[Coco] The Best quote I've seen in a while

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 05 February 2020 17:56:39 James C. Hrubik wrote:

> Me laff,too, Gene.  I used to have to administer those things.  Wonder
> how many HS grads can actually score above the bottom nowadays  :^ ).
>
Few Jim.  Story time.

I got a job, good for a year after the titan one turnkey around RCSD, or 
more precisely EAFB. Maintaining the portal door cameras at the sites.

Nearly 6 months into it, the guy who had the contract, I was just hired 
help, and who only showed up on payday, announced he had a new job and 
was leaving but he would keep on paying. Mentioned in passing that the 
contract also included teaching 4 flaps how to do it when I was gone.

So he went to the major and arranged 4 flaps to be at my disposal for the 
remainding 6 months.  I thought, great and spent the next 4 days or so 
writing up a multiple choice test designed to find out what these kids 
knew, so I at least had an idea where to start,

Passed it out the next Monday morning when they arrived. 125 questions 
that reached all the way to the then state of the art. One of the kids 
was black, the other 3 were lighter. He was done it about an hour, the 
other 3 never got past 40 or 50 and they were obviously just guessing.

The black boy missed one!

About a week later, while I had the other 3 figure eighting a thousand 
feet of 1" diameter camera cable in the van as they were going to do a 
dummy launch at one of the sites the next day, I asked why he was 
playing sax at the nco club every night instead of putting his obvious 
talent to work as an E.T. Playing the sax, and he was good, anything 
Boots Randolph could do, he could do better. He said "that is what I 
want to do". I didn't argue with him. This was '61, and colored were 
still 2nd class critters to the other 90% of the population.

Moral? Don't ever judge anyone by the color of his suit. But then that's 
how I was taught 80+ years ago.

When I was doing the ET scene at Rays House of Hifi a year later, one of 
his drinking buddy's was admiring a new color tv just starting to ship, 
and Ray, already half lit at 11am, was demoing the hue control. His 
buddy was about as black as they come, and when Ray said to adjust the 
hue for best face tones, the guy said you'd have a hellovatime with my 
face, with a chuckle. I didn't know it then, but to a tv camera, 
watching its output on a vectorscope in the station control room, there 
is NO difference between a black face and a white face, they are quite 
precisely the same color on the vectorscope.  They aren't as bright, but 
the color vector is identical. Getting into tv broadcasting another year 
later, I've had to demo that fact to a lot of folks who got nervous near 
a Negro.

Gotta go put on my chefs hat and do something for dinner.

> They can try — https://stanfordbinettest.com/
>
> On Feb 4, 2020, at 7:00 PM, Gene Heskett <gheskett at shentel.net> wrote:
> > On Tuesday 04 February 2020 16:15:53 pfitchjr at bellsouth.net wrote:
> >> "Teaching sand to think was a mistake..."
> >
> > ROTFLMAO!  And I'm inclined to agree, but our technological progress
> > since has been pretty close to a vertical line, and generally
> > speaking we are better off for it.
> >
> > Actually, we did that first with glass and metal. First "computer" I
> > ever saw had 12,000 12AU7 vacuum tubes in it. 1954 or 55 IIRC. Tied
> > to a modified Harris streaming printing press, which was used to
> > drag the test sheets past the photocells that read the dots, it was
> > grading the Iowa version of the S/B IQ test. At about 4 test sheets
> > a second. Designed and built by the engineering school at SUI in
> > Iowa City.
> >
> > Cheers, Gene Heskett
>
> -----
> A leader is someone who walks
> out front and takes the hits for
> the people who are behind him.
> "Leading from the rear" is oxymoronic.
> — — Sayings of Grandpa Jim, c. 2018 —


Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>