▲ 16 r/atarist

Atari 1040 STE: Does anyone remember the name of a plug-in device that allowed you to get screen grabs from a VHS?

I think it plugged into both the VCR and the 1040 STE and converted the video to the lower resolution of the STE. I had one in the late 1980s.

Edit: I never realized there were so many.

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u/Syllogism19 — 7 days ago

Because nothing says San Antonio more than a cactus that grows in Arizona. Nostalgic style shirt designed by Tom Philibeck

u/Syllogism19 — 13 days ago

In 70's and 80's US movies and TV series depicted police officers expressing fears of losing their job or pension and are often told to "turn in their badge" for violating some policy. In reality did US police officers at that time actually suffer serious consequences for their misconduct?

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u/Syllogism19 — 14 days ago

Is Kevin Pollak's Chat Show from 2009 to 2019 still available for download anywhere free? I'm looking for the audio rather than the YouTube version.

I can't find it through podcast addict. I heard an old interview with him on Gilbert and Frank's podcast. He said there that his podcast had always been available in audio.

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u/Syllogism19 — 1 month ago

Unexpected puro San Antonio: factory garage door, Godzilla vs San Antonio, just off of Castroville Road.

Menchaca Spice Company

u/Syllogism19 — 1 month ago

Does LibreWolf function well with Old Reddit

Since RES account switcher no longer works, I'm looking for a browser where I can easily sign into an alternate Reddit account while staying signed in on my main account through another browser. Is oldReddit compatible with LibreWolf?

reddit.com
u/Syllogism19 — 1 month ago

Are there any little free libraries or the equivalent in the Dellview neighborhood or adjacent neighborhoods? I did a Google search but didn't find any.

The area I'm looking for them in is basically south of 410 from I-10 to West Avenue, east of IH-10 at 410 and north of IH-10 at Vance Jackson and West.

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u/Syllogism19 — 1 month ago

Where does a lay person sit when they are the officiant at Morning Prayer? Within sanctuary behind the altar? Outside that area?

I think I remember we wouldn't sit in the Bishop's chair (throne?) in any case. I got a last minute call to lead our small congregation in Morning Prayer tomorrow and I don't know where a lay officiant is to sit. I feel funny sitting in the sanctuary where the priest would sit but it also feels strange to sit in a pew and stand up to lead.

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u/Syllogism19 — 2 months ago

San Antonio Texas, June 2026

I thought this was a native mountain laurel but I don't see any red seeds on the ground so I'm asking now. Hoping it's native. If it isn't, does it harm insects, bees or birds?

u/Syllogism19 — 2 months ago

Any solutions? Bluetooth connection comes and goes when phone is in a belt holster. I put it my shirt pocket but it falls out. I end up holding it up to my ear or disconnecting the HA's from bluetooth in order to take calls. [Oticon Real 2 minirites]

I see shoulder holders exist which would put the phone closer to the HA's but I can't imagine wearing something that looks like something a cop wannabe would wear. I don't see any small bluetooth boosters for a smartphone. I'm just hoping someone has had this problem and has found a solution. Even if the solution you've found is just to use the phone without connecting to bluetooth then at least I won't worry that there is another solution out there that I'm missing.

Edit: Thanks for the ideas and experience. Since my question involved a phone I ought to have stated that I use a mid-range Moto g power 5G-2024.

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u/Syllogism19 — 2 months ago

Electronic player just for listening to Duck Dynasty preacher and his wife.

Perfect for the hospital according to the packaging.

u/Syllogism19 — 3 months ago

Ellis II gets satellite dish (The Echo) [1987]

This clipping was found in a donated religious book. I did not know what the publication was or the date it was published until a fellow redditor u/uglyyellowfrog found the name of the Texas prison newspaper and determined that the article's author had been the reporter for the Ellis II unit in 1986 and 1987.

The poem on the back of this article is likely the reason the clipping was saved. I don't know if the "that's me" notation is meant to be emotionally identifying or if the person who clipped and saved the poem was the author of the poem. I vaguely recall other ephemera related to being a relative of an inmate also being in the book.

u/Syllogism19 — 3 months ago
▲ 13 r/texas

Texas Prison-Newspaper clipping: Ellis II gets satellite dish, Prisoner composed poetry [Date unclear]

This clipping was in a religious book which was donated to our thrift store several years ago. My guess is that it is from the 1990's.

Edit: Redditor u/uglyyellowfrog found the publication and determined that the author had served as reporter in 1986/1987. Thanks for finding all that out and the other article you posted in the comments.

>

O.B. Ellis Unit

>Ellis Unit is a maximum security prison located in Huntsville Texas.  Custody levels at Ellis unit range from G-1 minimum to G-5 maximum.  

>Ellis Unit has a maximum capacity of 2,073 male inmates and can house an additional 409 offenders in the Trusty Camp.

> The facility is situated on 11,427 acres which make it ideal for the prison's agricultural operations that include cotton fields, edible/field crops, hen egg laying, raising cows and swine.  

>Ellis Unit also operates a chair factory, garment factory and bus repair facility that employs the inmates in multiple positions.

>Ellis Unit provides all offenders with literacy, adult basic education and GED instruction.  Vocational training includes computer maintenance technician, horticulture, heating ventilation and air conditioning, and cabinetmaking.  

>Inmates are provided treatment and rehabilitation programs for gang renouncement and disassociation, substance abuse treatment and sex offender re-education.  

>Additional classes are provided to teach offenders life skills and prepare them for re-entry.

u/Syllogism19 — 3 months ago
▲ 21 r/TheWayWeWereOnVideo+1 crossposts

"The Merry Americans" An travelogue of American scenes broadcast on Lithuanian TV [1972]

The film seems to be largely a compilation of home movie footage with commentary written by soviet writer and propagandist Albertas Laurinčiukas. The soundtrack is a smorgasbord of unauthorized use including the Benny Hill tune.

Many of the images are beautiful, some are not. But all the footage is not likely to have been seen elsewhere. Here is the wiki of the author https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertas_Laurin%C4%8Diukas

lrt.lt
u/Syllogism19 — 3 months ago

"Don't buy a used car. Buy the all-new Yugo now! $4525 [1987]

Trade restrictions on cars from Japan allowed US automakers to avoid making decent small cars. A loophole in the restrictions allow unlimited importation of small pickup trucks which became the go to purchase for young men in particular as a low priced value option. Into this came the Yugo, an attempt to produce a lower priced hatchback. Unfortunately Yugoslavian quality just wasn't there, and the price difference between a poorly equipped low quality car made in Yugoslavia and a well made, better equipped pickup, without standard safety features but made in Japan wasn't substantial enough to sway many people to go with the Yugo.

u/Syllogism19 — 3 months ago

From The Missing Plaque: Mary Ann Bickerdyke, the widow who fired incompetent Union surgeons and improved care for injured soldiers

She had no military rank and no medical degree. But in 1861, this Civil War nurse began firing Union Army surgeons.

It was November in Cairo, Illinois. The mud was deep enough to pull the boots off the enlisted men.

The regimental hospital was not a hospital. It was a series of canvas tents erected in a swamp near the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Inside, men lay on bare ground. They were dying of typhoid, measles, and dysentery weeks before they ever saw a Confederate soldier.

In 1861, military medicine was an afterthought. The United States government had prepared for a short skirmish, not a continental slaughter. The medical corps was understaffed and entirely unprepared for the logistics of mass casualty care.

Mary Ann Bickerdyke walked into the tents on a Tuesday. She was forty-four years old. A widow from Galesburg who made a meager living as a botanic physician. She had arrived with five hundred dollars' worth of supplies collected by her local congregation.

The military men at the checkpoint assumed she would drop off the bandages, weep at the conditions, and go home.

She did not go home.

The first tent she entered smelled of gangrene and unwashed bodies. There were no beds. The sick were lying in the uniforms they had been wearing for months. The food was salt pork and hardtack, entirely indigestible for men suffering from severe intestinal disease.

She looked for the ward master. She found him in a separate, dry tent. The man was asleep. Beside him was a cache of fresh food, clean shirts, and medical supplies intended for the wounded.

She did not wake him gently. She took a basin of dirty water and poured it directly over his head.

At the time, the United States Sanitary Commission had advisory power only. They could inspect a Union Army hospital and write reports, but they possessed no legal authority to compel military officers to change their practices. The military chain of command was absolute. Civilian interference in a war zone was officially forbidden under Department of War regulations.

The medical officers in Cairo held the rank of Major. They wore epaulettes. They had staff. They operated under a strict bureaucratic structure that prioritized requisition forms over sanitation.

If a soldier needed a clean shirt, a form had to be routed to a quartermaster. If the quartermaster was delayed, the soldier bled into his uniform for another week. If a ward needed firewood, the request went through three different officers.

The system functioned perfectly on paper. On the ground, it was a graveyard.

When the ward master woke sputtering, she informed him his authority was over.

She walked out of the tent and began issuing orders to the enlisted men. She told them to build fires. She ordered them to boil water. She tore up the rotting tents and demanded the quartermaster release fresh canvas.

The medical officers were furious. A civilian woman was dismantling their hierarchy.

A surgeon approached her and demanded to know under whose authority she was operating. She did not stop scrubbing the floor.

"Under the authority of the Lord God Almighty," she said. "Have you anything that outranks that?"

The surgeon left. She kept working.

Over the next month, she established a washing system. When the army refused to issue laundry equipment, arguing that washing clothes was not a strategic priority, she bypassed them entirely. She wrote directly to the civilian women back in Illinois.

She asked for washing machines. Within a month, a train arrived with wooden washers and portable kettles. She hired local runaway slaves to operate them.

When the men needed fresh milk and eggs, she left the camp, traveled to local farms, and returned with a dairy cow and a flock of chickens.

She demanded clean shirts. The quartermaster told her they were locked in a warehouse and he did not have the proper authorization to open it. She found a crowbar, walked to the warehouse, and shattered the padlock.

When the quartermaster threatened the guard for letting her do it, she told the guard to tell his superiors that Mary Ann Bickerdyke had stolen the inventory.

She paid no attention to rank. If an officer was competent, she worked with him. If he was not, she removed him.

She found a senior surgeon drunk on the hospital's liquor supply. His patients were lying in their own waste. The man was a commissioned officer. She stripped him of his position on the spot and had his tent removed.

In January 1862, a surgeon ordered her out of his ward for speaking out of turn. She ignored him and kept working.

In February 1862, another officer filed a formal complaint to have her access revoked. She ignored it and kept working.

In March 1862, the medical director attempted to physically bar her from the supply tent. She pushed past him.

There was a cost to this obsession. She had two young sons back in Galesburg. She had left them in the care of neighbors. She missed their birthdays. She missed their schooling.

The letters home were short, written by lantern light while the cannons sounded in the distance. The boys grew up largely without their mother while she mothered a hundred thousand strangers.

The surgeons finally had enough. The humiliation was total. They drafted formal grievances. They routed them up the chain of command. They wanted her removed from the theater of war, permanently.

The paperwork eventually reached the desk of General Ulysses S. Grant, and later, General William T. Sherman.

They brought him the chain of command. She brought him the survival rate.

The medical director stood before General Sherman at his headquarters. He listed her infractions one by one. She was insubordinate. She was abrasive. She had no respect for military protocol. She had fired another commissioned surgeon that morning without filing a single piece of paperwork.

Sherman listened to the officer. He knew her record. He had seen the condition of the men in her care at Vicksburg and Chattanooga. He knew she walked the battlefields at midnight with a lantern, turning over the dead to ensure no living man was left behind in the mud.

The general shook his head.

"I can do nothing for you," Sherman said. "She ranks me."

The surgeon was dismissed. Bickerdyke stayed.

She followed the western armies for four years. She established three hundred field hospitals.

When the war ended in 1865, the victorious armies marched through Washington in the Grand Review. General Sherman asked her to ride at the head of the XV Corps. She rode a horse at the front of the column, wearing a simple calico dress.

When the men went home, the bureaucracy remained. Many of the soldiers she had treated found themselves disabled, unable to work, and denied their military pensions by the same bureaucratic systems she had fought in the field.

The government required sworn affidavits from officers to prove a man had been wounded in action. Many of those officers were dead.

She spent the next thirty years fighting the pension office. She traveled to Washington. She tracked down witnesses. She signed her own name to affidavits, daring the federal clerks to call her a liar. She forced the system to pay the men it had broken.

She died in 1901. Her body was returned to Galesburg. There is a bronze statue of her kneeling beside a wounded soldier in the center of town. Today, a military medical discharge requires twenty-seven pages of documentation, and the chain of command remains absolute.

Mary Ann Bickerdyke: the widow who outranked a general.

Source: Official Records of the War of the Rebellion. Verified via: The American Battlefield Trust, National Archives. (Some details summarized for brevity.)

Follow The Missing Plaque for stories of American women who persevered in war and peace.

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u/Syllogism19 — 3 months ago

TIL: What looks like an Umlaut in English words such as Noël and Naïve signals that two adjacent vowels are pronounced separately. It was formerly commonly used in words like Coöperation and Reëntry as well. The New Yorker magazine still does.

en.wikipedia.org
u/Syllogism19 — 3 months ago