Things to rememberin a digital age

[Darlica]

The other night when I was supposed to sleep I came to think of things that I remember from my youth, and, that younger generations probably never experience again because of the technology moving forwards.


As a kid staying at a friend finding and going through a her older sisters stash of glossy magazines (think cosmopolitan but less ads and more text) when one was far to young for articles about "positions" or love horoscopes, I still remember some of the short stories...  Oh my,  how interesting it was!  
The risk of getting caught was half of the kick I suppose.
(older brothers seemed much better at hiding their stuff I suppose that was a good thing... )

_{(Now everything is available on the net 24/7 and the odds are pretty high that there is a teenager that doesn't know how to remove the "Safe seach" setting their parents might have set the computer on...  What that might lead, pushed envelops and all is another story... this one is about nostalgia.. )}

Or how it was to wait for 2-3 weeks for the answer to a letter sent to a friend overseas (my best friend spent a year as a student in Michigan U.S. when she was 16 and I was 15).
The feel of "Air mail" paper, Do you remember? Do they even make those extra lightweight papers any more?
When a letter in the mail was the only affordable way to keep in contact over such distances? (I did get to call her once, on her birthday, I think we both cried most of the time...)
And how happy I was when one of those letters arrived, reading was almost like talking to her.  


Or getting yelled at my father for hogging the only phone in the house for hours... Not that I miss that... Today's fathers probably throw fits about the cellphone bill instead...


In my later teens I once found a pocket book at a bench on the platform of an empty train station, it was raining and the covers where already soggy, I picked it up, began to read and fell in love -with science fiction. The book was Neuromancer by William Gibson. I still have that book in my bookshelf destroyed cover and all.



Do you guys have any especially fond memories of the pre-digital era?

[Griffin NoName]

Frost patterns on the windows. Ooops that's probably not analogue!

My local newsagents still has airmail letters for sale, and I still have some myself (unused). Maybe he just can't get rid of his stocl

Having to wind the clock every night. I rather liked the sound it made. Ooops that's not strictly analogue either.

I think the memories I am nostalgic about are pre-electricity, never mind digital

[pieces o nine]

Learning to walk on stilts.  That was cool.   

[Aggie]

Or how it was to wait for 2-3 weeks for the answer to a letter sent to a friend overseas (my best friend spent a year as a student in Michigan U.S. when she was 16 and I was 15).
The feel of "Air mail" paper, Do you remember? Do they even make those extra lightweight papers any more?
When a letter in the mail was the only affordable way to keep in contact over such distances? (I did get to call her once, on her birthday, I think we both cried most of the time...)
And how happy I was when one of those letters arrived, reading was almost like talking to her.  

The Arcade Fire deals nicely with this in their song "We Used to Wait":

I used to write
I used to write letters, I used to sign my name
I used to sleep at night
Before the flashing light settled deep in my brain

But by the time we met, by the time we met
The times had already changed
So I never wrote a letter
I never took my true heart, I never wrote it down
So when the lights cut out
I was lost standing in the wilderness downtown

Now our lives are changing fast
Now our lives are changing fast
Hope that sonething pure can last
Hope that something pure can last

It may seem strange
How we used to wait for letters to arrive
But what's stranger still
Is how something so small can keep you alive


I have some friends that I've lost touch with that used to write and send real letters (within the last couple of years).  I need to track them down again.



I remember the start of the cell phone era, when it was considered extremely rude to speak on a phone at a table in a restaurant.  I still tend to get up and find a non-public place if I need to take a call.  I remember before cell phones, too...  we had a rotary phone growing up.  I took one apart once when I was a kid.  It had actual metal bells for the ringer.

I also remember when we were smarter than our phones.  The acquisition of knowledge has become nearly pointless; I intend to acquire skills from now on.  I should have a decade or two before the robots catch up.

[Griffin NoName]

Have pictures of Aggie fleeing from rampant robots.............

[Sibling DavidH]

I remember my mother lighting a coal fire under the primitive cauldron (always known as the 'copper') in the kitchen.  This was our only source of hot water.  For a bath, we had to work the primitive hand-pump on the wall to pump the hot water up from the copper via a lead pipe which went through the second tap-hole into the bath.
I also remember our indoor toilet being installed.

[Swatopluk]

What happened to the old telephones with a dial instead of keys?

The newspaper I read has a biographical riddle at Xmas and Easter (10 persons to guess based on a deliberately misleading text on their biographies). Before I got internet access this meant hours with big encyclopedias, often going to the local library for more info. Often I did learn a lot of other things in the process (leafing through the pages of a printed encyclopedia stumbling over other stuff unrelated to the search). With internet available to almost anyone the way the texts are worded has changed (not for the better, I'd say) in order to make net searches ineffective. In some cases it is clear that the authors have googled their own texts to ensure that the search comes without useful results. Still many have become too easy while a few (usually 1 or 2) become so obscure that even the old methods fail.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I must confess that I don't miss the pre-digital era. I was terrible writing letters, I scavenged the encyclopedias at home and certainly learned a lot that way but I have learned exponentially more now with the net.

Nope, I like it now better.

[Griffin NoName]

I also remember our indoor toilet being installed.

Ah yes. I remember outdoor toilets at school. It's strange looking back, although we did have an indoor toilet at home, it did not seem at all odd that they were outside at school. It would now!

[Aggie]

The outdoors is my toilet. 

_{urinal, at least}

[Opsa]

I used to love writing and illustrating letters to people.

In the 80's I was on staff of an underground comic book. We used to have fun writing to other artists all over the world, and the weirder the letter, the better.

Once a bunch of us wrote and illustrated a poster-sized letter to a good artist friend in New Mexico. (His name was R.K. Sloane, and he later worked for Big Daddy Roth. Both, alas, are dead now.) After we wrote it, we tore it into many pieces and then wrote many smaller comments on the back of each piece. So much fun!

Another time we wrote to a Russian linguist friend of ours who thought himself quite clever. We composed a letter, then inserted homonyms for some of the words. We then translated it into Russian, using a textbook. Some weeks later we got a letter back. He had given our strange letter to his Russian students to try to decipher! They had illustrated it, too. All I remember is the first line: "Little are stone-eater" and a picture of two bananas in bed, one saying to the other: "What a terrible hole!"!

Those we re some good times.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

With me, it's tools and how they've changed in recent years.

Back in the day, I owned several pretty good hand drills-- that is, drills with a crank, some gears which you turned by hand to pierce wood, light metals.   My "grinder" was a selection of hand files, from course to fine.  And hand-driven sandpaper of course.  I had any number of screwdrivers, and the largest of the flat varieties (there were but two flavors, apart from sizes) also doubled as a prybar, a chisel, a pounding tool, and a general all-around tool's tool.   And pocket knives, of course-- most of which had several blades of various sizes.  I usually had one with the main blade broken off, which I used for knife-abusive work, such as metal scraping, prying and so on.

I remember my first electric drill quite well:  I was 6 or 8 or something.  I had saved and saved for more than a year part of my allowance (and part from saved unspent lunch money) and it was--to me-- a beaut.  All-metal, nice 8 foot rubber-covered cord (not plastic, like today, but real rubber for "safety").  3 prong, of course.  3/8" Jacobson chuck.  Single speed:  forwards only.  I used that sucker alot.  But it took years of abuse, and was still working when I retired it-- had to replace the cord, of course.  Well made, in spite of not being all that expensive-- things were made well in those days, even the moderate-priced things.   After that?  I went through drills like old newspapers, as I had not yet learned about quality versus quantity-- and I foolishly purchased the cheapest I could find-- wore it out in short order, and bought another.

It was years and years before I finally switched to quality tools-- well into my adult-hood.  I remember that, too:  It was Dremel tools.  I had had 8 or 10 of their cheapest available--and went through them quickly.  Then one day it hit me, when my latest el-cheapo died an untidy death, I ought to see about a quality tool, with ball-bearings throughout, and so on.   I did-- I bought the best they had to offer at the local hardware store.  Lasted years and years-- it eventually failed due to wear on the electronic speed controller, which I fixed several times before giving in and retiring it-- the bearings were still sound, as was the motor itself.  I could've wired in an external speed controller, but I elected to get a new, top-of-the-line instead.   I still have it.  It still works.

Back in the day, though a tool was either line-cord powered or hand powered.  Batteries were for toys and flashlights.  

Then came NiCd batteries-- I had any number of toys powered by these things-- my favorite had to be the short-lived Hot Wheels little battery cars-- a tiny NiCd battery and an even tinier motor in the back-- the wheels literally attached to either end of the motor's shaft.  Took about 5 minutes to charge, and then..... woooooosh!  Of it'd go for a couple of minutes of pure fun-- usually ending in a crash....   I even experimented with these cars, re-wiring one to have front-wheel drive.   (In a captive track system, it made little difference).   But, alas, NiCd batteries are not very good, if you consider long-term longevity.  Or even re-chargability.

And cadmium metal is highly toxic-- (the "Cd" part of NiCd... the Ni is nickel, a common enough metal). The making of NiCds is really hard on the people that make them, and disposal is bad for the environment too.   And they just die too soon.  And they really don't hold a charge at all, in storage.  And they must be treated delicately when charging-- must be fully discharged before recharging, or else they "reset" at the new charge level, and you get 1/2 or worse of the charge cycle.

But NiCds enabled the very first portable cell phones... anyone own one of the most popular phones ever, a Nokia 51XX series?   Those were powered by that battery-pack on the back-- the black "slice" shape, kind of an elongated shell made of black plastic.  Relatively heavy, too.   You had maybe 20 minutes of talk on a single charge-- and most folk simply left them on trickle-charge mode-- the best way to recharge a NiCd anyway.  



Yeah, I had two of those, one after the other, back in 1998 and beyond.   But of course, my plan only had 150 minutes or so... so it hardly mattered I could only talk 20 minutes before requiring a recharge.   My last Nokia was a little "candy bar" one, an 8xxx something-something.  I still have that around here somewhere--I'm bad about that--keeping old useless junk electronics.

But tools-- they tried to use NiCds in tools with limited success-- that is, until they figured out how to make the batteries click-on and off from the tool itself.  I had a 1st generation battery-drill-- paid a fair price for it too--- horrid tool.  The battery did not last long enough to be really useful, and it took an hour or so to recharge... 15 minutes of work every hour and a half is not the way to get things done.   Junked that one, I did.

Avoided battery tools for years and years, until just a couple of years ago.  Now they finally have LiIon tool batteries, and I'll not likely purchase a corded drill again-- they recharge faster than they discharge, and with 3 batteries, you have 2 on charge, and one in the tool, for more or less continuous operation.

I see the day when purely corded tools are relegated to the specialty sales bins only, or special-order.   There is a place for these, but not for most job application.

And the clever use of super-high speed motors, coupled with these deep-discharge, high-energy LiIon batteries?  I've replaced most of my old hand tools with the modern, powered equivalents.   Including filing, sanding, chiseling, hole-making, gouging, prying, etc... you name it?  There's a modern power-tool that can do it.   Even hammering-- but I quit using a hammer years and years ago-- except for demolition.  Once modern hardened screws had phillips or TORX heads on them?   I never went back to primitive nails.  For anything.

And you know what?  I don't miss'em.  Not even a little bit-- hand-crafted?  Fooie .... that just means nothing fits well, the joints are loose, and the finish is rough.   No thanks.  I'll take the precision of laser-guided power tools over "hand crafted" every time.

Of course-- this is not the same thing as "sweat-shop crafted" which is a whole 'nother level of crappy... but a truly professional wood-worker, using power tools, will do a better job than one who sticks to the "old ways".  And faster, too-- which translates to lower cost to ... someone.

I find I do not miss the olden days all that much....

[Roland Deschain]

I remember browsing the Betamax section in my local video rental store, and wondering why some of the films on Betamax weren't on VHS (we only ever had VHS at home).

I remember marvelling at "Speak and Spell", although the last time I saw one a few years ago, I only used it to say notty words.

I also remember thinking this one toy was the pinnacle of achievement when I was around 7. It was a futuristic-looking 4x4 Bigfoot type of vehicle that you could tell to move to a certain point. You pressed the arrow and number buttons on top that told it to "Move forward 3, move left 5, move forward 6, move right 8, etc", and it would move exactly as you had told it to. I never got one of those.

Then there was a game where you had to guide a large metal ball bearing (~12mm dia.) through a kind of maze consisting of magnets and steps and stuff like that, where you pressed buttons to make the ball jump or the magnet move. It was orange plastic, if I recall correctly, but the name escapes me now. I never got one of these either.

Where I lived from around 7 to 10 years of age, there was an unused allotment a literal 15 second walk from my front door, and a playing field the other side of it. I loved spending hours in the overgrown allotment, which must have been around an acre in size, finding fruit and veg that had been left by its long-gone previous users. At the time I was fascinated (read: obsessed) with butterflies, moths, wildflowers, fossil seashells, and pretty much anything in the natural world, so it provided me with so much to search for. Finding a colony of Small Tortoiseshell or Large Cabbage White caterpillars was a highlight, as was the time I collected a few Cllouded Yellow caterpillars, or the time a Small Copper butterfly landed on me. Six Spot Burnet moths were also special to me, as not only did they eat Ragweed, they were diurnal, which is unusual for a moth.

Then at 10 I moved from that semi-urban setting to a much more rural one, where I had free reign over miles of countryside. I miss the very long walks I used to take then, and the camps I built with my friends. I used to be able to name all of the local wildflowers by sight back then, but i've long forgotten so many of their names. I even shocked my old Junior School headmistress with what I knew, as at the rural village school I attended from 10-11, they didn't teach anything about that. I have my Junior School teacher from 7-9 to thank for my love of nature (and the headmaster of that school). Yeah, I was a proper little Gerald Durrell in my youth.

I live in the Lea Valley now, and when the weather is warmer, I still enjoy leisurely walks along the river banks and around the lakes, trying to spot water birds (Grebes, Ducks, Geese, Swans, etc). I love the digital age, and wouldn't change it, but I always find myself so happy when in the natural world.

[Griffin NoName]

It was orange plastic, if I recall correctly,

Ah! That modern invention that is using up all the oil. In my day it was bakelite or polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride as it was known - a sort of hard baked plastic that seemed to only come in dark brown and cracked easily.

[Sibling DavidH]

Ah, these young folks today, they wouldn't know a good bit of polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride if you shoved it under their noses.
Not like when we were young, eh, Griffin?