DescentBB

I remember growing up, making fun of my parents for not having color televisions. I mean, that and 8-track or record players was how I made them feel old.

My kids, on the other hand, will be able to mock me for being around before the internet.

I have been going through some old Alfred Hitchcock movies of recent, and its quite eary to think---as most of these people are now deceased, that of all the time of man---this was the first generation that was filmed. And here we are, this is the time slot we got, and it is safe to say that ``man'' will never see another one like it. That is not a maybe, its a fact.

No real point to the post, just a really late night, and the coffee must be wearing down, and I am feeling nostalgic. Go us.

You can't really make fun of someone for having the only technology available at the time that they were alive.

In fact, there are some things they had that we don't have anymore.

Personally, I plan to make fun of my children for never experiencing Usenet.

ThunderBunny wrote:You can't really make fun of someone for having the only technology available at the time that they were alive.

In fact, there are some things they had that we don't have anymore.

Like neighbors you actually talk to?

Weve given up a lot as our society has become more technological.

null0010 wrote:Personally, I plan to make fun of my children for never experiencing Usenet.

OMG, Usenet is gone?

dissent wrote:

null0010 wrote:Personally, I plan to make fun of my children for never experiencing Usenet.

OMG, Usenet is gone?

Pre-Eternal September Usenet is gone.

So I should finally throw away those old rolls of shag carpet??

ThunderBunny wrote: In fact, there are some things they had that we don't have anymore.

Thats very true. And many similar things were much better back then.

I guess I'll try and derail my derailed thread.

If man gets another 100,000 years,

What film will they show kids to represent when this all started? My top 5 bets:

1. Rear Window
2. The Jazz Singer
3. Star Wars
4. It's a Wonderful Life
5. Three Stooges

Idiocracy!

Gooberman wrote:

What film will they show kids to represent when this all started? My top 5 bets:

1. Rear Window
2. The Jazz Singer
3. Star Wars
4. It's a Wonderful Life
5. Three Stooges

I'd replace a couple of those with

1) any of the Laurel and Hardy films
2) the Our Gang series of films
3) The Howdy Doody weekly show

Gooberman wrote:And here we are, this is the time slot we got, and it is safe to say that ``man'' will never see another one like it.

It's not like though that we've broken all of the interesting ground already. I think that most groundbreaking technologies were unanticipated. It's not like 50 years ago people were waiting for someone to *finally* invent the Internet *already*. We came up with plenty of groundbreaking stuff, but I think that future generations will come up with groundbreaking stuff that we can't presently imagine at an even greater pace. It's something to look forward to, to try to hang around as long as we can to see it.

Jeff250 wrote:It's not like though that we've broken all of the interesting ground already. I think that most groundbreaking technologies were unanticipated. It's not like 50 years ago people were waiting for someone to *finally* invent the Internet *already*. We came up with plenty of groundbreaking stuff, but I think that future generations will come up with groundbreaking stuff that we can't presently imagine at an even greater pace. It's something to look forward to, to try to hang around as long as we can to see it.

I agree to an extent, but it is the implications of the discoveries that we were allowed to see, that won’t be repeated.

The ability to see a generation move, to be able to watch their theater. While we can go back and read Shakespeare, how much would you give to actually see it performed live in the time in which it was written?

Also the internet and personal computer brought forth the ability for an average person on one side of the planet to communicate with another. Or cell phones, the ability to have a conversation with anyone in the world at any time, at any location.

The internet is in many ways the final link in mans need to communicate: We have progressed from the ability to talk, read, print news papers, broadcast news, and now let anyone talk to anyone---even across continents.

There will be slight improvements, but in our life times the technology to connect all the nodes together was developed.

Short of sci-fi stories such as aliens or teleportation, there is nowhere else for the communications link to go.

The link is done.

We still have so far to go.
our technology is dependant too much on weak sources, (wiring, sat link etc.)
need a better more advanced, and stable setup to link everything together without losing any efficiency.

The only problem is that everything now is floating around in the ether and is stored on some server or PC somewhere. What happens when software standards change and all sorts of history can't be accessed anymore? Modern technology doesn't age well and no one is trying or bothering to archive a lot of really good stuff.

Along the lines of old tech, I get some pretty confused looks from young people when I describe telephone 'party lines'! My grandfather was still on one in his neighborhood during the early 1970's, so one had to be veeeery careful what one said on the telephone, lest the neighbors happened to be listening in (they usually were too).

The only problem is that everything now is floating around in the ether and is stored on some server or PC somewhere. What happens when software standards change and all sorts of history can't be accessed anymore? Modern technology doesn't age well and no one is trying or bothering to archive a lot of really good stuff.

Along the lines of old tech, I get some pretty confused looks from young people when I describe telephone 'party lines'! My grandfather was still on one in his neighborhood during the early 1970's, so one had to be veeeery careful what one said on the telephone, lest the neighbors happened to be listening in (they usually were too).

The only problem is that everything now is floating around in the ether and is stored on some server or PC somewhere. What happens when software standards change and all sorts of history can't be accessed anymore? Modern technology doesn't age well and no one is trying or bothering to archive a lot of really good stuff.

Along the lines of old tech, I get some pretty confused looks from young people when I describe telephone 'party lines'! My grandfather was still on one in his neighborhood during the early 1970's, so one had to be veeeery careful what one said on the telephone, lest the neighbors happened to be listening in (they usually were too).

Oops!