[For obvious reasons, this is a deliberate cross-post.]--
Many people in these ngs over the last year or two have been kind
enough to help me with useful advice as I have struggled to scan my
way through a trunkful of family documents going back to a parchment
(animal skin) from the reign of Queen Anne. While not yet complete
(will it ever be?), a major milestone has been reached today with the
release of an archive to the general public. For those interested,
it's here:
http://www.macfh.co.uk/Macfarlane/FamilyHistory/FamilyHistory.shtml
Thanks again to all who have contributed their advice.
"Java Jive" <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote in message news:8qsapg1mutu0veu0t1u3fvuq066or69nds@4ax.com...
[For obvious reasons, this is a deliberate cross-post.]
Many people in these ngs over the last year or two have been kind
enough to help me with useful advice as I have struggled to scan my
way through a trunkful of family documents going back to a parchment (animal skin) from the reign of Queen Anne. While not yet complete
(will it ever be?), a major milestone has been reached today with the release of an archive to the general public. For those interested,
it's here:
http://www.macfh.co.uk/Macfarlane/FamilyHistory/FamilyHistory.shtml
Thanks again to all who have contributed their advice.
That is a fantastic collection of photos and papers. The oldest things I've got are a few photos on dog-eared thick card and a photo of my great x n grandmother as a young woman, on glass or maybe on metal protected by glass (could it be a Daguerrotype?). But no papers going further back than that. When I was about 10, back in the mid 70s, my dad got my grandpa and his mother (my great-grandma) together and recorded a conversation of their reminiscences about "who was Henry Walmsley?", "who owned the sweet works that burned down - several times?" and my grandpa's memories of witnessing a tram crash right in front of him when it lost control on a steep hill, came off the rails and ran uncontrolled across the market place into a bank. And his memories of scare-stories from his dad who was a foreman in an iron foundry, of people being injured or killed in accidents in the foundry. And then memories of helping the limelight operator at the local theatre with some of the very elaborate lighting effects: as with any new technology (think of word processors and the initial gratuitous plethora of fonts in a document!) there was a tendency in the 1910s/20s for directors to over-use the technology and to demand lots of lighting changes to highlight specific objects as they were mentioned in the dialogue ("there's my cigarette case
on the mantelpiece", so the limelight operator had to have a pencil beam aimed at the case, ready to reveal it on cue).
Nothing as far back as you go, and nothing as grand and opulent as yours,
but still a wonderful record of their voices (their intonation, their accents, their phraseology) and of their accounts of life in the early 20th century. That 2-hour tape has been copied to numerous WAV files which are backed up all over the place, along with my own transcription of it to Word file.
[For obvious reasons, this is a deliberate cross-post.]
Many people in these ngs over the last year or two have been kind
enough to help me with useful advice as I have struggled to scan my
way through a trunkful of family documents going back to a parchment
(animal skin) from the reign of Queen Anne. While not yet complete
(will it ever be?), a major milestone has been reached today with the
release of an archive to the general public. For those interested,
it's here:
http://www.macfh.co.uk/Macfarlane/FamilyHistory/FamilyHistory.shtml
Thanks again to all who have contributed their advice.
IMV, one of the most interesting recent series on TV has been David
Olusoga's "A House Through Time":
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09l64y9
He is a good presenter, and I like the fact that he tries to tell the
story of poor people as well as wealthier people.
http://www.macfh.co.uk/Macfarlane/FamilyHistory/FamilyHistory.shtml
Thanks again to all who have contributed their advice.
That said, I'm afraid I find your choice of BG/FG/Text colours quite hard
to read. Since you posted about your 'history' I'll be cheeky and post a
link to my own
http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html
On Thu, 18 Nov 2021 10:25:29 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
That said, I'm afraid I find your choice of BG/FG/Text colours quite hard
to read. Since you posted about your 'history' I'll be cheeky and post a
link to my own
http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html
Sorry, can't agree there; I find yours garish, mine more restful to
the eyes.
The other "wrong" one would be one that quickly tired the eyes of people looking at the screen for long periods of time. For those, light text
on a dark background tires the eyes quite quickly because some visual
rest comes from light areas with no content. Having said that, a pure
white background is a bit bright and becomes gradually more attention grabbing than the text on top of it if looked at for long periods.
On 18/11/2021 11:17, Java Jive wrote:
On Thu, 18 Nov 2021 10:25:29 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
That said, I'm afraid I find your choice of BG/FG/Text colours quite
hard to read. Since you posted about your 'history' I'll be cheeky
and post a link to my own
http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html
Sorry, can't agree there; I find yours garish, mine more restful to
the eyes.
I can accept that you prefer your own screen presentation (you chose it
so that was a given), and I note that the sans serif font on a dark background makes it easily readable. However my personal preference
between yours and Jim's in Jim's.
On Thu, 18 Nov 2021 13:59:44 +0000, Indy Jess John
The other "wrong" one would be one that quickly tired the eyes of people
looking at the screen for long periods of time. For those, light text
on a dark background tires the eyes quite quickly because some visual
rest comes from light areas with no content. Having said that, a pure
white background is a bit bright and becomes gradually more attention
grabbing than the text on top of it if looked at for long periods.
I find the bright backgrounds on most websites garish and tiring to
the eyes, that's why I chose the light on dark design that I did.
I find the bright backgrounds on most websites garish and tiring to the
eyes, that's why I chose the light on dark design that I did. --
In article <t7rcpg5aa7ifp7vupm7r76kprtp57vnhpf@4ax.com>, Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:
I find the bright backgrounds on most websites garish and tiring to the eyes, that's why I chose the light on dark design that I did. --
Simply having a light grey background can
help a lot. As does serif rather than sans.
On Thu, 18 Nov 2021 15:38:00 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
<noise@audiomisc.co.uk> wrote:
In article <t7rcpg5aa7ifp7vupm7r76kprtp57vnhpf@4ax.com>, Java Jive
<java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:
I find the bright backgrounds on most websites garish and tiring to the
eyes, that's why I chose the light on dark design that I did. --
Perhaps I could have added there that this problem used to be much
more marked with CRT screens. I just couldn't look at pages with
white or light backgrounds for more than around half-an-hour at a
time. I don't find the problem nearly so bad with LCDs, but it's
still more tiring for me than light on dark.
As you say, each person tends to differ, and I think a lot of it comes
But from this viewpoint, light on dark is not exactly natural either,
while if you use midtones for both ink and paper, then potentially you
can run into the colour-blindness problems already mentioned. So I
stick with light on dark as being the least bad.
Simply having a light grey background can
help a lot. As does serif rather than sans.
Again, my experience is exactly the opposite, I find serif fonts bitty
and confusing to the eye.
sight problems and/or a form of 'Liz Dexia'. FWIW I also ensured text was >allowed to 'flow to fit the window' for most body text because not everyone >had a big screen. I also kept the text and markup simple to aid screen >reading software. And the use of older machines and browsers.[]
No, no, you can't do that: text _must_ be designed for one width
only, and usually a ridiculously big one, so that anyone other than
the designers with their huge monitors has to scroll left and right
to read them.
On Thu, 18 Nov 2021 at 15:14:20, Jim Lesurf<noise@audiomisc.co.uk>
wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
[]
sight problems and/or a form of 'Liz Dexia'. FWIW I also ensured text was[]
allowed to 'flow to fit the window' for most body text because not everyone >> had a big screen. I also kept the text and markup simple to aid screen
reading software. And the use of older machines and browsers.
No, no, you can't do that: text _must_ be designed for one width only,
and usually a ridiculously big one, so that anyone other than the
designers with their huge monitors has to scroll left and right to read
them.
Seriously, I never understood this: HTML itself reflows text
intrinsically, so the move to fixed-width - or fixed-format - must
initially have required _extra_ programming. (Now, it's probably the
default in web-generating software; I doubt many write HTML code, or
even know how to.)
On Thu, 18 Nov 2021 at 15:14:20, Jim Lesurf <noise@audiomisc.co.uk>
wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
[]
sight problems and/or a form of 'Liz Dexia'. FWIW I also ensured text was >>allowed to 'flow to fit the window' for most body text because not everyone >>had a big screen. I also kept the text and markup simple to aid screen >>reading software. And the use of older machines and browsers.[]
No, no, you can't do that: text _must_ be designed for one width only,
and usually a ridiculously big one, so that anyone other than the
designers with their huge monitors has to scroll left and right to read
them.
Seriously, I never understood this: HTML itself reflows text
intrinsically, so the move to fixed-width - or fixed-format - must
initially have required _extra_ programming. (Now, it's probably the
default in web-generating software; I doubt many write HTML code, or
even know how to.)
On Thu, 18 Nov 2021 15:38:00 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
<noise@audiomisc.co.uk> wrote:
In article <t7rcpg5aa7ifp7vupm7r76kprtp57vnhpf@4ax.com>, Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:
I find the bright backgrounds on most websites garish and tiring to
the eyes, that's why I chose the light on dark design that I did. --
I suppose one way to think about it is: "What, as far as our eyes are concerned, is most natural? Clearly it's not black on white or any
other bright colour! The only time we have this situation in nature is
when we look too close to the sun, or perhaps even just up at the sky on
a hot bright day.
A big difference is between frame rate and flicker rate, though it's
less so with static material such as text. It used to be thought that
refresh rate had to be at least not much less than 50, as otherwise the flicker was indeed noticeable (and in many cases headache-inducing):
that's why (both) TV systems used interlace (OK, there were bandwidth
reasons too; it was quite a clever invention), and most film projectors
had a shutter that interrupted the light _twice_ a frame.
No, no, you can't do that: text _must_ be designed for one width only,
and usually a ridiculously big one, so that anyone other than the
designers with their huge monitors has to scroll left and right to read
them.
Seriously, I never understood this: HTML itself reflows text
intrinsically, so the move to fixed-width - or fixed-format - must
initially have required _extra_ programming. (Now, it's probably the
default in web-generating software; I doubt many write HTML code, or
even know how to.)
In somewhere around 2000, my desktop computer was upgraded, and there was around £100 going spare, so I had a high-resolution monitor instead
of the bog-standard ones that all my colleagues were given. Result was
that the University's top page came out tiny, with something like 4-pt characters. So I complained. "Oh, no, you're wrong, it was
Professionally Designed and it looks Fantastic." "Not on my screen, and
not on the screens of any prospective students or sponsors who also
happen to have good [or for that matter bad] monitors." "Well, we've
just checked, and it's Right. There's something wrong with your
computer." I tried to explain what they'd done, but inevitably got
nowhere. Left them to it.
In article <sn3vqu$9hs$1@dont-email.me>, NY <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
http://www.macfh.co.uk/Macfarlane/FamilyHistory/FamilyHistory.shtml
Thanks again to all who have contributed their advice.
Thanks. Interesting. :-)
That said, I'm afraid I find your choice of BG/FG/Text colours quite hard
to read. Since you posted about your 'history' I'll be cheeky and post a
link to my own
http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html
which uses a simpler layout and colours that I find much easier. And may
also interest some here given the xposting. Apologies to anyone who
objects to xposting so many groups. Not something I'd usually do.
Slainte,
Jim
[For obvious reasons, this is a deliberate cross-post.]
Many people in these ngs over the last year or two have been kind
enough to help me with useful advice as I have struggled to scan my
way through a trunkful of family documents going back to a parchment
(animal skin) from the reign of Queen Anne. While not yet complete
(will it ever be?), a major milestone has been reached today with the
release of an archive to the general public. For those interested,
it's here:
http://www.macfh.co.uk/Macfarlane/FamilyHistory/FamilyHistory.shtml
Thanks again to all who have contributed their advice.
On 17/11/2021 21:26, Java Jive wrote:
[For obvious reasons, this is a deliberate cross-post.]
Many people in these ngs over the last year or two have been kind
enough to help me with useful advice as I have struggled to scan my
way through a trunkful of family documents going back to a parchment (animal skin) from the reign of Queen Anne. While not yet complete
(will it ever be?), a major milestone has been reached today with
the release of an archive to the general public. For those
interested, it's here:
http://www.macfh.co.uk/Macfarlane/FamilyHistory/FamilyHistory.shtml
Thanks again to all who have contributed their advice.
Currently at my brother's, picking up the next batch of work on this
(about the same gargantuan amount again, I fear!), and one of the
first things I find is the following old-fashioned joke printed on a
slip of paper:
"If your wife wants to learn to drive, don't stand in her way."
[Lest anyone mistakenly think I subscribe to this view, my mother was
a WAAF driving instructor during WW2, and was the best driver in the
family. I have made for our private use a map of the places we have
photos of taken during Scottish holidays, the southernmost ones are Edinburgh and Dalry, the northernmost Gruinard Bay, featuring almost everywhere in between, though not the east coast, and of course we
usually drove up from southern England to get there. Only now does
it strike me how many hundreds of miles Ma, and later my stepfather,
must have driven on these family holidays.]
[Lest anyone mistakenly think I subscribe to this view, my mother was a
WAAF driving instructor during WW2, and was the best driver in the family.
I have made for our private use a map of the places we have photos of
taken during Scottish holidays, the southernmost ones are Edinburgh and Dalry, the northernmost Gruinard Bay, featuring almost everywhere in
between, though not the east coast, and of course we usually drove up from southern England to get there. Only now does it strike me how many
hundreds of miles Ma, and later my stepfather, must have driven on these family holidays.]
There was an age and seniority issue (she was my manager) which is why I was >bending over backwards to be tactful and to avoid her feeling silly. Next >time I rode with her, she was fine, and she joked that she'd been
practicing. So it wasn't "typical woman driver" - it was just that she had >been taught very badly and had never experimented with doing things >differently to what she'd been taught. She was a people manager rather than >an engineer - maybe my scientific/engineering background made me more likely >to experiment "what if".
Anyone who can
master that skill deserves much kudos.
On 27/05/2022 16:55, NY wrote:
master that skill deserves much kudos.Anyone who can
It is surprising how quickly you get used to it, I think our first
couple of Land Rovers at work needed it.
Re double de-clutching ...
On 27/05/2022 18:43, MB wrote:
On 27/05/2022 16:55, NY wrote:
It is surprising how quickly you get used to it, I think our firstmaster that skill deserves much kudos.Anyone who can
couple of Land Rovers at work needed it.
Yes, in the days I worked on farms, it was considered best practice to
DDC tractors. That is to say, they had a 'crash' gearbox, so could
take a bashing, but I was taught to DDC by the farm's foreman, and when
you got it just about right you could change gear without anything
worse than a satisfying 'clunk'!
In message <t6rh83$rqb$1@dont-email.me>, Java Jive
<java@evij.com.invalid> writes
Re double de-clutching ...60 years ago I learned to drive on a car with (deliberately) no
On 27/05/2022 18:43, MB wrote:
On 27/05/2022 16:55, NY wrote:
 It is surprising how quickly you get used to it, I think our firstmaster that skill deserves much kudos.Anyone who can
couple of Land Rovers at work needed it.
Yes, in the days I worked on farms, it was considered best practice to
DDC tractors. That is to say, they had a 'crash' gearbox, so could
take a bashing, but I was taught to DDC by the farm's foreman, and
when you got it just about right you could change gear without
anything worse than a satisfying 'clunk'!
synchromesh on 1st, and needed to know how to double-declutch. I still
do it (although the actual accuracy my rev matching is rather
questionable!). With some cars I could drive without using the clutch
(very useful when, say, the hydraulics had failed - although starting
off and stopping was a bit scary) - but modern cars won't let you do this.
On 28/05/2022 13:53, Ian Jackson wrote:change gear without anything worse than a satisfying 'clunk'!
In message <t6rh83$rqb$1@dont-email.me>, Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> writes
Re double de-clutching ...
On 27/05/2022 18:43, MB wrote:
On 27/05/2022 16:55, NY wrote:
 It is surprising how quickly you get used to it, I think our first couple of Land Rovers at work needed it.master that skill deserves much kudos.Anyone who can
Yes, in the days I worked on farms, it was considered best practice to DDC tractors. That is to say, they had a 'crash' gearbox, so could take a bashing, but I was taught to DDC by the farm's foreman, and when you got it just about right you could
using the clutch (very useful when, say, the hydraulics had failed - although starting off and stopping was a bit scary) - but modern cars won't let you do this.60 years ago I learned to drive on a car with (deliberately) no synchromesh on 1st, and needed to know how to double-declutch. I still do it (although the actual accuracy my rev matching is rather questionable!). With some cars I could drive without
I learnt to drive on a 1948 Morris ambulance. I always double declutch. Very useful for steep hills and that. I heel and toe as well. I've never worn a clutch out. When I bought my (1990) tractor the young bloke said, "Don't try to change gear whileyou're moving coz it can't be done. Select a gear and ratio then set off." I found that I could change gear whilst moving with no trouble.
Bill (smug)
On 17/11/2021 21:26, Java Jive wrote:
[For obvious reasons, this is a deliberate cross-post.]
Many people in these ngs over the last year or two have been kind
enough to help me with useful advice as I have struggled to scan my
way through a trunkful of family documents going back to a parchment
(animal skin) from the reign of Queen Anne. While not yet complete
(will it ever be?), a major milestone has been reached today with the
release of an archive to the general public. For those interested,
it's here:
http://www.macfh.co.uk/Macfarlane/FamilyHistory/FamilyHistory.shtml
Thanks again to all who have contributed their advice.
Currently at my brother's, picking up the next batch of work on this (about the same gargantuan amount again, I fear!), and one of the first things I find is the following old-fashioned joke printed on a slip of paper:
 "If your wife wants to learn to drive, don't stand in her way."
"Java Jive" <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote in message news:t6qiki$s3j$1@dont-email.me...
[Lest anyone mistakenly think I subscribe to this view, my mother was
a WAAF driving instructor during WW2, and was the best driver in the
family. I have made for our private use a map of the places we have
photos of taken during Scottish holidays, the southernmost ones are
Edinburgh and Dalry, the northernmost Gruinard Bay, featuring almost
everywhere in between, though not the east coast, and of course we
usually drove up from southern England to get there. Only now does it
strike me how many hundreds of miles Ma, and later my stepfather, must
have driven on these family holidays.]
And she'll have been taught (and taught others) to drive vehicles with
no synchromesh, and therefore to perform double-declutching. Anyone who
can master that skill deserves much kudos. Nowadays it is impossible to
learn true DDC to non-synchromesh standards because (virtually) all cars
on the road today have synchromesh on all gears so you have no way of
knowing whether or not you have matched the engine and gearbox speeds sufficiently accurately for the gear to engage. No matter what you do,
you can always *engage* any gear - you could engage first at 70, as long
as you don't let the clutch up!!!!! Good drivers try to match the speeds
when bringing up the clutch *after* the gear had successfully engaged,
so both plates are going at the same speed, but that's a very different thing. Clutchless gearchanges can be mastered, but in that case you have instant feedback: until you reach the matching speed, the gear will not engage; once you reach the right speed it slips in. In DDC, you are
doing it offline: you have to hope that the engine speed is correct,
then disengage the engine (so you've no way of making minor tweaks), and
if it doesn't work you have to let the clutch up, tweak the engine
speed, declutch and try again: effectively you've got a system with a
delay in its feedback loop.
I did once have the misfortune to be a passenger in a car driven by
someone who had been driving for probably 20 years (she was not a new
driver) and she had the habit of coming right off the power, engaging
the new gear, letting the clutch up on an idling engine (with one hell
of a lurch!) and then applying power. I'd only been driving a few years
but I'd been taught the rudiments of rev-matching by my instructor (ex
police Class 1 instructor) who was keen to show newly-passed drivers how
to do it "properly". Should I say anything? After she apologised after a particularly bad lurch, I very tactfully suggested that maybe there was another way (I avoided the word "better"!) which might reduce the
lurches. She thought it was her car and asked me to drive to see.
Allowing for a couple of minutes to get used to a strange car's clutch
bite point and graunchy gear-selection, I drove it "differently" and she
was mystified. Without saying "this is how you should do it", I
described what I did, and there was a wonderful moment of realisation
and frustration "Ah, I didn't know you could do that". Without a
rev-counter, it's a bit more difficult to judge the correct engine speed (with my present car I know that each change of gear is roughly an increase/decrease of 500 rpm) but you can still do it my engine note -
at the very least keep the engine revs constant, and ideally increase
when changing down or decrease when changing up... anything but let the engine revs fall to idling and let the clutch up on a "dead" engine.
There was an age and seniority issue (she was my manager) which is why I
was bending over backwards to be tactful and to avoid her feeling silly.
Next time I rode with her, she was fine, and she joked that she'd been practicing. So it wasn't "typical woman driver" - it was just that she
had been taught very badly and had never experimented with doing things differently to what she'd been taught. She was a people manager rather
than an engineer - maybe my scientific/engineering background made me
more likely to experiment "what if".
I did once have the misfortune to be a passenger in a car driven by
someone who had been driving for probably 20 years (she was not a new
driver) and she had the habit of coming right off the power, engaging
the new gear, letting the clutch up on an idling engine (with one
hell of a lurch!) and then applying power. I'd only been driving a
few years but I'd been taught the rudiments of rev-matching by my
instructor (ex police Class 1 instructor) who was keen to show
newly-passed drivers how to do it "properly". Should I say anything?
After she apologised after a particularly bad lurch, I very tactfully suggested that maybe there was another way (I avoided the word
"better"!) which might reduce the lurches. She thought it was her car
and asked me to drive to see. Allowing for a couple of minutes to get
used to a strange car's clutch bite point and graunchy
gear-selection, I drove it "differently" and she was mystified.
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