Not currently, obviously!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk

Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
back then. Nobody!

On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 13:36:27 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
wrote:

>Not currently, obviously!
>
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
>
>Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
>back then. Nobody!

That's pretty. But I didn't see a single non-white person, and the
women then were mostly decorative drudges who were sworn to "obey."

Most people lived in sickness and poverty. Non-white people and women
couldn't attend a good engineering school. Worldwide life spans were
about half what they are now. And the 30's gave us WWII and organized
megadeaths.

I remember some of the 1950s. Life was tough for most people. I prefer
now.

We had to use slide rules and go to libraries hoping to find what we
needed. The food was awful.

People now have so many more choices.

On 8/20/2023 10:58 AM, John Larkin wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 13:36:27 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Not currently, obviously!
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
>>
>> Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
>> back then. Nobody!
>
> That's pretty. But I didn't see a single non-white person, and the
> women then were mostly decorative drudges who were sworn to "obey."
>
> Most people lived in sickness and poverty. Non-white people and women
> couldn't attend a good engineering school. Worldwide life spans were
> about half what they are now. And the 30's gave us WWII and organized
> megadeaths.
>
> I remember some of the 1950s. Life was tough for most people. I prefer
> now.
>
> We had to use slide rules and go to libraries hoping to find what we
> needed. The food was awful.
>
> People now have so many more choices.
>

Photography and film equipment was significantly rarer and more
expensive, so the imagery of e.g. 30s you do see tends to be heavily
selection-biased, not the stream-of-everything that 5 billion camera
phones tends to provide.

People were thinner on average then but of course most everyone is
looking particularly good in pictures because that's the kind of scenes
that were getting shot, the pics you end up seeing were staged and real
candid photography was much rarer, at least until cameras got small
enough to fit in a coat pocket..

On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 11:18:56 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

>On 8/20/2023 10:58 AM, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 13:36:27 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Not currently, obviously!
>>>
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
>>>
>>> Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
>>> back then. Nobody!
>>
>> That's pretty. But I didn't see a single non-white person, and the
>> women then were mostly decorative drudges who were sworn to "obey."
>>
>> Most people lived in sickness and poverty. Non-white people and women
>> couldn't attend a good engineering school. Worldwide life spans were
>> about half what they are now. And the 30's gave us WWII and organized
>> megadeaths.
>>
>> I remember some of the 1950s. Life was tough for most people. I prefer
>> now.
>>
>> We had to use slide rules and go to libraries hoping to find what we
>> needed. The food was awful.
>>
>> People now have so many more choices.
>>
>
>Photography and film equipment was significantly rarer and more
>expensive, so the imagery of e.g. 30s you do see tends to be heavily
>selection-biased, not the stream-of-everything that 5 billion camera
>phones tends to provide.
>
>People were thinner on average then but of course most everyone is
>looking particularly good in pictures because that's the kind of scenes
>that were getting shot, the pics you end up seeing were staged and real
>candid photography was much rarer, at least until cameras got small
>enough to fit in a coat pocket..

Some not-so-pretty pics were taken:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8S5uJcTKq0

now no doubt colorized and tuned. The relief lines and giant barren
spaces were probably not staged.

Photography was a big deal, with expensive film and wet processing.

On 2023/08/20 5:36 a.m., Cursitor Doom wrote:
> Not currently, obviously!
>
> https://www.youtube.com/somecontrivedvideo
>
> Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
> back then. Nobody!

These are the good old days for most humans on the planet, other than
perhaps if you live in the USA or a war zone. Forest fires come and go,
this too shall pass.

The doom and gloom merchants would have us believing otherwise - they
need to sell their story to keep the gravy train going!

If it isn't falsifiable it isn't science and calling it xyz Science
doesn't make it a science.

John :-#)#

On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 07:58:02 -0700, John Larkin
<jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

>On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 13:36:27 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Not currently, obviously!
>>
>>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
>>
>>Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
>>back then. Nobody!
>
>That's pretty. But I didn't see a single non-white person, and the
>women then were mostly decorative drudges who were sworn to "obey."
>
>Most people lived in sickness and poverty. Non-white people and women
>couldn't attend a good engineering school. Worldwide life spans were
>about half what they are now. And the 30's gave us WWII and organized
>megadeaths.
>
>I remember some of the 1950s. Life was tough for most people. I prefer
>now.
>
>We had to use slide rules and go to libraries hoping to find what we
>needed. The food was awful.
>
>People now have so many more choices.

Perhaps too much choice. What is wrong with slide rules? I'm sure most
of us here were weened on them. And libraries???? What is your
problem? I know there are a lot of people here who hate America but
I'd never have thought for a second you were one of them. Repent!
Repent! You're sounding a bit like Bill Sloman!

On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 7:58:20 AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 13:36:27 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com>
> wrote:
> >Not currently, obviously!
> >
> >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
> >
> >Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
> >back then. Nobody!
> That's pretty. But I didn't see a single non-white person, and the
> women then were mostly decorative drudges who were sworn to "obey."
>
> Most people lived in sickness and poverty. Non-white people and women
> couldn't attend a good engineering school.

I am non-white and non-women, but life was good in 80s in a good cheap engineering school. I did not attend my appointment for Regent's Scholarship because I didn't need it. I had enough grants without any loan. Someone told me it would look good on my resume.

> I remember some of the 1950s. Life was tough for most people. I prefer now.

Except things are so much more expensive.

On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 8:36:37 AM UTC-4, Cursitor Doom wrote:
> Not currently, obviously!
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
>
> Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
> back then. Nobody!

Don't believe a bit of that egregious propaganda. The place was a shit-hole and a half. If you watch some of the older film footage of the cities, it's very clear looking down the road even just two blocks the place was a filthy smog haze. The idiots were well on their way to poisoning every square inch of the continent and its waterways with dioxins and pcbs mainly, but tons of other contaminants like lead and DDT. They didn't even begin the interstate system until end of 195os when even more atrocious mismanagement and waste occurred, and you don't want to know what the alternative routes were like.

On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 10:58:20 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 13:36:27 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com>
> wrote:
> >Not currently, obviously!
> >
> >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
> >
> >Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
> >back then. Nobody!
> That's pretty. But I didn't see a single non-white person, and the
> women then were mostly decorative drudges who were sworn to "obey."
>
> Most people lived in sickness and poverty. Non-white people and women
> couldn't attend a good engineering school. Worldwide life spans were
> about half what they are now. And the 30's gave us WWII and organized
> megadeaths.
>
> I remember some of the 1950s. Life was tough for most people. I prefer
> now.
>
> We had to use slide rules and go to libraries hoping to find what we
> needed. The food was awful.
>
> People now have so many more choices.

That commentary is so trite...

On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 12:40:09 PM UTC-4, John Robertson wrote:
> On 2023/08/20 5:36 a.m., Cursitor Doom wrote:
> > Not currently, obviously!
> >
> > https://www.youtube.com/somecontrivedvideo
> >
> > Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
> > back then. Nobody!
> These are the good old days for most humans on the planet, other than
> perhaps if you live in the USA or a war zone. Forest fires come and go,
> this too shall pass.

The only way it's going to pass is when the human race is gone and no one is around to witness it anymore.

>
> The doom and gloom merchants would have us believing otherwise - they
> need to sell their story to keep the gravy train going!
>
> If it isn't falsifiable it isn't science and calling it xyz Science
> doesn't make it a science.
>
> John :-#)#

On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 12:43:53 PM UTC-4, Cursitor Doom wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 07:58:02 -0700, John Larkin
> <jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 13:36:27 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com>
> >wrote:
> >
> >>Not currently, obviously!
> >>
> >>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
> >>
> >>Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
> >>back then. Nobody!
> >
> >That's pretty. But I didn't see a single non-white person, and the
> >women then were mostly decorative drudges who were sworn to "obey."
> >
> >Most people lived in sickness and poverty. Non-white people and women
> >couldn't attend a good engineering school. Worldwide life spans were
> >about half what they are now. And the 30's gave us WWII and organized
> >megadeaths.
> >
> >I remember some of the 1950s. Life was tough for most people. I prefer
> >now.
> >
> >We had to use slide rules and go to libraries hoping to find what we
> >needed. The food was awful.
> >
> >People now have so many more choices.
> Perhaps too much choice. What is wrong with slide rules? I'm sure most
> of us here were weened on them. And libraries???? What is your
> problem? I know there are a lot of people here who hate America but
> I'd never have thought for a second you were one of them. Repent!
> Repent! You're sounding a bit like Bill Sloman!

If you have the attention span, watch this Stone Age film about an ecological disaster. The commentary is beyond belief:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxVNa6PMHX0

On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 09:48:07 -0700 (PDT), Eddy Lee
<eddy711lee@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 7:58:20?AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 13:36:27 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >Not currently, obviously!
>> >
>> >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
>> >
>> >Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
>> >back then. Nobody!
>> That's pretty. But I didn't see a single non-white person, and the
>> women then were mostly decorative drudges who were sworn to "obey."
>>
>> Most people lived in sickness and poverty. Non-white people and women
>> couldn't attend a good engineering school.
>
>I am non-white and non-women, but life was good in 80s in a good cheap engineering school. I did not attend my appointment for Regent's Scholarship because I didn't need it. I had enough grants without any loan. Someone told me it would look good on my resume.
>
>> I remember some of the 1950s. Life was tough for most people. I prefer now.
>
>Except things are so much more expensive.

But most of us make so much more money now. Food is much cheaper
relative to income, and much better. My first scientific calculator,
an HP9100, cost more than a Volkswagen. My HP35 handheld cost $400,
over a month's salary. A 30 MHz oscilloscope cost about 4 months
salary.

What's expensive now is housing in some big cities.

On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 10:05:48 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 10:58:20?AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 13:36:27 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >Not currently, obviously!
>> >
>> >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
>> >
>> >Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
>> >back then. Nobody!
>> That's pretty. But I didn't see a single non-white person, and the
>> women then were mostly decorative drudges who were sworn to "obey."
>>
>> Most people lived in sickness and poverty. Non-white people and women
>> couldn't attend a good engineering school. Worldwide life spans were
>> about half what they are now. And the 30's gave us WWII and organized
>> megadeaths.
>>
>> I remember some of the 1950s. Life was tough for most people. I prefer
>> now.
>>
>> We had to use slide rules and go to libraries hoping to find what we
>> needed. The food was awful.
>>
>> People now have so many more choices.
>
>That commentary is so trite...

I think it's profound. A lot of angst and social damage is being done
because people have too many choices.

On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 10:01:46 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 8:36:37?AM UTC-4, Cursitor Doom wrote:
>> Not currently, obviously!
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
>>
>> Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
>> back then. Nobody!
>
>Don't believe a bit of that egregious propaganda. The place was a shit-hole and a half. If you watch some of the older film footage of the cities, it's very clear looking down the road even just two blocks the place was a filthy smog haze.

Smelly cars were an improvement over horses.

On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 17:43:43 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
wrote:

>On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 07:58:02 -0700, John Larkin
><jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 13:36:27 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>Not currently, obviously!
>>>
>>>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
>>>
>>>Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
>>>back then. Nobody!
>>
>>That's pretty. But I didn't see a single non-white person, and the
>>women then were mostly decorative drudges who were sworn to "obey."
>>
>>Most people lived in sickness and poverty. Non-white people and women
>>couldn't attend a good engineering school. Worldwide life spans were
>>about half what they are now. And the 30's gave us WWII and organized
>>megadeaths.
>>
>>I remember some of the 1950s. Life was tough for most people. I prefer
>>now.
>>
>>We had to use slide rules and go to libraries hoping to find what we
>>needed. The food was awful.
>>
>>People now have so many more choices.
>
>Perhaps too much choice. What is wrong with slide rules?

They have 2-digit accuracy, can't add or subtract, and don't manage
the decimal point. Do you still use a slide rule?

>I'm sure most
>of us here were weened on them. And libraries???? What is your
>problem?

I used to take BART to the UC Berkeley engineering library, hoping to
find what I needed. About 2 hours travel, round trip. Not being a
student, I had to purchase an annual library card just to see books; I
couldn't check them out, and they would have had to be returned in two
weeks anyhow.

I used to mail in bingo cards to get data sheets in the mail, in a few
weeks. Search engines are great.

>I know there are a lot of people here who hate America but
>I'd never have thought for a second you were one of them. Repent!
>Repent!

Things are great. I like our little public library down the hill, but
not for technical stuff. It is, incidentally, where the Silk Road guy
ran his criminal enterprise using their wi-fi and where he was busted
by the FBI.

>You're sounding a bit like Bill Sloman!

No, No! Sloman would just tell you how stupid you are.

On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 1:46:07 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 10:01:46 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 8:36:37?AM UTC-4, Cursitor Doom wrote:
> >> Not currently, obviously!
> >>
> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
> >>
> >> Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
> >> back then. Nobody!
> >
> >Don't believe a bit of that egregious propaganda. The place was a shit-hole and a half. If you watch some of the older film footage of the cities, it's very clear looking down the road even just two blocks the place was a filthy smog haze.
> Smelly cars were an improvement over horses.

Dunno how accurate it is, but it's said before Henry Ford's time the majority of Americans never strayed more than 50 miles from their place of birth.

> I used to take BART to the UC Berkeley engineering library, hoping to
> find what I needed. About 2 hours travel, round trip. Not being a
> student, I had to purchase an annual library card just to see books; I
> couldn't check them out, and they would have had to be returned in two
> weeks anyhow.

Try Stanford, rich kids don't care. I just asked a student there to check out a book for me. She didn't even think and did it. I could have kept the book, but I returned it anyway.

On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 11:11:23 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 1:46:07?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 10:01:46 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
>> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 8:36:37?AM UTC-4, Cursitor Doom wrote:
>> >> Not currently, obviously!
>> >>
>> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
>> >>
>> >> Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
>> >> back then. Nobody!
>> >
>> >Don't believe a bit of that egregious propaganda. The place was a shit-hole and a half. If you watch some of the older film footage of the cities, it's very clear looking down the road even just two blocks the place was a filthy smog haze.
>> Smelly cars were an improvement over horses.
>
>Dunno how accurate it is, but it's said before Henry Ford's time the majority of Americans never strayed more than 50 miles from their place of birth.

I read somewhere that the average person married someone born within
15 miles.

Universities and big-city jobs (and allowing women and PWMs [1] into
both) bring smart people together, which surely changes our genetics.

[1] Persons With Melanin

On 8/20/2023 12:31 PM, John Larkin wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 11:18:56 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
>
>> On 8/20/2023 10:58 AM, John Larkin wrote:
>>> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 13:36:27 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Not currently, obviously!
>>>>
>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
>>>>
>>>> Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
>>>> back then. Nobody!
>>>
>>> That's pretty. But I didn't see a single non-white person, and the
>>> women then were mostly decorative drudges who were sworn to "obey."
>>>
>>> Most people lived in sickness and poverty. Non-white people and women
>>> couldn't attend a good engineering school. Worldwide life spans were
>>> about half what they are now. And the 30's gave us WWII and organized
>>> megadeaths.
>>>
>>> I remember some of the 1950s. Life was tough for most people. I prefer
>>> now.
>>>
>>> We had to use slide rules and go to libraries hoping to find what we
>>> needed. The food was awful.
>>>
>>> People now have so many more choices.
>>>
>>
>> Photography and film equipment was significantly rarer and more
>> expensive, so the imagery of e.g. 30s you do see tends to be heavily
>> selection-biased, not the stream-of-everything that 5 billion camera
>> phones tends to provide.
>>
>> People were thinner on average then but of course most everyone is
>> looking particularly good in pictures because that's the kind of scenes
>> that were getting shot, the pics you end up seeing were staged and real
>> candid photography was much rarer, at least until cameras got small
>> enough to fit in a coat pocket..
>
> Some not-so-pretty pics were taken:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8S5uJcTKq0
>
> now no doubt colorized and tuned. The relief lines and giant barren
> spaces were probably not staged.
>
> Photography was a big deal, with expensive film and wet processing.
>

It is again! I took these at the Intrepid in NYC with may late Dad's
35mm handheld, a Ricoh purchased about 1982. Still works fine but it's
$22 for a two pack of 36-shot ISO 400 B&W, and $35 not including
outbound shipping to process them.

<https://imgur.com/a/u67K2sG>

For better or worse he days of drug store analog photo labs are at least
about a decade gone at this point, even places that will send them out
for you seem pretty rare, I wasn't able to easily find anyplace local
that does B&W 35mm in-house.

On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 11:22:20 -0700 (PDT), Eddy Lee
<eddy711lee@gmail.com> wrote:

>> I used to take BART to the UC Berkeley engineering library, hoping to
>> find what I needed. About 2 hours travel, round trip. Not being a
>> student, I had to purchase an annual library card just to see books; I
>> couldn't check them out, and they would have had to be returned in two
>> weeks anyhow.
>
>Try Stanford, rich kids don't care. I just asked a student there to check out a book for me. She didn't even think and did it. I could have kept the book, but I returned it anyway.

It is nice to visit a university campus now and then. I was walking
the UC Berkeley campus and saw a line, so I joined in. It was the
Oxford Shakespeare Company doing Midsummer Nights Dream. That's when I
decided to move to San Francisco.

On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 1:48:30 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 11:22:20 -0700 (PDT), Eddy Lee
> <eddy7...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> I used to take BART to the UC Berkeley engineering library, hoping to
> >> find what I needed. About 2 hours travel, round trip. Not being a
> >> student, I had to purchase an annual library card just to see books; I
> >> couldn't check them out, and they would have had to be returned in two
> >> weeks anyhow.
> >
> >Try Stanford, rich kids don't care. I just asked a student there to check out a book for me. She didn't even think and did it. I could have kept the book, but I returned it anyway.
> It is nice to visit a university campus now and then. I was walking
> the UC Berkeley campus and saw a line, so I joined in. It was the
> Oxford Shakespeare Company doing Midsummer Nights Dream. That's when I
> decided to move to San Francisco.

Well, I know someone who declined to go to Berkeley because of the stories of the 60s. She went to UCLA instead.

On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 14:08:29 -0700 (PDT), Eddy Lee
<eddy711lee@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 1:48:30?PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 11:22:20 -0700 (PDT), Eddy Lee
>> <eddy7...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >> I used to take BART to the UC Berkeley engineering library, hoping to
>> >> find what I needed. About 2 hours travel, round trip. Not being a
>> >> student, I had to purchase an annual library card just to see books; I
>> >> couldn't check them out, and they would have had to be returned in two
>> >> weeks anyhow.
>> >
>> >Try Stanford, rich kids don't care. I just asked a student there to check out a book for me. She didn't even think and did it. I could have kept the book, but I returned it anyway.
>> It is nice to visit a university campus now and then. I was walking
>> the UC Berkeley campus and saw a line, so I joined in. It was the
>> Oxford Shakespeare Company doing Midsummer Nights Dream. That's when I
>> decided to move to San Francisco.
>
>Well, I know someone who declined to go to Berkeley because of the stories of the 60s. She went to UCLA instead.

Bad choice. UCLA is much less interesting. Berkeley is beautiful.

On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 2:14:02 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 14:08:29 -0700 (PDT), Eddy Lee
> <eddy7...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 1:48:30?PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
> >> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 11:22:20 -0700 (PDT), Eddy Lee
> >> <eddy7...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >> I used to take BART to the UC Berkeley engineering library, hoping to
> >> >> find what I needed. About 2 hours travel, round trip. Not being a
> >> >> student, I had to purchase an annual library card just to see books; I
> >> >> couldn't check them out, and they would have had to be returned in two
> >> >> weeks anyhow.
> >> >
> >> >Try Stanford, rich kids don't care. I just asked a student there to check out a book for me. She didn't even think and did it. I could have kept the book, but I returned it anyway.
> >> It is nice to visit a university campus now and then. I was walking
> >> the UC Berkeley campus and saw a line, so I joined in. It was the
> >> Oxford Shakespeare Company doing Midsummer Nights Dream. That's when I
> >> decided to move to San Francisco.
> >
> >Well, I know someone who declined to go to Berkeley because of the stories of the 60s. She went to UCLA instead.
> Bad choice. UCLA is much less interesting. Berkeley is beautiful.

She said UCLA is newer and nicer, Berkeley is antique. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 10:01:46 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 8:36:37?AM UTC-4, Cursitor Doom wrote:
>> Not currently, obviously!
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEiWB0g9sVk
>>
>> Nobody can tell me the quality of life we have today is better than
>> back then. Nobody!
>
>Don't believe a bit of that egregious propaganda. The place was a shit-hole and a half. If you watch some of the older film footage of the cities, it's very clear looking down the road even just two blocks the place was a filthy smog haze. The idiots were well on their way to poisoning every square inch of the continent and its waterways with dioxins and pcbs mainly, but tons of other contaminants like lead and DDT. They didn't even begin the interstate system until end of 195os when even more atrocious mismanagement and waste occurred, and you don't want to know what the alternative routes were like.

None of that impaired anyone's quality of life, though. People back
then were so accustomed to the smog and pollution they didn't even
notice it. And I'm speaking from personal experience. Okay, a little
bit later than the 1930s, but not much later - and certainly every bit
as polluted.

On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 11:03:42 -0700, John Larkin
<jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

>Things are great.
[snip]

Nonsense. Would you rather spend a week in downtown SF now or 90
years ago? You'd be in that time machine in 5 seconds flat!
You're simply in denial if you claim otherwise.

>No, No! Sloman would just tell you how stupid you are.

And he'd be right. Anyone who wastes time interacting with that troll
is self-evidently some kind of idiot.