Posted on 05/13/2012 10:12:38 PM PDT by DemforBush
I think that people who were born near the turn of the 20th century saw much more paradigm-shifting technological change than those who came afterwards.
In our time, we've mostly witnessed the refinement of technologies that were born in earlier eras. There's no doubt that we've seen a lot of new and amazing things come into being in our lifetimes, but how many of them are truly paradigm-shifting? I'd say, not many. Today, it's the tweaks, improvements, and new applications that move us forward.
I can remember my grandfather proudly showing me his first hand-held calculator (they'd just come on the market). He, too, marveled at that small device. I was a young teen, and thought he was a genius for just knowing how to work the thing :-)
One forgets about the simple things.
You've got a point, there. How about something as simple as the disposable razor? Such a small thing, but it improved the quality of life for men all over the planet.
Both of my grandfathers had razor strops hanging in their bathrooms, but I don't think they ever used a straight razor in my lifetime.
Major bookmark!
I’ll turn 70 this summer. I’ve seen a LOT of changes in these decades. For me, the biggest changes have been in my chosen career, communications. I started off in the Air Force, which in 1960 still used a lot of Army protocols. I learned the Morse code at Goodfellow AFB, TX, and went to “copy” code throughout my long career. Sadly now, the only time I hear any code is in the background on the Military Channel. I also learned HF radio teletype operations. I doubt now if there are any single-channel FSK tty circuits anywhere in the civilized world. It’s as if all the data being transmitted anywhere in the world were being forced into a single straw and now it is a virtual flood of 1s and 0s. And no more Birely’s or Nesbitt’s orange pop.
“My grandfather was born 1899 and grew up in a world where people were not assigned numbers. Telephone calls were made by asking for the Smiths in such and such town, postal service had not yet assigned street addresses”
It wasn’t just in your grandfather’s time (my own grandfather was born in 1888).
Growing up in Weston, Connecticut in the mid-1950’s, we didn’t have “house numbers”. The address was simply “RFD 3...”
Forward to the late 1980’s, not all that long ago.
I became friends with someone who lived in rural/central Pennsylvania, in a tiny town that had gotten bypassed by “the main road” in the 1920’s because the main street of the town (where the highway once ran through) was too narrow and curvy, so they re-built the road through the nearby farm fields.
As recently as 1988, the houses in town didn’t have numbers. There was no “mail delivery” — you walked to the post office and got your mail. Deliverymen just “knew where you lived”. This even applied to the U.P.S. guy, from 20+ miles away in Northumberland.
Of course things have changed, even there, and the houses now have street numbers. But I can still walk down the street there and have complete strangers smile and wave as they drive by. As much as “modern trends” have changed a large part of America (mostly urban and suburban), there still remain isolated areas where “the old ways” still exist. If the collapse comes, this town is where I’m headin’!
“His Master’s Voice”....memories.
A lot of what you address, while correct, will become edge cases.
Wired Home Internet - “microcell” tech may dominate, bringing a small cell to your neighborhood rather than installing wire to each home, and balancing the convenience of wireless with its lack of capacity/speed. For many/most, wired internet runs at speeds on par with wireless providers. Only re-wiring the country for seriously high-speed service (a la >100Mbit fiber) will preserve that paradigm.
Dedicated Cameras and Camcorders - people are willing to shell out a few days’ pay for several cubic inches of the best imaging technology that can be crammed therein. When cell cameras get on par with current dedicated ones, the tech will shift to other non-tiny products (light field, 3D, etc.). Good lenses are big, bulky, and expensive - and there will always be a market for them; it’s a matter of physics, not Moore’s Law.
Landline Phones - sound quality is a matter of the service. Whenever I use Skype over cellular 3G people comment on how remarkably clear it is. The one benefit of landlines is assurance that the darned thing will STAY PUT and BE ON; having kids, I’m considering installing one (which is little more than a nailed-down cell phone) just for 911 and other emergency availability. Keeping pocket phones handy & charged seems a challenge for some people.
Slow-Booting Computers - I’ve long wondered why computers aren’t instant-on. It’s not a matter of hardware, it’s a matter of SOFTWARE designed to get the user-facing activity up & running ASAP while letting further back-end stuff take longer to set up in the background. No excuse, coders!
Windowed Operating Systems - It’s a convenient paradigm, akin to books. Will continue to dominate but will cede much territory to touchscreens. I’m more expecting/desiring expansion of “tablet” interfaces to cover the entire desk & wall.
Hard Drives - maybe for seriously large-scale storage, but personal-use storage will give way to flash & cloud storage.
Movie Theaters - nostalgia is the only thing that will keep ‘em going. Lots of us have given up on theaters save for rare movies demanding 3D and/or BBBIIIGGG screens. That’s a lot of space to commit to diminishing profits.
The Mouse - looking at a long slow fade. Other tech translating tiny gestures will arise.
3D Glasses - just 5 years away for the last 30. For about 6 months I used a set as my sole TV screen; tech just hasn’t improved enough since.
Remote Controls - MUST DIE. A box of badly-designed buttons sucks. Here’s hoping Steve Jobs did, in fact, have a brilliant breakthrough.
Desktops - there will always be a need for computing power 10-100x beyond phone/tablet tech. In fact, methinks the tablet has saved the desktop by making mobile whatever one needs mobile, with cloud/wireless tech making ubiquitous instant integration with massive multi/huge-screen multi-core multi-terabyte physically-large-whatever staying at your desk.
Phone Numbers - will fade away, but take a long time to.
Prime-time Television - the brain-dead TV model has yet to be replicated. TV on-demand will dominate (many of us have gone there), but nothing has equated to “turn it on, watch whatever’s there” brain-dead model.
Fax Machines - just about gone. Ubiquitous coordination is still a challenge.
Optical Discs - with terabyte drives fitting in a pocket, and cloud storage making wireless transfer trivial, little need for physical media will remain. But it will remain - bandwidth of a case of discs way exceeds any streaming connection. We’ll want to own tangible copies of at least some content. But note that even Timbuktu will get internet & wireless, and you’ll with ease carry in a small box containing all the content you’ll want.
I would lay in bed in wonder when I listened to BBC
what’s happening in July?
My dear old dad, who, chances are, has been baptized by Bishop Romney’s Mormons, or will soon be, never thought that I, his, son, would be riding in a flying automobile!
Mmm....don't think so. The first CDs appeared in stores around 1988 or '89. Hand held calculators had already been around for twenty years or more by that time, and were far reduced in cost from what they were originally. They were even cheap, as a matter of fact.
You can get your connection; disconnected/throttled just for being "accused" by the RIAA/MPAA. No court, no appeals.
Thanks for the info.
Nowadays, adjusted for inflation, the Bowmar's price would buy four gigabytes, lots of functions, more computing power than existed in the world, and (soon) a retina display.
Ping to post 95.
Thanks, woody. That matches my recall nearly perfectly.
A few years ago, I read an account by a woman who had asked her grandmother what she considered the greatest technological achievement of her lifetime.
She expected the answer to be something like telephones, or airplanes, or spaceflight.
The actual answer was “hot, running water”.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.