Kids View of the World

What will the next generation know?

[incrediBILL]

I often think about what we grew up with (we meaning 50+ somethings) vs. our parents, grandparents, kids and grandkids.

Like we grew up where everyone (mostly) had electricity, B&W TVs, AM radios and rotary phones, and a car.

Mom on the other hand lived on a farm and had a single light bulb powered by a windmill in the yard, did homework using cables and kerosene lamps, and probably had an AM radio. I kind of remembering her telling me that had to use a neighbors phone which was over a mile away. They still used a horse and buggy and got a car much later.

Grandma, if she was lucky maybe had lights and a rotary phone as a kid if she lived in the city and definitely had a horse and buggy.

My kid on the other hand has never not known a world without color TVs, computers, modems, the internet, cars, ATMs. portable FM radios and tape players, video games, microwaves, cell phones, etc.

My grandkids have never known a world without big flat screen TVs, iPods, iPads, smartphones, PS3, Skype for talking to granny and gramps, etc.

The next generation will always know stuff like Google Glass (smart phones? you mean COMPUTERS?), Self-driving cars, wearable computing devices or implanted cybernetics, 3D printers possibly actual replicators, and most likely a bunch of cool virtual reality, 3D and holographic stuff we're barely starting to get off the drawing board let alone serious products.

But I'll hazard a guess I know something most of the current and future generations will NEVER see...

... an OS command line prompt :)

[Leosghost]

But I'll hazard a guess I know something most of the current and future generations will NEVER see...

How to survive if the power went off..and stayed off..

[incrediBILL]

... and CURSIVE HANDWRITING

(for those of you that don't know, it's no longer taught in the schools because everyone types now)

[Mackin_USA]

They will still eat BACON - imo

[lawman]

Cursive handwriting? Nothing I ever wrote could pass for cursive. I have been accused of writing in Arabic.

[Marshall]

And we all grew, learned things, and survived without all that stuff. Amazing. Then again, I remember walking across the tarmac to board "propeller" powered planes at Pittsburgh Airport. No fancy gateways, no security inspections, and the food on the plane actually tasted good. Though it made no sense to me why the smoking section was in the back considering the smoke filled the whole plane.

Marshall

[incrediBILL]

It made no sense to me why they allowed smokers on the planes, sitting right next to me, the kid with asthma yet had the nerve to comment if I passed gas.

The nerve of some people.

Only time I remember boarding directly on the tarmac was in the Bahamas and as we flew in I noticed the entire side of the airport was a big KFC ad with the Colonel's face about 20' tall on the wall LOL

[lucy24]

I have been accused of writing in Arabic.

You and H. P. Lovecraft, at least according to Frederik Pohl's biography.

They taught penmanship in public schools within human memory? (In the US, that is. French schools are weird.) When I see something in legible cursive, I assume the writer went to Catholic school.

When I went to school it was called Typing and was an elective. When my son went to school it was called Keyboarding and was part of the curriculum.

[incrediBILL]

They taught penmanship in my school and one teacher actually gave you bad marks in any studies if the penmanship was bad. Couple of kids couldn't write to save their own lives so I know they got bad grades.

We had Typing electives and I took French instead. Spent 3 days in Paris, been typing daily my entire adult life.

Go figure.

[tbear]

I remember as a lad, with my younger brother, wandering onto the airplane taxi areas at Heathrow Airport in the early 60s, while out plane spotting! LOL. They'd shoot you these days.

Also was taught to write 'Italic' style at school, in London, by a really kind and effective teacher.
I still get positive comments these days, when I do write something down.
We actually had a maths teacher who gave us some computer lessons. Well, he showed us how the binary system worked and how computers of the day used it. This was in the mid 60s, so go figure.
My oldest grandson is quite at home with his iPad, etc, even without instruction. Gulp!
I touched on writing skills with my daughters, when they were small, now, I see my grandchildren write clearly, so I like to think that my efforts rubbed off. ;)

In my opinion, it's a good idea to explain how things were to offspring, don't know why. Guess I'm just an old sentimental.

[Lame_Wolf]

It made no sense to me why they allowed smokers on the planes, sitting right next to me, the kid with asthma yet had the nerve to comment if I passed gas.

Did you know that the air in an aeroplane was actually cleaner when you were allowed to smoke, than they are now...when you are not.

(BTW, I smelt one of your farts six months ago. The hospital doctor said I should be allowed home next week.)

[incrediBILL]

My oldest grandson is quite at home with his iPad, etc, even without instruction

My daughter was little, 6 or 7, when I first sat her down to Windows 3.0 and she picked up Paint in just a few minutes, likewise with some other programs and games. Of course everyone scoffed, even my wife, that the little kid couldn't use that complex computer but it just goes to show you the visual GUI is what works best as we're born with intuitively knowing how to use it. Her big hurdles were using the mouse and the keyboard, not the software.

Saving and loading files was a bit more complicated back then but she quickly mastered that too. Considering everyone is going paperless today it's not a real big problem but if you do need a hard copy the phone and tablet don't have good solutions to that problem but I'm assuming the only kind of paper our grandkids will be familiar with, assuming they learn good hygiene in the first place, will be toilet paper.

Kids love to see their stuff on paper and the print button was very popular which is something missing from tablets today. I've got a hack on my tablet that lets you print via some PDF server that then dumps it to my computer printer.

In my opinion, it's a good idea to explain how things were to offspring, don't know why. Guess I'm just an old sentimental.

I think it's called survival skills. I know how to grow my own food, kill stuff and cook it, plus I can add in my head, or on paper if too much, and make change without even thinking about it.

When the power goes out all these kids today won't be able to write an order on a piece of paper, add it up, compute the tax and make change. They'll all huddle together and as a group MAYBE be able to figure it out and have about the same reaction to their efforts as the primates to the obelisk in 2001 a Space Odyssey.

Seriously, I was at IN 'N OUT BURGER late one night and the trainee rang it up on the register and when I handed her a $20 bill her head exploded. I told her the change was a ten, five, dollar a dime and a nickel off the top of my head, and she could count it back the other way making it $385, $3.90, $4, $5, $10 and $20. Her eyes started to well up, she said she had to call for a manager, and then burst into tears. It was all I could do to not start laughing hysterically although it really wasn't funny whatsoever.

FWIW, I was such a little penmanship nerd I learned calligraphy, had quill pens, fountain pens, bottles of ink, all that stuff that REALLY bored pre-pubescent kids did before video games. Having asthma back then also meant a lot of indoors time in the Spring and Fall seasons so I also learned cooking, macrame, needlepoint,string art, accounting (family biz), chemistry, electronics, etc. which is why I'm the all knowing nerd today with mad skillz. Kids today would just play video games and not learn squat.

[edited by: incrediBILL at 10:59 pm (utc) on May 4, 2013]

[topr8]

>>we meaning 50+ somethings

can i take part? i'm 47!

>>They taught penmanship in my school and one teacher actually gave you bad marks in any studies if the penmanship was bad.

you were lucky! in my english prep school (4-13), everything was hand written and in ALL subjects with ALL teachers, you were marked down for bad handwriting or incorrect use of english!

i remember rotary phones very well and was an adult when mobile phones came out, i remember when people had car phones (much more common than a cell phone at the time), they were really big here in the uk, not sure about the usa? i suspect for the next generation, iB is correct and that either by implant or a common device such as glasses (or maybe even something like hair gel) everyone will be connected to the phone/network permanently!

...

air travel has completely changed ... when i was around 19 i flew to australia, the cost was around £1000 return if i remember rightly ... the price is less today in cash terms let alone inflation over all those years! i can also fly to barcelona (from london) for less than the price of a reasonable restaurant meal. as a child the only foreign travel i had done was sailing to northern france in a yacht (quite a well off and well connected family) ... today i know plenty of kids whose parents are on welfare who have been to spain or greece.

social stuff has changed utterly too ...

as a teenager at my school, every single person in my class was white english and in the whole year there was a smattering of jewish kids, one chineses/asian and one indian/asian boy! my neighbours kid of a similar age has fellow pupils of too many nationalities to list!

as a young adult i could smoke on tube (underground) trains, platforms, bus stations, workplaces, pubs, restaurants and in fact virtually everywhere! that has completely changed!

my mum was born in the second war and is adopted, she was born to an unmarried mother who for whatever reason gave her up at birth, at that time the number of kids given up for adoption was so great that some poor kids spent their childhood in a childrens home because there were not enough people willing to adopt them.
my dad got divorced in the early 60's ... a couple of years later, he was not allowed to remarry (my mum) in a church, and half his family didn't talk to him due to the shame of getting divorced!
... today single parents are commonplace, divorce is so prevalent that a large percentage of kids have a selection of step parents ... and it is almost impossible to adopt kids because the supply is thoroughly outstripped by the demand (so to speak)

professional sport has changed utterly, in my fathers time, football (soccer - the big game here) players were subject to a maximum wage and it wasn't much! when i was a young man they were well paid, but not millionaires. today many of them earn more in a few months than the majority of ordinary people will earn in a lifetime!

... the workplace has changed utterly too, when i was 20, i became 'self employed' ... it was really unusual in those days, nearly everyone worked for a 'firm' or the 'company' ... today freelancers are rife in virtually every field, from plumbers and electricians to all kinds of new professionals and practitioners (including many people here at WebmasterWorld i'm sure)

>>They will still eat BACON - imo

very debatable, given the rise of islam ... certainly in europe!


very OT ... do they teach history any more? i met two young (20 something) american girls today and they didn't even know the date (year) of american independence!

[incrediBILL]

i met two young (20 something) american girls today and they didn't even know the date (year) of american independence!

Yes, they still teach history but that doesn't change the old axiom that 'you can lead a blonde to knowledge but you can't make her think'.

[Marshall]

I knew a blonde that bought an AM radio.

It was two weeks before she realized she could use it at night.

Marshall

[Lame_Wolf]

can i take part? i'm 47!

Same as :)

... everything was hand written and in ALL subjects with ALL teachers, you were marked down for bad handwriting or incorrect use of english!

Same as.

as a teenager at my school, every single person in my class was white english and in the whole year there was a smattering of jewish kids, one chineses/asian and one indian/asian boy! my neighbours kid of a similar age has fellow pupils of too many nationalities to list!

When I was a kid, there were just two black people at middle school. There were just a handful at comprehensive school, along with a one Bangladeshi and two asian boys who couldn't speak a word of English. A group of us taught them all the important words they needed to know. ;) We had so much fun with those two. The school now is about 40% foreigners.

We had a woodwork teacher with a wooden leg. But he didn't make it himself, so I didn't rate him very much. Then there was the music teacher called Mr Doe. That always made me cuckle, even though he was such an ass. He'd throw chalk at you, or worse, the blackboard eraser. (I don't think you can call them blackboards nowadays)

My PE teacher called me a cripple because I let a goal in, then made me to 20 press-ups in the frozen, beaten-up ground. He was such a <snip>.

'elf and safety never existed then, nor did the PC brigade. Much better times then. Bring back the 70's, the Texan bar, the Chopper bike, It ain't half hot mum, and Alf Garnet.

[edited by: lawman at 4:56 am (utc) on May 5, 2013]

[Kendo]

Mental arithmetic is dead.

[johnhh]

Mental arithmetic is dead.

arghh... when I was at Primary School ( in England )we had a weekly Mental arithmetic test and a weekly spelling test - used to hate it.

Actually aircraft air-con had left and right sections, not back and front, but the obvious choice, smokers to the left/right (!) was never implemented. It's still not illegal to smoke, it's just against conditions of carriage i.e cheaper for the airline saves on cleaning and they circulate fresh air less so saves on fuel.

But as incrediBILL says, we have been lucky ! seen the first digital watch and calculator, the first computers, men on the moon, the original Star Trek series (!), England win the world cup, the Olympics in London, the fall of the Berlin Wall etc etc.

not so lucky to have seen [oh thats political so the mods will be lurking and I'll get the dreaded <snip>]

[lucy24]

the air in an aeroplane was actually cleaner when you were allowed to smoke

... because airplanes were required to maintain a higher level of filtration and purification when more contaminants were being permitted to enter the air? That's like saying a day-care center run by smokers is cleaner than one run by nonsmokers, because licensing requirements call for the former to have its carpets shampooed more often.

air travel has completely changed

It sure has. 30 years ago when I needed to fly to the other end of the state, I could pick up the phone, call {airline} and ask for an open-return ticket to LAX. Followed a day later by an instantly granted request to change that to Burbank because I'd made a mistake about the exact location. And then, when it was time to return, pick up the phone again and reserve my return seat.

I don't know how much this would cost today, but I'm darn sure it's more in real money than the $48 or so it would have been at the time. Heck, the change fee alone-- assuming changes are even permitted-- would be more than that. Open return? Ha!

Anyone remember round-the-world tickets? Haven't seen one of those in a while either. (I detoured to check. On paper they still exist. But, like the man said, "In theory it can be done in theory. In practice...")

[piatkow]

Mental arithmetic is dead.

Not at the veg stall in my local market.

I don't think that I actually met any black or indian people until I went to uni in 1970 and they were all overseas students.

What is striking now is that my kids have far more in common with me than I did with my parents. We read the same books and listen to the same music which wasn't the case with my generation and my parents'. I would never have called my dad to suggest that we go to a gig together as my daughter did earlier this year.

[incrediBILL]

Mental arithmetic is dead.

When I'm bored I add up all the stuff I put in my shopping cart in my head as I'm shopping and tell the clerk how much the total is, and tax when I roll up to the cashier to checkout. Not impressive with a couple of items but a full cart of groceries and getting it right is always fun.

They assume I used a calculator.

I weep for the future.

[topr8]

When I'm bored I add up all the stuff I put in my shopping cart in my head

sounds like you're tending towards a beautiful mind there! :)

[J_RaD]

they don't each cursive writing anymore?

im a good chunk of years behind most of you and i was still taught it.

I was a lefty so my writing was always chicken scratch and i learned typing before I even had my 1st computer at home.

I type everything... if i don't have to hand write it I won't (not even address an envolope).. im that messy, make these machines do my dirty work :-)

[aspdaddy]

My IT apprentices thought i was joking when i explained dial up internet, has never seen that 'thing' pictured on all the save buttons & thought vinyl was only ever used for scratching!

[incrediBILL]

Forget dial-up internet, in the 80s we had dial-up Fido-net and of course I was a node operator helping move email around the planet. I used to chit chat with some guy in Israel on a Fido-net echo mail feed and it took about 2 days to get a response which isn't bad considering it was being relayed and dispatched from privately owned and operated PCs over 2400bps modems around the world.

Quite amazing it all worked really and I was thrilled to be a part of it.

Surprisingly some folks were already taking such global communications for granted back in the day even when it took so long to make the round trip vs. today when you Tweet and the whole world sees it instantly.

[lucy24]

Hey, I remember dialup. It's what finally got me to change my phone service from metered to unmeasured :)

(Phone company clerk in disbelief: "You only make two phone calls a day?" Heck, I rarely make two calls a week! That was when metered service was still available on request, though it had long since stopped being the default. Don't know whether it still exists.)

I think I actually had a 1400baud modem for about five minutes. (I'm younger than some of youse. By the time I bought my first modem, that was the slowest you could get.)

:: wandering off to figure out how many baud my current bargain-basement slow DSL connection translates to ::

[ken_b]

Surely I'm not the only person here that still has a dialup connection service as a backup?

I think I may even have an old 300 baud modem laying around someplace.

On the other hand, I did dump the 5.5 inch floppies that I needed for my first computer.

.

[incrediBILL]

1400baud modem

Do you mean 1200 or 2400? I was kind of a modem guru back in the day and don't remember 1400! I've been online since the beginning even going as slow as 110bps on really bad phone lines via a 300bps modem, then went 1200, 2400, 9600, 19.2, 33K and 56K.

I used to put software in my C-64 computer to make those serial disk drives fly like the wind because people didn't realize they had cache in the drive so the limiting transfer factor was actually the speed of the serial bus which was a joke. We bumped it up substantially and that little floppy BBS started performing on par with my IBM-PC when servicing a modem you couldn't tell the difference. Of course that was in part to superior software design, not that I'm biased or anything, from a real programmer and not some crap hacked together by a kiddie, which is probably why I sold so many copies :)

Still got a modem in the machine but no dial-up service.

My backup service today is 3G and 4G connections.

The last dial-up device I recently took out of service about a year ago was an original TiVo that still used my phone line to download the directory. When we went with a big HD flatscreen in the bedroom the TiVo instantly become obsolete.

POP QUIZ: Do any of you know the difference between BAUD RATE and BPS? Some modems mentioned above actually have the same BPS and BAUD RATE, but do you know which ones?

[lucy24]

My bad: I do mean 1200. I think my memory was trying to throw "14.4" into the mix.

:: pause to count on fingers ::

57600 (my second modem) / 1200 = 48

Oh, how odd. I'd have expected a power of 2.

But I think that means my memory is wrong. I had a 2400 briefly, but never a 1200.

1200 bps = 150 bytes, right? I had to practically snatch my hand away from the keyboard to prevent it from typing "150k". Bytes, bytes, bytes, individual bytes, not kilobytes. Wow.

Do any of you know the difference between BAUD RATE and BPS?

###, no, I thought they were the same. In fact I thought I was ahead of the game by remembering that it's bits, not bytes :)

[DrDoc]

POP QUIZ: Do any of you know the difference between BAUD RATE and BPS? Some modems mentioned above actually have the same BPS and BAUD RATE, but do you know which ones?

Well, I do know that baud is named after Emile Baudot. I also know that older modems had the same baud rate and bps, but I'm not sure when that changed. My guess is they were the same up through 2400.

Hmm, bps = bits per second ... Baud had something to do with the electrical signal itself. I'm from the generation right on the edge between the older and newer modems, so I'm getting a few things mixed up.