Is It Bigger Than A Bread Box?
Does anyone use a bread box any more? What exactly is a bread box? Our old house had this roll top wooden cabinet that sat on the counter that we kept our bread in. I picture (in black and white of course) a child reaching in to some wooden cabinet on a counter top to pull out a loaf of Wonderbread, all white and doughy to make a PB&J. The bread box has fallen out of style as of late probably due to the life style changes over the last 40 years. When a house wife was a profession and not a bad word, men went out and worked and women stayed home and took care of the house, kids, cooked and did social minded things around town. That is a drastic oversimplification but it is the impression we were given about that generation. Women were expected to accept this role as the way things were. Talk about underutilizing a resource. It led to a very sexist society and we have fortunately gotten past the idea that a women’s place is in the home.
There are many things that have changed in our society since the bread box was in high style. When was the last time you heard a typewriter clacking away. That staccato hammering at 90 words per minute, having to hit return, and replacing ribbons are a thing of the past. Now we have keyboards and word processing software to handle the same chore and e-mail to send it instead of printing. If the amount of progress in the last 40 years is any indication, we will be discontinuing the keyboard in the next 10 years and hopefully going to spoken transcript processing. Just imagine thinking what you want and it happens. That is not too far fetched.
About 15 years ago, there was this big push a computer generated world. Movies like The Lawnmower Man and even The Matrix provide a glimpse into taking trips inside your mind using computers to generate whatever you like. The technology for that has not been fast to catch up with the expectations of the users. It is difficult for me to imagine wanting to be wired up for participation in computer generated events. What I can see of my children’s generation is that they have much less resistance to being electronically connected as much as possible. The idea that I have no privacy terrifies me. I however, am a fossil and realize that I am slow to accept the opportunities the new technology offers me. So as we progress down the road to faster, smaller, easier, and cheaper, yes it will be smaller than a bread box and will come in more than just white.
Icool
Cobb
There are many things that have changed in our society since the bread box was in high style. When was the last time you heard a typewriter clacking away. That staccato hammering at 90 words per minute, having to hit return, and replacing ribbons are a thing of the past. Now we have keyboards and word processing software to handle the same chore and e-mail to send it instead of printing. If the amount of progress in the last 40 years is any indication, we will be discontinuing the keyboard in the next 10 years and hopefully going to spoken transcript processing. Just imagine thinking what you want and it happens. That is not too far fetched.
About 15 years ago, there was this big push a computer generated world. Movies like The Lawnmower Man and even The Matrix provide a glimpse into taking trips inside your mind using computers to generate whatever you like. The technology for that has not been fast to catch up with the expectations of the users. It is difficult for me to imagine wanting to be wired up for participation in computer generated events. What I can see of my children’s generation is that they have much less resistance to being electronically connected as much as possible. The idea that I have no privacy terrifies me. I however, am a fossil and realize that I am slow to accept the opportunities the new technology offers me. So as we progress down the road to faster, smaller, easier, and cheaper, yes it will be smaller than a bread box and will come in more than just white.
Icool
Cobb
posted by Cobb at
6:28 AM
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