You are too old if you remember.......

[roadman65]

I saw a woman  post on her Twitter that she hated Trump, but hated Trump supporters even more. So if you support Trump, don't visit my page or I'll block you.

It's almost as if she had perfectly valid reasons to block Trump supporters wholesale.

Naturally. Just a some Trump supporters seem to have valid reasons for blocking Biden followers.

We all have our opinions. 

However we lost respect for each other's opinions over the last three decades.

I have respect for opinions. I do not have respect for statements that are demonstrably false and passed off as opinions, or even worse, facts.

We used to all pretty much agree on basic scientific facts like vaccines being safe and effective, and the results of elections being legitimate. Now, not so much.

I see where this is going and we better stop before an MOD locks this for going into politics.

Yes Faux and CNN do pass opinions as facts and such. But that's not for this thread or most of all AA Roads.

[Rothman]

Well for the most part in 1988, I don't remember Dukakis followers not getting heated up when a Bush supporter spoke. Sure they voiced their concerns, but it was like this said: " Yeah Bush might be for that and such, but I'm still for Michael." Then the Bush voter, would be calm and say " Well we are different. You have your opinion, and I have mine." Then they would move on from the subject.  Even in disgagreement the arguments were calm and both parties remained friends.

Not now. I saw a woman  post on her Twitter that she hated Trump, but hated Trump supporters even more. So if you support Trump, don't visit my page or I'll block you. Then I've seen Trump followers threaten Biden supporters with defriending them on FB as well.

Any posts that I make on FB that are even slightly political are restricted to friends that I know are like-minded or at least neutral. I have a dozen or so FB friends that have no idea how often I make fun of them and their candidate.

Something seems wrong with this on various levels.

[wanderer2575]

[attempt to steer away from the politics]

... what "As God is my witness" refers to.

[kurumi]

[attempt to steer away from the politics]

... what "As God is my witness" refers to.

... whether or not turkeys can fly

[hbelkins]

I remember when we could talk about current events without a flame war.

Still can. Just not with certain people who are unwilling to listen to an alternative point of view.

Of course here don't count. We could start a flame war on things we agree on

Left Twix or Right Twix???

A couple of years ago, I counted the number of Right vs. Left Twix bars in a bag of Fun Size Twix. The number of Left Twix was about seven times greater than the number of Right Twix.

Now, can anyone imagine the amount of consternation that the word "Limon" on a guide sign in Clearview font would generate? Does such a thing exist?

[Scott5114]

Netscape

I still miss it.

Firefox...

...which was a great alternative to IE/Chrome until it too, demanded 1.5 giga-biscuits of memory for three open tabs.

In 2024, any browser is unfortunately going to require that much RAM because of the tech industry's hubris of treating the browser as a layer of the operating system, rather than as tool for viewing Web pages.

When was the last time you installed new software you've never used before on your computer? Like, actual software that doesn't require your browser to be open to function? ... ... ...Yeah.

The problem is that a modern browser has to render UI chrome, parse HTML, render HTML, parse JavaScript, interpret JavaScript, execute JavaScript, decode audio and video and probably more that I'm forgetting about. It is basically an entire operating system unto itself that usually kicks the hardware-management aspects down to the real OS. (But not always, if you have graphics acceleration enabled!) And because this is all built on JavaScript manipulating HTML, you have way more parsing-and-interpreting steps happening on the fly than a traditional C++ program would (where you receive compiled software, made of opcodes, that basically directly communicates with the processor).

We did this to ourselves as consumers.

Anyway, Firefox is Mozilla is Netscape; while the Netscape code has probably been ship-of-Theseused out by this point, it is still the Netscape code base. And, should you have the memory, Firefox is still better than IE/Chrome (which both use the Blink rendering engine, so they're really two different flavors of the same dish) in that it offers the user more control over the Web experience than any other mainstream browser. I learned recently that there's apparently a keyboard combination (shift-right-click I think)? that lets you override a website trying to take the right-click menu away from you. Google doesn't want you doing that because it might make them $0.000000000423565343 less this year.

[hotdogPi]

When was the last time you installed new software you've never used before on your computer? Like, actual software that doesn't require your browser to be open to function? ... ... ...Yeah.

PyCharm? QGIS? I've done both. In the past, also Finale, Mathematica, and Steam.

[Scott5114]

When was the last time you installed new software you've never used before on your computer? Like, actual software that doesn't require your browser to be open to function? ... ... ...Yeah.

PyCharm? QGIS? I've done both. In the past, also Finale, Mathematica, and Steam.

Way to go, Captain Edgecase.

[roadman65]

When American Express wasn't a credit card.

If you bought a washing machine for $ 550 in an appliance store, you had thirty days to pay the entire balance of that. As American Express was an alternative to carrying a wad of cash around and not for monthly installments.

It was also used for a man to impress his date when dining out as girls thought a man was distinguished at the time as Amex required a minimum annual salary to own such a card.

[1995hoo]

It is still the case that not all American Express cards are "revolving-balance" credit cards—instead, they're "charge cards." Some of the charge cards will allow the holder to carry a balance, but the interest rate is generally prohibitive and they use the two-cycle average daily balance method to calculate interest (so you may pay interest on amounts you already paid off if you do carry a balance). They have other cards that are not as restrictive. The main principle: Don't carry a "traditional" American Express (Green Card, Gold Card, etc.) if you want to carry a balance. Get an Optima or Blue or similar. 

[thenetwork]

Living in Ohio 20+ years ago, Discover was a good card to have...

...until I traveled into Canada, where it was hardly accepted anywhere.

Don't know if that's still the case there is not.

[1995hoo]

I'd say Discover is still a good card to have if you play the game correctly. They offer a 5% cashback bonus category every quarter of the year, up to an aggregate $75 per quarter; you register your card for it through their app. During the current quarter of this year (July 1 to September 30), it's for charges at grocery stores and Wal-Mart. It's pretty easy to spend $100 a week at the grocery store, so that's $5 back per week. Adds up fairly quickly.

[bing101]

I realize im old when I remember when Chicken Soup for the Soul was a rising book franchise. I have not paid attention to them since the mid-1990's to early 2000's when they were on the rise.

https://rbr.com/crackle-parent-chicken-soup-for-the-soul-to-reorganize/

https://www.wpxi.com/news/trending/redbox-parent-company-chicken-soup-soul-files-bankruptcy/JZCLHT6OJJGU5EZPNGCMXXIDA4/

[vdeane]

Living in Ohio 20+ years ago, Discover was a good card to have...

...until I traveled into Canada, where it was hardly accepted anywhere.

Don't know if that's still the case there is not.

When I was up there I saw a couple gas stations that had a Discover logo on the list of accepted cards.  Didn't test it out, though.

[webny99]

Living in Ohio 20+ years ago, Discover was a good card to have...

...until I traveled into Canada, where it was hardly accepted anywhere.

Don't know if that's still the case there is not.

When I was up there I saw a couple gas stations that had a Discover logo on the list of accepted cards.  Didn't test it out, though.

I should hope it's accepted in Ontario, considering that their license plate slogan is "Yours to Discover" 

[GCrites]

These days in the U.S. when you make a CC processing deal Visa, MC and Discover are all a standard part of the deal. And most of the time American Express unless someone is old school and specifically says no. Some of the resistance to American Express was due to the fact that in the past AE made businesses wait to get the money all once a month whereas now they get it in a day or two like the other credit cards.

[formulanone]

Back when my corporate card was tied to American Express, I had no difficulty using it at merchants in Alberta and Ontario. (We switched to MasterCard a few years ago.)

I'd say Discover is still a good card to have if you play the game correctly. They offer a 5% cashback bonus category every quarter of the year, up to an aggregate $75 per quarter; you register your card for it through their app. During the current quarter of this year (July 1 to September 30), it's for charges at grocery stores and Wal-Mart. It's pretty easy to spend $100 a week at the grocery store, so that's $5 back per week. Adds up fairly quickly.

I've had Discover Card for a long time, and although many more merchants take them compared to 20 years ago, it's irksome that business now charge 3% fees for processing, when Discover/Novus only dings them 2.0-2.5% for usage (lower than Amex and Visa/MC).

I haven't bothered with airline cards because the mileage payout is slim for our expenses when compared to the local airport's airline-mileage redemption, on top of a yearly fee. If your home airport isn't exorbitant/extortionist and you spend say, >30 grand a year, then those cards are useful. I just can't get the economics of it to make sense for a family of four compared to yearly fees, let alone with the moving target of airline mile inflation.

[Big John]

There is a grocery store here that accepts any debit card, but for credit only accepts Discover.

[hotdogPi]

For reference:



(photo taken 2022 but sign predates recent inflation)

[Rothman]

For reference:



(photo taken 2022 but sign predates recent inflation)

Eesh.  I prefer shopping places that don't come with instruction manuals.

[GCrites]

Is it one of those $5 candy buffets? I bet margins are slim at those.

[hotdogPi]

Nope. Typical candy store, pay for each item.

[7/8]

Living in Ohio 20+ years ago, Discover was a good card to have...

...until I traveled into Canada, where it was hardly accepted anywhere.

Don't know if that's still the case there is not.

I don't think it's common here:
a) I've never heard of it
b) I've been researching Canadian credit cards recently and they're all Visa, Mastercard, or AMEX

Visa and Mastercard are widely accepted. AMEX less so, but not too bad.

[ZLoth]

Anyone remember watching weekday TV and wanting to be drawn for a round of...



I think they actually adapted both Fairchild Channel F console as well as Intellivision games for this program.

[mgk920]

Anyone remember watching weekday TV and wanting to be drawn for a round of...



I think they actually adapted both Fairchild Channel F console as well as Intellivision games for this program.

There was a weekday show on a Green Bay, WI TV station called 'Clubhouse POW!'

 

Mike