On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 10:30:06 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

>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

Looks heavenly to me. And the film makes clear what a huge improvement
that turnpike was over the road it superceded. I think you've just
been brainwashed by the relentless green propaganda that's so
ubiquitous these days.
It's no secret that your infrastructure is crumbling in America today.
You need a massive road-building program just to maintain the status
quo. Drag all those drug dealers out of the jails and chain 'em up
with picks and shovels. You know it makes sense.

On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 22:41:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
wrote:

>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?

If I spent time anywhere 90 years ago, I'd be dead now.

You'd be in that time machine in 5 seconds flat!
>You're simply in denial if you claim otherwise.

I don't like downtowns in general. Where I live is great.

>
>>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.

On Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 6:01:35 PM UTC-4, Cursitor Doom wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 10:30:06 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >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
> Looks heavenly to me. And the film makes clear what a huge improvement
> that turnpike was over the road it superceded. I think you've just
> been brainwashed by the relentless green propaganda that's so
> ubiquitous these days.
> It's no secret that your infrastructure is crumbling in America today.
> You need a massive road-building program just to maintain the status
> quo. Drag all those drug dealers out of the jails and chain 'em up
> with picks and shovels. You know it makes sense.

U.S. has 50,000 miles of interstates*. Picks and shovels? You can't be serious. You won't believe the humongous machines they have available these days. The machinery in the old film are tonka toys (my apologies to Japan ) by comparison.

*Interstate refers to a network of freeways and highways that cross over state lines. Interstates are part of the national highway system that was formulated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956. Intrastate highways do not cross state lines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Turnpike

On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 10:45:48 -0700, John Larkin
<jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

>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.

For well over a century ago when automobiles became more common, in a
local newspaper the editor wrote that finally we get rid of drunk
coachmen ;-)

On Monday, August 21, 2023 at 8:01:35 AM UTC+10, Cursitor Doom wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 10:30:06 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >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:

<snip>

> >> Perhaps too much choice. What is wrong with slide rules?

Quite a lot. Handheld calculators are much better.

> >> I'm sure most of us here were weened on them.

There wasn't any choice.

>And libraries????

You've got to get to them, and find the book you need (if it is there) and dig into that book to find the data you want.

> >> 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!

Fred frequently knows what he is talking about. So do I. You don't. There are other points of difference.
> >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
> Looks heavenly to me. And the film makes clear what a huge improvement that turnpike was over the road it superceded. I think you've just
been brainwashed by the relentless green propaganda that's so ubiquitous these days.

Cursitor Doom is famously brainwashed by climate change denial propaganda which is much better funded than anything the Green's have to say, to the extent that he confuses scientific fact articulated by professional climate science academics with "Green propaganda".

> It's no secret that your infrastructure is crumbling in America today.
> You need a massive road-building program just to maintain the status quo.. Drag all those drug dealers out of the jails and chain 'em up with picks and shovels. You know it makes sense.

Actually, it doesn't. Roads are built and maintained with massive - if mobile - machinery controlled by skilled operators. Picks and shovels don't hack it. and drug dealers are not the right people to put in charge of heavy - and potentially dangerous - machinery.

There's an argument for locking up Cursitor Doom someplace where he can't broadcast his dangerously unrealistic delusions.

--
Bill Sloman. Sydney

On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 14:46:50 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

>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.

My last phone was free; I just had to pay the sales tax. It has four
camera chips at many color megapixels each.

On Mon, 21 Aug 2023 07:28:18 +0300, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:

>On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 10:45:48 -0700, John Larkin
><jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:
>
>>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.
>
>For well over a century ago when automobiles became more common, in a
>local newspaper the editor wrote that finally we get rid of drunk
>coachmen ;-)

But they already had self-driving vehicles.

On Monday, August 21, 2023 at 7:57:31 PM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Aug 2023 07:28:18 +0300, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
> >On Sun, 20 Aug 2023 10:45:48 -0700, John Larkin <jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> 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:

<snip>

> >>Smelly cars were an improvement over horses.
> >
> >For well over a century ago when automobiles became more common, in a local newspaper the editor wrote that finally we get rid of drunk coachmen ;-)
>
> But they already had self-driving vehicles.

A quiet horse can get a drunk home.

If the horse gets upset and bolts, the passengers it runs away with are more likely to end up in a hospital or a morgue, along with any pedestrian who couldn't get out of the way fast enough.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Monday, August 21, 2023 at 2:54:38 AM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:

> My last phone was free; I just had to pay the sales tax. It has four
> camera chips at many color megapixels each.

How sad that the electronics design wasn't remunerative for the producer of the
phone. I suspect, however, that there was a monthly-payment contract involved.
"Free" might not be the real story.

On 8/21/2023 5:54 AM, John Larkin wrote:

>> 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.
>
> My last phone was free; I just had to pay the sales tax. It has four
> camera chips at many color megapixels each.
>

It was a fun experiment, I know analog camera geeks tend to be sort of
like tubeophiles. You can see that the pics from that old Ricoh aren't a
super-accurate depiction of reality, but I'd argue the whole "signal
chain" adds a somewhat visually pleasing type of distortion.

There seems to be a term, "bokeh", referring to the appearance of the
out of focus areas in a shot and whether a particular camera generates a
pleasing "bokeh."

On 20/08/2023 17:31, 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.

Early on it was certainly a rich person's hobby but some of them did
photograph and even make moving pictures of daily life for real workers
and in many surprisingly exotic locations.

The material I am most familiar with was taken by Gertrude Bell at the
turn of the last century and on everything from glass plates to
celluloid film. The latter original materials now stored in separate
explosive bunkers after being scanned by Newcastle university.

https://gertrudebell.ncl.ac.uk/a

She managed at least two full world tours before specialising in the
Middle East - her photos are all that is left of some locations :(

Extensive moving pictures of ordinary life were taken whilst moving
pictures were still very new and still exist at the UK photography
library. The guy behind it figured out that ordinary people would pay
good money to see themselves on film and so he set up outside the
factory gates at various major works and showed the results at local
cinemas (entire show included other bits that were not local).

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/collection/factory-gates

It was very fashionable to do this around the 1900's - just before the
fashion for photographic postcards really started to take off in the
following decade. Many pictures exist of proud shop owner and family in
front of their premises and even of just the notable buildings.

Most of the houses in my village have such images made of them. I even
possess one for my own house - used as a postcard by a WWI patient in
our village hall which was a Red Cross hospital for the duration.

B&W photography became affordable for the amateur enthusiast just post
war using bulk film and DIY chemistry but colour photography and cameras
with achromatic lenses remained exclusive and expensive for much longer
- keeping full colour images out of reach of most people until the 70's.

It wasn't until around 1971 that true colour imaging of astronomical
nebulae became possible (the strong green/cyan OIII line sits right on
the safelight colour for conventional colour and panchromatic films).

https://www.scientificamerican.com/issue/sa/1974/10-01/

Prior to that "full" colour images of gaseous nebulae were pink and/or
powder blue no hint of the bright green emission! eg. Palomar 1959:

https://sites.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/about/telescopes/images/OrionNebula.jpg

A few smaller planetary nebulae are surface bright enough to see colour
with the human eye like the Eskimo nebula discovered by Herschel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_Nebula

That turquoise colour is pretty much entirely due to OIII.

--
Martin Brown

On August 20, 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!

Psychologists have documented a few common myths, apparently
innate, call them human nature. One is nostalgia - "Things were
better in days of yore"

The cause of such beliefs is speculative. Probably they're tied
to certain ingrained biases, e.g availability bias, recent experience
bias, etc. That is, a person lives in the fantasy world inside his
own skull, and filters out inconvenient facts. Also, dealing
objectively with data is hard, simplification is the path of least
resistance. Cherry picking, wishful thinking, you know?

So you get nostalgia -

--
Rich