"The Times They Are A-Changing"

  The other night I watched one of those superman movies from the 1950's where Clark Kent runs into a telephone box and comes out in his superman costume.  My dad watched those old movies so I'd see them growing up. As a kid,  I always wondered how he could change in something so small.  Unfortunately, public pay phones are disappearing quite rapidly due to the growth of cell phones.  So if Superman lived in today's world, where would he change?

The invention of the cell phones have changed communications.  Back when the papers were signed ending the War of 1812, it took several weeks for the news to reach America which may be why the Battle of New Orleans happened.  They hadn't gotten the word yet.  Over time, methods of communication improved to the point where news flashes quickly around the world.

Once mail systems began, people could pay to send letters to people across the nation but then telegraph wires were strung across the nations, followed by teletype, and eventually the internet that allows you to send written communications instantly around the world.

I remember hearing the story of a relative getting up around 3 AM to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Munich.  I believe this was the first time they'd done this and the world saw the massacre happen live.  Up to this point, they'd record it, send it home via air to be broadcast and if you lived somewhere outside of the continental US such as in Hawaii, you might have to wait for a week for things to arrive.  Now, they stream everything via the internet or on demand TV.

Now we can watch movies, television shows, and get music so we do it via streaming or we purchase it in digital format.  Yes, its still easy to get DVD's but sometimes you can watch the episodes on any of several sites before they are released in a physical format.  Some services used to mail out the physical DVD for you to watch and then you'd mail it back, anxiously awaiting the next DVD's.  Today, this same service offers all the shows and movies in streaming format.  In addition, several services make their own original series.

In a sense, streaming means you no longer need to order cable or satellite for shows because you can pay for these for immediate delivery without any commercials and without waiting for the proper time and channel.

Even printed material is slowly going the same way.  You no longer need to subscribe to newspapers or magazine when one can read a current issue on the website or obtain a digital copy.  This means a person  can buy several years of digital copies without taking up any additional space. In fact, some magazine offer their back issues in digital form so you can get complete sets without resorting to visiting a library or loosing space in your house.

The same could be said of books.  Many books are being published in both hard and digital copies while others are only appearing in digital form. I admit, I buy most of my books now in digital form because I have very little space left for books in my house and this way I increase my collection with less investment and without taking up any physical space other than that for my digital device.

Over the years, we have moved from a physical world to a very digital information world, available to all who have a mobile device and access to free wifi.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.

The Times They Are A Changing.

  Since its the last week of school, I've been showing that great movie Hidden Figures.  I love it because its about three women who were involved in the NASA space program at a time when women, especially African American women, were treated as second and third class citizens.

It is fascinating watching  one of the women train herself to program in Fortran before the computer is up and running.  The mainframe they used is so much slower than today's processors on a cell phone and it used punch cards.  According to someone I know who started working with computers in 1969, the instructions are punched so each card has one line of code.  A whole program could take a couple of boxes.  If you dropped the box, you'd have to check all the code and hope to get them in the same order.

Now we can just type the code in on a screen and voila we are off.  I play with code on my iPad on a regular basis and its so much better because many of the compilers and interpreters automatically give you hints on where the mistake is.  You don't have to spend as many hours debugging as they did them.

Even our calculators have changed.  They used those big mechanical adding machines back then.  I'd never seen one but the person who told me about punch cards said his father (an engineer) had one in his home office.  Now a cheap hand held calculator can do as much or more than those machines.

There was one scene where the lady went to find a book with a certain formula on it?  Today, we'd just power up our cell phones, connect to the internet and find the same equation rather than thumbing through a ton of books.

Our one small cell phone can do so much more than the original mechanical computers, adding machines, and libraries.  All of this and more in a small container.  Yes, things have changed and continue to change so fast.  Faster than most of us can keep up. 

Let me know what you think.  If I think about it too hard, I get awed, so I just accept.