How to send an email circa 1984

A friend got hold of the radiosonde package that came down with a tired weather balloon. The varicolored components inside were fascinating. Shame on me, I swiped a micro switch from him that clicked amazingly addictively in the fifth grade. Gave it back the following day, "ya got me fair and square pard."

Small transistor radios came out perhaps two years before then. I really wanted one but they cost about $60 iirc. Far too much for a kid. I found out that the tubes (valves for Brits) that lit up with a orange-yellow glow inside my bedside radio were hot as hell to touch.

Imagine how much hotter the weather would be if X-istors were never invented! I bet it would be measurable.
 
Well, kindof? I mean, I knew enough to know that I didn't want to work on the thing with the power on, and I knew that caps would store a charge. What I DIDN'T know was that the CRT would store enough of a charge to get your attention for a VERY long time.

But, looking back on my youth, there are SO MANY places where I should have been dead....instead, I got injured just enough to make me cautious the next time around.
 
But...if the power isn't on how can you find out what went bad? Yeah, right. Looks like you've been on the (Southern expression) "it might could kill you" express more than I have. I guess that I didn't feel so confident (or lucky?)

It's great that CRT's are now only of historic interest. But I wouldn't be surprised if they pictured some things better than modern screens do. Maybe.
 
Cloasters posted:

It's great that CRT's are now only of historic interest. But I wouldn't be surprised if they pictured some things better than modern screens do. Maybe.
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Ah...Raster lines? ":O}
 
cloasters said:
It's great that CRT's are now only of historic interest.
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Yeah, they are all in Guiyu now. Huge mountains of them. Ask the Chinese. E-waste1.jpg E-Waste_news_featured.jpg ewaste3.jpg
 
+1 for the "discovered the properties of capacitors the hard way" school. Don't think Dad ever quite forgave me for welding a very expensive screwdriver to the back of the now non-functional TV. (That the flash from the short slightly cracked the tube and it didn't implode is... yeah, good thing that didn't happen.)
 
cloasters said:
LOL! Shame on me, I forgot those pesky raster lines.
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Patti and I have always sorta lived all in one so to speak. That is our Bed is our couch and our living room is our bed room. When you use you bed that way, you need a large screen TV or you'd have to read a book or something.!

*NTSC was not that pretty blown up to 60" Let me tell you! ":O}

*NTSC...is the right? The old Tv standard. Seems right but I can never be sure! ":O}
 
Guiyu is the world's largest dumping ground for e-waste. Something like 70 or 80% of the world's e-waste goes there; the people there are dying of lead and arsenic poisoning, the ground water is undrinkable, and cancer and other disease rates are incredibly high. Do some reading on it. Recently, the Chinese gov't decided to build a proper waste disposal facility, but I'm not sure if it happened or not. Most of the recycling was being done in home workshops, melting the metals and using chemical baths.
 
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ThunderRd said:
Guiyu is the world's largest dumping ground for e-waste. Something like 70 or 80% of the world's e-waste goes there; the people there are dying of lead and arsenic poisoning, the ground water is undrinkable, and cancer and other disease rates are incredible high. Do some reading on it. Recently, the Chinese gov't decided to build a proper waste disposal facility, but I'm not sure if it happened or not. Most of the recycling was being done in home workshops, melting the metals and using chemical baths.
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It's being built, but it'll make damn-all difference unless the government also forcibly relocates the local population and moves the existing landfill.

The first will probably happen, but they'll move right back again when public attention has moved on, and go right back to what they were doing. The second probably won't happen.

The end result is that a properly specified storage and processing facility will be competing with guys prepared to risk their lives for pennies. Which do you think will be cheaper, so which do you think people will buy?
 
Kaitain said:
The end result is that a properly specified storage and processing facility will be competing with guys prepared to risk their lives for pennies. Which do you think will be cheaper, so which do you think people will buy?
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Ultimately, it will come down to the Chinese government and the Chinese people to sort that matter out.

Which is not to absolve ourselves of our own parts in all of this.

First, they wouldn't be risking their lives if there were a better way to make a living. Second, they wouldn't be risking their lives if the unscrupulous weren't sending stuff to them.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to effectively solve either of those problems. I know there are companies that track their waste disposal policies to make sure stuff like this gets properly disposed of, but for every company that does there are at least ten that don't, and with multinational companies, it's very easy for corporations to skirt laws they don't like.
 
Kaitain said:
It's being built, but it'll make damn-all difference unless the government also forcibly relocates the local population and moves the existing landfill.

The first will probably happen, but they'll move right back again when public attention has moved on, and go right back to what they were doing. The second probably won't happen.

The end result is that a properly specified storage and processing facility will be competing with guys prepared to risk their lives for pennies. Which do you think will be cheaper, so which do you think people will buy?
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So shit, who needs a fire to see our world burning.

about the people returning..for some reason this quote came instantly to my mind.
"Many the time Ive gone to my knees simply because I had no place else to go."
Abraham Lincon
"The Great Emancipator"





'
 
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ThunderRd said:
For those who don't know about this place, here's a quite mature slideshow by a high school student:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFN_f5BZ214

I've posted the url, can't seem to get this damned embedding thing to work.
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I availed myself of your link, I can barely bring myself to thank you,
not your fault!
It's the world we have chosen for others to live in that breaks me down.
Thanks TR
 
Gizmo said:
Ultimately, it will come down to the Chinese government and the Chinese people to sort that matter out.

Which is not to absolve ourselves of our own parts in all of this.

First, they wouldn't be risking their lives if there were a better way to make a living. Second, they wouldn't be risking their lives if the unscrupulous weren't sending stuff to them.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to effectively solve either of those problems. I know there are companies that track their waste disposal policies to make sure stuff like this gets properly disposed of, but for every company that does there are at least ten that don't, and with multinational companies, it's very easy for corporations to skirt laws they don't like.
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I've Always been grateful that Seattle help pioneer E-re-cycling.
It's good to have some place else to go.
 
Those in charge of the human race actually enjoy raping the planet. I've seen that poor horrific town in China in a movie years ago. It just makes you want to cry. So much poison for a micro gram of silver and gold here and there.
 
For Christ sake George! That's why your poor!
Ah well it could be so much worse! You could be rich!

Desperately trying to get your dumb ass though the eye of a needle.":O}
 
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