Fogbow

Luke wrote: ↑Sun Jan 14, 2024 11:29 pm Remember this sound? We should ask kids what it is







And in Rolodex's honor (I still have mine)



Rolodex.JPG

Before I got a password manager, I used a rolodex for my passwords (I still have it). I liked that I could alphabetize them when adding in new pws whereas in a notebook, that wouldn't work. I kept it beside my computer, figuring that anyone who broke in was likely too young to know what a rolodex was and wouldn't swipe that along with my computer.

I love my password manager so much maybe I should change my user name to Password Manager. LOL

bill_g wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 4:10 pm Wow. That's a great photo.

Not my photo. The one from my family is similar and includes many folks standing around. It is a reminder of how many people it took back in 1910 to do farm work. When my grandfather retired from farming, he was essentially doing his fields himself. Now, the nearby farming family is doing most of the land in the area from my family's former land to others as well and he does it by setting the equipment in the correct spot and pressing go. He then sits in the cooled cockpit and monitors the equipment doing its own thing. Apparently, it is accurate up to under an inch.

Most of the physical effort now is maintenance on the equipment, including the irrigation for those fields he irritates.

I have no clue how they would get off of that.

northland10 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 7:16 pm

bill_g wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 4:10 pm Wow. That's a great photo.

Not my photo. The one from my family is similar and includes many folks standing around. It is a reminder of how many people it took back in 1910 to do farm work. When my grandfather retired from farming, he was essentially doing his fields himself. Now, the nearby farming family is doing most of the land in the area from my family's former land to others as well and he does it by setting the equipment in the correct spot and pressing go. He then sits in the cooled cockpit and monitors the equipment doing its own thing. Apparently, it is accurate up to under an inch.

Most of the physical effort now is maintenance on the equipment, including the irrigation for those fields he irritates.

I have no clue how they would get off of that.

Quilting used to involve a needle, thread, hoop and human hands. Now, the "quilter" clips and pins the top, batting and backing onto the frame, does some computer magic input on the long-arm machine and pushes start. Then they sit around and make sure the thread doesn't break. Not very conducive to the tradition of a bee.

The ladies down the street from me still have bees.

Training courses for carjackers are really lacking these days.

Gold Coast carjacking thwarted after suspects fail to operate manual transmission

An attempted carjacking Tuesday night on the Gold Coast of Chicago was foiled because the suspects didn't know how to operate the vehicle's manual transmission, Chicago police said.

The incident occurred at 7:39 p.m. in the 1400 block of North Astor, officials said.

According to police, a 41-year-old man was sitting in his 2008 Audi sedan, when two armed men entered the car and demanded his wallet. The victim complied and exited the vehicle as the suspects attempted to drive off, police said.

The suspects were unable getaway however, as they were not able to operate the Audi's manual transmission, police added.

Both suspects were taken into custody in the 7000 block of South Wood, after they were identified as the the men involved in the robbery, police said.

No injuries were reported, and an investigation is ongoing, police added.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/g ... n/3329753/

northland10 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 7:35 pm Training courses for carjackers are really lacking these days.

Gold Coast carjacking thwarted after suspects fail to operate manual transmission

An attempted carjacking Tuesday night on the Gold Coast of Chicago was foiled because the suspects didn't know how to operate the vehicle's manual transmission, Chicago police said.

The incident occurred at 7:39 p.m. in the 1400 block of North Astor, officials said.

According to police, a 41-year-old man was sitting in his 2008 Audi sedan, when two armed men entered the car and demanded his wallet. The victim complied and exited the vehicle as the suspects attempted to drive off, police said.

The suspects were unable getaway however, as they were not able to operate the Audi's manual transmission, police added.

Both suspects were taken into custody in the 7000 block of South Wood, after they were identified as the the men involved in the robbery, police said.

No injuries were reported, and an investigation is ongoing, police added.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/g ... n/3329753/

Which is why both my kids had manual trans cars for their first car. My older son had a Honda Element - bright orange. Both too ugly to steal and no one could drive a stick so no one could even borrow it.

Tiredretiredlawyer wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 7:45 pm

God damn Millennials can't do anything right....

Until around the year 2000 both my wife and I both drove manual transmission vehicles. My son of course learned to drive on one (a 6 speed iirc).
His undergrad degree is in Film and TV production from BU. As a summer internship he was working with a production crew making commercials and such in the greater Boston area. We visited him on a shoot they were doing in Portsmouth NH.
He was the only person on the crew (beside the boss / owner) who knew what a clutch was so he was driving this huge cube truck all over town. But the best part for him was the night the boss tossed him the keys to his brand new Porsche and told him to drive to Boston Logan and pick up a talent that was flying in that night and bring her back to the shoot. I can't remember who he said she was but he said she was very funny not to mention beautiful and I believe later on she became somewhat famous. Anyhow it goes to show that knowing the old technologies is a good thing!

I learned to drive on a manual and my first owned car was an orange pos manual Ford. Power nothing on it. Very good education. I had a smart dad on that.

How many of us learned how to use a slide rule in high school?

MN-Skeptic wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2024 12:25 am How many of us learned how to use a slide rule in high school?

I'm old but not THAT old. We were hi-tech.

MN-Skeptic wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2024 12:25 am How many of us learned how to use a slide rule in high school?

The car i have now, a 2013 Honda Civic is the first automatic I've ever owned. I only got that because SWMBO was doing a lot of short trip driving for bureau of stats. Prolly get an electric this yezr, so even more automagic coming.

MN-Skeptic wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2024 12:25 am How many of us learned how to use a slide rule in high school?

I had to learn how to use an abacus as well. I can still muddle my way through a sliderule, but the abacus knowledge is lost.

neonzx wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2024 1:12 am

MN-Skeptic wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2024 12:25 am How many of us learned how to use a slide rule in high school?

I'm old but not THAT old. We were hi-tech.

re above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-45

was introduced 1973, I purchased mine in 1974, so it's now 50 years old! And it still works using the power adapter (last battery pack replacement long dead). According to the purchase agreement I am not allowed to export this unit cause the USSR may want to fight a Cold War ...

I wanted a hp35 so bad, bug coudnt afford one. But then one day (c1971?) the local five and dime had a bin of cheap calculators from Texas Instruments- 4 function for $3 and perfect HP35 clones for $10 (IIRC).

Still works perfectly to this day.
ETA: so does my even betterer HP15 programmers calculator with hexidimal and octal!

(Is that the right model. Was te 35 the first scientific calc - with RPN and trig and etc?)

MN-Skeptic wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2024 12:25 am How many of us learned how to use a slide rule in high school?

I think I learned the very basics of sliderulery, but likely from my older siblings and my own curiosity - I think I worked out on my own that they were logarithm scales (I'd learnt about logs). I don't remember being taught by a teacher - although I remember one classroom had a huge demonstration slide rule, about 1.5 m / 5 feet long. We calculated using log tables in books rather than slide rules; perhaps that was a conscious decision by the school? We were given a useful booklet of logarithmic and trigometric tables, which also had general scientific info: periodic table, densities, etc. of elements and simple compounds. All not needed now.

Pocket calculators came in just before I went to college, but only the richest kid in my class had one (but that was an HP, that looked identical to their products for the next few decades).

I remember calculators having -= and += buttons, which always confused me. Long gone. I liked Casio scientific calculators, simply because the feel of the buttons appealed. And I couldn't be bothered with RPN unless I borrowed someone's calculator.

Never used Napier's Bones. Some of those early calculating gadgets are glorious, more ingenuity rendered pointless by bits and bytes.

If ever in London, do visit the Science Museum and see the (modern) Babbage's Difference Engine. If you can see it working, that's best, it's a ballet of brasswork spinning, clicking and whirring. I don't know if they run it now, but they did shortly after it was being built in the 1990s, when I saw it. They also have the 1820s (?) original demonstration model.

An organist/choir director colleague of mine had a Christmas gathering for his youth choristers (and parents of course) at his place. Apparently, the most popular activities for the kids were trying out his collection of typewriters. It is interesting that he collects old typewriters since, given his young age, I doubt he had much experience typing papers or other things on typewriters (except maybe some small stuff like labels for his dad's business while growing up).

I guess I am not the only organist with a fondness for old typewriters. If I had more space, I might have a collection myself.

He also gives names to the ones in his collection. The old manual one I have had only been called one thing in the past (f****** POS), usually when keys/levers would stick, the paper would not go in straight, the paper would slip out of alignment, the ribbon would get all messed up..., etc. Now Microsoft Word gets that name. I did not remove annoyances, I just traded manual ones for digital ones. Okay, having a program like EndNote that organizes and inserts footnotes, and the bibliography while also learning how to trick Word into putting them on the correct page is way better than how it had to be done on a typewriter.

There is nothing like the machine gun staccato of a room full of experienced typists at +50wpm. It's an amazing sound.

MN-Skeptic wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2024 12:25 am How many of us learned how to use a slide rule in high school?

Had to teach myself to use a slide rule in high school. Such high tech things were not in use in my high school then.

bill_g wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2024 10:39 am There is nothing like the machine gun staccato of a room full of experienced typists at +50wpm. It's an amazing sound.

I have a computer keyboard based on the old PS2 keyboard with the buckling springs. It is louder than the others that use membranes.

It occurred to me today that it was 40 years ago that we bought our first computer - a Commodore 64. It was 1984.

By the way, it’s still in my basement.