Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> wrote:
> I wonder how many of the hereditary lords who were expelled even had a
> Parliamentary Pass. The doormen were expected to recognise them on
> sight. And security clearance would have been an insult.
>
> (Probably also for MPs, whose right to attend is a result of being
> elected. I've never heard it said that Sinn Féin MPs - should they
> decide to attend - would be refused on security grounds).

Sinn Fein MPs use the Parliamentary office facilities, despite not taking
the oath or sitting in the House. So presumably they have parliamentary
passes which give them access to the estate.

Theo

On 12/09/2023 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:

> Having achieved the age of 70, I'm not at all supportive of the idea
> that I'm automatically gaga.
Though ones who are, might not be aware. The only aged lord I ever talk
to is clearly not what he used to be.

--
Arthur Figgis

Arthur Figgis <afiggis@example.invalid> wrote:
> On 12/09/2023 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:
>
>> Having achieved the age of 70, I'm not at all supportive of the idea
>> that I'm automatically gaga.
> Though ones who are, might not be aware. The only aged lord I ever talk
> to is clearly not what he used to be.
>

It's obviously not something that happens suddenly, and most people start
slowing down long before they go senile. Their responses slow, their
short-term memory degrades and they find it harder to learn new things.
That's on top of any physical degradation, such as worse close-up vision,
unsteady hands and stiffness.

These effects start before 50, but increasing experience may be able to
outweigh them for a few years. Eventually, by their mid-50s, most white
collar woriers are about at their peak, and it's downhill from then, first
subtly, then more obviously, when they might, for example, struggle to use
a new phone or even to locate the apps they loaded on it.

Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> wrote:
> Arthur Figgis <afiggis@example.invalid> wrote:
>> On 12/09/2023 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:
>>
>>> Having achieved the age of 70, I'm not at all supportive of the idea
>>> that I'm automatically gaga.
>> Though ones who are, might not be aware. The only aged lord I ever talk
>> to is clearly not what he used to be.
>>
>
> It's obviously not something that happens suddenly, and most people start
> slowing down long before they go senile. Their responses slow, their
> short-term memory degrades and they find it harder to learn new things.
> That's on top of any physical degradation, such as worse close-up vision,
> unsteady hands and stiffness.
>
> These effects start before 50, but increasing experience may be able to
> outweigh them for a few years. Eventually, by their mid-50s, most white
> collar woriers are about at their peak, and it's downhill from then, first
> subtly, then more obviously, when they might, for example, struggle to use
> a new phone or even to locate the apps they loaded on it.
>
>
>
I’m 60 and recognise I’ve reached a turning point. What I’ve noticed in
others at work of a similar vintage is a failure to embrace new things and
to become increasingly negative about things. Rather than being positive
about things and finding solutions to problems, everything turns into a
list of why things can’t possibly be done. I find it harder to learn new
computing languages now - I understand the principles, but remembering the
detail is difficult. I can easily write in C which I learnt years ago, but
I find Python difficult, which is at odds with the youngsters who inform me
it is trivially easy. However dealing with internal and external work
politics is much easier after a working lifetime of experience. It’s also
much easier to tell folk uncomfortable facts at work, as I no longer have
to worry about any impacts on my career.

In message <VGs*eChqz@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>, at 16:58:11 on Wed,
13 Sep 2023, Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> remarked:
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> wrote:
>> I wonder how many of the hereditary lords who were expelled even had a
>> Parliamentary Pass. The doormen were expected to recognise them on
>> sight. And security clearance would have been an insult.
>>
>> (Probably also for MPs, whose right to attend is a result of being
>> elected. I've never heard it said that Sinn Féin MPs - should they
>> decide to attend - would be refused on security grounds).
>
>Sinn Fein MPs use the Parliamentary office facilities, despite not taking
>the oath or sitting in the House. So presumably they have parliamentary
>passes which give them access to the estate.

So either no security clearance required, or they passed the tests.
Deciding not to sit in the House is a separate layer, as recently
evidenced by Mad Nad.
--
Roland Perry

In message <pq-dnfvXnN_Nepz4nZ2dnZfqnPidnZ2d@brightview.co.uk>, at
17:46:08 on Wed, 13 Sep 2023, Arthur Figgis <afiggis@example.invalid>
remarked:
>On 12/09/2023 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:
>
>> Having achieved the age of 70, I'm not at all supportive of the idea
>>that I'm automatically gaga.

>Though ones who are, might not be aware. The only aged lord I ever talk
>to is clearly not what he used to be.

A sample of one, that's extremely helpful. Not.
--
Roland Perry

In message <udspo4$279r6$5@dont-email.me>, at 16:58:44 on Wed, 13 Sep
2023, Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> remarked:
>Arthur Figgis <afiggis@example.invalid> wrote:
>> On 12/09/2023 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:
>>
>>> Having achieved the age of 70, I'm not at all supportive of the idea
>>> that I'm automatically gaga.
>> Though ones who are, might not be aware. The only aged lord I ever talk
>> to is clearly not what he used to be.
>
>It's obviously not something that happens suddenly, and most people start
>slowing down long before they go senile. Their responses slow, their
>short-term memory degrades and they find it harder to learn new things.
>That's on top of any physical degradation, such as worse close-up vision,
>unsteady hands and stiffness.
>
>These effects start before 50, but increasing experience may be able to
>outweigh them for a few years. Eventually, by their mid-50s, most white
>collar woriers are about at their peak, and it's downhill from then, first
>subtly, then more obviously, when they might, for example, struggle to use
>a new phone or even to locate the apps they loaded on it.

The later is mainly because the youngsters designing the User Interface
are incompetent. If they had some older people with more experience
doing it, things would be much better.
--
Roland Perry

In message <udsta0$27tjg$1@dont-email.me>, at 17:59:28 on Wed, 13 Sep
2023, Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> remarked:

>dealing with internal and external work politics is much easier after a
>working lifetime of experience. It’s also much easier to tell folk
>uncomfortable facts at work, as I no longer have to worry about any
>impacts on my career.

One client I've been working with recently had no landline phone service
at their office for two days. They blamed the "third party supplier" and
didn't take responsibility. Whereas I'm not shy about suggesting the
real fault is with whoever internally chose that supplier. But politics
means you have to be in a position of not-much-to-lose to make such an
apparently cheeky suggestion.
--
Roland Perry

Am 13.09.2023 um 19:59 schrieb Tweed:
> Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Arthur Figgis <afiggis@example.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 12/09/2023 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>
>>>> Having achieved the age of 70, I'm not at all supportive of the idea
>>>> that I'm automatically gaga.
>>> Though ones who are, might not be aware. The only aged lord I ever talk
>>> to is clearly not what he used to be.
>>>
>>
>> It's obviously not something that happens suddenly, and most people start
>> slowing down long before they go senile. Their responses slow, their
>> short-term memory degrades and they find it harder to learn new things.
>> That's on top of any physical degradation, such as worse close-up vision,
>> unsteady hands and stiffness.
>>
>> These effects start before 50, but increasing experience may be able to
>> outweigh them for a few years. Eventually, by their mid-50s, most white
>> collar woriers are about at their peak, and it's downhill from then, first
>> subtly, then more obviously, when they might, for example, struggle to use
>> a new phone or even to locate the apps they loaded on it.
>>
> I’m 60 and recognise I’ve reached a turning point. What I’ve noticed in
> others at work of a similar vintage is a failure to embrace new things and
> to become increasingly negative about things. Rather than being positive
> about things and finding solutions to problems, everything turns into a
> list of why things can’t possibly be done.

Being just over 50, I notice similar things for myself: let the young
colleauges dive into the new ideas (with AI, or just with a new editor),
and I'll happily discuss the pros and cons afterwards (I still feel I'm
around the peak) - but yesterday my new department head from Inida said
"Ah, finally I can put a face to your name - 10 years ago I always
heared 'we must discuss with Rolf what is possible'".

For a successful project, you need both the 'anything goes' from the
young colleagues and the careful attitude of the experienced colleagues.
A system that falls over at the first hickup is as bad as a system
that is doing everything it should have done in the 1980's and nothing else.

Rolf

Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:
> I’m 60 and recognise I’ve reached a turning point. What I’ve noticed in
> others at work of a similar vintage is a failure to embrace new things and
> to become increasingly negative about things. Rather than being positive
> about things and finding solutions to problems, everything turns into a
> list of why things can’t possibly be done. I find it harder to learn new
> computing languages now - I understand the principles, but remembering the
> detail is difficult. I can easily write in C which I learnt years ago, but
> I find Python difficult, which is at odds with the youngsters who inform me
> it is trivially easy. However dealing with internal and external work
> politics is much easier after a working lifetime of experience. It’s also
> much easier to tell folk uncomfortable facts at work, as I no longer have
> to worry about any impacts on my career.

I find Python a PITA because there's no consistency: there is a sprawling
library of functions which you need to use, but you have to learn each one
and the specific way it's used. eg if you wanted to join strings in a list
together with dashes, the options could be:

l = ["alice", "bob"]
r = l.join("-")
r = join(l, "-")
r = "-".join(l)

(it's the third one)

But this is like a spoken language where everything is an irregular verb so
you can't establish a pattern, you have to learn them one by one. Or to
look them up every time.

(there are some reasons for why this particular way round, but they're
almost never explained at the time the functions are described - tutorials
are often more like a phrasebook than a grammar)

This might be fine if you're using the language every day, but if you're
popping over for a weekend once a year it's hard to make all the exceptions
stick.

Theo

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I’m 60 and recognise I’ve reached a turning point. What I’ve noticed in
>> others at work of a similar vintage is a failure to embrace new things and
>> to become increasingly negative about things. Rather than being positive
>> about things and finding solutions to problems, everything turns into a
>> list of why things can’t possibly be done. I find it harder to learn new
>> computing languages now - I understand the principles, but remembering the
>> detail is difficult. I can easily write in C which I learnt years ago, but
>> I find Python difficult, which is at odds with the youngsters who inform me
>> it is trivially easy. However dealing with internal and external work
>> politics is much easier after a working lifetime of experience. It’s also
>> much easier to tell folk uncomfortable facts at work, as I no longer have
>> to worry about any impacts on my career.
>
> I find Python a PITA because there's no consistency: there is a sprawling
> library of functions which you need to use, but you have to learn each one
> and the specific way it's used. eg if you wanted to join strings in a list
> together with dashes, the options could be:
>
> l = ["alice", "bob"]
> r = l.join("-")
> r = join(l, "-")
> r = "-".join(l)
>
> (it's the third one)
>
> But this is like a spoken language where everything is an irregular verb so
> you can't establish a pattern, you have to learn them one by one. Or to
> look them up every time.
>
> (there are some reasons for why this particular way round, but they're
> almost never explained at the time the functions are described - tutorials
> are often more like a phrasebook than a grammar)
>
> This might be fine if you're using the language every day, but if you're
> popping over for a weekend once a year it's hard to make all the exceptions
> stick.

The thing that struck me about Python, which I’ve never had to use in
practice, is the inefficiency. It seems to be common for Python gurus to
say, “you really shouldn’t try to implement that algorithm in Python, it’d
be way too slow; look, we’ve written a C library that does the job.”

Sam

--
The entity formerly known as Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk
Spit the dummy to reply

Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:
> Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Arthur Figgis <afiggis@example.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 12/09/2023 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>
>>>> Having achieved the age of 70, I'm not at all supportive of the idea
>>>> that I'm automatically gaga.
>>> Though ones who are, might not be aware. The only aged lord I ever talk
>>> to is clearly not what he used to be.
>>>
>>
>> It's obviously not something that happens suddenly, and most people start
>> slowing down long before they go senile. Their responses slow, their
>> short-term memory degrades and they find it harder to learn new things.
>> That's on top of any physical degradation, such as worse close-up vision,
>> unsteady hands and stiffness.
>>
>> These effects start before 50, but increasing experience may be able to
>> outweigh them for a few years. Eventually, by their mid-50s, most white
>> collar woriers are about at their peak, and it's downhill from then, first
>> subtly, then more obviously, when they might, for example, struggle to use
>> a new phone or even to locate the apps they loaded on it.
>>
>>
>>
> I’m 60 and recognise I’ve reached a turning point. What I’ve noticed in
> others at work of a similar vintage is a failure to embrace new things and
> to become increasingly negative about things. Rather than being positive
> about things and finding solutions to problems, everything turns into a
> list of why things can’t possibly be done. I find it harder to learn new
> computing languages now - I understand the principles, but remembering the
> detail is difficult. I can easily write in C which I learnt years ago, but
> I find Python difficult, which is at odds with the youngsters who inform me
> it is trivially easy. However dealing with internal and external work
> politics is much easier after a working lifetime of experience. It’s also
> much easier to tell folk uncomfortable facts at work, as I no longer have
> to worry about any impacts on my career.

One of the regrets I have about my working life is that in the last 10-15
years or so I was less inclined to push for interesting things to do rather
than just maintaining the status quo. Granted the atmosphere had changed
from IT and networking in particular being at the cutting edge of
development towards the network being an essential service, but there were
innovative things we should have been pushing for.

Sam

--
The entity formerly known as Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk
Spit the dummy to reply

On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:27:56 -0000 (UTC)
Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
>Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> This might be fine if you're using the language every day, but if you're
>> popping over for a weekend once a year it's hard to make all the exceptions
>> stick.
>
>The thing that struck me about Python, which I’ve never had to use in
>practice, is the inefficiency. It seems to be common for Python gurus to
>say, “you really shouldn’t try to implement that algorithm in Python,
>it’d
>be way too slow; look, we’ve written a C library that does the job.”

It is notoriously slow. Wierdly its popular as a front end for AI development
but unsurprisingly all the heavy lifting is done in C/C++ underneath.

On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:29:32 -0000 (UTC)
Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
>than just maintaining the status quo. Granted the atmosphere had changed
>from IT and networking in particular being at the cutting edge of
>development towards the network being an essential service, but there were
>innovative things we should have been pushing for.

Careful what you wish for. "Innovation" is often a cover for cost cutting.
eg touchscreens in modern cars that are dangerous or impossible to use on
the move.

Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
> The thing that struck me about Python, which I’ve never had to use in
> practice, is the inefficiency. It seems to be common for Python gurus to
> say, “you really shouldn’t try to implement that algorithm in Python, it’d
> be way too slow; look, we’ve written a C library that does the job.”

Python is good for marshalling and messing around with data, because it's
fairly low effort to get a lot done - you don't need to micro-manage memory
allocation or pointers or object creation.

It's not efficient, but most of the libraries which do the heavy lifting are
frontends for that C library (or a wrapper for a commonly-used C/C++
library). So you get the expressiveness without too much of a performance
penalty.

If you need something super-optimised, don't write it in Python. But
oftentimes the quantity to optimise is developer time, and performance
doesn't matter (maybe the thing takes 2 seconds to run instead of 0.2
seconds, who cares if it only runs once).

Theo

On Wed, 13 Sep 2023 17:59:28 -0000 (UTC), Tweed
<usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:

>Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Arthur Figgis <afiggis@example.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 12/09/2023 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>
>>>> Having achieved the age of 70, I'm not at all supportive of the idea
>>>> that I'm automatically gaga.
>>> Though ones who are, might not be aware. The only aged lord I ever talk
>>> to is clearly not what he used to be.
>>>
>>
>> It's obviously not something that happens suddenly, and most people start
>> slowing down long before they go senile. Their responses slow, their
>> short-term memory degrades and they find it harder to learn new things.
>> That's on top of any physical degradation, such as worse close-up vision,
>> unsteady hands and stiffness.
>>
>> These effects start before 50, but increasing experience may be able to
>> outweigh them for a few years. Eventually, by their mid-50s, most white
>> collar woriers are about at their peak, and it's downhill from then, first
>> subtly, then more obviously, when they might, for example, struggle to use
>> a new phone or even to locate the apps they loaded on it.
>>
>>
>>
>I’m 60 and recognise I’ve reached a turning point. What I’ve noticed in
>others at work of a similar vintage is a failure to embrace new things and
>to become increasingly negative about things. Rather than being positive
>about things and finding solutions to problems, everything turns into a
>list of why things can’t possibly be done. I find it harder to learn new
>computing languages now - I understand the principles, but remembering the
>detail is difficult. I can easily write in C which I learnt years ago, but
>I find Python difficult, which is at odds with the youngsters who inform me
>it is trivially easy. However dealing with internal and external work
>politics is much easier after a working lifetime of experience. It’s also
>much easier to tell folk uncomfortable facts at work, as I no longer have
>to worry about any impacts on my career.

Tell me about it! I could write in Burroughs Algol today with very
little in the way of a refresher. Cobol74 likewise. But, despite
having looked at them for years, ask me to write in Python, PHP or
Javascript and it'd take me days to get up any speed.

On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:36:35 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk>
wrote:

>In message <udspo4$279r6$5@dont-email.me>, at 16:58:44 on Wed, 13 Sep
>2023, Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> remarked:
>>Arthur Figgis <afiggis@example.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 12/09/2023 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>
>>>> Having achieved the age of 70, I'm not at all supportive of the idea
>>>> that I'm automatically gaga.
>>> Though ones who are, might not be aware. The only aged lord I ever talk
>>> to is clearly not what he used to be.
>>
>>It's obviously not something that happens suddenly, and most people start
>>slowing down long before they go senile. Their responses slow, their
>>short-term memory degrades and they find it harder to learn new things.
>>That's on top of any physical degradation, such as worse close-up vision,
>>unsteady hands and stiffness.
>>
>>These effects start before 50, but increasing experience may be able to
>>outweigh them for a few years. Eventually, by their mid-50s, most white
>>collar woriers are about at their peak, and it's downhill from then, first
>>subtly, then more obviously, when they might, for example, struggle to use
>>a new phone or even to locate the apps they loaded on it.
>
>The later is mainly because the youngsters designing the User Interface
>are incompetent. If they had some older people with more experience
>doing it, things would be much better.

The young can't do it properly. A mindset many have and one that I
hope to never have.

Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
> Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Arthur Figgis <afiggis@example.invalid> wrote:
>>>> On 12/09/2023 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Having achieved the age of 70, I'm not at all supportive of the idea
>>>>> that I'm automatically gaga.
>>>> Though ones who are, might not be aware. The only aged lord I ever talk
>>>> to is clearly not what he used to be.
>>>>
>>>
>>> It's obviously not something that happens suddenly, and most people start
>>> slowing down long before they go senile. Their responses slow, their
>>> short-term memory degrades and they find it harder to learn new things.
>>> That's on top of any physical degradation, such as worse close-up vision,
>>> unsteady hands and stiffness.
>>>
>>> These effects start before 50, but increasing experience may be able to
>>> outweigh them for a few years. Eventually, by their mid-50s, most white
>>> collar woriers are about at their peak, and it's downhill from then, first
>>> subtly, then more obviously, when they might, for example, struggle to use
>>> a new phone or even to locate the apps they loaded on it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> I’m 60 and recognise I’ve reached a turning point. What I’ve noticed in
>> others at work of a similar vintage is a failure to embrace new things and
>> to become increasingly negative about things. Rather than being positive
>> about things and finding solutions to problems, everything turns into a
>> list of why things can’t possibly be done. I find it harder to learn new
>> computing languages now - I understand the principles, but remembering the
>> detail is difficult. I can easily write in C which I learnt years ago, but
>> I find Python difficult, which is at odds with the youngsters who inform me
>> it is trivially easy. However dealing with internal and external work
>> politics is much easier after a working lifetime of experience. It’s also
>> much easier to tell folk uncomfortable facts at work, as I no longer have
>> to worry about any impacts on my career.
>
> One of the regrets I have about my working life is that in the last 10-15
> years or so I was less inclined to push for interesting things to do rather
> than just maintaining the status quo. Granted the atmosphere had changed
> from IT and networking in particular being at the cutting edge of
> development towards the network being an essential service, but there were
> innovative things we should have been pushing for.

I was in a different field, and found that by 55, I was getting bored with
what I'd been doing for the last few years, but didn't feel inclined to
move on to something new. I felt that I was too near my optimal retirement
age to bother learning new work stuff, as I was no longer interested in the
challenge.

So I decided to wind down instead, gradually reducing my workload, till I
realised that I was going for months without billing anything. That was
when I was 59, so I was fully retired before 60, which had been the plan
since i was in my mid-40s.

I had no need to earn any more hmoney (I'd long been living off my
investment income, and investing all my earnings), so officially retiring
just meant that I had lots more time for exotic foreign holidays. I didn't
need or choose to seek any post-retirement consultancy work. Despite all my
expensive foreign holidays that Roland is so jealous of, the dividends pour
in faster than I can spend them, so I now think it might have been better
to retire earlier.

As an aside, Octopus is my energy supplier, but I get much more tax-free
dividends from the four Octopus VCTs I'm invested in than I pay Octopus for
energy.

Ken <ken@birchanger.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:36:35 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk>
> wrote:
>
>> In message <udspo4$279r6$5@dont-email.me>, at 16:58:44 on Wed, 13 Sep
>> 2023, Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> remarked:
>>> Arthur Figgis <afiggis@example.invalid> wrote:
>>>> On 12/09/2023 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Having achieved the age of 70, I'm not at all supportive of the idea
>>>>> that I'm automatically gaga.
>>>> Though ones who are, might not be aware. The only aged lord I ever talk
>>>> to is clearly not what he used to be.
>>>
>>> It's obviously not something that happens suddenly, and most people start
>>> slowing down long before they go senile. Their responses slow, their
>>> short-term memory degrades and they find it harder to learn new things.
>>> That's on top of any physical degradation, such as worse close-up vision,
>>> unsteady hands and stiffness.
>>>
>>> These effects start before 50, but increasing experience may be able to
>>> outweigh them for a few years. Eventually, by their mid-50s, most white
>>> collar woriers are about at their peak, and it's downhill from then, first
>>> subtly, then more obviously, when they might, for example, struggle to use
>>> a new phone or even to locate the apps they loaded on it.
>>
>> The later is mainly because the youngsters designing the User Interface
>> are incompetent. If they had some older people with more experience
>> doing it, things would be much better.
>
> The young can't do it properly. A mindset many have and one that I
> hope to never have.
>

Has it not been that way for many years?

I remember, years ago, seeing a documentary about young car designers being
forced to wear fat suits that also stiffened the joints, so they could see
what it was like for older people to use their creations.

In message <uduj37$2ip2f$6@dont-email.me>, at 09:17:27 on Thu, 14 Sep
2023, Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> remarked:

>Despite all my expensive foreign holidays that Roland is so jealous of,
>the dividends pour in faster than I can spend them, so I now think it
>might have been better to retire earlier.

I'm not jealous, because I'm fed up with travelling, and would rather
stay at home. What bugs me is your incessant bragging about it.

A friend who spent his whole career working hard, saving even harder,
and is probably worth three or four million as a result, was suddenly
diagnosed with what's likely a terminal illness, before he's had a
chance to spend more than a tiny fraction of it.

He didn't retire all at once, winding down from five days a week, to
four, to two and then one, over about a decade. I'm still working part
time, because it's a really interesting job I'd want to do anyway, even
if not being paid. But the organisation can't cope with the concept of
fully accredited volunteers, so they have to pay me.
--
Roland Perry

In message <udujdq$2iqju$5@dont-email.me>, at 09:23:06 on Thu, 14 Sep
2023, Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> remarked:
>Ken <ken@birchanger.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:36:35 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> In message <udspo4$279r6$5@dont-email.me>, at 16:58:44 on Wed, 13 Sep
>>> 2023, Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> remarked:
>>>> Arthur Figgis <afiggis@example.invalid> wrote:
>>>>> On 12/09/2023 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Having achieved the age of 70, I'm not at all supportive of the idea
>>>>>> that I'm automatically gaga.
>>>>> Though ones who are, might not be aware. The only aged lord I ever talk
>>>>> to is clearly not what he used to be.
>>>>
>>>> It's obviously not something that happens suddenly, and most people start
>>>> slowing down long before they go senile. Their responses slow, their
>>>> short-term memory degrades and they find it harder to learn new things.
>>>> That's on top of any physical degradation, such as worse close-up vision,
>>>> unsteady hands and stiffness.
>>>>
>>>> These effects start before 50, but increasing experience may be able to
>>>> outweigh them for a few years. Eventually, by their mid-50s, most white
>>>> collar woriers are about at their peak, and it's downhill from then, first
>>>> subtly, then more obviously, when they might, for example, struggle to use
>>>> a new phone or even to locate the apps they loaded on it.
>>>
>>> The later is mainly because the youngsters designing the User Interface
>>> are incompetent. If they had some older people with more experience
>>> doing it, things would be much better.
>>
>> The young can't do it properly. A mindset many have and one that I
>> hope to never have.
>
>Has it not been that way for many years?
>
>I remember, years ago, seeing a documentary about young car designers being
>forced to wear fat suits that also stiffened the joints, so they could see
>what it was like for older people to use their creations.
>
Now that my wife is in a wheelchair, and we have to cope with whatever
facilities people choose to provide, I'm convinced architects should be
forced to push one (loaded with 200lb of sandbags) around everywhere for
a few weeks a year, to see how well their creations are working.

Railway stations and trains are pretty good, but only if you aren't
having to compete with hundreds of fit healthy people with everything
including the kitchen sink in a massive trolley-bag. Lifts are for
people who *can't* use the stairs, not people simply too lazy to use the
stairs.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> wrote:
> In message <uduj37$2ip2f$6@dont-email.me>, at 09:17:27 on Thu, 14 Sep
> 2023, Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> remarked:
>
>> Despite all my expensive foreign holidays that Roland is so jealous of,
>> the dividends pour in faster than I can spend them, so I now think it
>> might have been better to retire earlier.
>
> I'm not jealous, because I'm fed up with travelling, and would rather
> stay at home. What bugs me is your incessant bragging about it.

I don't brag about it. I just sometimes mention places, often with a
railway connection, that I've been to, just as you constantly regale us
with your experiences buying from the clearance aisles in your local shops.

>
> A friend who spent his whole career working hard, saving even harder,
> and is probably worth three or four million as a result, was suddenly
> diagnosed with what's likely a terminal illness, before he's had a
> chance to spend more than a tiny fraction of it.

Yes, there's always that fear. I'm all too aware of several former
colleagues of about my age dying of cancer, or others having serious
illnesses. I'm lucky it's not happened to me yet, but, statistically, it
gets increasingly more likely each year.

I certainly won't live long enough to spend all my wealth, specially as it
grows each year.

>
> He didn't retire all at once, winding down from five days a week, to
> four, to two and then one, over about a decade.

Yes, that's very sensible. I did the same, but over a shorter period. Now,
I wish I'd taken more holidays while still working.

> I'm still working part
> time, because it's a really interesting job I'd want to do anyway, even
> if not being paid. But the organisation can't cope with the concept of
> fully accredited volunteers, so they have to pay me.

Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> wrote:
> In message <udujdq$2iqju$5@dont-email.me>, at 09:23:06 on Thu, 14 Sep
> 2023, Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> remarked:
>> Ken <ken@birchanger.com> wrote:
>>> On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:36:35 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In message <udspo4$279r6$5@dont-email.me>, at 16:58:44 on Wed, 13 Sep
>>>> 2023, Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> remarked:
>>>>> Arthur Figgis <afiggis@example.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>> On 12/09/2023 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Having achieved the age of 70, I'm not at all supportive of the idea
>>>>>>> that I'm automatically gaga.
>>>>>> Though ones who are, might not be aware. The only aged lord I ever talk
>>>>>> to is clearly not what he used to be.
>>>>>
>>>>> It's obviously not something that happens suddenly, and most people start
>>>>> slowing down long before they go senile. Their responses slow, their
>>>>> short-term memory degrades and they find it harder to learn new things.
>>>>> That's on top of any physical degradation, such as worse close-up vision,
>>>>> unsteady hands and stiffness.
>>>>>
>>>>> These effects start before 50, but increasing experience may be able to
>>>>> outweigh them for a few years. Eventually, by their mid-50s, most white
>>>>> collar woriers are about at their peak, and it's downhill from then, first
>>>>> subtly, then more obviously, when they might, for example, struggle to use
>>>>> a new phone or even to locate the apps they loaded on it.
>>>>
>>>> The later is mainly because the youngsters designing the User Interface
>>>> are incompetent. If they had some older people with more experience
>>>> doing it, things would be much better.
>>>
>>> The young can't do it properly. A mindset many have and one that I
>>> hope to never have.
>>
>> Has it not been that way for many years?
>>
>> I remember, years ago, seeing a documentary about young car designers being
>> forced to wear fat suits that also stiffened the joints, so they could see
>> what it was like for older people to use their creations.
>>
> Now that my wife is in a wheelchair, and we have to cope with whatever
> facilities people choose to provide, I'm convinced architects should be
> forced to push one (loaded with 200lb of sandbags) around everywhere for
> a few weeks a year, to see how well their creations are working.

Yes, very good idea.

>
> Railway stations and trains are pretty good, but only if you aren't
> having to compete with hundreds of fit healthy people with everything
> including the kitchen sink in a massive trolley-bag. Lifts are for
> people who *can't* use the stairs, not people simply too lazy to use the
> stairs.

I fell and broke my shoulder on a UK holiday a couple of years ago. The
affected arm was in a sling for a few weeks, and I was disappointed that I
couldn't properly use the tap in the train's *disabled* loo, as you had to
press down with one hand to keep the water flowing on to the other. Surely
they should have known better than to asume that everyone has two
functioning arms?

Ken <ken@birchanger.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Sep 2023 17:59:28 -0000 (UTC), Tweed
> <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Arthur Figgis <afiggis@example.invalid> wrote:
>>>> On 12/09/2023 14:20, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Having achieved the age of 70, I'm not at all supportive of the idea
>>>>> that I'm automatically gaga.
>>>> Though ones who are, might not be aware. The only aged lord I ever talk
>>>> to is clearly not what he used to be.
>>>>
>>>
>>> It's obviously not something that happens suddenly, and most people start
>>> slowing down long before they go senile. Their responses slow, their
>>> short-term memory degrades and they find it harder to learn new things.
>>> That's on top of any physical degradation, such as worse close-up vision,
>>> unsteady hands and stiffness.
>>>
>>> These effects start before 50, but increasing experience may be able to
>>> outweigh them for a few years. Eventually, by their mid-50s, most white
>>> collar woriers are about at their peak, and it's downhill from then, first
>>> subtly, then more obviously, when they might, for example, struggle to use
>>> a new phone or even to locate the apps they loaded on it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> I’m 60 and recognise I’ve reached a turning point. What I’ve noticed in
>> others at work of a similar vintage is a failure to embrace new things and
>> to become increasingly negative about things. Rather than being positive
>> about things and finding solutions to problems, everything turns into a
>> list of why things can’t possibly be done. I find it harder to learn new
>> computing languages now - I understand the principles, but remembering the
>> detail is difficult. I can easily write in C which I learnt years ago, but
>> I find Python difficult, which is at odds with the youngsters who inform me
>> it is trivially easy. However dealing with internal and external work
>> politics is much easier after a working lifetime of experience. It’s also
>> much easier to tell folk uncomfortable facts at work, as I no longer have
>> to worry about any impacts on my career.
>
> Tell me about it! I could write in Burroughs Algol today with very
> little in the way of a refresher. Cobol74 likewise. But, despite
> having looked at them for years, ask me to write in Python, PHP or
> Javascript and it'd take me days to get up any speed.

I could manage Edinburgh IMP, pre-77 FORTRAN, various BASICs, FORTH quite
well. MicroEMACS standard key bindings come without thinking. My C is a
bit pidgin but latterly I could write straighforward PERL without having to
consult a manual. LISP always confused me - not that I didn’t understand
the basics but it never got easy to turn what I needed to achieve into a
sensible procedure.

For Javascript (and Java variants - see Processing) I would have to spend a
lot of time checking syntax and semantics.

Sam

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Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
>> The thing that struck me about Python, which I’ve never had to use in
>> practice, is the inefficiency. It seems to be common for Python gurus to
>> say, “you really shouldn’t try to implement that algorithm in Python, it’d
>> be way too slow; look, we’ve written a C library that does the job.”
>
> Python is good for marshalling and messing around with data, because it's
> fairly low effort to get a lot done - you don't need to micro-manage memory
> allocation or pointers or object creation.
>
> It's not efficient, but most of the libraries which do the heavy lifting are
> frontends for that C library (or a wrapper for a commonly-used C/C++
> library). So you get the expressiveness without too much of a performance
> penalty.
>
> If you need something super-optimised, don't write it in Python. But
> oftentimes the quantity to optimise is developer time, and performance
> doesn't matter (maybe the thing takes 2 seconds to run instead of 0.2
> seconds, who cares if it only runs once).

Yes, I’m aware of those arguments - the “you can write 6 lines of tested
code per day, whether it’s 6 lines of python or 6 lines of assembler”
thing. Back in the 1960s it was a hot topic - for instance the last
paragraph of section 2.18 of this is relevant:
<https://web.archive.org/web/20060924014216/http://history.dcs.ed.ac.uk/history/ImpLanguageAndCompiler>.
If I’d been a decade younger my language of choice for those little jobs
would almost certainly have been Python rather then Perl.

Sam

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