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PaperclipPerfector  11hr ago (text post)   431 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 10, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Item 1 of 3

Are there any traffic-sign designs that annoy you? (For reference, the US uses the MUTCD (Manual on Uniform Traffic-Control Devices), while several dozen other countries use ECE/TRANS/196 (the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals) plus local standards (such as UKGBNI's Traffic Signs Manual).)

  • MUTCD sign R10-12, "left turn yield on green 🟢": This is redundant! It should be "left turn yield on green circle" or "left turn yield on green ⬤" instead of "left turn yield on green [green circle]".

  • MUTCD sign W4-2L/R, "left/right lane ends": On most US traffic signs (see, e. g., sign W4-3L/R, "added lane on left/right"), thin lines (around 1.5 or 2 inches on a 36-inch sign) represent both lane lines and road edges, while thick lines with arrowheads (around 4 or 5 inches) represent traffic movements. For many years, I have been utterly baffled by the decision to denote road edges with thick lines (without arrowheads) on this sign only. IMO, the unusual thickness of these lines, especially in conjunction with the thin line representing a lane line on the same sign, invites the motorist to misinterpret them as traffic movements rather than as road edges. (Compare UKGBNI diagram 871.2, "reduction in number of traffic lanes ahead", which on a 1260-mm (50-inch) sign uses thin lines (30 or 45 mm, 1.1 or 1.8 inches) for both lane lines and road edges and thick lines (80 mm, 3.1 inches) with arrowheads for traffic movements. See also the code chart's semi-official rendition of Unicode character â›™, "white left lane merge", which uses thin lines for lane lines and thick lines for road edges.)

Item 2 of 3

Front-page news on Reddit: Microsoft Publisher, a program for laying out printed (or at least page-based) works, is being discontinued. Competitors include Adobe InDesign (1 2 3), QuarkXPress (1 2 3), and Scribus. (Microsoft recommends Word and PowerPoint as replacements.)

At present, HTML+CSS is focused on the layout of a single webpage that can be as tall as it needs to be (1 2), and is unable to deal with such items as page numbers and section titles in page headers, footnotes in page footers, and page-number references for intra-document links. CSS Generated Content, CSS Paged Media, and CSS Generated Content for Paged Media technically exist, but only in draft form, not ready for implementation. It's my understanding that these drafts are based largely on the work of companies that have developed their own nonstandard solutions for problems that standard CSS fails to address—e. g., Prince XML, Antenna House Formatter, and BFO Publisher—just as other CSS standards have been based on the nonstandard work of major browsers. In particular, the acknowledgements section for CSS GCPM specifically states: "This work would not be possible without the immense contributions of Håkon Wium Lie." Lie, the creator of CSS, has been the chairman of Prince XML's board since year 2004 (1 2).

Item 3 of 3

Front-page news in Nowheresville, USA: A lawyer is removed from a county courtroom after rejecting the judge's instruction that he wear a tie.

According to the transcript, [lawyer Travis] Petty argued privately to [Judge Gary] Norton that the tie requirement is a violation of equal protection.

"But I disagree," Norton said. "It has always been that way. It was never a violation of equal protection, it's not now—in my career. I witnessed Judge Keller have a lawyer leave the courtroom who was wearing a nice sweater and no tie. It has always been that way."

"Segregation was once a thing, Your Honor, too. We have evolved from that," Petty said. "I also assert my First Amendment rights to not wear a tie."

"Your honor, you can have the sheriff escort me out of the courtroom," Petty said.

The transcript shows Norton then apologized to Petty's clients, advising both to find an attorney who will comply with the rules of court, postpone the hearings until Petty would agree to appear wearing a tie, or represent themselves.

Both chose to proceed with their hearings without Petty or another attorney representing them.

"I stopped wearing a tie within the last six months," Petty said Wednesday. "It's time to take a stand for equality and justice."

But his decision not to wear a tie started out as something else.

Petty said he initially refused to wear a tie in [former judge Tony] McDonald's court because he disagreed with McDonald's appointment to the bench. McDonald was a judge for less than a year before he lost the seat to David James in an election last year.

In that year, McDonald also stopped court and asked Petty to wear a tie. Petty refused. McDonald said he chose not to ban Petty from the courtroom, and allowed the day's cases to be heard because he did not want to embarrass Petty.

"Fortunately, he lost the election before I had the opportunity to appear before him again," Petty said.

Neither man denies they dislike each other—and each questioned the other's professionalism during interviews Wednesday.

Petty said last week he appeared in court dressed similarly to Erin Cosoleto-Miller, an assistant district attorney. Both wore slacks, a collared shirt and dress shoes. As a woman, Cosoleto-Miller is not required to wear a tie, Petty noted.

And neither should he, Petty said.

"The court can't impose different roles for different genders," Petty said. "I respect that the court has the authority to control decorum, and a need to do that, but there are gender-neutral ways of achieving that result."

Petty said he argued that case to Norton in the hallway, but it fell on deaf ears.

"He said, 'This is the way it's always been done,'" Petty said. "I attempted to make a gender equality argument, but he shut it down and said he wasn't willing to entertain that type of argument."

He intends to file a motion requesting that Norton reconsider. If that fails, Petty said he will file an appeal to the state Superior Court and is willing to make his argument to the state and even federal Supreme Courts.

A few days later, the lawyer makes the front page again—he sues McDonald for allegedly defaming him in a Facebook post responding to the news.

In the lawsuit filed this week, which included the post as an exhibit, Petty emphasizes that McDonald described the PFA in the present tense, even though it was withdrawn some two months ago: "[McDonald] said that the plaintiff (Petty) HAS a PFA against him by his wife," and that Petty was "abusing his children and wife."

McDonald said Wednesday that Petty pointed out a female district attorney was not told to wear a tie. The then-judge told Petty he could wear a dress if he wanted, so long as he dressed professionally.

In the suit filed Tuesday, Petty says McDonald's Facebook post "alluded" to his being transgender by making mention of McDonald's giving Petty permission to wear a dress in court and offering to refer to him as "miss, they them."

Petty also takes issue with McDonald's claims Petty "smacked" him in the chest with files while the two spoke in the hallway outside the courtroom.

Petty said Wednesday he never touched McDonald, and such an action would be considered contempt of court or even a felony assault charge.

As for Petty's refusal to wear a tie, he has not yet filed his promised motion asking Judge Norton to reconsider the court order mandating that he wear one.

He said at least for now he is focusing on suing McDonald for defamation.

But he has found case law from New Jersey to support his case against neckwear. "A female attorney was thrown out of court for wearing pants," he said. "New Jersey Superior Court ruled that judges can't make a woman wear a skirt or dress. I just want non-gender specific rules to apply in court."

MUTCD sign R10-12, "left turn yield on green 🟢"

At least around here, it seems these are (slowly) getting replaced with a flashing yellow arrow, with an equivalent sign. A bit confusing at first, but I think it makes sense that it would use a typical "proceed with caution" indicator, not a "go".

The use of a flashing yellow arrow to indicate a permissive left turn was approved by the feds on an experimental basis in 2006 (Interim Approval 10) and on a permanent basis in 2009 (in the previous edition of the MUTCD). But adding an extra yellow arrow to a signal is a lot of money to spend, just to remind motorists of the default rule that they should be following anyway (on a green circle when neither a green arrow nor a "no left turn" sign is present).

This is a sensible signal but the implementation around me has been terrible. The left turn signal is a 3-stack of arrows, green, yellow, and red. The first part of the turn is a protected left, so it's a green arrow during this segment. Near the end of the protected left segment, it switches to solid yellow for 3 seconds. Now, my expectation would be that if the next period is unprotected turning, it would flash yellow, and it does, but not before turning solid red for 1 second. Every time I start proceeding on the yellow, expecting it to turn flashing, the solid red causes me to stomp the brakes in case I've made a mistake and the direction is changing. It's infuriating, and I wonder if anybody else has this terrible implementation in their area.

(My preference would be for it to transition immediately from green to flashing yellow - why do we need a warning that we're about to proceed with caution?)

Under MUTCD § 4F.01 ¶ 03:

my expectation would be that if the next period is unprotected turning, it would flash yellow, and it does, but not before turning solid red for 1 second

This is the default under item F.6.

My preference would be for it to transition immediately from green to flashing yellow

This is permitted (not recommended or required) under item F.6.b.

If you feel like making a long shot, you can try asking your jurisdiction about this signal, citing these specific passages of the MUTCD in your complaint.

Steady and flashing signal indications shall be applied as follows:

(F) A steady YELLOW ARROW signal indication:

(6) Shall be terminated by a RED ARROW signal indication for the same direction or a CIRCULAR RED signal indication except:

(b) When the movement controlled by the arrow is to continue on a permissive mode basis during an immediately following signal phase, the display of a CIRCULAR GREEN signal indication or flashing YELLOW ARROW signal indication shall be permitted following a steady YELLOW ARROW signal indication. To provide a red clearance interval, it shall be permitted to display a steady left-turn RED ARROW signal indication immediately following the steady left-turn YELLOW ARROW signal indication.

A friend of mine was in charge of signs and pavement markings for PennDOT District 6 before his retirement a few years ago. I once engaged him as an expert witness in a traffic case, just because I liked the idea of bringing in an expert to fight a speeding ticket. I'll have to ask him if there are any signs that annoy him, but he seems more irritated by poor implementation. A town near where he grew up made a bunch of traffic "improvements" that PennDOT thought were necessary but everyone else was against, and when the project was complete he drove down there to take a look and said that whatever other problems there were with the plan they got the signs wrong. He refuses to go into Pittsburgh because he doesn't like the way they do their signs.

In other sign-related news, there's an increasing problem, mostly in rural areas, of people, and especially large trucks, getting stuck on bad roads. This is the inevitable result of people blindly relying on GPS, not realizing that it will direct them onto anything open for vehicular traffic regardless of surface, winter maintenance status, etc. Some municipalities have responded by posting signs that say "No GPS Route" on roads where this is a particular problem. My friend told me that these were not MUTCD approved signs, and that they were posted on local roads (that don't strictly follow Federal guidelines) and not state roads, but that he thought that the MUTCD should adopt something similar, since one of the most frequent constituent complaints he received was trucks getting stuck on roads they had no business being on.

when the project was complete he drove down there to take a look and said that whatever other problems there were with the plan they got the signs wrong

LOL. Just a few weeks ago I myself sent to PennDOT a complaint about some signs that were blatantly wrong. Multiple signs all said "left lane ends, merge right", but in reality the right lane ended and motorists had to merge left! And I drove past these signs for many months before I got around to making the complaint. I imagine the lawsuit resulting from a crash at that location would be legendary. (No standards compliance? No design immunity!)

he thought that the MUTCD should adopt something similar

MUTCD-compliant signs serving this purpose already exist.

  • R3-1: "trucks over XX tons no right turn"

  • R5-2: "no trucks"

  • R12 series: "weight limit XX tons", "axle weight limit XX tons", "weight limit 2 axles XX T, 3 axles YY T, 4 axles ZZ T", etc.

  • W8 series: "pavement ends", "loose gravel", "rough road", etc.

Presumably the municipal governments are just too incompetent to install them (and pass ordinances backing up the R (regulatory) signs).

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