Yeah, Palindromedary, make sure you don't show any of your immaturity. I certainly wouldn't descibe you as not losing your cool although you're careful to always "speak in generalities". That's a technicallity, of course, you don't really think you're fooling anybody do you?

Just look at your behavior! You don't think you're being just a little psycho?

How come you don't quote my statements in their entirety? I called you "a man obsessed".

Quote AIW:I think your general intolerance of other beliefs systems is what triggered him, not your atheism.

I believe I am just as tolerant of other belief systems as they are of mine. Mine includes that reincarnation and supernatural beliefs are in error. There is no scientific evidence that they are real except in the minds of people who choose to believe in them. And you don't think that I should have a say when others have theirs?

Quote AIW: It's an ideology that has permeated our society and its institutions, that has left tens of thousands of us literally in ruins, destitute or dead.

I could also say the same thing about charlatans who bilk people out of their money by convincing them in some ridiculous superstition or supernatural contrivance. And I could say the same thing about religion which has left millions literally in ruins...dead even..tortured even. And just because Stalin (who some argue was atheist)..even though he studied to be a priest...murdered many. Or Hitler, who wasn't without some irrational, superstitious beliefs himself (a big follower of Nostradamus, I think, and Valhalla nonsense), who murdered millions (all with the Catholic churches blessing...or at least without strong objection). And tis true Scientists created the atomic and hydrogen bombs but it was non-scientists who had them do it and non-scientists who actually used them to kill people. And it was the scientists, including Einstein and Oppenheimer, et al, who tried to talk Truman out of using it against people. Truman was just a silly Baptist Haberdasher and not very good at that!

It has largely been irrational people with irrational ideas that has been behind the mass murders of many millions of people. So, you may have a passion against certain right wing groups but so do I and those right wing groups largely wear their religions on their sleeves and have been trying to force everyone else into their camps. You have your beliefs about the dangers of these groups and I have my beliefs about the dangers of the groups that knowingly, or unknowingly, try to proselytize others into their irrational beliefs. They can be very dangerous. From Muslims who want to turn everyone into Muslims and dead if you are an atheist to Christians who would if they still could burn people to the stake for heresy against their particular brand of religion....irrational beliefs are dangerous. And one irrational belief gives birth to others.

Quote AIW: Mark may have stepped over the line, questioning your mental stability. But I still think he was making a good point about religious intolerance, about atheists being as prone to this as anyone else.

I am as tolerant of religion as religion is tolerant of me. They think I will burn in hell. I think they will just turn to worm food once they die with no "soul" to go anywhere..it will just disappear when they are pronounced brain dead and it won't go up to heaven or down to hell because those are all just-pretend ideas that exist in the minds (ie: live brains) of people who believe in them.

Quote AIW:While I detect no personal attacks launched by you on this particular thread, I've previously observed you making judgmental remarks about people who you perceive to be gullible or delusional. You've even accused me of being "unquestioning" or "uncritical" (or something like that), just for my refusal to dismiss the possibility of reincarnation. I couldn't even make a joke about being "psychic" without you taking it literally!

Thank you for noticing! Yes, we all are judgmental about a lot of things aren't we all? But I don't think I have actually "accused" you of anything like that...asking a question that if you think you are is not the same thing as "accusing" you of it. And I am certainly not alone in being guilty of not detecting when someone is trying to be funny am I?

Quote AIW: I think you and I both are "Type A" personalities, intense and high strung and easily provoked.

Type A personalities, intense and high strung, are the people who lose their temper and fly off the handle and make direct personal affronts to those they are addressing. I don't think I fit any of those descriptions.

Palin, "Type A" personalities are simply more aggressive, more driven and high-strung; "Type B's", more laid-back. It's an old concept that has nothing to do with "losing your temper" or "personal affronts".

There's just no reconciling with you, Palin. I give up.

Have a nice weekend. - AIW

Thank you, Palin. It's always good to end a debate with a "handshake". We may never meet face-to-face, but I still consider you a good friend, one of several on this blog. (I think y'all know who you are…) - Aliceinwonderland

Palin -- This has nothing to do with what has been in any blog. Last night we had a power outage for 3 hours. In our home we have 4 VCRs that we use. Since they are VCRs, they probably can be registered as antiques. Two of the VCRs are Sony, one is a panasonic, and the other is a Mitshiubushi. When the power came back on, the Mitshibushi and the Panasonic came back on. However, neither Sony would even power up. This is so strange that I have been blaming it on ghosts. I have had VCRs fail in so many ways, but never have I had a VCR not power up. One of Sony's is making a strange thumping sound but no other sign of life. Help. Do you have any suggestions?

chuckle8: Sounds like you might have some blown fuses in the VCRs that won't power up. If you don't have external fuses that are easily replaceable then there might be some internal ones..they often label them (on the board) F1 for Fuse 1.

Note: You shouldn't remove the cover on the VCR when it is still plugged in to the outlet....nor plug it into a wall socket receptacle when you have the cover off unless you know what you are doing.

Note: You should never try to measure resistance (multimeter on the ohms scale) when you have power connected to the circuit you are working on.

I don't know how much experience you have with electronics or electricity but I wouldn't want you to get shocked. I've been shocked a number of times and it's not very much fun.

It could also be that the electronics got zapped. If you have a multimeter, and know how to use it, you could try checking the resistance across the electrical cord..after unplugging the device measure ohms across the small and large rectangular prongs of the unplugged power cord and hit the on/off switch of the VCR to see if you have infinite resistance or some small ohm reading when the switch is in the on position. It would be normal to have some small resistance when the switch is on and infinite (open circuit) or a very high resistance reading when the switch is off. Usually, if you have a blown fuse you won't see a low resistance when the on/off switch is set to on position.

But before you do any of that, you might want to check if you have power coming from the wall sockets that the VCRs are plugged into by plugging in a lamp or something that you know works into that wall socket. Maybe the fuse or circuit breaker for that wall socket (receptacle) is blown or tripped. Sometimes these receptacles can be wired wrong and the polarity is backwards. Hopefully, you have a 3 prong receptacle. The old two prong receptacles don't have a ground and that ground helps protect your equipment from when you get power surges or spikes when the power goes out or comes back on. It also helps protect against static electricity which can sometimes cause damage to equipment...especially sensitive equipment like computers.

If you have a polarity checker, that you can buy at most hardware or electronics stores, that makes it easy to tell if the polarity is correct and that you have voltage there without having to poke any multimeter probes into the holes of the wall socket. It's also the safest way. You just plug the polarity checker in and if the LEDS(Light Emitting Diodes) on the checker are lit in the correct way (there's a legend on the checker usually) then you have the correct polarity.

You might suspect that your outlet has incorrect polarity just from the fact that your VCRs were affected in this way. Having the correct polarity and proper grounding helps keep these devices from being so adversely affected by power outages.

You could also try to take your VCRs to another known good receptacle to see if it works there.

I think most of those old VCRs have a solidly attached cord to the VCR but others might have a cord that plugs into them. If a cord plugs into the back of the VCR you can check the resistance of the cord..(with the cord not plugged in to the wall socket) each of the conductors from one end to the corresponding one on the other end. Sometimes, if you open up the case, with power off of-course, and look around you might see a burned component. But sometimes you may have a bad component that doesn't show any damage. Look for the internal fuse, if the VCR has one, and check the resistance of it with the multimeter on the resistance (ohms) scale. With the cover off, you can also check the resistance of the cord, if it happens to be a solidly attached one (ie: soldered to components on the board or attached with connector lugs). There may be some big cylindrical shaped components called capacitors. There are big one and really tiny ones. The big ones hold an electrical charge for a period of time, even with the power off and unplugged, and it wouldn't be a good idea to touch the contacts where they are soldered to the board. But since those traces can go just about anywhere it's best not to touch any component or contact or trace with your fingers...just to be safe. When I used to work on Radar systems that had really big capacitors, and even when I worked on TVs, I would discharge those big capacitors with a shorting bar. Screw drivers work on TVs. Of course this was done when there was no power applied at the time.

It's been quite a while since I've worked on VCRs.
The thumping on the one VCR sounds like there is a solenoid inside repeatedly energizing. It could be a zapped component on the electronics board that is energizing a solenoid or the mechanism is stuck in a certain position that is not allowing certain switches to be energized that would allow the mechanism to complete it's cycle. There is at least one solenoid and a mechanism for cartridge transport into and out of the unit, motors that turn the tape transport from one reel to the other. And there is a solenoid to energize the idle roller against the capstan which helps transport the tape firmly across the head which is a tilted rotating shiny wheel. Old audio tape heads were just stationary little things.

Delco Radio...cool!