Stuff

Okay, things have settled down a little bit and I find that I have some time to share some random thoughts. Problem is, I don't really have anything share-worthy. Of course that's not going to stop me.

As you probably know, tomorrow is Halloween. I've never been that nuts about Halloween. I figure it goes back to my childhood. We lived so far out in the sticks that going on a house-to-house candy patrol wasn't possible. No, trick-or-treating involved getting in the car and driving from house-to-house. Plus, there weren't even "neighborhoods" where we could be dropped off to hit several houses. No it was a tedious process that involved lots of downtime as we moved from one house to the next. As a result, I don't really have the warm fuzzy memories of trick-or-treating that seem to spark nostalgia for the holiday. One thing I do like about Halloween -- scary movies!

Now scary movies don't have to be related to Halloween, but people seem to like to talk about them this time of year. Just the other day I was watching the morning news when one of the talking heads threw out the "what's your favorite scary movie?" line. His answer was Alien, which is just kind of stupid. I mean it's an okay movie, but the SCARIEST movie? No way! Though it's a cheesy request, I'd like to solicit your opinions on this question. What movie really scared you? I'm talking scares you so bad you pee your pants and then sit there in wet pants because changing would require you to go into another room (by yourself?) and maybe even shut the door! For me there is only one possibility: The Shining!

Anyway, ... A couple of days after the discussion on the news I noticed that Alien was playing on some movie channel (DISH had a free preview weekend). I hadn't seen the movie in years, so I decided to watch it again. The first thing I noticed was that Alien suffers from the same "curse" that afflicts all 1970s and '80s space movies: crappy computers! It's painful, from a 2007 perspective, to watch an advanced starship that has computer graphics comparable to my first computer -- a Commodore Vic 20 (I think that's what it was called) that hooked up to the television and used a cassette player (really!) to load and save programs! The older space shows (e.g., Lost in Space, Star Trek, etc.) can get away with this because they are so obviously dated. Alien, though, appeared to be a contemporary movie -- except for the computer graphics. I know the movie was made in 1979 so they couldn't have incorporated "modern" computer features, but knowing that didn't keep me from being annoyed. In fact, it made me unfairly discount the alleged "quality" (it routinely gets very high marks from critics) of the movie. Still, even with the crappy computers, I still think Alien is a pretty good movie.

As I watched it, though, another question came to mind. Do we ever go backwards with technology? I'm sure we do, but I can't come up with an example where we, as a society, have reverted to earlier technologies. I'm looking for widespread technological reversion here. I'm not talking about the Amish deciding to forego electricity or an individual backpacker deciding to go back to an external frame pack because he doesn't like the feel of internal frames. No, I'm looking for a case where "everyone" decided to give up some new technology in favor of an earlier method. For instance, if everyone decided cell phones are more trouble than they're worth and everyone went back to having a phone on the wall at home. Or maybe we gave up on Blue Ray vs. HD DVD and just went back to VHS. Can you think of an example like that? I'm sure there is one, but I can't think of one. I'm kind of imagining a space movie that might use some dated technology that might not look dated at all at some point in the future.

Yes, I do realize this is kind of a "rigged" question. Why would we revert to the earlier technology? Because the old version is better than the new or the new just doesn't add any real user value. Well in that case the new tech would simply fail and never be adopted in the first place. I do realize there have been scads of new technologies that have suffered this fate, but I just wonder if there aren't some that have been widely adopted and then abandoned in favor of the old methods. Any suggestions?