I know, I know, it’s a very unusual title but that’s how rapidly technology and even life is changing or advancing and I don’t really know if that’s such a good thing. I was talking to someone who was having a very tough time trying to purchase a cassette tape player at least in the budget range and nothing exotic or antique, but not being able to locate one and I remarked to my wife that our kid is not going to know what a tape player is and will not know how one looks.
Technology is advancing rapidly, in my dad’s generation and mine I’ve seen LPs die out, the advent and death of cassette tapes, the advent of Audio CDs which are still going strong, the advent and death of VHS and VCRs, the death of CRT TVs, the advent and the near death of DVDs with HD almost but taking over. I don’t believe technology advanced this fast ever, at least not in previous generations. A friend sent me a link to the nearly extinct species of cassette tape players (tape decks) and they looked real gorgeous and so beautiful to touch. I’m not joking, take a look.
I was thinking and sharing alike with a friend how my PC which can do a zillion things comes nowhere near the tape deck in the looks department. What’s more the PC has become an all-in-one solution in that it plays music, plays movies, plays games, allows me to interact with all my brethren scattered all over this planet, and generally does anything I ask of it with the exception of household chores and has sort of become indispensible and irreplaceable, but becoming the cause for the death of many other technologies. This only brings up the question, have we sacrificed looks and beauty at the altar of performance and what else is going to die out in terms of technology.
