The Modern Miracle of Disposable Technology
Can we just take a moment and think about how incredibly, insanely magical the world has gotten, from a technological standpoint?
I'm on here every day, chatting with people from six different continents. (Anyone posting from Antarctica? It would be cool to make it a lucky seven.) I can take a picture or write a story and have it available to anyone in the world in a matter of seconds.
A little over two decades ago, this would be science-fiction fantasy. (Remember when long distance telephone service was something you had to think about - and pay for?) Now I can do it with equipment I picked up for free at the dump.
I think about this when I'm running, sometimes.
This is my shitty LG smartphone. I think it's called a "Tribute." I bought it three years ago, at Target, for $40. It has extremely limited storage space and can only hold a dozen or so apps. (I'll never forgive Android for making it so hard to install apps to the SD card.) It really sucks for web browsing and is pretty slow to launch programs.
Still, look at all the stuff it does while I'm running:
- It's picking up GPS signals from freakin' orbit and using trigonometry to work out just where I am to the nearest meter, from the signal delays caused by the motherfucking speed of light.
- It's sending out requests to a cell phone tower and then receiving, in response, a stream of any goddamn song in the history of recorded music.
- It's then broadcasting that stream over another radio antenna to a pair of wireless bluetooth earphones, just so I can enjoy the groovy irreverent beats of Knower rather than running in silence.
- When I see things that make my eye-holes happy, I can point the phone at them. A lens smaller than a sesame seed sucks in trillions of photons, throws throws them at a sensor the size of a tab of LSD, which converts them into electrical signals that it dumps into a piece of plastic and sand the size of my smallest fingernail. Then I paw at the screen like a monkey. Seconds later, the thing that made my eye-holes happy can make your eye-holes happy.
- It also receives phone calls. They sound terrible. Stupid piece-of-crap phone.
My phone gets as good workout as I do on these runs. A 90 minute, eight mile excursion will drain half the battery. Still, that's not bad for powering three different antennas (two of them transmitting), a screen on maximum brightness, and a processor doing the math to constantly display my position on a map in real time. When it's not doing all that stuff, it still lasts for 24 hours on a single charge.
Obviously, if I ever get up to marathon distance, I'll need a phone that can keep its shit together for several hours of running. But by the time I'm in that kind of shape, this particular miracle gadget will be obsolete, anyway.
What is your favorite piece of recently obsolete technology?
Do you still get amazed by the stuff that's available now, or has it all become too commonplace?
(Remember when long distance telephone service was something you had to think about - and pay for?)
Yup..in 1971 I made a fifteen minute call to my wife who was at home in Texas. I was in Thailand. It cost me a month's pay. I had the advantage of using the MARS network..which cut the cost astronomically. In the middle nineties I was paying about $5 a minute for cell phone usage..(Over the Road Trucker...those roaming charges add up)
A month's pay! I hope it was a hot and heavy phone call at least!
By the minute cell phone charges - LOL! When we had a flower shop we brought our niece on as a delivery driver. Nice first job for her. We kept a cell phone in the van in case a customer changed an order or she needed help with directions (pre GPS) but obviously it was for important business only.
The first bill was hundreds of dollars! She kept calling local radio stations to ask them for requests and to chat with the DJ. "I was hoping they'd mention your shop and give you free publicity," she said.
Free!
I have to say I'm technology burnt out. It's become hard for me to keep up. Take my tablet. I can't figure it out, try as I have, to maximize all it can do. Online forums have been little help as today's younger generation does not know how to write instructions.
I guess I get tired of seeing everyone with an electronic gadget in their hands 24/7 as the art of face-to-face conversation has almost vanished. How long before pen and paper are obsolete?
To answer I miss regular telephones, the ones mounted to the wall of your house, lol.
Hah! And just try watching their youtube tutorials! "Um... Ah.... er...." It's called editing, kiddos.
Usually I'm more attuned to the dark side of technology. But sometimes it just strikes me how amazing the potential can be.
Pretty friggin amazing all the tecno. However have we lost something else in the meantime?
Our attention span, among other things!
yes..and common sense thinking and perhaps our ability to get off the couch and out the door, unless you are a runner..gee
I was really fond of the technology that gave me a car that with music, PBS radio, heat, air conditioning, air bags, automatic windows, etc but I really miss being able to do my own maintenance. I want to be able to check why my engine light has gone on without needing a computer hooked up to it.
What a scam that check engine light is. I think you can buy a usb adapter that lets your read the codes yourself. Around here I know the auto parts stores will plug in and check the codes for free.
Truth! the check engine light can come on simply because you haven't spent enough at the dealer's that year (of course, as we never go to the dealer's so it does show up on and off). I'll check on the auto parts store next time I get a light flash. Thanks!
I think about technology quite a bit, and it is amazing. Soon after I met my husband, I had to go to university. We had a long distance relationship for 3 years, except for holidays. It was so expensiveness and so difficult to keep in contact. Nowadays it would be instant.!
Yeah - with video calling now you can be in constant communication - it's crazy.
I'm surprised how much we want from the technology today. Quite usually we can see people complaining how the new technology is so poor quality as we have to buy new phones, televisions and such ALL the time.
However in most cases, they would work perfectly well unless we just wouldn't drop our phones, wanted faster phones, bigger screens, better image quality..
We have a TV which is almost 8 years old and it isn't showing signs of getting old. I know it's not that old compared how long the "good old" televisions lasted, but most people I know have bought a new TV once or twice during this time.
And our "old" TV is just regular Full HD. Quite small, only 32". Still handling it quite well.
"Regular Full HD" = Old fashioned.
That's too funny!
Our main living room TV is just 720p. My sister and mother still use tube TVs. That's pushing it for me, but I guess it's better than spending $30 to throw them away.
A long time ago (the late 90's😥) our old wood panel TV died and my Dad went out and invested in a top of the line, 50inch flat screen behemoth of a TV. Over the last few years he's been praying it would die to justify the upgrade to an LED or LCD. The old square is no longer standard for broadcasting and it leaves images distorted.
For Boxing Day he finally broke and bought himself a new 58" LED, he has tried to find someone to give the old "2500$ TV" but no one wants the damn thing, too heavy.
Amazing description on the cellphone, your 'tab of LSD' sized sensor😂 The progress of the last 30 years is damn near unfathomable, even a crap phone is leagues above the old bag phones, which were leagues above pigeons.
Oh damn all the technology nowadays which works for far too long ;)
My mother had an "old fashioned" TV which she bought before flat TV's became a thing. She used it for a time and then few years ago she started asking if "someone would like to get the tv for free".
She was really surprised as nobody wanted it, as everybody owns bigger and better flat TV's already.
Try asking at the thrift (charity) shops. Our local St. Vincent de Paul's takes obsolete tech and turns it in to recycle.
I've seen thrift shops turn these behemoth TV's away, they take up too much space and nobody wants them, only good for whatever precious metals may be extracted.
I've seen someplces that don't want them too. I found our place by running past the back door where they take donations and seeing the big pile of electronics. That was a few years ago though. I haven't paid much attention since. There's a lot to love about the newer larger screen TVs that take up less space in the living room. People certainly took to them quickly. I have to admit that they are light years away from the one with tubes that everyone had when I was young.
Especially in weight. I had a freind with a 32" CRT flatscreen, we helped him move once, never again... Too damn heavy.
Yeah, it's not a fancy LED/120Hz/4K/3D or anything like that.
When we bought this, I insisted that we buy a proper one - a full HD tv with proper quality so it will last, instead of saving 100-200€ and buying a cheaper model. I'm really glad it has paid itself back by working perfect for so long.
Glad the investment paid off - and didn't get obsolete too quickly!
The 'good old days' weren't . The cathode ray tube of TV's had a very limited life span...as did all the tubes inside the box. I remember having the TV repairman make house calls (to replace burnt out tubes) several times a year.
When the CRT burnt out..the TV was done. it cost more to replace it than to buy a new TV.
That's the problem. People are seeing the past through rainbow colored goggles, just like everything would have been far better then. They cherry pick the memories to remember the few things which worked for years and assume everything was made of the same quality.
I'm 67 years old this month..
The past was cast iron BITCH.
we live in the best of times
(so far)
Tech that I miss...honestly I can't think of anything that I've opted to get rid of that was better then the replacement. At times maybe I miss my CD changer in the car, but you can still buy those...yes I still use CD's.
Looking forward to what comes next more then glorifying the past. So many things have changed in the last 10 years it's very exciting how many can change in the next as technology seems to advance faster and faster.
I was so excited to discover that my Prius could read mp3 from cds. Burn 10 albums to a disk and it's like having a CD changer. I still prefer CDs for driving because I'd rather not mess with wires while driving.
In most cases I'd agree that newer is better, but I can't say I'm a fan of Windows 10. The stuff the Linux developers are coming up with though... now that is impressive.
I purely HATE to change operating systems.
but Linux is sure tempting.
To be honest I go back and forth. They've both got strengths and weaknesses. But 10s spyware and constant unprompted updates are especially egregious.
Which windows are you using now?
Ok I'll agree with opporating systems, but guess I just adapt and try and see the value in them. But honestly the more dummy proof they make something the more I hate it. I could do basic coding in 6th grade and by high school I was setting up companies with computers and training them on accounting software.
I'm not your typical user so I get the idea behind windows 10, just not the function.
not...I'm on a mac
Even though I have a cell phone, I still have quite a few really cool landline phones, which work and I still use for the most part. That's going way back, I suppose. But a landline is nice for serious-long talking without the annoying delay in conversation, or waiting out the insurance company, doctors office, business, etc.
I always get a palpable 'gulp' on the other end of the line, when I tell them, "I have a headset phone,and all the time in the world, I can be on here all day long". That's why I like a landline. I can wear them down to a level of better service.
Take that, people leaving me on hold, hoping I'll just go away. Not bloody likely.
I do miss landline phones - even though I hate talking on the phone! At least the sound quality was clear and you could actually understand what someone was saying. It's such a drag having to ask someone to repeat themselves over and over. And that delay you mentioned, which is even worse when you pick up an echo of yourself a second later.
Remember the "you can hear a pin drop" ads?
I don't even know where to start. Just wait for real quantum computing and we can feel this way times 10.
Whoa! Parallel-universe processors!
I bought my first smart phone 2 years ago, after long resistance and I still think it is a waste of time/money- completely agree with you that we don't need smart phones that much. I don't want facebook or steemit when I am out, I want to feel liberated and look at paysages ans people.
I guess when you are out running, you want to enjoy the nature, why would you need more than 12 apps?
When I go out, it usually stays in my pocket. I'm definitely not one of those people who has to be on the phone all day long.
But it has become my default reading device, and map/navigation tool, and music source, and it's teaching me French - so maybe I'm using it more than I'd like to admit.