Subject:
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Re: Bicentennial Man (spoilers, and quite lengthy)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 30 Dec 1999 16:52:54 GMT
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Viewed:
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1013 times
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<386B7C15.40D460AE@voyager.net> <FnKBD7.Ao9@lugnet.com>
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Dave Schuler wrote:
>
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> > The speed at which people lived when I was growing up was significantly
> > different than when you were. Further, what is wondrous and new for me
> > is taken for granted by some who are younger. I remember slide rules and
> > actually used them in class! I like living fast, really, and can't wait
> > to see the changes ahead, I plan to profit from them.
>
> Did you use an abacus, too? 8^)
I've played with one, but never used one for anything serious. I did use
a slide rule a few times in High School. I also remember playing with
the first electronic calculators in my dad's office (he was a DOD civil
servant - they had all sorts of neat toys). I remember using one early
RPN calculator which was about the size of an Osborne I, with a display
only a little smaller, which actually showed the whole stack on the
screen.
> **DIGRESSION FOR PURPOSES OF A POTENTIALLY BORING STORY**
> Several years ago my grandfather, then 82, told me about how he used to wake
> each morning and poke through the ashes of the previous night's fire to find a
> still-glowing ember, then use that to build that day's fire, and he would put
> a pot of water on the stove to heat.A few years later he repeated the process
> with his family's coal stove. The cool (to me) part of this story is that he
> told it while waiting for his tea to heat in his microwave.
> **END OF POTENTIALLY BORING STORY**
Which just goes to show you that the elderly can be a lot more adaptable
than we sometimes give them credit for. I suspect that if my grandfather
had been a few years younger, we would have gotten him on the internet,
unfortuanately, by the time PCs were sufficiently cheap and easy, his
eyesight was starting to go, and his arthritis would have killed him
while trying to use the keyboard.
Of course on the subject of making tea, I long ago stopped using the
microwave for making tea. It really doesn't come out as good as when you
pour boiling water on the tea (and note that best English practice for
making tea has you pre-warm the teapot before adding the boiling water),
which just goes to show you that technology doesn't always do things
better (of course your grandfathers fireplace might be better to have in
the coming few days than an auto-igniting gas log), and not even
necessarily faster (I can boil water for tea almost as fast on the stove
as in the microwave).
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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