[Closed] Boring Old Fart blathers on about something everybody under 40 takes for granted

Bloody right! I've recently got a new phone (Moto G 4G after reading reviews on here) and a sound bar for me telly.

The 2 connect by bluetooth! So I can play spotify through the soundbar, no cables or anything! Its ace!

If my google fooo was strong I'd have a Simpsons video playing below;

'Look, an old man's talking. Let's gather round and see what he has to say'

I live in Ramsbottom, but tonight I'm going to a pub in Bury. Amazing!!

I'm sat at home working, 160 miles from my office.

I'm talking to a bunch of complete strangers on one screen, who are spread across the entire globe; and connected to my office PC where I'm doing (some) work on the other screen.

JonEdwards, you are a witch. Time you died a good Christian death!!

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I was amazed when my phone works out the route to meetings in my calendar and then reminds me when I need to leave the office, showing me the route I need to take.

I'm under 40 but to be honest, a lot of this technology does my head in. I'm constantly trying to 'opt out' and disconnect. I'm pretty sure I'm on my own here, and I guess it makes me 'a boring old fart' I liked it best about ten years ago, before arsebook, ****ter and smartphones. Phones were just phones, and the internet [i]just worked[/i] without trying to connect your bank account to your fridge.

And Facebook really weirds me out, it's funny how people used to worry about a Orwellian power watching over everyone and knowing everything; but the way it's turned out you couldn't make it up... everyone posting up everything about themselves [i]willingly[/i], and for what, I'm not sure? Vanity maybe. Plus, I think knowing everything about everyone takes a lot of the mystery and fun out of life...

Hope that helps,

Anne Oldman

A couple of weeks ago I was trying to remember how I used to go about booking hotels etc. before the internet. How did it ever get done?

I do remember scouring the back pages of Time Out for cheap RTW tickets from bucket shops though!

The 2 connect by bluetooth! So I can play spotify through the soundbar, no cables or anything! Its ace!

I can trump that...I've a similar setup, but I can control it all with my ruddy watch!!

DrP

the other day i wanted to show my folks some pictures off my camera.

so i took my phone charger cable (USB) and used it to plug my camera into the telly.

it was a charger cable for a phone! that could also connect a telly and a camera! that's how technology was supposed to work! (i was also able to browse the phone with the remote control) 😮

i also have a drawer full of early 2000's proprietary phone chargers and camera cables, natch 😆

And Facebook really weirds me out, it's funny how people used to worry about a Orwellian power watching over everyone and knowing everything

To be fair, Big Brother (from the book, not the TV show) is nothing like facebook. We choose what we post on FB and we can turn it off if we choose. Plus, FB simply show me different adverts based on what I share with them, rather than sent round the secret police to torture me. Just a subtle difference I know but I thought it worth pointing out 🙂

I live in Ramsbottom, but tonight I'm going to a pub in Bury. Amazing!!

Make sure to take the tin cans on the extra long string so you can call home when you want a lift back.

FB simply show me different adverts based on what I share with them, rather than sent round the secret police to torture me. Just a subtle difference I know but I thought it worth pointing out

😀

You're right of course. I was just having a whinge. Still think it sucks the mystery out of social life though. Especially when I go to a club to blow the cobwebs away, and it's full of weapons standing in rows pointing their smartphones at the DJ.

Plus, FB simply show me different adverts based on what I share with them, rather than sent round the secret police to torture me

Have you read the small print in their latest terms and conditions?

Er no.. perhaps I will later - there's someone at the door. Back in a minute..

jambourgie + 1 (to your original post).

Went out in London, meeting my OH for dinner.

Being a Northerner, the Tube is a mystery to me. No bother, run the Tube Map app and it tells me which trains to take, where to change and when the next one is due.

Get out, need to find the OH. Fire up Google Maps, I have a route to where she is. En route I needed a large Boots to pick up something. There's a couple nearby, I don't know which will carry what I need so with Google Street view I can look at the store fronts and work out which one is a big store rather than a corner shop.

Meet up with the OH, need to find a decent restaurant. Google again, find a few likely suspects. No idea if they're any good, so on to the Trip Advisor app. Find that the nearest has really bad reviews, but the next one looks good. Hit a button in-app and it auto-dials them so I can see if I need a reservation.

On the way, my phone works out where I'm going, and I get a discount voucher for 10% off the meal.

I love living in the future.

jambourgie is my younger brother* and I claim my £10.

FB has been told it should have alerted the secret police re the Lee Rigby killers which does add a twist to the Big Brother comparisons.

*that I didn't know I had.

That communicator thing on the pc gets me.
One click, I'm sharing my CAD screen with a colleague on the other side of the world.

My smartphone also.
Google maps never ceases to amaze me.
The traffic layer...it's ace.

Finally, as a Scout leader, recently started using Online Scout Manager.
Wow. Takes away so much admin work.

The place is in Andalucia, they are in Cyprus right now and I'm in London.

anyway bikes that are light and don't snap - amazballs

In the last month I have flown several thousand miles, worked remotely with people on 3 continents, transferred files that it would have been faster posting CD's a few years back and much more. I still remember making sure I had 10p to call home though.

Ironically some mad woman came round with a petition a year ago to get a phone box installed in the area as she thought it was bad there wasn't one and how would the kids be able to make calls....

My insulin pump really has changed my life

Technology is ace

'nuff said

I've just watched a film in the bath on the Ipad and the sound comes from the bluetooth speaker... all wireless!

It is unbelievable how far we've come in the last 20 years or so. 7 years ago i was a complete technophobe but decided to embrace the new fandangled stuff.

I hardly ever use FB, it's mostly made up shit to let my mum know I'm not in prison or hospital.

I luv the way tech will let me navigate round a city I don't know, find a restaurant, or a gig, a hotel if I need it.

😳 yeah, uummmm what Coug said 😳

I'm not 40 yet but remaining a pretty thorough technophobe

Feeling very hard done by because my laptap needs replacing - the computer itself is fine by the pivot (between the screen and keyboard) is broken and will probably break the on/off switch soon

To be fair, i bought it in 2008

However, maybe i could just take it apart and fix it. Imagine that hey!

I've got a 'smart phone'. Its a 4 year old Blackberry - it send emails

I also have a Ipod. Probably 7 years old - nothing new added in 4 years. Full of more great music than i'll ever listen to

I love mountain bikes - they make me happy and keep me fit. They all have 26" wheels and 10 gears

Technology - great but i'll let other people pay & prototype it 🙂
Thats modern 🙂

If your blown away booking a holiday watch this equally old fart explain how things are going to change when Internet of things makes facebook look like race fax machine.

My favourite bit of tech is google maps traffic data. It just works. Got me out of the shite on more that occasion.

Face time amazes me. My grandad was right out can see people on a telephone.
I still don't want my bike to have more than one pivot though.

Technology is great. I've just bought a bike that only has one gear. How long have we been waiting for the tyranny of 20 or 24 speed bikes to be overthrown.

Don't do Facebook or Twitter, this forum and a little bikerader are the only social media I partake in.
But I hate being with out my phone, not for gassing but think when I don't have it I might breakdown or find my self in a situation where I will need to call an emergency service.

It's completely irrational but since the mobile phone phone boxes are dying out.

A couple of weeks ago I was trying to remember how I used to go about booking hotels etc. before the internet. How did it ever get done?

I'm with you there. How did I get 30 odd people to my stag do from Laarnden to Shrewsbury about 20 years ago without having to send about 8 million emails? We all met in a pub, shared cars, and arrived on time - shamazing.......

That happened if you were lucky.

Usually, with me, you'd arrange to meet someone somewhere and they wouldn't be there. So you wait around, give it half an hour, find a phone box, ring their home - not in, so you wait, then you go home.

Me and my sister would go to Hereford with my parents and go off on our own having arranged to meet them at M&S at 1pm. Come back at 1pm, no-one there. Wait for ages, then decided to go back to the car and wait for their eventual return. Turns out they were IN M&S rather than outside it, they start looking for us all over town.. etc etc.. it was bollocks, frankly. Phones are a HUGE IMPROVEMENT!

However, maybe i could just take it apart and fix it. Imagine that hey!

Just fixed my 2009 laptop last night 🙂

Technology's great until it starts impacting on our ability to communicate with others on a human level.

It won't. All this FB and texting new fangled nonsense - that IS communicating with others. My FB friends are actually real people, who are actually my friends - and thanks to FB they are in my life daily rather than at the other end of the country/world. My life is definitely richer.

No need for any of that tech. You could simply have asked passers-by/locals. There's enough people in London!

And they're all known for their patience and kindness to strangers. I'm a Northerner, in London; the last time I tried asking a local for directions I got told to eff off back where I came from.

Technology's great until it starts impacting on our ability to communicate with others on a human level. Those self-serve checkouts at supermarkets are a perfect example; destroying the opportunity for human interaction. De-humanising, de-personalising everything. Supermarkets are soulless enough without removing what little humanity remains.

We've got scan-as-you-go now. You get a little hand-held scanner to zap stuff as you walk round and put it straight in your bag. Pay, leave. It's [i]fantastic.[/i] Who on earth wants to spend minutes of their life discussing the weather with some bored teenager on a checkout?

Thank God for Technology.

Erm...

Usually, with me, you'd arrange to meet someone somewhere and they wouldn't be there. So you wait around, give it half an hour, find a phone box, ring their home - not in, so you wait, then you go home.

That used to happen sometimes, but mostly it didn't. People also used to talk to each other rather than posting pictures of their dinner.

It'll never catch on.

People also used to talk to each other rather than posting pictures of their dinner.

Last time I went out to eat the restaurant was pretty noisy, full of people talking to each other.

You are imagining it you old fart.

I like the idea of technology doing more to make our lives easier, rather than entertainment as a lot of the cool stuff is at the moment.

Remote vacuum cleaners to clean up when we are out
Wifi fridge and rfid's so the occado man knows when I need stuff without me placing an order.
Smarter phones that learn behaviour so it knows I commute on the M1 on a Monday morning and gives me a traffic update without me checking for it. My heating system and lights coming on when I get near home, my car de-icing and warming up so it is ready for me in the morning.
Cardless and cashless payments in shops

Some of this stuff is out there already, just not widely used and needs improving. Improving battery technology would go a long way too.

For those commenting on facebook, twitter and big brother. I don't buy this arguement, you choose to sign up and you choose what to share. I will get worried when newborns are given a facebook account by default and it auto updates every 5 minutes without your input 😉

We've got scan-as-you-go now. You get a little hand-held scanner to zap stuff as you walk round and put it straight in your bag. Pay, leave. It's fantastic. Who on earth wants to spend minutes of their life discussing the weather with some bored teenager on a checkout?

Why don't you want to interact with a 'bored teenager' ?

Last time I went out to eat the restaurant was pretty noisy, full of people talking to each other.

You are imagining it you old fart.

If I was imagining it there wouldn't be pictures of people's dinner on Facebook.

Technology is mostly great, but I do think we've lost something as a society.

There are no pictures of dinner on my facebook, so that's not all it does.

And remember it takes about 60 seconds to post a picture of your dinner, and you might be in the restaurant for an hour and on the rest of your evening for another five.

Also, the posting of the dinner is a form of reaching out to your friends for more conversation. Social media generates MORE social interaction not less.

Sorry to be all arguey but as a social media user old fogeys ranting about the death of social interaction because of social media really annoys me. Nicely ironic when they do it on social media though!

Sorry to be all arguey but as a social media user old fogeys ranting about the death of social interaction because of social media really annoys me. Nicely ironic when they do it on social media though!

Narcissitic self-promotion is communication of sorts, but not a form I wish to participate in. Each to their own.

Last night in a restaurant the GF and I, during a very tangential converstation, realised we didn't actually know how Cockrings worked. Within just a few minutes we were educated due to a very thorough and sincere blog on YouTube*.

*Other online video sources of information on Cockrings are avialable but perhaps best not consulted in public.