I use an Internet based calendar to keep track of all appointments; the calendar e-mails reminders to me. I can access the calendar from my PCs, laptops and phone. Your method seems a bit old school, but, I'm glad it works for you.

Slackware seems a bit old school but it works for me!

They do for me. I have "Digital Wellbeing" on my phone that will change the screen to grayscale at a certain time. If I'm still on my phone that late, it reminds me that I should put it down and go to bed.

When one becomes older she or he becomes wiser. It is not a strict rule. A lot of people prefer to waste their time so they get stuck somewhere.

I cannot speak for everyone but speaking for myself I use computers:

● to look for information,
● to write texts,
● to code programs,
● to improve my systems and programs stability and security,
● to listen to music,
● to watch videos,
● to process photos,
● to draw vector and bitmap graphics,
● to process music and video files,
● to prepare e-books,
● to compose music,
● to shop,
● and probably to achieve some other goals which escaped my attention at this very moment.

As you see I am very old but not enough old to use computers:

● to play games with grandchildren,
● to have the dates with grass widows,
● to break into other people’s computer systems,
● and to take over the control over the world.

When I was young I learned that knowledge and understanding, of themselves, were more valuable than any other thing. With the help of many kind people and some effort on my own part I managed to acquire enough of each to improve the conditions of my own life and those around me. And I learned to enjoy learning and exploring new knowledge more than just about anything else!

The tools available to me early were pencil, paper, such printed books as were available to me, and the kindness of those willing to share their own knowledge and experience to further and enrich my own.

As availability and power of computing machines (i.e. information, knowledge processing tools) increased I sought out knowledge about them and ways to make beneficial use of them! The effect on my own knowledge and understanding was, and continues to be explosive and delightful - and I am not alone in this experience!

And in trying to make best use of computing devices for my own ends, I gained enough knowledge and understanding about them to make my own living applying them in endless permutations of general knowledge to solve other people's problems for fun , enlightenment and occasional profit!

So this old person uses these wonderful devices, unimaginable in my youth, to learn something new every day, in a continuity of knowledge and curiosity uninterrupted from the time I learned to fly a kite or build a crystal radio. I am still awed at the sheer capacity of computing power that a few simple principles of old knowledge have put at our fingertips!

I am thrilled to think where future explorations of new knowledge in continuity of understanding with the old might lead us. But I am also dismayed to see so many younger people for whom this is all just "how things are now", with so little evident curiosity or interest in understanding - and extending - this wonderful knowledge!

While I hope for an ever brighter future for the human species, I can too easily imagine a scenario in which a dazed and confused population sits among technological rubble eating boiled rat by firelight, wondering why all this stuff was ever useful, while hacking each other with sharp objects...? And I can realistically imagine that within the same time frame that separates pencil and paper education from laptops and smartphones - perhaps even more quickly.

Which leads me to ask what will you kids (and your kids) be using your computers for in ten or twenty years? Give that some serious thought!

I am second to ask that.

***

astrogeek,

Great post!

I don't know if this was a tongue in cheek comment (I hope so), but if it wasn't...

The "old people" are the ones who created computers and the programs we use on them. Sure, hardware was limited at the time, but there was the obvious vision on what they could achieve with computers (and the not so obvious things we've since achieved) and through time and technology, we've arrived to today. The creators of UNIX, Ken Thompson and Dennis Richie are both in their 70s.

People now in their 80s were a part of the Apollo program, where they were able to send people to the moon with less computing power than what's available in a pocket calculator. They still had humans double check the math the computers were accomplishing, because they were so new and unproven.

People in their 60s were a part of the Space Shuttle program, which while they had substantially better computers than Apollo, are still woefully inadequate compared to any modern system.

Yes, there are people in that age category who don't know how to use a digital camera and want to rewind a DVD/Bluray, but there are also people in that category who designed these things and know more about them than you can imagine. Just as there are teens and people in their twenties who could never imagine putting together a computer or installing an operating system.

Age in no way dictates abilities. I'm sure many of these Slackers in the 60-80+ age group are far more knowledgeable in computers than what me or many other forum regulars are capable of. The saying, "I've forgotten more than you've learned" seems apt here.

My second thought after reading astrogeek’s post concerns different writing utensils. I am so old that I love pencils and fountain pens but I hate ballpoint pens. The interesting thing is that as a teenager I was the same old as I am now because I always loved pencils and fountain pens but I hated ballpoint pens. The truth is even worse: I remember myself as six years old boy standing in line next to my parents and thinking deeply while all my peers run here and there and shout aloud without rhyme or reason. So I suppose I was born as old man.

Tidbit: at present I use Rotring rapid PRO 0.7 pencil (silver finish) with HB lead and Rotring Newton fountain pen (lava finish) with black-blue ink.

***

I cannot speak for kids but I imagine that they use computers:

● to play games with their grandfathers,
● to spoil grandpas dates with neighboring widows,
● to break into grandpas computers in order to get to adult websites,
● and to dream about taking the control over the world.

Sad to say, Dennis Ritchie passed on in 2011, but point still made.

I think one huge factor between then and now, "them" and "us" (present company excluded) is that one word, "vision".

As a kid reading by oil lamp (yes I have had that experience!) with some sense of where I came from, my place relative to the past and imaginations of where that could/should lead into the future, I had some tangible "vision" of a future which I could help bring about! I expect that perspective was not uncommon among others of the time, and to the extent that so much of it has come about, space flight, electronic technology in its many forms, unprecedented growth in knowledge of the universe, it was a realizable vision!

What common vision is shared among the younger generations today...? What do they hope for, want to be a part of? How do they perceive themselves in relation to human history, and future? Or do they...?

When I think about it, it is apparent absence of such vision and continuity of values that is most troublesome. Technology is cool, but it does not advance itself, and it has little long term purpose without human vision and values, and some drive other than immediate monetary profit to give it direction.

Q: What common vision is shared among the younger generations today?

A: It is a vision of uninterrupted contact with their smartphones screens.

Q: What do they hope for, want to be a part of?

A: They hope to buy a newest iPhone this year and be a part of huge social networking community which is not known to the older generations.

Q: How do they perceive themselves in relation to human history, and future?

A: They think they are smarter than all previous generations and they do not have an idea that some next generation will come sooner or later.

Q: Or do they?

A: I doubt.

Oh boy. :D When I was a teen one of my prize possessions was my fountain pen. Might be a coincidence, but my penmanship dwindled after I lost my fountain pen.

Another prize possession was my Picket metal slide rule. Yup, I studied science and math with no pocket calculator because they had not yet been invented. I still have the slide rule although I have forgotten much if its use. In a beautiful leather case.

In my senior physics class our teacher bought a Heathkit calculator that was big as a shoe box. Had only the basic four functions. We assembled the kit as part of the class. Pocket calculators were still a good two years away then

I still use pencils. I keep scratch paper and a pencil next to my office computer keyboard. I do a lot of chicken scratching on paper while I work. :)

upnort,

This thread becomes finally interesting. Just look at my Small Soroban. A Concise Tutorial for the Beginners. In section 0. Introduction I showed my plastic slide ruler. It was made by ARISTO and has sturdy plastic case (not shown on the picture).

As for my penmanship it dwindled when I started to write using computers.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonybra...ital-dementia/

Evolution/Involution (I belong to X and I'm OK with the Millenials, but really worried about the Zs - "the ghoogle dominated (literally!) fakebookers"):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z
After Z, either:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z#Successors
or:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
;)

Back to Slackware, the topic, focusing on the recent tech developments and on the younger generation, I remember having some observations in an older thread related to the the future of Slackware. I was pointing out that nowadays with this cloud virtualization/abstraction phenomenon, the operating system became a "consumable", pretty standardized and the deployment /configuration procedures simplified for fast delivery. There is no time (people are expected to deliver from day 1) and no interest in investing effort for understand too much about the details/internals. Convenience and fast (cheap) delivery.

I just noticed that. I had just glanced at his age and didn't realize it was next to his date of death. That's too bad.

I don't really consider myself Gen X or a Millenial, although, most dates would put me as a millenial. Fortunately, someone came up with a "micro generation" in between those two, where they encompass parts of both, commonly called Xennial or the Oregon Trail Generation.

https://www.good.is/articles/generation-xennials

Almost everyone has computer at home and many people have also a printer. So desktop publishing is in these people hands. Meanwhile almost no-one is able to prepare reasonably a simplest document. Typical computer user knows nothing about typography. Of course she or he cannot also write sensibly but it is not the topic of our conversation.

In the past I corrected documents prepared by other people. Usually I edited them and improved their typography. Different typesetting errors are common because people learn how to use computers one from the other instead of read manuals. As a result their documents look like prepared on a typewriter using typeballs with different usually ill-matched fonts.

I could give here a hundred of other examples how ignorants use programs and devices. The bottom line is that convenience and fast delivery produce horrible results.