Wednesday, February 18, 2009

We live in an amazing world, yet nobody is happy

This "viral video" is going around on the internet (It's been taken out of Youtube because of copyright violation from NBC, but can be found elsewhere):

http://vodpod.com/watch/1335606-louis-ck-%E2%80%9Ceverything%E2%80%99s-amazing-nobody%E2%80%99s-happy%E2%80%9D
http://barefootmeg.multiply.com/video/item/56

The stand up comedian has a point. Technology has come a LONG way in 100 years. Yet we have so high expectations that we are never happy with what we got...
Just 100 years ago, the average plane would not go very far... Barely enough for military reconnaissance.
Just 50 years ago, The average computer was AT LEAST several cabinet and had less than 10K of memory, operating well under 1 MIPS.
Just 25 years ago, The average personnal computer didn't have a hard drive in it!
Just 20 years ago, cell phone were all analog.
Just 15 years ago, the website for CBC was created out of HTML 1.0
Just 10 years ago, the first blackberry was released
Just 5 years ago, No intel mac, no Iphones, first color Ipod
Just 4 years ago, Xbox 360
Just 3 years ago, Intel Macs

And yet we complain when, on the passenger seat of a car, an iPhone has trouble finding the nearest gas station in a densely populated area. Yet the poor thing has to compensate for relativity to calculate GPS coordinates, compensate for Doppler shift while registering with 40 differents cell towers along the way and transferring huge among of data, and using algorithms developed over the years to estimate the shortest route, just so we can find cheaper gas.

A spoiled generation :)
Blogged with the Flock Browser

No comments: