Not Paying Royalties

It is a question for the ages…why do telephones have 123 on the top row of the keypad, while computers have 789? The best answer is , we don’t know.
Calculator/computer keypads were an improvement on cash registers. These devices had a matrix of buttons, with the 9 row on top. The row at the far right had single digits, and the row next to them had digits ending in one zero. To ring up a sale for $1.95, you had to push 100, 90, and 5. This evolved into the adding machine configuration of three rows of three buttons, with 0 on the bottom row and 789 on the top row.
When we got started, the telephone used a dial. 1 was at the top, and 0 was at the bottom. The early phone systems used letters as part of the phone number. The first three letters of the seven digit code were two letters and five numbers. (This is what PG remembers from childhood. It may have been different before then).
The two letters referred to an exchange, or part of town where the number was located. The two letters referred to a word. An example would be PG’s grandmother. Her number was TR2 2345. The TR stood for Trinity. Many numbers in midtown Atlanta still start with 87.
In the sixties, ma bell started to develop a keypad to use for what were then called push button phones. In a break with the adding machine tradition, the numbers 123 went on the top row. There are a few ideas why this is, but nothing is certain.
In the early days, the phone switching equipment was not as fast as today. Some thought that by switching the numbers to the top of the keypad, people would have to slow down a bit to “dial” the number. This answer does not make sense to those of us who have grown up with these keypads, and who learned to punch in numbers fast, no matter what system is used. (Anyone using a rotary phone, after getting used to touch tone, is shocked at how slow it is.)
Another concept is the phone company wanting to model the new keypad after the dial phones. This would mean putting the 1 at the top, and 0 at the bottom. Also, with the letters assigned to each number, it would make a lot more sense to have 123/abc def ghi on the top row. It just looks a lot better.
It was suggested that the calculator keypad was patented in the 789-on-top format. Western Electric did not want to pay royalties on this important piece of equipment, so it designed another one. There is also the thought that the calculator was on a desk shelf, where the lower numbers should be at the bottom of the keypad. At the same time, the telephone was on the lower part of the desk, and having 123 on top would be easier to use.
Pictures are from ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

Did You Forget Something?

This story comes courtesy of Gartalker. He was the source of “Words some people remember“, which was posted here a few days ago. Mr. Gartalker is acquainted with life after a certain age. The pictures are from ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”
Recently on a road trip, Pam, my wife and I stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch. After finishing our meal, we left and resumed the trip. I guess we had drove about thirty minutes when Pam realized she had left her glasses at the restaurant. After thinking about it a few second it came to her she had left them on the sink in the restroom.
She has three pairs so I sweetly suggested that she call and ask the manager to mail that pair. Oh, no you would have thought we had left one of the grand kids behind. Nothing would do except that we turn around and go get them. We were on the interstate by then so we had to drive close to another thirty minutes to find an exit.
I must admit by now I was getting a little aggravated about this completely silly mess. On the way back, I might have even mentioned ten or twelve times how forgetful, she was becoming. Then I may have mentioned the fact she had several other pairs that would do just as well. I must add that all this criticism and complaining fell on deaf ears. We were going back come hell or high water.
Finally, I lost it. “You are just getting old and senile. I swear you would leave your butt if it wasn’t attached.” This wonderful thought out statement was met with a cold wall of silent stares.
We finally made it to the restaurant and as she was getting out, I asked as politely as possible .“Honey, you mind grabbing my cap and credit card while you are in there.” Pulling in the parking lot reminded me that I had left them.

Was The Game Rigged Part Two

1- Congrats to the saints and the city of New Orleans. The Falcons and Saints have been in the same division for forty plus years, and it is time one or the other won the big one. Likewise, Atlanta and New Orleans have a lot of connections, to go with the glaring differences. Where too much water was almost the downfall of NO, not enough water may yet turn ATL into Mayberry.
2- There is no word on how many women did not abort, because of the Tebows. PG was working on a blog post, and saw the commercial on a mirror in front of his desk. It did not make a lot of sense with the sound low, and mirror image.
3- The Who did not die, and have gotten old. At least Keith and Peter showed up yesterday. The performance (recital) was painful to watch, especially with the film clips of the young stompers in action. Keith should at least invest in a better wig.
4- If the game had a predetermined outcome, at least the league was subtle. The Saints played an outstanding game, and were able to shut down the Colts offense when it counted. The only play to raise eyebrows was the interception, run back for a touchdown . Yes, Mr. Manning is a super quarterback, but when everyone knows you are going to throw, it is easier to make a bad mistake.
Then again, the fat lady sang before the game.

The Park Is Boring

PG met Uzi behind the waffle house, and Uzi drove. The plan was to go walking in Piedmont Park. PG was bored with the park, but glad to get out of the house and do something.

After parking the car, PG had an idea…Why not go in through the park expansion? PG had been exploring this territory during the beltline walks, and it seemed like a simple matter to come into the park through the parking garage.
The old railroad tracks, with the old ties piled up every fifty feet or so, was muddy, but easy to tread on. The bridge over Clear creek holds up, and the old railway was easy to pass by until the driveway to the garage was reached. At this point, there was a fence, blocking further access to the railbed. There was a gravel trail, which you reached after walking over a muddy field. The trail led to the creek, and a dilemma.
How to get to the other side of the creek? And where do you go once you get there?
About fifty yards away from the bridge ( which was on the other side of a fence), there was some water control thing in the creek. If you walk, carefully, down a steep concrete slope, there are big rocks in the creek that you can walk across. The next step is to step over a silt fence, climb a hill, and walk on the gravel construction road.
The construction road goes under the granite bridge, and then ends. The challenge at this point is how to make it up to the open park. There is a refuse covered hill, with another silt fence at the top. PG and Uzi climbed up the hill, stepped, carefully, over the silt fence, only to see another fence. The second fence was made of metal, and was too high to climb over.
Walking behind the fence, PG saw a gate. Maybe if one person held the gate up, the other could crawl under it. The fence on the gate had sharp points on the bottom, which discourages crawling underneath.
This being a construction zone, PG found a porto potty, and decided to use it. This was a bit silly, since he was in the woods, in a place where he was not supposed to be. After PG finished, Uzi decided this was a good idea. While Uzi was in the house, a man appeared at the other side of the gate. He wore a uniform, that said park conservancy.
” How did you get back there?”
” The back way”
“Did you know it was a construction zone?”
“Uh huh”.
Uzi heard this, and decided maybe he should stay in the can. He came out, and the man in the uniform twisted the dials on the lock, and opened the gate.
“Don’t do this again”.
PG walked in front of the fence for another hundred yards or so. There was a point where, maybe, you could have climbed over a silt fence behind it, and then, maybe, climbed over a silt fence to freedom. This was by the bridge over the doggie park. The park was not boring anymore.

Super Bowl Commercials

There is much talk about the super bowl, and the commercial fest that goes with it. An ad, starring a gator, that discusses abortion, will play. It is too bad the procedure can not be done retroactively.
One ad that will not play is for the California political campaign of Carly Fiorina. The lady is running for the Senate seat currently held by Barbara Boxer. No, the issue is not about boxers or briefs. The issue is name calling by Mrs. Fiorina about her opponent. The other guy is called a FCINO…fiscal conservative in name only. Fiscal Conservative is a name for borrow and spend types who support wars eight time zones away.
The ad is very, very strange, even by California standards. It shows a bunch of sheep milling around. Some of the sheep are chewing, while the other guy is talking. Then, a human, wearing a very poor wolf in sheep’s clothing costume, appears. PG is not sure what the point of all this is.
Two versions of the ad are attached to this post. The first is the original, in all its disjointed glory. The second uses a Pink Floyd song about animals as the soundtrack, and is an eerie fit.
Carly Fiorina (born Cara Carleton Sneed) would seem to be a case of a person who succeeds by failure. Once they get name recognition, some people keep on getting second chances. If this ad is any indication, the campaign is more of the same.
Pictures to this post are from ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

Tea Party Or Not

In the first year of the Obama regime, America has seen the rise of the “Tea Party”. These affairs are usually right wing, sometimes racist, and have lots of clever signs. The general idea is that taxes are too high, government is too big, and that the people need to do something.
The namesake event was the Boston Tea Party. On December 16, 1773, crowds of people ( some dressed as Mohawk indians) went on board the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver. The crowds threw overboard 342 chests, containing 90,000 pounds of tea. The crowds were unhappy because the East India Company was importing the tea into America, with a 3 pence per pound tax.
A website called listverse plays the contrarian. According to them : “American colonists did not protest the Tea Tax with the Boston Tea Party because it raised the price of tea.
The American colonists preferred Dutch tea to English tea. The English Parliament placed an embargo on Dutch tea in the colonies, so a huge smuggling profession developed. To combat this, the English government LOWERED the tax on tea so that the English tea would be price competitive with Dutch teas. The colonists (actually some colonists led by the chief smugglers) protested by dumping the tea into Boston Harbor.”
According to Wikipedia, the Dutch tea had been smuggled into the colonies for some time. The Dutch government had given their companies a tax advantage, which allowed them to sell their product cheaper. Finally, the British government cut their taxes, but kept a tax in place. The “Townsend Tax” was to be used to pay governing colonial officials, and make them less dependent on the colonists.
In Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia, the tea boats were turned around, and returned to England with their merchandise. In Massachusetts, Governor Thomas Hutchinson insisted that the tea be unloaded. Two of the Governor’s sons were tea dealers, and stood to make a profit from the taxed tea. There are also reports that the smugglers were in the crowd dumping tea into the harbor.
The photogenic tea party movement seems to be destined to stay a while. The question remains, how much does it have to do with the namesake event? Pictures for this post are from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

Body Art

Saxby Chambliss is a Republican senator from Georgia, and a known idiot. He received several deferments from military service, during the Vietnam war. He recently spoke out about life in the military.
During his comments, he made the statement “there is no constitutional right to serve in the military”. This is true. However, in a shooting war, when the government decides that it wants to use you for a while, constitutional rights don’t mean a whole lot. When Uncle Sam needs men to die for their country, being gay is not a good excuse.
The pasteup image at the top of this post was made from screen shots of his recent remarks. The two people in back of him have interesting facial expressions. The other pictures are from ” Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”

Keep Your Mouth Shut

The story now is the the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab ( G-d bless copy paste), has been talking to the authorities. No, torture was not necessary, he was persuaded to cooperate by family members.
Some said undieboi should have been handed over to military authorities, and tortured. The fact is, the FBI deals criminals all the time, many of which are far badder than Mr. Abdumutallab. As the Germans say in war movies, we have ways of making you talk. And the FBI knows how to follow the guidelines, so what you say is admissible in court.
There is a video attached to this post about talking to the police. The general concept is that the police are smart, and can twist what you say, until you are doing time. Like the FBI, the police routinely deal with criminals who are nastier than your average terror suspect.
The video has two parts, a cop and a lawyer. The lawyer is all flash and rhetoric, and the cop is cold and deadly. The cop tells a story about getting the suspect to write an apology letter to the people whose house he broke into. This letter is then used as a written confession, in the suspects own handwriting. When you use tactics like this, torture seems crude and thuggish.
Two of the pictures with this feature are recent product from PG. The other four are from ” Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library ” Thank you twentytwowords for the police video.

Donald Duck Banned In Finland

The following is from a list of “Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)”. This was related to a post here, which was titled “Donald Duck in Person“, but was really about hairspray, prostitution, and Georgia politics.
The blog ripped off today is ramblingsbybones, which looks like a good use of bandwidth. Today, they have a youtube thing of Tony Blair being grilled, about the war in Babylon. This is something that needs to happen on the west side of the Atlantic, with the Texas idiot given the third degree. The people interviewed in the clip see Mr. Blair as a war criminal.
Without further ado, here are the things ramblingsbybones thinks you want to know.
The dot over the letter ‘i’ is called a “tittle”.
Ketchup was once sold as medicine in the US (Dr. Miles Compound Extract of Tomato).
There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, silver and purple.
American Airlines saved $40, 000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each plate of salad served.
The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during WWII killed the elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
Names of all continents end with the same letter with which they start.
If a statue of a horse with a person on it has both front leg in the air, it means the person died in battle…If the horse has one front leg in the air, it means the person died of wounds received in battle…If all four legs of the horse are on the ground, the person died of natural causes
A duck’s quack does not echo.
Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he didn’t wear pants
I’m very bored today

Donald Duck In Person

There are two bills before the lesterslature dealing with child prostitution. The basic concept is that if a prostie under the age of 16 is caught, then the government can “steer” him/her into a “diversionary program”, instead of an arrest. PG thinks the subject matter of such a program, ran by the state of Georgia, might be rather frightening. But that is not the objection the oxymoronic “Christian Right” is making to these bills.
Some say the bills would amount to legalization of child prostitution. Never mind that the laws against procuring and hiring would be left in effect, in addition to statutory rape.
Then there is the objection of Former State Senator Nancy Shaefer. “Who will benefit from the passage of H.B. 582 or S.B. 304? I’ll tell you who – the very profitable and growing pedophile industry. It is imperative that these bills be defeated.”
There has been no comment from the Roman Catholic Church.
Pictures of Mrs. Shaefer are from the Georgia Legislature, and from a video, of a speech she made. The other pictures are from “Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”