2017-10-09 14:47:50

the hardest thing to deal with in the twisted metal series if you're playing alone is deathtraps, though they do not exist in every map.  Because the only objective in TM is simply to kill your adversaries I'd say that for the most part it is playable if not entirely accessible, particularly if you have a good speaker system or headphones so as to be able to capture things in stereo, such as the sound of your opponent.  by far I love TM 4 the best. 
In twisted metal You drive around and collect weapons which can range from small explosive devices to long range, self guided missiles that will keep following your enemy once you've fired upon him.  There's also ways to freeze your enemy in place so you can continue attacking them.  Besides that, there is shields, invisibility, the ability to jump out of the way of projectiles, and the ability to warp to a completely different part of the map instantly should you feel the tables are turned against you.  All of these abilities have cooldown/recharge timers as it were, so that no player or AI opponent can abuse them and simply disappear whenever just to run off and never die.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2017-10-09 23:55:12

Blimey, sounds like an interesting and cool game, I don't think anyone's explained how to play it from a blindness perspective before. I've got headphones though, which is good.
Speaking of stereo games, I also loved that Soul Blade was a ps1 game with stereo sounds. Of course there's Metal Gear Solid as well although I found that hard. Soul Blade was a lot of fun though, it was the predecessor to Soul Calibur.

2017-10-10 04:42:34

Nocturnus wrote:

Maybe I'm getting old or something, but I figured I had some time to kill and boredom and things.  With the official discontinuation of AOL's instant messenger which has been up and running since 1997, I found myself longing for so many things I know I'll never ever truly have again.  This isn't, however, meant to be a topic full of commiseration and self pity, but rather a topic in which we can share and enjoy each other's memories, should you care to  join me.  I'm a 90's kid for the most part, though I was actually born in 88, but I'm not limiting it to that timeframe nor do I want you to feel as such.  Post in list format or just ramble on and on about things you hold dear and wish you could have if only for a second.  :d
1.  AOL's instant messenger is actually how I got started in the big bad world that is now the internet of things.  I remember it's fairly accessible tab interface; things got really interesting if you actually went all out and got the AOL desktop app complete with a web browser, email client, media player, simple suite of clean up utilities and a bunch of other nifty tools all in one.  For awhile, AOL was my access to the internet, and then highspeed happened; cable companies started dishing out internet packages that were much more enticing.  Bye bye AOL dialup.
2.  Hello MSN messenger; you were actually cooler in some senses, and not just because I could assign sounds for people who messaged me rather than having to stick to the crap on AOL.
3.  Windows XP, because I'm a jerk, I guess.  Yeah yeah, moan and groan away about how I shouldn't have brought this one up, but seriously!  It was clean, usable, powerful, beneficial, and in practically every house, store, building and institution I visited for the longest time because of how accessible it was to everyone!  It's sounds were unmistakable and iconic, the themes that shipped with various versions were absolutely smashing, and listening to people playing pinball just never got old to me.  I actually started out on 98 and liked it almost as much, but XP was my home for far too long.  I obviously let it go willingly when I had to and knew it was absolutely time, but need and desire are completely different here.
4.  Is it just me or did poptarts use to be thicker and tastier?
5.  I believe serial in a paper bag stayed fresh for longer periods of time and tasted better as well.
6.  School... I see my children going and think about how their futures will shape up and wish I had had access to all the goodies they're going to get as they grow older... If only I could have had an iPhone back then...
7.  The feeling I got when watching my favorite TV shows; most of them are on streaming services now but I just can't feel the same anymore and wonder why I even liked them to begin with.  lol
I'll probably come back with more a bit later, but I figured I'd see if this generates any interest.

I have to agree with all this. I've been thinking about a lot of the same things lately. AOL instant messenger is how I got started too. that and all the chat rooms there. even though they were full of bots and stuff like that they were still fun to go in there and talk to the random people that were in there.

2017-10-10 04:45:06

flackers wrote:

I really miss the old playstation  games from the late 90s when I used to play. particularly syphon filter and GTA. I get really jealous listening to playthroughs on yt because those games are clearly still eminently playable. I even thought about buying a PS2 and a few old school classics just in case the miracle happens and my sight gets restored. On the same subject, I recently  discovered a book called subway art that I worshipped when I was about 12 and into graffiti art, was still in print, so I bought a copy. I'd love to see it again. I stole my first copy because it was very expensive and I just couldn't leave the shop without it after I saw the amazing art. it was very scary because I was alone and not a shoplifter. It was down in the basement floor of a massive bookstore, so I had to ride the lift back up and it seemed to take forever with the guilty secret that seemed so big in my coat. Worth it though smile.

you can still play those games using emulators, but it's not really as good as playing them on the console itself.

2017-10-11 04:42:49

I miss staying up all night with my best friend, playing pokemon and leggos together while consuming way too much mountain dew. Hell, I miss having a friend in the first place! lol but anyway. I miss when you actually had to unlock characters in fighting games, and I miss being a kid and giving much less of a damn about my blindness. Last thing, I miss going to martial arts classes and having the time of my life. It's not the same now, because I feel like I'm inconveniencing the rest of the students and it's just uncomfortable. Those are my fondest memories.. I never knew how good I had it back then. That's usually how it goes though. I'll probably be talking about how good 2017 was in 10 years or so, nah, I don't think so.

2017-10-11 05:37:36

anthany, what do you mean an inconvenience to the other students? I'm an orange belt in judo, and i've never felt that i was an inconvenience to anybody, many people actually really try to help me out.
Regarding GTA emulators, I actually kinda want one. My pc won't run GTA 5, but I wonder if I'd be able to play the original game without sight?

I am the blind jedi, I use the force to see. I am the only blind jedi.

2017-10-11 06:16:56

Oh, people helped me as well, but they kinda didn't really have a choice, because the instructers paired me up with someone who'd show me the moves as they were explaining them. That would be fine if the student was a higher belt or something, but most of the time the student was just trying to learn as I was, and really shouldn't have to take time out of his lesson to show the blind guy how to do techniques. I understand that it could be a good learning experience, but it's just not something I'm comfortable with. I heard the sighs, and felt the frustration of the students sometimes, you know? Just not ok for me. That being said, I was just as capable as any student I think, but I have people issues that make me freeze up in certain situations, bad memories from public school I guess. It really doesn't make a lot of sence, but it is what it is. I'm going to theropy on and off, so yeah! lol

2017-10-11 07:58:25

the best therapy I know of is found in talking and living alongside those you trust.  I know not everyone has it that easy, and I don't discourage nor look down on the seeking of professional help if one feels it necessary.  Still, as I pointed out above, because of the way society is built nowadays and its focusses and what it advertises, one thing people have honestly forgotten is what it feels like and means to have a true friend.  IN place of that feeling we as a society rather than as individualistic minds now try to cater to the largest crowd possible because we dread loneliness, neglect and rejection, given that our oppinions are exceptionally important to us and we want others to value them as well.  We look at our tweet streams and facebook feeds to see if anyone has replied to us or commented on our posts or shown any kind of reaction whatsoever to our existence.  Those who aren't doing that, I wager, are looking at their skype windows or checking their mobile devices for text messages from people they feel they're acquainted with, so-called friends, as it were.
We have, in short, redefined what it means to be a friend in the twenty first century.  We no longer need to remember birthdays and anniversaries; facebook, skype, and even our phones do that for us.  It's not important to know what's really going on in a person's life; you can supposedly gain all that information by reading just a few short sentences.  So and so just checked in to such and such  with someone else and is feeling exceptionally happy and blessed and lucky and you should all know about that, not the fight they had last night with their family, unless they tell you over their social networking platform of choice.  Oh, and while you're here, you have 142623 notifications, 2524335 messages and about a kagillion friend requests; we sincerely hope you have time to respond to all of these because if you don't, they'll probably befriend and unfollow you and block you just about everywhere else your online footprint exists.  and you should make sure you post your numbers to see if they're bigger and better than anyone else on your list, because everyone else is doing it.  IN fact, we've designed a little bot to do that for you; fill in your username and a few other details on this website and we'll make sure this gets posted for you on an hourly basis if you like!  While you're at it, don't forget to grab our smart app for your smart phone to make your smart life just a little smarter, giving you an all around smartened of a smarty day, with wich you can toggle the ability to have your ever so much smarter than you smartphone check you in, sign you out, and deduct from your bank account at our request.
OK ok, that last one was a bit over the top... I admit it.  Seriously though, the day we get back on track and remember that true blue friends are few and far between and that having two of them is in and of itself a huge miracle, we'll work harder at it and be better off because of it.  These are the people who accept you just as you are, who forgive and forget your offenses, who respect you even when you know you don't deserve it, who don't turn their back on you when all the chips are down and the game is lost.  I once heard it said that a friend might bail you out of jail, while a best friend will sit in there with you and say, "Man, we seriously screwed up!"
Once again, maybe that last statement is a far stretch to imagine, given that I don't, to my knowledge, have any friends who are master criminals, but I do know that I would give my life and everything in it for those who are if it came to a life and death matter.  If you know one person like that whom you talk to regularly, you should firstly be thanking them for sticking it out with you this long and then congratulating yourself because you can count on never being abandoned.  Your friends might like you right now, but your true friends will choose to love you even when they can't like you, forever.  PERIOD!

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2017-10-11 11:43:59

@Anthany, i did have that same problem with being pared up. And there's always one kid who tries to take advantage. Sometimes kids would back away from me when we were beginning a fight, then one of 2 things happened, either I grabbed them and whipped them really, really hard to the ground, or my sensay told them off. It stopped after a while thankfully.

I am the blind jedi, I use the force to see. I am the only blind jedi.

2018-10-27 00:41:48

Man this is such an awesome topic. smile So much fun. Another thing I miss? Computers without this uefi bullcrap!!!  The days when you could just boot up a windows install usb or dvd without any worries.  I do miss xp myself but went to 7 as fast as I could though. LOL I was one of the smart people that bypassed Vista. I also miss how awesome the older soundcards were. Even in the low end  inspirons back in 07 or 08 used to have such awesome soundcards. Now everything has so much processing but some computer companies aren't all stupid about themselves and don't add extra processing to their drivers.  I miss the days before autogaining. The old cell phones used to have such land line quality to them. Basically before all these manufacturers  and companies started to process audio in everything.

2018-10-27 04:07:04

Nocturnis, I respect your perspective but think it's a bit much. I am particularly troubled by your first comment, about the best sort of therapy. Sometimes, that's just flat-out not true. Some friends can be shortsighted, immature or simply ignorant, and while having them might be much better than not having them, they aren't a cure-all. That said, I do agree withyou that people care way too much about that minute little pleasure hit they get when they check their notifications or whatnot. I actually feel like I'm straddling that line fairly well, if I'm honest. I will check messages and notifications sometimes, but usually because I want to stay in touch with someone. If you're a friend of mine, you'd better believe I'm going to ask after you and actually genuinely care what you think and how you say what you say. It's not just the fulfillment of weird arcane social rituals. I give a damn.

But okay, nostalgia. I can bust out a few.

1. Sour keys. They don't make them quite the same anymore.
2. Rockets (the candy (I think they call 'em Smarties in the United States...they're little concave discs of slightly tart candy that are kind of crumbly, and they fizz like crazy if you put them in coke or whatnot). They don't make them the same way anymore either.
3. The way it used to feel when I was young, going as hard as I could on a swing in mid-evening, with the smell of grass and hot steel from the nearby jungle gym and infield dirt from the baseball diamond where my mom's team was playing baseball. I can sometimes get a little ghost of this if I go on a swing set, but that happens rarely these days.
4. My cottage. God, I miss that place.
5. Sharon, Lois and Bram; they don't do kids' music the same anymore either.
6. Amusement parks. I used to be somewhat in awe of new, insane rides, and I wanted to ride everything. Now I've sorta done it all, at least insofar as the travelling kind go, so I thrill more to the bigger rollercoasters and stuff. I miss those days of wonder when I didn't know nearly as much as I do now.

And I could go on, but that's good enough to go on.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2018-10-27 04:30:53

Nostalgia eh? I can think of a few. 22 doesn't sound too old, i know. But hey, childhood memory always has something good to remember, even though it's full of shit.
1. The swing set made of tires and cloth rocking recliner under my uncle's barn.
2. May be it's just me, but old time instant noodles tasted way better.
3. Banana trees around my home area. I stabbed myself so many times trying to stab them with a knife. They were fun to play with too especially when I had to saw a trunk for my uncle's pigs. That was even once that I climbed my aunt's garden wall to cut a banana leaf just because I wanted its branch to make a gun for myself. Ended up dropping the cutting knife on my feet but didn't get wounded at all.
4. Street milk delivery, postmen's shabby motorcycle.
5. Windows 98 pc where I sat down with dad, mom and cousins. Megaman x4, Disney's Tarzan, Virtual cop2, BH2000, Cyber, house of the dead 1, a flash game called frog, polo, and most importantly, Bubble bobble heroes 2 were my childhood games. I mastered Tarzan at a very young age. Others I played with people. Dad loved bubble bobble, mom loved house of the dead, and both of them loved bh2000. Since I grew up and had a laptop of my own, we never had that bonding moment where we play games together like that anymore.

Why do ghost hunters have to hunt ghosts? Well, there's a fear of being ghosted out there. They may need therapy as well as their ghost hunting kit.

2018-10-27 13:13:44

what i miss,  still
i want to get old video cassete tapes,  the vcr combo, remember these are very good machines to be used!
I miss the old hard drives,  someone my guess remembers how they are noisy,  like refrigerator "D
or audio cassette players
same,  i am 90's kid, haha
i miss these laptops with windows xp on in it,  512 mb ram whatever called realy i forgot
256 mb graphic cards
4 gb, 8 gb noisy hard drives
and the old nokia phones,  the home telephones with rotating numbers
best regards

2018-10-27 15:44:52

@Jayde,
Which is precisely why my post said that this was the best therapy I knew of, meaning me personally.  Some people might insert any other feel-good go-to comfort self-help or self-liberation material, say that reading, writing, music, or TV, drugs, sex, materialism, and yes, even social media on a high scale is the best form of therapy they know of.  I would never claim, nor do I ever want it said that I did claim a one size fits all solution for every person; even in what most people would call the confines of Christianity this is probably the most irritating practice I know of.  If you don't participate in churches you might not be aware that Christian communities are constantly bickering about what clothes you should or shouldn't wear, what music you should or should not listen to, what is considered far too decorative, how people should fellowship, worship, bla bla bla bla... I'm not going to try to influence people one way or another, whether they appreciate old traditional hymns or are happy clappy people in mega-churches full of light shows.  In short, I'm sorry if I came across sounding like I had a greater handle than anyone else on such things; that seriously wasn't my intention.  I'm just as human as the next person who's gonna come along and post in this topic.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2018-10-27 18:15:42

I miss old flip phones, and especially my emvy 3 with a full keyboard. I also miss listening to magazines on my phone with newsline and just clicking through to the next article without hearing all this extra phone screen reader stuff. I miss slowly learning to memorize the map in the mario game on the original gameboy that my whole family shared. I miss one of my best friends from high school. I managed to meet her recently and found she says she still values and enjoys the same things, but her actions often speak otherwise. It was like trying and trying to see someone and finding they were just someone with the voice of someone else I knew before. We don't even talk now. I miss messing with the braille n speak and, yes, I was one of those kids that turned the pitch up all the way to make it do wierd modulation-y things when you wrote long strings of vowels. In some ways I miss my old droid, because I spent so long making it usable for me when everyone else just worshiped apple and refused to try anything but iphones that I couldn't afford.

2018-10-28 18:30:10 (edited by pulseman45 2018-10-30 10:43:25)

Well, there are a few things I like to remember about my childhood, though I can't really tell how much I miss them.
For example I got a gameboy with Pokemon Blue when I was like six years old, as I wanted this game without even being sure I would be able to play it properly. And then with experience I understood I could actually play it, overall thanks to my brother who got his own gameboy with the red version at the same time. It's still something impressive to remember today that it was a sound design lesson that would almost make RPGs developed for much more capable consoles cry in shame.
Speaking of such consoles, we also had a Playstation, then a Playstation 2, and I would play fighting games on them most of the times. I actually miss when we were on hollidays as my brother and even my father would play games until quite late at night, such as Tomb Raider, Gran Turismo, Burnout 2, Prince of Persia : the sands of time or Devil May Cry. Though unfortunately we only had that last game for a limited time and my father couldn't pass the sixth mission.
I also remember when my father got his first computer with Windows 98, and also bought a printer and a scaner. Such devices were so funny at that time because it seemed like the manufacturer wanted to make them sound as musical as possible.
When printing, it was like B-Flat, longer C-Sharp, B-Flat, C-Sharp again and again. But way too often it would have a synchronisation problem, would stop for a few second, then restart, then stop again, and make a very brutal and brief sound as it said "communication problem with the printer". Indeed that machine was able to speak. In that case my and my brother would laugh happily, my father... not so much.
Finally, I wasn't really in that kind of nostalgia before, but now that Xiaomi announced it's Mi Mix 3 with a magnetic slider, I hope there will be something similar but with a full physical keyboard hiding under the screen. I'm not so much into physical keyboards on phones anymore, but if I can hide it and decide to use it when it feels comfortable, like putting it on a flat surface while typing, then why not. With the huge, near-borderless screens we use today, it could feel very modern and very retro at the same time, so it might be quite fun. Though I'm not too sure how such a keyboard would feel like on a phone with a 6-inch-screen. Maybe TCL/Blackberry will do something like this for it's KEY3, or HMD/Nokia if they ever release a revamped N97. But can I really call this nostalgia when I never had such a phone myself? Only my brother had such a phone, and I wouldn't be able to tell which one it was.

2018-10-29 13:58:11

Nocturnis, honestly your religion example is one of many reasons I have an issue with organized religion as a construct. I'm not really big on people dictating what I should do, what I should wear, which rituals I should pay attention to and which I shouldn't. I mean okay, real world, you're gonna get a little of that no matter what you do I suppose, but I'd rather get as little of it as I can. Point well taken regarding your own personal experience; if the best thing for you is your friends, that's cool.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2018-10-29 16:02:18

Oh boy, nothing beats buttoned nokia. I miss those things where you just can't screw it up no matter what, as in my country there're dubbed as "thrown at dogs and dog's head cracks". Nothing makes me as comfortable dialing the national audio library to read audiobooks as those buttoned Nokia. As much function as phones nowadays give, I'd rather stick to old Nokia just because I could use keypads anytime I wanted, which was a must for reading on that line. Man, if only because there's no longer repair store for those phones around, I'd never think of switching to this bloody iphone 6 I'm using now.

Why do ghost hunters have to hunt ghosts? Well, there's a fear of being ghosted out there. They may need therapy as well as their ghost hunting kit.

2018-11-30 19:58:06

well, I miss the days of iOS 5 and Mac OS snow Leopord as that was my intro to apple and I think they were a lot more stable back then. And there were better audio games on iOS back then, not a bunch of card games and the like that are way over priced and that use their own gesture system instead of VO... Well, so I don't go on a rant, I also miss the days where audio games were a more frequent thing as far as release and quality.

Power is not the responsibility of freedom, but it is actually the responsibility of being responsible, it's self, because someone who is irresponsible is enslaved by their own weaknesses.

2018-12-01 10:08:28

Listen young ones . . and I will tell you magical tales . . of the 70s and 80s. :-)

Things I Am Nostalgic For
foil-wrapped Hostess Dingdongs - They . were . SO . GOOD!
watching Mr. Rogers every day
Pixy Sticks
Kool-Aid
swinging on the swing set outside, making up stories because I didn't have a Brailler yet
trick-or-treating
selling Girl Scout cookies
tap and ballet classes
Strawberry Shortcake dolls
waiting for Sunday nights because it was the only time a nature show came on
junior high and high school band
TV shows the whole family could watch together without worrying about anything embarrassing or offensive being on there
60s, 70s, and early 80s cartoons like Jetsons, Scooby Do, Shirt Tales, Yogi Bear, Roadrunner and Coyote - classics!
how excited you'd get in summer when it was time to go to the pool - the smell of chlorine, suntan lotion, and candy mingling to produce a scent that was for that time and place only
birthday parties - My God I had the BEST birthday parties!
fast food - it tasted better back then
spending time with my grandparents
church
Sunday dinners at my Mam-Maw's house
all the old records and tapes I listened to with stories on them
our local pizza place
Christmas parades - especially the one where I rode on the back of a Convertible as Band Sweetheart
college - so much fun
the wonder of just being in the world. - that lasted about 23 years
And the one I'd give anything to do just one more time
July Fourths at my Uncle Jimmy's lake house

I could go on and on. It was a good time to be alive, and a good time to be a kid. No stress, no pressure, just fun.
I went to school with sighted kids from kindergarten on, and I was just one of them, except for when we needed to make a blind joke, or when I needed to laugh at them for what they'd miss by being sighted. We had fun back then, swimming, talking on the phone forever, doing marching band, laughing a lot, eating and never gaining weight. And when we all went off to college, a couple of them told me it was hard getting used to classrooms without the noise of the Brailler. They grew up with it.
Good times!
Thanks so much for this thread, Nocturnis!

2018-12-01 16:28:19

I miss Papa Sangre, and the other games somethin' else made.

I would rather listen to someone who can actually play the harmonica than someone who somehow managed to lose seven of them. Me, 2019.

2018-12-05 04:45:24

Also an  88 baby and the 90s were good times.  1 thing I super miss is anime.  Like it's nice to have such easy access to anime, but there was something about only being able to watch Sailor Moon and DBZ on Toonami, and going to the mall to the Suncoast there with your parents and buying over priced VHS' just because that was the only way to watch any other anime back then.  Looking around for anime merch, too:  I remember this one birthday I had, my Mom scoured everywhere for Sailor Moon merch and I got tons of it, best bday ever haha.  It's nice that stuff is so easily available, but I also feel like at the same time, something is lost to these youngans that can just have anything at their fingertips.

Used to love Storybook Weaver, Wordmuncher Deluxe, and Space Pinball on Windows back in the day.  Also AOL chat rooms, just pick a chat, hop into it, and you could have fun RPing for hrs.  MSN Messenger was a great thing too, would talk to two close friends on it all the time before skype haha.

Sailor Jupiter.com was great too, oh, and finding all the anime pics on the internet was great too!  Just hunting in Anime Web Turnpike, for fan sites/shrines for characters you liked...and emulating SNES games back in the day, when I had better vision and could play them.

Also Final Fantasy IV and VI and Chrono Trigger, all awesome childhood games I had in the 90s.  So gooood.  I miss the SNES in general, probs my fav console still to this day.  If I could play it still, I would.

2018-12-05 10:09:03

Wow, I can't believe that this topic is going strong still.
And to believe this entire thing started last year in october or there abouts.
I have finnished buying presents now, and a few other things, and decided to add more to my list of things I miss though it looks a lot of people miss the same things I do miss.
Firstly all old sound cards and their midi fm chips, none of the modern hd non analog cards have midi chips or anything in them.
Yeah I know I have fonts but the real thing was a lot better.
Not to say that some are quite close, I mean we have good things.
There is of course chipmusic now, a lot of stuff from bandcamp, etc winamp still exists but even so it doesn't play everything but most things.
No one mentioned windows messenger 5x, I miss that.
Sapi4, I forgot to put that in.
The fact that I had to get up to go to school or rather the routeen, it can be a challenge to well get up these days especially since I know I don't need to be anywhere most of the time.
I miss the fact that everything is by the book now, a lot of organisations including the blindness ones decided to go by a procedure for things, ie job finding, and all their creative people just went, it suddenly became not trendy to be creative.
That means though if the book doesn't work you just go round and round.
So I don't bother with that.
Now though I think its time to start another trend in here, things I don't miss.
Firstly.
Single channel sound cards suck!
Now these don't exist but back in 1998 and lower you didn't have those by default.
In dos that hardly mattered much but you couldn't run 2 things at once without sounds going really badly.
I don't miss every device like in win98 and lower having to have a driver and the first usb limitations.
I do not miss the old serial and printer port interface though I do miss intersvr and interlnk if people know those they will know those were good programs.
I do not miss jaws, activation floppies, actual bad disks, the fact I couldn't use the dialup and the phone at the same time though I do miss the lower prices.
While I am happy for my rights, I do miss the time that when you didn't have to deal with the government and when you had to deal with an agency you could trust them to an extent.
Sadly thats not always the case.
For those that don't read my blog, I give you a nice background, to protect against benifit fraud every time you go away you need to tell the government where you are going especially if out of the country.
Its alegal not to.
The government make it as easy as they jolly well can.
Even so, if you have a problem, an invalid date, an inaccessible bit, well you can report but the chances of it ever been sorted are almost not going to happen.
I have had issues with things a couple times the first had my funding cut off but then they said it was an error the second time it happened they tried to review everything, luckily My dad was able to talk them out of doing this, the result being that the issues that I have reported are not fixed, I won't loose my benifits, but thats that, it leaves all issues open.
I used to not have to have to handle all those burocratic bullshit.
In fact it was a lot easier before people decided to cheat the system like that.
I aggree with all posts about being a kid.
Knowing that whatever was happening wasn't your problem because you were not expected to need to bother was quite a nice thing.
There are a lot of things I wish I had then like digital recorders.
I have a low energy thing especially at night and in places without airconditioning.
Put me in a warm place or a place with a drone going on and I will sleep.
I spent a lot of days sleeping in school, and people wandered what was  wrong with me.
Go forward to about 2014 or there abouts.
I had to attend a radio course with a friend.
It was at night.
There was no way I could actually seriously stay awake, I knew if I tried I would fail.
So I simply didn't try to stay awake.
I turned on my recorder and just listened, maybe I slept a little I didn't care.
When I got home I scanned my notes and worksheets and listened to the class in the comfort of my own room.
I had to scan everything myself, and I had to read it so I needed to do the work anyway.
In university I found it easier especially with the places with no aircon to handle notes and worksheets done by the lecturers and note taker I had, and any set work after I had finnished my course for the day rather than during that session.
I have gone away on trips where a lot of stuff is at night.
I would usually just nod off and not understand anything.
Now I use my recorder, and I listen to that later.
Sadly I have to disagree with some of the posters on here.
I do not miss vhs tapes or audio tapes.
I still have access to both but audio tapes jam and have a lot of issues.
I do miss the fact that speakers are so small especially in laptops that you basically need crappy sound correction software to get them to sound big.
There was a time when you had real speakers in your computer.
I miss books.
Yes, you can get braille and other formats but I don't find time to read, I have to make an effort to read now as I have so much to do online that well I just seem to run out of time these days.
For those with older apples I never had the chance to have a good look or use of any older stuff further back than dos 5.0.
Now we want thin, thin, thin and cheaper devices and stuff especially from china, I miss the fact that there was a time where our machines would last ages, and be strongly made.
Its the curse of thinness I guess but if you dropped something it may break, but not totally go.
Now things like your phone are so thin, if you drop it then you may was well forget about it.
And when things cost so much well.
I also miss things like the old milk bottles, the tags and half tags you put on your letterbox.
I also miss things like boardgames.
And old christmas.
And things like guyfolks, helloween, new years, etc.
In each case you had a build up of several weeks back.
Christmas had santa, you did have the fact that music played in the house a lot, and you got into  the spirit of it.
You got excited and it was cool
Now though everyone is so busy, even I don't really think of it, there is no build up till I am sitting down having christmas dinner and even then there is always so much to go and do.