In article ,
Davey wrote:
On Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:40:19 +0000
Ian Jackson wrote:

In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Its not actually being thick, as jumping to incorrect conclusions as
they are never taught how to logically and carefully assess
situations to solve a problem. People given a little knowledge, but
not enough and no common sense education at all.

Isn't the problem simply that these days, in everyday life, people
need to know about so many more things than they used to? Inevitably,
there must be lots of everyday things which they know very little
about.

Have you tried to service your own car nowadays? That is, if you can
see the engine.

Most have an easily removable cover. And in terms of a service - not
repair - are very much easier than most older cars, as well as needing
that service less frequently. The engine may look more complex, but still
has an oil filter as of old and a drain plug. Many of the routine service
jobs on older cars like points adjustment or replacement have been
eliminated completely. Spark plugs now can last 100,000 miles without
attention. And so on.

--
*'Progress' and 'Change' are not synonyms.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:30:58 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

Spark plugs now can last 100,000 miles without
attention.

My neighbour genuinely didn't understand why his new car didn't have
any!

In article ,
news.plus.net scribeth thus
On 11/11/2011 00:08, Bill Wright wrote:
John Hall wrote:
In article ,
Steve Thackery writes:
Hey, Bill, I hope you are keeping a copy of all these stories. They
are a fascinating insight into human nature, as well as being
entertaining, informative and interesting.

I hope you'll keep 'em coming.


Seconded. I think you could get a book out of them.
It's a bit 'niche' though, isn't it? The trouble is, a general reader
wouldn't understand many of the issues. But thanks guys, for saying nice
things.

It's odd how these incidents seem to have become more common since DSO.
Has DSO had some strange effect on people's brains?

I've also noticed a tendency for people to imply that I (little me,
personally) am responsible for all the DSO grief!

I am in the role of customer tomorrow as the IT man is coming here. He
regards me as a congenital moron, which from his perspective I am. I
will try very hard to appear intelligent!

Bill
I'll tell you what Bill, your anecdotes, while entertaining don't half
re-enforce that fact that Joe Public is as thick as ****!

When I *started my stint in the domestic TV side of this industry I was
told by the manager there that in his estimation 80% of the public are
as thick as **** and some 50 % thicker than two short planks cubed and
he was well Wright;!......



I really despair about standards these days.

Rob.



*circa 1970
--
Tony Sayer

In article , Davey
scribeth thus
On Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:40:19 +0000
Ian Jackson wrote:

In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Its not actually being thick, as jumping to incorrect conclusions as
they are never taught how to logically and carefully assess
situations to solve a problem. People given a little knowledge, but
not enough and no common sense education at all.

Isn't the problem simply that these days, in everyday life, people
need to know about so many more things than they used to? Inevitably,
there must be lots of everyday things which they know very little
about.

Have you tried to service your own car nowadays? That is, if you can
see the engine.

And have all the electronic diagnostic gear ?...
--
Tony Sayer

On 11/11/2011 11:58, Davey wrote:
On Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:16:04 -0000
"Brian wrote:

The problem is that as the powers go up, transmissions from other
transmitters are receivable out of area. Sadly many boxes seem not to
have any easy way to just look for stations on the transmitter you
want, so grab everything and shove tem all over the place on a
retune, and of course with the system in a state of flux for some
time, the likelihood of this problem is prolonged. an attenuator can
bring the unwanted transmitter down below the threshold level for
reception. also of course in some areas, sets are actually
overloading now with the higher powers of more transmitters which
will create poor signal quality. Incidentally this reminds me of the
personal know whose dog when fed up with the owner not taking any
notice, learned to pull the aerial attenuator out of the back of the
telly to get attention.

Perhaps not the kind of attention needed of course. who says dogs do
not have a sense of humour.

Brian


Thank you for the explanation. I figured it was something like that.
Here, there is no such problem, but now I will know the purpose of the
attenuator the next time I read about it.
Dogs do have a sense of humour. One dog we had, on cold dry days
(plenty of them in Michigan) would come up behind one of us and stick
her nose into the back of a knee, creating a yelp from the victim as
I/she got a sharp knee-bending shock. There was no purpose other than to
see us react.

At least you didn't have SCART plugs in the states, I am sure they were
purposely designed to drop out when animals touched them.


--

Graham.

%Profound_observation%

In article ,
Graham. wrote:
At least you didn't have SCART plugs in the states, I am sure they were
purposely designed to drop out when animals touched them.

I've got some ribbon ones with sort of friction locks on them. Much more
secure than ordinary ones - helped by the cable being more flexible too.
Came from CPC and weren't expensive.

--
*Taxation WITH representation ain't much fun, either.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
Have you tried to service your own car nowadays? That is, if you can
see the engine.

And have all the electronic diagnostic gear ?...

You don't need diagnostic gear for a service - only for faults. You may
need a special device to re-set the service indicator, though. Which can
generally be bought quite cheaply. As can some diagnostic equipment too -
maybe not much more than having the codes read at your dealer in event of
a fault.

--
*A closed mouth gathers no feet.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Friday, November 11th, 2011, at 11:20:19h +0000, Bill Wright wrote:

I remember the problems my grandma had when she faced the
complexities of the electric light.

Was it really easier with gas lighting though?

And today we are all faced with the complexities of
incandescent, fluorescent, CFLs, LEDs, triswitches,
dimmers, bayonet vs E14/E27 ...

Well you know they say you learn something every day?

I mistakenly thought the E was for European -- it is not,
it is E for Edison screw.

http://en.wikipedia.ORG/wiki/Edison_screw

On Friday, November 11th, 2011, at 12:34:53 +0000, Nemo declared:

My neighbour genuinely didn't understand why his new car didn't have
any!

Is it a model from Tesla Motors?

http://www.teslamotors.COM/

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
Have you tried to service your own car nowadays? That is, if you can
see the engine.

And have all the electronic diagnostic gear ?...

You don't need diagnostic gear for a service - only for faults. You may
need a special device to re-set the service indicator, though. Which can
generally be bought quite cheaply. As can some diagnostic equipment too -
maybe not much more than having the codes read at your dealer in event of
a fault.

--

Nothing to touch the old Mk2 Astra for absolute ease of service, a fleet
managers dream, even the clutch could be replaced in under an hour without
disturbing the engine or gearbox, governments should pass laws forcing all
manufacturers to design vehicles that are that straightforward to service
:-) 179,000 miles of almost trouble free motoring and even then it was the
body which expired before the mechanics.