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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 16, 2023 22:25:54 GMT
In the movie I saw today which took place in 1956, there were so many flashbulbs. It was strange to see them. Of course I also remember flashcubes, which were a shitty replacement for our small cheap cameras. And I probably still have an electronic flash abandoned in a drawer somewhere.
I wonder where movies and TV series get their flashbulbs for period pieces these day. I guess there must be at least one company somewhere that still manufactures them.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 17, 2023 2:41:51 GMT
If you remember the Ken Russell movie, The Boy Friend, the stockings worn were real silk stockings found in a ware house that had been closed around the time of WWII, if I remember correctly.
Point being, there are all kinds of things out there somewhere. You hear about some cherry condition '30s automobile found up on chocks found in a barn somewhere, for instance.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 22, 2023 22:39:27 GMT
I remember having to use a "choke" on certain cars. I still don't really know what it was.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 22, 2023 22:53:10 GMT
Gosh -- I had totally forgotten about chokes, but as soon as I read that I remembered & could see one in my mind's eye.
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Post by fumobici on Nov 23, 2023 3:21:03 GMT
A choke is what it sounds like— an adjustable obstruction of the air intake into the engine that "chokes" the flow of air going in. This in turn makes the air/fuel mixture ratio going into the cylinders "richer" (more fuellier) and compensates for the mixture being less efficiently used in a cold engine. Once the engine has warmed a bit, the choke is no longer required and should be turned off to prevent excess fuel consumption and even fouling the plugs. Manual chokes went away with ones automatically operated by a thermostat, and later with fuel injection, the same thing was accomplished by just telling the injectors to squirt more fuel until the engine reaches its operating temperature. Piece of piss, right?
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 23, 2023 7:41:50 GMT
.....and you won't find a choke on a diesel engine.... Stereotypically a choke was what a woman driver would pull out to hang her handbag on.
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Post by Questa007 on Nov 23, 2023 16:26:37 GMT
Woman was getting upset because her car would not start. My son aged 4 leant over the fence and told her to let it rest then try again but "don't pull that thing out" (choke)He then taught her to listen to the sound of a flooded engine.
A friend had the luck to spot a derelict chicken house on a farm in "rally territory". The ancient farmer agreed on a price...rig up a better chook house, fix the fence and some bottles of beer. My friend got a Singer Le Mans sports car with everything in perfect condition (except for chook-poo.)
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Post by mickthecactus on Nov 23, 2023 16:29:52 GMT
Hello questa! Good to hear from you and congratulations on the cricket. Well deserved.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 23, 2023 17:08:26 GMT
Questa!!! We've all been wondering where you've been & how you're doing. It's a nice Thanksgiving treat to see you here!
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Post by whatagain on Nov 23, 2023 20:04:36 GMT
Great to read from you Questa !
I have chokes in my garden tools. Land mower chainsaw etc.
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Post by htmb on Nov 23, 2023 21:41:41 GMT
I drove a diesel car for too many years to count. It had a button to push before turning the key. Electronic ignition warmer or something like that?
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Nov 23, 2023 21:41:58 GMT
Hello Questa, excellent to hear from you xxx
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 24, 2023 6:20:47 GMT
htmb, it's usually a pre-heater that uses glow plugs to heat the combustion chamber to enable it to get hot enough to explode the fuel mixture.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 24, 2023 6:43:27 GMT
But a diesel engine wouldn't use that, would it, relying as it does on compression instead, if I'm right?
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 24, 2023 10:45:19 GMT
Correct. I'd say well done if it didn't sound patronising, which it's not meant to be.
In general petrol engines use a spark to ignite the fuel/air mixture which before the advent of fuel injection needed some way of making the mixture richer on a cold start up because with a cold engine some of the fuel will condense on the metal of the engine. Using a butterfly valve in the carburettor you choked off some of the air going it, hence a "choke", to make it so.
Diesel engines rely on the heat generated by compressing air to ignite the mixture and have used fuel injectors anyway as a rule of thumb so you need some way to heat the cylinder the fuel and air is going in to so as soon as possible the heat build up becomes enough to ignite the fuel rather than turning the engine over and over until it does so. This is done by a thing that looks externally like a spark plug but is just a probe sticking into the cylinder that heats up, called, would you believe, a glow plug because when on, it.....glo....s.
Old mechanics don't like complicated terms. That's why suck, squeeze, bang, blow is used for us to understand a certain thing.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jan 13, 2024 5:29:42 GMT
Travellers cheques. Remember when finding the best bank used to be a top priority when you arrived in a new city?
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Post by bjd on Jan 13, 2024 7:50:14 GMT
We had friends from Canada come to visit us in 2000 and were annoyed that they had a hard time finding a bank that would even accept them.
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Post by whatagain on Jan 13, 2024 12:48:09 GMT
Last time I use traveller checks - Amex - was in 1987.
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Post by fumobici on Jan 13, 2024 16:31:08 GMT
Travellers cheques. Remember when finding the best bank used to be a top priority when you arrived in a new city? Those were mostly already history by the time I was doing international travel on my own. What a horrible, horrible way to pay for things while travelling compared to how we do now.
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Post by mich64 on Jan 13, 2024 18:48:26 GMT
When we went on our honeymoon in 1983, our travel agent advised us to purchase some, but did not see the purpose since we were staying with family. They exchanged money at the US Bank for us when we arrived. I do remember how formal they looked and found the whole process a bit intimidating at the time.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 18, 2024 21:48:33 GMT
I remember when measles, mumps and chicken pox were considered to be an automatic part of childhood with two weeks out of school for each disease.
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Post by mickthecactus on Mar 18, 2024 22:00:42 GMT
Never had mumps but unlucky enough to have measles and whooping cough at the same time.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Mar 18, 2024 22:18:26 GMT
I have 5 siblings...there are 17 years between the first and the sixth child and the first 4 were born quite rapidly one after the other then there was a 5 year gap before I showed up, then another 7 years befire our baby sister arrived. I think that my older 4 siblings had all the usual childhood illnesses. When I had them the older ones had some immunity...and by the time our baby sister arrived I think that there were vaccines. We all have at least one chickenpox scar...and the only thing that none of us had was mumps. My two boys didn't have the measles vaccine because there was epilepsy in both sides of the family so our family doctor advised against it, both boys had measles rapidly followed by chickenpox. We were housebound for over a month really...Jeff was working abroad at the time and the boys and I were living away from family. In between the oldest recovering from and the youngest going down with measles I just had time to rush to the supermarket, fill a trolley and get us home. Youngest started coming out in spots in the taxi home..I admitted this to the taxi driver who was very kind...he said that all his lot were vaccinated and that we were his last fare of the day so he would disinfect the seats and doors after he got home. He got a good tip! Our milkman was our hero whilst we were stuck indoors, he would pick up bread, potatoes, butter and eggs for us which he delivered with the milk and it kept us going. Nowadays we can order our groceries online and get them delivered..it was much more difficult back then. Measles was a notifiable disease in the 80s, I think that it still is.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 18, 2024 22:22:47 GMT
Kind of reminds us of covid, no? Although of course they were not considered as serious as covid.
My mother, being of an earlier generation, also had whooping cough. My stepfather was in the navy when he got mumps and became sterile. Good thing my brother and I were already born. (I have no idea how or why they tested for steriilty back then to be able to inform him.)
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Mar 18, 2024 22:27:11 GMT
We had whooping cough too...it was nasty.
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Post by bjd on Mar 19, 2024 6:32:26 GMT
Aren't there some cases of measles in the States these days? Probably a result of anti-vaxxers, or perhaps being brought from elsewhere. After years of measles being one of the success stories of vaccination.
I caught mumps in my late 30s but had it very lightly. Didn't know what it was, in fact. But I had been vaccinated as a small kid.
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Post by kerouac2 on Apr 19, 2024 17:33:33 GMT
I was thinking of the old days with covid and all that and how we talked about the 1st wave, 2nd wave, 3rd wave, etc. and then we lost count when we understood that the waves would never end. New generations will find us ridiculous if we tell them about that.
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Post by mickthecactus on Apr 19, 2024 17:37:13 GMT
I’m having a covid injection next Saturday. Probably unnecessary.
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Post by bjd on Apr 19, 2024 18:03:32 GMT
I think in France the current covid vaccine campaign is for over-80s and those with fragile immune systems.
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Post by mickthecactus on Apr 19, 2024 19:04:58 GMT
Over 75’s here.
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