Ok, this dilemma is for the Infant Boomers out there – and be truthful !
Who appreciates much more about pc components, program, gaming, running a blog, chat rooms, ‘My Space’, ‘Your Space’, ‘Our Space’, ‘Their Space’, – ‘Your Dog’s Space’, Your cats, hamsters and gold fishes space… Aruggggh !!
Very well you get the drift.
But truthfully – is it you or your kids?
Do not believe so? Well allow me see a exhibit of hands. Can you down load those ‘golden oldies’ rock’ and disco tunes from your computer system to your IPod or do you have to get one particular of your kids to aid you?
I do!
Yeah, and unless you signed up for the ‘Future Laptop or computer Geeks and Star Trek Aficionados of America’, 30 or forty a long time ago it is no contest is it?
For instance, when you get the new cell phone with about a zillion capabilities that you under no circumstances understood existed permit alone even suspected you needed, are you minimized to whining for support to one of your scornful children who glance at you like you happen to be the drooling, village idiot of cyberspace. And then as while to validate your lowly position as a Luddite of the info age, they nonchalantly scroll by and program all of the capabilities that you know you’ll hardly ever keep in mind how to use let by yourself ever be in a position to obtain all over again.
But wait – hold out were not we the era who gave the globe the to start with ‘home’ laptop or computer, the Apple, the Mac, the Laptop ????!
Why we ‘Boomers’ nearly invented the freaking online, thank you incredibly significantly !
And even though I am going to admit that we may well have experienced some assistance from those people significant mainframe desktops that the army has received stashed under every single hollow mountain in the Rockies, it was the Boomer generation that came up with all of the hardware like printers and modems and disk drives/storage units and the software to make them all function. Yeah Boomers, when it arrived to engineering we rocked!
Did not we? Utilized to rock? I suggest – ah, earlier tense. Yeah… Hummm.
So what happened? Specifically when did we become the ‘Grandpa Fudd’ and ‘Grandma Moses’ of on-line cyber everyday living?
“We are not!” I listen to somebody screaming. “Why I use the computer to pay all my charges and even do that on-line vacation factor!” (even if it is with about as substantially finesse as the ‘roaming gnome’).
Alright… but how several ‘chat rooms’ do you belong to? How quite a few ‘buddy’ groups are you a part of? How lots of blogs do you do a week… a working day … an hour ?!
Ah-ha, I assumed so.
You see while we Boomers were experimenting with obtaining far more of those people neat very little binary 1’s and zero’s on to smaller sized and scaled-down chips of silicone and transforming vacant heaps outside of San Jose into the multi-billion greenback semiconductor sector of Silicon Valley, we never actually gave all that a great deal assumed as to what individuals ended up basically likely to do with the minimal gizmo’s.
I don’t forget attending a electronics trade exhibit again in the early 80’s the place I saw a nifty minor keyboard that was currently being touted as a laptop or computer gadget that was really aimed at the… gasp – customer. The techie demonstrating it reported they were likely to get in touch with it a “House Laptop or computer”. He confirmed me that by punching a very long string of keys, you could actually make the strains on the display adjust distinctive shades! Why how interesting is that? I went proper out and acquired just one.
“It truly is for the kids honey,” I advised my spouse when she asked in bewilderment, what the heck have been we likely to do with a … keyboard in our dwelling?
“Why you just hook it up to the Television in the kitchen area and someday, you will be capable to shop all of your recipes sweetheart.”
“Yeah, when pigs fly,” I read her mutter as she walked away. “But I truly bought it for the young children,” I yelled following her.
I then spent the upcoming a few weekends hoping to teach a four and a 6- 12 months-aged how to enter long streams of code into the essential board so that the display would alter shade. It was not a happy expertise. The only point that stored me from donning the official family dunce cap of ‘classic bone head blunders’, was the introduction of Pong. Indeed! I was saved.
Now the youngsters could commit mindless several hours in entrance of the Television, electronically swatting a cyber ball back and forth.
“It will support acquire their laptop skills,” a single of my engineer friends loftily informed me. (I believe I answered again anything associated with pigs traveling.)
But you know what? He was proper. Not only did the ensuing generations of video online games, net chat rooms and ‘Their space’ convert the lovable little ‘rug rats’ into laptop or computer gurus and programming genius’s, but it change the entire world in which we are living, get the job done and play unalterably and endlessly.
So the bottom line is, never truly feel as well bad the following time that you have to dangle your old gray head and beg a single of your kids or some young pc guru to support you switch off that blasted ring tone on your mobile cellphone that plays ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm” each individual time the darned factor rings. After all, we were being the ones that started out the data age stumbling in direction of the foreseeable future.
And who is familiar with, probably sometime with a ton of aid and a minor luck, we may perhaps even be in a position to use all the stuff we invented.
As my spouse says… “When pigs fly.”
