A fun read.

This has a similar feel to the story that circulated a month ago of the note hidden in the column of London's National Gallery [1]: unable to let go of a disagreement, man goes to extreme lengths to have the last word / make an example of the opponent.

> that familiar two-stroke fuel of American ambition: resentment and striving.

What a great, and dead-accurate, image.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41368866

I think this was the inspiration behind the name of the computer developed by Gordon, Cameron, and Joe MacMillan at Cardiff Electric in Halt and Catch Fire. IIRC Gordon loses his mind from stress and starts digging a huge hole in the backyard during a storm while telling his daughters the tall tale and that's how he decided to name it the Giant.

That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw the article.

Didn't see this mentioned in the article: you can still see the Cardiff Giant on display at the Farmers Museum in Cooperstown.

https://www.farmersmuseum.org/cardiff-giant/

*Cardiff, NY

Are you referring to the Ca. in the title? If so that means circa

I believe they were disambiguating from the capital city of Wales, which is also called Cardiff.