I was talking to some folks over there in Greece yesterday as well as some in Syria. Well not actually taking but using chat to converse about the latest updates to the goings on. What an amazing leap we've taken in technology in the last twenty years. We can converse with nearly every country on the planet. It's almost hard to remember the days of dial up much like waiting for the old Philco TV to warm up in the 1950s. So much seems to have happened so fast and yet it's hard to believe this is still in its' infancy. Dial up was fairly easy to get up and running. Just slip in a disk click on an icon or two after registering and slooowly the homepage would reveal itself. So easy and free for a while anyway. But waiting 5 minutes for a photo to load was less than a user friendly experience. Now it's the speed wars. Broadband and dedicated service lines were the must haves as well as faster computers to accommodate these fast pipelines.
Getting Broadband going was no picnic for the inexperienced. And then there was the terminology. Didn't know an ISDN from a PoP not to mention uploads and downloads and pings. Just about the time one can wrap their head around all that along comes wireless and a new host of terms. And as I sit here looking at what can now be called an antique CRT monitor running a very old system (I'm amazed it still functions because it's generations past the current operating system) I wonder what the future will bring. Everything seems to be getting smaller and smaller. Not something good for aging eyes but we may yet see a Dick Tracy wrist radio complete with video but I think I'll pass when it gets to that point. Maybe a brain implant and just use the thought process for linking up. Gad there's a thought. We'd look like those telepathic aliens from the old 50s late late show. That sure would change education too. A constant stream of information without so much as an eraser crumb and no need to text so no worn out thumbs. No need for homework since it's all right there for the taking.
There is a drawback in all of this. The technology is making us isolated from our fellow man. What cars did to a Sunday afternoon walk and visit, computers are shielding us from human contact even though they are meant to increase it. I can't see your face and you can't see mine so I have no idea the expression or laugh or nuance of interaction. So :-P there. I believe we'll just get more hostile and care less about the neighbors because they are too busy staring at a screen too.
Yes the future will be interesting to say the least.
6 comments:
I've seen the future also, and it's ugly.
I still get my share of human contact by getting out a lot and visiting with others here. But I am selective, and I'm damn sure not trustful of everyone.
I don't have any enemies here that I know of but I've damn sure made a few on the internut.
The future will be prettier when my new riding mower gets here. LOL
The highest performance 3D, dolby stereo, real-time video card is still pitifully inadequate compared to a good novel and the reader's imagination :-)
Well Billy if you don't like the future the just put a paper bag over it's head.
Imagination? What an archaic concept. :-)
"It's almost hard to remember the days of dial up..."
Dial up? Some of us old codgers are old enough to remember when long distance phone calls were either person to person or station to station. Damn, I'm so old, I need to take my medicine but I can't remember where the medicine cabinet is.
Just got back from an old fashioned record store, a social media much more enjoyable than this digital crap, you all excepted, of course.
Klondike 52, where are you?
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