Thread: Should I Really Join Facebook? (Priceless)

Hi,
Some people have a sense of humor, others their sense is just a rumor.

In another life I helped to migrate the X.25 (VAN) network into what is todays Internet. While I haven't gone in and configured a router in 15 years, I still can't figure out why I need to get a beep on my stupid phone with the arrival of every E-Mail. Yeah, I know it is a "Smart Phone" but it is the stupidest thing I've ever bought.

The joke that everyone here will get is that in my retirement E-Mail I said, "From now on all the bits for my routers are extra cost optional items."

And text messaging, oh Lord. The best thing that was invented was Telex or TWX. You could send a message half way around the world and expect an answer the next day when you came into work. Now with text messaging you can almost have a conversation that usually starts with, "Why aren't you answering my Texts?" To which you answer, "Because it is three o'clock in the morning here you dumb twit."

It is not possible to have an argument using text messaging. It is just not possible.

AND You can almost bet that SWMBO will dredge up that three year old text message and beat you over the head with it.

In the old days, the office phone would ring and a HOD (Home Office Dummy) would start the conversation with, "Where have you been for the last three hours?" To which one would reply, "On your clock, take the number that the little hand is pointing to and subtract three. That is the time that is here." Now there are no hands on the clock.

When my youngest graduated from high school he wanted a nice watch. He selected an analog watch. His mother had to teach him how to read the watch.

I think that I did a real dis-service to my two boys. (The oldest will be 50 in May.) Both have never lived in a home that didn't have a computer or access (Telephone Modem connection) to a computer. One of the boys brought his friend's mother over to show her the computer. An ASR 33 at the time.

When I was growing up, a common household comment was "Go look it up." Meaning go look in the encyclopedia. Today my boys would not know what an encyclopedia is, even if they tripped over the books. Today it is, "Let me Google it."

When Face book first became available, I was anxious to sign up. Then I read the information that they wanted about me. I haven't been back since.

Oh, BTW, I will disclose that my belly button is an "Innie".

And GPS. Oh goodness GPS. The kids gave us a Garmin some years back. The only thing good about it was that I could mount it high in the corner of the F-150 windshield. I finally got rid of it by giving it to the kid that gave it to us along with the F-150. In the new F-150, GPS is built in. We have named her, Jezebel. Which is about what we think of her. The Los Angeles metro area is about 135k North to South and 200k West to East. When I need to go some place new I only need the GPS for the last few klicks. Because I'm aware of traffic conditions I will almost never follow Jezebel's directions. I do miss paper maps.

My ex used to yell abuse at the GPS. She couldn't stand another woman telling me what to do.

Originally Posted by KBs PensNmore

P.S. I know some of you are not over 70........ I figured your sense of humour could handle it...If not... find a sense of humour.... We all need to have one of these !!!.We senior citizens don't need any more gadgets. The TV remote and the garage door remote are about all we can handle. EH!

Judging by the large numbers of seniors attending the regularly run IT classes at our local senior citizens centre i'd say that quite a few think they can master a bit more than a TV and garage door remotes. Like 87 year old Ron from the mens shed. He is an absolute wizard turner/machinist and manages the MW mill and lathes at the mens shed and has his own fully functional Myford lathe in a spare room in the retirement village where he resides. Ron spends a fair bit of his time in the evenings on the internet looking for deals on MW tooling. He says he can finally afford to purchase tooling etc he dreamt about owning as an apprentice. We swap links on eBay and Aliexpress deals and he must spend a fair bit of time doing this as he finds deals I have never come across.

Originally Posted by rrich

I do miss paper maps.

so do I

I ditched my old Refidex (read Melways/UBD/Paper Whatever you used) a few months back because it was hopelessly out of date (15+ years old). I don't need to use GPS a lot and just rely on a maps app on my phone when I need to now. I was in Brisvegas the other day and got a bit lost. I turned on the GPS in the phone for the first time in weeks and it took about 20 minutes to get a satellite fix. I'm now on the lookout for another more recent UBD at the remainders shops in the malls.

I keep at least one in each car. Yes we have the gps, yes the paper maps are out of date, but they are near enough and better than nothing if the gps lets me down.

Some of the routes the gps suggests make me wonder if it was programmed by one of the more insane ladies I knew in my younger days. One day it told me to turn left off the gateway motorway. Trouble is I was on an overpass. Compliance would have been alarming...

A friend of mine nearly had a nasty accident because of a GPS telling him to turn left at the next exit, which was a roundabout. The road to the left, was in fact just an exit that went about 10 metres with a pile of dirt at the end before a plunge into a creek!!! When mine comes to a roundabout it tells me to take the next left exit, which usually means straight ahead, as there is no road off to the left????

A thing about GPS programming is what is known informally in mathematics as 'the commercial traveller problem'. Basically, it is to find an elegant solution of the order in which a number of places, with known distances between each, should be visited in order to minimise the total distance travelled. Of course, it can be done by trying all the possible combinations, but this is not 'elegant'. Mathematicians attempted for years to find an elegant solution, but from memory, in the mid '70s, it was proven that there isn't one.

Returning to the originally intended pun of the (joke?) thread. I think the GPS thing has been run with over here rather than the final punch line 'paper or plastic' thing as it was most likely lost on Aussie readers who never get asked that question at a supermarket anyway. And if they did it's meaning would usually be about how they are going to pay not what 'sack' they are going to use. Who calls it a sack here anyway?

A problem of trying to blandly transplant US comedy lines to OZ?