Wired.com came up with a list of 100 things they say our children might never know about. (Find it...here.) Since this is Wired.com we're talking about, the list includes plenty of computery/technologically/gadgety type references that go over the head of my bookish brain. Take for instance this gem on their list:
27. Daisy chaining your SCSI devices and making sure they've all got a different ID.
Rii-i-ight. The only daisy references that I understand involve The Beatles or Woodstock. At first glance I thought they were talking about CSI, and we were going to have an unsolved murder mystery on our hands, but of course it's nothing that interesting. I'm assuming I'm either so youthful (why, I do look dashingly young) or I'm so book oriented that I haven't a damn clue what they're talking about.
Then there's this:
49. Concatenating and UUDecoding binaries from Usenet.
Does anyone at Wired.com speak English? Like English English? Is there a Wired.com-to-English dictionary I can buy somewhere? Or am I just ignorant? Because I'll admit there's a better than 50/50 shot that I'm completely clueless of technological wizardry that might be commonplace, so maybe I just need to bone-up on nerd speak, which I thought I was fluent in.
That doesn't mean their list doesn't have some valid Englishy/literary/writing-ish points. Some things that will go by the wayside will be missed, if only for the nostalgia of their beauty.
Take, for instance, the typewriter, which is #57 on their list. If there ever was a contraption that made sure you reeeeally wanted to type something out before you actually typed it, it was a typewriter. Are you typo-prone? Good luck with the typewriter. Don't let the folks who make White-Out fool you. A piece of paper with 20 different blots of White-Out on it just looks like a Salvador Dali painting run amuck. (With less random melting.)
78. Neat Handwriting.
You mean handwriting used to be legible? As in readable letters and punctuation and stuff?? Look, I can't help it if my handwriting looks like I had a narcoleptic moment and passed out halfway through spelling my name. It happens.
86: Finding books in a card catalog at the library.
Are these even still used anywhere? Outside of Kansas, I mean. Really, haven't they already died off? You can't tell me there's a library somewhere with folksy people who think, "Gee, golly, whiz...that new-fangled computer system is just too neato-o for our tastes." (Pretend that was just said by some guy wearing overalls and chewing on a piece of wheat.) The last time I used a card catalog in a library I was still reading the Berenstain Bears. You try using a card catalog for hours as a child only to learn you can't find easy-to-digest books with friendly looking pictures of cartoon bears because the library goes for higher-brow fair. That's a pain that stings, my friends. That's just a pain that stings...
27. Daisy chaining your SCSI devices and making sure they've all got a different ID.
Rii-i-ight. The only daisy references that I understand involve The Beatles or Woodstock. At first glance I thought they were talking about CSI, and we were going to have an unsolved murder mystery on our hands, but of course it's nothing that interesting. I'm assuming I'm either so youthful (why, I do look dashingly young) or I'm so book oriented that I haven't a damn clue what they're talking about.
Then there's this:
49. Concatenating and UUDecoding binaries from Usenet.
Does anyone at Wired.com speak English? Like English English? Is there a Wired.com-to-English dictionary I can buy somewhere? Or am I just ignorant? Because I'll admit there's a better than 50/50 shot that I'm completely clueless of technological wizardry that might be commonplace, so maybe I just need to bone-up on nerd speak, which I thought I was fluent in.
That doesn't mean their list doesn't have some valid Englishy/literary/writing-ish points. Some things that will go by the wayside will be missed, if only for the nostalgia of their beauty.
Take, for instance, the typewriter, which is #57 on their list. If there ever was a contraption that made sure you reeeeally wanted to type something out before you actually typed it, it was a typewriter. Are you typo-prone? Good luck with the typewriter. Don't let the folks who make White-Out fool you. A piece of paper with 20 different blots of White-Out on it just looks like a Salvador Dali painting run amuck. (With less random melting.)
78. Neat Handwriting.
You mean handwriting used to be legible? As in readable letters and punctuation and stuff?? Look, I can't help it if my handwriting looks like I had a narcoleptic moment and passed out halfway through spelling my name. It happens.
86: Finding books in a card catalog at the library.
Are these even still used anywhere? Outside of Kansas, I mean. Really, haven't they already died off? You can't tell me there's a library somewhere with folksy people who think, "Gee, golly, whiz...that new-fangled computer system is just too neato-o for our tastes." (Pretend that was just said by some guy wearing overalls and chewing on a piece of wheat.) The last time I used a card catalog in a library I was still reading the Berenstain Bears. You try using a card catalog for hours as a child only to learn you can't find easy-to-digest books with friendly looking pictures of cartoon bears because the library goes for higher-brow fair. That's a pain that stings, my friends. That's just a pain that stings...
No comments:
Post a Comment