When Lance was 10 years old..

In honor of Lance's 50th birthday I ask the following: When Lance was 10 years old which of the following were true?

(Disclosure- some of the below are from a birthday card.)



A REMOTE meant a secluded spot off the beaten path.

CABLE was something that supported a bridge.

A VIDEO GAME was trying to make out what fuzzy images were on a snowy black and white 10 inch TV screen.

A CELL PHONE was what you used to make one phone call from jail.

A CALCULATOR was the accountant who did your parents taxes.

AN AIRBAG was someone who talked too much.

DIGITAL COMPUTING was counting on your fingers.

HIGH SPEED ACCESS was an on-ramp to the freeway.

SURFING was something done on a board in the ocean.

A BIRTHDAY was something Lance looked forward to.

A MOUSE was something you didn't want in your house.

A SPAM ASSASSIN was someone who killed people by giving them poisoned spam.

A WEB was what spiders wove.

A BUG was what spiders ate.

AMAZON meant where some big rain forest is (smaller now).

GOOGLE was an obscure term used by some math folks for the number 10100.

BING had no meaning.

APPLE was either a fruit or the record company founded by the Beatles. (There really WAS a legal name-issue when Apple-the-computer-company got into music.)

It was impossible to have 10,000 friends.

There were only three Network channels and a few local ones.

Music was on Vinyl records.

You went to the bathroom during commercials.

Johnny Carson joked that couples had sex during commercials on his show. (Ask your grandparents who Johnny Carson was, what commercials are, and what sex was.)

People read books written on paper.

Computer Science was not available as a major at most schools.

When people said you sound like a broken record they actually knew what a broken record sounded like.

People really would DIAL a phone number.

People would have to actually stop at toll booths instead of using easy-pass.

Long running TV shows would have one (or at most two) Christmas episodes since there were no arcs, hence an episode could be inserted into any season at any time. Contrast: M*A*S*H in its 11 seasons and 256 episodes had TWO Christmas episodes, where as 30 ROCK its 7 seasons and 131 episodes had FOUR Christmas episodes. (This may be THE least important consequence of the new technology.)

There were bar room fights over trivia since you couldn't just look it up on Google. The Guinness Book of World Records was supposed to cut down on bar fights, but it didn't quite work.

People knew how to read maps and get a sense of where things were instead of relying on technology. That's why today the number of hikers who get lost has skyrocketed.

If MTV existed they would still be playing music videos. The question Why doesn't MTV show Music Video's anymore has been asked so often it is now Cliche. But the above video provides an answer.

Lance did not recognize the importance of NP-completeness. Then again, neither had the math community, the non-theory computer science community, and Probably parts of the theory community.

To find out what time it was you couldn't look at your cell phone, TV set, or Microwave. You had to go outside and look at your sundial.

TV shows may have pilot episodes, or may not, but they didn't bother with explaining everything. Thought experiment: If Mr. Ed was on today

they would explain how he could talk (A government experiment gone wrong? gone right?) rather then the ONE line by Mr. Ed in the first episode: Don't try (to understand why I can talk)--- its bigger than both of us.

We all watched a TV show the same night. Contrast- last month I watched Firefly. Bizarre result of this--- since people can't find people to talk about shows as much as the used do, there is now a show called TALKING BAD where people on the show TALK ABOUT Breaking Bad.


True story: On March 9, 1967 John Smith (not his real name) wanted to watch Star Trek (Episode: Devil in the Dark) but his parents wanted to take the family out for dinner. So he pretended to be sick so he could watch it- because, as he puts it, if I don't see it now I will NEVER GET TO SEE THE EPISODE, EVER!!!!!. Imagine a world without DVR, DVD, TIVO, On-Demand, Hulu. He doesn't have to imagine it. Our younger readers do.







I think SURFING, MOUSE, and SPAM really have changed primary meanings. FRIENDS may have also.