Things we take for granted now really are
special. Think of the 911 system. Punch
in three digits and you are connected to help. Even if you can’t talk, your
location can be traced.
Back in the day, I worked a series of crappy jobs
while trying to finish college. One was a swing shift clerk job for an
airfreight forwarder. One night our roof mounted HVAC unit caught fire. The
foreman called the number for the fire department (from a sticker stuck to the
phone) and the conversation went like this. “The fucker is on fire! Send the
fire trucks!” and he hung up. “Ah Tom”, I said, “Think you might call them back
and give them our address.”
Maybe not as big an advance is ready access to
porn. At this same time, porn theaters were just starting up. Damn expensive to
visit. We had a customer who supplied the theaters. The film reels were shipped
around the country labeled “machine parts”. Tom and friends had the brilliant
idea of renting a projector and viewing the films in our warehouse. They all gathered one evening and set up the
equipment. Quite a party was planned. There were refreshments, beer, etc. Film
was loaded and the movie began. Turned out the genre shown wasn’t meant for a
male heterosexual orientation audience. Alas, the group was disappointed. Tom
suffered a considerable loss of prestige among his peers.
Our ability to communicate grows daily. Latter
Day Luddites like me will likely not Twitter (whatever the hell that is) but can
appreciate things like Skype. A memory that will last, for me, was receiving a
call from my son while he was in Kandahar and I was outside Ft Morgan, CO.
Does anyone remember mobile FM radio? I only used
it to receive a message. I would then find a pay telephone (try find one of
those today) and make my PRIVATE call.
My first pager required four D Cell batteries. What a pain to have
hanging off your belt. Remember how damn expensive all this was?
Today walk
into any 7 Eleven, lay out $40 or so, and you can communicate.
This whole Internet thing allows us to
communicate our ideas with people we may never meet face to face. What an
impact it has on our society. No wonder the “elite” want to muzzle it. Can’t
have the peasants getting the wrong ideas, can we?
Like everything, abuses will occur. Humans don’t
change. Texting while driving. Flash mobs.
Freedom isn’t free nor is progress.
Speaking of progress, this wholesale change Google has made to blogger is forcing me to think, damn them!
7 comments:
Are there good changes with Google and Blogger? All I see is the degredation of the comments by adding "threading", and how posting pictures doesn't work as well any more.
Oh yeah. And the capcha's are way too hard.
Yeah, 'progress' has driven us to be 'instantly' available; whether we want to be or not... sigh
@ dmarks For an old fart like me, thee are seldom any good changes.
@ NFO Oh yes, we can plagued by twits 24/7. Maybe that is why there is Twitter?
I seem to be some people's Google. Their time is so much more important than mine that they call me for information they can look up. Then they wonder why I'm such a grumpy old man.
Does anyone remember mobile FM radio?
You betcha!! As a HAM radio guy I STILL use it!
_.. . KH6AME
You can blame, much smarter HAMs than me, HAM radio folks for having a hand in creating much of the misery you're in WSF!
@ Scotty Mobile FM is fine for hams. Not so good for business where everyone hears your business. I couldn't afford to install the equipment in more than one vehicle. That was the gas hog 4x4 By God Get There no matter what.
One uncle was a ham. KzeroCNV.Taught me a lot.
http://www.qsl.net/colorado-yls/Business/joewhite.htm
"@ Scotty Mobile FM is fine for hams. Not so good for business where everyone hears your business."
If people think that their conversations are secure on cell phones....they're in for a rude awakening there too!
You're uncle's call sign sounds familiar, I'll go through my logs. I may have worked him on the HF bands.....
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