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A typical signal cabinet has a conflict monitor, also called a malfunction management unit, that’s physically distinct from the controller. It supervises the controller outputs and can force the signal to all-way flashing red if green (or yellow or WALK) is shown for conflicting phases or if red or DON’T WALK is missing. More sophisticated units can also detect problems with sequencing or change or clearance interval timing.

Some B2B websites require e-mail validation at each login as a way to confirm that the user’s organizational affiliation remains valid.

Being able to read mail sent to an @example.com address doesn’t prove someone is an employee of Example Co., of course, but the inability to read such mail suggests that the user’s affiliation may have ended and that access granted by virtue of it should be blocked, at least for the time being.

Single sign-on is usually a better method for this, but it’s not always practicable to set up.

If you’re wondering, as I was, who Amateur Radio Digital Communications is and how they have money to make grants, it’s the foundation that sold a quarter of the 44.0.0.0/8 IPv4 address block, allocated in 1981 for use in amateur radio, to Amazon in 2019 for $109 million.

FS.COM Limited (深圳市飞速创新技术股份有限公司, https://cn.fs.com/) was founded in Shenzhen in 2009. They’ve applied to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange; here’s the draft prospectus from a month ago:

https://www1.hkexnews.hk/app/sehk/2025/107950/documents/sehk...

I liked An Answer for Linda (1961), which shows the work of outward toll operators using mark-sensing call tickets at traditional (3CL) cord switchboards. “Watch Billie closely, as she handles a group of typical calls.”

(I won’t spoil the Answer; you’ll have to watch for yourself.)

https://archive.org/details/GjEpnTcLgq1eTUR90yMhdcJMvFmMuw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq1zu4fJaO0

You forgot SMPTE 170M, which is probably the definitive standard at this point:

https://pub.smpte.org/doc/st170/20041130-pub/st0170-2004_sta...

RJ45S and RJ45M are ordering codes for so-called “registered jack” configurations for terminal connections to the U.S. telephone network. These codes were defined until 2000 in the FCC Rules (47 CFR § 68.502(e)) and later in the TIA/EIA-IS-968 standard, and they refer to single and multiple arrangements of two wires and a programming resistor on a miniature eight-position keyed jack.

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2000-title47-vol3/pd...

Unfortunately, the “RJ45” part of these codes has become a metonym for the unkeyed version of the miniature eight-position jack and plug, now widely used for Ethernet and other purposes, but strictly speaking, RJ45 refers to a different connector with totally incompatible wiring.

Interesting. The left side of the slide at 15:43 in the video is definitely from page 27 of Symbol Sourcebook, but the detail of the ⌘ symbol doesn’t seem to be: not only could I not find the symbol, but also its caption (“FEATURE”) is set in Helvetica rather than Univers as used in the book.

Symbol Sourcebook would’ve been my first guess, too, but I just glanced through my copy (7th printing, 1977) and didn’t see the ⌘ symbol. The closest thing in the Graphic Form Section is a symbol for “Atomic d orbital,” but it’s clearly not the same one that inspired Susan Kare.

The treaty returning sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius, disestablishing the British Indian Ocean Territory, seems to be on track for ratification:

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...

The consequences for the .IO ccTLD are still unclear and ultimately will depend on how the United Nations, the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency, and ICANN respond. I’m not aware of anything more definitive than ICANN’s blog posting from November 2024, which emphasizes that “much of the discussion about .io is simply speculation” but also acknowledges the possibility that “a five-year time window will commence during which time usage of the domain will need to be phased out.”

https://www.icann.org/en/blogs/details/the-chagos-archipelag...

I wouldn’t use a .IO domain name for anything important.

I’ve always thought of Kerberos as a centralized authentication system, to establish users’ identities.

Authorization, in the sense of deciding to allow or deny a requested action by a known user on a specific object, remains distributed, even with Kerberos. For example, a Windows file server, having received a Kerberos ticket showing a user’s identity and security group memberships, consults its own access control lists to determine what operations to allow on files and directories.

The article here argues that those authorization decisions should also be centralized, presumably using the sponsor’s “cloud-native authorization platform,” instead of being made within each service or application.

Both links worked earlier, but they don’t work for me now, either.

Anyway, the data sheet explains how the manufacturer tested the tape’s effectiveness with rats. The Wayback Machine has a copy:

https://web.archive.org/web/20201017204509/https://www.terao...

The manufacturer’s product page, with a link to the MSDS:

https://www.teraokatape.co.jp/english/products/class/class00...

Data sheet describing the “rat prevention effect”:

https://www.teraokatape.co.jp/english/products/Rat_Preventio...

DFSMS: Data Facility Storage Management Subsystem

DFSMSdfp: Data Facility Product

DFSMSdss: Data Set Services

DFSMSrmm: Removable Media Manager

DFSMShsm: Hierarchical Storage Manager

DFSMStvs: Transactional VSAM Services

DFSMSopt: Optimizer

See ABCs of z/OS System Programming Volume 3 (SG24-6983), https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg246983.pdf.

I agree with the advice to ask a lawyer, but it’s sensible to be concerned with license agreements even in early-stage ventures that couldn’t enforce them.

By establishing the company as licensor, an agreement might help the founders avoid personal liability if a customer sues. Later on, it may be desirable to show potential acquirers that, from the company’s inception, its customer contracts included terms to confirm ownership of intellectual property, limit liability, satisfy privacy laws, and so on.

Yes. “Freight collect” means the recipient pays the carrier for transportation; it implies nothing about payment for the goods.

“COD” (collect on delivery) means the carrier collects a specified amount of money—typically, the price of the goods plus transportation—from the recipient, on behalf of the seller, as a condition of delivery.

I have the now-discontinued Sony DPT-RP1, which I use with Jan-Gerd Tenberge’s software (https://github.com/janten/dpt-rp1-py). It works well for reading PDF documents without the need for frequent zooming or scaling.

If I had to replace it today, I’d buy a Fujitsu Quaderno A4 (FMVDP41), which I understand has a design very similar to that of the Sony product.

> It is not legal to operate a remote transmitter site without [...]

47 CFR § 73.1400(b) permits operation with “a self-monitoring or ATS-monitored and controlled transmission system that, in lieu of contacting a person designated by the licensee, automatically takes the station off the air within three hours of any technical malfunction which is capable of causing interference” (emphasis added).

This doesn’t change the licensee’s basic responsibility “for assuring that at all times the station operates [...] in accordance with the terms of the station authorization,” of course.

> in what ways were they operating noncompliantly?

If the station was off the air and the licensee didn’t notify the FCC within 10 days and seek a silent STA within 30 days, that would violate 47 CFR § 73.1740(a)(4).

The website claims “Design, Construction and Operation according to US SUBSAFE.” I’d want that for my submarine, of course, but I wonder if it’s realistic.

I’d understood that SUBSAFE was a comprehensive program applied to U.S. Navy submarines by the Naval Sea Systems Command, not merely a published standard with which one could comply without extensive, ongoing involvement by NAVSEA, which presumably has no mandate to support foreign yacht builders.

The author writes, about his purchases of computers, phones, and other hardware, “These are not recurring so I can't count them in.”

Here in the U.S., many such items would be considered capital assets, for which the cost would be recognized as an expense over time through depreciation, for both management accounting and tax purposes. It appears Romanian practice is similar; see “Depreciation” on this page:

https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/romania/corporate/deductions

Those are the new Inside Macintosh series, published starting in 1992. SpInside Macintosh, the HyperCard stack from which the web page linked in this item was created, was produced from the first five volumes of the original Inside Macintosh series, published from 1985 to 1991.

As the Preface to Inside Macintosh: Overview (1992) explains:

  The original Inside Macintosh library of books appeared in six volumes from
  1985 to 1991. Those volumes each focused on a particular version of the
  system software, sometimes prompted by the release of new hardware
  configurations. Often, the later volumes of the original Inside Macintosh
  described only new system software components or changes to existing
  system software components.

  The new Inside Macintosh books are intended to replace the original Inside
  Macintosh books and to provide a more complete and more useful reference to
  the Macintosh system software. The most obvious improvement in the new
  books is that they are organized principally by topic. For example, the book
  Inside Macintosh: Files contains virtually all the available information related to
  files, including complete descriptions of the File Manager, the Standard File
  Package, the Alias Manager, and the Disk Initialization Manager. Similarly,
  the book Inside Macintosh: Text contains all information about handling text.
  This topic-oriented organization of books makes it easier for you to find the
  information you need. It also makes it easier for Apple to add books to the
  Inside Macintosh suite as new technologies emerge in the years ahead.

If only they’d kept that up...

If customers know what they’re buying, and unsubscribing is convenient, then I see no ethical problem with selling limited-term licenses—but as you mentioned, some potential customers might choose not to buy.

Depending on the purpose of the software, it might be reasonable to require a current subscription only to enter new data or to perform new calculations, while allowing customers to view and export their existing data in perpetuity.

On your specific text:

- What if the AI is supplied by a vendor but runs on a computer system controlled by the user or by a third party? This could happen if the user doesn’t want, or isn’t allowed, to disclose the inputs or their derivatives.

- Assuming there’s a need to mandate cryptographic digital signatures at all, why require certificates and PKI? Wouldn’t it suffice for the signer to announce a public key and, if necessary, its revocation?

- Cryptographic signatures are still overwhelmingly the exception, not the rule, in legal evidence. Courts routinely admit ordinary paper and electronic business records, authenticated, when necessary, by their creators or custodians. (See, for example, Rules 901 and 902 in the Federal Rules of Evidence.) Digital signatures might not make this easier; consider the potential for conflicting expert testimony about signing and key management schemes and their weaknesses.

More generally:

As a professional engineer who uses my own and others’ software, I don’t think an AI model is fundamentally different from a spreadsheet, a card deck with a FORTRAN program, or a table or formula in a printed handbook. If I’m relying on something for my work, it’s my professional responsibility to assess its validity, suitability for purpose, and limitations; to know how to use it properly; and to interpret and evaluate its output.

The standard of care with which I do those things, the nature and extent of any documentation I might produce, and the arrangements for the retention, protection, and future authentication of those materials in case of a dispute, will vary with the circumstances, including the potential for harm to the client or to the public and my own organization’s appetite for risk.

Perhaps your context is different, but I hesitate to endorse a highly prescriptive approach. Engineering regulators use very broad language; for example, Florida’s rule says only, “The engineer shall be responsible for the results generated by any computer software and hardware that he or she uses in providing engineering services” [1], and Professional Engineers Ontario has guidelines [2] but not specific standards.

[1] Florida Administrative Code, Rule 61G15-30.008

[2] “Professional Engineers Using Software-Based Engineering Tools,” April 2011, https://www.peo.on.ca/sites/default/files/2019-07/Profession...

Security was Microsoft’s stated reason for a similar change in 2017, when they removed the ability to insert EPS images into Microsoft Office documents:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/support-for-eps-i...

You could also use memorandum, journal, and ledger books, just as Pacioli taught in 1494, but why waste your limited time and attention on a problem for which you have a choice of good, off-the-shelf solutions at modest prices? (Think QuickBooks, not SAP.)

As your startup grows, you’ll engage an accountant and hire a bookkeeper or business manager, who will expect to work in the traditional accounting cycle. You’ll also need to produce the usual reports and financial statements for your bankers, investors, or a potential acquirer’s due diligence team.

Using software designed for the purpose makes all this easier and more reliable. It also conveys that your company is serious about its business: investors want to take a risk on your technology, market, and execution, not on whether your homebrew accounting system can generate an accurate cash flow statement.

In context, “foreign” means an entity registered in another state or country. See the FAQ:

  Can I register my out-of-state DAO?
    No. A certificate of authority for a foreign DAO cannot be filed
    pursuant to W.S. 17-31-116.

> I'm pleased to see that SuperCard still exists!

Just barely. There’s not a 64-bit version (for lack of Carbon libraries), much less one for ARM64. The developers suggest using a VM:

https://www.supercard.us/supercard-in-parallels.html

For an interesting look at one of the early ATM networks, see Gifford and Spector’s article, “Case Study: The CIRRUS Banking Network,” Communications of the ACM, August 1985. It’s posted here as an exhibit in a patent case:

https://ptabdata.blob.core.windows.net/files/2017/CBM2017-00...

For Deming’s own ideas, such as the 14 Points, see his book Out of the Crisis (1986), reprinted by MIT Press.

For the practical application of control charts and other techniques (due originally to Shewhart and others), see the Statistical Quality Control Handbook (Western Electric, 1958) or, for a more up-to-date treatment, the NIST/SEMATCH e-Handbook of Statistical Methods:

https://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/index.htm

The prefix “AO” in the name of a Russian business entity is like the suffix “Co.” in English; it’s an abbreviation for aktsionernoye obshchestvo (акционерное общество), joint-stock company.