This is why I detest modern technology....

[Brooks_]

Good to hear positive interactions with law enforcement.

On that note, I'll share that I saw a deputy use the patrol vehicle to give someone a jump.

 

[Isadora]

On that note, I'll share that I saw a deputy use the patrol vehicle to give someone a jump.

I passed a deputy changing someone's tire.

 

[Folly's place]

My police experiences have all been good, and I had no idea that someone looking like a George Floyd would be at such risk! I too hope that improvements are made on this, which should never be an issue.
Trying to be very polite here...
Mary

 

[Sequel]

My police experiences have all been good, and I had no idea that someone looking like a George Floyd would be at such risk! I too hope that improvements are made on this, which should never be an issue.
Trying to be very polite here...
Mary

I have no personal bad experiences either. However our local police shot a mentally ill young man through a closed door, then wouldn’t let his parents check on him so he bled to death. Unfortunately our lack of mental health care leaves the police to deal with problems for which they aren’t equipped. There is no mental health support in a crisis here other than the police. You’re rolling the dice if you need some help! Most here are pretty darn good though. Oh and this is an affluent mostly white community, and the young man was white.

I have a good friend in Australia who told me when her bi polar mother starts acting out they call “psych” and some lovely women come out and talk her into happily getting into the van where they take her to a clinic or somewhere to get her meds straightened out. Not that this would always happen this way but at least there is professional infrastructure to deal with it.

 

[21hens-incharge]

Another good thing to rant about. A couple of months ago, I had a break down with my pickup and called AAA for a tow. 2 hours later, I called them back and they had somehow not even notified the towing company! Lots of excuses, etc... but bottom line it took 3 hours to get a 10 mile tow. I filed a complaint with AAA. Actually talked to a customer service rep who apologized for the muck up, and he gave me $50 credit towards next year renewal. I said I'd take the $50 credit, but it in no way makes up for being stranded on the road for 3 hours and if that would have been Dear Wife left out on the road, I would have been beside myself with the poor service of AAA.

I have been a member of AAA for many years, and have always considered them to be the gold standard for towing service. But they have moved almost all their calls to some kind of automated system and using their app. At the time, I did not have a smart phone and talked to a real person - after a good period of waiting - and evidently that person did not know enough that she had to call the towing service! So I sat out there without a clue that nothing was happening and no tow truck was on the way.

BTW, in the end of that story, I had to call the tow truck and give them directions to my breakdown location. AAA still had never called the tow truck and given them my location. Nothing went right on that call and I'm still very upset with AAA. And, frankly, if I had a better option for towing insurance I'd probably switch.

AAA's excuse was that they do most of their service calls via mobile app and that their rep had not been adequately trained on handling phone calls from customers. I guess if you don't have the smartphone and submit everything yourself for a trouble call, some of their real life people don't know how to handle a breakdown anymore.

My hubs runs a tow company. AAA is horrible about not calling them until several hours have passed and THEIR customers are livid. It makes thing hard for them too.

 

[BleuSaphir]

I’ve always loved AAA in the beginning. I remember my car battery died at parking garage in LA. It took 10 min to get help
Instantly. That was during 2018. But now it take awhile… :/

 

[gtaus]

My hubs runs a tow company. AAA is horrible about not calling them until several hours have passed and THEIR customers are livid. It makes thing hard for them too.

It must be difficult to work with a customer that has been stranded for hours waiting for a tow truck. When my tow truck finally did arrive, about 2.5 hours after my call, but only 10 minutes from their shop, I was sure to tell him that I was upset with AAA and not the towing company itself. The tow truck driver was very nice and did everything he could.

 

[Canina]

Old guy rant coming up, just had to vent...

I think lots of modern technology is destroying our society. Maybe I'm just getting too darn old. But here are my rants....

First of all, I will state that I have not always been anti-tech. I have been programming computers since the late 1970's and hold 2 degrees in computer science and information systems. Most of my early college education was heavy into computer science. Along the way, I also became a certified A+ technician and built and serviced computers. I always enjoyed it.

Something has changed with tech today, and I don't think it's just me that is questioning the direction of our society. So let me rant about just a few things that really bug me, in no particular order of importance.

- Not to be sexist, but I have been run off the road and into near collisions with young women who are texting/talking on their cell phones instead of paying attention to their driving. You used to have to worry about intoxicated drivers after closing hour, but nowadays, you have to worry about young mothers picking up their kids from school. I don't think the fines can be too heavy for people who are texting/talking on their phones instead of driving safely. Somebody needs to wake them up. Again, my encounters were all with young women, but I suppose men could be equally as distracted when on the phone.

- I was out at a restaurant the other night, and many people are either talking/texting on their phones, or worse yet, letting them ring and bothering everyone else who is paying for a enjoyable night out. I don't care to hear constant telephone ringing in the background and people sharing their private conversations with everyone else in the restaurant, I would rather have stayed home and ate my dinner in front of the TV. At least my chair at home is comfortable.

- A few months ago I was at a family gathering at my relative's house. All the "younger" people were just sitting on the couch staring at their cell phones and texting someone else. In my time, behavior like that would have been considered very rude. Someone invites you to their house and you just sit there and text someone else?

OK, turning a bit political and don't mean to offend anyone, but here goes.

- Vaccinations. I have many friends that get all their "medical" news from Facebook. None of them consider taking the COVID vaccination because someone, somewhere, reported that they had a bad reaction to the shot. They are full of Facebook medical wisdom and ready to share it with me. Really? Why did I waste all those years in Nursing school to get my RN degree and license? I could have just sat at home and read Facebook all day. I tend to think of myself open minded towards alternative approaches to medicine and care. It's part of our nursing philosophy. But I'm waving the caution flag (I wanted to use stronger language) on these Facebook treatments. Thank God that we did not have a Facebook educated population when the Polio vaccination was being distributed early on. We might still be actively fighting Polio yet today.

- Facebook, in general. For years I have been anti-Facebook because I thought they were destroying the fabric of our society. Recent Facebook whistleblowers have come forward and brought to light just how bad it is. Facebook will do anything for profits, and if that means hooking you into a bunch of nonsense and lies just to keep you clicking on their platform, they don't seem to have a problem with that. I know many people who refuse to watch news on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, or even Fox news now, because they think everything is a lie. Boy how I miss my evening news with Walter Cronkite and what we regarded as mostly unbiased news reporting.

- Other social media. As you can tell, I'm not much into social media. But recent reports of how damaging some platforms on social media is to young girls body image is alarming to me. As an RN, I have treated a number of young women who suffer from Anorexia and other eating disorders. Along with that, I have treated some young women who suffer from body dysmorphic disorder, where they focus in on perceived flaws or defects in their body. From what I hear on the news, social media is only making things worse for young women.

OK, if you have made it this far, let me end a more positive note. Recently my bank (non local) switched over to making deposits by scanning checks in via smartphone app. I only had a landline until a few weeks ago. I never cared about getting a smart phone for the many concerns I have expressed. But, my landline phone cannot scan in checks and therefore I was forced to get a new smartphone to do my banking - or sending checks through the mail which was not my desire. I also ended up signing up for a Facebook account so I could get the free Messenger app to make "free calls" to friends and family. I don't use Facebook, but my family calls me on Messenger. When I cancelled my landline telephone, I also cut the cord on my cable TV. I kept our internet service, but everything else was cancelled. I don't expect I'll use my new cell phone anymore than I did the landline phone, so I just bought a Tracfone with 1500 mins and 1 year of service. Dear Wife got me the phone from QVC. Anyway, it was $80 for the phone for 1 year of service, but I am saving over $90 per month by having cancelled my landline phone and cutting the cord on the cable TV. I am now saving about $1000 per year. So, I'm not totally against new tech, just much of it and how it's used.

Thanks for letting me rant.

You said it yourself- you can’t blame technology when people are the ones who create and use it. It is always how it is being used, because here you are on an Internet forum that you enjoy discussing how other people use technology. Things like forced obscelescence, increasingly more invasive tracking, sophisticated torture devices etc kind of suck though. Your issue mainly lies with younger people being a bit self absorbed and lacking awareness of their surroundings or failing to do research beyond what is presented to them in a tailored echo chamber of a news feed. If anyone has a shred of intelligence they will recognise what sort of sort they are in and response become more of a conscientious user and an autodidact. The unwashed heathers tend to become ‘trolls’. You can’t fix stupid- technology just makes it more apparent.

 

[gtaus]

My police experiences have all been good, and I had no idea that someone looking like a George Floyd would be at such risk!

I had a bandmate that was black. He was coming to practice one day on his 4-wheeler and got pulled over by a cop. I have never seen a cop pull anyone over while they are riding a 4-wheeler in the ditch on the trials. Anyway, I guess "Driving While Black" was enough reason to stop and identify my bandmate. Obviously he must have stolen the 4-wheeler?

I live in northern Minnesota and our closest town has a population of about 15,000 people. Of that, I bet you might only find about 10 black people in the community. You might find a few more young black men on campus that play basketball or football for the local college, but not many there either. So if you are not white in our community, you already stick out.

Dear Wife is from the Philippines, and there are only a handful of us former military guys that married Filipinas. Anyway, my wife works at a local assembly plant and she said that her and another Filipina friend are stationed right up front because if anyone comes to visit or inspect the plant, they can see that the workforce has diversity. So, maybe that works to her advantage? At any rate, she says everyone is treated the same so there has been nothing to complain about in that regard. And we have had no problems in the larger community either, so that is good.

 

[gtaus]

Your issue mainly lies with younger people being a bit self absorbed and lacking awareness of their surroundings or failing to do research beyond what is presented to them in a tailored echo chamber of a news feed.

Maybe it comes off that way, and I would hope that people see that as only one observation of the many being pointed out. I am no longer a young person, but I am affected by the forced use of modern tech as well. I mentioned that my non-local bank now only accepts bank deposits by using their mobile app and scanning in the checks on a smartphone. Or, you can take your chances and send the deposit in via the mail. So I finally had to break down and get a smartphone to do my banking deposits.

We have also been talking about AAA service and how that has changed. When I called the AAA rep to complain about my 3 hour wait for a tow truck to come from 10 miles away, he apologized and told me specifically that AAA has decided that most of their customers live in metro areas, are younger than me, and all have smartphones. So they have a mobile app to get AAA towing service when needed. But there are still people like me, living in rural areas, with no internet service on the road and maybe even no cell service in dead spots, and AAA no longer has the proper "people" support to answer the 1-800 phone calls.