I have not clicked either of those links but I’m pretty sure they’ve gotta be from The Prisoner.
(I loved that show.)
Never saw it, but I’m going to try. (available on Amazon Prime, I see)
It’s great but it’s weird. Even for a show in the 60s it’s weird. Especially the finale.
Very experimental and trippy at times.
The Villages: British Hell
My Mom (who lives in Coconut Creek Florida) has mentioned the Villages before. IIRC They are known for being filled with senior swingers and std’s.
And Trumpists.
We have a 55+ community in the hills here in San Jose called “The Villages”. I suppose they’re the same outfit. But it’s pricey, and a quick look at the places on Zillow seem to show that it’s all condos and apartments. And it’s a definite golf course kind of community. I guess we’ll just stay put.
Best part of the place we’re in is it’s not owned by a faceless corporate entity. It’s owned by two brothers, and while they live in Detroit, they visit here periodically and the staff are on first-name basis with them. Even better, the residents aren’t morons.
My parents live in The Villages. They are definitely not Trumpists. I cannot speak to their swinging nor their STD status, but I like to think they’re both clean.
My profile in the account I had on Twitter ( before it was banned/deleted by Musk ) said in the profile,
“I may not be your hero, but I’m certainly not your villain.”
I just saw that word-for-word it is the last line spoken to Gyllenhaal in his 2024 remake of “Roadhouse”.
( I guess they Steal from The Best, huh…? It’s just a shame that it’s such a bad movie. )
With many if not most car-repair places now discontinuing courtesy shuttles, and for other general reasons, I thought (based on a friend’s recommendation) to finally bite the bullet and put the Uber app on my phone. I never use my cell phone for anything except actually making phone calls and occasional texting. Google put me through Authentication Hell trying to get simple access to the Google Play store to download the free app. Finally got through it all, and put “Uber” into the search box. I got this:
“Looking for Uber? This app won’t work for your device.”
Thanks Google! Thanks Uber! But ultimately they aren’t really the problem. The real problem is Kids These Days. So gather 'round, boys and girls, and grandpa will tell you all about it.
A long, long time ago – longer than you can possibly imagine, especially those of you developing new versions of Android and new “apps” even though you’re still in diapers – a man named Alexander Graham Bell invented an extremely useful device that came to be knows as a “telephone”. The device that you kids have your noses buried in every waking hour is not a “telephone”, nor is it a “phone”, because you never talk on it. It is the Spawn of Satan.
Some say that it’s not actually a phone, but a miraculous little computer. Listen up, boys and girls, because it’s not exactly that either. Historically one of the attributes of actual computers was a deep commitment by the hardware engineers to compatibility of operating systems among processor variants within the same product architecture. Operating system developers, in turn, had serious respect for the importance of backward compatibility with existing and older applications (we never called them “apps”). No longer. The reason I can’t install the Uber “app” is that my phone is a few years old, and naturally that makes it totally obsolete in every respect, including the Android version it can run and the apps it can run.
It is, of course, not possible to summon Uber with a “phone” in the proper sense of the word. Kids These Days with their noses glued to their smartphones 24x7 would scoff at the idea of summoning a ride by calling a “phone number” and then speaking.
I got the ride I needed today by using two very useful technologies that, incredibly, still exist and have not been wiped out by today’s children: the “telephone” and the “taxi”. None of which, incidentally, required an “app”. Nor did they require two-factor authentication or OAuth 2.0 or any of the other things that plague my life. Quick, simple, easy, with very little that could go wrong. Today’s children would hate it.
You don’t think this happens with computers (e.g. old computers running a discontinued version of Windows)?
I’m not a kid, but I hate the idea of calling up a stranger (or even someone I know) and talking to them to ask them for something. I’d much rather use an app for something like that. But, to each their own.
My sinuses have decided that flowering plants are trying to kill me, and so to protect me the sinuses must stop me from breathing. No amount of pharmaceuticals can convince them otherwise.
I’ll be damned. Out of curiosity I checked my Uber app ( which I’ve had installed and using for the past half-dozen years ) and sure enough it just went lame as the home screen now looks like a generic website circa 2001. It basically says that while I can still request a ride, some features will not work. Here and there, I’m noticing a few apps that no longer work or will not update due to Android incompatibility.
I just can’t deal with having to get a new phone when my present one is still serviceable. Breaks my heart. At least Lyft still works. For now.
There’s no secret that smart phones have intentional obsolescence built into their business models.
As a professional directly responsible for supporting dozens (close to 100?) of smart phone users at my agency it’s a real pain in the ass.
Windows, you say? My dear sweet innocent child, let grandpa explain something to you. The last real computers were the DEC PDP-11 series of compatible minicomputers, the VAX/VMS series, and broadly speaking, the family of compatible mainframes that began with the IBM System/360 series.
That thing that sits on or under your desk at home, or worse, the thing that looks like a mutant baby briefcase that you open up to reveal a built-in screen, keyboard, and trackpad – those things might be considered baby computers that devolved from real ones, but they’re emblematic of a completely new culture that was foisted on us by Kids These Days. And that culture is represented by the era of the Disposable Computer. When your friend the modern computer geek (age 7) examines your current difficulty installing a new application and tells you “you need a new computer”, this child is telling you that you live in the era of the Disposable Computer.
Incidentally, the era of the Disposable Computer is considerably exacerbated by the antics of Microsoft, the first major software company to be infested by Kids These Days and their utter disdain for the established principles of software engineering: prioritizing software quality, testing, coherent architectures, and backwards compatibility. When your 7-year-old geek tells you that “you need a new computer”, the kids at Microsoft chime in with “and you need a new OS anyway”.
One or two years later, the whole process repeats.
When I call a taxi, I’m neither asking for a favour nor am I socializing. I’m placing an order.
Yeah. That reminds me of how my mom refused to get a new computer, even when she had to enter emails three words at a time (three words, then pause to let the computer digest). It was still working, so she wasn’t going to throw it out.
We did a few things to help. We deleted the marketing-ware that the local computer shop had installed. We found her house wi-fi and turned it on. Then we bought her an ipad.
She only needed a computer for about five things, and the ipad could do them all, plus it was portable. She loved it. And she didn’t need to throw out a perfectly good computer.
I’m starting to feel the same way about my old iphone. And I do agree with you about the backwards compatibility.
I used to be more like wolpup, but Covid brought out my Thudlowdian side, and encouraged my shyness. I’ll head straight to the self-checkout lines (and avoid calling any company for anything), because I don’t want anyone asking me how my day’s going.
I’ve always been an introvert with an element of shyness, so I get it. But as I’ve grown older, a refreshing don’t-give-a-shit attitude has set in that’s quite liberating. I’m fine with casual conversations with cashiers, service providers, or whoever, and sometimes even initiate them for fun (did I mention that I no longer give a shit?). I don’t know if taxis have changed in recent years or if it’s just peculiar to this area, but when my taxi arrived yesterday I got in the front instead of the usual back seat (the back door was locked) and the driver and I had ourselves a fine chat on the way to pick up my car. Needless to say, my mindset being what it was at the time and him being a taxi driver, a lot of it was about Uber! 
ETA: And the next time I need a ride, I’m definitely using this area’s little taxi service because I want to keep them in business, and I invite Uber to kindly go fuck themselves.
The Good News: I didn’t pull a hamstring.
The bad News: I have a slipped disk. Hooo-ly fuck this hurts.