What's the latest in people's lives?

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IanKennedy
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Re: What's the latest in people's lives?

Post by IanKennedy »

I take it you mean you old one was bought in 2001. We travelled in late April 2002 and 9/11 was still very much in evidence. It was our honeymoon and we visited Singapore, Cairns, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii and Los Angeles before flying back to the UK. The foot and mouth outbreak was very much in bloom also so we had quite a lot of questions and inspections at the time.
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Tinadrin Chelnor
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Re: What's the latest in people's lives?

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Finally, after a fight of several years, I have managed to find an ASD organisation that can offer support and has a variety of support and social groups, and workshops, and also a schizophrenia support group I used to attend is starting up again. For the last few years I have just been passed from one mental health organisation to another saying I am either "too complex" or "don't meet their requirements". Some relief finally though.
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Re: What's the latest in people's lives?

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Glad to head things are showing signs of improving. Lockdown must have been particularly difficult for you. Hopefully this is some light at the end of the tunnel.
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Re: What's the latest in people's lives?

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Thank you. Yes, lockdown caused more than one meltdown, and a significant decline in the state of my mental health. Thankfully, since moving back near my Dad and Aunt last September, things have started to improve, and I am finally getting some support. And volunteering as moderator on another forum has given me some sort of direction and fulfilment too. Moving back here was the best thing I could have done, for definite.
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Re: What's the latest in people's lives?

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RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote: Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:04 pm I just finished setting up my new television and Blu-Ray player, replacing my 23-24 year old TV and my DVD player that's about... a little over 21 years old. I got it in September of 2001, after flying back from California for my brother's wedding and my mother and I being on the very first plane out of Manchester Airport after 9/11.
I am assuming you are talking about a CRT TV and not a LED or Plasma TV.

I remember in Chicago when I graduated from Navy Boot Camp, my parents and I were walking around this mall and they had a handful of these new fangled flat screen TVs. Now of course they were not nearly as flat as they are today but at 4 inches deep far flatter than the anchors we had at the time.

My Dad was looking into replacing the old 27" ( big screen TV for the mid-80's) at the time. And he really wanted the these new Plasmas. But they were $24k. So in the end, he got one of those giant dinosaur rear projection type of TVs.

Which pissed him off for years as prices of those flat screen TVs went down where his local grocery store sells a 50in for $199.

He has a 65" Samsung LED now. But it was a long time coming. Took a while to convince him to get rid of the 19" Daewoo too.
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Re: What's the latest in people's lives?

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I used to have a 36" CRT tv. It was killed by lightning strike. It weighed 12 stone (168lbs), the stand was an additional 6 stone (84lbs). Boy was it fun getting it up to by upstairs flat (apartment) without a lift (elevator).
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Re: What's the latest in people's lives?

Post by RK_Striker_JK_5 »

McAvoy wrote: Sat Mar 18, 2023 4:42 am

I am assuming you are talking about a CRT TV and not a LED or Plasma TV.
My old TV had a back to it. It was thick. Here's a shot.

Image
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Re: What's the latest in people's lives?

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RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 9:34 pm
McAvoy wrote: Sat Mar 18, 2023 4:42 am

I am assuming you are talking about a CRT TV and not a LED or Plasma TV.
My old TV had a back to it. It was thick. Here's a shot.

Image
Yep shes thick in the back for sure.

Yeah that is what I meant in CRT. Cathode Ray Tube.

I find it interesting in that I used to see these on the road (along with a new LED TV box) for a long time. Chances were those TVs were probably still good. Now we are at that point where first or second generation LED TVs are being replaced. And those in comparison to today's, those TVs would be 'thick in the back'.
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Re: What's the latest in people's lives?

Post by RK_Striker_JK_5 »

lol, yup. Thick in the back. :D She served me well for a long time, but it finally started dying on me. So time to upgrade!
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Re: What's the latest in people's lives?

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IanKennedy wrote: Sat Mar 18, 2023 4:11 pm I used to have a 36" CRT tv. It was killed by lightning strike. It weighed 12 stone (168lbs), the stand was an additional 6 stone (84lbs). Boy was it fun getting it up to by upstairs flat (apartment) without a lift (elevator).
Alot of Americans actually understand most of the other terms used across the pond, but I think I can say most of us have no understanding about the use of 'stone'.

When I was a kid, I still remember the extreme difficulty all of the adult men in my family had in getting our 19" TV into the house. This was one of those furniture TVs. Solid wood, drawers, other stuff. Parents got it off a relative who upgraded to a bigger TV and slightly smaller wood 'case' for it.

Hell I remember when I was in the Navy I was living in the barracks on base, I was told to move out of my room into a new one so they can redo the carpet and paint my old one. Well I just got a 36" TV for my birthday (they were dropping in price!). Since I worked Nights, no one could or probably would help me. So I had pick up that TV that was barely small enough for me to even wrap my arms around, and walk it across about 1000 feet to the other barracks. Still amazed at how I didn't hurt myself doing that. Ahh to be young and stupid again. Still, it was a literal one step at a time and one step closer it was so heavy.

And that was when I was very physically fit!
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Re: What's the latest in people's lives?

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A Stone is 14lbs. It's a good range for people, most would be between 6 and 20 stone. It keeps the numbers small. Similar to feet and inches in height. You know right away that someone who is 4 foot something is short and 6 foot something is tall. Well 6 stone would be quite small (84lbs) and 20 would be pretty large (280lbs). It would usually be stated in full as 14stone 10lbs (or just 14 stone 10, or even 14-10), (206lbs).

Nowadays, the youth use kilograms. 2.2lbs to the kilogram. All the younger people only know kilos. It's only us dinosaurs that would work in the old fashioned units.

Over here we are quite schizophrenic about weights and measures, even legally. We are only allowed to sell items in Kg / Grams. Liquids in Litres and parts thereof. Distances are officially in metres.

Except where they aren't. Draft beer is only allowed to be sold in pints, half pints and 1/3 pints. It gets weirder when you buy beer in a bottle or can it must be in millilitres.

Road distances are measured in miles and speed limits are in miles an hour. Fuel economy is provided in both "miles per gallon" and "kilometres per 100 litres". This one is particular difficult as with MPG bigger is better and with KPL bigger is bad.
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Re: What's the latest in people's lives?

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I have recently converted to kilograms from stone, due to the fact I have regular health checks because of my mental health, and they always use kilograms, so I figured may as well just switch. Now I have completely converted to kilograms even for my world building stuff. I always used metric tonnes. I still go by pints, which my milk is still sold in, it is a 4 pint bottle but I presume they legally must put the litres on it somewhere too. The same shop sells 2 litre bottles of another brand, with the 4 pints being larger (2.2 litres or so) but also considerably cheaper.

I remember two of my brothers were doing their CBT together (Compulsory Basic Training for motorcycles to ride a 125cc) and the younger brother was barely moving (relatively) until the instructor asked what was up. He said I'm sticking to the limit. He was looking a the road signs which said 30 or 40 or whatever), which was obviously in MPH, but he was looking at the KPH on his speedometer. So instead of doing 30 MPH / 48 KPH, he's doing 30 KPH / 19 MPH.

And, for me, I recently got a meet thermometer, and the first time I used it I could not fathom why the meat would not get to the temperature the source said it should. I had been looking at degrees F (unknowingly) for the required temperature, but as I work in degrees C I was trying to get the temperature to that in C. Luckily I like my meat well done, but obviously it never reached that temperature, and eventually I figured it out after way over cooking it.

I should not, due to my autism and other mental health stuff, I rarely cook because I forget about it until the smoke alarm goes off, but I recently got an air fryer so I am doing more with that now.
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Re: What's the latest in people's lives?

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I can do weights, temperatures and distances from English to Metric and back again pretty easily in my head. Usually because I have been and continuously exposed to it.

I always joke the Fahrenheit is a metric for human comfort. 70 being comfortable, 90 being hot, 100 really hot. Etc.

Funny thing is in Aviation industry planes are built using feet, inches, etc measurements for the most part. So got to have those tools. Though some manufacturers do use some metric where they can. Though not any worse than using British Standard versus Regular. 9/16" wrench are the same size.

I am believer if you gfeww up with any standard whether it's metric, Imperial, or whatever is what you will be more comfortable with. For example 38 degrees Celsius doesn't come naturally to me as you saying 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Same goes with sockets and wrenches. I know exactly what a 11/16" socket looks like without looking at its side for confirmation. But I have no idea what that is in metric unless I spend the next two minutes figuring it out in my head. Or use a calculator. Which is slightly bigger than a 17mm socket.
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Re: What's the latest in people's lives?

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Well that's another one. Here I would say that freezing is 0 (as in Centigrade), while warm is wow it's in the 80s (as in Fahrenheit).
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Re: What's the latest in people's lives?

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I was scrolling through the tv listings the other day and noticed a marathon of the old sci-fi series Fringe was on. Being shown on the weekends over several weeks, it has been a wonderful rediscovery of the show. So nice to be catching some things here and there that I'd missed on previous viewings. Sure, it is dated, but still holds up quite well.
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