June 5, 2010 at 11:29 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item What Will We Take For Granted Tomorrow?
Tim Mitchell
TimMitchell.net | @tmitch.net | Tyleris.com
ETL Best Practices
June 7, 2010 at 2:29 am
Sadly, tuberculosis isn't a thing of the past like smallpox. It infects a third of the world's population and kills over a million people a year.
--
Scott
June 7, 2010 at 7:03 am
Take it all for granted? Consider...
We have been fighting in Iraq for 8 years, with 6,000 Americans now dead.
In ONE year, 6,000 Americans died on our roadways directly attributable to people texting AND talking on Cell phones while driving. The source for that - the NTSB, look it up if you don't believe it.
We have invented technology that gets used for useless purposes and it kills more Americans than die in a war. And what do we do about it? Squat...
We have technological wonders like Television that could educate our populous - what do we do with it? American Idol, Lost, reality shows - we dumb down our populous and continue to raise generations or witless couch potatoes.
Take technology for granted? No - we are doing much worse than just that... We are building the perfect Idiocracy.
June 7, 2010 at 8:32 am
blandry (6/7/2010)
Take it all for granted? Consider...We have been fighting in Iraq for 8 years, with 6,000 Americans now dead.
In ONE year, 6,000 Americans died on our roadways directly attributable to people texting AND talking on Cell phones while driving. The source for that - the NTSB, look it up if you don't believe it.
We have invented technology that gets used for useless purposes and it kills more Americans than die in a war. And what do we do about it? Squat...
We have technological wonders like Television that could educate our populous - what do we do with it? American Idol, Lost, reality shows - we dumb down our populous and continue to raise generations or witless couch potatoes.
Take technology for granted? No - we are doing much worse than just that... We are building the perfect Idiocracy.
I must say I agree. in the South Florida I-95 corridor it was rated today as the #1 most dangerous road in the country. The major reason cited was distracted drivers using cell phones when they should be concentrating on driving. I-95's rate was 1.73 fatal accidents per mile in Florida for the five-year period from 2004 through 2008. Technology, unfortunately isn't always a leap ahead for alot of people.:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
June 7, 2010 at 10:08 am
Good points blandry.
I'm also worried about people playing computer games nonstop. I play them myself at times, but since I play a strategy game, I try to tell myself that it's not as bad since it involves some level of thinking.
As for taking things for granted, I believe that's just human nature. Kids easily tire of their toys, we get bored easily doing the same thing. We're always ready to move on the the next thing.
But the best part about this is constant change leads to improvement. Or, change ideally leads to improvement at any rate.
On the other hand again, habit, which -is- doing the same actions over and over has been the source of excellence. From Aristotle to William James, good habits have been recognized as a key to success. But habits are more abstract than repetition. For example, learning something new every day is a habit, but it always involves learning something new.
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking
June 7, 2010 at 10:51 am
With so much negative news these days, it helps to look at things more positively. Whether you like country music or not, check out Brad Paisley's music video, Welcome to the Future, for an optimistic point of view.
June 7, 2010 at 11:52 am
I read a joke once that said that computer professionals were the only ones that got excited when things actually worked. The implication being that they understood all the hard work that goes into making something work simply and reliably.
Although I must admit to taking many advances for granted on a daily basis, I am also quite frequently in awe of the many amazing things I work with, and the technological advances humanity has made in my lifetime.
In my lifetime I have seen men go to the moon and back, the creation of personal computers, the creation of a global communications network that is remaking the world. I will see in my lifetime a desktop computer that has processing power equivalent to the human brain, and probably a desktop (or whatever form computers take then) computer with the processing power equivalent to the human race.
Like many, I fear the rise of the idiocracy. I have read several fictional works on the subject. Howevwer, mostly I look forward with the enthusiasm and wonder of a small child.
June 7, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Thought-provoking. Very nice... as are the replies.
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
June 7, 2010 at 12:43 pm
In my lifetime I have seen men go to the moon and back
Or maybe you just thought you saw it. But that is another story.:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
June 7, 2010 at 3:15 pm
The problem is simple! Society as it stands today no longer understands or appreaciates the effort that goes into technology. Most ppl using technology will never understand how or why it works. They understand one and only one thing and that is the convience it brings to their life. Take for example the mother who sued comedy central becuase her five year old learned bad behavior from comedy central. Take the fact thay more realtionships now begin and end in cyber space than face to face. We are becoming a society so disconnected with each other and fact that we find our selves with a president that had virtualy no expierence. Media invented an image and it stuck. Before anyone jumps on me I am from IL. Our Gov. who is famous for being corrupt was hand in hand with Obama in IL. This fact was just not known out side of IL. Further more you can not give a single example or reason how a person with so little expierence would get elected without the use of current technology. Let me add that you can make the same case for popular movements like the tea party movement. Limbaugh and others certainly take advantage of the fact that people today simply will accept what they say as fact.
Dan
If only I could snap my figures and have all the correct indexes apear and the buffer clean and.... Start day dream here.
June 7, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Scott-144766 (6/7/2010)
Sadly, tuberculosis isn't a thing of the past like smallpox. It infects a third of the world's population and kills over a million people a year.
Well said.
James Stover, McDBA
June 7, 2010 at 7:36 pm
read a joke once that said that computer professionals were the only ones that got excited when things actually worked
[p]that wasn't a joke, we were being serious, but as usual...[/p]
[p]and as far as the evil of tv and games go, I'm not sure that research is keeping up with led displays and high refresh rates, nor even with 1080p and the peculiar jitter from various pulldown patterns, and even the audio pitch shift associated with some of these arcane remapping techniques.[/p]
[p]I'm inclined to believe that some of the learning issues associated with delta rhythym push from conventional CRT TV's may become less of an issue as a change in epilepsy related problems, particularly the 3SD of status epilepticus without long term damage diagnoses become more common.[/p]
[p]Did think, on first blush, that this topic could become positively litigous, but it's looking interesting instead, and maybe Steve Earle doesn't really mind his bluegrass take on the world being rendered a little more mainstream country by Brad Paisley :cool:[/p][p]...and of course
ppl [sic] using technology will never understand how or why it works
[/p][p]isn't this the way it always has been, since witches used willow to cure headaches or blue cohosh to to cure pregnancy?[/p]
Peter Edmunds ex-Geek
June 8, 2010 at 6:49 am
Dan.Humphries (6/7/2010)
The problem is simple! Society as it stands today no longer understands or appreaciates the effort that goes into technology. Most ppl using technology will never understand how or why it works. They understand one and only one thing and that is the convience it brings to their life.
Yes, but this is not new, by any means. Do you think most women, for example, care about the technology that was put into their automobile? or how it works? Most of them I know just care whether it gets them from Point A to Point B. They could care less about the technology behind it. Technology is a fact of life nowadays, and people will always take advantage of the convenience of what it offers, but I doubt seriously whether most people today really care or spend a lot of time wondering how/why it works. It just does, and that's all that really matters to most people. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
June 8, 2010 at 7:01 am
Said of the fact that the Incas progressed to become an advanced civilisation without inventing (or discovering) the wheel and wondering how many apparently obvious innovations are still waiting for us...
"What wings do we have with which we have yet to fly"
Matthew Parris, from his book "Inca Kola"
June 8, 2010 at 7:30 am
Scott-144766 (6/7/2010)
Sadly, tuberculosis isn't a thing of the past like smallpox. It infects a third of the world's population and kills over a million people a year.
In some parts of the world it's even becoming a greater problem than historically, because of strains of drug-resistant forms that are starting to appear.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
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