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Would you be equally disturbed if someone overlayed Nixie tube digits on a NEMO display?
To be fair, a dot matrix display could be used to show a segmented-style display, right?
It would have to be a very high resolution dot based display to simulate it, to the point that it would just be a low-resolution regular screen. I believe what Torch is saying is that Peter needs something like this font in his library: https://www.1001fonts.com/led-counter-7-font.html
*Content advisory: Author is a professional land surveyor and engineer, possibly on the spectrum, whose spouse is a former engineer and current Librarian. The Autopian does not endorse any grammatical opinions stated below.*
Greetings, Mr. Torchinsky:
First, allow me to applaud you on your commitment to the Oxford comma.
Next: You hath opened mine eyes to the light, and now I may see. For (at least) a couple of decades, I have wantonly guzzled the miniature sausage snack foods offered by Hillshire Farm, without having fully read, or even casually observed, “Lit’l” in the title. Because I delight in obsessing over trivial matters, I took it upon myself to do some research, exploring the APA, GPO, Chicago Manual, Council of Science, and ALA style guides, Oxford English Dictionary, Mirriam-Webster Dictionary, and even the urban dictionary for acknowledgement of “Lit’l” as a legitimate alternate contraction. I was enlightened by the results. As it happens, there is no official accepted format for the contraction of “little”. However, “lil” and “li’l” are the two commonly accepted formats, with no mention of ‘lit’l’ at all.
Then, the plot thickens:
Eckrich offers a similar product under the name ‘Li’l Smokies’. Eckrich was founded in 1894, and Hillshire Farm was founded in 1934, so Eckrich may have owned the “li’l smokies” trademark, forcing Hillshire Farm to grammatically compromise their brand name in search of dominance in the novelty sausage snack food industry. As I have been composing this essay, it occurs to me that, given the packaging, I may not have been purchasing Hillshire Farm products at all. Anyhoo, enjoy the baseless speculation and conjecture. Oh, by the way, I also found out that “aint” and “ain’t” are now both accepted spellings and contractions of “are not”, and they have both outpaced “aren’t” in spoken and written vernacular usage in the last ten years. I will endeavor to sneak in an “ain’t” tomorrow. I will let you know if it was successfully snuck in. (APA and ALA now allow ending sentences with a preposition; I feel like I’m getting away with something!) Oh, yeah, I agree on font consistency, but I am more forgiving on historical accuracy. The Mandela effect on most of us results in misremembering small details, such as ‘Hillshire FarmS’ instead of ‘Hillshire Farm’, so the ideal image of 1980s beep-boop LCD graphics outstrips an accurate portrayal. I do like cars too, by the way. Ask David.
My family was aghast to discover recently that McDonalds actually has an apostrophe. We all understood why, we’d just never noticed. Oddly, as there were two McDonald brothers, it’s not at the end, but rather ahead of the S.
I will never unsee that. Ow
This is the closest I ever felt to reading a Technology Connections video, and I’m sure at least one of you weirdos know what I’m talking about 🙂
Hahahahahaha..haha..ohhh. yep. Dammit.
Alec is awesome, and no matter how obscure the subject, I’ll watch the whole 40 or so minutes in one sitting. I would pay entry tickets for an interview between him and Torch (and I don’t even care who is interviewing whom).
Our corporate logo is some sort of futura font with the first half bold and red and the second half regular and black. For the IT department I used an old 80s chintzy CPU font and redid the logo keeping the first half red and bold and last half regular and black. I thought it was appropriate for us PC nerds but the VP of Marketing, who apparently is the protector of our trademarks was more than a little bit concerned.
Oh sweet lord I love this.
First you scored points chosing Hillshire Farms as it is the best but unfortunately Eckrich home of the everything we make is just a different sized hot dog trademarked the lil smokies name. Sure I get the computer style didn’t match but dot matrix doesn’t give you the thrill of putting in 8008 and turning it over to see boobs or other fun words. As for stickler for details or a perfectionist once you remove swollen batteries with a chainsaw you are tossed out of that club. David Tracy has a better chance of getting into the Italian Cooking HOF with his Shower Spaghetti than you do of getting into the strict rules following
Oh dear sweet and holy Jeebus, the degree to which I agree with Jason’s persnicketiness in this particular instance is simultaneously disturbing and comforting to me.
It’s almost as subliminally annoying as extreme examples of radically inappropriate typeface selection… i.e.: Comic Sans for absolutely no discernible reason, etc…
Everyone knows real computers use a MICR style typeface.
Every time I see MICR typeface letters and numbers, my mind automatically starts a disco soundtrack. not sure how that got in there, but it’s just a solid weird 70’s vibe in my skull when I see them.
I love the baby Jeebus! It’s 2 am, I have an 8 am meeting, and I am still debating whether or not to open up a can of paint to touch up the construction marks my son-in-law and I made today while installing a TV wall mount. I begged the Blushing Bride to use satin instead of eggshell, yet I can only blame myself for allowing a 6B pencil to find itself mingling with the general population of writing instruments.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch: Lit’l. Oof. No. NO. NO! It is nearly as offensive as the truck farm peddling “Strawberrie’s”. I regret to inform Hillshire Farms that due to an unforgivable grammatical error on their part, I will no longer be able to enjoy their delightful miniature sausage snack food.
Preach brother! 😀
Jason, it’s “lit’l” so that they can trademark it. “Lil” is too much of a common colloquialism to trademark. Also, I agree with you about the matrix vs CRT displays.
Between ‘acronym’ abbreviations, marketing, internet-spread slang, and texting shortcuts, it’s amazing anyone can still spell.
Don’t expect spellcheck to save you.
Especially now that most spellchecks are AI and an actual confirmed database
On a totally unrelated note… since this is your article, the comments to which I believe you read, and a site of which you have part ownership, I want to give you a tip to make the end user experience better.
I’ve shared this before in other comment sections, but I am going to try to distill this down in its own comment.
Yesterday, I ventured over to The (orange slash) Drive, a site I had never visited until then.
The content here at the Autopian is superior in almost every way. And that’s why I subscribe. They seem to have more reviews, which may be useful if I ever buy another car. Otherwise, there is no reason I will spend any eyeball time over there.
But, and this is my punctum as some of you are fond to write, their comments sections have a feature this site needs to embrace. The ability to sort the comments in a solid chronological order. (They have a third option, “Best,” but I don’t know how that’s determined. And I would never pick that anyway.)
It is a constant annoyance to me to read an article, have something clever (to me, anyway) pop into my head, post it and then see somebody beat me to the punch hours earlier. I’m particularly susceptible to this phenomenon as I live on the West Coast of this vast nation.
It seems that it depends on how many pages of comments there are how the comments here get sorted, but bottom line is it’s sometimes incredibly janky.
Please, please, please. Run this around your Slack. If you folks pull this off, I will upgrade from Velour. That’s not much of a carrot. I get it. And if you don’t, I won’t. (And I get that’s not much of a stick, either.)
However, I think there would be much rejoicing throughout the Autopian world if this upgrade was incorporated into, what is otherwise and despite, my favorite site to read.
Best to you all.
Contracting bastards working under contract. Perhaps, if female, simultaneously having contractions.
Completely different pronunciations… lil vs lit-ul
One syllable vs. two.
Offen vs Off-ten
Neether vs Nither
I had a girlfriend in college who was getting a masters in linguistics. But I was the cunning one.
I get it. It’s also just kind of lazy. If you’re going to make art, making good art is my preference.
That stupid manifold thing ruined fast & furious for me right from the very start, then the floor literally fell out.
I was at a friend’s place years ago and they put the first F&F on the tv, thinking I’d like it since I’m into cars. Ten minutes in I said, “You gotta turn this off, I can feel myself getting stupider by the minute.”
He obliged, and I’ve never seen another minute of any F&F movie, save for the part at the end of #4 with the two Koenigseggs.
I’d watch a movie with you anytime. You have good taste sir. 🙂
Why and how does it contract to “li’l” or “lit’l” vs “li’e” or “lit’e”?
Depends on where you want your glottal stop!
For more linguistic tips, find me at onlyfans.com/@glottalstop
Just the tips?
I worked in IT with developers for so long that this kind of attention to detail on admittedly minor things is just a given. Are you sure you aren’t a developer, Torch?
God bless all the children with the lit’l voice in their head that whispers “Wait, I maybe should check the spelling on that.” Heroes DO walk among us!
Since you showed the PET computer, whatever happened to your series about the “worst cars” that really weren’t the worst? You went to all that trouble programming the computer to generate a random page number for you…
It randomly picked a page with a Mercury, which caused a conflict with Mercury Mondays, and the computer crashed.
Torch’s recurring series never recur early nor late. Torch’s recurring series recur precisely when they are meant to.
People who want an easier time trademarking a name is who. Nearly all corporate bizarro spellings boil down to that.
I remember helping polish my high school’s gymnasium floor, and the last layer we put down was a can of something called Kleen Up Solvent.
Beat me to it! I’m sure Jason already knew this, being a professional creative with a business interest in IP rights, but wanted to say something Torchian.
Brandontheweirdo
No, it’s right there in the name. He’s THE weirdo, not just A weirdo. The definite article.
Peter, next time send it to him using a nixie tube font. See if he notices.
We’re about to end up with a top shot with an OLED showing Morse code.
Is this a good place to point out that although some of the later chiclet-keyboard 2001 Series PETs did indeed come with green CRTs just like the models with full-sized keyboards, the one up top looks early enough that it really should be shown with bluish-white characters instead?
This version has green phosphorus text. And, it is really bothering me that he didn’t just take a photo of this text on the screen and use it for the call out. Or at least use the green in black font used by the computer.
If you’re referring to the “I’M PICKING WINNERS!” machine, yes, that’s a large-keyboard PET with a green screen. Heck, it’s even a fancy Model 4016 instead of a 2001 Series. I’m referring to the small-keyboard “I’LL NEVER DO THIS” machine.
Yes, I was referring to the full-size keyboard pet and not the chiclet keyboard pet.
My 2010, pre-screen Focus has that sort of expanded segment setup on its entertainment display. I get a kick out of the jankiness of spelled out song titles as it uses the lower case.
Noted, now which font LCD? As it could do either depending on overlay.
I like this rule.
See the little R? That’s why.