13 October 2014

Being Elderly

Damn kids on the lawn and all...

It hit me today that when I was born and for much of my life the way that people stayed in touch over long distances involved the physical transportation of paper.

You could use the phone, but it was god-awful expensive compared to writing a letter and buying a stamp.

A missive to a family member or friend took a week to get a reply, minimum.

I recall the first time I had unlimited long distance.  It stands out more than the earlier moment of getting email because not everyone had a computer at the time.

Now we carry computers in our pockets that NASA would literally have killed someone slowly and publicly to get in the '60s.  Computers that are so cheap we shrug and say, "oh well," when we sit on them and shatter the screen.

Communication is stunningly fast now.  As fast as the electrons can travel down the wire, even up to the speed of light where you have fiber-optic service.

I'm in awe that I lived to see the future!

I'm digging it.

I don't yearn for simpler times at all.  It's exceedingly cool to type in, "poke," on any one of several message systems and get a reply.

I like it better than the phone in many respects because the pacing of texting or chat is a bit slower and you can type with your mouth full.

Also interesting to me is the conversations that take days to occur using this instant transmission.  You send a message and days later get a reply, and sometimes take days to reply.  Right back to USPS speeds!

Smart-phones and 450hp cars that get 30mpg.  The future rocks.
Posted by Angus McThag at 22:04
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1 comment:

  1. Siege14 October, 2014 00:47

    I'm right on the borderline of this transition to The Future. My family has never been poorly off, but I grew up with older tech because prudent spending. I even remember the rotary telephone that was the main phone I used for my earliest formative years when I was capable of using a phone. Old computers, running windows 2.5 were what I got to use on the rare occasion I got to use one (my grandparent's computer. Had the best MSDos games, including the original Wolfenstein). Grew up with floppy disks through... probably middle school I'd say.

    As great as the future is, I still look forward to grumping about "galdern kids these days"

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