Golly, Glen, good touch, calling a gumshoe to locate a good shoe.
uhhh...does anyone remember listening to radio programs about gumshoes?
Golly, Glen, good touch, calling a gumshoe to locate a good shoe.
uhhh...does anyone remember listening to radio programs about gumshoes?
hey, @willymac.
I'm afraid I missed out on the radio shows, which makes me sad because I've always wondered if I was born to radio or not. I like sound. A lot. Special effects, music, the human voice, noise in general. And it can also overwhelm me, so I like the sound of silence.
re: gumshoe/good shoe
It just seemed like the over-the-top kind of thing to do. :)
The magic of the old radio programs was that it was all live and the sounds were minimal but enough to evoke feelings or images. With no picture to be distracted by, the images were all in my head and that was perfectly fine.
A few years ago I got copies of a number of them on CD so I can listen just for the nostalgia. It doesn't take long at all to get me back to the 1950's!
I value silence highly and it is the main theme in my life. It is so much easier to be aware of the world and of time passing without sound imposing its pace on my life. Something about the spoken dramas slowed the pace of time, compared with the TV programming today. It's a different creature entirely.
Change is not always good, I think.
I remember the chilling effect from dark evenings, in my bed with the covers over my head, listening to mystery programs on the local AM station...
"What evil lurks in the hearts of men... the Shadow knows..."
hhaha! sir willymac! sorry to break in here Glen but man.. I would love to read a post or two about the old radio programs. I just missed them growing up, I bet most people don't even know about them!
Most people probably don't know about them. But then, most people would rather stick a fork in their face than sit quietly in the evening and listen to a drama on the radio.
Live TV was great, back before recording tape. Like the time the Timex watch exploded during a commercial, or the time the lawn mower touted for its reliability would not start during its network ad.
You just took your chances. Perfection takes the fun out of life and insulates us from the fact that things and people do fail sometimes.
sir willymac! haha! people would rather " stick a fork in their face" lol, that's too funny but it's true, there' no way they'd be able to handle that.
I have listened to a few over time in a similar format, either CD or download, but missed that whole era of radio programming. That would have been awesome. Much better to have your imagination take you somewhere than someone else's vision of what things should look like.
Yeah, some changes aren't for the best. We tend to do things because we can, not because we should.
We need to consider life cycle costs on new things, taking into account the disposal costs, retraining costs, displacement of current technology costs, and about ten other hidden costs. Few ever ask if we really NEED the new thing and assume that it will be bought if built. Unfortunately, they are usually right.
BUT, that will not change and neither will we.
Which is probably the saddest thing about all of this—no change. Especially where it's warranted. It's amazing how idealism leads to so many issues. Many things were created to help mankind, and then they get used for all kinds of purposes to the overall detriment of mankind. I can't say I'm one for stopping progress, I'd just like more people to think of the ramifications of their inventions and their actions and then come up with ways to mitigate them if they feel they should continue to move forward. These folks are so motivated by their own altruism that they fail to see the darkness lurking in the hearts of others, and often, it's within those helping them along with the technology.
The one thing that concerns me most about new technology in our near future is the advances being made in Artificial Intelligence. I have not heard anything positive about it from people I would consider as being learned, including Stephen Hawking. Anyone can argue that there will be many benefits for humanity, but few will discuss the obvious negatives and the potentially fatal end results for an AI malfunction.
We don't know what we don't know, and by giving inanimate machines the ability to create their own thought processes - as a "refinement" someone is bound to do - we cannot guess what will happen as a result.
Of course, it will be entertaining at first but our abilities to plan ahead after examining available data may make us seem overly - primitive to an AI who is also adept at modifying plans in real time. At some point, we would give them limited control over events and they may decide we are redundant in the process and exclude us from it; possibly even keeping parts of a process secret from us.
Any time we want to make a machine think is time to sit on our hands and not do anything until we think about that very carefully. Yes, it will be altruistic from our viewpoint, but so may be euthanasia from an AI's viewpoint.
AI will be a great detractor from ourselves and will give the keys to the kingdom to the machines because of the benefits to be gained and opposition would be passed over because of the glamour and promise.
We're never going to change on our own. I'll vote to let the machines solve the problems for us.
(Yes, it was rambling...)