Is it today's kids or am I just being a grumpy old man?

I think that there is a distinct lack of curiousity among many of today's kids.

I volunteer in the workshops of a Perth high school.

A while ago I was measuring the bores and pistons of a Beetle engine, while all around me the kids were doing their project work.

I was using micrometers and recording what I was finding.

Not one of them was curious enough to ask me what I was doing.

I refuse to believe that they had all seen a pile of aircooled barrels and pistons and that they had all seen their fathers doing the same thing to other engines at home. A few maybe but only a few.

Also the Ackerman Angle on the steering arms of a buggy.

The senior students are allowed to build a small buggy of the kind driven by a single cylinder industrial engine.

For the past few years I have told every one of the groups about the Ackerman angle on the steering arms and why they should do it that way.

NOT ONE of them has done it.

I now tell them, and expect them to not do it.

Is it because I'm just a silly old fart and what would I know?

Is it because the teacher has not told them to do it that way, so I have no credibility?

Oh! While I'm on this whinge.

They don't like good music. They are allowed to listen to the radio and they always listen to the latest hits. YUK!!! Occasionally the stations play a "Golden Oldie".

Over the past few years they have turned off, Led Zeplin's, Stairway to Heaven and Jennifer Rush's, The Power of Love to name a couple.

When asked why, they said that they didn't like it.

I don't expect them to listen to the radio stations that play 50s to 70s music, like I do, but I do expect them to appreciate the occasional masterpiece from earlier times.

Whinge over.

Looks like it's you and me against the rest of the world, old fella.

Not just you, and you're not being an old fart.

I am lucky, I have always been influenced by older music. Eric Clapton live, Derek & The Dominoes, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, even YES, they were the first CD's that I owned.
Yet, sure, I listen to dubstep and drum and bass, but the first CD that was ever played in Zelda was Bob Marley, a live concert. I lied my front seat down in the car park at SuperCheapAuto down the road and just lied there listening to it.
I still tend to have a listen to some of the classics while driving Zelda around, I guess my Uncle's taste of music has rubbed off on me and I can respect songs from the past.

I agree though, the current generation of teenagers have no idea about old music. I can tell you now, I hardly listen to the radio these days, and if I do it is to get the news and where the speed cameras are at in the morning.
The rest of the time my phone is plugged into the sound system and I'm listening to either dubstep, drum and bass or old school rock.

Unlike the majority of my friends, I spend my weekends learning more and more about how VW's work, what the differences were between the years and just working on Zelda.
They all tend to go out partying, the casino or just running a muck. I do like my cruises with them though, but I don't go out and party, I'd prefer to pull apart a 16 valve GTI engine or put new front discs on Zelda.

My sons don't always listen when I try to say anything (hardly ever at all actually ) and I suppose you don't want them making the same mistakes you did. But I must say they have surprised me on occasion, my eldest son when he repaired his Legnum after hitting a wall (?!) and he did an excellent job - both the crashing and repairing, the panel shop didn't have to do much more than just respray and my 20 year old just needs to be told what to do then gets stuck in. One thing he has got down pat which took me a while to stop doing at his age was over tightening nuts and bolts, my dad never touched a spanner in his life so I had no guidance whatsoever so trying to stop my son doing the same as me was uppermost when he started out. As for music, my eldest boy listens to the same as me when I see him (he now works at sea so we don't get to see each other for months at a time) he even took me to see Eric Clapton when he was first able to drive (my son that is not Eric- I'm sure he'd been driving for years) my 20 year old has that screamo music and it just winds me up , not the sort of thing you could listen to while trying to work on a car! But Shaihulud why would a kid listen to an old fart anyway what would you know, you should already realise that they all know it all already Seb my 20 year old is always playing with his cars (he has a baja and a r33 skyline) and like you mate he's always learning like we all are.

The CD turned 30 years old today, and it looks like it is about to die. CD's took over vinyl sales after only a few years, and now vinyl sales are going to eclipse CD. Vinyl is the king and will never die.

I teach my 3 and 5 year old boys about measuring, bolts, mechanical appreciation all the time. They are at this stage still very interested. We play vinyl records or put on non commercial radio only in our house. I want them to grow into well rounded outcasts like me.

Hopefully mine may be a bit different as all my grommies are vdub mad and are fighting over who gets what when they get their licence.

To be honest, I work with some guys who are on average around 50-60 years old and they are the laziest most arrogant people i know. They've gotten to a stage where they dont have to work anymore as they've paid off their houses and it's now just "something to keep them busy". In other words they turn up to work, do nothing all day, talk down to you like you don't know anything and leave you to do all the work they can't be bothered doing. There seems to be one age spectrum to the next of lazy, ignorant and arrogant jerks.

I'm sittin on the fence with this one. Although I'm 42 my 3 kids are between 16 and 21 so I was only just outside teenage years myself when I was thrown into fatherhood. I personally dont listen to music much older than a couple of years old but I just hate it when people say good music stopped in the 80's, maybe their intelect stopped back then ! People just remember back to their teenage years (thats when the world revolved around them) and have fond memories of music of that time. But what I find is that, yes, a lot of new music is rubbish and its usually played on commercial radio but I dont listen to any radio station that plays ads. There is no argument about digital v cd v vinyl , I sure as shit cant listen to 1200+ songs on my motorbike or even in my work van using anything but my ipod and I dont have an awesome stereo at home because I'm hardly at home. Anyway, back to gen y or whatever they are called, I reckon the worst thing about the new generation is the disposable nature of everything where it seems to be o.k. to spend a few hundred dollars on an ipod or whatever and when a new model comes out they ditch the old one like they got it for free.....that shits me. So my kids have to earn everything they get or they dont get it, simple. Although my son LOVES his computer games he also loves his cars and motorbike and thanks to warwick vw drags he has a new interest in spending a bit more time on his toys. My daughters are both keen to help work on their upcoming air cooled cars' restoration once my shed is built. But I think most of the new gen. are so obsessed on what is cool at the time that tinkering with old stuff is just for 'old' people............ha, what crap is that. At least we can start with our own kids, and my kids know that a old skool VW is cooler than any commondore or mazda 3 anyday. By the way I do have 80's and 90,s music on my ipod but its in a pretty crazy mix of generes.......anything but country

The world is changing! when I grew up my Dad couldn't afford a car until I was in my teens and garage services were out of our reach so he did all his own maintenance and we rebuilt engines together. Now with todays powerful, quiet cars full of sensors and computors once they have done 150clicks and the tolerances are out they become unfixable we toss 'em out and get another so a lot of kids now know nothing about car repairs and don't need to either! (why bother) This reminds me why I like my bugs: their noisy, slow, cramped, average brakes and no air-con or power steering BUT WHEN IT STOPS i AM ABLE TO FIX IT!! I AM ABLE TO REPLACE ANY PART! and do my own maintenance too, an average veedubber can keep his or her car going for as long as you like. so I am not sure these kids have no curiosity but their interest has gone in another direction, just changing times I guess

O temopora! O mores! ("Alas for the times and the manners")
Marcus Tullius Cicero (1st Century BC), lamenting the evolving state of the Roman empire.

hth

I'm bilingual illiterate coupled with the fact I can't hear but I love the old
respect

Quote:

Originally posted by annosL The world is changing! when I grew up my Dad couldn't afford a car until I was in my teens and garage services were out of our reach so he did all his own maintenance and we rebuilt engines together. Now with todays powerful, quiet cars full of sensors and computors once they have done 150clicks and the tolerances are out they become unfixable we toss 'em out and get another so a lot of kids now know nothing about car repairs and don't need to either! (why bother) This reminds me why I like my bugs: their noisy, slow, cramped, average brakes and no air-con or power steering BUT WHEN IT STOPS i AM ABLE TO FIX IT!! I AM ABLE TO REPLACE ANY PART! and do my own maintenance too, an average veedubber can keep his or her car going for as long as you like. so I am not sure these kids have no curiosity but their interest has gone in another direction, just changing times I guess

If you think that young kids are bad, you should see what happens to them when they get to uni!

I did a CAD project in fourth year Mechanical Engineering at uni. It was a group project to design a small engine. My group did an overhead-valve single cylinder engine based on a Honda industrial engine. I was working with three Asian international students and one or two local students. Not one of them could correctly name the piston, cylinder head, conrod and crankshaft. It was my job to "assemble" the virtual parts and I had all sorts of weird file names coming towards me from people who had been studying mechanical engineering for three and a half years and still didn't know what an intake valve was. Admittedly, it's not really taught in the course, but if you have any mechanical curiosity at all then you should know!

As a 24 year old, I suppose I should probably speak for my generation. No, the majority of them don't share the exact same values as the previous generation. What a surprise! The same thing has been going on since at least the Industrial Revolution, if not before. Part of this is because of the changing conditions in which young people are raised, and part of it is just natural rebellion.

As others have said, the world has fundamentally changed in the last 40-50 years. Mechanical devices were once the technological frontier. Space exploration, land speed records, fighter planes. These were the things which captured the imaginations of kids. Car manufacturing was the dominant global industry, and all the kids were dying to have a car or a motorcycle as soon as they could get one.

Now, the big movers and shakers of the world are in technology and IT. Bill Gates owned the '90s with Windows, now Mark Zuckerberg has done it in the 21st Century with Facebook. Look at the fanatical following of people queuing up to buy iPhones! In the 1970s, you were nobody if you didn't have a car, but in the 2000s you are nobody if you don't have a mobile phone with Facebook on it.

I once read that having a family was a choice between being lonely and being irritated. I'm very irritated, but glad I'm not lonely.

There's nothing new about mechanical engineering students not knowing anything about mechanics.

Back in the 1960s when I was studying civil engineering, I wandered into the mechanical engineering workshops where some of my mechanical engineering friends were trying to get an engine running. It had been set up with the distributor 180 degrees out.

They couldn't work out the problem, but because I'd been fiddling with machinery for years, I twigged immediately.

I said turn your backs, they did, I turned the distributor around and got the engine running. They were amazed. I then said turn away again, put it back as it was and walked out. It took them most of the time left in the class to get it running.

A couple of years ago a young man who lives opposite me and who was studying mechanical engineering at the university,
borrowed my Meccano set to make a mechanism as a project.

He and his group failed the unit. He told me what he had to do. A couple of days after he returned the Meccano, I presented him with a working model.

He was a mechanical engineering student, but he didn't work on his car as he didn't understand them.

Sometimes I despair.

Modern cars do discourage learning though, because you can't see how they work. Everything is covered in plastic and shielded from view. If you open the manual it will tell you to take it to a dealer.

A mate of mine is nearly 30 years old. He did about 4 years in the Air Force before going to law school. He called me around once because his car "wasn't working". It was an old Ford Laser. It had absolutely no fluid left in the clutch reservoir and the clutch pedal went straight to the floor. He had no idea that there was such a thing as clutch fluid, or the fact that it was the same as brake fluid, or that it needed to be checked, or where to put it. Completely hopeless.

At least he can drive a manual though. My younger sister is the only one of her friends who can drive a manual car, including a group of about five boys. There's another dying skill in itself! At least 90% of new cars sold today are automatics, and have been for a while. Most parents only have auto cars these days, so their kids learn in them and never learn to drive a manual. Then they want to stay away from manual because it's too hard from them.

im 35 and a person who is normally in bed at 8 at night and say's hello to people walking down the street, opens doors for ladys! I am now the odd one out!

Too true waveman, All my kids have learnt to drive in a manual car to get their licence and my daughter is even talking about converting her auto fastback to a manual.......weird I know. The driving instructor that was giving my daughter lessons was horrified when she told her that her first car was going to be a 1971 type 3 with no ABS EBD or air bags and the instructor thought it was irresponsible of us to let her drive a 'deadly' old car, lucky I wasn't there coz' I would have got into an argument forsure

I interrupted my father in law telling my daughter to not bother about getting her manual licence as manuals were inherently more dangerous than autos ( he is an insanely paranoid , OCD old fart ). I told him what for and that she certainly would be getting her manual licence. Because I'm a paraplegic, both our daily drivers are autos with hand controls so the only manual she has to practice in is the 1968 kombi. She is totally into that idea, the old farts jaw hit the floor and started ranting about putting truck size tyres on a bull bar in the front of the van, totally f@&$?)/n nuts.
Sometimes the older generation are the completely useless ones.

And don't judge 'today's' music by the crap you hear on the commercial cookie cutter stations. People need to think for themselves and open their ears to the fantastic indie rock/ pop, whatever genre you like really , music that is being put out there. My 16 year old daughter and a few of her mates are into it, and despair at their sheeplike peers, all headed in 'one Direction'.
I love listening to different new music that I've never heard before, think what you like about Triple J, but I couldn't listen to anything else. I don't read the same books over and over, or watch the same movies repeatedly, so why would I listen to the same music over and over. My teenagers are the same way. I'm 42.
It's easy to indulge in generational generalisation, but there is an even mix of good and bad in all us boomers, Xers and Yers.

That s all.

^ haha lol.

manuals more dangerous? I went and changed my daily drive from auto to manual to make it safer ( and more engaging to drive) as I found myself getting bored and zoning out all the time when driving autos.

few years ago I drove straight through a red light ped crossing twice! the same one! gave an old fella a mighty fright as he was just stepping out to cross. That pretty much was the end of auto days for me.



I know this old fart guy, real nice and all but it pretty pedantic about driving safety and driving real slower and alcohol etc...( i agree on the alcohol part though) So much I think some of his ideas are pretty extreme. like lowing the speed limit even more.
So much it would be useless to drive and just result in more road rage and crashes imho.


I don't think its specific to generation, I think as people age the mentality changes. I bet those old people that hate loud music and driving anywhere near the limit were all doing it when they were young.

Quote:

Originally posted by donn Quote: Originally posted by vlad01 ^ haha lol. I found myself getting bored and zoning out all the time when driving autos. few years ago I drove straight through a red light ped crossing twice! the same one! gave an old fella a mighty fright as he was just stepping out to cross. I don't think its specific to generation, I think as people age the mentality changes. I bet those old people that hate loud music and driving anywhere near the limit were all doing it when they were young. Oh dear Vlad, another reason to avoid the area where you are driving, you went through the same red light pedestrian crossing twice!, bloody hell mate did you reverse up to see if you could get the old fella the second time or was it diferent days Agree with your comment re the mentality changes, it seems that the older you get the more sensible (boring?) you get and considerate of other people and it sure as hell isn't confined to specific generations, (the way this "generation" thing is bandied about anyone would think we were all born in the same year then there's a gap of a few years before the next "generation" is born )

I might finally be in a position next year to buy my first brand new VW and I asked the missus about which she prefered and she said "once we are physically unable to change gears comfortably, that will be the time" fair call I reckon. My son is looking down the track at a R32 golf and wouldn't dream about a dsg model as 5000 rpm all wheel drive launches sound like fun and besides we will never live in the city so why bother with the extra expense?

I'm with you Bigbertha triple j for life, have tried other channels but I end up with a bit of vomit in my mouth when nikki minaj is followed by a 'live' cross to a f@#king 20% off sale at hardly normal .......come and get a free sausage

i think you are a grumpy old man, who thinks that things should never change. Change in inevitable - embrace it!

No offence though.

I am 20 haha

I listen to a bit of everything when it comes to music, I love to dress in vintage ware and collect antique furniture, especially art deco and atomic era. Do not lump Gen Y into the same category, that's just being closed minded and doing exactly what you are criticizing the "young ones" of doing.

this thread reminds me of a classic Monty Python Sketch - the four yorkshiremen.... here's the last little bit:

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
ALL:
They won't!