Thanksgiving Week – Wednesday

Yesterday’s promised blizzard never came – at least, not to this portion of my Dry State.  I hear conditions elsewhere were nasty; last night, it snowed for about half an hour.  We didn’t even get an inch!  When I looked out the window this morning, certain that I’d find myself snowed in, there was even less snow then there was last night.

All the same, I’ve had an interesting day.  Between procrastinating projects, making cheesecake, wondering if the Internet would start working in time for this post to be today’s post, and rereading bits of Fablehaven, it’s been a busy day.  I’ve much to be grateful for.

1.  Computers.  Can you imagine going back to a time when we had to do everything by hand?  From looking up spelling mistakes, to retyping papers on noisy typewriters because of a single mistake on the last line, to communicating with people only as far away as you can walk?  Me neither.  It’s great that we have machines to clear up life for us.

2.  CDs.  Before music was recorded, you’d have to attend a live performance to hear any kind of music – or let your 18-month-old play on pots and pans with spoons.  Remember that next time you play a CD or turn on your ipod.

3.  The Internet.  I never realized just how much I depend upon it until it was suddenly unavailable earlier today.

4.  Electricity.  Look at all my lists thus far this week.  How many of the items I’m listing would suddenly become worthless (or more difficult to produce) without electricity?

5.  The printing press.  Can you imagine books still being written by hand?  There would be a lot fewer books.  A LOT.  Sure, it would be great quality control… but there’d also be fewer authors, fewer publishing companies, and knowledge would be a lot less widespread.  Can you imagine someone copying out, word for word, an English textbook?  Or one for Trigonometry?  Or Calculus?  If nothing else, mistakes in transcription could make for messy homework….  Messier than normal, at least….  And did I mention that there would be fewer books?

What miracles of modern technology do you usually take for granted?


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.