What is a hardline, anyway?
Posted May 20, 2006 @ 10:01 EDT
This week's star is the mongoose
Another entry in the "cute carnivore" series, we have the mongoose. Some mongooses are fairly smart and can learn simple tricks. They can be kept as pets to control vermin. (Your landlord will love you.) Mongooses giggle when mating. (I haven't tried that myself but I suspect it wouldn't go over so well.) One of their coolest features is that they are immune to snake neurotoxins because they have acetylcholine receptors! I guess that's why mongooses are sometimes used to hunt or fight venomous snakes.
"So, what is a 'hardline', anyway?"
We occasionally get asked this question. Some people think it means we have some kind of extremist views, or strongly-held beliefs - this is totally not the case. It's easy to understand why: dictionary.com says a "hard line" is "A firm, uncompromising policy or position".
Note that this is two words, sometimes spelled "hard-line", but more often these days spelled as one word, especially in reference to terrorists and extremist governments.
This is not us.
"Hardline" is actually a radio/telecom/TV carrier term. It refers to the sturdy, 75-ohm, shielded coax cable with aluminum sheath that you often see strung up between utility poles to carry broadband Internet and cable TV signals. Sometimes it also means a land-line phone or Ethernet connection as opposed to wireless. (Fibre optics are now mostly replacing hardline cable, but it's still around.)
— Tank, in The Matrix