When my grandmother was born, airplanes were more than a decade in the future. In my lifetime, space exploration and exploitation became a reality. In the 20th century, automobiles took over. Electricity and telephones became ubiquitous, and television was invented. It would be impossible to name a century of greater change. Yet, I think more apparent change has occurred in the past two decades. By apparent change, I mean changes in daily life and routine. Think how dated movies made only a few years ago can seem. You’ll see people running around frantically searching for pay phones. You’ll see black computer screens with green type. You’ll hear people asking, “Where are we?!” The fabric of daily life now has an entirely different feel. Take, for example, the above cartoon from 20 years ago. Of course, many people—if they still have land lines—still have answering machines, but they’re not the icon of connectivity they once were. And kids in the household certainly do not consider them a lifeline! Technological change has been a juggernaut for the past 200 years, but the small details have never been more apparent than in the current century.
160 responses to “Answer Man”
OF due 1655-1715. Haven’t read newer posts above yet.
http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html
EVAN
“Meanwhile, along with the demise of land lines came the demise of the second listing in the phone book (the WHAT??) that read “Teen Phone” for that address. That was for the sorts of teens that drove new cars and wore the latest fashions, not ones driving their grandparents’ donated Rambler.”
My kids didn’t have a second listing since all their friends knew what number to call after I figured out I’d never get through to the house to tell them if I was coming home on time or working late. I got a second line “family plan” at a good rate since I worked for the local phone company.
Oh, and they drove what they could afford which wasn’t much.
Jackie:
I was a member of Mensa for a while and, unfortunately, was greatly underwhelmed.
I quit fairly soon for three reasons:
1. I knew that I didn’t actually qualify to be in the organization.
2. They couldn’t spell my first name correctly.
3. I decided that Groucho was right: I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member.
Jackie, when Jimmy finishes the upgrade you will see a flourish of emoticons. Lady Lovelace, Ada’ formal title, would have been overjoyed at the rich array of symbolism available today.
Mark, Sand, and others – on the subject of changing theory to reality: The first course I took when I started working toward my master’s degree was Information Science in Librarianship and the first reading that was assigned can now be found at http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/ The article was written in 1945. I read it in 1978. Although I was amazed at its prescience, I didn’t expect his full vision to be achieved in my lifetime. The facts that I can post that link and that none of think twice at our ability to do that show how wrong I was.
I often feel we are living people like Chester Gould’s imaginary world or H.G. Wells’ dreams.
Ruth Anne,
Librarianship is still a highly sought after degree. Graduates are efficient at building search query and understanding hierarchical structures. Many end up in computer science because of those skills. A book you may enjoy is “Intertwingled: information changes everything.” The author Peter Morville is an MLS and teaches online classes at UCSJ, amongst other activities. It is informative, insightful, as well as being sprinkled with personal stories.
I’m fuzzy on the details at the moment, but their was a computer found in an ancient Greek shipwreck if I remember correctly. People thousands of years ago were building things that we cannot duplicate. Automobiles with power steering, radios, air conditioning, not to mention (gasp) electric cars, were all being built or tried before we were born. As for the amazing world of cell phones, I’ve never tried to call China, but I have tried and failed to call someone that would have heard me if I yelled. My candidate for the man most responsible for change in the 20th century or responsible for the most change to the lives of people in the 20th century has to be Milo Fetterman.
Seperate post on Vannever Bush. I am posting the wiki link here. All I can say is he is an unknown, to most, who influenced the course of 20th century American science.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush
Jerry,
Might you have meant Philo Farnsworth? He was instrumental in the invention of television.
You are absolutely correct. Fuzzy thinking as Jack said in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest”.
Where else can you go where someone will (almost) always know what you are talking about?
Jerry in FL, is this what you meant?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
Jimmy – I know exactly what you mean. We came to Canada from England in 1957, there were 3 TV stations in Toronto. When I was 11 years old we lived on a farm outside of Orangeville, Ontario. The phone was out of Green Acres, 32 people on a party line, and a crank telephone on the wall. To call someone outside the party line you had to ring for the operator. Now I drive to work with my iPhone in my pocket, synced to my truck entertainment center. When there are traffic delays my phone tells me over the radio. When someone phones I answer through the truck. I drive a toll highway (407) that charges me through a transponder, when I get to work I wave a plastic card at the gate and it allows me into the garage. I Tweet and follow Tweeters. When Star Trek came out while I was in high school we thought it was amazing. Most of it was not a touch on what we have now. Truly a transformative couple of decades.
Jerry,
Fuzzy logic is helpful on zeroing in on targets where you have limited inputs. Sight, calculate next position in time. Resight, calculate difference from previous estimate. Repeat loop until on target.
Does anyone here watch “Through the Wormhole” with Morgan Freeman? It is a wonderfully done program that challenges thought.
But then too, so does this bunch of cartoon fans. Is that what we are?
Jackie,
I rather say that I am one of the Village People. That and one chorus of ‘In The Navy’ gets a room upgrade and a handful of free chips at Ceasers Place. 😉
I knew of Vannever Bush when he was first in the headlines. Thanks for the reminder. If I remember, some of his predictions did not take biological realities into account, but we’re used to that. Peace, emb
I just caught Siri. She changed Palace to Place.
When my nephew got married in DC a few years ago, the reception was held at the Carnegie Institution. Earlier in the day it was also the location of a lengthy photo session. When our presence was not required, Bob and I got to wander around the building and were delighted to find a large portrait of Vannevar Busch in one of the rooms.
Sand, despite having a ton of friends who probably went as The Village People at Halloween, I had never seen any of their videos until the other night. I confess, I rather enjoyed them and thought they had a good sense of humor and self, parody seemed to suit them all. But then it took me all these years to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show and I laughed at that one too and loved it. Call me a late developer. I missed so much by being too serious too young.
Which one do you look like?
Jackie, the one off stage.
You mean those guys are just puppets? Lip syncing puppets? Like Stepford Wives? Controlled from off stage?
On issue of people with too much money and sense of their own worth, no not any of us, but did anyone except me read news story today about requests for children’s nanny’s who multitask? And no, this had nothing to do with Prince Andrew’s sex slave scandal, it was a serious attempt to explain requests to an agency furnishing household help in NYC.
Shades of Downton Abbey, one request they filled was for a trained nanny hairdresser who was to do complicated styles for wife, nine year old daughter and shave the master daily. It did say that finding cleaning nannies was difficult.
Obviously wouldn’t do windows.
On love slave subject I kept getting porn messages for available women from my sailing canoe website and I contacted group owner of canoes, not porn, after one of my ministerial friends up in Tennessee was getting same message. Contacted him several times, still got porn. So I told him I was dropping out and did so. You have to draw that line in the sand and hold firm!
Love, Jackie
This is my idea of multitasking!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ebd0OdemJc