Re: i am looking for someone to teach me about pyrotechnics privately in my general aria

Harry,

I'll not beat this horse any further. If it is your position that
"anything goes" where language is concerned then so be it. But you'll
not soon escape the reality that people do form judgments about others
and language, again and again, tends to be the pivot upon which those
judgments are made.

And yes, the content of one's speech, that forever echo of their minds,
does indeed count ... a sobering thought, yes?

Tom C.



hhc314@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Hi again Tom,

I'm sorry of the straight talk in my two preceeding posts offended you
sensibilities, but I simply tell it like I see it.

And yes, I do still wear a starched dress shirt and conservative attire
when visiting clients when I am paid in the role of a consultant. This
is not because, in your words it is expected of a "premium" brand, but
simply to show respect for the clients.

Also, yes, when submitting formal articles to a respected professional
journal, one employs a grammar and spelling checker, plus has the
"Chicago Manual of Style" laying to the side, available for quick
reference.

Then too, here I am not writing for either the "Physics Review" or "The
Review of Scintific Instruments." This is a Usenet Newsgroup, where
style is traded off for immediacy, and clever writing falls second to
simple and honest writing...and has since day 1 of Usenet when we all
will still hammering away using ASR-33 teletype to make our posts.

Now while I spent only a few years working for Kodak before starting my
own business, I do recall that the major engineering issues at Lincoln
Plant were never resolved within the very polite and gentile Kodak
meeting rooms, but actually took place after work in a bar called "The
Loser's Club" or in that German restaurant, both on Lyell Avenue in
Rochester, where professional could freely speak their minds with one
another to resolve the serious issues on Lunar Orbiter, and the R and K
projects. If was at one of these off-site technical meetings that it
was realized that the project then called "F" couldn't possibly be made
to provide the resolving capability that had been sold...and if you
will recall back around the spring of 1969, that project was cancelled
and something like 1,200 Kodak workers lost their jobs. Before that
time, most of us on the design engineering staff had already seen the
handwriting on the wall and had jumped ship, leaving the poor guys that
had foolishly bought into Mother Yellow's very polite
misrepresentations that landed to their surprise out on the streets of
Rochester.

Not being a saleman or a marketing guy, I learned that you can get in a
great deal of trouble for yourself and your family when you deal with
people who cannot speak freely and candidly. Hence my developed
distrust for anyone who feels a need to polish their words too
carefully. It may be uncomfortable for you to hear this issue raised,
but despite their illusion of being a "premium brand", you may want to
ask yourself why it is that Kodak goes to such great efforts to conceal
the nature of their corporate history?

I loved my years in Rochester with General Railway Systems, and later
my 15 years with Raytheon. Neither of these two firms pretended that
they were a "premium brand", although both dominated their respective
areas of industry and accomplished great things. Still, it was not
uncommon to hear profanities used during meetings, and no one took any
great notice of this fact. Image meant nothing. Results meant
everything.

Tom, I truly mean no disrespect to you in posting things like this. I
simply like to tell things as I see them, with little window dressing.
Today professionals do go to work in blue jeans, although I still wear
a coat and tie when I'm making a presentation to the FAA or the Navy,
even though everyone else in the room is wearing either jeans or a
Uniform. Again, I do it not to present an image, but to show respect
for my customers. Any respect I get from them is based on the
information that I provided to them, not on my clothing.

Harry C.






fargowest@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Harry,

I'll not attempt to deal, point by point, with the two posts you
thought necessary as a response to my opinion even as the thicket you
left behind fairly begs for a stiff brush fire.

I spent 30 years with Kodak and worked in markets that would not
tolerate the kind of verbal conduct you describe (and advocate?). When
you deal, day in and day out with a public of laymen and highly skilled
professionals, a certain measure of decorum is expected. A "premium"
brand doesn't show up in blue jeans spouting epithets. Hypocrisy as you
see it, the stuff of everyday professional conduct in my view.

Your need to summon up a gay suicide named Eastman or the Jews at
Raytheon falls outside of my bandwidth and my sense of ordinary decency
- even as your assertions are utterly beside the point. Attempting to
brand a person who disgrees with you as ignorant is, for most otherwise
reasonable people, a sure sign that the conversation, such as it is,
has ended.

Your assertion that "anyone" can run their posts through a spelling
and/or grammar checker is revealing: I'd rather deal with someone who
cares enough about their written communications to do so than with a
person who doesn't appear to give a damn. Or is it a matter of not
knowing any better?

Like it or not Harry, we're all marked by our language ... even as some
of the language you chose to use in your last two posts in this thread
do surely mark you.

Nibble a bit more ... but do try to remain civil.

Tom C.



hhc314@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Tom, just as an afterthough, relaize that the corporate culture between
Mother Yellow (Kodak) and Raytheon was very different.

Kodak place a great deal of emphasis on appearance, while Raytheon
placed little attention on appearance and focused on performance.

I would have to say that Raytheon was far more similar to your example
of SA (or is it now called something else like maybe SAS than was
Kodak.

Kodak cared very much about superficial appearances, while Raytheon did
not. Kodak was so obsessed about appearances that the have effectively
suppressed every attempt at anyone publishing a history of Kodak,
partially because George Eastman was gay, had ripped of the basis of
Kodak's technologies from an English physical chemist, plus the fact
that George Eastman was a hipocite beyond camparison. At the time I
worked for them circa 1965, so far as I know or saw, they had not one
employee of color.

Raytheon, being founded by a bunch of clever guys from largely MIT,
really couldn't care less about appearances, and focused on
accomplishment. Likely, its founders would be hard pressed to write
even a coherent paragraph with correct spelling...still they managed to
grow the firm into the largest employer in Massachusetts. In contrast
to many firms back in those days, Raytheon had no color tests on it's
employees, and in fact the very best digital processing guy that they
had working for them was both black and hispanic.

Tom, the point of all of this is that anyone can polish up their posts
simply by running them though a grammer checker and spelling program,
but when they do so, a good bit of their (for want of a better word)
personaity is lost. Don't know about you, but I would refer to discuss
fireworks with a group of people that simply post, and not like a bunch
of car saleman, work to appear sophisticated.

I don't know about you, but when I run across a post that is so slick
that it it is oviously something that came out of a word processor, my
guard goes up immediately.

Harry C.






fargowest@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Harry,

This sidebar (regarding language and its use) causes me to recall a
story that was once told about a since-retired CEO of Scandinavian
Airlines. According to the tale, this CEO would sometimes showup
unannounced at one of his airline's gates (different cities and dates)
and enter one of his aircraft just before his paying passengers were
allowed onboard. He would examine the seats and their condition, the
cleanliness of the lavatories, the state of the carpeting beneath his
feet; he would check ashtrays, the appearance of "clean" drinking
glasses, the condition of magazines, etc.

Asked why he would "waste" his time on such trivial QC, he responded
that if a passenger discovers small details not properly attended to
was it not entirely reasonable for those passengers to wonder then
about the timeliness and completion of larger and more important (and
largely unseen) maintenance issues?

You and I (and others) can hem and haw about how well that kind of
logic flows but from a passenger's point of view, I suspect he's mostly
dead-on.

Ergo, I tend to favor LK's perspective on this point ... even as I'm
sometimes guilty of the same sloppy language sin. There is the point
that holds that sloppy language tends to denote sloppy thought. And in
almost any pyrotechic venture, what fate awaits him who makes a habit
of sloppy thought?

Yours to nibble upon!

Tom C.



hhc314@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Kate, you raise a good point. Still it is the content of the post, more
so than the grammar and spelling that defines the poster.

Realize, this is Usenet. (Be sure that you comprehend what this
implies.)

Actually, the exact composition of any given post will give you a
pretty good idea of the age of the poster, his or her background,
experience and education. Sometimes this is a useful bit of
intelligence to have prior to responding.

Both my wife an I are originally from New Jersey, where there is a
particularly unique pattern to speaking, and dropping 'G' from the end
of a word. Then we moved to the Boston area, where the prevailing
language dropps the 'R' from words...leading to things like "paark the
ca in the side yaad" and "The Havaad Yaad". This is the King's English
of South Boston...which it took me a year here to understand.

So Kate, just a mere nudge from the Wouff Hong, when you comment on the
way that people speak and spell, it reflect a bit of povencialism on
your part. Reverting to my native languate, it is sorta like the way an
Italian fellow travelor was treated in Springfield, MO, when the
waitresses congregatd on him because he was of dark, Italian
complexion, and his name was Sam Latone.

Quite honestly, the two very worst places in the US to ever visit are
Springfield, MO and Tulsa, OK. The people that live in these two towns
are so provincial that it defies imagination. Then too, the center of
culture in Tulsa is "Oral Roberts University".

Kate, you make great posts on fireworks, but please don't by
ctiticizing any poster's language and grammar, unintentionally lablel
yourself as a clueless, provincial, ignorant person.

Some posters on rec.pyrotechnics are very fastidious in the composition
of their posts, and some even use spell and grammar checkers. Still,
that is not in keeping with the nature and intention of the medium.
It's a real time interactive medium, and if you have to compose your
posts off-line, then you totally loose the spirit and flavor of Usenet.

Now if I were posting off-line, I likely would have deleted my comments
about Springfield and Tulsa, but posting on-line in real time I don't
have that luxury.

Harry C.




LadyKate wrote:
jakowako2 wrote:
am looking for someone to teach me about pyrotechnics privately in my
general aria
i live in heartfordshire, england, weston near (boldok)
and i have not seen many places within an houres drive.
the only surviving firework manufactuars i know of are:
1.kimbolton fireworcks
2.one in the back of an wheel chair shop (i found this quite funy)
3.and one near to woking next to a catory and dog breeders (i also
found this rather funy)
4.and some peoples freind who we were considering using for our own
personal display as he had done many profesional one in the past
(regretably i dont know his name but i will folow this up in the near
future)

i realy want to become an active part of this amazing exhilarating art
of fireworck making and launching

but i do need to find some-one with past experiance in the chimicles
and proceses

i have posted a similar post some time ago in a diferent forum whith
only the reply of "forget it if you have no books on the subdject"

i have spend mutch of my time memorising and studying all maner of
things i need to know and in doing so i found this forum

ps. i would like to thank all the people here on this forum even if you
were not a major part of it for making it sutch an interesting place to
read/post/enjoy

There are a number of English pyros on this NG but you might have
better luck with UKr which is located in England.
http://www.ukrocketry.co.uk/forum/index.php?act=idx

Many of us are casual writers (especially me) but when we write about
pyrotechnics, we are more careful. Do spell checks on your posts before
you upload and your message will get a more positive result.
Pyrotechnic discussions require a higher level of precision than
day-to-day emails or texting. Therefore, many get upset when there are
lots of spelling errors or grammar errors. A quick spell check will
make people think you are serious about the details.

Good luck.

.

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