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Tag Archives: Future

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 191: Postal Pet Peeves, Part One

23 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by duckykoren in Computers, NASA, Science, Stationary

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Apollo, CERN, Future, Greeting Cards, Hadron Collider, Humour, Mail, Nasa, Pet Peeves, Post Office, Stationary

image

Would you like to know how to strike fear in the heart of a postal worker?

Show them a musical greeting card.

You know, the ones that play a hardly recognizable tune the instant that you open it.

Sure, it’s cute for about five seconds…

… Fifteen seconds if you’re easily amused.

However, I’m sure very few people having received a musical greeting card actually listen to their musical interlude for even a whole minute.

Unless, you’re a postal worker.

My co-workers and I have come across them as they play nonstop while still in their pristine and unopened envelopes.

Imagine listening to them while you are trapped in your work area as they continue to play for hours at a time because there is no way to…

…TURN THEM OFF.

At work today, while listening to another instalment of the science podcast series, ‘The Infinite Monkey Cage,’ I learned something about these novelty greeting cards that took me quite by surprise.

A panelist on the show made the following comment:

“The computing power (in one of those musical greeting cards) is MORE than the TOTALITY of ALL the computing power IN THE WORLD fifty years ago.”

Just think about that.

All that computing power, more than NASA had for any of the Apollo space missions, put into a tiny piece of plastic for a greeting card that will be played once, maybe twice, only to be thrown away after a day or so.

Can you imagine?

It’s interesting to think what past, present and a future discoveries hold in store for our next generation.

Maybe, fifty years from now, the food industry will be inserting miniaturized hadron colliders into disposable cardboard cups to keep our coffee from getting cold.

Something to think about.

🙂

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 111: Revisiting The Jetsons

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by duckykoren in Science Fiction

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Cars, Expo, Expo 67, Future, Jetsons, Montreal, Silver Lamé

Remember how when we were kids, we were told the marvels of the future?

Well, there are those who would say that their dreams of the idealized 1960’s visions of the future have been utterly dashed.

Take my friend Mitch for example who visited Canada’s World Exposition, otherwise known as ‘Expo’ held in Montreal Canada during Canada’s centennial celebrations in 1967.

With the eyed wonder of a nine year old, this grown man told me all about Expo’s vision for the future and its impact on agriculture, society and yes, even space travel.

Indeed, it was wondrous for him to behold as a young child. However, in the end reality did not quite pan out as the wise ones expected.

Mitch’s biggest heartbreak is that we are still far away from any Jetson lifestyle that included flying cars, houses that cleaned themselves, robot maids, and silver lamé business suits.

My heart goes out to Mitch, and those who share his disappointment.

I have been more fortunate.

My dreams of the future have been realized.

Unlike Mitch, I did not aspire to silver lamé or flying cars.

What I had my eye on was far better.

It was 1975 when I went to see the movie ROLLERBALL on the big screen.

It starred James Caan and was about a future world in which disagreements between governments were settled in an arena in a deadly game of rollerball.

In the opening scenes of the movie, you see a tall elegant woman walking in her living room.

She approaches a wall unit filled with square boxes, much like a bookcase.

She removes one black square from a shelf then inserts it into a mechanical machine.

Then, she proceeds to sit down.

After a few moments a movie begins to play on the large screen in front of her.

“Whoa,” I thought to myself.

What a concept!

A movie library in your own home, to watch any movie whenever you wanted.

Less than ten years later, VHS tapes were available and in high demand.

Fast forward to the present and it is now possible to download movies and store them without the need for little plastic boxes.

And so my futuristic dreams have become reality and I am content.

However…

A jet pack would be nice.

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