Technology quote

[LSA]

Too young I suppose. As I don't have the financial means to purchase all the latest technological gizmos not that I would even if I could though. Even my computer which I built for gaming I built with outdated components, an am2 socket 6000+ cpu, a radeon 4890 and 4gb of ddr2.

My cellphone is pretty ancient, it does not have a camera and I do not have texting service. It is just a phone.
I honestly don't like the computerization of todays age it kind of cheapens the quality of life I think which is kind of ironic because as a tool computers/internet are invaluable but all these moronic social networking sites and "factual" wiki entries that empower people to act as if they know what they are talking about is really just tiring. Kind of ironic view for a cs major and someone who works in IT.

I would rather have been this age through the 80's and seen the emergence of personal computers and see the evolution. A time before public internet before people were glued to their cellphones before abs and airbags became mandated equipment and efi was the most advanced computer component on a car. I really wish I could have lived through the 70's and 80's mainly for the hard rock and heavy metal but that's another story.

[RWebb]

thx, James - by about how much?

[scottmandue]

And the snozberrys taste like snozberrys...

[john70t]

RW, an excellent good post. Perfect for the PARF "God"(vs. science/evolution) debate....
There are quite distinct and parallel discourses with the two, but this thread seems to be about generational gaps vs. technological progress in computer science.

(edit: computer science, and the programming language that controls micoscopic silicone hardware remains a mental chasim for me).

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by RWebb

thx, James - by about how much?

50-200%. It all depends on the box.

I made an AMD 6 core computer, which is about 60% of the top i7, and about equal to the low end i7s.

[RWebb]

200% is a lot...

[svandamme]

no true, because my interest and skil for computing far exceeded my funding as a 10 year old in 86, hell, my funding only caught up with my interest when i finally got a job in IT somewhere in 94. And since then it's been all good.

[Z-man]

Ok - my quick take on this:

These days, lots of technology has come down to a price point where young and old can readily afford it. Cell phones and personal computers are really affordable these days. Also - if you consider technology which resides on the interwebs, like Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites, well - it is really cheap to embrace that technology, especially

However, there is some technology that is still quite pricey for the common consumer: Digital SLR cameras, high end audio and video equipment (LED-LCD flatscreens) and the like.

So - I believe there are now two categories of technology -- affordable technology, and more expensive technology.

It seems that those who are "younger but have no financial means" and those who are "young enough not to remember but with financial means" are the ones that embrace the "affordable" technology, and those you are "young with financial means" as well as those "old enough to remember" are embracing the more expensive technologies.

So the technological landscape has changed, and the lines between the three groupings described in the original quote have been blurred quite a but, but I believe that the largest consumers of technology remains those who are young enough to not remember but with financial means - since they both embrace the cheaper technology and the more expensive.

In my opinion,
-Z-man.

[Schumi]

RE: Z-man-

notice also that those more expensive technologies are usually the ones more difficult to operate. The cheap, accessible tech must be mass-market appealing while the expensive things can get away with being complex and daunting due to the fact that they are cutting-edge. I would use a high end 7.2 surround sound reciever vs. an iPod dock as the perfect example.

[RWebb]

"price point where young and old can readily afford it."

it has to be easy enough to use that the young can figure it out - how young can a child be to program for example? at the other end of the curve, is how old a child has to be to push a button (not very) - hence the success of all Apple products...

and it has to be something that will induce the old to at least try it - older animals tend to be more conservative in terms of adopting anything

both these lessons - and more - can be seen in the monkey studies I posted above