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Post by Ish Kabbible on Nov 18, 2016 5:11:57 GMT -5
Never used Skype in the past but it's included on my new laptop. Never opened the app, much less signed in. But today I got a notification of a message and when I opened it, I found some stranger wanting me to be a contact. I blocked the sender. Is this fairly common with Skype? Creepy. There's a creepy story about the person at their computer, a pile of junk mail at their side, going through spam email and phishing skype notifications as they close windows popups. The phone rings due to a robo-caller. Suddenly. there's an unexpected knock at the door...
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Nov 18, 2016 17:33:43 GMT -5
When it rains it pours.
I don't do Facebook. I signed up years ago at the behest of some people and regretted it. Have not used it for a few years. Today I get an E-Mail about a female wanting to be a Facebook friend. Now, the name is very familiar, from way back when but I don't quite place it. It could be as far back as 40 years ago methinks. However I'm very hesitant signing into Facebook again and opening that can of worms. I'm not sure what to do
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Post by The Captain on Nov 18, 2016 18:02:29 GMT -5
When it rains it pours. I don't do Facebook. I signed up years ago at the behest of some people and regretted it. Have not used it for a few years. Today I get an E-Mail about a female wanting to be a Facebook friend. Now, the name is very familiar, from way back when but I don't quite place it. It could be as far back as 40 years ago methinks. However I'm very hesitant signing into Facebook again and opening that can of worms. I'm not sure what to do Trust your instincts and ignore it. You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than Facebook.
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Post by Lolatadatodo on Nov 18, 2016 18:37:39 GMT -5
When it rains it pours. I don't do Facebook. I signed up years ago at the behest of some people and regretted it. Have not used it for a few years. Today I get an E-Mail about a female wanting to be a Facebook friend. Now, the name is very familiar, from way back when but I don't quite place it. It could be as far back as 40 years ago methinks. However I'm very hesitant signing into Facebook again and opening that can of worms. I'm not sure what to do Trust your instincts and ignore it. You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than Facebook. I beg to differ, have you met Twitter and/or youtube comment sections? They key is, when you see the bad, you keep scrolling.
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Post by Lolatadatodo on Nov 18, 2016 19:13:57 GMT -5
I beg to differ, have you met Twitter and/or youtube comment sections? They key is, when you see the bad, you keep scrolling. Youtube comments are ****ing terrifying. Bowels of HELL.
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Post by The Captain on Nov 18, 2016 19:19:21 GMT -5
Trust your instincts and ignore it. You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than Facebook. I beg to differ, have you met Twitter and/or youtube comment sections? They key is, when you see the bad, you keep scrolling. I don't have a Twitter account, and I watch maybe 3 videos on YouTube per year. In fact, I don't actually have a FB account, but my wife does and after seeing what is on there, I wouldn't last one minute before losing my mind.
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Post by Lolatadatodo on Nov 18, 2016 19:40:03 GMT -5
I beg to differ, have you met Twitter and/or youtube comment sections? They key is, when you see the bad, you keep scrolling. I don't have a Twitter account, and I watch maybe 3 videos on YouTube per year. In fact, I don't actually have a FB account, but my wife does and after seeing what is on there, I wouldn't last one minute before losing my mind. I have Twitter, but I never EVER use it. With youtube, I go there to watch the video I went there to watch, and then I head out. I just tell myself I do not have time for comment sections.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Nov 18, 2016 22:13:49 GMT -5
I was browsing American pulp sci-fi magazines from the '40s and '50s on eBay the other day -- not really to buy, but just because I like looking at the cover artwork on those things. Anyway, I was surprised to see how cheap they are, compared to comic books of the same vintage. There must be a lot less collectors of pulp magazines around, I guess. I assumed that they'd be way more collectible (and therefore pricey) than they are.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 18, 2016 22:18:01 GMT -5
I was browsing American pulp sci-fi magazines from the '40s and '50s on eBay the other day -- not really to buy, but just because I like looking at the cover artwork on those things. Anyway, I was surprised to see how cheap they are, compared to comic books of the same vintage. There must be a lot less collectors of pulp magazines around, I guess. I assumed that they'd be way more collectible (and therefore pricey) than they are. Far less collectors. And it probably does impact that a lot of that material has been reprinted in various more permanent formats over the years. Oddly, they suffer from the same fate as comics as far as many being thrown away and also going to paper drives. And honestly they probably suffer from being much harder to find in good shape because the paperstock made comics look like archival paper.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Nov 18, 2016 22:25:51 GMT -5
When I used to shop inside the Midtown Comic store in the Times Square area a few years back, I noticed that they must have bought someone's collection of SF digests from the early 1960s through the mid 1970s. They had about a hundred or so of various titles such as Analog, F &SF, Worlds of If and others. All priced at just $2 or $3 each. I was tempted but never got around to picking any up since I already had a huge SF paperback collection. A shame, those digests did not sell fast at all, even at those prices
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Nov 18, 2016 22:33:39 GMT -5
And honestly they probably suffer from being much harder to find in good shape because the paperstock made comics look like archival paper. That surprises me. I would've thought that they would've been printed on glossy magazine paper, which you would think would be more durable that comic book newsprint. What paper did those old pulp magazines use?
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Nov 18, 2016 22:41:28 GMT -5
And honestly they probably suffer from being much harder to find in good shape because the paperstock made comics look like archival paper. That surprises me. I would've thought that they would've been printed on glossy magazine paper, which you would think would be more durable that comic book newsprint. What paper did those old pulp magazines use? The cheapest raggedy paper available. The quality finally got upgraded when they became digests in the 1950s
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 18, 2016 22:43:54 GMT -5
And honestly they probably suffer from being much harder to find in good shape because the paperstock made comics look like archival paper. That surprises me. I would've thought that they would've been printed on glossy magazine paper, which you would think would be more durable that comic book newsprint. What paper did those old pulp magazines use? The actual "pulps" were called that because they were printed on the cheapest crappiest wood pulp paper. You could actually sometimes see the actual wood in the paper. The edges were also untrimmed and the page sizing wasn't necessarily the best...so the edges are almost always incredibly ragged. The binding was also pretty damn awful and the staples tended to rub holes in the covers. Once the pulps started to transition into the digests then the production values picked up. They were printed on newsprint with trimmed edges and better binding. If you look at the history of SF, as an example, status was earned if you went from the pulps, Astounding, Amazing, etc. to the slicks, Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, etc. Not only was it more prestigious, the money was a LOT better. Bradbury and Heinlein were the big shots because they got in the slicks first.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Nov 18, 2016 22:53:42 GMT -5
That surprises me. I would've thought that they would've been printed on glossy magazine paper, which you would think would be more durable that comic book newsprint. What paper did those old pulp magazines use? The actual "pulps" were called that because they were printed on the cheapest crappiest wood pulp paper. You could actually sometimes see the actual wood in the paper. The edges were also untrimmed and the page sizing wasn't necessarily the best...so the edges are almost always incredibly ragged. The binding was also pretty damn awful and the staples tended to rub holes in the covers. Once the pulps started to transition into the digests then the production values picked up. They were printed on newsprint with trimmed edges and better binding. If you look at the history of SF, as an example, status was earned if you went from the pulps, Astounding, Amazing, etc. to the slicks, Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, etc. Not only was it more prestigious, the money was a LOT better. Bradbury and Heinlein were the big shots because they got in the slicks first. This is gonna sound stupid, but even though I well knew that the word "pulp" was the name for paper when it's in its raw, wet, unformed state, I didn't realise pulp magazines were so-called because of the low quality wood pulp used in their manufacture. I thought "pulp" referred to them being raw -- as in sensational, lurid and often poorly written. Fascinating info about the scene and how the best or most successful writers graduated to slicker, glossier publications, Slam.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2016 22:55:19 GMT -5
Some pulps can still be pricey. Argosy with original Tarzan stories, Weird Tales with Lovecraft stories or Howard's Conan tales can fetch a decent price. Stuff in "higher" grades goes for a lot more because of the nature of the pulp paper too. There is a pulp-centric convention in Columbus every summer, I've never been but I know a lot of folks who go and I asked one to price some of the Conan Weird Tales issues and they were way out of my price range. In a Lonestar auction last year, the issue with the first part of Phoenix on the Sword (the first Conan story) went for over $10K in the equivalent of VG condition. On the other hand, one of the shops a couple towns over has tons of pulps for $2.95 an issue, and I've picked up a handful of Fantasy and Science Fiction issues with Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories in them form Fritz Leiber. They also published one of the definitive price guides for pulps a few years back that is also one of the most comprehensive guides to pulps I've ever heard of, think of a GCD for pulps. So in many ways, the pulp market is very much like the comics market, high grade and key issues sell for a decent price, everything else can be had on the cheap if you're patient. -M edit to add photo...
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