Happy to be in this chapter!
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
2024 Ford Mustang Drops AM Radio From Infotainment
- Thread starter davideduardo
- Start date
- Status
Thank you!
All in how you look at it. Vietnam? Not a picnic. JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King's assassinations? Kent State? The murders of John Lennon and Marvin Gaye? Attempts on the lives of Ronald Reagan and the Pope?
Watergate? Segregation? Women unable to hold a credit card in their own name until 1974?
The list of history I'd love to have not lived through is a lot longer than that. I'll spare you.
As for innovation---okay, space travel (put the Apollo 1 fire as well as the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters up there with the other tragedies). Man on the moon. But really, the big stuff has been in the last 30-ish years. I remember thinking in the 1990s that my dad, who died in 1965, wouldn't really need a lot of explaining if he were to walk into my house 30 years later. The TV was bigger, but still looked like a TV. Ditto the telephone. Cars still used gasoline and speed limits went down before coming back up to roughly where they were when he died. Jetliners didn't go any faster than they did in '65.
But today? 80-inch flat screens. Instantaneous communication globally between individuals. PCs, laptops, tablets, smartphones. Remarkable medical advances. And more to come.
I think there's been about two weeks of no looming international crisis in my entire lifetime. Broadcasting was a thing of its time. It's still in that time, but it's past the midpoint and going through changes as would any 100-year-old business.
And no---we're not all going to be stuck with electric cars whether we like them or not in the next decade. As I've said here before, if we started selling nothing but EVs TODAY, it would take 16 and a half years of back-to-back record sales years to retire the fleet. And we're not doing that.
Last edited:
Happy early birthday!
That, of course, is the first thing I think about when selecting a car...does it look like a cop car... and the winner there is the Crown Victoria which looks like they inflated the body with a tire pump.
Last edited:
Thanks, Greg!
The Mercury, of course, would be the Grand Marquis...and remember, you can't spell "Grand Marquis" without "Grandma".
(There's also the classic bit in Car and Driver, which ran for decades, in their annual new car issue, where they lamented the fact that there was still no De Sade option for the Mercury Marquis, and later Grand Marquis.)
The Marquis de Sade was hidden in the trunk of every one of them!
Happy birthday Michael! I appreciate the knowledge you bring to this board, and reelradio.
I've said I felt lucky in one respect that I was born in time (1956) to hear the good music and radio, but missed having to be worried about the draft. Every generation know doubt has its ups and downs; we hit that post-war bubble, where even a man like my Dad, with a 4th grade education who had migrated from the depths of Appalachia to Ohio, could take a very limited skill set to a modest middle-class lifestyle. He even owned some rental properties and sold cars on the side. There was a lot wrong with the dysfunction in my upbringing, but I grew up in a town where there were factory and ag jobs (my Dad worked for a division of Avco, which as we know also owned the WLW radio and TV stations). That system was dismantled in the 1980s, to where it takes 2 incomes or more to make it in most cases. There were serious downsides as you mentioned.....assassinations, Vietnam, horrible pollution, racism, you name it.
I had a friend on Facebook who posted about how he longed for the early 50s, where almost everyone was a Christian and I guess, knew their place. Amazingly, women joined in agreeing with him. I got blocked after mentioning it wasn't Utopia/Leave it to Beaver for everyone...it was "men were men, women were chattel and blacks went to the back of the bus". Now we have a political party that is hell-bent on taking us back to those days, and even before, with talk of "national divorce".
I do love the technology. If I had as many radio contacts in the 80s as I do now, it would have made a difference in my career trajectory. I didn't build a big music collection, so the fact that I can find almost anything that was ever on the radio is great. In the 70s, I don't think anyone I knew had a TV in their room, now we have these smartphone things. With everyone having a studio in the palm of their hand, and the info that used to be privileged to us radio and media types (on the AP wire), there are a lot of creative outlets. You don't have to wait for the all-night shift in Fargo to open up to get your shot.
My fears for the future are that we won't be successful in beating back this worldwide theocratic fascist movement; that my granddaughter won't have the same rights as my grandsons, and then with all of the LGBTQ letters represented by at least one person in my extended family, are they all going to be forced into a closet, at least in the red states (or nation)?
Bring my grandmother back to life.....she'd be most befuddled that she couldn't smoke everywhere.
Off-topic> If any vehicle typifies a "cop car", it's the Grand Victoria. JMO. 😊 I think all the California towns I ever lived in had police depts. with a fleet of Grand Victorias. Of course, the Mercury Grand Marquis was very similar to the Grand Victoria. I think those two cars were built on the same assembly lines, one in Missouri, and the other in Canada.
Usually, cars that look very much the same are built by the same automaker. I think that is what Chimp was saying above about Olds and Chevys. But sometimes, they are from different automakers that are collaborating. For example, back in 2010, I bought a new Toyota Matrix. (Basically, it's just a Corolla with a hatchback instead of a trunk). I thought it looked at lot like a Pontiac little hatchback model named the "Vibe", and I mentioned that to the dealer. He said that Pontiac Vibes used to be built on the same assembly line, at the combination General Motors/ Toyota plant in Fremont, Calif., between Oakland and San Jose on the 880 freeway. But when I looked into the history of that plant, it looks as if they produced standard Corollas and standard Vibes, but never Matrix hatchbacks.
I think my Matrix hatchback (still own it), came from the Toyota plant in Ontario, Canada.
Guess what's being produced at the plant in Fremont these days? No more Toyotas or GM cars. That plant is producing Teslas now.
Well, the 50s and 60s had their problems (some remarkably major ones, in fact, some of which have been mentioned already (segregation, Vietnam, smog, etc), the memory of which seems to have been largely lost to time.
However, that isn't to say the era didn't have its good points.
What I fantasize is a reality that is basically late 50s or early 60s, but without the problems. Such will probably never exist except in movies or on TV, but I can dream?
I do have to say, that one of the main things that fascinates me about the 50s/60s is the technology (or, rather, the relative lack of it compared to now).
I think that, for all the endless possibilities that have become available to anyone with a smartphone, it has created many unique problems that simply didn't exist back then.
If we as a society could just dial back all this modern technology back even 1 or 15 years, I think we would all be in a better place, because while the constant availability of "Everything Everywhere All At Once" (note: I haven't watched that movie yet) is a blessing, it's also a curse.
The technology of 2008 could still do at least 80% of what 2023 can do, it just did it more efficiently with the fewer resources that were available.
Don't get me wrong, there have been many advancements that are good, I just think it's gone too far and we need a collective reset of sorts.
So in conclusion, if we could be in a world with the pop culture of 1950-1970, the information/telecom technology of 1990-2010, and the medical technology of 2023, I'd be happy
c
However, that isn't to say the era didn't have its good points.
What I fantasize is a reality that is basically late 50s or early 60s, but without the problems. Such will probably never exist except in movies or on TV, but I can dream?
I do have to say, that one of the main things that fascinates me about the 50s/60s is the technology (or, rather, the relative lack of it compared to now).
I think that, for all the endless possibilities that have become available to anyone with a smartphone, it has created many unique problems that simply didn't exist back then.
If we as a society could just dial back all this modern technology back even 1 or 15 years, I think we would all be in a better place, because while the constant availability of "Everything Everywhere All At Once" (note: I haven't watched that movie yet) is a blessing, it's also a curse.
The technology of 2008 could still do at least 80% of what 2023 can do, it just did it more efficiently with the fewer resources that were available.
Don't get me wrong, there have been many advancements that are good, I just think it's gone too far and we need a collective reset of sorts.
So in conclusion, if we could be in a world with the pop culture of 1950-1970, the information/telecom technology of 1990-2010, and the medical technology of 2023, I'd be happy
You mean Crown Victoria, I think?
Yup. The last car Toyota/GM made there was the Pontiac Vibe (basically a Toyota in GM clothing).
c
I don't miss the social problems of the past 60 years, the assassinations, Vietnam War, discrimination against people of color & women, etc. But I do miss the feeling, exemplified by the music of that era, of optimism and looking forward to a better day. I miss the high energy music that motivated us to believe that if we worked together as a people, that we could accomplish everything, both in terms of human rights and technology. I miss the time of discovering new bands from other nations across the ocean, like the bands of Great Britain and mainland Europe, from the "British invasion", all the way through the Euro-techno music of the 1980's. I miss the genre of rock n' roll music, even as I know intellectually that all music and culture changes.
I don't like feeling today as if we are being divided and being driven farther apart as a people with irreconcilable differences. ( speaking of the U.S.A.)
Off-topic, but just my opinion, responding to gr8oldies. -- D.
Oops! Yes, Crown Victoria for sure. Sorry.
Thanks, gr8oldies!
Totally agree. Trouble is, we had to follow through on that as a society or else 60 years down the road, we're fighting the same human rights issues and wondering why our kids and grandkids are pessimistic about the future, which gets carried through their music.
Dude. Seriuously?
Best smartphones of 2008
I won't even go into how many people would have risked (and lost) their lives going to work in person during a pandemic because Zoom and computers powerful enough to run it hadn't been invented yet.
And then there's this.
My entire aircheck collection.
My entire music collection.
A decade-plus worth of photos of my wife, kids and grandchildren.
The ability to see and talk to my grandchildren who live 2,000 miles away via FaceTime anytime the mood hits me or them.
The ability to not get lost going down a country road---in another country.
The ability to look up pretty much anything from the collected knowledge of mankind, and translate it if it's not in English.
I carry it in my pocket everywhere I go.
I could fill this page with what this device does that nothing available in 2008 could do.
However, that's never going to happen. In fact, quite the opposite. As has been proven, as time goes on, advancements in technology and the ability to do things faster, smaller, smarter and better marches on at an exponentially faster pace. As Michael pointed out in his post, many technologies can be looked on as a double-edge sword for some. While some don't care for or are scared of newer technologies, at the same time, one cannot deny that tech has allowed us to do some amazing things that we'd simply not have been able to do before, many of which are beneficial in myriad ways.
Yes, for years the most popular 2 vehicles for Law Enforcement were the Ford Crown Victoria (Crown Vic) and the Chevy Caprice. Dodge made some inroads with the Charger as well.
And you could also add health benefits - There's FitBit and similar which allows one to monitor heart rate, sleep quality, number of steps walked each day and the like, but also tech-related to wristbands and phones which allows someone's physician to remotely monitor any number of health-related factors or indicators.
Yep. In fact, as soon as the Apple Watch includes blood pressure monitoring, I'm in.
..And if you wanted to throw work-related tech in there you could add that phones (sometimes with peripherals) can be used as multi-meters, decibel meters, spectrum analyzers, endoscopes to see inside equipment, temperature sensors and IR heat indicators, etc.
The cool thing about using your phone for some of those tasks, at least preliminarily before you maybe need to break out pro-grade stuff, is that it allows you to take screenshots or video of what you're seeing and share it with others, compile reports for non-technical folks who do better with pretty pictures, etc.
The cool thing about using your phone for some of those tasks, at least preliminarily before you maybe need to break out pro-grade stuff, is that it allows you to take screenshots or video of what you're seeing and share it with others, compile reports for non-technical folks who do better with pretty pictures, etc.
- Status