More American than Australian.
There also used to be something called a “steam shovel”. But a road roller at least looks something like a steam roller. Steam shovels were replaced by Bulldozers, and then by (hydraulic) diggers/excavator/backhoe. Even our local steam heritage organisation doesn’t have a “steam shovel”
What about the metaphorical use, though? The number of times per year that I have to refer to an actual pavement smoother/roller is approximately zero, since I don’t hang around construction sites. But saying that a person/company/team/etc. got steamrolled in some encounter is reasonably common. The alternatives don’t sound so great.
What’s really weird is how corporate speak has distorted this even further. If you’re in an actual physical meeting but the discussion has started to get into the weeds, you’ll often hear “let’s take this off-line”. Where “off-line” means “let’s hash this out over email”.
"Just to make this clear, Boss, you want take this “off-line” by going ON-line?"
This reminds me of something I noticed while watching a cop show last week. The police requested a surveillance record to check for possible suspects, and one of them referred to watching the “footage”. I think there was even a mention of “rewinding” it. Of course, what they were viewing was a digital file.
(Little hijack) I wouldn’t compare those two as one is based on an existing item and the other is an abstraction. The broken circle means open circuit, whereas a circle with a dot inside means closed circuit. Eg. Off and on.
About abstraction: Better be safe than sorry.
There is a standard for information indexing that is large enough to index anything, and I really really mean anything. And on the other hand has packing rules that allows to pack the index to the barest information density as possible.
And what is it called? Abstract Syntax Notation One! So there will be Two someday? What did they miss?
The IEC won’t admit it, but it’s really just a one and zero mushed together. It evolved from toggle switches that were labeled 1 and 0. I.e., binary on and off.
Down in my basement, I still have my father’s collection of classical 78s. Each album contains several disks, usually totaling a single symphony or concerto.
Granted, usually email but in my experience it means “most of the people in this meeting don’t care (or it will take to long to resolve) so let’s talk about it later”.
Or the matter is too sensitive for everyone. It’s a good way to tell someone to STFU about that.
It’s still generally called tinfoil here. And cans are sometimes called tincans.
Amusingly, “ice box” is the literal translation of the Afrikaans word for a fridge, yskas.
someone made a working pip-boy 3000?
On steamrollers: When author Terry Pratchett died, one of the stipulations in his will was that the hard drive containing all of his future story notes and ideas be run over with a steamroller. And so his heirs went to the local historical society, and managed to get the use of an actual, old-school steamroller, to use for the purpose.
I still occasionally say “the wireless” (meaning radio). And mine is anything but wire-less, what with the FM aerial and being part of a composite audio system with all its connectors.
Working? Not so much. The screen on the kit version is just a single image with an LED behind.
Something old is new again: Collections of files are grouped together in an abstract place called a “folder”.
This is a deliberate anachronism created by Microsoft. Files were previously organized into directories and sub-directories (AFAIK, this was a Unix innovation). Microsoft deliberately chose to make a “desktop” metaphor out of everything. So your screen was called a “desktop”. Directories and subdirectories were called folders or sub-folders. (I think “in-box” and “out-box” for e-mails pre-dated Microsoft.)
Does this Abstract Syntax Notation One index everything including itself? See, that is what the Abstract Syntax Notation Two will be for.
BTW: the abbreviation ASNO reads funny in Spanish.
Not a big deal, but I thought that the Apple GUI had folders from its inception, which was definitely pre-Windows. Much of the early Windows GUI was copied directly from Apple. Can anybody confirm or refute?
Unix and DOS also had “folders” long before Windows, only that they were called “directories”. Then some time Microsoft decided to call them “folders” (since Win95?), but technically a directory and a folder are exactly the same thing. (I still switch between both terms all the time.)
Apple’s Mac GUI was itself based on (or copied) Xerox’s Alto, including, apparently, the use of folders; Alto was introduced in 1973, but, as with much of what Xerox developed at their PARC facility, other companies wound up being the ones to successfully commercialize it.