Skip to main content

Responding to Mencia About "Outdated" Technology

I wasn't planning to write this, but a quick segment on Mind of Mencia made me want to say something about his piece on tonight's show. It was a rerun, of course, but I don't get to watch the show regularly, although I am a fan.

Carlos Mencia blasted some technologies he deemed as outdated and berated anyone who still uses them. I normally enjoy anything he does, having been a fan since before his currently popular show. However, I just had to say something how much I disagree with him on all but one of these technologies.

  • Corded Phones
    Yeah, I can't go without a cordless phone in a large-ish two story home, but sometimes you can't beat a five dollar phone that you can't loose between the couch cushions.
  • Nintendo 64
    Retro gaming. I don't have to say more.

  • Fax Machine
    I hate fax machines, but the gas company won't let me e-mail them forms because, like it or not, its still easier than e-mail to get from deadtree to deadtree across long distances in a few minutes.
  • Pager
    I've actually considered getting a pager instead of a cell phone. There are times you must be reachable, but must not be interupted. A device that takes away the desire to answer it, because you can't, can be a limitation from more than technology (its limitations original source) to a limitation for convinience. Technology can be a burden, and sometimes we must dial back to reclaim our lives.
  • Cassette Tape
    The one thing I'll agree on. I probably have a few tapes left laying around, but if you dont replace or migrate the content soon, they'll degrade and be lost anyway, so its time to leave them behind.
Technology moves forward at ever-quickening paces, but if we turn our back on it, we loose more than just brick-sized car phones.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Software Job Transition Strategies?

I’ve been spending a good deal of the last two days preparing mentally for starting a whole new challenge as a developer. New things aren’t new to me, but this is different and big enough really call for some Deep Thoughts ™. For one thing, I’ve made a big move from the world of Python web development to totally other Python work and while web development has never been the only thing I do, it has been the only work that paid the bills. That transition isn’t one that bothers me or daunts me, though. Instead, I’m thinking about transitioning to the scope of the work I’m getting into. For a long time, I juggled multiple clients and client projects every day, so no single project usually took up most of my time. Every developer juggles time through the day, but exactly how that works in each company and on each project varies a lot. I was looking for a place that I could really focus in a way that I haven’t for a long time. I think I found that, but now I have to deal with the consequen...
Post a Comment
Read more

CARDIAC: The Cardboard Computer

I am just so excited about this. CARDIAC. The Cardboard Computer. How cool is that? This piece of history is amazing and better than that: it is extremely accessible. This fantastic design was built in 1969 by David Hagelbarger at Bell Labs to explain what computers were to those who would otherwise have no exposure to them. Miraculously, the CARDIAC (CARDboard Interactive Aid to Computation) was able to actually function as a slow and rudimentary computer.  One of the most fascinating aspects of this gem is that at the time of its publication the scope it was able to demonstrate was actually useful in explaining what a computer was. Could you imagine trying to explain computers today with anything close to the CARDIAC? It had 100 memory locations and only ten instructions. The memory held signed 3-digit numbers (-999 through 999) and instructions could be encoded such that the first digit was the instruction and the second two digits were the address of memory to operat...
1 comment
Read more

The Snake Pit is About to Burst

The signs are all over the place. I can count at least five implementations of Python today: CPython, CL-Python, Jython, IronPython, and PyPy. The use of the language is sky rocketting and set to grab real mind-share as the hype over Ruby subsides. Things are looking good for a favorite green snake and british comedy troop reference, aren't they? Trouble is on the horizon in the very ingredients that could push us into true success. Our community and our very language is in danger of segregation, unless we all do something about it and learn to get along. One of the most visible dangers (to me) is being ignored for various political, cultural, and non-technical reasons. IronPython's users are increasingly pushing IronPython-only recipes, libraries, and tutorials. No one is talking about the transition of the alternative implemenations to CPython 3.0 compatability. To make matters worse, we still can not define the language without refering to an implementation. This is very un...
11 comments
Read more