So, I've taken this job with a stair company. They have been in
business since the 1920's. They have a great record on the kit stair
retail side and they are expanding into the high end custom stair
side.

I went on a straight stair railing installation wrap up the other day
and their mechanic, who has been with them for seventeen years was
cutting the rail to yield with no thought given to color and grain
continuity.

I don't know about y'all, but when I run a line of rail I want it to
look like it came from one continuous piece of wood. That means that
the cathedral arches all point up and the rail sections are selected
for color and grain.

I was watching the guy just lop up the longest pieces for the longest
runs and then fit in the offcuts wherever they fit.

Could have looked a lot better.

This kind of thing goes all the way back to the shop floor. I watched
their guy grab sticks from the rack and feed them into the molder with
no check for grain direction to feed and no look at different pieces
to see if the grain and color could be made to match. He bitched when
the molder chunked out on him but didn't seem to get that there was a
right and wrong way to feed the machine.

WTF?

I'm the FNG and I didn't think it my place to comment but maybe it is
what they meant when the said that they hired me to upgrade their wood
end, they being basically makers of iron stairs who think of the wood
facings as an afterthought. I've seen their risered stairs and there
is no apparent thought given to the direction of the arches, which I
have always oriented left to right. The same applys to the treads.

Also, they have platforms that they glue up out of oak and they show
no intent regarding grain orientation during glue up. I can
understand varying arguments on this - some might say that all bark
side should be up for compressive strength and wearing and others
might say that grain orientation should be reversed on each piece for
planar stability - but there seemed to be no pattern.

I have had a theory for a long time that if you paid attention to
these things in a building - the building would begin to sing.

One of my biggest hard ons when I was doing carpentry was about the
relative heights of the top of the trim on doors and windows.

It was too often the case that the molding line at the top of the
doors would be different than those on the windows.

If you take the time to make those lines marry, you get a rhythm to
the room that gives you some visual peace. It is a small element that
is worth paying attention to.

This goes back to design level and needs to be caught on the drawings.

Another one used to be the door at the end of a hallway where the trim
was pinned on one side and there was three inches of wall space on the
other side. That looks like ****. Once again. the framer may be
following the print to the titts but the product is wrong.

Man, I shouldn't have gotten started on this.

How about the down lights in a ceiling that follow no apparent
pattern. Has no one ever heard of a reflected ceiling plan?

Alright - I'm done for now. It is just that the little things add up
and make a difference about how you feel about a room, a building, or
an element. You can create rhythm and harmony in a room or house by
following certain principles and those spaces will be a greater joy to
their occupants than the typical slapdash bull**** that goes on in
this business.



t.

"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...
So, I've taken this job with a stair company. They have been in
business since the 1920's. They have a great record on the kit stair
retail side and they are expanding into the high end custom stair
side.

I went on a straight stair railing installation wrap up the other day
and their mechanic, who has been with them for seventeen years was
cutting the rail to yield with no thought given to color and grain
continuity.

I don't know about y'all, but when I run a line of rail I want it to
look like it came from one continuous piece of wood. That means that
the cathedral arches all point up and the rail sections are selected
for color and grain.

I was watching the guy just lop up the longest pieces for the longest
runs and then fit in the offcuts wherever they fit.

Could have looked a lot better.

This kind of thing goes all the way back to the shop floor. I watched
their guy grab sticks from the rack and feed them into the molder with
no check for grain direction to feed and no look at different pieces
to see if the grain and color could be made to match. He bitched when
the molder chunked out on him but didn't seem to get that there was a
right and wrong way to feed the machine.

WTF?

I'm the FNG and I didn't think it my place to comment but maybe it is
what they meant when the said that they hired me to upgrade their wood
end, they being basically makers of iron stairs who think of the wood
facings as an afterthought. I've seen their risered stairs and there
is no apparent thought given to the direction of the arches, which I
have always oriented left to right. The same applys to the treads.

Also, they have platforms that they glue up out of oak and they show
no intent regarding grain orientation during glue up. I can
understand varying arguments on this - some might say that all bark
side should be up for compressive strength and wearing and others
might say that grain orientation should be reversed on each piece for
planar stability - but there seemed to be no pattern.

I have had a theory for a long time that if you paid attention to
these things in a building - the building would begin to sing.

One of my biggest hard ons when I was doing carpentry was about the
relative heights of the top of the trim on doors and windows.

It was too often the case that the molding line at the top of the
doors would be different than those on the windows.

If you take the time to make those lines marry, you get a rhythm to
the room that gives you some visual peace. It is a small element that
is worth paying attention to.

This goes back to design level and needs to be caught on the drawings.

Another one used to be the door at the end of a hallway where the trim
was pinned on one side and there was three inches of wall space on the
other side. That looks like ****. Once again. the framer may be
following the print to the titts but the product is wrong.

Man, I shouldn't have gotten started on this.

How about the down lights in a ceiling that follow no apparent
pattern. Has no one ever heard of a reflected ceiling plan?

Alright - I'm done for now. It is just that the little things add up
and make a difference about how you feel about a room, a building, or
an element. You can create rhythm and harmony in a room or house by
following certain principles and those spaces will be a greater joy to
their occupants than the typical slapdash bull**** that goes on in
this business.



Darn perfectionist :-)

I had a cornice carpenter one time that would square the eaves with string
lines, but before he nailed them home, he would go across the street and
look at the cornice work, making his final adjustments from there. His work
always looked good.

On Oct 1, 9:49*pm, "Lowell Holmes" wrote:
"Tom Watson" wrote in message

...





So, I've taken this job with a stair company. *They have been in
business since the 1920's. *They have a great record on the kit stair
retail side and they are expanding into the high end custom stair
side.

I went on a straight stair railing installation wrap up the other day
and their mechanic, who has been with them for seventeen years was
cutting the rail to yield with no thought given to color and grain
continuity.

I don't know about y'all, but when I run a line of rail I want it to
look like it came from one continuous piece of wood. *That means that
the cathedral arches all point up and the rail sections are selected
for color and grain.

I was watching the guy just lop up the longest pieces for the longest
runs and then fit in the offcuts wherever they fit.

Could have looked a lot better.

This kind of thing goes all the way back to the shop floor. *I watched
their guy grab sticks from the rack and feed them into the molder with
no check for grain direction to feed and no look at different pieces
to see if the grain and color could be made to match. *He bitched when
the molder chunked out on him but didn't seem to get that there was a
right and wrong way to feed the machine.

WTF?

I'm the FNG and I didn't think it my place to comment but maybe it is
what they meant when the said that they hired me to upgrade their wood
end, they being basically makers of iron stairs who think of the wood
facings as an afterthought. *I've seen their risered stairs and there
is no apparent thought given to the direction of the arches, which I
have always oriented left to right. *The same applys to the treads.

Also, they have platforms that they glue up out of oak and they show
no intent regarding grain orientation during glue up. *I can
understand varying arguments on this - some might say that all bark
side should be up for compressive strength and wearing and others
might say that grain orientation should be reversed on each piece for
planar stability - but there seemed to be no pattern.

I have had a theory for a long time that if you paid attention to
these things in a building - the building would begin to sing.

One of my biggest hard ons when I was doing carpentry was about the
relative heights of the top of the trim on doors and windows.

It was too often the case that the molding line at the top of the
doors would be different than those on the windows.

If you take the time to make those lines marry, you get a rhythm to
the room that gives you some visual peace. *It is a small element that
is worth paying attention to.

This goes back to design level and needs to be caught on the drawings.

Another one used to be the door at the end of a hallway where the trim
was pinned on one side and there was three inches of wall space on the
other side. *That looks like ****. *Once again. the framer may be
following the print to the titts but the product is wrong.

Man, I shouldn't have gotten started on this.

How about the down lights in a ceiling that follow no apparent
pattern. *Has no one ever heard of a reflected ceiling plan?

Alright - I'm done for now. *It is just that the little things add up
and make a difference about how you feel about a room, a building, or
an element. *You can create rhythm and harmony in a room or house by
following certain principles and those spaces will be a greater joy to
their occupants than the typical slapdash bull**** that goes on in
this business.

Darn perfectionist :-)

I had a cornice carpenter one time that would square the eaves with string
lines, but before he nailed them home, he would go across the street and
look at the cornice work, making his final adjustments from there. His work
always looked good.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

When I worked in Manhattan during the eighties I would tell my crew to
look out the window and line their trim up on the tallest buildings.
Theory was that if they weren't plumb, nothing was, and that those
strong lines where what plumb would be judged by.

Tom Watson wrote in news:a3e270c4-7c3a-4ac2-990c-
:

*snip*

Alright - I'm done for now. It is just that the little things add up
and make a difference about how you feel about a room, a building, or
an element. You can create rhythm and harmony in a room or house by
following certain principles and those spaces will be a greater joy to
their occupants than the typical slapdash bull**** that goes on in
this business.



t.


t.


It's kinda like the difference between a Skil and Makita cordless drill.
(You'll have to excuse me, I got a new toy today. Guess what it is...)
The Skil works and does its job alright, but things were just kinda
thrown together and as long as it doesn't break during the warranty
period, Skil is happy. Compare this to the Makita, where the little
things are considered such as making the keyless chuck really easy to
tighten. The charger even sounds a few notes to let you know the battery
was inserted properly.

One of the most beautiful things in the world is an excellent design and
execution of the design.

Puckdropper
--
If you're quiet, your teeth never touch your ankles.

To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm

"Tom Watson" wrote in message

I went on a straight stair railing installation wrap up the other day
and their mechanic, who has been with them for seventeen years was
cutting the rail to yield with no thought given to color and grain
continuity.

I don't know about y'all, but when I run a line of rail I want it to
look like it came from one continuous piece of wood. That means that
the cathedral arches all point up and the rail sections are selected
for color and grain.

I was watching the guy just lop up the longest pieces for the longest
runs and then fit in the offcuts wherever they fit.

Could have looked a lot better.

This kind of thing goes all the way back to the shop floor. I watched
their guy grab sticks from the rack and feed them into the molder with
no check for grain direction to feed and no look at different pieces
to see if the grain and color could be made to match. He bitched when
the molder chunked out on him but didn't seem to get that there was a
right and wrong way to feed the machine.

WTF?

You have quite a challenge. Getting a 17 year vet to change is not going to
be easy. I hope all those guys wear steel tip shoes because a lot of toes
will be stepped on.

You will either be the guy that improves the shop so they can now charge 20%
more because of their impeccable work, or you will quit from frustration.

Until you know what you can get away with, leading buy example may be best.
Like taking some sticks from the rack and making a big deal of checking the
grain before running it through the molder. Just a guess, the worker was
never trained by a supervisor that does not know or care.

Good luck.

With you on all this, sir. I'm not experienced enough with wood per se to
know a lot of this stuff, but I can spot it as a layman.

Reminds me of the problem with art galleries. The lighting design is ALWAYS
****. No reason why it should be if folk understand what it is they are
installing, designing and using, but it is because they don't. Some instances
really hilight this.
A while back I took a couple of kids to a major city gallery to see an
exhibition aimed at children, and as soon as I walked in the doorway I
spotted a problem, just from the lighting position. I called the head curator
over - even before I walked in the exhibition room - and asked him to follow
me in. Once in the room i asked him to crouch down so his head was on the
approximate level of an eight year old's head, and to tell me what he saw.
Just as I suspected, he reported back, sheepishly, that he couldn't see ANY
of the paintings on show because at that level, the glass was reflecting the
lighting straight back at the viewer. All he could see was light bulbs. All
any kid visitor would be able to see would be light bulbs. Kinda made a
nonsense of the exhibition theme.
The point is that anyone doing the JOB rather than paying lip service to a
job description would have prevented this, either at architect level,
contract level or in picture hanging, and the jobs are being done - and
overseen - by people who don't know their stuff or worse, don't give a damn.

All it needs is for people to be aware of the _purpose_ of what they are
doing. It really is that simple. Unfortunately workers often just don't know
because those handing them instructions don't feel it necessary for them to
_understand_, or, as is becoming more common, decision makers don't
understand the purpose themselves because their perceived role is to shift
more units rather than to minister to a particular need.

Local pub was being expensively sign-written - all gold leaf and pin
striping. It was still at the chalking out stage when I cheerily pointed out
to the bloke with the chalk a couple of spelling mistakes and the gratuitous
apostrophes littering the wording. He equally cheerily showed me his wording
brief, and said that the regional manager overseeing the refurbishment was
actually inside. I discreetly looked him out, explained there was a problem
with the wording. He came and looked over the layout then announced he
couldn't see anything wrong. I gently pointed out the four or five glaring
mistakes. He looked at it again, looked at me, shrugged and announced "It'll
do!" and then he strode of back to his self-congratulatory group at the bar.

Houston, we have a problem.

I've loads more examples from personal experience, but life is short and my
blood pressure is up so I'll have a generic rant.

Education now seems to be about inculcating a new jargon set rather than
skills. Training follows a similar pattern. This is called "professionalism"
by those who are quite happy to have a workforce not understand the elements
of their craft so long as they wear nicely coordinated uniforms and spout the
nonsense that they have been trained to spout at an appropriate time.

Meanwhile, the ship's sinking 'cos everyone is very, very qualified but
no-one understands the basics anymore. I love progress...

"Tom Watson" wrote:

Alright - I'm done for now. It is just that the little things add
up
and make a difference about how you feel about a room, a building,
or
an element. You can create rhythm and harmony in a room or house by
following certain principles and those spaces will be a greater joy
to
their occupants than the typical slapdash bull**** that goes on in
this business.

OK, you've had a chance to vent your spleen and I have a couple of
questions.

As a rookie, how many times did you get your ass kicked for screwing
up, until you learned this skill and how to use it properly?

At 58, how many years have you been able to hone this skill acquired
as a rookie?

It would appear you were hired to teach your skills to what is
basically a metal working crew.

So quit bitch'in and start teaching which is probably as difficult as
acquiring your skills in the first place.

Nobody ever claimed teaching was easy.

Have fun.

Lew

On Oct 1, 10:30*pm, Bored Borg
wrote:
With you on all this, sir. I'm not experienced enough with wood per se to
know a lot of this stuff, but I can spot it as a layman.

Reminds me of the problem with art galleries. The lighting design is ALWAYS
****. No reason why it should be if folk understand what it is they are
installing, designing and using, but it is because they don't. Some instances
really hilight this.
A while back I took a couple of kids to a major city gallery to see an
exhibition aimed at children, and as soon as I walked in the doorway I
spotted a problem, just from the lighting position. I called the head curator
over - even before I walked in the exhibition room - and asked him to follow
me in. Once in the room *i asked him to crouch down so his head was on the
approximate level of an eight year old's head, and to tell me what he saw..
*Just as I suspected, he reported back, sheepishly, that he couldn't see ANY
of the paintings on show because at that level, the glass was reflecting the
lighting straight back at the viewer. All he could see was light bulbs. All
any kid visitor would be able to see would be light bulbs. Kinda made a
nonsense of the exhibition theme.
The point is that anyone doing the JOB rather than paying lip service to a
job description would have prevented this, either at architect level,
contract level or in picture hanging, and the jobs are being done - and
overseen - by people who don't know their stuff or worse, don't give a damn.

All it needs is for people to be aware of the _purpose_ of what they are
doing. It really is that simple. Unfortunately workers often just don't know
because those handing them instructions don't feel it necessary for them to
_understand_, or, as is becoming more common, decision makers don't
understand the purpose themselves because their perceived role is to shift
more units rather than to minister to a particular need.

Local pub was being expensively sign-written - all gold leaf and pin
striping. It was still at the chalking out stage when I cheerily pointed out
to the bloke with the chalk a couple of spelling mistakes and the gratuitous
apostrophes littering the wording. He equally cheerily showed me his wording
brief, and said that the regional manager overseeing the refurbishment was
actually inside. I discreetly looked him out, explained there was a problem
with the wording. He came and looked over the layout then announced he
couldn't see anything wrong. I gently pointed out the four or five glaring
mistakes. He looked at it again, looked at me, shrugged and announced "It'll
do!" and then he strode of back to his self-congratulatory group at the bar.

Houston, we have a problem.

I've loads more examples from personal experience, but life is short and my
blood pressure is up so I'll have a generic rant.

Education now seems to be about inculcating a new jargon set rather than
skills. Training follows a similar pattern. This is called "professionalism"
by those who are quite happy to have a workforce not understand the elements
of their craft so long as they wear nicely coordinated uniforms and spout the
nonsense that they have been trained to spout at an appropriate time.

Meanwhile, the ship's sinking 'cos everyone is very, very qualified but
no-one understands the basics anymore. I love progress...






When I lived in Manhattan during the early eighties I had the happy
opportunity to work on crew for a John Lee Beatty set that was lit by
Dennis Parichy at Circle Rep. Lest you be thinking that I was the
only person in Manhattan doing something for free, my intent was to
ingratiate myself to the degree that I might have a small play that I
had written read by their august company. This did transpire.

Back to the lighting thing - Mr. Parichy thought about light the way
that painters think about light.

It has its degrees, it has its force, it has its charm, or lack of
same. It has its angles and it has the places where it can not go -
which particular attention must be paid to, because the light must go
there to see the play.

You would think that a painterly man like this would think of color
first but Parichy thought of color as being a quality of the light,
rather than a quality all its own.

If you have never had the pleasure of seeing a space lit by this man,
you should correct this defect at your earliest opportunity.

I remember seeing a play at Circle that began in the morning and ended
at the end of the day. Dennis lit this in such a way that in each
scene we saw the changing angle of the light, without noting it
particularly but it added to the general experience and at the end of
the play, when the character stared into the sunset - and had language
to support it - we bought it - and applauded.


t.

I started my working life in the printing industry doing typography —
setting type to those who don't know what it is. It always bugs me, now that
everyone has a computer and can prepare pages that look like they are
typeset but they make grammatical and composition errors.

The worse are companies that use capital script for their name. Script type
is supposed to imitate hand writing. Capital letters are for the first
letter in a word not for every letter in a word as it becomes illegible.

Punctuation is another problem, I see it in the newspaper and on the TV all
the time. Part of the problem is that a computer keyboard doesn’t allow it
to be done properly unless you know how to access the proper characters.

For quotation marks many people just type "word" using what are called inch
marks, where they should use quotation marks as this “word”, and sometimes
when they use the correct marks they use them backwards — they should be in
the 66 and 99 positions.

Most people don’t know that all the special symbols and punctuation are
available simply by holding the ALT key while typing a code number on the
NUM pad. For example a hyphen is on the keyboard, thus -, but a dash, which
is longer, is available by holding the ALT key down and typing 0151, thus —.

There are many other things that irritate me, but I will not go further, but
many things in this world are simply done sloppily, wrongly, as fast as
possible, without care nor pride in work.

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
...

"Tom Watson" wrote:

Alright - I'm done for now. It is just that the little things add up
and make a difference about how you feel about a room, a building, or
an element. You can create rhythm and harmony in a room or house by
following certain principles and those spaces will be a greater joy to
their occupants than the typical slapdash bull**** that goes on in
this business.

OK, you've had a chance to vent your spleen and I have a couple of
questions.

As a rookie, how many times did you get your ass kicked for screwing up,
until you learned this skill and how to use it properly?

At 58, how many years have you been able to hone this skill acquired as a
rookie?

It would appear you were hired to teach your skills to what is basically a
metal working crew.

So quit bitch'in and start teaching which is probably as difficult as
acquiring your skills in the first place.

Nobody ever claimed teaching was easy.

Have fun.

Lew

On Oct 1, 10:38*pm, "Lew Hodgett" wrote:
"Tom Watson" wrote:
Alright - I'm done for now. *It is just that the little things add
up
and make a difference about how you feel about a room, a building,
or
an element. *You can create rhythm and harmony in a room or house by
following certain principles and those spaces will be a greater joy
to
their occupants than the typical slapdash bull**** that goes on in
this business.

OK, you've had a chance to vent your spleen and I have a couple of
questions.

As a rookie, how many times did you get your ass kicked for screwing
up, until you learned this skill and how to use it properly?

At 58, how many years have you been able to hone this skill acquired
as a rookie?

It would appear you were hired to teach your skills to what is
basically a metal working crew.

So quit bitch'in and start teaching which is probably as difficult as
acquiring your skills in the first place.

Nobody ever claimed teaching was easy.

Have fun.

Lew

You're right, Lew. I was venting.

I actually think this is going to be an interesting project.

The metal guys are so used to just seeing just parts level stuff that
my first thing is going to be insisting on a full set of drawings
being made available to the wood shop. By which I mean something that
includes assembly drawings. I believe that a mechanic feels better
when he sees where he is going and how what he is making fits into the
whole project.

An interesting problem is that the detailers are metal detailers and
don't think like wood guys.

I had a drawing today of louvers that were drawn plan view with the
louvers in situ - parts drawings for millwork have to be done on the
flat. We don't really give a damn about orientation at the drawing
level.

I reckon we'll sort this out.


t.

On Wed, 1 Oct 2008 18:25:27 -0700 (PDT), Tom Watson
wrote:

Nice rant Tom. ;-)
Since I'm still out there trimming homes I can relate to a lot of it.

I don't know about y'all, but when I run a line of rail I want it to
look like it came from one continuous piece of wood. That means that
the cathedral arches all point up and the rail sections are selected
for color and grain.

I was watching the guy just lop up the longest pieces for the longest
runs and then fit in the offcuts wherever they fit.
Could have looked a lot better.

Ideally, if you're manufacturing the rail, I think you want grain and
color to match. Out here in the field, the railing that we see (from
4 different major manufactures) is made of so many pieces that there
is no way to make a match.

This kind of thing goes all the way back to the shop floor. I watched
their guy grab sticks from the rack and feed them into the molder with
no check for grain direction to feed and no look at different pieces
to see if the grain and color could be made to match. He bitched when
the molder chunked out on him but didn't seem to get that there was a
right and wrong way to feed the machine.

WTF?

This guy was either taught by someone who didn't know any better or
never learned what he was taught.
I guess that's where you come in...??

One of my biggest hard ons when I was doing carpentry was about the
relative heights of the top of the trim on doors and windows.
It was too often the case that the molding line at the top of the
doors would be different than those on the windows.

If you take the time to make those lines marry, you get a rhythm to
the room that gives you some visual peace. It is a small element that
is worth paying attention to.

I think this is kind of a change in design over time. I've been
trimming homes for so long that I can remember the day when we always
had 6/8 doors and all the windows matched them for height. Now, with
varied ceiling heights and seemingly more consideration for design of
the elevation, we see so many different window and door sizes that
matching window trim height is no longer much of a design
consideration.

Another one used to be the door at the end of a hallway where the trim
was pinned on one side and there was three inches of wall space on the
other side. That looks like ****. Once again. the framer may be
following the print to the titts but the product is wrong.

My guess is, this is a lazy framer. Most drawings will have the
openings centered (it's easy to draw it in the right place) but a lot
of framers don't give a ****. This is an example where I think there
are fewer experienced craftsman framing houses and fewer still who
learned from a good craftsman. Of course cussing the framer is a
favorite pastime of a finish carpenter so I could be wrong.

Man, I shouldn't have gotten started on this.

Hell, I'm just starting to have fun....we can keep going if you
like...;-)

Mike O.

"Tom Watson" wrote in

Alright - I'm done for now. It is just that the little things add up
and make a difference about how you feel about a room, a building, or
an element. You can create rhythm and harmony in a room or house by
following certain principles and those spaces will be a greater joy to
their occupants than the typical slapdash bull**** that goes on in
this business.

Have you read "House" by Tracy Kidder? (He also wrote a book that was one of
the seminal works of the dawn of computer age, "The Soul of a New Machine")

If you've read it, fine. If not, run, don't walk ...

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 8/18/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

"Tom Watson" wrote

BTW - you have a typo on "worse", it should have been "worst".

Like your subject above ... it's either a brilliant play on words, or a
typo.


--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 8/18/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

Bored Borg wrote:
With you on all this, sir. I'm not experienced enough with wood per
se to know a lot of this stuff, but I can spot it as a layman.

Reminds me of the problem with art galleries. The lighting design is
ALWAYS ****. No reason why it should be if folk understand what it
is
they are installing, designing and using, but it is because they
don't. Some instances really hilight this.
A while back I took a couple of kids to a major city gallery to see
an
exhibition aimed at children, and as soon as I walked in the doorway
I
spotted a problem, just from the lighting position. I called the
head
curator over - even before I walked in the exhibition room - and
asked him to follow me in. Once in the room i asked him to crouch
down so his head was on the approximate level of an eight year old's
head, and to tell me what he saw. Just as I suspected, he reported
back, sheepishly, that he couldn't see ANY of the paintings on show
because at that level, the glass was reflecting the lighting
straight
back at the viewer. All he could see was light bulbs. All any kid
visitor would be able to see would be light bulbs. Kinda made a
nonsense of the exhibition theme.
The point is that anyone doing the JOB rather than paying lip
service
to a job description would have prevented this, either at architect
level, contract level or in picture hanging, and the jobs are being
done - and overseen - by people who don't know their stuff or worse,
don't give a damn.

All it needs is for people to be aware of the _purpose_ of what they
are doing. It really is that simple. Unfortunately workers often
just
don't know because those handing them instructions don't feel it
necessary for them to _understand_, or, as is becoming more common,
decision makers don't understand the purpose themselves because
their
perceived role is to shift more units rather than to minister to a
particular need.

Local pub was being expensively sign-written - all gold leaf and pin
striping. It was still at the chalking out stage when I cheerily
pointed out to the bloke with the chalk a couple of spelling
mistakes
and the gratuitous apostrophes littering the wording. He equally
cheerily showed me his wording brief, and said that the regional
manager overseeing the refurbishment was actually inside. I
discreetly looked him out, explained there was a problem with the
wording. He came and looked over the layout then announced he
couldn't see anything wrong. I gently pointed out the four or five
glaring mistakes. He looked at it again, looked at me, shrugged and
announced "It'll do!" and then he strode of back to his
self-congratulatory group at the bar.

Houston, we have a problem.

I've loads more examples from personal experience, but life is short
and my blood pressure is up so I'll have a generic rant.

Education now seems to be about inculcating a new jargon set rather
than skills. Training follows a similar pattern. This is called
"professionalism" by those who are quite happy to have a workforce
not understand the elements of their craft so long as they wear
nicely coordinated uniforms and spout the nonsense that they have
been trained to spout at an appropriate time.

Meanwhile, the ship's sinking 'cos everyone is very, very qualified
but no-one understands the basics anymore. I love progress...

In line with all of this, somebody oughta get poor ol' Earnest some
Cialis.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

EXT wrote:

Most people don’t know that all the special symbols and punctuation
are available simply by holding the ALT key while typing a code
number on the NUM pad. For example a hyphen is on the keyboard, thus
-, but a dash, which is longer, is available by holding the ALT key
down and typing 0151, thus —.

Offhand do you know where one might download a chart of these characters
with the code numbers? I've been thinking of getting new software designed
to make this easier, but I could also pin a chart to the wall and be happy
with that.

On Thu, 2 Oct 2008 07:03:02 +0100, J. Clarke wrote
(in article ):

snippity doo-dah. snippety-day

In line with all of this, somebody oughta get poor ol' Earnest some
Cialis.



Would he get wood with matching colour and grain?

Yer can sometimes get away with softwood if you don't mind plenty of hand
treatment, but good stock stands on its own merits and generally produces a
more satisfying finish too...

"DGDevin" wrote:

Offhand do you know where one might download a chart of these
characters
with the code numbers?

I've got an old BASIC text that had a chart.

Any book/chart that gives the ASCII chart from 1 thru 255 in the old
IBM format will have it.

You can also open up a note pad file on your desktop and type out the
list.

220, Alt 220, ?

Lew

"DGDevin" wrote in
:

EXT wrote:

Most people don’t know that all the special symbols and punctuation
are available simply by holding the ALT key while typing a code
number on the NUM pad. For example a hyphen is on the keyboard, thus
-, but a dash, which is longer, is available by holding the ALT key
down and typing 0151, thus —.

Offhand do you know where one might download a chart of these
characters with the code numbers? I've been thinking of getting new
software designed to make this easier, but I could also pin a chart to
the wall and be happy with that.



Windows has included a program that tells you not only how to access the
special characters, but which each character code displays in different
fonts. It's called Character Map.

You might have to install it, it's under Add or Remove Programs Windows
Components (the location changes from version to version, but check
Accessories at this point.)

A word of warning: Fonts vary, so there's no guarantee that the
copyright symbol in one font will be the copyright symbol in another.

Puckdropper
--
If you're quiet, your teeth never touch your ankles.

To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm

On Oct 1, 11:39*pm, Tom Watson wrote:
On Oct 1, 11:09*pm, "EXT" wrote:



I started my working life in the printing industry doing typography —
setting type to those who don't know what it is. It always bugs me, now that
everyone has a computer and can prepare pages that look like they are
typeset but they make grammatical and composition errors.

The worse are companies that use capital script for their name. Script type
is supposed to imitate hand writing. Capital letters are for the first
letter in a word not for every letter in a word as it becomes illegible..

Punctuation is another problem, I see it in the newspaper and on the TV all
the time. Part of the problem is that a computer keyboard doesn’t allow it
to be done properly unless you know how to access the proper characters..

For quotation marks many people just type "word" using what are called inch
marks, where they should use quotation marks as this “word”, and sometimes
when they use the correct marks they use them backwards — they should be in
the 66 and 99 positions.

Most people don’t know that all the special symbols and punctuation are
available simply by holding the ALT key while typing a code number on the
NUM pad. For example a hyphen is on the keyboard, thus -, but a dash, which
is longer, is available by holding the ALT key down and typing 0151, thus —.

There are many other things that irritate me, but I will not go further, but
many things in this world are simply done sloppily, wrongly, as fast as
possible, without care nor pride in work.

When I worked on my college newspaper back in the late sixties we went
to a printer where "copy and paste" was literal.

We wrote our columns in 8 1/2 point by eleven and we submitted them on
the Wednesday before the Monday that they came out.

The columns of print would come to us and we ran them through a wax
gluer and then affixed them to the galley sheets. *If there were to be
borders they were cut out by hand, run through the wax gluer and
affixed to the galley.We started with sheets that already had the sold
advertising in place and we put our little stories in amongst them in
the most pleasing way we could find.

It was fun then but I'm glad it's over.

BTW - you have a typo on "worse", it should have been "worst".

printer's devil tom.

Earlier in the '60s, we had just gotten away from cut and paste, into
wax and place. Almost as burdensome, not nearly as messy or smelly,
and one helluva an improvement on the hot type still in use in a lot
of places. I think it was IBM that had made a machine that printed
(photographically, IIRC) what was typed in on a long strip, which then
had to be cut to column/sentence and pasted, line by line. Within a
very few years, it was possible to set column widths, leading, etc.,
on the machine. That had to then be cut to fit column space lengths,
after the back was waxed. Some real fun, compared to today's various
layout programs. I used to take a week to 10 days to lay out a 40 page
magazine for an educationl TV station. Today, it takes less than a day
to lay out a much more attractive 40 or 64 page document, assuming one
has all photos and copy at hand.

On 02 Oct 2008 12:13:29 GMT, Puckdropper
puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:

"DGDevin" wrote in
:

EXT wrote:

Most people don’t know that all the special symbols and punctuation
are available simply by holding the ALT key while typing a code
number on the NUM pad. For example a hyphen is on the keyboard, thus
-, but a dash, which is longer, is available by holding the ALT key
down and typing 0151, thus —.

Offhand do you know where one might download a chart of these
characters with the code numbers? I've been thinking of getting new
software designed to make this easier, but I could also pin a chart to
the wall and be happy with that.



Windows has included a program that tells you not only how to access the
special characters, but which each character code displays in different
fonts. It's called Character Map.

You might have to install it, it's under Add or Remove Programs Windows
Components (the location changes from version to version, but check
Accessories at this point.)

A word of warning: Fonts vary, so there's no guarantee that the
copyright symbol in one font will be the copyright symbol in another.

Puckdropper
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/i...s/charmap.html

Puckdropper wrote:
"DGDevin" wrote in
:

EXT wrote:

Most people don’t know that all the special symbols and
punctuation
are available simply by holding the ALT key while typing a code
number on the NUM pad. For example a hyphen is on the keyboard,
thus
-, but a dash, which is longer, is available by holding the ALT
key
down and typing 0151, thus —.

Offhand do you know where one might download a chart of these
characters with the code numbers? I've been thinking of getting
new
software designed to make this easier, but I could also pin a chart
to the wall and be happy with that.



Windows has included a program that tells you not only how to access
the special characters, but which each character code displays in
different fonts. It's called Character Map.

You might have to install it, it's under Add or Remove Programs
Windows Components (the location changes from version to version,
but
check Accessories at this point.)

A word of warning: Fonts vary, so there's no guarantee that the
copyright symbol in one font will be the copyright symbol in
another.

If you're running Office, much of this is automated by Autocorrect and
Autoformat. OpenOffice has a similar feature.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On Wed, 1 Oct 2008 23:09:34 -0400, "EXT"
wrote:

I started my working life in the printing industry doing typography —
setting type to those who don't know what it is. It always bugs me, now that
everyone has a computer and can prepare pages that look like they are
typeset but they make grammatical and composition errors.

The worse are companies that use capital script for their name. Script type
is supposed to imitate hand writing. Capital letters are for the first
letter in a word not for every letter in a word as it becomes illegible.

Punctuation is another problem, I see it in the newspaper and on the TV all
the time. Part of the problem is that a computer keyboard doesn’t allow it
to be done properly unless you know how to access the proper characters.

For quotation marks many people just type "word" using what are called inch
marks, where they should use quotation marks as this “word”, and sometimes
when they use the correct marks they use them backwards — they should be in
the 66 and 99 positions.

Most people don’t know that all the special symbols and punctuation are
available simply by holding the ALT key while typing a code number on the
NUM pad. For example a hyphen is on the keyboard, thus -, but a dash, which
is longer, is available by holding the ALT key down and typing 0151, thus —.

There are many other things that irritate me, but I will not go further, but
many things in this world are simply done sloppily, wrongly, as fast as
possible, without care nor pride in work.


I did some software development as a consultant a few years ago - and
was both the oldest (in age) and newest (to the group). I found that
the younger members of the team were often more interested in what
might give job security than in what might be best for the client.

I had many suggestions for better ways of doing things, but was
usually ignored by the "let's get it done faster" mentality (I'm not
using proper quotes because not all news readers reproduce them
correctly). I was able to leave a "paper trail" by putting my
comments in the code and seeing more than half of those suggestions
implemented in later revisions - but at added cost to the client.

I was "too expensive" (by the hour, although I produced more than
twice as much *working* code in the same time as any of the others),
so my contract was not renewed (the team leader was trying to keep a
full-time member of the group - who wasn't all that productive -
employed). Two years later, they both had left the company while
under investigation for questionable use of client funds. I can only
wonder if the client went elsewhere or if that company found competent
people to replace the ones that left...

The funds involved were our tax dollars, as the client was the US
Government - twice the reason to be angry...

John

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
news

"DGDevin" wrote:

Offhand do you know where one might download a chart of these characters
with the code numbers?

I've got an old BASIC text that had a chart.

Any book/chart that gives the ASCII chart from 1 thru 255 in the old IBM
format will have it.

You can also open up a note pad file on your desktop and type out the
list.

220, Alt 220, ?

Windows charmap app. Find it in the Start menu, all programs, accessories.
Or run charmap.exe from the cmd prompt or 'Run...' menu. It has the numeric
code, and can also copy the character to the clipboard. Unfortunately, the
number codes are given in hexadecimal.

This may or may not help.

http://ascii-table.com/html-table.php

here are others available from here too.

P D Q

"DGDevin" wrote in message ...
EXT wrote:

Most people don't know that all the special symbols and punctuation
are available simply by holding the ALT key while typing a code
number on the NUM pad. For example a hyphen is on the keyboard, thus
-, but a dash, which is longer, is available by holding the ALT key
down and typing 0151, thus -.

Offhand do you know where one might download a chart of these characters
with the code numbers? I've been thinking of getting new software designed
to make this easier, but I could also pin a chart to the wall and be happy
with that.

"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...
So, I've taken this job with a stair company. They have been in
business since the 1920's. They have a great record on the kit stair
retail side and they are expanding into the high end custom stair
side.

I went on a straight stair railing installation wrap up the other day
and their mechanic, who has been with them for seventeen years was
cutting the rail to yield with no thought given to color and grain
continuity.

I don't know about y'all, but when I run a line of rail I want it to
look like it came from one continuous piece of wood. That means that
the cathedral arches all point up and the rail sections are selected
for color and grain.

I was watching the guy just lop up the longest pieces for the longest
runs and then fit in the offcuts wherever they fit.

Could have looked a lot better.

This kind of thing goes all the way back to the shop floor. I watched
their guy grab sticks from the rack and feed them into the molder with
no check for grain direction to feed and no look at different pieces
to see if the grain and color could be made to match. He bitched when
the molder chunked out on him but didn't seem to get that there was a
right and wrong way to feed the machine.

WTF?

I'm the FNG and I didn't think it my place to comment but maybe it is
what they meant when the said that they hired me to upgrade their wood
end, they being basically makers of iron stairs who think of the wood
facings as an afterthought. I've seen their risered stairs and there
is no apparent thought given to the direction of the arches, which I
have always oriented left to right. The same applys to the treads.

Also, they have platforms that they glue up out of oak and they show
no intent regarding grain orientation during glue up. I can
understand varying arguments on this - some might say that all bark
side should be up for compressive strength and wearing and others
might say that grain orientation should be reversed on each piece for
planar stability - but there seemed to be no pattern.

I have had a theory for a long time that if you paid attention to
these things in a building - the building would begin to sing.

One of my biggest hard ons when I was doing carpentry was about the
relative heights of the top of the trim on doors and windows.

It was too often the case that the molding line at the top of the
doors would be different than those on the windows.

If you take the time to make those lines marry, you get a rhythm to
the room that gives you some visual peace. It is a small element that
is worth paying attention to.

This goes back to design level and needs to be caught on the drawings.

Another one used to be the door at the end of a hallway where the trim
was pinned on one side and there was three inches of wall space on the
other side. That looks like ****. Once again. the framer may be
following the print to the titts but the product is wrong.

Man, I shouldn't have gotten started on this.

How about the down lights in a ceiling that follow no apparent
pattern. Has no one ever heard of a reflected ceiling plan?

Alright - I'm done for now. It is just that the little things add up
and make a difference about how you feel about a room, a building, or
an element. You can create rhythm and harmony in a room or house by
following certain principles and those spaces will be a greater joy to
their occupants than the typical slapdash bull**** that goes on in
this business.



t.


t.
Reminds me of a fellow who used to come out to visit with my Dad back in
the '50s. He rode a BMW because the Harleys just weren't perfect
enough...leaked oil all over the place. When he got there, he would take
his boots off and walk around bare footed. Dad said that the guy couldn't
stand to feel the imperfections in the bottoms of his boots. When his BMW
deleloped an oil leak that put one drop of oil on the garage floor
overnight, he damn near went crazy trying to find the cause and fix it. He
finally had to be committed to some kind of hospital for treatment. Never
been much of a perfectionist myself, but it did always bother me when I saw
a stair rail that looked like it had been made of several short pieces of
wood of several different species.

Tom G.

Offhand do you know where one might download a chart of these
characters
with the code numbers?

I've got an old BASIC text that had a chart.

Any book/chart that gives the ASCII chart from 1 thru 255 in the old
IBM format will have it.

You can also open up a note pad file on your desktop and type out the
list.

220, Alt 220, ?

Lew

I easily found charts for ASCII characters and various HTML charts but none
of them seemed to work as EXT was describing. It occured to me to make my
own chart by starting at Alt-1 and going from there but not only would the
vast majority of characters be of no interest to me, it looked like a long
and tedious project as well. Ironic considering the point under discussion
in this thread, I suppose....

"Tom G" wrote

enough...leaked oil all over the place. When he got there, he would take
his boots off and walk around bare footed. Dad said that the guy couldn't
stand to feel the imperfections in the bottoms of his boots. When his BMW
deleloped an oil leak that put one drop of oil on the garage floor
overnight, he damn near went crazy trying to find the cause and fix it.
He finally had to be committed to some kind of hospital for treatment.

That's not being a "perfectionist", that's OCD ... like the Jack Nicholson
character in "As Good As It Gets".

That said, being a perfectionist may be the next to last step over that
cliff.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 8/18/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

MikeWhy wrote:

Windows charmap app. Find it in the Start menu, all programs,
accessories. Or run charmap.exe from the cmd prompt or 'Run...' menu.
It has the numeric code, and can also copy the character to the
clipboard. Unfortunately, the number codes are given in hexadecimal.

Thanks, that's somewhat useful. I'd love to be able to do it with a hotkey
technique, but in the meantime that will help, good tip.

On Oct 2, 11:40*am, "MikeWhy" wrote:
"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message

news


"DGDevin" wrote:

Offhand do you know where one might download a chart of these characters
with the code numbers?

I've got an old BASIC text that had a chart.

Any book/chart *that gives the ASCII chart from 1 thru 255 in the old IBM
format will have it.

You can also open up a note pad file on your desktop and type out the
list.

220, Alt 220, ?

Windows charmap app. Find it in the Start menu, all programs, accessories..
Or run charmap.exe from the cmd prompt or 'Run...' menu. It has the numeric
code, and can also copy the character to the clipboard. Unfortunately, the
number codes are given in hexadecimal.

Don't you get a whole keyboard full of special characters by either
holding down the option or the option-shift key(s)?

"Robatoy" wrote in message
...
On Oct 2, 11:40 am, "MikeWhy" wrote:
"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message

news


"DGDevin" wrote:

Offhand do you know where one might download a chart of these characters
with the code numbers?

I've got an old BASIC text that had a chart.

Any book/chart that gives the ASCII chart from 1 thru 255 in the old IBM
format will have it.

You can also open up a note pad file on your desktop and type out the
list.

220, Alt 220, ?

Windows charmap app. Find it in the Start menu, all programs, accessories.
Or run charmap.exe from the cmd prompt or 'Run...' menu. It has the
numeric
code, and can also copy the character to the clipboard. Unfortunately, the
number codes are given in hexadecimal.

Don't you get a whole keyboard full of special characters by either
holding down the option or the option-shift key(s)?

----
You would have to know which ones are mapped where on the keyboard. It
changes with the language settings, and I'm sure if it's useful, you should
find keyboard maps on the Net somewhere.

The specific character number trick is to hold the ALT key while typing in
the numeric code on the keypad, preceded by 0. For example, for the degree
sign (°) hold the ALT key, 0176 on the keypad, and release the ALT key. It
might or might not show correctly, depending on your newsreader.

The charmap helps you find the numeric code. I have trouble rememebering
phone numbers these days, let alone juggle hex values in my head. '0176' is
easy to remember; I can hit it first time 1 time out of 3, I think. Write
down the few you actually might use and keep the list on hand.

On Oct 2, 4:40*pm, "MikeWhy" wrote:
"Robatoy" wrote in message

...
On Oct 2, 11:40 am, "MikeWhy" wrote:



"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message

news

"DGDevin" wrote:

Offhand do you know where one might download a chart of these characters
with the code numbers?

I've got an old BASIC text that had a chart.

Any book/chart that gives the ASCII chart from 1 thru 255 in the old IBM
format will have it.

You can also open up a note pad file on your desktop and type out the
list.

220, Alt 220, ?

Windows charmap app. Find it in the Start menu, all programs, accessories.
Or run charmap.exe from the cmd prompt or 'Run...' menu. It has the
numeric
code, and can also copy the character to the clipboard. Unfortunately, the
number codes are given in hexadecimal.

Don't you get a whole keyboard full of special characters by either
holding down the option or the option-shift key(s)?

----
You would have to know which ones are mapped where on the keyboard. It
changes with the language settings, and I'm sure if it's useful, you should
find keyboard maps on the Net somewhere.

The specific character number trick is to hold the ALT key while typing in
the numeric code on the keypad, preceded by 0. For example, for the degree
sign (°) hold the ALT key, 0176 on the keypad, and release the ALT key. It
might or might not show correctly, depending on your newsreader.

That's not a trick.. that is cumbersome. The letter O becomes the
letter Ø when I hold down the option key. u ü, that kinda thing...
easy.

The charmap helps you find the numeric code. I have trouble rememebering
phone numbers these days, let alone juggle hex values in my head. '0176' is
easy to remember; I can hit it first time 1 time out of 3, I think. Write
down the few you actually might use and keep the list on hand.

Offhand do you know where one might download a chart of these characters
with the code numbers? I've been thinking of getting new software
designed to make this easier, but I could also pin a chart to the wall and
be happy with that.

Try the following:

http://www.mistywindow.com/reference...-alt-codes.htm

or do a search for Alt ASCII characters.

"DGDevin" wrote in message
m...
Offhand do you know where one might download a chart of these
characters
with the code numbers?

I've got an old BASIC text that had a chart.

Any book/chart that gives the ASCII chart from 1 thru 255 in the old
IBM format will have it.

You can also open up a note pad file on your desktop and type out the
list.

220, Alt 220, ?

Lew

I easily found charts for ASCII characters and various HTML charts but
none of them seemed to work as EXT was describing. It occured to me to
make my own chart by starting at Alt-1 and going from there but not only
would the vast majority of characters be of no interest to me, it looked
like a long and tedious project as well. Ironic considering the point
under discussion in this thread, I suppose....

As I wrote in a reply above, you need to search for ALT ASCII characters,
some characters are different to regular ASCII.

"DGDevin" wrote in
m:


I easily found charts for ASCII characters and various HTML charts but
none of them seemed to work as EXT was describing. It occured to me
to make my own chart by starting at Alt-1 and going from there but not
only would the vast majority of characters be of no interest to me, it
looked like a long and tedious project as well. Ironic considering
the point under discussion in this thread, I suppose....



Make sure you use the numeric keypad. Plus sometimes the number requires a
0 in front of it. Alt+0220

If you've got a laptop, there's usually one somewhere on the keyboard that
you can activate with function keys or a numlock button.

Puckdropper
--
If you're quiet, your teeth never touch your ankles.

To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm

Robatoy wrote in
:


Don't you get a whole keyboard full of special characters by either
holding down the option or the option-shift key(s)?

REAL computers don't have option keys. ;-)

Actually, this wouldn't be a bad thing to (once again) have Microsoft steal
from Apple. The problem is Unicode is so completely uselessly complex
there'd be no guarantee you'd get the right symbol or alternate language
character. :-(

Puckdropper
--
If you're quiet, your teeth never touch your ankles.

To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm

"Robatoy" wrote in message
...
On Oct 2, 4:40 pm, "MikeWhy" wrote:
"Robatoy" wrote in message

...
On Oct 2, 11:40 am, "MikeWhy" wrote:



"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message

news

"DGDevin" wrote:

Offhand do you know where one might download a chart of these
characters
with the code numbers?

I've got an old BASIC text that had a chart.

Any book/chart that gives the ASCII chart from 1 thru 255 in the old
IBM
format will have it.

You can also open up a note pad file on your desktop and type out the
list.

220, Alt 220, ?

Windows charmap app. Find it in the Start menu, all programs,
accessories.
Or run charmap.exe from the cmd prompt or 'Run...' menu. It has the
numeric
code, and can also copy the character to the clipboard. Unfortunately,
the
number codes are given in hexadecimal.

Don't you get a whole keyboard full of special characters by either
holding down the option or the option-shift key(s)?

----
You would have to know which ones are mapped where on the keyboard. It
changes with the language settings, and I'm sure if it's useful, you
should
find keyboard maps on the Net somewhere.

The specific character number trick is to hold the ALT key while typing in
the numeric code on the keypad, preceded by 0. For example, for the degree
sign (°) hold the ALT key, 0176 on the keypad, and release the ALT key. It
might or might not show correctly, depending on your newsreader.

That's not a trick.. that is cumbersome. The letter O becomes the
letter Ø when I hold down the option key. u ü, that kinda thing...
easy.

------
Ah. I get it; a Mac. Sure. I'm working at this far harder than I should have
to. I can't find the smiley face on my keyboard, so here goes: (_*_) How did
that come out?

EXT wrote:

As I wrote in a reply above, you need to search for ALT ASCII
characters, some characters are different to regular ASCII.

Aha, so here is a good one, though as the author points out it isn't
complete. Thanks for the tip.

http://www.questgems.com/alt_codes.htm

DGDevin wrote:

I'd love to be able to do it with a hotkey
technique, but in the meantime that will help, good tip.

I have a page at the link below that may help.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Misc/ASCII_Special.html

On Oct 2, 5:32*pm, Puckdropper puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:
Robatoy wrote :



Don't you get a whole keyboard full of special characters by either
holding down the option or the option-shift key(s)?

REAL computers don't have option keys. *;-)

They do too!

Robatoy wrote:
On Oct 2, 5:32 pm, Puckdropper puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:
Robatoy wrote :



Don't you get a whole keyboard full of special characters by either
holding down the option or the option-shift key(s)?
REAL computers don't have option keys. ;-)

They do too!

They _did_ but they were called "sense lights/switches"...

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