A highway interchange that allows vehicles to change from one roadway to the other without requiring any left turns or crossings. Seen from the traffic chopper, it resembles a four leafed clover.

Sometimes they came with electronic signs that light up with the words "TOO FAST" if you take the turn at excessive speed. You don't see these much anymore, probably because people thought it was a challenge. Not me, of course. Ahem.

A name for a key on mac keyboards.

Most mac addicts don't know why the heck Apple chose a cloverleaf for the key. The original Apple IIs only had an "Open Apple"(White) and "Closed Apple"(Black) on the keyboard. When Apple developed the Macintosh, they wanted broad changes, new ideas, and cooler looking.

The engineers looked everywhere. Finally, one of the employees (her name escapes me) finally saw the cloverleaf in a book. The symbol is Swedish, and means "Power."

Looking at it, it is pretty cool, but confusing for First Time Users, as well, as tech support had diffiulty describing it on the phone. As a result, Apple kept the Apple key logo on the same key, and they never got around to phasing out the older Apple symbol.

The most popular names are Command and Cloverleaf, or just the Apple Key.

A few evenings a month see me taking a different route home from work, stopping at a local restaurant to pick up dinner before heading home.  It gives me an excuse to use the expressway, rather than waiting at 20 or so traffic lights on the way home.

So one particular evening, I was driving along when I saw cars trying to take an off-ramp backed up several hundred yards into the right lane.   "Good thing that's not my exit", thought I, and put it out of my head.

I was just past the point of no return when I realized, "Oh, dammit, that was my exit." But I didn't worry, this was a full cloverleaf.   So instead of following this path to get from point X to point Y:

\\            Y\  //
 \\             \//
  \\            //\
   \\__________//
   /\\  ____  //\
  /  \\/    \//  \
 |   _\\    //_   |B
 |  /  \\  //  \  |a
 | |    \\//    | |c
 | |     //     | |k
 | |    //\\    | |e
 |  \__//  \\__/  |d
  \   //    \\   /Up!
   \ //\____/\\ /
    //________\\
   //          \\
  //            \\
 //              \\
//                \\
                    X

I took three of the inner ramps, turning 810o as I went around this way instead:
\\            Y\  //
 \\             \//
  \\            //\
   \\__________//
   /\\  ____  //\
  /  \\/    \//  \
 |   _\\    //_   |B
 |  /  \\  //  \  |a
 | |    \\//    | |c
 | |     //     | |k
 | |    //\\    | |e
 |  \__//  \\__/  |d
  \   //    \\   /Up!
   \ //\____/\\ /
    //________\\
   //          \\
  //            \\
 //              \\
//                \\

 

As I pulled off my third cloverleaf loop, I realized I had inadvertently solved another problem:  The traffic light where I had to turn left to reach Y was only about fifty yards from my originally-indended ramp.  Having to cross three lanes of heavy traffic in 50 yards tends to increase my stress level, not to mention that of my fellow motorists.  By missing my exit I gained another 200 yards to get over to the left. Just another of life's happy little accidents.

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