Lemming Tracks: Change Happens

The Lemming was born during the Truman administration. Quite a lot has happened since then.

Here in America, telephones have grown from something many - but certainly not all - households had, to wallet-size things folks carry in their pockets.

Spaceports used to be something you'd see in comic strips like "Buck Rogers." America now has seven of them.

I did a quick check, and found these posts:

• "Data-Driven Art: For an 'Overwhelmed' 'Hive Mind???' "
  (January 27, 2010)
• "Spaceport America: More Progress"
  (January 29, 2010)
• "America's Seventh Spaceport"
  (January 19, 2010)
• "Robovie-II and Robovie-IV: Robot Assistants for Store and Office"
  (January 7, 2010)

I'm a bit sympathetic toward the fellow who set up that "Hive Mind" exhibition. I don't see things the way he does: but I've been keeping up with things for the last half-century. Not everybody does that.

It's not just technology, of course, that's changed.

When I was growing up, if someone said someone was "American," odds are they were thinking about someone who looks as Anglo as I do, with a nice, 'real American' name like Smith, or Jones, or Williams or Brown. Earlier today, I posted about transportation technology involving a company founded by someone named Franklin. Yeah: That's a 'regular American name.' The entrepreneur's full name is Franklin Chang-Diaz.

This is not the 'good old days.' For which I'm duly grateful. But that's another topic.

Don't Blink: You'll Miss Something

Like I said, I've been keeping up, and The Lemming has a fairly wide range of interests.

Not everybody does. I can imagine a bright, talented professional a few decades back, who didn't waste time in school or college with anything that didn't apply to his or her career, and who was vaguely aware of something called "computers" being a new technology.

Imagine the shock that person would be in for, looking out of his or her professional office: and seeing something that looked like a television set with a keyboard on most of the 'merely clerical' desks.