it's not a design goal.

Slightly younger than the punch card era, but one bit of "old" tech I don't miss is the line printer. We had one in an office with a nylon carpet, and you'd approach that thing with utter dread because some combination of the action of the paper spewing out at speed, the metal guide bars for the ejected paper, and that bloody carpet meant that collecting a printout gave you an even chance of a massive static electricity shock.

Dismayed to learn that it's now virtually impossible to obtain an RPN calculator of any sort. Swiss Micros make HP clones but for the more casual user their prices are pretty prohibitive when compared to how 'mainstream' calculator prices have tumbled.

Based on the attitude of its advocates, a flat earth would lack science and mathematics entirely, so pi would be undefined?

Prediction: one beaming grandma vs one bemused, crestfallen kid on Christmas morning.

My mum briefly worked as kitchen staff for Winston Churchill, and she tells the story that they had to wrap his stilton in a piece of greaseproof paper, hold it up and listen for weevils moving about - for only when it was at that stage would the great man eat it.