# Modern Technology and times



## greenpondmike (Feb 9, 2021)

I like things and gadgets. Back in the past I had manmade toys, but I also had pets, crickets ganddaddy longlegs and grasshoppers to play with along with incandescent flashlights. My first car was a 1974 nova that I traded my honda xr80 for. I had bb/pellet guns, and had my dad's .22 rifle, 20 and 12 gauge shotguns to hunt with along with his rod and reel (zebco 33) to fish with. 
I actually enjoyed life better back then and life was simpler and I had more freedoms. Life was really good back then although I had no computer or smart phone. If I had any troubles I had to deal with them and just push through it. There were more places to hunt back then and hunting and fishing licenses were cheap and TCI hunting permits were free. 
If anyone wore a mask people would think you were going to rob them. Life was more natural and I wasn't as dependant on things as I am now. I did watch a lot of tv in the winter months, but there were only four channels and they all quit broadcasting by 11:00pm. If the lights went off- no problem. We had a coal/wood heater that would keep us warm. Vehicles were easy to work on and if you needed to go buy something the choice was easier because there wasn't a bunch of companies making the same product. Things were quality made and generic stuff didn't seem to come out until I was in my late teens. Walmart stayed in Arkansas until I was in my late teens also and when it came it was only a department store (no superstore) like k-mart, grants, montgomery ward or zayre's.
Mr. Turkey turkey ham (the very best turkey ham EVER) came and went and earlier on so did fizzies. Better music and musicians were more creative. Hardly any cussing on the radio and tv. Love American style and laugh in were probably the nastiest shows on tv.
Guns were NOT frowned upon and I could go to the strip pit and target practice or even do it in my own yard with neighbors close (not subdivision close) on either side of me- no one bothered me or called the cops. I could drink out of a cold, clear running creek and be refreshed and rejuvenated or I could drink out of a small, red running stream that had iron water in it- not as cold, but it hit the spot if you were desperately thirsty. None of that ol nasty tasting city water- we had a well. No landline and no microwave, but we got by and I looked forward to getting out of bed in the afternoons (if school was out). Bad folk weren't as bad, but the real bad ones were few- that was when parents disciplined their children regular and were taught respect. What were video games? The korner store got some in when I was in my mid teens and in my late teens my best friend's girlfriend got an atorie home system. I had to listen to her brag on how good my friend was at playing it, but he was there often and had a lot of practice. I did get close to his high score though even though I hardly played it as much, but I was determined to beat or match his high score so she would shut up. Really, the only thing I got addicted to was nicotine. Most other things I could take or leave.
Y'all remember that good sliced cheese at winn dixie? It came in several different flavors and they even had a smoked flavor one. Clothes were cheap and a pair or blue jeans would last over 10+years. K-mart had their "texas steer" boots that were quality made and cheap. Later on though their quality went downhill and they then disappeared. Motor oil was cheap and actually protected your old engines and no ethanol. A whopper was a whopper and food and things were made with pride. Postol workers didn't go postol and there was less worry and stress. There was less people getting cancer and dieing from it and people eyes lasted longer if they watched tv only once in a while. I was less bored even though I had less stuff and it was more fun to want something than to actually have it- that also works with food and women also lol. Music was music and didn't sound like a loaded diesel taking off and country music was more than just talking about getting a beer- it actually had some wisdom and family values to it. Cb radio was in its prime and talk was cleaner and because folks used the cb code it was more family friendly. Husbands didn't want their wives to become defiled by hearing cussing (cause they knew their wives would use it back on them lol)- now many females could make a salor blush. Back then a man was a man and a woman was a woman and there were less perverts and child molesters.
I think that media in general might be causing the degeration of many people- especially since it is so readily available and only a smart phone away. The fruit of this is instant gratification and no patience ("we want it now"). A lust for food and things and even people that created this sex trafficking problem that is way worse than you think. If I let my hair grow out for 2 years like I did 2015-2017 I better watch out also.

I blame greed, ready media and computers for the changing times. Go through the alphabet and assign each letter with a "6", doubling, and tripling, etc- a=6, b=12, c=18, etc. Do this all the way to " z". Spell computer and give each letter his assigned number and add them and then you will get 666. Maybe even though it adds up to that it is a bunch of bull, but maybe not. They are now talking about self driving cars. I don't want to depend on some man made, fallible computer to drive me anywhere. I'd rather depend on my own mind to drive a car. These new battery only vehicles are going to have a lot of computer stuff in them and I don't think they are any more durable than their mechanical counterparts- remember the newest boeing airlines with the faulty computer programing? I believe you are asking for trouble when you completely remove the mechanical element from any type of machine and causing it to need less and less human intervention and control. I also like analog better than digital and as far as I'm concerned they can throw that metric system in a lake because I like the old conventional system better. Am I just a lone nut case or does anyone else feel the same way?


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## greenpondmike (Feb 9, 2021)

Also (I forgot) the middle class (the backbone of the country OMHO) had a lot of personal owned businesses and mom and pop stores. Higher minimum wages, higher taxes and walmart killed a lot of that- remember Alan Jackson's song "the little man? Big corporations ate/bought out smaller corporations and businesses and consolodated them. Please don't be fooled, the economy can't servive with only the rich and poor. If they really did raise minimum wages up to $15 an hour, what do you think it is going to do? Sure it would benefit me, but it would also probably (I hope not) kill off the rest of the privately owned businesses and the government mandates over this corona stuff has /is already weakening them.
The middle class are important to our country. They are a filter between the filthy rich and the poor. We need the middle class, our economy needs them and their businesses. The "little man" is really the big man in this country.


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## jtr1962 (Feb 9, 2021)

I honestly think you're looking at this through the rose-colored glasses of your youth. You don't mention when you were born, but if I had to guess I would say the late 1940s through the mid 1950s. Why? It seems a lot of that generation idealizes the world that existed post-WWII when the US had a huge advantage before Europe and Japan rebuilt. Anyway, I was born in 1962, and frankly if I'm supposed to remember my "coming of age" years (probably the 1970s/early 1980s) fondly, honestly I don't. The 70s were a lousy, depressing decade full of collective can't-do malaise. The 80s was mostly spent trying to build back from the neglect of the 1970s. I didn't even watch much TV then because with only a few channels and mostly stupid sitcoms I didn't find much of it enjoyable. In fact, the entertainment options were quite limited, and so was the technology. Think about what you can do now. You can communicate with people all over the world, you can learn about any subject without going to a library and being limited to whatever books they have, you can watch videos of people's experiences, get help with problems, etc. The machine I'm typing this on has the power a supercomputer did in the 1980s. Really, it's limitless. Of course, with all this came some negatives, but isn't it that way with any new technology?

The biggest problem I see with today's society is that many types of technological goods become obsolete before they wear out. A smart phone could probably last 25 years but people want to replace it with newer ones with more features every year or two. Cars actually last a lot longer than they used to, despite your complaints about having lots of computers in them. You know why computers and sensors replaced a lot of the mechanical stuff? Because it reached the point where it's more reliable. Sure, this means you often can't fix problems yourself, but they happen far less often. Electrics with fewer mechanical parts to break down will last even longer, perhaps even 40 or 50 years.

I have to disagree vehemently about your desire not to have a computer drive you. We used to have elevator operators. Then they were replaced by automation which did the job far better than any human could. Humans are ill-suited to repetitive tasks like driving which might have very occasional moments when you need to do everything perfect to avoid disaster. A machine has no such problem. Indeed, most of those occasional moments are caused by the human error of other drivers. 40,000+ deaths and a few million injuries annually just in the US tells me the sooner we perfect automated driving the better. This is a horrible price to pay. The vast majority of people lack the coordination, spatial ability, intelligence, proper attitude, or training to drive safely. I'll be one happy person the day human driving is banned, other than on closed circuit tracks. In fact, one day your children or grandchildren might look at you with a puzzled expression asking if there really was a time when we let people drive.

The middle class will survive. Remember the wealthy needs somebody to design and make the things they like to buy. The poor, uneducated classes can't do that. Besides, I feel technology is equalizing things so the wealthy no longer have the advantage they once did. Now everyone has access to information only the wealthy used to. Being able to communicate in real time with others also means it's a lot harder for the wealthy to exert top-down control.

You're missing what humans do best, which is to be creative. Technology is freeing us from the drudge work of keeping the world functioning. That lets us pursue things we enjoy instead. I look forward to the day robots do all the basic functions of society so humans don't have to.


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## jtr1962 (Feb 9, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Also (I forgot) the middle class (the backbone of the country OMHO) had a lot of personal owned businesses and mom and pop stores. Higher minimum wages, higher taxes and walmart killed a lot of that- remember Alan Jackson's song "the little man? Big corporations ate/bought out smaller corporations and businesses and consolodated them.


Wanted to address this one separately. What killed a lot of businesses, and not just mom and pop stores, is globalism. You're competing with people who are happy to work for far less than you are. There are really no good answer to it, either, other than to hope these other countries reach the same level of wages as we have sooner rather than later. That's the only thing which might work, but then again automation is also eliminating jobs. There are answers to that problem, but that's getting too far into politics to discuss here.

As for taxes, things have traditionally gone better for the middle class when the wealthy paid more taxes, rather than less. Why? The money went into infrastructure, education, health care, all things which made the workers more productive, increasing national wealth. Even the rich know this but I have my theory on why they want lower taxes on themselves. Taxing the rich less increases wealth disparity, with those in the top few percent having most of the wealth. However, policies which taxed the wealthy more, with the money put into things like infrastructure, education, and so forth, would grow the economy by more than enough to offset the higher tax rates. In other words, with higher taxes the rich would become richer than they would with lower taxes because the economy would grow by more than enough to offset paying a higher percentage of income in taxes. So why don't the rich support this? Because these same policies would also mean the lower and middle classes become a lot more wealthy. Those on top would still have much of the wealth, but those on the bottom would have a lot more than now. Or put in layman's terms, the rich would rather have a larger slice of a much smaller pie than a smaller slice of a larger pie, even if the smaller slice was bigger in absolute terms. Why? Because it's not wealth, but wealth disparity, which gives them power. Think about it. Suppose you have one very wealthy person and 10,000 poor people. That wealthy person will enjoy much more power than if there were other wealthy people, a lot of middle class people, and much fewer poor people. So for all their hollow talk about the reason for lower taxes on the rich being more money in their pockets, it's really power they want more. And that power has helped decimate the middle class.


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## Katherine Alicia (Feb 9, 2021)

it`s quite funny really, because Homer said something very similar this about 700 B.C.
I guess some things never change


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## greenpondmike (Feb 9, 2021)

I enjoy being able to do stuff myself and although I don't mind a machine helping me a little, I don't want it to do everything. Man is fallible I admit, but what man makes is even more fallible. I don't ever want a computer to think for me. I am 55 years old and was born in late 1965. I really liked the late 60s and all the 70s and even the 80s. The 90s weren't too bad and life was even good up to late 2006-although it wasn't the 70s. In 1977 I was put into a foster home with an old lady that abused me, but it still didn't overall cast a cloud on the 70s or my attitude. I wasn't quite the same person when I came home in 79 as I was before I was taken away- I was into woodworking and drawing before that and a lot happier, but I was still alright when I got out as far as feeling good. As far as my charactor was concerned I was a piece of crap thug throughout most of my early to mid teens. Circumstances changed me throughout my late teens on into my early 20s. There was some bad pot going around at the time that was laced with something else and it got me and two of my friends. All 3 of us got an anxiety disorder and two of us developed panic attacks. I was one of them that got the panic attacks. It mellowed me and caused me to seek God who is the one that put into me any goodness I have now. That began in 1983 and I have no issues now, but don't expect me to drink a pot of strong coffee without bouncing off the walls lol. What I am saying in a very long way is "what rose colored glasses"?- maybe turd colored. Before the foster home I was fussed at and cussed out more than a few times by my dad who also could be real nice. He had issues though from all those knives in his back almost a decade before- no fun being backstabbed and by soo many people. It made him a sometimes monster. Like I said turd colored maybe. It just took a lot back then to overall to get me down and the good times were better than the bad.
As far as bad sit coms- I agree, but hee haw was always good and I liked that one called police squad. All the good ones before cbs's rural purge were gone. Andy Griffith, the beverly hillbillies, petticoat junction, green acres and mayberry rfd were gone along with hee haw, but nbc picked them up and ran with them, but I had to go through the summer without hee haw- poor me lol. I needed to be outside playing anyway. I'm still holding back on the past though. 
Changing the subject though, I'm more talking about the independent middle class business owners/employers. I've worked for several businesses that were owned and ran by such people. Sure in a since there will still be some middle class workers out there that will survive for a while. The ones I know the husband and wife both work- sometimes more than one job, sometimes more than that (to keep their middle class status) and the daycare and later on the schools raises their kids and has more influence over the kids than their parents do. Yep, kill yourself working and lose control of your kids. In the end those people are fortunate if they can even enjoy their retirement and if their kids even love them after all the neglect that were done with honest good intentions of attaining the elusive American dream for them and their families.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 9, 2021)

Maybe I'm dumb, but if some folks are willing to work for less that would help the small independent businesses. 
As far as the rich are concerned, they didn't get that way by being dumb. They know how to get around stuff. Just pass those taxes onto the consumer- us. Also they can leave the country again and operate in china with that almost free slave labor and and avoid a lot of taxes and I'm quite sure tarriffs will soon be removed. I don't believe all the rich are bad, but there are some rich folks that control things and they don't have to answer to anyone. I'm NOT talking about politicians here, I'm talking about the "elite". If the regular rich say oh no you don't and their companies go to china, who is going to take up the slack? The middle class and the small independent businesses. If you overtax the common rich folks and their companies they will run. Better some tax than no tax- PLUS, with more companies here, that means more jobs and more PEOPLE paying taxes. I don't understand how Mr. Tony can even stay in business with mag instruments being located in the republic of cali.

Katherine, I don't understand what you wrote. Remember, I'm a blonde.


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## jtr1962 (Feb 9, 2021)

You know what killed mom&pop businesses more than anything? Greedy landlords, not higher pay for workers. There are businesses in NYC which are, or rather were before the pandemic, full of customers, and yet they were on the way out. Nothing wrong with their business model. Problem is all the profits went to the landlord. Now you have lots of ground floor retail empty. I just wonder if the landlords will accept lower rent, or keep it empty hoping they'll find someone able to pay their asking price. In fact, the single biggest reason for the decline of the middle class is out of control real estate prices. People spend an ever increasing amount of their money just for the roof over their heads. Forget about saving and leaving something to their children so they have a head start. Back when my parents married in 1961, their first apartment was about $40 a month, less than $400 in today's money. Now an average apartment in the outer boroughs in NYC goes for at least $2,000 a month, often a lot more. Single family homes are ridiculous as well, which is why the only people who buy them rent them out. Next door has about 6 college kids living on the top two floors, and about 6 Chinese delivery workers in the basement. These homes can no longer serve their primary function as single family homes because few families can afford them. Given the cost of living, especially in large cities, are you really surprised about the push for higher minimum wages? A higher minimum wage isn't necessarily worse for a business, either. For starters, it helps attract a higher quality worker, giving the employer more choice. If you hire better workers, you might find 5 can do the same amount of work as 8 or 10 cheaper workers.

As for technology, the trick is to control it, not let it control you. I use my computer when I went, but don't feel the need to be online 15 hours a day. I don't even own a cell phone. I don't like to be interrupted when I go out. As for doing things myself, I love creative hobbies, but I'd be happy if a robot cleaned the house, took care of my mother, cooked meals, basically did all the daily drudge work. I don't get anything except tired and bored doing those things.

Sorry to hear about your childhood. Mine wasn't much better. I grew up in a housing project. My parents argued all the time. My hobbies and play were my only escapes. As for TV, my tastes leaned towards sci-fi, and back then there wasn't much. Star Trek, Lost In Space, Battlestar Galactica, plus a few others. Not like now where cable has all kinds of great shows.

Anyway, probably better to embrace change since there's not much you can do about it. My mother's father loved new technology. It's a pity he died in 1978. Had he still been around now, he would have loved everything that's been invented, and would have been 120 this summer. He's the one who told me the so-called good old days weren't. He never longed for the past. Back when he was young, the streets were covered with horse manure, and if you made to 50 you were considered old.


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## Katherine Alicia (Feb 9, 2021)

jtr1962 said:


> my tastes leaned towards sci-fi... Battlestar Galactica



You Sir, have impeccable taste! :twothumbs


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## jtr1962 (Feb 9, 2021)

Katherine Alicia said:


> You Sir, have impeccable taste! :twothumbs


Thanks!


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## Poppy (Feb 9, 2021)

I loved Star Trek!
Kirk was always flying on the seat of his pants, running into one problem after another, and I was able to put myself in his shoes, and sometimes... just sometimes, figure out a solution to the problem. When he came up with a solution (or actually Spock did) like throw waste radiation out into space to locate the cloaked ship, I could say to myself... "Darn, I should have thought of that!" 

In the "Next generation" they had a Galaxy Class ship that would take multiple hits, before Picard would say... "OK... fire on them, take out their weapons system" Or when they are confronted with a new unknown, Geordi would say... "Captain, the last time we were in space dock, a new super duper nebulizer was installed, we could use that!"

Although I watched "Battlestar Galactica" regularly, I never liked it. Lorne Greene was at the helm, as a seasoned old General. He led a rag-tag fleet in a continual retreat from the Cylons. Always afraid of being seen, and always running away. Yeah, not fun!


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## greenpondmike (Feb 9, 2021)

I agree there are a lot of renters that think their properties are made of gold. They would ask it though if people wouldn't give it. New york city is a bad place to live anyways and I bet it is dreadful cold right now. I hear there is also a lot of violence in the streets. Good folk there need to move south and get away from there if they can. A trailer in a southern trailer park is better than nyc, if they miss the city they can always visit- I'm quite sure nyc is better in the summertime. I know of a nice little house in a good neighborhood of s-town that I think someone can rent cheap. Only catch is it has a haint in it. One bedroom is especially effected. How do I know this? A friend of mine rented it for a while. She just used "that" bedroom as the toy room. There is an indent in the back yard and one time one of Woodstock's finest was dating my friend's aunt that was also staying there. They were on the back deck above the basement (probably kissing) and this spirit came out of the indent and walked into the basement. It scared that cop so bad that he quit seeing her and not long afterwards quit his job. He was a good cop, but that rattled his chain reeeal good. I had no issues there myself, but I never spent the night there. Almost caught me a five pound opossum there though, but he got away. The house seems in good shape, but has been abandoned for years.
Katherine I guess I have bad taste because I never could get into those sy-fi shows. The two I mentioned were just sitcoms, but I also liked the dukes of hazzard (learned how to drive from that show) the incredible hulk, starter and clutch, rockford files and the Sunday night mystery movies featuring McCloud, McMillian and wife and Columbo. "Moving on" was good and now that I'm older I can appreciate Barney Miller. Almost forgot about the partridge family, mod squad, the Flip Wilson show, laugh in, and the Ray Stevens show. There were a lot of good movies also. One of the was Steven King's first movie (I think) called duel. I also liked Sandford and son- I liked it when he would insult Ester.


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## Katherine Alicia (Feb 9, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Katherine I guess I have bad taste because I never could get into those sy-fi shows.



That`s a bit non sequitur, the 2 aren`t mutually exclusive


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## greenpondmike (Feb 9, 2021)

Katherine Alicia said:


> That`s a bit non sequitur, the 2 aren`t mutually exclusive



Hey, my friend Katherine- sorry, that one also went over my head, but I think you meant that it doesn't necessarily mean that I have bad taste if I didn't like sy-fi, but if I did like sy-fi I would have good taste.


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## Katherine Alicia (Feb 9, 2021)

it`s basically a false dichotomy, a bit like saying that because I like Cheeseburgers and think they are good, I must therefore think that all other foods are bad, or I may say to you "Thanks this coffee`s really good", does it follow that all the others you made were bad?


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## greenpondmike (Feb 9, 2021)

Oh, ok.


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## bykfixer (Feb 9, 2021)

I like the technology that suits me. A microwave is handy, but the charcoal grill is too. Growing up in the place I grew up with parents I had made a huge difference in my perspective. Yet I have seen American society as a whole tend to become less and less fun to be around. My family all drifted apart in the 90's and 00's but it's ok. We live and let live. 

Too many factors to go into in a post or two, and most would be my opinion anyway. But I definitely prefer Kirk over Picard even though Picard could beat Spock at chess. To me Battle Star Galactica was like watching grass grow, but my twin still watches it to this day and has a battle star ship as his smart watch face. Me? I don't want a smart watch but I do like the kinetic watch where shaking your wrist charges it. Now part of the no smart watch is from being bombarded with emails from the company, the client and the boss everyday. I use a smartphone to check the weather radar, which has come in handy more than I can remember in road construction. 

My wife prefers a new technology life style where I'm ok with old tech. Yet we both cross back and forth as our tastes suit us. I grew up and still live in a place where you could yell "hey" and hear it echo 5 times back when but now you yell "hey" across the yard when the wind is out of the interstate direction and the person 20 feet away didn't hear you. I moved around some and at times lived in places you could walk around naked and not be noticed or at times in places where your new leather jacket was the talk of the town for days it was so backward in time. I moved back home to find I liked it somewhere in the middle. 

Do I like the direction things are moving? No and yes. No because it's freaking February 2021 instead of March 2004 and it seemed like that was 8 days ago. But yes the modernization certainly has its perks. If not for thyroid pills I'd have probably had a stroke by now where my mom had to drink a radioactive cocktail to destroy hers back when Jimmy Carter was president. A battery operated saws-all and leaf blower are pretty cool too. And I can get 3000 songs onto a chip the size of my thumbnail. People act as if social media and cable tv are required these days, yet they are not. I haven't watched network tv in decades or am a tweeter/intagriper yet I know more details about the goings on in society than most people I know. It's out there if you just turn away from the conventional and just listen. 

Sure I miss the innocence of my youth. Yet one day in my 30's I decided to quit acting like the grown up society says I have to be, revert back to when I knew what I believed was real and that was that. When society says I have to do this or that I weigh the options. Is it better to do this or that or is it just another act of following some rule that does me no good? It makes sense to wear that bright yellow plastic bag at my work. Yet my hard hat has vents where company issued plastic helmets do not. So I bought my own helmet. Society dictates things I think are dumb too. I don't need 5000 friends on fakebook telling me what to think or these days what to hate on. Twelve is plenty. I joined that to keep with with my kids lives, who nowadays aren't even fakebook members anymore. Yet my twelve friends all enjoy our little time on fakebook discussing things we enjoy. 

Apparently there was a football game recently that had everybody talking about the next day. I don't even know what Lady Gaga looks like. She could be next to me in a store and I wouldn't know it. So when everybody is talking about Lady Gaga said "x" I think "who cares? It didn't affect me none. When the pandemic closed local gyms I never noticed. My workout with a vacuum cleaner, scrubbing the bath tub, cutting my lawn with a push mower and rearranging the furniture kept me in shape. Why get on an excersize bike to nowhere when the real thing puts a breeze across your face or the sunshine on your shoulders? My young coworker was freaking out "I can't do my cardio"…… I said "you live on the 3rd floor of your apartment building. Fill up two containers with water and take the steps up and down a few laps"....he actually replied "why?" lol. 

What it all comes down to is perspective. We only get one shot at this life. In my view we should enjoy it while we can. Because like mist on a chilly morning it's gone before you know it.


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## lightfooted (Feb 9, 2021)

Mike, I think you're delusional and possibly have memory issues. I'm only a few years younger than you and never have I thought that clothes were cheaper back in my youth...in fact they were more expensive. I don't recall ever being able to buy a pair of jeans for less than $30, especially a pair of Levi's. This back in the day when filling up the tank of your car would usually cost less than $15. A pair of shoes would start at $35 and only go up. A pair of shoes that, if I was lucky, would last until the end of the school year. I usually wasn't. Nowadays you can get shoes that will last about as long for a third or less the cost. I actually own a few pairs of shoes now that have lasted more than ten years, but I wear them way less than my others. I have some clothes that are as old, shirts(sweaters) and pants both. I intend to give much of them away at some point soon. 

Honestly though, I don't really want clothes and shoes that last for 20 or 30 years...it's not just about style but also about comfort and usefulness. Since we're all mostly typing out nice long paragraphs...I guess I can too. Back in the early days of history before the industrial revolution, a nice suit or dress would easily cost more than a year's wages for the average peasant worker. An extravagant one would likely cost a life-time's wages for anyone other than the lord or lady of the land. This is why for the most part they only had a single outfit for fancy occasions. With the revolution the cost of clothing came down so much that the average worker could afford to buy more than one outfit and even own several to use for different occasions including work.

I don't need things to outlast me to find them useful. I don't abuse my things just to see if they can survive it.

As for technology, well I just don't see things the same way. I think you would be surprised how much technology is in things, even much older things that you may not be thinking of. Even my 1978 Datsun 280Z had a computer, a very basic computer sure but it controlled the pulse timing of the fuel injectors as well as the ignition spark. Without it, it could not run.

I loved watching Star Trek every evening just before dinner. Then watching Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers and Knight Rider or The A-Team and Airwolf. Also enjoyed Remington Steele. There are shows that I would consider as good, not just in comparison to my younger self, but actually well written shows that I enjoy today thanks to technology. The Mandolorian would top the list just because it is the tv series that I had wished had been made from Star Wars back in those days.


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## jtr1962 (Feb 9, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> I agree there are a lot of renters that think their properties are made of gold. They would ask it though if people wouldn't give it.


They get it because large corporations like to have a presence in NYC for prestige reasons, even if their branches here lose money on account of the rents. Look around any street in Manhattan, and the non-empty storefronts are banks, restaurant chains, overpriced boutiques, etc. However, with austerity becoming a thing even for large corporations the days of the landlords charging what the market will bear may be coming to an end. I can eventually see these empty storefronts becoming something along the lines of an indoor open-air market, where average people rent a small portion of the space on a daily or weekly basis. That will give average people a shot again at having their own business.



> New york city is a bad place to live anyways and I bet it is dreadful cold right now. I hear there is also a lot of violence in the streets. Good folk there need to move south and get away from there if they can. A trailer in a southern trailer park is better than nyc, if they miss the city they can always visit- I'm quite sure nyc is better in the summertime.


Well, I like cold and hate the heat. Summers here are horribly hot and humid. Besides, as a person who doesn't drive and doesn't own a car there are very few places in this country I could live. It's NYC, or one of the few other cities with subways which are pale imitations of NYC. Crime here hasn't been bad since the 1990s. Don't believe everything you hear on the news.

I'll have to disagree on the TV. Sure, there were some good shows in the 60s and 70s, but TV was mostly a wasteland. As a medium it didn't really start to come into its own until cable was common. And it probably took until the 2000s to fully reach its potential. Now there are plenty of shows and networks to cater to literally any taste. Technology years ago wouldn't have allowed for hundreds of channels.


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## orbital (Feb 9, 2021)

+

*The world needs more family owned hardware stores.*


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## bykfixer (Feb 9, 2021)

My first pair of Nike's was $10. They were canvas. The leather hi tops were $19. Suede Pumas were $9. Converse Winners were $7.50. Levis were $14. Sears tough skins were $5.99. That was around 1976 or so. A decent skateboard was $50!!
School lunch was 75 cents. A 10oz soda from a machine was a nickle. 

A microwave oven was $500! A 72 vw could get 75mpg even though it put out lots of pollutants. A 66 mustang could be had for $100. And we got our first fast food joint, a Hardees. I still have a Speedee McGreedy milkshake cap that was a mini Frisbee. Oh and I have a Gilbert Giddeeup top too.

We had a garage fire in 76 that wiped out everything. My Pumas were in it. The insurance adjuster asked my mom "you paid $9 for Pumas?" She thought he might think she was trying to rip him off. He said "no no no I just wanted to know where I can get Pumas……and for only $9." lol


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## raggie33 (Feb 9, 2021)

nm nm


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## idleprocess (Feb 9, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> My first pair of Nike's was $10. They were canvas. The leather hi tops were $19. Suede Pumas were $9. Converse Winners were $7.50. Levis were $14. Sears tough skins were $5.99. That was around 1976 or so. A decent skateboard was $50!!
> School lunch was 75 cents. A 10oz soda from a machine was a nickle.
> 
> A microwave oven was $500! A 72 vw could get 75mpg even though it put out lots of pollutants. A 66 mustang could be had for $100. And we got our first fast food joint, a Hardees. I still have a Speedee McGreedy milkshake cap that was a mini Frisbee. Oh and I have a Gilbert Giddeeup top too.
> ...



Multiply those by prices by 4.55 to compare to 2021 prices.

Nikes : $10 >> $45.50
Hi-Tops : $19 >> $86.45
Pumas : $9 > $40.95
Converse : $7.50 >> $34.13
Levi's : $14 >> $63.70
Sears Tough Skins : $5.99 >> $27.26
Skateboard : $50 >> $227.50
School lunch : $0.75 >> $3.41
10oz soda : $0.05 >> $0.23
Microwave oven : $500 >> $2275
66 Mustang : $100 >> $455

That '66 Mustang seems like it would have been a real bargain at the time.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 9, 2021)

No offense lightfooted, but the cost of stuff must have been higher where you lived. Glad my friend bykfixer spoke up. I never bought my clothes when I was younger, but I knew my dad would fuss about it if they were high. I think some of my last jeans bought for me was when I was in my early to mid teens for the most part and they lasted on into my mid 20s. They were still in good shape, but I wasn't when I gave them to a skinny friend that needed clothes after he lost everything when his wife kicked him out and moved another man in. Wow, can't believe I used to have a size 28 waist.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 9, 2021)

orbital said:


> +
> 
> *The world needs more family owned hardware stores.*



Lol, I agree


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## greenpondmike (Feb 9, 2021)

idleprocess said:


> Multiply those by prices by 4.55 to compare to 2021 prices.
> 
> Nikes : $10 >> $45.50
> Hi-Tops : $19 >> $86.45
> ...



Woa man, please be careful with that ice water because it's still winter here. I might catch a cold


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## greenpondmike (Feb 9, 2021)

jtr1962 said:


> They get it because large corporations like to have a presence in NYC for prestige reasons, even if their branches here lose money on account of the rents. Look around any street in Manhattan, and the non-empty storefronts are banks, restaurant chains, overpriced boutiques, etc. However, with austerity becoming a thing even for large corporations the days of the landlords charging what the market will bear may be coming to an end. I can eventually see these empty storefronts becoming something along the lines of an indoor open-air market, where average people rent a small portion of the space on a daily or weekly basis. That will give average people a shot again at having their own business.
> 
> 
> Well, I like cold and hate the heat. Summers here are horribly hot and humid. Besides, as a person who doesn't drive and doesn't own a car there are very few places in this country I could live. It's NYC, or one of the few other cities with subways which are pale imitations of NYC. Crime here hasn't been bad since the 1990s. Don't believe everything you hear on the news.
> ...



Ok, that (high rent) makes more sense now that you explained it. 
On the other part- I like the hot and not the cold. I guess I live in the right state. Mostly I need to be warm while sleeping. I can handle the cold as long as the wind isn't blowing-that wind tears me up. I have went out and buried a chicken at around 3 in the morning without a shirt on (probably 7 years ago). It was 13 degrees and the wind was blowing real good. I dug the 3 foot x 2 foot hole and buried them anyway. Because we were in a hurry my wife and I probably skipped the ceremony of throwing a handfull of dirt on them before covering them up.


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## bykfixer (Feb 9, 2021)

On the way to work listening to AM radio I did enjoy the 10 speed auto tranny. The tires roll so smooth I find if I don't use cruise control I'll be going 80mph without realizing. When I was a kid tires sucked so bad at 55 it would cause you to sound like you were in a helicopter when speaking. And loud, good Lord. 

My dad took me into a bicycle shop to buy me a skateboard one year. I had talked my mom into buying me a plastic jobby that was $5 in a drug store and had gotten pretty good on it so my pop decided it was time for an upgrade. He said "how much are the wheels?" Dude said "$7.50". May dad said "for 2 or 4?" Dude said "1"…… he turned pale, walked in circles a bit and says "I'll give you $20 for 4". Dude said "$7.50 apiece take it or leave it"…… I still have those wheels and one of the trucks to this day. The board? Who knows where that ended up. 

My first pair of Vans in about '77 were leather hi tops. Back then you filled out a coupon from a magazine, mailed it with a check in spring and by fall you got your shoes. The check took 3 weeks to clear then the Van Dorn brothers made your shoes when the surf sucked. I ordered size 9. Trouble was by the time they arrived I wore 10's. Dratz!!

My mom bought a new Toyota Corolla in '71 for $1295. It stayed in the family until 84 after running out of oil twice. No air, no radio, no power anything but we never knew what we were missing. Only "those rich people" had their car windows rolled up in summer. Speaking of rich people, we had a neighbor who when you turned the dial on their tv a channel showed up on every one. They had cable. Woah!! 

My first house was built in 1920. In 1988 I installed the first air conditioner, clothes dryer and……,shower. Each room had 1 electrical outlet. I rewired it and added a second outlet in each room. The kitchen I added two so that the toaster could be separate from the refrigerator. And……we had a microwave. Needless to say 6 strip outlets littered the place. But I had a top of the line stereo system including hifi VCR and stereo tv. I used to arrange the furniture around the sweet spot of my Klipsch speakers. 

Now my "stereo" is a mp3 player and a pair of Shure ear buds. My 2012 dual hard drive gamer laptop has only been on the internet twice. Install Windows 7 and update Windows 7 when it failed to recognize a USB C cord to download pix from my Android device. But I have a 2020 tablet that also has not been on the internet since Windows 10 was installed. My 2018 60" flatscreen has never been hooked to cable tv or internet. We watch tv from flash drives or a disk player. Yet I've already seen season 3 of Yellowstone. 

And recently I learned how to program the coffee pot.


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## turbodog (Feb 9, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> ...I don't understand how Mr. Tony can even stay in business with mag instruments being located in the republic of cali.
> ...



I figure CA is tough. His heyday was really before regs got so restrictive. A mag is a marvel of machining/asssembling simplicity. It HAS changed through the years, just as we do (and must) change.


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## turbodog (Feb 9, 2021)

jtr1962 said:


> ... In fact, the single biggest reason for the decline of the middle class is out of control real estate prices. ... He's the one who told me the so-called good old days weren't. He never longed for the past. Back when he was young, the streets were covered with horse manure, and if you made to 50 you were considered old.




High property prices, especially in cities, are typically driven by restrictive zoning which prevents new construction.


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## turbodog (Feb 9, 2021)

orbital said:


> +
> 
> *The world needs more family owned hardware stores.*



But don't you remember the rise of wal-mart? They were open and selling a HUGE range of stuff when the local mom/pop stores were closed at 5pm.

ALL classes of business go through a birth, maturation, and consolidation. The mom/pop stores had a hand in their own demise.

There are still a few ones around... the local Ace hardware comes to mind. But their friendliness, knowledge, and service sets them apart from big box/walmart/HD/etc. If not for that... they would be toast also.


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## turbodog (Feb 9, 2021)

This all is NOT a new occurrence. Tech/society/etc moves forward and we ALL benefit.

Good example was the old job of weaving socks by hand. Then the machine to weave them came out... and the weavers had the inventor in the street, in the process of beating him to death.

Police intervened; the man was saved. The weavers lost their jobs, but the other 99.99999% of society now can buy a better, cheaper, more readily-available sock.

Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's so much better than anything else.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 9, 2021)

Bykfixer, I had a 4 speed 73 toyota corolla. That was a good car and had a strong motor. I wish I never traded it for that 74 elite, but I traded the elite for a 71 datson pickup, traded that for a 67 dodge army truck which I traded for a 74 gran torino with a 428 cobra jet engine in it and later traded that for a 74 mustang. I don't remember if I sold or traded the mustang- probably sold it to buy a 71 dodge shortbed pickup which I kept for a while. Ol truck had a positive traction rear end and although it was a half ton I hauled 4520 pounds of scrap metal in it once. It had a straight pipe on it and would buzz on the highway (225 slant 6). I also had a 75 corolla and liked it. 

Edit: I must have been posting and didn't realize that the thread had turned a page. My post was in reference to what bykfixer posted. I really like the older vehicles.


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## turbodog (Feb 9, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> ...I really like the older vehicles.



Yeah, but when you were enjoying those 'old' cars, a model t owner was saying the same stuff about them... compared to his model t, model a, packard, etc.

And a real old coot was comparing the new fangled gasoline engines to his stanley steamer.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 9, 2021)

"
"Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's so much better than anything else."

I agree. As time goes on though some quality stuff loses their quality. For example, I had wanted a benjamin air rifle for a while, but couldn't afford one. One day I could, but they were bought out by crossman. I didn't think anything of it and bought it. The seal on the chamber exhaust valve failed me, so I put in another one from an o-ring I had. It worked a little, but I think it was made from a different type of rubber. It has been sitting up for years. I've been meaning to send it off to mack1 to have the chamber modified and have viton seals put into it. I found out that the bean counters at crossman had cheapened the rifle. It looks the same as the old designs, but the insides are different.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 9, 2021)

turbodog said:


> Yeah, but when you were enjoying those 'old' cars, a model t owner was saying the same stuff about them... compared to his model t, model a, packard, etc.
> 
> And a real old coot was comparing the new fangled gasoline engines to his stanley steamer.



Lol, I agree. The newer ones rust less, but they sure have a lot of plastic in them that cracks.
I like to work on my own stuff. The way these newer vehicles are designed it makes it more difficult to do that and I tend to get a little on the ignorant side of thinking when this happens. If I have to go to a mechanic or dealership I'm worried that they might try to take advantage of my ignorance. I look like I don't have any smarts about me and one time when getting a 77 Ford F100 aligned the mechanic told me that I needed this and that. Now I knew my truck and figured it might be a bunch of bull. I looked him in the eyes and told him with an attitude that I would fix that myself. His face turned red lol. They tried to charge me with an inspection fee of $20, but I raised so much cane with them and they were glad to just get rid of me and I got out of there with no charge at all. 
I took it to another alignment place that was good to me in the past and I told him what the other guy said. He inspected it real good and showed me the printout after he aligned it. He said there was nothing wrong with that front end. If memory serves me right I only paid $31 for that alignment.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 9, 2021)

That 77 ford was a pet truck I was real picky about. A friend of mine was the original owner that had taken good care of it since it was new and took off like he had a grass of water on the dash. I got that truck for $1000 with only 89000 on it. I drove it the same way he did and tried to keep it clean- even underneath. Basicly I over maintained it and because of that I knew my truck.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 10, 2021)

turbodog said:


> But don't you remember the rise of wal-mart? They were open and selling a HUGE range of stuff when the local mom/pop stores were closed at 5pm.
> 
> ALL classes of business go through a birth, maturation, and consolidation. The mom/pop stores had a hand in their own demise.
> 
> There are still a few ones around... the local Ace hardware comes to mind. But their friendliness, knowledge, and service sets them apart from big box/walmart/HD/etc. If not for that... they would be toast also.



I don't even know why we needed a walmart around here. We had grants, sears and zayre's in Bessemer and kmart and sears in Tuscaloosa. Sears was kinda high, but those craftsman's tools, wow. Kmart was a little farther away, but they had good prices and it seemed like good stuff. Remember that kmart smell? All of them smelled like that. The one in Indiana smelled like that when I was 3 and they also had a round bin up front with the purdy green and white flashlights. I used to beg dad to buy me one.
The first walmart around here was 20 miles away in Centreville and the first supercenter came around 97 or 98 in Bessemer. By then the regular walmart was already there (where grants used to be) and so was kmart where zayre's used to be. Seems like kmart didn't last long after the supercenter came though. Food world eventually disappeared along with winn dixie. In other places within a 30 mile radious Bruno's, foodmax and delchamps disappeared. Before long within a 40 mile radious we had 6 or 7 walmart supercenters along with some walmart markets. They are planning on building another market one now 3 miles away also. I miss sears and kmart. Walmart never had that good kmart smell. I also miss the old walmarts. The regular walmart (before the supercenter one) is where I bought my first maglite and I think dad got his there. I still have his.


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## turbodog (Feb 10, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> I don't even know why we needed a walmart around here. We had grants, sears and zayre's in Bessemer and kmart and sears in Tuscaloosa. ...



You just gave the reason, 4-5 stores that sold the same thing, the same way, for decades. WM comes in, sells everything, and cleans house. All industries consolidate. The weaker players get squeezed out or bought up.

Same thing happened with Circuit City, Best Buy, Rex TV and Stereo, Hooper's TV & Electronics, etc. Only Best Buy is still standing, and to their credit... seem to be doing a pretty darn good job adapting and battling with Amazon/WM.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 10, 2021)

I like best buy. I sure hated it when circuit city went out of business though. My wife and I bought our first laptops there. After they went out of business I went to best buy and got a new hardrive for my wife's laptop.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 10, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> nm nm



Hey raggie33, do you have any good memories from past times and technology? I forgot to mention that flashlights and batteries have sure gotten better and there is stuff out there now to improve the old ones even if you keep using the incandescent bulbs.


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## raggie33 (Feb 10, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Hey raggie33, do you have any good memories from past times and technology? I forgot to mention that flashlights and batteries have sure gotten better and there is stuff out there now to improve the old ones even if you keep using the incandescent bulbs.


i love most tech


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## greenpondmike (Feb 10, 2021)

Thanks raggie33 for joining in. As long as tech is meant with benefit of the consumer in mind only without serving an ulterior motive and the bean counters stay out of it I don't have any problem with old or new tech. I don't want to be forced to spend money to upgrade though if what I have works for me. 
Those self driving vehicles would be alright if we were given the option to drive ourselves or let it drive. It could be beneficial if like someone had a hunting accident and they couldn't drive to the hospital, but the vehicle could. The on star system used to be good, but I don't know if they have that anymore. If they don't- why? They ought to have better now. The tornado sirens was a good ideal, but are being phased out. There are warning radios, but some can't afford them. Some people don't have a tv or even a cell phone, so those sirens were a life saver. Turbodog sent me a link for a electric Ford ranger and I liked it. I guess electric vehicles are alright, but I just don't want to be forced to buy one since I have enough vehicles to last me a lifetime if I do some work to them. Lol, I got me a hutch mobile- it's a 1980 Ford LTD coupe with a 302 in it. I have a 6 gallon boat tank strapped down in the trunk and vise grips holding the windows up on the track. You flip up a switch to turn on the ignition and push a button to start it. It only has front brakes, but it stops good. I need to reconnect or replace the back shocks- I think they fell off. It is sitting up right now because I need to replace some rusted freeze plugs. 
Presently I'm driving a 1971 chevy C10 and fixing on a 1975 Ford F150 and I have an 1985 short bed Ford truck I need to finish connecting stuff up on. Someone stole my starter and starter bolts and it discouraged me, but I have 2 more starters I reconditioned. One might work. It has a 1981 engine in it and I need to wire it up for the duraspark ignition. 
I took out the points distributor on my chevy and put in an electronic one. It puts out more spark, but if the module in the distributor goes it will not run and it could go out at anytime and anywhere.I thought about buying a spare, but still it is more difficult to install than points. With points, you can file them and make them work long enough to at least get to the parts store and get some more, but with the improved ignition you have to call a tow truck.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 10, 2021)

You know, whether new or old tech you have to take the bad with the good.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 10, 2021)

I hope I'm not posting too much. 
Wanna mention car batteries... They have come a long ways. Seems like in the mid 80s you could get a good one that lasted at least 5 years for $35. Later on they stabilized around $50-$60 for a good while and were good batteries till sometime after 2013 or 14. Now you'd be fortunate to get one that will last 3 years for around $100. And if you don't use them often the plates sulfate easily. They also have a lower voltage when fully charged.
Most are made by johnson controlls, but the better ones are made by east penn manufacturing. One of east penn's batteries is the decka brand- not sure if I spelled that right. If you want a good battery though you're going to pay a premium for it.


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## jtr1962 (Feb 10, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> I hope I'm not posting too much.
> Wanna mention car batteries... They have come a long ways. Seems like in the mid 80s you could get a good one that lasted at least 5 years for $35. Later on they stabilized around $50-$60 for a good while and were good batteries till sometime after 2013 or 14. Now you'd be fortunate to get one that will last 3 years for around $100. And if you don't use them often the plates sulfate easily. They also have a lower voltage when fully charged.
> Most are made by johnson controlls, but the better ones are made by east penn manufacturing. One of east penn's batteries is the decka brand- not sure if I spelled that right. If you want a good battery though you're going to pay a premium for it.


Lead-acid batteries are yesterday's tech. Some people are replacing their car batteries with LiFePO4. Yes, it costs more, but as far as I can tell it's literally a lifetime battery. The battery management system in the battery keeps the battery within parameters.



> Those self driving vehicles would be alright if we were given the option to drive ourselves or let it drive. It could be beneficial if like someone had a hunting accident and they couldn't drive to the hospital, but the vehicle could.



The problem with that idea is self-driving vehicles are much safer if all the vehicles on the road are self-driven. Every vehicle knows where every other vehicle is. More importantly, they communicate their intent to other vehicles and behave very predictably. That virtually eliminates collisions. It totally eliminates traffic jams. It safely allows 100+ mph speeds on highways. If you have even a small percentage of human operated vehicles it puts an element of unpredictability into the system. In fact, nearly every incident involving an autonomous vehicle wasn't caused by any defect in the vehicle or its software, but was due to human drivers in other vehicles making errors. Besides, why would anyone even want to drive if they could safely get from point A to point B at twice the speed in an autonomous vehicle? Utility driving of that type really isn't interesting or enjoyable. I get wanting to drive fast on a closed race track to test your abilities, but that will certainly still exist even if all vehicles on regular public roads were self-driven.



> I guess electric vehicles are alright, but I just don't want to be forced to buy one since I have enough vehicles to last me a lifetime if I do some work to them.


I'm thinking EV conversions of existing vehicles will be a big thing eventually. No reason you can't keep your 1970s vintage vehicles forever other than swapping out the engine for a motor/battery pack. Remember as EVs displace gas cars there will come a time gasoline isn't readily available, if at all. No idea when that will be, but likely easily within our lifetimes. The nice thing is these EV conversions may provide plenty of jobs. They're also something DIY people would love to do. I've talked many times with my brother about eventually converting his 1994 Mark VIII to electric. With the nice aero body it has it would get great range.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 10, 2021)

I was wondering if they could be converted like that. Hate to yank out my 302 though. That engine has taken some abuse. I want to rebuild it later on and maybe restore the car. I got it for $100 with a new battery in the trunk. I sold it twice and got it back. Turned down a thousand for it. Probably won't ever get rid of it again. Might dig a hole and bury it someday.


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## jtr1962 (Feb 10, 2021)

Yeah, it's already a niche thing, and I can only see it growing in the future:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that...-electric-motor-that-works-in-any-classic-car

The thing with keeping classic cars on the road is the fact they're a maintenance headache, and as my brother will tell you, parts aren't always easy to come by. Going EV mitigates that since most of the maintenance headaches are for the drivetrain.


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## Chauncey Gardiner (Feb 10, 2021)

I'd miss the exhaust note........


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## greenpondmike (Feb 10, 2021)

Some newer vehicles seem like they are made to use to a certain point and then throw away (scrap yard). My wife got a 1996 toyota avalon. It was a rag when she got it and it is still a rag. She got it with the money from a lawsuit she won after an accident. She was all for fixing it up. In reality the engine and trans should have been pulled and sold for $300 and the rest of the car hauled to the shredder. Underneith it is rebuilt with napa's best parts including almost $900 in struts. After about $4500 in parts it is probably worth $750, but my wife likes her Napa Avalon.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 10, 2021)

Chauncey Gardiner said:


> I'd miss the exhaust note........




Maaan...., that thing was boogety boogety at the end. 
Hey Chauncey, what if they came out with a computer program that could sense engine speed, acceleration and shift points and produce an inside engine noise with a volume control. Also it could have a select switch to select different types of exhaust notes from different types of engines. V8, v6, 4cyl and diesel. Or even Ferrari, lambaginie, corvette....etc. No kidding, this just might work. If passengers don't want to hear the noise the driver can put on earphones. If you want to listen to the radio the engine noise can be blended into the background of the music. 

Edit: my brother in law just said that has already been invented and it can be for inside and outside. 
Well my friends, it looks like we can still make some noise....he,he


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## jtr1962 (Feb 10, 2021)

So long as the sound is confined solely to the inside of the car that's the best of both worlds for drivers who might miss exhaust noises. I've seen some systems which have the noise outside the car, which kind of defeats one of the benefits of electric cars for those outside the vehicle, namely the absence of load noises. I personally don't like noisy vehicles. I'm used to a bike, or electric trains. Neither one makes much noise beyond wind, and in the case of trains, wheel/rail noises.


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## turbodog (Feb 10, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> I hope I'm not posting too much.
> Wanna mention car batteries... They have come a long ways. Seems like in the mid 80s you could get a good one that lasted at least 5 years for $35. Later on they stabilized around $50-$60 for a good while and were good batteries till sometime after 2013 or 14. Now you'd be fortunate to get one that will last 3 years for around $100. And if you don't use them often the plates sulfate easily. They also have a lower voltage when fully charged.
> Most are made by johnson controlls, but the better ones are made by east penn manufacturing. One of east penn's batteries is the decka brand- not sure if I spelled that right. If you want a good battery though you're going to pay a premium for it.



Best ones I've ever seen are the panasonic ones. Never found them for sale... OEM only during mfg process.


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## nbp (Feb 10, 2021)

jtr1962 said:


> Yeah, it's already a niche thing, and I can only see it growing in the future:
> 
> https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that...-electric-motor-that-works-in-any-classic-car
> 
> The thing with keeping classic cars on the road is the fact they're a maintenance headache, and as my brother will tell you, parts aren't always easy to come by. Going EV mitigates that since most of the maintenance headaches are for the drivetrain.



Niche indeed. My dad restores Mopars, so I’ve been around that scene my whole life. I don’t know any classic car guys who are likely to put one of those in their cars. Maybe it would be okay for a car that has little collector value but is fun to drive, or is a more modern car to begin with. But complete numbers matching drivetrains are so integral to the value of a car as well as the driving experience I doubt very many people are going to be interested in putting it in true collector cars. 

In any case, I don’t think either new or old tech are wholly good or bad. I think there is room for both in our lives. Would I trade an efficient water saving washing machine for an antique washboard? Heck no! But are there cool tools and products made in the old style with more traditional methods that are more satisfying to use and enjoy? You bet. I also believe there is a level of nostalgia surrounding objects and experiences during a certain swath of our developmental years that can cause us to look back on things more positively than they really were. Not that that is always bad, but nostalgia can also blind us at times to the reality of past situations. We may look fondly on something because we got comfortable with it, not necessarily because it it is actually better. For example, If you and your buddies liked getting together and tinkering with your cars as teens you may think fondly of carbureted motors because of the memories that they evoke, but by basically any metric a modern FI engine is a better machine.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 10, 2021)

turbodog said:


> Best ones I've ever seen are the panasonic ones. Never found them for sale... OEM only during mfg process.



Wow, I didn't know panasonic made car batteries also. I wonder if they are lithium-ion. I also didn't know about LiFePO4 in cars. I thought agm gell cell batteries were the cream of the crop.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 10, 2021)

nbp said:


> Niche indeed. My dad restores Mopars, so I’ve been around that scene my whole life. I don’t know any classic car guys who are likely to put one of those in their cars. Maybe it would be okay for a car that has little collector value but is fun to drive, or is a more modern car to begin with. But complete numbers matching drivetrains are so integral to the value of a car as well as the driving experience I doubt very many people are going to be interested in putting it in true collector cars.
> 
> In any case, I don’t think either new or old tech are wholly good or bad. I think there is room for both in our lives. Would I trade an efficient water saving washing machine for an antique washboard? Heck no! But are there cool tools and products made in the old style with more traditional methods that are more satisfying to use and enjoy? You bet. I also believe there is a level of nostalgia surrounding objects and experiences during a certain swath of our developmental years that can cause us to look back on things more positively than they really were. Not that that is always bad, but nostalgia can also blind us at times to the reality of past situations. We may look fondly on something because we got comfortable with it, not necessarily because it it is actually better. For example, If you and your buddies liked getting together and tinkering with your cars as teens you may think fondly of carbureted motors because of the memories that they evoke, but by basically any metric a modern FI engine is a better machine.



I agree. There is good and bad in both old and new tech. I also like the older mopars. Those older mopar engines have good low end torque. The newer style hemi's are more efficient, but the torque is higher up the rpm range and that isn't good for a truck. Transmissions nowadays have so many gears it might not matter anyway.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 10, 2021)

jtr1962 said:


> So long as the sound is confined solely to the inside of the car that's the best of both worlds for drivers who might miss exhaust noises. I've seen some systems which have the noise outside the car, which kind of defeats one of the benefits of electric cars for those outside the vehicle, namely the absence of load noises. I personally don't like noisy vehicles. I'm used to a bike, or electric trains. Neither one makes much noise beyond wind, and in the case of trains, wheel/rail noises.



Maybe we can make noise by burning some rubber.


My chickens think I'm henpecked and hog tied


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## turbodog (Feb 10, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Wow, I didn't know panasonic made car batteries also. I wonder if they are lithium-ion. I also didn't know about LiFePO4 in cars. I thought agm gell cell batteries were the cream of the crop.



Yes. They are lead acid. But expect them to last 8-9 years. One of my cars came with one... and every person on the forum I am part of got 8+ years from the original panasonic battery.

That car is rough on batteries also... all replacements usually last 2 years in that particular vehicle.

Panasonic accolades:

https://www.vwvortex.com/threads/panasonic-car-batteries-legendary.8094554/

MANY mentions of 10+ years and 100k miles on the OEM panasonic.

And, 26 years with 189k miles: https://www.vwvortex.com/threads/panasonic-car-batteries-legendary.8094554/


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## greenpondmike (Feb 11, 2021)

.....:huh:


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## greenpondmike (Feb 11, 2021)

turbodog said:


> Yes. They are lead acid. But expect them to last 8-9 years. One of my cars came with one... and every person on the forum I am part of got 8+ years from the original panasonic battery.
> 
> That car is rough on batteries also... all replacements usually last 2 years in that particular vehicle.
> 
> ...




Turbodog, I checked out those links. Sounds like panasonic is sure enough a good one.


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## raggie33 (Feb 11, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Bykfixer, I had a 4 speed 73 toyota corolla. That was a good car and had a strong motor. I wish I never traded it for that 74 elite, but I traded the elite for a 71 datson pickup, traded that for a 67 dodge army truck which I traded for a 74 gran torino with a 428 cobra jet engine in it and later traded that for a 74 mustang. I don't remember if I sold or traded the mustang- probably sold it to buy a 71 dodge shortbed pickup which I kept for a while. Ol truck had a positive traction rear end and although it was a half ton I hauled 4520 pounds of scrap metal in it once. It had a straight pipe on it and would buzz on the highway (225 slant 6). I also had a 75 corolla and liked it.
> 
> Edit: I must have been posting and didn't realize that the thread had turned a page. My post was in reference to what bykfixer posted. I really like the older vehicles.



22r engine? i replaced a motor in a toyota years of it was hard since i did not have a hoist


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## greenpondmike (Feb 11, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> 22r engine? i replaced a motor in a toyota years of it was hard since i did not have a hoist



The 22r didn't come out till 1981. I'm not sure what engine it had in it, but it was a good and stout one. 
I didn't keep it long enough to do any work on it. I think the only thing I ever did to it was clean out the back section when a friend got sick back there


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## jtr1962 (Feb 11, 2021)

nbp said:


> Niche indeed. My dad restores Mopars, so I’ve been around that scene my whole life. I don’t know any classic car guys who are likely to put one of those in their cars. Maybe it would be okay for a car that has little collector value but is fun to drive, or is a more modern car to begin with. But complete numbers matching drivetrains are so integral to the value of a car as well as the driving experience I doubt very many people are going to be interested in putting it in true collector cars.
> 
> In any case, I don’t think either new or old tech are wholly good or bad. I think there is room for both in our lives. Would I trade an efficient water saving washing machine for an antique washboard? Heck no! But are there cool tools and products made in the old style with more traditional methods that are more satisfying to use and enjoy? You bet. I also believe there is a level of nostalgia surrounding objects and experiences during a certain swath of our developmental years that can cause us to look back on things more positively than they really were. Not that that is always bad, but nostalgia can also blind us at times to the reality of past situations. We may look fondly on something because we got comfortable with it, not necessarily because it it is actually better. For example, If you and your buddies liked getting together and tinkering with your cars as teens you may think fondly of carbureted motors because of the memories that they evoke, but by basically any metric a modern FI engine is a better machine.


It sounds to me like you're talking about show cars, which are often only driven off the flatbed they're transported to car shows on. Or at best gently driven only on good days once or twice a month just to keep the mechanicals in shape. Sure, those aren't vehicles which the owner would want to swap out the gas engine for an electric.

I'm thinking more in terms of regular vehicles people might own, perhaps even vintage vehicles, which will never be fully restored, and don't have much value even if they were. For whatever reason they might like these vehicles, and want to keep driving them so long as the body is good. That's where EV conversions would come in, and I think it's going to be a huge market. If you follow trends, the first thing to electrify in a big way will be commercial vehicles. This is both to help the bottom line and the company image. Last I checked commercial vehicles account for about 40% of domestic motor fuel usage. Now consider gas stations are already a marginal business. In NYC quite a few have already shut down. Imagine when fuel sales drop 20% or 30% or 40% as commercial fleets go electric. Many more gas stations will fold. My guess is it'll be impossible to find a gas station in NY city limits when that happens. So the greater difficulty of finding gas will spur most people to buy an electric the next time they need a car. Or to convert their existing car to electric instead. And that spurs the numbers of gas stations further into a downward spiral. What does this have to do with classic cars? Well, at some point it's going to be very difficult for those people with stock classic cars to find gasoline for them. They may still keep their cars 100% stock, but they may have to at least convert the engines to run on ethanol.

I'm of the mind that not all newer things are necessarily better, but by the same token a lot of the love of old things by people comes more from nostalgia than these things necessarily being better. I might fondly remember some things about my first computer, but at this stage I really have no desire to fire it up any more. It's functionally useless to me. One trend I don't understand is the desire of people to surf the Internet on phones with tiny screens. In fact, I find the entire touch screen interface incredibly annoying to use, especially trying to type on one of those things. I have to correct every other letter. So that's a clear case of new not necessarily being better.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 11, 2021)

I'm on a smartphone now. I still have my windows vista laptop, but this is more convenient. Try getting on the net with a 2003 motorola cell phone with a 1 1/2x 2 inch screen. No pictures, only text. I read around 4500 free night time minutes that first month.


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## bykfixer (Feb 11, 2021)

I was awakened at 3:30 this morning while dreaming that I was given the option of going back to 1973 or re-live 2020. I chose to stay in 2020 in the dream. 

In the background the song Red Barchetta by Rush was playing and the MC of the dream was Wink Martindale. 1973 was gray and colorless while 2020 was in color. In big cities in 1973 everybody wore masks due to all of the pollution. In 2020 people wore masks because the Spanish flu was back. 

When I woke up the morning I looked out my window and everything was gray and colorless and I thought perhaps I chose 1973? But then I looked across the room and saw my 20" flatscreen tv and thought "phew!"


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## xxo (Feb 11, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> I was awakened at 3:30 this morning while dreaming that I was given the option of going back to 1973 or re-live 2020. I chose to stay in 2020 in the dream.
> 
> In the background the song Red Barchetta by Rush was playing and the MC of the dream was Wink Martindale. 1973 was gray and colorless while 2020 was in color. In big cities in 1973 everybody wore masks due to all of the pollution. In 2020 people wore masks because the Spanish flu was back.
> 
> When I woke up the morning I looked out my window and everything was gray and colorless and I thought perhaps I chose 1973? But then I looked across the room and saw my 20" flatscreen tv and thought "phew!"




Yeah, don't go back too far or everything will be in black and white.....when was it that they came out with color?


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## jtr1962 (Feb 11, 2021)

xxo said:


> Yeah, don't go back too far or everything will be in black and white.....when was it that they came out with color?


When I was a kid I actually used to ask my grandparents what year was it when the world became colored instead of black and white.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 11, 2021)

.....


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## idleprocess (Feb 11, 2021)

nbp said:


> Niche indeed. My dad restores Mopars, so I’ve been around that scene my whole life. I don’t know any classic car guys who are likely to put one of those in their cars. Maybe it would be okay for a car that has little collector value but is fun to drive, or is a more modern car to begin with. But complete numbers matching drivetrains are so integral to the value of a car as well as the driving experience I doubt very many people are going to be interested in putting it in true collector cars.


_Restomods_ are a thing for lower-end / more recent classic cars that people want to daily. A Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow isn't a candidate, but a salvagable junkyard C3 Vette might be. The general sentiment seems to be to preserve the exterior appearance while improving _quality of life_ for the driver and passengers vis-à-vis a modern powertrain, climate control, a modern head unit, etc.


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## raggie33 (Feb 11, 2021)

the new vette is even more pretty then lady gaga lol. i saw one a few days ago


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## jabe1 (Feb 11, 2021)

I remember driving a 63 valiant convertible around. Someone was complaining about electronic ignitions just dying on you. With that valiant, I kept a ballast resistor in the glove box; that was the component that would leave you stranded.
about 10 months ago, my ‘04 sienna left me stranded 70 miles from home with a dead cylinder. Turns out it was a bad coil pack,(at 225k miles) now I keep a spare one of them with me. It’s always something, and as much as I love the old cars, and trucks, for daily use I’ll drive something more modern. 
I’ve driven all sorts of stuff and I can say without hesitation that the most reliable have been the newer ones. Specifically, what we have now. 
what I do see as a problem though is that we are conveniencing ourselves to death. So much of what we “need” now are really just convenience items. I grew up without AC, electric can openers, Alexa, Siri, etc. We can do without it, but we choose not to. We have become lazier and at the same time expect everything immediately. We’re drowning in our own trash, partly because no one bothers to repair what they own anymore, it’s all viewed as disposable. Glorious, and yet sad time to be alive.


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## raggie33 (Feb 11, 2021)

a electic car should be more relaible . it amazes me that ice even last one year so many points to fail


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## greenpondmike (Feb 14, 2021)

I admit that charging systems have come a long way. Dc generators were direct current and seemed to work alright, but I don't know whether they put out a lot of current or not. I could rebuild them (they were more simple than a starter- although I never had to) and rewind the armatures within them. I'm kinda ignorant as to why they went to alternators except I reckon they could put out more power for their size. They produced ac current, but put out dc current with the help of the diodes within them. The only ones I've built were mainly the general motors CS and SI units along with the leech navils and police fords. When you rebuild used cores, sometimes you don't know if it is going to work properly until it is assembled. That though is mainly on the big SI 24 volt, yellow ones that go on heavy equipment. These units are also brushless. You have to put red loctite on them at assembly or else they can be shaken apart when put in use. Usually the rotor is a little warped and there was no way to easily tell that until assembled and tested. If bad you have to use a torch to heat them because of the red loctite- if you tried to dissemble without heat you will break the bolts. 
The smaller si units were way simpler and didn't require that and you didn't have to do any soldering like on the cs units. 10si and 12si were used on gm cars and trucks. I think the 10si was used from sometime in the 60s on into the 70s and the 12si was used from sometime in the 70s on into the 80s. The cs units were from the 90s. Cooling was an issue- the more amps they put out the hotter they ran. I forget what my truck had on it (the name), but when I built it I made it into a 10si when I bypassed the external regulator and put in an internal one and I used a higher amp rotor and stator to put out 60 amps instead of the stock 37 amps. The newer cs units have been replaced with newer units and they also have been replaced. All these vehicles with power everything need more amps. I think charging technology has come a long way......and then came the computor controlled charging systems.
On those you have to replace the battery with the same one. You have to be careful when jumping another vehicle off- negative goes to an engine or body ground- not the negative post. If you replace the battery the computor has to be reprogrammed for the new battery or else it will overcharge it because it will still think it is the old battery. The computor chooses when to also charge the battery so the vehicle will get better mileage. 
That there is some messed up technology IMHO.
The computer choses charging for mpg instead of for the overal health and performance of the battery. I myself care more if the vehicle is going to start rather than a few more measily mpgs. 
Also nowadays you have all those sensors and that is kinda difficult for the average do it yourselfer who has nothing to plug up to check the codes the computer is throwing out there. It can get expensive just replacing sensors till you finally replace the right one and it might be the computer instead of a sensor.
If you go redneck and bog your vehicle down in water and the computer is under the seat or inside the kick panal you could ruin it if water seeps into the vehicle. On a old vehicle you might have to dry the inside of the distributor cap and you're good to go. 
Lol, when it comes to new and old tech it is kind of like "choose your poison". I think the epa has gone too far, but no worry for the rich folks because they can afford a new vehicle every year, but what about peasants like me? At least old tech is cheaper and easier to work on- especially if you're stranded on the road and the parts are cheap and for the most part still readily available. I'd rather drive a ol beater I can work on than some flashy newer thing that I don't know my grits from my gravy about.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 15, 2021)

Got to be careful when welding on them also. My brother in law messed something up just welding on his exhaust on a early 90s dodge puckup. He was supposed to disconnect the negative cable, but didn't know- I didn't even know. I forget what it was, but it was on some sort of assemble (maybe fuse box?) on the driver's side fender well. I figured a way to bypass it till he could get the part (it wasn't a fuse). 
On older vehicles you didn't have to worry about all that foolishness. When welding exhaust, if you had holes in your floorboard you would need to be careful and not let the sparks catch your carpet on fire.
A mechanic did that on an old 64 3/4 ton chevy. He pulled the motor and maybe the trans and junked it. I probably could have gotten it for scrap price and fixed the inside wires, but I had forgotten that I had successfully tackeled something like that before on a 74 dodge that had the dash and some of the wiring harness melted and had run down to the floor. 
I got it where I could crank it with the key, got headlights and got it drivable. Only thing was it wasn't charging even after I had put on a new external voltage regulator and a rebuilt alternator.
I asked a fellow I knew was into mopars and he said "did you connect the voltmeter wires together?". I finally figured out what he was talking about with my blonde mind (lol) and found the two connections for the in dash voltmeter and bolted them together and then it charged.
The seat smelled like smoke though, so I took it out and put in a cement block to sit on- don't do that lol. I reinstalled the seat.
All that- only with old tech. 
Man, that thing would burn the tires.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 15, 2021)

More about my dodge. It had no dash and I even took the heater out which left a big square hole in the passenger side firewall. If someone else drove and we were passing someone I could reach my arm out the hole and under the fender and wave at the person we're passing. Imagine someone passing you and a hand comes out from between the tire and fender lol. I took a lot of stuff off that truck to lighten it up. Yeah, it was almost too light to catch traction when trail riding and I never even took off the bed and tailgate.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 15, 2021)

.....


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## greenpondmike (Feb 15, 2021)

.....


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## greenpondmike (Feb 15, 2021)

.....


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## greenpondmike (Feb 16, 2021)

I don't mind the concept of electric vehicles now and I think a lot of that epa foolishness isn't installed on them because it isn't necessarily. Transmissions with more gears/speeds can help just about any ol engine pull good. The newer hemi's (as compaired to the old 426's) don't have any low end torque, yet can still pull well with these newer transmissions. I think chrysler corporation was the pioneer of these (please correct me if I'm wrong). When I first read about chryslers new transmissions a thought occurred to me that chrysler corp seems to be the worst one about bean counters, but were pioneers in much past technology. I wondered if these transmissions would hold up well if the bean counters leave them alone?


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## raggie33 (Feb 16, 2021)

electric is so so much better but i understand the notalga of gas engines. but im a tech geek soon as new tech comes out i buy it i recall my switch from cassetes to cds the sound quailty was so much better now i am all about hd audio which sounds better then cds


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## greenpondmike (Feb 16, 2021)

I like mopars and had a few. From the early 60 on into the 90s car manufacturers have for the most part stayed true to their positives and negatives. Mopars tend to have wiring and front end (tie rods, ball joints, idler arms...etc) troubles. Parts are more expensive also. They seem different (in a fun way) from Ford and gm. Chevies were the cheapest to build for power and parts were readily available. Be careful putting big and wide tires on the 73- 87 model C10 trucks though, because the frame easily breaks where the power steering box mounts to it. It is a common thing and it cost me $400 to fix it. It never broke again till I got rid of it and the dude's step son wrecked it. 
The oldsmobile cutlass was a well built tank and their 350 was a good motor and I prefer it over the chevy 350. I had 3 cutlass's- the last was a 75 model. I traded it for a Ford truck. I never owned a pontiac, but their old 400 engine is a good one to make power and I have heard some amazing things about this engine and one time had a first hand experience with it.
Back on mopars...please be wary of their hemi's. BPI's work truck has one and it went out before it hit the 200,000 mark- probably around 170,000 something. Engine was replaced and at under 10,000 miles it blew a head gasket. The newer mopar (chrysler corp) engines need good oil and it needs to be changed more often than what the dealer recommends. Use the oil they specify and change oil and filter at 3000 miles. Usually most of the stuff in oils is depleted at 3000 miles anyway unless you are using synthetics or heavy duty diesel oils. I prefer dino oils myself. The best mopar engine IMHO is the slant 6 and I've owned many of them and never killed one. That ol truck I stripped down and an old 4 wheel drive I've owned both had a 318 in them. I never killed those engines either, but a couple of folks I knew have broken the cams in them. They just snapped while going down the road- I wonder what's up with that?
I mainly prefer Fords. They are full of surprises and chevy folk can mealy mouth about them all they want, but I've gotten good service out of them. I don't like their 250 six cylinder, but the rest of their 6's and V8 are alright. I prefer their small block windsor engines- 289, 302 and the 351. I also like their big block Fe engines. I had a 390 that made good power and got 20 mpg. You can spend $100 and get a good Ford (in 2007), but I've spent a lot more on a chevy and it still wasn't as good as the $100 Ford. 
Toyota, nissan/datson and honda all used to be quality vehicles. In the 70s they were ok. They got better and addressed the rust issues sometime in the 80s and were good on up to the mid 90s before they started giving problems like the other manufacturers.
Fords and gm vehicles are different now and their engines are made from thinner casts than they used to be. Chevy's vortec heads are good and Ford has that ecoboost v6 that can outdo all their formal engines and also has good low end torque. The 3.5 ecoboost has some good reviews. I think their powerstroke diesel is still made by international and dodge still has the cummins diesel. The chevy duromax diesel was a failure, but I don't know what they are using now.
Chevy addressed the frame issue in 87 (another manufactorer that had the old style and new style truck in the same year) new style truck which I both liked and hated. I hated it because of all the bragging they did even to the point of blowing up ford trucks in their commercials.
Back to the ones made in Japan- gm, Ford and chrysler were putting out fairly good stuff in the 70s-90s (especially if you wanted a truck), but I didn't like their small cars and later on their small mid sized cars and later on their small full sized cars. The ltd/crown vic was alright till the end of it's run and so was the "real" full sized caprice, but all the rest of it....no way-IMHO. My cousin used to buy that junk and I would always say get one made in japan. His wife would say that the interiors rag out too easily. Well their new fancy mercury was toast (trans) at around 70,000, BUT the interior was still pert near perfect. If you ask me I'd rather have one that has a ragged out interior at 300,000-400,000+ than to have one the has a perfect interior still at 70,000 and I can't drive it anywhere. The Ford taurus was junk up to 2000 and then they got a "little" better. I liked the SHO taurus (I like sling shot vehicles), but it is also junk IMHO. The one my cousin had was a 2006 mercury montego. 
I still think mopars have a weak front end and they are high maintenance along with the jeep.
The mercedes m class is also high maintenance.
I had the privilege of twice driving one. Once on their test track. I drove it like it was an old Ford and I was impressed. It felt top heavy though. My 88 bronco 2 and 1979 Ford fairmont futura felt more stabile, but the punch of that engine and their traction control system is what impressed me. They aren't worth the money though and at best they are only a class symbol to impress people.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 16, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> electric is so so much better but i understand the notalga of gas engines. but im a tech geek soon as new tech comes out i buy it i recall my switch from cassetes to cds the sound quailty was so much better now i am all about hd audio which sounds better then cds



Believe it or not, I'm also a tech geek when it comes to software. I like to try and play with different kinds of software. I'm using bromite and fennec for my browsers on this phone. Bromite is a varient of chrome that has been ungoogled. Fennec is an unbranded form of firefox. I use f-droid and apkpure for my app stores because I have ungoogled my android. I can also clean up and clean out computers including the registry and hunt down viruses and malware. Some of the good apps have gone away, but many are still around. Some of my special apps I like to hide and rename them to prevent sabatouge from a hacker. I'm not perfect, but I'm persistant and count any viruses and malware as a challenge.
I also like audio without the white noise and jam systems are getting way better- even the cheap ones.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 16, 2021)

Radio stations...
How do you old timers like the syndicated radio stations with big corporations buying out the independent local stations and putting their syndicated stuff on there?
I don't. I long for the way it used to be with local stations and personalities.
People like TC and John Ed 660 AM WSGN, Coyote Calhoun 960 AM WERC, Mark and Brian 94.5, Lucky Lip Lanier WACT, Syrup Sopper WACT, Patty and the Doc 104.7 WZZK, Joe Rumore 690 AM WVOK, Ben Chalker WPYK AM and later 96.5 WMJJ- Magic 96, Andrew and Jessica.....etc. Chicago had Jacky Raniese and Mark St. Bob on 890 AM WLS. 
I think the only local independent station we have now is 99.5- talk 99. It has Leland live (he's good) along with some others left over from when it was a rock station.
I know about Rick and Bubba- I think the local Birmingham station WZZK is still their home base although they are syndicated. I never listened to Johnboy and Billy, but I like their BBQ sauce. There are others in other states including one in Nashville- 650 AM WSM (good station) and another that Empath mentioned in another thread. 
I'd like to hear some of y'alls favorites.


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## Phou1973 (Feb 16, 2021)

OP - I think the feelings you are feeling are somewhat normal. A lot of people don't like change (unless they are the ones doing the changing).

I know for sure that although i'm younger, I dislike the change that has happened during my lifetime. And I know my grandad dislikes the change in his, and i'm sure people generations before were the same too...

We're stuck in our ways but have to embrace change to a certain degree, or else we'll become grumpy old farts, and the world will look at us as just "out of touch", to which sense we will become by that point.

My advice would be to stick to what you believe is right, and if you think some tech has goen too far - don't use it. But i certainly also wouldn't dismiss anyone for liking or using it, or else you could come across as a bit of a grump  

Hope you stay safe.
T


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## greenpondmike (Feb 16, 2021)

Phou1973, welcome to CPF.I really don't consider someone a grump till they remind me of Archy Bunker of the sitcom "all in the family". I reckon grumpiness can be interpreted by what you are used to being around. America wouldn't exist today if everyone kept their mouths shut and just put up with the british rule over us. But we didn't...we pushed back, we voiced our negative opinions and we pulled together and fought back. There is a balance though. Y'all do what you want to here, but I just want this thread to be a mellow, but informative and reminisive yet balanced with the present. A place to voice your fears and apprehensions of the present and future, but also the good things about the present and future. A place to miss, but a place to embrace. It's difficult to talk about modern times without at least referencing the past a little (in my case a lot). I have mainly been on the subject of vehicles, but there are so many subjects that can be covered here. I hope the mods jump in and keep it civil if it gets out of hand. I guess a person is on the subject as long as the present is referenced in some form and fashion and the past ties into it. The present technology contrasted by the past technology and living in it now and then. It is in a way difficult to reference the present and past without touching on tech.
I guess even the mandella effect could be covered here- I don't know. If it can't the mods will let us know.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 16, 2021)

"My advice would be to stick to what you believe is right, and if you think some tech has goen too far - don't use it."

Well, that's half and thank you for posting.
IMHO, don't use it and voice your negative feedback. I'm thinking that you might be referencing to me calling the Ford tarus junk. I'm sure though that if the bean counters stayed out of it the taurus would have been a dependable car and also the newest version of the montego. Bean counters are like pine beatles IMHO. 
Seems like Japan told them to go jump in a lake till the mid 90s. I myself believe in keeping costs down, but NOT at the expense of quality.
A lot of modern stuff is disposable nowadays. Can anyone on here imagine someone restoring a "classic taurus" (lol) and taking it around to car shows? 

Edit: probably one of the biggest lemons of all time (and I think y'all would agree) was the chevy vega, yet I wanted one as a kid and wouldn't mind having one now. They are fun to drive, but very high maintence. The bean counters had a hayday with that thing to keep it at a certain price point, but certain options helped, but I don't think they had anything to do with the aluminum block and the cast iron head. By design they thought that the block didn't need steel liners and because the vega was rushed to production the cooling system was insufficient. You had to baby it and keep it cool. One of the options was a bigger radiator. 
Rust was another problem and they could have addressed that with galvanized metal along with fiberglass hood, trunk lid and fenders. The fiberglass would have helped to keep the weight down, but make it more dangerous in crashes 
I wish chevrolet would come out with reproduction electric version. I would miss the vibration of the four banger though because that was part of the vega experience (along with being broke down on the side of the road).


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## jabe1 (Feb 16, 2021)

I generally avoid commercial radio anymore. We had a few great stations in the past, they were while independent at least. Now it’s the same old everything. 
WMMS 100.7 used to push the envelope and release new albums a day or so early. They got fined, but it grew their audience enough so they didn’t care. When the Wall came out the played it in it’s entirety a day early. They also were the first station in the country to play many new bands not the least of which was Rush.
WNCX 98.5 is another rock station ruined by corporate takeover.
WGAR 99.5 used to be a real country station, well regarded all around the country. Now it just plays pop music with a twang like all the others.
Thankfully, we have some great college stations and a really good public radio station in WCPN 90.3.
Oh well, I’ll just have to deal with Pandora and Spotify’s algorithms.


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## raggie33 (Feb 16, 2021)

jabe1 said:


> I generally avoid commercial radio anymore. We had a few great stations in the past, they were while independent at least. Now it’s the same old everything.
> WMMS 100.7 used to push the envelope and release new albums a day or so early. They got fined, but it grew their audience enough so they didn’t care. When the Wall came out the played it in it’s entirety a day early. They also were the first station in the country to play many new bands not the least of which was Rush.
> WNCX 98.5 is another rock station ruined by corporate takeover.
> WGAR 99.5 used to be a real country station, well regarded all around the country. Now it just plays pop music with a twang like all the others.
> ...


i loved the buzard wmms


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## greenpondmike (Feb 16, 2021)

Y'all remember the pinto? That was a good car with a bad gas tank design. If driven in the country you didn't have to be worried about being rear ended so much. I seen one that could wind up to 70 mph in 2nd gear with a four speed. A friend was cutting doughnuts in one with me in the passenger seat enjoying it and his brother in the back freaking out and saying the driver was going to blow us up lol- only in a pinto.
The newer escort wasn't a fire hazard like the pinto, but it was high maintenance and undependable. It was still more dependable than the vega though. 
The 74-78 mustangs also had the same issue as the pintos and so did all the older mustangs I later learned. I was disappointed to learn that. All the fox body mustangs were alright. The fox body was also the platform for the downsized thunderbird and the smaller version LTD. Those were tough vehicles and the mustang and LTD versions were good trail riders and handled great. I crossed the cahaba river (the sholes- 2-3 foot deep) in a 84 mustang. 
I wonder how these new trucks would do if taken off road with those panals under the front bumper?


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## greenpondmike (Feb 16, 2021)

jabe1 said:


> I generally avoid commercial radio anymore. We had a few great stations in the past, they were while independent at least. Now it’s the same old everything.
> WMMS 100.7 used to push the envelope and release new albums a day or so early. They got fined, but it grew their audience enough so they didn’t care. When the Wall came out the played it in it’s entirety a day early. They also were the first station in the country to play many new bands not the least of which was Rush.
> WNCX 98.5 is another rock station ruined by corporate takeover.
> WGAR 99.5 used to be a real country station, well regarded all around the country. Now it just plays pop music with a twang like all the others.
> ...



That's what I'm taking about. Thanks for posting that jabe1.


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## raggie33 (Feb 16, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Y'all remember the pinto? That was a good car with a bad gas tank design. If driven in the country you didn't have to be worried about being rear ended so much. I seen one that could wind up to 70 mph in 2nd gear with a four speed. A friend was cutting doughnuts in one with me in the passenger seat enjoying it and his brother in the back freaking out and saying the driver was going to blow us up lol- only in a pinto.
> The newer escort wasn't a fire hazard like the pinto, but it was high maintenance and undependable. It was still more dependable than the vega though.
> The 74-78 mustangs also had the same issue as the pintos and so did all the older mustangs I later learned. I was disappointed to learn that. All the fox body mustangs were alright. The fox body was also the platform for the downsized thunderbird and the smaller version LTD. Those were tough vehicles and the mustang and LTD versions were good trail riders and handled great. I crossed the cahaba river (the sholes- 2-3 foot deep) in a 84 mustang.
> I wonder how these new trucks would do if taken off road with those panals under the front bumper?



the 2.3was a nice egine


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## greenpondmike (Feb 16, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> i loved the buzard wmms



We also had a radio station called that raggie33. It was a hard rock station at 99.5 before it went to talk radio. It is still independent. I also forgot about 106.9 the eagle. I think it is still independent and plays pop, rock and some hard rock.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 16, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> the 2.3was a nice egine



Was that the pinto engine raggie33? I didn't know what was in them because I never owned one, but I almost did. People here in Green Pond were burning rubber with them as often as the v8s.


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## bykfixer (Feb 19, 2021)

When I was a lad we had little friction lights on our bicycles where you flipped a little wheel against the tire and the twirling of the little wheel generated enough electricity to light up both a front and rear light bulb. Now it was caveman technology but I often wonder why electric cars don't use something similar to increase the run time. My sister told me in her Prius braking helped charge the batteries. 

I also remember in the 80's it was said Allied Chemical had developed plastics for car frames and body parts that were stronger than steel. I wonder what ever happened to that technology. Was it lighter in weight? That I do not know. My wife's car has plastic valve covers and oil pan to save weight. Trouble is it takes petroluem to make plastic. Lots of petroleum. 

Recently in Texas they were flying helicopters over frozen wind mills and spraying them with……petroleum de-icer products. We're on the way to better, but we still have a long way to go. 

On a project at my job a big rich contractor with all the best machinery money can buy has 2 guys in a 30 foot deep hole day after day digging around a 4-1/2 foot pipe with clay shovels. When they got half way down the side of the pipe with a giant Tonka toy excavator they got stuck. See, half way down the pipe is the kind of soil that the pipe was laid in back in the 1950's that is a gray clay like we used to make ash trays and flower pots with in art class. So again, all of the technology available does not do as good of a job as an archaic grubbing hoe and clay spade shovel. Oh they vacuum out the chunks with a $200k vacuum truck……one fist sized chunk at a time.






This machine is good for a cruise ship anchor to them. 
Just out of the photo is a scrap metal recycling center that takes the plastic casing off copper wire and melts the copper into hunks, turns the plastic into blocks, and also crushes alluminum stuff into big blocks all day, everyday. It's pretty cool to watch. 





They get to go home and brag to their family "we dug 6 more inches today"


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## idleprocess (Feb 19, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> When I was a lad we had little friction lights on our bicycles where you flipped a little wheel against the tire and the twirling of the little wheel generated enough electricity to light up both a front and rear light bulb. Now it was caveman technology but I often wonder why electric cars don't use something similar to increase the run time. My sister told me in her Prius braking helped charge the batteries.


Regenerative braking has been a thing on pretty much every production EV since the EV1. I recall reading that they can add 10-20% to range in mixed driving.

Reducing drag/rolling resistance, making the drivetrain more efficient, adding battery capacity can improve BEV range; "putting an alternator on the driveshaft" adds drag, and thanks to the laws of thermodynamics you'll always recover less than 100% of that added drag.



bykfixer said:


> I also remember in the 80's it was said Allied Chemical had developed plastics for car frames and body parts that were stronger than steel. I wonder what ever happened to that technology. Was it lighter in weight? That I do not know. My wife's car has plastic valve covers and oil pan to save weight. Trouble is it takes petroluem to make plastic. Lots of petroleum.
> 
> Recently in Texas they were flying helicopters over frozen wind mills and spraying them with……petroleum de-icer products. We're on the way to better, but we still have a long way to go.


Petroleum isn't going away in our lifetimes - it's too useful for energy and industrial-scale chemistry. But there are other ways to make some of those things - some only mildly less convenient than dino oil.


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## jtr1962 (Feb 19, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> When I was a lad we had little friction lights on our bicycles where you flipped a little wheel against the tire and the twirling of the little wheel generated enough electricity to light up both a front and rear light bulb. Now it was caveman technology but I often wonder why electric cars don't use something similar to increase the run time. My sister told me in her Prius braking helped charge the batteries.


Here's why. The generator would be less than 100% efficient converting motion into electricity, and more would be lost converting the output from the generator to something which could drive the car lights. Ultimately, the energy to drive the generator comes from the EV's battery. It makes more sense to just use that electricity directly.

The bike generator setup is indeed caveman technology. Want to know why it existed? Back then all we had were horribly inefficient incandescent bulbs. Couple that with the horribly low capacity rechargeables which existed at the time. Anything practical on a bike which put enough light out the front would probably have a run time measured in minutes. Using disposable batteries would have been even worse. Figure each bike ride costing you a few bucks in batteries. But the human powering the bike could supply 5 to 10 watts continuously, albeit at the cost of slightly reduced speed. I recall those tire generator lights used to slow me from about 23 mph down to 20 or 21 mph. I did a rough calculation once on what it took to get 100 lumens back then. Maybe a 10 watt incandescent lamp could do it. If you ran it on 4 AA Nicad rechargeables (about 600 mAh) you could get those 100 lumens for about 17 minutes. Fast forward to now. Any decent LED emitter will get at least 150 lm/W, including driver losses. So 0.67 watts from the batteries to power the LED. 4 AA NiMH of 2,000 mAh will give you those 100 lumens for about 14 hours and change. In other words, better lighting and battery technology has increased the capability of any given size portable light by a factor of at least 50. That could be 50x the light for the same run time, 50x the runtime for the same amount of light, or some combination thereof. So bike tire generators no longer make any sense. We can even go with larger form factor cells like 26650s and get bike lights with over 1,000 lumens and several hours run time.


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## raggie33 (Feb 19, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Was that the pinto engine raggie33? I didn't know what was in them because I never owned one, but I almost did. People here in Green Pond were burning rubber with them as often as the v8s.



im pretty sur it did


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## greenpondmike (Feb 19, 2021)

Thanks for posting bykfixer and also everyone else. I like hearing y'alls past and present experiences with technology. I done lived mine, so what I share is boring to me. 

I just got canned because of modern technology. Yep, got replaced by a high tech alarm system. It's not as bad as being replaced by the yellow gate almost a year ago. 

"When I was a lad we had little friction lights on our bicycles where you flipped a little wheel against the tire and the twirling of the little wheel generated enough electricity to light up both a front and rear light bulb".

I had one of those and wished I had kept at least the generator part. The headlight part was flimsy on mine. I got a newer led type on my mountain bike that I haven't ridden in years. The energizers leaked and I think it messed it up.

On them plastics, my uncle had an oldsmobiile with plastic fenders. The rest of it might have been plastic for the most part I'm not sure. Exposure to extreme sun and heat can warp plastic over a period of time. 
Bud Spencer (rip) and Terrance Hill (they used to do some funny westerns together) played in a movie where they had a dune buggy made of fiberglass that was in an accident and caught fire- all that was left was the engine and some of the other metal that resembled a small scrap pile after the fiberglass body burned up. By the way, it's a good movie. 

"My wife's car has plastic valve covers and oil pan to save weight. Trouble is it takes petroluem to make plastic. Lots of petroleum.

Recently in Texas they were flying helicopters over frozen wind mills and spraying them with……petroleum de-icer products. We're on the way to better, but we still have a long way to go".

Looks like petrolium ain't going anywhere anytime soon. 

"On a project at my job a big rich contractor with all the best machinery money can buy has 2 guys in a 30 foot deep hole day after day digging around a 4-1/2 foot pipe with clay shovels. When they got half way down the side of the pipe with a giant Tonka toy excavator they got stuck. See, half way down the pipe is the kind of soil that the pipe was laid in back in the 1950's that is a gray clay like we used to make ash trays and flower pots with in art class. So again, all of the technology available does not do as good of a job as an archaic grubbing hoe and clay spade shovel. Oh they vacuum out the chunks with a $200k vacuum truck……one fist sized chunk at a time". 

Sounds like old tech is going to be right there beside new tech for a while. Mainly, I just don't want something to think for us or replace us. We have enough trouble already with the job pool being watered down.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 19, 2021)

Wow! Y'all been busy while I was writing the above post. Thank you- now I have something to read.


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## bykfixer (Feb 19, 2021)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=khWpN0RSb2k
How bout those self charging cars?


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## greenpondmike (Feb 19, 2021)

That's neat bykfixer. I know they are trying to also make them wind efficient, but I wish they would try for a more retro look. It would be neat if they came out with hand controls only and put a crank with some pedals on it down on the floor so people could manually charge it as they drive. On a long trip people could swap up and overweight people could lose some weight. Since the battery would carry/power the load of the car and hills, the charging system pedalling rate wouldn't very that much and with a small gear/pully on the crank and a large one on the powerful alternator a person could pedal at slower, steady and paceful rate. Be able to pull over and charge- even let a kid that can't drive pedal. That would help harness all that energy kids have that we don't have anymore. 
Also not even pedal at all for a while till the battery meter gets down enough that you can't put it off any longer. Also fix it where it can be plugged up and charged all night.
All this along with a solar panel that would double as a pop up window or even the retro "T tops" would be ideal. 
I know all this may sound comical, but I'm serious- and probably stupid (I might be able to make enough to afford a turnip green sandwich) if this is a good ideal since I put it out there, but I just want to pitch in and have a hand in any future change. It might help me to digest it better without getting acid reflux.


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## bykfixer (Feb 19, 2021)

Heck I'd own an electric car if it could back up to a door, pop a hatch and swap out battery packs. Phooey on getting half way to Myrtle Beach and have to plug in my car for a few hours. 
There was a time when you pulled into a gas station and the guy with the star on his hat filled your tank, wiped your windows and checked/filled your oil upon request so why can't that happen with battery packs in 2021? Plus that would create jobs. 

Green Pond, Acura made a hot rod NSX with 4 electric motors that supplimented the gasoline engine. Give it time and somebody will race them, put wheelie bars, spoilers that act as wind turbines and who knows what.


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## raggie33 (Feb 19, 2021)

the benifits of eletric blow my mind there a century or so behind gas engines but they get better everyday we used to have a cool guy on this forum he had one of the first eletric cars i forgot his name


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## greenpondmike (Feb 20, 2021)

[Posted by bykfixer:
"Green Pond, Acura made a hot rod NSX with 4 electric motors that supplimented the gasoline engine. Give it time and somebody will race them, put wheelie bars, spoilers that act as wind turbines and who knows what."] 

Sounds like that accura had a setup like a train. If not they ought to do that. I wonder how much hp it would take to run a generator that could energize an electric motor on each wheel. GM ought to be able to build one with the technology from their electromotive division (EMD). Would be cool to have an engine under the hood no bigger than a 5hp go cart engine.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 20, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> the benifits of eletric blow my mind there a century or so behind gas engines but they get better everyday we used to have a cool guy on this forum he had one of the first eletric cars i forgot his name



Yes raggie33, electric vehicles should get better as time go on. Turbodog not long ago named that fellow you just mentioned in the cars forum. He said that fellow had a chevy volt and a electric Ford ranger.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 20, 2021)

Raggie33, its on page 96 of the "cars,man" thread. I was mistaken- Turbodog didn't name him, only what he had and then below my post thanking him he posted a wikipedia link to the electric Ford ranger- good read.


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## jtr1962 (Feb 20, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> That's neat bykfixer. I know they are trying to also make them wind efficient, but I wish they would try for a more retro look. It would be neat if they came out with hand controls only and put a crank with some pedals on it down on the floor so people could manually charge it as they drive. On a long trip people could swap up and overweight people could lose some weight. Since the battery would carry/power the load of the car and hills, the charging system pedalling rate wouldn't very that much and with a small gear/pully on the crank and a large one on the powerful alternator a person could pedal at slower, steady and paceful rate. Be able to pull over and charge- even let a kid that can't drive pedal. That would help harness all that energy kids have that we don't have anymore.
> Also not even pedal at all for a while till the battery meter gets down enough that you can't put it off any longer. Also fix it where it can be plugged up and charged all night.
> All this along with a solar panel that would double as a pop up window or even the retro "T tops" would be ideal.
> I know all this may sound comical, but I'm serious- and probably stupid (I might be able to make enough to afford a turnip green sandwich) if this is a good ideal since I put it out there, but I just want to pitch in and have a hand in any future change. It might help me to digest it better without getting acid reflux.


The pedaling idea won't even be remotely practical. Human beings put out a pathetically low amount of energy. As an example, I'm a fairly strong cyclist and can put out about 180 to 200 watts for an hour, smaller amounts of power for longer than that. Maybe on a long ride before I'm spent I might be able to put out 500 or 600 watt-hrs. For comparison typical EV battery packs are upwards of 50 kW-hrs, or about 100 times the amount of energy I could add in a few hours of pedaling. So I could in theory increase the state of charge by a lousy 1% at best. An average person might be closer to 0.5%. It's probably more practical to just put high efficiency solar panels on the car so it can be charging at a low level whenever the sun is out, even if it's parked.

Aerodynamic efficiency is very important for anything which moves through the air, but especially EVs. It's the old form follows function thing. If we bothered streamlining vehicles to the maximum extent practical we could get ranges of 1,000 miles or more, like this car:

https://robbreport.com/motors/cars/aptera-new-solar-ev-can-cover-1000-miles-no-charging-1234585242/


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## greenpondmike (Feb 20, 2021)

Well, they sure did get the range part down pat


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## bykfixer (Feb 20, 2021)

Maybe little Johnny or Jane can have a dynamo device in the back seat to power their GameBoy while travelling to and from grandmas someday Green Pond.
What would be really cool is to see a technology that uses the orange goo that collects on your fingers from eating Cheetos.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 20, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> Maybe little Johnny or Jane can have a dynamo device in the back seat to power their GameBoy while travelling to and from grandmas someday Green Pond.
> What would be really cool is to see a technology that uses the orange goo that collects on your fingers from eating Cheetos.



Lol, yeah that would be good.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 20, 2021)

Well, seems like we have talked about cars here more than anything. I guess with all the rumors (I'm guilty of some) floating around about higher gas prices it has people concerned. Vehicles are a big thing because they can for the most part safely take you here and there, but most important is that they can take you to work. Higher gas prices means you put more in the tank, but bring less home in your pocket. I only worked 11 miles from home, but because I had to run my truck all night, four nights a week to just keep the inside of my truck warm it cost me almost $20 a night, $80 a week which adds up to $320 a month. Can't wait for winter to end. During the summer I could throw my bike in the back of the truck and make rounds with it and since summertime is warm I will have no other reason to crank my truck except to go to work and go home. 
But as things go I got replaced by a high tech alarm system when things was going well and the customer said they were satisfied. 
I'm scheduled starting Monday to start 2 new post that will give me more hours at a slight decrease in pay, but one of them has a guardhouse with heat in it so, less money, but also less gas used. This might work out to allow me to have more spending money in the long run. If gas does go up to $7 a gallon that would wipe me out. I'm still employed at my job, but posts come and go and range from $7.50-$11.00 an hour. It's your typical mom and pop guard service that are trying to stay in business.
I say all this to say that if the price of gas goes up and those new fangled vehicles costs over a $1000 I'm messed up. By the way, I know they cost way more than that. They probably start out at $50,000 even with subsidies in place. Yes I'm concerned. Looks like my wife and I will have to learn how to eat and like opossum. I guess with enough quality ranch on it we could manage.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 21, 2021)

So many things have changed and so many things have stayed the same. Food is one of them.
I think past and present food could be covered here. One of the things that have stayed the same is those cheap square tostinoes pizzas. I don't know if I spelled the name correctly, but they still taste the same as when I was a teenager and they still have that great crust that surpasses anything that even eat in pizza places could make. They used to be round though, but that is no big deal at all.
What bothers me is the great food that doesn't exist anymore and the ones that do in name only, but taste way different. Now at 55 you could say that my taste bud have just changed, but why is it that so many foods still taste the same also if that is the case. 
I've noticed that a lot of foods that tasted just fine the way they were are changed now and they put some form of sweetner in them to try and make up for the change. They cheapen them and have the motto to just add sugar and no one will notice. 
Well I notice and I'm not happy with the trash some companies are putting out nowadays and they call that progress? Maybe for their pockets, but not for my taste buds. Nowadays it is difficult to find some quality ranch. O'Charleys used to be among the best out there. It still isn't cheap, but it sure taste like it is. I don't like to waste, but even if it costs $3+ if it don't taste right it is going in the garbage. Blueberry stuff now taste awful- almost like raspberry (yuk) and kraft mac and cheese- you know, the original powdered stuff that tasted soooo good ten years ago is nasty now and they have also sweetened it. Tv dinners have ol nasty gravy that doesn't hardly have any taste to it, but it is slightly sweet. 
This all is in the ready prepaired stuff that isn't good for you anyway, but what about all the gmo vegetables? My mother's side of the family have lived longer because they were brought up to eat more greens. I made myself like turnip greens, but they have to be fresh. Those seasoned ones in a can that used to taste so good have had sweetner added. If I went to a restaurant in the past and I wanted a salid all I was concerned about was if the bacon bits were real, but now most of them have also cheapened their ranch. 
If you dip smokeless tobacco- good luck finding the good stuff from the late 70s to mid 80s because most have also been sweetened. This is especially true if you prefer the long cut type. 
I admit, some stuff just needs a little bit of sweetning- sweet tea, ice cream, etc, but some stuff tastes better sour or bitter. 
I don't like ground turkey, but there was one brand that was soo good and it came in a 3 pound packs. I could make it into a patty and cook it up just right and then mix some el-yuckatea habinero pepper sauce and some of that "just" mayonnaise together and put on it and man that was good. Only thing left now is the pepper sauce. The mayonnaise is still around somewhere I heard, but not easily assessable as it used to be. Winn dixie's pimento farms pimento cheese spread has been sweetened and I could just go on and on about good stuff that is either gone or messed up if it still exists. There are some positives though. One of them is that good ol popeye's fried chicken. Once a blue moon came around and I actually had some extra money so I bought $100's worth of popeye's and me and my wife and her family got down on some fried chicken eeeew-weeee!


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## PhotonWrangler (Feb 22, 2021)

Like others here I'm disappointed to see the consolidation of radio stations under large corporations. It causes a lot of stations to lose their personality and connection to the local market. I also hate the idea of voice tracking where an announcer records all of their patter ahead of time, maybe from a faraway city, and it gets dropped into the program digitally at the appropriate times to make it seem as if they're sitting there doing the show in real time when they're not. It's cheesy and it has a hollow ring to it. There's still a small amount of personality driven radio here but it's becoming rather sparse.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 22, 2021)

PhotonWrangler said:


> Like others here I'm disappointed to see the consolidation of radio stations under large corporations. It causes a lot of stations to lose their personality and connection to the local market. I also hate the idea of voice tracking where an announcer records all of their patter ahead of time, maybe from a faraway city, and it gets dropped into the program digitally at the appropriate times to make it seem as if they're sitting there doing the show in real time when they're not. It's cheesy and it has a hollow ring to it. There's still a small amount of personality driven radio here but it's becoming rather sparse.



I've noticed that advertising has also increased. I listen sometimes to "coast to coast am" sometimes and notice that the program is like a big hamburger with a tiny thin piece of meat in it- the meat being the subject. I've noticed it about other programs also, but coast to coast is the worst. I know that advertising is how they make money, but radio has gone to the greedy side. 
On tv though, I like those Lemo Emo commercials. I want one of them emus.


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## bykfixer (Feb 23, 2021)

When I get the chance to twist the dial at 2am I like hearing stations from far away. Red Eye radio is one I enjoy when the coast to coast is discussing free healthcare for oppressed vampires. One station in New York is pretty lively and it's amazing the hear "2 mile backup on the freeway" at 3am. At 3am where I am you hear crickets chirping or an occasional tractor trailor whizz past. Red Eye radio lets me know what is on the minds of people across the country. 

But when coast to coast talks about how the mega microphones tuned to outter space were tuned to the ocean floor and discovered a bunch of volcanoes and how monitoring those can actually help predict El Nino's, which then help predict hurricanes……I can wait through a comercial break or two. My coworkers call it "the ghost to ghost tin hat show". 

AM radio in my view is more relevant than FM due to the nature of the typical programming. It's an archaic format to the typical person who gets annoyed when the station fades out under bridges, it's a throwback to my youth when cars came with an AM radio, a cigarette lighter, and a heater……and that was it for the creature comforts. No cup holder, no USB port, no backup camera, no passenger side rear view mirror unless it was a sports car or a Cadillac. Now I do enjoy the a/c, electric seats and yes the backup camera, but I can live without them.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 23, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> When I get the chance to twist the dial at 2am I like hearing stations from far away. Red Eye radio is one I enjoy when the coast to coast is discussing free healthcare for oppressed vampires. One station in New York is pretty lively and it's amazing the hear "2 mile backup on the freeway" at 3am. At 3am where I am you hear crickets chirping or an occasional tractor trailor whizz past. Red Eye radio lets me know what is on the minds of people across the country.
> 
> But when coast to coast talks about how the mega microphones tuned to outter space were tuned to the ocean floor and discovered a bunch of volcanoes and how monitoring those can actually help predict El Nino's, which then help predict hurricanes……I can wait through a comercial break or two. My coworkers call it "the ghost to ghost tin hat show".
> 
> AM radio in my view is more relevant than FM due to the nature of the typical programming. It's an archaic format to the typical person who gets annoyed when the station fades out under bridges, it's a throwback to my youth when cars came with an AM radio, a cigarette lighter, and a heater……and that was it for the creature comforts. No cup holder, no USB port, no backup camera, no passenger side rear view mirror unless it was a sports car or a Cadillac. Now I do enjoy the a/c, electric seats and yes the backup camera, but I can live without them.



The creature comforts I like are power steering and auto trans when I have to work a post that requires making rounds with tight steering. An auto trans helps me to creep slower in gravel than idling in first gear and creeping with a manual.
On the contrary though the manual steering helps me keep my arms built up and on the truck I'm driving now (I guess the way the seat sets) I used to have to assist lifting my left leg onto the clutch pedal but now I don't have to assist it, so I guess driving that truck built it up some. I think vehicles have too many distractions nowadays and of course you have to pay a premium for all that and usually it comes standard. One time I wanted to buy a new late 90s nissan pickup and I didn't even want a radio in it- I wanted to install my own. To order a truck minus all the standard foolishment would actually cost more than buying it with all that. I didn't buy the truck either. Probably the last chance to get a base vehicle would have been in the mid 80s. 
One time a friend sold me a 77 Ford swb with 89,000 on the odometer for $1000. It was very well taken care of. He told the Ford dealer he wanted a 6cyl body with a 302 in it. Power steering and auto trans with manual brakes. A chrome front bumper and a heavy duty back bumper. It cost him around $4700 back then. He had a jvc stereo in it with pioneer speakers, a black leather seat and magnesiun slotted mag wheels (70s style). Black inside and out with no side chrome. Before I got it I wanted to tint the windows, put on some craiger ss rims- deep dish in the back. Install a chrome and black general lee style push bar on the front bumper and paint it pearl white with dual exhaust and maybe thrust mufflers. 
Time I got it though I changed my mind and figured it looked good enough. It sure seemed to turn heads and it was a hard working and smoothe running truck and had the original exhaust on it that was still in good shape around 50,000 miles later. 

Bykfixer, I also grew up with am radio. I was probably almost 14 when I got into fm. At the time it had more music with less personality and the dj's all pretty much had monotone voices on wrkk and wzzk. Kicks106 was like the older am stations, but cooler. Nowadays I miss those nutty personalities and would rather hear them than the music.
My dad used to pick up WWL in New Orleans, but I can't find it now. That is where I first heard the country redneck comedian Jerry Clower. 
Concerning coast to coast, they really do have a bunch of bull on there from time to time- more often than not. Lol bykfixer, what you said earlier about coast was a good one . I like George Norie's voice better (it just fits the show) but Art Bell had better guests. He came back twice with his own show that actually competed with coast. His last show actually had the coast music at the beginning and at the end. You can catch him on youtube. Coast dug into their archives and put him back out there and it is called somewhere in time, but that was when he was at coast. He has one on youtube called (MITD) midnight in the desert and one called called "dark matter". I think MITD was his last show and he had to stop because he was being harassed at his home which was also where he broadcasted from. The harassment was mainly gunfire. Seeing how he kinda lived in a isolated area in the desert, no one had any business out there especially firing a gun. It seemed like intimidation. Art's shows would cross the line while George's shows would just go near the line a little. That is why Art got the intimidation. I assume you know that Art has passed on now. I think it was a couple of years ago. May he rest in peace.
I never could get into red eyed radio, but it was better than listening to coast when they had lame subjects. I think George was better when he first took over coast, but now he has spread himself too thin with all the other stuff he's into.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 24, 2021)

I don't remember if I've said this or not. I say so much that I don't remember. Hopefully I just hit on it and now I'm going to go into more detail.Life has been good since 9-11-2001, but it was real good before that. We are yet to recover from it and all the ramifications from just recently are yet to come and be felt. 9-11 killed a lot of the 8 hour a day 40 hour work weeks. A lot of 3rd shifts were gone and companies (at least around here) had only 2 twelve hour shifts. Country music went downhill except for the burst of patriotic songs. Tv shows got cancelled and 24 hour fast foods came to a haught. Some came back, but some closed early. McDonalds had a promotion that if they didn't have your food ready by a certain time it was free. America seemed to be bursting at the seams and most folks didn't have much of a care in the world before 9-11. To say it was the time of the American dream for all would be overkill, but what I'm describing is through my own eyes and IMHO. Do any of you feel the same way? 

Ps: after 9-11, one positive aspect is that it created jobs in the security field especially for high risk areas like fuel terminals, but it also created anxiety in the minds of most folks. I guess the fact that we weren't as safe as we thought we were was a difficult pill to swallow.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 24, 2021)

Just had another thought....how many of you liked the smaller Sam Walton controlled walmarts better with all the reasonally priced made in the USA stuff? I sure did.


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## bykfixer (Feb 24, 2021)

Our Sam Walton type Wal Mart got wiped out by a tornado. The tornado ripped through the doors on the front like a hot knife through butter. To the right of the doors were letters that spelled "discount city". The D and I were part of the hole but at the bottom curve of the letter S was a bird nest unaffected. I was helping with the cleanup and a coworker said "see, that just goes to show God is telling us we're ****in up". "See, all those cash registers are destoroyed but He spared that tweety bird nest". A few of us stood there pondering what he had just said as the sun was rising. We noticed we had worked from mid day that afternoon, all night long and into daylight again. When we approached the hole again instead of looking for carnage we peered to the right of the twisted beams, broken glass and general destruction and noticed fish swimming in an aquarium and hamsters running on the wheels in the Habitrail cages. 

They rebuilt it at another location and it was big enough to have its own zip code it seemed. "Super Center" they called it. Super alright, but no fish and no hamsters have ever been sold at that one. I bought my first minimag at the original Wal Mart. I still have it. The new one used to have a flashlight section 50 feet long and 4 shelves high. Now it's about 8 feet wide and 6 feet high. Maybe 7, but there's lots of empty space in between the $1.99 junk and a few 3C sized Maglites. 

Not long ago I used my last blank cd. I had bought 10 spools of 100 a few years back and burned music compilations for friends and family. I figured I'd run up to Best Buy and grab a spool or three. The guy said "blank cd's? we haven't had those in years"…… I chuckled and said "you guys would do well to have a 2016 section in your store, you know DVD's, compact discs, mp3 players, laptops with a disc drive etc"…… He said "you know, we get that a lot here". Then he tried selling me some kind of streaming device. Some kind of fire stick or something. He said "it's cheaper than cable". I retorted "what's cable?"………


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## orbital (Feb 24, 2021)

+

Just wait till we start blowing up each others satellites,, you'll need more than just batteries to survive.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 24, 2021)

orbital said:


> +
> 
> Just wait till we start blowing up each others satellites,, you'll need more than just batteries to survive.



I believe in prepping, but I also believe you have to live till you die. What I mean is not letting worry and anxiety rule your life to the point that you have no life. No offense, it's just that I don't want to be too concerned with crossing bridges till I get there.


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## orbital (Feb 24, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> I believe in prepping, but I also believe you have to live till you die. What I mean is not letting worry and anxiety rule your life to the point that you have no life. No offense, it's just that I don't want to be too concerned with crossing bridges till I get there.



+

I know, my overall point is we have far too many eggs in one basket w/ the *digital everything* world that is being forced on us.

_It's not hard to see people loose any grasp of common sense when things turn south.



_I didn't mean to step over *bykfixer*s last post,, hell all his posts are good_.

_^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


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## greenpondmike (Feb 24, 2021)

orbital said:


> +
> 
> I know, my overall point is we have far too many eggs in one basket w/ the *digital everything* world that is being forced on us.
> 
> ...



Whoops, I apologise. Yeah I agree with you. I also agree with you about bykfixer.


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## bykfixer (Feb 25, 2021)

orbital said:


> +
> 
> I know, my overall point is we have far too many eggs in one basket w/ the *digital everything* world that is being forced on us.
> 
> ...



My comrads at work and I were discussing that and how we get used to it, and even expect it. I had a 10:30 e-meeting yesterday to discuss some bridge repairs in the near future. Now it used to be an engineer who had a fancy phone that could accept a few calls at a time. Now we have face to face tele-meetings through the magic of celular service (whatever that actually is).
My e-calendar reminded me of the meeting. Ok, but is it a zoom, a team, what? My microsoft outlook calendar said it was on my google calendar. Huh? I have a google calendar? Where is that? I'm clicking on stuff on the laptop provided by the client. Nope, you can't get in this e-door buster your token has expired. Get out my company iPad that uses the clients network and enjoy dueling firewalls (whatever those are) to no avail. Now I started this an hour early just in case. 

So far the telephone I'm using for hooking to the internet worked great. No issues at all. So as a last resort I get out the company laptop with company network and try to get to the meeting that way. But now my phone won't hook to the internet. Without being on the internet somehow my microsoft outlook calendar knows I have a meeting in 15 minutes, in 10, in 5……by now I am livid. I'm trying to do all of this in the front seat of a pickup truck. I'm spiking my nearby gloves, tossed my water bottle out the window and the bag of cheerios I was eating from split open when I slammed it on the seat and now there's cheerios everywhere. 4 minutes……3 minutes, at 10:30 exactly the internet connected and poof I was in a conference call. 
Now that I think about it I don't know if it was a google, a microsoft or what kind of meeting it was to be honest. All I know is we discussed some new never been done technology that I saw used back in the 1990's. Yup, they tried it then and didn't like it so now a new breed of engineers are trying it again for the first time.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 25, 2021)

Sorry you went through all that bykfixer. I sure hope the engineers figure out why that bridge technology was rejected in the 90s. 
My friend and his wife are having apple firewall trouble and he has been locked out of his iphone and ipad for almost a year now. I suggested to him not to spend their money on those things when a cheap android will do just fine (mine was $39). Nothing wrong getting an iphone if you have the money, but when a person like my friend is trying to live a sirloin lifestyle on a hunburger budget things just don't work out as good sometimes. Now he keeps his wife's iphone and she goes to work without one, but she only has to drive a mile or two. I believe in good security but sometimes too much can get in the way. 
I'm glad to hear that it finally worked out for you.


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## PhotonWrangler (Feb 25, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> My microsoft outlook calendar said it was on my google calendar. Huh?



 Oh, I've had days like this also. I think we're reaching the point of being hopelessly interconnected. It seems there's a new social media app almost every day that people stampede to without abandoning their previous ones, leaving a tangled web of devices and accounts that can cross into each other's lane far too easily. The "cat lawyer" is a case in point.


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## bykfixer (Feb 25, 2021)

The day of the Oklahoma bombing my brother in law and I had gone on a fishing trip and had no radio in his basic stripped down Isuzu pickup truck. We got home that night and everybody was gathered around the tv. We were kinda shocked but at the same time had a great day of fishing go unspoiled by bad news. I heard about 911 when the federal government shut down a project I was doing because we were working on putting in underground pipe near a major fiber optic network. 

In 2001 I got my first celphone. I had to walk 50 feet outside my home to get it to work. I used to travel a lot for work and most times there were no signals. If there were I was roaming at like $2/minute. I discovered that when my phone bill was $1000!! Yikes. In a tizzy I ran over the Ericson phone with my truck like 25 times and it did not faze it. I spiked it like a football until my arm hurt and that only scratched it up. That was one tough telephone. Ah, but it did not hold up to being soaked in diesel fuel overnight wrapped in a newspaper and set on fire in the Best Buy parking lot where I bought the dam thing. When I felt like it was melted enough I scraped it up with a shovel and tossed it into a neaby pond. Take that you stupid phone!! Mwew-ah-ah…… 
About a year ago my iPhone fell about 2 feet onto a tile floor and the screen cracked in about 20 places. What? That Ericson would have put a dent in that floor. 

Now speaking of technology, I joined here in 015 and about 99.9% of my posts have been from a smart phone. All three of my wifes sons use "pay as you go" celphones and actually come out way ahead at the end of the year versus buying the latest iPhone or Samsung. Perhaps your friend can look into that greenpond.


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## idleprocess (Feb 25, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> In 2001 I got my first celphone. I had to walk 50 feet outside my home to get it to work. I used to travel a lot for work and most times there were no signals. If there were I was roaming at like $2/minute. I discovered that when my phone bill was $1000!! Yikes. In a tizzy I ran over the Ericson phone with my truck like 25 times and it did not faze it. I spiked it like a football until my arm hurt and that only scratched it up. That was one tough telephone. Ah, but it did not hold up to being soaked in diesel fuel overnight wrapped in a newspaper and set on fire in the Best Buy parking lot where I bought the dam thing. When I felt like it was melted enough I scraped it up with a shovel and tossed it into a neaby pond. Take that you stupid phone!! Mwew-ah-ah……
> About a year ago my iPhone fell about 2 feet onto a tile floor and the screen cracked in about 20 places. What? That Ericson would have put a dent in that floor.



The last flip phone I used was a 'batphone' for work that got passed around to the designated on-call. It a 'lite' ruggedized Samsung of some flavour circa 2014, selected because one of the other supervisors was rough on phones. That thing routinely lasted at least 2, sometimes 3 weeks on a charge. The phone required absolutely no _positive regard_ on the part of the user - beefy well-engineered tough plastic housing, a sturdy hinge mechanism, and a screw-on battery cover ensured it was more than sufficient for the butterfingers and merely careless alike.

Of course, the rugged flip phones we remember were simpler devices far less capable than the modern smartphone which by necessity has more innards, less protective housing. However I've found that even the most rudimentary TPU case offers surprising drop protection for yours truly who lacks the sort of ... unnatural grace ... that so much modern design presumes and has dropped almost entirely glass smartphones onto tile floors and concrete more than a few times.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 25, 2021)

.....:thinking:


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## greenpondmike (Feb 25, 2021)

"Perhaps your friend can look into that greenpond" 

I don't know bykfixer. His wife needs a phone at the present, but they are too stubborn to go that simple and easy route. That's a good ideal though. I have all I need for $25 (almost $30 with tax) a month on a $39 smartphone. My wife has the same type phone and plan and both are non contract plans . Our needs are well met.


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## bykfixer (Feb 25, 2021)

Exactly. I had a pay as you go for a while. When working in southside Va the only signals were not Verizon. So I had heck I forget the carrier back then but they were called Virgin phones. When I worked a little east of Richmond Alltell was the only signals so I carried that. It was a nextel Nokia. Loved the walkie talkie. Later Verizon was the only signals so I carried a Verizon pay as you go. 
Eventually I started dating Mrs Fixer and we went in together on a contract thinking if we could split minutes without arguing we may just get along ok. 

One thing I miss is flashlights with slider switches. Twisties and clickies are ok but I love me an on/off slider switch. Bright Star made really good ones with a positive detent in the middle for signaling. I bought a $3 Dorcey 2aa LED light recently because it has a slider. The beam sucks. The tint sucks. But the slider is sweet.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 25, 2021)

My mother in law bought me one of those 2aa dorcys for Christmas. It's useful and the slide switch seems durable. 

If you had a virgin mobile phone you would have been using the native sprint network. I just got away from verizon pay as you go as the signal went from fairly good to bad. I now have simple mobile that uses the t-mobile network. We get unlimited everything, but the internet slows down after 3 gigs per phone. It is still manageable though- I'm on slow internet now. I have to replenish my minutes sometime after midnight tonight and I will be back fast again.


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## PhotonWrangler (Feb 25, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> I now have simple mobile that uses the t-mobile network. We get unlimited everything, but the internet slows down after 3 gigs per phone. It is still manageable though- I'm on slow internet now. I have to replenish my minutes sometime after midnight tonight and I will be back fast again.



If you have wi-fi at home or work, make sure it's set up to use that for data when it's available. This will enable you to use less of your cell plan's data bandwidth. I do this and I don't think I've ever gone over my limit.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 25, 2021)

PhotonWrangler said:


> If you have wi-fi at home or work, make sure it's set up to use that for data when it's available. This will enable you to use less of your cell plan's data bandwidth. I do this and I don't think I've ever gone over my limit.



Thanks for that suggestion PhotonWrangler. I only have wi-fi at my mother in law's. I used to have it at the dodge/jeep place I was guarding, but I got replaced a week ago by a high tech alarm system. 
They have wi-fi at this fuel terminal I'm at now but I don't have the password. 
With the plan my wife have it is all unlimited, so we can't go over. The month before last I used 12 gigs- that's 9 gigs on slower data.


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## bykfixer (Feb 26, 2021)

Sprint! That's it, yeah. 
I use about 2 gigs a month on my phone. Now my work phone is used as a hot spot for internet connection since much of my work is online these days. I usually get a notice in the first week of each billing cycle that the 10 gigs was used up. 

One day I was at my office for a meeting as normally my work truck is my office. While at the physical office the company server went down and everybody filed out of the building like it was a fire drill. One older guy stayed. I asked why he wasn't leaving. He said "I save my work to my hard drive, they all use the cloud"……

A few months before that my company laptop had been migrated over to new one with Windows 10 from 7. The IT guy said he could migrate it over in about 10 minutes. Then when he saw my 500 gig hard drive was over half full he started walking in circles and raising his hands in the air in a freak out mode. "Why is your hard drive so full? Have you not heard of the cloud? This will take days"…… I replied "the last guy just saved my hard drive into a big ole folder in about an hour and I just used that afterward". That was when we went from XP to 7 and the IT guy was a Chinese designer who spent most of his time trading stocks on the Shanghai stock market. But he always made time for me because I was interested in what he did and how he did it. Heck, at one point he granted me administrator status and let me do my own IT repairs as he would explain to me over the phone how to do it. 

So I tell the new IT guy "look, I gotta go, just migrate my hard drive onto your cloud and I'll download it tomorrow"……it took about two weeks for everything to show up. But being taught to back up often I knew what stuff I needed right then and put it on a 64 gig flashdrive I carry everyday. 

So the day the server went down and everybody at the office had left except the one older gent he and I talked about old school versus using the cloud until lunch time. I texted that young IT guy and said "next time you wonder why my hard drive is so full remember today when nearly everybody was left with nothing to do except our old pal Archie"……

I used to make my young trainees back up their computer once a month. Oh they'd moan and groan "why do I have to do this when we have the cloud?" I said "one day the cloud won't be available"……see we have a password system where you have to be on a hardline to change it. As a bonus you do not get a reminder either. We work in the field. One by one each youngster experienced the "expired password" phenomenon where access to the company cloud is cut off. It only took one time for each one to say "can I use the backup hard drive today?"


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## bykfixer (Feb 26, 2021)

Meanwhile the simple bobblehead dog has climbed aboard my current work truck. 






He's been with me since 2001
With all of todays modern gadgets, that little dude still bobs his head up and down or side to side each day. He has probably travelled a half million miles or more. 
His name is……wait for it……
Bob


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## greenpondmike (Feb 26, 2021)

That's cool, I like Bob the dog. Those type of dash ornaments are the best kind IMHO.

Yeah bykfixer, an external hard drive is what I like to use for backup.


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## greenpondmike (Feb 26, 2021)

.....:sleepy:


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## greenpondmike (Mar 1, 2021)

Well, in the old days they used to get a opossum out from under a rock by jabbing him with a stick. I wonder in these modern times how folks would do that?


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## Katherine Alicia (Mar 2, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Well, in the old days they used to get a opossum out from under a rock by jabbing him with a stick. I wonder in these modern times how folks would do that?




Look for the external Wi-Fi antenna (he`d need that because it`s hard to pick up Wi-Fi through rocks) then cut the cable, he`ll soon come out to investigate why he`s lost internet conection.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 2, 2021)

Lol, that's a good one....


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## Katherine Alicia (Mar 2, 2021)

Well it works on teenagers, just reset the Wi-Fi box and you`ll be surprised how quickly they`ll come downstairs


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## greenpondmike (Mar 2, 2021)

It's easy to get addicted to the internet. Hard to believe it used to not exist, but I vaguely remember.


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## bykfixer (Mar 2, 2021)

The internet started out as a way for computers to communicate without telephone lines in case the Russians destroyed the phone line network. The first computer at UCLA sent the second computer at Stanford the command LOGIN. The second computer crashed after receiving the L and the O. Some say that was the day the standard for Windows was established. (get it, Windows crashes a lot?) That was in the late 1960's. Later IBM used it in their business structure and even had a crude 'mouse'. 

In the 1970's this thing was being used in various countries and by then a "web" of devices had been established mainly as information or data transfers to augment the fax machine. In the 1980's this "web" was used more and more. In 1992 the American congress decided it would be allowable for comercial use, hence the rumor that Al Gore invented the internet. Al actually did have a role in it as Vice President while attempting to streamline government. He decided it did not make sense to have special spray to stop door squeaks when WD40 would do it for $3/ can instead of $300/can. He also decided that it made sense for government agencies to use this internet thing to comuicate more efficiently. His boss at the time was rumored to enjoy down loading baking recipes and porn. He really liked brownies and burgers. 

My first internet was AOL and you did not pick your email address but were issued a code. It was a big deal when you got your email address. Huge!! And by then you could get a 64mb hard drive in a box smaller than a microwave oven versus those at UCLA and Stanford that were the size of a small house. Wow!! 

As much as I like Windows, Apple and all that I still prefer DOS to this day.


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## PhotonWrangler (Mar 2, 2021)

Great description bykfixer.

The early days of "surfing" the internet used text-only search tools like Gopher. You could browse a handful of Gopher-indexed sites using the up/down arrow keys on your keyboard and hitting [Enter] when you landed on the name of a site that you might want to visit. WUSTL, CMU and CWRU were some of the early outposts on the net and contributed a lot of the knowledge, tools and network drivers for this. This was before the graphical web interface came into being with Netscape 1.0. There was no Google yet; at least one company published an internet yellow pages of website names and URLs, and text-only Usenet groups were the Reddit of the day.

I was lucky enough to have a live, always-on connection to the 'net as part of a work project at the time. This was before cable modems were invented so the only other access was via dial-up modems.


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## bykfixer (Mar 2, 2021)

Remember "ask Jeeves"? lol
I think I used altavista or yahoo, but tbh don't really recall because back then I did not use internet much. I joined my first forums in about 2005 (old school skateboarding and Old Man Army). Both were skateboard chat rooms more or less. Then I joined Prelude Zone in 012 and that's really when I used the web. I was a member here before really using search engines. 

To this day my home does not have internet except for a smart phone.


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## Katherine Alicia (Mar 3, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> I still prefer DOS to this day.



Yup, me too, DOS or CP/M with an S100 or ISA bus :thumbsup:


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## greenpondmike (Mar 3, 2021)

.....


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## greenpondmike (Mar 3, 2021)

.....:shrug:


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## greenpondmike (Mar 3, 2021)

.....:fail:


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## PhotonWrangler (Mar 3, 2021)

Katherine Alicia said:


> Yup, me too, DOS or CP/M with an S100 or ISA bus :thumbsup:




CP/M - we used to have a Kaypro "luggable" CP/M machine at work.


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## idleprocess (Mar 3, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> It's easy to get addicted to the internet. Hard to believe it used to not exist, but I vaguely remember.



As a 1980s kid I'll always remember life before _*The Great Link*_. In the early/mid 90s I got a bit of a head start on things with BBSs, but it wasn't until circa 1998 that routine internet access was a thing for me.


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## idleprocess (Mar 3, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> 3g was really good enough. Now it is 4g Lte and fixing to be 5g. 5g is supposed to be unhealthy for us and critters. .



3G couldn't keep up with demand thus is being phased out so that spectrum can be re-allocated to more efficient protocols.

5G is no more harmful _(which is to say "best we can determine, *not at all*")_ than 4G. The main impact will be more efficient utilization of spectrum through better protocols and segmentation via microsites. High-band mmWave ~gigabit performance is likely to be extremely limited since just about anything attenuates that signal - your hand, vegetation, glass, _the air itself_ - and thus it demands true line-of-sight to work.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 3, 2021)

3g did get overcrowded, but it did work just fine when it was new. To be honest I liked analogue the best, but it couldn't handle too much traffic either, but it sure had the range. 

Well you're welcome to your opinion about 5g, but I disagree with you on that. I've heard that it is at microwave frequencies and could have an effect on people and creatures the same as being slow microwaved, but the ones behind it would downplay it because they want it. I'm not going to drink their cool aid, but I can't do a thing about it cept wait and see. I'm going to avoid it as long as I can though. 
Whoops, got to go....my tin foil hat is crooked.


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## idleprocess (Mar 3, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Well you're welcome to your opinion about 5g, but I disagree with you on that. I've heard that it is at microwave frequencies and could have an effect on people and creatures the same as being slow microwaved, but the ones behind it would downplay it because they want it. I'm not going to drink their cool aid, but I can't do a thing about it cept wait and see. I'm going to avoid it as long as I can though.
> Whoops, got to go....my tin foil hat is crooked.



Modern cell phone standards have always used microwave frequency, which is generally defined as being between 300Mhz and 300Ghz. Best I can tell, net transmit power at cell sites for 5G is limited to tens of watts while handsets are unlikely to transmit at even a full watt. Contrast with microwave ovens that are 700 watts or more, directing all that power into a very small volume _and still taking longer than you'd like to warm up that Hot Pocket_.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 3, 2021)

Well, we'll see. What you said sounds good and I will consider it in with the rest of what I heard and read. I myself hope your're right because it's coming with no way of stopping it. That line of sight thing doesn't sound too good though if 5g is going to be all that's out there and someone is in a rural area with no signal. I wonder how they will fix that?


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## idleprocess (Mar 3, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Well, we'll see. What you said sounds good and I will consider it in with the rest of what I heard and read. I myself hope your're right because it's coming with no way of stopping it. That line of sight thing doesn't sound too good though if 5g is going to be all that's out there and someone is in a rural area with no signal. I wonder how they will fix that?



Electromagnetic radiation (i.e. radio, microwave, IR, visible light, UV, x-rays, gamma rays) has two pathways to harm you - ionization and heating via absorption. The upper reaches of UV is where ionization starts, so the microwave frequencies used for cell phones *cannot* hurt you via ionization. As mentioned previously, microwave absorption that cause significant heating takes far more power than your handset is physically capable of _at all_ and the power levels any normal distance from the transmitter will be a fraction of the full transmit power because of inverse-square; even _literally hugging the transmitter_ will only bump that energy up to tens of watts.

The are three frequency bands for 5G:

*Low-Band* : ~700MHz, which has excellent signal propagation through foliage and buildings. A downside is that sites will have to be separated by considerable distances. Expect low-band to be deployed in rural and as a backup channel for phones that end up in sutuations where the other bands can't reach.
*Mid-Band* : ~1.5GHz - ~5GHz in numerous bands (mixed in with existing 4G LTE bands) will do the real _heavy lift_ of 5G; for most users this will be similar to 4G LTE
*High-band* : 26-41GHz in numerous bands, the *mmwave* that's been the subject of so much hype; only expected to be deployed in places with large numbers of pedestrians with good lines of sight to the likely numerous transmitters due to the very short effective range of the signals and the fact that they're blocked by almost anything - 100 meters under perfect conditions may be a stretch

There's been a major deployment of mid-band sites in my area. The towers are _tiny_ relative to the ubiquitous ~20m mast with a triangle basket - they're ~8m tall with 3 sector antennas at the peak and occasionally what looks to be a 4th omnidirectional antenna atop, spaced about every ~500 meters along major roads.


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## bykfixer (Mar 3, 2021)

In 1969 my grandma told me Kool Aid would put a hole in my stomach. In 1973 my dad said he uses Coca Cola to rid the battery terminals on his pickup of corosion so obviously it would kill me. In the 1980's I was told Florida would be under water by 1990. In 1999 I was told the world was going to collapse due to the Y2K thing murdering every computer. In 2007 I was told the world has 2 more years worth of oil left. In 2012 or so I was told that 4g would give me brain cancer. In 2019 I was told that 5g would give me brain cancer. 

Welp, kool aid and Coca Cola did not harm me, Florida still aint under water, I made it past Y2K and so far……no brain cancer from a celphone. 

Now at my work I'd love to see teleport technology just simply because the project I'm starting soon is 50 miles long and will have things spaced out throughout. Never mind it's 60 miles from home. It's like I could get in my truck at 6am and drive until 8 just to ride past and wave at everybody. Then turn around and head back the other direction and it's lunch time. So far I put in about 200 miles a day. No biggy yet. But once it kicks off say Fred at one end needs to see me but Paul at the other end does too? I either need a teleport or a doppleganger……


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## xxo (Mar 3, 2021)

OK. I am willing to admit the world coming to an end in 2012 Mayan calendar thing may have been a hoax and the global warming palm trees in the north pole predictions might been off by a few decades, but I'm telling you Y2k is a thing, it is just taking some time for the full impact of the devastation to be realized.


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## Empath (Mar 3, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> ..................That line of sight thing doesn't sound too good though ...................



Other than low frequency, and getting beyond the AM spectrum, it's all line of sight.


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## idleprocess (Mar 3, 2021)

Empath said:


> Other than low frequency, and getting beyond the AM spectrum, it's all line of sight.



While this is true, the high-band 5G frequencies have problems penetrating much anything. Typical 4G frequencies between 410Mhz and 5.9GHz do not suffer these problems and will penetrate the likes of vegetation, metal, glass, sheetrock, wood, concrete to varying degrees to the point that your handset, generally transmitting at less than a watt, can reach a tower miles away with obstructions between you. Contrast with high-band 5G which is rapidly attenuated by _oxygen in atmosphere_ and for the most part outright blocked by the things that 4G can go through with relative ease.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 4, 2021)

Ok, I do feel better about 5g now.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 4, 2021)

.....:toilet:


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## Katherine Alicia (Mar 4, 2021)

I`m still waiting for my 1949 Interocitor* and those jet packs and hover cars we were promised and they haven`t even Started a Moonbase yet! :fail:



* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interocitor#The_interocitor_device


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## idleprocess (Mar 4, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> [but I'm telling you Y2k is a thing]



The Y2*.03*k crisis still looms for anyone that hasn't performed a proper fix on their code:


> They hope "windowing" will prove adequate until these computers are replaced - or until programmers can devote enough time and money to make permanent repairs.
> 
> Windowing sets up a logic program that tricks a computer into functioning as if it is processing dates in the year 2000 and beyond. But the method lasts only for a certain period, or window, of time, such as 30, 50 or 70 years.
> 
> ...



2.03 for 30 years, since that's of special relevance to the financial industry ala the 30-year mortgage.

My employer still has a backend application with the AS400 greenscreen UI ... _running on native hardware_. There's a part of me that hopes it hasn't been fixed and they're forced to replace it when it can't calculate dates correctly since it's absolutely horrible to deal with.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 4, 2021)

Lets see... to understand it from a blonde's perspective- (all this is over my head)....

I guess there is a real problem looming then that might rear its ol ugly head again by 2029 or 2030 and the quick and easy fix was to put a band aid on a rabid dog bite when in reality a rabies shot is the solution.


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## idleprocess (Mar 4, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Lets see... to understand it from a blonde's perspective- (all this is over my head)....
> 
> I guess there is a real problem looming then that might rear its ol ugly head again by 2029 or 2030 and the quick and easy fix was to put a band aid on a rabid dog bite when in reality a rabies shot is the solution.



If the software hasn't been fully patched, yes. But most Y2k crash-remediation plans had full fixes baked in - at least for widely-used software - to move to 4-digit date standards _(or better, lest there be a *Y10k* crisis 8000 years from now)_.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 4, 2021)

Oh, ok. That's good then.


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## PhotonWrangler (Mar 5, 2021)

If I recall correctly some older MACs have a Y2.034k bug and will roll over to the Unix epoch birthdate of Jan 1st 1970.


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## idleprocess (Mar 5, 2021)

PhotonWrangler said:


> Unix epoch birthdate of Jan 1st 1970.



A major enterprise system I used to use ~5 years ago logged occasional 1969-12-31 23:59:59.999 timestamps that confused me until I learned about _*the beginning of time*_ in the UNIX universe : 1970-01-01 00:00:00.000. I then figures that pre-1970 timestamps were likely null or invalid values.


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## orbital (Mar 5, 2021)

+

_*blue pill or red pill*_


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## Chauncey Gardiner (Mar 5, 2021)

orbital said:


> +
> 
> _*blue pill or red pill*_



HA! What a great question. :thinking:


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## greenpondmike (Mar 6, 2021)

.....


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## greenpondmike (Mar 6, 2021)

.....:duck:


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## Katherine Alicia (Mar 6, 2021)

idleprocess said:


> As a 1980s kid I'll always remember life before _*The Great Link*_. In the early/mid 90s I got a bit of a head start on things with BBSs, but it wasn't until circa 1998 that routine internet access was a thing for me.




I was Sysop of my own BBS for nearly 10 years, I remember having to eventually get a second landline in for it. I mostly dealt in warez and later when I got a more powerful computer (an Amiga 1200) I also served as a FidoNet node (early email of sorts). I`ll never forget the time in the mid 1990`s having a chat with Cactus Jack (one of my regulars) and asking him about "the Internet" and him telling "Don`t bother, I`v been on there, it`s crap!" LOL


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## orbital (Mar 6, 2021)

Chauncey Gardiner said:


> HA! What a great question. :thinking:



+

Matrix 1999


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## Chauncey Gardiner (Mar 6, 2021)

orbital said:


> +
> 
> Matrix 1999



Yes, and my life 2021.


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## PhotonWrangler (Mar 6, 2021)

Katherine Alicia said:


> I was Sysop of my own BBS for nearly 10 years, I remember having to eventually get a second landline in for it. I mostly dealt in warez and later when I got a more powerful computer (an Amiga 1200) I also served as a FidoNet node (early email of sorts). I`ll never forget the time in the mid 1990`s having a chat with Cactus Jack (one of my regulars) and asking him about "the Internet" and him telling "Don`t bother, I`v been on there, it`s crap!" LOL



The good old days of computer hardware. I still have my Amiga 1000 although I haven't touched it in ages. I used to have it hooked up to a Hayes compatible 2400 baud modem for BBS use. That was screaming fast in those days.


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## Katherine Alicia (Mar 6, 2021)

I had a US Robotics Courier 9600 and later the Courier 14.4, I actually used the same 14.4 for my first trip into internet land, it was totally dead back then there wasn`t really anything on here (I was using Voyager) AMirc was better though because there were people on there at least, mostly hackers and tech savy sorts but it was really neat to be able to have Live Group chats unlike the one to one in BBS land. Slowly as the years passed it took off, probably 1998 I saw the most growth and started seeing this "WWW." thing in the real world occasionally, then the AOL CDs started pouring in! LOL 
I knew a guy that worked at local(ish) University science dept and he got me my first Internet conection via a private number known only to his dept, technically my first ISP 
Re your A1000, I`d get it re-capped before powering it up and also check your RTC batt! I can put you in touch with a guy that`s Amiga crazy to this day and has all sorts of upgrades and spares if You need them?


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## PhotonWrangler (Mar 7, 2021)

Thanks Katherine. I'm sure the RTC battery is shot and has corroded the nearby copper foils by now. I will carefully check out the mobo before I power it up. I also doubt that my copies of Kickstart and Workbench are usable any more. I mostly used that machine for BBS stuff and learning 3D animation with Videoscape. We had a couple of Amigas at work that we used as character generators. We also has a Video Toaster 1.0. Good times.


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## bykfixer (Mar 7, 2021)

I miss flying toaster screen saver.


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## Lynx_Arc (Mar 7, 2021)

I've had to tell people that Coke isn't that harmful to your stomach by asking them what they know about hydrochloric acid. Once I convinced them that the concentration of HCL in their stomach was a LOT stronger than the acid in colas and that your stomach doesn't melt under it they realized that they had been duped to believe it.
As for phones in the microwave frequencies again people are being mislead as to how harmful it was. If they were truly seriously afraid of microwaves the standard wifi router is on the edge of wifi frequencies in fact if you get at the higher channels a running microwave oven that is near your wifi receiver can interfere with it to the point that you can't get any data reception at all. People would have to turn off their 2.4Ghz router and some older cordless phones also. Basically speaking running a microwave oven gets you some leakage from it although not enough to be harmful to you but harmful enough to mess with some pacemakers.

Also bluetooth is close to microwave and wifi frequencies at 2.4Ghz


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## Lynx_Arc (Mar 7, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> I miss flying toaster screen saver.



I had the starfield one most of the time.... space cadet.


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## PhotonWrangler (Mar 7, 2021)

Flying toasters! Yes I liked that one also.

Now that we're pretty much done with CRTs and plasma screens, the whole purpose of a "screen saver" is pretty much moot. These days it's useful more as a "hey I'm still turned on" indicator.


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## idleprocess (Mar 7, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> As for phones in the microwave frequencies again people are being mislead as to how harmful it was. If they were truly seriously afraid of microwaves the standard wifi router is on the edge of wifi frequencies in fact if you get at the higher channels a running microwave oven that is near your wifi receiver can interfere with it to the point that you can't get any data reception at all. People would have to turn off their 2.4Ghz router and some older cordless phones also. Basically speaking running a microwave oven gets you some leakage from it although not enough to be harmful to you but harmful enough to mess with some pacemakers.
> 
> Also bluetooth is close to microwave and wifi frequencies at 2.4Ghz



There's wifi interference a-plenty on the _GE Spacemaker_ band.

Wifi is pretty much limited to 100mW transmit strength. Bluetooth can be as high as 100mW, but is usually lower.


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## Lynx_Arc (Mar 7, 2021)

idleprocess said:


> There's wifi interference a-plenty on the _GE Spacemaker_ band.
> 
> Wifi is pretty much limited to 100mW transmit strength. Bluetooth can be as high as 100mW, but is usually lower.


Yes, when I use the microwave oven in my room here my wifi often cuts out it depends on what frequency it has drifted to sometimes it works fine other times I'm lucky to get 1mbps.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 8, 2021)

I talk too much, so y'all carry on while I read more and talk less.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 11, 2021)

Deleted.

We don't bump. Threads will live or die by it's own value and content. 

Ok, sorry Empath. Why do y'all have the bump smilie for? That confuses me.

There's some places a bump can be recognized as purposeful beyond trying to keep a thread alive, such as a marketplace sales thread. 

Ok


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## PhotonWrangler (Mar 11, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> Yes, when I use the microwave oven in my room here my wifi often cuts out it depends on what frequency it has drifted to sometimes it works fine other times I'm lucky to get 1mbps.



This is a well known issue with microwave ovens and wi-fi. I stood in front of an oven while watching a wi-fi signal on a spectrum analyzer. When I turned on the oven, it stomped all over the wi-fi carriers. Some ovens leak more than others - it depends largely on how well t he door seals when it's closed. An older oven might have bent hinges or worn gaskets and will leak more RF energy.


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## Lynx_Arc (Mar 11, 2021)

PhotonWrangler said:


> This is a well known issue with microwave ovens and wi-fi. I stood in front of an oven while watching a wi-fi signal on a spectrum analyzer. When I turned on the oven, it stomped all over the wi-fi carriers. Some ovens leak more than others - it depends largely on how well t he door seals when it's closed. An older oven might have bent hinges or worn gaskets and will leak more RF energy.


I think also the closeness of it to receiver/transmitters is a problem If your router if farther away than the oven from your device connected via wifi then it could overwhelm it with RF garbage but if the signal is strong enough to overcome the microwave oven bleedover then you won't have a big problem. I tried putting a metal shield over my antenna for my computer to reduce or block the microwave interference and has limited success. I don't have 5Ghz wifi on my computer but my phone does have it so it escapes the interference. It is sad that the folks at the FCC and computer companies and microwave manufacturers couldn't have made it so the frequencies were not so close together to make for any problems.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 11, 2021)

They have microwaves with inverter technology. I had one, but it didn't last long.


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## Lynx_Arc (Mar 11, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> They have microwaves with inverter technology. I had one, but it didn't last long.



I have 2 of them. Panasonic makes them and they have one huge advantage in that unlike normal microwave ovens that cycle on/off they work 100% on at the percentage rate which means that you can run them on circuits that cannot handle 1000+ watts. I used mine in a house on a circuit that couldn't handle is on 100% duty running at 80% it almost never tripped the circuit but 100% it would trip the circuit if anything else was running in the house. Mine lasted about 7 years then died and I bought a new one and then I found a used one that was broken and got it for nothing and the inverter board was fine in it while mine had burned up... swapped boards and back to running again. I could probably run it off an 12v input car inverter that puts out 400watts by running the microwave oven at 30%. It would take longer but I could cook with it I think.


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## raggie33 (Mar 11, 2021)

microwaves the lerfect device if ya eant the plate as hot as lava the food freezeing in tge midfle hot ad hell in some parts and if you want to cook soup and have the potaoes explode scaring you thinking its a hime invasion


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## greenpondmike (Mar 11, 2021)

I have a panasonic inverter type and it didn't even last a year. I looked up user reviews and they said on there that panasonic was bought out and it isn't a quality product anymore. It's just a cheap product with quality name. 

A friend of mine that is a nutritionist and herbalist said that microwaves change the composition of the foods and nuked foods have no nutritional value to them anymore. Also if you want the highest nutritional value you have to eat stuff raw (vegetables) or lightly steam them.


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## raggie33 (Mar 11, 2021)

i do like the instant cooker type of cookers. i can put jn a pork roast that cost like 90 cents per pound a hour latter its so tender that ya cant even getit out of pot it just falls apart. so i empty cooker into a strainer theni add it to rice and use some asain sauce i forget which one but i promiise u willl love it


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## jabe1 (Mar 11, 2021)

I would like to see data on this. Claims like this are suspect. Microwaves basically excite the molecules in the food, producing heat. They don’t change the chemical composition.



greenpondmike said:


> A friend of mine that is a nutritionist and herbalist said that microwaves change the composition of the foods and nuked foods have no nutritional value to them anymore. Also if you want the highest nutritional value you have to eat stuff raw (vegetables) or lightly steam them.


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## PhotonWrangler (Mar 11, 2021)

jabe1 said:


> Microwaves basically excite the molecules in the food, producing heat. They don’t change the chemical composition.



Exactly. They cause the water molecules in the food to vibrate really fast, producing friction and thus heat. It's why you can put a dry paper towel in a microwave oven and it won't even get warm because there are no water molecules to vibrate.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 11, 2021)

No big deal if y'all believe different and don't want to change your mind. I just put my opinion out there. I don't want to argue, so ya'll just believe what u want to believe. Peace


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## greenpondmike (Mar 11, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> i do like the instant cooker type of cookers. i can put jn a pork roast that cost like 90 cents per pound a hour latter its so tender that ya cant even getit out of pot it just falls apart. so i empty cooker into a strainer theni add it to rice and use some asain sauce i forget which one but i promiise u willl love it



Mmmm.....lol, I'm coming over to ur house to eat raggie.


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## Lynx_Arc (Mar 11, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> I have a panasonic inverter type and it didn't even last a year. I looked up user reviews and they said on there that panasonic was bought out and it isn't a quality product anymore. It's just a cheap product with quality name.
> 
> A friend of mine that is a nutritionist and herbalist said that microwaves change the composition of the foods and nuked foods have no nutritional value to them anymore. Also if you want the highest nutritional value you have to eat stuff raw (vegetables) or lightly steam them.


I didn't know that.. my 2 panasonic inverter ovens are I think between 10 and 20 years old so likely they are made by panasonic and are the "quality ones".


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## greenpondmike (Mar 12, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> I didn't know that.. my 2 panasonic inverter ovens are I think between 10 and 20 years old so likely they are made by panasonic and are the "quality ones".



I think so. There is a website about this that has costumer complaints on it. It is mighty informative. All I can say is almost $300 want down my drain and I have a big ol useless thing taking up space. It has been replaced by a very cheap one that my mother in law gave us and has outlasted that other one. The thing is the cheap one was old and well used when it was given to us. It probably cost $50-$75 new 5 or 6 years ago.


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## Lynx_Arc (Mar 12, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> I think so. There is a website about this that has costumer complaints on it. It is mighty informative. All I can say is almost $300 want down my drain and I have a big ol useless thing taking up space. It has been replaced by a very cheap one that my mother in law gave us and has outlasted that other one. The thing is the cheap one was old and well used when it was given to us. It probably cost $50-$75 new 5 or 6 years ago.



I've had similar happen. I bought a 4 cu ft dorm fridge and it had a 3 years warranty and died a little over 2 years and I had to pay $15 for shipping to get another one that is still working 10 years later fine. I've found the pressure to save money in manufacturing has often resulted in things just not lasting very long as they are built to last long enough that the warranty won't cover it. My two panasonice inverter ovens cost about $125 for the first one at Sam's and $160 for the second one at Target. I'm using the second one still but not that often since my roommate moved out I inherited his microwave oven and even though it isn't as good it fits in the dining area and at that location most often it doesn't affect my wifi at all while the space in my room almost always messes things up. I wish I had the smaller model now for one of them they are both the 2.1 Cu ft models 
When I was a kid I was given a microwave oven when I went to college and it died on me and I fixed it once then it died again and prices on them were a lot cheaper so I bought my first panasonic. Now it is hard to find anything that you can trust to last many are buying warranties and I've seen the prices rising on them and coverage shortening more and more.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 12, 2021)

There was a time when refrigerators used to last 50 to 60 years. When I went to work at Auto Armature in early 89 my boss had a microwave in the dining room that he had bought new for his home back in the 70s. When I got layed off from the third time I worked there was December 2008 and if memory serves me right it was still there and working. I think it was a sears kenmore.


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## Lynx_Arc (Mar 12, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> There was a time when refrigerators used to last 50 to 60 years. When I went to work at Auto Armature in early 89 my boss had a microwave in the dining room that he had bought new for his home back in the 70s. When I got layed off from the third time I worked there was December 2008 and if memory serves me right it was still there and working. I think it was a sears kenmore.


I had a sears kenmore microwave oven that lasted over 30 years it had one feature that they no longer have and that is a temperature probe which you can stick in something type in a temperature and it runs till it reaches that temp and holds it there as long as you want.
It was one of the first lines to have a digital readout and keypad I think.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 12, 2021)

Sears had some good stuff and I hate to see them go. I think whirpool made their kenmore appliances. 
The one my boss had didn't have the digital display- it had a rotory knob, so that must have been early to mid 70s.


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## Lynx_Arc (Mar 12, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Sears had some good stuff and I hate to see them go. I think whirpool made their kenmore appliances.
> The one my boss had didn't have the digital display- it had a rotory knob, so that must have been early to mid 70s.


Yup.... whirlpool and other companies made their appliances. We have a plant here where they make stuff. My mom's microwave was purchased in the mid 70s so it could be the late 60s to early 70s.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 12, 2021)

Could have been that long. It had a high and low switch on it. It heated good- I used to heat my sandwiches in it in the winter. That was a good place to work. We could cut up and even the boss man would cut up with us. I had some good friends there- most have passed on now. Most died from cancer.


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## Lynx_Arc (Mar 12, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Could have been that long. It had a high and low switch on it. It heated good- I used to heat my sandwiches in it in the winter. That was a good place to work. We could cut up and even the boss man would cut up with us. I had some good friends there- most have passed on now. Most died from cancer.


I hate cancer.... it is a lot worse than Covid is to me as it took my father and I doubt Covid would have affected him as he never was sick from flu or colds


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## greenpondmike (Mar 12, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> I hate cancer.... it is a lot worse than Covid is to me as it took my father and I doubt Covid would have affected him as he never was sick from flu or colds



Me too. It also doesn't have any age limits. They ought to have a way to cure it by now a person would think.


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## Katherine Alicia (Mar 12, 2021)

a Good many things could be cured by now but there`s no money in that, you make a lot more selling drugs to mask symptoms instead, and still be perceived as being "Helpful" and "Good".


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## greenpondmike (Mar 12, 2021)

Katherine Alicia said:


> a Good many things could be cured by now but there`s no money in that, you make a lot more selling drugs to mask symptoms instead, and still be perceived as being "Helpful" and "Good".



I thought that too, but I was trying not to be so long winded. I heard there was a cure, but like you said.....no money in it. All those machines and drugs are profitable to them and money is all that matters- not the person suffering.


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## bykfixer (Mar 12, 2021)

I miss Radio Shack. 

When I was a kid Radio Shack was a place you bought parts to fix stuff with. They had some electronics too. Even radios. But later on somebody there decided to try to compete with Circuit City, Best Buy, even Wal Mart to a degree. The parts department was still there but instead of being located in some out of the way former post office or 7-11 they moved to expensive shopping malls and tried to play the game of commerce against larger rivals. So now if you want a cord for a printer or some electrical parts to fix a toaster you go online or just toss the toaster and buy a new one. 
Bummer


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## greenpondmike (Mar 12, 2021)

Radio shack was where my dad bought electrical parts going back into the 70s. Later on I bought my first scanner there, a 102 inch steel whip antenna and my first android. In pelham they had a fellow at radio shack that looked and talked just like ol Detrick on that Barny Miller sitcom. Everyone was nice there. I guess I miss them also.


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## Katherine Alicia (Mar 12, 2021)

Check this out: https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/index.htm#main_catalogs just pick your year and geek out for a while! 
Radio Shack was haunt when I was growing up, I`d spend ages in there every single time I got a dollar or 2, most kids would buy candy, not me, I`d spend all my money in there and visit regularly just to see what was new in that week. Naturally I was a "Battery Club" member too and used to claim my free 9v battery each month to use in my electronics kit,the 75 in One (I still have it! and others).
I had a summer job at a place in the Japanesse quarter of the food hall of our local shopping mall (mostly peeling onions and cooking tons of rice), and I earned $129 (Canadian) when I`d finished there, I walked straight out the food hall across to the other side of the mall and into Radio Shack and bought the 160 in One kit!  
Exciting times for a youngster!


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## greenpondmike (Mar 12, 2021)

Thank you for that link Katherine. It sounds like you also had a good time there. They should have kept some of their stores.


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## jtr1962 (Mar 12, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> I thought that too, but I was trying not to be so long winded. I heard there was a cure, but like you said.....no money in it. All those machines and drugs are profitable to them and money is all that matters- not the person suffering.


I'm skeptical that there's a cure for cancer sitting somewhere in a vault but I'll allow that it's possible for the reasons you mentioned. This would really hit home if that were the case because my cat passed away from cancer on February 23. If only there had been a shot which could have cured her when I bought her in to the emergency clinic 5 weeks before.

Ironically, there would be more incentive for "cures", instead of drugs to mask symptoms, if we moved towards government paying for health care instead of private insurance or out-of-pocket paying for it. Government wants to keep the taxes to pay for health care as low as possible, so they're going to favor things which either cure, or better yet, prevent, expensive health problems. Not so in the current system where hospitals can make huge amounts of money "treating" cancer patients but not curing them. Ditto for heart disease.


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## jtr1962 (Mar 12, 2021)

I didn't even know about inverter microwave ovens until this thread. The concept is great, but it sounds like the implementation leaves something to be desired. I'd love to try one, but I'll look for one which has good reviews first.


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## PhotonWrangler (Mar 12, 2021)

I had a battery of the month card also. We had a Radio Shack right across the street from my workplace back then and it was a lifesaver when we needed some oddball part or connector in a hurry. I paid so many visits to their stores, usually for a pack of resistors, capacitors or transistors. It really started to slide downhill when they decided to get into the cellphone market. It seems that the electronics-savvy sales people drifted away when that happened and they were gradually replaced with cellphone sales staff. Bah.


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## Lynx_Arc (Mar 12, 2021)

I don't think the cellphone market is what caused their downhill slide but rather more availability of electronics in stores like Best Buy and Circuit city and the abandoning of the Optimus and other exclusive radio shack product lines plus either inability or lack of desire to compete with other stores. Radio shack had their own battery line yet you could find name brand batteries for the same or cheaper in other stores.
I think with the advent of LSI components and disposable electronics and the internet.. all ganged up on them. When I can mail order from Mouser a lot cheaper than buying from Radio Shack and ebay electronic cables for a fraction of the cost for the SAME cables even.
When they abandoned half the store to do the "look I sell cell phones too" bit that started the acceleration of a slow downfall for them.
Radio shack slowly abandoned the hobbiest to sell overpriced gadgest to non geeks and it used to be they had their own products that were competitively priced and sales on them making them almost irresistible. I still use a pair speakers I bought from RS in the early 80s.


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## PhotonWrangler (Mar 12, 2021)

Valid points Lynx Arc. The advent of LSIs and SOCs really did contribute to bringing down the cost of electronic devices to the point that they became more disposable. It also didn't help that the technical schools like Devry were folding.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 12, 2021)

jtr1962 said:


> I'm skeptical that there's a cure for cancer sitting somewhere in a vault but I'll allow that it's possible for the reasons you mentioned. This would really hit home if that were the case because my cat passed away from cancer on February 23. If only there had been a shot which could have cured her when I bought her in to the emergency clinic 5 weeks before.
> 
> Ironically, there would be more incentive for "cures", instead of drugs to mask symptoms, if we moved towards government paying for health care instead of private insurance or out-of-pocket paying for it. Government wants to keep the taxes to pay for health care as low as possible, so they're going to favor things which either cure, or better yet, prevent, expensive health problems. Not so in the current system where hospitals can make huge amounts of money "treating" cancer patients but not curing them. Ditto for heart disease.



I believe there is also a carburetor out there or the blueprints for one that would get 100 mpg, but it was surpressed. There was a man on youtube that ran his push mower off of water (hydrogen tech).


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## greenpondmike (Mar 12, 2021)

jtr1962 said:


> I didn't even know about inverter microwave ovens until this thread. The concept is great, but it sounds like the implementation leaves something to be desired. I'd love to try one, but I'll look for one which has good reviews first.



That's a good ideal. I thought panasonic was a good brand and I was right about the "was" part. I had no ideal they were sold out and cheapened. If I can remember I"ll look at user reviews next time.


----------



## greenpondmike (Mar 12, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> I don't think the cellphone market is what caused their downhill slide but rather more availability of electronics in stores like Best Buy and Circuit city and the abandoning of the Optimus and other exclusive radio shack product lines plus either inability or lack of desire to compete with other stores. Radio shack had their own battery line yet you could find name brand batteries for the same or cheaper in other stores.
> I think with the advent of LSI components and disposable electronics and the internet.. all ganged up on them. When I can mail order from Mouser a lot cheaper than buying from Radio Shack and ebay electronic cables for a fraction of the cost for the SAME cables even.
> When they abandoned half the store to do the "look I sell cell phones too" bit that started the acceleration of a slow downfall for them.
> Radio shack slowly abandoned the hobbiest to sell overpriced gadgest to non geeks and it used to be they had their own products that were competitively priced and sales on them making them almost irresistible. I still use a pair speakers I bought from RS in the early 80s.



They also had their own cb radios. I liked their "navaho" line.


----------



## Lynx_Arc (Mar 13, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> I believe there is also a carburetor out there or the blueprints for one that would get 100 mpg, but it was surpressed. There was a man on youtube that ran his push mower off of water (hydrogen tech).


I've heard those stories and if you do the science they are just fantasy. The "running off of water" thing may work but it takes more power to break down the water into hydrogen and oxygen molecules than you get back when you use it for fuel so basically it is fantasy also as a power source you are probably better off to buy an electric mower and charge batteries. Gas motors I believe are maybe 25% efficient or thereabouts so to get 100mpg it would have to be made out of cardboard and styrofoam and have a gerbil to power it.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 13, 2021)

Could be about that carb. I saw the youtube video about the mower though. It worked and from what I could see the fellow had a lot of stuff on it and explained how it all worked. It looked like he put water in it, but you can't tell from just watching a video.


----------



## orbital (Mar 13, 2021)

Katherine Alicia said:


> Check this out: https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/index.htm#main_catalogs just pick your year and geek out for a while!
> Radio Shack was haunt when I was growing up, I`d spend ages in there every single time I got a dollar or 2, most kids would buy candy, not me, I`d spend all my money in there and visit regularly just to see what was new in that week. Naturally I was a "Battery Club" member too and used to claim my free 9v battery each month to use in my electronics kit,the 75 in One (I still have it! and others).
> I had a summer job at a place in the Japanesse quarter of the food hall of our local shopping mall (mostly peeling onions and cooking tons of rice), and I earned $129 (Canadian) when I`d finished there, I walked straight out the food hall across to the other side of the mall and into Radio Shack and bought the 160 in One kit!
> Exciting times for a youngster!



+

I'll go ahead & say it in this post.

*Huge respect to Katherine for holding her own in a forum w/ 99.99% guys 

*..you add the proper seasoning to the discussion
*:thumbsup:*


----------



## wacbzz (Mar 13, 2021)

orbital said:


> +
> 
> I'll go ahead & say it in this post.
> 
> ...



+1
Comment removed

Some comments and/or references will not be posted on CPF no matter how well obfuscated or concealed. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. - Empath


----------



## raggie33 (Mar 13, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Mmmm.....lol, I'm coming over to ur house to eat raggie.



it really is good lol i was thinking last night who taught me to cook since i moved out around 15 or so. i recall a roomate in cleveland ohio how to cook a chicken thigh . then some one else taught me how to know if pasta is ready buy throwing it at the wall to see if it sticks but now i.think he was teaseing me lol


----------



## Katherine Alicia (Mar 13, 2021)

orbital said:


> +
> 
> I'll go ahead & say it in this post.
> 
> ...





wacbzz said:


> +1
> 
> Some comments and/or references will not be posted on CPF no matter how well obfuscated or concealed. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. - Empath



Awww Thanks, that`s really sweet! *Blushes*
The company here makes it easy though, I tend not to think in terms of Male/Female but rather we`re just people that for some inexplicable reason love Flashlights, and that means we have more important things in common than not.


----------



## orbital (Mar 14, 2021)

+

iI foresee a big run on incandescent drop-ins.


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## bykfixer (Mar 14, 2021)

I was looking for a keychain for a car I just got and went to every parts store in town looking for one. A smiley face, a fish, anything. It's not a Ford, Jeep or Dodge so I struck out. While there I thought "why not get a windshield sun blocker?"……no dice. I was thinking folding cardboard with something cheesy like a palm tree, or perhaps some space age foil looking roll up number. Nope, nada. Ok, how about a car cover? Nope. Well not for a car. 

So today Mrs Fixer and I went to WalMart and again the same thing. While walking in there we noticed much of the things we bought there just a year ago is no more. Not even a $5 movie bin. We both agreed we've been left behind as we heard 'country rap' playing over the PA system instead of 'muzac'.

I ended up grabbing a tiny nite ize keychan type number from Home Depot.

And I'm good to go on incan drop ins. Good thing 'cause you sure won't find those in stores anymore.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 14, 2021)

My local walmart is conspiring against me. Seems like once they find out what I like they quit carrying it


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## greenpondmike (Mar 14, 2021)

+1 to what orbital said Katherine


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## PhotonWrangler (Mar 14, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> My local walmart is conspiring against me. Seems like once they find out what I like they quit carrying it




Yes. Or the manufacturer's marketing department changes the look of the packaging completely so you can't find it. I've never understood the logic behind this.


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## greenpondmike (Mar 14, 2021)

Me neither. Stores have changed so much. 
I also miss the $5 bin. My wife and I have gotten some good movies from there.


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## Lynx_Arc (Mar 14, 2021)

They still have the bins, but often $5 items are still on the shelves. Physical media is shrinking in all stores the digital market and streaming are destroying the market. Dvds are often in a $3.74 bin here.


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## orbital (Mar 18, 2021)

+

How about something that has many advanced technologies in one small package.

Last week I stumbled onto endoscopes; thought to myself, never had anything like that before..hmm
Well, the more I thought about how much cheaper all the bits of technology have come down ( monitor, camera, memory card, chips, battery,, everything)
the more it became interesting instrument/tool to have on hand.

Looking at the TESLONG NTS450A and the overall value, I read from the manufacturer that it uses a 18650 for power.
Now I'm in, if I can replace that w/ a Sanyo 3400mAh or maybe even squeeze in a 20700 @ 4250mAh, that becomes very interesting to me.

So for $84 shipped it was difficult to argue against it, even if it takes some resoldering to modify.

There are many technologies I really don't care for,,,,, but this endoscope isn't connected to the *cloud*dddddddd}}**{{


----------



## bykfixer (Mar 18, 2021)




----------



## idleprocess (Mar 18, 2021)

bykfixer said:


>



It's funny how the 3½" floppy icon has endured in many an application as the "save file" shortcut despite the medium being wholly absent from modern desktop for about 20 years. Wonder if it will endure like standard >50 year old media control icons which are a combination of intuitive (play, reverse, fast-forward, rewind) and merely recognizable because of their ubiquity (stop, pause, record, skip, eject)?


----------



## greenpondmike (Apr 1, 2021)

.....


----------



## bykfixer (Apr 1, 2021)

When the compact disc arrived it was about a year later I asked myself "wait a second, isn't disc supposed to be spelled with a K?"

Legacy symbols on clothing goes over my head. Used to be a label would say (for example) "machine wash cold, no iron" but now it has symbols in some cases. I look at that and say "huh?" I get the no iron symbol because it looks like an iron with a circle/line as in don't do that but the rest daunt me. The circle line is also universal. No parking, no nukes, that sort of thing. 

Last evening as I was falling asleep for the night and Mrs Fixer was watching a how to video. The narrator kept saying things with three letter acronyms. At one point things went quiet. I asked her "is the video over?" She replied "no I'm searching the web to see what all those dam three letter acronyms stand for, why can't people just use words anymore?" 

In my industry people tend to use three letter acronyms to show others "I'm in the know". Sometimes in meetings I'll say well it seems that all this ITK may just cause some folks to not understand what it is we are talking about, so instead of throwing around a bunch of TLA's perhaps we should just come out and say what it is we are talking about. The younger sect pick up their little smart devices and google ITK while the older crowd says "here here, good point"……


----------



## greenpondmike (Apr 1, 2021)

If they use those 3 letter acronyms on tv- time I look them up I would probably forget the conversation they were used in. I have looked some up before, but if I don't use them often enough they still fly over my head. It's a young person thing mainly I guess.


----------



## greenpondmike (Apr 3, 2021)

.....


----------



## idleprocess (Apr 3, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> In my industry people tend to use three letter acronyms to show others "I'm in the know"



My industry (telecom) is amok with TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms), ETLAs (_Extended_ Three-Letter Acronyms), and even HETLAs (_Hyper_-Extended Three-Letter Acronyms). This problem is aggravated with each department or team coining different terms for the same freaking thing. They serve some purpose for brevity when the term is widely-understood, but are overused otherwise.


----------



## PhotonWrangler (Apr 3, 2021)

idleprocess said:


> My industry (telecom) is amok with TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms), ETLAs (_Extended_ Three-Letter Acronyms), and even HETLAs (_Hyper_-Extended Three-Letter Acronyms). This problem is aggravated with each department or team coining different terms for the same freaking thing. They serve some purpose for brevity when the term is widely-understood, but are overused otherwise.



When your network interface card sends a negative acknowledgement, that's a NIC NAK.


----------



## Poppy (Apr 4, 2021)

PhotonWrangler said:


> When your network interface card sends a negative acknowledgement, that's a NIC NAK.


LOL... and what's a "paddy whack"?

I thought that GPE would stand for "Gas Powered Equipment", but nope:

AcronymDefinitionGPEGross-Pitaevskii Equation _(physics)_GPEGraphic Parallelization EnvironmentGPEGeneral Protection ErrorGPEGeneral Purpose EventGPEGroup Policy EditorGPEGovernment Wide Point of EntryGPEGovernmentwide Point of EntryGPEGravitational Potential EnergyGPEGroup Policy Editor _(Microsoft)_GPEGreatest Potential for Exposure _(Canada)_GPEGrove Park Elementary _(North Carolina)_GPEGeneral-Purpose Event _(ACPI)_GPEGreat Plains Energy Incorporated _(Kansas City, MO)_GPEGold Plated EverythingGPEGerm Plasm Evaluation _(livestock)_GPEGlobal Pharmacovigilance and EpidemiologyGPEGreen Power Experience _(New York)_GPEGreatest Possible ErrorGPEGas Phase EpitaxyGPEGeneral Purpose EvaporatorGPEGraphite Paste ElectrodeGPEGalena Peak Enterprises _(mining; Las Vegas, NV)_GPEGeneralized Potential Energy _(mechanics)_GPEGross Profit Estimate
Copyright 1988-2018 AcronymFinder.com, All rights reserved.


----------



## Katherine Alicia (Apr 4, 2021)

so it`s not `Gigantic Pink Elephant` then? 
I feel cheated now


----------



## bykfixer (Apr 4, 2021)

My refrigerator gave me grief recently so I did some research. It seems these days there are smart refrigerators that remind you to get milk or tell you the 3 month old lettuce way in the back has rotted. Trouble is at some point the smart refigerator is no longer able to communicate with the host after an operating system upgrade. So the folks who paid an extra grand end up with one that has nothing better than the one where you look at the milk carton and decide "ok today's the day".

The company I work for laughed at people like me ten years ago who put a sticky note over the laptop camera or wrapped the company vehicle key fob with foil and kept wifi in the vehicle turned off. Recently they sent out an email with a link to obtain official okee dokee laptop camera covers complete with company logo. In addition it reccomends you manually lock your vehicle, don't use wifi to navigate and the best one……cover your key fob with……wait for it……alluminum foil. But there's more. For those who don't want to waste alluminum foil they reccomend you put your key fob inside your smart refigerator. Apparently hackers can't access your key fob through a refigerator……unless it's a smart refrigerator hooked up to the world wide web. Oh wait, they haven't thought of that yet. 
Now none of this is to protect the employees information (gasp), no it's to make sure hackers can't gain access to company information. 

So remember next time you take a photo with a smart memory card or tell Alexis to turn on the living room light that it seems data thieves are now using your Bill Gates style smart house to steal your tax refund or worse……


----------



## PhotonWrangler (Apr 4, 2021)

There is truth behind the keyfob thing. Just don't keep it in the microwave, as that could end badly. :laughing:


----------



## bykfixer (Apr 4, 2021)

One day I showed Mrs Fixer I could download photos from her phone with mine and used NFC to do it. I copied about 500 photos onto mine in just a few seconds. Up to that point she was using some kind of insta-pay and had the NFC turned on without the "are you sure you want to do this" prompt. She turned the NFC off after that. 

When I first saw at a gas station you could swipe a plastic card over a reader and get a discount I started thinking about how someone could get my info. I started using foil to wrap my cards inside my wallet. Nowdays they sell hack resistant wallets. 

A neighbor has auto start vehicles where they can start up their vehicle using the wifi in it. Bad idea. Very convenient yes, for the e-klepto. 

Now one cool hack I read about recently is how to extend the range of your older key fob that only worked a few feet away. Grab the key with a finger turn and face the automobile with the key between your fingers and it has turned your body into an antenna. Your fob that was good up to 3 feet away is now good for as much as 100……


----------



## Lynx_Arc (Apr 4, 2021)

Katherine Alicia said:


> so it`s not `Gigantic Pink Elephant` then?
> I feel cheated now



Nope... it is Gross Pickled Eel


----------



## raggie33 (Apr 4, 2021)

intel is dead apple cpus and amd are winning


----------



## Lynx_Arc (Apr 4, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> intel is dead apple cpus and amd are winning



Intel and AMD leap frog back and forth on processors as they have been for decades. Apple CPUs will do ok because people buy Apple stuff not because they are better or not compared to AMD/Intel but with Apples budget they should be able to compete well enough.


----------



## orbital (Apr 4, 2021)

+

Since chip lithography is going toward 0.9nm // good thing we have all those alien spacecraft to harvest parts off of,
so we can add some *antimatter* to the chip 'nm process'

no real need to overclock for AI software @ 10.24Ghz, right


----------



## PhotonWrangler (Apr 4, 2021)

Lol.

No discussion of modern technology would be complete without this schematic.


----------



## raggie33 (Apr 4, 2021)

the m1 smokes intel cpus in laptops


----------



## idleprocess (Apr 4, 2021)

PhotonWrangler said:


> Lol.
> 
> No discussion of modern technology would be complete without this schematic.



That guy we hired to open and close the switch really fast is slacking.


----------



## Chauncey Gardiner (Apr 4, 2021)

I purchased one of these today. 







It's not high-tech, but it's definitely modern tech. Stores in a closet. Travels in a mini van, is five ladders in one, has a 375lb per side rating when utilized as a step-ladder, 41 positions, and a 26 foot reach. 

We used it today to access a dimmer switch pack.


----------



## raggie33 (Apr 5, 2021)

im terrified of heights


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## RWT1405 (Apr 8, 2021)

Disregard 

Not worth getting into


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## bykfixer (Apr 8, 2021)

Modern ladders are cool. 

Meanwhile gravity is still not your friend if you fall off one.


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## raggie33 (Apr 8, 2021)

true story today while instaaling smoke alarm i was afraid to fall off foot stool lol


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## Chauncey Gardiner (Apr 9, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> Modern ladders are cool.
> 
> Meanwhile gravity is still not your friend if you fall off one.



I'm not afraid of falling. It's when the falling stops that scares me.


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## Katherine Alicia (Apr 9, 2021)

injury due to: "Failure to fly" sucks, gravity`s a real downer, curse Newton for inventing it!


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## PhotonWrangler (Apr 9, 2021)

Like Chauncey said, it's not the fall but that rapid deceleration at the end!


----------



## bykfixer (Apr 13, 2021)

In a remember when discussion at work today we were remembering when we were hooked on a personal computer. I remember talking with a lady while she typed and she has misspelled a word. She highlighted it and hit the back key and the word was gone. I said "woah, woah, woah what just happened?" She chuckled and said "pretty neat, huh?" A few minutes later she highlighted a sentence, cut it and pasted it elsewhere. 

That was it for me. After re-writing countless reports by hand because I left out a word or decided a sentence would be better somewhere else…… back then it was called a word processor. Later on I learned it remembered stuff way better than I do. 
The word processor really made a big impact on my life.


----------



## Lynx_Arc (Apr 13, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> In a remember when discussion at work today we were remembering when we were hooked on a personal computer. I remember talking with a lady while she typed and she has misspelled a word. She highlighted it and hit the back key and the word was gone. I said "woah, woah, woah what just happened?" She chuckled and said "pretty neat, huh?" A few minutes later she highlighted a sentence, cut it and pasted it elsewhere.
> 
> That was it for me. After re-writing countless reports by hand because I left out a word or decided a sentence would be better somewhere else…… back then it was called a word processor. Later on I learned it remembered stuff way better than I do.
> The word processor really made a big impact on my life.


I remember going to school and working overtime and having a Commodore 128 with a printer and word processing program saved me countless hours of time as using a regular typewriter and making mistakes having to get thoughts and everything right or type a whole page over again. I figure I saved an hour for every assignment and was working long hours barely getting enough sleep as it was.


----------



## Poppy (Apr 14, 2021)

Can anyone say... "Quick Brown Fox"?

That and "Mavis Bacon Teaches Typing!"


----------



## Katherine Alicia (Apr 14, 2021)

Poppy said:


> Can anyone say... "Quick Brown Fox"?
> 
> That and "Mavis Bacon Teaches Typing!"




I remember doing typing and shorthand and having to practice that for Hours!


----------



## bykfixer (Apr 14, 2021)

Mavis had a typing game for kids (sticky bear typing?) that helped me learn to use all four fingers instead of "donk, donk, donk" murdering keys using a stabbing motion with one finger on my dominant hand. 
I can close my eyes and type faster with fewer errors but for whatever reason I still watch the screen. I think it's because of switching from one computer to another pretty often instead of using the same keyboard all of the time.

My mom had this super marvelous, super small memory type writer called "mag card machine" in the 1970's that used an early version of the floppy disk. It was only 3 feet tall and 1 foot wide and had no physical memory aside from what that little floppy could hold. There was no screen so it typed on paper like a conventional machine but also stored the document to be "printed" instead of "xerox'd" so it printed in black like the original instead of a smeared up purple document. That was super-pro back then.


----------



## Poppy (Apr 14, 2021)

My secretary could do 60 WPM and out-type the typewriter, until I got her an IBM Select-type. To change the fonts, you changed the print ball.


----------



## Katherine Alicia (Apr 14, 2021)

Wow! been while since I`v seen an old Golf ball printer, I think the Daisy Wheel came next IIRC?


----------



## markr6 (Apr 14, 2021)

Pretty cool! I picked up an old IBM Selectric II from work. Mint. I have no use but didn't want to see it just get trashed.


----------



## Lynx_Arc (Apr 14, 2021)

I learned to touch type in high school on an electric typewriter with manual return and got up to 55 WPM. I did faster on a computer because I didn't have to take a hand off the keyboard to hit return which at times got me on the wrong keys for a second or two. I rarely write anything these days other than short notes as messing with a note program/app takes more effort for me than writing a line on a pad. 
I think the one huge step in tech was computer printers they were the game changer in printing as you could create or download text files and print them on demand. I think a new tech is around the corner 5 years out and that is projection tech on phones. Imagine a low res imaged of what is on your phone projected a few feet in front of you and a bluetooth remote. It would make reading things easier as you could project them to a lot larger size for easier reading, maybe even project movies and games from phones and tablets even.


----------



## bykfixer (Apr 14, 2021)

Popular Mechanics predicted projection keyboards and screens from smart phones would be 'normal' in 10 years back around 2006. Still waiting……

The printer can now produce a heart, a gun, a traffic cone, all kinds of things. I'm still not on board with a 3D printer (as I'm still trying to learn how to program my vcr) but definitely admire the process.


----------



## orbital (Apr 14, 2021)

+

Can't believe *Office Space* will be a 25 year old movie in just a few

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjsSr3z5nVk


----------



## markr6 (Apr 14, 2021)

orbital said:


> +
> 
> Can't believe *Office Space* will be a 25 year old movie in just a few
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjsSr3z5nVk




That's crazy!!

_What would you say, you do here?_


----------



## idleprocess (Apr 14, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> In a remember when discussion at work today we were remembering when we were hooked on a personal computer. I remember talking with a lady while she typed and she has misspelled a word. She highlighted it and hit the back key and the word was gone. I said "woah, woah, woah what just happened?" She chuckled and said "pretty neat, huh?" A few minutes later she highlighted a sentence, cut it and pasted it elsewhere.
> 
> That was it for me. After re-writing countless reports by hand because I left out a word or decided a sentence would be better somewhere else…… back then it was called a word processor. Later on I learned it remembered stuff way better than I do.
> The word processor really made a big impact on my life.



Spreadsheets were the big moment for me - in particular _spreadsheet formulas_, which allowed the user to take real and immediate advantage of the power of their computer. 

In a different career some ~25 years ago I was tasked with estimating materials for bids to install pneumatic tube systems (generally for cash-handling). The usual method was to draw the routes on a set of paper plans, sum the length of each run to get raw footage, then start calculating materials by hand _(i.e. 90° bends deduct from footage of straight material by two radiuses, 15' sticks of tube have fewer couplings than 10' sticks, running 2+ tubes together requires unistrut rather than solitary tube hanging materials, single-tube bends take sway bracing and multi-tube bends don't etc etc)_. I was able to devise a spreadsheet that would do all of this for the user while providing solutions for nearly all scenarios. Varying bend sizes, different material margins, different hanging scenarios - all accounted for.

I've since progressed to using spreadsheets as brute-force tools for data manipulation, lookups, script-generation, timesheet/tax calculators, hack databases, and countless other utilitarian functions. It's not an elegant, scalable, nor often repeatable in the sense that explaining to someone else how the formulas work is ... difficult ... but it's _installed on most desktop computers_ thus a widely-available tool.


----------



## jtr1962 (Apr 14, 2021)

idleprocess said:


> I've since progressed to using spreadsheets as brute-force tools for data manipulation, lookups, script-generation, timesheet/tax calculators, hack databases, and countless other utilitarian functions. It's not an elegant, scalable, nor often repeatable in the sense that explaining to someone else how the formulas work is ... difficult ... but it's _installed on most desktop computers_ thus a widely-available tool.


Spreadsheets and word processors are the two things which increased my general productivity by leaps and bounds over what came before. I can't even begin to list the myriad things spreadsheets are useful for.

On the tax calculations, don't know if you ever heard about this little tip for progressive income tax calculations:

https://www.extendoffice.com/documents/excel/5082-excel-calculate-income-tax.html

I had made a spreadsheet to help with my taxes. It was crude, and the formulas for even calculating taxes in the first two brackets were cumbersome. I wanted to make something which could in theory do tax calculations for any amount of income, and do them for state and local taxes as well. I searched around, and discovered how useful SUMPRODUCT is. The same simple formula can take care of any arbitrary number of tax brackets. Now my spreadsheet does it all. I even included capital gains tax in it.


----------



## bykfixer (Apr 14, 2021)

When I saw you could type 3 in one box, 4 in another and a third box said 7 I was intrigued. When I learned how place a number in cells D3 thru D36 and D37 had the total……awe yeah I was hooked on that. I probably use about 0.09% of a spread sheet potential but I'm having fun. That is until the next version comes out and they rearranged some of my favorite features.


----------



## raggie33 (Apr 14, 2021)

and i thought i was old lol. btw you word proceser guys did the modern computer blow your mind since it does the work of a word prceeer?


----------



## jtr1962 (Apr 14, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> and i thought i was old lol. btw you word proceser guys did the modern computer blow your mind since it does the work of a word prceeer?


Yep. My first "PC" was actually an Amstrad word processor. I got it used from one of my mom's friends in the early 1990s for about $200, with a nice computer desk thrown in as a bonus. I couldn't afford a full-blown PC at the time as they were going for upwards of $3,000 ($6,000+ in today's money). It had no hard drive and odd-ball type floppy disks which weren't compatible with the standard 1.44 MB floppies then in use in PCs. All software ran from the floppies. Mine came with a dot-matrix printer. Very rudimentary but still orders of magnitude better than a typewriter. When I got it, I said I wished I had this in college. It would have saved me loads of time retyping term papers. I blame that in part for my carpal tunnel syndrome.

A friend of mine who owns a taximeter shop gave me my first "real" PC in 1998. A 33 MHz 386 with 4 MB of RAM, a 1.44 MB floppy drive, and a 1.2 GB hard drive. I was blown away. I could store stuff on the hard drive. Didn't have to swap floppies constantly. It even had a tape drive for back up. I soon upgraded the monochrome monitor to color. IIRC that also entailed a new video card. I also added a CD-ROM drive so I could buy modern software which started coming on CDs instead of floppies. First thing I did after getting the machine was copy my cycling records. I couldn't read them off the Amstrad floppies I saved them on, but I had printed copies to use to enter the data on my PC. Took a while but once done I knew that was the last time I would ever need to retype something. Once I started using MSWord I was blown away even more. Now I had fonts! And things printed exactly as they appeared on screen (more or less). Not long after, I "upgraded" to a 40 MHz 386 which my former coworker in the taxi shop gave me when he upgraded to a new machine. I upgraded that to a whopping 32 MB of RAM. I also recall adding a 387 math coprocessor to both of these machines. That made a lot of things I used much faster.

Fast forward to now. I'm using a machine with an AMD A10-7870K APU, 16 GB of RAM, a total of a 4.4 TB of storage (2x 960 GB SSDs, 1x 500 GB SSD, and 1x 2TB HDD). By most metrics this has about 1000 times the computing power, storage space, and RAM of the stuff I started out with. This is why I love modern technology.


----------



## raggie33 (Apr 14, 2021)

how times have changed my laptop has 8 gigs a ram and most days i wonder if i should of gone 16 gigs


----------



## jtr1962 (Apr 14, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> how times have changed my laptop has 8 gigs a ram and most days i wonder if i should of gone 16 gigs


My laptop is about 10 years old. I don't use it much but it still serves my needs just fine. I bought it for $70. It was a little flaky, and would sometimes randomly reboot. A few years ago, it crashed while trying to boot up. I bought a new CPU for a few bucks on eBay. Fixed the problem. The CPU was probably on its way out from the time I got the machine. Upgraded from 4GB to 8GB of RAM, swapped the 100GB HDD for a 240GB SSD I no longer needed in my desktop machine. Great machine now. Rock solid stable, much faster with the SDD and additional RAM. An SSD can give new life to older machines.


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## PhotonWrangler (Apr 14, 2021)

I remember when a 56k dialup fax modem was great.


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## raggie33 (Apr 14, 2021)

my ssd is super small but its crazy fast like 2500 mbs


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## raggie33 (Apr 14, 2021)

PhotonWrangler said:


> I remember when a 56k dialup fax modem was great.


im guessing where the same age. btw my first time onilne i was looking for info on mental disabilties some how i ened up in chat but i had no idea the people was humans and typeing live back to me. my mind waas blown


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 14, 2021)

PhotonWrangler said:


> I remember when a 56k dialup fax modem was great.


I remember when I went to 14.4k from 300 baud and used Zmodem protocal that allows resuming downloads.


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## Poppy (Apr 15, 2021)

128K DSL... now THAT was the bomb!


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## markr6 (Apr 15, 2021)

PhotonWrangler said:


> I remember when a 56k dialup fax modem was great.




When I put one in my computer I was excited, only to find out AOL would only connect at 32k. If i kept hanging up and redialing I may hit 48k with the right number.


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## jabe1 (Apr 15, 2021)

I remember the 300 baud modems. You could hit send, then go make a sandwich. When you got back, maybe there was a response.


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 15, 2021)

jabe1 said:


> I remember the 300 baud modems. You could hit send, then go make a sandwich. When you got back, maybe there was a response.



I once tried to download a large picture with 300 baud, after 45 minutes there was a hiccup and I had to start over again.


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## raggie33 (Apr 15, 2021)

im pretty sure my first was 56k how many k is 300 baud?


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## jtr1962 (Apr 15, 2021)

Thankfully since I didn't get online until the late 1990s I never had the "pleasure" of dealing with 300 baud. I do remember 56K. It never was actually 56K. Best case I think you got high 40s because of the error-correction bits. I recall when I had to load a web page with lots of pictures I would just grab a cup of coffee.


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## bykfixer (Apr 15, 2021)

Poppy said:


> 128K DSL... now THAT was the bomb!



My kids were estatic. I still thought "eh, it's just a fad" lol


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 15, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> im pretty sure my first was 56k how many k is 300 baud?



0.3K


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## raggie33 (Apr 15, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> 0.3K



id jump off the roof!


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## PhotonWrangler (Apr 15, 2021)

At 300 baud you could watch the characters type across the screen one at a time, sort of like the computer scenes from the movie "War Games." 

How about a nice game of chess?


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## raggie33 (Apr 15, 2021)

and i hate my 200 mbs lol


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## markr6 (Apr 16, 2021)

Is there any practicality to a 150mbps connection compared to 25mpbs? I think you need about 5mbps (actual) to stream Netflix right?

For what I do, my 800mbps plan doesn't seem any different from the 15mbps plan years ago. I understand it has more to do with the actual server you're connecting to right? So the weather forecast model page I use is still going to be slow no matter what. And practically back into the 1990s speed when there's a big hurricane and everyone else is logging in.


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## Chauncey Gardiner (Apr 16, 2021)

I just reviewed our internet plan. We have up to 40mbps. In the evening The Lovely Mrs Gardiner and I stream Amazon Prime while our two sons game on line. Everyone is pleased with their performance. Our provider, Century Link, doesn't offer anything faster for the time being.


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## bykfixer (Apr 16, 2021)

Meanwhile after 20 minutes Windows is still showing "getting Windows ready, do not turn off your computer"……


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 16, 2021)

markr6 said:


> Is there any practicality to a 150mbps connection compared to 25mpbs? I think you need about 5mbps (actual) to stream Netflix right?
> 
> For what I do, my 800mbps plan doesn't seem any different from the 15mbps plan years ago. I understand it has more to do with the actual server you're connecting to right? So the weather forecast model page I use is still going to be slow no matter what. And practically back into the 1990s speed when there's a big hurricane and everyone else is logging in.


If you have a lot of people streaming on your connection at once, or are into gaming there can be a big difference. I have a 50Mbps plan and the upload speed is nowhere near that it is lucky to be 2Mbps. Latency is also a big issue in that slower speeds I think have less priority leading to higher latency which in gaming means the other guy gets there first while you are stuck in a micro limbo waiting for the server to send you the first packet. Another thing to consider is you often don't get what is advertised either and when congestion happens your speed drops such that a 10 drops to a 5 and 150 may drop to 75. As the money and internet speeds advance you may find a lot more streaming is 2K or even 4K and will test lower speed connections.


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## raggie33 (Apr 16, 2021)

i switched to mac os becuase intel kind of sucks now. i love my m1 mac


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## markr6 (Apr 16, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> Meanwhile after 20 minutes Windows is still showing "getting Windows ready, do not turn off your computer"……



Oh man you gotta switch to a SSD (solid state drive). I bought a nice one for my main computer, about $65 and a cheap one for my basement (not often used) computer for $25. Both made the computers start up in about 9 seconds compared to a minute or more. Shutdown is about 5 seconds after you click "Shut down". Amazing upgrade!!!



Lynx_Arc said:


> If you have a lot of people streaming on your connection at once, or are into gaming there can be a big difference. I have a 50Mbps plan and the upload speed is nowhere near that it is lucky to be 2Mbps. Latency is also a big issue in that slower speeds I think have less priority leading to higher latency which in gaming means the other guy gets there first while you are stuck in a micro limbo waiting for the server to send you the first packet. Another thing to consider is you often don't get what is advertised either and when congestion happens your speed drops such that a 10 drops to a 5 and 150 may drop to 75. As the money and internet speeds advance you may find a lot more streaming is 2K or even 4K and will test lower speed connections.



Good to know, thanks!


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## jtr1962 (Apr 16, 2021)

markr6 said:


> Is there any practicality to a 150mbps connection compared to 25mpbs? I think you need about 5mbps (actual) to stream Netflix right?
> 
> For what I do, my 800mbps plan doesn't seem any different from the 15mbps plan years ago. I understand it has more to do with the actual server you're connecting to right? So the weather forecast model page I use is still going to be slow no matter what. And practically back into the 1990s speed when there's a big hurricane and everyone else is logging in.


I don't think there is for most people. Here's a true story. A few years ago I switched from Spectrum to FIOS. Included in the new package was 1Gbps Internet. I'm actually getting close to that according to the app from FIOS that tests the speed between my modem and the fiber optic line. Last year I ran some of the regular broadband speed tests. They all capped out at around 100Mbps. This is a real head scratcher. I have Gbit ethernet on my motherboard. Maybe I need a new cable. But in any case the fact I haven't bothered pursuing fixing the problem that aggressively tells me for my uses there's no real difference between 100Mbps and 1Gbps. It's similar to the situation for storage. For a lot of people a few hundred GB to one or two TB is enough. Those who need a lot more already know it.


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 16, 2021)

jtr1962 said:


> I don't think there is for most people. Here's a true story. A few years ago I switched from Spectrum to FIOS. Included in the new package was 1Gbps Internet. I'm actually getting close to that according to the app from FIOS that tests the speed between my modem and the fiber optic line. Last year I ran some of the regular broadband speed tests. They all capped out at around 100Mbps. This is a real head scratcher. I have Gbit ethernet on my motherboard. Maybe I need a new cable. But in any case the fact I haven't bothered pursuing fixing the problem that aggressively tells me for my uses there's no real difference between 100Mbps and 1Gbps. It's similar to the situation for storage. For a lot of people a few hundred GB to one or two TB is enough. Those who need a lot more already know it.


I'm wondering if there is some trickery going on as I have 50Mbps internet and got a new smart TV using my phone I tested it around 50 but my TV set registered only 5, then after a month it averages around 25. I'm wondering if certain sites/devices/apps are allowed full speed and normal stuff is throttled. There was providers throttling sites that streamed video at one time like Netflix and such and cell providers throttle video either by speed or limiting resolution. Long ago before there were speed tests the test that most used was download speed watching the KB/s and you could also see the speed on your dialup connection I think but now they don't show speed on connections they force you to use second party software to try and figure out things. I do see my Wifi speed but 54Mb/s is meaningless if your Internet only is 1Mb/s you won't every use all the bandwidth provided by your router.


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## bykfixer (Apr 16, 2021)

markr6 said:


> Oh man you gotta switch to a SSD (solid state drive). I bought a nice one for my main computer, about $65 and a cheap one for my basement (not often used) computer for $25. Both made the computers start up in about 9 seconds compared to a minute or more. Shutdown is about 5 seconds after you click "Shut down". Amazing upgrade!!!



It's a unit provided by the client I work for. You get what you get when you make a living as a consultant for big brother. 
I just find other stuff to do while waiting.


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## idleprocess (Apr 16, 2021)

markr6 said:


> Is there any practicality to a 150mbps connection compared to 25mpbs? I think you need about 5mbps (actual) to stream Netflix right?



Upgraded from 50Mb (symmetric) to 500Mb (symmetric) about 2 years ago primarily drop TV service and force migration to a new fiber platform (BPON >> GPON). I occasionally send/receive data beyond the ~6.25MB/s threshold of 50Mb service - have very occasionally gotten into the 40MB/s (320Mb/s). The main benefit is parallel operation - no single device will saturate the uplink any more.

Whenever the next speed tiers become available I might again upgrade by a factor of 10 - however the motivation is the same as last time: to force migration to a new platform (GPON >> XGSPON) since BPON is being retired and those customers are being migrated to GPON. Glad I re-routed the Cat5e last year - running Cat6e for 10GigE will be a relatively short project next time.


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## raggie33 (Apr 16, 2021)

markr6 said:


> Oh man you gotta switch to a SSD (solid state drive). I bought a nice one for my main computer, about $65 and a cheap one for my basement (not often used) computer for $25. Both made the computers start up in about 9 seconds compared to a minute or more. Shutdown is about 5 seconds after you click "Shut down". Amazing upgrade!!!
> 
> 
> 
> Good to know, thanks!



upgrading from sata to m2 drive makes a big diifernce to


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## Katherine Alicia (Apr 17, 2021)

I`m really digging how cheap and fast electronic manufacturing has gotten in the music industry, there are so many previously impossible to afford things being made available now and accesible to almost anyone with an interest in it. Behringer have cloned in Eurorack format the old Moog System 55 from the 1960`s, I`v even bought a few modules myself, an original would set you back as much as a house!


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## PhotonWrangler (Apr 17, 2021)

This is so true. Back in the day I was fascinated by early synths to the point that I wanted to build one myself. Anyone else remember PAIA kits? Anyway I got as far as building a swept bandpass filter from scratch. This made a neat wah-wah effect when I ran a square wave through it and this taught me about harmonics. But then I ran into a brick wall with the cost of a keyboard at the time so I never went any farther with it. These days everything is so inexpensive and accessible.


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## greenpondmike (Apr 18, 2021)

I get faster speeds when I use up my high speed data by clearing the browsing data and for chrome I have it set for "all time" and then I go to apps and clear the rest of my browser's cach there. It won't mess with passwords or bookmarks or even sign you out of inportant sights unless you let it. I can just about chose what I want to save. Y'all talking about connections being slower and I figured I'd suggest that- you all probably already know that. It can make the difference of loading a page or not loading it or loading it 5+ minutes later. Those little cookie spies add up and drag down your speed and you can't take full advantage of the speed you have. Also, on android there is a way to give apps full internet access or take it away. Seems like the google apps get more access than the browser. If you can root your phone and get superuser access you can delete that garbage. Samsung phones have even more bloatware. If you want to know what apps are accessing the internet in the background you can get a firewall and just set it to filter and show all traffic. Most google apps call home and also spy on you. They say that they do it so they will know what kind of adds to throw at you. One time before I almost entirely quit using fb they were throwing flashlight adds at me. Fb scared me when they could guess what I was going to type and while I was typing I saw that what I was trying to say was already there and the way I was going to say it- talk about profiling someone.


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## greenpondmike (Apr 18, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> Meanwhile after 20 minutes Windows is still showing "getting Windows ready, do not turn off your computer"……



Bykfixer, you might be able to boot faster by changing some of your startup programs and apps so that they will start up only when (or if) you need them and not at boot. Windows has some utilities to also help you to clean up your pc so it will run more efficient. Cclean/Ccleaner goes way beyond that and cleans the registry be careful with that although I never had a problem and I lack common since sometimes. I don't recommend you use the "wipe free space" option in Cclean if you have a solid state hard drive. I also like to run checkdisk and also delete unessential files and then compact files to tighten up where the unused files were, but then uncompact them so they will pull up faster. Once uncompacted the files will still take up less space. I've done this for the whole "c" section of the disk. 
Majorgeeks is a good safe place to get apps and software. Some websites will try to attach something extra to your downloaded file, but not majorgeeks- at least not the last time I've used them a year or two ago.


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## turbodog (Apr 18, 2021)

idleprocess said:


> ... The main benefit is parallel operation - no single device will saturate the uplink any more.
> 
> ...



Dropbox will come close. We are seeing it hit sustained of a few hundred meg. It will saturate a 200 meg line. Gig line will see sustained of a few hundred with spikes higher.


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## bykfixer (Apr 18, 2021)

It ran fine, then did an update and for a couple of days I wondered if it didn't have a spyware or something. Then yesterday it began running normal again.


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## greenpondmike (Apr 18, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> It ran fine, then did an update and for a couple of days I wondered if it didn't have a spyware or something. Then yesterday it began running normal again.



Sometimes windows updates will do more harm than good. I like to set it to notify me of available updates and try to go through one by one. It's time consuming, but I like to have more hands on control since one or two of them messed with my internet and wifi connection. I don't care if they are trying to keep a hacker at a public place from hacking into my pc. My computer isn't any good to me if I can't get on the internet myself. Seems like (if I can remember) the the updates I'm suspicious of has "local" in their description. I'm also very careful about what I install and don't "automatic" or just "run" (on installation) anything. I save the files to documents or downloads and scan it with my resident antivirus and then two or three on demand scanners. I then check for windows' seal of verification and if it doesn't have that I will probably just delete the file or leave it in limbo while I get back on the web and investigate it on some forums. I don't want another rooted bootkit. 

Edit: I'm glad your pc straightened itself out. I think to some degree software can communicate with and cooperate with other software and learn/determine how to play well with each other.


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## greenpondmike (Apr 18, 2021)

markr6 said:


> Is there any practicality to a 150mbps connection compared to 25mpbs? I think you need about 5mbps (actual) to stream Netflix right?
> 
> For what I do, my 800mbps plan doesn't seem any different from the 15mbps plan years ago. I understand it has more to do with the actual server you're connecting to right? So the weather forecast model page I use is still going to be slow no matter what. And practically back into the 1990s speed when there's a big hurricane and everyone else is logging in.



If you suspect that a lot of others have logged in after you did on a particular connection you could kill the connection and reestablish it. The ones that come on after you usually get priority over you and then theirs slows down as others come online.


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## greenpondmike (Apr 18, 2021)

[I wondered if it didn't have a spyware or something]

I does bykfixer- except it's one designed for the system by the designer of the system. They say it's for advertising purposes and maybe so, but what's up with fb selling our data? I bet other companies are also doing it. I guess it's called the web because everything is intertwined, but it also entangles folks. I wonder who's the spider? 
I wish I had a quarter for every dollar microsoft, fb and google made off of me- might be able to afford a new doublewide to go fry something in.


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## raggie33 (Apr 18, 2021)

i just reinstall my os if computer is slow


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## greenpondmike (Apr 18, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> i just reinstall my os if computer is slow



Done that a few times and it works well. Only thing is I always lost everything I had and I was either too lazy or I didn't know how to save stuff back then (2005-2006). Time I got everything back on it and reinstalled windows updates it was kind of bloated again, but still it better. I try to go deep and locate what is weighing it down now. When I wanted another antivirus I had to download an uninstall tool made by the makers of the antivirus. It deleted more than the windows delete feature, but it still left bits in the program files and registry. Sometimes I has to manually go through the registry. I had to learn where to look. If there is a search feature when reviewing files, if you know the keywords for the files you're searching for it makes things much easier.


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 18, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> [I wondered if it didn't have a spyware or something]
> 
> I does bykfixer- except it's one designed for the system by the designer of the system. They say it's for advertising purposes and maybe so, but what's up with fb selling our data? I bet other companies are also doing it. I guess it's called the web because everything is intertwined, but it also entangles folks. I wonder who's the spider?
> I wish I had a quarter for every dollar microsoft, fb and google made off of me- might be able to afford a new doublewide to go fry something in.


I pretty much knew early on that FB was all about selling as much of the info they could get about you to anyone for profit. They didn't get super rich protecting your privacy as FB has had endless circumstances of privacy issues that is why I never opened a FB account, too risky and too insecure I don't like people making billions off of selling out information of others at all while pretending that they are all about privacy etc.
I would bet they use cookies to track you across the internet if they could and sell that info too and their apps probably help track your habits.


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## greenpondmike (Apr 18, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> I pretty much knew early on that FB was all about selling as much of the info they could get about you to anyone for profit. They didn't get super rich protecting your privacy as FB has had endless circumstances of privacy issues that is why I never opened a FB account, too risky and too insecure I don't like people making billions off of selling out information of others at all while pretending that they are all about privacy etc.



I agree. Zukerburg is two faced.


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## raggie33 (Apr 18, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Done that a few times and it works well. Only thing is I always lost everything I had and I was either too lazy or I didn't know how to save stuff back then (2005-2006). Time I got everything back on it and reinstalled windows updates it was kind of bloated again, but still it better. I try to go deep and locate what is weighing it down now. When I wanted another antivirus I had to download an uninstall tool made by the makers of the antivirus. It deleted more than the windows delete feature, but it still left bits in the program files and registry. Sometimes I has to manually go through the registry. I had to learn where to look. If there is a search feature when reviewing files, if you know the keywords for the files you're searching for it makes things much easier.



what cpu and ram does it have?


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## greenpondmike (Apr 18, 2021)

Another thing about fb and even any forum. Anything that lifts you can also drop you. I think fb is more of a platform than a forum though. As I have always said- fb promises much, but delivers little. The last time I actually had an account I just got back on there to recover a stolen whatsamacallit and it worked. In my pretition to the suspect I pronounced some bad things on them and the ones involved if they didn't return it. I liked something that the girlfriend of the supposed suspect said and I could see that she had a flirty profile and yep, she couldn't help checking out my wall and read what I has wrote. Her boyfriend was innocent, but the real fellow lived across the steet cadycorner from her and she knew them. She hit me up on messenger and told me who had my stolen property and before the sun went down that day I was holding the item in my hand. 
I stayed on fb a while longer and deactivated my account again. My wife still has one and she has the same friends and kinfolk I did, so I droped in every now and then. I haven't been on there in over a year or two and it was only to say hi to everyone and check messages (no fb apps and no more messenger-only opera browser and opera mini). That was also the last time my wife got on there. I liked those redneck and mexican word for the day pages. Some of it was clean and bust your gut funny, but on stuff like that I had to take the bad with the good and was learning new cuss words that I didn't want to learn, but what ran me off in a hurry was them guessing what I was going to say before I said it and a friend seemingly turning on me. I just had enough already of fb and needed a little shove and got one.


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## bykfixer (Apr 18, 2021)

I just figured why there were times I would be notified a document I sent was the same one I sent before with a new file name. 

I pull up a document, say a word document that is a daily report. Often there are a bunch of places on it with the same information like my name, project number, report number etc. I just hit "save as" and give it a new name. Now if it's a repetative assignment I can change the date and a few words. Other days the body of the report is rewritten. Now in the DOS years I'd hit "control s" every few minutes as I typed. But I got out of that habit after I started using a mouse. 

Anything I save on my company computer goes to their cloud first. Then saves to my hard drive if I'm online. Because of that when using a celphone vpn hotspot there are times it'll take an entire minute to save to the cloud. So between using about 5x the amount of data the company phone is contracted for each month and that ridiculous lag time I usually type my reports off line. Things are fine. But sometimes I'm online when writing a report, because I need to check emails and do stuff at the server. And that's usually because I'm strapped for computer time. And this week I realized I hit save and shut down the computer. So my new report "file" name made it to the cloud but the work didn't make it before I turned off the computer. Nor did it save to my hard drive. So later on I send what I thought was a correct report when it's just a carbon copy of the previous one under a different name. 

The trick it seems is to go back to some habits from the DOS days while typing.


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## raggie33 (Apr 18, 2021)

its crazy today what you csn bet for 1 hundred bucks


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## greenpondmike (Apr 18, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> what cpu and ram does it have?



I don't remember. It was an old e-machines with windows xp home edition. I got it used from my mother in law in 2005. It was bought new 2 or 3 years before that. That thing is long gone and now I have a hp pavilion from 2007 or 2008 with vista on it. No problem with that one, but it has been a couple of years since I've used it because of the convenience of smart phones.


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## greenpondmike (Apr 18, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> I just figured why there were times I would be notified a document I sent was the same one I sent before with a new file name. I pull up a document, say a word document that is a daily report. Often there are a bunch of places on it with the same information like my name, project number, report number etc. I just hit "save as" and give it a new name. Now if it's a repetative assignment I can change the date and a few words. Other days the body of the report is rewritten. Now in the DOS years I'd hit "control s" every few minutes as I typed. But I got out of that habit after I started using a mouse. Anything I save on my company computer goes to their cloud first. Then saves to my hard drive if I'm online. Because of that when using a celphone vpn hotspot there are times it'll take an entire minute to save to the cloud. So between using about 5x the amount of data the company phone is contracted for each month and that ridiculous lag time I usually type my reports off line. Things are fine. But sometimes I'm online when writing a report, because I need to check emails and do stuff at the server. And that's usually because I'm strapped for computer time. And this week I realized I hit save and shut down the computer. So my new report "file" name made it to the cloud but the work didn't make it before I turned off the computer. Nor did it save to my hard drive. So later on I send what I thought was a correct report when it's just a carbon copy of the previous one under a different name. The trick it seems is to go back to some habits from the DOS days while typing.


I never did any documents or anything professional on a computer. I just fooled around with computers till 2005. When big trucks came into mercedes I had to enter their trailer numbers on a computer- I didn't even know how to use the back button in 2002-3. I didn't know such a critter existed, but it made sence that one would be needed. I thought I was going to lose my job over my ignorance. A lady there was giving computer classes, but after I learned about the back button I figured I knew enough since I already knew how to enter numbers. I squeaked by somehow and not long after that I still made good money and got raises and such and didn't even have to mess with computers anymore till I wanted to some years later. Computers scared me because I was afraid I would mess something up and get fussed at and have to pay for something I broke. It's a wonder I can do as much as I do now. I would be bogged down if I had to use one of those office programs, but I know where the back button is.


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## orbital (Apr 18, 2021)

+

*Almost impossible to wrap your head around the amount of electricity bit coin mining uses* [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[
[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[
[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0HC1Udk6-E


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## raggie33 (Apr 18, 2021)

orbital said:


> +
> 
> *Almost impossible to wrap your head around the amount of electricity bit coin mining uses* [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[
> [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[
> ...



i thought trying it on my m1 mac she sips power


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## greenpondmike (Apr 18, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> its crazy today what you csn bet for 1 hundred bucks



It's a trip. My four gegabyte ram and 320 megabytes hard drive (hp pavilion) was good enough for anything I needed to do on a pc, but now you can do way better for way cheaper. My hp cost around $590 at circuit city and I bet I couldn't give it away now- not that I want to. I have some spare parts from my wifes pc along with a new seabreeze hard drive (low milieage). I just don't know where the boot sector is- that is where the rooted bootkit resides. I'm paranoid about even using the ram chips. That bootkit was still on it when I did a fresh restore from a cd. It was from Bangladesh and it was ALIVE! It even fought me over control of the mouse. I got fed up and slung that $629 pc out the door and it hit a tree and then hit the ground and it was raining. About two and a half hours later I felt bad and fetched it back. It's apart now and has some salvageable parts. That all happened before 2013. I still wonder how I could have solved that. That's the only virus, malware or spyware I knew of that I couldn't beat. I shouldn't have given up, but it was ALIVE!


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## greenpondmike (Apr 18, 2021)

I've listened to folks talk about bit coins, but I still don't know much about them. All I know is that's too much change for me. 

Raggie33, that mack is built upon the linus kernel and so is android. You can add linus mint to your pc if you have enough room and chose whether to boot up in it or windows. I considered it a while back and almost had enough room on my laptop, but I wanted more room so I could have a wider margin just in case things expanded and crashed my computer. Linus mint is easier to get going for inexperienced folks like myself and it is lighter than other linus installs. Linus is also open source. 

I don't know if you have to start from scratch or not with mint, but I think you do with other versions. The only question is what to install first so that other stuff can piggyback on it and blend in. I reckon you'd have to install apps from a cd. 
I'm somewhat ignorant on linus, but I just wanted to put the ideal out there.


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## turbodog (Apr 19, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> I pretty much knew early on that FB was all about selling as much of the info they could get about you to anyone for profit. They didn't get super rich protecting your privacy as FB has had endless circumstances of privacy issues that is why I never opened a FB account, too risky and too insecure I don't like people making billions off of selling out information of others at all while pretending that they are all about privacy etc.
> I would bet they use cookies to track you across the internet if they could and sell that info too and their apps probably help track your habits.



You didn't dream big enough.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-15651-0_13

Take inertial sensor data, aggregate it, and you can find all SORTS of interesting stuff.

If you combine inertial sensor data, keyboard/touchscreen typing patterns, web surfing patterns, and so on... you have a very unique fingerprint of an individual person. Impossible to fake. Impossible to get away from. Cookies are just a distraction...

Also, facebook collects data on you, even without an account.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-privacy-tracking-idUSKBN1HM0DR


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## greenpondmike (Apr 19, 2021)

turbodog said:


> You didn't dream big enough.
> 
> https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-15651-0_13
> 
> ...



I agree with you turbodog. I knew it was worse than what Lynx_Arc and I said- I just held back because I already have my tin foil hat wearing label. I'm glad you mentioned it so it will be out there and be said. 
Firefox and fennec have the noscript add on that vertually blocks almost all javascript until you loosen it up per website and then it remembers your choice. You can block or loosen javascript at will. Noscript will block the fb, twitter, etc apps that lurk in hidden corners of websites. They hide in plain open sight really and you can see their symbols, but a lot of folks don't understand that if you can see their symbols they are embedded into the page and can collect data on you.
I try not to use google apps- not even their keyboard. I use a google chrome variant that is part ungoogle chrome and part brave browser and is part other stuff. It is called bromite. I haven't tested it with a firewall yet, but it isn't supposed to call home to the google servers. 
Technically I'm fighting a loosing battle since android is google's operating system built over the linus kernel. I've got to try though and if they really want to find stuff out about me they will have to work for it. 
I use gmail, but not the app. Every time I sign in it asks for my birthday- saying it is manditory by law. What law? That's bull. They try not to leave an option of escaping the page, but I've found a way. I have to log in before I can see that page anyway, so I close it out and then click on my bookmark again and the other page is gone. 
Y'all know my age, but if google wants it they are going to search for it- I'm not giving it over willingly because of some crazy law. They probably already know my age- it's probably just a shuck and jive designed to cause me to believe they are really respecting my privacy. There isn't any real privacy on the net- not even through a vpn or thor servers.


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## turbodog (Apr 19, 2021)

I threw facts out there. To think you can avoid it, or even mitigate it, is tinfoil hat territory.

You forgot DNS history, mac addresses, ip ranges assigned to a specific ISP, and more.


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## xxo (Apr 19, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> I agree with you turbodog. I knew it was worse than what Lynx_Arc and I said- I just held back because I already have my tin foil hat wearing label. I'm glad you mentioned it so it will be out there and be said.
> Firefox and fennec have the noscript add on that vertually blocks almost all javascript until you loosen it up per website and then it remembers your choice. You can block or loosen javascript at will. Noscript will block the fb, twitter, etc apps that lurk in hidden corners of websites. They hide in plain open sight really and you can see their symbols, but a lot of folks don't understand that if you can see their symbols they are embedded into the page and can collect data on you.
> I try not to use google apps- not even their keyboard. I use a google chrome variant that is part ungoogle chrome and part brave browser and is part other stuff. It is called bromite. I haven't tested it with a firewall yet, but it isn't supposed to call home to the google servers.
> Technically I'm fighting a loosing battle since android is google's operating system built over the linus kernel. I've got to try though and if they really want to find stuff out about me they will have to work for it.
> ...



Google is the greatest spy agency ever.

They know every web site you ever visited and for how long (chrome).

Every google search you ever did.

Your birth day, phone numbers, address, work place and passwords (chrome/android)

When you go to sleep and when you wake up (chrome/android)

Everywhere you go (android phone) they can even tell if you are walking, riding a bike or driving.

Every phone number you have ever called or has called you (android)

Every Email you have sent or received including the contents (gmail)

The contents of anything you put up on google docs or on google drive, along with pictures that you may have uploaded through google products.

Every video you have ever watched on youtube.

Your on line purchases. They know where you shop off line too if you have an android phone.

Credit card and smart pay details.

All of the above information about your friends and family.

If you have Google Assistant they can listen in to anything is being said and tell what appliances you are using and when.

Data (including medical data) from your fit bit or smart watch.

Google also stores personal medical records from your health care providers, including vaccination records.

And the list goes on and on, not to mention the spyware they put on your phone and computer to hoover up anything they may have missed.

With all of this, google has a pretty good idea of your interests, sexual preferences, income, politics, ancestry and just about everything there is to know about you.


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## Katherine Alicia (Apr 19, 2021)

I`m so glad my android phone has absolutely NO google affiliation or code on it whatsoever.
it`s about the only good thing to come out of petty politics since forever!


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## bykfixer (Apr 19, 2021)

The thing that freaked me out was when I would email somebody new at work and soon after facebook would show that person as a potential friend to befriend. If I sent an email to them through my company outllook account they'd show up at my personal gmail account. Privacy settings be dam'd. That's scarey. 
That stopped when I switched to iPhone. 

I recently applied for a move in my company and the boss says "it's yours". I said "well I don't want to jump for joy just yet as there may be some things I did 15 years ago that the company don't like"…… my boss laughed, but I was serious.


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## Katherine Alicia (Apr 19, 2021)

I used to use a PAYG phone, but then moved to something less expensive, I had quite a bit of credit left on the phone so I donated it via text to a charity, next day I was seeing facebook adverts for this charity on my feed that were never there before!?
My phone didn`t even have facebook on it (it was too old), so I`d like to know how texting a private number ended up in facebooks possesion?
So glad I have one of the new Huawei phones


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## orbital (Apr 19, 2021)

xxo said:


> Google is the greatest spy agency ever.
> 
> They know every web site you ever visited and for how long (chrome).
> 
> ...



+
_
sorry for the long quote ^_

Also, the reason our government puts Google & Facebook on Capital hill _ yearly_ for anti trust hearings, is for political theater only.

Google & Facebook do all the background work on mining information about people & our government uses it at their disposal_ (it's a quite agreement)_
Because of that, nothing will ever get done on regulating those two information mining behemoths.


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## greenpondmike (Apr 19, 2021)

Amen to all that. I forget the name of the phone, but it is a pure android format with no google in it at all. It's expensive though. Since android is supposed to be open sourced it can be tweaked and built upon just like the chromium project my browser uses. I have tried to disable and replace my google apps. My sensors and location are blocked including maps. I have different dialer, contacts and messaging apps and google play services and the google play store are disabled along with that stupid google app. I use f-droid app store and also APK pure for my apps and set up f-droid to maintain my bromite browser. I use the duckduckgo search engine and any preinstalled fb foolishness is disabled. 
I think I have control over my phone, but maybe I'm just fooling myself, but at least I'm trying and not making it easy (I think) for big brother. 

What can I say- ignorance is bliss and we just about have to use all this "necessary evil" bull unless we become preppers and go off grid and live off the land. I think though that THAT fine art has been lost to our great, great grandparents and all this tech has spoiled and weakened us IMHO. 
Who of us can say they could survive a year without electricity? Not me.....

What about clean creek water? Like what's that?


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## idleprocess (Apr 19, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> I think I have control over my phone, but maybe I'm just fooling myself, but at least I'm trying and not making it easy (I think) for big brother.


The baseband processor is wholly independent of the phone OS, extremely closed-source, and entirely out of the user's control. While encryption might get around some of the baseband processor's ability to sniff your data, it can still utilize the phone's capabilities just like the application processor. And even if the baseband processor isn't tagging your location, the network operator surely is since knowing where handsets are is critical to network deployment and optimization to say nothing of providing you with service as you move around.

And even if you never interact with Google or Facebook, odds are they know about you to some degree or another. You have surely brushed against the googleplex one way or another via their ads or platforms; if nothing else someone you know probably has used one of their platforms to contact you. Someone that you know surely uses Facebook and Zuck's brogrammer AI plus the many commercial databases they've no doubt bought access to likely allow them to build a general dossier on _every person in the industrial world_ regardless of whether or not that have a facebook account.



greenpondmike said:


> What can I say- ignorance is bliss and we just about have to use all this "necessary evil" bull unless we become preppers and go off grid and live off the land. I think though that THAT fine art has been lost to our great, great grandparents and all this tech has spoiled and weakened us IMHO.
> Who of us can say they could survive a year without electricity? Not me.....


As with all change, something lost, something gained. The _general consensus_ is that the gain is greater than the loss thus the deal is accepted - compromises and all.


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## xxo (Apr 19, 2021)

Google shares information with other sources so they get your data one way or another. And I hear that duckduckgo might not be as safe as it used to be. Big tech also shares information with government and even stores and manages gov't data bases, so there is not a lot you can keep from them unless you live in a cave with no contact with anyone.


What is most troubling is how all of this data is being used against us, people are being fired and rendered unemployable, doxed, and harassed for things that they tweeted or posted on social media when they were in middle school. Recently, a Parametic in Utah was doxed for a $10 donation made to Kyle Rittenhouse's defense fund and had the press camped out at his home and a official investigation made by the fire department that employs him.


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## greenpondmike (Apr 19, 2021)

Well, my chickens said everything would be alright if I put my tin foil hat back on :tinfoil:. 
I guess there is no winning against "big tech". I need to now channel my frustrations and go slap the hogs now and hope I don't get bit.


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## PhotonWrangler (Apr 19, 2021)

There are folks who jailbreak their iPhones for the purpose of adding their own hosts file to block a lot of the "phone home" activities.


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## greenpondmike (Apr 19, 2021)

PhotonWrangler said:


> There are folks who jailbreak their iPhones for the purpose of adding their own hosts file to block a lot of the "phone home" activities.



Androids also. They call it rooting and you can also install a custom rom/system.


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## raggie33 (Apr 19, 2021)

ill say it again i realy think intel is going under. with apple silicon and amds progress and even nvida is in the game


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## bykfixer (Apr 20, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Androids also. They call it rooting and you can also install a custom rom/system.



My first couple of androids were rooted. That was actually kinda nice but by the HTC M8 it was no longer a thrill. I do miss watching Mario walk across the screen at start up though. I have not persued a jail break of my current iPhone. 

I bought a pay as you go Motorola E6 phone dedicated to Verizon and it kept wanting me to sign up for a contract. It would not even let me to the home screen or anything without signing up. Going back to an old trick I learned long ago on getting past child proof pill bottle tops and BiC lighters, just hand it to a kid and soon after you know the work around. I lucked up and found a lad who hit "don't activate" rapidly and soon he was in like Flynn. The phone was now unlocked. Being dedicated to Verizon meant it was half the price of an unlocked phone, I suppose because they figure on getting it back later in selling me minutes. All I wanted it for was the MP3 player since those things have gone the way of the VCR. 

The surprise was that my Windows 7 from 2012 was able to install the driver of a 2019 device in about 8 seconds. The Windows has only been online twice. Once to install and once to update in 2017. I asked the guy who unlocked my phone if I can install WinAmp on it. He said "winamp? Ha, I aint heard that word in a minute"……so I guess WinAmp also must've gone the way of the VCR? 

The phone was purchased to replace a Moto Play something or other that I had used for a bluetooth MP3 player recently after being set aside a couple of years back when the battery swelled and cracked the screen. It had gone back to normal size so I tried it out. Yesterday I heard a click and saw the thing had swollen again. Turn it off, toss it in the bed of the truck I was driving in a rain event and that's it for that one. 

I was reluctant to buy another Moto but the E6 has a replaceable battery and an SD card slot for $74 and now $20 off that at WalMart. So I ended up with 128gb memory card and the phone for about $80. It's a dawg of a hand held computer with a lot of lag and a really slow camera but the andriod 9 music player does exactly what I need it to do. Now I also figured out how to get it to install my windows playlists like WinAmp did. The trick though is you have to install one list at a time then name it, otherwise say you downloaded a few playlists, it turns that into one big "recent" playlist. It has an equalizer, which helps a little and it communicates with my car stereo so I can forward/reverse and see what's playing. So I'll now be time warping down the highway each commute digging on some jams using my VCR tech wireless gizmos.


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## markr6 (Apr 20, 2021)

Winamp!!! I remember downloading a bunch of crazy "skins" for that.

Last night I installed Doom II on my computer from the original CD. Took an extra patch to get it to run on Windows 10. I remember buying that at the mall in 1994.


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## raggie33 (Apr 20, 2021)

watching the live apple event


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## raggie33 (Apr 20, 2021)

m1 ipad pro will be amzeing


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## raggie33 (Apr 20, 2021)

1 miilion to 1 ipad pro 12 contrast ratio


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 20, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> My first couple of androids were rooted. That was actually kinda nice but by the HTC M8 it was no longer a thrill. I do miss watching Mario walk across the screen at start up though. I have not persued a jail break of my current iPhone.
> 
> I bought a pay as you go Motorola E6 phone dedicated to Verizon and it kept wanting me to sign up for a contract. It would not even let me to the home screen or anything without signing up. Going back to an old trick I learned long ago on getting past child proof pill bottle tops and BiC lighters, just hand it to a kid and soon after you know the work around. I lucked up and found a lad who hit "don't activate" rapidly and soon he was in like Flynn. The phone was now unlocked. Being dedicated to Verizon meant it was half the price of an unlocked phone, I suppose because they figure on getting it back later in selling me minutes. All I wanted it for was the MP3 player since those things have gone the way of the VCR.
> 
> ...


Winamp is still available for windows but the android version is likely not compatible as it was out there at one time long ago but abandoned and there is no google app download. winamp.com for the latest version and I have an android app that makes use of winamps ratings if you do rate songs via the windows program.


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## PhotonWrangler (Apr 20, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> 1 miilion to 1 ipad pro 12 contrast ratio




Yes, only the 12" version due to an array of mini-LEDS for the backlight, creating a couple thousand local dimming zones.


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## raggie33 (Apr 20, 2021)

PhotonWrangler said:


> Yes, only the 12" version due to an array of mini-LEDS for the backlight, creating a couple thousand local dimming zones.



the m1 cpu is mind blowing good so is mini led


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## greenpondmike (Apr 20, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> Winamp is still available for windows but the android version is likely not compatible as it was out there at one time long ago but abandoned and there is no google app download. winamp.com for the latest version and I have an android app that makes use of winamps ratings if you do rate songs via the windows program.



Have you tried apk pure or f-droid? They might have what you need. They seem as safe as the google play store and I wouldn't be using them if they weren't.


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## bykfixer (Apr 21, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> Winamp is still available for windows but the android version is likely not compatible as it was out there at one time long ago but abandoned and there is no google app download. winamp.com for the latest version and I have an android app that makes use of winamps ratings if you do rate songs via the windows program.



My brother keeps me up on all the latest this or that. He has apps for (in my view) too many things in life. I think he tracks how many times he chews his food. Smart lights, smart watch, heck I wouldn't be surprised to hear he has a smart toothbrush. I use technology as it ends up in my path if I don't see it as an obstacle. WinAmp at one point became my go to music app since it was the best one for my purpose at one point. After being hacked a couple of times really watch for things that allow intrusion. 
I figure the little Moto e is not completely anonomous but at least it's limited by not signing up for services. Now if I can just figure out how to invert a playlist on the default music player……see, it downloads my Windows playlists, just upside down. And many were made to have a flow that raises and lowers tempo or has a certain feel and when it's inverted that blows the experience. 
Eh, first world problems.


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 21, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Have you tried apk pure or f-droid? They might have what you need. They seem as safe as the google play store and I wouldn't be using them if they weren't.



I'm using PlayerPro (paid version) and although it could use a few features (that Winamp doesn't have either) it works very well for me.


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 21, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> My brother keeps me up on all the latest this or that. He has apps for (in my view) too many things in life. I think he tracks how many times he chews his food. Smart lights, smart watch, heck I wouldn't be surprised to hear he has a smart toothbrush. I use technology as it ends up in my path if I don't see it as an obstacle. WinAmp at one point became my go to music app since it was the best one for my purpose at one point. After being hacked a couple of times really watch for things that allow intrusion.
> I figure the little Moto e is not completely anonomous but at least it's limited by not signing up for services. Now if I can just figure out how to invert a playlist on the default music player……see, it downloads my Windows playlists, just upside down. And many were made to have a flow that raises and lowers tempo or has a certain feel and when it's inverted that blows the experience.
> Eh, first world problems.


I have only a handful of apps on my android phone, none of which have any ads at all I researched all of them and the ones that looked good I paid for them. I have no problem paying a few dollars for an app that looks good as I grew up with computers from Commodore 128 to 386 PC and foward I've had to pay dearly for some programs and even paid a lot for shareware versions of stuff so $1-$5 for a good program is not a big risk. I find however trying to figure out what app to get for a purpose a mind boggling experience too many of them and the Google app store is rather unhelpful overall with their ratings and search limitations. 
If I'm going to do something more series I go to my computer... not the phone. 
I Total Commander (paid), Smart Tools (paid) Wifi Analyzer (freeware, No ads), Physics Toolbox Suite, Barcode Scanner (free no ads) and one cheesy game called Pathos (free no ads). 
I have a few apps I need to find better ones as I'm using google docs and their picture library app. They work ok but the doc viewer is slow and seems to always want to check my account I think and wants me to log in to use it.


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 21, 2021)

With smart phones, instead of buying an Ipod better off buying a used smart phone as I added a 200GB memory card to mine so it can hold all my music which wouldn't fit on my 30G Ipod Video.


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## raggie33 (Apr 21, 2021)

lynx its crazy how big modern microsd cards are now 1000 gigs!


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 21, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> lynx its crazy how big modern microsd cards are now 1000 gigs!


Yes, which is quickly eroding the hard drive market. I once considered them replacing Blu-Ray 4K with flash memory cartridges like the Atari 2600 etc so you could do 8K or whatever and put them on store shelves in a lot less space. My only concern about flash memory is longevity vs other media storage.


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## raggie33 (Apr 21, 2021)

i think movies will all be sold thru broad band


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## markr6 (Apr 21, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> i think movies will all be sold thru broad band




The security of that physical copy though  I like tangible things.


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## raggie33 (Apr 21, 2021)

markr6 said:


> The security of that physical copy though  I like tangible things.



i trust a copy on my local storage. and kf ha storage dies you will have a free download


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 21, 2021)

Downloadable copies are good, but have serious drawbacks.
1)You cannot sell a downloaded copy once you have gotten tired of it.
2)You cannot easily loan a downloaded copy to others (family,friends)
3)You cannot will or inherit a downloaded copy and if the site where your account is at knows you have died they can delete that account permanently the agreement is only with the owner.
4)Downloaded copies often are inferior in quality to original discs as they compress them more to safe space and data costs to stream them to your device (download).
5)You have to have devices capable of playing a downloaded copy if you want to view it, one to play the download the other to view it on if it doesn't have a good enough screen.
6)Downloaded copies can become corrupt or deleted and have to be redownloaded.
7)If you have a large enough collection downloaded takes up a lot of space and can take awhile to download.
8)Downloaded copies often have no extras at all, no extra language or commentary tracks, no extra editions or features.
9)When you get a bunch of lousy movies online in your library they are hard to purge so you have to scroll through a bunch of duds to see the good ones.


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## raggie33 (Apr 21, 2021)

just for fun i like to edit 4 k movies useing h265 12 bit. it will blow your mind how small ya can make the file and still look pretty good. but a course it wont look as good as a 100 gig bluray disk


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## idleprocess (Apr 21, 2021)

markr6 said:


> The security of that physical copy though  I like tangible things.





raggie33 said:


> i trust a copy on my local storage. and kf ha storage dies you will have a free download



If the sudden-death collapse of _many_ an online service promising "lifetime access" to media has taught us anything it's that if you don't have full control of a local copy that's and the means to decrypt it, _*you don't "own" it*_.


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 21, 2021)

What I think is really nuts is they try and sell the digital copies for $15 when you can have the blu-ray and sometimes a DVD too for another $5. I've seen dvds of movies for $10 and the digital copy is $15. IMO digital copies are way too expensive I'd rather wait till they drop the price of the blu-rays some then get them AND the same $15 digital copy.


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## greenpondmike (Apr 21, 2021)

This is kind of related. I've seen some virtual reality clips recently and I kind of wonder if they can now make movies and other stuff so good that it could come a time where that would be the norm instead of the exception- I mean use computor generated people instead of real actors and actresses. It could put hollywood out of business. No more paying folks to act, no more stunt men or women and no more crashing and exploding real cars. It would save the movie industry a bunch of money and since it is all fake anyway what difference does it make if the people in it are also? 
Even if the plot is based off a true story what difference does it make if the people playing the parts aren't real?
This is coming from a person though that still likes looney tunes. 
Lol, "space jam" saved our marriage on our first anniversary. My wife and I got into it pretty bad and then that came on the hotel tv and we watched it and got into a good mood.


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## PhotonWrangler (Apr 21, 2021)

I've thought about this also. While they can make photo-realistic CGI characters and effects now, it still doesn't look quite right to me. And just knowing that they're not real changes the whole mood of the film for me. I'm hoping that real actors stick around in the industry because it just makes the story feel more authentic, SFX notwithstanding.


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## greenpondmike (Apr 21, 2021)

You got a point there. I just put it down in theory, but I don't really know how I would feel if the entertainment industry totally went to that. At least now they use actors and actresses to do the voice parts in movies like shrek...etc. Eddie Murphy was perfect for the voice of the donkey. Actually though Shrek is still considered animation and is a weak example of what I was referring to. You can count on the industry taking the path that will make the most money.


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 21, 2021)

I've thought about CGI actors and what I've decided is real actors will get popular and their likeness and voice will be "sold" to studios to use in fabricating movies with them all created on computer. The advantage of this will be like in the case of Paul Walker in FF8 where he was there in CGI after he had died. Imagine John Wayne making another dozen movies now in CGI. An actor could look in their prime in CGI after they have died 20 years and their family would remain rich. It could get cheaper not having to pay actors as high of a salary when you don't need them in person at all just sell your likeness and get a small check every now and then.


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## idleprocess (Apr 21, 2021)

PhotonWrangler said:


> I've thought about this also. While they can make photo-realistic CGI characters and effects now, it still doesn't look quite right to me. And just knowing that they're not real changes the whole mood of the film for me. I'm hoping that real actors stick around in the industry because it just makes the story feel more authentic, SFX notwithstanding.



Watch the credits of any CGI-heavy high-budget film from the last 20 years and you'll realize that it takes veritable _armies_ of CGI/motion capture/post-production artists to insert a photo-realistic character into film - be it splicing into a live action scene or one that is wholly CGI. A-list Hollywood talent is by no means cheap, but they're cheaper than hiring hundreds of A-list VFX people.

This could change, of course. In exchange for a bit less detail and living closer to the trough of the _uncanny valley_ than Hollywood will suffer, video game production tool can get this done for _*far*_ cheaper. Seen countless versions of these with results varying from the equivalent of animated campfire skits using the original Half Life engine to some really interesting short films that look like they're but a post-processing pass away from being adequate for a second-tier Hollywood film.

There are also some stories and genres - fantasy and sci-fi come to mind - where using animation or all-in 3D CGI yields benefits and being freed from the constraints of reality can yield an aesthetic that's not possible with live action.

But I doubt filming live action of professional actors is in danger of being displaced by CGI anytime soon.


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## greenpondmike (Apr 21, 2021)

All of you have some real good points. The entertainment industry could use you all as consultants.


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## idleprocess (Apr 22, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> All of you have some real good points. The entertainment industry could use you all as consultants.



I don't have the _hutzpah_ to charge extravagant sums to borrow someone else's watch in order to tell them the time.


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## idleprocess (Apr 22, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> I've thought about CGI actors and what I've decided is real actors will get popular and their likeness and voice will be "sold" to studios to use in fabricating movies with them all created on computer. The advantage of this will be like in the case of Paul Walker in FF8 where he was there in CGI after he had died. Imagine John Wayne making another dozen movies now in CGI. An actor could look in their prime in CGI after they have died 20 years and their family would remain rich. It could get cheaper not having to pay actors as high of a salary when you don't need them in person at all just sell your likeness and get a small check every now and then.



Greg Bear had similar thoughts in _Slant_ - the likenesses of memorable actors were licensed out by their estates decades after their deaths. Technology had improved then to the point that inserting their likeness into reality as plausible interactive holograms is nearly trivial:


> The wall-length mirror is virtual not reflective and the bathroom in the mirror is filled with female celebrities from times past, and she’s right in among them. Marilyn Monroe emerges from one stall, in the mirror, and adjusts her calf-length white dress. She catches Alice’s sight-line and smiles that sun-honey smile. “Your turn, sweetie,” she says.
> 
> Marilyn’s Character Estate Manager—CEM in the trade—never rents her cheap. She’s a perennial, no matter what decade is sly.



The technology of today doesn't seem to be _quite_ on track to hit what Greg Bear imagined what the 2060s would be like when he published the novel in 1997. But it sounds likely once the AI is ready.


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## markr6 (Apr 22, 2021)

idleprocess said:


> If the sudden-death collapse of _many_ an online service promising "lifetime access" to media has taught us anything it's that if you don't have full control of a local copy that's and the means to decrypt it, _*you don't "own" it*_.




Not an apples to apples comparison, but reminds me of the Photobucket fiasco recently. All the photos shared for "free" for years suddenly went away overnight, turning so many forums into wastelands of garbage.

Even music on Amazon Prime. I have a decent amount downloaded, but sometimes you go to listen to something and it's now gone.


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## orbital (Apr 22, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> I've thought about CGI actors and what I've decided is real actors will get popular and their likeness and voice will be "sold" to studios to use in fabricating movies with them all created on computer. The advantage of this will be like in the case of Paul Walker in FF8 where he was there in CGI after he had died. Imagine John Wayne making another dozen movies now in CGI. An actor could look in their prime in
> CGI after they have died 20 years and their family would remain rich. It could get cheaper not having to pay actors as high of a salary when you don't need them in person at all just sell your likeness and get a small check every now and then.



+

Deepfakes are the one thing that truly make tech executives nervous. 
Not only extremely dangerous to peoples lives & society, but the potential liability to tech companies. 

*Combine facial recognition software in the wild with deepfakes, and there's almost no combination more toxic...*
..wait there is, _add in: _massive data breaches, voice recorded/recognition, dna profile uploaded,  peoples signatures uploaded, remote access to everything, backdoor to all data/software ect. ect. ect.


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 22, 2021)

markr6 said:


> Not an apples to apples comparison, but reminds me of the Photobucket fiasco recently. All the photos shared for "free" for years suddenly went away overnight, turning so many forums into wastelands of garbage.
> 
> Even music on Amazon Prime. I have a decent amount downloaded, but sometimes you go to listen to something and it's now gone.


The problem with downloading media is likely that it is a proprietary format such that only that platform/app can access it. As you iterated other problems include the ability of the app/program to "check" the validity of the media and the account and either stop the program from accessing the downloaded content you have or deleting it entirely. A problem that happened to me is I downloaded movies in one app and when I tried to cast it to my TV..... wouldn't work at all but in another app it did. If they were normal data files able to be read by any program that can read "normal" media files that wouldn't be a problem at all. 
I guess what I'm saying is in the end they have the ability to control what you can watch/view/listen to that is supposed to be "yours" but you are only able to "rent" it for the rest of your life at their whim. It is quite possible with some of this "correctness" going around that some titles you have could "vanish" because they deem it "hateful" or whatever.


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## bykfixer (Apr 22, 2021)

You guys are making me glad I bought a few spare VCR's. lol

Some of the youngsters I work with have never known life without "press any key to continue". 
Sadly some are still trying to figure out where the "any" key is. Sure their entire entertainment library is held on a device that fits in a shirt pocket, but will it be there tomorrow?


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## raggie33 (Apr 22, 2021)

i truuly hate old tech. i hated vcrs then and more so now beta was better


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## markr6 (Apr 22, 2021)

"Enter Disk 4 to continue..."


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## orbital (Apr 22, 2021)

+

1 single Bitcoin, at it's current value, used the same amount of electricity as 33.8 homes for an entire year.


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## raggie33 (Apr 22, 2021)

orbital said:


> +
> 
> 1 single Bitcoin, at it's current value, used the same amount of electricity as 33.8 homes for an entire year.



for real? damn why would some one mine?


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## bykfixer (Apr 22, 2021)

orbital said:


> +
> 
> 1 single Bitcoin, at it's current value, used the same amount of electricity as 33.8 homes for an entire year.



Happy Earth Day, huh?


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## Lynx_Arc (Apr 22, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> for real? damn why would some one mine?



often they get power for free, they do it at work or hack others computers and steal computing power.


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## raggie33 (Apr 22, 2021)

ill be glad when the bubble breaks. so there will be tons of gpus and cpus for sale


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## idleprocess (Apr 22, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> often they get power for free, they do it at work or hack others computers and steal computing power.



Mining Bitcoin _proper_ has been the realm of ASICs for several years now, such is the nature of its difficulty. Other cryptocurrencies - i.e. Monero and Ethereum - can be mined with CPUs or GPUs.

Getting power for as cheaply as possible is important, especially with BTC. A typical BTC mining rig can easily consume 3400W. The other currencies are likely not as power intensive per unit of output, but power is still a significant factor in the profit calculations.


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## raggie33 (Apr 22, 2021)

idleprocess said:


> Mining Bitcoin _proper_ has been the realm of ASICs for several years now, such is the nature of its difficulty. Other cryptocurrencies - i.e. Monero and Ethereum - can be mined with CPUs or GPUs.
> 
> Getting power for as cheaply as possible is important, especially with BTC. A typical BTC mining rig can easily consume 3400W. The other currencies are likely not as power intensive per unit of output, but power is still a significant factor in the profit calculations.



wow in my country i think thats over how much are outlets can handle i think a 20 amd breaker is 2400 watts


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## greenpondmike (Jul 20, 2021)

Not to change the subject at hand too much, but people quit posting anyway. 

On another thread we were talking about electronic controls on appliances. I know they are convenient, but they aren't durable. 

You might get 5-7 years out of them if that. The older style with the analog twist knobs lasted 20+ years. There are some still going from the 1940s. 

I think high tech has taken a step backwards as far as quality and longetivity is concerned. Everything is just disposable at some point.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 20, 2021)

I wonder if a person had all the money in the world...could they still buy quality appliances like was made from the mid 40s on into the 70s?


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## bykfixer (Jul 20, 2021)

I'd speculate the United States government probably has some really reliable wahers and dryers in the White House. And Elon Musk too. 

Electronics in machines often have advantages, but when they break so does the machine. Trouble is these days parts of capitalism is kept alive by building things that need replacing after a few years. When people were adding their first microwave oven for example they lasted a good long time. 
But one day everybody who wanted one had one. Uh oh. Who's going to buy all of those microwaves from the microwave factory? Build them to fail in a few years, with lots of goodies to attract new buyers and bam! The wheels on the bus keep going round and round.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 20, 2021)

So true my friend


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## greenpondmike (Jul 20, 2021)

Please stay away from panasonic microwaves. The company has been sold and they are only relying on the past reputation of the name. I know because I own one with an inverter. Went bad in under a year- maybe a half year.....and then I found the bad reviews.


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## Poppy (Jul 20, 2021)

Back in 1976, my fiancé's father showed me a want ad for a "obsolescence engineer". He told me that is a person who designs something to break after a certain period of time.

I had a 4 cylinder pinto that during a 3,000 mile trip developed a valve tap. Speaking with a guy at the parts store, he asked, what the mileage was... "Yeah, at about 60,000 miles the cam fails."

Probably designed like that.

Regarding electronics, I had a 1990 Bronco, and 25 years later the electronics were still working. We salvaged it when the oil pan rotted out. I bought a 1999 Crown Victoria new, and put 260,000 miles on her, and in 19 years the only electronic parts to fail were a few ignition coils. 

Mechanical, or electrical parts can be designed to last, or designed to fail. It is a matter of need to last, or need to be replaced/fail. 

Years ago, my lawn mower failed. It would have cost more for parts to rebuild the motor, than it was to buy a new one. That was disheartening, that we have bought into the replaceable mentality. :nono:


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## greenpondmike (Jul 21, 2021)

I wonder how much things would cost if they were designed to last. Good to see another person who likes Fords Poppy.


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## bykfixer (Jul 21, 2021)

A couple of years ago the Mrs was replacing coffee makers every 30-90 days. For about a year the coffee maker no matter what brand we tried would not last more than a few weeks. Then like somebody hit a light switch, the problem went away. The Mr Coffee we have now is about 3 years old. So far so good. 
I have 2 spares stashed figuring if the one spare lasts 25 days we have a second 25 day machine already in stock in the event the one konks out on Christmas Eve or Thanksgiving while the fam-damily is at our house.


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## Lynx_Arc (Jul 21, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Please stay away from panasonic microwaves. The company has been sold and they are only relying on the past reputation of the name. I know because I own one with an inverter. Went bad in under a year- maybe a half year.....and then I found the bad reviews.



That's sad as I have 2 of them I bought the second one after the first one died after a decade as the outlet I had it on in this old house would trip the breaker on high mode but drop it to 80% and it would run no problem. The one that broke I managed to get ahold of another broken one different looking but same size that I swapped the inverter board out and fixed it. So my newer one and the old one both work now. The nice thing is you can turn the power down and run them off a lower output power source like a 12v inverter or a small generator.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 21, 2021)

Yes, it will cook food more natural with the inverter. Glad you got yours fixed Lynx Arc. We still have ours and don't know what to do with it. Bought in 2016 and died that year. I've wanted one for years before that. 

Wow bykfixer, never had a coffee maker go out on me that fast. Mine would eventually stop up with calcium deposits and we had to run vinegar through it to clean it out. Could it have been your water supply at the time? Did they drill a new well?


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## greenpondmike (Jul 21, 2021)

Hey Poppy, on those older overhead valve engines like the pinto- the only lubrication they get up there (I think) at the cam and tappets comes from splash lubrication from the timing chain in the front. That's why if you leave the oil cap off a lot of oil will come out while it's running. Don't know about toyotas, but datson and the older nissans did it that way, but their engines lasted longer. I still wouldn't mind having a pinto station wagon with a nice set of craiger wheels on it- deep dish on the back.


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## jtr1962 (Jul 22, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Not to change the subject at hand too much, but people quit posting anyway.
> 
> On another thread we were talking about electronic controls on appliances. I know they are convenient, but they aren't durable.
> 
> ...


As a person who has designed electronics for a living, I can tell you that if designed correctly, they're typically the most reliable part of something. Designed correctly means protecting from surges/spikes (if applicable), as well as using the proper parts for the environment. I learned for example when designing LED drivers for an automotive environment that most electrolytic capacitors can't handle the heat. There was also the issue of ESR. Too high an ESR can cause a cap to heat up and fail. So I went with solid polymer caps. Anyway, bottom line is I have electronic things I slapped together well over a decade ago running continuously and still working fine. That includes an LED driver which has been driving an old school Luxeon LED since 2004. The LED is still putting out light by the way. I'd say it's maybe at 50% to 60% of its initial brightness after ~150,000 hours. I have a vacuum fluorescent display alarm clock/radio I've had on continuously since 1978. Still working fine, and the display is still plenty bright. That's roughly 375,000 hours. Bottom line is properly designed electronics last decades, possibly even centuries. Granted, the more complex an electronic device is, the more potential points of failure. However, consider how enormously complex modern PCs are, and how infrequently they fail despite that. And when they do fail, it's not the complex electronics usually. It's something having to do with power. Two weeks ago when I was watching the Tour de France my cable box stopped. I looked inside through the vents, noticed a slightly bulging capacitor on what appeared to be the power supply. I opened it up, replaced the cap with a better one rated at twice the voltage. Crossed my fingers, reconnected it. Bingo. Works fine. And this cable box is basically a computer system in its own right. It's entirely possible someone intentionally used a cap in the power supply with they knew had a certain probability of failure after a certain number of hours. Usually the goal would be to have 99% of the devices last past the warranty period, but have 0% make it to maybe twice the warranty period. Planned obsolescence. The good thing though is with environmentalism taking hold this sort of thing may be coming to an end. That and "right to repair" legislation, which makes it easier to fix things instead of throwing them away. In my case a bad cable box wouldn't have cost me anything since I'm renting it from the cable company. It would have required the hassle of arranging a service call, and having a stranger enter the house in the middle of a pandemic (something I'd be very hesitant to do as I'm still on "covid lockdown").

Analog things break, believe me. I'm still using a 1973 washing machine. It's been reliable, but we have replaced the timer twice I think. The lid switch stopped working ages ago but it failed in a permanently closed position. I can open the lid and the machine keeps going.


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## jtr1962 (Jul 22, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Yes, it will cook food more natural with the inverter. Glad you got yours fixed Lynx Arc. We still have ours and don't know what to do with it. Bought in 2016 and died that year. I've wanted one for years before that.


Still thinking about an inverter microwave. I'm intrigued by the concept. I'll just look for one with good reviews.

The fridge I got in December 2017 has a linear inverter compressor. Haven't had any problems with it. I might get an inverter A/C for the living room if I can get a good end of season sale. The concept of throttling down the compressor, instead of turning it on and off, to maintain temperature makes a lot of sense.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 22, 2021)

Cobra used to have some good cb's when they were made by dynoscan corporation in Taiwan and the Philippians. The cobra 29 and 25 made in the phillippeans were sought after because the audio was better. 

Uniden, which owns cobra electronics, wanted to make more money off of them without going up on the price. They chose to let china build them. 

China used cheaper resistors and it caused them to go belly up in a short time. The problem has been corrected probably over 16 years ago, but it might have hurt their reputation. 

I heard bean counters at companies cheapen parts till they break and go a step above that so stuff will last a little while. 

Is there another brand that makes inverter microwaves? I didn't know other things had an inverter.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 22, 2021)

Y'all ain't going to believe this, but my drier just went out on me yesterday. The light comes on inside so it's getting juice. I hope it's the safety switch for the door, not the timer or motor. Thanks to a couple of youtube videos I can take it apart and test things.


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## Chauncey Gardiner (Jul 22, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Y'all ain't going to believe this, but my drier just went out on me yesterday. The light comes on inside so it's getting juice. I hope it's the safety switch for the door, not the timer or motor. Thanks to a couple of youtube videos I can take it apart and test things.


 
Hi Mike, 

I believe the light is powered by only one leg of the plug, (110v). It would be a good idea to verify you have both legs supplying power so the drier is receiving the needed 220v. I had this issue many years ago. It was most difficult to diagnose.


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## bykfixer (Jul 22, 2021)

I had one years back that the light bulb lit yet the dryer would not run. Tested everything it all checked out. 
Turned out the second breaker in my breaker box was not assembled correctly and one wire was loose enough to cause erratic contact. Shut off the main, tightened down the wire and viola……let there be dryer.


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## InvisibleFrodo (Jul 22, 2021)

Sent you a PM Mr Fixer


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## greenpondmike (Jul 22, 2021)

Thanks Chauncey and bykfixer.


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## PhotonWrangler (Jul 22, 2021)

In the early 2000s I was working with a lot of equipment that had 220v connectors on it, so I rigged up a tester using two 120v night light bulbs wired to the plug. It made quick work of testing for power issues.


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## Lynx_Arc (Jul 22, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Cobra used to have some good cb's when they were made by dynoscan corporation in Taiwan and the Philippians. The cobra 29 and 25 made in the phillippeans were sought after because the audio was better.
> 
> Uniden, which owns cobra electronics, wanted to make more money off of them without going up on the price. They chose to let china build them.
> 
> ...



I have an old Cobra 29GTL I haven't used is over 20 years. Panasonic is the only company I know of that makes inverter microwave ovens.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 22, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> I have an old Cobra 29GTL I haven't used is over 20 years. Panasonic is the only company I know of that makes inverter microwave ovens.


I was thinking that panasonic was the only one. That's a good cb Lynx Arc. I bet that one was made in the Philippines. The ones made there can have a super mod kit installed in them and it will make it sound like you was talking on a big expensive radio. I like cobra and uniden products. Uniden is like a cadillac cobra. I like the analog models, but I don't know if you can still buy them. All (I think) come with mosfet(sp?) finals now.


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## Lynx_Arc (Jul 22, 2021)

Mine has been modded for more modulation and has a power mic on it. I once had a entire base station setup with a Colt 1000 and a TUP9 microphone I bought new but got out of CB radio entirely I still have 1 antenna and 2 radios. CB is all but dead now and I still have my license when they used to require one. The internet pretty much helped the downfall of CB with IRC chat and instant messaging clients and cell phones unless we have a worldwide outage akin to an apocalypse no need for such.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 23, 2021)

They still talk and shoot skip around here and there was a person recording it and putting it up on youtube. I forget the title to the videos.....something gate.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 23, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> I had one years back that the light bulb lit yet the dryer would not run. Tested everything it all checked out.
> Turned out the second breaker in my breaker box was not assembled correctly and one wire was loose enough to cause erratic contact. Shut off the main, tightened down the wire and viola……let there be dryer.



Strange how the overhead light started working again about the same time the drier quit. I tightened everything in the fuse box real good a few years back. The door switch must be working because when I shut the door the timer starts. Could be the push/starter switch in the timer or a bad motor. The tub freely spins when I spin it, so the motor must not be locked up. 

I better make sure I'm getting a full 220 volts at the plug first off before I do anything else.


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## Lynx_Arc (Jul 23, 2021)

Could be the belt is broken.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 23, 2021)

No, the motor doesn't come on. When I rotate the tumbler and change directions quickly the belt squeaks a little. It's going to need all three pullies and a belt when I figure out why it ain't starting.


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## bykfixer (Jul 23, 2021)

Today a young coworker chuckled at my portable music system saying "I can't believe you still use that old mp3 player". I have an Anker bluetooth radio transmitter sending signals to my Bose wireless noise cancelling ear buds from a Sansa Fuze mp3 player. He says "you should use a streaming service". So I asked "can you download from that"? He said "uh, I'm not sure". I said "can you play whatever songs you want to hear in whatever order you want them in?" He said "um, I don't think so, unless you create a playlist"……I said "and do you pay for the priveledge of this internet streaming service?" He chuckled and says "of course you do." 

I replied "well on my laptop I have almost a terrabyte of music from over 1000 cd's I already paid for and have windows media player playlists that play music back to back in the order I chose for up to 96 hours non stop." "And with the Sansa I just drag and drop those then listen to whateverthe**** I wanna hear day after day, week after week, month after month and if iPlayer or whatever suddenly goes down or the North Koreans murder the US internet I can still listen to whateverthe**** I wanna listen to while your generation listens to static." 

He replied "I still can't believe you get your music from that old thing"……
I'm trying to train these youngsters how to live internet free and still enjoy the modern conveniences but it's as if I'm trying to explain madness to a crazy man.


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## InvisibleFrodo (Jul 23, 2021)

When I went to buy a new phone, the guy at the shop was like “why do you need so much memory on a phone?” I said because I have a lot of music. He also asked why not stream music. Well, because that will drain my battery much more rapidly than playing music that’s saved, and if I don’t have a signal I can’t play anything, and I have to pay for that music when I’ve already paid for all these albums and all this music. Plus I record it all in lossless quality.
Totally agree.


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## Lynx_Arc (Jul 23, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> No, the motor doesn't come on. When I rotate the tumbler and change directions quickly the belt squeaks a little. It's going to need all three pullies and a belt when I figure out why it ain't starting.


If you have a VOM take a measurement at the motor to see if it is getting power it is sounding like the timer control is gone.


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## Chauncey Gardiner (Jul 23, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> No, the motor doesn't come on. When I rotate the tumbler and change directions quickly the belt squeaks a little. *It's going to need all three pullies *and a belt when I figure out why it ain't starting.



I thought the same thing when our dryer started making ahellofaracket. Well sir, all I ended-up doing was cleaning the pulley shafts and inside the pulleys with some steel wool. There was just the slightest bit of rust. I then applied some grease and presto, it was good to dry.


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## bykfixer (Jul 24, 2021)

I bought my first house in 1989. It was built in 1920. To that point it had never had a shower, a clothes dryer, heck an air conditioner. I installed something called "a shower ring" over the claw foot tub. A clothes dryer was installed in the kitchen and a 25,000 btu window unit went in the dining room. 

When I moved from there I bought my grandma's house from my dad. It was built in 1969 and had never had a dryer. So it ended up with a dryer in the dining room. Thing was in that house it was built by a rich home builder to his wife's specs for them to retire in, yet even people with loot back then did not consider a clothes dryer as standard equipment. Yet it had central air conditioning. The builder died before the house was finished and my grandmother who worked at Miller & Rhoads at the time knew the wife from there and bought the house from her. The house had beautiful floors, wooden window blinds, a built in dishwasher, intercom system with an ultra modern FM radio to broadcast music throughout the home, yet no provisions for a clothes dryer. 

Now the house I grew up in had a room off the back my dad had added on when it was being built in 1953 that had provisions for a washer and a (natural gas) dryer for the eventual day the clothes dryer became affordable. He thought ahead like that. He used his GI Bill money from his time in Korea to put a down payment on the place. He said back then it took 6 months to build a house. He had natural gas hot water, refrigerator and stove for times when the power was out life could be pretty close to normal with a few oil lamps lit after dark. Once while in rehab in his twighlight years a therapist was working on his reasoning skills and asked "what would you do if your car ran out of gas in the middle of a bridge"……he replied "I wouldn't run out of gas". She tried and tried to get him to reason what he would do in that situation and I finally said "look lady, this man has probably never had less than a quarter tank of gas at anytime since the 1970's fuel embargo"……She said "fair enough, what would you do if you bounced a check?" I rolled my eyes thinking oh Lord here we go again……he replied "I'd never bounce a check" to which she says "but what if?" He he looked at me and replied "can we stop this and get some lunch?" The therapist asked again. He yells out "look lady, you might bounce a check but I don't now stop asking me stupid questions"…… and with that we went to lunch. 

The house I live in now was built in 1960 and did not have a washer or dryer until the original owner "walled in" a portion of the kitchen/dining area for a very small laundry room in the 1970's. Back then in its original state the washing machine was on a screened in back porch. That must have really sucked in winter. (My neighbor across the street grew up in the house I live in and told me how happy his mother was to have an indoor laundry facility.) 

So being used to the idea of not having a clothes dryer, when Mrs Fixer and I bought the house we live in now I added a clothes line between the back deck and a shed with a pulley system like folks used to use between apartment buildings in New York a long time ago. I ended up building a few actually. Some of my elderly neighbors were so impressed they wanted one too. One wanted hers mounted with hooks so that when she entertained she could take the cords down before company arrived.


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## Poppy (Jul 24, 2021)

Periodically, I would have to lube those roller pulleys pictured below. They'd start squeaking. Like Chauncey, I'd have to pull them off and clean the shaft they sat on. Or I'd hit them with some WD40. A couple of times, I had to replace the tensioner pully. It was made of plastic, and would get stuck, and then the belt would wear it FLAT on one side.

I had tried WD40, 3 in one oil, and high temperature bearing grease. I don't recall which one seemed to last longer.

The second, or third time, I had to replace the tensioner pulley, I asked the parts guy... "What kind of grease do you use on them?" His response was... NONE! Like with your gun slides, you oil them, and then wipe them dry. If you oil them and leave it, the oil collects dust and eventually makes the pulley get stuck."

I wonder how well lithium grease would work out, or graphite?




Chauncey Gardiner said:


> I thought the same thing when our dryer started making ahellofaracket. Well sir, all I ended-up doing was cleaning the pulley shafts and inside the pulleys with some steel wool. There was just the slightest bit of rust. I then applied some grease and presto, it was good to dry.


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## bykfixer (Jul 24, 2021)

At one point I used to use a "density guage" at work that involved shoving a rod through a shaft inside of the body of the machine, then into a small hole I'd have punched into the dirt or gravel. Now the rod would get coated with dust from the gravel or dirt when used to check dirt for density. 
The machine came lubed with a special grease to protect o'rings from being decayed by petroleum product based grease. However grease being grease, it caused dirt or dust to cling to it. 

Now this machine weighs about 60 pounds due to a lead encased nuclear source pill on the tip of the rod. A source on the machine knows how much radiation is coming from the pill. When the pill is shoved into the hole it reads how much radiation still reaches the source. The less radiation it reads the more densely packed the soil is. 

So you're carrying this heavy so n so in the hot summer sun because when building a road you have removed the shade trees. And you're a 5lb hammer, a 3lb hole puncher and a metal plate used as a template to punch the hole correctly. Then you get to wack the hole puncher about 20 times like a railroad worker driving a spike. If all goes well you did not hit a rock which causes you to have to smash the hole punch even harder. Then you get to shove this dirt covered nuclear source rod into the hole you punched and take a reading by pushing some buttons on the 60lb so n so. The source rod covered with greasy dirt refuses to move. 

Enter graphite powder. I'd remove the grease and pour on graphite powder and massage it into the metal source rod. Viola! No more sticking source rod. But the graphite powder did not last but a couple of tests. Enter graphite spray!! Viola! 
That stuff lasted all day. No dirt or dust stuck to the source rod yet it slid like glass on ice. Trouble was it's messy. It cleans up easy enough, but man that stuff spreads around like chewing gum on a parking lot in summer. 

In other words, graphite spray from an auto parts store is a great lube when dust and dirt are an issue. You just have to reapply it every so often. Enter teflon spray. 
Works like graphite spray but lasts longer.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 24, 2021)

Poppy, a do it yourself fellow on youtube posted a video while he was fixing the same thing. The people at the appliance parts store recommended lithium grease- just a dab on the shaft and nowhere else. 

Thanks Chauncey. If the top of the pullies aren't worn it might be best just to clean and polish the inside of the pullies and do the same for the shafts. 

I understand what you're saying bykfixer. All my mother ever used was a clothes line. They didn't even get a phone or a microwave till me and my first wife got those and then they (especially dad) used them like they were catching up for lost time. 

Me and my first wife (Jenny) made due with a clothesline for a while till a young pervert called our landline and told Jenny that he could see her underwear on the line. We lived next to a boy's group home for younguns with behaviour problems. After that we put a line on the inside- besides Bandit, out bird dog kept pulling clothes and sheets off the line and ants would use the line as a super highway and we had to shake them off the clothes. Aaah- typical country life.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 24, 2021)

Bykfixer, you can't teach those young whipper snappers anything. Time they decide to seek our wisdom we'll probably be dead.


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## bykfixer (Jul 25, 2021)

What's old is new again: 





A modern version of the Craftsman by Eastland. 
A couple years back Keen took a look at some old tech and improved on the idea. 
Many reading this may remember seeing somebody wearing those Craftsman wedge boots around the work shop or at the local mechanics garage. They, like Craftsman wrenches came with a lifetime warranty so when the soul wore out Sears would replace the sole or if the upper went bad they'd replace the entire boot(s). They were ugly as a mud fence but many old school guys swore by them. Trouble was the leather was stiff as a board when new and the soles did not have much grip outside the concrete jungle. 
Keen took the idea and instead of the soft crepe' sole they used air infused urethane to come up with the same all day supporting sole but added a layer of a fairly hard urethane bonded to the softer urethane. The wedge sole itself is an old school way of spreading the load as it were. That idea goes back centuries and like the fact that something round will roll, it still applies in 2020.

But now everybody and his brother is churning out old Craftsman style wedge boots. The photo above is a shoe sold by Kohls. So out with the tan Timberland with art gum looking soles, and in with that ugly Craftsman look. Timberland has one now as well. Heck, even Craftsman has added that layer of hardened urethane to theirs. Now the crepe' is a midsole and the long wear surface an outsole. 

I tried the Keen version and it became my favorite work boot. Then after a few months I replaced the insoles with Keen made ones and it was like having a brand new pair of boots. Keen offers a water proof version. They are called San Jose' 6" and they are water tight without that feeling of wearing a plastic bag over your foot. They offer about as much traction on wet grass as running shoes too. 

I'm glad to see Wolverine, Danner, Rocky, and a ton of other brands now offer a Craftsman crepe' sole style work boot. Millions of happy feet lie ahead thanks to what's old is new again. 

How many remember kids with bread bags over their shoes in the snow? It worked fairly well so long as you walked in snow only and not on concrete or pavement.


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## idleprocess (Jul 25, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> I'm trying to train these youngsters how to live internet free and still enjoy the modern conveniences but it's as if I'm trying to explain madness to a crazy man.



In an era where cheap flash memory can store more data in an area a fraction of the size of a postage stamp than the hard drives of less than a decade ago could manage, the choice to introduce the additional complexity of streaming also confuses. But perhaps it's a general function of age - my desire for _novelty_ declined sharply a ~decade ago. I generally know what I like and _assured access_ is far more important than _discovery_ of possibly interesting new content.


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## jtr1962 (Jul 25, 2021)

I don't get streaming myself. I really don't. You never really own anything with streaming. If the streaming service you're paying goes belly up, you just lost access to everything. Besides, you're dependent upon always having an Internet connection. Additionally, there's the fact you're also introducing unnecessary traffic on the Internet by needing to stream something every time you watch or listen to it.

I might get streaming if data storage were still limited and very expensive. However, the rise of streaming is almost a contradiction. Just when it becomes easy and convenient to store tens of thousands of songs, or hundred of movies, locally everyone decides to just stream them instead, basically creating a lot of redundant internet traffic in the process. I get why companies pushed people towards streaming. For them it's an income stream instead of a one-time purchase. But it's bad for the end user. I like to own things, meaning I'll have them even if the Internet disappears entirely.

They're even trying to do this with software, where you don't install the software on your hard drive. You stream it instead every time you use it.  I don't know how people can not see the huge downside of that.


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## Poppy (Jul 25, 2021)

Years ago, about 1985, Star Trek TOS aired each night at 11:00 PM. I usually went to bed at 10:30, but if I was still up, I would often stay up even later and watch Star Trek, until midnight. I would watch whichever episode that aired, despite seeing each episode so many times, that I knew the dialog.

Then one night I said to myself... this is stupid! I have a VHS recorder, I should just set it to record, and then I can watch it ANYTIME!

I recorded maybe a dozen episodes, and sometimes I'd stay up and watch one anyway. Then if it was an episode that I recorded, I went to bed. At some point I realized that I wasn't watching the show anymore, because I often had it recorded, or I set the VHS to record and planned to watch it later. 

I never watched any of the recorded shows.

I stopped recording them, and deleted the episodes I had.

Then I started watching and enjoying the shows all over again.

Last year we gave away 2 - 45 gallon containers of VHS tapes, many of them Disney movies.

Streaming works for me, for movies, and TV shows. If I owned them, I probably wouldn't watch them again.


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## Lynx_Arc (Jul 25, 2021)

I'm different as when I started recording a series I would record a weeks worth and binge on the weekend. I got a DVR and record TV shows and skip the commercials entirely saving myself about 20 minutes of time an hour so 3 hours worth of shows plays in 2 hours. I've recorded 6 months of a show and then binged it for days on end several weekends a month now I have streaming tv stuff. The one advantage in streaming tv for me is the resolution is higher than dvd is and secondary tv channels usually are 480i. I have a lot of dvd movies but on a larger tv they look a little less crisp than streaming at 720p does, you have to go to blu-ray to look noticeably better. 
I retired my VHS player when I got my hard drive DVR and now the drive is starting to fail on me and I don't record that much these days and there is going to be a new TV broadcast standard ahead that may obsolete it entirely.


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## raggie33 (Jul 25, 2021)

trust me get a ebike for real every person who sees mine ask to buy it lol. im thinking a just. saying ill take $1000 . it is a crazy smal folding ebike looks true bad ***


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## xxo (Jul 26, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> trust me get a ebike for real every person who sees mine ask to buy it lol. im thinking a just. saying ill take $1000 . it is a crazy smal folding ebike looks true bad ***




Been thinking of getting a ebike, but I haven't done any research into which one to get.


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## raggie33 (Jul 26, 2021)

Here is mine the wheels are only 14 inches . It takes me all over town very fast and fun. Everyone who sees it wants it .it can fold up and go in even the smallest car trunk 
https://photos.app.goo.gl/NesZejhVstoaEHbo9


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## raggie33 (Jul 26, 2021)

why dont we use dc voltage for the pwer grid? dc is way more efficient my 40 watt dc fan will blow you over lol


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## xxo (Jul 26, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> Here is mine the wheels are only 14 inches . It takes me all over town very fast and fun. Everyone who sees it wants it .it can fold up and go in even the smallest car trunk
> https://photos.app.goo.gl/NesZejhVstoaEHbo9




Cool!

Not sure if I would have a need for a folder, but it might come in handy to carry it in a trunk. I saw one that had motorcycle wheels that looked pretty good too.


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## xxo (Jul 26, 2021)

raggie33 said:


> why dont we use dc voltage for the pwer grid? dc is way more efficient my 40 watt dc fan will blow you over lol




Early on they did use DC but DC doesn't travel as well over distance, so you need little power plants in each neighborhood.


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## idleprocess (Jul 26, 2021)

jtr1962 said:


> I don't get streaming myself.


I can appreciate it for the process of _discovery_ of new music. I've considered the likes of Spotify for such given that local radio stations are either covering well-worn ground or today's equivalent of top 40 that doesn't much interest me. I'm not interested in 'buying' tracks that effectively live in the cloud _(either in actuality or locally-cached files must be authorized by said cloud)_, but can see the value in subscribing to an all-you-can-eat service.

It's the reliance on streaming for that which one wishes to listen to regularly rather than procuring an offline copy that confuses.



jtr1962 said:


> They're even trying to do this with software, where you don't install the software on your hard drive. You stream it instead every time you use it.  I don't know how people can not see the huge downside of that.


Google Apps _(Doc, Sheets, etc)_ is perhaps the most-often used example of this. Browsers are now sufficiently capable that web apps are _good enough_ for more casual use. I wouldn't want to do some of my more unspeakable _brute force_ spreadsheets in Sheets, but for most usage _where there aren't thousands of formulas performing branching conditional 2D lookups_ it's a passable alternative to a local native executable.



Poppy said:


> Streaming works for me, for movies, and TV shows. If I owned them, I probably wouldn't watch them again.


For me, TV and movies are different from music in the sense that I might watch a movie or TV show once a year at most. I'm also almost universally at home with solid internet connectivity, thus streaming is reasonably reliable.

My main gripe about video streaming is the horrific fragmentation of the market and the resulting penalty to user experience. Managing multiple accounts is an annoyance, but the fact that one also has to use every provider's _bespoke application_ to access content is aggravating. I'm willing to pay for content and may well want to wander into Netflix's app so I can see whatever their algos think I want to watch, but I may well want to watch, say, _The Expanse_ and _The Mandelorean_ without wading through the Prime and Disney+ apps respectively.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 26, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> If you have a VOM take a measurement at the motor to see if it is getting power it is sounding like the timer control is gone.



It's getting power at the plug, so I need to test the rest now. Them rats got my light working in the utility room again and I was suspicious that they did something to the 220 wires. I guess they did to the 220 wires the ac plugs in. It runs 5 minutes and pops real bad and trips a breaker. Cools the trailer real good till it does. My wife is scared to use it like that. The 220 wire is rigged from the old central air unit and dogs might have hit it chasing the cats.

I hear you bykfixer on the graphite and teflon sprays.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 26, 2021)

How fast does your ebike go raggie. Does it take hills well? Looks like it has pedals also, so on a straight or downhill a person could get some exercise. That pedaling motion is good for my messed up legs.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 26, 2021)

Hey bykfixer, do they make a pullover version of the improved type boot?


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## raggie33 (Jul 26, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> How fast does your ebike go raggie. Does it take hills well? Looks like it has pedals also, so on a straight or downhill a person could get some exercise. That pedaling motion is good for my messed up legs.



not sure on speed but it feels fast and ya i peddle a lot


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## Poppy (Jul 26, 2021)

idleprocess said:


> My main gripe about video streaming is the horrific fragmentation of the market and the resulting penalty to user experience. Managing multiple accounts is an annoyance, but the fact that one also has to use every provider's _bespoke application_ to access content is aggravating. I'm willing to pay for content and may well want to wander into Netflix's app so I can see whatever their algos think I want to watch, but* I may well want to watch, say, The Expanse and The Mandelorean without wading through the Prime and Disney+ apps respectively*.


We have some apps that we pay for and others not. So we may watch a few episodes on one app, and a few of something else on another. I don't keep a log of what we watched, nor of which app it was on. I'll end up going through the different apps looking for something in particular, or just something that we found interesting. Last night I decided, that I hadn't seen all of the episodes of "The Equalizer" Prime video had it for a cost. I decided to try to search for it.

I have a roku TV, and the search presented a few options to get it, some at a cost, some for free if you paid for the particular app, and still for free if I installed the CBS app. It is a free over the air tv show. I quickly installed the CBS app, and watched a couple of episodes.

Hopefully the search feature will be as productive for other programs/shows.


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## bykfixer (Jul 27, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> It's getting power at the plug, so I need to test the rest now. Them rats got my light working in the utility room again and I was suspicious that they did something to the 220 wires. I guess they did to the 220 wires the ac plugs in. It runs 5 minutes and pops real bad and trips a breaker. Cools the trailer real good till it does. My wife is scared to use it like that. The 220 wire is rigged from the old central air unit and dogs might have hit it chasing the cats.



How are you still alive GP?


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## greenpondmike (Jul 28, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> How are you still alive GP?



By the grace of God


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## Olumin (Jul 29, 2021)

Technology is rarely the problem itself, but rather the way we use it. Similarly to money, while it does not guarantee one’s happiness in and of itself, it can certainly solve many problems that would otherwise create discomfort or stress factors. In other words, technology does not make you happy, but it certainly makes it easier to be happy.

By most standards I still consider this world to be very primitive. While we have certainly come a long way in many aspects from times like the dark ages, in just as many respects the world has not changed much at all.

Our state of medicine is still relatively primitive, and freely accessible, high quality medical care has yet to be established throughout the world. The planet is still divided into many separate nation states, warring and competing with each other like tribes in the stone age. Racism, discrimination and war follows. The world has yet to unite. There is no unified language, financial or political system. Our worlds politics are mostly corrupt and inefficient, manipulated by influential corporations and guided more by self-interest then the good of their people. No global financial safety net for citizens, requiring us to work for our basic survival. Such a net is necessary to create an environment of true freedom and self-actualization. The lack of modern manufacturing, automation and the lacking ability to synthesize natural elements and chemical compounds leads to scarcity. Poverty and hunger are not the exception, but the standard throughout most of the world. Transportation is slow and not globally accessible to everyone, travel throughout the world is restricted and complicated. The large-scale consumption of meat is still the standard in most parts of the world, creating enormous environmental damage, even leaving aside the moral implications. Rampant overpopulation, as a large family is the only social and financial safety that exists in most places. People are forced to work in menial, dangerous and labor-intensive environments, due to lack of automation of most essential fields of work, and due to lack of choice. There is so much more.

Much of this has to do with a lack of technology, some of which will not be accessible to us for the next 100 years. Much of it does not. As long as we have not solved these problems, we cannot call ourselves a truly modern, united and civilized society. At the moment we have fancy toys to play with, but our minds still live in the stone age.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 29, 2021)

Olumun, I admit some things are better, but in the name of progress we have bean counters that cheapen products and makes certain products that used to last way longer only last a little while. Some of us would be glad to pay a little more for quality on stuff we depend on daily. Trucks are expensive enough, but when you can't buy a half ton truck that will hold up to some light to moderate work like my 71 does there is something wrong. It now takes a 3/4 to one ton truck that will hold up to what half tons in the 70s, 80s and maybe 90s would do. Companies are for the most part using this technology to their advantage, but not for the sake of the buyer who can't even fix the new fangled stuff. 
The peasants don't have access to nor can they afford the good stuff if there is any. 

Sorry about the rant, but I'm an angry peasant. I'm alright though- Just give me some corn bread and turnip greens and watch my attitude change.....for a few hours at least.


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## Olumin (Jul 29, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Companies are for the most part using this technology to their advantage, but not for the sake of the buyer who can't even fix the new fangled stuff.
> The peasants don't have access to nor can they afford the good stuff if there is any.


You said it, the "good stuff" still exists, it’s just prohibitively expensive or unavailable to the average consumer (meaning only to professionals, companies and industries). That as well as planned obsolescence and modern companies’ attitude towards repair, sucks, but that’s exactly my point. Technology ≠ planned obsolescence/bad products. The technology itself is good and not the problem, it’s how we, as a society, decide to use it.

In my rant I was focusing more on our societal problems that exist _despite _our technology, and how some of those problems probably won’t be solved for some time, due to _lack _of certain technologies, especially key manufacturing technologies and automation. Also sophisticated computers that will eventually replace man in most fields of work or make them obsolete, including logistics and government. Humans don’t make very good leaders, and aren’t very intelligent.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 29, 2021)

Olumin said:


> You said it, the "good stuff" still exists, it’s just prohibitively expensive or unavailable to the average consumer (meaning only to professionals, companies and industries). That as well as planned obsolescence and modern companies’ attitude towards repair, sucks, but that’s exactly my point. Technology ≠ planned obsolescence/bad products. The technology itself is good and not the problem, it’s how we, as a society, decide to use it.
> 
> In my rant I was focusing more on our societal problems that exist _despite _our technology, and how some of those problems probably won’t be solved for some time, due to _lack _of certain technologies, especially key manufacturing technologies and automation. Also sophisticated computers that will eventually replace man in most fields of work or make them obsolete, including logistics and government. Humans don’t make very good leaders, and aren’t very intelligent.


Oh, ok. You said it so smooth and nice I didn't know it was a rant. My words seem angry- yours don't. 
Now I understand and I agree 100%.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 30, 2021)

71 truck is giving me window roller trouble. 63, 64, 65, 66 chevy trucks NEVER gave me trouble like that. Owned a 76 that did fine- they must have fixed the stupidity they did on the 67-72's. I might have to get some new window regulators. 

Stupid bean counters. 71 was when the vega came out.....I guess they "tweaked" a few other vehicles instead of stopping with the vega. The vega was a bean counter deluxe.


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## bykfixer (Jul 31, 2021)

I saw a Vega the other day. A yellow wagon. It had giant slicks on the back and a monster hood scoop. It was on a trailer so I suppose it was on the way to a drag strip.

Back then (I'm not sure what year it was) GM execs visited Soichiro Honda (proniunced So-eech-ee-row) to ask him to build engines for them. Mr. Honda's company was hemoraging money due to him trying to build F1 cars. He did not care about a giant corparation. He was all about building race cars and drinking sokee. 

Ironically his F1 cars were RWD but his production cars were FWD. When GM asked him to build them engines for RWD cars he said "nope, that would mean the engine would have to rotate in the opposite direction so not interested". GM execs went back home and tried to out Honda Honda. Where Mr Honda's racing blood meant build things to last GM was trying to build things cheap. 

The rest is history. At some point Chrysler and Ford execs secretly met with Mr Honda only to hear the same answer. GM at one point made a deal with Toyota and a small version of the Nova resulted. That led to Saturn being developed but that little Nova was one fine automobile in terms of reliability. 

These days they are all about the same in general. The Kia is getting better while the long term players are getting worse. There's just so many gadgets and gizmos that can fail on the modern day rolling appliances.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 31, 2021)

I think the small nova became the geo prism- such a sissy name, but I had one and man...., that was soooome car for sure. I would like to buy another.


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## greenpondmike (Jul 31, 2021)

I think the hondai's (not honda) have become pretty good also. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't hondai and kia both built in Korea?


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## Dave_H (Aug 1, 2021)

These days I can more or less take or leave what Hollywood has to offer, increasingly the latter.

But, just finished binge-watching Star Trek Discovery, latest in the franchise I think; 15 episodes, over 11 hours in less than a week. Interesting though they've plagarized some stuff from the original, including Harry Mudd, ion storm causing exchange of good/bad people between parallel universes (ISS <shipname> etc.) and thankfully no Spock with beard. Lots of fighting with Klingons though.

Anyone who likes police-related drama with some semblance of character development and not depending on lots of car chases/explosions/shoot-em-ups: lots of series from the U.K and elsewhere. Try DCI Banks, Line of Duty (superb, and not to be confused with Call of Duty), Rebus, Shetland, Loch Ness, Happy Valley (also not to be confused with something else with the same name), Hidden (from Wales), The Fall (with Gillian Anderson of X-Files fame), The Level, Jack Taylor, Broadchurch (very intense) etc. There are other good ones; and a few turkeys in the mix, won't mention them.

Also good ones from Australia and New Zealand include: Janet King, The Code (excellent mini-series), Deep Water, Brokenwood Mysteries, East West 101, Doctor Blake, list goes on.

Dave

edit: some of above is not police drama, but good regardless. I forgot "The Detectorists";
funny, kind of goofy, nobody gets killed or even seriously hurt... just light entertainment.


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## Chauncey Gardiner (Aug 1, 2021)

Wrong thread, Dave. 

Hopefully, the thread title will soon appear at the top of every post. That way we won't need to go to the top of the page to be reminded which thread we're reading/posting in.


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## Dave_H (Aug 1, 2021)

Chauncey Gardiner said:


> Wrong thread, Dave.
> 
> Hopefully, the thread title will soon appear at the top of every post. That way we won't need to go to the top of the page to be reminded which thread we're reading/posting in.


Sorry, I was reading first page of this very long thread, where they were discussing such things, when I posted.

Anyway, out of topic or otherwise, hope this is useful (and OP gave thumbs-up  )

Dave


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## bykfixer (Aug 1, 2021)

Hey, binge watching tv shows in syndicate is a sign of these modern times, right? 
Used to be you had to wait for the re-runs to show up on cable. That was kinda cool because you had that to look forward to. Now, you can download or buy the box set. 

I screen shot your list Dave for next time I'm in a store with dvd's and blu ray's.


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## greenpondmike (Aug 12, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> 71 truck is giving me window roller trouble. 63, 64, 65, 66 chevy trucks NEVER gave me trouble like that. Owned a 76 that did fine- they must have fixed the stupidity they did on the 67-72's. I might have to get some new window regulators.
> 
> Stupid bean counters. 71 was when the vega came out.....I guess they "tweaked" a few other vehicles instead of stopping with the vega. The vega was a bean counter deluxe.


 Lol, stupid blonde (me)- grease and oil do wonders.


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## bykfixer (Sep 23, 2021)

Once upon a time my auto entertainment system was an 8-track or cassette when the radio sucked. Now I have bluetooth fed music from a phone.

Back then a tape was pretty reliable if you cleaned the head from time to time. Bluetooth aint bad but the other day my truck radio forgot my phone mid-song. It just quit reading the signals from the phone.

In the old days if my tape player ate a tape I could rip it out and pop in another……while driving. Yet when the ford sync forgot my phone the safety stuff would not allow me to "delete" the phone and re-pair, nor would it allow me to factory reset the infotainment system while in motion. It warns against ejecting a compact disc or inserting one as well. However it will allow me to manually dial a phone number on the keypad or manually scan radio stations one frequency at a time, which are actually way more distracting than ejecting a cd or paiting a device.

I can't say I miss that 8-track player but I do understand that first world problems can make one truely understand just how far we've come yet while still having the aggrevation of things not working.


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## Lynx_Arc (Sep 23, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> Once upon a time my auto entertainment system was an 8-track or cassette when the radio sucked. Now I have bluetooth fed music from a phone.
> 
> Back then a tape was pretty reliable if you cleaned the head from time to time. Bluetooth aint bad but the other day my truck radio forgot my phone mid-song. It just quit reading the signals from the phone.
> 
> ...


When my car stereo/CD player first lost the CD player and then the FM stereo receiver I finally got tired of messing with an old 30G IPod video that had a weak battery I had to run it off a power bank. I ended up finally ordering a Kenwood bluetooth cd player from Best Buy as they didn't stock much but it was only 99 dollars. The thing works like a jewel 99% of the time... every once in awhile I have to turn it completely off to get it fixed but it is rare.


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## PhotonWrangler (Sep 23, 2021)

Gone are the days when I would see a wadded-up tangle of 8 track or cassette tape sitting on the ground in a gas station parking lot. I could only imagine the choice words that were spoken immediately prior to depositing that tangled mess on the ground.


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## raggie33 (Sep 23, 2021)

ill stick to digital audio id bet i could fit all the music of everyone in this post on 2 0r 3 micro sd cards total weight like 5 grams


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## bykfixer (Sep 24, 2021)

I have a over TB of music on my computer raggie.

The phone I use for music is an unlocked motorola with a micro card slot. It has a 128gb card in it. Those things are cheap now! I think I paid like $20 for it at WalMart. The phone was set up for Verizon but a guy at a geek store hit the "not now" icon like 12 or 20 times or something quickly when it asked if I wanted to start a new account and the phone completely unlocked. Everything is turned off except the mp3 player and a keyboard so I can name playlists.


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## greenpondmike (Sep 25, 2021)

I used to fix those. Just cut out the bad part and super glue two ends together. Had a tape I found that had messed up and someone threw it out. I fixed it and it lasted a year or two till I got rid of it. It got played almost every day for as long as I was in the car and sometimes I brought it in the house and also listened to it. 

A little patience and super glue...

This is supposed to be a reply to photowrangler's post, but something went wrong.


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## bykfixer (Sep 26, 2021)

In around 88 or 89 I was issued a police car for a vehicle as an inspector. 83 LTD with all kinds of creature comforts, including an am/fm/8-track.

As a member of Columbia House where the compact disc ruled at that point albums were being phased out. I still had a really nice turn table and cassette player at home and did not own a cd player at that time. Albums were disappearing like chimney smoke but……Columbia House had a huge selection of 8-track tape versions of popular artists. And not just pre-cassette era like Rolling Stones or Fleetwood Mac but modern at the time. The Smiths, The Cars, INXS etc.

It was a Krako stereo system. Remember those?
I don't recall it ever eating an 8-track tape.


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## PhotonWrangler (Sep 26, 2021)

Columbia House - I remember those ads. Wasn't there another competing subscription service also?


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## greenpondmike (Sep 27, 2021)

bykfixer said:


> In around 88 or 89 I was issued a police car for a vehicle as an inspector. 83 LTD with all kinds of creature comforts, including an am/fm/8-track.
> 
> As a member of Columbia House where the compact disc ruled at that point albums were being phased out. I still had a really nice turn table and cassette player at home and did not own a cd player at that time. Albums were disappearing like chimney smoke but……Columbia House had a huge selection of 8-track tape versions of popular artists. And not just pre-cassette era like Rolling Stones or Fleetwood Mac but modern at the time. The Smiths, The Cars, INXS etc.
> 
> ...


I remember krako and columbia house


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## Lynx_Arc (Sep 27, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> I remember krako and columbia house


That's Kraco


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## greenpondmike (Sep 27, 2021)

Lynx_Arc said:


> That's Kraco


Close enough for google to correct me and bykfixer if we looked it up. I thought it had a "c" in it though.


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## Lynx_Arc (Sep 27, 2021)

greenpondmike said:


> Close enough for google to correct me and bykfixer if we looked it up. I thought it had a "c" in it though.


I remember the brand plus "CO" I believe is likely abbreviation for company. I had a Jensen car stereo that gave up on me finally that was essentially similar quality at the time my dad bought it. I now have a Kenwood in my car and it is a jewel compared to cheapy brands. I did once have a Sanyo high power cassette stereo long ago in my car that was 18Wpc RMS to the woofers and 4Wpc RMS to the tweeters and back then most car stereos were lucky to be 10W RMS. The Cassette drive wore out on it but the receiver kept working. Todays car stereos are mostly bluetooth many without a CD player also.


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## bykfixer (Sep 27, 2021)

We called 'em krack-o.


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## raggie33 (Sep 28, 2021)

i had a audiovox mom bought for me i had it in my 75 nova a car i bought my self at 16 or so ugly as hell but ran like a top. i was so sad when it dies a few years latter but was worth the 2 hundred i payed for it . god now im missing my mom


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## Chauncey Gardiner (Sep 29, 2021)

Here's a little something for raggie -


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## bykfixer (May 5, 2022)

I'm reviving this one to rant a bit. 

My company made it so when using a flash drive it has to be encrypted to add files. Sounds harmless, right? It is until you try to plug it into something that does not have the software such as a remote printer or another computer. 

I work remotely. So often a flash drive is a portable hard drive. The company says "just use the cloud", or "bluetooth it"…… basically that security feature knee cap'd a bunch of us who do not always set behind a desk and at times work where there is not internet or have access to a bluetooth capable printer. 

I decided I'll just send a runner to go print something like the military did in the Revolutionary War since apparently I can't be trusted to handle a PDF document on a flash drive that may fall into the hands of our competitors. 

I told Mrs Fixer I hate to think I'd leave the company after 20+ years over a flash drive but it definitely has me looking at other options as a pattern has developed where stupid executives create rules that hand cuffs the people who bring in the revenue that pays their bloated salaries. 

And TEAM meetings? Good greif!! They act like all I have to do all day is attend those things. Once a month I get a report that indicates how much % free time I have because my e-calendar isn't packed or because I don't attend their meetings. "last month you had 94% free time and only attended 18% of your scheduled events"……

Ridiculous. If an EMP hits these people would spontaniously combust in about 12 minutes.


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## Poppy (May 5, 2022)

I recently bought a "Hot Spot" device for my grandson to use when he needs internet access but only has cell service.

Our cell plan does not allow us to create and share a hot spot, but some plans do.

@bykfixer I appreciate your frustration. Yet when I hear of cyber warfare, it seems more and more, encryption is a necessary evil.


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## raggie33 (May 5, 2022)

Anyone know what happened to geep?


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## chip100t (May 5, 2022)

I have an 18 year old nissan terrano 2 I bought 12 years ago and do not want to part with it. Because it has served me well and can’t afford to replace it even if I wanted to. But the mayor of london wants to include my neighbourhood in the ultra low emission zone in the next two years that would mean I would have to pay £12 every time I drove it. That’s on top of the road tax and fuel duty I already pay the government. When he does this my motoring days may be over.

If I won the lottery I would love a new land rover defender. I used to do a lot of target shooting, mountainbiking and metal detecting that took me on to farmland regularly which was why originally bought my 4WD.

I just need a car to get me from a to b reliably with a radio and heater, no more.

I see cars advertised as having cameras instead of mirrors, which seems crazy to me. Replacing something that works perfectly with technology that adds expense and the possibility of malfunction.


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## Poppy (May 5, 2022)

chip100t said:


> I see cars advertised as having cameras instead of mirrors, which seems crazy to me. Replacing something that works perfectly with technology that adds expense and the possibility of malfunction.


My daughter is in an office without a window. I told her she should get a camera to the outside piped to a monitor and make it look like a window. 

I've considered that it might be an improvement to have a digital front windshield, instead of a real one. It's brightness and intensity could be adjusted in varying lighting conditions, and it could be programmed to reduce the sharpness and intensity of headlight glare from oncoming traffic.


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## raggie33 (May 5, 2022)

I've heard them land rovers are garbage so be careful


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## chip100t (May 5, 2022)

raggie33 said:


> I've heard them land rovers are garbage so be careful


Don’t worry raggie, I have to win the lottery first.


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## chip100t (May 5, 2022)

Poppy said:


> My daughter is in an office without a window. I told her she should get a camera to the outside piped to a monitor and make it look like a window.
> 
> I've considered that it might be an improvement to have a digital front windshield, instead of a real one. It's brightness and intensity could be adjusted in varying lighting conditions, and it could be programmed to reduce the sharpness and intensity of headlight glare from oncoming traffic.


We could walk around wearing VR glasses making our neighbourhood look much more upmarket and dull days beautifully sunny. Also all the people we pass could be fantastically good looking.


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## raggie33 (May 5, 2022)

My dream car was a old vw bus till I heard they only have like 40 horsepower lol. So now my dream is the most reliable cheap mini van I can find . But I need enough hp to drive thru the mountains


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## chip100t (May 5, 2022)

chip100t said:


> We could walk around wearing VR glasses making our neighbourhood look much more upmarket and dull days beautifully sunny. Also all the people we pass could be fantastically good looking.


My last post reminded me of my niece. She is always taking selfies and posting them on Facebook, thing is they all look nothing like her. She uses what are apparently called filters to change her appearance. Her face looks slimmer, her eyes and lips bigger and all slightly out of focus like someone has smeared Vaseline on the lens. I don’t know why as she is a pretty, young woman.

I don’t know why anyone would want lots of photos of one’s self that actually look nothing like you.


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## chip100t (May 5, 2022)

raggie33 said:


> My dream car was a old vw bus till I heard they only have like 40 horsepower lol. So now my dream is the most reliable cheap mini van I can find . But I need enough hp to drive thru the mountains


When I bought my car I wanted a Mitsubishi delica. A 4WD mini van based on the shogun. My budget would not stretch to it though.


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## bykfixer (May 5, 2022)

Ok, so yesterday I drove a total of 40 miles to print a document. Got it signed. Time to scan to PDF. But wait……my printer/scanner that has a USB cord to the laptop is no longer recognized since the company went from Windows 7 to 10. Gee, I could scan it to a flash drive, but not now. And to get the laptop to recognize the printer scanner requires re-installing the driver, which involves opening a ticket at IT, who when I called them said "due to labor shortage expect longer than usual wait times"……
Nice! 

I took photos of the dam thing using a PDF maker app. Looks like crap but hey, the signed document is officially out on the server now. Yay!


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## Poppy (May 5, 2022)

Nice... a technological work-around. That's why they pay you the big bucks, big fella!


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## PhotonWrangler (May 5, 2022)

Poppy said:


> Nice... a technological work-around. That's why they pay you the big bucks, big fella!


I agree, that was a good workaround!


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## bykfixer (May 5, 2022)

My name is Byk W Fixer……the W stands for work around.


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## PhotonWrangler (May 5, 2022)

bykfixer said:


> My name is Byk W Fixer……the W stands for work around.


Turn the W upside down and it stands for MacGuyver.


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## bykfixer (May 5, 2022)

Hmmmmmmm.  ……


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## xxo (May 5, 2022)

Good thinkin Byk, you're gonna have to invent PDF smoke signals to top that.

BTW where's GPM? Chickens got his phone?


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## bykfixer (May 6, 2022)

The company already banned smoke signals xx. Carbon shoe print or something about greenhouse something or other. I expect any day now a TEAM meeting to discuss how laughter causes climate chaos……


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## PhotonWrangler (May 10, 2022)

BTW today's news has a story that demonstrates why USB drives are banned in many security conscious organizations. It can be a royal pain as you've described, but it's a necessary evil these days.


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## bykfixer (May 13, 2022)

Good read photon. Thanks. 

Helps me understand the how come aspect.


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