You know you are getting old when:

[Fading Fast]

We've gotten a tablet computer at work for dealing with scan-at-the-door print-at-home concert tickets, and I can barely turn the thing on. I'm not inadept technically by any means, but the swipe-and-touch interface is so completely counterintuitive to anything I've ever learned to do that I can't get it to work most of the time and have to have one of the kids do it. And after touch-typing 80wpm on a physical keyboard for a living for most of my life, I can't get a handle on these touchscreen keyboards at all. I don't see any circumstance in the universe where I would consider them an "improvement," let alone actually practical to use.

They feel, to me, like a steering wheel with way, way too much "play" in it in that there is almost no connect between what I am physically feeling and what is happening.

That said, and I've taken this view after six months of, first, ignoring the Internet in '96 - I just learn it all as best I can and try not to think about if it's "better," or not. The world is changing - very quickly right now - with or without me and I'd prefer with me, so I accept, learn and move on with it.

I spent an hour and half getting my "time capsule," (combined wireless router and hard drive back-up) to recognize my computer yesterday - even though it has recognized it since I installed it in May of this year. Also, the wireless router part was working fine, but the back-up storage said it didn't recognize the "back up disk," which is the time capsule, and asked if it was "in my network."

Think about that - I was on-line only because my computer and the time capsule were communicating on the same network, but those two same devices couldn't recognize each other to do a back-up even though they had for three prior months. The "answer" was the equivalent of a "do over." I shut everything down, took everything off the network, reset the time capsule, put everything back on the network and all was fine. But even my small brain can recognize that that didn't really "fix" an identified problem, it just started from scratch again.

But that is the way the world works now whether I like it or not - so after Googling the problem, trying a bunch of stuff, I got it all working again. Would much rather have changed the spark plugs in my old '67 Chevy - that actually made sense to me - but that isn't the world we live in anymore.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The way I look at it, I've got maybe twenty years left, so in the long run what I prefer is going to be irrelevant no matter what. But it's too late for me to learn how to type all over again on a touchscreen, because my motor neurons are long-since hard wired for a mechanical keyboard -- even after twenty years of typing on a computer keyboard, I still strike keys percussively, the way I learned to do on my mother's Corona portable, and that's how I'll do it till the day I die. Learning all over again from scratch would be like trying to learn Sanskrit -- it might be theoretically possible, but the amount of return for the amount of time it would require to master the skill would be negligible.

So I keep coming up with ways to make the new technology work with what I'm comfortable using. I've got a fourteen-year old PowerBook I do all my writing on, and when it dies, I just scrounge a replacement logic board on eBay and slap it in and I'm good for a few more years.

 

[tonyb]

We've gotten a tablet computer at work for dealing with scan-at-the-door print-at-home concert tickets, and I can barely turn the thing on. I'm not inadept technically by any means, but the swipe-and-touch interface is so completely counterintuitive to anything I've ever learned to do that I can't get it to work most of the time and have to have one of the kids do it. And after touch-typing 80wpm on a physical keyboard for a living for most of my life, I can't get a handle on these touchscreen keyboards at all. I don't see any circumstance in the universe where I would consider them an "improvement," let alone actually practical to use.

We got a Microsoft Surface tablet for the lovely missus a couple years ago, a device she found decidedly inferior to the Apple iPad it was to replace, until we got the detachable keyboard. Now she uses the thing pretty much daily, and that's all on account of the keyboard. Yes, you actually depress the keys, so you get the tactile feedback. And the thing is illuminated, which makes it all the easier to use. And the keyboard doubles as a screen cover when closed.

 

[Zombie_61]

We've gotten a tablet computer at work for dealing with scan-at-the-door print-at-home concert tickets, and I can barely turn the thing on. I'm not inadept technically by any means, but the swipe-and-touch interface is so completely counterintuitive to anything I've ever learned to do that I can't get it to work most of the time and have to have one of the kids do it. And after touch-typing 80wpm on a physical keyboard for a living for most of my life, I can't get a handle on these touchscreen keyboards at all. I don't see any circumstance in the universe where I would consider them an "improvement," let alone actually practical to use.

My six-year-old cell phone died about a month ago, so my wife insisted we replace it. Apparently you can't get a cell phone with a physical keyboard any more, and I've been having a little trouble getting used to the touch-screen keyboard on my new one.

I suppose it's a generational thing, but touching a piece of glass instead of an actual key or button while you're "typing" just doesn't feel right. My wife's cell phone, which wasn't quite three years old, began exhibiting some odd behavior recently so, sure enough, another trip to the local cell phone store Monday evening for a replacement. The young lady who assisted us was surprisingly competent, personable, and knowledgeable, and used some sort of "tablet" device to activate my wife's new phone and transfer contacts, photos, and such, to it. It was somewhat impressive to watch her fingers flying across the screen as she performed the various tasks, but I quickly realized this was simply the technology she had grown up with and was familiar with. Me, I'd probably still be fumbling about with that infernal contraption.

 

[Stearmen]

My six-year-old cell phone died about a month ago, so my wife insisted we replace it. Apparently you can't get a cell phone with a physical keyboard any more, and I've been having a little trouble getting used to the touch-screen keyboard on my new one.

I suppose it's a generational thing, but touching a piece of glass instead of an actual key or button while you're "typing" just doesn't feel right. My wife's cell phone, which wasn't quite three years old, began exhibiting some odd behavior recently so, sure enough, another trip to the local cell phone store Monday evening for a replacement. The young lady who assisted us was surprisingly competent, personable, and knowledgeable, and used some sort of "tablet" device to activate my wife's new phone and transfer contacts, photos, and such, to it. It was somewhat impressive to watch her fingers flying across the screen as she performed the various tasks, but I quickly realized this was simply the technology she had grown up with and was familiar with. Me, I'd probably still be fumbling about with that infernal contraption.

The thing I hate about my touch screen phone is, fingerprints on the glass! Every time I use the phone, I end up using my hot breath and a wipe on my cotton shirt to remove the offending greasy marks. I know, I am neurotic!

 

[Stearmen]

Kids today will not even know what a PC was!

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Luddites unite !....to hell with this confounded technology.

 

[GHT]

The way I look at it, I've got maybe twenty years left, so in the long run what I prefer is going to be irrelevant no matter what. But it's too late for me to learn how to type all over again on a touchscreen, because my motor neurons are long-since hard wired for a mechanical keyboard -- even after twenty years of typing on a computer keyboard, I still strike keys percussively, the way I learned to do on my mother's Corona portable, and that's how I'll do it till the day I die. Learning all over again from scratch would be like trying to learn Sanskrit.

That's exactly how I feel about metrification. We have had it thrust down our throats because our European neighbours use it. It's simple, all to the power of ten and it's the future. Yet despite all the efforts of government suits, we still quote our weight & height, drive our distance, order our alcohol, measure our car's fuel consumption in imperial measure.
In an effort to get us to comply we had dual measures, like bridge height warnings, then the imperial measure was removed leaving it just in metres. So many bridges got struck by high sided trucks that the duel signs were quickly reinstated.
Unless I'm cremated, I intend to go into a six-foot-six box, to be buried, six foot under.
And thank you Americans, for your determination at keeping the imperial measurement going. It's our exports to you that keeps big business interest in imperial. Mercenary it may be, but that doesn't bother me.

 

[GHT]

The thing I hate about my touch screen phone is, fingerprints on the glass! Every time I use the phone, I end up using my hot breath and a wipe on my cotton shirt to remove the offending greasy marks. I know, I am neurotic!

It was 1996 when I had my first mobile cellphone. The model was huge advance on the previous one, although I would have loved that, because the previous one was what became known as: "The Brick." Mine was about the size, weight and dimension of a one pound bar of chocolate. It's screen is black and white and it can only do text, non predictive of course, and voice. Yet its all but bulletproof. Come the digital era and my analogue phone found itself redundant.
Most people, youngsters especially, get so excited at the prospect of a new phone, so many new gizmos to learn, so much to play with. I, on the other hand, dreaded it. For goodness sake, it took me forever to learn this one. Enter my neighbour's boy, a budding physicist if ever there was one. He had a Saturday job in a phone shop, after explaining how I would like to keep my phone going, he invited me to bring it along to the shop. A week later the phone was up and running, having had an amazing piece of digital wizardry installed. And it's still working twenty years on, I told you it was bulletproof. Back then I bought a pack of half a dozen batteries which I use in careful rotation. The bell is the classic UK's: "Ring-Ring," that causes as much stares and amusement, as does the credit card-size sim card, as my old car. People touch it, almost reverently, many think it's The Brick, but it's just a phone that's perfect for an Old Luddite.

 

[Fading Fast]

That's exactly how I feel about metrification. We have had it thrust down our throats because our European neighbours use it. It's simple, all to the power of ten and it's the future. Yet despite all the efforts of government suits, we still quote our weight & height, drive our distance, order our alcohol, measure our car's fuel consumption in imperial measure.
In an effort to get us to comply we had dual measures, like bridge height warnings, then the imperial measure was removed leaving it just in metres. So many bridges got struck by high sided trucks that the duel signs were quickly reinstated.
Unless I'm cremated, I intend to go into a six-foot-six box, to be buried, six foot under.
And thank you Americans, for your determination at keeping the imperial measurement going. It's our exports to you that keeps big business interest in imperial. Mercenary it may be, but that doesn't bother me.

I had no idea our stubbornness was helping the UK maintain a solid foot in the imperial measurement world. In grammar and even middle school back in the '70s, we were told by our teachers, with one-hundred percent assurance, that when we were adults the USA would be fully on the metric system. And for awhile in the '70s, it seemed we were headed that way as many signs had both measures and there seemed to be a "metric is the way of the future" vibe all around.

But it quietly fizzled in the '80s and by the '90s the push-to-metric seemed almost over. While not fully gone by any means - today in the US, probably (pure guess), twenty percent or so of things are measure in metric (soda is all over the map, 12 ounce cans, 2 liter bottles), the energy to go metric seems over.

As a general individual freedom guy with a Fedora Lounge respect for our past, I guess I'm happy as the push felt "top-down" either business or gov't imposed and I never like that. If the people wanted it, it would have been adopted organically, especially with all the "help" schools and other institutions were giving it back in the '70s. Clearly, the people in the street spoke and said nyet.

 

[Edward]

To be perfectly honest, sometimes the advances in electronic technology (particularly with regards to entertainment electronics) is the one thing that makes me feel old. Video games, cell phone apps, tablets, notebooks, and so on, are things I have little or no interest in. I barely use my cell phone as it is, so 99% of it's capabilities will never be used by me. But sometimes it seems everyone around me has intimate knowledge of these devices, and it makes me feel as if I should at least know about them even if I don't use them or I'll find myself getting left behind.

I reached a ponit a couple of years ago where I no longer felt the need to be in with "the latest" tehnology, just aslnog as what I have fits the task I need. Interestingly, I've found a sense of calm in that. I'm by no means luddite, but there's a certain sense of being free in not feeling the need to have the latest whatsit. But then for about thirty years now I've often taken a perverse delight in my own ignorance of a lot of the mainstream, so I guess technologies of various sorts are just part of that.

We've gotten a tablet computer at work for dealing with scan-at-the-door print-at-home concert tickets, and I can barely turn the thing on. I'm not inadept technically by any means, but the swipe-and-touch interface is so completely counterintuitive to anything I've ever learned to do that I can't get it to work most of the time and have to have one of the kids do it. And after touch-typing 80wpm on a physical keyboard for a living for most of my life, I can't get a handle on these touchscreen keyboards at all. I don't see any circumstance in the universe where I would consider them an "improvement," let alone actually practical to use.

I know what you mean. I find a touch keyboard fine for the odd posting and tablets are great for casual browising of the web on the go - they have their place - but for a post of any length, like this, it's much easier for me to type on a more traditional keyboard. I expect it's just a familiarity thing, but I do like the feel of physical keys.

We got a Microsoft Surface tablet for the lovely missus a couple years ago, a device she found decidedly inferior to the Apple iPad it was to replace, until we got the detachable keyboard. Now she uses the thing pretty much daily, and that's all on account of the keyboard. Yes, you actually depress the keys, so you get the tactile feedback. And the thing is illuminated, which makes it all the easier to use. And the keyboard doubles as a screen cover when closed.

I'm typing on the "Type" keyboard of my first generation MS Surface Pro right now. In all tht time, the left shift key seems to have recently worn out, but not a problem with the rest of it. Lovely machine - I use it as a main machine in work instead of a regular laptop and it gets serious heavy use - as in maybe fifty hours per week. Vastly superior to the iPad - but my experience is the same. In tablet mode, I find it takes forever to type anything of any length, but the keyboard makes all the difference. I also use a mouse with mine, but I've never liekd mousepads on any machine. The touchscreen goes some way to help with that, though it's not for me a total replacement for the mouse.

Kids today will not even know what a PC was!

It's amazing how quickly it's moved on. In 2000, a laptop with desktop-spec, more or less, was around GBP2,000.00. Last year I bought Herself a laptop for her birthday that is a very capable machine - just under GBP200, and that's with a 2 or 4 GB memory and a 500GB HD. Recently, they seem to have started issuing even our desk-based admin people with laptops plugged into a workstation rather than a traditional tower-based desktop PC. It's fascinating seeing the norms of what we think of as a computer change so radically. Of course, as of 2013, more people now access the internet with a phone more regularly than with a "computer"....

I had no idea our stubbornness was helping the UK maintain a solid foot in the imperial measurement world. In grammar and even middle school back in the '70s, we were told by our teachers, with one-hundred percent assurance, that when we were adults the USA would be fully on the metric system. And for awhile in the '70s, it seemed we were headed that way as many signs had both measures and there seemed to be a "metric is the way of the future" vibe all around.

The big mistake they made in the UK, imo, was that when they decimalised the money, they didn't forcibly metricise everything else at the same time. Instead, we now have a mishmash. The only thing I learned at school was metric, then I had to learn elements of imperial to deal with people in the real world. I live in hope we'll move on to wholly meric one day - it's so much more intuitive. In reality, though, we'll probably carry on with this weird hybrid usage. [huh]

 

[Lean'n'mean]

In the UK, they tend to give one's height in feet & inches & weight in kilos.............maybe kilos sound lighter.

 

[GHT]

In the UK, they tend to give one's height in feet & inches & weight in kilos.............maybe kilos sound lighter.

Really? News to me. In the shop where I buy my coffee, I ask for it by the pound and get served with it by 500 grams. A young lady, aged about 20, gave me a chided lecture on metric, so I asked her weight. Eight two, for those outside the UK, that means eight stone two pounds. A stone is exactly 14 pounds. "Not kilos," I enquired, "Touche," she answered, smiling.

 

[2jakes]

In the UK, they tend to give one's height in feet & inches & weight in kilos.............maybe kilos sound lighter.

Oh bollocks...I’m down to 90 kilos from 200 lbs.

No wonder I’ve been feeling knackered.

Bring on the fish & chips with
a pitcher of beer!
Cheers!

 

[Trenchfriend]

When you make yourself a nice mug of instantcoffee, seeing, that everything is fine like usual, go into your living-room to enjoy the "brown goodness" onto your couch and suddenly think:
"What? What the hell? Yuck! Where is the sweetness remaining??

You really forgot the sugar? What's going on, boy??

 

[LizzieMaine]

In the UK, they tend to give one's height in feet & inches & weight in kilos.............maybe kilos sound lighter.

Pfft. I tell people I weigh "twelve stone."

 

[2jakes]

Pfft. I tell people I weigh "twelve stone."

12 stone is the correct weight for females that are 6’ 3” in height.

Wow Lizzie...never realize you were the same height as me!

Cool!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Try 8 inches shorter. And probably a few inches wider.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

12 stone is the correct weight for females that are 6’ 3” in height.

Wow Lizzie...never realize you were the same height as me!

Cool!

She towers above us in more ways than one .

 

[2jakes]

She towers above us in more ways than one .

I’d say that’s one way of looking at it.
At least for one living down south.