The Second Hand Man
September 5th, 1968

1968 is only forty six years into my past and yet I feel as though I’vebeen thrust back into the Dark Ages. The wonderful new discoveries, theories,concepts and inventions are all outdated to me already. Frustratingly, there isvery little, if anything, that this time can teach me in my fields of interest.

So, I have instead, opted to read a lot of philosophical as well asfictional work; stuff I always wanted to, but never got the chance to peruse inmy previous life.

Analogue will eventually succumb to Digital.

It’s strange not to see any digital watches. And people actually usetheir brains to add, subtract, multiply and divide without the aid of pocketcalculators. This is a good thing, but I’m not looking forward to using sliderules and log books at school again.

Although many 1-hour shops for the developing and printing of your happysnaps will spring up, they will meet their demise at the birth of the digitalcamera. The buzz word will be pixels. And, although some shops will manage tosurvive by printing out the digital images, most people will opt to view themsimply by downloading them onto their PCs (Personal Computers).

This brings to mind another practice - the use of acronyms.

In the future acronyms will become the order of the day (SMS, CEO, ATM,PIN, CD, DVD, FAQs, CGI, HIV - AIDS, SARS, H1N1 GPS, HD, ABS, DVD, JPEG, E-DOC,URL, ROM, RAM, MS-DOS, CD-ROM, etc.). This will be especially so in the area ofcomputer technology. It will not be uncommon to hear something like: ‘The CCOof the CC informed the IT specialist that his IBM PC was down due to a faultyLAN.’

People will become obsessed with memory capacity (Not their own, but thatof their computers’ as well as the many other devices that operate throughbinary codes), making terms like Meg and Gig a large part of the sales lingo.

And, although the HIV - AIDS disease will ravish much of the Sub-Saharancontinent, the viruses that will be affecting more people, will be those thatplay havoc with the smooth functioning of their computer’s operating systems.

To be honest, there are a myriad of differences that I could note betweenthe sixties and the early 21st century, but then I would fill volumes. So Ihave opted to only notarize the above few for now; just the ones that I havepersonally found to be the most noticeable, influential and significant.

Of all the things I miss most, the internet and my coffeemaker top thelist.