Apparently I'm Officially Old
- Thread starter WRStone
- Start date
This made me feel old:
http://geektyrant.com/storage/post-....jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1299386208853
That's why I watch my TOS clamshell DVDs and don't upgrade.
http://geektyrant.com/storage/post-....jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1299386208853
That's why I watch my TOS clamshell DVDs and don't upgrade.
To pick up on a point made upthread, I recently read a book entitled "The Dumbest Generation". Although it was a relatively dry read, the subject matter itself was fascinating. In a nutshell, the high availability of cheap networking technology (PCs, cell-phones, social networking, etc.) and the degree of connectivity it affords have caused a paradigm shift in the priorities of young people - more virtual socializing, less intellectual activity like reading. Result = the dumbing down of American youth.
I felt old when I was reading the book, and I feel particularly old whenever I encounter a younger person who, by his or her ignorance of just about anything "important" or "meaningful", bears out what the author was trying to say.
I felt old when I was reading the book, and I feel particularly old whenever I encounter a younger person who, by his or her ignorance of just about anything "important" or "meaningful", bears out what the author was trying to say.
I am going to look that book up. It might help me understand my two youngest - 21 and 18 - more. They live on their smartphones and thier computers and I have noticed the 'art of socializing' has fallen. They were much more social before getting their hands on these devices. I don't know if it is just easier to communicate or if it just breeds idleness. Hell, every few minutes on TV there are commercials on finding your mate on a website. What happened to sports events, bars, and grocery stores? In any case, I personally do not feel older because of it - just wondering what is happening with the 'young folks'.
Yep -- my first computer was my father's Ohio Scientific C8P-DF, which he bought for his business in 1979. The first computer I ever owned was a C=64; the first PC a Radio Shack model whose expansion card slots were slightly different than every expansion card made by any other manufacturer. Fortunately, the judicious use of a pair of diagonal cutters could make other expansion cards fit.
In Junior High School, I took a CS course in summer school in which we used teletype machines connected to the public schools' mainframe downtown, connected via 110 baud acustic modem, same as you.
My first "geek moment" occurred when I saw the big printer in the room next to the mainframe. It had reams of the old green-and-white, wide computer paper. The systems programmer had it run a simple program that doubled a number, then printed it on a line. The printer was so fast that it was literally shooting paper out the back. It was cooool ...
It was also the summer I discovered TREK -- the computer game. I then befriended some college students to get access to the local college mainframe on which to play it. Somewhere in Lincoln, Nebraska's landfill are endless reams of green-and-white computer paper with nothing but output of TREK on them ...
Though of course the best iteration of all-time is still Visual Star Trek. I still run a copy on my Linux netbook under DOSBox on at least a daily basis.
Honestly, I'm still getting used to the notion that I can sleep a full night -- every night -- uninterrupted. It's an odd sensation for some reason. I wonder if it's some low-level form of PTSD ... ?
But yes, rwealize most of your student were actually born about the time TNG hit the syndicated airwaves first run; and TOS is pre-historic; (and I was watching TOS first run in 1969 myself at the age of 6.)
I was three (b. 1965). With my parents' help, I've identified having watched "A Private Little War" first-run. I remember being scared to death of the Mugatu, though it's my memory of the TV itself that allowed us to identify it as first-run.
Dakota Smith
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Gahhhh ... no more C code right now -- I have 27 copies of roughly the same program to sift through. I hadn't written a line of C in at least a decade when I was given the course. Fortunately, it's Intro to Programming, so it's all very simple stuff. Though oddly enough, I'm finding that I prefer teaching programming to all the systems admin classes. I think it's that a program either runs or it doesn't, where the sysadmin courses involve a crapload of running virtual servers and is actually more complex teaching.
No, actually. When I say "3/5", I mean that if you take the characters as aggregates, I match up with about 3/5 of their total personality traits.
In point of fact, I've only got a BS and can only teach courses up to the Associate's level. If things continue to work out, I plan to get my Master's and perhaps even my Doctorate. I need the MS to teach the BS-level courses. The PhD would really be only if I intend to get on the faculty of some university, and I'm not sure I want to do that, just yet.
I do, however, know what the subject of my dissertation would be ...
Dakota Smith
DakotaSmith,
Okay, got it. Thanks for the response and clarification.
Good luck,
Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
/\
Okay, got it. Thanks for the response and clarification.
Good luck,
Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
/\
You're old when:
You wear your pants above your waste.
You remember that when Star Wars was first released it was in that new fangled sound system called stereo.
You remember Watergate.
You remember Patty Hearst.
You remember the last moon landing.
You remember, or were a part of, the campaign to name the prototype Space Shuttle "Enterprise."
I don't know computer programming so I used pop culture.
You wear your pants above your waste.
You remember that when Star Wars was first released it was in that new fangled sound system called stereo.
You remember Watergate.
You remember Patty Hearst.
You remember the last moon landing.
You remember, or were a part of, the campaign to name the prototype Space Shuttle "Enterprise."
I don't know computer programming so I used pop culture.
You know that a waist is your middle and waste is what you do with time.
You know that Star Wars was in DOLBY stereo and stereophonic sound in movies goes back to at least 1953's House of Wax.
Oddly enough, this is what I'm finding depressing about getting older (I'm only 27). I don't like feeling comfortable in my own skin just because its my own skin. Only a few years ago, I would never feel comfortable with anything - even a few moments off - unless I felt I had been and was conducting myself admirably. The comfort that is slowly coming with aging is deeply disturbing to me.
This sort of behavior also makes me feel old. Most people only a few years behind me live on their phones, and I only use mine when it's the most convenient tool, etc. for the purpose. (Come to think of it, my parents - in their late 50s - live on their phones at least half as much as my sister does; my mother has hundreds of apps on her phone. Not counting iBooks, I have only six that weren't pre-installed.)
I think there just isn't anything frenetic in my nature. I don't need to know now, I would just like to know. I find I actually prefer reading a printed newspaper (though only a fairly worthwhile one like the New York Times or Chicago Tribune), except that I'm not willing to pay hundreds of dollars per year, and I have nowhere to keep more than a handful of old newspapers. (I keep a few papers related to major events, like 9-11, 7-7, Obama's inauguration, Bin Laden's death, etc.)
At this point, I'm starting to think that you're old if you remember when every movie in the Disney Renaissance was good, if you saw the Star Wars special editions in theaters, or if you can remember having a political opinion when Bill Clinton was President. (I know I'm overstating the case, but each of these be foreign experiences to college students in only a few years.)
^^ Well, I'd be lying if I said I didn't use my smart-phone a heck of a lot. I also spend considerable time on my computer(s) as evidenced by my continual posting here. I like to think I've adapted to the 21st century world of high-tech, high-speed, virtual contact rather well. However, I have done so without stunting or sacrificing my intellectual and social skills. I just can't fathom why I am capable of that and youngsters apparently are not...and that makes me feel old.
BTW, I also remember everything cited in the previous three posts - ergo, I am REALLY old! LOL!!!
BTW, I also remember everything cited in the previous three posts - ergo, I am REALLY old! LOL!!!
When I was in school I remember like some others feeling somewhat distracted and wondering why I had to learn certain things. But on some level I did feel what I was learning did matter and that I should try to pay attention.
What I remember getting out of school was learning a way of thinking, of finding out what I needed to know. I also got a measure of intellectual curiosity to ask questions to understand how things around me work. I also remember finding it interesting how the lives of previous generations paralleled our own lives in surprising ways---in effect although the times and circumstances change the principles are essentially the same, and that something could be learned from it. In many ways I realized we could learn from what came before rather than just dismissing it as "so long ago" and irrelevant as some fellows did when I was in school.
This is something I find shocking in many (not all) youth today: a lack of historical knowledge and context and even worse a total lack of intellectual curiosity. I remember asking questions to understand what the adults were talking about in my everyday life as well as on television and in movies.
What I remember getting out of school was learning a way of thinking, of finding out what I needed to know. I also got a measure of intellectual curiosity to ask questions to understand how things around me work. I also remember finding it interesting how the lives of previous generations paralleled our own lives in surprising ways---in effect although the times and circumstances change the principles are essentially the same, and that something could be learned from it. In many ways I realized we could learn from what came before rather than just dismissing it as "so long ago" and irrelevant as some fellows did when I was in school.
This is something I find shocking in many (not all) youth today: a lack of historical knowledge and context and even worse a total lack of intellectual curiosity. I remember asking questions to understand what the adults were talking about in my everyday life as well as on television and in movies.
You knpw, I forgot to mention just what got me interest in computwers back in 1975. I was in Junior High and walking with a friend who knew I was a HUGE Star Trek fan, and he said:
"You know, there's a room at this school where we have access to a mainframe computer; and on that computer you can play a game based on Star Trek, where you fly around the galaxy in the Enterprise fighting with and blowing up Klingon ships..."
My reply:
"WHERE?!"
I also still remember the execution command:
"run $STTR1"
It spurred me to learn BASIC and before I moved on to High School in 1978 - we had 3 other 'local' versions (one written by me); all attempting to expand or fix what we considered flaws in "STTR1"'s desingn and execution.
Then I remember playing a version of "Super Star Trek" on the Apple ][ cica 1978 (we were amazed by the phaser and moving torpedo graphics
) and later on on of the first IBM-PCs I used in 1985.Those were the days.
Wow, I'd totally forgotten that, which is odd considering the number of times I ran it in my youth.
However, I do still remember the WP6502 "word processor" (by Duo Quong Fok Lok Sow) that ran on my dad's Ohio Scientific. I was something of a minor sensation in Junior and Senior HS because I was the only student who routinely turned in work printed on a dot-matrix printer. Everyone else wrote them by hand or (occasionally) typed them.
The text formatting language of WP6502 was such that it made HTML look user-friendly -- but I'd discovered early that even that was easier than a typewriter and white-out.
Dakota Smith
Gaaahhh! TNG is 25 years old?! When the hell did that happen??
Man ... no wonder Brent Spiner looks so white-haired in his upcoming appearance on The Big Bang Theory.
And Wil Wheaton is ... is ... is ... 39 years old!! I'm only 46!
But he was a kid! Now he's approaching middle age!
I'll be 49 in November so I feel I can relate.
I didn't have the chance to try any computers until 1981 when our local community college obtained a cluster of "Trash 80s" (the derisive nickname for Radio Shack's TRS 80 model). Had my father not died in February 1977, the story might have been VERY different, however. Less than a month before he died, he asked me if I'd be interested in the purchase of a computer. Huh?! To me, a computer was that desk-sized workstation of Spock's, with blinking indicators and the clacking of teletype solinoids. He presented me with an article in that Sunday paper's Parade magazine. It had a photo of a boy roughly my age sitting before an unassuming tabletop "TV" and a box-like teypewriter keyboard. In retrospect, I'm guessing I was looking at one of the earliest Heath Kits. Maybe somoene can correct me what was available in January '77.
I did eventually get more seriously involved with computers, taking a series of programming classes (mainly COBOL) around 1983-84 and refreshing my skill sets around 1990. I landed a job with a national bread baking company in 1992 in their IT department and have been with them ever since. I can tell several of you fellows have skills that exceed mine, but I guess the company still sees enough value in me to keep me around for nearly 20 years.
But i wonder what course my life might have taken had my father not died and thus purchased that early "computer"?
Anyway, steering this back towards Trek, I remember "fleeting" sequences from first run prime-time, particularly getting the dickens scared out of me by the approach of the Doomsday Machine and Sol Kaplan's score that drove home the menace, but I didn't actually start watching the series with keen interest until Fall of 1972. Obviously, I can't really be classed as "first fandom", but since I kinda' "straddled" the eras, might one consider it "Fandom 1.5"?
Sincerely,
Bill
I didn't have the chance to try any computers until 1981 when our local community college obtained a cluster of "Trash 80s" (the derisive nickname for Radio Shack's TRS 80 model). Had my father not died in February 1977, the story might have been VERY different, however. Less than a month before he died, he asked me if I'd be interested in the purchase of a computer. Huh?! To me, a computer was that desk-sized workstation of Spock's, with blinking indicators and the clacking of teletype solinoids. He presented me with an article in that Sunday paper's Parade magazine. It had a photo of a boy roughly my age sitting before an unassuming tabletop "TV" and a box-like teypewriter keyboard. In retrospect, I'm guessing I was looking at one of the earliest Heath Kits. Maybe somoene can correct me what was available in January '77.
I did eventually get more seriously involved with computers, taking a series of programming classes (mainly COBOL) around 1983-84 and refreshing my skill sets around 1990. I landed a job with a national bread baking company in 1992 in their IT department and have been with them ever since. I can tell several of you fellows have skills that exceed mine, but I guess the company still sees enough value in me to keep me around for nearly 20 years.
But i wonder what course my life might have taken had my father not died and thus purchased that early "computer"?
Anyway, steering this back towards Trek, I remember "fleeting" sequences from first run prime-time, particularly getting the dickens scared out of me by the approach of the Doomsday Machine and Sol Kaplan's score that drove home the menace, but I didn't actually start watching the series with keen interest until Fall of 1972. Obviously, I can't really be classed as "first fandom", but since I kinda' "straddled" the eras, might one consider it "Fandom 1.5"?
Sincerely,
Bill
"Waste" . . .
Hmm. . . as in small intestines or bum?
Below the former; above the latter.
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