I'm so fed up with tech stuff.

[JohnDBarrow]

 

 

[zapatos]

42 minutes ago, JohnDBarrow said:

It is still easier than pulling the damn phone out of my fanny pack to get the time of day. 

And while we are at it, take off your hat indoors, pull up your pants, get rid of avocado toast, stop putting menus on blackboards, enough of trying to make football 'safer', quit posting pictures of food online, I don't want to hear about your 'feelings' snowflake, and go ahead and recline your airplane seat! It's still America up there! Greatest damn country on the planet!!!!!

You are a caricature of every old, white guy in the US.

[Phi for All]

25 minutes ago, TheVat said:

As someone who still travels into remote areas without cellular service, I will note the remarkably enduring utility of maps printed on thin sheets of dead tree fiber.  Apparently they don't need batteries - the ink just stays in place!  A broader answer is that single tool reliance can create enormous vulnerabilities.  Cell towers can go out in storms.  Strong solar activity has great mischief potential, too, both on devices and networks.  Another thought is that too much reading or video watching on a tiny illuminated screen is hard on the eyes.  And, as physicians are reporting, the human neck.  Google cellphone neck hump or "text neck."  (and then look up, for godssakes)

I never was able to give up paper books. And I agree that there is vulnerability in putting all your eggs in a single basket, but I'm also a firm believer that, if more people have better access, baskets will be made to higher standards to protect your eggs. Or something better than baskets can replace our old woven stick technology. 

51 minutes ago, JohnDBarrow said:

I feel a prisoner to so much STUFF! The bible even says one day we will not be able to buy or sell unless the number 666 is stamped on us. Technology is The Beast of Revelation.  I still wear a watch on my wrist. It is still easier than pulling the damn phone out of my fanny pack to get the time of day. 

Are you supposed to play along with the technology, or are you supposed to avoid it? Can you still get into heaven if you're wearing The Beast's fanny pack and using his cell phone?

5 minutes ago, zapatos said:

You are a caricature of every old, white guy in the US.

Reminiscing about rotary phones is a new one on me. Even diehard landline proponents prefer buttons, don't they? Waiting for the dial to spin around is like torture for the modern brain. It would be worse than going back to dial-up internet.

[TheVat]

31 minutes ago, JohnDBarrow said:

I feel a prisoner to so much STUFF!

On this you have my sympathy.  I'm a minimalist married to a packrat.  During the five year period between marriages, otherwise known as The Glorious Era of Zen Bliss and Personal Hygiene Lapses, my possessions were at the Gandhi end of the spectrum - a chair (plus two folding ones for guests), a small table, a bankers box of books and personal papers, the previously mentioned topo maps, a sleepable futon (frameless) that folded up into a chair, an all purpose Pyrex bowl (cereal, curry dishes, whatever went in my face hole), and (briefly) the loan of a 23 pound Maine Coon named Old Jules.  Given my equally limited wardrobe - basically, one rolling suitcase's worth - Jules often proved handy for added warmth or as a pillow.  Television was an internal bio-virtual system activated by running the eyes over character strings printed on dead tree fiber. (this fine arrangement collapsed when I obtained an 18 inch early LCD tv, plus dvd player and amplified antenna)

Anyway, now I live amidst the towering crap piles of an Olympic class craphound, occasionally tugging Jenga-like on discrete objects in a crap pile because (maddeningly) it proves useful.  

[zapatos]

4 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Anyway, now I live amidst the towering crap piles of an Olympic class craphound, occasionally tugging Jenga-like on discrete objects in a crap pile because (maddeningly) it proves useful.  

Let's hope said craphound doesn't occasionally peruse your online musings.

Edited Monday at 11:54 PM by zapatos

[TheVat]

1 minute ago, zapatos said:

Let's hope said craphound doesn't occasionally peruse your online musings.

Haha.  No, she totally owns up to it, and empathizes enough to occasionally shrink or (even more shocking) organize and store one of the crap piles.  

And, to my suprise, a 120 year old coffee grinder works damn well.

[JohnDBarrow]

In the 1940's, our loving technology companies trained us how to use such weird novel contraptions as dial telephones with such politeness and professionalism. Do we get this level of care and training from mobile providers today? Will Apple iPhone come to small American communities for town hall meetings to educate farm folks on their latest gear?
 

4 hours ago, Phi for All said:

I never was able to give up paper books. And I agree that there is vulnerability in putting all your eggs in a single basket, but I'm also a firm believer that, if more people have better access, baskets will be made to higher standards to protect your eggs. Or something better than baskets can replace our old woven stick technology. 

Are you supposed to play along with the technology, or are you supposed to avoid it? Can you still get into heaven if you're wearing The Beast's fanny pack and using his cell phone?

Reminiscing about rotary phones is a new one on me. Even diehard landline proponents prefer buttons, don't they? Waiting for the dial to spin around is like torture for the modern brain. It would be worse than going back to dial-up internet.

 

 

If you had nothing but tortuous party lines to deal with for decades, in the 1940's and 1950's, you would have thought the dial telephone to have been the Holy Grail of all invention.  

Comparing a dial telephone to a party line system with a hand crank to summon the operator is like comparing a 1977 Radio Shack TRS-80 computer with cassette ROM BASIC to your latest Windows 11 notebook PC

Edited Tuesday at 04:20 AM by JohnDBarrow