History

[Bombadillo]

Most of the 1337 gamers I know are too preoccupied with their electronics. I can't imagine them producing grandchildren to tell stories to. (most )

Barrelrider, seriously, I thought they were called A-tracks.

EDIT: People will scornfully remember the release of the first cellular telephone, I betcha. That led to no good. I saw on the news that now besides photos, videos, games, web access, walkie-talkie, calculator, maybe phone.... they're also making porn downloadable to cell phones.

[Embladyne]

Originally Posted by Bombadillo

Barrelrider, seriously, I thought they were called A-tracks.

nope, 8-track it is. A-trak is a different technology, and a rather good one, used for mini-disk recording.

[jerseydevil]

Originally Posted by Bombadillo

they're also making porn downloadable to cell phones.

Don't you know - you never know when you'll have that need for porn.

One thing they are doing that I heard is being able to watch tv on cellphones.

[Embladyne]

I personally like the idea of electronic books, in adition to the paper books we have now, but, there have been so many times, especially in text books when I've wanted a certain phrase or fact, and had to re-read everthing to find it. I'm lazy, so I would much rather use the "find in page" option like you can use for websites.

[jerseydevil]

google is going to be start scan manuscripts and books from university and college libraries and creating a 21st century Library of Alexandria. The books will all be searchable. I htink they're starting with the Harvard Library. It'll be great for researchers because now they can do research right off the net - instead of having to go to the various univerity libraries.

[Starr Polish]

Originally Posted by Bombadillo

Most of the 1337 gamers I know are too preoccupied with their electronics. I can't imagine them producing grandchildren to tell stories to. (most )

I'm quite sure my gamer ex-boyfriend will produce grandchildren. He's actually very attractive, and has a life outside of his games. He's pretty damn charming, as well. And the reason I know l337.

Oi...

[Embladyne]

Originally Posted by Starr Polish

I'm quite sure my gamer ex-boyfriend will produce grandchildren. He's actually very attractive, and has a life outside of his games. He's pretty damn charming, as well. And the reason I know l337.

Oi...

yeah, a majority of the gamer peeps I know who know l337 are pretty awesome and sociable...

Maybe I will complain to my grandchildren about how most games were made for pc's and not macs....(were, because, magically, there will suddenly be more for macs )
And I'll reveal the wonderous beginings of online RPGing...

[Nibs]

You're all so 1337 at off-topic-ing... I hope you're proud of yourselves.

Look, now you've made me bitter.

Some more good ones:

The shift from currency being used to purchase items to completely electronic processes. Maybe I notice this only because I've worked in a grocery store

When the first computers were released! I'll teach them young 'uns some good ol' DOS commands...
Me: "Typing in 'dir/w' would show you the files in a folder..."
Grandkid: "So it was like a prehistoric double-click."

When it was cool for guys to have bleached hair.

[Nurvingiel]

Heh.

What about the collapse of the USSR? That happened in 1991. The reprecussions can still be felt in Russia and the other former members of the USSR today.

And the destruction of the Berlin wall. I have actually touched a piece of it!

[Count Comfect]

I think the genocides in Africa will, unfortunately, be a big topic in history from our time. On a more positive note, though, will be not only the fall of the USSR but the coming of democracy to the former USSR states. Assuming you think that that change is positive, as I happen to.

On a technological level, it's all going to be about the computers taking over the world.

[inked]

A Viewpoint of History from a retired Air Force General.

General Hawley is now retired and no longer required to be
politically correct. His short speech is very much to the point.

The following are excerpts.

> > "Since the attack [9-11], I have seen, heard, and read thoughts of
> > surpassing stupidity that they must be addressed. You've heard them
too. Here they are:
1) "We're not good, they're not evil, everything is relative.

"Listen carefully: We're good, they're evil, nothing is relative. Say it with
me now and free yourselves. You see, folks, saying "We're good"
doesn't mean, "We're perfect." Okay? The only perfect being is the bearded
guy on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The plain fact is that our
country has, with all our mistakes and blunders, always been and always will be the greatest beacon of freedom, charity, opportunity, and affection in
history. If you need proof, open all the borders on Earth and see
what happens.
> >
> >
> >
2) "Violence only leads to more violence." This one is so stupid you
usually have to be the president of an Ivy League university to say
it. Here's the truth, which you know in your heads and hearts already:
Ineffective, unfocused violence leads to more violence. Limp,
panicky, half-measures lead to more violence. However, complete,
fully thought-through, professional, well-executed violence never leads
to more violence because, you see, afterwards, the other guys are all
dead. That's right, dead. Not "on trial," not "reeducated," not "nurtured
back into the bosom of love." Dead. D-E --Well, you get the idea.
> >
> >
3) "The CIA and the rest of our intelligence community have failed
us."
For 25 years we have chained our spies like dogs to a stake in the
ground, and now that the house has been robbed, we yell at them for
not protecting us. Starting in the late seventies, under Carter appointee Stansfield Turner, the giant brains who get these giant
ideas decided that the best way to gather international intelligence was
to use spy satellites. "After all, (they reasoned,) you can see a license
plate from 200 miles away." This is very helpful if you've been attacked
by a license plate. Unfortunately, we were attacked by humans. Finding
humans is not possible with satellites. You have to use other humans. When
we bought all our satellites, we fired all our humans, and here's the
really stupid part. It takes years, decades to infiltrate new humans into
the worst places of the world. You can't just have a guy who looks like
Gary Busey in a Spring Break '93 sweatshirt plop himself down in a coffee
shop in Kabul and say "Hiya, boys. Gee, I sure would like to meet that
bin Laden fella. "Well, you can, but all you'd be doing is giving the
bad guys a story they'll be telling for years.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 4) "These people are poor and helpless, and that's why they're angry
at us." Uh-huh, and Jeffrey Dahmer's frozen head collection was just a desperate cry for help. The terrorists and their backers are richer
than Elton John and, ironically, a good deal less annoying. The poor
helpless people, you see, are the villagers they tortured and murdered to stay
in power. Mohammed Atta, one of the evil scumbags who steered those
planes into the killing grounds is the son of a Cairo surgeon. But you knew this, too. In the sixties and seventies, all the pinheads marching against
the war were upper-middle-class college kids who grabbed any cause they
could think of to get out of their final papers and spend more time
drinking. It's the same today.

5) "Any profiling is racial profiling." Who's killing us here,
the Norwegians? Just days after the attack, the New York Times had
an article saying dozens of extended members of the gazillionaire bin
Laden family living in America were afraid of reprisals and left in a
huff, never to return to studying at Harvard and using too much Drakkar.
I'm crushed. Please come back. Let's all stop singing "We Are the World"
for a minute and think practically. I don't want to be sitting on the
floor in the back of a plane four seconds away from hitting Mt. Rushmore
and turn, grinning, to the guy next to me to say, "Well, at least we
didn't offend them."

SO HERE'S what I resolve for the New Year: Never to forget our
murdered brothers and sisters. Never to let the relativists get away with their immoral thinking. After all, no matter what your daughter's political science professor says, we didn't start this. Have you seen that
bumper sticker that says, "No More Hiroshimas"? I wish I had one that says, "No More Pearl Harbors."

*****************************

Worth thinking about, when assessing what future historians may say about our time.

[HOBBIT]

Popularization of cellphones

popularization of the personal computer - even in the mid 90s not everyone had one. My elementary school had Apple II computers.

popularization and early usage of internet - 24.8 k modems, 56 k modems (used to think that was fast!) - the first few years, only about 10 ppl in my LARGE town had the internet (early 90s). first ones on block to get cable modems.

Ah, the memories of waiting like 10 minutes for 1 page to load. and there were so few internet sites that there were books with all the sites in them.

lived through the switch to digital media - cassettes and records to CDs , VHS to DVD and beyond.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by inked

2) "Violence only leads to more violence." This one is so stupid you
usually have to be the president of an Ivy League university to say
it. Here's the truth, which you know in your heads and hearts already:
Ineffective, unfocused violence leads to more violence. Limp,
panicky, half-measures lead to more violence. However, complete,
fully thought-through, professional, well-executed violence never leads
to more violence because, you see, afterwards, the other guys are all
dead.

Hm well then what does that make Iraq? An example of ineffective unfocused violence? Rather harsh assesment for a conservative. Even I wouldnt go that far.

The fact is that being HUMAN leads to violence. Dont ever let the "life is black and white" folks convince you otherwise. So as long as we remain human dont expect it to go away.

[Captain Stern]

To quote Peter Kay:

"Kids these days. You don't know you're born. In my day we had to make do with a car each!"

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

Originally Posted by Captain Stern

To quote Peter Kay:

"Kids these days. You don't know you're born. In my day we had to make do with a car each!"

tha t'internet <motions typing>

peter kay's great!


how about the break-up of yugoslavia and the end of milosevic in serbia?
the current tsunami crisis will be remembered for a long time (hopefully)

[Draken]

Originally Posted by Last Child of Ungoliant

how about the break-up of yugoslavia

Yeah that was a shame. They were a great group.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by Draken

Yeah that was a shame. They were a great group.

Yugoslavia wasn't a band! (That phrasing just made me think that.)

Yugoslavia breaks up when the lead singer retired...