Model Railroader mag -- observations and quesions

"Some while ago there was a spoof of MR that got passed around on this board. I thought it was quite humorous, and quite true as well. ( Can you say "quite" true. or is true an absolute word that cannot be modified? Do you have to simply just say "true"?)"

I know. I posted it.

Eric

Reply to
newyorkcentralfan
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Rick Jones wrote: [...] No matter how much Dullcote or flat finish I spray on

The trick is a light overspray of grey or brown primer, just barely enough to cover, and then apply flat acrylic (waterbased) paints. When mixing paint shades, stir just enough so that the paint is about 90% the same throughout - you want those subtle variations that exist in real life. They look even better applied with a brush IMO. A brush automatically introduces subtle variations in colour that wood cars develop almost as soon as they're painted. Spray paint in these applications is too uniform for my taste. Oh, and wash the plastic first

- that mold release agent interferes with proper paint adhesion, especially water based paint.

I overspray wood kits with a very light flat finish, and often do not oversrpay at all. A heavy coat of even flat finish actually introduces a sheen. I rarely use Dullcote - it just doesn't do what it's name says. (Actually, I find its best use is to kill the glare on glossy photos.) The flat finishes made for artist's use are better (and not more expensive -- they just come in bigger cans than Dullcote.) It's trickier to decal on flat paint, but it can be done, with careful cutting out of the deacls, and repeated use of decal-setting agents (which must be wipded clean after they dry, every time - don't put fresh decal set over existing muck). Dry transfers are a snap, and preferable if you can get them.

Granted. Great kits. Now, if they could afford to upgrade the whole line to laser cut parts...

[...]
Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

I think they wanted to call it "Tornado", until wiser heads (from Kansas, probably) prevailed. :-)

Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

Froggy @ thepond..com wrote: [...]( Can you say "quite" true. or

[...]

In two-valued logic, it's either T or F, 1 or 0, etc. In real life, almost all of what you say is more or less true (and simultaneously more or less false, a fact that generalisers tend to forget.) No generalisation is true about 100% of its subject group -- that's what makes it a generalisation. In fact, a generalisation without a numeric qualifier is true if it applies to 50% +1 of the group it's about. Absolute statements about a group are those that derive from the definition(s) of the group. EG, "It's yellow" is true of every member of a group defined as "A collection of yellow thingies." Mind you, you might argue about whether some particular thingy is yellow enough to be included in the group, but that is another issue.

Is this OT? Read to the end to find out. :-)

There is a multi-valued logic called, appropriately enough, "fuzzy logic." It's what makes your washing smart enough to know how to adapt for example its water usage to different loads. In fuzzy logic, any given statement has a value between 0 (absolutely false) and 1 (absolutely true.) Thus the answer to the question "Is this a full load of clothes?" ranges from 0 ("Nothing in the tub") to 1 ("As much as it can take.") Two-valued logic couldn't handle partial loads, so automatic control based on two-valued logic would either waste water or refuse to start the machine.

Now it gets back OT:

DCC is effectively multi-valued logic, since you use CVs to vary the values used by the processor to control speed, etc. If the only values available were 0 and 1, you couldn't adapt the decoder's response to varying motor characteristics, for example.

HTH&HF

Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

Froggy @ the pond..com wrote: [...]Model

It's cheaper than golf. Or sailing. :-)

I had quite rant here, but I snipped it, and offer only the final comments:

Model Railroading as a hobby includes an enormous range of interests, skills, and talents as well as wallet sizes. I've observed that those who diss MR tend to be group of people who would like more people to be builders of railroad models. Well, it's your right and privilege to want more people to share your passion. But, please, don't imply that somehow people who don't share it are "catered to" by a "dumbed down" magazine. That air of indignant hauteur ill becomes you.

Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

All exceedingly interesting, but you never got back to whether "quite true" was allowable syntax. If we are in two value world, then it is not, but if we are in multi-value world, it might be. In this example I tend to think in an abstract multi-value state. The bit is patently not true in an absolute sense, but it illustrates a point of view which has value. I think I could have done better had I written that the bit was humorous and cut quite close to the bone. You positively can get quite close to the bone without actually touching it. Froggy,

Reply to
Froggy

I never meant to imply that those who do not share my particular interests are somehow lesser individuals because of it. What I tried to say was that MR has no reasonable degree of interest for me, nor for those who share my direction of interest and level of skill. It is not like the magazine that existed before Russ Larson ruined it. Change is inevitable. It is a fact of life. Change is not always for the better, however, and, sadly, this has been the case for Model Railroader. Perhaps when Larson finally moves on- if I live long enough to see that day

-someone else who understands the hobby of model railroading; someone who knows how to be the editor of a hobby magazine rather than a glitzy, slap-dash, "People Magazine" style copy paster, will take the reins and once again include content that appeals across the board to the larger hobby.

I can hear it now. R.L. to "puppet editor" Terry: "Give me half a page on Canonizing an Athearn SD40-2 into an accurate Southern Railway model, and KEEP IT SIMPLE!"

Yeah, right pal.

Froggy,

Reply to
Froggy

Sorry, I thought my comment made that clear.

And, being the pedantic nitpicker that I am, I note that your question isn't a single question, but at least three. I'll clarify by way of my answers.

Syntactically, the phrase "quite true" is well formed. That is, "quantifier + adjective" is allowable syntax in English. OTOH, "Numerator + adjective" is not: you can't say "four red" or "17 and half false". (So-called traditional grammar groups the quantifiers with the adverbs, but modern grammars do not. NB that a syntactically correct phrase does not have to make sense. If that were required, we couldn't concoct humorous nonsense. BTW, I was an English teacher in a former life, which may lend my comments some authority. But I am a terrible typist, so ignore the typos, please.)

The phrase is also good usage. That is, it's acceptable in every part of the English speaking world to say "quite true".

And most importantly, it reflects the real world, which is definitely not two-valued. Ie, any claim about the real world is more or less true. Suppose the claim is a measurement: then you must allow for measurement error. Thus, even the most precise statements about some quantifiable phenomenon is never absolutely correct. Worse, you cannot know the actual correct statement (measurement). The best you can do is to estimate the range within which the unknowable correct measurement falls.

Yes, and you can miss it by a mile... :-)

If you want to explore this further, a math or philosophy group might be interesting. But lately many of these have been infested with kooks and cranks and such. Probably better to borrow one of those books of math aimed at non-math, non-science majors. Or one of Martin Gardner's books. Beware: math can become a hobby, too, and for some people it becomes an obsession.

HTH

Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

Especially since the negation "not quite true" is obviously proper.

Reply to
Steve Caple

I beg to differ. TV's are far more reliable, less costly, and long-lasting than they were in the old days. I would call that A LOT of improvement. As for TV technicians, guess they need a different avocation. Just as blacksmiths that used to shoe horses aren't much in demand anymore. Times change, and in the example of TV's, much for the better! : )

Jeff

Reply to
1shado1

Which, I suppose might explain why my old 21" zenith, now thriry some years old, still runs reliably and has out lasted several others, none older than ten years,are in the trash where they belong. Or why my 31 year old Thomas organ still plays nicely, but the Casio keyboard I had puked after less than a year. The keys on an electronic keyboard are also slightly smaller than AGO standards, meaning going from one to the other automatically without thinking is impossible.

Much improved, for the MANUFACTURER, not much of an improvement for me. I'll even state that 99.9% of the organ sounds I use most often cannot by any means be reproduiced by any keyboard at any price. Sure, it's cheaper, both in the sounds a keyboard can produce, and in the quality, both of the electronics and the mechanics. Granted, there are sounds in the keyboard that I can't get out of my organ, but that only brings up another question. Who would want to?

As far as blacksmiths go, if you REALLY want to find out what Shop rates can be, go find one. The fewer the craftsmen, the more you're going to pay for their services when you need them.

Which might also explain why I'm reworking old Athearn instead of buying new "Made in China and guaranteed to look great, run bad".

Rich

Reply to
Richard

snipped-for-privacy@sbcglobal.net wrote: [....]Just as blacksmiths that used to shoe horses aren't much in

Er, actually there are more horses now than there were a hundred years ago. But because horse shoes are now made like people shoes, in graduated sizes, farrier work is done by people who also do other things, such as exercise or train the horses.

Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

Point taken. I was confused as to the timeframe we were discussing. I was referring to the old vacuum-tube laden TV's of the fifties and early sixties (my childhood memories), not the solid-state TV's of the mid seventies and later. My mistake.

Jeff

Reply to
1shado1

I never claimed that there were less horses now. There may be more horses, but does that automatically mean an increase in the number of horse shoes needed? I'm just pulling your leg, Wolf. : ) Thanks for the info. I stupidly picked a bad example. Should have said "dirigible repairmen".

Jeff

Reply to
1shado1

Errrm. I still have my aunts 1941 Airline(?) console radio in the attic, still works, but the idea of replacing all the hardened wiring isn't something I want to get into anymore. Still works ok if you don't mind the idea of 350 volts at your fingertips every time you open the back. But, I can remember writing charges for repairs that went $25, and the parts cost was 12 cents. Now, minimum around here is $65 service, they don't repair the boards, they replace them, trade in cost can go from $25 to $125. Adding that on to the service, doesn't make sense to repair anything.

Tracks ahead is on, gotta go.

Rich

Reply to
Richard

Hey, I'm watching Tracks Ahead here in Milwaukee right now! Back to the TV thing: Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point. My point was that I remember the TV repair man visiting our house fairly frequently when I was a kid, making adjustments and replacing tubes. I never meant that the old TVs didn't last. They just seemed to me to require more maintenance and repairs than the models I've been using since the mid-seventies. To your average layman, this seems a definite improvement. To someone that makes a living repairing such items, the point of view would probably be different. I'm basing my opinion on only MY experiences, no one else's. Perhaps the overall picture is different, but I can only relate my own experiences. : ) I'd rather have a $200 27" 2005 TV that will last me 15 years without ever seeing the inside of a repair shop, than a 25" $1000 1962 TV that will last me

30 years, and need adjustments and tubes replaced every couple of years. But that's just me... : )

Jeff

Reply to
1shado1

One of the best posts on the subject I've read that covers all but one important point.

Seems the name "Model Railroader" is on a mag that should be called "Railroad Modeler"

Most people are "Railroad Modelers" involved in greater degrees with the art of modeling the railroad by creating dioramas with trains that move through them.

Fewer people connected in the "hobby of models and railroading" are "model railroaders".

Reply to
the OTHER Mike

Follow 36 out to the next town west of Rochester and you know where I am. (Not an especially good program this week.)

If I had my druthers, I druther not have one in the house. Guess I spent too much time with fifteen TV sets blaring "As the stomach churns" while waiting for that damned intermittent to act up and hopefully catch it on the scope. I still give thanks that I'm not starving to death surrounded by $50,000 worth of test equipment and decided to get a job that paid better.

T/A is about the only program I watch, sometimes the news. I'd rather have my hands busy than my mind empty.

But, next time you go through the hobby shops, could you check and see if you can find the Roundhouse 26' old time flats? They used to come three in a box and were pretty reasonable, but I haven't been able to find them lately. I'm under a "one hour window" here, daughter with major health problems, I can't be gone for over an hour, and the VNA doesn't even like that. (Screw them too.)

Rich

Reply to
Richard

Wolf, What brand did you use? I tried a spray can of flat clear finish once and it made the decals crinkle. So I went back to DullCote.

It's

Like you, I have good luck decaling on flat finishes. As you say, trim it close, use SolvaSet, use great care in handling the wet decal, work any air bubbles out, wait for it to get good and dry. Then a shot of Dullcote to make the decal blend in.

David Starr

Reply to
David J. Starr

Grumbacher IIRC.

Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

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