Young And Old - Or Life Before Phones
Added 2024-06-11 11:56:14 +0000 UTCGenerations should spend time together and talk about stuff. It's a good thing!
Comments
I think a lot of us are without hope. We see institutions around us falling to pieces, neighbors hate each other, the climate is getting worse and will continue to do so; there's a real sense that we've been dealt a bad hand on a global scale. And I say that recognizing that we're not the first generation to be able to make that claim. But I think many of us feel powerless to help or change anything, and that manifests itself in different ways.
Seth D. Meyers
2024-06-13 20:22:56 +0000 UTCFran, I'd love to converse with you, and I'm in my twenties. I promise we're not all antisocial!
Seth D. Meyers
2024-06-13 20:19:48 +0000 UTCI'm a 71 year old retired professor born in 1952 and you sound just like people who were (now dead) my grandparents' and great grandparents' ages. DESPITE the elitist bad attitude these older folks had, great things were still discovered and invented by their generations and by mine -- AS WELL AS BY GENERATIONS YOUNGER THAN ME AND EVEN YOU. Yes, I hate many of the richest and smartest of younger people, but I also have hated many of the richest and smartest of older people - including people I admire anyhow. Your own generation isn't the smartest, and neither is mine, my parents, my grandparents, or that of my children, grandchildren, or great grandchildren.
Robert S. Owen
2024-06-12 14:57:42 +0000 UTCFran, like you, I always hung out with my adult neighbors which included a chemist and a retired Bell Labs engineer. Kids my age, up through my late teens, were all about awkwardness and drama and I didn’t want any part of it. Adults always had practical answers for all my questions minus the drama. I figured I’d get “social” and married in my 20s, which turned out to be right. When my ex left, there was no one left to say “no” to the amount of crap I would bring home. The 747 cockpit would have been a definite “NO” if I was still married. And it’s sad, but when kids going by my house on the sidewalk see that 747 cockpit in the garage and ask for a tour, I have to tell them to bring their parent(s) with them and I would. Thanks to the media and internet, every single guy who keeps to himself, at the end of the street, MUST be a threat! The “unknown guy” MUST be some sort of threat. It wasn’t like that when I was a kid and I was even forced to go to Catholic church as a kid and was never molested. So, there may be some kids who want to actually “create” and “learn” something from an adult peer, but every Dateline NBC or episodes of 48 Hours have programmed the parents to be paranoid and their kids as well. Sad, but that’s where we are. If the “phone generation” say there were no “hackers” before the computer, they would be wrong. No matter what era of technology we were in, there were technology “hackers” of some sort. It’s just that there were far fewer of them and communication was agonizingly slow via mailed newsletters. I remember very well the “TAP” newsletter that hackers of the Bell System used to communicate between each other. Back then, the phone company was a monopoly with an incredibly secretive system. “Hacking” the big bad phone company was as satisfying as breaking into some internet site today. Looking up patents on Bell System technology wound up providing a lot of tech data not normally available. So spoofing the Bell System infrastructure into doing something it wasn’t supposed to do was the goal. Not something to hack and damaged the phone system, it wasn’t usually about that. Just getting into the massive and secret “Ma Bell” operations was the thrill. It only got legally serious when people hacked enough of it to get free long distance phone calls, or redirecting the system to cause a failure, did they investigate and prosecute the “TAP” hackers community. It didn’t help the Bell System that they would throw out reams of green bar printouts at the various local or regional central exchanges. Dumpster diving would reveal a lot of “proprietary” deep operational data. Taking the phones, or PBX systems in abandoned buildings apart, also revealed data. So, hackers have existed for just about any technical system have always been there. Even if it was setting up a pirate radio station. RF hacking all over the broadcast, and then satellite systems, was another example of people trying to decode how the technology worked. So it’s the same today as back then, but we just accepted the limitations of the mail and slow pace. We did not miss what didn’t exist. No one could have envisioned the Internet in the 70s. There were a ton of analog systems to hack using standard test equipment. Once it got digital, it just got more prevalent and complex. It was amazing what data patents can reveal. And they were cheap to acquire legally. Explaining this to someone who always had access to Internet data would take quite a while. And, like you said, they don’t have the patience to listen. Being a secret investigator trying to hack things like the phone company meant a lot more because of the individual vast imagination linked with direct experimentation, and was extremely satisfying in our day. Oh, anyone claiming they hacked into a commercial aircraft’s flight control or communications systems via the in-flight entertainment system is not telling the truth. One-way data busses are used to send data FROM the actual navigation system to make moving maps in the cabin possible. There is no electrical, or wireless, access BACK to commercial aircraft critical avionics systems. Even if they had access to an Ethernet hub port in the avionics bay, it would still be useless to a passenger. There is a system called AFDX which is an Ethernet network that is NOT compatible with commercial Ethernet equipment. An AFDX interface ,and supporting software, would costs thousands of dollars and even then you’d have to have the Interface Control Document to decode and create packets of data. AFDX was intentionally made incompatible with commercial/personal Ethernet systems people know. Avionics systems have to provide proof during the certification process that it is impervious to passenger electronics. The news likes to make a fuss about the ancient computers used in the ICBM where 8” floppies are still used. This is intentional. The launch control computers are designed to do ONE THING at a time and that ONE THING is to execute the program used for prepping, authorizing and launching the missiles. This technology is intentionally simple as the systems are not able to be connected to the Internet, nor operate in Microsoft Windows where crashes and massive numbers of apps are running at once. I have a 1983 personal computer and it could only do one task at a time and it still works, including the 5” floppies. New technology is fragile and easy to corrupt. You don’t need to have terabytes of data to launch a nuclear missile. You need radiation hardened, PROVEN, old tech that can be relied upon for such a task. I recently took apart a 1980s panel used for airborne arming and releasing nuclear weapons and discovered one of the modules inside had a mil-spec version of the tried and true Z-80 8 bit processor. The same processor used in my early 80s personal computers. That processor could only do one thing at a time and it did it well. I was amazed to see it as part of the system. But it was proven and so well known that it could be a reliable part of a nuclear weapon system. So, old tech is good tech for weapons of mass destruction and not even “Skynet” can break into those old systems. They are not even wired to any public infrastructure. They are wired directly to the launch control centers and are very expensive and complicated buried cables. All this data is available over the Internet and it makes sense when you consider the seriousness of what it controls.
Matt Wietlispach
2024-06-12 06:01:14 +0000 UTCThe art of conversation has definitely suffered as a result of smartphones... compounded by the pandemic. Socialising takes practice and unfortunately seems to be falling by the wayside as something that is seen as more of a hindrance than an essential part of human connection. I'm 30, and as a very shy, introverted person, it was quite difficult to develop those skills when everyone was at home on the internet during my teen years. Although I was never interested in making friends with kids my own age anyway. Having the opportunity to talk to older people is the best thing, and an excellent way to fast-track gaining an understanding of what matters in life and what not to repeat.
Motten
2024-06-12 00:38:51 +0000 UTCI'm from the late 1900's. I grew up with no siblings on a farm in TN. A quarter mile long driveway. No running water till I was 9. No neighbors and sulphur well water... "city water" didnt get to the house until the late 90's. Older folks were all I had to talk too. Offered an interesting perspective at an early age. Never quite fit well with my age cohort. Everyone simply thought I was weird because at age 5, Id ask folks what they did for a living. 😂 Where im from, this is still ordinary life in 2024.
Cal
2024-06-11 23:28:09 +0000 UTCOn a side issue, I've never had a sense of direction and I don't have mental imagery. As far as I can recall, in the 50s, I didn't go out much because I didn't want to get lost. I certainly agree about young people, I can't recall ever having a conversation with such.
Bob Pockney
2024-06-11 17:17:22 +0000 UTCSo here's a conversation, from one "not old yet person" to another. Is the delicious analogue sound on that device at least in part down to what you're playing it through? Sounds gorgeous! Bit like the soundtrack on one of the films in your collection, I love that long ago, far away low tech audio feel.
Zygmunt Dean
2024-06-11 16:50:10 +0000 UTCI really subscribe to this as well, but the prevailing attitude of a lot of youth today is somewhat disheartening, I find. Sorry to say.
Ivan Dee
2024-06-11 14:13:31 +0000 UTC
