Tocky on 2/9/2017 at 01:38
I'll have to see it sometime. I agree with nickie that it was the most amazing thing in my lifetime that man has yet done. But I have no doubt that it was done. None. I understand radio telemetry and the Van Allen belts and Newtons third law and all the things the nutbag moon hoaxers do not. One day we may devolve into blithering idiocracy and hoaxers and flatards become the norm but that LEM pad and that plaque and even that faded crumpled flag will remain for an age of enlightenment when we may yet go again and discover the footprints we left when we were there the first time.
ffox on 4/9/2017 at 10:25
Thinking back, I have just realised that one of the big changes in my lifetime was the arrival of the first detergent (Teepol) in the mid 1940s. The first detergent washing powder (Tide) came on the market a few years later.
Life became much easier for the housewife (men didn't do housework). It really was a life-changer.
demagogue on 4/9/2017 at 12:38
Wow that kind of puts things in perspective.
I don't doubt it though. The brief time I lived in Myanmar and I had to wash laundry from a bucket, I came to appreciate how grueling that kind of work was. (And during rainy season, sheesh, it could hang for 5 days and still not be entirely dry, but you were going to wear it out into the rain anyway....) And that was with detergent made for doing laundry from a bucket. If we didn't have the detergent, goodness, I can't even imagine...
I took "showers" from a bucket too... But that wasn't so bad once I learned I could use the kettle to heat the water, and mix a little into each bucket. I later learned that was "life in a developing country" 101 stuff that everybody around me knew, but I guess that's part of the process/charm of learning to live in a new culture.
(They had "heating sticks" you could stick into the cold water basin to warm it up, but call my crazy, I was highly suspicious of putting a metal rod connected to I-don't-know-how-many-but-a-lot-of volts of electricity into a pool of water with my bare hands while standing on a wet floor. Egads!)
Dahenjo on 4/9/2017 at 19:03
I missed being born in the 1940s by a couple weeks. I remember our 'semi-automatic' washing machine had a big open basin with an agitator and a large wringer mounted on the top, still a heck of a lot of work. We got a dryer later on, but for years everything got hung outside (weather/season permitting) or in the basement. Counting several hours of ironing (synthetics were just beginning so everything had wrinkles) my mother spent a lot of her work week doing laundry.
I happened to be in Taiwan in '69 when we landed on the moon, spent the summer since my father was working over there. I missed the depth of coverage back in the US, but it was followed very closely there with every tv tuned to it, also many strangers came up to shake your hand just for being an American, it was really quite moving. Just being over there was a great experience, it was still very much like traditional China (rickshaws, open sewers, bound feet, etc) and seemed as much a visit to a different time as place.
Those 'heating sticks' remind me of the showers when living in Guatemala in 2013. With no central hot water, many shower heads were 'point of use' with electrical wires attached, often giving you small but noticeable shocks when adjusting the metal H/C handles. Out on the roads you passed indigenous women dressed in beautiful woven outfits, with large bundles of laundry or firewood balanced on their heads, maybe a kid strapped to their backs, while using their free hands to text on their phones!
Renzatic on 4/9/2017 at 19:22
You're all making me feel bad over here. You ask me about the trials and tribulations of my childhood, and all I'd have in response would be a "we only had three channels while I was growing up, and I sometimes had to walk outside to shake the antenna if they came in a little snowy." While relatively more primitive, my parents still had dishwashers, washing machines, driers, vacuum cleaners, and all the other niceties we all take for granted these days.
But you people? You're all like "when I was your age, we didn't have busses to take us to school. We had a donkey and a cart, and sometimes the donkey would die, and we'd have to walk the 30+ miles to the one room shack that was our elementary school to take our classes, which we DAMN WELL BETTER APPRECIATED THAN YOUR LOT! Oh, and the trip was uphill both ways. And during a war."
Kolya on 4/9/2017 at 21:06
One of the main things I remember from childhood is the feeling of being helpless at the hands of adults that I would classify from misguided to imbecilic. Teachers, politicians, parents of friends and also the random strangers on the street who felt they had to give me some "education". Being a kid was shit. The lack of basic respect that comes with it sucks. Not being able to make my own decisions sucked. Having to get up at 6:30 in the winter to sit in school at 8 - totally comatose - was and is a shit idea for anyone involved.
I probably didn't have a worse childhood than most here (at least not worse than voodoo's). I drove my bike through the Illuminati parks of Gotha for hours and days. I played Xenon II in hotseat and smoked on the toilet. But I'm so glad I'm "so old" now that I can shape my life mostly as I see fit. Childhood is overrated by adults. Youth is pretty interesting but filled with a different set of anxieties. Being grown up is where it's at.
Just saying this to any kid who reads this. Yes, you're at a shitty time of your life, you're not mistaken. The adults who tell you to enjoy it are. It may get better. Or not. Take a gamble? Well, what choice do you have.
Pyrian on 4/9/2017 at 21:20
Quote Posted by Kolya
One of the main things I remember from childhood is the feeling of being helpless at the hands of adults that I would classify from misguided to imbecilic.
Oh, yeah, very much this. Don't get me wrong, my last "boss" was a misguided imbecile too, but now I don't work there anymore. Not much you can do about it as a child.
Renzatic on 4/9/2017 at 21:55
For me, my childhood and teenage years were a bipolar rollercoaster of stupendous highs and crushing lows. Everything was a big deal, every experience the greatest thing ever, or the worst thing that could possibly happen, and I responded to each accordingly. Life was all one great big hormone addled mystery, where everyone experienced everything for the first time, and no one knew how to deal with anything in a rational, responsible manner.
The greatest boon of adulthood is that you have a much broader perspective on everything, and learn how to take it all, the highs, the lows, and everything in between in rather nonchalant strides.
Though that also serves as the greatest downside of adulthood. For good and ill, wisdom tends to blunt some of life's sharper stinging edges.
Tocky on 5/9/2017 at 03:34
Quote Posted by Renzatic
You're all making me feel bad over here. You ask me about the trials and tribulations of my childhood, and all I'd have in response would be a "we only had three channels while I was growing up, and I sometimes had to walk outside to shake the antenna if they came in a little snowy." While relatively more primitive, my parents still had dishwashers, washing machines, driers, vacuum cleaners, and all the other niceties we all take for granted these days.
Man I remember trying to get channel 13 out of Memphis when Sivad came on for the Fantastic Features horror show. Is it better yet? *squeek squeek* Not yet... no wait... hold it right there! But overall I had a great childhood. Sure I was beat until blood blisters formed scabs on my ass because I rolled my eyes at the teacher when she asked me to come to the board and explain a math problem that only I got but I was terrified of public speaking and it was like a horse rolling it's eyes at a snake and to this day I have a second of panic when faced with any math problem but overall that was the only bad thing to happen to me. I fucking loved the rest of it. Scouting and hunting and fishing with Dad and Trick or Treat and spending nights over with friends and girls, always girls, to hold hands and kiss and everything eager and new. One day I want to write a book on it all exactly the way it happened because it was just so goddamn great and it lives in my memory full and vivid and I don't know how I lucked out the way I did. I feel I grew up in the perfect age with a magic charm.
I'm sorry for some of you but it's not a rewrite of history for some of us. It really WAS fucking great.
Those wringer washing machines? My cousins terrified me with stories of "this one guy who got his hand caught" so that I kept my hands well back from it when I helped Grandma who had one. Those things did break buttons after all.
bedwine on 5/9/2017 at 06:25
I remember MS-DOS and what it took to get there from 1950!:angel:
