I’ll tell you what makes me feel old: A museum upcountry has a 1970s-era adding machine as one of its exhibits. 
New technology doesn’t make me feel old, but bad technology pisses me off. I look for well engineered products when purchasing new technology. My car stereo is logically laid out using a combination of traditional knobs and easily learned buttons. It has a USB port so I’m able to use a micro-sdhc reader to play music. By using the same chip that’s in my phone I have a hard drive connected all the time. I like new technology.
I’ve found that many multi-tasking items (such as my phone/camera/mp3 player) do nothing well and are not worth the flexibility promised by combining different electronic devices. I could buy the cheapest digital camera and it would be leagues ahead of my 3 Mp phone camera. Same for the MP3.
Its not really the tech that gets the older generations ticked, for the most part the industry can ignore them. My dad who is in his 70’s has an ipod that is loaded with his music, so it really depends on how the gizmo is marketed.
But mostly , it probably has to do with losing connectivity with the real world. When they talk to their social set, they are about as connected as they would ever be, but trying to settle on one piece of tech that will eclipse the dial phone, is not gonna happen. Too may people are not standardized on one way of communication, and eventually they get with the flow and spam your facebook account, or they pretty much give up.
Complaining is always easier, but I’m curious about which generation it going to be that has no real reason to complain anymore bout new tech.
Declan
What makes me feel a bit old is not that I do not keep up with technology (I do keep up, thank you very much).
What makes me feel old is the proportion of consumers and journalists who are so ignorant of technological development earlier than a few years ago that they accept a claim that something is an exciting new development at face value, when it’s only the latest iteration of an idea that fails every few years (e.g. flying cars, widespread online food shopping), or an obvious application of well-understood principles. I read about a web entrepreneur some years ago who had hit on a type of information site that promised to be better than search engines - by classifying sites in a hierarchical taxonomy. An entirely new kind of site - a web directory.
Does knowing that ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ qualify you for codgerhood?
Huh? Why not write it in C? GCC will be around forever.
Then why all the threads about MP3 players, texting and mobile phones? Clearly people do give a shit that people are using these things, or they wouldn’t keep trotting out the same tired yawnfests about kids texting each other instead of speaking on the phone. Kinda like the rest of your post did.
I always have access to ALL maps on my smart phone, read all my news on it too. And factor in the time and aggravation of being lost looking for that phone, and a quarter versus just whipping it out. $100/month for unilimited data and enough time for both my wife and I to not need a house phone. Cost wise, I’m way ahead of the game.
Which version?
2.0 = 1997-01-27
2.0.1 = 1997-02-04
2.0.2 = 1997-03-22
2.0.3 = 1997-04-22
2.0.4 = 1997-05-27
2.0.5 = 1997-08-25
2.0.6 = 1997-12-29
2.1.1 = 1999-05-24
2.1.2 = 1999-09-07
2.1.3 = 2000-02-25
2.2 = 2000-11-10
2.2.1 = 2001-01-13
2.2.2 = 2001-02-16
2.2.3 = 2001-04-27
2.2.4 = 2001-08-16
2.2.5 = 2002-01-21
2.3 = 2002-10-03
2.3.1 = 2002-10-11
2.3.2 = 2003-03-01
2.3.3 = 2004-08-03
2.3.4 = 2005-01-26
2.3.5 = 2005-04-07
2.3.6 = 2005-11-03
2.4 = 2006-03-06
2.5 = 2006-09-29
2.5.1 = 2007-07-31
2.6 = 2007-05-17
2.6.1 = 2007-07-31
2.7 = 2007-10-19
The point is, sooner or later SOMETHING will require the code to be retouched.
Right, and correct! The both of yous.
Two examples. My friend was trying to text people to coordinate a pub crawl, and showed some concerns about people not texting back in time, possibly not hearing the phone chime, etc. His girlfriend said, “You have a phone in your hand. Why not call?” No shit, eh? Just on Friday at work, we were trying to make some magic happen by the end of the day. E-mail/carrier pigeon was just not an option, and everyone was worried about e-mail not being fast enough, so I picked up the phone and called. Blew everyone out of the water, it did! Still, people, actually calling someone is still the fastest, easiest way to communicate.
A few people have kind of covered my opinion on the matter throughout this thread. My take: I used to be all over technology because I thought it improved things. Text messages, for instance, have their place and are (were?) an improvement. Sometimes you want to ask when you’re meeting at the bar, but don’t have time for a conversation, and/or don’t want to scurry off from where you are to make a phone call to inquire. Instead, you send a quick text, get one back, and all is well. Now this business of conducting whole conversations via text is just stupid. Make a call, jerks.
I’m somewhat on top of technology, but I think most of it is stupid now. New =/= better. Why get an iPad when I can get a mini laptop? It does more and costs the same. Why converse via text message when I can call? And so forth.
New technology doesn’t make me feel old but being 70 sure the hell does.
hen I read the thread title I thought it asked if new technology makes my feet cold. I have to say no. But needing reading glasses makes me feel old.
StG
The thread you’re posting in contradicts this (as well as every old person I know who complains about technology).
Hell, I remember people complaining about “new technology” all the way back in the 1960s.
Texting is considered new technology? Did I wake up in 1995 again? 
I don’t understand your point. Write it in standard C99. Every new C standard is guaranteed to be backward compatible, and GCC won’t break existing standard conformant code. It doesn’t matter which particular version of the compiler you use, as long as it compiles standard C (which GCC does).
In theory, you’re right, practice is a little different. I’ve run into enough little niggling PITA code issues that I’ll side with Napier. Write enough code and you’ll have to revisit X% of it over Y% period of time because Z happened. Whether that’s a compatibility issue, a jump from 32 to 64 bits, the discovery of the latest SQL injection technique, or whatever.
It’s four times as bad when you pick Microsoft as a developer environment, they’re in the business of selling you software…every two to four years, which is how Site Server 1.0 becomes Sharepoint Portal Server becomes Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services and leads to statements like:
You are right though, for MOST open source stuff, it’s a matter of ./configure && make && make install…but I still occasionally run into 'You must run libFoo 1.6.2, you currently have libFoo 1.9 installed…and libFoo 1.6.2 has fallen off the interwebs.
That’s increasingly becoming a problem. I was always an early adopter, but now I feel pressure to adopt new technologies and services before I have a need for them. I’m a working professional in a specialized field, thus I MUST have a LinkedIn profile. It’s not enough to have a Facebook profile, but rather to have one, check it all the time, and comment on status updates and accept invitations for various polls and games lest I offend someone. Family members ask me what my Twitter feed is. (I reserved my name, but that’s it; I don’t tweet my comings and goings.) Now, on top of that, Foursquare stickers are popping up on the doors businesses of everywhere around me.
My stereo is a basic two-channel system that would have been considered high-end in 1989. I don’t have a Blu-Ray DVD player, nor a Netflix subscription. I’m now feeling backwards because I still have a landline phone, on top of my cell phone.
I don’t understand the appeal of MP3 players over radio, traditional or satellite, because the playlist seems even more limited unless one has thousands of songs. I find being introduced to new music on a decent radio station just as satisfying as seeking it out on obscure blogs, and it’s much easier. I store some podcasts on my iPhone, and play them when I walk or drive (not through elaborate synching, but a cheap FM transmitter), but don’t see MP3 players as replacements for a radio or CD collection.
I’m 23, and I played the Nokia snake gameon my cell phone during driver’s ed for 4 hours a day and I still didn’t have to charge my phone every day. I couldn’t read a book - that was too obvious - but I could play Snake. So I did. It helps if you’re waiting in a restaurant, on a bus, whatever. Same for the integrated mp3 players.
The biggest benefit for texting is letting several people know what’s going on without having to spend 5 minutes calling each one. If you call someone, you gotta say hi, how are you, how’s your day, here’s what’s going on, okay see you then, oh okay here’s who else is coming, bye now. Texting allows you to tell a whole bunch of people where and when something’s going on within 30 seconds.
Texting also lets you tell people small bits of very relevant information without wasting time, and then you have a copy of it. Example - my mom’s flight is delayed. She could 1) call me and tell me how much it was delayed, what happened, the new time, the new flight number, etc, then I’d have to find a pen to write it all down with and then ask her to repeat it again OR 2) She can send a text with “Flight delayed. New USAir flight 1934 departing 8:40 arriving 11:29. See you then, love you.”
A great example is when I chipped my tooth before I was about to go home. The dental office had no reception, so I texted my mom on my way there about what happened, letting her know I wouldn’t have reception and I’d be an hour late getting home. Had I called, she may have seen the voicemail and thought “oh, she called to say she’s leaving”. Retrieving a voicemail takes several minutes; my text popped up on her screen immediately, so the moment she looks at her cell phone, she knows what’s up.
Is it abused in inappropriate places? Sure. But in the 1950’s people were watching TV too much instead of talking to one another, so it’s not a recent thing. Technology can and will be abused, but it’s the fault of people.
I must have missed the boat on the whole cellular phone thing. I don’t travel and only use it when I need to. I’m a space hog and don’t like the idea of an electronic leash. I never set up my voice mail on purpose. It’s bad enough listening to the answering machine. I don’t even answer my home phone unless I’m in the mood. I like a home phone because with a home phone if I don’t answer it they can’t say I’m ignoring their calls.
I really don’t want people to know when I’m home or where I am every second of the day. I like to get lost in quiet. Pretty soon we will all be wearing GPS’s so our every move can be tracked.
Technology is flawed in that it is not used in the way it is supposed to be used. You don’t need to talk and text anyone all the time like it’s an umbilical cord. It wasn’t made for that but every crack head on welfare has to have a cell phone provided by the state? Why? To make covert drug deals? Couples don’t talk they text all day long. How boring!
Video games are for entertainment but not to be used every spare minute of the day and night. It is a way of tuning out from reality. When the skin wears off your fingers put the controller down!
Just because I have a computer doesn’t give me the right to be abusive with it. To hurt people or steal information from them. Still it is abused. At least for the time being it is still unmonitored and a place with vast amounts of cool information. I love the internet but I have a feeling it will be gone before long. Way too much free speech on the internet.
TV, Now don’t get me started. Another great invention abused by humans to the point it is now brainwashing anyone that watches enough of it. It was a great invention that mutated into a form of entertainment which I find insulting. It is crude, rude and the news is a joke. It isn’t even news anymore, just tragedy and mind numbing political double talk. Blah!
I really never saw it coming although some authors and film makers did. I was a teenager reading 1984 back in the 70’s. I saw the movie “They Live” and it made me laugh. Now I’m uncomfortably aware of how old I am and how far this tech-no stuff has gone and I wonder what have we really gained? Why did we need to make all that bandwidth for? So everyone can Bla Bla Bla all day long? For people who are so out of touch with reality that they have to watch reality tv to remember what it was like to…
What?
That’s becoming my new catchphrase. Also, I just sigged you, Perc.