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I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

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Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#231

Post by graemep »

mrob wrote: post #108
graemep wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a weird mix in the UK, distances are measured in miles, and speed limits are set in miles per hour, but fuel is sold in litres, for example. People get very worked up about it too. People got very worked up about a government proposal to allow people to put imperial units on food in larger type than metric (at the moment it has to be metric larger - or at least the same size). Everything in engineering and scie…

Distances in the UK are measured in miles and yards (or fractions of a mile). Google Maps gets this wrong and uses miles and feet. I don't think many people in the UK have a good intuition for how far 500ft is.

TomTom Amigo uses miles and yards. I think OSMAnd does too.

I tend to think in metres at that scale but a yard is near enough.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#232

Post by [deleted] »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #119
remram wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odd take. It seems perfectly natural that the country using different sizes from everybody else would be aware of that fact, but that a country using the same size as 95% of the world might not know about the weirdo sizes used by those 5%.

Fair but if you’re going to diss, at least be aware it’s not just one country :) (I’ve never lived in the country you’re thinking of, and all the countries I’ve lived in use non-ISO216 paper sizes).

[deleted]

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#233

Post by pasc1878 »

spiffytech wrote: post #175
diggan wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I date food we put in the fridge/freezer What date are you putting on the food? Every packaging here in Spain (and Europe I assume) has both the production date and "best before" dates printed on them from the factory, and stuff that doesn't have packaging you know if they're bad by looking/smelling/tasting.

When I open milk, I write the date on the cap to help keep track of how long it'll remain good.

Much easier to just drink enough so there is no chance of that happening.

But then I am in UK where milk is easily obtained in 2 pint or less packages and is all long term - over a week. It is harder to gat 4 int or gallon containers which I think are more common in the US.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#234

Post by programjames »

bongodongobob wrote: post #220
ryandrake wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure if it's being exaggerated for comedic purposes but it is interesting to me how alien the act of sending a letter by post is to the author. It was pretty recognizable as trolling--the very good and clever "old school Internet" style of trolling where it sounds plausible and sincere, but then you get done reading it and say, "Oh lawd, he got me! Good one!" The kind of writing that people used to spend a lot…

> I refuse to believe there are adults out there where things like using a pen to write and mailing a letter are alien concepts that need to be learned. Well, believe it. I'm in my 40s and haven't written a letter since I was a kid. Why would I ever have to? Ask someone who was born in 2003 if they've ever written and mailed a letter. 99% are going to say no.

As someone born in 2003, I did this just last week when filing my tax returns.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#235

Post by pasc1878 »

sph wrote: post #102
gwd wrote: post #14

> Writing the address on the envelope was awkward, as I haven’t used a pen in several years; it took a few attempts and some wasted envelopes... Wow -- I mean, sure, I don't use a pen that often, but I'm sure I hand-write something at least once a month...

My hand writing got rusty and awkward until I read that writing something by hand is shown to strengthen one's memory and recollection. It definitely seems to be the case for me and has made me much more organised. Now I journal on a paper notebook, take daily notes on a whiteboard and I'm rediscovering index cards for long term storage, but I wish real life had a search function. If I had an automated scanning + OCR…

Try using a tablet with hand written notes. There are programs (or even applications that replace the popup keyboard ) that will convert your writing into computer text.

I think that gives the improved retention plus easy filing of the result and if your writing is like mine the ability to actually read what you wrote a year before.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#236

Post by dunham »

AlbinoDrought wrote: post #224
bluGill wrote: post #30

At least he got a response. Meaning the address didn't change mostly. A few years back I worked on an embedded linux project. For our first "alpha" release one of the testers read through the license agreement (as opposed to scrolling past all that legalese like most people do) and found the address to write to to get all the GPL source, he then send a letter to the address and it was returned to sender, invalid addr…

The Free Software Foundation closed their office at 51 Franklin St in August 2024 [1]. Their new mailing address is on 31 Milk Street [2]. If this test was reproduced today, we may see different results ;) [1]: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/fsf-office-closing-party [2]: https://www.fsf.org/about/contact/mailing

That's recent enough that mail forwarding should work, if they set it up:

> Standard mail forwarding lasts 12 months. You can pay to extend mail forwarding for 6, 12, or 18 more months (18 months is the maximum).

Edit for source: https://www.usps.com/manage/forward.htm

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#237

Post by coldpie »

int_19h wrote: post #210
coldpie wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, every system has pros & cons. I think the lack of an approximately-one-foot (30 cm) unit in metric is clumsy to work around, and I think degrees-C are too wide. We can argue about the details if you find it fun ("yards in a mile" does not come up all the time), but they're all evolved from hundreds of years of usage, and that means they all work fine at the end of the day.

> I think the lack of an approximately-one-foot (30 cm) unit in metric is clumsy to work around What's clumsy about 30cm though? If you are working at scales where this level of precision is needed, you can just use cm throughout, and the beauty of metric is that even someone who has never had to do that before will know immediately how much it is because conversion to meters (or millimeters, or whatever the primary…

> would be a massive improvement

This is where we disagree. It would be a small improvement at best. Most of what you're pointing out are the awkward corner cases that just don't come up or, like you said, we already have other solutions for. Outside of some specialties, pretty much no one needs to know how many cups are in a gallon or yards in a mile or what a nautical mile is. I don't know those things, and I somehow get by OK.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#238

Post by hk__2 »

wongarsu wrote: post #227
spiffytech wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I open milk, I write the date on the cap to help keep track of how long it'll remain good.

My method is that I assume it's gone bad when it tastes sour.

Yeah, no need to write anything down when you already have a detector built-in in your body called "nose+tongue" (well, at least for milk).

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#239

Post by mattl »

AlbinoDrought wrote: post #224
bluGill wrote: post #30

At least he got a response. Meaning the address didn't change mostly. A few years back I worked on an embedded linux project. For our first "alpha" release one of the testers read through the license agreement (as opposed to scrolling past all that legalese like most people do) and found the address to write to to get all the GPL source, he then send a letter to the address and it was returned to sender, invalid addr…

The Free Software Foundation closed their office at 51 Franklin St in August 2024 [1]. Their new mailing address is on 31 Milk Street [2]. If this test was reproduced today, we may see different results ;) [1]: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/fsf-office-closing-party [2]: https://www.fsf.org/about/contact/mailing

I wrote a little more about the various offices as someone who used to work there.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43783632

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#240

Post by dheera »

ryandrake wrote: post #201
NoboruWataya wrote: post #3

Not sure if it's being exaggerated for comedic purposes but it is interesting to me how alien the act of sending a letter by post is to the author. Granted I don't send them very often but I wouldn't think much of it if I had to. But I guess younger people and particularly those in tech may genuinely never need a reason to send a letter (or, it seems, write an address by hand).

> Not sure if it's being exaggerated for comedic purposes but it is interesting to me how alien the act of sending a letter by post is to the author. It was pretty recognizable as trolling--the very good and clever "old school Internet" style of trolling where it sounds plausible and sincere, but then you get done reading it and say, "Oh lawd, he got me! Good one!" The kind of writing that people used to spend a lot…

Once I had to send an international RMA that they wouldn't pay for the shipping. It went something like this:

0. Went to Fedex to check on the shipping cost for this tiny box. It was $120 so I passed

1. Went to USPS, found that they were closed, the only option was a 30 minute line to use the machine. Lined up for 30 minutes, found that it the goddamn UI on the machine did not support international shipments.

2. Went home to generate a USPS international shipping label. $25, much more acceptable. FedEx should be out of business.

3. I didn't have a 2D printer at home, tried to 3D print the shipping label with 1 layer of white and 1 layer of black but it wasn't high resolution enough in the X/Y direction for the label to be readable so I gave up

4. Went to FedEx to use their 2D printers but realized I forgot my USB drive at home

5. Went home to get my USB drive

6. Back to FedEx, realized I forgot my mask (this was COVID times, so no go)

7. Went home to get my mask

8. Back to FedEx, printed the 2D shipping label

9. Back to USPS, found out they had no tape

10. Back to FedEx to buy a roll of tape because I don't know where the hell else to buy tape same day, and all my tape at home are electrical tape, teflon tape, or Gorilla tape

11. Back to USPS and the stupid package drop box had a mechanical issue preventing it from opening more than a few cm, not enough to fit my package

12. Went to another USPS to drop the package

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