Is technology keeping up with us, which is how it should be, or are we caught up in a frantic race to keep up with technology? You just have to look at the Beer Taps compared to 20 years ago.
How many young people today have ever used a card catalogue to find a book, been amused by a Zoetrope, listened to a Crystal Set, played a Gramophone, used a Typewriter or even rode on a Running Board? How often do you catch your child reading a book, or are their thumbs over-employed playing with themselves? Have they ever seen, let alone handle a Mechanical Pencil, Polaroid Camera, printed with a Gestetner or marvelled at the glowing valves in the back of the TV.
It is easy for us to see the past, it's all around us. But looking into the future isn't even within the purview of Prophets, Mystics or Fortune-tellers. (Unless of course you believe in the science-fiction of spaceships one day coming to take us all back to Theta or wherever the hell Scientologists say we humans came from).
I consulted the town Soothsayer but all they could tell me was that there would most likely be an another over-abundance of plums at Christmas. Even he now employs the use of a computerised crystal ball.
Technology has even made some people totally oblivious to the concept of civility and courteousness. Sit in a darkened theatre or a play and it will be inevitable that little fireflies begin to glow around the auditorium. That annoying little blue glow born not out of boredom but the constant need for people to keep checking if they exist.
Nobody likes me. I haven't had an SMS for five minutes. I have to see if I have email. Maybe I'll surf around for a coffee shop for the interval.
Why is it so? Why continually break our concentration or even a conversation to check if we are still 'on line' to the outside world.
I went browsing the other day for new inventions. Maybe, just maybe sometime in the future we will not be able to do without a Video Spy Pen (For perverts), Portable Luggage Scales (To argue over at the check-in), Stereo Pest Repellent for Insects that hate Country Music), Electronic Bongo Drum T-Shirt (for Keeping Hippies amused on long trips) or the Bomb Alarm Clock that explodes every morning to wake you up. A warning comes with this last one that it should not be used by War Veterans or alternatively for Terrorists who really want to die.
Annoying contraptions aside are we preparing our kids for jobs that don't yet exist to use technologies that have yet to be invented. We had better be. Our education system is still stuck back in the 'learn by rote system' instead of the get out there and experiment model.
They still sit through endless hours of what to them is a load of bollocks until later when they grow up and find they need those bollocks. Why are they not out there turning over rocks for Biology, or getting skid marks on their pants from Physics?
Is our education system able to cope with the demands that are to come? Do Teachers even think about things to come, or are they just focused on getting children through the system without too much stress on themselves and not doing too much overtime?
I’m looking forward to advances in Fountain Pens, Paper Clips, my Sextant and Vinyl Records to upgrade my office environment, and a longer phone cord. (Mine unplugs itself just after the front gate.)
By 2050 will we have high pressure Bidets, Robotic Drivers in our cars controlled by GPS and a Hotelier that tells better jokes?
'The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at time' – Abraham Lincoln
My farewell this month is in Afrikaans
Nou neuk af ….....
How many young people today have ever used a card catalogue to find a book, been amused by a Zoetrope, listened to a Crystal Set, played a Gramophone, used a Typewriter or even rode on a Running Board? How often do you catch your child reading a book, or are their thumbs over-employed playing with themselves? Have they ever seen, let alone handle a Mechanical Pencil, Polaroid Camera, printed with a Gestetner or marvelled at the glowing valves in the back of the TV.
It is easy for us to see the past, it's all around us. But looking into the future isn't even within the purview of Prophets, Mystics or Fortune-tellers. (Unless of course you believe in the science-fiction of spaceships one day coming to take us all back to Theta or wherever the hell Scientologists say we humans came from).
I consulted the town Soothsayer but all they could tell me was that there would most likely be an another over-abundance of plums at Christmas. Even he now employs the use of a computerised crystal ball.
Technology has even made some people totally oblivious to the concept of civility and courteousness. Sit in a darkened theatre or a play and it will be inevitable that little fireflies begin to glow around the auditorium. That annoying little blue glow born not out of boredom but the constant need for people to keep checking if they exist.
Nobody likes me. I haven't had an SMS for five minutes. I have to see if I have email. Maybe I'll surf around for a coffee shop for the interval.
Why is it so? Why continually break our concentration or even a conversation to check if we are still 'on line' to the outside world.
I went browsing the other day for new inventions. Maybe, just maybe sometime in the future we will not be able to do without a Video Spy Pen (For perverts), Portable Luggage Scales (To argue over at the check-in), Stereo Pest Repellent for Insects that hate Country Music), Electronic Bongo Drum T-Shirt (for Keeping Hippies amused on long trips) or the Bomb Alarm Clock that explodes every morning to wake you up. A warning comes with this last one that it should not be used by War Veterans or alternatively for Terrorists who really want to die.
Annoying contraptions aside are we preparing our kids for jobs that don't yet exist to use technologies that have yet to be invented. We had better be. Our education system is still stuck back in the 'learn by rote system' instead of the get out there and experiment model.
They still sit through endless hours of what to them is a load of bollocks until later when they grow up and find they need those bollocks. Why are they not out there turning over rocks for Biology, or getting skid marks on their pants from Physics?
Is our education system able to cope with the demands that are to come? Do Teachers even think about things to come, or are they just focused on getting children through the system without too much stress on themselves and not doing too much overtime?
I’m looking forward to advances in Fountain Pens, Paper Clips, my Sextant and Vinyl Records to upgrade my office environment, and a longer phone cord. (Mine unplugs itself just after the front gate.)
By 2050 will we have high pressure Bidets, Robotic Drivers in our cars controlled by GPS and a Hotelier that tells better jokes?
'The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at time' – Abraham Lincoln
My farewell this month is in Afrikaans
Nou neuk af ….....
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