He can text, he can use Facebook, he can email. 68 isn’t what it once was. Ok, sometimes he gets the context wrong (commenting on something I wrote a week ago on today’s post, for example), but the concept is there. The point is that, son’s delusions of father’s immortality aside, our parents are not the Luddites we assume.

We (ie my generation), pride ourselves on our adaptability- most of us have careers banking on it – but how many of us have parents that know how to use this tech? I’d wager that it’s most of us. My old man is still active, he’s running a company, he’s flitting between Melbourne, Victoria and Reading, Berkshire with nary a beat (apart from that debilitating “power socket removal” feeling we all get when jet-lagged).

Similarly, my mother heads off to antique shows every week, loading up her car with the stuff she’s bought over the years, and goes off to sell -successfully, most of the time, thanks to the research she’s carried out on ebay and the like over the previous weeks.

We are not the first tech-savvy generation, much as we would like to be – our parents have seen LPs change into CDs (or videodiscs into LaserDiscs in the case of my mother who worked with the first company to manage that particular feat – and it wasn’t Philips or Pioneer), then into iPods. They’ve seen VCRs turn into CD burners and then into on-demand services. They have embraced emails and SMS and, certainly in my case, have appreciated the nature of them.

What on earth is waiting for us in the next 30 years? I can only hope that we adapt as well as our folks did.

Mum, Dad – nice one

Then we have people who complain about targetted advertising.

Then there’s the biannual outcry about copyright.

All of the above are groundless – Facebook, Twitter (to be fair they’re the only two left in the game since Google + realised it’s own lack of attendance) are NOT one’s own private playground.

They are not there for you to use without fear of repercussion.

They are owned by private companies looking to make a buck out of your comment, your photo, your content.  We all clicked past the ToCs for both, we all now have to live with it.

Facebook will target ads at you based on your gender and marital status .  Is it right to ignore the gay couples getting married?  Is it right to ignore registry office ceremonies?

No, of course not.  But it’s not the biggest demographic from which to extract revenue. So, from a marketing perspective, the biggest bang for the buck is from traditional weddings between heterosexual couples.

Never forget that use of these services comes with its own price – our data. And monetizing that is how they make money.

Just don’t come crying to me after the fact.

G
‘
PS – “There’s no alternative” is no excuse.  I’m 38 – we managed quite well 5 years ago, let alone 20, when I was 18 and full of teenage angst.

Now with added St Patrick’s day parade

Yes, it’s that time of year where blokes all around the world make themselves look daft for the sake of men’s health.

Some men can pull off the ‘tache, but not all of us are William H Macy.

http://mobro.co/flyingbadger <— go there and donate if you’d be so kind.  Ta very much.

Hirsuteness from Sunday  and yesterday, respectively :

Anyway, after a very illuminating evening reading my travel diaries from two years ago, I’m going to transcribe them here.  Word for word. With the occasional interjection from Present-day Me (as G-2010) and photos.   I will also be setting the publish date accordingly, so they’ll actually appear way below this post.  A kind of “reverse TARDIS”, if you will.  Or a cheat.   Depending on your point of view.  So, don’t be surprised to see content from 2 years before I deigned to set this damn thing up…

First up…Toronto from Edinburgh…