1960s

The unheralded bargain in O gauge trains

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , , , , , , ,

Toy trains are a funny thing. Vintage Lionel trains are almost a status symbol, and their value has almost taken a mythical quality. Marx, on the other hand, was the working class brand in the 1950s, the company that had something for you no matter how much you had available to spend.

For the most part, today’s prices reflect that. Lionels are expensive and Marxes are cheap.

Sort of.

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Running Marx and Lionel trains together

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Someone asked (not me specifically) whether it’s possible or desirable to run Marx and Lionel trains as part of the same layout, what the caveats are, and how to do it.

It seems to be a pretty dark secret. The answer is, yes it’s possible, and yes, it might very well be desirable, but it’s possible to run into some pitfalls.

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Reports on the death of film are [you know the rest]

Dave Farquhar Photography ,

Giddy Slashdotters are proclaiming the death of film since Kodak has announced it’s not going to sell film cameras anymore, at least not in the United States and Europe.
It proves to me that whoever wrote that story summary knows little or nothing about serious photography.

For many years, Kodak was a big name in serious photography. But come the 1960s, you started seeing serious cameras from a lot of other manufacturers. For the duration of my lifetime, Kodak cameras were pretty much relegated to the casual point-and-shoot arena.

But meanwhile, Kodak remained one of the largest producers of film. It remains so today. Go into any store and look for film, and the two brands you’re most likely to find are Kodak and Fuji.

Serious photographers have only recently begun to prefer digital. Some serious photographers still prefer the look of film. Pictures shot on film have a different look from digital shots, and they probably always will. Neither type of camera’s view on reality is necessarily more correct, but they’re certainly different, sometimes subtly, sometimes blatantly.

Casual photographers like digital point-and-shoots because they can take hundreds of pictures and only print out (and thus only pay for) the good ones. And there’s the perception among certain laypeople that digital is always better. CDs sound better than cassettes, so digital pictures will look better than film, right? That’s what the girl I was dating a year ago thought, and I never convinced her otherwise.

The money is in disposable cameras, film, and digitals. There’s just not much money to be made in the traditional point-and-shoots–too many companies are making them, and the margins are too thin. So Kodak is concentrating on the areas where it can make money. And Kodak can make a lot of money selling $150 digital cameras to people year over year (people will want to upgrade so they can make bigger prints, after all), or disposable cameras to people who forget to pack a camera, or film to people buying razor-thin-margin cameras made by someone else.

Once you can buy a $40 digital camera with resolution comparable to film, you’ll be able to declare film dead. But you can’t do that yet, and you won’t be able to for a few more years.

But I’m sure you already knew all of this, so I’m not sure why I’m writing this. But I feel better now.

Recapturing the charm of Dad’s Lionel train

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , , , , , ,

I unboxed Dad’s old Lionel train Monday night. They don’t make them like that anymore.

Dad’s train led a rough life. My investigative reporting skills tell me he got the train sometime between 1949 and 1952, and then sometime after 1953 he got a new locomotive and cars. And then sometime in the 1960s, the trains ended up in a box. I remember him telling me it came out a few times in the 1970s for Christmas, but most of my memories of Dad’s train are four big pieces of plywood with rusty track mounted on it, sitting in the garage next to a stack of repurposed liquor boxes containing train parts.

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Pretentious Pontifications: Tape drives

Dave Farquhar Humor/Satire , , ,

R. Collins Farquhar IV, Scotsman, and aristocrat. To all whom it may concern. Greeting: One of my associates contacted me today about tape backup units, specifically, a review on Tom’s Hardware Guide. As usual, Tom’s Hardware substantially misses the mark.
I was extraordinarily disappointed that Tom’s Hardware made no mention whatsoever about Intel tape drives. I had my manservant call one of my contacts at Intel for the purposes of having them send me a tape drive, but my contact said that Intel does not make tape drives. Since Intel is one of a very small number of reputable hardware manufacturers, this is the kind of important information that needs to be in a review like this.

I had my manservant ask my contact at Intel which tape drive he would recommend. He recommended the HP SDLT320. Since Intel has a very close relationship with HP, I decided that an HP tape drive might be the next best thing. The Intel contact mentioned–as did the THG review–that the Tandberg SDLT320 is an identical unit. Since I have never heard of Tandberg, I did not even consider it. Any operation I have never heard of is obviously a fly-by-night. Accepting a Tandberg when Intel recommends an HP is akin to accepting a mere Bentley when you sought a real Rolls. Whereas Jacques Pierre Cousteau Bouillabaise Nouveau Riche Croissant de Raunche de la Stenche will settle for a Bentley, I am never willing to settle for a knockoff, even when the alleged difference is only in the front plate or grille.

I was also extraordinarily disappointed that Tom’s Hardware did not test the drives with Microsoft software. Microsoft, as even a tryo or ingenue knows, makes simply the finest software in the world. I would go so far as to call Microsoft the Rolls-Royce of software. So my manservant contacted Microsoft to ask for a copy of their top-flight tape backup software. The Microsoft representative said that Microsoft’s offering came bundled with its server software and is licensed by Veritas. If I wanted something better, I should talk to Veritas. Again, doing so would be to settle for something less than a Rolls. Even though a Rolls from the 1960s used a General Motors transmission, I would never settle for a 1968 Cadillac when what I really want is a 1968 Rolls. I have never heard of Veritas either, so I evaluated Microsoft’s offering and found it to be first-class and worthy of performing the backup needs of any enterprise. That Microsoft would be so generous as to bundle such a grandee application with its server software makes it all the more sweet for those whose means are less aristocratic than my own.

I was pleased when I connected the HP SDLT320 to my main workstation (a prototype 4 GHz Pentium 4 I got from Intel) that my Quake 3 framerates rose to 430 FPS. A serious gamer will want this.

Next, I tried backing up my Quake III CD to the HP SDLT320. I was amazed when the backup took a mere two minutes. I do not know whether to attribute these results to the influence of Intel engineers on HP, or to Microsoft’s sterling software. In all likelihood, it is a combination of both.

These tests prove once again the adage that corporations sufficiently large truly can do no wrong.

Will today ruin baseball?

Dave Farquhar Baseball , , , ,

Well, it’s strike day. I haven’t talked about it. I was hoping if I ignored it, it would go away. That strategy rarely works, but there’s always a first time.
Let’s face it: This is the Crybaby Billionaire Boys’ Club vs. the Crybaby Millionaire Boys’ Club.

Players complain about how they used to be treated as slaves. Well, they aren’t anymore. The league minimum–the minimum is more than some doctors make. Baseball players work nine months out of the year, counting spring training. They have to travel a lot, but they don’t have to work full 8-hour days, usually. When they do work, they do things I do for fun (and usually have to pay to do).

Yes, in the 1960s, there was a problem. Those problems have been solved for a very long time. Players’ greatest fears are that their salaries won’t necessarily double at the same rate they did before. Well, boo-hoo. Today a decent utility infielder makes what George Brett made at his peak, and George Brett isn’t hurting.

Now, the players talk down about the fans. Even Neifi Perez talks down to the fans. Neifi Perez! The worst everyday player in the majors. Mr. .257 on-base-percentage. Mr. Where-have-you-gone-Donnie-Sadler?, for crying out loud! “They’re just fans,” Neifi says. “What do they know?”

Who cares what the fans know? (What I know is that Felix Martinez isn’t the worst shortstop in Royals history anymore.) They pay your salary. Though it’s certain Perez won’t be back in Kansas City next year, and questionable whether he’ll be playing baseball at all. Serves him right. He’s a lousy player and a jerk. Kansas City deserves better. For that matter, Baghdad deserves better.

I don’t have any sympathy for the players.

The owners complain about competitive imbalance and salaries rising too quickly. The problems are largely their own making, but at least most of them recognize there is a problem and are trying to solve it. As recently as ten years ago, there was no way of knowing who was going to be a contender. You could take a good guess, but several teams would always surprise you. Is anyone really surprised the Yankees and the Braves are the teams to beat this year?

Now Oakland and Minnesota have proven you can create a winner on a budget. They spend smart. That’s good. Not every small or medium-market team spends smart. But when New York can spend five times what a small-market team spends, there’s a problem. Oakland lost Jason Giambi to the Yankees; in a few years they won’t be able to afford to keep both Eric Chavez and Miguel Tejada either. Who cares about the players or the owners–that’s unfair to the fans.

Most of the owners are on the same page. Even Tom Hicks, who can’t seem to spend his way out of last place but not for lack of trying, wants a luxury tax and revenue sharing. He sees the need for rules to follow. George Steinbrenner won’t be happy until every team but the Yankees is bankrupt and the second-best team in baseball is the Columbus Clippers, the Yankees’ AAA affiliate. But he’s in the minority.

The owners are being the more reasonable of the two. That feels weird to say. Isn’t that kind of like saying Ayatollah Khomeini was reasonable about something?

A lot of people are saying if there’s a strike, they won’t be back. Some of them will make good on that promise. I know I’ll be back. Baseball’s broken. I see this strike like a car crash to an alcoholic. You don’t wish the car crash on anybody, but if the car crash leads to the person finally seeing the problem and doing something about it, then the car crash can do some good. With some people, it takes a car crash. But with some people, even a car crash isn’t enough.

And the players and owners are just like that drunk behind the wheel–not giving a rip who gets hurt as a result of their irresponsible actions. Who cares about the people who make their living selling concessions at the ballpark? Not the players and owners. That’s an established fact.

I’ll be mad if they can’t come to an agreement before the deadline. But I’ll be madder if the strike doesn’t accomplish anything. There’s only one thing worse than a drunk, and that’s an incurable drunk.

I know what we need. A few good men who love baseball–who love baseball more than money–need to step up to the plate and do the right thing. And no, I don’t really care if that happens tomorrow, or if it happens during a lockout in spring training while Jason Grimsley and Johnny Damon and Todd Zeile and Steve Kline sit at home.

I think it might be refreshing to watch a bunch of guys who’ve never touched steroids, who are actually glad to be getting paid to do what we used to do at recess, and who play every inning like it’s the 9th inning of Game 7 of the World Series, don’t you?

But there are no promises. So we wait. And I’m fully aware that if the worst happens, I might be the only baseball fan left.

That’s OK by me. I’m a Kansas City Royals fan. I’m used to being alone.

The craziest thing I’ve read in a long time

Dave Farquhar General , , ,

I thought the craziest story I’d read this year was a UFO enthusiast’s account of his hunt for a wrecked 1960s vintage spyplane so top-secret you’ve probably never heard of it.
Then I found a link to the story of a teenager who had plans to build a nuclear reactor in his backyard. (Click the printer-friendly link at the bottom of the first page if you want to read it.)

I lived such a sheltered life… Read more

I’m here to tell you how busy I am

Dave Farquhar General

This looks like a good time for a 6,000-word diatribe about how busy I am, but I’m too busy to write about how busy I am, so I won’t.
I’m making what was supposed to be a quickie one-off documentary with minimal footage. Well, the problem is I’ve got about an hour’s worth of good footage. I figured it would take me an hour to figure out what story to tell with that footage. Bzzzt! Guess again, Farq.

I’ve found about 20 minutes’ worth of the best footage. Based on the story I want to tell, I can cut half of it. Then I can take what’s left of that and edit it in half pretty easily, giving me a manageable five-minute biography/documentary.

I always underestimate my video projects.

You’ll hear back from me when it’s done. But for the next couple of days until then, I don’t know how much I’ll be here. Fair warning.

And once it’s done? Well, I think I might know how to do streaming Qui*kTime-compatible video with a Linux server. Wouldn’t that be a cool project?

If you find yourself missing me, go have a read about a missing spyplane and how someone, after making 20 trips, spending more than $6,500, involving 9 different people, and finding three other wrecks, finally found the elusive plane.

You’ll also learn that the SR-71 wasn’t the most advanced U.S. spyplane of the 1960s. (That image on the front page of the link looks an awful lot like an SR-71, but it isn’t!)

It’s a long story. It’ll easily occupy you for a few days while I’m gone.

And this surprises people because…?

Dave Farquhar General

Fox News seems to be surprised at how GenX raises its kids. I’m wondering why.
Let’s look at the 60s and 70s. The ’60s were the era of free love, which turned out not to be love, and actually turned out to cost a lot more than everyone thought, and really wasn’t all that fulfilling. The ’70s saw the wide availability of birth control and the legalization of abortion. Babies, wrote Strauss and Howe in Generations, were something you took pills to prevent. Kids in the movies of the time were hellions. Kids just weren’t a priority. The Boomers were trying to figure out what they wanted, in some cases having kids just in case, and going after what they wanted in no particular order.

One day when I was trying to explain it, I blurted out, “A lot of GenXers grew up with just one parent that didn’t want them. Lucky GenXers grew up with two parents who didn’t want them.”

That’s an overstatement, but not by much.

We are a reactionary generation, so we’re reacting to the way we were raised. We’re turning to religion (or, more frequently, spirituality), waiting longer to have kids, in some cases waiting longer to get married, and if we can work at home to spend more time with our families, we do it. (So when you ask me when I’m going to write another book, the answer probably is when I have a family to stay home with.) At the very least, we make an effort to be home.

Let’s go to Strauss and Howe. Keep in mind this was written in 1990:

“Economic risk-taking and cultural alienation will drive [GenXers] to seek stability in family life. First-wavers [born in the 1960s] may continue the Boom trend toward late marriage–not out of any quest for postadolescent self-discovery, but rather out of economic necessity and unwillingness to repeat the mistakes of their early-marrying, heavily divorcing Silent parents.”

In addition to this, they predicted that the USPS might come under ruinous attack by new enterprises run by GenXers. They had no idea what it would look like (they speculated it might involve computer hackers, as one of three possibilities) but it sounds to me like e-mail was just the ticket. They also predicted GenXers would change jobs a lot, and that we’d have loud, overpaid professional athletes who’d be full of themselves. They also predicted we’d be offensive (body piercing and tattoos maybe?), and…. AND they predicted an economic crisis right about now.

They also predicted a major crisis, along the same lines of World War II or at least the Cold War, sometime between the years of 2014 and 2025.

Fox News said GenX isn’t returning to the values of its grandparents. They’re right, and we won’t. Our grandparents are a different generational profile. Look to the people born from 1982 to now to do that.

What Strauss and Howe wrote was intentionally vague, because you can only predict trends, not events, by looking at generational cycles. But they sure seem to have gotten the trends pretty much right, especially now that we can go back with hindsight and start filling in some details.

So… GenX is going to raise its families in a more traditional manner than its parents, but won’t be as traditional as its grandparents. GenX will fight this current war, and get at best grudging respect and thanks from its elders. Analysts are already saying that the generation after GenX will be the next great generation, but they’re not old enough to get us through this crisis yet.

If and when the predicted crisis of 2014 comes, GenX will have to play a role in guiding us through it. But it will need help from the generations immediately before and after. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. George Washington’s generation found itself in exactly the same situation. The secret of Washington’s success was his ability to recognize the strengths in both his elders and his youngers, as well as in his own generation, and ask for help.

If GenX can emulate Washington, history will look on us with favor, though we’re likely forever slackers in the minds of the people who saw us alive.

Back to Strauss and Howe:

“Over four centuries, Reactive generations have been assigned the thankless job of yanking American history back on a stable course–and, afterward, have gotten few rewards for their sacrifices. Will this realization prompt [GenXers] to burn out young–or will it harden a gritty self-confidence around an important generational mission?”

But our time hasn’t come. So right now we’re just trying not to repeat the mistakes we saw others make. Those of us with families are starting at home. And that’s cool.

The 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s: More alike than different

Dave Farquhar Society , ,

Optimism. In an effort to answer a different question, I found myself mapping out the significant news headlines for the last 40 years, and suddenly I understood something.
The 1960s were a decade of activism, international crisis, assasination, racial tension, and political scandal.

The 1970s were a decade of international crisis, massacre, racial tension, and political scandal.

The 1980s were a decade of international crisis, assasination, racial tension, and political scandal.

The 1990s were a decade of international crisis, massacre, racial tension, and political scandal.

I’m 26, part of a generation that’s notorious for being cynical. I wasn’t around in the 60s; the oldest of my peer group watched helplessly; unable to do anything about it or even understand what was happening in a lot of cases. The first of my peer group started turning 20 in the 80s. It wasn’t until the 90s that we were really old enough to have any real power, to make any real change. Few of us showed any interest, and some people wondered why.

I’d never really thought about it before, but we can look back at the last 40 years, see people trying to make changes, and note that for all the rhetoric that was being thrown around in the 60s, if anything, things are worse today than they were in the post-war era.

So that’s why we’re cynical and apathetic. Although, after this week, apparently an awful lot of us are going down to the recruiting office and asking if we can sign up to go kick some butt…