On Sun, 3 Jun 2012 08:17:55 -0500 Jack Coats <j...@coats.org> wrote: > Every generation seems to loose some of the old generations 'base > knowledge', and their expectations of their 'basic normal' is upped > to the current level of 'consumer tech'.
Oh, how true. I remember the spring's cooling water being piped into the milk house for cooling at my grandfather's farm. We vacationed on Anderson Island in south Puget Sound. I thought is was really cool to stay in my uncles summer cabin where we had propane for cooking and a propane refrigerator. Massive upgrade from the 'old place' which had a wood stove and ice box. Some of the permanent residences had gen sets, I remember something at my auntie's place that looked like a Chev in-line six coupled to a generator. The place we got our milk had a wind charger and a bunch of batteries; their water was supplied by a hydraulic ram from down in a ravine. Commercial power didn't come to the island until years later. I vaguely remember the wood heater being torn out of the living room and Dad building a electric wall heater. That must have been just after the the first main unit (125 MW) came on line at Coulee. I grew up with some technology and just like you said took it for granted. Oscilloscopes, voltmeters, the oscillographs which wrote to photosensitive paper and were used to quantitate ground faults, usually triggered by lightening on the multiple 230 KV lines that fed the NW power pool. On the other end of things I dropped back a generation or so after high school. I was a fire lookout in the Cascades. High tech was a wood burning stove, good lightening protection and a wood burning stove for heat and cooking. Water was 700 vertical feet off and about 200 yds away. The telephone was a single wire, crank phone but had a modern handset. Radios were surplus FM (29-32 MHz) with quick heating filaments and a massive battery box. Enough about the 'olden' days. ;-) We are so lucky. Just the jump from manual machines ( milling, lathe, etc.) is massive. Programming is easy compared to trying to extract good parts from a manual machine. Computer put graphics and computational power at our finger tips that seemed impossible only a few years ago. Cameras that rival the resolution of my 35 mm cameras and approach that of my Bronica. In addition they are much more flexible. Technology marches on. > > My Mom told me about kerosene refrigerators, and before that just > keeping milk cool in water pumped (by wind) from the well. I > remember visiting her mom (my grandmother) when she still lived in a > half-dugout house in West Texas. > > Moving from the well water cooling to a kerosene refrigerator was a > technological coups for the day. > > When my grandmother moved into 'town' into a 'regular house', that was > another great advance. > > Both my parents remember when electricity first came to their homes, > and one light bulb in a room was > considered a big deal. > > My parents thought Color Movies were great advances. Their parents > thought 'Talkies' were the 'bees knees'. > > I grew up with a B/W TV and it was my base norm, as was a party line > dial telephone. When 'direct dial telephone service' came to the > Dallas/Ft Worth TX area, it was a big deal. We went to downtown Ft > Worth and toured the Southwestern Bell switching center (relays > mainly, before solid state switches). It was really 'high tech'. > > Not many of us remember doing 'duck and cover' drills in school, in > case of enemy nuclear attack. My dad almost put in a bunker, but > instead we lived close to millitary bases and manufacturers. He said > it was partly so we wouldn't survive the first attack, if it happened. > > I can go on. > > My kids don't remember not having a hardwired network at home and > computers for everyone (we were the first on our block that I know > of). We did 'share' a dialup modem, but via a linux server that did > dial on demand in another room (on a separate phone line) so it > looked to them like we were 'online all the time'. > > My kids don't remember dial telephones, or pay phones. And as my > daughter is a school teacher, she is running into the 'next > generation' effect with her second graders (and she has only been > teaching 2 years). > > I find myself waxing about 'old tech' when I could understand how all > the toys work to some reasonable extent. But my 'base knowledge' of > how logic gates work (NAND, NOR, AND, OR, Inverters, and how to > combine them into state machines or processors) is not common > anymore. Most of that knowledge isn't needed even by digital > designers. ... Technicians are board swappers not 'repair people', as > the cost of people goes up and equipment goes down that is a natural > progression. I built a prototype data logger with wire-wrapped TTL, it used a digital panel meter for A/D and a Fluke paper tape punch for output. Please note that I only built one! Oh, if I had only understood how to use a 4004. ;-) > > Today, I think of 3D printing as high tech, if I had grandkids (none > yet) they would not know a world without it being available, and > would ask me what that box on the wall with a hand crank is (it is a > telephone from my wifes grandad's home, still has room for B > batteries inside, and has a generator on the other end of a crank ... > no dial) > > In 10-15 years we will have Compaq or GE or Fujilkjlfkja :) making 3D > printers and scanner multi-function replicators we can buy at Walmart > or Best Buy (I would have said Sears and Wards 20 years ago). And > that will be the norm for another generation. > > *"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from > magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke* Clarke is oh so right! Thanks for sharing. Dave > * > *And technology keeps advancing even if we don't. I don't care to live > forever, but I would sure like to be able to peek from behind the > curtain and see what happens!* > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Live Security Virtual Conference > Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and > threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. > Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the > latest in malware threats. > http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ > _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. 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