Last week, I got a message from Kim Kommando (along with everyone else who gets her newsletters...I ain’t that special. To her.) In it, she asked for stories about how technology has affected our families and friends and if there are specific problems we’d like her to address.
One of the things she mentioned is texting and driving. This has been a particular nuisance to me, because I’ve been a passenger in a car when the driver was texting while driving. When I opined that it might not be the brightest thing to do, especially as it is illegal in that state (and for anyone with two brain cells to rub together) I was informed that my generation knows nothing about technology, their generation was raised with it, and they could multi-task in ways that we old farts cannot even imagine.
:: crickets chirping ::
Not to go off on a rant here,
but exactly whom do they think invented that technology they’re so blithely abusing? Not their generation. Nor mine, as it happens. The generation before mine started the whole thing with a little number named ENIAC.
When ENIAC was announced in 1946, it was heralded as a "Giant Brain" by the press.[8] It had a speed on the order of one thousand (103) times faster than that of electro-mechanical machines; this computational power, coupled with general-purpose programmability, excited scientists and industrialists alike.
By the end of its operation in 1955, ENIAC contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7200 crystal diodes, 1500relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and approximately 5,000,000 hand-soldered joints. It weighed more than 30 short tons (27 t), was roughly 2.4m × 0.9m × 30m (8 × 3 × 100 feet) in size, occupied 167m2 (1800 ft2) and consumed 150 kW of electricity.[12][13] This power requirement led to the rumor that whenever the computer was switched on, lights in Philadelphia dimmed.
The phones we use now are more powerful than ENIAC was ever dreamed to be, and more powerful than those that put man on the moon.
There is almost no limit to what we can do with them: listen to music, watch streaming TV or videos, play games, text….why we can even have telephone conversations on them!! Who’da thunk it?
You know what else we can do? We can cause horrific traffic accidents that kill people, because we’re too busy focusing on the next text than the next intersection.
I remember having conversations (translation: arguments) with my mum about having a radio in the car! She said it was too distracting for the driver, since she had once been in an accident with a driver who was distracted by a ballgame on the radio. I made my case that the music was “background” for me, lessened the stress of driving, and required no thought on my part. Thus, I paid more attention to the road and what was going on around me. The only area where we agreed was that if the volume was too high to hear an approaching siren, it was too. damn. loud.
Music hath charms to soothe the savage driver….if done right. Texting just distracts the driver from the job at hand.
So, am I an old fart, now? Nope. Just don’t think the next chatty text is worth dying for. And by the way...guess who has the better driving record, me or my texting companions? Why that would be...this old fart. Hmmm...we could turn this into a sit-com, couldn’t we: Tune in Thursdays for This Old Fart and watch her make mincemeat of the mouthy whippersnappers. heh NB: There are some whippersnappers, many of them right here, who are on my list of coolest people, ev-ah.
Y’know what else is dangerous? DK5. They “fixed” something, again, and now my buttons look weird and we went from diaries to stories to articles. Bah, humbug!! They are diaries, and I want my custom tip jars and comment counts and sig lines back! grrrr. Oh, and can the rec buttons sit still for a while? And stop movin’ my pics around!! WYSIWYG...my arse!!
Your grumpy Wednesday Kibitzing was brought to you by a complete lack of patience for teh stoopid...and a few scary incidents on the local roadways. Remember that you are more important than any text from anybody! We can’t afford to lose you, so let the texting wait. smoooooooch!
Now...whatchew got on, yer mind? Do tell.