My daughter is a teacher. When students submit something with an em dash in it, she asks them "OK, show me how you type one of those."
https://mstdn.social/@Strandjunker/117269837248059932
Remote
Steve Hayman 🇨🇦🇬🇱
@shayman@cosocial.ca
mastodon 4.6.4Musical Dictator, Argonotes, the Until Recently Toronto Argonauts Band. Recently retired after 32 years at that fruit company you might know.
I took the photo above when I was 9. It's Apollo XI, on the way to the moon. (I have a better camera now.)
0 Followers
0 Following
50 Posts
Joined April 08, 2023
Blog:
Where:
Toronto, more or less
Shoes:
13
Instrument:
Trombone (badly), Piano (not quite as badly)
Happy 43rd Anniversary to the Gimli Glider, a piece of which I carry around on my backpack just to remind me to double-check those English to Metric conversions.
Reminiscing about another career encounter with Steve Jobs in 1996 at NeXT, when he told our customer just what he thought of their business.
https://blog.hayman.net/2026/05/13/steve-jobs-tells-our-customer.html
Y'know, I was worried about US interference in Canadian elections, but after seeing the results in Hungary after J.D. Vance visited - maybe it's ok.
Replying to
wait, what? 2” floppies? Not 3-1/2”? 2”?
yes I was persuaded in 1988 by a really good deal on a Zenith laptop that used these revolutionary 2” floppies. Obviously the future.
Official floppy disk of the 1990 World Cup!
(I didn’t notice what the official floppy of this year’s world cup is.)
Replying to
will the new floppy drive read ancient Mac floppies which back in the day used an unusual variable-speed-of-rotation encoding?
no
OK what about those 2.88 Meg high-density floppies that were briefly all the rage
no
OK but you still own an entire box of rare, unused 2” floppies from 1985?
yes
It’s a great day for Canadian mathematicians, all of whom, I assure you, dress this stylishly at all times.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/fields-medal-jacob-tsimerman-9.7281134
Dear guy knocking on our door, I don’t care what badge and clipboard you’re carrying, I’m not discussing my home’s security with random doorbell-ringers.
The Beer Store no longer stocks the most refreshing summertime beverage, Radlers. "We only have beer now". OK but a Radler is beer, plus grapefruit juice. "We just have things that are all beer." OK but you also have some abomination called 'Coors Seltzer Slushies'.
"we just have beer now"
grrrr
Ding dong! Guy with clipboard at door. “I’ll keep it brief, we are doing attic insulation nearby at ."
Me: Sure, let's keep it brief. We don't have an attic.
Guy at door: oh. OK.
I've been watching the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and/or David Letterman since 1993—and of course, Dave since 1982—and it's hard to imagine there's only a week left. Ever since grad school, those guys have been my late night TV pals.
CBS, what are you doing, you pinheads?
Went to a hotel with the family for a very nice Easter brunch today - and I was really happy to see that shortly before closing, the entire staff (housekeeping, maintenance, etc) all came in to take part in the buffet as well.
Well done, Four Points Sheraton in London, great to see you taking care of staff this way.
my entire mastodon feed is people cheering the safe return of Artemis II. That feels pretty good.
Happy Canada Day one and all. What a beautiful country we have. I need to see even more of it.
Two thumbs up for "The Sheep Detectives". I heartily agree with this reviewer, and I would agree even if I weren't related to him.
CTV News leads off the national news: "For the first time ever, human eyes observed the far side of an object that has long been the subject of human lore, fascination and marvel."
no.
no, no no. No. Come on. Most Apollo missions orbited the moon. 24 Apollo astronauts saw the far side of the moon.
Have we forgotten how that worked? There are lots of exciting angles to this Artemis mission; it's embarrassing to lead the news with this basic error.
SCE TO AUX #ForAllMankind
One day in, and I quite like this.
Today’s adventure. I have a gmail address I hardly ever use, but that other people somehow think is theirs.
The Dubai Islamic Bank keeps sending me someone else’s bank statements.
I email DIB. I’m not their customer, but they are happy to fix this if I send them a copy of my passport.
How about ‘No’
Replying to
Replying to
@spaf thank you for sharing that sad news. I remember loving the barbecue story when Dave Barry wrote about it. Legendary.
https://www.davebarry.com/misccol/charcoal.htm
Lawyers are launching a lawsuit on behalf of passengers on that Frontier flight that had the unfortunate trespasser collision.
If you sue after an event like this, you should forfeit your right to ever tell the story of how you were involved, which is worth way more than whatever money you'd get.
This week's accident and passenger evacuation on the Frontier Airlines plane in Denver brought up the usual complaints about evacuating passengers pausing to get their carryon bags.
Here's an idea: How about we prioritize getting people's bags off the plane promptly, after the incident is over?
It appears people sometimes have to wait days, WEEKS to get their possessions back. No wonder some people want to grab their bag. And those that don't, are penalized for doing the right thing.
ALERT ALERT The previous, horribly out of tune and malfunctioning self-serve piano at Romeo Leblanc Moncton International Airport (YQM) has been replaced with a New Actually Working And In Pretty Decent Shape and In Tune Yamaha Piano, and I hope everyone enjoyed a brief performance of Scott Joplin's "Solace."
Well I know one person in the rental car line did. "That's from The Sting, isn't it?" Yes it is!
Replying to
@adhdeanasl@beige.party @lisamelton@mastodon.social Also, all politicians should be required to fill out their tax returns by hand. (That would simplify the process in a hurry.)
Replying to
Grateful that our sales retreats weren't THIS bad. https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/workplace/corporate-retreat-gone-wrong-07754741
Huge debate here. Is it OK for an adult to order a kids meal - say, a Happy Meal at McDonald's?
I say: no. that product is priced to make it attractive and more affordable for families, not for adults. Would you buy a child's ticket at the movie theatre or on the train?
I'm not sure I won this discussion.
Replying to
@dearlove@mathstodon.xyz You're right. Slightly lessens the coolness of my original note.
Replying to
@inecas@mstdn.social Excellent point. Thank you. I feel the need to post a statement now slightly lessening the coolness of this note.
Replying to
@_the_cloud@mastodon.social @joe@f.duriansoftware.com me and some other guy. I wonder whatever happened to him?
Fans of The Pitt will enjoy—and, I bet, be somewhat surprised by—this performance by Isa Briones (Dr. Santos.)
https://playbill.com/article/watch-just-in-times-isa-briones-sings-whos-sorry-now
Replying to
@sanguish@iosdev.space Airlines sell kids tickets. Should smaller adults be allowed to buy them because they'll use less resources on the flight?
(What I actually want is for airline seats to slide forward and backward based on passenger height to equalize legroom)
Are you like me? Did you carefully memorize the IP address of a DNS server decades ago? Something you’d ping or traceroute or lookup in a pinch?
(No, memorizing an easy one like “8.8.8.8” doesn’t count.)
Just checked today and I can’t reach good old 129.79.254.191 any more. I am sad.
Replying to
@sanguish@iosdev.space So why do airlines have child fares? My contention is, it's a concession to make travel more affordable for families. Kids occupy the same space as an adult; they don't let adults take advantage of that cheaper fare.
Not sure why restaurants should be obliged to let an adult take advantage of something intended for a kid.
I think it's kind of the same. kind of.
Replying to
Actor Jim Lovell meets actor playing Jim Lovell
Replying to
@TallSimon@mstdn.ca also it's interesting that New Zealand is not allowed to do the haka at the World Cup, when somehow they're the only country allowed to do something like this everywhere else
Replying to
Incidentally, the next time you re-watch Apollo 13, in the scene at the end where the astronauts are picked up after splashdown and flown by helicopter to the USS Iwo Jima—the ship's captain greeting the astronauts is played by Actual Jim Lovell.
And Actual Marilyn Lovell is "Onlooker at Launch Site."
Replying to
@sanguish@iosdev.space ok on that basis, would you use a child's ticket at the movie theatre?
relieved that none of our sales meetings turned out like this one - https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/workplace/corporate-retreat-gone-wrong-07754741?mod=e2tw
Congrats to whoever invented that Norwegian "Ro!" rowing cheer.
(Which will now be copied by thousands of fan groups everywhere.)
Replying to
@noplasticshower@infosec.exchange indeed it was. memorizing that back in, I dunno, 1988 or something, was extremely useful in a total nerd way for the longest time.