The blog this morning about dropping your phone in coffee made me stop and think.
I’m a living, breathing anachronism.
The only phones I have couldn’t be dropped in coffee . . . unless you had a massive urn.
Speaking of coffee, there was a time when I drank coffee by the bucketful, but about thirty years ago I decided my nerves had been abused enough by artificial stimulants and dropped that nasty habit. My cardiologist ordered me off all caffeine products a few years back, so I don’t even drink soda or tea. I do drink a lot of Evian, but have never paid more than .25 for a cup of coffee.
I’m not on Facebook. Every once in while I will be forced to look at pictures of my family on my wife’s account, but find no fascination whatsoever with the whole thing.
I don’t have a laptop other than the several I own in my business, which I use only for Power-point presentations.
My son works in an Apple store as a genius so I get periodic updates on the wonderful things I could buy, if I saw any advantage in doing so, which I don’t. I find it absolutely appalling do hear about how charitable donations are at an all-time low when Apple managed to sell 3 million iPads in the first 80 days it was on the market.
I still send Christmas cards, although this year I used a computer to generate a crossword puzzle I sent along that conveyed my annual message and asked questions about well known holiday songs. I received a Christmas “postcard” that I found distasteful. I suppose it’s the lack of thought that counts.
I find most of what is offered on television to be utter junk. Who would have thought that a series about sixteen-year old girls who are pregnant would be considered entertaining?
I do own a Kindle and find its convenience to be amazing. Although, I still prefer the feel of a good book and worry about the day when libraries will be nothing but large rooms full of computers for those who have the audacity to be in the lower class . . . the bottom ninety-five percent of current trends continue.
My main television is a huge box, fifty inch projector. I’m told it screams all sorts of bad things to our guests, but its picture quality is still excellent, and I have NO interest in having Labron James slam dunk into my living room through a third dimension.
My auto is seven years old and runs on gas. I plan on keeping it another five years. I’m told the newer models are much advanced. When I was young I could dismantle cars, trucks, tractors, and farm equipment and have a fair chance of putting them back together. Now when I open a car’s hood I’m perplexed and challenged to add oil or windshield solution.
Did the world pass me by, or did I find a comfortable spot and dig in?
Jill
Comments
The world passed us by
I remember cars that I could fix with just a few wrenches. In-fact, I can tune a Triumph motorcycle with a wrench, a screwdriver, and a piece of wire, but then again it's old and obsolete. Unfortunately the world has become one where you are required to let someone else do it for you. The best I can do with a computer is turn it on, write something and post it. My wife says, "minimize it, open a new window, send it here, don't you know how to do that?" Nope, I don't. As far as fixing anything is concerned, forget it. Buy a new one because it costs a lot less than a repair. It's sad watching today's youth glamorizing the thugs and pregnant teens we found so repulsive when we were young. It's ironic though thinking of my parents saying the same thing about me when I was young. We would have never put up with your behavior when I was your age. I have to say though, the morals of youth have changed. If anyone tried pot when I was in school, that person was branded as a criminal and yet five years later it was being smoked openly in the streets. Times change and sometimes I wonder if it's for the best. Kids these days are book smart but don't have a clue when it comes to real life. Perhaps the opposite is true and I've become the relic and they are the norm. Kind of sad isn't it? Arecee
Me too.
Except I do have a smart phone, and a laptop because even on vacation sometimes I have to log into things at work and bail them out. And we tend to take long driving trips in the summer, so my phone doubles as an MP3 player, which is better than carting around a suitcase of CDs in the car.
I've waffled over the Kindle, because books are just so handy! But I'm angry at Amazon just now, over the weekend I bought my very first MP3 album download and they made me install the Amazon Album Downloader. Well the download went fine, but later my computer crashed. Seems the downloader runs as a service, and it interfered with some critical Windows function. So I removed it. A few days later I decided to buy the companion album to the first, so I had to install it again. The download went very smoothly. A bit too smoothly, because they never asked for my credit card information the second time!! The computer crashed again later that day, so I had to remove the software again. But Amazon still has my credit card information in a database somewhere, waiting for someone to steal it. Guess from now on I'll stick to Lulu for book downloads, and go back to buying albums as CDs. You can't buy vinyl anymore after all.
I was about to cave in and open a Facebook account because of family pressure to do so, when I got a message at work suggesting someone wanted me to be a "friend". The disturbing part was that there were six other icons of people I knew in that email, and I have absolutely no connection to Facebook whatsoever. So how did they link me to them? I've decided not to volunteer any more information to them. If my family wants to talk they can call me on the phone, or, horror of horrors, write me a letter! On paper!
As for cars, all the stuff you used to be familiar with are still there, except for the carburetor and distributor. They're just buried under plastic. But it's usually not worth trying to fix it yourself, beyond a fuse or light. Car repair has been reduced to subassembly replacement, once the computer tells you what the general problem is. The tools are mostly ISO metric but you have to approach the task from a computer diagnostic angle. Lots of people bemoan "the old days", but the fact is, "back then" it was unheard of to drive a car 100,000 miles without a single repair. My last 3/4 ton Chevy truck did that and more, and most of the time it had a 3,000 LB camper in the back.
I don't know where I fit into this mix either. But I don't worry about it because being TG is usually enough to keep my perspective suitably off-kilter.
Hugs
Carla Ann
You forgot to add
Get off my lawn!
I'm with you on most of the above although I do consider a 50" projector TV to be the height of poor taste. In the UK I think they would call that "common".
As for the rest, well, welcome to the grumpy generation!
Penny
Did somebody say Andrea Rooney?
...Ever notice how difficult it is to pass as a male to female transgendered person? My philosophy is to establish the running game and then the passing game opens up. Ever notice how cats seem to own you? Did you ever get the feeling that someone was watching you like a sit-com? Aren't you glad God didn't cancel you? Have you noticed how red my cheeks are? Don't you think it makes me look like a Circ de Soleil clown? It's true what they say about youth...it truly is for the young, but I don't mind swiping some of it off the Life Buffet Table when no one is looking. Isn't Angela just adorable? Life is filled with all sorts of issues we all deal with. Are you like me? I've got a lot of issues that I don't remember subscribing to. Isn't Christmas too commercial? We interrupt this commercial for the real spirit of Christmas; like how you're all really quite nice when it gets right down to it? Am I rambling? Is it me or is my impending 60th birthday making me a bit manic? Did you ever feel like blogs are a great way of getting to know someone. Ever notice how dogs don't do well at staring contests but can stick their heads out of car windows and not bat an eye. Hi, Jill!
Dio vi benedica tutti
Con grande amore e di affetto
Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
Did You Ever Notice?
How dogs will eat almost anything they find in the yard, including used food, but will sniff fastidiously at anything you hold in your hand when you offer it to them?
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I think I just ignored the world
I have a laptop.I write on it, as I am doing now. As for other electrickery, etc....I have never, ever owned a car. I never will, I have never felt any need for one. In common with a lot of friends, I have no televison, and haven't had one for years. I have no idea what a kindle is unless I look it up.
I read. I play music, both myself and recorded stuff. I ride my bike. What more do I need?
I'm going to say hunkered down.
There's a lot of little things that are pretty good with the passage of time around us. I could talk about the change in technology and politics but the tech gets more idiot friendly and politically things really haven't changed. Obama? He's black, that's great and so far his biggest difference...he's no more effective than any other democrat...in the grand sense of the word nothing has really changed.
I see the increase of the IQ of the next generation slipping into the negative. They can't function with out nearly being cybernetcally grafted to their I-Phones, I-pods, MP-3's ect.
I can remember when it was commonplace to meet new people by striking up a conversation. Not anymore, people don't even look other people in the face let alone the eyes anymore. There's no civility or manners in them anymore and it's spreading. I'm not sure when just simple manners went out the door. But I think I'm going to keep mine.
I'm good with where I'm at too; hunkered down waiting for the event that has the next generation, or the one after that just eventually get too stupid to survive. Some say that'll be a war or something. Me I think they'll be like chickens and eventually drown because they looked up too long while it was raining or something.
Comfort, fear, good sense.
I like where I'm at more than what's out there.
Bailey Summers
I may be a geek, but...
Am I in love with a fruity company? No - frankly, I can't quite see the point in paying ridiculous prices for the latest gadgets from that company - let alone immediately rushing out to buy the latest version.
Computer games - I couldn't care less. It takes me a while to remember "WoW" is World of Warcraft. When I was at Uni, I did a bit of MUDding, but never really got far and abandoned it after a while. Earlier this year I was big on a certain farming simulator hosted at a certain social network, but I can't be fussed with it nowadays. My TV is an old 21" CRT with a digibox on top which is several years old - I have attempted to buy more recent models that claim lower power consumption, but they refuse to tune into any signals (so I assume my box is better at amplifying / filtering the signal than newer ones - useful as I'm on the edge of digital range and we haven't had DSO [digital switchover] here yet).
My mobile phone is a "dumbphone" (as opposed to a SmartPhone). I can understand why a basic camera and web connectivity can be useful, but how many people really need a phone that's a mini computer, games console, music player, high resolution still and video camera? I find it scary that people can spend £40+ on a contract for a phone, then six months later fork out several hundred pounds for the latest model.
My car? A 2002 Suzuki Alto (993cc petrol engine, pictured below). Electric front windows are about the only mod cons it has - manual steering, key-activated central locking (no remote), very small - but it gets me from A to B (even though the driver's door can't currently be opened from outside), averages about 50mpg, and the boot, while small, is actually larger than many of today's "city cars". The only maintenance it's needed so far has been types, brake pads and clutch (replaced once) and a variety of "constant velocity joint gaiters". I haven't gone quite as far as naming it, but when the time eventually arrives for me to replace it, I'll miss it.
As for under the bonnet, apart from topping up the various fluids and replacing the occasional blown bulb, I'm clueless
About my only concessions to modern technology are a colour laser printer (but even though it has a higher purchase price, it's more efficient than an inkjet - and if I don't use it for a few weeks I don't need to worry about the ink drying out) and a Linux install on my home computer (at least partially because it's a lot cheaper to maintain than Windoze - although I have the hard drive from a dead laptop installed so if I absolutely need to run a Windoze application, I can boot up Vista virtualised).
The car when brand new. I'm the chap in the green jacket,
Little Miss Photogenic is Bessie, mum's yellow labrador (2yrs old at the time),
'holding' a plastic bone
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
Anachronism - what me?
Changes in technology are happpening with increasing speed and it's almost impossible to keep up with them. I enjoy gadgets but I'm sure I ony use a fraction of their functions. I have laptops and a phone which can send emails or pictures - I only use it for calls or texts and I'm slow at the latter compared to my grown up children.
I feel irritated by the unbridled march of materialism because people don't do much for each other unless there's money at the end of it. I still do favours and good turns but sometimes I think people are laughing at me for being a sucker or too much of a girl guide. Youngsters seem prepared to go into debt to satisfy their urges and very few seem able to delay gratification or pay off their debts.
I'm saddened by the increase in violence and drunkenness amongst today's youngsters and the loss of a broad general knowledge which my generation acquired from reading and documentaries. There appears to be a generalised dumbing down of everything to sound bite size. The brighter kids know their specialised subjects in great detail but couldn't tell you who was the ancient Roman goddess of love.
Some of the kids of today jus' wanna be rich an' famous until they realise what a strain that is, and that very few are able to cope with it without bodyguards and electrified fences. They also don't want to do anything for it other than party. But in a world where top soccer players earn a milion pounds a month and yet can hardly string two words together unless it's 'you know', does it actually pay to have scruples or education, where loyalty means being attached to the biggest chequebook?
I could never fix cars unless the problem was obvious and the solution easy and it didn't bother me other than the times I got ripped off by garages. I'm more interested in people than mechanics, although I do tinker with bicycles if I have to but I'm not very good at that either - I don't like getting dirty and never have.
I'm sure the future generation will feel just as disappointed with their juniors as we have, as did those before us. I get loads of old people telling me they're glad they're coming to the ends of their lives not youngsters today - but youngsters adapt easily and hopefully always will.
I'm saddened by the loss of tradition in some areas but pleased at the increase in freedoms for women in some areas - I wish it were universal and that true egalitarianism occurred worldwide - it never will, but I can hope. I also hope that avarice and gluttony in the industrialised countries would cease and we could share the wealth of the planet with the third world and educate women who will then have fewer kids but raise those they do have. It seems absurd in the West we are suffering from epidemics of obesity and the third world is malnourished.
I'll stop my rant before it becomes a manifesto. As this started with an observation on technology, yes it's good at times but does malfunction - but then so do humans. In terms of simpleness of design, things which have lasting value in my eyes are the bicycle, the fountain pen and the Swiss army knife and I have and use them all regularly.
Angharad
Angharad
Gee . . .
I feel closer to you than I ever have.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
can you put that to music?
sunrise sunset
Perfect
eom
Teyve
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Coincidence
Today's Private Eye (a satirical magazine) had a cartoon of a young lad receiving a bike as a Christmas present.
"Oh.....thanks. How do I connect it to the computer?"
Most computers
fit on the 'andlebars.
Angharad
Angharad
Grrr
Trust you to come up with a sensible answer! Snot fair!
You know, a lot of us youths
You know, a lot of us youths find those TV shows as distasteful and annoying as you guys do. As for technology? Well the generation before mine seems to have a hard time keeping up with it, for whatever reason. Sometimes I think it has to do with being stubborn or it could be that I was born with it. I've never taken my computer to be repaired, it's quite easy to figure out on your own and to do any modifications yourself if you're willing to put in the effort. I think some people see all the wires and hardware and get overwhelmed, but when you break it down it's just a simple, uncomplicated, piece of machinery.
One thing I've learned throughout my short years: google is the best friend you'll ever have when you get in to trouble.
Technology.
If you think a computer is just a simple uncomplicated piece of machinery you don't really understand exactly what it all entails. I maintain that no one person knows how a computer works. In fact I suspect there's bits of embedded micro-code in some of the LSI (large Scale Integration) chips for which the source code has long been lost and forgotten. So, in all probability literally no-one knows exactly how they work - frightening, isn't it? You only need to look at a multilayer, surface mount mother board to appreciate the technology. And that's just the hardware; when I first wrote code, 2k bytes of assembler took a long time - there are millions of man-hours worth of code in the average PC.
I started working with computers so long ago that when I applied for the job I had to go to the library to look up exactly what a computer was (1961). The computers I was testing at the manufacturers was relatively simple (and enormous). No VDU, no keyboard, no integrated circuits - just discrete germanium transistors and magnetic storage in cores or a drum. The human interface was a few switches and push buttons, a card reader, a card punch and a line printer. There was also a loudspeaker which, with a little ingenuity, one of my colleagues programmed (in machine code) to play Mozart's Clarinet Concerto.
So it's true that we old folks grew up in a world devoid of the internet, mobile phones (even not many wired phones), or television (I was 9 before we had TV broadcasts where we lived ... and then it was only a few hours/day) but, you know what we did?, we invented them for your benefit :)
I cut my teeth on technology. I was brought up behind the my dad's shop which sold all the things that interested him. Radio, TV, HiFi (when it was an esoteric minority interest)cameras, clocks, watches and jewellery (my grandfather's trade) and air rifles, shot guns etc. In my time I've enjoyed motor cycles, pedal cycles, sailing boats and now I make toy aeroplanes and fly them. Despite all that, the more advanced technology is becoming boring. There was a time when I could fix most things myself but now, when I open the bonnet (hood) of our car I have difficulty finding the bloody engine, let alone pulling it apart to fit new big ends. If something goes wrong with my PC I have to replace the part rather than repair it.
I have great sympathy with Angela. I have a mobile phone but all it does is make calls - it's never switched on unless I'm phoning someone - it's for emergencies only. I have a lap top but it's not used. We have a desk top each. Mine is permanently under a film of balsa dust as it's in my workshop.
The advantage of all these technology advances is that the stuff we use (cars, phones, TVs etc) is that they exhibit a level of reliability unheard of in my youth when I repaired TVs and radios for a living.
Isn't it lovely to be old and grumpy? LOL
Robi
Young Whippersnapper.
I was talking about hardware and machinery and you were talking about programming. The machinery is simple, simplest thing that can be. If you think otherwise you're over complicating it, which is the problem your generation seems to have with computers. It doesn't matter that I can't build a CPU, it matters that I know how to install one. It doesn't matter that I can't assemble my own GPU it matters that I know when it's causing me problems and how to fix it. People focus on the programming aspect of computers too much and get swept away in the famous subculture that makes up the "hackers" community.
I was put on the "computer watch list" at my high school. They honestly thought I was a risk for hacking the computers and taking the system down. Why? Because I knew how computers worked. All I knew was the hardware aspect and people immediately started begging me to create viruses for them, I don't know anything about malicious scripts! I did know a tiny bit about circumventing blocks on the internet by using a proxy server, but that was the extent of it. It's all very easy, very simple, stuff that people over complicate, which therefore causes them not to want to learn it at all. They think it's beyond them.
You plug it in and it works, if it doesn't work you most likely plugged it in wrong. On the occasion that it doesn't work and you did everything right you can use one of the multitude of search engine capabilities to figure out what is wrong. Everything has a trouble shooting capability now a days. More often then not the problem *was* you and there was something ridiculously simple you overlooked.
It doesn't matter if your generation invented the computer. It matters that they're scared of using it. It's quite disappointing. I sincerely hope if I hit 84 I won't be forced to call the IT techs in order to figure out how to power a computer off when it's frozen.
I can build a computer from independent hardware sources and save myself upwards of 1000-1500 dollars. That's good enough for me.
It's even more fun being young and grumpy. =P
Andy Rooney? Gah! I'm a grumpy old lady!
I remember ARPA Net and DARPA Net
I don't mind new technology -- so long as it serves a purpose.
I was on the Internet before it was the Internet and it only used instructions from the UNIX copy command.
I remember all sorts of fun things about technology. I remember fixing, tuning and even building my own car.
When I got my last two vehicles -- both used and both in the last 16 years, I looked at the engines and said, "I can see that my credit card will be the only tool in my repair kit." Yes, I do remember that a 50,000 mile engine was a HIGH mileage engine. My current vehicle, a 1993 Cadillac, has almost 180,000 on it.
I've had computers around the house since BEFORE the Vic 20 and I adore them. I can do more with my single processor aging beasts than most people can do with the latest and greatest hex and octa-core screamers with umpteen gazillion GB of video and system RAM. I only have the machines I do have, because I couldn't surf the net with my older machines. Why do I need all that FLASH on a page? I was able to surf the net and watch smooth streaming video on a 66 MHz. 486 SX with 10 MB of RAM. Why do I need a xxz GHz Octa-Core processor with 16 GB Video RAM and another 32 GB System RAM? Code bloat.
No, I cannot play most games on my machines. To be honest, after playing one first person shooter though all the possible threads and the same with one of the more popular RPG games ten or fifteen years ago, MOST of what I saw was a repetition of the same old thing with a new twist thrown in to try and make it new. Better graphics, maybe a few plot twists, yet it was the same thing in new packaging. I was bored with them right out of the box and rather disappointed as well, so I stopped buying.
I had to look up what a Kindle was. We have a library in the house and we prefer it that way. I have almost ALL of the books available at the Guetnburg electronic archive downloaded -- quite a few gigabytes -- yet find I prefer to read the print versions whenever possible. I can curl up in bed and use a microcomputer to read them, yet find it more irritating to read an e-Book than it is to read a paper book and loose my place because I fell asleep reading and the book fell before I could put a book mark in it. =)
I have a net book PC on my nightstand, so that I can read e-Books or watch one of my thousands of recorded videos/films/anime/cartoons on my video server -- ten TB of video and audio data -- as I don't have a video card that has a 75 Ohm output for the 25" CRT TV sitting on top of my chest of drawers. I can use the computer hooked up to the television in our living room to watch those same videos in comfort, on our large screen LCD television -- old technology, yet we prefer it that way. You want me to pay over a thousand for a television? Dream on! I'll read a book first! We only got cable television in the last year, because my husband is a professor at the local college and has taken over teaching television production and theory, so we needed to have cable to watch the news programming his students are doing. I couldn't believe how much WORSE television programming got since I was a kid -- or that many channels now give you a minute or more of advertising for each minute of programming. An hour thirty film runs over three hours on the free movie channels! Unbelievable!! I find I watch THREE channels of the more than two hundred we get. Turner Classic Movies, FOX Movies and my husband's channel. We almost don't watch the FOX channel. With commercials and adverts on the PAY channels, we refuse to get them. The rest of the programming we watch is from our DVD and Videotape library. We stopped going to the cinema after we went to one of the newer BOND flicks. Fast motion, slowing to a stop, then resuming normal motion, with extreme closeups that pan out to normal, then in to something else, all in the blink of an eye, or cameras that bounced and jiggled as they tried to follow the action gave us both headaches. Don't they know how to use effects and carry the cameras? Not for us.
My only real complaints are how the children -- yes, university students are children to me. I despair for and of today's children, with how they text each other and prefer to do that than to speak face to face, even when they're in the same room. NO-ONE in ANY of my husband's classes has actually placed a voice call on their smart phones -- EVER -- and all of them have had smart phones for at least five years. When I help with grading papers, I wind up FAILING at least two students every term because of text abbreviations, emoticons and other text emotions. i.e. LOL. Everything has been dumbed down -- apparently even elementary, middle and secondary school. The students didn't understand why they got a failing grade for the way they wrote! They didn't see anything wrong with it.
I've listened to music at ear-bleed volume. Once I developed Tinitis, I lowered the volume. However, I NEVER listened to music so loudly it vibrated my neighbours' windows as every fifth car seems to do these days with their subwoffers. These kids are going to be deaf -- if they aren't already.
Andy Rooney? I guess.
I'd rather curl up with a good book and listen to some quiet music at normal conversational volume -- without being interrupted by a passing motorist's stereo.
SS