Slashdot Mirror
The Internet Not for Old People
Alien54 writes to tell us the Daily Mail is reporting that if you want an internet connection and you are over 70 you may be in for a surprise. From the article: "After walking the Great Wall of China and making plans for a trip to Russia, Shirley Greening-Jackson thought signing up for a new internet service would be a doddle. But the young man behind the counter had other ideas. He said she was barred - because she was too old."
But the Internet is a prerequisite for email, which in turn is only for old people. I'm confused.
The amount of old-people porn on the Internet will dwindle rapidly if the old codgers are prevented from signing up for broadband!
FREE THE GERIATRICS! Bottles of Ensure and Cable Modems for ALL!
That's SOUTH Korea. In North Korea, only Kim Jong-Il uses email.
(srsly.)
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Yeah, so they'd shoot most people.
What's your point?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
In Soviet Russia trips plan...
Oh, hell. You people don't even make it challenging anymore.
You apparently haven't been to MySpace. Young people add a great deal of value to the Internet.
After all. Who wants them poking along on the Internet, slowing everybody down with the left blinker on?
... people over 70 are in no way lithe enough to surf through a series of tubes.
It's for their own good.
This is all because AOL dropped dialup service. (Could you ever get it in the UK? There must have been an equivalent.)
My cousins conspired against me and gave my mother a computer last winter. Now she is calling me with questions like "how do I get the email into the computer?" and "Do I have to plug the computer in for it to work?" I TOLD her not to sign up for broadband but she did anyway and has had it for six months and never AFAIK seen a single web page or sent a single email.
If I had the time I would develop a Linux liveCD "GrandpaOS". (Knoppix and the ilk come close but still have too many bells and whistles.) Instead, I will give all my cousins' small children drum sets next Christmas.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Where have you been?
A self-esteem problem is a suitable excuse for any behavior these days.
Other all-purpose excuses:
- I was abused as a child
- I was alienated by US foreign policy
- I'm a minority
- Gambling addiction
I'm sure there are more.