Once in a great while I wonder what it would be like to still be in high school. Generally I think I'm very happy to be out of the drama that was MHS. Still, I remember how much fun I had.
Some people are terrified at the thought, but I work with teens so much that I try to get in their head the only way I know how; to travel back to who I use to be. Fortunately I have my handy Delorean to assist my mind the trip to the past and back to the future.
One thing I remember when I was in high school was wondering what it would be like to be in the future. I love sci-fi and so I always hoped that the future we saw in the movies would be the future I got to live in.
Generally speaking the movies weren't too far off. Between cell phones, video phones, bluetooth headsets, laptops, and various other such things I feel like I am in the future in many ways. I'm waiting on cars that drive themselves and fly though. I know the technology is in place but the practical reality is not yet here. That is very frustrating to me and quite disappointing to the high school me.
Sure I can put an entire library on a Kindle and rooms worth of songs on an iPod but I keep coming back to the same question, "Why don't I have a jet pack?"
So what things that we take for granted feel like the future to you? What things do you wish were here now?
Friday, January 16, 2009
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8 comments:
I know I'm still amazed at how CHEAP the technology of the past few years has become.
I'm in awe of how much less laptops cost than when I bought mine three years ago. It almost hurts my heart to see what I could get for that amount now. :)
I don't think I take much of the tech for granted, but I know my kids do. They can't comprehend a life without google. Much less cell phones and satellite tv.
Steph,
I just heard that they repaired my laptop and to be honest I really wish they had junked it and given me a new one. For the same money I can buy about twice the laptop and it was only a year ago.
I know we have serious inflation on almost everything right now, but electronics are so cheep it isn't funny. When I was a teen I remember getting excited when we bought a hard drive and paid about $1 per megabyte and it was a steal at the time. I just bought a 500 gigabyte HDD for just over $50. That translates to roughly $0.ooo1 per MB and in a year or two I fully expect to buy a terabyte HDD for this same price.
Take for granted: Tivo and DVR. I don't personally have one, but when I'm somewhere where it's available I absolutely love it. I hate being at home and watching football and not being able to go back to rewatch and awesome play.
Wish was here: Definitely agreed with the flying cars. I'm also a bit disappointed that I can't have a robot as my best friend yet.
Nick,
You've made me feel old. When I was a teen, there was no such thing as a megabyte. ;)
In 1983 I learned to program in BASIC on an Apple 2e. My friends had an Atari at their house. (I was never cool enough.)
Later, when I got on the Internet with my first AOL account, I accessed it with 14K dial-up.
(I also learned to type on a TYPEWRITER.)
Ryan B,
I love my DVR. I never new how nice it would be till we got one for free with dish or whatever. Now I'm not sure I could live without. Sort of like everything else I have. I'm not sure I want a robot as a friend. I've read too much scifi and that never ends well.
Steph,
Not too far off from where I was. I started on a commodore 64 and my friend down the road had the apple 2e. I wasn't a teen but hey. I didn't have a modem on the commodore, I don't even know if they had them. My friend did have a modem on his apple. The phone line didn't plug in to the computer you actually took the phone and put it in a cradle so you could hear it hissing the whole time and had to be quite so you didn't mess up the connection. We could connect to other computers and a couple of local BBS servers. I think it was 1200 baud. Not 12k 1200 ... that is like 1.2k or is it less? I forget.
PS This is why I am anonymous I'm not sure the youth would understand if I explained pre internet days to them. I'm sure the understand that their parents lived before the net but they still thanks I'm young enough that I've always had at least dial up.
Driving home from work on Friday, I was actually awestruck to realize that most of the kids I saw walking home had earbuds stuck in their ears, listening to mp3 players.
Made me think about how, "When I was their age", I remember my brother getting a boombox for Christmas with 4 or 5 cassette tapes, and that was it. That blew the budget for his Christmas that year, circa 84-85.
Jake,
You know it is funny that we complain about how much stuff costs but compared to when we were growing up most things are really a lot cheaper. For example, when the NES first came out it was $200 back in 1986. The Wii is $250 which is a steal at only $50 more and 20 years later.
Same is true for just about everything electronic.
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