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Post by onlyMark on May 27, 2018 16:49:24 GMT
The problem with the one in the photo is that the match has not been used. Could end up with it lighting.
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Post by patricklondon on May 27, 2018 18:25:35 GMT
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Post by onlyMark on May 27, 2018 19:18:25 GMT
Aged about 16 yrs old, I made one and took it to my maths class. The teacher was an old guy and quite reasonable. When his back was turned to the blackboard I set it off to run down the alley between the desks towards him. He heard the noise and slowly turned round to see what it was. He spied the tank and his eyes lit up and said he used to make them as a kid and hadn't seen one for decades. The rest of the lesson was spent playing with it. Up and over books etc.
Then he confiscated it. I know why though. So he could play with it at home.
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Post by Kimby on May 27, 2018 23:24:09 GMT
Sweet story.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 29, 2018 10:22:41 GMT
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Post by mickthecactus on May 29, 2018 10:44:03 GMT
Reely?
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Post by bixaorellana on May 29, 2018 15:27:32 GMT
I admire the way Mick sticks to the thread topic. But he shouldn't needle the previous poster.
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Post by mickthecactus on May 29, 2018 18:17:15 GMT
I wondered when you would cotton on.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 29, 2018 18:21:37 GMT
You just have to spin this out, don't you?
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Post by mossie on May 29, 2018 18:26:23 GMT
I don't follow this thread
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Post by mickthecactus on May 29, 2018 18:50:35 GMT
That’s ‘cos you are an old sew and sew.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 29, 2018 20:16:11 GMT
Mick! You don't have to lam-baste him!
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Post by mickthecactus on May 29, 2018 20:50:55 GMT
Mick! You don't have to lam-baste him! You’re confusing him with Mr Salami.
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Post by questa on May 29, 2018 23:14:45 GMT
Well you have to pin it on someone.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 29, 2018 23:41:52 GMT
So true, Questa. Why hem and haw?
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 20, 2018 12:51:48 GMT
Anybody who worked at a shop or other commerce about 40 years ago had to use the blacklist booklet when anybody paid by credit card. It arrived weekly -- and then every three days -- and whenever anybody wanted to pay by card, you had to check the card number in the booklet and the point was to NOT find the card number on the list. At Avis, we had to write the page number on which the card number was NOT located in a corner of the contract. Naturally, there were different booklets for MasterCharge (as it was called then), Visa, American Express and Diners Club. Then Amex moved on to a system with call centers working 24/7 for you to phone them every time a card was presented...
Think of how much fun it would be if that system were still used.
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Post by Kimby on Jun 20, 2018 12:56:47 GMT
I’d forgotten that blacklist, K2. But I do remember that when MasterCard was MasterCharge, Visa was BankAmericaCard.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 19, 2018 18:49:50 GMT
In post offices, ticket offices, banks and other such places where lots of different people had to present themselves at a counter, there used to be a grotesque barrier to prevent direct contact. I guess it must have dated back to the days when people really did have TB or other gruesome contagious diseases. I don't think that all of these things disappeared until well into the 1980's. histoiresalunettes.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/hygiaphone-archyves.jpg
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 19, 2018 18:52:20 GMT
Ah, I just read the wiki about it (available only in French), and apparently it dates back to the flu epidemic of 1945 when huge numbers of French railway employees were contaminated by customers, leading to a great deal of absenteeism.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2018 19:38:28 GMT
I remember when thread spools were made out of wood. I still have quite a few in my sewing box. One day a younger friend who is a seamstress was at my house and need to borrow a "hat pin" for her Mardi Gras costume. I opened my sewing box and she went "ga ga" when she saw wooden thread spools. I felt old... I remember there was a telephone number you could dial to find out the time and some of them also had local weather reports (really only the temperature and sky conditions). In NY the number was 637-8687, NERVOUS
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 21, 2018 4:41:23 GMT
The concept of the iron lung was one of the scariest medical devices of my childhood. (An article today said that there are still 3 people using one in the United States.)
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 21, 2018 5:12:38 GMT
Yeah, I remember magazine photos of people in iron lungs and their despairing eyes. When we were kids, that was part of the terror of polio -- that you would inevitably wind up in an iron lung.
Strange that you brought this up today in "old enough to remember", as yesterday I was watching a sit-com where an office worker makes some remark about an iron lung. A colleague looks at him in astonishment and blurts out, "How old ARE you?!"
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Post by questa on Aug 21, 2018 11:12:46 GMT
During the 1954 epidemic of polio in Adelaide, there was a huge ward with lines of iron lung machines operated by electricity. (I've seen the photo of this) The infectious diseases hospital was on the outskirts of the city, almost next door to the main prison.
One evening the power went down and the machines wheezed to a stop.The hospital pulled all their staff into action manually operating the iron lungs.Exhausting work and the staff would not be able to do it all night.
The cry went out to the prison and teams of men formed and were marched to the hospital. Here they worked all night and into the day, pumping the machines and cheering up the frightened kids. Not one prisoner tried to escape and they earned a lot of thanks and respect from the general public.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 21, 2018 14:04:57 GMT
Australia has a proud tradition of good-citizen prisoners. Aren’t all (non-aboriginal) Australians descended from convicts? (That’s what we learn in American schools. I apologize if I’m in error.)
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Post by patricklondon on Aug 21, 2018 14:26:18 GMT
Aren’t all (non-aboriginal) Australians descended from convicts? One well-known BBC cricket commentator claimed to have said, on being asked on arrival there if he had any criminal convictions, "My dear fellow, I'd no idea it was still compulsory!" But I don't think they find that sort of crack all that amusing. There were plenty of "free settlers" from quite early on, not to mention later waves of encouraged immigration (the "£10 Poms" and a lot of people from other parts of Europe, post WW2). My blog | My photos | My video clips | My Librivox recordings"too literate to be spam"
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Post by lagatta on Aug 21, 2018 14:48:15 GMT
And as in Canada, many "home children".
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Post by Kimby on Aug 21, 2018 14:59:55 GMT
Questa, that’s a heart-warming story. Sorry if my comment was in poor taste.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 21, 2018 15:01:13 GMT
We are not taught in American schools that all non-Aboriginal Australians are descended from convicts. We were taught that criminals, meaning many people who committed "crimes" such as stealing a pocket handkerchief or a loaf of bread, were transported to the colonies, including to what is now the US.
I admit I laughed at the commentator's crack -- perhaps offensive, but too clever to forego. I knew a motormouth Scotsman here who more than once informed me that the US was populated by the criminal dregs of Scotland and England.
Questa's account of modern-day prisoners and their show of generosity is lovely.
What are "home children"?
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Post by patricklondon on Aug 21, 2018 16:02:01 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 21, 2018 16:09:12 GMT
Thanks for that! And the stories of faulty governmental oversight continue .....
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