Decades ago, after a torrential rainstorm with deep water in some streets, a co-worker gave me a ride home in his little British sports car. For part of the trip he drove up a driveway and onto the sidewalk. The car’s track was just narrow enough to make it without grooving anyone’s lawn.
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Loud Thunder’s essay above about right/left side of the road driving conventions is pretty good. I hadn’t thought about how getting on a horse would affect the issue, but it definitely makes sense that a horse rider would prefer to stand on the side of the road when mounting and dismounting, so would tend to ride the horse on the left side of the road too. Reminds me of the time one of my high school buddies decided to get on a horse from the right, didn’t end well … lol … The left/right convention issue hasn’t gone away, had to deal with it today in fact, not driving a car on the road, but riding a bike on local pedestrian/bicycles trails.
I have heard the wagon theory for why Americans drive on the right. I think that type of wagon is called a Conestoga. Don’t remember the name’s origin.
I’m just glad every state is the same. Thinking of Hollywood though, it seems that in western towns all the hotels, saloons, and general stores are on the right side. Roll into town and tie your horse up without having to make a u turn.
I guess that depends on which end of town you come in from. 
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L
Three cheers for Clara Ford!
I spent several months in Japan on a project. I noticed in Tokyo that people walked in the left side of the walkway, where most people in the US walk in the right. I wonder if it’s the same in other countries (e.g., Londoner’s walk on the left), following the driving side convention?
Just finished watching educational DVD @Bing recommended, Unsung WWII Heroes. The Enigma episode was about the Polish involvement. While viewing the episode I did recall mention of Polish involvement in my readings, but thought it was that the Poles had bought or stole an Enigma machine in the 1930’s. Turned out it wasn’t a stolen German built Enigma machine; instead the Pole-team built a reproduction Enigma based on documents they had obtained in their investigation on cracking the code. While the Pole-team’s work made it considerably easier for the Brits to get started on cracking the WWII version of Enigma, the WWII version was considerably more complicated and couldn’t have been done w/o “The Bomb”, the home-brew code-cracking computer Turing’s team constructed.
I think the Brit’s floated that stolen machine story to save face or just because they couldn’t conceive anyone being smarter than them. On the same dvd they wouldn’t allow the superior polish pilots to fight until they had to or lose. Hubris in spades.
I’ve probably got 30=40 of those course and they are all excellent except a couple. The guy doing great presidents is a hack, and the one on Indian resettlement is pretty one sided. Otherwise they are excellent. Some other good ones are founding fathers, federalist papers, civil war, ww2, etc. on some I’m on my second or third go around. There is one on utopia too that is telling. The professors are top notch from around the country and the courses are college level.
Ok, here’s back at all you “Shade Tree” cryptographers. What word is a completely different word by simply capitalizing it?
While you are thinking, do you remember your teachers back it school pounding this Spelling Rule into you? It’s “I before E, except after C” and it is a mnemonic rule of thumb for English spelling.
But did any of you ever think that your teacher just might be trying to “deceive” you?
Ok, I am not trying to “pressure” you but someone might think I am trying to highjack the topic… Buy the way, I already gave you the word, did you get it?
There are indeed some words where “e” comes before “i”. Tend to have Germanic roots. One example, Jerry Seinfeld. Oh, and "deceive " …lol …
By “completely different”, I presume you mean this mystery word has a completely different meaning in all Caps vs small letters. hmmm … seems like it could be a word when in all capitals it refers to an organization. If nasa meant “nose” for example (which it doesn’t), it would have different meaning than NASA.
OK, it’s time to clear the air and answer the challenge to all the “Shade Tree Cryptographers”
If you remember, I quoted "VCD Driver’s remark…
And i guess I should have also included B.L.E.'s remark…
The answer to, “What word is a completely different word by simply capitalizing it?” is “Polish” which is in the VDCdriver’s original quote as it was referring to the nationality of the original cryptographers who beat the Brits to the solution.
And to keep this posting "automotive in nature, if it is not capitalized, it is “polish” which is what you do to your vehicle to keep it nice and shiny…
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