this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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Mildly Infuriating
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I was a weird nerd, and some of my fondest memories are helping my dad do engine work on our wood-sided station wagon (I was such a cliché) and going with him to the tv shop to pick up vacuum tubes for the tv after a loud pop and faint waft of smoke, then shimmying ass-upwards on the wall like spider man to hold the flashlight at the correct angle whilst my dad pulled the particle-board (I think, maybe cardboard) back off the television and taught me what every single part inside did.
Best time of my young life, hands down.
e: I’ve never been afraid of technology or learning things in my adult life. Thanks, dad.
(And if you’re raising your child like this, thank you. You’re helping to make good people that way.)
That is so cool. I learned those things, but only after I left. Started on TRS-80s ("trash 80s") with the heavily armored clacky keyboard and then got into early PCs. I still remember Pong, lol.
Speaking of which, it was probably masonite or some kind of hard board on the back of the tv; it's older than you think, and was on the back of a lot of those wonderful Art Deco radios of the 30s and 40s even before it was on the backs of televisions. The tv we had when I was a young kid was almost the size of a couch, so I have no idea what was on the back of it because I could never have moved it. But I remember the vacuum tubes, radios had those as well. And plugging a bad fuse with a penny, which probably wasn't the best idea in the world but everybody did it.
(We had the faux-wood sided station wagon too, lol. Or maybe it was real wood? I don't know. It was just genuine ugly.)
Oh yeah! Exactly! Mine was very similar to this, but a bit narrower. It was a behemoth, plus the cord was very short.
Thus the shimmying ass-upwards to hold the torch. There was scant space back there, and making more was work.
I think you’re right. It was a dark, dense, and very thick board, but not actual wood. I had a radio or clock or something with the same backing, now you mention it. I hadn’t paid much attention except it was thicker than the ikea shit, lol.
Wait, what? I completely missed that growing up.
Brb.
Missing it might also be why you actually made it all the way to adulthood, lol. It's dangerous as hell, but it's something people used to do on knob and tube wiring in old houses. Codes changed after any number of fires, and they actually made a change to how circuit breakers were built so it wouldn't work anymore, but essentially a fuse was a round thing that had two (I think?) wires crossing the center; if those overloaded they simply burnt out and that was the mechanism of circuit breaking. The hole in the center was exactly the size of a penny, and copper is an excellent conductor, and people put more and more appliances on house wiring that had not been upgraded since the dawn of electricity so they didn't have available power, but they usually did have a penny.
If you lived in a new(er) house you probably never saw this, but for those of us in older neighborhoods and post WWII starter houses saw a lot of it. You were supposed to replace it as soon as you could (this was in the days of actually going to the hardware store and buying it in person during business hours) but shit happens, people forget, and houses go boom. So they stopped making it so that anyone could do that at all, which is probably a good thing.
God, yeah, that tv console, lol. That one is solid 70s, with the dark finish and heavy pseudo-Spanish turned posts; I think ours was a good eight or ten years older because it was more mid-century modern, blonde wood with sort of gold/beige fabric screen over the speakers, but yeah. That pic gave me a good chuckle, thanks.
And listening to good music with your head stuck between two physical speakers is almost mystical. They also produced it, specifically, for stereo as well as for listenability on little transistors, so there was a lot of thought given behind the scenes to those notes hopscotching across brain cells from left to right and back again. It's meditative is what it is: thinking about nothing else, nowhere you had to be, maybe a little bored, and putting your head between the speakers. Pink Floyd was awesome that way, but so was a lot of music: everything from Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra to Kiss to Wild Cherry, whatever you got your groove on. It's a holy thing.
BTW, I think your detractor is probably too scared to take me on lest they get hit with an avalanche of reminiscences and maybe a game of "what's this?" with a pic or two of a 45 record adapter or something, lol. As well they should be. Thanks for making me think of these things. Those were good times.
Christ on a bike, don’t say shit like that to me – my house was built in 1886. O.o
Just keeps getting worse from there. Some outlets in this place have seen all the world wars.
There are more efficient ways to give me a heart attack, you know.
I think you’re right. I was sticking around for the next volley of meme-facts, but it looks like the match has been called. :)
You will know if your house has knob and tube: go up to the attic or down into the basement, and look for exposed wiring. Chances are excellent you have a mix of older and newer wiring, if it was not upgraded after the mid-80s or so. I couldn't tell you exactly when myself, but at some point municipalities started moving away from a "pull it onto the lot, plug it in" housing code toward actually requiring that ANY electrical work not be approved unless the entire house was brought up to code.
But save your heart attack for a good steak, because knob and tube is not inherently dangerous. It's what people were doing with it that was winning Darwin Awards. (You could probably do a search for "plugging a fuse with a penny" and see what you get.) I was in a 1948 house in 2015 that still had it: the basic wiring was mostly knob and tube, but the breaker box was modern and it was actually up to code.
So really, no worries about sleeping outside tonight, you still have time to look over your house's paperwork, seen when it was modified (and whether they pulled permits or did it the I-don't-need-no-permits way) and then get a real electrician to look it over for you. Chances are good that you're well within code if you've had any serious remodeling or repair work done within the last 30 years or so. When you find nothing objectively unsafe, try not to hate me for making you look. Just don't stick any loose change into the fuse box, lol.
Apologies for the scare. Did not mean to do that.
EDITED TO ADD: Here's what knob and tube wiring looks like. You may even have newer wiring running right next to older knob and tube, or knob and tube that's still there but not actually connected to anything because someone didn't want to spend an extra half day pulling it out. Your mains/breaker/circuit box is a much better indicator of whether you need to be concerned.
It’s all good, lol.
I’ve been here for 20 years. If this place was gonna immolate me, it’s had plenty of chances.
Thanks for the info about what to look for, though!
I was sticking around for the next volley of meme-facts, but it looks like the match has been called.Sorry if I have to sleep at night I guess?
"Meme-facts"... Sorry if I provide actual sources instead of relying on personal feelings and experience.
BTW, I think your detractor is probably too scared to take me onYou sound just like a COVID denier, hope you realise that? "My experience is true, people who researched the subject and found sources from those in the industry are wrong. Let me got you with anecdotes instead of sources to back my point!"