Things that make you feel old.

[Broken_Erika]

I wonder if some so called Gen-Z guys can figure out what is it for

Less chance than they'll get this

Spoiler :

 

[Broken_Erika]

Speaking of which, how many people here know what this is?

 

[AdamCrock]

Less chance than they'll get this

Spoiler :

Haha Yeah ! The pencil trick came in handy when You had a walk-man and wouldn't want to waste batteries on rewind

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Despise my age (37=2x18+1 , 38 in December - geez Louise , I can still recall my 18th birthday party :O) I still feel rather young although whenever I see one of these babies (I still got a few) :

View attachment 661747

it reminds me of the passage of time. I wonder if some so called Gen-Z guys can figure out what is it for

I still have some of mine, plus the tape recorder I played them on.

I'd need new C batteries to use it now, though.

Less chance than they'll get this

Spoiler :

Been there, done that.

Speaking of which, how many people here know what this is?

Heh, I still have my 8-track recording of one of William Shatner's Star Trek convention appearances.

I no longer have anything to play it on, though.

 

[AdamCrock]

Speaking of tape records - I still got my VHS player somewhere in the attic. People of the Netflix kingdom do not appreciate what they have now - I mean : blockbusters (and that company "copies" abroad) ! When I think of it now it feels like a scam comparing to what people enjoy today + it also makes me feel old. Sure renting a video on a tape was worse than just a few clicks of a mouse in home but it had it's charm too. heh I feel like nostalgia coming over me all of a sudden.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Speaking of tape records - I still got my VHS player somewhere in the attic. People of the Netflix kingdom do not appreciate what they have now - I mean : blockbusters (and that company "copies" abroad) ! When I think of it now it feels like a scam comparing to what people enjoy today + it also makes me feel old. Sure renting a video on a tape was worse than just a few clicks of a mouse in home but it had it's charm too. heh I feel like nostalgia coming over me all of a sudden.

Heh. Paying for memberships at video stores. Some charged $75/year for the privilege of renting videos.

We had a science fiction convention in Red Deer, back in the mid-'80s. I was on the committee, so one of my jobs was coming up with stuff for people to do.

I had a friend in Calgary who had VHS tapes of all the Tom Baker Doctor Who stories (everything PBS had shown so far). I asked if she'd bring them to Red Deer so we could have a Doctor Who video room for people to come and watch. I paid her way to Red Deer, the committee rented an extra VHS machine, and we kept our hotel room door open for several hours a day for anyone to come and watch Doctor Who if they wanted. It went over well.

To this day, I cannot figure out why the most popular choice was Pyramids of Mars. That's the one in the Victorian mansion with the mummies. I've come to hate that story...

 

[AdamCrock]

Heh. Paying for memberships at video stores. Some charged $75/year for the privilege of renting videos.

We had a science fiction convention in Red Deer, back in the mid-'80s. I was on the committee, so one of my jobs was coming up with stuff for people to do.

I had a friend in Calgary who had VHS tapes of all the Tom Baker Doctor Who stories (everything PBS had shown so far). I asked if she'd bring them to Red Deer so we could have a Doctor Who video room for people to come and watch. I paid her way to Red Deer, the committee rented an extra VHS machine, and we kept our hotel room door open for several hours a day for anyone to come and watch Doctor Who if they wanted. It went over well.

To this day, I cannot figure out why the most popular choice was Pyramids of Mars. That's the one in the Victorian mansion with the mummies. I've come to hate that story...

Yeah paying a subscription fee just to be able to pay more is definitely a scam.

That convention You've described : Well that's what I am talking about when I say "charm" . I think people were more social back than. More open and outgoing. I mean live contact in person not a "phony" one over social media or the zoom communicator. In the advent of smart technology even Your smart refrigerator can order Your groceries for You so You don't even have to go outside and see live people - well except maybe see a delivery guy once in a while. Maybe old ways were less efficient but they were still good in my opinion. Technology favors introverts though

Sorry I cannot relate to Doctor Who, because I have not watched the show. I still very much like Star Trek , although Captain Kirk was actually a terrible captain in my opinion I used to think of him as a model Star Fleet officer but now I mostly see him as a reckless daredevil and a womanizer xD

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

This topic

What aspects of computing tech should we further criminalise?

Read before voting: The poll is unlimited choice. Vote for anything that should have further regulation/criminalisation. Do not vote for things that should have less regulation/criminalisation. No neutrals are allowed, the status quo is not acceptable, you have to vote one way or another...

forums.civfanatics.com

something something can't buy weed online anymore whatever
i'm not into social media, so, "first world problems" as far as I care...

 

[H4run]

Become sensitive and getting emotionally touch easily. I used to have a really thick skin and strong stomach, now I feel I'm much weaker.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Yeah paying a subscription fee just to be able to pay more is definitely a scam.

Eventually the stores dropped the subscription fees to the point that there weren't any. The rental fees got quite cheap, as the place where we had our membership put in a "7 movies for 7 days" deal. So each week I'd hop the bus, drop off the movies we'd seen, and picked new ones - a mix of science fiction for me, westerns for my dad, and family-type ones for my grandmother. It got to the point where I could be in and out of the store in 10-15 minutes, in time to catch the inbound bus and make it home again.

That convention You've described : Well that's what I am talking about when I say "charm" . I think people were more social back than. More open and outgoing. I mean live contact in person not a "phony" one over social media or the zoom communicator. In the advent of smart technology even Your smart refrigerator can order Your groceries for You so You don't even have to go outside and see live people - well except maybe see a delivery guy once in a while. Maybe old ways were less efficient but they were still good in my opinion. Technology favors introverts though

Conventions nowadays have very little resemblance to those I attended in the '80s/'90s. Mind you, it's the difference between fan-run and professional/corporate-run conventions, and the difference between what type of guests you have and who your target attendees are.

NonCon and Con-Version were our two annual conventions. NonCon was usually in Edmonton, though it was occasionally in Calgary, we had it in Red Deer once, and Banff twice. It was Alberta's regional science fiction convention, held on Thanksgiving weekend (2nd weekend in October).

Con-Version was always held in Calgary, usually the 2nd or 3rd weekend in July (trying not to clash with the Calgary Stampede, as hotel rooms are at a premium during that time).

I attended both of them, after I got into conventions (NonCon 5 was my first one, in 1982; we held the one in Red Deer in 1985). The guests were always authors, editors, well-known fans such as Bjo Trimble (people familiar with the history of early Star Trek fandom would recognize that name), sometimes artists... never actors. The closest we ever came to an actor guest was the creator of Babylon 5 (I am too lazy to look up the correct spelling of his last name, so JMS for short). Even that was controversial, as he wasn't a book author.

There were also some conventions that had science-related guests. One year they got Dr. Phil Currie, who at that time was running the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller, to come and do a track of paleontology programming. This part of the world is rich in dinosaur fossils, and the Tyrrell Museum is a world-class facility that's partly a museum and partly a research lab where the public can see some of the work that paleontologists do.

In 1994 they organized a bus to take people to the planetarium to watch Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 clobber Jupiter.

These conventions let us mingle with the authors, some of whom were happy to socialize with the con-goers, and didn't charge for their autographs (though David Gerrold did stipulate that he would only do autographs for people who gave a donation to charity; the can was next to him at the autograph table).

I was one of the people who usually wore hall costumes for the weekend. I had various ones - one for mingling with the Calgary SCA when they did demos, another when I wanted to roleplay a Dragonlance character I created, or maybe I might like to be a lady of the Coronal's court of Majipoor (based on Lord Valentine's Castle, by Robert Silverberg), or a variety of others. The term "cosplay" had not been invented yet. We had hall costumes and bacchanal costumes. I never entered the costume competitions at the bacchanal, but did trot out my more elaborate costumes for the evening.

After the bacchanal there was a dance (I didn't usually stay for that - waaay too loud), room parties (I did attend a few of those), and filking.

So yeah, these were weekends of in-person socializing for the most part. I remember when computer games began to sneak in, but never took part in that. One year a group of us got ambitious and entered the Gumball Rally. The idea is that you pay a couple of dollars for a box of stuff - miscellaneous things like elastics, a few bits of things you'd find in a hardware store, and of course the tin it all came in - and the idea was to figure out how to make a working machine out of it that would do whatever the instructions said it was supposed to do.

Our group gave up. We tried to figure it out, but none of us were particularly mechanically-minded, so that was that.

Sorry I cannot relate to Doctor Who, because I have not watched the show.

I still very much like Star Trek , although Captain Kirk was actually a terrible captain in my opinion I used to think of him as a model Star Fleet officer but now I mostly see him as a reckless daredevil and a womanizer xD

The Original Series version of Kirk has an unfair reputation when it comes to womanizing. He may have kissed and flirted with most of the female characters, but he actually verifiably only had sex 3 times (and once strongly implied). Two of those times resulted in children, though one didn't live to be born (Miramanee was killed in "The Paradise Syndrome") . The other was, of course, David Marcus (who was also killed off).

As for the nuTrek movies... yeah, that Kirk is terrible. I tend to think of nuKirk as "Captain Frat Boy" as he never actually seems to grow up, and actually tolerates nuUhura whining about relationship problems with nuSpock while they're on duty.

There's even less 'womanizing' in the fan films, at least in Star Trek Continues and Phase II/New Voyages.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Rewatching friends and comparing Jennifer Aniston then and now.

 

[Zardnaar]

Rewatching friends and comparing Jennifer Aniston then and now.

Matt Le Blanc was alright on Top Gear Mathew Perry wowser.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Mathew Perry looks like he has melted.

Lisa Kudrow still looks good. Probably because she has avoided plastic surgeons.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's what time does. Though plastic surgery isn't yet of a high enough level to help.
There is a phrase, originating in the Byzantine era, about people losing their charm with age: "her paint doesn't pass anymore", meaning (byzantine then) make-up.

 

[Narz]

Damn Ed o Neil (Al Bundy) is 77

 

[Kaitzilla]

Mira Furlan died 2 years ago and I didn't even know.

 

[Brunotaurus]

On sunday i watched my 6 year old being totally stunned by the beauty of a girl he saw. Got me thinking about dating and then, this morning i realized that we'll probably never ever see somebody write down a phone number with a marker on his/her arm/hand again.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Despise my age (37=2x18+1 , 38 in December - geez Louise , I can still recall my 18th birthday party :O) I still feel rather young although whenever I see one of these babies (I still got a few) :

View attachment 661747

it reminds me of the passage of time. I wonder if some so called Gen-Z guys can figure out what is it for

I can still remember my 18th 40 years ago, its last week I have trouble with.
Memory is very selective and mine has decided rules from RPGs I haven't played in over 30 years are more important than the names of people I've met recently.

 

[Narz]

I can still remember my 18th 40 years ago, its last week I have trouble with.
Memory is very selective and mine has decided rules from RPGs I haven't played in over 30 years are more important than the names of people I've met recently.

It's possible the RPG from 30 years ago is more interesting than people you've met recently.

I have trouble with names but I think it's because my mind is skeptical about whether people I meet will be relevant to my life as so many have come & gone from my life.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I can still remember my 18th 40 years ago, its last week I have trouble with.
Memory is very selective and mine has decided rules from RPGs I haven't played in over 30 years are more important than the names of people I've met recently.

It's possible the RPG from 30 years ago is more interesting than people you've met recently.

I have trouble with names but I think it's because my mind is skeptical about whether people I meet will be relevant to my life as so many have come & gone from my life.

Rules from RPGs you last played 30 years ago are undoubtedly more important than people you've met recently.