So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Siggmund]

People "talking to themselves" on their bluetooth headset. It screams, "Look at ME!"
There used to be a guy in our town, long hair, torn jeans, L.A. junkie shades; sort of a cross between glam and grunge; Les Paul case in hand (anything in it?), looking around to see who was looking at him. I always studiously ignored him.

 

[Stearmen]

The cellphone plague is at its worst in American supermarkets. People will think nothing of blocking entire aisles by parking their carriages crosswise and then standing in front of or behind them, yapping into their squawkboxes about inconsequential nonsense that could easily wait until they were someplace other than blocking my access to the cat food display. I have on many occasions turned around, walked all the way around the next aisle and then up the desired aisle from the other direction to get at what I need, only to find that they've shifted their position so they're now blocking it from a different angle. "They'll Do It Every Time."

The absolute worst are the people that just leave their cart in the middle of the isle so they can run to the last isle to get something they decided they can't live with out!

 

[Stearmen]

People "talking to themselves" on their bluetooth headset. It screams, "Look at ME!"
There used to be a guy in our town, long hair, torn jeans, L.A. junkie shades; sort of a cross between glam and grunge; Les Paul case in hand (anything in it?), looking around to see who was looking at him. I always studiously ignored him.

I remember years ago, homeless people wandering around down town talking to themselves. At least they had an excuse!

 

[Siggmund]

I remember years ago, homeless people wandering around down town talking to themselves. At least they had an excuse!

Haha! So true.
I don't know...Doesn't seem like people blabbing on their phones have intruded on our space? Our air space? Guy at the airport in the gate assembly area talking really LOUD. So I go stand right in front of him. He turns around and keeps it up. To me it's like the jack--- who simply HAS to mow his lawn at 7:30 on Sunday morning.

 

[GHT]

To me it's like the jack--- who simply HAS to mow his lawn at 7:30 on Sunday morning.

We had a card pushed through the door to say that the delivery driver had been unable to obtain an answer and that the delivery required a signature. Instructions and a phone number followed. The time on the card was 03:05. Yep three in the morning. In the UK those internet drivers are nick-named: White-Van-Man, most are self employed, their pay depends upon their delivery rate. Our driver was certainly putting in the hours.

 

[Zombie_61]

People who cut in front of me as I am looking at something on a shelf, without saying "excuse me" when there is more room to maneuver behind me.

They remodeled our local supermarket about five years ago, and the remodel included installing more rows of shelves. As a result, the aisles are now so narrow that there is barely enough room for two carts to fit side-by-side, so people have no choice but to walk in front of other shoppers who are scanning the shelves for whatever they're looking for. I always say, "Excuse me," when I do this, and most of the time the response is a polite comment or a bit of humorous banter. But sometimes the response is a look of confusion, as if they had never before encountered someone with manners.

 

[Trenchfriend]

They remodeled our local supermarket about five years ago, and the remodel included installing more rows of shelves. As a result, the aisles are now so narrow that there is barely enough room for two carts to fit side-by-side, so people have no choice but to walk in front of other shoppers who are scanning the shelves for whatever they're looking for. I always say, "Excuse me," when I do this, and most of the time the response is a polite comment or a bit of humorous banter. But sometimes the response is a look of confusion, as if they had never before encountered someone with manners.

I'm happy, that my german littletown got more supermarkets as it needs. We got one typical discounter at one edge of the town and the most of the surrounding inhabitants there use this convinient possibility, of course.

So I think, this relieves our well visited regular supermarket in the city-centre very.

And the third is my beloved peaceful supermarket outside the city centre, which lies uphill, directly on our main trough-road, near to me, but because of the terrain, it's just adversely for many people, especially the seniors with their rollators. So, this supermarket is one the most peaceful places, you can find here, generally. So, buying groceries is really an enjoyable thing for me!
I'm always thankful about it and I really hope, that this market will stay for a long long time. It's a private operated franchise-market and maybe, that's a good thing, especially on thinking about the less daily visitors.

 

[ChrisB]

What I dislike about cell phones is that people have come to expect that they have a right to your immediate attention, any time anywhere.

 

[tonyb]

What I dislike about cell phones is that people have come to expect that they have a right to your immediate attention, any time anywhere.

Yup. Cell phones went from luxury item to practical necessity in a matter of a decade or less. Alas, some people would deny me the right to ignore the thing.

 

[Zombie_61]

What I dislike about cell phones is that people have come to expect that they have a right to your immediate attention, any time anywhere.

I don't have that problem because I've made no secret of the fact that I hate phones. So anyone who might call or text me knows that I will answer only when it's convenient for me to do so, and will otherwise return their call/text when I can. It has really cut down on the amount of unimportant nonsense I have to deal with.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I ordered something from Amazon the other day &I received the shipping notification today. So far I have three different data that I will receive said item.

 

[GHT]

Yup. Cell phones went from luxury item to practical necessity in a matter of a decade or less. Alas, some people would deny me the right to ignore the thing.

From that list of luxuries to necessities you can add, Digital cameras, TV recorders, Sat-navs, I-pods or is it I-pads? But the best/worse offender is the modern motor car. Time was, the car needed a service or repair, a guy in reassuringly grubby overalls would fix this, spanner that, replenish or replace the oil and filters and you would get your car back. Now a technician in clean white overalls, plugs in the diagnostic, connects it to his computer, tells you in pure gibberish why it's going to cost a king's ransom to repair and the car's computer prints out all that needs doing.

Here in Europe, we are being subjected to threats of going to hell in a hand cart for having the temerity of driving diesel engined cars. The pollution of our cities has reached dangerous levels and it's all down to those poisonous gases that diesel engines emit. No matter that governments of European countries banged the drum, on & on for fuel efficient, low emission, oil burning engines. Now it seems, you can only get low toxins from the exhaust fumes if you write a program into the car's computer that tells you that you are getting a low emission. You couldn't make it up.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
I'm a red-blooded American male, born in the middle of the 20th century, who started driving at such an early age I couldn't say when I first steered a car going down some lonely stretch of highway, perched on the Old Man's lap, while he tended to the brakes and accelerator.

Driving seems nearly as natural as breathing to me. I dig cars. I wouldn't be surprised to learn I was conceived in a car. Hell, I watch the Velocity Channel.

Still, I'm looking forward to electric cars becoming the norm. And self-driving cars as well. I look forward to those electric cars getting their juice from photovoltaic cells and wind turbines. And I look forward to the day when we have far fewer than the 30,000-plus annual traffic fatalities in this car-crazy land.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I love my Plodge, but I won't pitch a fit when I have to have some kind of adapter fitted onto it to run on sunlight. Self-driving I'm less enthused by -- I don't even like to ride as a passenger in a car being driven by another person, and given the trouble I have with computers on a daily basis (I have my laptop gutted out like a mackerel on my kitchen table right now) I'd just as soon not have one driving me around.

As to the other stuff, I have a VCR, and it suits me fine. For that matter, I was still shooting 8mm film up until just a few years ago. I don't need to have the latest thing just because everybody else does. I usually only acquire new technology when I find it at the side of the road.

 

[tonyb]

Well, I got dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age. But it is indeed the digital age, no matter my feelings about it.

But hey! I just subscribed to the local newspaper. Remember those? I missed handling the paper. I missed doing the NYT crossword, in ink, on paper (online crosswords just don't satisfy). I missed having the window-cleaning material.

My fear, which I sincerely and deeply hope is unfounded, is that universal dependence on Internet connections would make any would-be totalitarian's ambitions all the more easily realized. He who controls the pipe rules the world, eh?

Here's to leafleting!

 

[LizzieMaine]

There is a great satisfaction in slapping a folded newspaper down on the desk in disgust that just can't be duplicated with a computer device. Well, it can, and then you end up with it planked out on your kitchen table like a mackerel.

 

[tonyb]

What's best about the online world is what's worst about it. Some information you want instantly. And some you could do better without. Because often the information is extraneous at best and mostly irrelevant to the actual matter at hand, when you can remember what that matter is. Or was.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's also the way the internet tends to make all information equal. But despite what the Wikipedia mentality want to tell us, *facts* are not a matter of social or political consensus.

 

[tonyb]

As McLuhan had it, first we shape our tools, and then our tools shape us.

Different media lend themselves to different ways of "knowing." For deep immersion, it's hard to beat print on paper.

The barriers to "publishing" online are so low that marginally readable tripe gets nearly equal exposure as quality prose. Back when it cost real money to put out information via the written word, we were disinclined to publish such amateurish work. You had to get good, you know.

 

[tonyb]

However ...

Just a few minutes ago I watched an old friend show live video of his recently purchased 100-year-old house in Tacoma. Wash., under a fresh blanket of snow. This via Facebook. I was left with a sense of his house and his block such as I wouldn't have any other way short of going there in the flesh.

Had you told me 20 years ago we would all have these pocketable communications devices that did such things, I'd have wondered what you had for lunch.