(no subject)

[shadowkat]

Sometimes I think that I wrote better creatively, and more, without the distraction of the internet. It didn't exist for the first 30 years of my life, well it did, but not in its current form. At most, we had a few search engines and list-serves. I didn't get email until I turned 30. I remember a friend gave me a dilbert magnet, which I've long since lost, which said I've got email so I am or something to that effect. In law school, we had lexis/nexis - a legal database of court-cases and legal judgements, which you could access via a subscription on your computer or internet. And I used a mac, the computer was bigger than the screen. Windows didn't arrive until 1998. When I was on the cusp of 30.

Cell phones? Didn't own one until I turned 37. And I didn't own a smartphone until I was well into my 40s. Actually, I think I got a Kindle first, and that took a while. I even remember a discussion with a friend on a train way back in the 1999, about whether or not e-readers would ever take off. Neither of us could imagine reading the things. The first versions were so un-wieldly, this was before Amazon of course. Amazon sort of reinvented the wheel in regards to e-books, electronic distribution of products, and book selling in general.

DVDs didn't arrive until the 21st Century, I think. They may have been floating about here and there in 1999. The librarians on the list serve that I was on, were certainly discussing them. How CD's would go out of fashion (they haven't), tape or VHS would disappear almost completely (they have) and DVD's would take over -- because you could put so much data on them. [Although no one predicted that vinyl records would make a comeback.] Librarians think about data storage, organization of data, management of data and accessing data in a quick and easy way. Publishers or data producers worry about protecting their data, distribution of their data, and making money off of it. The two groups were in some respects diametrically opposed. Back in 1998-2002, I was on copyright list-serves with both of them, separate list-serves, of course. They'd have killed each other if they'd been on the same one. The Publishers were terrified that once their data became accessible electronically via the internet or web (at that time people were fighting over what to call it) and they were right to be terrified. Meanwhile the Librarians were fighting to make the data accessible to as many people as possible for free. (The Librarians for the most part, won that battle. I can't feel all that sorry for the publishers, they are greedy assholes who don't really care about the developers/creators of the data, the environment or people for that matter and think their role as distributors of data makes them King. Seeing them get kicked by the information age, and lose that power, has been a karmic delight. And by publishers - I mean music and book publishers.)

So, as you can see it wasn't until my mid-late thirties that this took off. Prior to that I got a lot more writing done and had a lot less distractions. Because the internet is crack for writers. It's also crack for evil marketing specialists and promoters, but that's a whole other post.

Comments

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

I was introduced to the bare elements of computer programming in high school in the mid 1960s, before you were born. The first computer I actually wrote a program for was the size of a refrigerator and had a printer larger than most office desks at the beginning of the 1970s. The first hard drive I saw in the mid 1970s was the size of a grade-school pupil's desk, and didn't hold much. The first personal computer I saw in the late 1970s barely fit in a large desk (there were smaller ones available then). It had a hard drive, which very few personal computers had then, that was down to the size of a smallish hat box and maybe held a half meg of data. (How long has it been since hats came in cardboard boxes?) I got my own first computer in the early 1980s. It's mass storage was a cassette tape player I'd already owned for a few years. I still don't have a cell phone let alone a smart phone. I wrote about people using tablet e-readers in my sci-fi novel in the late 1980s, thinking it would be long, long before such a thing would be affordable and the support system be in place to actually use them... I still don't own a tablet.

I was up with all the latest tech when I was working. Now that I've been retired, it all seems nice, but question if I need it before I buy. The idea of camping outside of the Apple store for the latest phone, just sounds hilarious.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

One of my uncles built and programmed computers back in the 1960s with military intelligence. He's an engineer and built some of the early computers and programmed them. He doesn't own one now, and refuses to, in part because it killed his eyes. And he discovered doing without was far healthier.

I don't think he owns a smartphone either or a cell.

And my first boss, the one before the lunatic, at the library reference company, brought in a computer system in the 70s.

All that's well and good, but I didn't see a computer until 1980. And the schools didn't get them until the late 80s, and not all schools. If you're school had them, it had a lot of money. We had computer labs sort of similar to what was shown in Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the 90s. In law school, some people had macs, most didn't. I had an electronic type writer and didn't use a computer until around 1987 -- in the library computer room. Remember MS DOS? And how you had to do coding? Ugh. First job, was MS Dos and to do anything, I had to do the codes. (Hated it, was always having to check a cheat sheet. Not how my mind works.). Was happy when we graduated to Lotus Notes, and finally to Windows.

The idea of camping outside of the Apple store for the latest phone, just sounds hilarious.

Agree. There were lines out front of the Sprint store, Verizon and T-Mobile for the I-phone 7, also the lines were apparently clogged by people calling for the I-phone 7. (A friend couldn't get through to Verizon just to fix her service because of all the people wanting the 7.)

It's hilarious because the phone has problems, no earjack and seriously, why? I don't understand the need to get the latest gadgetry. or upgrades. I only get it if my current one fails on me. The smartphone is very useful if you are still working, living in an urban area, renting apartment, traveling a lot, and connecting with people in a city who refuse to use the phone except to text or use FB. I have to have one. And have used it for boarding passes, airline alerts, as a replacement for a watch, music (listen to radio via the phone at work with earjack), keep track of exercise, FB, text messaging friends and realtors when hunting an apartment.