<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Comic Sans MS";font-size:24px">do share please with this tech-oriented group what developments rocked your world and which ones you anticipate soon. spike</span><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Comic Sans MS";font-size:24px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Comic Sans MS";font-size:24px">I was always the student in the class who asked the most questions. I have been inhaling books and knowledge (and wish more of it had stuck) since first grade. So an easy answer for me: access to knowledge far outweighs smartphones, smartTVs, or smart anything else. The web. For the future: much better voice to text or action, so disabled or simply nontech people can use more of the technology than they can do now. With no knowledge whatsoever, we will be able to control phones, TV, computer, house computer system (not only for rich people in the new future, I hope), our car, washing machine and a lot more. This is a fantastic age and an even better one to come for the mentally retarded, disabled, elderly and so on. </span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Comic Sans MS";font-size:24px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Comic Sans MS";font-size:24px">And so much of it is cheap - available to almost everyone - almost (we should subsidize the very poor: computers for all - becoming an essential for all of us.) bill w</span></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Nov 26, 2020 at 12:05 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-US" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div class="gmail-m_8803740479952250660WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><div style="border-right:none;border-bottom:none;border-left:none;border-top:1pt solid rgb(225,225,225);padding:3pt 0in 0in"><p class="MsoNormal"><b>From:</b> extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org</a>> <b>On Behalf Of </b>William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat<br><b>Subject:</b> [ExI] Thanksgiving<u></u><u></u></p></div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><div><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black">Dear chat group:<u></u><u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black"><u></u> <u></u></span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">>…<span style="color:black">If there were a competition for being thankful, I think I must win i</span>t…<span style="color:black"> bill w<u></u><u></u></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">Silver medal at best sir, for surely I am thankfuller than thou. Life in our world today does not suck. We have enough food, we have homes, things are going well for humanity in our fortunate times.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">Since we are generally technology fans here but not followers of any particular deity, now is a good time to thank technology for the good things that make our lives not suck. Technology is great: you don’t need to pray to it, you don’t need to give it money (well, I suppose that depends on how you look at it (I have given plenty for computers over the years (but oh they have given back a thousand-fold.)))<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">I have looked back over the years and identified what I think are the most important developments which were the punctuation in the equilibrium, developments which caused a chain reaction in cool stuff. I don’t include stuff before my time, such as the communications tech which developed during the war.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">I have these: <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="gmail-m_8803740479952250660MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left:0.75in"><u></u><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><span>1.<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><u></u><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">Commercially viable computers, which I will kinda arbitrarily assign to Apple computer, about 1977.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="gmail-m_8803740479952250660MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left:0.75in"><u></u><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><span>2.<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><u></u><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">HTML, which enabled the modern internet as we know it with websites and links and all the cool stuff on there, about 1993<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="gmail-m_8803740479952250660MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left:0.75in"><u></u><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><span>3.<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><u></u><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">Cell phone technology, which reached inflection point around 2000 or so.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">Those are the three biggies in my lifetime, and ja I know they are debatable, but since we are in a festival of thanksgiving, do share please with this tech-oriented group what developments rocked your world and which ones you anticipate soon.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">I am tempted to add Zoom to that list, because I have discovered how that one seemingly minor development is the key to open a hundred doors. Now I can pull together meetings with students and do software efforts without ever having to suffer their actual presence (ewww, teenagers, take me away Calgon (but if I hafta work with them for half an hour on the computer they are most tolerable (and highly productive (fine example available on request.)))))<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">Let’s hear it please.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">spike<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black"><u></u> <u></u></span></p></div></div></div></div></div>_______________________________________________<br>
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