I remember

[Enzo]

Wait, don't tell me, DTMF? Dual Tone Multi Frequency?

What will the ensuing generations think of the term "clockwise"? Counterclockwise to loosen?

[Mark Hammer]

One of the first lessons children would learn about interactional politeness, other than thanking granny for the present, was asking someone over the phone "Hi, is so-and-so home? Could I speak to them?", with parental coaching. With phones harnessed to individuals, rather than homes/locations, if someone answers you are speaking to that person, so there's no need for the question.

Geezer rant off.

[Enzo]

My land line number LOOKS like a cell number. Starts with x0x. SO I get calls all the time that refer to "my" credit card account or some other account. When we have more than one person on the line here.

[Chuck H]

I remember riding public transit. When I was 14 a ride on the #62 bus in San Jose cost a dime and a day pass was fifteen cents. I did this whenever it would save time over riding my bike. Like when going to Tower Records or Guitar Showcase. When we were younger, like 11 or 12, my brother, myself and usually a friend would pick a bus, buy a day pass and ride it to the end of it's route. These were exotic destinations. Places we'd never reach on a bike ride and so we'd never seen them. We did this on several routes and sometimes you WOULD see an area you'd been to before, usually on some errand with your parents in their car. Suddenly your world started to open up. You realized that you could go to the same places your parents did for only fifteen cents. So we started visiting some of those places. I remember a great cheese shop, three museums, two libraries and one amusement park. Just kids allowed to be free in the world. San Jose and the adjacent cities weren't nearly the metropolis they are now, but it's still not the sort of thing any parent would allow today.

[nosaj]

Wait, don't tell me, DTMF? Dual Tone Multi Frequency?

What will the ensuing generations think of the term "clockwise"? Counterclockwise to loosen?

Actually here in FL they're still teaching analog clock reading. He just turned 7 and can read a clockface, and he's very anal when asking how long something will take.

nosaj

[bob p]

But seriously... I do get sick of hearing boomers (yep, probably a lot of you guys) tell me how hard it was when THEY did it. Research clearly shows (adjusted for inflation) that cars cost about two thirds what they do now and a house could be bought for typically less than three years blue collar income.

I'm surprised that the inflation adjusted cost of old cars isn't lower than 2/3. When I think of all of the add-on stuff that's been legislated into cars I'm surprised that the cost of new cars isn't more than 50% higher than it used to be. I'm surprised that today's cars don't cost a lot more, considering that they have computers and TV screens and that all kinds of high tech and safety features go into their designs now, and considering that the health care costs for the people who build cars are a lot higher than they used to be.

Adjusting for inflation, I think gas is no more expensive as it was back in the old days. For the longest time gas prices remained stable because we were paying in silver. Watch a really old movie and the gas prices weren't that different in the 30s vs. the 60s, because people were paying for gas with real money. I remember complaining at the pump when the gas for my GTO was a quarter. Realistically, my problem wasn't the price of gas, it was the fuel consumption of my car. Back in 1964 a quarter was made of silver. This web site says that the melt value of that silver quarter today is $2.96, which is about what gas costs here today. I guess that makes sense, because so much of the cost of everything in our modern economy has a transportation cost factored into it's price, and we're not in a gas shortage right now.

It doesn't bother me to hear Mark reminiscing about blowing up army men as a kid, but it would bother me if I heard an American politician reminiscing about that, as those are the guys who send real soldiers off to war.

[bob p]

... They thought that was a pretty cool thing, so I just had to explain pulse dialing to them and showed them how to dial a number using the hook switch. Even more fun for a young kid.

Remember rotary phone locks? They'd put a keyed lock in the "1" hole to prevent people from dialing out, but you could get around that if you knew how to pulse dial. I was looking for a photo online and found this one -- EPIC FAIL!

[nosaj]

Remember rotary phone locks? They'd put a keyed lock in the "1" hole to prevent people from dialing out, but you could get around that if you knew how to pulse dial. I was looking for a photo online and found this one -- EPIC FAIL!

Just click the buttons under the handset. I learned about that stuff reading about Captain Crunch in the 2600 quarterly. Never had a time to try it as DTMF was coming on the scene every now and then you'd run across a rotary.

nosaj

[bob p]

One of the first lessons children would learn about interactional politeness, other than thanking granny for the present, was asking someone over the phone "Hi, is so-and-so home? Could I speak to them?", with parental coaching. With phones harnessed to individuals, rather than homes/locations, if someone answers you are speaking to that person, so there's no need for the question.

Geezer rant off.

Oh, you've hit a pet peeve of mine -- today the problem goes beyond people not being polite by failing to introduce themselves and ask for the person they want to speak to. Today people make two assumptions -- that they're going to get the exact person they want to talk to AND that that person will know who they are when they call.

The result is that when my phone rings the person at the other end just starts talking without even telling me who they are. As soon as I say "Hello" they start a conversation without any introduction, as if I should know who they are and why they're calling. They proceed with a conversation that they start in mid-stream with no context for reference. I have to ask, "Who is this?" "Why are you calling?"

I guess that comes from the expectation that everyone has their own personal phone, and that the person on the other end should already knows who is calling before they answer. We don't have that going on here. We have rotary phones all over the house, multiple people share the line, and there is no Caller ID display. When DTMF came out, we didn't have to lease the new more expensive phones, somebody made programmable boxes to generate the tones and store your favorite 20 numbers.

Does anyone remember the old auto-dialing phones that used plastic punch cards?

[Enzo]

Yes, I recall the punch card phones. "A real time saver for the office."

Caller ID tells many folks when I call, but I still find it creepy if I dial someone and they pick up the phone with "Hi, Zo, how are you doing?"

I have a caller ID phone here, but it is not connected. I used to use it at work, and I rarely looked at the screen. So I don't already know Joe Blow, what I ignore his call? I am a retail store.

My mom was a counter...if she were sitting by the phone and it rang, she'd sit there with her hand on it letting it ring twice more before actually answering it. "Well, I don't want them to think I was sitting by the phone..." Same at the traffic light, turns green, wait 0ne, Two, Three, NOW go...

Mom also never understood the ring tone SHE heard did not correspond to the ringing of my phone. SO once in a while she'd call, and I picked up before she heard a ring tone. She'd be baffled how I knew she was calling. Plus unlike her, I didn't count to three before answering.

MY sisters sound alike, sometimes I know instantly I am talking to my sister, but it takes a couple sentences to be sure which one. I guess I need that caller ID...


MY mom had one of those dial phone locks. I guess it protected us from someone breaking into the house and calling Nebraska.

I had a phone plug in my little shop, and I would watch the voltages, plus I could listen in to my sister's calls. I found I could dial numbers out by breaking the connection with wires.

A controversy here is they want to stop teaching cursive writing in schools. No one writes anything any longer.

[Chuck H]

Stop teaching cursive!?! I admit that I never use it, but the physical embodiment of symbolism is the reason humans can develop technology. The ability to exchange information is our species biggest advantage. The "great leap forward". How much longer before they stop teaching kids to print as well? Then how the hell are they supposed to communicate information without being face to face if they don't have a button to push with a letter on it? Maybe just point and grunt I suppose. We weren't allowed to have calculators in class. My daughter was required to have a calculator in class. Now students are allowed to have the internet in their pocket at all times.?. And I know from experience that most of what they're learning is strictly rote. So what's the point? If all you need is the answer it's right there on a *oogle search. Or just ask Siri. For thirty years we've been educating our youth to NOT think and rather perform functions in a rote fashion to get an end result. We are some of the last people that were encouraged to UNDERSTAND.

[Mark Hammer]

When I needed a distinctive ring at work, I just disassembled the phone, stuck a piece of tape on one of the two bells used for the ringer, and put the whole thing back together. It was about 85% as loud, but you could tell it was your phone.

[Dave H]

Stop teaching cursive!?! I admit that I never use it.

What do you do when your signature is required? Print it or just put a X in the box?

[Chuck H]

What do you do when your signature is required? Print it or just put a X in the box?

Well, like many of us you could never 'read' my signature. It's become more of a squiggled symbol. Of course plenty of people have trouble with my printing too. About the only time I use cursive is when I'm writing in some kind of Hallmark event card or some such. And I have to slow way down to pull it off.

And there's another memory from childhood that may, or may not have gone away. That crappy, recycled, gray/brown paper with the writing columns that had a dashed line through the center. They were used for teaching writing and early elementary school essays (What I did on summer vacation ).

[Leo_Gnardo]

They'd put a keyed lock in the "1" hole to prevent people from dialing out, but you could get around that if you knew how to pulse dial.

I've dialed out by tapping the buttons once in a pinch, wow must be 40 or more years back now.

Someplace I used to work, there were people doing this. It all came to an end when the phone company started sending their techs around to find out why the dialing out of the facility was "very irregular."

[Enzo]

I thought a lot about cursive, and I find no reason to continue to teach it. I don;t use it, my cursive is really just printing without always lifting the pen. People communicate just fine without cursive, they do print. And I don;t think not teaching printing does not follow.

I grew up with the metric system a theme for a day. Could be math, could be history, who knows. Nothing to dwell on. I suspect they do more on it nowdays, but I know they still teach miles and inches. What if they stopped teaching miles and inches? No one would use them anyway after not very long. DO we need to know both systems? Really? DO you know what you weigh in stones? How long is a fortnight? How far is it to work in stadia? In furlongs? You may have read the book, and likely saw the movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Do you know what a league is? What is a fathom? We have given up systems in the past and never looked back. Is there any trouble doping commerce or life skills without knowing stones, furlongs, and leagues?

[Chuck H]

I do think cursive is actually useless. I'm only noting that doing away with it embodies an ideology that could lead to bad things. If we ever get to a point where people can only communicate technology using technology and everything we do is a learned process that is dictated by technology... We would ultimately reduce technological understanding while simultaneously undermining our own ability to understand or communicate technological matters. It's a very real problem from my own observations.

If it's true that it's ONLY cursive on the chopping block, then have at it. It's a useless, fancy lad way of communication. But if the idea eventually leads to not teaching writing at all because no one ever does it anymore (because every letter series they assemble is on a keypad), well then we have the scenario I outlined above. And THAT would be a problem.

[Enzo]

These days everything is printers, but in the old days at school, they used "spirit duplicators" other wise called "Ditto machines". The teacher typed or drew on a special sheet with a purple carbon on the back. Then that carbon was put on a drum in the ditto machine. Acetone solvent was in the machine, and it caused that purple carbon image to bleed, which when pressed to plain paper stuck as a purple image. The teacher could crank out 30 handouts or quizzes or whatever. You could only get so many copies off one master before the image got too weak.

For text and larger runs there were "mimeograph" machines. Like the ditto, the mimeo looked like a printing press. You put the master sheet in your typewriter, and flipped the ribbon off. The keys then struck directly the master sheet, which cut through it enough that ink would bleed. The master wrapped around an ink filled drum, and you cranked it around and the ink came through the master - called a stencil - and printed in black ink. A master stencil lasted a long time, so you could make a thousand copies if you wanted.

Ditto had that appealing acetone smell to it, mimeo just smelled like ink.


Used to take bag lunch to school. They did have a hot lunch, but you had to bring a quarter or whatever it cost. You could also just buy milk for your bag lunch. Milk was 2 cents. As a kid we had little bottles of milk. They had a little disc of cardboard with a pull tab to seal it, then the whole top was covered in paper - similar to the paper caps they put on turkey leg ends. Then later they went to tetrapak milk containers. Sort of pyramid shaped. A straw hole near one corner. You had to remember to take your lunch money or your milk money to school each day.

Currently they teach cursive AND printing. Two sets of alphabets up front of classroom. Printing only is sufficient. You have to teach that otherwise, what would they read on their electronic screens?

I remember them building our new house. Dad bought a house in a new subdivision. We lived in an apartment downtown DC, the house in a suburb. He used to take me out and he watched the build progress. I recall him wandering through the studs of a framed but not built house. It was a cookie cutter neighborhood. All the houses were identical but the front door. All the homes had a living room in the right front corner. They alternated down the street. Our house had the front door on the left end of the living room (from outside). That was centered on the front wall. The next house was on the right corner, which was the right front corner of the house too. Otherwise, all basic Cape Cod.


We had a store bus. A school bus converted into a convenience store used to cruise the neighborhood once a week. He had milk and bread for mom. Eggs. But he also had candy and comics for guys like me. I used to buy baseball cards from them. And Tattoo gum. Orange and green striped label Tattoo Bubble Gum. It had a picture on the inside of the wrapper. You got it wet, then pressed it to your skin, and voila. instant tattoo. It wore off in a day or two. Not just baseball cards, I bought Davy Crockett cards. Davy was a huge hit for Disney. I collected both complete sets of cards.

I collected baseball cards. The Washington Senators were the home team. But I was a big Ted Williams fan. In the Topps baseball series, Stan Musial was #1. I had that and didn't care. Mickey Mantle was #3, and I had a number of that card. But Ted was #2, and in all the years I did that, I never saw a Ted Williams card. I eventually did 50 years later, when a card collecting friend had one.

But what was quintessentially 50s was putting baseball cards on your bike. We folded a baseball card to stick into the spokes of your bike wheels, and clipped it to the frame with a spring clothes pin from mom. That way the spinning wheel spokes buzzed the card, and it sounded JUST LIKE a motorcycle. Well it did to a 7 year old, I swear.

[Dave H]

But what was quintessentially 50s was putting baseball cards on your bike. We folded a baseball card to stick into the spokes of your bike wheels, and clipped it to the frame with a spring clothes pin from mom. That way the spinning wheel spokes buzzed the card, and it sounded JUST LIKE a motorcycle. Well it did to a 7 year old, I swear.

I can remember doing that with cigarette packets (they are hard cardboard over here). We were easily amused back then, no technology except for the valve radio I had in my bedroom. It was an R1155 from a WW2 Lancaster bomber.



Milk was free in UK schools until it was taken away by "Margaret Thatcher milk snatcher"

I've been to Cape Cod. I went there one Sunday when I was working in Boston. It must have been out of season. It was a brilliant sunny day but cold. I walked for miles on a totally deserted stony beach.

[Mark Hammer]

Part of the purpose of teaching cursive was to provide a vehicle for teaching penmanship, And penmanship itself was a vehicle for teaching children how to communicate in precise, comprehensible, ways, instead of um, I'm like, you know, sooo, like, you know, all like ohmygod, like...unable to be clear and get to the point. Comprehension should not be laborious. It should be easy and relatively instant. If one cannot convey what is in one's thoughts to another human, then you may as well be one of those locked-in presumably-comatose humans.

Teaching spelling and grammar is part of the very same mission. Declaring that, because most things are now printed or scanned, one needn't know how to write clearly and legibly, is akin to declaring that, because we have spell-checkers, we don't need to know anything about spelling anymore, or that calculators negate any need for even the most rudimentary mathematical skills, or that, because we have Siri/Alexa, we don't need to be able to discern between more and less reliable/authoritative sources of information.

Is there any need to flawlessly commit to memory how many whirls are to be added to the uppercase version of this letter or that? No. Does a child need to be able to flawlessly replicate the style seen on those old cards we would see affixed to the top of the blackboard, extending most of the way around the classroom? No. But they need to be able to write legibly and clearly, such that when they attempt to communicate, another human being who speaks the same language can read what they wrote. The same is true of spelling, grammar, and vocabulary.

[bob p]

Instead of asking whether or not *we* find cursive writing to be valuable, I think we should be asking the question *why* do some schools want to stop teaching it. Cursive writing gets taught in what, third grade? What's so important to squeeze into the heads of third graders that they feel the need to open up space in the third grade curriculum to teach something else?

I use cursive all the time. It's faster than printing out letters.

Something else that people don't think about -- cursive writing is more than a communication skill. It's a dexterity skill. And a brain development skill. It's taught in the third grade, a time when neural connections are very plastic, to teach fine motor skills and rudimentary abstraction to young children. Get rid of it and you're going to find kids that don't have as much brain development and hand-eye coordination. I'd like to know what's more important than that, what's so important that it's going to displace motor skill development and abstract thinking in children, and be taught in their place.

[Chuck H]

Declaring that, because most things are now printed or scanned, one needn't know how to write clearly and legibly, is akin to declaring that, because we have spell-checkers, we don't need to know anything about spelling anymore, or that calculators negate any need for even the most rudimentary mathematical skills, or that, because we have Siri/Alexa, we don't need to be able to discern between more and less reliable/authoritative sources of information.

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ was precisely my point. I actually DO think that "the system" may be taking the easy/fast route to enabling children for their role in the future. Their role being ever more predetermined by encroaching cultural circumstances. A demographic of people who are taught to not bother understanding things or take control of their circumstances. Taught to be accountable and trained on universally used automation to be efficient in the environment of money making for controlling powers. So open to manipulation that it borders on slavery. With the illusion of freedom being manufactured in the form of cheap, tasteless, artless products and food that are spun to seem desirable and represent the embodiment of social achievement. Slave ranching.

I had to respond, but it seems like a sad thing to hijack this thread. Especially when Enzo has been so eloquent, thoughtful and patient trying to keep it on track. So...

Here on Whidbey, much more so than in Seattle, there are many youngsters that are the sons and daughters of farmers, artists, contractors, brick and mortar shop owners, etc. Jobs that are not dependent on modern technology and ideologies beyond any advertising aspect. Many of these kids develop proficiency in these jobs and fully intend to make them into careers. These are people like we were that develop an understanding of general mechanics and communication and think ahead further than the task before them. There are scads of despondent millennials to be sure, but the ratio of young people reaching adulthood that aren't even sure what they should be thinking seems to be lower here. And since "here" isn't unlike small (or medium) town USA everywhere I'd venture to say that it's going to be alright.

[bob p]

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ was precisely my point. I actually DO think that "the system" may be taking the easy/fast route to enabling children for their role in the future. Their role being ever more predetermined by encroaching cultural circumstances. A demographic of people who are taught to not bother understanding things or take control of their circumstances. Taught to be accountable and trained on universally used automation to be efficient in the environment of money making for controlling powers. So open to manipulation that it borders on slavery. With the illusion of freedom being manufactured in the form of cheap, tasteless, artless products and food that are spun to seem desirable and represent the embodiment of social achievement. Slave ranching.

Don't worry. It'll all work out in The End.

[nosaj]

Don't worry. It'll all work out in The End.

Like 1984 by Orwell?

Just great.

nosaj

[Justin Thomas]

What's so important to squeeze into the heads of third graders that they feel the need to open up space in the third grade curriculum to teach something else?

I use cursive all the time. It's faster than printing out letters.

Something else that people don't think about -- cursive writing is more than a communication skill. It's a dexterity skill. I'd like to know what's more important than that, what's so important that it's going to displace motor skill development and abstract thinking in children, and be taught in their place.

It's not about what is "more important." It's about forced dependence upon others. Motor skill development and abstract thinking are two HUGE keys to being able to think for yourself and bring your thoughts to reality. We can't hVe that, because people with the ability to think and do for themselves don't make for very good little corporate robot slaves who will not challenge the status quo...

Public education has never been about empowering people to think and do for themselves. It's about bringing up a constant stream of worker drones. Sure, we let a few out to do "impossible" things, to leave the hope in the illusion alive, so people will keep buying into it, but it's all a show. The LAST thing "They" want is inquisitive children and young people with a little bit of know-how.

Justin

Edit: Plus everything Chuck said.

[bob p]

I remember ...

Traveling across Europe and needing a phrasebook to talk to the locals. When I lost my English-Czech / Czech-English phrasebook, someone gave me a replacement from the Soviet occupation period. It had some tremendously useful phrases, but they also has a few phrases that didn't translate into American English very well. One that I remember in particular translated as:

Comerade Dvorak is the best brakeman on the assembly line in our factory.

That was a real phrase from that phrasebook, I'm not kidding. I bet they didn't waste time on teaching cursive writing to kids.

[Chuck H]

Don't worry. It'll all work out in The End.

Well of course it will. Everything is going exactly where it should relative to the forces around it. Just one big, ongoing reaction to the big bang. Even what we determine to be independent thought would be calculable at every turn if every part of the equation could be known. Which of course it can't. But the point is... It's just like striking a match and watching it burn. If the wind is blowing one way and the humidity, temperature, barometric pressure, air content and anything else affecting it is X, Y, Z, etc. it'll burn a bit different from other circumstances. But burn it does. And the match has no control over what is happening or how it's going to. Everything that has ever happened was going to and that includes the development of what we believe to be sentience and anything we've done with it. What will you do about it? I don't know. But you were already going to do it. So, the end? Yep. It'll all work out.

In the mean time we have the luxury of recalling that strange meat patty in the school lunch that they SAID was Salisbury Steak or Chicken Fried Steak. Same patty, but one was breaded. And neither were steak

[Enzo]

Hey Chuck, I am not steering the thread, I am just continuing to remember stuff. Feel free to explore interesting stuff too.

I appreciate all the thoughts about communicating and so on, but those are arguments for teaching clear writing. Teaching someone to print clearly does the job just as easily as teaching them cursive. I hand write with a flowing print. It won't pass muster as cursive, but it is readable, and that is what counts. I was taught that cursive was to be done not lifting the pen during a word. I don't find that requirement useful to speed up my writing. I forget the name of the cursive we learned, but I do recall there was a competing form called the Palmer Method. Palmer was rounder and "prettier". The girls were especially good at it.

This isn't a memory, but we like to visit Mike's Village restaurant in nearby Dimondale. Once a month he has Chicken Fried Steak as the special. We always go for that. Yep, plain old breaded beef patty you'd expect. Mashed potatoes and white mushroom gravy. But it includes the soup and salad bar. He makes six or seven soups up from scratch every day. And they bake their own bread. I like the salt rising bread when he has it, otherwise sourdough.

I sometimes buy those little $1 microwave meals from the frozen section. My fave is the salisbury steak.

It all ties in together somehow...

[g1]

It used to be that every family got together for supper, most had a set time, but some kids didn't pay attention.
One of our neighbours had a whistle they would use to call their kids, that was kind of annoying. But another one down at the end of the block, you would hear the mom calling out "Scott-eyyyyyy" (because kids names have to end with an endearing "Y" at the end, right? ).
Every once in awhile we would answer back: "what-eyyyyy?". I always thought that was funny. I bet she laughed too.

[Chuck H]

I sometimes buy those little $1 microwave meals from the frozen section. My fave is the salisbury steak.

THAT patty is the same as what they served my age group in the school cafeteria as Salisbury or, if breaded, Chicken Fried steak. We ate them. We liked them then too. At least half vegetable protein of some kind. Back in the day it may have been something other than soy, but today I'm pretty sure it's mostly soy. Still domestic product though

[bob p]

Wikipedia has an interesting article regarding the decline of cursive writing in the United States:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive..._United_States


My parents both learned the Palmer Method. They both had incredibly good looking handwriting. Palmer's method had loops, but it was not designed to be calligraphic or fancy, like Spencer that came before it. It was rather plain, and designed for speed-writing in business applications. Somebody who was good at Palmer could write almost as fast as a good typist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Method

[Chuck H]

But another one down at the end of the block, you would hear the mom calling out "Scott-eyyyyyy" (because kids names have to end with an endearing "Y" at the end, right? ).

Yep If I was being called by anyone OTHER than my mom I was Chucky and my brother was Timmy. If my mom was calling us it was a whistle. You know those guys that can sort of roll their lower lip in and send out a shrill whistle? Some guys turn their index and middle finger in a "C" and stick it in their mouth. Yeah, they have NOTHING on my mom. She did this thing with her index and middle finger ON EACH HAND pointed out straight and stuck into her mouth. More support for the sheer force of the blow. I swear you could hear it a half mile away.

[Mark Hammer]

The thumb on my dad's writing hand was crippled from a severe illness when he was much younger (he was actually one of the first few civilians to receive penicillin; it was an experimental drug at the time). It made him hold the pen like a knife. As a result, my mom had to sign all his cheques. I don't know how they got away with it, but that's how they rolled.

[Dave H]

Everything is going exactly where it should relative to the forces around it. Just one big, ongoing reaction to the big bang. Even what we determine to be independent thought would be calculable at every turn if every part of the equation could be known.
Everything that has ever happened was going to

That isn't in line with current thinking. The idea of a totally deterministic universe had to be abandoned with the advent of quantum mechanics. It's one of the few times Einstein was proved wrong. It seems that God really does play dice.

[Enzo]

If there is god, he doesn't have to play by rules.