Coming Changes in Our Lives - agree or disagree?

Is that the one where everyone is getting on the flying saucer and they are weighing them. Then the one smart person in the town comes running up - the book is a recipe for cooking people?

If so, that is a good one.

I haven't bought the book yet, but people seem pleased. One reviewer stated, "abridged, but the Rackham illustrations make up for that". Even so, I think I'd prefer the 'real' version over the electronic version.



Not sure with this particular book. My eReader came pre-loaded with a couple of illustrated books, but the layout is meant for the text and illustration to be on the same page. I think I can toggle between pages and have 2 screens open at once, but I haven't figured out how to do it yet.

I don't think eReaders are going to replace owning a really beautifully illustrated book, but I think it's cool that I could have a book I plan to read more than once both at home and with me wherever I go. I'll probably end up buying both versions.

That shouldn't have been directed at you. It was more angst and consternation re my own and others' lack of power to deal with some of these changes.

I think the divide between the haves and have nots will increase, maybe even logarithmically.

Thanks for explaining, osso. I was wondering what the heck I'd said!

I think with the increase in accessibility to information via "things" will decrease the divide between the haves and have nots. Sure, there is a bit of overhead in buying whatever device is used to read/listen to the information but once the device is bought, the information is much cheaper than via traditional methods.

"To Serve Man"..just saw that episode again.

with a little au jus and a full bodied Montrachet.
"Man, the other white meat"

For the fun I am going to contradict you.
Privacy is something we all want there we agree.

Postoffice:
I love to write letters more than e-mails, but that is another story.
As we know - almost anything you write in e-mails can be "stolen" and used over the internet.
So in the future people will send letters as soon as has to do with privacy.

As you can be traced whereever you are with your mobile phone, people who wish some privacy will use landlines.
Also there might be so many rules and regulations where you are allowed to use your mobile phone, that it will be easier to use a landline. People will get tired of listening to others conversations and ringing.

People love objects of status. As newspapers will be rather expensive in comparasing of reading in internet it will be a status symbol to have a newspaper.

TV will be getting less and less really informativ and more and more like yellow press. To do without a TV will be a status symbol of your intellectual level.

Hopefully books will never ever disappear.
Schoolsbooks can never be exchanged with a kindle(?). The teacher can not control what the kids are reading.
I could imagen that books will always exists.
You can make notes in a book.

Things probably get more of a status depending on what it is.
The smaller families get, the more scattered relatives are, the less stories there are told about your forfathers/mothers the more people will like to have things around from earlier. Fleemarkets are getting more and more popular. So you can collect things which could be connected with your roots.
A painting from the city your family came from, something like you remember your grandparents had.......

That's right! I had forgotten the most important part. These boneheads thought the aliens were going to serve man - like help them out; whereas it was actually to serve them to other aliens for food.

I love our postal service. Last Wednesday, I mailed two identical packages (large size bubble envelopes). One to a destination across the country ( 2000+ miles or so) and the other to a destination about 600 miles away. The cost for each was under $2.00. One got there on Friday and the other (that went the shortest distance) arrived Saturday. Awesomeness. I'll miss it if Edgar's right.

Yeah, I feel the same way actually. Where I go they have a self-serve thing -- you put the package on a scale and then there is a touch screen where you enter info about it (zip code of destination, etc.) and it weighs it and then spits out the postage. You pay with credit card, slap on the postage, et voila. It's very quick and easy. Packages usually take two actual days to get to their destinations. (Mailed Tuesday, gets there Thursday.) Part of that is just that I live pretty much smack dab in the middle of the country, which can be useful.

That self-serve thing is the greatest!!! In and out in under a minute! I have a theory that the label (printed zip and bar code) actually speeds things up. I have pretty good printing, follow all the USPS tips on addressing envelopes, but those labels I think are key!

1) No problem.
2) No problem
3) I prefer to read a physical newspaper, but will easily adapt
4) I will not adapt well to the end of physical books. I have and use a kindle, but far prefer the real thing.
5) No problem.
6) I don't believe this one. We're never going to lose music.
7) Not anytime soon.

I like the post office package service better than any other. UPS either dumps a package over the gate or sets it by the door, knocks and runs. The Post Office puts it in a box, brings it to the door or lets me pick it up.

Landlines, in some form, will continue because the technology still works for businesses. They are not going to give everyone at Citibank their own cell phone at their desk.

There will probably always be a market for what is called Book Arts. Special volumes with art work, expensive paper, maybe some original details will become a market more than it is now (and it does exist). The NY Public Library did a show of such books about a decade ago, pre-Kindle, and it is a collectable market for book and art lovers. It's like owning a Gutenberg Bible - rare and special, but necessarily one-of-a-kind. Kindles/Nooks are best for mass volume reading. No one needs a special edition of The DaVinci Code complete with rice paper and a tooled leather cover.

Magazines are going to still be subscription, but they will come into your email and you will read them on your iPad/Tablet. I've already seen this already and it's very convenient, especially if you like to keep you magazines for future reference and don't want the clutter in a corner of your living room.

"but NOT necessarily one-of-a-kind."

(I shouldn't multi-task, it makes me write like BillRM.)

My company just turned in all pagers. Since we all have cell phones, it was a money saver.

I am surprised no one has mentioned luddites.

We are on the early edge of technology changes. Things will continue to change and the rate of change will increase.

Fears of massive failure, etc. are overblown. Although some things might be negative. Take the automobile for example. 35,000 people a year die in them, but I hear no talk of taking them away. And they are getting safer.

Landline phones will become obsolete soon. The cost of maintaining the wires will become to great.

Where data is stored will become irrelevant, hence the 'cloud'. Do you know or care where your conversation goes on a digital phone?

Apple's Mobile Me already provides multi user storage for families for their pictures and anything else they want to share and keep.

I see they are now advertising video conferencing for individuals now. Skype is commonplace. This was very new technology and expensive only 15 years ago.

There is no doubt in my mind that all of this makes our lives easier, and better if we apply it correctly. It's all voluntary, right?

Doesn't the free market chose?


The effect on music could deserve a thread all it's own. The problem is the significant changes in distribution and the effect on how the artist gets paid. The fact that music can be so easily copied cannot be changed. Right now there is a massive group of people between the artist and the consumer that must shrink. That will be painful.

You're absolutely right about that one--it allows an electronic sorter to move the package along without human intervention, and at any point at which humans do deal with it, they can record the handling with a bar code scanner such as you might have seen in use in a supermarket. Next time you see a UPS or FedEx package delivered, watch the driver--he has a scanner built into his signature board. It's good to know that the USPS is taking a page from the competition.

Not pickin' on you, Boss, i'm just responding to the idea. Many, many millions of people are now hooked up to the internet via fiber-optic DSL, which is bundled into their land line telephone service. I don't see that going away any time soon. The biggest real problem is that the traditional phone companies have heavily invested in fiber-optic, both becasue it can handle such a greater volume of traffic and because it can be used for DSL, but law allows "service companies" (think of the jokers who call you up during dinner trying to get you to switch to their long distance service) to piggy-back on the physical land lines of the traditional phone companies. They are only slowly winnowed out because of crap customer service, and huge bills due to hidden charges and "fine print" rip-offs in the contract. The companies like Ma Bell and GTE (now, technically, AT&T and Verizon) still have the cost of the physical maintenance of the actual physical infrastructure.

I think landlines will be around for quite a long time.

I got a kindle for Christmas loaded with several books on my to read list. It is a good and convenient way to access a fairly large collection of material of interest to me, and suprisingly comfortable to use. However, I suspect I will use it mostly as a reference to works I have already read - at least in part - and wish to consult from time to time. There is a huge library available for download of free material in the public domain.

Despite the compact convenience of a kindle, the experience is not the same as with a real book. I also agree with others here that nothing replaces the real, illustrated volumes that expanded our imaginations and understanding of the world while we were growing up. I still have many of those old volumes and they are a connection that spans time and age. The vivid illustrations of Treasure island, books about pirates and explorers, cowboys and indians added another dimension to the experience of reading them. Even the slim unillustrated volumes of poetry I kept still have a special meaning to me that I doubt that a digital device could ever duplicate.