Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Progress - too far?
Digital photos - you can pick up a Matthew Brady photo from 1863 and look at it with no problems at all, and it'll probably still be good in 2064. That CD you have your images on will probably be toast within 10 years.
Cell phones - camera, music player, special ring tones, video player -- yet there's a commercial that asks, "Can you hear me now?" and causes no surprise.
Electronics - back in the olden days, you had to get up and turn the TV or stereo on. Now you have to figure out what combination of five remotes to click in what order to watch F Troop.
Televsion shows - I grew up watching five channels that garnered nationwide acceptance and audiences. Now there's 150 channels and I'm still looking forward to watching F Troop.
Fast food - The menus are numbered and color coded; they take cash, credit and debit cards; there's an international presence; and after in line for twenty minutes, the idiot in front of you is still going to take 5 minutes figuring out what to order when he reaches the counter.
Computers - there's one gig of ram, 400 gigs of hard drive space, a 3 gigahertz clock speed and it now takes longer to turn on the computer and write and print a letter than it did on my 16 kilobyte ram, 70 kilobyte floppy, 1.77 megahertz clock speed TRS-80 Model 1.
Palm computers - my Palm IIIxe works for a month on two cheap AAA batteries that I can buy anywhere. The newest palms last a few days on lithium-ion rechargeables that require you to be near an outlet to charge.
