Kids today don't know that until quite recently if you turned on the TV and you didn't get any picture, you could give the thing a firm slap on the side and it would work.
this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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I miss the times where I just put my favorite cassette in a random player and heard an audio play for the night, without needing Spotify and searching for a specific episode
And I'm 19
I miss cassettes and vinyl records only for nostalgia's sake. Realistically, they were a BITCH to handle and store with questionable lifetimes and middling audio quality.
I don't miss cassettes, getting eaten by the player in the car and impossible to get out without snapping the tape. Tapes of any kind are subject to being gobbled up by the player, looking at you VHS.
I miss albums, they were cool to look at, but only a few of mine survived. My music is all digital these days.
The VHS was a bastard on an entirely different level. My cousin lost his The Empire Strikes Back tape because a roller got stuck and the tape got twisted around the reader head.
Should've used a Betamax. /s
Never had problems with handling them, and analog quality is better for most purposes.
I grew up with analog audio, and still have most of my dad's late 70s "high tech" equipment, about a hundred vinyl records (mostly 33s with a few 45s), and several boxes of audio cassettes. Given the chance... I wouldn't go back. That era had some severe issues that we just had to deal with because it was the best that contemporary technology could offer.
- Magnetic tapes have a finite shelf life. If not stored in a dry and cool place, the polyurethane tape absorbs moisture, which ruins the binder and the ferromagnetic coating falls off. Eventually the tape itself disintegrates.
- Magnetic tapes are susceptible to mechanical damage, they naturally stretch, and they can scratch if the rollers are dirty.
- They are also obviously vulnerable to electromagnetic fields.
- Playback quality is strongly dependent on the recording equipment, the magnetic medium's quality, and the playback device.
- Even though the compact cassette is the icon of media sharing, copying is never 1:1 and always incurs a loss in quality.
- The best achievable audio quality can't physically reach the quality of most digital recordings because of the granularity/resolution of the medium and the noise introduced by the pickup and amplifier circuits. The same is true for vinyl records: the superior audio quality is just a myth.
I loved analog audio recordings when they were relevant, but there are good reasons why magnetic tapes are obsolete, and why we largely skipped the CED and LaserDisc and moved on to CDs and digital audio with their own unique issues.
In the theoretical sense, digital sound files have over double the potential dynamic range of the best cassette tape or vinyl. CDs are better, but still well below what can be done with digital files.
The issue is that most digital formats are so compressed that they end up with 1/10th the dynamic range of a cassette tape.
So its more like analog is “better” only because we need to improve storage and up/down speeds before we can truly enjoy how much better digital can be compared to analog. Its just not practical yet
I did the lamp thing once. The temp went up to 42 Celsius, and my mom thought I was dying. She wanted to call the ambulance, and I had to come clean. Fun times.
She knew
She probably did and was basically calling my bluff. Either way, it worked, and I crumbled like the liar I was.
Close to the edge of believable. Pretty sure I hit 106F as a kid once. 107F is bordering on dain bramage.
I had an ice bath once at 107, shit, and I don't even remember why
The memory was burned out of you.
I think 103 is the safety limit
Wait is that true? I hit 104 like once every 3 months. I've been having regular fevers every month or so since I was like 7 and every couple times they get baaaad.
Skill issue. I practiced and was able to hit 38-39 °C consistently.
My sister and I shared a room at one point, and she decided to improvise a wax melt by sticking a tube a Cherry Dr Pepper chapstick to our lamp.
The smell never left the room.
My kids love the original Tom and Jerry and watched it on you tube. Then they watched the modern remake and they hated it. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Wait til the OP learns about the Easy Bake Oven.
You mean hotboxing weed in a tiny car?
How did that feel as a rectal thermometer?
Took me too long to understand why.
Pfffftttt. the real trick is to put ice cubes in your underarms for a few minutes before they checked your temp.
This is a new one for me. Doing this makes your internal tempt go higher?
I'm in college rn and i grew up not understanding that until i asked one time while watching a movie.
There are no commercial breaks, if you know what you're doing.
But that's the least obvious one, I have to explain telephones to my kids.
What's cartoons? Is he on TikTok?
dO kIdS eVeN wAtCh cArToOnS
Yes, if their parents go out of their way to find them.
There's no incentive to watch something as long and sometimes deep as cartoons, when Andrew Tate or PoliticalTruth88 can fake acknowledgement, a perspective and a community for them with 30 second clips.