Futuristic Suit Lets You Feel What It's Like To Be An Old Man 222
HughPickens.com writes: Andy Newman writes at the New York Times about an exhibit at Liberty Science Center in Jersey City that lets users walk a proverbial mile in their elders' orthopedic shoes and experience the stooped shuffle, the halting speech, and the dimming senses of an 85-year old man. It is not a very pleasant experience. An attendant cranks up a fader and your vision dissolves into melty, grayed-out blobs, like a memorably unvivid psychedelic experience, more knobs twiddle, and your hearing is subsumed in a fog of tinnitus, muffling and distortion. Loaded with hardware and a computer, the suit itself weighs 40 pounds, distributed as uncomfortably as possible. "It's going to get much worse," promises Bran Ferren, the suit's inventor. "You haven't lived."
According to Newman, in just 10 minutes, the aging suit induced a remarkable amount of frustration, depression and hopelessness. There are entire realms of wretchedness attendant upon owning and operating an 85-year-old body that the exhibit does not even touch upon. Comprehensive sagging, internal and external. Pain in places you did not know could hurt. Difficulty urinating. Difficulty not urinating. Watching your friends die off. Watching yourself become irrelevant, an object of pity or puzzlement if acknowledged at all. By allowing a younger generation to feel the effects of aging firsthand, the suit provides a newfound perspective that hopefully inspires a conversation with loved ones about getting older so, collectively, family and friends can better prepare for the future. If doing even the most basic tasks of daily living is this much trouble, you wonder, why bother? But it also makes you a little less likely to lose patience and a little more likely to feel empathy with the older people in your life. "My father, Aaron Newman, happens to be 85," says Newman. "I called him up. I described the treadmill experience and asked if that sounded about right." "No," he said. "It's much worse."
According to Newman, in just 10 minutes, the aging suit induced a remarkable amount of frustration, depression and hopelessness. There are entire realms of wretchedness attendant upon owning and operating an 85-year-old body that the exhibit does not even touch upon. Comprehensive sagging, internal and external. Pain in places you did not know could hurt. Difficulty urinating. Difficulty not urinating. Watching your friends die off. Watching yourself become irrelevant, an object of pity or puzzlement if acknowledged at all. By allowing a younger generation to feel the effects of aging firsthand, the suit provides a newfound perspective that hopefully inspires a conversation with loved ones about getting older so, collectively, family and friends can better prepare for the future. If doing even the most basic tasks of daily living is this much trouble, you wonder, why bother? But it also makes you a little less likely to lose patience and a little more likely to feel empathy with the older people in your life. "My father, Aaron Newman, happens to be 85," says Newman. "I called him up. I described the treadmill experience and asked if that sounded about right." "No," he said. "It's much worse."
Being old: everything hurts (Score:3, Informative)
And if it doesn't hurt, it leaks.
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I am 58. People look at me funny when the subject comes up and I say that I don't really want to live past 70. I'm kind of good with 65, really. I don't want to live forever - even if I were to retain good health. I'm currently in excellent health, according to my doctor and all the tests, but I'm still good with 70. By then, it'll be time for me to get out of the way and make room for the next person, so it's all good.
I do kind of wonder what will happen to my digital assets. I'll have to script some sort
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So you're going to make a Lenny bot for slashdot?
Kudos to that
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Surprising. Frederik Pohl wrote for longer than that. His works spanned 75 years. He was ninety four when he published his last novel.
Personally, I'm not in any hurry to " get out of the way and make room for the next person". At 64 (as of today) I'm having the time of my life. No alarm clock after a lifetime of alarm clocks. Unlimited time to read, to write, to learn, to teach, to create.
When she was 95 my grandmother told me "I don't know why anybody wants to live to be a hundred. It ain't no fun bein' ol
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David Cronenberg was so far ahead of his time with Videodrome. One of his characters is dead but continues doing talk shows via video clips.
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Seen on facebook: "Birthdays are like boogers. The more you have, the harder it is to breathe".
The dummy who came up with this stupid suit doesn't know many elderly, because WE ALL AGE AT DIFFERENT RATES. My mother is 88. She goes bowling twice a week, has no hearing problems and gets around easily. Meanwhile I know a woman who's 70 who looks older than my mom (Mom's brother is in his late nineties). A couple years ago before I retired they had a health screening at work. My vitals were those of a healthy f
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For this time of life, there are the Three Nevers:
1. Never pass up a urinal;
2. Never trust a fart;
3. Never waste an erection.
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[Energetic 70-somethings dance and laugh on an outdoor, string-bulb-lit dance floor as a jazz band plays]
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Cialis doesn't work when you're drinking, and that's the only time I ever get laid.
Re:How does it simulate a perpetually soft cock? (Score:4, Funny)
"Just as a FYI, about half the people on this planet don't even have a cock."
But how many of those will you find on Slashdot?
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"Just as a FYI, about half the people on this planet don't even have a cock."
But how many of those will you find on Slashdot?
lol, You win this one.
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Mostly the ones who made a conscious decision to not have a cock.
We don't need no stinkin' suit (Score:4, Funny)
A substantial portion of the readers of Slashdot are already well aware of how the ypotame of age hits you, squarely in the tummy, before jumping all over you.
It wouldn't be so bad if gravity hadn't increased too. This, of course, being a side effect of the world haven gotten smaller.
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Hey, at least we finally got an article today that wasn't just a slashvertisement!
Now if the editors could walk a mile in our shoes before posting stuff that's obviously advertising for something...
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Only if you're unhealthy. I am 40 years old, I eat well and I have an active life. My stomach is flat and muscular.
That's what is wrong with this "old man suit". It's simulating being an unhealthy old man. There are plenty of 85 year olds out there who are still strong and have a lot of pep. It's all a matter of how well you treat your body. If you consume fast food/processed food/junk food/candy/soda/alcohol/tobacco and/or sit around in front of a TV or computer doing nothing all day, of course you're goin
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"Only if you're unhealthy. I am 40 years old, I eat well and I have an active life. My stomach is flat and muscular."
When I was 40, I had abs like that too. Also, Reagan was president.
When action creaks louder than words (Score:2)
Pretty much. It's sad when young people in their 40s talk like they have experience with the effects of ageing. They don't. My 40 year old self was an ignoramus too.
I don't think this suit will simulate it well either. Because you still have the young self beneath the suit, and won't feel the aches and pains of sitting still, or the crunch of a shoulder joint, or the joy of waking up with footcicles, or the fear that if you fall more than two inches, you'll break something.
The day I realized I was old
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Only if you're unhealthy. I am 40 years old, I eat well and I have an active life. My stomach is flat and muscular.
Agreed. Another example of what "Use it or lose it" gets you:
I'm past 45, and can still fit into jeans I wore in college. 33" waist.
Physically, I'm up from 250 to 300 ms in reaction time, but dexterity has increased with experience.
Muscle-memory from multiple sports in youth provides a different type of skill than being young and quick.
Mentally, I am far more capable of thinking, learning, and creating than at age 22.
Mental 'velocity' is still "scary-fast" (I'm told), with working memory and long-term rec
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Ah yes, Lake Slashdot. Where everyone is 2 standard deviations above the mean.
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And that will be the day that I die. In the meantime, I choose to be fit and ailment-free.
See that bus?
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the only reference i can find to the word ypotame suggests it's Middle English for "Hippopotamus"
My language betrays my age, it seems.
The hippo of time is one you'll eventually meet. It will trounce you, it will sleep on your chest, and in general be rather griselich.
Aging sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
This is news? I know there's always this delusional part of the population that says they feel better at 40 than at 20, but they're idiots.
Aging should be studied, understood, controlled and eventually reversed.
Fuck aging. There's nothing glorious about grey hair, bald spots, high blood pressure, failing memory, decreasing processing power, declining physical capabilities, and for the money-hungry among us, the extra cost on society of old, feeble, decrepit bodies.
Why there isn't the same level of excitement for anti-aging, as, say, colonizing Mars, is very difficult to understand.
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But on the plus side, you get 10% off at the Old Country Buffet before 5 pm.
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Aging should be studied, understood, controlled and eventually reversed.
Funny you [slashdot.org] should mention that. [slashdot.org]
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I guess if I had a muscular mouse that would help.
Muscle is derived from Latin "musculus", meaning "mouse". ;)
So you want a "mousy mouse"?
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small mouse.
Not that any of them are huge. Silly Romans, that must be why they're not around any more.
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Why there isn't the same level of excitement for anti-aging, as, say, colonizing Mars, is very difficult to understand.
Going to Mars excites the imagination of young and old, rich and poor. Like the moon landing, everyone gets to participate.
A cure for aging is a boon only to a select few who can afford it. It's a terrifying nightmare for those at the bottom who cannot.
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Wait...where's the downside of this?
have to spend the rest of eternity working in an iPhone factory in China or struggling to survive as an street orphan in Africa.
Just because you switch places, doesn't mean you need to stay there. For one, you don't strictly need to eat. You could spend all your efforts leaving a bad situation without fear of being killed in the process. With such minimal living costs, you could regain or even improve on your former socioeconomic status, nevermind what compounding interest could do for you over many more decades.
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Aging should be studied, understood, controlled and eventually reversed.
When I compare how people lived 100 years ago to today, I really do believe that it is possible that by 2116, we have solved this problem. When I look at the society of today, which is threatened by so many parties, I am not sure though whether society will be ready for it in 2116. It would mean lots of changes. We would need to start to adopt regulation of children, as place on earth is limited. What about life imprisonment? The concept of pensions in countries that regulate pensions needs to be thought ov
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When I compare how people lived 100 years ago to today, I really do believe that it is possible that by 2116, we have solved this problem. When I look at the society of today, which is threatened by so many parties, I am not sure though whether society will be ready for it in 2116. It would mean lots of changes. We would need to start to adopt regulation of children, as place on earth is limited. What about life imprisonment? The concept of pensions in countries that regulate pensions needs to be thought over too, it can't be age based anymore. It can perhaps be that you have a 40/20 approach: work forty years, then enjoy 20 years without work, then work 40 years again, the ratio being changed depending on how much we need human workforce.
So what? I don't see those problems even as a whole coming anywhere near the difficulty of reversing aging in the first place. Modern capitalist societies already do a good job of reducing female fertility without requiring regulation of number of children. Similarly, pensions have not been shown to be a good idea even in today's world (too much gets promised and can't be delivered). If someone can't figure out how to work 40 years and afford downtime of 20 years, then I don't think society should do it for
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And before any bitter, overly-scared-of-brown-people 60-somethings start whining, I'm quite aware that my own generation and the following generations will be equally reviled for the same thing.
There's that cognitive dissonance.
Humanity is absolutely terrible about passing the goddamned baton when they should.
There's no "should" here.
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I know there's always this delusional part of the population that says they feel better at 40 than at 20, but they're idiots.
I don't know about 40s, but I sure feel better now than I did in my 20s. I was messed up then, in a lot of ways. I'm fine with reversing aging, though.
Re:Aging sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
This is news? I know there's always this delusional part of the population that says they feel better at 40 than at 20, but they're idiots.
They're not referring to their body, not unless they were a slob at twenty and shaped up good. At twenty many are still angsty teenagers +1, at forty they are usually more comfortable with who they are and do the things they want instead of trying to fit in and be popular. And they might be past the peak, but most forty year olds have nothing to be directly miserable about.
Now eighty is another matter entirely, they have a barely functioning body that keeps them from doing what they want. Ten years ago my dad would love to drive to our cabin and go out fishing in our boat, now he can't do either and I know he misses it. He's still got lots of plans and ideas of things he'd like to do, but even with many breaks and helping hands it's very limited what he can get done in practice. I know it would frustrate the hell out of me and I think he feels that way too.
The reason there's no great excitement about anti-aging is that most people realize aging is not "one thing", it's like every part of your body wearing out. We're constantly pushing the shape of the mortality curve so more people grow old, but no matter how hard we push it seems it comes crumbling down around 90-100 years old. There's good proof that people became over 90, probably in rare cases also over 100 even in antiquity. We haven't really made much progress there.
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Side effects of this suit: pain, discomfort, blurred vision, depression, suicidal thoughts...
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Or, more likely, were idiots at 20.
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That's the problem, nobody wants to die young, but at the same time nobody really wants to get old either.
The main problem we're facing in our society is that people do get older, but they don't stay healthy. Meaning that they can't work, and often to make matters worse need assistance.
The first step was to get people to get older. We have accomplished that. People routinely live to their 80s today provided they don't die early from accidents or similar circumstances. We have eliminated many illnesses that
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the extra cost on society of old, feeble, decrepit bodies.
My insurance rates beg to differ with you:
http://www.valuepenguin.com/ho... [valuepenguin.com]
It's the young and stupid who cost more. And of course, the ypotame.
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The simple explanation: You're lying.
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Being physically active significantly decreases the effects of aging, or at least mitigates them to a certain degree.
Of course, you'll never be able to convince the desk jockies here on /. about that simple fact, because apparently sitting at a desk their entire waking life while drinking soda and munching on high-carb/high-fat snacks is perfectly fine!
I feel better at 30 than I ever did at 20, because I pulled myself together and started working out. Being physically active is investing in your own future
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Yeah, I would love to stay in my early twenties forever, being physically active instead of the lazy slob that I was.
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> Please explain how two thirty year old people can create a zero year old baby.
Umm... Do you really have to ask that question? 'Cause there's a whole internet out there for you to find this information out - they've even got videos. Or so I hear...
Basically, Tab A goes into Slot B and they wiggle about and make funny faces and noises. Then, the man (the one with Tab A) says, "Oh, shit, the rubber broke." Then, the woman (the one with Slot B) says, "Who are you and what are you doing in my hotel room?"
An
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If that's not a quote from this movie, it could easily be close: The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human [imdb.com]
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Please explain how two thirty year old people can create a zero year old baby.
This raises an interesting and rather pressing question: How is babby formed / how girl get pragnent?
Just wait kiddies! (Score:4, Insightful)
RICH (Score:2)
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Can I just have the upgrade package? If I have to I'd do it like with the TV+Internet bundle I have now, I pay for the "main package" and just not use it, can I do that?
You insensitive clods (Score:2)
I don't need a goddamn suit to know what it feels like to be an old man.
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I'd tell you my age in binary, but I can't count that high anymore.
I tried putting my age in binary into the subject line, but ran afoul of Slashdot's max length limit.
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111010
It has been a minute since I've done binary in my head - at least that high. That should be 58. I did a few conversions today but those only went to five. ;-)
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I think they should raise the drinking age to 55. You really don't need it until then. And how about a nice 200ct bottle Ibuprofen with each social security check?
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Or lower the Brompton's cocktail age to about 48.
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They did, it's called heroin and late career unemployment with no future job prospects because your job in the warehouse at a company that moved its manufacturing to Mexico is gone, just like all the other companies in your city, and you're too old to become an app developer that works 80 hours a week because you don't understand that shit, and never will. So fuck it, my back hurts from three decades of loading trucks and doctor give me something, and that runs out and you meet up with some high school dro
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Some of us had a very different outcome by sheer shit luck. I'm down to just a couple of sub strips a day. *sighs* I've got money, too. I've got connects. I can hook up with a 500 ct *case* of Duragesics in a day or two. Maybe a little less, I'm down south for the winter. Subs don't even make me nod.
Hmm... Email is available. It's up next to my username. I miss the process more than anything. Extracting the fent from the mylar patches, the candle, getting tied off, fishing 'cause I've flat and rolling veins
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The health risks of heroin are not from the drug itself, but from the legal system.
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I think they should make drug use legal at age 60ish. I mean, what gives? That stuff is cardiotoxic and might kill me 30 years down the line? So effin' what, if I live to die from the drug side effects I have already won!
You unsensitive clods (Score:4, Interesting)
Growing up as a geek, I was also really physical. I've played a life of physical sports, like hockey, soccer, football (touch in stead of tackle though), swimming, body surfing, hiking, hunting and climbing, fantastic stuff. Ironically it balances the mental effort I put into electronics and coding and I found I could focus really well.
My true love of physical activity has been Martial Arts. Throughout my 20's and 30's I did Thai boxing and during training the conditioning involved full power kicks and punches all over the body. When I was in my late 30's I could still do the splits, back flip and I was playing soccer when I snapped an achillies tendon, facing a wheel chair and cronic pain syndrome. It took almost three years to be able to walk again and significant determination to do so. I learned alot about physiotherapy and mental determination from sport was . Team sport were over for me, the balistic impacts were from other player. I was able to resume martial arts, currently BJJ, which is like physical chess, I love it. I got to competitition level, competed - only minor titles, but enough to test myself.
Over a decade later this activity has led to injuries all over the body that causes all sorts of aches and pains. Over the last couple of years (I diarise injuries) I noted that the *rate* of injuries progressing, recovery time longer. I was still training. My physical strength was still excellent and I'm able to fight guys 20-30 years younger, however I often noticed that strength could exceed my joints. Control was very important, pain was all over my body and, I noticed that I had pretty severe internal scarring accumulated in my muscles. Knots in my back so tight and painful that the physios elbow was into it and his feet were off the ground, and still I needed more pressure. Similar things around the rest of my body. I came to the conclusion that it was time to look at the state of my body.
I talked to my doctor who was surprised when I bought in my data that I had diarised and showed him some of the relationships I'd found, I was pressing him to authorize more physiotherapy. He did and with the assistance of another doctor and two physio therapists (both with Masters themselves who treat currently competing athletes) my body became a bit of an experiment. Dry needling is the main therapy used and over the past two years, I've stopped all training and physical activity and had over 4000 needles stuck into almost every muscle, joint and, tendon in my body. Sometimes 50 needles at a time.
That resulted in various odd and often very painful releases of scar tissue, intense periods of repeated joint cavitaion (cracking) in almost every joint in my body. Joints would go through periods of bone ossification and reform for weeks. One major event involved my left elbow. I was ashen grey, my left arm was numb and my chest constricted, but I wasn't having a heart attack. Instead my elbow released 10-20 degrees of movement, it swelled to almost the size of my knee down to my wrist in a session of 60-100 cavitations of the elbow over six hours. It was exhausting, I'm not sure if I was in shock, but I felt very ill for a few days. After that, I felt amazing, I had been carrying scarring from that injury (I broke my wrist in a fight once) for almost 20 years.
I'm almost at the end of this therapy, a process that uncovered 24 major injuries in my body each releasing with a intensity varying upto what I described above and currently the physios are trying to re-allign my hips, which will probably be the final and most painful cavitaion I've been slowly working up to.
I'm more physically out of shape than I have been because of intentional de-conditioning of the body however, I feel great. I'm middle aged now and I can still not only touch my toes, but stand on my fingers and I'm working my way back to doing the splits. A couple of weeks ago I woke up, got in the shower and realized there was no more pain. As a bonus, I'm also not as grumpy as I used to be and my mind is much cl
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The best physical therapist I have ever had was actually a PhD chiropractor who had spent much of his career working with professional wrestlers. I did a lot of stupid things growing up and spent a total of eight years enlisted in the Marines as a way to pay for my education. Sometimes, just thinking about moving hurts. I'm actually in pretty good shape, all things considered. I'm still really active but damn, I really need to keep up the therapy and I don't.
I preferred electricity to needles, however. I tr
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... Knots in my back so tight and painful that the physios elbow was into it and his feet were off the ground, and still I needed more pressure. ...
Get trigger-point injections if you have muscle spasms again. A step above acupuncture, it's a shot right into the muscle, slowly injecting a little bit of saline+lidocaine. Both you and the physician will feel the release, for sure! It's much better than release via physio, which can bruise or worse when repeated over years.
For acupuncture, make sure the person is also an MD.
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Get trigger-point injections if you have muscle spasms again. A step above acupuncture, it's a shot right into the muscle, slowly injecting a little bit of saline+lidocaine. Both you and the physician will feel the release, for sure!
Isn't that wet needling? I'll ask the doctor about that one as well - thank you.
The needles they put in now certainly release the muscles, I don't really know how much more I could take. I had needles between C1, my skull, in my temple and lower in my neck (three damn neck injuries!) for spasms that affected my eyesight. I think my yeeoooowww! blew the windows out of the the therapy room the day they got that one in my neck - I was sick for a week after that - however the eye hasn't spasmed since. The foca
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You might understand better if it is in order:
What the fuck triggered the event?
The tissues involved are called the fascia and they carry nerves of the parasympathetic nervous system (IIUC). Generally as the muscles move they slip and slide on this tissue. The scarring causes them to stick and that creates the knots in your muscle. That's what the needles get stuck into.
That week we had been sticking needles in an extremely tight part of my back next to my spine, under my shoulder blades and between the two bones of the fore arm lying f
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I notice that my urine is a bit stinky
Wow...that means a lot of proteins breaking down and being excreted [wikipedia.org] over a very short time. Most people only experience that when they overeat on meat. I didn't know that could happen from an event like that.
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I notice that my urine is a bit stinky
Wow...that means a lot of proteins breaking down and being excreted [wikipedia.org] over a very short time. Most people only experience that when they overeat on meat. I didn't know that could happen from an event like that.
Thanks, I didn't realize that was significant, I'll let them know.
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I ordered one a while back (Score:4, Funny)
It took my tailor 60 years to make.
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And now it's all wrinkled!
Oh. Wait, that's my birthday suit.
Some older people are more "bad-ass" than others. (Score:2)
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My mother still runs a business at age 94.
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I really, really want to take the low-hanging fruit for a reply and post it as an AC but I'll be the better man - today.
Still, that's pretty awesome.
You are only as old as you feel (Score:2)
Unfortunately, I feel like I am 100.
They borrowed this from car manufacturers (Score:2)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... [www.cbc.ca]
Won't sell (Score:5, Insightful)
How about a suit that lets old people feel like to be young again?
Now *THAT* there'd be a real market for.
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If I were wealthy and one of my heirs bought me this thing, I'd cut the fucker off...
Use analog technology instead (Score:2)
Instead of expensive tech-suits, just let somebody beat the shit out of you. The next morning you will feel 100.
They forgot at least one Newman in the story (Score:2)
How 'bout the reverse? (Score:2)
A suit that makes old people feel young!! That would be swell!
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The business model is "How do old people experience our product / our store / our ad campaign / our ..."
Old age (Score:4, Insightful)
Old age, as my almost 90 dad says, "sure beats the alternative".
I don't mind my failing body and mind so far. For me, it's not about the car, it's about the trip.
I've seen some cool things happen over the years, and I want to see more.
I wonder what it was like for my grandparents to see all this. They were born in the 1800's and lasted until the 1970's
No cars, no radio, no airplanes, no refrigerators, no air conditioning, no electric lights, no telephone. Only the well to do had heat other than a fire in a box.
My grandmothers could not legally vote when they were young women.
Can you imagine how cool it was to see all that come into life?
As for me, I was 6 years old the first time I saw a television. I still think it's cool in so many ways.
I was a teenager when I saw a computer in use for the first time. I believe it was a GE 200 series.
At about that time, the USA had more nuclear weapons than computers.
There were no satellites yet.
I basically saw the entire space program unfold from start to present. Except when sputnik was launched; I don't recall the actual event. I remember people talking about it later.
Everyone in the neighborhood (suburbian) went outside at night to watch Echo 1 pass overhead. Street lights were still a rarity outside the central city areas. We could see the milky way any clear night, so spotting satellites wasn't hard.
I saw the first man step onto the moon live on TV.
I saw the Berlin wall come down and the Soviet Union collapse. ... well, we'll see what happens.
We're seeing China transform from an anthill slave society into
I grew up in the totally segregated south and saw the civil rights movement happen, and I saw how much individual people can change.
Humanity, when it's working right, is amazing.
The most recent doctor that treated me in the hospital is a black woman. Inconceivable in the 1950's in the South, or come to think of it, pretty much anywhere in the USA.
I remember a 1950's science fiction story where everyone was telepathic. Knowing everyone else's thoughts all the time was a living nightmare.
Thanks to Facebook, texting, etc, we nearly have that now.
I really don't mind so much that I can no longer sleep on one side because it hurts too much to sleep, or that I cannot plan when to go to the bathroom, or that I need the subtitles turned on to understand British television...
There are so many interesting things happening, and thanks to growing up in the 20th century, the whole terrorism thing is, well, shrug, so what, to me.
I'm betting on something like CRISPR/cas9 to be the next "who knew we could do that?" technology. This is going to be way cool.
I'm hoping to see mosquitoes extinct, or at least the ones attracted to humans.
There was a 1958 movie "The Long Hot Summer". It had Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Orson Wells, etc.
If you saw it, you'll remember the closing lines from Will Varner standing in front of his burning barn.
It's like that.
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You sound much like my dad, who lived to be 94 (and passed away last year). He had his moments of doubt, having seen WWII and growing up during the Great Depression, but he was always amazed and impressed at the things we (humanity) accomplished in his lifetime.
If you and I live another 30 years we'll see incredible accomplishments and changes. Here's to the future!
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You think?
I mean, look at the change between 1960 and 1970. We went from "we finally got a man off this rock" to "we put a man on the fucking moon!"
Now look at 2000 to 2010. Well?
Web designers (Score:4, Insightful)
Any web designer who ever uses light gray text on a slightly darker gray background or a font less than 10 pt should be forced to wear the vision fader for a month at least.
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Any web designer who ever uses light gray text on a slightly darker gray background or a font less than 10 pt should be forced to wear the vision fader for a month at least.
The problem lies with them, not you.
Articles will often be presented in 8-pt text, but text in any ads will be 36-pt. And images will span the entire browser window.
Command-+ (or Control-+) in most browsers will magnify all text and re-wrap, usually.
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Least popular ride at Epcot (Score:2)
Least popular ride at Epcot. 'nuff said.
If this isn't an April Fools joke, what's wrong with people? You can't simulate the gradual adjustment to conditions. People who *suddenly* lose something go through that whole process that ends with acceptance. With aging, you have a long time to accept it. It's not like putting on a stupid suit.
Well, sometimes (Score:3)
"Watching your friends die off."
Actually, watching my friends pass away is way better than the alternative- having them watch me pass away. I don't like going to funerals but I'd rather go to theirs than they go to mine.
As far as I'm concerned, one of the better parts of getting older is watching your enemies die off. I confess, that's given me quite a bit of pleasure so far. :)
I suppose I should feel bad about it, but I really don't. Every time one of them dies I feel a renewed sense of vigor and satisfaction. "Yipee, I out lived that fucking asshole, yay for ME!" And I have a drink. Not in their memory, but just because I can. :)
So fuck you, Mike W., James P., and Jerry L. You're all dead and I'm still eating bacon sandwiches and banging my lovely young wife. Suck it, boys. Oh, that's right, you can't- because you're dead. ha ha ha ha!
You know - I could have told you this for free. (Score:2)
Kids these days.
If I could go back in time to my younger self, I would have told him -
"Don't change a thing, you're awesome. Word of warning though, all those bones you're breaking are going to hurt later. Also, buy Ericsson-LG in 2001"
FAT SUIT? (Score:2)
fat suit?
I know what it's like to feel old! (Score:2)
Wake me when they make a suit that makes you feel young again. THAT would be news!
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That's why I want to start doing exercsie, all-out (Score:2)
That's why I want to start doing exercise, 5-10 hours a week. I'm 46, look like 38, have 10 years of performing Arts, only ride Bike, walk and use PT. I've been doing Tango for 8 years and started Yoga this year. I slumped on it the last six weeks but I'm getting back to 3-5 per week on Monday. Sensei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido was doing Aikido daily just up to the age of 83, weeks before he died.
Shaolin Monks can do splits, unassisted, at the age of 80+ and on Okinawa you've got men aged 76 starting to tra
10 minutes? (Score:2)
I have an idea for a futuristic suit (Score:3)
It would be filed against every tech company that practices age discrimination.
Re:B**Sht** (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit.
Not bullshit that he did it, bullshit that just anyone could. You've got to have the right combination of genetics to make it to 82 in the first place, not everybody has that.
And almost nobody has the ability to set a record. That's why it's a record, not the standard.
It takes a combination of effort and luck. Without both, you're screwed.
Re:B**Sht** (Score:4, Interesting)
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I think the application is more in the area of "What would it be like for an old person to use your product?"
What's the experience of an old person with your new cellphone? What's it like for them to walk through your shopping mall?
And, of course, what do you have to change to appeal more to the old geezers who are pretty much the only people left who have money to spend?
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Capricorn 15's. Born 2244. Enter the Carousel. This is the time of renewal.