Technology in the Last Century

[Eja117]

What freaked me out was once my brother was playing a baseball game on PS3. I sat down and started to watch cause I didn't notice the controller and thought it was a real game.

[Eja117]

There are some times I wish advancement hadn't happened. Well you know what I mean.

For example. Original Nintendo was the awesomest gaming system ever. Contra. OMG. The hardware was awful with all the blowing, but still.

Some of the older cars that were simple.

Also here's another thing.

Take the NFL draft. I think they lose money on the actual thing. I mean they don't really need to rent out Radio City Hall and bring players there. The tickets are free. I went to the David Carr/Joey Harrington draft. They even give you goodies to get through the thing.  It would save money and energy if they just instant chatted in the picks to the NFL network and did the whole thing remotely. The picks are phoned in from team headquarters anyway. But I hope they still meet in the flesh.

In the year 2035 I don't want to have hologram family reunions. I mean if I have to fine. I guess I'd take the good with the bad, but still

[Celtics17]

The rate of technological advancement in the last 25 years or so is both scary and excitging at the same time. A great read on this idea of change and how it's rapid acceleration has an effect on the psyche is Alvin Toffler's 'Future Shock'.

The idea that people begin to lose a feeling of their grasp on reality due to too rapid change in society is very interesting and this change has been accelerated so much more in just the last few years. Younger people today feel like they are better able to deal with this sudden change but what happens when they begin to feel as if it also changes too quickly even for them? It's kind of like a bycicle wheen that is spinning. If you are closer to the hub of the wheel you dont notice the change so much but the farther you move out on the spokes the faster you go while making one revolution and yet you have still gone around the wheel only once.

Wow, it's really early on Sunday.

[Surferdad]

As a baby-boomer (born in 1958) I find it amusing what people younger than me post about this.  It's all about what has happened in the last 20 years with the Internet, video games, cell phones etc.  Those are amazing inventions for sure, but people always been amazed by new technology in every era.  When I was a kid my family didn't have a color TV.  Can you imagine how amazed I was to watch The Wizard of Oz for the first time in color?  How about the first space flight? Landing on the moon?  Vietnam war from the comfort of your living room?  About about truly high-fidelity music recordings?  The first music synthesizer?  The first laser printers?  The list is endless, there has never been a shortage of "gee-whiz" !!

[thirstyboots18]

As a housewife/homemaker, two of my particular favorites are  the frost free freezer and the circuit breaker replacing the fuse box!   

[Celtics17]

I will have to argue your statement that 'there has never been a shortage of 'gee/whiz'". Your comment is based on what you saw and grew up with but while the color television is a significant change from black and white that change lasted around 50 years before it changed dramatically to HD, flat screens etc. The rate of change today is what is unique.

If you look back hundreds of years ago there was very little change for decades at a time. Sure there may be some advancements but if yo were born in the 1600's chances are if you had any form of transportation on land it was a horse. That remained for your lifetime and it did not change much either. In other words, the horses were not improved every year as are vehicles today or computers or most anything that has to do with technology.

[Redz]

I often find myself thinking "How on Earth did I ever do this before the internet?" and I can't even remember.

Sometimes I just use slightly lower technology than other people and they can't figure it out for a second.

About 7 years ago I don't think I owned a cell and I drove to Fenway to meet some guys for a game. They were all Ivy Leaguers and they wondered how I had found the place without a cell if I had needed directions.

I told them I had stopped in a library on the way and printed out directions from mapquest.

They all said in unison "That's so resourceful. I would never have thought of that. I'm completely dependent on this smart phone"

I keep telling the guy at radio shack he has to give me a decade to catch up to where we were  a decade ago.

I'm the kind of guy that buys a big flat scree top notch tv, then I get a tad bit discouraged by having to pay for HD, then my eyes adjust, my wife and I say "I don't see the difference at all" and then I don't buy it. 

I always buy used cds and dvds and video games.  When they come out with PS4 and XBox 720 I'll still be on PS2 and Xbox 1.    And I am telling you right now I find PS2 amazing.

Yeh, I'm there with you.  I was the last guy on the block to get a cell phone.  Even now I barely text, and prefer a phone w/o all the smart phone apps.  I still feel like I want a phone to be a phone.  That all of our utilities are being combined into one is fun and all, but a little scary (the whole "don't put all of your eggs in one basket" parable). 

Still, I did have a moment the other day where I wish I had a smart phone.  A friend who I had not seen in a long time had alerted me on Facebook that he was going to the same Sox game as I was and I never saw it until I got home.  He ended up seeing me in a crowd passing by before the game and sent me his seat location...again I didn't see it til I got home. 

Now, I suppose he could have used a little old fashioned leg work and called a mutual friend to get my cell # etc...but I think his assumption was that I would get his Facebook updates alerted to me on my Smartphone. 

[Eja117]

As a baby-boomer (born in 1958) I find it amusing what people younger than me post about this.  It's all about what has happened in the last 20 years with the Internet, video games, cell phones etc.  Those are amazing inventions for sure, but people always been amazed by new technology in every era.  When I was a kid my family didn't have a color TV.  Can you imagine how amazed I was to watch The Wizard of Oz for the first time in color?  How about the first space flight? Landing on the moon?  Vietnam war from the comfort of your living room?  About about truly high-fidelity music recordings?  The first music synthesizer?  The first laser printers?  The list is endless, there has never been a shortage of "gee-whiz" !!

True. Color tv, fridges, cable, energy efficient windows, are all easy to take for granted.

Here's a true story.  Going to a country where I had no toilet for 3 weeks definitely changed my relationship to water.

[Eja117]

While I said I don't want holographic family reunions I have to admit there would be major pros and cons to holo technology. If they could manipulate stuff you could really really work from home causing real estate prices to drop. I could see family way more often more meaningfully.  I could sit on the Celtics bench.

Granted it would probably cost me 20K and the government would regulate it costing me another 10K to take a test allowing me to use what my taxes paid for setting up and inventing. There'd probably be insurance on it to keep me from getting killed and that would probably be 5k a year. But I'd wonder how I ever lived without it. Darn kids. We didn't have holotech when I was a kid and I don't recall anyone complaining

[Eja117]

The technology I try to love, but admittedly have a love/hate relationship with is medicine.

Our teeth are waaayyyy better (used to be a major life threatening issue), we live way longer, we have phenomenal surgery techniques now, MRIs, yadda yadda.

On the other hand we had rabies vaccines as early as 1885, and a polio vaccine in the 40s-50s, but in 70ish years, no major vaccines/cures.  With all our computers and education just none. Very disappointing of course.

[Eja117]

all this of course leads me to my next poll

[Redz]

The technology I try to love, but admittedly have a love/hate relationship with is medicine.

Our teeth are waaayyyy better (used to be a major life threatening issue), we live way longer, we have phenomenal surgery techniques now, MRIs, yadda yadda.

On the other hand we had rabies vaccines as early as 1885, and a polio vaccine in the 40s-50s, but in 70ish years, no major vaccines/cures.  With all our computers and education just none. Very disappointing of course.

viruses are a quagmire

[thirstyboots18]

The technology I try to love, but admittedly have a love/hate relationship with is medicine.

Our teeth are waaayyyy better (used to be a major life threatening issue), we live way longer, we have phenomenal surgery techniques now, MRIs, yadda yadda.

On the other hand we had rabies vaccines as early as 1885, and a polio vaccine in the 40s-50s, but in 70ish years, no major vaccines/cures.  With all our computers and education just none. Verdy disappointing of course.

Oh, I don't know about that, eja.  Magic Johnson is still alive and prosperous decades after his diagnosis of the Aids virus.  I, myself, had a flue shot and pneumonia shot last year for the prevention of those diseases, and I am waiting for my dose of Shingles vacine to be delivered to my doctor, as I have friends who chose not to get it suffer great pain and hospitalizations with it.  So those are three advances right there.  We have heart transplants, and just in the last couple years...face transplants.  Prosthesis devices have advanced tremendously...people with artificial legs are running marathons!  If I took the time, I could probably come up with many more.  How about Heart defibrulators?

[Eja117]

The technology I try to love, but admittedly have a love/hate relationship with is medicine.

Our teeth are waaayyyy better (used to be a major life threatening issue), we live way longer, we have phenomenal surgery techniques now, MRIs, yadda yadda.

On the other hand we had rabies vaccines as early as 1885, and a polio vaccine in the 40s-50s, but in 70ish years, no major vaccines/cures.  With all our computers and education just none. Verdy disappointing of course.

Oh, I don't know about that, eja.  Magic Johnson is still alive and prosperous decades after his diagnosis of the Aids virus.  I, myself, had a flue shot and pneumonia shot last year for the prevention of those diseases, and I am waiting for my dose of Shingles vacine to be delivered to my doctor, as I have friends who chose not to get it suffer great pain and hospitalizations with it.  So those are three advances right there.  We have heart transplants, and just in the last couple years...face transplants.  Prosthesis devices have advanced tremendously...people with artificial legs are running marathons!  If I took the time, I could probably come up with many more.  How about Heart defibrulators?

I know. I tried to keep this to "major cures". Technically Magic isn't cured and his medicine is cost prohibitive (I think).
And also I know some people would find shingles, the flu, pneumonia, etc to be major diseases, but I don't.

I realize that the Gipper died at age 21 with a simple infection that would be easily treatable today and that anti-biotics are amazing. I'm just saying I would have thought things would be a little different by now on the cures front. Instead we have treatments. Amazing treatments, but I am hoping for cures. Like small pox was eradicated. That hasn't happened for a long time now.

[Redz]

The technology I try to love, but admittedly have a love/hate relationship with is medicine.

Our teeth are waaayyyy better (used to be a major life threatening issue), we live way longer, we have phenomenal surgery techniques now, MRIs, yadda yadda.

On the other hand we had rabies vaccines as early as 1885, and a polio vaccine in the 40s-50s, but in 70ish years, no major vaccines/cures.  With all our computers and education just none. Verdy disappointing of course.

Oh, I don't know about that, eja.  Magic Johnson is still alive and prosperous decades after his diagnosis of the Aids virus.  I, myself, had a flue shot and pneumonia shot last year for the prevention of those diseases, and I am waiting for my dose of Shingles vacine to be delivered to my doctor, as I have friends who chose not to get it suffer great pain and hospitalizations with it.  So those are three advances right there.  We have heart transplants, and just in the last couple years...face transplants.  Prosthesis devices have advanced tremendously...people with artificial legs are running marathons!  If I took the time, I could probably come up with many more.  How about Heart defibrulators?

I know. I tried to keep this to "major cures". Technically Magic isn't cured and his medicine is cost prohibitive (I think).
And also I know some people would find shingles, the flu, pneumonia, etc to be major diseases, but I don't.

I realize that the Gipper died at age 21 with a simple infection that would be easily treatable today and that anti-biotics are amazing. I'm just saying I would have thought things would be a little different by now on the cures front. Instead we have treatments. Amazing treatments, but I am hoping for cures. Like small pox was eradicated. That hasn't happened for a long time now.

Wired had an interesting piece on potential breakthroughs in this area.  http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/tag/anti-viral-drugs/