The 20 Year Snooze
“Ah, you must be Eric.”
I walk to the door to shake hands
with my new student who was asleep for the last 20 years.
“Hello, Professor. I just wanted to thank you for helping me
through this. You have no idea how odd it is to fall asleep, dream like it’s a
regular night’s sleep, and then wake up in the hospital, only to be told you have
slept for the last 20 years.” He says and then sits down on the couch.
“I believe that you
would be correct to say that I don’t know what it’s like.” I say as I go and sit
at my seat.
“Do you have anything you would like to discuss before we
begin this brief history lesson?” I ask.
“Um. What's that silver thing on your desk?” He asks
pointing at my MacBook Air.
“It is a computer, a laptop. It is called the MacBook Air. You may recall
the company, Apple? They are one of the
biggest companies today. We will get to them in a little bit. I think you'll find that I emphasize the technological developments more than anything else. You will soon find out that the internet is bigger than ever, if you aren't online, then you are nobody. If it gets too overwhelming, just say so.”
Eric looks truly amazed. “Wait. That's a computer!? Wow.”
“So, Eric, where should we start? The beginning of when you
fell asleep?” I ask.
“I think that would be best.” He says with a shrug.
“Alright. So, do you remember the OJ. Simpson case?” I ask
him.
“I remember the very beginning, and I think I saw the car
chase.” He says.
“So he ended up being charged with murder, but the jury didn't convict him mainly
because he had an all-star group of attorneys.”
“So, you think he did it?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. He has been cleared for the
most part, and it is settled. When I say for the most part, I mean his wife's family sued him for wrongful death and the jury found him guilty. Anyway, after that, nothing really happens in
’96, however that is not the same for '97. After being with the UK for a while,
Hong Kong returns to Chinese leadership. But to this day Hong Kong seems very
American. Unrelated to politics, Pokémon was introduced – it’s a trading card
game or something – and so many children still play it today. JK Rowling
created a breakthrough book series about a wizard boy named Harry Potter.
Millions of people loved this series which had 7 books total, and had 8 movies
made from it. Speaking of movies, the highest grossing movie ever made was
released. Inspired by the tragic ship accident, Titanic made $1 billion total.
Personally, I don’t think the movie was that good.”
“Wow, I have a lot of stuff to do!” Eric says with a slight
look of desperation.
“Yeah, you kind of do. Anyway, moving on to ’98, it became more common to see people with cell phones, which are cordless phones that work over cellular networks. And soon-to-be
web giant Google is founded. It started as a web search tool, that then became
an email service, a video streaming service, a mapping service, etc, and they have many other smaller services. And on top of all of that, they created and own an operating
software, called Android, which we will get to later. There was also a
scandalous charge on then President Bill Clinton. He had an affair with
then-intern Monica Lewinsky, he was charged with impeachment and later the House cleared him. Onto ’99, we have a new company called Napster – a
website that allows people to share files such as movies, music and the like –
causing copyright worries because people were getting to see and hear all of this media without paying for it.. Nelson Mandela stepped down as president of South
Africa. The 6th billionth person is born to populate earth. A
fearful computer bug was supposed to do devastating things to every computer as
the clock hit midnight on New Year’s Eve of '99, however nothing happened. And a
devastating 7.6 magnitude earthquake hits Turkey killing over 17,400 people.”
“I’m glad we are doing this in small doses, because, wow.
And an operating system is what powers a computer right?”
“Correct. Now moving onto 2000, we start with everyone
celebrating the turn of the millennium. Vladimir Putin is elected as president
of Russia, and is still in office today. Household computers break past the 1
GHz barrier, of which we will talk about later. Moving onto 2001, Wikipedia is
launched, which is a vast website with all kind of knowledge about all sorts of
stuff, but you shouldn't rely on it all being accurate because any Joe Shmoe can add information on the topics. George W. Bush is sworn into office as the 43rd President of
the United States. Apple unveils the iPod, a music playing device that changed
the industry. On September 11, 19
hijackers used 4 planes to target the Twin Towers, Pentagon, and either the
White House or United States Capital with all but one plane reaching its
target. 2,977 people died that day.”
“That’s just awful. That is truly horrible…”
“It is. Nothing much happens in 2002, except for Apple
unveiling the new iMac G4 which was an amazing computer for its time. In
February 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia exploded during reentry to earth’s
atmosphere killing all 7 crew members. Cause of disaster was a piece of foam
hitting the wing on takeoff, allowing air to rip apart the wing during reentry.
Moving on MySpace, which is a social media website, was introduced staying around (barely) to this date. At the
end of 2003, China launches their first manned space mission.”
“Well isn’t this getting depressing…”
“Yeah, a little bit. I have a class I need to start
preparing for shortly, so I will start going through this a bit quicker.”
“Sounds fine with me.”
“In 2004, Web 2.0 emerges, Facebook, a giant social networking website,
is released, and the world’s first 1 gigabyte SD card is released. A SD card is a type of media storage for computers. A gigabyte
is a unit of storage on a computer. This was quite big for the day. Now, though,
we can now squeeze 1,000 gigabytes, or a terabyte, onto an SD card. In 2005 USB
replaces the legendary floppy disks, YouTube, a video streaming service in which anyone can upload a video, I
mentioned earlier is released to the world, and Hurricane Katrina floods New
Orleans. You will still hear about Hurricane Katrina to this day. In 2006, only one big thing
happened. Twitter, another social media website, was released. In 2007,
the legendary iPhone was released…. I will show you what it does sometime soon,
but it is quite magical.”
“I look forward to it, if it’s what I think it is. Everyone
at the hospital had something that looked like it.”
“Yeah, it’s one of the most popular smartphones on the
market. There are others, but they aren’t as nice, in my opinion. Still in 2007,
Google releases their popular mapping system, named Google Maps. Basically, you
would look up directions on your computer, and print out the directions and maps for
the car ride. It was high-tech for the day. Nothing much happens in 2008, nor
anything worth mentioning in 2009 except the people of the U.S.A. elect the first African American President... well, actually, he is half black and half white, but no one ever talks about that. In 2010, there isn’t much worth mentioning
here today, other than the iPad was released, which is an even smaller, more mobile computer similar to a laptop. In 2011 Japan gets hit by a
massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake, Osama bin Laden, one of the leaders of the Taliban - they are bad, bad guys from the Middle East - is killed, the space shuttle fleet is retired, and USB 3.0 is more
commonly available. Moving into 2012, Windows 8 is released, it is the most
common operating system on non-Apple computers, 3 Americans are killed in a
terrorist attack in Benghazi on Sept 11, 2012. It becomes one of the - if not the - most
politically covered incidents in the 21st century. And smartphones and tablets – like the iPad –
get quad core processors, which are quite speedy.”
“Uh, do computers have quad core processors?”
“Yes and no. Firstly, not all smartphones and tablets have
them, and not all computers have them. Some have a dual core, others have
octa-core processors. It just depends how much you want to spend.”
“I think I understand. Please proceed.”
“In 2013, we see leaked NSA - that stands for National Security Agency, they are basically this mega government group that watches every
virtual move you make - documents from a former U.S. government employee, Edward Snowden, who
now lives in Russia, and is slowly leaking more and more data. We also see the
launch of the Xbox One, and the PS4, both of which are gaming consoles.”
“Sounds fun.”
“I haven’t had the opportunity to use either, so I can’t say
from experience if they are or not. But everyone on the internet likes both. In
2014, nothing much happens, except for the new world trade center finishing
construction, smart watches are the new best thing, and the Navy starts using
laser guns on its ships.”
“Like from Star-Wars?”
“No. you can’t see the beam, sadly. Moving into 2015, there’s
Windows 10 coming out, iOS 9 (which powers all of Apple’s mobile devices) coming
out, then there are the new iPhones coming out. Everyone has so many nice
products that I wish I could list off, but that would take forever. And talking
about politics again, there are 16 GOP presidential candidates right now. 16!!! And then we
have Barack Obama who seems to be trying to make a very bad image of his last
year of presidency. And then there was th…”
“Excuse me, Professor Jenkins, your class seems to be
getting rowdy.” Says one of my star students.
“Oh my! I completely forgot about class. Please excuse me,
Eric, I must be going. Have a good day!!”
“Okay, you too Professor.”
“We will finish this tomorrow, and then some!”
No comments:
Post a Comment