Cop Car's Beat

Answer to the small puzzle

The image in A small puzzle was a part of a page scanned from Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia, Volume 4; F.E. Compton & Company, Chicago IL, Printed in 1923. Below is a different cropping of that scan, providing the answer. (The article from which it comes is about inventions.)

Below is a scan (both sides) of the receipt given my grandfather when he bought the set of encyclopedias.

As children, my brothers and I browsed through Grandmother's encyclopedias, frequently. For the past 20+ years, they have been at my fingertips when seated in my reading chair. After all, much of what I look up has not changed since 1923. BTW: The purchase of the encyclopedias predated electrification of their house by about 10 years. Grandfather died in 1933 and I believe that Dad wired that house (and the wash house) shortly thereafter.

A small puzzle

Have you any idea what the item in the graphic, below, might be? (Answer will be posted, later.)

This made me laugh

From xkcd: Symbols

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

This means that you are free to copy and reuse any of my drawings (noncommercially) as long as you tell people where they're from.

That is, you don't need my permission to post these pictures on your website (and hotlinking with <img> is fine); just include a link back to this page. Or you can make Livejournal icons from them, but -- if possible -- put xkcd.com in the comment field. You can use them freely (with some kind of link) in not-for-profit publications, and I'm also okay with people reprinting occasional comics (with clear attribution) in publications like books, blogs, newsletters, and presentations. If you're not sure whether your use is noncommercial, feel free to email me and ask (if you're not sure, it's probably okay).

____________________________________________________________

NOTES:

1. In the "header" of the xkcd webpage appears this: 

2. In a "footnote" is wryly noted:

3. I'm sorry to say that I no longer recall how my first introduction to xkcd came about. I'm sure it was through the blogroll of a blog friend, but which one??? 🤷‍♀️

4. As to the second item in the listing, partial differential equations, I can only guess that anyone who would attribute their use to a grad student never took an undergraduate physics course in thermodynamics. 🤦‍♀️

5. As to the last item in the listing, Tau is (by definition) twice Pi. (I only care in polar coordinate systems.) 👩‍🦰

6. (I still hit "7") In Notes 3 through 5 I've been showing off the fact that I can use one of the silly keys on my new keyboard. It displays a bunch of emoticons that may be inserted in text. 👀

From News for Nerds - No comment

Olympics Broadcaster Announces His Computer Password on Live TV (vice.com)34

Posted by BeauHD on Monday July 26, 2021 @08:45PM from the smile-you're-on-camera dept.

In what is, at least so far, the biggest cybersecurity blunder of the Tokyo Olympics, an Italian TV announcer did not realize he was on air when he asked the password for his computer. Motherboard reports:"Do you know the password for the computer in this commentator booth?" he asked during the broadcast of the Turkey-China volleyball game, apparently not realizing he was still on air. "It was too hard to call the password Pippo? Pippo, Pluto or Topolino?" he complained, referring to the Italian names for Goofy, Pluto and Mickey Mouse. The snafu was immortalized in a video posted on Twitter by cybersecurity associate professor Stefano Zanero, who works at the Polytechnic University of Milan. A source who works at Eurosport, the channel which was broadcasting the volleyball game, confirmed that the video is authentic.

A colleague of the announcer can be heard in the background saying the password depends on the Olympics organizers, and asking the announcer if it's on a paper or post it close-by. Turns out the password was "Booth.03" after the number of the commentator's booth. "Even the dot to make it more complicated, as if it was NASA's computer," he said on the air. "Next time they will even put a semicolon." "Ma porca miseria," he concluded, using a popular italian swearing that literally means "pork's misery" but is more accurately translated to "for god's sake."

Another Vanity Card from Chuck Lorre - and further notes on Lorre

If one looks up "Chuck Lorre" on Wikipedia (please see Creative Commons), one finds a photo of "Chuck Lorre", below.

Lorre at PaleyFest 2013

The entry starts, as follows:

Charles Michael "Chuck" Lorre (/ˈlɔːri/;^[1] born October 18, 1952)^[2][3] is an American television director, writer, producer, composer, and actor.

Called the "King of Sitcoms" during the 2010s,^{[4][5][6][7][8]} he has created and produced sitcoms including Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, Mike & Molly, Mom, Young Sheldon, The Kominsky Method, Disjointed, Bob Hearts Abishola, B Positive, and United States of Al. He also served as an executive producer of Roseanne. He won Golden Globe Awards for Roseanne (1993) and Cybill (1996),^[9] and won the 2019 Golden Globe Award for The Kominsky Method.

Other than Young Sheldon, The Kominsky Method, and Disjointed, I have seen and enjoyed (some to a greater, some to a lesser extent) Lorre's sitcoms. I still watch re-runs of The Big Bang Theory though I can recite the dialogue - without having the TV audio engaged - in most of the episodes. (I admit to deliberately avoiding several episodes that I find annoying - usually because of writing that presents characters Sheldon and Wolowitz in truly obnoxious ways. They are obnoxious enough without the extra effort that someone seems to think is required.) In addition, because of conflicts with my schedule or the TV schedule I missed most first-run presentations of Mom, I am now catching up on those presentations, in re-runs.

My complaints about Lorre's writing is his reliance upon cheap sexual innuendos that are most unfunny and his insistence upon keeping characters infantile beyond their years. That said, for the most part, Lorre's writing is still above the standards set by others in sitcoms that see the air on our major networks. I am a fan. Or, perhaps I am merely jealous of anyone who has discernible eyebrows?

These made me laugh - 2

Oh, how true is the Dilbert comic by Scott Adams from Sunday's Wichita Eagle newspaper! Over the years, I've been tripped up, so often, by being too literal.

 

 

In the same edition of the above cited newspaper was the FoxTrot comic by Bill Amend. Corny, but funny.

 

Mystery for two

Scene: 6:40am I am abed in my basement bedroom, listening to the news on the radio. Hunky Husband is abed in his bedroom that is directly above mine. I do not know whether my eyes are open or closed as it is dark. I see a bright flash ("explosion") of white light either just inside or just outside one of the small, high windows on the wall against which the headboard of my bed nestles. Immediately following the light flash I hear a muffled, light "thud" - rather like the thud of a rolled, small newspaper's landing in a grassy yard after being thrown by the paper deliverer.

Action: Quickly, I arise, check out my bedroom, turn off the two radios that are playing in my bedroom and the heating pad that is warming my knees, and run upstairs to check with HH. He has also arisen and is outside his bedroom, in the hallway, with the light burning. When I ask if everything is alright upstairs, he says it is. He saw the light flash, but did not hear the noise. Hmmm...he thought the flash was inside his bedroom, toward his bay window (immediately above my bedroom windows).

I scanned the back yard, then turned on the outside floodlights to scan, again. Nothing.

Mulling: There is no odor of ozone as an electrical arc, inside the house, might produce. Besides, I would not expect the flash of an electrical arc to be visible in both bedrooms since all electrical lines in that wall of each bedroom are within a foot of the respective floor.

Possibility: I can only think that we were hit by a micrometeorite or a tiny piece of junk falling from the sky. As it is raining/freezing raining outside, and somewhat windy (30mph), it may be a day or two before I can do any searching. For such a small flash and such a small noise, it probably will not be possible for me to find the micrometeorite or junk, even if the possibility is a fact. It's a mystery for HH and me.

Invitation: Any thoughts?

These made me laugh.

How I feel with all of the leaves I rake each fall -

...and something else that gave me a chuckle -

11/19/2020 - Hunky Husband just had to send a link to this video to me.

 

A bot or not a bot?

When one's blog traffic increases by a factor of 20, and continues for days, one becomes curious. That's what's been happening, here, for the past several days. It started with an innocuous comment by "Art" who had been referred to my blog by a blog that, in the past, I had visited. At about the same time, my blog was getting referred hits from that blog every few minutes...then, every 10s of minutes, then every hour. This has continued to today when the hits are coming at the rate of once every three hours. Hmmmm....

I checked everything that I knew to check and contacted tech support at Typepad on Monday. They did some checking and, in their final message to me, wrote:

We did some checking but were not able to determine why you started seeing an increase in referrers from [the other blog]. It doesn't appear that they have linked to your blog anywhere, but there could be a different source or a bot spoofing the source.

In no way is your Typepad account compromised by this traffic. Additionally, we monitor traffic, and if a spike is deemed malicious, we will block the source of the unwanted activity.

If any of my blog friends or casual readers can contribute to my understanding of what is going on, especially if you are "Art", please let me know - by email or by comment. The increased traffic is evidently harmless, but very strange.

P.S. to Art: I have taken down your comment and the posting on which the comment was made. I have blocked from commenting the URL from which the referred hits are coming as well as your IP address and email address. If you would be so kind as to contact me by email (under my thumbnail photo at the top of the left side bar) and convince me that you are a real, innocent person, I shall consider re-publishing the posting and your comment. In fact, you could become a real blog friend if you help me understand what's going on.