Decline in Valued Contributors???

[John Brown]

Viktoria is very nice but could she sharpen your chisel?

She could sharpen my chisels any time!
How I miss Lance and Lee!

 

[Valhalla]

https://www.viewdata.org.uk/index.php?cat=31_The-nbsp~Gnome&page=05_Introduction
For example..

I'm not THAT old....

 

[Valhalla]

Some of the adverts are ok.... look at this screenshot:
Victoria, 34, from ukraine better than an advert about a boilers


You can say you are going to sharpen your chisels, it's fine.
Just don't for petes sake say how you intend to do it

Some say use your hand to strop a chisel, but then again......for a finer edge...

 

[baldkev]

Im pretty sure i once saw a post where someone claimed to have trained a horse to walk past him, turn around and walk past again whilst he held out a chisel .... for a real horse hyde stropping experience

Edit to add: we need a change of topic quick

 

[Robbo3]

30 years ago, when the Internet took off, email was the "new" way of communicating. Mailing lists and Usenet evolved rapidly.

Usenet is still available.
I'm subscribed to several of the many newsgroups.

 

[Dabop]

They were BBSs - Bulletin Board Services.....probably THE first forums all on 9600 bps

LOL- 9600 baud- you young whippersnapper you...
(My first BBS I used a 300 baud acoustic coupler modem (you literally dialed on the rotary dial, then stuck the handpiece into the modem- you could hear it squealing away!!!)
Several years later I moved to a 1200 baud direct coupling modem I got from my old work where they were upgrading to 4800 baud...

For those who have never seen one- an acoustic coupler modem- in fact the one below is literally identical to the one I had...

9600 baud???
'luxry' in best Yorkshire accent...
(from about the same timeframe lol)

 

[John Brown]

300 baud? I used to belong to bulletin boards that used Semaphore. They were slow, but much faster than the smoke signals they replaced.

 

[Jameshow]

LOL- 9600 baud- you young whippersnapper you...
(My first BBS I used a 300 baud acoustic coupler modem (you literally dialed on the rotary dial, then stuck the handpiece into the modem- you could hear it squealing away!!!)
Several years later I moved to a 1200 baud direct coupling modem I got from my old work where they were upgrading to 4800 baud...
View attachment 150904

For those who have never seen one- an acoustic coupler modem- in fact the one below is literally identical to the one I had...

View attachment 150905
9600 baud???
'luxry' in best Yorkshire accent...
(from about the same timeframe lol)

Strangely enough I found an old wooden phone as seen on TV, with 4? Connectors on the bottom and speaker on front and bell on top!!

 

[Jameshow]

When she gets here I'll update you on that

You digger got an enclosed cab as you'll be needing it!!

 

[Geoff_S]

Yep, 2400 baud allowed me to WFH … in 1990.

 

[PhilipL]

Yep, 2400 baud allowed me to WFH … in 1990.

I wfh with 300 baud and an acoustic coupler early 1980s. Research Machines 380z. Cost a fortune.

 

[sploo]

I wfh with 300 baud and an acoustic coupler early 1980s. Research Machines 380z. Cost a fortune.

380Z. That's a blast from the past.

 

[Geoff_S]

I wfh with 300 baud and an acoustic coupler early 1980s. Research Machines 380z. Cost a fortune.

Ha ha, I had forgotten about those!

A neighbour was a professor at a university who was doing a study on young people’s attitudes towards computers.

We participated and he brought round a terminal and a coupler to connect to the university computer.

My first introduction to computer programming, great fun.

I think I was about 13 at the time so around 1969/70.

Mind you, it was soon sent back when my Dad got the phone bill.

 

[rafezetter]

Kind of harsh rafezetter, at least in my opinion.

Many are angry, outraged, hate the new owners and their subscription, money optional, which you having the choice to turn off, advertising business model.

Everybody overlooks or chooses to forget the the original owner never said a word about the sale of the forum, never gave any notice of when it was going to happen nor what to expect. Didn't even say goodbye. He took the money for all the freely donated content and scurried off into the night. As far as I remember he never even gave any of the then forum members the opportunity to buy or take over the forum so it would stay a ".... forum .........owned" and managed by just a few members all of whom are woodworking enthusiasts - it's more like a "woodworking club" ........" kind of place.

Given all the harsh comments, hatred and abuse the new owners have taken in all it's forms since acquiring this place I think they have done very well overall, showing a lot of patience, tolerance and not even censoring the detractors. It ain't so bad.

Pete

To be absolutely fair, that is a very good set of points Inspector, I'd not really given that aspect of the previous owners behaviour much thought and you're right again about some of the now departed members buying it (depending on price) as I'm sure they would have, given the opportunity, so that was pretty underhanded by whatever his name was.

I don't HATE the new owners, though some feel more strongly than I do, it's the completely transparent fact that "they are only here for the beer" so to speak (though the old owner was too, but less so) the forum is now a cash cow where it wasn't before, and the new owners have a large stable of other forums so to continue that analogy, members old and new are just "cattle for clicks".

 

[Adam W.]

I wfh with 300 baud and an acoustic coupler early 1980s. Research Machines 380z. Cost a fortune.

What?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My first introduction to computer programming, great fun.

I think I was about 13 at the time so around 1969/70.

I left school in 1972 - we didn't even have calculators.

 

[Spectric]

I left school in 1972 - we didn't even have calculators.

But we did have slide rules and the good old book of logarithms .

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Still got them.

 

[Geoff_S]

But we did have slide rules and the good old book of logarithms .

And very useful they've turned out to be They combined very well with the Latin.

 

[deema]

And very useful they've turned out to be They combined very well with the Latin.

After I graduated and whilst maths GCSE’s actually contained and required a good understanding of maths, I used to teach maths and physics part time. Unconventional I used to teach as part of the curriculum Log, Ln, Sine, Cosine and tangents from first principles. One of the biggest improvements in grades was accomplished by going back to basics and getting students to calculate a Log from tables, for example and explaining how they were derived. Why? Well when you understand the principles, and get a feel for what the answer should be, you recognise silly mistakes of hitting the wrong key on your calculator.
About 6 years ago I went down to the institute of Physics in London and did the exam science teachers had to do to get a grant to become a Physics / science teacher (When the government was trying to encourage science teachers) Now, the room was fully a recently graduated Physicists, so I felt rather daunted. I’d only done a Physics A level about 40 years before them. We were broken into groups and took three different tests, one of which was an exam. Two groups had taken the exam before it was my term, and they all came out with long faces concerned at how hard it was. I nearly got back on the train and headed home without taking it. Anyway, I did, and to my surprise it was simple. It was only pitched at what I used to consider O level standard. I achieved 100% in the test, whilst many of the recently graduated in Physics failed. It was a very sobering experience about how far standards in education have dropped in the last 30 years.