Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Goober Peas
Jun 30, 2007

Check out my 'Vette, bro


axolotl farmer posted:

Of course not. I just put it back on the shelf where it will sit until the sun blows up or someone else cleans out all the old crap.

It's potentially full of someone's old scientific raw data from the early 90s, or maybe a backup of something.

Porn. It's always Porn. Usually of a nature that is not a turn on.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

MadScientistWorking
Jun 23, 2010

"I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Terrible Robot posted:

There are certainly plenty of companies that have catalogs with a staggering amount of poo poo to buy, but I've yet to find one that is as widely varied as the old Sears, Roebuck ones.
They are industrial supply companies. Widely varied poo poo to buy is in the definition.

Terrible Robot
Jul 2, 2010

FRIED CHICKEN
Slippery Tilde

MadScientistWorking posted:

They are industrial supply companies. Widely varied poo poo to buy is in the definition.

Agreed, but when was the last time you saw an industrial supply company that also sells food in the catalog? I think we will just have to agree to disagree on the definition of widely varied, sir.

MadScientistWorking
Jun 23, 2010

"I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Terrible Robot posted:

Agreed, but when was the last time you saw an industrial supply company that also sells food in the catalog? I think we will just have to agree to disagree on the definition of widely varied, sir.
No I think you have a really oddball definition of widely varied because I know for a fact that the Sears catalog didn't carry even a small fraction of what is found in your average industrial supply catalog.

Terrible Robot
Jul 2, 2010

FRIED CHICKEN
Slippery Tilde

MadScientistWorking posted:

No I think you have a really oddball definition of widely varied because I know for a fact that the Sears catalog didn't carry even a small fraction of what is found in your average industrial supply catalog.

Look man, all I want is to be able to order a Genuine Chicago Pizza, a house, and some power tools in the same catalog. As far as I know, this isn't possible anymore.

Rhymenoserous
May 23, 2008

ZALGO! posted:

I remember the rewind button breaking on my cassette players a lot so to rewind I had to flip the cassette to the other side and fast forward, who else remembers doing this?

My first player only had ffwd and it broke. I improvised something involving a drill and a pencil.

GRINDCORE MEGGIDO
Feb 28, 1985


Pixotic posted:

If you were in london at the time, there's a distinct possibility that was my dad in the broken down c5 :haw: He worked for Sinclair back in the day and was driving one around when it died on him in the middle of... I want to say King's Cross?

My mother loved telling me that story as a kid :allears:

Haha, this is crazy, but it was in London :haw:
I don't know exactly where (it was a kiddies trip out - I was 10).
It may have been your dad inspired me to post the C5!

Lord Dekks
Jan 24, 2005

Horace posted:

Ah, Boots photo stickers. I scanned all my family's photos a couple of years ago and I think I got the full set, including the rare 'why have you given us wet film?' one.


Mewsbrook Park, Littlehampton by Monty Horace, on Flickr


Oh god that bought back memories, my parents have a box full of SupaSnaps envelopes, most of which were done at Boots.

madlilnerd
Jan 4, 2009

a bush with baggage

wipeout posted:

Haha, this is crazy, but it was in London :haw:
I don't know exactly where (it was a kiddies trip out - I was 10).
It may have been your dad inspired me to post the C5!

I saw a C5 parked up behind Camden station a couple of weeks ago and had to do a double take. Initially thought someone had made a weird cover for their recumbent bicycle.

Shame Boy
Mar 2, 2010

More old house wire chat: my aunt lives in a very old house in Upstate New York (one of the earliest ones in the area she lives in, actually). It got electricity very early on too, and a lot of the original wiring was left in place in the basement when a more modern system was added. It was back when electricity was scary and unpredictable I guess, because all the wires are uninsulated and held up by fairly large ceramic stand-offs that look like miniature versions of the ones on high voltage power lines. The whole wiring job looks like a Tesla invention.

BigHustle
Oct 19, 2005

Fast and Bulbous
I don't know if any of you saw Peter Uggsly's post in SA-Mart, but that Goon has the hook up if you need any obsolete or failed tech. KP Surplus is the warehouse where old poo poo goes to die.

Terrible Robot
Jul 2, 2010

FRIED CHICKEN
Slippery Tilde
My bank account...it's...it's screaming.

e: Jesus christ I must own this

Terrible Robot has a new favorite as of 05:29 on Oct 5, 2012

HonorableTB
Dec 22, 2006

Pilsner posted:

Not against where I live (Denmark).

All online bill payment is free.

Everyone uses free online bank-to-bank transfer for stuff like buying via our Craigslist equivalent (when stuff has to be sent via the mail), or when friends or relatives owe eachother.

Almost all bank accounts are free (all banks are required by law to provide a free account) with no monthly fee unless you get some pointless "exclusive" account.

A lot of people pay with plastic in Europe? Even obscure little shops in Southern Europe will accept a VISA. Where did you read that people pay with cash? Maybe you're thinking of Asia (or more specifically China).

I would also say that the US sounds like it's in the stone age, charging people extra for paying online (here companies charge you extra for NOT paying online) and still using cheques everywhere. Where I live, virtually all recurring bills are paid via something called Betalingsservice (lit. Payment Service), a national register where you "sign up" a bill payment, and the money (whatever amount, even with irregular bills like electricity) is automatically drawn from your account on the day of each invoice. So, I almost never have to pay any bills manually other than the first time I sign up with some company.

We also have state-controlled register of each person's bank account, meaning that all public money returned to you (tax returns, health insurance, etc.) is paid directly to your account, instead of them sending you a cheque.

This is old, but the majority of Russian shops that I went into in St Petersburg and Moscow simply wouldn't sell to you if you didn't have cash. Russians are also very titchy about having exact change (or as close as possible) because for some reason, the culture there hates making change for bigger bills. This was something I had to explain over and over to the people that went on my 2nd study abroad trip.

Groke
Jul 27, 2007
New Adventures In Mom Strength

Alhazred posted:

In Norway checks are an obsolete technology, not even my grandmother uses them anymore. I can't even remember the last time I went to a bank because I pay all of my bills over the internet.

Yeah, I'm a 40-year-old Norwegian and I've had to use checks on a grand total of two occasions ever [1], and the last of those was a dozen years ago. These days my main bank is in another part of the country, I moved away from there seven years ago and have not been back since but not being able to visit the bank physically is less of a hassle than switching banks would be.

Speaking of obsolete banking technologies: Back in 1998 when I had finished grad school I was unemployed for a few months and needed to scrounge up whatever funds I could. Remembered that I had an old savings account with the local bank where we'd lived when I was a little kid, said account having remained untouched for the better part of 20 years by that time. It wasn't much but would be enough to keep a grad school survivor in oatmeal and hot water for a while. So I had to make a phone call to find out the bank's opening hours, drive down there and walk into the bank (located in a former schoolhouse converted to offices, next house over from where my departed great aunt had lived, with absolutely no external indication that a bank operated there -- definitely oriented to doing business with local residents exclusively), identify myself, chat a little with the bank guy (same old guy who'd had the job decades previously, and who remembered my parents), and then watch as he took out the mighty tome where all the accounts were recorded, so he could leaf through it to find the page that held my account and calculate the final partial year's interest by hand before closing the account and forking over the cash. drat fine penmanship, too. This was in 1998, mind you. He did have a computer behind the counter but it wasn't switched on.

[1] In Norway, that is. Spent a year in the USA, during which I had to use the drat things all the drat time.

You Are A Werewolf
Apr 26, 2010

Black Gold!

Parallel Paraplegic posted:

More old house wire chat: my aunt lives in a very old house in Upstate New York (one of the earliest ones in the area she lives in, actually). It got electricity very early on too, and a lot of the original wiring was left in place in the basement when a more modern system was added. It was back when electricity was scary and unpredictable I guess, because all the wires are uninsulated and held up by fairly large ceramic stand-offs that look like miniature versions of the ones on high voltage power lines. The whole wiring job looks like a Tesla invention.

You're talking about knob and tube wiring which was used from electrical wiring's infancy in the 19th century to the 1930s. I think others have mentioned it in this thread. It is pretty mad inventor's laboratory, though. The picture of the industrial use of it in the wiki article is just scary.

BigHustle posted:

KP Surplus is the warehouse where old poo poo goes to die.

I got this link from here some while back, but there is a lot of new old stock of cool poo poo at Jack Berg Sales.

Creed Reunion Tour
Jul 3, 2007

by Cyrano4747
Grimey Drawer

Pilsner posted:

Ooh yeah, that reminds me of the Ellert, an early Danish-invented electric vehicle. Slow, poor build quality (at least that was my impression upon seeing it in person), low range, looked comical, and on three wheels like a Reliant Robin. It was the butt of many jokes for a while. Sometimes you'd see them parked in the city, with a long extension cord going from it, across the pavement and up to an apartment window on the 3rd floor.



I actually saw an Ellert driving down the street the other day, it was most surreal.

RagnarokAngel
Oct 5, 2006

Black Magic Extraordinaire

HonorableTB posted:

This is old, but the majority of Russian shops that I went into in St Petersburg and Moscow simply wouldn't sell to you if you didn't have cash. Russians are also very titchy about having exact change (or as close as possible) because for some reason, the culture there hates making change for bigger bills. This was something I had to explain over and over to the people that went on my 2nd study abroad trip.

How the hell does anyone GET change if the stores won't give you change back?

Ensign Expendable
Nov 11, 2008

Lager beer is proof that god loves us
Pillbug

HonorableTB posted:

This is old, but the majority of Russian shops that I went into in St Petersburg and Moscow simply wouldn't sell to you if you didn't have cash. Russians are also very titchy about having exact change (or as close as possible) because for some reason, the culture there hates making change for bigger bills. This was something I had to explain over and over to the people that went on my 2nd study abroad trip.

I was born in Russia, and I never experienced this. Cash is definitely very popular, hardly anyone pays with a card, but I never saw any retailer reluctant to make change. Although, when I was in the Caucasus a few years ago, if you are owed a very small amount of change, (under 5 roubles) you get matches or some candy or something instead.

I once got a giant box of matches when a store didn't have any bills under a hundred. There was probably a years' worth in the box, considering we don't even use matches that much.

Nemesis Of Moles
Jul 25, 2007

Ensign Expendable posted:

I was born in Russia, and I never experienced this. Cash is definitely very popular, hardly anyone pays with a card, but I never saw any retailer reluctant to make change. Although, when I was in the Caucasus a few years ago, if you are owed a very small amount of change, (under 5 roubles) you get matches or some candy or something instead.

I once got a giant box of matches when a store didn't have any bills under a hundred. There was probably a years' worth in the box, considering we don't even use matches that much.

Hereby proposing we replace the penny with candy and matches.

madlilnerd
Jan 4, 2009

a bush with baggage

Nemesis Of Moles posted:

Hereby proposing we replace the penny with candy and matches.

Penny chews instead of pennies would be much better! We would all get even fatter though.

Inspector_666
Oct 7, 2003

benny with the good hair

Ensign Expendable posted:

Optical mice also didn't work on reflective surfaces, like my awesome shiny circuit board mouse pad.

A good, current optical mouse will work on pretty much anything short of glass or a mirror. And then, you buy one of the mice that Logitech makes that uses "Darkfield" tech so it will work on anything, including transparent and reflective surfaces.

Great Green Auk
Aug 31, 2011

It's chameleons all the way down.
I use my massive optical mouse with a Pinky and the Brain mousepad I've had since 1996, somewhat out of nostalgia but mostly because that fucker is the destroyer of desktop surfaces.

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.
My mother got me one of these for Christmas when I was a young'un.



I played it in church and then she took it away. But she gave it back to me later, she was that kind of mom.

Jibo
May 22, 2007

Bear Witness
College Slice

You Are A Elf posted:

You're talking about knob and tube wiring which was used from electrical wiring's infancy in the 19th century to the 1930s. I think others have mentioned it in this thread. It is pretty mad inventor's laboratory, though. The picture of the industrial use of it in the wiki article is just scary.


I got this link from here some while back, but there is a lot of new old stock of cool poo poo at Jack Berg Sales.

I really want an old 8-Track hi-fi system for my basement, but drat are they pricey.

0toShifty
Aug 21, 2005
0 to Stiffy?
Took a few pictures of the wiring in my house.



Here's a rotary switch. Not too sure about what it did.



Here's a mess. Thankfully, this is no longer connected to any power. Also note the terrible failure of framing there. That board is probably made out of the brilliant failed technology of asbestos, just to ice the cake.


Two other things I found while I was in the basement. Oil CAN. It can't be terribly old because it does have a barcode. Ink bottle. There was some other old junk on this shelf too. There was also a jar of coal.

Hispanic! At The Disco
Dec 25, 2011


Phanatic posted:

My mother got me one of these for Christmas when I was a young'un.



I played it in church and then she took it away. But she gave it back to me later, she was that kind of mom.

I got one of these for Christmas '81. Pac-Man was incapable of facing any direction other than left, and if you backed over something, you would fail to eat it. Also, the watch alarm played "Dixie", for reasons that were never explained.

Killer robot
Sep 6, 2010

I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it!
Pillbug

Patchwork Shaman posted:

I got one of these for Christmas '81. Pac-Man was incapable of facing any direction other than left, and if you backed over something, you would fail to eat it. Also, the watch alarm played "Dixie", for reasons that were never explained.

I had a Dukes of Hazzard watch in second grade or so. It didn't play games, but at least I could explain the alarm.

You Are A Werewolf
Apr 26, 2010

Black Gold!

0toShifty posted:

Oil CAN. It can't be terribly old because it does have a barcode.



Bar codes came out in 1974. The last time I saw oil in cans like that was the mid-1980s, and even then I think they were just older stock. That can's probably 30-34 years old.

But my god, I've never seen knob & tube wiring up close like that before. :stare: That is some scary-looking poo poo, especially the cloth wiring that would probably disintegrate if you breathed on it. Thank goodness none of that is live anymore, but it is really cool to have in your home just to see how wiring was done nearly a century ago.

GWBBQ
Jan 2, 2005


MadScientistWorking posted:

As I said earlier insanely bizarre paper catalogs that have an eclectic bunch of goods are not uncommon. Mcmaster Carr, Grainger (Which you probably can't even do business with last I knew), and MSC Direct are three industrial supply companies who are famous for having rather insane paper catalogs.
EDIT:
Hahaha... Mcmaster Carr's catalog has existed for 118 years. I didn't actually think it was that old.
You can definitely do business with Grainger. I'm not sure if you can order from the catalog, but I have to call and place orders so I can give them an account and purchase order number at work and their operators are by far the friendliest and most helpful people I've ever talked to. I've asked questions about products that they couldn't answer, and they asked if I wanted to hold or wait for a callback while they called the manufacturer to find out exactly what I wanted to know.

You Are A Elf posted:

You're talking about knob and tube wiring which was used from electrical wiring's infancy in the 19th century to the 1930s. I think others have mentioned it in this thread. It is pretty mad inventor's laboratory, though. The picture of the industrial use of it in the wiki article is just scary.
I have to do wire management stuff at work a lot, and that industrial wiring is a work of art. It also kind of reminds me of the picture of Tesla sitting in front of the big spiral antenna.

edit: my house has cloth insulated wiring and it does literally disintegrate if you touch it or look at it for too long. At least it's in grounded conduit, although that may explain the stray voltage on the ground throughout the house.

GWBBQ has a new favorite as of 02:44 on Oct 6, 2012

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


GWBBQ posted:

edit: my house has cloth insulated wiring and it does literally disintegrate if you touch it or look at it for too long. At least it's in grounded conduit, although that may explain the stray voltage on the ground throughout the house.

As does most of my apartment. Cloth-insulated wires running through metal tubes. I had to change a light switch last year, and the insulation would literally crumble at the slightest touch. After that, I vowed never to touch it again until I've had a professional replace every last wire.

coldpudding
May 14, 2009

FORUM GHOST
a couple of months ago we upgraded to a breaker box from this

that in turn was an upgrade from a single fuse linked to cloth covered wiring stapled to the framework of the house.

on another note here is something that was more or less forced into obsolescence

yes that is a razor blade sharpener and it works bloody good too

A SWEATY FATBEARD
Oct 6, 2012

:buddy: GAY 4 ORGANS :buddy:

KozmoNaut posted:

As does most of my apartment. Cloth-insulated wires running through metal tubes. I had to change a light switch last year, and the insulation would literally crumble at the slightest touch. After that, I vowed never to touch it again until I've had a professional replace every last wire.

That's the old vulcanized rubber crumbling away. Most rubber insulation ends up like this (crumbly charcoal-like bits), others rot to tar-like goo.

There are people out there who don't replace their fuses when they blow for whatever reason, they just put in a strand of copper wire instead and clamp it down like that. The scary part is that this is done not only in standalone houses, I've seen it many times in large apartment complexes with hundreds of tenants. Heavens forbid that you actually NEED the fuse to blow, for example if your old rubber or cotton insulation is not doing its job anymore. Some people just don't understand the concept of a fire hazard, which, in case of an actual goddamn fire translates to dozens of fatalities in a large apartment complex.

A SWEATY FATBEARD has a new favorite as of 14:07 on Oct 7, 2012

GWBBQ
Jan 2, 2005


A SWEATY FATBEARD posted:

That's the old vulcanized rubber crumbling away. Most rubber insulation ends up like this (crumbly charcoal-like bits), others rot to tar-like goo.
Mine is definitely cloth, not rubber.

Shame Boy
Mar 2, 2010

A SWEATY FATBEARD posted:

That's the old vulcanized rubber crumbling away. Most rubber insulation ends up like this (crumbly charcoal-like bits), others rot to tar-like goo.

There are people out there who don't replace their fuses when they blow for whatever reason, they just put in a strand of copper wire instead and clamp it down like that. The scary part is that this is done not only in standalone houses, I've seen it many times in large apartment complexes with hundreds of tenants. Heavens forbid that you actually NEED the fuse to blow, for example if your old rubber or cotton insulation is not doing its job anymore. Some people just don't understand the concept of a fire hazard, which, in case of an actual goddamn fire translates to dozens of fatalities in a large apartment complex.

"Just put a gum wrapper/paperclip/penny in the fuse, works every time :smug:"

And then your house burns down.

m2pt5
May 18, 2005

THAT GOD DAMN MOSQUITO JUST KEEPS COMING BACK

A SWEATY FATBEARD posted:

There are people out there who don't replace their fuses when they blow for whatever reason, they just put in a strand of copper wire instead and clamp it down like that. The scary part is that this is done not only in standalone houses, I've seen it many times in large apartment complexes with hundreds of tenants. Heavens forbid that you actually NEED the fuse to blow, for example if your old rubber or cotton insulation is not doing its job anymore. Some people just don't understand the concept of a fire hazard, which, in case of an actual goddamn fire translates to dozens of fatalities in a large apartment complex.

This is why there are fuse replacements that are essentially breakers, so replacing the entire box isn't necessary, and they can still shut off when needed.

0toShifty
Aug 21, 2005
0 to Stiffy?

m2pt5 posted:

This is why there are fuse replacements that are essentially breakers, so replacing the entire box isn't necessary, and they can still shut off when needed.

Yep, I have one of those in my scary fuse box. They're probably not supposed to be 20A fuses, I don't know what they are supposed to be. That wire is 14 gauge, so it should probably be fused for 15A.

Landerig
Oct 27, 2008

by Fistgrrl

0toShifty posted:

Yep, I have one of those in my scary fuse box. They're probably not supposed to be 20A fuses, I don't know what they are supposed to be. That wire is 14 gauge, so it should probably be fused for 15A.



Only 4 circuits? Do you live in a cracker jack box?

A SWEATY FATBEARD
Oct 6, 2012

:buddy: GAY 4 ORGANS :buddy:

Landerig posted:

Only 4 circuits? Do you live in a cracker jack box?

I love this fusebox. Old cotton insulated cables, newer white cable that seems to touch the (exposed) terminal like a cat's whisker, dangerously exposed bits everywhere. I know the wire is clamped down but holy poo poo man have that wiring replaced as soon as possible. I'd be afraid to sneeze in the general vicinity of this thing.

GWBBQ
Jan 2, 2005


I particularly like the ground wire from the top attached to the painted surface of the box with masking tape.

Also, nothing is color coded and while there appear to be neutral wires, they're not going to where any of the hot wires are.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Saltin
Aug 20, 2003
Don't touch

GWBBQ posted:

Mine is definitely cloth, not rubber.

Yeah they didn't use rubber back then. It's cloth that's been dipped in tar.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply