Thunderbird Club

[Stealth57]

Happy Diwali to all.


And proof my grandsons don’t always scream at me.

 

[GonePlaid]

who says CA can’t be like WA?…
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Shoot(sp?). When I was stationed in San Diego, there was some serious fog.

 

[GonePlaid]

Yes, I was in Junior High 1966-67. Women's Liberation hadn't quite hit my Junior High yet.

Jeez! I was on carriers offa the 'Nam in 66-67.

 

[Miles_ONeal]

I'm a two finger two hand typist, amkes for lots of inverted letters. For example "amkes"
My wife has some Bobby Shampoo. It taunts me daily

Does she use Bobby Pins?

 

[Miles_ONeal]

Seeing that reminds me: I talked to Gator. That bag won't fit the 67 NR.

Bummer. Sorry to hear that. They got nuthin for you?

 

[GonePlaid]

Yes! The back side as she walks out the door.

Reminds me of a lady I know. I used to tell her "I hate to see you go but I love to watch you leave." Great view.

 

[GonePlaid]

Bummer. Sorry to hear that. They got nuthin for you?

The guy I spoke to checked and came back with a "I'm sorry". Oh, well.

 

[Miles_ONeal]

Didn’t any of you take typing classes in junior high?

I was going to take it in high school, but I was already in the sights of the bullies among the jocks, and they made it clear "only faggots take typing, and you know what happens to faggots around here".

 

[GonePlaid]

Coat #2 done.

Got these for working around the frets. Takes more time of course, but no smudging. Shoulda thunked this out before the 1st coat... I'll clean the frets when I'm done with the dye, but I gave myself a bit more work.

Should be dried out in a couple of hours, will probably put a 3rd coat to make things more even. It's not quite as black as I'd like, but it's much better than the original color.


View attachment 4849954 View attachment 4849955

 

[Miles_ONeal]

Yep. I got pretty good on an IBM Selectric speedball…

I hit about 65 words a minute back in the day, two handed home row key alignment, no peeking. But 90% of my typing is done on an iPad touch screen these days where I only use one finger or sometimes two if I’m in a hurry. Don’t know how many WPM I hit these days but I’m sure it’s no where near 65.

I recall when Dad went from an old Royal manual to one of these at the college. We thought it was eth coolest thing.

Eight years later I was repairing typewriters for a living, including these.

 

[Miles_ONeal]

My dad was in computers in the 60s 70s and 80s and told us that learning to type was a waste of time. He had an argument with one of the teachers in high school about it too. Said that even through "computers are the future" there was no point learning to type as it was unlikely that everyone would have a terminal on their desk, only the secretaries would.

Whoooole lot of us secretaries running around these days.

 

[Miles_ONeal]

You could say that bass was.

That was the intent. 8^)

 

[GonePlaid]

I decided to get some of my own music out of my system. I've been recording ideas and stuff at home for the past two years and with the help of my friends collaborating I'm finally getting them released. Doing it under an alias like Copeland did his Klark Kent thing for example. It takes the pressure off since I hate the spotlight. So it's not really me, let's just say I manage the guy, OK?
Here's the first song.

Nice.

 

[GonePlaid]

And here we go, all done. Would never pass for a pro job, but looks good to me. Frets cleaned up as good as possible. Next time fine paint brush it is. The pointed foam brush I used on coat 1 is good to spread the dye between the frets, no so when you get close to them. I did tape it well beforehand, so not much spillage on the sides, easily cleaned. I covered the fretboard sides with tape as to ensure no spillage on the neck, so the original color shows. Should I do another similar project, I might do it diffently, but for this one, I'm good. Gibson fretboard conditionner darkened it a tad.

So here it is, before and after:

View attachment 4850273


View attachment 4850274

 

[Miles_ONeal]

My dad, the great futurist:
In the 60s foresaw that computers would be important; learned programming and began working in the field. Worked on the first computer bought by the City of London (England).
In the 70s saw the importance of computers in accounting, but science and engineering? Nobody is going to want to wait for their program to be batched overnight. Slide rules and paper plans will be there forever.
In the 80s called personal computers toys because you can't do real computing on them (batching accounting overnight).

In the early 80s, a traffic engineering firm[1] I worked for used a program called Transyt 7. It could analyze data for up to fifty signalized intersections in almost any arrangement and spit out suggestions for timing and coordinating the signals based on how you wanted to optimize flow.[2] Pretty complex. Our biggest run took 30 seconds on a CDC Cyber 74 (one of the better supercomputers at the time), 30 minutes on a DEC VAX 11/750 (a great minicomputer), and 30 hours on the just released IBM Personal Computer. I admit to being a bit underwhelmed with the PC (never mind that DOS 1.0 was a farce).

I'd love to know how quick that run would be on a Thunderbird, but I don't have a copy of the input data, or a FORTRAN compiler for a Thunderbird of any stripe.

[1][ JHK, once a part of Peat-Marwick, later bought by PRC Voorhees who was bought by someone else, IIRC
[2] One gets the impression most cities don't bother to run such programs.

 

[Miles_ONeal]

my dad worked as an applications engineer for worthigton pumps in NYC in the late 60's and left when they brought in an IBM 360 VAX....a clerk would walk around with a cart collecting the paperwork for the calculations to be done and would return with the results 1 hour later and distribute to the engineers who with nothing to do would just eye the secretaries.....said eyeing the same secretaries over and over got old...

Nitpick: The VAX was a DEC minicomputer. The 360 was an IBM mainframe. Worlds apart in philosophy, cost, etc.

 

[Miles_ONeal]

When my wife was in college (before I went back), I noticed all the weird classes she needed to take for her "physical distribution and transportation" degree, I said that most people would be better off to go work at a company at a reduced rate and learn a skill the way a company wants it, and once that was achieved (months not years), they would receive full pay. They would figure out whether they liked that job or not (but making money), the company would be paying someone to actually accomplish a task even at a reduced rate while they trained and they would get a trained employee the way they needed, the potential employee would not be paying (getting massive debt), to go to school to learn things they didn't need but would actually be getting paid to learn a skill they would use at their job, if they chose to stick with it. If not, they learned some things and were getting paid in the process....

That's the mortgage industry, right there. One of my daughters of the heart learned enough from her mom (who'd learned a similar way years before) to get an entry level position doing very basic stuff. 9-10 years later she's a forensic underwriter, which means she checks what the other underwriters do to make sure they haven't screwed anything up. She's less than half my age and making 60-70% what I'm making. At this rate, if she stays in the industry, she'll be a loan officer within a few years. They can make really good money. All OJT or courses through work.

 

[Stealth57]

I was going to take it in high school, but I was already in the sights of the bullies among the jocks, and they made it clear "only faggots take typing, and you know what happens to faggots around here".

And they’re flipping burgers today.

 

[Miles_ONeal]

And CP was replaced by the VP.

As much as many here sing the praises of the VP, the CPs have fans as well, as evidenced by the paucity available on the used market.

There was some overlap of the CP and VP, IIRC.

I like my CP and my VP, but so far I like the CP best.

 

[Miles_ONeal]

But that 6-9% will be different for each graduate...

Yep. You never know what will come in handy or be required. I always enjoyed diagramming sentences, but never expected to have to use them in the real world as an adult.