What does that mean? Writing to the author of a book?
I’d say that magazines are dying out nowadays, with the exception of those trashy “my 600-pound baby ate my car!” magazines you see at the supermarket, which still seem quite popular with a particular demographic. When I was a kid, I always used to get a few computer and gaming magazines every month (with demo discs – remember them?!), but nowadays you can get more detail and more up-to-date information online. Not to mention articles in video format via Youtube.
You still see racks of magazines in some stores, so I guess someone must be buying them. But no-one I know buys them. You don’t even see them in doctors’ waiting rooms any more.
The original company stuck with emulsion way too long - had it not been for Kodak’s blatant patent infringement (which gave them a few million in damages), they would have gone belly-up earlier.
The bankruptcy sold off everything - including the name. all that is left is a shell company without employees.
Several people have bought the name, and a few even re-started production of instant film/prints. Real photographers used Polaroid - with a negative size of 4"x5", you want to make sure the shot is right before exposing film - and Polaroid make instant prints and a back for 4x5 cameras. I still have my Polaroid back, as well as the Fuji version.
I also have a slide printer which used 669 film to run off a proofs from slides.
Well, not with the people I know @ church, school, work, etc. It’s very rare that I smell someone who smells of cigarette smoke and even rarer when I get a whiff of actual smoke - a couple, three times a year or so.
My then-10yo daughter went to spend the night at a new friend of hers whose parent’s smoked in the house and, while she made it through the evening, vowed never to go back because of the smell.
Growing up in San Antonio in the 70s and 80s, it seemed any time there was a good thunderstorm, the power would go out for an hour or so. We always had candles and hurricane lamps on hand for those times. If there was a lot of rain or the storm was a long one, Dad might fill one of the bathtubs with water, and Mom would let us eat the last of the ice cream when the power went out because it would melt before the power came back on.
These days, if you get a power outages are rare, disastrous, and take days to be fixed.
There used to be ads about things you could buy or plan for (tourist info, for example), with postcards asking for information. Kind of like calling or logging in for an information packet now.
A few years ago I was on a Navy ship on a Tiger Cruise. When we got into port one of the Signalmen started doing some kind of semaphore to his wife at the dock and she (formerly a signalman too) signaled back.No flags, just arms you understand.
Their kids are going to be really interesting when they grow up.
They still do this when you take a little plane from Denver to Colorado Springs–about an hour’s flight. Getting off the plane and standing at the top of the portable stairs always makes me feel like the Beatles arriving at Idlewild.
Getting up in the middle of the night to relight the furnace pilot light is a pain in the ass I’m glad is mostly gone. Not all of them of course, but the life cycle of furnaces has most of them replaced with self ignition these days.
We could never travel together because we’d fight over the window seat.
I do the same thing and I always end up with a crick in my neck after long flights. Even at night the view is fascinating to me. Once I watched a full moon dance from lake to lake on a flight from Texas to Virginia. I love the patterns you see from above, like those perfect green circles from rotary irrigation systems.
I have never understood how most people ignore the best part of flying!
The second time I ever flew, 25 years later, the plane was landing in Milwaukee and the wind was out of the west, so we flew out over the lake and turned back toward the airport. There was a moment there when the plane was in a tight bank while also descending, so the view out the window was the water coming toward us. It was a little bit unnerving.
So, I will be generous and let you sit by the window, as long as you can put up with me leaning across you from time to time to look at stuff – but we better not be sitting right over the wing.
