The Millennial Question

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

I see it too, I have caught my self saying "Those damn kids". While it may be a recurring thing, it still occurs to every generation, and still affects us.

My wife used to ask me what my expectations are.

simple. when i say to a 20 year old feed the dog, take out the trash and hold my flashlight or help me work on something on the car for about 10 minutes. i don't mean say "ok just a minute" and then spend the next 45 minutes on some imaginary skyrim quest while i stand there waiting.

It doesnt happen as much as it used to. but i used to have to remind her, that, as a flight instructor, im used to working with a whole other type of 16-20 year old.

the kind who are motivated to do well, who borrow mom's car to come to the airport after school, leave the airport after the lesson and go feed the neighbor's livestock, and then drive to their evening job where they will work until 9pm on a weeknight just to make a few coins. the kind who, knocks on the door of my house unexpectedly and asks for help with a writing assignment or history assignment which is something i am glad to do. the kid who after 2-3 months of that sweat and toil shows up in their own car.

sure its a piece of crap

sure its got 97,000 miles and the A/C needs work, but they pinched their hard earned pennies to pay for it themselves. they didn't rely on mommy or daddy or gampa. and they are proud of it.

so sure, when i've worked with those types of kids, i guess it does make the bitter disappointment even worse when i see one in the same age group with their pants around their ankles just sitting around burning cigarettes and precious time

if that makes me a curmudgeon old ass, well, so be it

id rather be a curmudgeon old ass than a spoiled little...

the hope is, that most of them will come around and make something worthwhile of the world, and themselves.

[Commander Wallace]

Originally Posted by vienna

Well, if you're going to insult me and accuse me of being reasonable, I'll leave in a huff...make that a minute and a huff...

I had a vague recollection of seeing something some months back on a TV news report about breast cancer cases in women who stored the mobiles in their bras. I found this link on that subject:

http://ehtrust.org/key-issues/cell-p...breast-cancer/



<O>

Well, if you can't insult friends, who else can you insult.

I hadn't Heard of cell phones being kept in bras and it seems a strange place to keep them a cell phone or anything else for that matter. I'm sure this was the brainchild of law firms like U.R. Screwed and others to catch cheating husbands in the act.

Interesting read nonetheless. Thanks for posting the link.

[em2nought]

Millennials are like a virus infecting the older generations as well. I swear I get so much useless communication from so many bored, lonely, or other people that I can hardly get any physical work done anymore. It's not like my generation was born to multi task anyway.

I'd like an app that communicates with all these people in a way that they think it's actually me talking/texting/emailing/etc with them. At the end of the day it could filter out all the crap and just give me anything really really really important. I'd pay big $ for an app like that.

[Onkel Neal]

Well, if the current Millennial generation are spoiled, soft, easily-distracted and lazy, I blame the parents--my generation.

But don't give up hope, a lot of them will grow up and turn out ok.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by vienna

Well, you were all fancy and had color TV;

I'm actually just a smidgeon older than you (if that word doesn't date me, nothing will), and since my dad was an airline pilot we had a color TV early on. I remember my dad explaining that it was best to adjust the color during a commercial or a football game, as they had the biggest stake in showing accurate colors.

Today? I know my monitor has adjustments, but in five years I've never had occasion to use them.

[vienna]

Something probably unknown to those born in the 70s or 80s is NBC was owned by the RCA corporation, who, besides owning the TV network, manufactured and sold a wide range of electronic consumer products, among them, television sets. When color TV went into wide use, RCA had NBC (it kind of gets like alphabet soup) originate programming to highlight the benefits of the new color TVs, sold by RCA; therefore the network became an ongoing advertisement for the product of its parent company. One of the first major network shows to go color was "Bonanza". If you watch the old shows, Michael Landon wears a green corduroy jacket for most of the series; he hated the color and the jacket, but RCA insisted since it was a means of showcasing the new color TV sets...

Having a TV set in San Francisco was a challenge, in terms of reception; the city is a mass of hills and valleys and unless you had a clear line of sight to the transmitter, reception could be spotty at best; when color came along, it wasn't uncommon to see the colors on the screen bleed or shift...

You mention the adjustment controls on your monitor or set. One thing people in the early days of TV technology has to deal with was a host of various knobs and adjustments: vertical hold, horizontal hold, contrast, brightness, volume, channel, and, if you had a color TV, add on all the usual suspects: hue, separate adjustments for RGB, intensity and more. If your tweaks and adjustments didn't work out right, well, there's always the fallback of the sharp open hand whack to the side or top of the set case. Now, when you buy a set or monitor, you may have to make a few tweaks to taste, but, generally, you just plug it in and go. Another change is the longevity of sets; a set in the 50s and 60s was a bit of a major investment, so set repair was a thriving industry; I recall even supermarkets and other such stores had little kiosks where a person could buy replacement vacuum tubes, if you wanted to risk trying to repair a set yourself; now, if a set or monitor goes bad, you just chuck it and get a new one; its way less expensive than repairing it and, even if you wanted to, there are precious few places to do the repairs. For millennials, it is a disposable culture; something goes bad or wrong?...buy a new one...



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[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by vienna

there's always the fallback of the sharp open hand whack to the side or top of the set case.

What's hard to believe is that sometimes that actually worked.

I recall even supermarkets and other such stores had little kiosks where a person could buy replacement vacuum tubes...

Ours was the local Save-On drug store. On top of the rack was a tube-tester, because you weren't always sure which one it was. Take them all and test them until you found the one that didn't work.

if you wanted to risk trying to repair a set yourself;

And everybody did. Build-it-yourself kit radios were the rage for awhile, too.

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

What's hard to believe is that sometimes that actually worked.

One of the local TV stations here in Los Angeles was one of the original pioneering TV broadcasters and celebrated its anniversary a few years back with a special documenting their history and achievements. One of the stories they told was this: the station was apparently either the first, or one of the very first, to televise a live sporting event. Aside from the immense TV cameras, they had a very large truck packed with all sorts of gear; along with the gear, a highly skilled technician from the equipment manufacturer was present to deal with any equipment problems. At one point during the broadcast, a monitor in the truck suddenly went amok and the picture turned into a wildly changing set of patterns; panic ensued except for the factory technician who had fallen asleep earlier and was pretty much out cold. The station employees roused the technician who cleared his eyes, got up from his chair, walked over to the monitor, studied it for a few seconds and intoned: "This can be fixed with the RCA Technique". The station employees crowded around the technician and the monitor, eager to learn this mysterious "RCA Technique". The technician studied the monitor for a few more seconds, then reared back his arm and slapped the monitor with his hand; the picture cleared...

The "RCA Technique"...



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[BarracudaUAK]

Originally Posted by vienna

...
You mention the adjustment controls on your monitor or set. One thing people in the early days of TV technology has to deal with was a host of various knobs and adjustments: vertical hold, horizontal hold, contrast, brightness, volume, channel, and, if you had a color TV, add on all the usual suspects: hue, separate adjustments for RGB, intensity and more.
...

Been there done that.
My earlier CRT computer monitors too.

Originally Posted by vienna

...
If your tweaks and adjustments didn't work out right, well, there's always the fallback of the sharp open hand whack to the side or top of the set case.
...
<O>

Originally Posted by vienna

...
The "RCA Technique"...

<O>

I've also heard this referred to as "Percussive Maintenance".


Barracuda

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Ours was the local Save-On drug store. On top of the rack was a tube-tester, because you weren't always sure which one it was. Take them all and test them until you found the one that didn't work.

Yikes that brought back memories. I remember Sav-0n drug stores with tube testers.

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

What's hard to believe is that sometimes that actually worked.

Still does on DVD drawers, and car starters/solenoids. Too bad a good wack doesn't work on most people.

[Von Due]

The Wack, a tested and true method. I remember my grandma's old telly with these fancy touch buttons for channel selection. Of course they stopped working after a couple of decades until we discovered the secret:
Channel 1: Touch the Ch1 button and give the telly a firm fist at the top of the right side panel.
Channel 2: Touch the Ch2 button and slap the telly a little lower on the right hand side, just below and perhaps a little to the left of the Ch 1 punch.
Channel 3: Ch3 and a good punch about the center of the right hand side panel
etc etc

It worked until the telly was so tired of our abuse it finally went to the electronic junkyard in the heavens.

[Tango589]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

What's hard to believe is that sometimes that actually worked.

It didn't when I tried it once. The tv started showing nothing but green instead of the usual aesthetically pleasing colours. I tried a bit of 'impact maintenance' and the screen completely died. Oh well.

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Von Due

The Wack, a tested and true method. I remember my grandma's old telly with these fancy touch buttons for channel selection. Of course they stopped working after a couple of decades until we discovered the secret:
Channel 1: Touch the Ch1 button and give the telly a firm fist at the top of the right side panel.
Channel 2: Touch the Ch2 button and slap the telly a little lower on the right hand side, just below and perhaps a little to the left of the Ch 1 punch.
Channel 3: Ch3 and a good punch about the center of the right hand side panel
etc etc

It worked until the telly was so tired of our abuse it finally went to the electronic junkyard in the heavens.

Perhaps it might have worked if you had simultaneously preformed the "Hokey Pokey" (or "Hokey Cokey", for you lot on the far side of The Pond):

"Put your [left foot] in
Put your [left foot] out
Put your [left foot] in
And shake it all about..."...



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