Flashpoint

[yogi]

The end is near for Adobe Flash Player. I ran across an interesting alternative that might be helpful if you are not already familiar with it:

https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/

[Kellemora]

There are many Flash alternatives out there. But the only think I do that uses Flash is the Farm Town game, and they are building their own engine for it. So the game will be HTML5 starting January 1. They've already released it in HTML5 form for some of the testing players and it seems to be working very well, faster than on flash, but they also have many of the features turned off on the testing version. Some of the testers said it is slower than the flash version, but did say that is because the code is not condensed yet. It's the condensed version that is faster than on flash, which is tested by a few others who say it screams.

There are programs they tried to convert their Flash game to HTML5 but apparently it is buggy as all get out, so they are rewriting portions of the code for HTML5 that the conversion program messed up. But it still needed a game engine to run on, and that is what they wrote first.

[yogi]

I've not attempted to use Flashpoint but it seems to be an alternative to Flash that works on web based games. It doesn't seem possible for HTML of any kind to be capable of doing what Flash does. One of the security issues with Flash is that you need to relinquish control of the OS to it for short periods of time. That doesn't happen in HTML, and apparently somebody came up with safe ways to mimic what Flash is doing. I knew that if there is a good solution to the Flash problem, Facebook would be the group to refine it. Their livelihood depends on people playing games there.

[Kellemora]

Although I've never even looked into how it is done, but apparently Flash was a multi-level, multi-tiered graphical platform, much more powerful than any other graphical program, and was multi-user as well.
I'm sure they had their own programming methods and utilities.
And it's own display program to show the results of the programming underneath it all.

HTML5 graphics is merely a display program. And the CANVAS program to use with it would be a nightmare to try and do any type of game with.
I messed with Canvas a couple of times just to see if I could do something more interesting with the logo on my author page. It's basically looks like a piece of leather with stitching around the border, and then two initials with raised embossing. It would take over 20 pages of code to do something that simple using Canvas.
I could do it with out a few images using a GIF program, using less than a single page of GIF commands.

I do agree that Flash does have way to many back doors for hackers to get in through, and it gives them access to things nobody want them to gain access to.

[yogi]

The video processing in PC's is pretty straight forward, but it is indeed limited in what it can do. As you pointed out, Flash is, well, flashy. It can force your video processor to do things that normally would not be possible. Look at it as what you were doing with PEEKs and POKEs in BASIC. Nobody else could do what you were doing because they used the given instruction set. PEEK and POKE use direct memory addressing and give you access to places the normal BASIC commands cannot. Something similar was going on with Flash, which is what gave it all it's utility and usefulness. It also opened up a can of worms which eventually proved fatal.


And, to go off on a tangent, I will tell you that the thought of replacing one of our two automobiles has been the topic of discussion for several months now. We more or less have been very pleased with the company called CARMAX back up in Chicago, but they are not as conveniently located down here in Missouri. Plus, there is this pandemic thing that makes visiting a showroom somewhat risky. Regardless, wife has been looking and today found something we both can agree on. The car is physically located in Country Club Hills, Illinois, which is a southern suburb of Chicago. CARMAX always had the policy of moving cars to the nearest location if you were interested in looking it over, and that is the case with this one. However, they added one more option to the menu that will deliver the car to our driveway for our inspection. This is good in that we don't have to go to the showroom and interact with a lot of potential virus carriers. I can see why CARMAX would agree to this kind of thing too, and it's not just a matter of good PR. Once they bring the car to your home it would be very difficult to not buy it. LOL We'll see how this plays out. Stay tuned for future details.

[Kellemora]

I surprised myself some times with the things I could with the old Apple computers.
I even figured out how to copy a spiraled disk, which was an early form of making disks not copyable.
Shame I couldn't learn the more useful programming codes and methods. I may have had a totally different life.

Nearly every car my dad every bought, he did so over the telephone, sight unseen, and they delivered it to him.
He bought most of the delivery trucks for the florist in the same way too.
Hey may not have liked the color of one he got, but took it anyhow, for the simple fact you mentioned. They were there with it and the paperwork for him to sign, hi hi.
Back in those days, the car dealer had a little tricycle motorcycle that would simply connect to the back bumper so they had a way to get back to the dealership. They all had this big box on the back for hauling stuff in too. I think every car dealer had one or more of these on hand.

Used cars often have a 2 grand markup from dealers, so they can afford to bring it to you.
I used to buy only new cars until the prices became unreasonably high.
After I wrecked my 1997 Blazer, I spent a year looking for another one just like it.
Managed to find one at a used car lot in Jefferson City, TN.
Since it hadn't sold, they already had it slated to sell wholesale. Otherwise it would have cost me 3 grand instead of only 1600 bucks. I still have it, 211,000 miles and it runs perfect, knock on simulated wood grain.

I did have one issue with the snow and ice.
I took Debi to work and the 4-wheel drive worked perfectly, worked great on the way home and then later when I went to pick her up. But when I got ready to back up the driveway, the darn hubs would not lock. This is common on Blazers of that era. I had to replace the vacuum that pulled the cable to the hubs at least once every 5 years, and always in the winter when it gets cold and that thin diaphragm cracks as it wears thing from a metal plate inside rubbing it.
I swung by the repair shop the other day and asked him to order that part for me and install it.
I even told him to replace it, even if the old one works just fine, and check the hoses from the transmission if necessary.
My original Blazer somehow got water in the vacuum lines to the transmission, so the 4-wheel drive worked just fine when it was above freezing, but let it drop below freezing and they wouldn't kick in. Then after car warmed up, I guess the heat from the engine allowed them to thaw back out again and the 4-wheel would start working again.
I crawled under the car and blew air through those hoses, the filled them with alcohol and blew that through right as I reconnected them. Never ever had another problem with those hoses. But as I said, that vacuum solenoid would go bad about once every 5 years. They used to be only 20 to 25 bucks, now they are 70 bucks. Oh, the repair shop who normally has a flat rate of 137 bucks, he only charged me 30 bucks this time to fix my car, plus the cost of the part.

[yogi]

I only bought new cars for the longest time. My rationale was that the overall costs of ownership were less given that I had fewer repairs the first few years. The argument against new cars is the depreciation that kicks in the moment you drive it off the lot. To me that didn't matter. I intended to keep the cars I bought until they reached 100k miles and by that time they had very little, if any, resale value. Buying used is almost an immediate expense for repairing something that was about to go when the previous owner disposed of it. LOL

As far as the car we were drooling over at CARMAX goes, they sold it almost immediately. It was a 2015 Buick with 36,000 miles on it; I'm not surprised it went so fast.

It's a shame the Blazer is giving you trouble when you need it the most. But, then, it was something predictable and not a surprise to you. I used to drive more than half the 30 miles to work on one of those notorious Chicago expressways. In fair weather it was crowded but everybody knew the rules and traffic moved along seamlessly, if not slowly at times. I'd find myself laughing during winter when the expressway was gridlocked and nobody was going anywhere. Those guys with tires on their vehicles that came above my door windows and which were 4WD were sitting in traffic just like me with my 13" wheels on my front wheel drive car. LOL

[Kellemora]

Not counting the on-property cars I had access to, and a couple I restored and called my own.
When I started my Sophomore year, my first year at a public school, I bought a 62 BelAire in 1964 from a nurse, it was only a 6 cyl w/powerglide. I paid her 600 bucks for it. 600 bucks was my magic number for a few years.
In 1965 I bought a brand new Corvair after they changed the suspension system like was used on the early models. It was not driven as a Demo first, but had a deep scratch on right rear quarter-panel, they said was from the car-hauler truck. I traded in a '60 Impala and the 62 BelAire on the Corvair, the price I owed was, you guessed it 600 bucks, hi hi. I only kept it like 6 months, didn't really like it, besides, I wanted a Muscle Car.
Traded it in on a 66 Impala 396 SS with 4-speed transmission. The Impala was brand new, but had 8,000 miles put on it by the salesmen driving it around. I traded in the Corvair, plus put 600 dollars down, and had a car loan for 800 bucks.
I drove this car for about 6 months, then decided it was time to get it beefed up. I sent it to Nicky in Chicago to have the engine bored out to a 406, blue-printed and balanced with Jahn's 13-1 dome pistons and white sheet cam. From there it was sent to Hendrix auto body to have a ladder frame installed, and set up for racing.
Since it would be gone for about 4 months, I bought a 67 Camaro used with 14,000 miles on it. It had a 350 and 4-speed stick also. It ran great, but I wasn't winning any races with it. So kept it as a street car. I was able to finance the full purchase price of this car, using the Impala and Camaro as collateral, the original loan on the Impala was paid off to do that. I got the Impala back and was finally winning cash races with it.
I had a couple of guys who wanted to buy it, and on the way to sell it to one of them, I decided to race a Mustang on the street and ended up blowing the back axle out from under the car. It did considerable damage to the car. But a Valley Park body shop fixed it all back the way it was in about 2 weeks and the buyer still wanted it. With the money from this sale, I bought a brand new 68 Camaro already beefed to the hilt. Once again, my cash outlay was right at 600 bucks, but not on the nose, it was more like 618 dollars and some change. Blew the engine the first day at the track. We put a 1965 327 engine taken from a small cement mixer truck, added 350 mondello heads and overhead cam. Now it screamed and became my race car, the 1967 Camaro was used to pull it to the track. After someone hit the 67 Camaro in a parking lot, they flew off the highway into the parking lot, I started using the 68 beefed up Camaro as my daily car, complete with all the lettering still on it, hi hi.
That was the end of my reign of 600 dollar cars, hi hi.
I had also got married, and there went all my freedom and money, hi hi.

Blazers have that hub solenoid go out about once every five years. Easy to replace, it is just under the battery pan in the front of the car. The repair shop fixed it for me, and only charged me 30 bucks labor, plus 70 bucks for the part.
Even he felt guilty about his shop service rate of 137 bucks for such a fast and simple repair, so waived it, hi hi.
Not at all like the other guy I used to use who was a crook.

The only brand of car I've ever owned that nickled and dimed me to death were Kryzler products. Every one a Lemon.

[yogi]

You definitely would have been a fun fellow to hang around with in your racing days. While I've admired people who get involved with such things, it's always been too expensive for my pocketbook. I'm not sure how I'd like being the pilot either, although drag racing does seem fairly easy to master. I negotiated Chicago expressways for many years so that might have helped. LOL I know people who are really into NASCAR racing; seems like a southern kind of thing. Watching those races is like watching paint dry, and I'm an old fan of watching chess games. I suppose there is a lot more to the race than what is seen by the cameras on television, strategy and all. I just don't see how being under that kind of pressure for so long could be something a person would enjoy doing.

[Kellemora]

I used to drive stock cars, including hobby cars. I had a lot of fun doing it.
Didn't take much money to buy and old used junker, gut everything out of it, beef up the engine a bit, and join the circuit.
I learned figure 8 races were paying top dollar out at Viche, a track near Rolla, MO.
So that is where I was headed every weekend. I drove one car towing a car, and my wife drove another car towing a car, so I usually had two cars to use in the races. I doubt I had over 3 grand tied up in the two cars.
There are RULES for this type of racing, and when you get a few drivers mad at you, they break the rules and I dang near got killed. It scared me enough being trapped in a car with Allison Fuel dripping all over me, after being hit in the drivers side door, which was an absolute no-no in the rules.
I left both cars at the track, and after I showered and changed clothes, we drove home. I had never been in a stock car since that date.
But I still had the urge to race, and drag strips caught my attention once again.
I have been pitted against some fairly big names of the era. I beat Color Me Gone, and the Backup Pickup more than once, yet they are the ones who got in the magazines.

There was a small group who did a Thrill Show down at Lake Hill Speedway.
I was really good doing them, so got to drive twice with Tournament of Thrills when they were in town, and once with Thrillcade. I only did the same two stunts for both of them though, because neither had it as part of their regular show, and I had it so down pat, I could do a spin, and slide sideways in between two cars and always land on a dime. Can't really get hurt when you are the only one on the track at a time.
That being said, I rolled more cars over while I was learning to run up on two wheels, hi hi.
But once you get the weights set right, and learn the feel of the balance, heck then you could keep the car up on two wheels all the way around the oval. But I never got to do that with anyone other than our little group.

I also drove in three or four demolition derby's. Never won, even though I was using Chevy Nomad Station Wagons. They big boys blocked me in so I couldn't win, hi hi. I will say this about demo derby's, you are one sore dude the next day. My left shoulder, arm, and hip, and sometimes the outside of my left leg was bruised in many places. Even with the thick padding on that side of the uniform, and foam pads glued to the inside of the car. I never had a stiff neck though, like so many did. I attribute that to using the big Nomad gunboat! Heck, the radiator was a good foot and half back in the engine compartment in a Nomad, and the body was made of thicker steel than most cars of that era too. But then, all the cars back then used fairly thick steel too. Even so, they just bounced off a Nomad, hi hi.

[yogi]

Back in the days when O'Hare International was still a military ordinance base (with a few runways for planes to land) there was also a stock car race track on the premises. My uncle took the whole family to the races one weekend and it was the most thrilling show I've seen up to that point. One race was indeed a demolition derby, but the rest seemed pretty routine. That's my entire experience with racing automobiles. LOL

One of my friends who is a big NASCAR fan tells the same story that you mention. She says there are cliques of drivers that help each other out during the race. If you're not in the clique, you will often be one of those spectacular crashes that happen for unexplained reasons. I've watched a few of those crashes and was amazed to no end every time. The cars were totally demolished, flaming like Hell, and the driver walks away from it unharmed. Somebody put a LOT of effort into making those machines safe to drive.

Steel is a thing of the past for automobiles ever since good gas mileage was mandated. Weight was reduced every way possible which translated to thinner metal for making car bodies. Mom was attracted to Saturn because they didn't use metal. They would advertise that many dents from crashes could be popped out effortlessly by the owner. One day somebody did indeed back into the side of her Saturn. When the two gals got out to look it over, the paint was marred but nothing was bent out of shape. This only works for minor crashes, but still. That event alone saved a ton of money in repair bills.

[Kellemora]

We didn't have much in the way of safety equipment back in the late '60s early '70s. Although many of us wore a harness and helmet, plus a few wore the fire-stop face coverings.

90% of my stock car racing was at Lake Hill Speedway, an oval dirt track. Viche was also a dirt track. Then both were blacktopped at about the same time. That's when I got into hobby car racing. Jo, the pink n purple woman owner of Lake Hill banned me at least three different times, she claimed it was because I was doing too much damage to her walls, but really it was because I was winning too many times, during my hobby car era, hi hi. She would lift the ban when fans wanted me back. They loved to see my sparks hi hi.
If you don't know, a hobby car is the one with the long oval frame on the outside sides of the car.
On my passenger side, I used a long stainless steel plate that acted more or less like a spring. Instead of going into a curve high and dipping low as most drivers, I took the high side and stayed on the high side up against the wall at full throttle, and used the wall itself to keep me on the track. At Lake Hill the wall was railroad ties and concrete at the ends. You can't lose if you take the curves at full throttle, and when I got to the concrete area sparks would fly, hi hi
I have to admit, I had a lot of fun doing that too, hi hi. Although most of the other drivers got mad as hell at me.

Although they are not part of NASCAR, my cousin and I went to every Indy 500, and Daytona race for years.
We both quit going the day they called the race in the middle and declared a winner. Neither of us have been to another race, and never even watched them on TV. You can't just stop a race and declare a winner! And the only reason they stopped it was because of rain. If a 100,000 dollar car won't run in the rain, what good is it anyhow?

My Bricklin was made of plastic. I only kept it a couple of months before they agreed to take it back.
It all started with them sending me the wrong car to start with, and then it was falling apart right before my eyes in less than a week. They sent someone out to look at it, and after I told him about all the problems, he said he would see what he could do about it. Took them a couple of months, but they came and picked it up and gave all but about 200 bucks of my money back, maybe it was 400 dollars short, don't remember, that was a long time ago. It was a neat looking car, just a shame they screwed up so bad with it. Had the wrong engine in it when it was delivered, one I hated to start with and they knew it when I ordered the car. They said no problem getting the engine and drive train I wanted, since that was what they planned on putting in them starting on such n such a date anyhow. This is why I waited to get the car in the first place.

Had a friend who owned a Lamborghini, and he said it was a real hunk of junk. Didn't know how on earth it was even considered street legal. Even the plastic windshield was Pop-Riveted in place. Ugly as sin too! He bought it solely because it was made by Lamborghini, without knowing it was a concept car that never would go into production.
But like several who fall into a bucket of shit, he came out smelling like roses. He got the car cheap and sold it for super big bucks.

One of Debi's friends owned a Saturn and loved it, convinced another of her friends to get one, and she hated it. I think the reason was, the later did most of her driving on the highway going between Knoxville and Nashville, while the first only used hers around town.

[yogi]

I can understand the love/hate Saturn car owners experience. Mom was always interested in the latest and greatest automobiles. She was in fact one of the first people to own a Pacer, for example. The Saturn she had was suited well for her, but compared to the one I currently own hers was small and plain vanilla. She did some highway driving but nothing close to what I have done with my Saturn. Frankly I don't think her car would have been quite as comfortable on a long trip. Also, she didn't own the car for but a few months and she got a recall letter. It was not a major recall and only a few cars were involved. They never told her exactly what the recall was about, but, they replaced the entire engine. It was an odd situation because they granted her the full 50,000 mile warranty on the new engine and on the rest of the car too. But the start dates were different. LOL If that was my car it would have been replaced immediately after the recall. Mom kept it until she died.

There is no comparison between NASCAR and stock car racing. I don't need to tell you that. NASCAR is an organization whose sole purpose in life is to ... maximize its profits. That's why you see them on television and not stock car racing. Since they make up the rules for the race, they can change them too. I've heard of many races that were delayed and or suspended due to a wet track, but I can't recall any where a winner was declared before the race ended. Obviously, somebody was owed some cash, and they HAD to be paid.

For many years I wanted to own a Lambo. Some guy in a neighboring suburb owned one and was offering rides (as passengers) to any interested parties. The price for a 20 minute ride was steep and I don't recall exactly what it was. Seems like over $100. Apparently he had a lot of interested people paying him to ride in his car. It was not an inexpensive car and it was well made. Those concept cars are nothing more than models and I'm surprised they even made one to be driven. Apparently they are good investments.

[Kellemora]

I guess you figured out my grandpa on my dad's side never traded a vehicle in during his entire lifetime.
He drove them for as long as he could, at which time he considered them unsafe to drive, and parked them in the barns or in the stables after we no longer had horses.
After one of the barns burned down, Uncle Clarence having to pay to have all that steel hauled off, decided to auction off all the cars in the next barn down the road. It was amazing the amount of money he got for them too.
This left only the stables. This is where I got the old truck I learned to drive in, and later the 1946 Ford Deluxe I fixed up as my first car.

In 1976, after only 255 laps, the Indy 500 race was called off and a winner declared.
No refunds were returned to the spectators for only seeing half a race.
That ended my trips to Indianapolis and Daytona.

I don't know if the original owner after Lambo is who put an engine and drive train into it or not, but I don't think so.
But he was sure proud to have it, hi hi.
That being said, my Uncle Herb had a few Fords that were concept cars with hydraulic drive trains.
He let me drive both. The first was very dangerous to drive, but the second was more like a regular car, just sound weird as heck though, because the speed of the engine was controlled by the pressure in the tanks.
I think I talked about this second car once before.

I think I also mentioned the time I drove in the Mobil Economy Run.
That was NOT a fun trip, hi hi.

[yogi]

Yes you did mention your grandpa's car collection in the past. I've heard a few stories about people restoring cars and who found what they needed in some old farmer's barn. LOL Those restoration dudes have money galore and would certainly pay whatever it takes to get parts for their project. It's always amazing to hear about some car nearly 100 years old still exists in somebody's corn field.

I'm a little surprised that concept cars are readily available. It seemed to me that those were experiments and not necessarily intended to be driven. They were for show only. I've been to a few auto shows when I lived in Chicago and have been up front and personal with some of those great looking concept models. The cars were pretty nice too.

You did indeed tell the story of the cars you drove with hydrolic transmissions. If these forums were actually organized by topic, I could find that story quickly and reread it.

[Kellemora]

Of all the cars grandpa had in the far end barn, he only kept one covered, and that was his 1912 or '13 Moon. He bought it the same year he incorporated the florist. Moon automobiles and trucks were built in St. Louis from around 1905 a year after the worlds fair, and up until somewhere between 1929 to 1932.
I had always hoped to get that car, but it was promised to cousin George long before the fire. The sad thing was, he wasn't interested in it, but wouldn't let his brother Robert have it either, hi hi.

Most concept cars, from what I understand, are merely just the bodies. Rarely did they even have an interior.
Perhaps calling the pre-production cars concept cars is a mistake but still used by those selling them.
Both of the hydraulic cars uncle Herb drove were called concept cars too, but they too were pre-production cars that never made it into production. I really do think the second one he had would have been a great economical car too, for that era anyhow.

When I worked at McDonnell-Douglas, in one of the large hangars, they had around 8 to 10 fuselage designs they were not happy with for one reason or another. I imagine they were sold as scrap aluminum, but one never knows do they.

[yogi]

I recall reading an article about a bread toaster that had only two sides which were transparent. The idea was for you to keep toasting until you could see the shade of bread that you liked, then stop the process. It was an amazing toaster and I wanted one regardless of the cost. Upon further research I discovered that there is no such thing. It was a computer generated picture depicting an interesting concept. The problem is finding some material that remains transparent after you heat it up enough to toast bread.

When I was in high school GM had a contest for the school's seniors. A scholarship was being offered to the student that came up with the best design for a future Corvette. A model had to be made using specific dimensions, and I don't recall the other requirements but they all were about the same size. Nobody from our school won the scholarship, but GM won big time. They now had in their possession concept models of cars that future buyers would be interested in purchasing.

The bottom line is that concepts do not have to be functional even if they are reproduced in solid form. I know that Motorola made several uniquely styled cell phones for us technical types and marketing guys to field test. None of them ever were put into production. While these were truly concept phones, they would have easily fit the pre-production paradigm as well. It turns out that the marketing people were the ones who decided if a phone would be manufactured or not. It didn't matter if the engineers thought it was a bad design or production figured it was impossible to assemble. Whatever marketing wanted was the last word.

[Kellemora]

Wait a minute, I have seen a clear ceramic toaster myself for sale before. It had a safety feature where if you removed the glass panels for cleaning it would shut off power to the toaster. The rest of the cover was still made of stainless steel though. It was only about 50 bucks more than a regular production toaster.

My first wife had some clear glass cooking pots n pans, but not a skillet. Made by Corning I think, possibly Pyrex.
She broke every single one of them too somehow, but in a different way on each one, hi hi.

Interesting GM had that contest. Must have been before or after I was in drafting class.
However, we were given a challenge to work on. I didn't get involved so don't even remember what it was, other than it was a machine part or parts.

Just like your cell phones, this is the kind of things I was called on to fix at the Land Exhibit at EPCOT.
Advertising Marketeers came up with really neat designs they thought would work, but didn't very well.
My job was to figure out how to make their crazy designs work.
Since they were basically for show, I used a different approach, load them with already growing crops close to ready to harvest. And that is what they decided to do, hi hi. But then many of those things they dismantled and threw away.
I'm proud to say the A-Frame misting cabinet I designed for them, was still in use many years later, and possible still is with some small repair modifications. It was there when my wife was down there with her cousin about ten years ago.

[yogi]

I may have to do some scavenger hunting once again. The last time I saw the concept toaster was quite a few years ago. It looked to be made of something like 3/4" plexiglass, but of course it would have to be a fireproof material in application. My kids always ask me what I want as a gift for special occasions. If I can find that toaster you describe that will be the next item on my wish list. I may have to wait until Fathers Day, however. LOL

The year I graduated from high school was 1962 ... I think. I don't know if GM ran that contest every year but they did do it the year I was leaving school. It was not only a drawing they wanted, but also a physical model. I'm pretty sure it had to be made of wood and use special wheels they specified. It's too long ago for me to recall the details.

In some ways it makes sense for the marketing jocks to dictate the product line. However, they often have no clue nor do they care to learn about engineering or manufacturing. All they know is what is popular and what will sell. The fact that it might drive the company bankrupt trying to make the product is irrelevant.

[Kellemora]

Lots of them available, just check Amazon. Here's one:
https://www.amazon.com/Magimix-Vision-T ... 1989&psc=1

We had soap box car derby races, forget now who put them on, BSA maybe.
I graduated in 1966, and was in drafting class from 1964 to 1966.

You got that right. This latest mouse I got is horrible in many different ways. Dangerous too!