the inch changed in 1959 from exactly 1/39.37 m to exactly 2.54 cm; the survey foot is for compatibility with large-scale measurements based on old inches.
the story seems to be set in a world that uses gas to weld steel as part of a production process, making a blue flame. are there any torches that can weld steel and make a blue flame? does anyone use manual gas welding in automotive production‽
part of the deal with cable tv a few decades ago was that the cable channels didn't have ads because you paid for them directly every month. (local stations obviously had their usual ads).
sunos4 disk devices were named like xy0a or xd2h or sd1b. the first 2 letters were the controller (xy/xd were different types of xylogics smd controllers, sd scsi), the number was the unit number, and the letter was the partition, with some fairly strong conventions (a=root, b=swap, c=whole disk, d..h=other)
i recently got an electronic product that said 中國 instead of 中国 on the label (traditional vs simplified characters). i wonder if this was meant as a subtle indication that it was from traditional-character land.
the search is to generate a valid signing key pair, where "valid" means the last 28 bits are as specified. once a poster generates such a key, they can use it for as long as it's valid.
you define a function with a clause per state (and some other args including the incoming message), and each clause returns a tuple with the new state and some other stuff. the loop is part of the framework, and handles generic otp stuff like updating code in a running system.
Standard C provides only a few ways to obtain valid pointers. implementations can define behaviors in cases that the standard leaves undefined, such as allowing more cases of casts of integers to pointers than the standard defines (common in embedded-land), or functions like mmap or sbrk. so you or your chip vendor could define FOO_REG as (uint32_t )0x80001234 and use it as if it were a variable.
Olde C used to just let you use integers as struct pointers, and there was only one struct member namespace. so code like this was valid and did an integer-size write to address 0177770. old unix did this for device register access; see the lions book.
however, the safe logoff button avoids emergency warp. in exchange for sitting in space without maneuvering or activating modules for 30 seconds, you disappear immediately when the time runs out. at least this was the mechanic a couple of years ago.
Dolby digital could be used without replacing much existing equipment: the sound head looked like it bolted right onto the 1940s-vintage projector in the one installation I've seen. would look like it belonged if the projector wasn't gray wrinkle paint and the sound head smooth black finish. yes, several parts have been updated, including the light source and a platter system, but again it looks like none of this involved doing any violence to the actual projector.