Random Thoughts

[kphoger]

You want annoying? My formative restaurant that I worked at in my 20's calls ... employees 'champions',

Taco Bell?

"Food Champion"

[JayhawkCO]

You want annoying? My formative restaurant that I worked at in my 20's calls ... employees 'champions',

Taco Bell?

"Food Champion"

Nope. J. Alexander's.

[Big John]

calls managers 'coaches'

meh.  OK.

and employees 'champions'

Where is the puking face emoji when you need it?!

I'll use this: 

[vdeane]

JoAnn Fabrics calls their own employees "team members", and one of the customer-facing signs says "ask a Team Member for help" or something similar, but the doors say "employees only", not "team members only" — vendors are employees but not team members.

Shouldn't it be the reverse?  An employee is someone who works for and is paid by the company, not someone who works for another company and is there to deliver products for that other company.

[Max Rockatansky]

I received an invite to conduct a presentation in May up at the Fresno Flats Museum in Oakhurst regarding the history of the area road network.  I was offered a cabin stay which is probably incentive enough to do this in May.  Usually these kind of things tend to be good for our page and draw in a decent amount of non road fan traffic.   

It has been about two years since I've done a live presentation.  The last one involved to an engineering society about US 99 in the Central Valley. 

[mgk920]

The Personnel offices now being called 'Human Resources'.

 

Mike

[D-Dey65]

Wikipedia has articles on two Amtrak stations in South Carolina which contain commons galleries with only one image. Denmark's former Union Station and Clemson's Southern Railway station. Nobody seems to be willing to fill up those galleries, and from time to time, I keep thinking I'd like to go up and do so. You'd think that the best way to do something like this would be by train. Unfortunately, what I found out was that it would cost just as much and take just as long to take a train from Tampa Union Station and do this by Amtrak as it would to get to Penn Station in Manhattan. Plus, I'd arrive in Denmark at 2-something in the morning, and have no place to stay.  If I drove to Denmark's Amtrak station from my house, it would take just under 7 hours and 10 minutes.

[kphoger]

The Personnel offices now being called 'Human Resources'.

While the term 'human resources' is a weird one, and kind of creepy, the word 'personnel' has always sounded weird to me too.

Now that I'm looking at the etymology of 'personnel', I see that it was originally a military term (military personnel as opposed to military matériel), which doesn't exactly make me feel more valued as a human being than 'human resources' does.

[SEWIGuy]

The Personnel offices now being called 'Human Resources'.

 

I'm 56 years old and never remember a time when the office wasn't called "Human Resources."

[formulanone]

The Personnel offices now being called 'Human Resources'.

 

I'm 56 years old and never remember a time when the office wasn't called "Human Resources."

I feel like you're an object to be mined, reaped, and mechanically separated.

But it's also been in use for so long that I bet the acronym "HR" sticks around longer than whatever euphemistic term comes up next, because it's short and seemingly everyone knows what it means.

[D-Dey65]

Somewhere in Chester, Pennsylvania southwest of the pretentiously named "Chester Transportation Center," along SEPTA's Wilmington/Newark Regional Railroad Line is a former flag stop known as "Lamokin Street Station," and the site of Lamokin Tower, an old signal tower that used to manage trains coming in and out of the former Pennsylvania Railroad Chester Creek Branch. Something about this area entered my mind today as I was editing other commons categories. Because of this, I thought that someday it might be fun if I stopped there and snapped a photo of the tower for their Wikipedia article. Then I read that article and I was reminded of the fact that the tower was demolished in 2017, along with the nearby rusty old Lloyd Street Bridge. And there's no trace of the tower left. Oh well. It looks like the only thing to do is wait for somebody to post an image that's not a copyright violation.

Additionally, the old flag stop nearby (which has a single image in the gallery) was also demolished. However, it's not necessarily impossible to add another image to the Wikimedia Commons gallery, even a single image. All you have to do is take either Stewart Avenue (if you're going south on I-95) or US 322 (if you're going north on I-95) to US 13, then take US 13 to Lamokin Street, and take Lamokin Street north to the railroad tracks. You could even get a view like this.


Then again, you remember what I told the rest of you about the last time I went to Chester, Pennsylvania, don't you?

[kernals12]

Somewhat tongue-in-cheek: I think people have a color budget: a fixed amount of color they are willing to see in their lives and so if color increases in one place, it will decrease somewhere else. Here's the basis of my theory:
Back in the early 1960s, when people only had black and white television, newspapers, and magazines (besides LIFE) they owned turquoise and pink refrigerators and red, blue, and green automobiles. Then during the 70s, color TV became ubiquitous and at the same time, the color of their appliances moved to muted earth tones. Then in the 90s, when color photos began showing up in newspapers and magazines (and on that new-fangled world wide web) people went full greyscale with stainless steel kitchens and white, silver, grey, and black cars.

[PNWRoadgeek]

Why do I always feel sweaty when I wake up at like 3 AM but feel fine if I stay up until like 1 AM?

[Max Rockatansky]

Do you have a heater that kicks on when it reaches a certain temperature inside?  That happens to me at night because the indoor temperature will drop below the line where the heater engages. 

[PNWRoadgeek]

Do you have a heater that kicks on when it reaches a certain temperature inside?  That happens to me at night because the indoor temperature will drop below the line where the heater engages. 

Yes I do, it kicks on randomly though.

[Scott5114]

Somewhat tongue-in-cheek: I think people have a color budget: a fixed amount of color they are willing to see in their lives and so if color increases in one place, it will decrease somewhere else. Here's the basis of my theory:
Back in the early 1960s, when people only had black and white television, newspapers, and magazines (besides LIFE) they owned turquoise and pink refrigerators and red, blue, and green automobiles. Then during the 70s, color TV became ubiquitous and at the same time, the color of their appliances moved to muted earth tones. Then in the 90s, when color photos began showing up in newspapers and magazines (and on that new-fangled world wide web) people went full greyscale with stainless steel kitchens and white, silver, grey, and black cars.

There are some other reasons for these trends that are probably more likely:

- Color is generally more expensive than shades of grey, so as we entered late-stage capitalism and corporations turned toward squeezing every bit of profit out of each transaction, color options began being removed for the sake of increasing margins. (This comports with Henry Ford's "any color you like as long as it's black" ethos, which was done as a cost-saving measure.) People will turn down a fridge because it is pink or because it is turquoise, so you need to offer several options (increasing overhead), because different people have different tastes in color. Neutral tones, though, are broadly accepted even if they're not the customer's first choice. It is rare that someone will refuse to buy a fridge simply because it is white.
- As people began to care more about houses as investment instruments rather than as homes, the desire to keep property values up by sticking to the broadly-acceptable neutrals rather than risk alienating a potential buyer by taking the risk of choosing a color increased. (This mindset seems to persist in many homeowners, even if they are not planning on actually selling anytime soon.) And of course landlords tend to mandate white paint for similar reasons.
- The cost, in both materials and labor, of repainting is high, so unless you are particularly motivated to add color to a space, it is easy to just stick to the neutrals that came with the home. (Renters get hit by this twice—any paint job they might perform to make the home their own will have to be redone in landlord white before they leave, so most never bother.)
- For those who care enough about interior design to seek some sort of coherence in their living space, but who don't care enough to master the art of color theory, neutrals are an attractive choice because they are easier to design around—nothing clashes with black, white, and neutral greys.

[Max Rockatansky]

I've owned cars which were orange, green and purple.  A lot of automakers have fairly diverse paint options if you're willing to pay for them.  Most normal people don't get unique colors likely because they don't want to pay for them nor really want to stand out in what they drive. 

Speaking of that purple car I mentioned, it has green vinyl on it.  Had a shop custom make said vinyl for me based off the R/T and Scat Pack stripe packages for the Dodge Challenger. 

IMG_6560 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr

The purple/green color scheme is riffing the 1996 Prodigy Online #71 Winston Cup stockcar that my Dad arranged sponsorship for when he was their marketing VP. 

IMG_1246 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr

My currently daily driver is a 2024 Corolla Hybrid.  The grey/blue color about as anonymous as it can in a modern car.   For some reason I've owned three vehicles which were dark red (a 2019 Subaru Impreza, 2014 Chevy Sonic LT and a 1997 Chevy CK1500 Silverado).  Dark red looks fine until you realize how shitty it looks when slightly dirty. 

[Scott5114]

Most normal people don't get unique colors likely because they don't want to pay for them nor really want to stand out in what they drive. 

I've only ever driven used cars, so the color of my car has always just been whatever happened to be the color of the first good car with a good price I came across when I was looking. Right now I'm driving a maroon car, but I've also driven blue and white ones.

[Max Rockatansky]

Most normal people don't get unique colors likely because they don't want to pay for them nor really want to stand out in what they drive. 

I've only ever driven used cars, so the color of my car has always just been whatever happened to be the color of the first good car with a good price I came across when I was looking. Right now I'm driving a maroon car, but I've also driven blue and white ones.

For me the first three vehicles I owned were used.  Two of those three vehicles were white (a 1992 Pontiac Sunbird and 2002 Ford Mustang) and other red one was the CK1500 I mentioned already. 

The first new car I bought (and ordered) was a 2010 Chevy Camaro SS.  I ordered that car with Inferno Orange and later installed blue hockey stick vinyl stripes on it.  I've purchased six new vehicles since that Camaro.  Out of the six the only one I ordered was the 2016 Challenger, the rest were picked from the dealer lot.  There wasn't much in the way of exciting color options on those dealer lot cars (five compact cars and one compact SUV).

[Scott5114]

Oh, another reason why neutrals are popular: it's a lot easier to make neutrals match when you are buying things from multiple vendors. Different manufactures of different appliances and home decor items might have different enough shades of green or blue that they don't look good together. But black is black and white is white, and even if you have different shades of grey, they still look relatively appealing together.

For my first apartment, I got a bunch of black particle board furniture from Walmart. This ended up being pretty convenient because when I bought additional furniture later, I could just buy black and it I wouldn't have to worry about whether it would match what I already had. If I had gone with a traditional wood grain, or a color, it would have been harder to make it all match. These days I can actually afford solid wood furniture but I'm still buying black and it matches the particle board stuff I haven't replaced yet.

[formulanone]

And of course landlords tend to mandate white paint for similar reasons.

It's also much quicker and cheaper to repaint with white wall paint; one bottom coat of a thicker paint like Kilz (or equivalent) and maybe a second coat of cheap white paint.

A darker color is much harder to change to another; something like a "medium blue" might take several coats to neutralize. Repainting the kids's rooms from the aforementioned color to a light green took me two weeks of spare time to accomplish. We just went down to a low-gloss light blue for the other room, which took a little less time.

The trend a decade ago was a light tan/beige for many of the homes we'd looked at. To be honest, I don't mind it; it doesn't show many marks and it doesn't overpower with contrast.

[ZLoth]

The fact that the waste collection point for my city is located across the street from a city park and is surrounded by a golf course. At least all of the waste is within a large enclosed building, as I been there several times. I just present my latest bill and my ID, and was given a vest and hard hat. However.... it stank while in the building.

And please don't give any strange looks about the building being owned by the North Texas Municipal Water District. In addition to water distribution to multiple North Dallas cities, they also handle waste collection.

[kurumi]

For computer nerds, the scene in The Fly (1986) where Seth Brundle found out his computer merged the DNA raised an eyebrow. Hey Jeff, you designed the thing, why did you put that feature there?

In a 2025 remake, that would be a bit more plausible: if he had an LLM write the code, then he might not have looked at every line, and the behavior could catch him by surprise.

[vdeane]

If I ever got an 800 number, I was thinking that 1-800-928-3837 would be the most amazing number to have.  Then you could give your phone number as "1-800-whatever" (1-800-WAT-EVER).

[kphoger]

If I ever got an 800 number, I was thinking that 1-800-928-3837 would be the most amazing number to have.  Then you could give your phone number as "1-800-whatever" (1-800-WAT-EVER).

You spelled it wrong.

Or was that the whole point?  That you didn't want them to actually call you in the first place?