Me too. Too bad all of Heathkit's stuff was so expensive. I only built an AM radio and the metronome. There used to be a Heathkit store that I'd ride the bus past everyday and it always amazed me that they could sell enough to keep a store open.
I think people were actually a lot more technical a few generations ago. Maybe it's just the people I grew up around or hang out with, but they seemed a lot more mechanically and electrically inclined. Also people did not have as much money and would have to improvise. Now it's called the maker culture but before is was just living.
My grandfather and father made stuff (like this guy all the time whereas now I'd spend $4 on ebay and have it delivered to my door already assembled in two days. I remember having to spend entire weekends learning how to fix things like fans and vacuum cleaners whereas now I'd drive down to walmart and buy a new one.
They also did not have to download pr0n from alt.binaries.pictures.sexymidgets, save it to floppy, insert another floppy to run the uudecode program, then another to view the image. It could take half a dozen floppy swaps and TEN MINUTES for one picture which would take up an entire disk.
But the new shit is so much better than the old shit. Ever try using wordperfect on an original green monitor IBM PC? I grew up with a 300baud modem and learned how to get around the limitations (like scheduling downloads while I'm sleeping), so I'm perfectly fine with 5mbs service and don't need 10GB/s.
My killer app for the internet was a college homework problem solver similar to what wolframalpha is today. Unfortunately I had the idea circa 1990 and no funds. I wish I still had my sketches for it...it looked a lot like a web browser. The idea was to distribute disks through the mail.
That had already been developed for ICBMs which have to withstand much higher stresses than something limited to what people can stand. The same computer used in the Minuteman missile was used for Apollo. In fact much of NASA's mission at the time was to perform technology transfer of classifies DoD tech to the private sector.
But the fact that the total NASA investment of $55 billion yielded a paltry $5 billion in true spinoffs, creating entirely new products or industries, suggests a very poor return of ten cents on the dollar. Again, this should not be surprising, given the highly specialized nature of much of the engineering and development work conducted by NASA.
So rather than being an unusually good investment paying 7:1 or 22:1 for each dollar invested, NASA has an astoundingly bad 1:10 payoff -- about a factor of 100 worse than the commercial economy as a whole.
Slashdot Mirror
Tunnels under the border have also been a thing for a long time. And of course it won't work, but people are dumb and proud of it.
Happened long ago.
It's worse than I feared.
2012 electricity generation was 22,668TWh
Why would you assume that. Did you even think about it for more than 2 seconds?
This is what happens when your society does not posses critical thinking skills and is raised on sciencefotainment.
just about everyone was out tinkering on something in their garage.
Yes. This exactly. What happened? Sure cars are harder to work on, but people still do it.
Me too. Too bad all of Heathkit's stuff was so expensive. I only built an AM radio and the metronome. There used to be a Heathkit store that I'd ride the bus past everyday and it always amazed me that they could sell enough to keep a store open.
My grandfather and father made stuff (like this guy all the time whereas now I'd spend $4 on ebay and have it delivered to my door already assembled in two days. I remember having to spend entire weekends learning how to fix things like fans and vacuum cleaners whereas now I'd drive down to walmart and buy a new one.
IRLP
will adapt faster to using eclipse than someone who has never programmed before.
They also did not have to download pr0n from alt.binaries.pictures.sexymidgets, save it to floppy, insert another floppy to run the uudecode program, then another to view the image. It could take half a dozen floppy swaps and TEN MINUTES for one picture which would take up an entire disk.
But it's not a "perfectly decent working system" if it's not new.
But the new shit is so much better than the old shit. Ever try using wordperfect on an original green monitor IBM PC? I grew up with a 300baud modem and learned how to get around the limitations (like scheduling downloads while I'm sleeping), so I'm perfectly fine with 5mbs service and don't need 10GB/s.
anything no wired to a wall,
My grandfather's generation grew up with ham radios. He said all the kids used to do it.
Most older people have already seen, even used, most, if not all, "new" technology under a different UI.
The coffee pot was at MIT and an example of IOT and decades before IOT.
My killer app for the internet was a college homework problem solver similar to what wolframalpha is today. Unfortunately I had the idea circa 1990 and no funds. I wish I still had my sketches for it...it looked a lot like a web browser. The idea was to distribute disks through the mail.
Also note the lack of safety equipment. Those were some heady days, dl, heady days.
I have ADD now, so gave up after that. Thanks. I remember watching it on my DECstation with 21" color monitor.
You forgot blink] Blinky /blink'
Political Correctness is fascism pretending to be Manners
That had already been developed for ICBMs which have to withstand much higher stresses than something limited to what people can stand. The same computer used in the Minuteman missile was used for Apollo. In fact much of NASA's mission at the time was to perform technology transfer of classifies DoD tech to the private sector.
Anyone care to calculate the ROI for the handful of humans we put on the moon?
The Federation of American Scientists did: NASA Technological Spinoff Fables
But the fact that the total NASA investment of $55 billion yielded a paltry $5 billion in true spinoffs, creating entirely new products or industries, suggests a very poor return of ten cents on the dollar. Again, this should not be surprising, given the highly specialized nature of much of the engineering and development work conducted by NASA. So rather than being an unusually good investment paying 7:1 or 22:1 for each dollar invested, NASA has an astoundingly bad 1:10 payoff -- about a factor of 100 worse than the commercial economy as a whole.
People are much more educated these days. Mars is not the moonshot that you're looking for.