More Or Less To Be Grateful For?
Readers suggested a topic on comparisons. “Do Americans have more or less to be grateful for than they did in 1980? That’s the time the old post-New Deal liberal order, unions and industry were starting to collapse, precipitating the era we have been in since, or had been through 2007 or so. It’s also the time that those born from 1930 to 1955 or so took over our institutions from the Greatest Generation, and those born afterward entered the labor and housing markets.”
“There were real gains in information technology, and the information and entertainment people had access to. And, though it was expensive, health care. But much of the rest of the apparent gains in the standard of living over the past few decades have been funded by debts, public and private. And now that has collapsed, the standard of living is falling.”
“In the early 1990s recession, when people were down, I put together a spreadsheet with a variety of economic, social and environmental indicators comparing the so-called ‘good old days’ with the ‘recent bad years’ to show things were, in fact, better. I’m pretty sure that for most people, especially young people, I could make the opposite case today.”
One said, “Fancier toys do not make a for a better life. 20 years ago I wasn’t constantly keeping my ear to the ground, hoping to dodge the next wave of layoffs. I would gladly trade my flat panel TV and high speed internet for some peace of mind.”
And finally, “I think we have a great deal to be grateful for, such as modern new inventions and greater prosperity. With all the news talk about how this decade compares with that, it’s often not even comparable. My first computing experience began in High School with a Wang card-reader that barely did arithmetic. Shortly thereafter, a hand calculator emerged, priced about $450 that could do multiplication and division and even had a percent key. Wow.”
“By 1980, my College had a computer that worked with punch cards. By 1985, it was fully integrated with computer data consoles and a few programming languages. Apples, Amiga, Commodore and IBM laptops had all entered the market. I started out with a 16k laptop that was an amazing 4 times the previous model for data storage, with a floppy disc, rather than cassette tape storage. We also had the first COLOR ‘RGB’ consoles. I started out with amber and green screens. You can see where this is going.”
“I used to stay up nights drinking beer with computer geeks and downloading data on a 1200 baud modem. Soon we got a 2400 bps modem and WOW, we doubled out data stream. It was like magic.
We didn’t have the Web, web-sites, internet access (only university inter-library access and bbs services). We didn’t have cell phones. My first dial-up systems used a rotary telephone. Most kids don’t even know what that is.”
“My college car was a 1972 Datsun pickup. It was built poorly, but mechanically unstoppable. Cable TV? You must be joking. We started out with 5 network channels in the 1960s. That was it. World satellite communications? Didn’t exist. VCR’s had begun to be developed. Then we got DVD’s around the 1990’s or so. My 8-track and cassette players have been replaced by CD’s. Online music?? MP3 players?? What’s that?”
“Shopping ‘malls’ were new creations. We had local stores and strip centers for 1/2 my adult life. Look around your house. I still have VINYL records and still play them. I like to put the stylus down on the track I want to hear. But lots of the stuff you have didn’t exist in 1980.”
“Online library? Forget about it. You need to look something up? A trip to the local library and a dig through the Card Catalog (no computer files). 3×5 cards. Index cards. Rotary Business lines with phone books delivered for every phone. The advances of medicine and available care could fill a book. I never had an MRI before 1999. I could go on for the rest of the day. A lot has changed and in many ways our lives are much easier and more efficient. I think my standard of living is mostly improved. I am communicating with you in ways that were not possible in 1980 or even 1990. But all this has come at a cost. We spent way too much to achieve a greater, bigger and richer society. I say that collectively, as I personally did not.”
“There have been vast improvements to people’s lives, but societies live by way of comparison. We all live better than most Regal Elites of past generations to whom ’salt’ was a luxury, ice was shipped around the world for cold (before refrigeration), Books were rare, and ‘climate controlled’ buildings were simply a dream.”
“The simple truth is that whatever ‘new thing’ some people are able to possess, others will feel left out and ‘oppressed’ because they don’t have one, too. And somehow, it’s not fair and the government should ‘do something’ about it. We live in a world of scarcity, not abundance. Human efforts have created more abundance, but the desire to ‘fairly distribute’ it will remain a source of conflict so long as humans are working to debate and resolve the issues. Unfortunately ‘credit’ allows people to live more abundant lives and create the illusion that they are more ‘wealthy’ than they really are. This includes societies as well as individuals.”
To me standard of living isn’t based so much on what you have as your perception of the ability to have or do more in the future. In other words, hope. To those who say we have it good, you are correct. To those who say the past was better also correct. My generation (born in 74) will most likely be the first generation of American’s with lower standards of living than it’s parents, ergo less hope.
Oh well, off to cook a turkey and ponder my navel. Happy Thanksgiving all!
My generation, born in the 50s, is trying to figure out how to keep what they have. Or downsizing, getting frugle, adapting to having less.
The world of pensions, secure retirement we saw our parents enjoy is not an option for most now.
downsizing, getting frugle, adapting to having less ??
Exactly what scdave household is grappling with right now…
“The world of pensions, secure retirement we saw our parents enjoy is not an option for most now.”
Bingo.
Where did all that money go? Or it never existed.
Future promises are always a fantasy.
I’ll give you some roasted lamb chops tomorrow.
But I paid you today… err…. well… I paid you a nickel. Aren’t lambchops a nickel?
I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a lambchop today.
The world of pensions, secure retirement we saw our parents enjoy is not an option for most now.
My parents worked most of their lives but never at jobs where ‘pensions’ or secure retirements were real options.
Dad did attempt one, as a state park superintendent back in 1950. If he stuck it out 20 or 30 years, he might have become eligible for a government funded pension. It wasn’t realistic. He couldn’t live on the $1200 annual salary they paid him then, so he quit & went on to higher paying jobs that did not offer pensions.
Agreed, not everyone had a pension back then. But they weren’t as rare as they are today, especially in corporate America.
So, what is grandpa trying to say?
What the long diatribe about the increase in computing ability misses is, the generation that created these advances also let the federal budget go haywire and failed to enact meaningful advances in corporate governance, accounting systems, and employment law.
You can’t take credit for the good things but shrug off the bad ones.
For what it’s worth, I think that my generation (born in the 80s) will have the task of ironing out a lot of these issues. I don’t accept at face value that we will have a worse time of it or have less to be thankful for. There will need to be more balance in society–like someone said, you shouldn’t have to have your ear to the ground to see if you’re going to get laid off. This is a boomer way of thinking. The younger generations will not roll like this.
Boomer way of thinking? I think that poster just forgot or was in a protected industry. There were most certainly waves of layoffs in the 80s and 90s. Although I was never laid off, I vividly remember rounds of people around me, good people, good solid workers, let go. I’ll never forget how that affected those of us left. It always left a pall of everything like we were shell shocked.
In the 80s layoffs I worked in catalog marketing and computer trade shows, and in the 90s layoffs I worked in advertising.
In both the trade shows and advertising, our lay offs were based on and reflective of slow downs in our clients’ industries.
I remember people saying on this very site certain family members never financially recovered from some of those recessions.
Boomer way of thinking = “I got mine, so you can go screw yourself”
When I say Boomers, I mean people born in the 40s and 50s, who we raised in an era where the demographcis were favorable. In a way, they welcomed the government’s tricks and the accounting gimmicks of private industry. Until recently, it looked like all the gimmicks were going according to plan. Then in 08, all the problems came home to roost. However, before that, they didn’t care if the government was promising too much and taxing too little. They didn’t largely care about accounting fraud by major corporations. And they forgot the lessons of their youth–distrust government, distrust the military industrial complex, and distrust the corporations. As long as they were PROMISED things, they were far too trusting and willing to screw future generations to enrich themselves.
Your generalizations just don’t add up for me. I am one of those you accuse of screwing up the world. I am a conservative, by nature. I don’t waste things, I don’t squander money and I don’t expect other people to provide for me.
I do blame the prior generation of CURRENT retirees for most of the messes. They are living on a SS system that paid most of them ALL of the money they put in, in about 3 years. It was always a fraud and a scam and I knew in my 20’s that the system was a failure.
But I did not create it, or vote for it. When I was a teenager, I was given a SS number and when I began working, the government began taking money from me. I had no say in it.
I did not vote for Welfare, Medicaid, Food Stamps (SNAP), now paid by with EBT cards, MEdicare, and the myriad of social programs that are now bankrupting the United States. Most of those programs were started under Johnson who had promoted a “guns and butter” policy of government.
Administration after administration has kicked the can down the rode.
We had hoped BUSH 2 would be fiscally responsible. He proved to be a liar and we were glad to be shed of him.
Obama promised to reduce the deficit. He doubled it and more. I voted against him. He is engaged in fiscal insanity and will continue to use the government to “redistribute” the wealth. MY Generation did not put Obama in the White HOUSE for another term. Yours did.
I was a RON Paul supporter.
Most of the things I had hoped would be changed over the years I have lived on this planet have not. I can’t stop them.
You can say the “they” did it, but I was on the HB Blog because I was NOT a “bid-it-up-on-cheep-credit” advocate. I saw this as insanity.
But I was a small voice in the wilderness as the mass herds of financial geniuses to America how Debt could lead to wealth.
If you were on this blog a few years back, we had discussions about how financial planners were telling people if they had a debt-free house, they had mis-managed their money. It needed to be invested. You needed to borrow against the value of your house and put it into the stock market.
I did not join the parade and missed the party.
You can blame me if you like, but I’m afraid there is a FSA out there that isn’t a part of MY Generation. There’s some in it, but it runs the gamut of the age groups. They all want free stuff. We will ALL pay the price.
pointing to a generation is NOT the same as blaming you personally.
relax. take a chill pill.
Blaming a previous generation is simply a waste of time & energy. We all inherit whatever was done before our time. Deal with it.
My post was simply a short-course on changes in Lifestyles, and the inventions that everyone enjoys at relatively low cost. It was never about any generational show-down or placing the blame on current or past governmental policies that have led to deficit-run government.
Just for your information, I have been laid off 4 times after more than 5 and as much as 8 years of continual employment.
If I had been able to stay at a single employer, I would have easily accrued over 25 years of employment and been in the “golden benefits” crowd, much like many government employees.
It was never like that for most private-sector employees in the late boomer phase.
Several years ago, I posted a long diatribe about the breakdown of “boomer” folks into 3 groups.
The LEAD groups got all the best jobs, promoted to top management and got the benefits that rest of us were promised we would get if we stuck it out for the long haul. It was demographically not possible. The tail of the groups did much more poorly, being only 10 years behind the front of the line.
The pool of applicants began to fill very quickly after the first group took all the top jobs, and kept them till retirement.
It doesn’t change the fact that we live in a very different world. You have no idea how much easier things are for you in terms of “convenience” and availability of most products.
The PACE of life, however, is much faster, as a result. From my perspective, it is a diminished lifestyle, as so much is crammed into a shorter space, but that is a judgment on my part.
In times past most people never traveled more than 25 miles from home. I’ve been to far away countries and traveled to many cities throughout the US and Canada. When I was a younger man, I never thought I would go anywhere far from Florida, unless I moved there.
It’s a different world. It has many challenges.
I got laid off from my first post-college job after one year in 1975. It totally popped my faith in company loyalty. If the company wasn’t going to be loyal to me, why should it expect loyalty in return?
Each generation always gets stuck cleaning up the messes left by their forebears. How do you expect the younger generations to roll?
20s and 30s have almost no trust of employers. Are more favorable towards unions than the older workers (40+). Most don’t expect anything more than a paycheck from their employers and see the best job security as networking and being ready to make a jump up to the next position. Most people my age have very little expectation as far as gov’t support of retirement–perhaps Medicare (but scaled back) and many/most wouldn’t hold their breath waiting for SS.
20 and 30 somethings are also generally resistant to the suburbs, towards buying a house, towards buying a car (or becoming a multi car family), and towards settling in a certain area. At the least, they delay these things, because they know you can’t count out a job.
How will this shape public policy? Hard to say exactly. But you can be certain there will be changes. What we currently know as the GOP is due for a big shake up. I registered in 2000 as a Republican; since that time I have moved a few times and re-registered as Independent/Unaff each time. I don’t even recognize the GOP that I grew up with–Arlen Spector, John Heinz III, Tom Ridge, Lawrence Coughlin, Jon Fox… these were people my parents and grandparents supported in PA. Bush-41 or Eisenhower type GOP. Jon Huntsman would’ve been someone I could’ve supported. The national GOP party right now can’t appeal to upscale, educated younger voters now because they deny evolution, they deny science, they deny global warming, they’re still fighting Roe v Wade, they favor oligarchs and Wall Street, they have a John McCain type foreign policy, etc. Gross.
The roots of the GOP were in Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater, and Ron Paul. The neo conservatives and bible thumpers hijacked the GOP and destroyed it.
‘modern new inventions and greater prosperity’
I’ve been thinking about some of this lately. I had a discussion the other day about cars/trucks. I remember when it wasn’t that uncommon to see a car broke down. I don’t see that so much and was told that the Japanese started creating much finer ‘tolerances’ for vehicles years ago and it forced other car makers to follow suit. When I was a kid, some of us got into CB radios. It seemed cool at the time. We even knew this one teenager who had a HAM radio! Not much compared to the age of children with smart phones everywhere. How did we survive?
About ten years ago, I worked around a lot of teenagers. I came to find out that probably half of them were on anti-depressants. I’d ask, ‘when do you stop taking them?’ ‘Never’ most said, although some had stopped. Is that an advancement?
But no question, it’s a whiz-bang tech world these days. Information flows much more freely. Maybe we should consider what others had to say about this:
http://www.icanhasinternets.com/2011/04/words-of-wisdom-from-abraham-lincoln/internet-quotes/
‘The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity.’
- Abraham Lincoln
And is all technology advancement a good thing?
‘If the privacy issues surrounding aerial drones have you worried, then Lockheed Martin’s recent demonstration of a Stalker drone charged by lasers likely won’t change that. The company flew its 13.2-pound surveillance drone in a wind tunnel while a laser system from a company called LaserMotive wirelessly transferred power to it. After 48 hours of continuous flight, the drones’ batteries were far from depletion — they actually had more electricity stored than when the tests began. Tom Koonce, Stalker program manager, said “[a] ground-to-air recharging system like this allows us to provide practically unlimited flight endurance to extend and expand the mission profiles that the Stalker vehicle can fulfill.”
http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/12/3154543/lockheed-martin-stalker-drone-48-hour-laser-power
Unlimited power for a surveillance drone called ‘Stalker’; what could be wrong with that?
“unlimited power”
After all, that is the universal goal of our co-opted government.
These guys must be a little light in the PR department to call it Stalker. Not a lot of positive connotations associated with that word. Maybe they are trying to appeal to the buyer, not the general public.
Remember this one?
http://blog.sfmoma.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/total_information_awareness.gif
About DARPA:
‘The Information Awareness Office is brand new and is lead by John Poindexter. Remember him? His CV states that, “He was directly involved in implementing The President’s policies on a strong defense, freedom and democracy around the world, human rights, world hunger, economic and military assistance.” However, it fails to mention his multiple felony convictions. Woops. I think Wired sums the situation up pretty well:John Poindexter, head of the Pentagon’s new data mining service, the Information Awareness Office.’
‘Master of Delete: After serving as Reagan’s national security adviser during the Iran-Contra scandal, Poindexter was found guilty of five felony counts (later overturned on a technicality), including obstructing Congress by erasing more than 5,000 incriminating emails.’
‘Data Hunter: In January, Poindexter, 66, was tapped to lead the IAO. The office, funded by Darpa, works to counter “asymmetric threats” (such as terrorist cells) with IT solutions. It’s building a prototype system for collating billions of previously unconnected data points - everything from the classified files of lone-wolf agencies like the FBI, CIA, and DEA to personal Internet communications and credit records.’
About the logo:
‘The Latin phrase below the symbol, “Scientia Est Potentia,” means, “Knowledge is Power.” Also, notice the part of the world that’s indicated in the symbol, Central Asia, the region which has been targeted for imperial occupation because of its rich oil and natural gas deposits.’
‘TR submitted this very interesting information: Subject: Scientia est potentia. These guys at the Information Awareness Office either don’t know their Latin very well, or they are being blantantly evil. Potentia means power but it has the connotation of unconstitutional private power. Power attained by private means and used for personal ends. What they should say is “Potestas.” This is power attained by and for the public good. As in this famous quote by Francis Bacon: Ipsa scientia potestas est. Knowledge itself is power.’
‘In my copy of the “New College Latin and English Dictionary” potentia is defined as: “force, power; political power (esp. unconstitutional power)”. Whereas potestas is defined as: “power, abililty, capacity; public authority, rule, magisterial power; possibility, opportunity, permission…”
‘So by saying “Scientia est potentia” they’re just coming out and saying, “Knowledge is unconstitutional political power for a few private individuals.” Sounds about right to me. Maybe they do know their Latin after all.’
“About ten years ago, I worked around a lot of teenagers. I came to find out that probably half of them were on anti-depressants.”
My kids may be imperfectly adjusted, but none of them have taken anti-depressants or anti-ADD medication.
I wonder how many of those teenagers could have done without anti-depressants with more parental support, more physical activity and less screen time.
In the good old days, antidepressants were a bit of plant matter in a plastic bag.
That was the kind I used decades back when I was depressed. But eventually I quit, when I realized the plant matter was actually increasing my mood volatility.
“Human efforts have created more abundance, but the desire to ‘fairly distribute’ it will remain a source of conflict so long as humans are working to debate and resolve the issues.”
What I would like to know is, what in the Fed’s charter authorizes it to redistribute wealth from one group of Americans (say less wealthy non-homeowners) to another (relatively wealthier homeowners)?
Wealth Gap in America Caused by Federal Reserve, Not Capitalism
Jed Chancey in Business, Monetary Policy 7 months ago
When most people hear about the redistribution of wealth they think of welfare payments and health care for the elderly, but the real redistribution of wealth is from the 99% to the 1%, not the other way around. The rapid expansion of the money supply by the Federal Reserve does not flow into the economy evenly, but is added in at distinct points.
The most distinct of these points is through the too-big-to-fail banks. Access to the new money first means these banks can buy assets and drive up prices in the stock market, benefiting themselves and the 1% that make up their best clients. By the time this new money has time to flow out into the broader economy; the 99% see no benefit and in fact suffer from higher prices.
The real cause of the increasing disparity in income levels in the U.S. is not capitalism, but central planning from the Federal Reserve. Continuing expansion of the money supply and artificially low interest rates are maintained by a process in which the Fed buys assets from the major banks and the richest Americans at inflated prices, or lends money to them at low rates that they can then use to buy assets at inflated prices.
…
This is on full display at this time in all housing markets across the nation as potential first-time homebuyers are in direct competition with hedge funds for low end houses. When you imagine young, unsavvy borrowers competing with Wall St. pigs, it’s like an NFL team playing against a peewee team. It’s revolting stuff.
Fed’s latest stimulus may have little impact on mortgage borrowers
Video: Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel Inc., talks about the impact of Federal Reserve monetary policy on the housing market.
By Danielle Douglas and Brady Dennis, Published: September 18
The Federal Reserve took aim at the nation’s wobbly housing market last week with its biggest stimulus action in two years, but that firepower is doing little to lower mortgage rates or make home loans more available for Americans.
Instead, banks are set to see a windfall since the Fed’s actions will immediately lower the cost of issuing loans. It may take months or longer for benefits to trickle down to consumers, analysts say.
What I would like to know is, what in the Fed’s charter authorizes it to redistribute wealth from one group of Americans (say less wealthy non-homeowners) to another (relatively wealthier homeowners)?
Is there anything in the Fed’s charter that forbids it from making the wealthy even richer?
Well, actually, the “intent” of the Charter was to provide a “stable” currency, and later to promote full employment.
They have FAILED at both their assigned missions.
However, having failed, it’s fun to play around with other people’s money and see what kind of shenanigans you can concoct to help yourself and your friends enrich their lives at the expense of others.
Doing such is seen as “God’s work”. You would only believe such a thing if you believed that God had intended you to be rich on the backs of others, having provided not a stitch of labor or capital to the venture.
Many people in these positions believe just that.
“By 1980, my College had a computer that worked with punch cards.”
That’s when I took my first programming course, in Fortran. I vividly remember trying to get the card reader to ingest a stack of three hundred cards on which my final project was written. If the card reader chewed up one of the cards beyond recognition, you needed to recreate it, put it back into the stack and try again.
Of course, this state of computing was a vast advance over the earlier days a few decades back, when the programmers had to rearrange vacuum tubes inside the bowels of the machine’s hardware to change a program.
I started out with an IBM 1620 in 1965, the programmer addressed it using either punch cards or paper tape.
If the card reader chewed up one of the cards beyond recognition, you needed to recreate it, put it back into the stack and try again.
No big deal if you were a touch typist like me & the card puncher was in good working order - it never broke down.
Then I went decades without touching a computer, until about 1982 when I started playing with a VIC-20 & was amazed at how much computers had changed. Since then I’ve owned dozens.
Around the same time (64-65), I took an introductory high school class in Fortran that we ran through the TRW UNIVAC. Punched out cards with a handheld key punch, processed them by hand wiring 12″x12″ boards that more resembled a PDX telephone switchboard than a transistorized circuit. Did the Radio Shack home computer thing in the garage that summer and didn’t come back to computing until the very early 1980’s when I was stunned at my utter cluelessness as what had transpired in the interim. Still haven’t mastered Word.
Still haven’t mastered Word I devised my own typewriter & paper word-processing process in college, long before computerized word processors.
I typed out sentences & paragraphs that seemed to be part of a larger project I was in the process of developing. I literally cut & pasted my writing gems & mounted them on a poster board or wall, rearranged them to form a coherent whole, retyping only where necessary. Some times I would cover most of a wall in my room doing this.
When my project had gelled, I would then produce a final good copy from the pieces pasted on the wall, along with several carbon copies.
I gradually internalized the process, which sped up my ability to produce readable copy in a first pass on a manual typewriter, although I would still resort to physical cut & pasting for my biggest papers.
Wordstar on an Osborne 1 portable computer was a godsend to me, back in 1983.
in 1980 I also took a Fortran class. We used HP-3000’s with terminals. The HP minis had a proprietary OS called MPE-3000 (Multi Programming Executive). Back then everyone seemed to have their own OS for their mini-computers. DEC had VMS, though a lot of DEC VAX’s did run UNIX. Data General and others also had their own OS’s.
At that time, IIRC, punch cards were only used on IBM systems and other mainframes. I never used a punch card back then.
Shoebox full of Fortran IV cards here in 1976 (or thereabouts). The computer had its own building.
Do-loops!
“The computer had its own building.”
That was still the case when I took my first class in 1980.
By 1982, I had changed universities, and computers had shrunk to file cabinet size and had CRTs with keyboards attached to them — no more need to punch your code on cards, or to read your results on an annoying dot matrix printout that you stood in line to pick up at the university office that housed the computer printer.
Our campus computer system converted from time cards in 1978 to time share in 1979. Big world of difference. I only had to contend with punched cards in 1978. Loved the time share. There were mini labs all through the campus - like a couple of computers in a small room tucked away in some mundane place here and there. The big labs were too popular. The students who were running the labs were called “consultants.” At least one would be using his computer all day to chat with buddies at other cal state campuses. Back in 1980 or so that was a big deal. Free chat. We had one or two CDC mainframes, several Vax machines. I think all were running VMS. We felt like we were second rate since University of California Vax machines were running Unix. We admired Unix.
“We admired Unix.”
And then there was MS DOS.
I was enjoying the memories of the VAX machines and DEC computers with complicated protocols and Machine language interfaces.
Lots of oldsters here.
My University had a PRIME computer with university time-share UNIX, yes the multi-tasking program, fore-runner of LINUX, which I really like……..and then, OMG!!!
You screwed it all up with the mention of MS-DOS.
BLASPHEMY!!! I pause to wretch.
I had a CP/M machine, once, too.
“BLASPHEMY!!! I pause to wretch.”
I don’t call myself BOMB THROWER for nothin’…
I still have a CP/M machine on my shelf, a 1986 laptop with 2 3.5″ disc drives & Wordstar on a EPROM.
Was it a Kaypro or an Osborne?
I bought at least 2 Osbornes after 1983. They were just barely portable, carrying one was like carrying a portable sewing machine. I bought a 2nd one to leave at home so I wouldn’t have to keep lugging the thing in & out of work. I got rid of them over 10 years ago, gave them to Goodwill. They saved me from crippling my right hand with writer’s cramp.
On my shelf I have an Epson PX-8 which had CP/M utilities on tiny ROM cartridges, and also an external 3.5″ disk drive. It has a very small screen.
I also have a 1987-era NEC Multispeed laptop running MSDOS on ROM chip &/or 3.5″ disk. It weighs about 12 lb. but can actually be used as a laptop if your lap can take the weight. Screen displays 25 lines by 80 characters.
I have kept them because they’re cute & don’t take up much space. They worked the last time I tried. Their NiCd batteries are probably long gone.
I got one up on you, buddy. I started out with FORTRAN IV with WatV. I hated it. I hated the punch cards. And I mostly hated the LONG cue of the many users on the single system that gave you back you stack of cards, complete with Error Codes when the program did not successfully compute on the first go-round.
Mostly they never went through the first go -round and usually, it was a SYNTAX error. Re-punch, resort and get back in line, returning several hours later to pull your stack of cards from the computer overlords.
I truly believe it was a form of hazing by the University staff to intimidate Freshmen students.
Ha. Ha. Yours failed. Ha. ha. TRy it again.
I was lucky to first study computers at a small college where the lines were short to non-existent. If our FORTRAN programs didn’t compile on the first run, we learned within a few minutes & could easily * quickly correct minor errors. The real screw-ups meant printing the program out & going over it line by line, then re-punching the card or cards in question.
It was a real coup for a student to have his program compile on the first attempt and then produce useful results. I learned early on that, PIMF.
Also among the things we notice today that is changing from prior decades ,our country is awash in ’stuff’,like in flea markets. nobody really wants it , and until the time comes that the Wall-mart -China spigot turns off,it is not needed ,Stuff just changes hands, mostly among older folks.
In our part of the USA , there are almost no summer backyard gardens anymore.The produce dept. is much cheaper then spending all that time raising Tomatoes and peppers and things…..The older ones that happily puttered away all summer in the gardens are about all gone now.What happens when the produce trucks stop coming?
I enjoy going to flea market type things with my wife–it reinforces the real “value” of things. When you go to a flea market, you see things that were once new and state of the art and cost 100s or 1000s of dollars. Now, they are selling for fractions of that price, even if they are in great condition. Electronics in particular are a real laugh. Any TV older than 5 yrs is essentially worthless now because you can get a bottom of the line Vizio (or other store brand) brand new for a price even a lucky ducky can afford.
The message of this? Don’t buy things you really don’t need. Buy less stuff, but buy quality stuff.
The best thing I ever got at a flea market was a working XM/radio boombox & power supply with a slight hiss to the audio. It has a indefinite subscription,though. Cost $1. Can hardly hear the audio defect.
Great post.
Our lesson from our time in Corporate America is that “Corporate America hates you” and wants to f*ck you over and rape you at every chance. Not all of us are entrepreneurs, some of us just want to work our 40-50 hours a week and have a life outside of that.
We worked for TARP bank in 2004-2006. We worked for Big Azz defense contractor in 2006-2007. We worked for Big Academia (while in grad school) in 2007-2008. We worked for Big Firm in 2008-2009 with newly-minted grad school degree.
Everyday we wake up so thankful that we did not breed and have children. And everyday we are so grateful at the opportunity to steal your childrens’ future by burning the coal and gas and oil that make our lifestyle possible.
Global warming may or may not be real, but if it is, I am truly enjoying burning a full tank of gas every weekend to go mountain climbing and skiing (on what snow there is left) and look forward to your children and grandchildren burning and melting in the scorched carcass of this trashed planet that’s left behind for them.
Sorry, kidz. That’s just the capitalist system we live in. LOOSERS!
You must either be good in whatever you did or you are a hustler to change three careers, go to grad school and then land a job right after that.
Maybe your competition was weak for this new job. But that is truly something that you should be thankful for, as I am sure you are. A lot of people will never recover like you did.
IIRC, goon squad is an IT type, which would allow for jumping around into different sectors.
And I do agree with the assessment that “Corporate America hates you”. Your salary and any associated overhead is a cost, and Corporate America hates costs the way a 1%er hates taxes.
Happy Thanksgiving, HBB!
I have a question - when did ‘Pimp Watch’ join the board?
Pimp, feel free to answer, yourself.
Hope that everyone is doing well!
pretty sure he was once exeter, then Realtors are Liars(RAL), maybe some others, and now, Pimp Watch
PW, correct me if/where I am wrong on your metamorphases.
This is what I’ve been able to piece together as well. His original name was Exeter.
Here’s one for exey:
My son basically tied me to a chair tonight, turned on the TV, and forced me to watch a black comedy in which a young teen, his good-hearted girlfriend, and his mom flee the ruins of their burned out Los Vegas tract home pursued through the desert exurbs by a bite-happy vampire dude on a dirt bike.
Just when all seems lost ( both in terms of plot development and of viewer endurance), the mum “stakes” the vampire with a Century 21 “for sale” sign she’s snagged from the nearby front yard of one of the foreclosed homes. Given the circumstances and the setting, it just seemed so, so….right.
“Fright Night” is certainly one of the more inexcusably awful movies I’ve seen of late, but somehow the repurposed RE sign brightened my outlook and cheered my wearied soul on behalf of FB’s on the run from bloodsucking vampire hoards everywhere.
Hilarious. Here’s a link to the Youtube clip of the scene you referred to: http://youtu.be/FXlCvn7UyFk
And all this time I thought PW and FPSS were the same person.
No resemblance whatever so far as I can tell…