Does anyone else remember …?

Obvious things are things like the telephone book, a huge brick that came annually. But then some phones, the fancy ones, that came with programmable speed-dialing for frequently-called or emergency numbers.

I was trying to find the video on this but couldn’t:

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A speed-dialing system from the sixties that ran on punched cards. This isn’t something I remember, as I didn’t work in an office back then owing to not being born for another twenty years. I just thought it was neat. :)
 
We d8dnt learn that in school either. Had tge small ones or pit pencil in crank the handle.

We had pocket knives and craft knives inthe 80s age 8-11 I suppose. Cub scouts, model kits, things like that.
 
Still are, though, really. People have just lost their way.
 
the 21st night of September?

I remember when Forums like these were the place to be, well before the short-attention-span websites like Digg, Reddit, and Twitter took over. Way deeper convos here than in 160 characters.

Reddit allows lengthy posts. Problem with them is the subreddit structure lends itself to echo chambers, which become increasingly unhinged.
 
Black and white television. I first saw one in 1964, a massive black box with a five-inch screen. At the time I lived in (West) Germany. A year later we were back in the US bought a big screen 14-16 million inches maybe) that fit on a metal cart that could rolled from room to room. Antenna positions were critical. Three channels, eighteen hours a day. We thought it was a huge upgrade.
 
Black and white television. I first saw one in 1964, a massive black box with a five-inch screen. At the time I lived in (West) Germany. A year later we were back in the US bought a big screen 14-16 million inches maybe) that fit on a metal cart that could rolled from room to room. Antenna positions were critical. Three channels, eighteen hours a day. We thought it was a huge upgrade.
I certainly remember them, and there are still 4,000 black and white TV licences in the UK.
 
Black and white television. I first saw one in 1964, a massive black box with a five-inch screen. At the time I lived in (West) Germany. A year later we were back in the US bought a big screen 14-16 million inches maybe) that fit on a metal cart that could rolled from room to room. Antenna positions were critical. Three channels, eighteen hours a day. We thought it was a huge upgrade.

I remember PBS signing on in the morning. 1980s.
 
I was 7 when we finally got a color TV. It was quite a change between watching my favorite program at that time (Adventures in Rainbow Country) in black and white and color. That show was shot on location in Ontario, and while my preferred outdoor setting is mountains, Ontario's lakes and forests weren't bad. The color version of that show just floored me, though.

On the flip side... I also used to watch the Richard Greene version of Robin Hood (filmed in the late 1950s) in black and white. But since it was originally in black and white anyway, nothing changed when we got a color TV.

Fast-forward a few decades... somebody got the bright, stupid idea to colorize some of the episodes and stitch them together as some sort of TV-movie. I nearly fell off my chair laughing. Grown men should NOT wear that shade of green. Especially not with hose. The show looks fine in black and white. It looks ridiculous in color.
 
Too young for b&w TV but I did have a black and white Macintosh Plus for about five years. I was pretty psyched to get a giant 100MB external hard drive for it. Who could possibly need more than a 100MB it seemed massive like the universe
 
Reddit allows lengthy posts. Problem with them is the subreddit structure lends itself to echo chambers, which become increasingly unhinged.
That's not really any different than what forums used to become back in the day. Every time you get people together in a single place you will inevitably end up with a period of social struggle until a hegemonic orthodoxy of opinion is established at which point everyone either adheres to that cannon or is driven out.
 
That's not really any different than what forums used to become back in the day. Every time you get people together in a single place you will inevitably end up with a period of social struggle until a hegemonic orthodoxy of opinion is established at which point everyone either adheres to that cannon or is driven out.
Like button makes it worse too.

I like to think I'm less NPC and tribal but of course that's what everyone likes to think.

Age can help because you can't help but notice how up in arms you were about your 26 year old thing which you now see more nuancedly.

Or it can not help as many elderly are more closed minded than ever.

I think going to a couple of cult boarding schools gave me a bit more resistance to hivemindedness. When you're physically in it where your bodily automoy and safety are on the line due to ideology of the nutjobs who run the place you tend to resist or adapt in some ways but resist mentally, nowadays and for most kids propaganda is more subtle, pouring over one gently like bathwater with memes of funny frogs n stuff.

I've been here since 02 or 03 and while I appreciated the higher engagement back in the day I think most of the nostalgia comes from youth and freshness and the feeling of 'wow this is cool I can talk to 30 people at once'.

It was a bunch of fanatical nerds, it still is and will continue to be so as long as Sid keeps pumping out the Civs and the regulars keep swinging by to see what the latest gossip is.
 
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Like button makes it worse too.

I like to think I'm less NPC and tribal but of course that's what everyone likes to think.

Age can help because you can't help but notice how up in arms you were about your 26 year old thing which you now see more nuancedly.

Or it can not help as many elderly are more closed minded than ever.

I think going to a couple of cult boarding schools gave me a bit more resistance to hivemindedness. When you're physically in it where your bodily automoy and safety are on the line due to ideology of the nutjobs who run the place you tend to resist or adapt in some ways but resist mentally, nowadays and for most kids propaganda is more subtle, pouring over one gently like bathwater with memes of funny frogs n stuff.

I've been here since 02 or 03 and while I appreciated the higher engagement back in the day I think most of the nostalgia comes from youth and freshness and the feeling of 'wow this is cool I can talk to 30 people at once'.

It was a bunch of fanatical nerds, it still is and will continue to be so as long as Sid keeps pumping out the Civs and the regulars keep swinging by to see what the latest gossip is.
I've been trying FB groups the past few years. Mostly because at first that was the only place to really discuss Alberta politics with other Albertans.

There are some really nutty people there, though, so a huge part of why I keep coming back to CFC is because as strange as some of the discussions are that we've had here over the past 20 years or so (my 20th anniversary here will be next year), most of them are still utterly sane and rational compared to the insanity I encounter on some of the political pages there.

@Narz, have you ever run into language snobs while living in the UK? I assume your accent is still American? There are some people in one of the English history groups who apparently bullied and mocked an American woman for having a southern U.S. accent (I assume they were going by stereotype, since words on a page are all we ever know of each other there). So the woman left the group, and what followed was a whole slew of UK people trying to justify their rudeness.
 
We didn't carry then around but gad them in our rooms.

Friends had things like radio control cars, I had okd electric motors, telephone stuff and things like that. Soldering iron.

So you would nake your own boat or whatever and drop a battery powered engine in it and wire it up with a switch. Age 12/13 or whatever.
 
That TV is too modern-looking. There's no dial.

As I recall, most people put a mix of houseplants and family photos on top. This gave me a lifelong antipathy to dusting.


Craft knives were mentioned upthread. I used to carry one back in the '80s/'90s, since I usually carried some needlepoint project or other with me. Turned out to be handy, since I brought it with me on one of the days when I was working at a polling station for the federal election of 1993.

Elections Canada had shorted us of supplies. We didn't have enough ID tags, nor did we have scissors (needed to cut the tape that sealed the ballot boxes).

Well, I had a roll of masking tape I'd tossed into my denim bag to get the cat hair off me (hadn't had time to do that before leaving home). And since I'd brought my needlepoint with me, I had my tiny little craft knife.

We ended up using my knife on the ballot boxes and my roll of masking tape for improvised name tags. Elections Canada can pay me back for this stuff any decade now...
 
@Narz, have you ever run into language snobs while living in the UK? I assume your accent is still American? There are some people in one of the English history groups who apparently bullied and mocked an American woman for having a southern U.S. accent (I assume they were going by stereotype, since words on a page are all we ever know of each other there). So the woman left the group, and what followed was a whole slew of UK people trying to justify their rudeness.
People are generally nice here altho not particularly friendly.

Worst I got was a couple lads who asked me to say "water" and "cheeseburger" and found it quite funny but it seemed good natured
I think being too comfortable or rather having a small comfort zone can make people slowly drift towards close mindedness

Also there's billion dollar media industries selling people fear, xenophobia and otherwise appealing to heightened emotion and people's sense of uncertainty and insecurity.

Plus religion of course. Religion can go either way (for some it can make them more open to experience and less close minded but generally it's the opposite in my experience)
 
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