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A bunch of back issues of the Journal of the Institute of Scientific Santa Claus-ism are on line... in scanned copies at least.
( Astonishing scientific proof of Santa Claus )
( Astonishing scientific proof of Santa Claus )
Gibson and Walkman
Nov. 14th, 2007 08:16 pmInteresting short interview with S.F. writer William Gibson from Rolling Stone
One point I find interesting is his observation on the Sony Walkman:
"The very first time I picked up a Sony Walkman, I knew it was a killer thing, that the world was changing right then and there. A year later, no one could imagine what it was like when you couldn't move around surrounded by a cloud of stereophonic music of your own choosing. That was huge! That was as big as the Internet!"
I am just old enough to remember the Walkman phenomena and the technological state before it, and had a very different impression.
I had a Walkman (or one of its early clones) and enjoyed using it, but at the time regarded it as a minor improvement of existing technology with a large dose of marketing hype.
Walkman article on Wikipedia
When I was a little kid in the 1960s, there were already "Transistor" radios about the size of a pack of cigarettes that one could listen to with an earphone jack. (I take it that the technology was fairly new at the time, and I recall slang use of the term "transistorized" to mean something made improbably small.)
By the early 1970s, there were cassette tape recorders just slightly larger than a hard-cover book that one could easily carry with one hand, and listen to either with the built-in speaker or through an earphone. (I saw cheap cassette player/recorders at Radio Shack within the last year that look little changed from those of more than 30 years ago.)
The Walkman-- okay, they made it smaller, in part by elimiating the built in speaker. And instead of an ear-plug, a pair of tiny cheap-ass headphones. OK, but I rolled my eyes at the advertising that proclaimed it somehow revolutionary.
Perhaps the stereo rather than mono is what particularly impressed some people? I consider stereophonic sound reproduction nifty, but when the audio isn't particularly high-fidelity to begin with, a minor point.
One point I find interesting is his observation on the Sony Walkman:
"The very first time I picked up a Sony Walkman, I knew it was a killer thing, that the world was changing right then and there. A year later, no one could imagine what it was like when you couldn't move around surrounded by a cloud of stereophonic music of your own choosing. That was huge! That was as big as the Internet!"
I am just old enough to remember the Walkman phenomena and the technological state before it, and had a very different impression.
I had a Walkman (or one of its early clones) and enjoyed using it, but at the time regarded it as a minor improvement of existing technology with a large dose of marketing hype.
Walkman article on Wikipedia
When I was a little kid in the 1960s, there were already "Transistor" radios about the size of a pack of cigarettes that one could listen to with an earphone jack. (I take it that the technology was fairly new at the time, and I recall slang use of the term "transistorized" to mean something made improbably small.)
By the early 1970s, there were cassette tape recorders just slightly larger than a hard-cover book that one could easily carry with one hand, and listen to either with the built-in speaker or through an earphone. (I saw cheap cassette player/recorders at Radio Shack within the last year that look little changed from those of more than 30 years ago.)
The Walkman-- okay, they made it smaller, in part by elimiating the built in speaker. And instead of an ear-plug, a pair of tiny cheap-ass headphones. OK, but I rolled my eyes at the advertising that proclaimed it somehow revolutionary.
Perhaps the stereo rather than mono is what particularly impressed some people? I consider stereophonic sound reproduction nifty, but when the audio isn't particularly high-fidelity to begin with, a minor point.
Twenty Years Ago Today
Oct. 19th, 2007 11:33 pm
20 years ago was the "Black Monday" stock market crash of 1987.
I happened to be in Washington, D.C. visiting an aunt. Taking the subway downtown the next morning, I saw men in expensive suits buying bottles of liquor on their way to work. Possibly that was their usual routine, but I doubted it.
I went to the bank and withdrew cash. I was surprised there was no substantial line. I thought bank runs were supposed to be the usual procedure in such circumstances.
I was a bit frustrated to be away from New Orleans on vacation when this happened, as for some time I'd had a contingency radio show planned to do in case of stock market crash, with tunes from the '29 crash. "Damn, I'm missing my chance."
And President Reagan's words of reassurance were almost the same as Herbert Hoover's. I thought, Don't they keep an index card in a drawer in the desk at the Oval Office, marked "In case of stock market crash, DON'T SAY THIS:"...
Were a few friends of mine and I the only ones who remembered history? A few days later my friends and I talked it over. One said that the Republicans bring a boom, then a bust. I cracked wise "Y'know why people aren't jumping out of windows on Wall Street this time? In modern skyscrapers you can't open the windows." A friend noted some recent murders in the news, which to him showed that investors were a hair smarter this time, since instead of killing themselves, they were killing their brokers.
----
Unlike '29, things bounced back fairly quickly then. Now the $ is below the Euro and falling rapidly -- anyone got "Whip Inflation Now" buttons left over from the Ford administration? I'm sure they'll work just as well now as they did then.
Here in Lou'ziana, we're voting on a pile of stuff tomorrow. We'll see if Eddie Haskell becomes our next governor in the first round, or if he'll have to go to a run off with either John Goodman, Matlock, or Mr. Spock with Stephen Colbert's face. (Eddie Haskell is running under the name "Bobby Jindal" as the Republican Whiz Kid. Is there anywhere outside of the Republican Party in Louisiana and maybe Mississippi where someone who has sycophantically supported everything the Bush adminstration has bungled and advocated teaching Creationism is talked about as supposedly being "very smart"?)
"The Gold Mine Saloon" in the Quarter has functioning 1980s arcade video game machines.
I played Q-Bert for the first time in 20 years. I only made it to the 3rd level, but that was enough to get the 4th highest score on the machine. I'd forgotten about many things in the game, most fatally the carniverous pigs that attack from below. Will your amphibeous cyber-pal be lured back sometime when he has more than one quarter in his pocket and when the bar isn't so smoky, to rehone his atrophied formerly formidible Q-Bert skills? Oh, possibly, eventually, maybe.
Note to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mshollie: They have Centepede.
Note topentomino:They have Joust.
Note to George Costanza: They have Frogger.
I played Q-Bert for the first time in 20 years. I only made it to the 3rd level, but that was enough to get the 4th highest score on the machine. I'd forgotten about many things in the game, most fatally the carniverous pigs that attack from below. Will your amphibeous cyber-pal be lured back sometime when he has more than one quarter in his pocket and when the bar isn't so smoky, to rehone his atrophied formerly formidible Q-Bert skills? Oh, possibly, eventually, maybe.
Note to
mshollie: They have Centepede.Note to
pentomino:They have Joust.Note to George Costanza: They have Frogger.
