For WTM an olive branch

Bob wrote:

Damaged Eagle wrote:

It's getting pretty boring around here... Even Bob's getting predictable.

"predictable" stings me more than a shiv slicing through my heart.
Now I know what a rock n roller must feel like once he gets old and his act gets predictable and obvious and stale and has-been.

The best scenario I can think of is when some gangsta rapper who tries to be so hip finds himself one day in his elderly years performing as a lounge act in Vegas or in some airport holiday inn. And the only audience is the businessmen in suits hanging out at the bar after a hard day of doing establishment stuff. And his performance to them is not much different from the muzak on the elevator which takes them back to their room.

Yet it's true... Just as your current response is.

I find Chrissy as one of the few entertaining and constantly surprising people around this forum.

Most of you really don't have a sense of humor and most of you are only interested in is bashing away at each other instead of considering other peoples perceptions/inputs of the situation/issue.

But then...

*****CHUCKLE*****

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

You were maybe on a roll with the "predictable" part. But "no sense of humor" might be going over the top. I see humor when I'm not even trying or wanting to. Even when it's not really called for. Granted it may be humor only my own mind. But it's always there like a curse.

But of course you were predicting I would say that. lol

And Frank Sinatra was never a lounge act. He was still a headliner when he had one foot in the nursing home. In fact, his stature kept growing with his advance in age all the way to the end.
Elvis on the other hand. lol

Bob wrote:You were maybe on a roll with the "predictable" part. But "no sense of humor" might be going over the top. I see humor when I'm not even trying or wanting to. Even when it's not really called for. Granted it may be humor only my own mind. But it's always there like a curse.

But of course you were predicting I would say that. lol

Micheal Valentine Smith would be proud of most the posters on this forum for their sense of humor.

I surely was expecting that also.

*****SMILE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOOnxi3UTCg

I must confess I'm not familiar with the name Michael Valentine Smith.
I'll go google it.

My mistake. It's Valentine Micheal Smith. I should have checked. Sorry.

There's a scene in the book that causes VMS to finally understand why humans laugh. Something he never understood and couldn't do. The settings a zoo and of course they're watching the chimps.

*****SMILE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQzUCO7rG0M

Heinlein sci-fi. And an interesting as hell premise (wiki'ed it).

See here's what happened. You came on the forum from Iowa.
And my bigotry stereotyped Iowans as dirt dobbers. That's an old southern derogatory term for ignorant redneck farmers I picked up from the "city" folk in P'Cola (like a bunch of small town hicks in P'Cola are supposed to be sophisticated lol).
You've destroyed yet another stereotype for me.

I wanted to ask you something the other day. I remember you talking in the past about being a farmer. Which I imagine would entail plowing with a tractor.
And if that's the case, I was going to ask you if you know the story of how television was invented?

You're free to keep thinkin' that way because...

*****CHUCKLE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIq1LvzSLsk

A 14 year old kid was plowing rows on his uncle's potato farm in Idaho.
And one day when he was plowing those rows back and forth and crossways, the whole fundamental invention hit his mind like a lightning bolt.
A little later he went to the school he attended and drew the blueprint for electronic televison on the blackboard for his teacher. We actually have a photograph of that blackboard with that on it.
And the rest is history.

At the time the best corporate scientists in the world were trying to invent it.
But it took a 14 year old boy plowing rows on a potato farm to actually do it.

Bob wrote:I wanted to ask you something the other day. I remember you talking in the past about being a farmer. Which I imagine would entail plowing with a tractor.
And if that's the case, I was going to ask you if you know the story of how television was invented?

Yep... I know how to drive a tractor. Can fix some of the mechanical problems also depending on the tractor. They generally don't plow around here anymore. Something to do with conservation don't ya know.

I'm familiar with how television was invented and can fix most of the old sets if I have the test equipment, schematics, and parts... Though I'm sure that's not what you're meaning... So go ahead.

*****SMILE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNqUORIFV4I

Bob wrote:A 14 year old kid was plowing rows on his uncle's potato farm in Idaho.
And one day when he was plowing those rows back and forth and crossways, the whole fundamental invention hit his mind like a lightning bolt.
A little later he went to the school he attended and drew the blueprint for electronic televison on the blackboard for his teacher. We actually have a photograph of that blackboard with that on it.
And the rest is history.

At the time the best corporate scientists in the world were trying to invent it.
But it took a 14 year old boy plowing rows on a potato farm to actually do it.

I hadn't heard that story. See what I miss out on in those military schools.

That deserves another...

*****SMILE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNqUORIFV4I

Decades later in the 1950's he appeared as the mystery guest on the tv show "What's My Line" with his secret being that he was the inventor of television.
And the performers on that tv show had no clue who he was. Or that he had made it possible for there to even be that tv show.

A few years after television became a mainstay starting about 1949, his son told an interviewer that because of the content on television, his father was ashamed that he'd ever invented it. So much so that he would not let a television set in the house.

So just how true is this story or are you pulling my leg?

*****SMILE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQzUCO7rG0M

By the way Bob... Stranger In A Strange Land roused the public in the 1960's just like Harry Potter did last decade.

*****CHUCKLE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy8z557aK1Y

100% true. No embellishment whatsoever. It's almost too hard to believe. Was for me too when I first heard about it. But it's all fully documented and is just one of those oddities of our technology past. Especially that it was accomplished by a 14 year old.

It's not a happy story for him though. RCA screwed him out of the patents.
But it's universally accepted that he was the "wright brothers" of television.
He went on to build a company which had his namesake and produced a lot of Farnsworth radios and tvs in the early days. I've owned a couple of Farnsworth radios but they have very little value as collectibles.
But he hardly got any public recognition for being the inventor because RCA robbed that part from him. And very few people in the public ever knew what he'd done even back then. And today his name is almost forgotten outside of technology history buffs.
That part is really odd too. Being that it can be argued that television is the most significant invention of the 20th Century. Some may argue heavier than air flight and all the rest. But television has changed the world more than anything else in my mind.

Damaged Eagle wrote:



It is up to him. I been considering finding a new forum. After all...

*****SMILE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L8-FTvSVxs

Don't you dare. That's an order, soldier.

Who would re-introduce me to music I haven't heard or appreciated in years if you take your leave?

Damaged Eagle wrote:

By the way Bob... Stranger In A Strange Land roused the public in the 1960's just like Harry Potter did last decade.

Probably the biggest regret of my life is I never got in the habit of reading fiction. I've missed out on so much because of that. If it hasn't been turned into a movie I'm a know-nothing when it comes to fiction. Sure I've gotten whiffs of it from reading ABOUT the novel. But that in no way compares to actually reading the book itself.
I've tried to figure out why. Mostly lack of attention span. I've always wanted to learn stuff in short snippets without having to devote the time to the reading. And that's how I read non-fiction too.
But it's made me ignorant in a significant way. Can't do it over again though.

It hit me hard how much I've missed when I took that long airplane ride recently. I had a book on my e-reader that I'd bought over a year ago. One that I'd wanted to read for 5 years. And on that trip I read about two-thirds of it. It was the most amazing experience I've had in quite a while. Blew my mind completely. And then I REALLY knew what I have been missing.

Bob wrote:100% true. No embellishment whatsoever. It's almost too hard to believe. Was for me too when I first heard about it. But it's all fully documented and is just one of those oddities of our technology past. Especially that it was accomplished by a 14 year old.

It's not a happy story for him though. RCA screwed him out of the patents.
But it's universally accepted that he was the "wright brothers" of television.
He went on to build a company which had his namesake and produced a lot of Farnsworth radios and tvs in the early days. I've owned a couple of Farnsworth radios but they have very little value as collectibles.
But he hardly got any public recognition for being the inventor because RCA robbed that part from him. And very few people in the public ever knew what he'd done even back then. And today his name is almost forgotten outside of technology history buffs.
That part is really odd too. Being that it can be argued that television is the most significant invention of the 20th Century. Some may argue heavier than air flight and all the rest. But television has changed the world more than anything else in my mind.

That's interesting but my vote is still for sex being the most significant development in world history.

*****CHUCKLE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1xY7Heaqg8

Damaged Eagle wrote:
That's interesting but my vote is still for sex being the most significant development in world history.

Without that, there wouldna been no inventing of nothing. lol

My girlfriend gets all bent out of shape when I use those double negatives. I talk like I write. Probably a side effect of being book illiterate. lol

How in hell did the olive branch/poison ivy thread turn into this stream of consciousness exhibition. I feel like I've put myself on a psychiatrist's couch.
Hell it's after 2 AM. I need to go to sleep. lol

PBulldog2 wrote:

Damaged Eagle wrote:

It is up to him. I been considering finding a new forum. After all...

*****SMILE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L8-FTvSVxs

Don't you dare. That's an order, soldier.

Who would re-introduce me to music I haven't heard or appreciated in years if you take your leave?

I dug this out of the old treasure chest just for you. Enjoy...

*****SMILE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yjxWfyxpqY

Bob wrote:How in hell did the olive branch/poison ivy thread turn into this stream of consciousness exhibition. I feel like I've put myself on a psychiatrist's couch.
Hell it's after 2 AM. I need to go to sleep. lol

So do I.

Before I go though... Try reading The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. It's by the same author, a bit shorter, and his one and only Nebula Award winner. I think you might like it. It's one of my favorites.

*****SMILE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EoQVaQGXmM

Bob wrote:How in hell did the olive branch/poison ivy thread turn into this stream of consciousness exhibition. I feel like I've put myself on a psychiatrist's couch.
Hell it's after 2 AM. I need to go to sleep. lol

-- haha im in bed early and rise early!