Get off my LAWN! "Grumpy Old Farts"

[gtmalone]

Well, I thought about what happened yesterday and what it means to be a GOF and why we are who we are.

The story is two-fold.

Back in the '90's, way before I was a GOF (actually, I was 40), I ordered a sub-woofer for my truck at Circuit City. The procedure was, you ordered it in the Audio Department and then proceeded to Customer Service to pick it up. The "kid" behind the counter took my receipt and presented me with the box. In the process, he ask "Is this for you?". I said "Yes, why do you ask?". He said, "Well, we usually sell these to much younger people". I frowned and went on my way, not surprised when they went belly-up a short time later.

Fast-forward to yesterday, 33 years later. I am at BestBuy getting a new stereo installed in a new/used truck. While discussing radio reception with the "young" installer, I told him I wasn't that interested in radio because of the lack of good music and too many commercials. I told him I preferred Apple CarPlay and the ability to play my own music from my iPhone.

He responded, "Most elderly people still prefer loading CD's and can't be bothered to convert them to their iPhones", to which I bit my tongue and said, "I am not one of your elderly people and have over 7 hours of my good music on my iPhone".

I don't know why there are youngsters out there who think older people cannot adapt. Most of us are wondering why they can't (grump, grump).

Did he ask if you needed any help getting into your truck?

Some "elderly" people just don't want to learn anything new or don't have a need for it. That's typically our parent's generation. That's good in a way. It would not be any fun trying to talk Pop through "How do I get this internet thing to work" or "The computer is acting funny". I'm starting to get to the point of not liking change in some things like that stupid cell phone. Yeah, I can figure it out but it pisses me off, gosh darn it!

 

[SoulReflection]

How do you connect your phone to the car system? Cable? Wifi?

Cable.

 

[SoulReflection]

Geez, Souly! Don't you know how to take a backhanded compliment? That's the ill-mannered whippersnappers' way of saying, "Wow, you're really 'with it', man!" "Good for you, living in the modern world!", without sounding too condescending (or complimentary).

You shoulda come back with sumpin' like, "Yeah, next I'll be gettin' Bluetooth for my hearing aids*!" Then they'da given you that deer-in-the-headlights look, not knowing what to say.



*one of my GOF friends has BT hearing aids connected to his smartphone and it's sometimes hard to tell if he's talking to me or on the phone!
.

I already have BT for my hearing aids...

 

[SoulReflection]

Did he ask if you needed any help getting into your truck?

Some "elderly" people just don't want to learn anything new or don't have a need for it. That's typically our parent's generation. That's good in a way. It would not be any fun trying to talk Pop through "How do I get this internet thing to work" or "The computer is acting funny". I'm starting to get to the point of not liking change in some things like that stupid cell phone. Yeah, I can figure it out but it pisses me off, gosh darn it!

Funny thing is, I sometimes have to help the young ones sorting out their problems with connections...

 

[SoulReflection]

Did he ask if you needed any help getting into your truck?

Some "elderly" people just don't want to learn anything new or don't have a need for it. That's typically our parent's generation. That's good in a way. It would not be any fun trying to talk Pop through "How do I get this internet thing to work" or "The computer is acting funny". I'm starting to get to the point of not liking change in some things like that stupid cell phone. Yeah, I can figure it out but it pisses me off, gosh darn it!

I get that "some elderly folk" may have problems but I and other elderly's do not. So, my point is, don't treat all elderly's the same, just as not all young'uns are the same....

 

[spiritbass]

You shoulda come back with sumpin' like, "Yeah, next I'll be gettin' Bluetooth for my hearing aids*!" Then they'da given you that deer-in-the-headlights look, not knowing what to say.

Good imagery, I can see the shock delivered by this perfect come-back.

 

[SoulReflection]

Good imagery, I can see the shock delivered by this perfect come-back.

I already have that.

 

[beans-on-toast]

Cable.

My car has Apple CarPlay built in, I have my music on a solid state drive. I doesn’t work that well, it seems to be buggy and there haven’t been any updates in three years from GM. I spoke to people at GM, they are clued out. The software comes from somewhere else.

I think that the issue is that I have too much music. It results in indexing problems. I have tried it both with a wire to my phone and using the car’s wifi. It works but the phone’s screen is too small to see the songs or search. So I don’t use it.

Due to these technical issues, I prefer CD’s. I made hundreds just for the car, well thought out track listings. Get the new car and no CD player. GM doesn’t want me using one. Got to look at USB CD players I suppose.

 

[GwenOnBass]

The Cherokee was factory designated as CD-free. Bluetooth connects the smrtphn. Mostly I leave the music off. What I didn't leave off today is the smrtphn as I waited for my labs. It rang ... and the ringtone is Dereck Flint's ringtone.

Lab results are back and happy with what I see. Forgot until I logged on that I have an appointment with the osteopathic surgeon this week. It's a follow-up and I expect no surprises. A moderate surprise today is the doctor I saw this morning told me she's given her resignation, and is going into private practice. In the next county because legal. A 30 minute drive, should I continue with her.

She's very good ... so is the doctor I saw before her. Switched because doctor numero uno was on maternity leave. Looks like back to the doctor I saw before, and she is very good.

 

[Winslow]

PSA for those with BMW's, and the stock head units that have a plugin slot for the BMW CD changer: This brilliant little gizmo spoofs the head into thinking that you have a "CD changer" with 6 "CDs" (i.e. primary folders) capable of carrying any number of sub-folders full of MP3s. The only limit to its capacity is the size of the SD card you plug into it. Folders organize alpha-numerically, just as they would on your computer, and the head unit can display the album, artist, and track info embedded into the files. All your steering wheel controls work with it too, just as they would with CDs:

CP600BMW MP3 Player - MTC maintronic GmbH

 

[SoulReflection]

My car has Apple CarPlay built in, I have my music on a solid state drive. I doesn’t work that well, it seems to be buggy and there haven’t been any updates in three years from GM. I spoke to people at GM, they are clued out. The software comes from somewhere else.

I think that the issue is that I have too much music. It results in indexing problems. I have tried it both with a wire to my phone and using the car’s wifi. It works but the phone’s screen is too small to see the songs or search. So I don’t use it.

Due to these technical issues, I prefer CD’s. I made hundreds just for the car, well thought out track listings. Get the new car and no CD player. GM doesn’t want me using one. Got to look at USB CD players I suppose.

Can't you just load your tunes on your iPhone and play them thru CarPlay? I do, but, if you can't, I must be missing something...maybe its this "solid state drive" you mentioned...

 

[beans-on-toast]

Can't you just load your tunes on your iPhone and play them thru CarPlay? I do, but, if you can't, I must be missing something...maybe its this "solid state drive" you mentioned...

I have to work on it, load a subset of itunes onto the phone.

One issue is that their technical documentation isn’t provided. They don’t specify the maximum disk size and supported disk formats.

 

[mikeoso]

Venus on the Half Shell was apparently re-issued, and yes, it's by Farmer.

Apologies, most humble. I've only ever seen Vonnegut's.

 

[GwenOnBass]

Read Farmer's Riverworld when I was a student at MI. My favourite sci-fi writer here in the future is Verner Vinge.

 

[SoulReflection]

I have to work on it, load a subset of itunes onto the phone.

One issue is that their technical documentation isn’t provided. They don’t specify the maximum disk size and supported disk formats.

iPhones do not have maximum disk size or supported disk formats. They have internal memory. I have over 7 hours of audio on my iPhone and have no problem playing those tunes thru Car Play. I only have 32 gb of memory.

 

[mikeoso]

Can't you just load your tunes on your iPhone and play them thru CarPlay? I do, but, if you can't, I must be missing something...maybe its this "solid state drive" you mentioned...

hmm...I must be way behind. I have my various playlists on thumbdrives, just pop them in the USB slots. Truck only has one, but the jeep has 4 or 5.

 

[SoulReflection]

hmm...I must be way behind. I have my various playlists on thumbdrives, just pop them in the USB slots. Truck only has one, but the jeep has 4 or 5.

USB thumb drives work as well if you have USB connections.

 

[mikeoso]

USB thumb drives work as well if you have USB connections.

My jeep has them all over the place. Two in the dash, one in the armrest, one in the back of the console, one back by the tailgate...probably a few I havent found yet.

My first jeep had a flathead 4 cyl, 3 spd manual, manual locking hubs, wipers run off throttle vacuum, heater that you turned off by shutting a hatch...and no radio.

Driving the new one feels like cheating, somehow.

 

[mikeoso]

Read Farmer's Riverworld when I was a student at MI. My favourite sci-fi writer here in the future is Verner Vinge.

I've been reading William Gibson a lot lately. Dude is prescient, and has been for 40 years.

 

[beans-on-toast]

iPhones do not have maximum disk size or supported disk formats. They have internal memory. I have over 7 hours of audio on my iPhone and have no problem playing those tunes thru Car Play. I only have 32 gb of memory.

The memory available is my limitation. The library is fairly large, my solid state itunes music drives are TeraByte. No problem with the computer but CarPlay is flakey with large devices. Sometimes it works, other times the indexing gets confused, it indexes when I insert them, and it doesn’t see all the songs or plays the wrong ones.