Without revealing your actual age, what something you remember that if you told a younger person they wouldn't understand?
— Eric Alper (@ThatEricAlper) December 28, 2016
You would go to bed at night fearful that superpower tensions were so high that a nuclear war could sta– wait, never mind. Goddammit. https://t.co/xiIiMQA16X
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) December 28, 2016
From the Washington Post:
MOSCOW — The Kremlin on Friday issued a stark warning to the United States, saying it would respond in kind to the U.S. expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and other sanctions following the Russian hacking of U.S. political parties before the 2016 presidential elections.
“I cannot say now what the response will be, although, as we know, there is no alternative here to the principle of reciprocity,” said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov in a statement late Thursday reported by the Interfax news service…
Peskov told reporters on Thursday that the steps showed President Obama’s “unpredictable and aggressive foreign policy.” “Such steps of the U.S. administration that has three weeks left to work are aimed at two things: to further harm Russian-American ties, which are at a low point as it is, as well as, obviously, deal a blow on the foreign policy plans of the incoming administration of the president-elect.”…
But the sanctions did not dampen expectations in Moscow that better times were soon to come.
“None of this will change the results of the election of the American president, and in January, the rightful owner of the White House will be Donald Trump,” Dolgov said. “I expect that with his arrival, the dialogue between Russia and the United States will be conducted in a more healthy political atmosphere.”…
I’m really curious about this Carter Page dude, and his role in Trump’s campaign. When his name first surfaced back in September, none of the people I trust to explain Russian policy to me had a strong impression of the man. Julia Ioffe, in Politico, “The Mystery of Trump’s Man in Moscow“:
… Enter Carter Page, a 44-year-old Ph.D., and business school graduate who claims an expertise in Russia and energy, yet who, I quickly discovered, was known by neither Russia experts nor energy experts nor Russian energy experts. (“I can poll any number of people involved in energy in Russia about Carter Page and they’ll say, ‘Carter who? You mean Jimmy Carter?’” says one veteran Western investor in Russian energy.) Page also, as I would be surprised to discover, appears largely unknown to Trump’s own campaign.
What I did find, however, is that while Page might not be helping Trump, Trump has been a significant help to Page. Since being named by Trump as an adviser, Page, who has spent his career trying to put together energy deals in Russia and the former Soviet Union, has finally begun to be noticed in the region. He is being treated in Russia as a person with potentially important ties in America. “He’s an extremely well-informed, authoritative expert on Russia,” says Mikhail Leontiev, a pro-Kremlin talking head and spokesman for Rosneft, Russia’s state oil giant. “People really respect him in this industry. He’s a very serious guy, and he has a good reputation.” According to the Yahoo report, U.S. intelligence believes Page had an audience with top Russian officials—including Rosneft head Igor Sechin—during a summer trip to Moscow. From what I could find about him, it’s hard to imagine he could have secured those meetings without that mention by Trump…
Page has risen in the world since then. Earlier this month:
Carter Page, whom Trump named advisor in March, goes to Moscow, says not recognizing Crimea as Russian is a mistake. https://t.co/bBrQJcLtdk
— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) December 9, 2016
So I’m wondering: Is Page really a long-term, deep-cover operative who’s finally getting the chance to promote his Russian bosses to the mouthbreathing Trumplodytes and their media enablers?
Or — far more likely — is Page a two-bit hustler like Trump himself, grabbing a longshot chance to promote an “expertise” he doesn’t possess?
How badly is this guy liable to fail, as the serious men of the FSB move to (further) entrench their position in the Trump administration?
And how many innocent people will suffer as a result, both here and in Putin’s Russia?
Omnes Omnibus
When I read the stuff on him a couple of months ago, he gave off the definite stench of a grifter with an eye for the main chance.
Spanky
I’m tempted to think the last questions are rhetorical, but then again, it’s just possible that Page has already overplayed his hand and will have (be?) disappeared before Inauguration Day.
Omnes Omnibus
Am I the only person who finds this phrasing disturbing and significant?
Mnemosyne
Something I ate today is making me sick to my stomach.
These posts aren’t helping. ?
Spanky
Also too, I’m inclined to believe the expulsions are the public tip of the retaliatory iceberg, and Pooty hasn’t yet realized the extent of NFLTG Obama’s payback. And if they’ve already noted such evidence, they sure as shit won’t be talking to Russia Today about it.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Haircut 100.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nope. I’m hoping it’s a translation error, because it immediately stuck out for me as well.
And I’m wondering what the Russian equivalent of “schwartzer” is now.
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Why do you think I bothered excerpting it?
Spanky
@efgoldman: The way Pittsburgh looked and smelled when steel was still king. Especially Clairton Coke Works during an inversion!
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: It was a part of a bigger quote. I wasn’t sure how much that particular phrase weighed in.
Major Major Major Major
All of them, Katie.
Spanky
@Omnes Omnibus: Significant, but not quite disturbing. The Russians have never quite got the American sense of patriotism and fair play. I’m hardly one to be an optimist, but I think the idea of “the people’s house” is deep-rooted enough that any attempt to subvert it by the Trump regime will trigger immediate pushback.
Gin & Tonic
If anyone’s interested, here’s a review of his July trip from Novoye Vremya (The New Times.) Reportedly he repeatedly said “I am here as a private citizen” and, according to the writer of the linked piece, he delivered a boring and uninformative lecture on “Evolution of the World Economy.” He also reportedly met afterward (the writer snarkily presumes “privately”) with Deputy PM Arkady Dvorkovich, a Medvedev ally whose star is not currently in ascendance,
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne: The word “владелец” can be translated as owner or as proprietor, as in a hotel or inn.
Omnes Omnibus
@Spanky: To me, it is disturbing because the Russians don’t quite get democracy – even flawed democracy. Trump can promise a lot that he cannot deliver. And then what? “He sat at table and promised x. Where is x?” The Russians will ask.
Mike G
@efgoldman:
Attending the University of California with no tuition.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and a Kai Ja Goo Goo to you too
NPR did a piece tonight on inaugural speeches– the main thrust was that Trump is ‘drafting’ his own speech with help from Jason Miller, who wrote his convention speech, and the speech will be, thank god for small favors. They cited a lot of famous lines– Lincoln’s mystic chords of memory and the better angels of our nature, FDR’s fear itself, Kennedy’s ask not, and they included Reagan’s “gov’t is the problem” line. I think anyone to the left of Charles Krauthammer, maybe even that bloodthirsty racist in one of his more lucid moments, would say one of those things is not like the others. I knew that line, of course, I thought it was a campaign slogan, I didn’t know it was from his inauguration speech.
Aleta
In the late 90s my partner’s college roommate, a physicist working for an international oil co. in Russia, told us the R mafia was involved with state oil companies (and lots of other endeavors, like money laundering and minerals and loans to new (privatized) companies). He said that oil executives were even being killed. I don’t remember why. I worry our diplomatic (and private co.) workers in Europe will be more at risk if yahoos like this Page are running around expecting to make deals without opposition.
Another Scott
@efgoldman: MX
Pershing II
Three Mile Island
Nuclear Winter
Black and White TV
Smog Motor
The list is endless, the change has been so fast…
Cheers,
Scott.
encephalopath
@efgoldman:
555-1212
max
So I’m wondering: Is Page really a long-term, deep-cover operative who’s finally getting the chance to promote his Russian bosses to the mouthbreathing Trumplodytes and their media enablers?
If he were a deep-cover operative, he’d have just been uselessly burnt for no reason. Having your operative fly very publicly back and forth to the home country is not a particularly good way to keep his affiliations concealed. And that’s all without considering that most long-term deep cover operations ended with the USSR. Now FSB might have wound up cultivating him at some point…
Or — far more likely — is Page a two-bit hustler like Trump himself, grabbing a longshot chance to promote an “expertise” he doesn’t possess?
Given the level of expertise in foreign country of much of the American business community, he might well have some expertise. But he’s pretty clearly trying to be a player of some sort here.
How badly is this guy liable to fail, as the serious men of the FSB move to (further) entrench their position in the Trump administration?
What serious men of the FSB are in the Trump administration? They all look like run-of-the-mill right wing billionaires.
max
[‘I like how the FBI is getting a pass again.’]
Gin & Tonic
@Aleta: Generally, non-Russian businessmen in Russia are not at that much personal risk – in most cases, at least in the last decade or so, they may have their assets seized and be denied re-entry once they leave. Bill Browder is a prime example. Unfortunately, their Russian associates tend not to be as fortunate. Browder related stories about how his phone would ring when he was in London and the only sound he heard was the screaming of one of his (Russian) associates being tortured.
randy khan
@encephalopath:
Didn’t you mean 867-5309? ;-)
I wonder if [area code] 555-1212 still works to get numbers in another area code. (I probably should know – I’m in telecom – but haven’t followed what’s going on with long distance directory assistance in a long time.)
EBT
@efgoldman: 1010-321
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@efgoldman: “Why would I ever get a cell phone?”
Another Scott
@efgoldman: Pocket protectors.
Cheers,
Scott.
Aleta
@efgoldman: Having to get up and go out and walk a mile in the snow just to change the TV channel.
Another Scott
@Aleta: You had more than one channel?!?
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: What is a pocket protector? I went to a liberal arts college.
Spanky
@efgoldman:
The teacher handing out a mimeograph and everyone deeply inhaling it before passing it back.
sukabi
@Omnes Omnibus: no, you’re not the only one…
divF
@randy khan:
Beechwood 45789
Pennsylvania 65000
We could go on quite a while like this.
ETA: The running gag in Play It Again, Sam in which Tony Roberts’ character keeps calling his office leaving phone numbers where he could be reached.
Felonius Monk
Where the hell is Joe McCarthy when we need him? Remember when he said:
MomSense
@randy khan:
Did you ever hear about the “busy lines”?
fuckwit
The collapse of the USA started in the early 2000s. Obama and his heroic efforts staved it off for the past 8 years– he is the American Gorbachev.
But the collapse is back again, this time for reals.
When the CCCP collapsed, the only people who knew how to do business were the Mafia (since business had been illegal under communism, it had been the Mafia doing black market deals). So in the post-Soviet chaos, the Mafia took over. Completely. They’re still very much in charge.
And now they’re in charge of the US president as well. I don’t like this one bit. I don’t see it ending well.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus:
Me too–and no one believes me that tuition at W&L was $7,500 per year in the late eighties!
Spanky
Setting bits with the switches on the front panel of a “minicomputer”.
Booting with paper tape.
Thermal printer paper.
Submitting your card deck to the operator for a run. It has an infinite loop containing a Print statement.
fuckwit
@Spanky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu3iCvAQCHg
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@efgoldman: Floppy disks.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: My dad used them. They’re plastic shirt pocket liners to hold pens and pencils so that you didn’t get ink and graphite on your pockets. Handy, but like hanging a slide rule or a calculator on your belt, they made it easy to put oneself in a certain category of people … ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Spanky
@divF: I once worked in a building with a PA system. About twice a week someone would page Lamont Cranston. Never knew if the page was ever answered. Who knows?
Gravenstone
@Omnes Omnibus: Said “ownership” held as a totally owned subsidiary of Vladimir Putin Enterprises, LLC
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@efgoldman: That multihued cellophane sheet draped over b/w TV sets for “color.”
Aleta
@Omnes Omnibus:
>What is a pocket protector?
A larger friend who let you hold on to your milk money until after recess.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Early to mid ’80s, mine was much more expensive; my parents were and remain good people. The university was quite generous too. It gets what money I can afford every year.
Gravenstone
@Spanky: Related, seeing the sky change color (independent of weather) as one approached Gary, IN during the same era of “steel as king”.
Another Scott
@efgoldman: The Turbo Encabulator.
Two-hour baseball games.
Cheers,
Scott.
gene108
The card catalog at the local library.
Microfiche, also too.
Aleta
@efgoldman: wooden XC skiis worn with regular boots
Gravenstone
@efgoldman: Mimeographs.
Aleta
@Gravenstone: It had a distinctive smell as you drew near.
frosty
@Another Scott:
Slide rules
Adding machines
Chartpak tape
Mylar
Rapidograph pens
Electric erasers
Steve in the ATL
@efgoldman: holy shit you are old
Omnes Omnibus
@Aleta: My parents skied on X/C boots and special three point bindings.
ETA: I had three point boots, but fiberglass skis.
Aleta
Unheated ski lodges. Tow ropes, or the more modern T bars
Steve in the ATL
Yugoslavia
Pocket parts (young lawyers are missing out!)
Persimmon golf clubs (ok, before my time but I wanted to make efgoldman feel better)
Another Scott
@efgoldman: Single-sided floppies.
Double-density floppies.
Hercules, CGA.
MFM, ESDI, SCSI, HPFS
EMM, QEMM, CP/M
Resource Fork
Extended Attribute
There’s also the passage in Crichton’s book:
The list is endless, I tell you!! :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@efgoldman: Wow. I haven’t seen a floppy disk in a computer (at work anyway) since late 90s.
Original Lee
Party lines.
Quarantines (and conversely, mumps parties).
Almost everything being closed on Sundays, or only open for a few hours if open at all.
Injections of antibiotics.
Gas station attendants who did all the work of refueling your car and cleaning your windows.
Being able to buy actual stuff for a nickel or a dime.
Having to cover your nose and mouth with a bandanna and roll up the car windows when driving through Gary, Indiana.
trollhattan
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
Good one! Brings to mind “Winky Dink and You”
Original Lee
@Gravenstone: Oh, yes. Horrible smell and kind of surreal to drive around with orange-ish air.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Encyclopedia sets.
Encyclopedia Brown.
divF
@Spanky: The Shadow knows.
There was a pretty good bar band came across in the late 1970’s called the Lamont Cranston Band. They are still performing in their stomping grounds in Minnesota.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL:
I have a Swiss Army knife that mentions KeyCite. Federal clerkship has it’s tangible upside. They gave me a knife.
Aleta
@frosty:
My abacus.
The town sundial.
(>Rapidograph pens yes!)
7 flavors of Kool Aid.
The invention of the Nestles Crunch bar.
divF
@Original Lee:
And Elizabeth, New Jersey.
lahke
Paper dolls
Princess phones
Skate keys
6-minute fax machines
Circular slide rules
playing solitaire with physical cards…
Dnfree
Speaking of plastic sheets on black and white TV screens, Winky Dink.
Another Scott
@Original Lee: Buying dishes for almost nothing at the gas station.
A road draft tube.
Carburetors.
Savings stamps.
Green stamps.
Paper routes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones)
My Dad’s in the hospital & I’ve got to get him set up for hospice this weekend.
My fortune Tuesday said “Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.”
I’d like to punch out fortune cookie fortune writers & 2016 too.
joel hanes
what something you remember that if you told a younger person they wouldn’t understand?
Honorable Republicans
SCSI bus terminator cards
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Even liberal ones!
Passbook savings accounts
Another Scott
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones): :-( Do the best you can and hang in there. Remember the good times.
Cheers,
Scott.
Aleta
My grandmother spending her visit in a chair darning our socks.
divF
@efgoldman:
John Cameron Swayze and Timex watches.
“Takes a licking, but keeps on ticking.”
lahke
When my dad turned 90, I made him a list of everything he was older than.
He’s older than Cheerios.
He’s older than Velveeta.
Now he’s about to turn 98–he’s older than everything everyone has listed.
John Revolta
“You had to tune your guitar with just your ears!”
Aleta
X-ray glasses
Omnes Omnibus
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones): Good thoughts. The idea of losing a parent terrifies me. So you have whatever support I can give.
Another Scott
@efgoldman: Skinny and Fatty
Cheers,
Scott.
dr. luba
@Gravenstone: My brother and I used to hold our breaths as my dad drove us through Gary, Indiana, on our way to our grandparents’ farm in Wisconsin.
joel hanes
@efgoldman:
Arthur Godfrey
divF
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones):
Good thoughts going out to you.
lahke
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones): I’m sorry, Tenar. Do you need any help/support locally? As I recall, I’m in your neighborhood. Anne Laurie can get you my email. (sorry to make you mail drop, AL)
joel hanes
CONELRAD symbols on the radio tuner
divF
@joel hanes: Test patterns at the end of the broadcast day.
joel hanes
@Dnfree:
Winky Dink
Gerald McBoingBoing
EBT
@lahke: Mimeograph is 1886
joel hanes
The Real McCoys, starring Walter Brennan
Pat Boone
joel hanes
Newsroom teletype chatter ;
news reports compiled by manual paste-up of snippets of yellow foolscap
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Fall being “Season premier season!” (which I used to get excited about)
TV guides in the Sunday papers
divF
@joel hanes:
To Have and Have Not , featuring Walter Brennan.
More famous for Lauren Bacall’s “You know how to whistle, don’t you? Just put your lips together, and blow.”
Larkspur
Okay, I’ll play: the belt/harness thing that attached with clips or safety pins to hold your damn sanitary napkin in place, more or less. And bras with non-elasticized straps that always came partly undone so that the ends of the straps poked out through the armhole of your sleeveless blouse. And having to kneel on the floor at school to see if the hem of your skirt or dress touched the floor, cause if it didn’t, it was too short and you had to go home and change. And the Ayds diet candy my mom ate, a product name that could not survive the onset of actual AIDS. They tasted chocolatey, though, so once I snuck one from a jar on the kitchen counter and popped it in my mouth, except it wasn’t an Ayds candy, it was a beef boullion cube. Yechh.
Yes, I am that old.
divF
@efgoldman: In the 60’s we used to drive up the NJ Turnpike coming from DC to see relatives in NY. The drive through Elizabeth was awful. I’m still amazed when I drive that part of the turnpike now that the air is breathable, even though the refineries are still there.
joel hanes
@efgoldman:
toy ca$h register
An available version of Monopoly uses chip cards for banking, instead of currency.
The Dangerman
@Original Lee:
Remember when gas stations gave out dishes (and they were nice dishes as I recall)
Also, encyclopedias.
Suzanne
Grueling/bare bones.
CaseyL
Percolators (unless hipsters have made them cool again)
Playing outdoors, unsupervised, unscheduled, totally on your own with your friends, and out of range of any telephone
Leaded gasoline – and the black crust its fumes formed on snow
Gasoline wars! 25 cents a gallon!
Banks giving away toasters or glasses or place settings with new accounts
Trading stamps, and redemptions thereof
Girdles
joel hanes
Frank Fontaine doing the drunken-Irish-genius thing as Crazy Guggenheim on Jackie Gleason
Groucho
Forward 30 years, but still out of the ken of our millenials:
Andy Kaufman as Latka on Taxi
WKRP (Les Nessman. Bailey! Dr. Johnny Fever. Venus Flytrap)
Harry Stone doing Groucho on Night Court
Gabe Kaplan doing Groucho on Kotter
Suzanne
Something that makes me laugh, as an architect born in 1980:
When I get the question, “Do you draw blueprints?”. I want to say, “Bitch, I’ve never even seen a blueprint machine.”
The follow-up question is some variant on, “Do you use the computer to draw your blueprints?”, and I always want to say, “No, we’re the one profession left behind by the computing revolution.”
Это курам на смех
Paste-up boards. Waxers. Kroy lettering. Chartpak tape. Technical pens.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and this, too
lahke
Remember when bagels and spaghetti were exotic foreign foods?
When watermelons had seeds?
Scrapple?
Suzanne
@efgoldman: My grandfather was the Director of Training for Pan Am. I have some rad Pan Am gear. All original.
Larkspur
@lahke: And when there was one kind of yoghurt, Dannon, in only a few flavors, and your parents and siblings made fun of you for asking if we could get some of that gross, fancy-ass yet peasanty European stuff.
divF
@efgoldman:
You missed Piedmont Airlines.
For DC locals, another list is the constituent bus systems that were merged into MetroBus: DC Transit, AB&W, WV&M. I lived in Virginia, so I don’t remember the Maryland systems. Also, the Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railway.
ETA: Pacific Southwest Airlines.
Aleta
The Santa Fe Railroad
Burlington Northern
Anne Laurie
@Spanky:
No, those were Ditto copies (purple text on slick paper, usually), made on a Ditto machine (spirit duplicator). That intoxicating smell was the alcohol that dissolved a little of the waxy purple ‘ink’ onto each fresh sheet. Eventually there was no more wax, which is why ditto copies got paler & paler as they ran past a hundred copies or so.
Mimeos, printed on a mimeograph (stencil duplicator), were usually heavy black text on more absorbent paper. (The ink frequently smudged anyway, leaving smears on the paper & anything it touched.) But since the mimeo stencils were far sturdier than the ditto master sheets, they were considered “superior” when I was producing sf fanzines, back in the 1970s/1980s.
laura
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones): I’m so sorry for you and your dad. In this terrible circumstance be ready for unexpected and brief moments of joy, of tenderness, and love however brief, and fleeting. And get yourself a really comfortable folding chair that you can keep in the car if your dad can’t return to home.
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
Feel better
rikyrah
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones):
Sorry about your father.
Suzanne
Ecto Cooler, New York Seltzer, Clearly Canadian, Crystal Pepsi.
JJ, the KING of Beepers! Charter can help.
Dan Quayle.
rikyrah
Younger people wouldn’t understand:
Betamax
That Chicago’s area code was 312. Period
Larkspur
@rikyrah: You are a kind person. I’m never around to respond to your cheery “good mornings” so I’m gonna wish you a comforting “good night”.
danielx
@Omnes Omnibus:
I got that as well. The comeback is, of course, um, nobody owns the White House except the American people, as represented by the GSA and DOD. More to the point, Trump wouldn’t have the place on a bet – he will never live any place where he can’t look down on (in the most literal sense) a great many people. As to the honor of living there, honor is not a concept he cares about or understands.
While I’m thinking about it, are there any estimates as to what it’s costing to retrofit Trump Tower as a semi permanent presidential eyrie and to provide for security, all that? Direct costs, as opposed to the major headaches imposed on New Yorkers. Not to mention the bad dreams of the Secret Service cussing the entire situation – a tactical nightmare and a personal mess for a lot of personnel.
Edit: buying 30 cent gas, and remembering signs for 15 cent gas.
Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones)
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones): I knew it was coming. But you’re never really ready. There’s a part of me that is selfishly wishing I could complain about everything to my mother. And I’m really missing her almost lifelong ability to organize her personal paperwork when necessary. She’s been gone almost a decade & I still miss her.
@lahke: Thank you. Might take you up on that once I get through this next milestone. (I’m probably going to be leaning on anyone willing to lend an ear, including virtually).
Anne Laurie
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones): My condolences.
Only one certain thing in this life, and that’s death, unfortunately.
KS in MA
@joel hanes:
Lithography.
Hot type.
Linotype machines.
Yarrow
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones): Very sorry about your dad. Be gentle and kind to yourself as you care for your dad.
EBT
@Suzanne: New York Seltzer is still in wide distribution, comes in glass bottles still too.
@Anne Laurie: Might want to tell HeLa that.
Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones)
@divF: IIRC /grandmother divF was improving… and may she share more stories with you as she continues this improvement.
Anne Laurie
@divF:
Hand to goddess, a cartoonist friend used that trope for a Luke Skywalker joke, back when only the nerds knew about Star Wars…
mai naem mobile
Rotary phones
Pagers(the ones you carry around , if somebody had multiple pagers they were suspected of being drug dealers)
Using a pay phone
While you were out message books
Rolodexes
Recording songs off the radio
joel hanes
substantial actual silver in dollar coins, halves, quarters, and dimes.
steel pennies
Yarrow
@danielx: Has there ever been a president whose “home” is in a high rise building with shops and a restaurant on the ground floor and where a whole bunch of other people live? I know the Secret Service has experience securing hotels and the like, so they’ve got some knowledge of how to secure similar buildings, but it seems different with so many other people living there. It seems like such a busy building would be hard to secure.
Suzanne
@EBT: The New York Seltzer just got brought back, I think about a year ago. I bought some root beer and black cherry.
joel hanes
@lahke:
exotic foreign foods
I have been told that tacos were nigh-unknown in New York as late as 1968.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
new albums being advertised on TV
ETA: I’m almost fifty and don’t remember spaghetti being exotic. I’m pretty sure I remember upscale Italian restaurants becoming a thing, but that may have been getting old enough to appreciate good restaurants, as opposed to finding them boring and uncomfortable
Anne Laurie
@lahke:
The Spousal Unit remembers being excited when the first foreign restaurant opened up in his town in upper lower Michigan. This was the mid-1960s — it was a pizzeria.
When I went from the Bronx to a Midwestern state university in the early 1970s, many of my classmates were awed by the exotic new ‘Bagel Bakery’ just opening on the main drag. (Being a snotty NYC food snob, I was anti-awed by the quality of those bagels… although the deep-fried sugar-dipped raisin-enhanced ‘fragels’ were quite tasty. As long as nobody tried to pretend they were, y’know, bagels.)
Jack the Second
Black & white images on the computer.
Images loading progressively on the internet.
Downloading pirated video from the internet.
Soon: non-touch screens.
joel hanes
@efgoldman:
Queen for a Day
Applause meter for audience empathy
Sensible-housedress women bravely tell their terrible luck,
and only one will be queen for a day: brutally maudlin.
Pomp and Circumstance, two dozen long-stems, a crown and luxurious mantle
and a new washer and dryer, maybe a refrigerator too
and many gifts from Spiegel, Chicago, Illinois
joel hanes
“The higher-priced spread”
The Lodger
@Omnes Omnibus: Being able to carry a knife in a federal building.
danielx
@efgoldman:
Oooh! I got one! Being able to deduct credit card interest from your income!
fuckwit
I also remember when nobody but Al Gore was worried about global climate change:
https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/sea-ice-extent-area/grf/nsidc_global_area_byyear_b.png
The human race is going to go through a massive die-off over the next 50 years. Famine, war, refugees, starvation, atrocities, floods, droughts, nightmares.
We might come out of it OK. But there likely will be a lot fewer than 7 billion people around.
joel hanes
Soon :
Sears
Penneys
Radio Shack
joel hanes
@fuckwit:
I wish I thought you were an alarmist.
Good luck to us all. We’re going to need it.
Emma
How about bank accounts that paid interest? My first one was at our local savings and loan, opened with money I earned from an after-school part-time job, and it paid 4% interest.
Free college.
Oldgold
Durwurd Kirby
Jim, Foolish Literalist
TV variety shows, not just Carol Burnett but just about every random C-list celebrity seemed to get one, people who would now be on the “celebrity” version of whatever reality/game show would get a chance to host a variety show, including The Brady Bunch, in character.
Mike in DC
150 dollars for a hand calculator.
Having only 4 sources for national television news.
Dialup.
Kung fu grip
John Revolta
@Larkspur: I remember pre-Dannon, when all there was was something called “Dr. Gaymont’s” yogurt. I think you had to get it at a health food store.
Yogurt was sufficiently weird that Ed Norton used it as a laugh line on The Honeymooners once.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@efgoldman: and smoking on a plane. Looking back, and as an ex-smoker, I can’t believe anyone put up with it. The smell of cigarette smoke annoys me now even outside. ETA: Usually, sometimes it smells really good, enough that I think I could start up again after 22 years
Suzanne
I may be slightly addled from the pain meds. I’m having trouble spelling. Weird.
joel hanes
@efgoldman:
I remember them in Donna Reed
No doubt you are correct; I was a child.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Oldgold:
The Kirwood Derby.
rikyrah
@Larkspur:
Night.
Having a difficult time getting to sleep tonight ??
danielx
Story that only could have happened back in the day: to preface, remember there was only plain old telephone service, which cost about thirty bucks a month and long distance calls cost a shitload, comparatively speaking. Lots of LD calls = lots of bucks, especially if your call was an hour long.
So to set the stage, I’m at an all male catholic school. I’m dating a girl who attends an all girls catholic school, we’re sophomores. Schools are in Indianapolis, I live in Carmel, she lives in Greenfield, which were about forty miles apart. We were hot and heavy, but (obviously) didn’t get to spend as much time together as we liked. So we spend a lot of time on the phone at night. I had not mentioned this whole deal to my parents, since I went out of my way to keep them ill-informed about my doings.
Comes the monthly phone bill, and it’s like THREE TIMES the normal amount. Mom opens it, goes bugshit – we don’t know anybody in Greenfield! Back then, you could (and had to) call local exchanges at YOUR expense to get information about a particular call – who it was to, etc. The phone company ladies knew everything in town about everybody in town, at least those in the local exchange. So mom calls the Greenfield office:
mom: can you tell me about all these calls? we don’t know anybody in Greenfield!
phone lady: hmm, do you have any teenagers living at home?
mom: why yes, we have a sixteen year old son.
phone lady: well, this family has a sixteen year old daughter. do you suppose…?
mom calling me: dan, do you know anybody who lives in Greenfield?
me (warily): who wants to know?
mom to phone lady: I believe this mystery has been solved, thanks for your help.
mom to me: DAN!
me: aw shit…trapped like a rat.
Cramped my style.
Yarrow
@Suzanne: Pain meds? Everything okay? I sympathize. I was very ill with a terrible cough and the doctor had me on two different kinds of medications. It really knocked me out. I was bumping into things. Ended up with bruises where I’d hit doorways or a chair or the corner of the table. Brain really foggy. I hope you feel better soon.
JordanRules
@rikyrah: Aww. Hope you get some good sleep soon and can still bless the morning crew with your AM salutations.
NotoriousJRT
@Omnes Omnibus:
Am I the only person who finds this phrasing disturbing and significant?
No
Suzanne
@Yarrow: I broke my finger and lacerated it earlier today while sledding with my kids. Have seven stitches and a splint. I normally don’t do pain meds, but this sucks.
Pete Downunder
New York subway lines:
IRT
IND
BMT
MaxUtil
@encephalopath: 867-5409
Chris T.
@divF:
It might have been by county. I remember taking a Montgomery County bus to the community college to pick up a DC-bound bus to get to another bus to get to the U of Maryland. A 30-minute car drive took 3+ hours by bus…
CaseyL
@danielx: Ancient times when Ma Bell was the only (telephone) game in town. Whenever someone in our family traveled out of town, once they got to their destination safe and sound they’d call us long-distance, collect, and ask for themselves. Of course we’d refuse the call, “Sorry operator, I don’t know who that is.” So our traveling relatives were able to call us long distance and tell us they had arrived safely, for free.
Suzanne
Also—being able to buy fucking Sudafed without a goddamn background check and retinal scan.
Yarrow
@Suzanne: Ouch! That sounds incredibly painful. I hope the pain meds help and you can sleep and begin to heal. I guess 2016 just has to keep going to the end.
Yarrow
@CaseyL: Do collect calls even exist anymore?
Temporarily Max McGee (Until Death!)
@efgoldman:
Howard Cossell
Temporarily Max McGee (Until Death!)
@Suzanne:
THIS!
joel hanes
Firesign Theater
Mnemosyne
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones):
I’m so sorry. I know you guys are close, so try to enjoy the time you have left with him and not think too much about what’s coming. You will be really glad in the end that you (and/or he) chose hospice.
Texasboyshaun
@encephalopath: 867-5309. I’m only 38 years old, and I’m still baffled by how many people even a couple of years younger than me don’t get this reference.
Temporarily Max McGee (Until Death!)
@Yarrow:
If not from anywhere else, they still come from jails and prisons. I get some mis-dialed calls from those every now and then.
fuckwit
@joel hanes: Alan Alda doing Groucho on MASH
fuckwit
@Texasboyshaun: I got it! I got it! I got the number off the wall. I got it! For a good time call…
Это курам на смех
Smoking everywhere.
Burma Shave signs.
“Impeach Earl Warren” billboards.
joel hanes
Saturday Afternoon At The Movies (two cheap B-movies back-to-back on local TV in the slot no one wanted to sponsor)
The Outer Limits
Ming The Merciless
Singing Cowboys (Gene Autry Roy Rogers et. al., some with yodeling.)
Sky King, brought to you by Nabisco, maker of Wheat Honeys and Rice Honeys.
Mnemosyne
@Larkspur:
I was right on the cusp of the adhesive revolution with pads. My (step)mom bought me one of the belt jobbies in the early 1980s and then was like, OMG, look what I found at the store! They stick right to your underwear now!
Suzanne
@Yarrow: Thanks. I’m hoping I can sleep soon, too. I’m tired but trying to find a comfortable way to position my hand. No luck so far.
@Temporarily Max McGee (Until Death!): It’s so irritating! You can only buy it if the pharmacy is open. For someone like me, who shops at night, that is a huge inconvenience.
fuckwit
@CaseyL: Third party billing calls and collect calls. Blue boxes. Using the 1200 Hz tone to get a trunk line. WATS lines. Using an 800 number to get to a competitive long-distance provider to save money. Acoustic-coupled modems. Hell, modems of any kind.
Filling out a credit card receipt on carbon paper with that stupid cha-ching machine to go back and forth across it.
Signing things and having people actually check the signature.
Shit. Signing things and being allowed to even read them first!
joel hanes
@Это курам на смех:
Burma Shave signs
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
Ouch! I assume you’re supposed to try and elevate it? Fingers and toes always hurt like hell when they get injured.
Yarrow
@Suzanne: Can you get an extra pillow or a couple of smaller pillows for it? That might be more comfortable. A little elevation for it might keep the swelling down too. It’s really hard to sleep with something like that. Maybe listen to some of that relaxation music – Delta something or other. Lots of YouTubes of it. It might help calm your brain and distract it from the pain.
fuckwit
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Smoking in a club, bar, or restaurant.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
In between the Stuckey’s and the Howard Johnson’s?
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Thanks! Otherwise, it was a good day — my BFF came up from Orange County with her two daughters (13 and 11) and we went to the LA Zoo to see the river otters goofing off. Then they came to my place and doted on our oldest cat, who loved the attention.
joel hanes
@efgoldman:
Little As and Bs racing to your stomach
Geritol
Certs have a golden drop of Retsyn
In liquid Prell, a pearl drifts
99 and 99/100ths percent pure
I’d rather fight than switch
What do you want? Good grammar or good taste?
Anne Laurie
@Suzanne:
From personal experience, propped on a bunch of pillows so it’s higher than your heart is “best” (least bad). Reduces the throbbing, which for me is always the worst part.
When I had hand surgery secondary to an infected puncture, they sent me home with a special pillow-thingie that velcro’d around my forearm. You should be able to fashion something that works for tonight, and maybe check out local medical-supply stores online tomorrow?
Also, if you’re working (or just going out around normal people) tomorrow, plan your outfit around a scarf you can use as a sling. Unless you’re mindful enough & strong enough to hold that hand over your heart all day without support, because it really helps.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: @Yarrow: I’m currently trying various permutations of pillows and covering my hand with a sock, because the splint kinda gets caught on stuff. I am a mover in my sleep, so I am concerned that I will eff it up in the middle of the night.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They have these “oasis” things over the tollways in Chicagoland where you can stop in a blizzard to get food and gas (and obviously, year-round, too) and not have to get off the tollway. I am just old enough to remember when they were all Howard Johnson’s. Now they’re all assorted fast food, plus Starbucks.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
I think that if you have the sock over it, that and the wrapping from the ER should protect it enough from accidental damage in your sleep. You may still end up waking yourself up, though. This is the one time when you may curse not having a La-Z-Boy in the house.
It sounds weird, but the worst part when I tore my ACL was that I had to sleep on my back when I’m a stomach sleeper. I was cranky from sleep deprivation for a really long time.
Suzanne
@Anne Laurie: I’m a side or stomach sleeper, rather than a back sleeper. Hence the struggle. I don’t need a sling, because only the finger is in a splint, not my whole hand. The bone that’s broken is the very tip of my middle finger, so I have to protect it from impacts, but I can use the rest of my hand, sorta. At least it’s not my writing hand.
NotMax
Soupy Sales
Egg creams
Duck and cover
Cigarette jingles
Silver certificates
Not having to dial “1” – for that matter, phone dials
Princess phones
Fizzies
Salvo – clothes detergent compressed into tablets
Gainesburgers
Ernie Kovacs
NBC peacock
Wetson’s, Nedick’s, other defunct fast food outlets.
TV test patterns
Radio serials
Wooden Lincoln Logs
Cars without seat belts – also cars with a separate starter pedal
(Oh, so many more.)
@efgoldman
Huzzah! Sometimes feel I’m the only one who fondly remembers Gary Moore.
NotMax
@joel hanes
Nitpick, the slogan was 99 and 44/100th pure
Major Major Major Major
Something that if I told a younger person about they wouldn’t understand.
There are people my age that don’t understand how to do dishes in the sink.
…who are sitting across the room from me…
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Just last week, item at the supermarket which was on sale that day for $5.99 rang up at $10.19.
Pointed the error out to the cashier, who walked to the correct aisle to confirm (even though it was in their weekly flyer) to confirm, then said she had to go find a calculator to subtract the difference because she “can’t do that kind of math in her head.”
JordanRules
@efgoldman:
Whoa.
First one that caught me kinda off guard.
Temporarily Max McGee (Until Death!)
@NotMax:
You blew the chance to make a 420 joke, didn’t you?
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: The difference being, funnily enough, 420. ETA: great minds…
@JordanRules: My dad has spoken of this.
NotMax
@Temporarily Max McGee (Until Death!)
Might have if I had any conception of what 420 might refer to, aside from Hitler’s birthdate.
NotoriousJRT
TV station sign offs to either Glen aMiller’s “”Moonlight Serenade” or the national anthem – at midnight.
Chris T.
@NotMax: You can still get an egg cream at Saul’s deli in Berkeley. Unfortunately, Saul’s is closing…
NotMax
@Chris T.
A 2¢ plain is probably what – a buck and a half now?
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman: Sometimes ya gotta let the commentors take the thread where they will!
Temporarily Max McGee (Until Death!)
@NotMax:
…Wherein I link to the 420 (cannabis culture) page at Wikipedia.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: I just finished doing dishes in the sink.
For what kids wouldn’t understand?
Film.
joel hanes
@Pete Downunder:
LBJ took the IRT and saw the youth of America on LSD
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: I went to DTLA today to catch the “Golden Hour”.
Mary G
Penny candy
Phone numbers with letters; ours was Hyacinth 5531 and you only gave the numbers because every line in town was Hyacinth (492)
No area codes
Early cell phones that required a giant apparatus that took up the whole car trunk and cost $5,000
Chris T.
@NotMax: I’ve never bought one, but probably so.
Major Major Major Major
@joel hanes: My mom taught me that one.
@BillinGlendaleCA: I use film, another one my mom taught me. That fella my age across the room who’s fuzzy on dishes in the sink doesn’t really get film either.
ETA: @Mary G: My mom had one of those carphones, too.
There’s one–the word “carphone”.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: I used to develop film and print out photos.
Major Major Major Major
@BillinGlendaleCA: We still have a printer, but mister dishes over here actually suggested getting rid of it tonight. I said, there’s room for it, and you never know.
Other Mister Major^4 sure is being a great metaphor tonight. Nobody tell him!
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
My dad tended to be an early adopter of technology.mwe had a home answering machine in the early 1980s and the message had to start with, “Your call is being answered electronically” so his friends wouldn’t be confused. But smartphones ended up being slightly beyond him, for some reason.
And it’s very annoying to be simultaneously nauseous and hungry. Stupid stomach, you wouldn’t be hungry if you hadn’t insisted on throwing up earlier! ?
(I’m pretty sure it’s “just” a migraine, but still …)
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: A printer? It’s called an enlarger, sonny.
I’d love to see the Short Fingered Orange Vulgarian come for our Taco Trucks.
Major Major Major Major
@BillinGlendaleCA: One of these? Haven’t used a darkroom since college.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Yes, I got rid of mine last year.
Jason Brzoska
Hootie and the Blowfish.
Major Major Major Major
@BillinGlendaleCA: Ah. I was talking about an inkjet, lol.
opiejeanne
@trollhattan: Beanie & Cecil the puppet show, or Thunderbolt the Wonder Colt.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: I haven’t used a darkroom since the Carter Administration.
@Major Major Major Major: I just bought one of them inkjet printers.
Sab
@efgoldman: I remember when our infant but astonishing competent Secretary came back from the office supply store amazed by the free sample post it notes. No more accidentally hitting the boss in the forehead with flying paper clips when you nervously pulled the rubber band that held your stack of presentation folders together. Fun times.
Sab
@Spanky: I remember my mother typing those things, banging away on a manual typewriter, hoping she had banged hard enough that the letters would come through.
Major Major Major Major
@BillinGlendaleCA: What do they go for nowadays?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: All my printers are inkjet, other that laser, what else is there?* I got a large format Canon for $200.
*I did have a dot matrix back in the mid 80’s.
opiejeanne
@Это курам на смех: Developing photos using an ammonia solution. Mounting the little photo in a punch card.
I can’t remember what we called the little photos. I thought they were called chips but I must be wrong.
Major Major Major Major
@BillinGlendaleCA: Well, there’s always dot-matrix.
opiejeanne
@efgoldman: Thermos bottles. If you weren’t careful you broke the glass inside and had to get a new one.
opiejeanne
@mai naem mobile: Phone cards. Your phone company would issue you one on request, if you were a good customer. They were used in phone booths.
Sab
@Omnes Omnibus: He will not be an owner. He will be a renter. But with a lacks lease,so he can really fuck it up aesthetically. Maybe Congress should legally limit preside nts from fuck
ing up the Whitehouse. 250 years and has not been a problem before. Trump is special.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: There was also wheel printers back in the early 80’s, text only.
BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: My mom and dad eventually sprung for the unbreakable ones for me.
opiejeanne
@Oldgold: And the Kerwood Derby (Rocky and Bullwinkle gag).
Major Major Major Major
@BillinGlendaleCA: semiliterate monks, if you really want to date yourself
opiejeanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Red Skelton.
Kathleen
@efgoldman: Braniff Airlines, with the multi hued planes.
opiejeanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Mitch Miller’s Sing-Along.
opiejeanne
@efgoldman: Hijackers on planes, who directed them to Cuba.
Kathleen
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones): So sorry to hear about our father. Sending wishes that you have what you need to get through this time.
opiejeanne
@fuckwit: That credit card gizmo is called a slammer.
opiejeanne
@efgoldman: Flying A gasoline, with the red winged horse.
opiejeanne
@NotMax: I remember Gary Moore, and George Gobel too.
opiejeanne
@Mary G: Ha! Our exchange was Edgewood, and our last name was Edgeworth. We didn’t have a phone until I was in Kindergarten in 1955 and then it was a party line; until then we used my grandparents’ phone if we needed to make a call, and they lived next door. My best friend didn’t have a telephone in her house in 1960. When I went there to play and needed to call my mom, I used her next-door neighbor’s phone.
opiejeanne
@Mary G: My dad worked for the city of Los Angeles and the exchange was Capitol. He was giving his phone number to a lady and he started by saying Capitol 2 ****, and she asked how to make a capital 2.
opiejeanne
@BillinGlendaleCA: They didn’t exist until about the time my oldest kid came along in 1970. My parents just gave me milk money.
Sab
@divF: I don’t miss Piedmont Airlines. Flew home from NC to OH in 1967 in the usual Appalachian thunderstorm, and I have never been so airlock (and that is saying a lot).
Mary G
Cars without seat belts and tiny little rear red brake lights. Making turn signals by sticking your arm out the window that you rolled down with a crank,
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
Phonebooks. They still exist in some places, but I haven’t used one in years. Once used one to call up a kid that lived a block away when we were in HS (we’d talked about playing basketball at his place but hadn’t exchanged numbers) and he asked me how I’d gotten the number. I said I just used the phone book. He said “oh yeah, you’re one of those smart kids.” I never looked at him quite the same way after that.
The Oregon Trail
the solitary rotary phone in the kitchen that had a mile long cord
learning to drive a stickshift
bombshelters (though these may make a comeback)
the Kingdome (don’t lean too far forward standing up in the cheap seats, it’s steep and a long way down)
the guy in the neighborhood obsessed with toy trains that occupied his whole damn basement
stadiums named after local landmarks or community leaders instead of corporate sponsors
gas station attendants
pay phones (live in Australia now and they’re all just gone)
being able to accompany family and friends all the way to the gate at the airport
toys made of sturdy metal that had heft and could take a few whacks (and give you one if you weren’t careful)
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Mary G: I remember learning those arm signals for turns for bike riding on streets, though I didn’t end up doing much of that.
Pete Downunder
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: Here in Oz we can still go to the gate for domestic flights to see off and meet pax. Have to go through security but it’s no big deal.
terben
x-ray machines (fluoroscopes) in shoe stores.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Pete Downunder: True, I remember being very confused by that the first time I encountered it here
raven
The exchange in Whittier in the 50’s was Oxbow.
Schlemazel
@raven:
Childhood phone number started with PRospect
The first 2 letters were always capitalized because they represented the actual numbers, in this case 77
Laura in Kaua'i
Buying one ticket and then sitting in the movie theater all afternoon to watch the same movie over and over (“Hard Day’s Night,” “Help”).
Ed Sullivan on Sunday evenings
NBC Saturday Night At the Movies
The annual showing of the “Wizard of Oz”
The four days following the Kennedy assasination
Your family’s first color TV
Sheriff John and Engineer Bill (if you grew up in the LA area)
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel: TAylor1
Billcoop4
@Steve in the ATL:
We were in Metro-Lex at the same time.
WMC W&L ’86L– then I stayed on in town until ’92
Schlemazel
@Laura in Kaua’i:
Speaking of Oz and its annual showing: black and white TV! Kids wouldn’t know what to think
I was in high school & went to a showing of Oz at a college thing. It was all normal until the door opens in Munchkinland . . . I said “Its in color!” a bit too loudly. Apparently I was the only kid without a color TV
NotMax
@Temporarily Max McGee (Until Death!)
Oh, you rascally kids and your weird slang. Never heard of that one before; must have been more a west of the Mississippi River thing.
@opiejeanne
Ol’ Lonesome George rocked!
Steve in the ATL
@Billcoop4: small world!
Iowa Old Lady
My son was absolutely shocked over a documentary about Nixon and Watergate.
Lurking Canadian
@CaseyL: In the early 90s, Bell Canada started using robot operators. Instead of a person in the middle, the caller told the robot to place a collect call, the robot asked “whom shall I say is calling?”, and you gave your name.
The robot then called the destination and said, “I have a collect call from [your recorded voice]. Do you accept?”
Thing is, these were early 90s robots. No intelligence. It just repeated whatever you said.
As a result, we once got a collect call from “Guys I left the oven on please turn it off before my chicken burns” when our roommate was at the library with no change for the phone booth.
Karla
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: You can play Oregon Trail here: https://archive.org/details/msdos_Oregon_Trail_The_1990#loading
zhena gogolia
@Laura in Kaua’i:
I sat through “Help” so many times I STILL can’t bear to watch it again.
Procopius
I find this very annoying. What is your purpose in making this implication? You think there are no (serious) FSB men in Obama’s government? In the CIA? In the State Department? How about Mossad agents? Do you think there are any of those in the DNC? How about the CIA? How many AIPAC people do you think are Mossad or Shin Bet? Did you ever hear of Jonathon Pollard? I didn’t get the “duck and cover” drills when I was in school. They didn’t come until later. I did read Nevil Shute’s On The Beach. I’ve been concerned for the last four years at the way Obama has ramped up belligerence with Russia. We used to think Curtis LeMay was dangerously unstable because he believed it was possible to fight and win a nuclear war. There seem to be a lot of people in Obama’s “security” agencies and in the military who believe that. In Trump’s entourage, too, so he’s no better. The moves these people have been making look exactly like preparation to mobilize the population for war.
Chris
@Spanky:
I’m not sure if the moral of this year is “the Russians have never quite got the American sense of patriotism and fair play,” or “a lot of Americans never quite realized how many of their countrymen don’t give a shit about patriotism and fair play.”
Chris
@fuckwit:
I’m actually afraid that this is a real possibility, yes.
Chris
@Steve in the ATL:
“VHS.”
hedgehog mobile
@Omnes Omnibus: No. That jumped out at me too.
Jack the Second
@joel hanes: Circling Christmas presents in the Sears catalog.
hedgehog mobile
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones): Oh no. Been there. So sorry to hear.
hedgehog mobile
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Laugh-In!
Chris
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
A while ago, I was watching a TV show from the late eighties/early nineties. There’s a moment where the main character is telling his sidekick-of-the-episode “get to the nearest pay phone, call the cops.” The guy answers “but I haven’t got any change.” Main character gives him an exasperated look and says, like he’s explaining what two plus two are, “just dial 911! It’s free!”
Followed by, in no particular order, my reactions of “wow, that’s awesome. I never knew that. Makes total sense, of course,” and “where would I even find the nearest payphone if somebody told me that?” and “well of course I wouldn’t need one, everyone has cell phones now,” and “wow, is this show really only twenty years old? And it’s already completely unrelatable.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
It does fell like Obama is deliberately creating a crises with Russia so Trump’s hands are tied come next January. I also noticed Paul Ryan was saying Obama’s sanctions are over do and don’t go far enough
Chris
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Russia created the crisis. Obama’s just ensuring that there’s an actual response before a Putin fanboy takes over the country.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Procopius:
a) at the time LeMay was right – the SAC had something like a 90% readiness rate and the Soviet Union only had 40 bombers that could have reached the US on a one way trip. By the Soviets own calculations only two of them would have got threw the US air defenses but they though that was enough to discourage a US president. Of course LeMay was ignoring that his war would have literally killed every Russian alive and laid waste to Europe, most of Asia and likely left the rest of the world viewing America as worse than the Nazis.
b) On the Beach is fiction, much like Atlas Shrugs.
Chris
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
From what I remember reading in undergrad, the prospect of America starting World War Three was actually a huge fear for the British, French, and other West European governments in the early years of the Cold War. The logic went 1) America and Russia both have the bomb, 2) America is currently in a much better position to carpet-nuke Russia than the other way around, 3) but that won’t last forever, Russia will eventually have made up the difference with ICBMs and the like, so 4) what if America decides to start a nuclear war before that happens, while it still has the advantage and can still survive the war?
The prospect was terrifying because, while America would’ve been mostly sheltered from Russian nuclear retaliation, Western Europe wouldn’t have been. The fear was that there might be an American leader who would see the destruction of Europe as an acceptable cost for the destruction of the only other superpower.
CaseyL
IBM Selectric II self-correcting typewriters! With the dancing metal balls you could switch out to change fonts! Fantastic machines, superbly designed and engineered.* I still miss them; they had the best keyboard EVER. Nice satisfying clicketty click.
*That, too: when “superbly designed” meant the thing was designed to do its job superbly, rather than “has a great aesthetic.”
Another Scott
@Laura in Kaua’i: Officer Don (IIRC) in Atlanta.
Cheers,
Scott.
JAFD
Going to the observation deck at Philadelphia Int’l Airport (cost a dime) on a hot summer Sunday evening (chance of a breeze there), watching the people walk from the terminal to the Constellations and DC-7s and Electras*, and the props start spinning, one by one, and the instant where the strobe effect makes it looks like they’ve reversed and are going backwards…
*And back in the day when stewardesses got hired out of high school and fired when they got married or turned 30, and the average airline passenger was even more likely than today to be a middle-aged male, flying them around in a plane named for a girl who REALLY loved her Daddy – Never let anyone tell you the ’50’s were an innocent age.
SFBayAreaGal
@CaseyL: I loved those machines.
SFBayAreaGal
Cassette tapes, 8 track tapes
Reel to Reel tape
Electric and manual typewriters
DOS before it became MS-DOS
Floppy disks
Wang word processor
Dot matrix printers
Hard floppy disks
Mac 512 KE and Mac SE
Mac II
Smoking and non smoking sections in restaurants and on airplanes
Being able to park near San Francisco Airport watching the planes land and takeoff
Embarcadero Freeway
Space Age Race to the Moon
Patty Hearst
Weathermen
SLA
George Moscone, Harvey Milk, Dan White
Leo Ryan, Jim Jones, Jonestown
joel hanes
@CaseyL:
You can still get a reasonable facsimile of the IBM Selectric keyboard by looking for keyboards made with Alps or Cherry mechanical switches. A great one will cost maybe $150 new, and will last the rest of your life.
Cherry makes keyboards with their own switches; I favor the Mathias for the Mac; others swear by Unicomp, Das Keyboard, Corsair, and Razer. The Logitech Mechanical scored very high in a recent survey review.
I’m typing this on a 25-year-old (at least) NorthGate Omnikey, my favorite keyboard ever.
You can find the IBM model M (another cult favorite) on ebay for $250 or more.
joel hanes
@SFBayAreaGal:
Reel to Reel tape
A generation earlier: wire recorders, used by execs to record dictation for secretaries.
The office intercom (not part of the phone).
EBT
@Major Major Major Major: Because the late 90s/early 2000s saw very bad cell phone coverage in WNC, my brother bought a Korean war surplus satellite phone so he would have some way to call when his junker car would break or get stuck in the winter. On Topic: Winter cold enough for ice and snow to make WNC really dangerous to drive around. After the blizzard of 93, the mall had snow in the parking lot until June.
J R in WV
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Frankly, where I live has no cell phone coverage, where I travel usually has no coverage.
Next door neighbor uses an internet sat connection to make cell calls in an important situation, it’s like talking to someone on the moon, at least. Long pauses, works best if you radio comm conventions, speak a sentence, say “Over…” and wait to hear the next sentence from their house, about a hundred meters away.
We keep a land line connection so that doctors, dentists, etc can contact us if the blood work shows a problem, appointment changed, etc.
But having a cell phone arrangement seems like a waste, mostly, until you are on the interstate and have an accident. Once, so far, we called 911 after becoming mired on an interstate median. I have attempted to call AAA about flats a couple of times, no luck, out of range, find the wrench/jack/tarp to lie on the ground on.
J R in WV
@Spanky: I had a work study grant once, a long time ago. Worked in the :computer room” where there was a high-speed printer, attached to a mainframe at another campus via a dedicated high-speed line. All this is now Greek, of course.
One amusing thing we would do was send a stream of page advance characters to the high speed printer while an unsuspecting student was standing beside it. The paper would hit the ceiling with a smack. You didn’t want to send too many put-pages, you could bury the device, AND the people standing beside it.
J R in WV
@KS in MA:
I learned to run automated linotypes, and then to set type on one for corrections.
Hot type, with the occasional squirt of molten type-setting metal (mostly lead) up from the mould, back down to spash off the cast iron machinery onto your apron, which mostly kept the lead off your jeans. Not as dangerous as it sounds, except for the omnipresent lead.
An ancient craft, glad I had the chance to learn it back in the early 1970s after leaving the Navy.
J R in WV
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones):
Very sorry to hear about your Dad. I went through that back in 2004, and our hospice RN was literally an angel. So compassionate, so helpful. So were the residential health aids, CNAs, etc. We were so lucky. And my dad was really done with fighting his COPD, caused by his Chemo, which worked, but for the lung damage.
Best of luck with the process, hope you have the same good experience with Hospice that we did.
Keep in touch, for a pack of jackals, we’re a pretty good bunch,
J R in WV
@Procopius:
If you think Obama and his foreign policy team believe that a nuclear war is a winnable geopolitical strategy, you are too stupid to know to hold your breath under water.
But I’m mocking a troll, how dumb is that?
Aleta
@Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones):
Yes. So true, no matter how. My sympathy.
Vhh
@Mnemosyne: Chorniy (= black);in theold days, “arap” was used in the same senseas “moor.”
redoubt
Shorthand.
Telephone exchanges.
The Big Eight and the Southwestern Conferences.
Canned orange juice.
(I am Chicago-born and raised, so) The El being streets/neighborhoods instead of colors: Lake/Dan Ryan. Jackson Park/Howard.