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The world in 1975 (2007)

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21–30 of 57 posts

Re: The world in 1975 (2007)

#21
post #15

"There was no pizza delivery. Even supermarkets had much less pre-made food, so people had to at least try to cook." Eau contraire, in 1976 I was delivering J&B's pizza to save up for college. And our freezer was filled with TV dinners. We had 'TV Trays'. Today, we have trays for our notebook computers: http://www.aliexpress.com/popular/notebook-computer-stands.h...

Nitpick of the day: it's au contraire, eau is just water, au is roughly at the. ;)

Thanks! Haha.

Re: The world in 1975 (2007)

#22
post #15

"There was no pizza delivery. Even supermarkets had much less pre-made food, so people had to at least try to cook." Eau contraire, in 1976 I was delivering J&B's pizza to save up for college. And our freezer was filled with TV dinners. We had 'TV Trays'. Today, we have trays for our notebook computers: http://www.aliexpress.com/popular/notebook-computer-stands.h...

Nitpick of the day: it's au contraire, eau is just water, au is roughly at the. ;)

[deleted]

Re: The world in 1975 (2007)

#23
post #20
post #2

>Radio stations played a great variety of really good new music. Please. The lack of variety in the public sphere is exactly what led to the "underground" music scenes. In the 70's the new unheard music was punk and the like. When I left for college in '79 it was an absolutely jaw-dropping, exciting experience to find an entire music store filled with this "alternative" music that no one played (outside of college st…

"Later ... it was decided that the trend was upwards." Between '65 and '79 there were 6 times as many research papers predicting warming. That was even despite increasing knowledge of Ice Ages. "The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus" http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1

Not trying to be controversial or anything ... just that the reporting on the ice age thinking had traction in popular press.

Nor am I saying that this represented a consensus view that later changed to another consensus view. I think, however, that it took time before the ice age faction gave way.

Meanwhile, in reading popular science reporting of the time, I think it is not too subjective to claim that the ice age notion took hold for bit in the public imagination before global warming did.

Re: The world in 1975 (2007)

#24

>There were no digital watches. And wind-up watches were cheap. LED digital watches arrived at my school in 1974/75. LCD watches arrived about a year later. >Headphones were giant things you used in the basement to listen to Pink Floyd. I had a pair of 424s in 1975. They sounded pretty good. http://www.tonepublications.com/old-school/sennheiser-hd-414... >There was no portable way to listen to music except transistor…

Regarding of the speed of cashiers: ALDI is the only store where actual tests showed that the speed has gone down since the introduction of scanners — but all prices of all products had to be known by all cashiers, and there was always only one product of each type.

Re: The world in 1975 (2007)

#25

> There were no DVD's or even VCR's -- movies could only be seen in theaters, or older movies on TV. You could also buy a super 8mm film version, probably not the entire film though.

We did have video tape recorders, though. Setting up and running them for classes was part of my college work-study job around 1971-72. The units I operated were made by Ampex and were about the size of a suitcase. They used a wide tape which had to be threaded onto the take-up reel, similar to an audio reel-to-reel tape recorder. The tape head had to be cleaned with alcohol between each use, and there was a tracking…

Not only that, but there were definitely VCRs in 1975. In particular, the Sony U-Matic was released in 1971, and Betamax dates to 1975 (with a November release in the US). Of course, the early VCRs were either used in educational or industrial environments, or else were toys for the rich.

There are plenty of other nits to pick with this article, as well. Pong wasn't the only video game, even if it was by far the most common (and yes, pinball dominated the arcades then). Dynamic range compression on LPs was certainly a thing, but producers didn't go overboard with it back then the way they do now.

Still, it's funny how some things never change (like media fearmongering).

Re: The world in 1975 (2007)

#27
I read it with an eye to what got worse, since most things got better. The thing that truly leapt out to me was how awful pop music and the radio are today. There is good music, but nowhere near a radio. You really have to dig in obscure places for it. Pop is with very few exceptions loudness enhanced vapid junk that all sounds the same and that and oldies are all the radio will play.

Only a bit of actual inspired music has broken through in the past decade... basically m83 and a bit of decent hip hop. Compare this to the early 90s, the last time popular music was decent. There were literally dozens of amazing new bands and several whole new styles in a span of 5 years. That was I suppose before the marketers took over and figured out how to endlessly push junk.

I don't always cheer for disruption, but boy would I celebrate the total ruin of that industry. What a joke.

Re: The world in 1975 (2007)

#28
post #7

> You payed by cash or check You can still do this using a debit card. I'm not 100% sure how your credit is affected if you never get a credit card though. I know there are other ways to build up credit. Also, credit cards make products more expensive, there's probably a transaction fee for debit cards too. > There were no ATM's. To get cash out of your account, you went to a bank teller, and there was no fee. But yo…

>> You payed by cash or check > You can still do this using a debit card. His point wasn't debit versus credit. It was that one had to have the actual paper cash or a checkbook handy when stopping at the store. It's a lot more convenient now.

I still remember my mother using a credit card (probably ~1980) and the cashier pulled out a phone-book-sized list of known stolen CC numbers. I told my mom "I hope she finds it in the book" (not knowing its purpose) and she replied "I hope she doesn't".

Anyway, even credit cards were slower then.

Re: The world in 1975 (2007)

#29
post #23
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Later ... it was decided that the trend was upwards." Between '65 and '79 there were 6 times as many research papers predicting warming. That was even despite increasing knowledge of Ice Ages. "The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus" http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1

Not trying to be controversial or anything ... just that the reporting on the ice age thinking had traction in popular press. Nor am I saying that this represented a consensus view that later changed to another consensus view. I think, however, that it took time before the ice age faction gave way. Meanwhile, in reading popular science reporting of the time, I think it is not too subjective to claim that the ice age…

I just linked the paper to show that what you did say was incorrect. This is really not the forum for half sayings and saying what-nots.

Re: The world in 1975 (2007)

#30
Mostly on base -- but no mention of the exit from Saigon? 1975 was the year the '60s ended.

Also, in 1975, one heard a lot more about 'the coming ice age' than global warming. The concept had a brief reprise in the 80s with 'the Cold and the Dark' (Nuclear Winter).

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