What are you a curmudgeon about?

[aerius]

Writing skills, or should I say the lack thereof. When I get emails, memos, and reports at my job I can tell if the person's over 40 or took technical writing in college since I can actually understand their written work on the first read through. For the most part the material is clear and concise, I know what they're writing about, what they need, why I'm being informed of certain things & so forth.

Everyone else, holy fuck, learn to write goddamnit and get to the fucking point. It's either incoherent gibberings or fucking marketing speak, not that there's much of a difference. Even better, half of it is in text-speak. Goddamn kids, you're sitting in front of a computer with a proper keyboard, is it that hard to type your shit in proper English?

[General Zod]

Writing skills, or should I say the lack thereof. When I get emails, memos, and reports at my job I can tell if the person's over 40 or took technical writing in college since I can actually understand their written work on the first read through. For the most part the material is clear and concise, I know what they're writing about, what they need, why I'm being informed of certain things & so forth.

Everyone else, holy fuck, learn to write goddamnit and get to the fucking point. It's either incoherent gibberings or fucking marketing speak, not that there's much of a difference. Even better, half of it is in text-speak. Goddamn kids, you're sitting in front of a computer with a proper keyboard, is it that hard to type your shit in proper English?

If I had a dollar for every time someone wrote "woman" as "women", "ridiculous" as "rediculous", or "your/you're" "its/it's" I'd be rich.

[Darth Wong]

I'm tempted to blame the Internet, but that kind of atrocious writing has been around for a long time. I saw it twenty years ago. It's just that people are unapologetic about it now: the Internet makes shitty writers proud of themselves, and antagonistic toward anyone who tells them to straighten up and write properly.

I never heard the term "grammar nazi" being thrown around until the Internet era. Back when I was growing up, if someone used shitty English and you corrected him, he was supposed to be embarrassed about it, not you.

[aerius]

Back when I went into the professional workforce around 2000, poor writing skills were still frowned upon and people were told to shape up or else. Part of it was likely because I was in the tech industry where we had to be clear & concise in our written work to avoid fuckups, there was definitely a difference in writing quality between my tech job and my government job.

But now I'm back in the tech industry and man have things ever gone downhill, I have very few problems with the memos & reports I get from the line operators since most of them have a similar tech background or education as myself, but the managers & paper pushers cause me endless headaches. They need to be beaten with rulers by angry nuns until they can write in proper fucking English.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm prematurely curmudgeonly about overreliance on electronics, especially to do things I don't consider necessary. Or make me do them.

Use whatever the heck you want on your own time. Create options that save time and energy. Great.

But don't blow budget money on UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE to a system that isn't broken, and can't be made to operate much more efficiently even if you try. Especially not if it means that every time the IT craps out nothing gets done for two hours. Seeing this in action in a school makes me wonder just how many cases like that you need for the extra burden of bullshit and cost to cancel out the productivity gain of having a heavily networked system.

[Napoleon the Clown]

I do not like most modern music to a greater degree than music of the past. And "the past" includes the 80s (almost half of which I was alive for) and the 90s. Though I shamelessly admit that my tastes tend toward stuff that comes from before I was born. I also readily acknowledge that most music has always been and always will be shit. But dammit, kids these days can't even name any of the good bands of yesteryear.

I'd complain about how lazy teens these days are but I'm pretty sure teens have always been lazy little cusses.

[Executor32]

Pants. I take one look at a pretentious hipster kid in women's jeans that are three sizes too small, and it takes an enormous effort to not burst out laughing in front of them.

I don't know what category this would fall under, but I fucking hate Instagram. Every picture I've seen using it looks like dogshit, and everyone using it is a hipster douche who's never even seen a Polaroid camera before but wants to make their pictures look like the shitty Polaroids in their grandmother's photo albums. Further adding to my 'pretentious hipster douche' impression was the rampant douchebaggery from the existing iPhone fanbase when Instagram was ported to Android.

[General Zod]

Pants. I take one look at a pretentious hipster kid in women's jeans that are three sizes too small, and it takes an enormous effort to not burst out laughing in front of them.

I don't know what category this would fall under, but I fucking hate Instagram. Every picture I've seen using it looks like dogshit, and everyone using it is a hipster douche who's never even seen a Polaroid camera before but wants to make their pictures look like the shitty Polaroids in their grandmother's photo albums. Further adding to my 'pretentious hipster douche' impression was the rampant douchebaggery from the existing iPhone fanbase when Instagram was ported to Android.

Instagram is for people who don't want to learn how to use a real camera. :smug:

[Frank Hipper]

I can't stand fucking kids and their goddamned taste in music these days.

Rap and country?

Obviously the LSD usage of an earlier generation has paid it's dividends, resulting in children with something very important inside them being broken, and mangled beyond recognition.

[Flagg]

I can't stand fucking kids and their goddamned taste in music these days.

Rap and country?

Obviously the LSD usage of an earlier generation has paid it's dividends, resulting in children with something very important inside them being broken, and mangled beyond recognition.

I don't think there was enough LSD usage.

[Col. Crackpot]

I can't stand fucking kids and their goddamned taste in music these days.

Rap and country?

Obviously the LSD usage of an earlier generation has paid it's dividends, resulting in children with something very important inside them being broken, and mangled beyond recognition.

I don't think there was enough LSD usage.

Please. All the acid did was make the Grateful Dead sound tolerable. Because sober they sounded like sea lions raping a calliope.

[Skywalker_T-65]

I guess I'm prematurely curmudgeon about music and how other teens act. I mean really...they think that stuff like Kanye West or Chris Brown (examples) is better than the older stuff (Beatles, old school Metallica, stuff like that).

Maybe I just lean towards older music myself, but I can't stand most modern music (don't even get me started on pop...)

As for how teens act...text talk, skinny jeans, acting like they are always right. I swear...it makes me feel older than I am.

[Executor32]

That reminds me of another thing I fucking hate: people who use 'LOL' and 'OMG' in real-life conversation. You're not funny, you're not cool, you're just a fucking tool.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Couldn't agree more. Its bad when I'm their age and don't understand a word their saying (never had a cell phone...thus never learned text-talk)

[Jub]

I say some text speak now and again, but it depends on the social group I'm with.

[Ire]

I feel tv in the 90's was better then what we have now

[General Mung Beans]

Visual arts in general. I like the kind of stuff here such as the Pre-Raphaelites and Norman Rockwell along with Socialist Realism in the USSR: http://www.artrenewal.org/

As for music I can't tolerate most post-1970 stuff.

Fashion: shame we no longer wear hats and carry around canes.

[Spoonist]

When you start agreeing with these guys you know that you are curmudgeoning...

[Panzersharkcat]

As for music I can't tolerate most post-1970 stuff.

Fashion: shame we no longer wear hats and carry around canes.

Aye. My fedora sits in my closet, unworn. Also, the YOLO thing. I was so confused when I first saw that. My first thought was seriously, "Why is Yolo county so popular all of a sudden?"

[Broomstick]

Analog time pieces.

I learned to tell time before the digital era. I never saw a digital watch in real life until I was around 16 and they were fucking expensive. I still prefer analog clocks and watches. I even have the time display on my computer and cell phone as an analog dial.

Related: analog gauges.

I prefer my bathroom scale as an analog display, not a digital one. For cars and airplanes I prefer "steam guage" readouts. I can certainly use digital, but I have a fondness for what I grew up with.

[The Vortex Empire]

Analog time pieces.

I learned to tell time before the digital era. I never saw a digital watch in real life until I was around 16 and they were fucking expensive. I still prefer analog clocks and watches. I even have the time display on my computer and cell phone as an analog dial.

Related: analog gauges.

I prefer my bathroom scale as an analog display, not a digital one. For cars and airplanes I prefer "steam guage" readouts. I can certainly use digital, but I have a fondness for what I grew up with.

I'm only 18, but agreed with the analog clocks. Believe it or not, I know multiple people around my age who have no idea how to read an analog clock. How they managed to never learn that, I have no idea.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Same here...I can read one without any trouble at all (as I should) but too many teens can't. That is one of many things I don't like about Gen Y (even if I am part of it).

[General Zod]

A lot of analog clocks actually come with the numbers printed right on them, you know.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Well that should be obvious...I don't know about Vortex or Broomstick, but I was talking about analog clocks that don't have the numbers on them. Which apparently reading one is a 'lost art' if you believe half the people my age.

[The Vortex Empire]

Well that should be obvious...I don't know about Vortex or Broomstick, but I was talking about analog clocks that don't have the numbers on them. Which apparently reading one is a 'lost art' if you believe half the people my age.

No, I was referring to the ones with the numbers on them. I know several people who can't read them.