I was going to write about my tough drive home from Appleton, MN, to Minneapolis up a two-lane highway, at sixty MPH, in the dark, in the rain, with lots of semi trucks roaring at us, but reading Betty’s description of her plane flight home from Chicago makes my adventure seem like a pleasant walk in the park.
I find I have let the modern world get far ahead of me again. When I was young, I was a huge fan of science fiction, and I especially liked the kind that was predictive of the not-too-distant future. The movie 2001 was a prime example. I kept myself up-to-date on technology advances. I faced the future knowledgeable and unafraid.
Then this past weekend at a writers group meeting one of the members casually produced her android phone and said that Betsy Devonshire, my heroine sleuth who owns a needlework shop should be able to handle this new method of purchasing materials. She had her laptop with her and held the android phone up close to the screen of the laptop and showed me how the two were holding a sort of conversation. She said many people were doing credit card purchases this way, using their phones and the shop’s computer. I hadn’t known such a thing was possible. Suddenly I felt as if I had woken up in a sci-fi world. I was old and out of date, a Mrs. Rip Van Winkle. I really need to get caught up.
Have you ever been suddenly confronted by an unforseen advance in technology?
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
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8 comments:
Oh yeah! Definitely. And I'm married to a technology geek. Even he has a hard time keeping up with it. It is moving so fast these days. (Have you heard about the 'monitor' that is the size of a piece of paper and even can be folded?)
Besides, like all the time?
Between writing and day jobs and research, when is a writer supposed to sleep?
I am stubbornly resisting the smartphone craze, and using my computer for computer and my cellphone for phone calls; but I do try to keep abreast of the latest "thing" so I can write about it.
At a family reunion this past weekend, someone wanted me to sent photos to their phone. No way ... I can barely operate my cell phone as a phone and have never even sent a text message.
Science fiction was a favorite of mine until into turned into dungeons and dragons fantasy. I will stick to cozies, thank you very much!
The semi-trucks are scary in daylight. Your nighttime trip must have been a white-knuckle one.
I'm fascinated by all the technological advances but haven't even attempted to keep up. Fortunately, we've got family members who keep us informed about the necessities.
I didn't think I wanted a smartphone, and now that I have one, I love it! Being able to figure out where I was when in the wilds of Jackson County, Indiana was a lifesaver. I look forward to using a barcode on my phone display as an airline boarding pass, too. Still feel like things are speeding up and passing me, though.
I want my phone to be a phone, my camera to be a camera, my music player to do that alone, and a pocket computer to fill in the gaps.
That way if I lose one, or it breaks, I still have the others. And none of them require a $100 a month two-year contract.
It's good to realize I'm not alone. I think what's helping me not be caught up is that we never had children. Children live on the cutting edge and so would have helped us at least be aware of the advances. Ellen, you make a good, important point about not losing everything by just losing one thing.
I try to at least have some idea with what's going on, though I may not choose to use it. It has taken me awhile to make friends with my smart phone, but I love that I can take photos with it and then email them.
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