The 8-tracks of the Future
Monday, June 18th by Carla1970 — I was in my brother’s car, listening to an 8-track of Creedence Clearwater Revival. In the middle of my favorite song, the tape jumped tracks, making it impossible to sing along. Why couldn’t they organize the songs so that wouldn’t happen?
Someone did. By the time I bought my own car, 8-tracks had been replaced by cassette players. The car after that had a cassette player that automatically played Side B when Side A finished. I invested heavily in cassettes, thinking I was all set now that that problem with 8-tracks had been resolved.
CDs caught me by surprise.
But they shouldn’t have: technology is not about finding one thing that works and sticking with it. Tinkering with a perfectly good system is a fact of life. History suggests that we just can’t help ourselves. “Good enough” for most of us is never good enough for someone out there, who will find an improvement, possibly creating a new technology.
That’s what we have to help our students understand sooner rather than later. Those MP3 players they cherish are the 8-tracks of the future. In order to be nimble members of the work force, employees who can land on their feet when a market collapses, our students need to be able to develop new skills and invest in themselves. Literacy and problem-solving are fundamental to their long-term economic and social survival.
I mention this because today marks an important event. On this date in 1948, Columbia Records launched its new product, a long-playing, 33 1/2 rpm phonograph record.
June 18th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Communication–communicating–communicate. Driving over miles of what used to be pastureland that is now filled with housing projects reminds me of some other drastic changes in technology. Once homes were only built near sources of water. Once letters came but rarely to the country post offices. Then electrical and phone lines began to crisscross the open prairie. But now huge wind turbines create electricity for small communities and desalination plants create fresh water. E-mail has replaced the paper letter, and cellular technology has replaced the phone lines. Someday soon millions of acres of mesquite may become bio-fuel to replace the gasoline currently used to move us around over the face of the earth. Truly man’s imagination is his only limitation at this point. But what is man in the overall context of life? Surely he is more than the technology he produces marked by the milestones of his inventions. It is still the spirit of man that communicates between men.
Thanks, Carla, for reminding us of how restless we were with changes–and how much more we should expect.
June 19th, 2007 at 5:24 am
You really made me laugh with this one. I felt the same way — had a huge collection of cassettes and thought that CDs were expensive and unnecessary. Now I have yet another huge collection (of CDs, of course), but my son gave me an iPod Shuffle for Christmas (lightweight for when I go walking, you know). A few months later, someone gave my older grandson an iPod so tiny it clips on his clothing, and then my son-in-law gave my daughter an iPod (with a little screen on it!) that holds all the podcasts and music that helps make life livable for her at work PLUS holding cartoons and other kid stuff to entertain her kids when we go to restaurants or a ball game! You know, Spongebob and Robot Chicken. Now they’re saying that CDs are going out because people will just download the music they want, but I don’t think that’ll happen soon, primarily because of the tech gap in our country.
I still love my little iPod, though, even if it isn’t the most sophisticated of them all. But there’s a problem. After my computer crashed last November and my son-in-law used the recovery disk, and after I thought I had put on all the programs I wanted (and left off the ones I didn’t want anymore), I discovered that my iTunes program didn’t work the way I wanted. I am stuck with the music that’s already in the iPod unless I want to recopy all those CDs back into the computer, let iTunes erase the iPod, and then copy what I want onto it. In other words, I cannot just add to what’s already there. That silly iTunes program won’t let me do that. Weirdos!
Ahh, well, something will happen to help us semi-technologically-literate types!
November 12th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
8 Tracks are certainly interesting. I remembered them from when I was a child but now I own a 1973 dodge and can indulge in the pleasures of 8 track technology. I am building a collection for the upcoming road trip and will begin work on mix-tapes soon.
If interested:
Making Sense of 8 Tracks