Strange days

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by dcheather, Dec 15, 2011.

  1. pettyfog

    pettyfog Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2005
    That is really cool. Even as a geezer, I'd ride that.
    Sadly, that could never be done in the US.. just watch Law Firm commercials.
     
    #41
  2. pettyfog

    pettyfog Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2005
    Unexpectedly.....
    Unexpectedly is now a sort of a dog whistle for Command and Control Narrative Fail
    Kind'a like 'Oh, Snap!' for the elite and informed press.
    I, of course, am shocked.
     
    #42
  3. dcheather

    dcheather Administrator

    Joined:
    Jul 29, 2005
    #43
  4. HatterDon

    HatterDon Moderator

    Joined:
    Mar 18, 2006
    Location:
    Peoples Republic of South Texas
    Right up there with the proverbial "Man Bites Dog."
     
    #44
  5. pettyfog

    pettyfog Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2005
    Weird, Amazing, Improbable Stories

    For entertainment purposes.
    post links and comments on really weird stories.
    To start.. we all know when a pilot bails out of his fighter at 13,000 feet the next stop for the plane is the smelter, right?

    Not always. Here's an F-106 that not only landed itself but went back into service for years
    "Gary, you better get back in it!"
    If you ever are around Dayton,it's on display at the AF Museum
     
    #45
  6. HatterDon

    HatterDon Moderator

    Joined:
    Mar 18, 2006
    Location:
    Peoples Republic of South Texas
    Re: Weird, Amazing, Improbable Stories

    seriously cool story. I had never heard this one before.
     
    #46
  7. jimsig

    jimsig Active Member

    Joined:
    Jun 27, 2008
    Location:
    Boston
    Re: Weird, Amazing, Improbable Stories

    Damn
     
    #47
  8. nevzter

    nevzter Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 5, 2007
    Location:
    A City by a Bay
    Re: Weird, Amazing, Improbable Stories

    Good tale and thanks for sharing.

    Query, if you were the subsequent pilot of the F-106, would you be relieved by the knowledge that, when all else fails, the plane can take care of itself or would you be constantly frightened?
     
    #48
  9. pettyfog

    pettyfog Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2005
    Re: Weird, Amazing, Improbable Stories

    Wahat!!!1 No one else run across any news of the weird?

    Well, I'm gonna digress a little becuase I just watched part of History Channel's Modern Marvels which implied that Apple's Woz and Jobs were responsible for cheap personal computing.
    So... not for the first time on here.. I have to correct the record for those who werent actually there at the time.
    BULLSHIT!
    I dont take anything away from Woz, or even Jobs. The SECOND computer I ever bought was an Apple II and I still have it. But it was a curiosity and mostly a doorstop then as well as now. The THIRD computer I bought was a PC clone running MS-DOS and a spreadsheet. It was the first I owned that paid back anything on the purchase price. Because I built a spread sheet to do Payroll for my wife's business.

    Here's a short version of the real timeline 'begats':
    Apple II > Apple II + Visicalc > IBM PC > Microsoft IBM PC DOS>IBM PC > MS DOS (IBM failed to read fine print)>Dell and imitators (IBM PC Clone)

    My Cred?
    1st Computer I bought:
    Mostek, later Rockwell, Kim 1
    As a hardware geek at major company, I received an early Macintosh for evaluation. Loved it. Got a departmental gag plaque as Senior Mac Freak of the company. But my analysis paper stated that due to Apple target marketing and subsequent applications for the Mac, no near-term presence in our market which was Law Firm and related businesses. And I was right.
    In the seventies, I made a living servicing clones of IBM 3270 terminals. And Minicomputers (DEC PDP-8, PDP-11 clones) doing what IBM couldn't. Even turned down job at IBM in 60's preferring NCR.
    Anyone who wants to know the truth about ubiquitous computing can research it easily... but neither the Mac nor the Open Source freaks made personal computing cheap. It was the wily Bill Gates and the designer of Visicalc plus following spreadsheet designer geeks that made computing cheap for everyone. Even Readers Digest and AOL helped.

    Because, if not for Bill Gates, all you Open Source / LINUX/Xenix/Unix clone freaks would still be waiting for a platform to build on. Jobs would NEVER have let you. So DONT EVEN start on me, especially if you don't know Novell's role in why most of us still buy Microsoft.. I was certified Unix SVR4 and I'll blow yer ass away.

    so there!

    :)
     
    #49
  10. dtowndough

    dtowndough Active Member

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2011
    Re: Weird, Amazing, Improbable Stories

    Im pretty sure i understood next to nothing in Fog's post. But I think I understand it saying that Apple isn't necessarily the bizness all the hipsters want us to believe it is? If so. thanks.
     
    #50
  11. dcheather

    dcheather Administrator

    Joined:
    Jul 29, 2005
    Re: Weird, Amazing, Improbable Stories

    So, umm, did you run into a new age computer geek on another forum, 'fog? :ugeek:
     
    #51
  12. pettyfog

    pettyfog Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2005
    Re: Weird, Amazing, Improbable Stories

    Lol! I got a son that's all 'apple geek and shit' Never mind he's also anti-big biz, anti-DRM. Uses most convoluted logic you can think of considering he is in entertainment biz.

    Dont remember dropping him on his head... :)

    Got two other sons who are pro Windoze & Android {bad as that is, NOT APPLE!}
    Full disclosure, love my 3 yo iPod Touch. Hate iTunes.
     
    #52
  13. dcheather

    dcheather Administrator

    Joined:
    Jul 29, 2005
    Re: Weird, Amazing, Improbable Stories

    Hmm...I kinda hear him on the anti-DRM. If I buy a piece of computer equipment, say a Kindle, as well as something that could be played on that technology, an ebook, but can't just because it's not their format is kinda BS. I'm all for starving artists getting paid and all, but as a customer I shouldn't be limited by the company's desires to create a monopoly in the ebook business.

    And what's the disgust with Andriod? I use all sorts platforms, from Windows, Linux, and Apple. I have a Mac that I use for the bulk of my computer work, but I don't think I'll buy another Mac in terms of what you get for the price. I guess I like free open-source software alternatives to the big businesses offerings for essentially the same product. For example, I could use Gimp for free or pay quite a bit of money for Photoshop. Yeah, Photoshop offers more, but my pocket isn't burning with Gimp. Ditto with Libre Office vs MS Office.
     
    #53
  14. pettyfog

    pettyfog Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2005
    Re: Weird, Amazing, Improbable Stories

    Yep, I hear ya.
    _______________________________
    I have a Win7 HTPC MediaCenter. DRM bites ass sometimes BUT you gotta deal with it. Biggest headache: inability to integrate Amazon Prime streaming into Media Center.
    I never used file-share apps. or P2P once I realized how intrusive and dangerous it was.
    ____________________________
    I reject MS Office for cost purposes since I dont have someone to pay for it. Dunno about LibreOffice but I DID try the OpenOffice suite and ended up removing it. Open Source often means open bugs and deficiencies. Tried -And removed -three times on three different machines
    But I got an everlasting reminder ... A photo import and manager I cannot get rid of.
    - Get it? OpenOffice SUX!

    I DO need ability to deal with DOC and XLS /csv files and I am HIGHLY impressed with this free product you probably never heard of:
    http://www.freeoffice.com/en/
    I need a familiar look and feel {I AM seventy, ya know} plus ability to SEE latest Excel formats. The Word Processor works great too. Built in secure PDF creator.
    I totally concur with this review.
    PC Mag: SoftMaker v LibreOffice
    Yes, I want what the Reviewer wants.. flexibility, NOT POWER.
    And it works fine and still fast on XP PRo system without sucking all the Ram/CPU to do it.
    - Note: That's easy for a stick-loadable app. Someday there will be a 'New Improved Breakthrough' in tech. All good apps will avoid the freaking registry.

    Another Upside.. if you want the full feature apps. and support, it's still way cheap for US users. Once you register the Free version you will get occasional offers to upgrade for under twenty bucks, for I guess North American promotional purposes.

    via email... not in the App!!!!
     
    #54
  15. dcheather

    dcheather Administrator

    Joined:
    Jul 29, 2005
    Re: Weird, Amazing, Improbable Stories

    Thanks for the heads-up on Free office. I only downloaded LibreOffice for those pesky .doc email attachments we have to open from time to time. LibreOffice is far from the most ideal office productivity suite, but it's free. I always stick to this little idea when it comes to open source software, "it's only as good as the community behind it." If there is very little ongoing development or support from programmers behind the "product," then you might as well avoid it at all costs because it won't last long. That's probably true for proprietary software programs as well when I think about it.
     
    #55
  16. pettyfog

    pettyfog Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2005
    Re: Weird, Amazing, Improbable Stories

    Beauty of Softmaker is it's a commercial product as opposed to committee output.

    I should explain what is to Heather, me and a few others, obvious; but can cause headbanging for more casual users.

    It is important is to be able to open and do some editing on the dreaded 'X-Files' which began to be propagated in Office 2007

    DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX can be opened by some free suites but formatting may be lost to more or less extent.
    Here's what Softmaker has to say about it in 2011

    I figure if someone wants me to open a DOCx file edit and save it in DOCx, they can buy me Office. Otherwise I'll open DOCx, edit it and send it back in Office 2003 DOC file.
    To date that hasn't come up but I've found editing in Softmaker FreeOffice rtf then converting to Adobe PDF gives me exactly what I saw in the original edits. Of course I keep it simple as far as page and frame layouts.
     
    #56
  17. dcheather

    dcheather Administrator

    Joined:
    Jul 29, 2005
    time to re-start this thread:

    http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/05/3 ... ar-uk.html

     
    #57
  18. HatterDon

    HatterDon Moderator

    Joined:
    Mar 18, 2006
    Location:
    Peoples Republic of South Texas
    When asked how he felt about the crime, the farmer replied, "Baaaaad."
     
    #58
  19. pettyfog

    pettyfog Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2005
    I just posted on my FB how disappointed I was in Willie Robertson 'twerking' on the CMA's last night. Things are 'relative', not absolute, imagewise.. therefore Gene Simmons is NOW -again- my favorite reality Husband and father.
    Really? ;) Check this..She's not quite 70 yet but close... not about sex, but rather sexy... nothing miley cyrus or any of the pop divas does matches this now grandma, which dance and sometimes dress was common on dance floors of cover band bars of the sixties. and on tv show Shindig! {But girls had to wear bras on shindig}:
    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlTKhPkZSJo[/youtube]

    And yeah.. if you asked this girl to dance and she did dance more than once with you, and let you buy her a beer.. and left the bar with you, you were gonna get lucky. And they're ALL grandmas and near seventies now. Wonder if Don will say his 'mileage varied'.
    LOL!!!
    {I was single then.}
    What's different now? Not sure but I DO know kids didnt do it in front of parents and parents in front of kids. Lotsa stuff went on but wasn't discussed. Rites of Passage
     
    #59
  20. pettyfog

    pettyfog Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2005
    Google is just freakin scary.
    So, we're watching old repeats of Pawn Stars.. and this guy brings in an autograph quilt.. his story: "This was made by a lady in central ohio and she sent scraps to famous people.."
    So I quick type in:
    autograph quiltfrom central ohio

    That's a straight copy paste from my search box.
    Not only does google fix the typo..
    here's the result of the search:
    https://www.google.com/search?q=autograph quiltfrom central ohio

    And here's one money site!
    Lostquilt

    So in FIVE seconds I knew more about the end of the scene than people got from the episode.

    Trust me.. just a few months ago I would have got a bunch of garbage results. And when I did my first online boolean search in 1979, it would have taken many minutes to find it if it was actually in the database. Would have had to be in a court document of course.
     
    #60
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