You know you are living in 2007 [Archive]

robertbank

03-08-2007, 02:03 PM

YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2007 when...

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2.You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7 Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )

12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.

14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list

AND NOW YOU ARE LAUGHING at yourself.

Go on, forward this to your friends. You know you want to.

BruceB

03-08-2007, 05:27 PM

Well lemme tell you whippersnappers....

What the Luddite geriatric shooter REALLY needs in 2007 is...

- a cell phone that only MAKES calls. I don't want to get calls, take pictures or videos, or refer to an address book, I just want the damned phone to MAKE calls when I need it . Even this much is a concession....I didn't need a mobile phone for the last 60-plus years, and sure as the dickens I don't "need" one now.

-a GPS that ONLY tells me where I is, and where I is with relation to my camp. THAT'S ALL!

-a riflescope that simply paints the reticle on the target with moderate magnification. NOT a rangefinder, not a camera, not a 8.8-36x mil-dot digital calculator...just a simple scope. Hitting a moose at 200 yards does NOT require 24x sights, or even a glass sight for that matter.

What else???

sundog

03-08-2007, 06:35 PM

Bruce, they're toys, man. Toys. Didn't ya have toys when you were growing up? I did. Mattel Fanner Fifty, a Davey Crockett flintlock and a coon skin cap, an ole army helmet. A bike (had several - wore'm out). Stuff ya know. Built my own wireless radio. Had forsts in the woods. Stuff you could really use.

Okay, now I see your point. We had stuff you could do something with... But I do kinda like my mil dot scopes. I've have NEVER used a GPS, map and compass has always worked purty goot. I have a cell phone hung on me from work. Don't care for it at all. Don't even like voice mail. Got something to say to someone, get up and stretch your legs for a spell and go see them on the other end of the hall.

monadnock#5

03-08-2007, 06:43 PM

The two greatest inventions of the 20th Century were caller ID and call waiting. If I don't recognize the name, or there is no name to recognize, the caller had best be prepared to leave a message. At a rate of about 15:1, nuisance calls to "important" calls, I refuse to feel guilty about it.

Ken

03-08-2007, 06:49 PM

Hey Bruce, all cell phones work like that. you charge them up, turn them off, and put'em in your pocket. If you need to make a call you just turn it back on and make the call, then turn it back off. The batteries last for days used this way too. 'Course I can only get away with this on my own time. At work the company gives me a cell phone and they expect me to answer it. BD

BruceB

03-08-2007, 07:30 PM

Oh, it was all tongue-in-cheek. I too like Caller ID, ignore a lot of calls, and in fact I DO use my cellphone as BD suggests....turn it on when I want to make a call. Nice if I should have a flat or get stuck somewhere. That's IF I can even remember how to turn the stupid thing on....maybe I'd best get a flip-phone so I don't have to remember which button to push.

Fortunately, I don't need a cell connected to my work when away from the job. However, the minesite is isolated enough that we have backups for the backups. In my hoist control room, which is also the communications nerve center for the mine, I have a normal landline phone (with long-distance capability), an underground phone connected to dozens of places down in the mine, a cell phone, and a satellite phone to boot, as well as Email connected to the Internet, and a radio base-station monitoring four frequencies! Sometimes it gets a leetle hectic when two or more of the devices are screaming at the same time. But, for an ol' fart, I'm bearing up fairly well....

Classing some of these devices as "toys" could get a serious argument from many people these days, who consider the blasted phone as vital as...hmmm, their lungs, or eyes, maybe.

(Classic geezer statement) "I liked it better the way it wuz."

Phil

03-08-2007, 07:36 PM

When I was a kid we made crystal radios (I think thats what we called 'em) with parts from Heath Electronics. They used the big, long dry cell. Not the square lantern battery, the tall round one.

My dad was a chemical engineer and of course I got a big chemistry set one Christmas. He rebuilt a J3 Cub from a wreck in the late 40's and I loved to go to the airport with him and hold small parts while he bolted or welded them in place. When he didn't need me I played in the Link Trainer (instrument flight simulator of its day).

Got balsa wood gliders with folding wings that were launched by a slingshot arrangement.

Then there were the Dinky Toys army trucks and tanks.

There were NO cell phones, no TV, no home air conditioning, shopping malls, powered lawn mowers, (except for the IH Cub tractor with mower attachment), nada. Didn't need them then, really could live without them now. The milkman brought milk to the door every day, in glass bottles. I can remember the Fuller Brush man, the Durkees man, the iceman who put blocks of ice in the ICE BOX, Great Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs, full of neat toys and GUNS. It cost three cents for a first class stamp and it didn't take two weeks for a letter to go cross country (and it didn't get lost half the time).

I remember going to the movies on Saturday mornings to catch the latest epsiode of whatever serial was running (King of the Rocketmen for instance). We lived in a very small town but had three movie theatres, a hobby shop, a gun/fishing shop, policemen WALKED their beats, the whole town had two police cars and one HD trike. I used to go down to the police station and they would show me the Thompson SMG they had. I walked to school and home twice a day, a mile each way, walked to town (about the same distance) to go to the movies or hobby shop, and no one worried about being abducted or any of that crap.

The politicians weren't all blatant liars and criminals.

If I could go back to those days I'd do it in a minute.

Cheers,

Phil

robertbank

03-08-2007, 08:04 PM

OK so half my youth came back to me reading a couple of threads. Rocket crystal radios, yes and those Heath Ham Radio sets - man if I could have afforded one of those ...
Well it was nice and kind of innocent way to grow up. We didn't know our wartime PM consluted a weegee board and talked to his dead mother or that Eisenhower had a mistress overseas. We all watched Father Knows Best and called it reality T.V.:roll: Did Ricky Nelson do cocaine on the back of a plane???

Well what we have now isn't all bad. The internet has to be the most significant advancement in our lives since hockey was invented and while we worry about aircraft hijackings we forget that only 100 years ago there were no passenger aircraft to hijack.

Take Care

Bob

ps Come on guys is Elvis really dead?

wills

03-08-2007, 08:13 PM

True crystal radio doesnt use a battery, that's what made them so useful

robertbank

03-08-2007, 08:40 PM

Used to lie under the covers with my Rocket Radio and scare myself half to death listening to "I was a Communist for the FBI". Remember at the end he used to say "and I walk alone" then walk down that dark dank alley. Man I assumed it was dark and dank. Had more nightmares over that show than any other. Fun eh! Now I listen to it on old time radio and it sounds so corny.

Take Care

Bob

waksupi

03-08-2007, 09:48 PM

Anyone (Wills) got a link to making the true crystal radios? I've always wanted to make one. Of course, I'm so deaf anymore, I probably won't know if it is working, or not!

sundog

03-08-2007, 09:52 PM

Hey, Ric, that's why we got toys like amps....

454PB

03-08-2007, 10:20 PM

We truely are becoming our parents.:groner: :groner:

waksupi

03-08-2007, 10:30 PM

Hey, Ric, that's why we got toys like amps....

Heck, I just get tired of getting up to wind the gramophone! Crystal would be a luxury! Wonder if I can pull in Montana Radio Cafe?

Jim

03-09-2007, 03:53 AM

I'm in the construction industry and just got assigned to a MAGNIFICENT job! No cell phones allowed. I'm gonna leave a dowry for the supt.'s children.

qajaq59

03-09-2007, 04:20 AM

We truely are becoming our parents. NOPE, I've become my Grand Father. :-D

Phil

03-09-2007, 05:05 AM

Ok, try this: http://www.midnightscience.com/

Wills, now you have me thinking, which is always dangerous. Perhaps my crystal radio didn't have a battery, perhaps it was my morse practice key. I know the key had two terminals, maybe they were for a battery.

We got the parts from Heath and my best recollection is that we built them on Bakelite boards.

Dimmit! Now I have to build a crystal set, another project to drive me nuts.

Cheers all,

Phil

wills

03-09-2007, 07:39 AM

Anyone (Wills) got a link to making the true crystal radios? I've always wanted to make one. Of course, I'm so deaf anymore, I probably won't know if it is working, or not!

http://www.crystalradio.net
http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/radio/homemade_radio.html
http://www.schmarder.com/radios/crystal/
http://www.electronics-tutorials.com/receivers/crystal-radio-set.htm
http://www.electronics-tutorials.com/receivers/crystal-radio-set.htm
http://www.techlib.com/electronics/crystal.html
http://www.schmarder.com/radios
http://www.tompolk.com/crystalradios/cedarcreek.html

NVcurmudgeon

03-09-2007, 09:59 AM

Telephones, arrrrgh! When the phone revolution began 30 years ago, I knew it would come to no good. First "they" got rid of Ma Bell, the only benevolent monopoly in the business world, and it was mostly downhill from then on. About 1980, as a business owner I got numerous visits, phone calls, and fliers from everybody and his dog wanting to sell me an antediluvian car phone. I would gently tell these meddlers that I had several phones at work, and two at home, and I was not about to let them take away my only refuge from electronic intrusion. Then all the residential and business phones became tiny little Oriental pieces of dreck that were useless if your house current failed. Heh, heh, I saw this one coming and made sure that I always have a genuine, Western Electric, electro-mechanical, honest to Ozzie and Harriet, dial phone on my shop wall. When call waiting was invented, I handled this by immediately hanging up when reaching any number that has call waiting. Caller ID is quite useful if it is limited to displaying the name and number of the caller so that most of them can be duly ignored. The part of calller ID where you have to hang up, redial and enter a code is entirely unacceptable, and immediately switches me into "forget it" mode. I am tempted to begn leaving obscene voice mail messages in Spanish for the edification of all businesses and agencies that require me to press "1" for English. I don't play electronic games or own an Ipod or Blackberry, whatever in Tophet they may be, and I am waiting five billion people out, so that I will be the happy only man in the world without a cell phone. It has been my observation that the most common conversation between cell phone users is mutual exchange of "can you hear me now?"

The above must be taken cum grano salis. I am a ladle caster, my favorite hunting scope is a Redfield Bear Cub 2 3/4X, purchased used in 1965, and I still mourn the passing of the automotive breaker point ignition system that allowed any Joe Sixpack to keep his car running.

Bret4207

03-09-2007, 11:46 AM

Uncle R.

03-09-2007, 12:24 PM

I really want to LEARN electricity. I just have a hard time with it for some reason. I bought a multimeter book at Radio Shack. Figured I could run all those tests I wanted to rather than drive to the local elecrical fix it place, even though they're really good guys. Nope. Brain fart. I just must be missing something someplace.

:-D ROFLMAO!

Sorry - no offense meant but you reminded me of a friend from years ago. We worked in a small metal fab shop where I had to wear many hats. One was my "Chief Maintenace Tech" hat - and armed with my trusty multimeter I could usually track down minor electrical problems and repair them. I think he was impressed by that...
Anyway, he confessed one day that he had decided to repair a broken kitchen toaster, and having watched me at work many times he bought a multimeter at the local Radio Shack. "I asked the salesman if I could use it to repair a toaster and he said yes. When I got it home and looked in the instruction book there wasn't ONE WORD about how to fix a ##%!! TOASTER!"

I couldn't help myself then either - I think I roared with laughter. I may have hurt his feelings but I'm sure he forgave me eventually. :roll:

A multimeter is just a measuring tool. It's the same thing to a repair technician that a micrometer is to a machinist, or a vacuum gauge is to an auto mechanic. You have to have a pretty good understanding of electricity or the meter won't help you a bit. You might want to try a different book - something on basic electrical circuits or electronic repair. Don't give up - once it "clicks" it's not that hard to understand.
:)
Uncle R.

qajaq59

03-09-2007, 05:48 PM

crystal set = chunk of quartz, a whisker, and a set of earphones. Unless my memory is fading as well. ha ha

Buckshot

03-10-2007, 05:45 AM

...........I don't have a cel-phone. I don't answer the phone at home, as we have an answering machine for that. I'm not going to drop what I'm doing to run and answer the phone. Had a neighbor tell me once that it was rude to not answer the phone.

Nor do I have a blueberry or a Ipod or bluetooth or whatever they are. I recall once when I went to the mall with the wife I was practicly tackled by a gal wanting me to hook up with their cel-phone company. She asked me who I used now and I said no one. That stumped her. She didn't know what to say. It was like I'd suddenly grown another eye in the middle of my forehead.

It was like the 22 years we live in San Timoteo Cyn south of Redlands. We didn't have a TV. We eventually had a TV hooked to a VCR and it was a 10" Sony. People would say did I see so & so on the toob last night. I'd say nope, no TV. That'd REALLY throw'em for a loop. NO TV! My God whatever do you do? Isn't that sad? No TV so you have nothing to do. My daughter was raised with no TV and it didn't faze her in the least.

The cars these days are nice when they work, and thankfully they usually do but when they don't it's off to the dealer. Nothing there but epoxy filled black plastic boxes with wires coming out. Friend bought a new Ford F150 so after the initial walk around we had to pop the hood. I said where are the plug wires? For that matter where are the plugs? Danged if he knew.

The Dodge Dakota I just got is a '87 and it has a rudimentary computer but it has a distributer (electronic, naturally) but it DOES have a carb under the air cleaner. Also I can actually SEE and get at all 6 spark plugs, and most everything else. I still mow my own lawn, I still change my own oil and other stuff I can on the car.

................Buckshot

sundog

03-10-2007, 06:44 AM

Buckshot, my kinda guy. I've got a cell, but only because they hung it on me at work. Part of the job being tethered to the network. That's a function of offering the best service as humanly possible. That is to say, our goal is stay up 24/7, and we do pretty good at it. When I retire, no cell. I don't answer at home either unless SWMBO is out and it might be her. btw, the phone in the house is for me to call out. Nothing rude at all about that. It's mine, and I'll do with it what I want. And the deal about opting out of nuisance calls (do not call list?) and having to renew every five years. Shoulda been NO CALLS FOREVER and opt in if want it. Stoopid Congress got it backwards!

TV? Several in the house. I'll watch the news while getting dinner. Maybe a nature or scince show on PBS at lunch time on the weekend, maybe This Old House of Antique Roadshow. No cable. No satellite. VCR and DVD and watch an ocassional movie (complete with popcorn, but of course!). Folks at work get all enthralled over some show and go, did ya see it? No. Then I get the third eye in the forehead thing you talked about. Well if you don't watch TV, what do you do?

Don't make me explain, you won't understand....

I kinda like the newer cars - fuel injection, electronic ignition, all wheel disc brakes. Don't haveta screw around with rebuilding carbs and wheel cylinders and such. And it won't quit for just running through a puddle or won't start because it rained real hard. Change the oil, use'm til they don't work any more, and go get another one. I buy low mileage used. It's about getting from A to B and I don't need an 80K all decked out Hummer for that. I get enough fun from my tractor. Redid the head and the hydraulics in the last couple of years.

wills

03-10-2007, 07:27 AM

Buckshot

03-12-2007, 02:19 AM

...............I was an Interior Communications Electrician in the Navy. They called us Low Voltage Electricians vs the Electricians Mates who delt with the ships main power etc. Our gear was all syncro motors, the gyrocompass, navigation and indicators, repeaters, 1MC (loudspeaker), growler phones, alarms, sound powered phones, 21MC and such. I did such a good job the Navy gave me my very own Simpson 260 multi meter.

Hey, as a matter of fact the wife called me in one night and asked me what my rate looked like in the Navy, Huh? Oh yeah, then I understood what she was talking about, the picture or symbol on your rank patch. I asked why and she said she thought she'd seen it on the Navy recruiting commercial she'd just seen. I hung around to the next commercial break and there it was again. A closeup of a 2nd class petty officers chevrons and there was the globe with a phone over it. Then the camera zoomed back and here's all these goomba's in white's manning the rail on a carrier. What great fun, sheesh!

Heck as an IC'man with a shop to hide in, I was too smart to get roped into such foolishness as sea and anchor detail or manning the rail :-) Besides if there was any seaway at all you'd get flooded on a destroyer. I've forgotton most all that stuff now. It died from dis-use. Used to be able to trace signals through amplifiers and other stuff. Now I can pretty much get the batteries in a flashlight pretty much right the first couple of attempts.

.....................Buckshot

MT Gianni

03-12-2007, 09:02 AM

Bret, I break electricty into 3 elements. 1. source 2. path 3. load.
Source - is it plugged into a hot outlet, are the batteries good etc. First question should be does it have power where it should, ie. at the plug in? Diagnose with the voltage side of the meter
Path - the wires and switches that take power to the load. Are the switches normally open or closed and do we know what they are suppossed to do? It is tough to replace switches because they are stuck open or closed then find out they are normally that way. Diagnose with voltage to it and through it or power off and unplugged ohms resistance to verify if there is a circuit. Generally speaking; power on one end of a wire and not the other is an open wire, power on one side of a normally closed switch should have power on the other side.
Load - the end user of current, motor, light bulb etc. Diagnose with ohm meter if you know how many ohms it is designed to pull or with voltage with jumpers after it is isolated from the rest of the system. Generally speaking power to a load and no work means a bad load.
This should get you a start. Gianni.

Bigjohn

03-12-2007, 09:17 PM

Where I am currently living, we are on the end of a SWER circuit for our electricity.
That's Single Wire, Earth Return; so with incandesant globes you watch the level of the volts go up and down. One day I measured a voltage output of 125volts at the wall socket when it was supposed to be 240vac.

We ocassionly get the travelling salespeople come around and try and sell us things like SAT TV, mobile phones etc.

Well, I fixed the SAT TV reps up well and truly, told them I didn't have a TV and yes I got some strange looks especially as there was a TV Antenna on the roof. When I saw them looking at that I turned and told them I could let them have it really cheap as I had no need for it. No takers!

I have since acquired a TV/VCR/DVD combo mainly for watching tapes and discs.

When the phone salespersons come a knockin', I would listen to their pitch and then ask them for a demonstration. They would whip out the phone and dail some number only to receive a message saying they were not in a service area.
My response would be that if it didn't work where they were standing then it was no good them trying to sell me or my neighbours one.

A close friend of mine was 'dragged' along by SWMBO, back in 1986 to a 'Whitegoods' store to buy their first Microwave Oven. Now, 'M' who I will not name in any greater detail, would prefer to cook over an open campfire.
The poor salesman who came out to help regretted it ever since.
"M's" first question was, "Do you have any 'Chernoybl Twirlers' (in reference to the Chernoybl Accident)?

Followed by, "Is it true that after a while of eating food cooked in one of these, you start glowing in the dark?"

Topped off by, "How long to cook a Dog?

SWMBO does not take him shopping for appliances now and every Easter she goes away to her indoor camp cum Pottery Lectures and 'M' stays home camping in the backyard. Please note; he is an interesting character and a great mate.

Well, the about covers my thoughts on 2007.

John.