You know you are getting old when:

[Edward]

Hobo knife, anyone?

I never had one, but the only use for me would be to have the spoon for eating cake in train. I wouldn't need the fork, nor a can opener, nor a corkscrew.
Ok, it could leave the fork at home, only carrying the spoon with, if I would like to get one of these knifes.

I'm a big fan of having a spork in the suitcase, just in case...

Mine have been really useful on more than a few work trips where they saved me from having to try to eat noodles in a hotel room, with my fingers...

My loungers, yesterday in electronic-chain store, next to the classic mp3-players:

THREE "discmans" , indeed!!

Three B-quality ones, but I just don't get, why they should have a comeback. They still suck too much power, to be senseful. And they were never handy.

Why there are no cassette-walkmans, they always ran as long as mp3-players, up to ten hours. I loved my very compact Panasonic walkman, but it didn't last very long.

Cassette walkman thingies are quite hip over here at the minute - invariably among kids too young to appreciate that the sound quality was never much cop.... I can sort of see the point of bringing back the Discman more, given the superior sound quality of CD over compact cassette, but they had their limits given how prone to skipping they were when on the move. I wouldn't go back to either instead of my much loved mp3 player, though - smaller than a single cassette, but able to hold almost every album I own on it.... No replacement for vinyl at home, but on the move can't be beaten.

 

[Trenchfriend]

INTERMITTENT FASTING

That's one of the biggest jokes from the marketing boys, right??

The reinvented "hunger", aren't they?

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^^
Call it whatever you like, but taking sustenance is far more satisfying when one allows oneself to experience actual hunger.

I’ve found that to be true both literally and metaphorically.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Win XP

Defragmentation

 

[Trenchfriend]

Aah, the days, when a powerbank was just good old auxiliary battery/accu.

4x AA/AAA accu charger, anyone else?

eneloops!

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
On that note …

I hear that Apple is once again changing its charger plug design. It’s a USB-C, to be in compliance with EU regulations. The aim is standardization, which kinda does and kinda doesn’t ultimately serve the industry and the consumers. I posit that it isn’t really like light bulbs or gasoline dispensing nozzles. Unlike those examples, electronic equipment becomes obsolete not long after it comes out of the box.

I got into Apple products initially because Macs were the standard in my industry. That’s going on 30 years ago now. Back then Windows machines required users to learn a thing or three about how the things worked, and I had little interest in any of that. (And I still don’t.) Macs required much less of me, which was fine by me.

I’ve stuck with Apple for pretty much the same reason. Even I can figure out how to make a new Apple gizmo — iMac, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch — talk to my existing Apple gizmos without having to visit any of the “geniuses” at the Genius Bar at the Apple Store. (Apple Stores are another annoyance, but that’s a topic for another time.) I can jump from device to device without truly understanding how any of that works, which, again, is fine by me.

What isn’t fine by me is all the chargers and cords and such I’ve acquired over the years which are now becoming all but useless.

 

[Trenchfriend]

@tonyb

See, that's why Apple had kind of a comeback over the last 15 years, here in old Germany, because many people were finally sick of Microsoft operated computers. Especially, when doing home business.

AND you know, that Germany is of course still totally overaging, so the old problem with tech and untrained people doesn't got better.

But Apple's alltime problem is, that at the same time over the 2000s and 2010s, Ubuntu Linux with all it's available "shapes" became enormous popular and started to float into the old "Microsoft terrain".

And MacBooks really costing money, so if your boss doesn't sponsor your one, ....

Short version:

-I pod? Much too expensive, so no kid had one.
-I pad? Who needs tablet, when having good old notebook?
-I phone? Too expensive, so the masses got Samsung and others.
-MacBook? Ubuntu Linux is free...

 

[Trenchfriend]

Toilet Target light

Um, I sit down, anyways...

 

[GHT]

Age and amnesia, or is it? Have you ever gone into a room to either collect something or maybe do something, like open a window? A few seconds later you are standing there, in that room and you are thinking: "What did I come in here for?" Frustrating, or what?

 

[tonyb]

Age and amnesia, or is it? Have you ever gone into a room to either collect something or maybe do something, like open a window? A few seconds later you are standing there, in that room and you are thinking: "What did I come in here for?" Frustrating, or what?

In my case, memory lapses can be attributed in part to age but in larger part, I gotta believe, to being TOO plugged in to information streams. All information becomes trivialized, and therefore forgettable, when a person allows himself to be subsumed by it, to “go down the rabbit hole,” in the parlance du jour.

Forgetting why I entered a room, or finding myself searching for a pen that’s already in my hand, is attributable to the very triviality of the task. I don’t pay much attention to it because it doesn’t require much attention. But therein lies the hazard. We’ve all heard stories of the people who started fires because they forgot they left a stove burner on. Or the people who rolled over the kid’s bicycle (or worse, the kid him- or herself) because they didn’t check to make certain the path was clear before backing the car down the driveway. The driver has backed out that driveway on literally thousands of occasions without incident so it has him unconsciously assuming there is no hazard there.

I don’t know how many people were seriously injured (killed, even) by power equipment before we determined that automatic kill switches were a good idea, but I suspect it was more than a few. I’m all for these “advanced safety systems” on late-model cars. They are already saving lives, and sheet metal, and insurance claims.

 

[Trenchfriend]

BE HONEST!
What would you prefer?

90s car or today's "rolling Playstation"??

First one!

 

[Rmccamey]

Old enough that a computer chip did not keep a perfectly good car from operating as intended.

BE HONEST!
What would you prefer?

90s car or today's "rolling Playstation"??

First one!

 

[tonyb]

BE HONEST!
What would you prefer?

90s car or today's "rolling Playstation"??

First one!

I’d rather gaze upon any one of innumerable vintage automobiles (well older than 1990s models, by the way), but to drive on a regular basis? Give me the latest model available. Safer, smoother, more comfortable.
The only real downside of new cars, besides the price, is that they’re difficult when not impossible for the person without advanced training and specialized equipment to repair. Upside is that they need those repairs far less frequently than the old cars did.

 

[EngProf]

I’d rather gaze upon any one of innumerable vintage automobiles (well older than 1990s models, by the way), but to drive on a regular basis? Give me the latest model available. Safer, smoother, more comfortable.
The only real downside of new cars, besides the price, is that they’re difficult when not impossible for the person without advanced training and specialized equipment to repair. Upside is that they need those repairs far less frequently than the old cars did.

I have told a number of folks that the word "electronic" comes from the Greek word meaning "You can't fix it." Most people agree that the idea makes sense, even if not really true.
(I have a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and I can't begin to fix a modern car. My Electrical Engineering friends can't either.)

 

[Tiki Tom]

I have told a number of folks that the word "electronic" comes from the Greek word meaning "You can't fix it."

ha ha! I am going to steal that line.

 

[tonyb]

I have told a number of folks that the word "electronic" comes from the Greek word meaning "You can't fix it." Most people agree that the idea makes sense, even if not really true.
(I have a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and I can't begin to fix a modern car. My Electrical Engineering friends can't either.)

I’m reminded of that episode in “The Grapes of Wrath” wherein Tom Joad repairs a friend’s Hudson with a rod knock by fishing a rod and bearing out of a donor car in a wrecking yard and installing it in the friend’s engine by “feel.” You figure out how to compress the rings and gauge torque with what you got.

There was a time when I might have attempted the same, if the choice was hoping that would work or the certainty of being without a car if it didn’t.

Mechanics ain’t my strong suit. But like most working-class young fellows of my acquaintance back then, my cobbling a well-worn car together was a matter of that or walking. Swapping engines and transmissions and rear ends was just something we did. That kind of stuff was more physically demanding than, say, relining brakes or replacing U-joints, but it didn’t require much knowledge. Having a friend whose dad owned a wrecking yard helped keep things affordable.

I’ve read that getting a driver’s license and a set of wheels at age 16 isn’t the rite of passage it was in earlier generations. Among the reasons for that must be that cars are much more expensive now and carrying out repairs isn’t such a simple and straightforward proposition. The chances of messing things up worse than they were is just too high.

Still, though, someone is keeping the retail parts stores (and websites) open. When brake jobs in the shop can easily run well over a grand, it’s easy to see how a person might attempt it himself.

 

[Trenchfriend]

My washer's electronic platine died after 8 years in 2018, replacement still running. We will see, what 2026 will bring.

 

[Edward]

^^^^^^
On that note …

I hear that Apple is once again changing its charger plug design. It’s a USB-C, to be in compliance with EU regulations. The aim is standardization, which kinda does and kinda doesn’t ultimately serve the industry and the consumers. I posit that it isn’t really like light bulbs or gasoline dispensing nozzles. Unlike those examples, electronic equipment becomes obsolete not long after it comes out of the box.

I got into Apple products initially because Macs were the standard in my industry. That’s going on 30 years ago now. Back then Windows machines required users to learn a thing or three about how the things worked, and I had little interest in any of that. (And I still don’t.) Macs required much less of me, which was fine by me.

I’ve stuck with Apple for pretty much the same reason. Even I can figure out how to make a new Apple gizmo — iMac, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch — talk to my existing Apple gizmos without having to visit any of the “geniuses” at the Genius Bar at the Apple Store. (Apple Stores are another annoyance, but that’s a topic for another time.) I can jump from device to device without truly understanding how any of that works, which, again, is fine by me.

What isn’t fine by me is all the chargers and cords and such I’ve acquired over the years which are now becoming all but useless.

It was a well needed change in the law over here, as so many companies were at a time using proprietary connections and then charging through the nose for them. For those of us who don't use Apple (I wouldn't given them house room myself, though my brother is a fan and is all Apple all everything for precisely the reason that they work together seamlessly if that's what you need them to do), it's been a much smoother thing. I suspect Apple's problem will be that they already faced a backlash a few years ago when they went from one proprietary charger plug to rolling out another across their entire line. A lot of customers might be less than keen to go through that with them a second time. It certainly diminishes the original idea of being able to just buy one more Apple node and plug it in to your existing ecosystem.

Otherwise, I'm a huge fan of the USB-C form factor. Why oh why did it take so long to develop such a simple idea - a small plug that just fits either way up....

Age and amnesia, or is it? Have you ever gone into a room to either collect something or maybe do something, like open a window? A few seconds later you are standing there, in that room and you are thinking: "What did I come in here for?" Frustrating, or what?

Pretty much on a daily basis since I turned twelve.

BE HONEST!
What would you prefer?

90s car or today's "rolling Playstation"??

First one!

Oh, way earlier than 90s.... things I like in a car? Rear wheel drive, NO power steering, manual winding windows, ideally a separate chassis....

I’d rather gaze upon any one of innumerable vintage automobiles (well older than 1990s models, by the way), but to drive on a regular basis? Give me the latest model available. Safer, smoother, more comfortable.
The only real downside of new cars, besides the price, is that they’re difficult when not impossible for the person without advanced training and specialized equipment to repair. Upside is that they need those repairs far less frequently than the old cars did.

Style aside, I have a romantic attachment to the idea of a 'car I could fix myself'. Truth be told, though, I'd have to learn that first. I've not driven once since I moved to London nearly 25 years ago (though I've kept my licence up should it ever be needed; that, and it's a handy form of ID sometimes). Living in central London, a car isn't a necessity, and I'm unlikely ever to be sufficiently well off to be able to own / afford / justify a car as a hobby. That said, if the big lottery win ever did come in allowing us to buy an actual house with off-street parking / a garage, it would be nice to have a modern electric box alongside some sort of fun / hobby car. Money no object, I could well see me with a nice, later-model Morris Minor and/or a Mk II Ford Zodiac for a hobby car. The electric box would, ideally, be a Morgan EV with a fastback coupe roof.... That's need to Euromilions win to come in, though!

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^^
As I’ve said before, the reason I might be positioned to buy a “toy” car is because I don’t buy things like toy cars. Way back in the mists of times I owned a string of fun cars — an MGB, a couple Triumphs, a Corvair, several “old skool” VWs, etc., etc., etc. But those were just used cars then, not “classics,” and they were my regular modes of transport.

I’m still an old car fan, but I fear that if I owned a real clean collectible car it would come to own me, rather than the other way around. Actually using it as a car would inevitably damage it to one degree or another. As a fellow put it to me just recently, the safest place for your boat to be is in dry storage, but that’s not why we have boats.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The world went straight to hell the day power windows became standard equipment.