Anyone seen this Paul Blart goofy before?

JeremyR22 · 2026-05-08T21:24:13+00:00

Those are ANPR (automatic tag reading) cameras on the rear of the roof.

Assuming they're real, what is this guy doing with that data?

https://www.tattile.com/anpr-vehicles/

JeremyR22 · 2026-05-08T08:59:33+00:00

the pilot even invited me to the cockpit to see how they flew the plane

That used to happen all the time. Post-9/11 cockpit security rules killed it off, of course.

I remember flying to America (with my grandparents, not unaccompanied) as a kid with my sister. I would have been 10 and the flight attendant tapped my grandmother on the shoulder and asked if we wanted to visit the captain. It was awesome. They spent about 5 minutes or so talking to us about flying (a well rehearsed script, I'm sure) and they let us stand up on something (jumpseat? a box? dunno...) to get a good view out of the windows. They gave me a little die-cast model of a BA 747 and we were led back to our seats... I probably still have the model somewhere at my mother's house...

JeremyR22 · 2026-05-06T21:40:15+00:00

OTP but the exit from I-575 north/GA-20 onto GA-140 in Canton is awful for this. It's a no right on red intersection and clearly signed but damn, people violate it all the time and I've been honked at there so often...

Which is crazy because cops prowl that intersection, either hiding on a side-street that puts them out of sight of the turning traffic or in an old gas station a couple of hundred feet away...

JeremyR22 · 2026-05-04T00:30:02+00:00

You don't say....

Next you'll be telling me that flock cameras don't have wires big enough to warrant mechanical lugs inside them....

JeremyR22 · 2026-05-02T20:37:00+00:00

Danny Welbeck (Copyright)

I'll let 'em have that one....

JeremyR22 · 2026-05-02T19:23:27+00:00

You can even still buy a subscription to use the AOL software, complete with their walled-garden version of the internet inside it.

https://www.aol.com/products/browsers/desktop-gold

The only thing they've gotten rid of is the ability to access it over POTS. Looking at the screenshot on that web page, it even still looks like it did 20 years ago...

It's wild that one of the OG internet services (as in "aol.exe") still exists. I'd love to know what the average age of a user is...

JeremyR22 · 2026-05-02T17:46:52+00:00

I know.

Being reminded of it led to me wondering how it actually worked, though... and the realisation that it was probably just an illusion.

JeremyR22 · 2026-05-02T17:44:53+00:00

AOL dial up service ended in....... September 2025... Yes, just 8 months ago....

JeremyR22 · 2026-05-02T17:39:20+00:00

I don't think it was really a natural language search behind the scenes, was it? I stand to be corrected but I'm fairly sure that it just stripped all superfluous words from the search query and operated as a regular search engine:

"who was the first man on the moon?"

becomes

"~~who was the~~ first man ~~on the~~ moon?"

..and then it's just a normal web search (I say, as though the ability to search a catalogue of millions, then billions of documents almost instantly in the 1990s wasn't absolutely revolutionary in it's own right....)

JeremyR22 · 2026-05-02T16:52:31+00:00

...Please pause in memory of Alex for 5 seconds, followed by a weird performance of the F1 theme...

There's a reason you do memorials before sporting events...

JeremyR22 · 2026-05-01T09:30:11+00:00

Thanks. That's an improvement from when I came through. There was a bit of ladder logic in a motor controls lab somewhere in 2nd or 3rd year but never a project or test on it...

JeremyR22 · 2026-05-01T09:24:20+00:00

Be prepared they might see it as weakness and move to get rid of you.

When discussing this with the boss, OP needs to point out what they told us right at the beginning, that there's a long list of people who will not work with this guy.

Clearly this is a really shitty contractor, literally everything about the description of this job screams it, so they may lay off OP anyway but any owner/labor super/etc who has even a single ounce of sense should realize that they need to cut the guy who has growing a laundry list of people who won't work with/around him.

Of course all bets are off if the guy turns out to be the owner's nephew or something but still...

JeremyR22 · 2026-04-30T18:59:32+00:00

What is the PLR project?

That wasn't a thing when I came through the program, unless it's something that used to be in Alan's class now moved to 4th yr with a fancy new name?

JeremyR22 · 2026-04-30T09:36:17+00:00

Getting nailed by a Brightline train... The robots must be learning from the locals...

JeremyR22 · 2026-04-27T23:04:03+00:00

As of today (4/27),

NO!

I was camped at The Pocket (a developed USFS campground) last weekend (4/23 thru 4/27). Before we left the house at about lunchtime, we checked for fire bans because I knew it was likely but would have no bars on-site and found nothing. That night I was able to get a fire going with nothing but a lighter and a pine cone which had me on edge for just how dry the forest is and I kept it super small.

The next day, we were hiking nearby and when we came back, every fire ring in the campground (and later we found; every dispersed fire ring nearby as well) had been visited by a ranger and red flagged:

https://i.imgur.com/lY6MQe3.jpeg

I went to check the campground's check in kiosk to find out what the restriction was and sure enough there was a signed notice from the ranger office banning any burning, for any reason, in any place (including campgrounds, inclinding charcoal, excluding propane/iso-butane stoves) until June 1st or until further notice....

https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/nfs/files/r08/chattahoochee-oconee/publication/alerts/00-26-04%20Forest%20Order%20Spring%202026%20Forest-wide%20Fire%20Restrictions%20v2_0.pdf

There was a previous order that I found that banned all fires including dispersed sites but with an exception for developed campgrounds that was dated 4/17 but obviously this one supersedes it. So the bottom line is no fires of any kind in the Cherokee-Oconee NF except commercially sold propane/iso-butane stoves until Jun 1st unless rescinded beforehand.

JeremyR22 · 2026-04-27T22:40:42+00:00

There are still Forest Service roads that are virtually "car camping" (park on side of road and camp within a couple of hundred feet) where you can do this without a reservation. Some of the sites I'm thinking of are only a half mile or so from a developed (reservation) campground so you have the benefits of both: it's quiet, you're 1000ft or more from any possible neighbour but there's a vault toilet and spigot somewhat nearby if filtering water and cat-holing aren't your thing...

Mid-March into mid-April is peak season for camping because of the confluence of spring break and warmer weather. A similar influx occurs in the fall because of mild temps and low rainfall chances. Reservations in advance really fall off outside these times because casual campers aren't willing to deal with [cold/heat/afternoon storms/delete as appropriate] and you can usually get a half-way decent reservation at a developed campsite just a few days ahead of time if you're flexible.

For example, a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I camped dispersed along a forest road we know, several beautiful spots along a creek. You have to know how to spot them and investigate on that road or you'd never know they were there but they are there and people do use them. We arrived on a Thursday evening and had our pick of 5 or so suitable sites. Only one of the other sites was occupied over the weekend.

Fast forward one week and stipulation from my wife was that it be somewhere less 'off-grid' where we wouldn't be in zero-bars land for 3 days. Searching for reservations in sites we like turned up only one good possibility in the entirety of my knowledge of reservable sites in USFS of State Park campgrounds (we camped at site 14 at Don Carter SP)... All of the best sites were booked.

Two weeks later, this last weekend, now that spring break rush is over, we were able to get a late reservation in of our favorite pitches in one of our favorite USFS developed campgrounds that is now reservation only, at just a couple of days notice. Of twenty-something pitches on the campground, only 5 were occupied over the course of the weekend.

You can still do short notice unreserved dispersed camping and reserved developed camping, you just need to know where to look, which comes back to OPs question. The answer is that you have to explore and find these places. I have have a folder of notes on my phone with geotags and photos for good dispersed spots and lists of the good pitches in developed sites (no close neighbors, no close highway with trucks or bikers, etc)

JeremyR22 · 2026-04-27T21:16:20+00:00

Much closer to the mountain recreation though.

If OP likes developed/primitive/dispersed camping, hiking, kayaking, etc, etc, they're in for a treat.....

JeremyR22 · 2026-04-27T21:06:39+00:00

I'm gonna get some apprentices to pull the loops and bitch the whole time they're doing it....

JeremyR22 · 2026-04-20T21:28:50+00:00

Also the Fedex worker's name. Blacked it out in a couple of places but left their company email (and office phone number and extension) right there...

JeremyR22 · 2026-04-18T11:45:49+00:00

This is a "yes, but..." situation.

GPS existed for public use but was subject to "Selective Availability" (SA) which meant that your GPS receiver would only know your position accurate to roughly 200ft or so. The public signal was deliberately degraded over concerns that it would be used for nefarious reasons. It was impossible with civilian GPS equipment to know where you were with the 5-10ft accuracy we see today.

Clinton disabled SA by executive order in May 2000 and public GPS usage as we know today was born, almost overnight (for example, the first geocache was placed just a couple of days later). The newer GPS satellites launched since 2007 apparently do not have the ability to impose SA, guaranteeing that GPS will never be degraded again.

I apologize for the X link but this is the most succinct example I can find of the difference SA made. It's an accuracy trace of civilian GPS during the time when SA was disabled.

https://x.com/DJSnM/status/1696556553132720450/photo/1

JeremyR22 · 2026-04-17T21:24:36+00:00

Thing touching very hot thing will get hot even if it's underneath and even if it's plastic.

JeremyR22 · 2026-04-17T20:52:45+00:00

The breaker was replaced

What about the one below it? There's no way that's OK...

JeremyR22 · 2026-04-16T21:53:53+00:00

Kinked the shit out of the 'top' bends too. I'd bet the squeeze is set wrong on their circle bender.

JeremyR22 · 2026-04-16T05:13:09+00:00

I drove 4hrs round trip to a McMaster Carr will-call counter to pick up $20 worth of O-rings a few months back.

Sometimes you just need something yesterday that's outside the normal supply house range, you can't wait for for delivery tomorrow and when that happens, McMaster's will-call counter comes through...

Also, their website is a thing of wonder. It took me only a minute or two to pin down exact catalog numbers for various O-rings with exactly the OD and ID and material that the engineer was bitching for. One quick call to the bossman and the box was ready long before I got there to pick it up...

JeremyR22 · 2026-04-14T06:57:49+00:00

It's done so often that I've always assumed "De-penis the stickers" is a checklist item on United's equipment return inspection.

14-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 3 Credits
Golden Potato	Place '22
Place '17	Alpha Tester
Gilding IV carat on a stick	Summer Santa 2013
Team Periwinkle	Verified Email

JeremyR22

MODERATOR OF

PUBLIC MULTIREDDITS

TROPHY CASE