today's wikiramble

So I needed, really needed, to know something about early telephone operators. Didn't find out what I wanted to find out, but I did find out that the first oens were teenaged boys, and that Emma Nutt was the first woman hired, and that she was hired because people thought the boys were too rude. And that's how it became a woman's ghetto. And in 1963 telephone operators were kept out of the Equal Pay Act. And that a Hungarian named Puskás Tivadar invented the multiplex switchboard, and refined its trechnology to make a telephone newspaper, where half a million people could be connected at the same time to a person reading the news, and that phone newspaper ran for trwenty years before switching to radio. Also it had opera every night and regimental bands in the afternoon. And I also found out that direct dial was invented in 1891 by a guy who thought the switchboard operators were diverting his customers to a rival.  And pay phones started in 1889.

Also, I have now a bookmark to a nearly unreadable 1911 Britannica article on the telephone.  This might could possibly just maybe come in handy later when I get more into Sasha's education, but then I might never use any of that.  Point being while Yanek is barely not dying on the front lines banging his drum in ancient battlefield communication strategies, Sasha is learning all abotu modern battlefield communication. 

Anyway, back to Yanek trying to get out of it and failing.

Andrew Marvell and his irony

The last two weeks I've gotten several units of lettuce and some broccoli and carrots and some other stuff from the Grey Bears bag. So this week I got tired of eating lettuce and broccoli and I went out to the farmers' market yesterday and got a head of cabbage and a head of cajuliflower and some garlic and a parsnip and a couple of quinces (they smell gorgeous, what can I do? I have to buy them once a year).

Guess what was in the Grey Bears bag this morning? Cauliflower and cabbage.

The distribution guy doesn't like me.  I thought it was because he doesn't like my dog, but I am not sure.  He doesn't do anything wrong -- he just doesn't like me.  It's not a crime not to like someone, but it's disconcerting when you know that someone doesn't like you.