Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology

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Keiya: Aug 22, 2009; Come with me if you want to not die.

Varance posted:

That's not just an Atlanta thing. Most transit TVMs give change in $1 coins.

It pisses people off to no end when they buy a pass with a $20 bill, because what am I going to do with these 14-16 gold coins?

Run around going YARR and pretending to be a pirate, duh.

Platystemon posted:

Everyone says they want pockets, but when they go shopping, they are attracted to and buy pocketless pants.

I don't think you can make that argument, there pretty much aren't pants with pockets.

# ? Feb 5, 2017 01:32

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# ? Apr 23, 2024 17:15

Guy Axlerod: Dec 29, 2008

The obvious solution is to buy your future tickets with the dollar coins. It's like tokens but you can spend them other places.

# ? Feb 5, 2017 03:20

Rev. Bleech_: Oct 19, 2004; ~OKAY, WE'LL DRINK TO OUR LEGS!~

Yesterday my grandmother says "I found this in a box with an old tape recorder of your grandfather's, what is it?"

# ? Feb 6, 2017 18:28

Humphreys: Jan 26, 2013; We conceived a way to use my mother as a porn mule

Rev. Bleech_ posted:

Yesterday my grandmother says "I found this in a box with an old tape recorder of your grandfather's, what is it?"

That's pretty cool. Hope it works!

A number of years ago I bought a job-lot of Atari Jaguar stuff for cheap. Hiding at the bottom of the box was an Atari Portfolio with it's Parallel port adapter. Best thing in that lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBr_ceLAseg

# ? Feb 7, 2017 06:30

Collateral Damage: Jun 13, 2009

When I was a kid my dad had an Atari Portfolio that he never used so I took care of it. I was King Geek in 8th grade with my portable (and mostly useless) micro-PC.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 16:08

Teriyaki Hairpiece: Dec 29, 2006; I'm nae the voice o' the darkened thistle, but th' darkened thistle cannae bear the sight o' our Bonnie Prince Bernie nae mair.

Americans in the past were cool with buying more stuff with coins. A dollar in the early 50's bought you about what $9 buys you today. Imagine buying everything that costs under $9 with coins. People did it! American people!

# ? Feb 7, 2017 18:09

Explosionface: May 30, 2011; We can dance if we want to,
we can leave Marle behind.
'Cause your fiends don't dance,
and if they don't dance,
they'll get a Robo Fist of mine.

Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:

Americans in the past were cool with buying more stuff with coins. A dollar in the early 50's bought you about what $9 buys you today. Imagine buying everything that costs under $9 with coins. People did it! American people!

I would buy more things with coins today if we had chunky coins like Euros. Those things are just fun to fling around.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 18:17

Grand Prize Winner: Feb 19, 2007

Explosionface posted:

I would buy more things with coins today if we had chunky coins like Euros. Those things are just fun to fling around.

I'd prefer something the size of pound coins. Those feel like you could really do some damage with 'em.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 18:33

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

Grand Prize Winner posted:

I'd prefer something the size of pound coins. Those feel like you could really do some damage with 'em.

Make it hail.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 18:33

Grand Prize Winner: Feb 19, 2007

tribbledirigible posted:

Make it hail.

How do they handle that in European strip clubs, anyway?

# ? Feb 7, 2017 18:42

Johnny Aztec: Jan 30, 2005; by Hand Knit

Grand Prize Winner posted:

How do they handle that in European strip clubs, anyway?

imagine an Eastern European club

# ? Feb 7, 2017 18:45

Proteus Jones: Feb 28, 2013

Grand Prize Winner posted:

How do they handle that in European strip clubs, anyway?

Probably by Europeans not being cheapskates and giving money a euro at a time.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 18:45

Phanatic: Mar 13, 2007; Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

Varance posted:

That's not just an Atlanta thing. Most transit TVMs give change in $1 coins.

It pisses people off to no end when they buy a pass with a $20 bill, because what am I going to do with these 14-16 gold coins?

My favorite thing ever was a few years back when the US Mint realized that the $1.4 billion in $1 coins that Congress ordered it to make even though nobody wants to use $1 coins was pretty expensive to keep in storage, so it decided to stimulate circulation by offering them for sale at face value and free shipping.

People figured out pretty quickly that they could buy coins with credit cards that offered cash back or frequent flier miles, take delivery of the coins, deposit them in the bank, use that deposit to pay off the credit card bill, and wind up with free money. This guy, for example, bought $3 million in coins and earned 4 million frequent flier points.

https://www.aol.com/article/2013/02/28/credit-card-reward-points-airline-miles-free/20476257/

First the Mint got huffy and put up a legally-meaningless warning to buyers that depositing the coins right back into a back "does not meet the intent of the program." Then they limited the sales to 1000 coins every ten days. Then they shut it down entirely by just not accepting credit card payments, just money orders and checks. Then Congress stopped the absurd "mint all the coins dammit!' program itself.

https://www.aol.com/article/2013/02/28/credit-card-reward-points-airline-miles-free/20476257/

# ? Feb 7, 2017 19:00

Tevery Best: Oct 11, 2013; Hewlo Furriend

Hey guys, I was wondering if you could lend me a hand?

I'm translating a book and I've found myself kind of stumped by an ambiguous line. Namely, a list outlining police telecommunication facilities in Ghana in 1967 mentions "63 fixed wireless stations, both high frequency and VHF radio telephones".

I know absolutely nothing about radio communication and I have little idea what links to what here. Are the radio telephones both high frequency and VHF? Are they supposed to be an integral part of the stations? Is it supposed to mean that the stations serve both HF and VHF radio telephones? I know that "numerous man-portable radio sets" have their own line in the list.

I'm well aware no-one here is likely to know anything about radio in Ghana, but maybe at least some of these interpretations can be ruled out by someone with technical knowledge of radio work?

# ? Feb 7, 2017 19:30

My Lovely Horse: Aug 21, 2010

Just from the way it's worded I'd say it's supposed to be 63 fixed stations, some of which featured high frequency and some of which featured VHF radio telephones.

... wait poo poo it could equally be 63 stations that each had both a HF and a VHF phone okay you do need someone who knows about the tech side sorry :v:

(although I'd probably just leave the ambiguity in the translation if it's just a list item)

# ? Feb 7, 2017 19:50

Proteus Jones: Feb 28, 2013

Do you have an asset inventory? If you have make and model numbers you might be able to google what is what.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 20:26

Platystemon: Feb 13, 2012; BREADS

Tevery Best posted:

I'm translating a book and I've found myself kind of stumped by an ambiguous line. Namely, a list outlining police telecommunication facilities in Ghana in 1967 mentions "63 fixed wireless stations, both high frequency and VHF radio telephones".

My interpretation of this is �63 fixed wireless stations, a number which includes both stations operating high frequency radio telephones and stations operating VHF radio telephones�.

�Radio telephone� is kind of a broad term for voice communication over radio, so I�m pretty sure that that part applies to both �high frequency� and �VHF�.

I think it would be dumb to outfit every single one of the 63 stations with equipment for both bands, but it�s quite possible that some stations had both.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 20:57

Humphreys: Jan 26, 2013; We conceived a way to use my mother as a porn mule

Tevery Best posted:

Hey guys, I was wondering if you could lend me a hand?

I'm translating a book and I've found myself kind of stumped by an ambiguous line. Namely, a list outlining police telecommunication facilities in Ghana in 1967 mentions "63 fixed wireless stations, both high frequency and VHF radio telephones".

I know absolutely nothing about radio communication and I have little idea what links to what here. Are the radio telephones both high frequency and VHF? Are they supposed to be an integral part of the stations? Is it supposed to mean that the stations serve both HF and VHF radio telephones? I know that "numerous man-portable radio sets" have their own line in the list.

I'm well aware no-one here is likely to know anything about radio in Ghana, but maybe at least some of these interpretations can be ruled out by someone with technical knowledge of radio work?

I'm intrigued on what the book is about now!

# ? Feb 8, 2017 10:00

C.M. Kruger: Oct 28, 2013

Basically HF is long range radio and VHF is short range radio.

HF is shortwave frequencies (between 3 and 30MHz), medium to long range communications that works by bouncing a radio signal off the ionosphere. Aside from broadcast shortwave radio and amateur radio, stuff in this range includes ship-to-shore radios, over-the-horizon radars, long-distance military radios, clandestine numbers stations, and CB radios.

VHF is everything between 30 and 300MHz, as the frequency increases the signal looses it's "bounce" and effectively becomes line-of-sight between antennas. These frequencies are mainly used by either broadcast TV/radio, or handheld/vehicle mounted radios used by amateur radio operators, police and medical/fire dispatchers. However the range can be extended by putting a repeater on top of a hill or tall building, which receives radio transmissions and then retransmits them.

A example would be how at night you can hear AM/MW radio stations from hundreds or thousands of miles away, but a local FM radio station cuts out when you're driving through hills or tall buildings.

Dunno anything about radiotelephones though. I'd hazard it's probably some kind of thing where you can "dial" to another radio and make it ring like a phone, and/or allow for radio-to-telephone links. Personally I would interpret "both high frequency and VHF radio telephones" as being a separation between HF radios and the VHF radiotelephones. I'd hazard that probably local police stations had a VHF radio, while HF radios were reserved for either the larger cities/towns or the more remote ones, since local cops would just need to report in to the regional HQ. And "numerous man-portable radio sets" obviously indicates that they had VHF backpack/handheld radios.

# ? Feb 9, 2017 10:31

Sweevo: Nov 8, 2007; i sometimes throw cables away

i mean straight into the bin without spending 10+ years in the box of might-come-in-handy-someday first

im a fucking monster

Humphreys posted:

I'm intrigued on what the book is about now!

A Spotter's Guide to Historic Radio Masts - Volume 237: West Africa 1964-69

# ? Feb 9, 2017 11:26

Lizard Combatant: Sep 29, 2010; I have some notes.

Pfft, seems pretty broad. The author probably skims over a bunch.

# ? Feb 9, 2017 12:30

Humphreys: Jan 26, 2013; We conceived a way to use my mother as a porn mule

Sweevo posted:

A Spotter's Guide to Historic Radio Masts - Volume 237: West Africa 1964-69

Perfect title.

As long as it has photos.

EDIT: I probably would actually read something like that.

# ? Feb 10, 2017 10:45

Tevery Best: Oct 11, 2013; Hewlo Furriend

Humphreys posted:

I'm intrigued on what the book is about now!

Luttwak, Edward N. Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook.

# ? Feb 10, 2017 10:49

Platystemon: Feb 13, 2012; BREADS

Sweevo posted:

A Spotter's Guide to Historic Radio Masts - Volume 237: West Africa 1964-69

Still not the most specific subject matter I have ever seen a book dedicated to, though two hundred and thirty‐seven volumes would be a record.

Tevery Best posted:

Luttwak, Edward N. Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook.

The �Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought� list for this is way less exciting than it ought to be.

Platystemon has a new favorite as of 11:00 on Feb 10, 2017

# ? Feb 10, 2017 10:58

3D Megadoodoo: Nov 25, 2010

Sweevo posted:

A Spotter's Guide to Historic Radio Masts - Volume 237: West Africa 1964-69

Far Cry 5 Collector's Edition feelies sounding great already.

# ? Feb 10, 2017 11:08

Humphreys: Jan 26, 2013; We conceived a way to use my mother as a porn mule

Tevery Best posted:

Luttwak, Edward N. Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook.

Oh interesting! I've read The Man on Horseback which was mentioned in the wikipedia article. When done, do let the thread or me know.

# ? Feb 10, 2017 11:22

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Platystemon posted:

Still not the most specific subject matter I have ever seen a book dedicated to, though two hundred and thirty‐seven volumes would be a record.

Famous Gold Nuggets of the World is my pick.

# ? Feb 11, 2017 02:16

Platystemon: Feb 13, 2012; BREADS

Tunicate posted:

Famous Gold Nuggets of the World is my pick.

Field Guide to the Vernal Pools of Mather Field is what I was thinking of.

A book about the seasonal puddles of a specific former USAF base.

# ? Feb 11, 2017 02:22

Sinestro: Oct 31, 2010; The perfect day needs the perfect set of wheels.

To be honest, that's really kind of the best thing that Sacramento has going for it, so I understand.

# ? Feb 11, 2017 02:25

Platystemon: Feb 13, 2012; BREADS

Sinestro posted:

To be honest, that's really kind of the best thing that Sacramento has going for it, so I understand.

Hey now.

Sacramento is the capital city of the most populous state of the world�s only superpower.

# ? Feb 11, 2017 03:01

Wasabi the J: Jan 23, 2008; MOM WAS RIGHT

I feel like those kinds of books aren't written for us, but for future historians.

# ? Feb 11, 2017 03:06

Humphreys: Jan 26, 2013; We conceived a way to use my mother as a porn mule

Wasabi the J posted:

I feel like those kinds of books aren't written for us, but for future historians.

By the time we finish reading all those volumes and editions we will be future historians.

# ? Feb 11, 2017 03:16

JnnyThndrs: May 29, 2001; HERE ARE THE FUCKING TOWELS

Platystemon posted:

Field Guide to the Vernal Pools of Mather Field is what I was thinking of.

A book about the seasonal puddles of a specific former USAF base.

Fuckin' thing is $125 used, somebody must be interested.

# ? Feb 11, 2017 03:16

Platystemon: Feb 13, 2012; BREADS

Humphreys posted:

By the time we finish reading all those volumes and editions we will be future historians.

I took a library tour once (prospective university) and the librarian helpfully pointed out that if you start here [swings arm out at the start of a stack]

read sixteen hours per day, blah blah blah

you could make it to here [swings arm out to denote the end of a stack not far away] before you died at the age of one hundred and twenty‐three. :smith: