Great image of a guy up a phonepole with a 5X7 Top Handle Speedy on Shorpy today...

[Tin Can]

Actually we are NOT criticizing you but many of our own children, who may have raised people your age. I'm 63 and my grandchildren are 11 and 14.

We spoiled your parents or not.

Depends (pun?) on your point of view.

It's all Genghis Khan's fault and many of us are related to him.

It disappoints me to see such gross generalizations of my generation. Well okay I'm almost 29 but let's be honest, there's a number of guys posting on the forums here who could be my grandfather.

But seriously - it's not a "generational" thing. I grew up playing video games as well as tumbling around outside with friends, and doing all kinds of crazy things (still do). Things haven't changed as much as some would like to believe. There's also a lot of differences in parenting and upbringing.

[Alan Gales]

It disappoints me to see such gross generalizations of my generation. Well okay I'm almost 29 but let's be honest, there's a number of guys posting on the forums here who could be my grandfather.

But seriously - it's not a "generational" thing. I grew up playing video games as well as tumbling around outside with friends, and doing all kinds of crazy things (still do). Things haven't changed as much as some would like to believe. There's also a lot of differences in parenting and upbringing.

Don't worry about it, Corran. I'm 52 and the older generation talked about my generation too. I don't know what you do for a living but in the building trades they call you kid until you are 30. After you turn 30 you slowly start earning respect!

[Corran]

Well I work at a university so I'm seeing the current generation filtering through. It can be easy to say Kids these days! Whipper-snappers can't even function without their cell phone! or whatever so I get where some folks are coming from. I consciously try to avoid generalizations. I'm one of the youngest admin. staff on campus and so it's nothing new to hear generalizations about video games and whatever else! Not to mention the media vilifying them daily.

[Alan Gales]

I've got a 19 year old daughter. Young people have it hard today. When I was young if you went to college you got a job when you graduated. Now the graduates are saddled with debt and no job prospects. You could try to go into the trades like I did but with this economy they have so many laid off that they are not hiring. Don't even get me started about the lack of factory jobs due to U.S. companies opening factories over seas.

Yeah, it's easy to make fun of kids today but it was when I was young too. My Dad hated my long hair and love of muscle cars. He used to tell me that I just loved giving my money to the police (speeding tickets).

[jbenedict]

Well I work at a university so I'm seeing the current generation filtering through. It can be easy to say Kids these days! Whipper-snappers can't even function without their cell phone! or whatever so I get where some folks are coming from. I consciously try to avoid generalizations. I'm one of the youngest admin. staff on campus and so it's nothing new to hear generalizations about video games and whatever else! Not to mention the media vilifying them daily.

I recently went to an Engineering Fair at the U of Washington. I had a fantastic time talking to these kids- both boys and girls- about their projects, asking them questions, debating concepts and giving them praise for what they were doing. I talked about the details of one of the group projects for about 45 min. and I helped them solve a problem that they had been having with their device. They were open and accepting of an old geezer and realized that sometimes an old set of eyes can be very useful. It was great fun. One of the groups had a wi-fi powered (powered!) device that was about the size of the nail on your index finger and had an antenna about the size of a cocktail swizzle stick. The kid said it had 16K of memory to use and I said, "Wow! Back in the old days, that was considered a lot of RAM! You can do a lot with that!" The kid chuckled and agreed they really had a lot to work with.. At the time, the computer only was powering an LED because they were working out the "powered by wi-fi" thing but they had a lot of plans.

Anyone who complains about the youth of today needs to get out there and have something to do with the ones who have some gumption and 'get up and go' in them. You might be surprised and hopeful about our future.

[Corran]

I agree!!!

[Jim Galli]

Yes, guilty of making blanket statements that are only partially the case. Mia Culpa. My problem is where I work (your tax dollars) the pendulum has swung so far to the rediculous when it comes to taking any risk, it turns my stomach. I blame the current crop of Xbox babies that I have to work for. I have to have a full harness on to get over 4 feet off the ground. Idiocy.

[Corran]

A few months ago I needed to get a projector down that was hanging from the catwalk in our auditorium, about 25ft. in the air. I erected some 6ft. risers and then perched a 15ft. ladder on top of those, and still had to reach over my head to get the screws out of the mount. When the last screw came out I almost dropped that projector. Fairly unsafe! Anyway, when the Dean (who's much older, obviously) heard about it he pitched a fit about OSHA standards and such and said we needed to get safety harnesses for that kind of work. I just needed to get it done. I think the threat of lawsuits, workers comp, and all that jazz is the real culprit. Speaking of OSHA, one of our facilities here got fined $25,000 because there was some audio cables running on a catwalk that were not in proper cable troughs!

[Jac@stafford.net]

[... snip most heartening post ...] The kid said it had 16K of memory to use and I said, "Wow! Back in the old days, that was considered a lot of RAM! You can do a lot with that!" The kid chuckled and agreed they really had a lot to work with.

We did do a lot with 16K! Remind them to use signed integers. WiFi powered? I'll probably spend the rest of today looking into that. Smart kids!

[Tin Can]

WIFI powered, shades of Tesla's dream of wireless electric power transmission.

We do have a lot of free electromagnetic wave power all around us.

Woo Hoo!

I recently went to an Engineering Fair at the U of Washington. I had a fantastic time talking to these kids- both boys and girls- about their projects, asking them questions, debating concepts and giving them praise for what they were doing. I talked about the details of one of the group projects for about 45 min. and I helped them solve a problem that they had been having with their device. They were open and accepting of an old geezer and realized that sometimes an old set of eyes can be very useful. It was great fun. One of the groups had a wi-fi powered (powered!) device that was about the size of the nail on your index finger and had an antenna about the size of a cocktail swizzle stick. The kid said it had 16K of memory to use and I said, "Wow! Back in the old days, that was considered a lot of RAM! You can do a lot with that!" The kid chuckled and agreed they really had a lot to work with.. At the time, the computer only was powering an LED because they were working out the "powered by wi-fi" thing but they had a lot of plans.

Anyone who complains about the youth of today needs to get out there and have something to do with the ones who have some gumption and 'get up and go' in them. You might be surprised and hopeful about our future.