The Thread Of Randomness

[Saibot]

And just like that, my summer is over. My summer holiday trip, this year to Florida, Georgia, West Virigina and so on, has concluded and I'm back to work. Some day I will have seen all 50 states, but for now I'm halfway there.

I was let go from my job in May, after over 6 years with them. I got a decent severance, with 4 months of pay and a large discount on my Macbook, so that's not too bad. Plus, a full summer off isn't a shame is it?

I mean being let go isn't something you want, but seeing as you were compensated for it that should even things up for you. I miss the joy of a full summer of freedom and adventure.

I play a lot of Counter-Strike, and I've come across people who live in far flung places who are able to speak pretty decent English, ranging from Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Egypt & Indonesia that come to mind immediately. A few say they were taught it in school to a degree, but a lot say they learnt English from watching American, or less frequently British TV shows available in their country.

I will say that tv absolutley helped my english grow, but it was mostly video games that did it really. Specifically the first GTA and Pokémon on Gameboy color, they had me set pretty good before my first ever english class in school.

[Pyoro]

My English was pretty blergh until I started Latin and I had a teacher that actually taught grammar and wasn't just "repeat after me" without any explanation. The amount of gist you get just from sentence structure and understanding where it all comes from is quite amazing.

Most translators translate the above sentence as 'おはよう今日はどうですか', and no I can't even tell what script that is, at a guess, Kanji, which seems to be the 'every day' script from what I can tell.

Rule of thumb: kanji are nouns (今日), hiragana is like the alphabet for everything else (おはよう...はどうですか), katakana is for foreign words (インターネット - intanetto - internet ). All kanji can be written in hiragana too so start there; they aren't that difficult to learn (depending on how you look at it, it's about 50 to learn). That'll enable you to read simplified hiragana-only texts to practice grammar and such. Once that's done, all you gotta do is kanji crunching ... nothing to it but learn thousands of them by heart ^^; Okay, I guess katakana must be squeezed in somewhere, but that's really negligible compared to everything else.

Personally never managed to stick to learning kanji. It always felt like too high a hurdle and the type of learning I absolutely hate the most ^^; But, yeah, hiragana isn't too difficult and I'd say even kinda fun.
Also, from having been to Japan; I'll say that learning-from-anime actually works well enough (though presumably not the most effective method ). If you get to the point where you understand episode dialogue without reading the subtitles too much you'll probably get most of what anyone might say to you (so long as the acknowledge you are a foreigner and don't speak very fast or with dialect etc., but honestly, that's the same in any language). It really helps that in my experience Japanese like their phrases; you can expect that people will express the same idea the same way.

[dol422]

And just like that, my summer is over. My summer holiday trip, this year to Florida, Georgia, West Virigina and so on, has concluded and I'm back to work. Some day I will have seen all 50 states, but for now I'm halfway there.

I don't have much of a summer - apart from five days in August + two half-days on travel.

Apart from my nights off (which will mostly be spent on sleep), I am working all summer.

[Chrill]

And just like that, my summer is over. My summer holiday trip, this year to Florida, Georgia, West Virigina and so on, has concluded and I'm back to work. Some day I will have seen all 50 states, but for now I'm halfway there.

Didn't you basically do a lap of USA a few years back? I remember you drove a NASCAR, and "played in the sandbox" with actual diggers and stuff

I was let go from my job in May, after over 6 years with them. I got a decent severance, with 4 months of pay and a large discount on my Macbook, so that's not too bad. Plus, a full summer off isn't a shame is it?

I mean being let go isn't something you want, but seeing as you were compensated for it that should even things up for you. I miss the joy of a full summer of freedom and adventure.

Absolutely true. The circumstances were poor, and my manager never did explain it other than "We're moving the team to Malmö" even though the Malmö office is miles behind in customer satisfaction (roughly 73% to our 90%). But hey, now I will be taking my skills elsewhere! I signed a job offer late last week, and as of August you will find me working for your go-to online marketplace for car accessories. If you shop there, it's your go-to. Otherwise, it's probably not your go-to. They are screwed. Or well that's their name. In Swedish.

[Saibot]

And just like that, my summer is over. My summer holiday trip, this year to Florida, Georgia, West Virigina and so on, has concluded and I'm back to work. Some day I will have seen all 50 states, but for now I'm halfway there.

I don't have much of a summer - apart from five days in August + two half-days on travel.

Apart from my nights off (which will mostly be spent on sleep), I am working all summer.

Well, sounds like you at least have August to look forward to, even though short as it sounds.

And just like that, my summer is over. My summer holiday trip, this year to Florida, Georgia, West Virigina and so on, has concluded and I'm back to work. Some day I will have seen all 50 states, but for now I'm halfway there.

Didn't you basically do a lap of USA a few years back? I remember you drove a NASCAR, and "played in the sandbox" with actual diggers and stuff

Well yes, I have done two coast-to-coast runs as well as some other assorted trips (north-south along the west coast, and some more local trips in the south east) so I'm not making progress at quite the pace anymore. And yes, I did do those things, I try to spruce up every trip by doing something unique or at least something that isn't reasonably done elsewhere or at least not near home, borrowing a digger and playing around in a field somewhere I could maybe do, but nascar is more difficult. I've also done whale watching in Washington which is also something I could do elsewhere I suppose, as well as riding an airboat in Florida - there's bound to be one somewhere in Sweden, but it wouldn't be the same. This trip the highlights were watching a rocket launch in Cape Canaveral and also getting a hands-on introduction to flying and aerobatics in a 1945 militiary trainer plane - very fun indeed!

I signed a job offer late last week, and as of August you will find me working for your go-to online marketplace for car accessories. If you shop there, it's your go-to. Otherwise, it's probably not your go-to. They are screwed. Or well that's their name. In Swedish.

I see what you mean, I don't think I've ever used them to be honest, partly because I don't think you have much for my taste in vehicles, and also because I tend to change car before I ever need to think about repairs in a grander scale..

[dol422]

Note to self: DO NOT speak too soon. It will not end well.

[Redirect Left]

So whilst trying to research the lore of Sonic the Hedgehog, which is proving to be a very tangled and slightly creepy adventure given all the characters and varying characteristic of them all, I have been buying comics.
Oh my, as a noob to comic books, i didn't realise how expensive they were. Especially for out of print stuff.

I'm mostly buying IDW comics, because they're the new ones so relatively cheap as released. I bid on a big ebay listing of 104 issues of the Fleetway 1990s comic, I noped out at £125. It eventually sold for £205.
On the other hand, I have picked up a lot of the visual media, including really old Sonic cartoons pretty cheap of ebay. Firstly I'm surprised they bothered to release some of the older stuff on DVD, secondly I've no idea why these are cheap. I guess maybe because people are moving away (sad) from physical media like DVDs. I was expecting to have to dig out an old VHS player and pick up VHS rather than DVD for things like Sonic Underground.

It's got to the point where I've no idea how i can cover it all in a video of the targeted length, about 20 to 30 minutes. A lot of 'etcs' and 'and so on' are needed, there's a whole heap of hijinx involved in the lore for sure! Also way more characters than I expected... It's interesting to see how much Knuckles changes from media to media, and he suddenly picks up the idiot stone for Sonic Boom and has become a total airhead.

[Chrill]

So I started thinking, what is the most famous vehicle ever built? Vehicle in really any sense of the word, be it a car, a ship, an airplane, a bicycle, any man-made item designed to transport someone or something. A fictional or real vehicle, both are valid.

I have some ideas, but let me know if you have any others!

RMS Titanic, easily the most famous ship of all time

The Space Shuttles, arguably the most famous (series of) space faring vehicles

Ford Model T, maybe the most famous mass-produced car, or
Volkswagen Beetle, maybe the most famous mass-produced car

Concorde, easily the most recognizable airplane but possibly also the most famous

The Batmobile (in various incarnations), surely the winner of fictional vehicles

[Redirect Left]

So I started thinking, what is the most famous vehicle ever built? Vehicle in really any sense of the word, be it a car, a ship, an airplane, a bicycle, any man-made item designed to transport someone or something. A fictional or real vehicle, both are valid.
[..]

That's a really interesting concept, and I thought a little about it.

I think the answers will vary in every country, and if you are asking them "which of these images of [transport]" do you recognise first, or if you specifically say "name X from Y transport!" and take down the first one.

For Britain, i think probably the following will rate highly, on the assumption you ask them for a [transport type] without any prompts, and they just name the first thing that comes to mind.

Sea Vessel: Either the RMS Titanic, or the HMT Empire Windrush. The latter being as the Empire Windrush brought the Windrush Generation of immigrants here, which is quite well established as an important part of our history now. I doubt people will actually call it the Empire Windrush, and probably just 'the Windrush'.

Space Ship: Almost certainly the Space Shuttle, we don't really do much local space stuff here, we have a few companies involved in manufacture for larger things, but we don't really launch stuff here of note.

Road Vehicle: Probably a Beetle or a Mini. The latter especially as its still produced and bought large scale by motorists here, plus the film the Italian Job was huge here too. I think the Model T would be recognised by image, but probably not known by name quite a lot. Because of the popularity of Harry Potter, Ford Anglia may have some sway here too, and i wouldn't be surprised if the DeLorean got a few shouts out of lets say a random 1000 surveyed people, question is if people recognised it as a real car, or thought it was fictional for Back to the Future...

Fictional Vehicles: Thunderbirds were really big here, so i wouldn't be surprised if one of the Thunderbirds won that. Other than that probably the Batmobile here too, if we didn't run into the DeLorean as noted above.

[Chrill]

For planes, I figure the Spitfire could rival the Concorde if asking the UK only.

[Redirect Left]

For planes, I figure the Spitfire could rival the Concorde if asking the UK only.

Oops, i forgot to include aircraft above, hah.

There's quite a few possibilities there in the British mind I think. The Lancaster Bomber which took part in the Dambusters Raid, which has gone on to be a heavily referenced and appreciated operation in World War 2 here. There's also the Hurricane which did most of the damage during the Battle of Britain, the remainder of votes, again out of lets say a random 1000, probably the Spitfire I'd imagine, I'm not sure how remembered Concorde is here.

[Pyoro]

The Titanic must win on ships. It's probably "catastrophes" all the way for that one - like the Lusitania, or even something like the Costa Concordia.
Warships also - the Yamato or the Bismarck, both very, very famous.

For planes the 747 gotta be one of the most recognizable ones. Sure, it's not as special as the Concorde, but it's "the" plane many would think of as a standard plane. Various military airplanes of course, probably depending on country. F-15, Zero, etc. Also stuff like Apache helicopters.

For space; I don't know whether you'd say the shuttle is more famous than any of the rockets, but I suppose those might not count?
Fictional ones would probably be either the Enterprise (Star Trek) or any of the Star Wars ships (does the Death Star count? ).

Cars; yeah, incredibly difficult to say. I mean, if you talk to somebody about a generic BMW Series 3, who doesn't have an idea of how that might look, any time from roughly the 1970s to now? ^^; But it's not really as such an individual vehicle ... not sure about racing cars; they are probably not famous enough in the general public.
I'd also not discount tanks, like the Abrams, T-72, Panzer 3 etc. Also specifically American school buses? Maybe?

Various highspeed trains I'd assume are also quite popular. Shinkansen, ICE and TGV I'd suspect to be heading that last, but maybe others too. Unless we talk about specific models, then again, that's too specific for the general public perhaps.

Maybe some specialty vehicles too; not for overall victory but certainly known to some extend. Like the Bagger 288, simply for being the biggest vehicle.

[Chrill]

Also specifically American school buses?

Great shoutout. Definitely, American school buses would definitely constitute a famous type of vehicle.

[Redirect Left]

For rail units, I wonder how high the Mallard would rank, especially amongst Brits given its on display at the National Railway Museum. More modern is of course the Tornado, which whilst built in modern times is of course a Peppercorn A1 at heart, it's often (not recently though, undergoing dismantling, servicing & installation of ETCS signalling gear since last year) seen running wild on the tracks doing excursions & TV recording thingies.

Having said that, i wonder how well known either of them are outside of the UK. Mallard is a record holder in terms of speed (with a few mostly vague rival claims), but i dunno if anyone outside of the UK cares about that.
Also also, in-cab signalling on Tornado (ETCS) will look very out of place for a steam train, heh.

[dol422]

For rail units, I wonder how high the Mallard would rank, especially amongst Brits given its on display at the National Railway Museum. More modern is of course the Tornado, which whilst built in modern times is of course a Peppercorn A1 at heart, it's often (not recently though, undergoing dismantling, servicing & installation of ETCS signalling gear since last year) seen running wild on the tracks doing excursions & TV recording thingies.

Having said, that i wonder how well known either of them are outside of the UK. Mallard is a record holder in terms of speed (with a few mostly vague rival claims), but i dunno if anyone outside of the UK cares about that.
Also also, in-cab signalling on Tornado (ETCS) will look very out of place for a steam train, heh.

Given that Mallard owns the world's highest speed record for a steam locomotive, I would be surprised if people don't know about it.

Although come to think of it, Flying Scotsman is the most famous locomotive in the world, being the first one to be recorded officially as reaching 100mph.

[Pyoro]

I doubt many Germans know about the Mallard, just as an example. I only know it vaguely through being on forums like this one But a lot of Germans would probably know ie the Krokodil or the Schienenzeppelin, which I doubt is that famous outside of Germany ...
... speaking of, the Hindenburg is probably also very (in)famous ^^;

Flying Scotsman reminds me of Flying Dutchman; probably also quite famous in various variations of the story (if not actually real necessarily ^^).

[Chrill]

I would say the Mallard, the Flying Scotsman, and indeed the Krokodil are all niche knowledge. If the general public is asked to name a train, they will either say "The Orient Express" or something generic like Bullet trains.

Hindenburg definitely fits the list. I do see an emerging pattern of vehicles involved in notorious incidents.

[Redirect Left]

I doubt many Germans know about the Mallard, just as an example.

That's pretty believable to be honest.
One thing I am aware of and would possible say for trains, just because of the mention of Germany even though technically it is the name of the system, rather than the trains themselves (which I guess are just 'trains') is the Wuppertal Schwebebahn. It's probably well known within Germany, and maybe to train nuts. Plus 'Schwebebahn' is funny to say, at least to my British ears. Also i need to come up with a dumb reason to visit Germany, I don't think "riding a specific train" is a viable plan to family & friends...

I do see an emerging pattern of vehicles involved in notorious incidents.

If you were to ask the question about 'ships' to the world like right now & this second, because of the notorious incident and also the bias of recency, i suspect the OceanGate Titan would come up quite a lot too.

Some other ships that are of note that might pop up is the HMS Victory, which was Nelsons ship at the Battle of Trafalgar, the Beagle which is the ship Darwin travelled on whilst writing his diary that is the basis for Evolution. Meanwhile people who live in London, or recently visited it may have seen the Cutty Sark and say that.
I think all of these really depend on who you are asking, all of them are definitely famous for differing reasons. Asking a bunch of scientists? Probably the Beagle will come up a few times, ask Historians for the Victory, or even maybe the Bounty, famous for nothing but the mutiny that occurred on it. Asking tourists to London? Maybe the Cutty Sark, although in reality the Cutty Sark was a trade vessel, hauling tea & wool about the high seas. If you're asking lots of internet memers? We all know at least one person will come out with Boaty McBoatFace.

[Saibot]

For planes the 747 gotta be one of the most recognizable ones. Sure, it's not as special as the Concorde, but it's "the" plane many would think of as a standard plane.

I definently agree that the 747 would be more iconic than the Concorde simply because it was (and is) more common.

I would say the Mallard, the Flying Scotsman, and indeed the Krokodil are all niche knowledge. If the general public is asked to name a train, they will either say "The Orient Express" or something generic like Bullet trains.

May I suggest the Hogwarts express then? For generations our age and younger that one will be more likely than the rest of the suggestions.

And for space, maybe not yet, but in the future it will probably be the Orion and SLS or perhaps one of SpaceX's creations.
The other categories will probably vary locally.

[dol422]

For planes the 747 gotta be one of the most recognizable ones. Sure, it's not as special as the Concorde, but it's "the" plane many would think of as a standard plane.

I definently agree that the 747 would be more iconic than the Concorde simply because it was (and is) more common.

I would say the Mallard, the Flying Scotsman, and indeed the Krokodil are all niche knowledge. If the general public is asked to name a train, they will either say "The Orient Express" or something generic like Bullet trains.

May I suggest the Hogwarts express then? For generations our age and younger that one will be more likely than the rest of the suggestions.

And for space, maybe not yet, but in the future it will probably be the Orion and SLS or perhaps one of SpaceX's creations.
The other categories will probably vary locally.

Hogwarts Express maybe. In the UK and US especially.

For space, I would say the Challenger probably. A widely known and infamous accident.

Feel free to prove me wrong, though.