"Java Jive" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:16:24 +0100, geoff wrote:

In message , Cash
?.?.?.?.?.?.?.?.?.?.?.?.?.?@?.?.?.?.?.?.?.?.?.?.? .?.?.?.?.//.com.invalid
writes

And *WHAT* were your thoughts on 'oldies' when you were in your teens,
twenties, thirties - and possibly forties when you were showing them how
to
use that new fangled invention called the video recorder - or even early
mobile phones? ;-)

Actually, in my day it was hifi, but, while they needed some advice on
what technical specifications (remember them?) constituted hifi, none
of my parents had any difficulty at all in using such things.

HiFi is something the youth of today fail to understand.
They wouldn't buy mp3 players if they knew anything about HiFi.

From my experience the youth of today understands very little technical
stuff, the majority know next to nothing about how computers, TV, radio,
cars, (insert what you like) work.

Almost all the "kids know computers" comes from their better thumb control
on games consoles, give them a game that requires knowledge/strategy and
they are hopeless and get bored.


However, my mother did have a blind spot, pun intended, on using
instamatic cameras. She was always getting caught out by the parallax
between what the viewfinder showed and what the lens was actually
pointed at. We used to pin the results up on a board to see if anyone
could guess what she really intended to photograph. There was a
strange photo of a solitary unidentified and odd-looking elbow up for
months until I realised it was my brother's left elbow going round the
bag of his Highland pipes!

That wasn't parallax, it was an eye relief problem and she couldn't see
through the viewfinder at all.
Its quite a common problem on cheap cameras (and some expensive ones!).
It would have been solved if she had looked at some of the cameras with big
viewfinders.


My stepfather used to teach me science through, say, explaining why
popcorn popped.

EXPLAIN

A favourite trick was to get an old-fashioned tin with a replacable
lid, like a syrup or treacle tin, and punch one hole with a nail
through each of the base and the lid. You then:
1) Remove the lid
2) Seal the hole in the base of the tin with a finger
3) Turn it upside down
4) Fill it with gas from the cooker (gas is lighter than air, so it
goes up into the tin). Er, turn the gas off once you smell gas! That
means it's full!
5) Replace the lid
6) Seal the hole in the lid with another finger (so you're now
sealing both)
7) Turn it the right way up
8) Run out into the garden and place it on something like a brick
9) Light the gas at the lid hole, and stand well back.
After a few seconds the lid goes about 15 feet in the air.

EXPLAIN

Another was to get an old can, not one that contained anything highly
flammable, something like olive oil would do. Put a centimetre or two
of water in the tin, and boil it until steam is coming out of the top.
Then turn off the gas, and quickly, using oven gloves, replace the lid
making sure it's tight. Stand back and wait. After a while, the can
crumples.

EXPLAIN

I do remember a letter to one of the papers years ago asking why they
didn't wait until the old people had died off before introducing
decimalisation


Much too simple..

explain how JET works. ;-)