OLED Television and Thoughts About Technology

[SGOS]

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LCD TVs came out and people bought them up like French fries.  Now if you demand any kind of quality, you buy an LED.  Next on line is OLED "Organic Light Emitting Display", which is better yet and lends itself to further innovations, specifically curved screens.

Today we accept tech advancements at such speeds as normal, but to me the most astonishing part of the digital age is the speed at which it advances.  

My family was one of the last to buy a TV in our neighborhood.  For years when we would wear out a TV, we would eventually replace it with an almost identical TV based on the same technology that remained the state of the art during most of my lifetime.  A TV repair man would come to your house to keep your TV running for as long as possible.   There was no incentive to buy a new one, because it would be exactly like the old one.

Record players remained the state of the art for an even longer time:  "Oooh, I just got a new high fidelity system," but it was still just spinning records that mechanically vibrated a needle.

These days, before a gadget wears out, the technology is already several generations ahead of where it was when you bought the last contraption.  You can't keep up, unless you're willing to throw out stuff that still works, just to make room for the new stuff.

[caseagainstfaith]

I was the last kid on the block to have a color TV.  We went from 19" B&W to 25" color and I thought I was in heaven.

[Plu]

I still have one of those big old machines in my living room. I don't use it anymore, but it's certainly interesting to see it compared with a modern tv. You think it's some kind of antique device, but it's not even 20 years old.

[SGOS]

I was the last kid on the block to have a color TV.  We went from 19" B&W to 25" color and I thought I was in heaven.

And color TV was a long time in coming.  There were a lot of half assed attempts to make it work at first.  Yeah, they had colors, but Ed Sullivan might have green skin or bright fuzzy pink.  They messed with the concept for a long time.  At one time, I actually thought they would never get it right.  Early on, someone would buy a color TV and you would go to their house to check it out.  It would be awful.  You wouldn't tell them it was awful, because they would be kind of proud or their TV.  But it was just awful.

[SGOS]

I still have one of those big old machines in my living room. I don't use it anymore, but it's certainly interesting to see it compared with a modern tv. You think it's some kind of antique device, but it's not even 20 years old.

I had an Apple 2GS for many years.  It was a regular rocket, with a 10 megabyte hard drive that cost me $700 from some after market tech company.  I probably had $4000 dollars tied up in the whole thing.  Eventually, it was time to move on, and I offered my equipment to the local Christian school, which survived on a lot of charity.  OMG, they didn't want my computer and sent me kind of a polite letter saying they were only accepting "whatever."  

My act of magnanimous generosity was rejected.  They were telling me they didn't want my junk.  I ended up throwing it in a dumpster.  I remember staring down at my stuff in the dumpster for the longest time, trying to make sense out of what just happened.  I decided to try to just push it out of my mind, and I got back in the car and went home, still trying to accept the situation while I drove.

[mykcob4]

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LCD TVs came out and people bought them up like French fries.  Now if you demand any kind of quality, you buy an LED.  Next on line is OLED "Organic Light Emitting Display", which is better yet and lends itself to further innovations, specifically curved screens.

Today we accept tech advancements at such speeds as normal, but to me the most astonishing part of the digital age is the speed at which it advances.  

My family was one of the last to buy a TV in our neighborhood.  For years when we would wear out a TV, we would eventually replace it with an almost identical TV based on the same technology that remained the state of the art during most of my lifetime.  A TV repair man would come to your house to keep your TV running for as long as possible.   There was no incentive to buy a new one, because it would be exactly like the old one.

Record players remained the state of the art for an even longer time:  "Oooh, I just got a new high fidelity system," but it was still just spinning records that mechanically vibrated a needle.

These days, before a gadget wears out, the technology is already several generations ahead of where it was when you bought the last contraption.  You can't keep up, unless you're willing to throw out stuff that still works, just to make room for the new stuff.

Technical advancement far out-paces social advancement. The thing is all this technology has shifted the behavior of people to the extent that they can't actually function as real human beings anymore. People are ADD to the max. They insist on instant gratification. They won't even attempt anything hard. If something becomes difficult, they just drop it. They get focused on their phone and only their phone. They demand entertainment 24/7 and if for one moment they don't get it they scream and whine like spoiled brats. It's pop-culturalism on steroids. They have lost their values. They have lost their idealism. I don't blame technology, because man has always taken the lazy way, the easy way, and have relied on others that had the discipline to actually create the technology that people crave. This is why American students lag far behind the world in education. Highschool football is more important than math and science. The culture is so ingrained in the new technecal toys that they don't know how to do anything but bury themselves in those toys. It's not that they are stupid, just unwilling to get an education. Proof of this is how fast they adapt to the new tecnologies sold to them.
So yes technogy is advancing at breakneck speed but we have paid for it by losing humanity!

[surly74]

These days, before a gadget wears out, the technology is already several generations ahead of where it was when you bought the last contraption.  You can't keep up, unless you're willing to throw out stuff that still works, just to make room for the new stuff.
Technical advancement far out-paces social advancement. The thing is all this technology has shifted the behavior of people to the extent that they can't actually function as real human beings anymore. People are ADD to the max. They insist on instant gratification. They won't even attempt anything hard. If something becomes difficult, they just drop it. They get focused on their phone and only their phone. They demand entertainment 24/7 and if for one moment they don't get it they scream and whine like spoiled brats. It's pop-culturalism on steroids. They have lost their values. They have lost their idealism. I don't blame technology, because man has always taken the lazy way, the easy way, and have relied on others that had the discipline to actually create the technology that people crave. This is why American students lag far behind the world in education. Highschool football is more important than math and science. The culture is so ingrained in the new technecal toys that they don't know how to do anything but bury themselves in those toys. It's not that they are stupid, just unwilling to get an education. Proof of this is how fast they adapt to the new tecnologies sold to them.
So yes technogy is advancing at breakneck speed but we have paid for it by losing humanity!

what does HS football have to do with this rant?

i agreed with everything up to that point and don't think you are wrong on the football but it was an odd thing to include. (i'm a football coach)

[mykcob4]

These days, before a gadget wears out, the technology is already several generations ahead of where it was when you bought the last contraption.  You can't keep up, unless you're willing to throw out stuff that still works, just to make room for the new stuff.
Technical advancement far out-paces social advancement. The thing is all this technology has shifted the behavior of people to the extent that they can't actually function as real human beings anymore. People are ADD to the max. They insist on instant gratification. They won't even attempt anything hard. If something becomes difficult, they just drop it. They get focused on their phone and only their phone. They demand entertainment 24/7 and if for one moment they don't get it they scream and whine like spoiled brats. It's pop-culturalism on steroids. They have lost their values. They have lost their idealism. I don't blame technology, because man has always taken the lazy way, the easy way, and have relied on others that had the discipline to actually create the technology that people crave. This is why American students lag far behind the world in education. Highschool football is more important than math and science. The culture is so ingrained in the new technecal toys that they don't know how to do anything but bury themselves in those toys. It's not that they are stupid, just unwilling to get an education. Proof of this is how fast they adapt to the new tecnologies sold to them.
So yes technogy is advancing at breakneck speed but we have paid for it by losing humanity!

what does HS football have to do with this rant?

i agreed with everything up to that point and don't think you are wrong on the football but it was an odd thing to include. (i'm a football coach)

Good for you. I am commenting not ranting. I have nothing against football coaches. I really liked mine when I was in HS. HS football has everything to do with the culture today and its failure to address more important things. It isn't the fault of HS football, it's just that the culture appreciates HS football more than anything else and above all else. The culture has it's priorities out of wack. That is what I am saying.

[DunkleSeele]

I was the last kid on the block to have a color TV.  We went from 19" B&W to 25" color and I thought I was in heaven.

And color TV was a long time in coming.  There were a lot of half assed attempts to make it work at first.  Yeah, they had colors, but Ed Sullivan might have green skin or bright fuzzy pink.  They messed with the concept for a long time.  At one time, I actually thought they would never get it right.  Early on, someone would buy a color TV and you would go to their house to check it out.  It would be awful.  You wouldn't tell them it was awful, because they would be kind of proud or their TV.  But it was just awful.

Well, didn't NTSC mean "Never Twice the Same Colour"?

[DunkleSeele]

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LCD TVs came out and people bought them up like French fries.  Now if you demand any kind of quality, you buy an LED.  Next on line is OLED "Organic Light Emitting Display", which is better yet and lends itself to further innovations, specifically curved screens.

Today we accept tech advancements at such speeds as normal, but to me the most astonishing part of the digital age is the speed at which it advances.  

My family was one of the last to buy a TV in our neighborhood.  For years when we would wear out a TV, we would eventually replace it with an almost identical TV based on the same technology that remained the state of the art during most of my lifetime.  A TV repair man would come to your house to keep your TV running for as long as possible.   There was no incentive to buy a new one, because it would be exactly like the old one.

Record players remained the state of the art for an even longer time:  "Oooh, I just got a new high fidelity system," but it was still just spinning records that mechanically vibrated a needle.

These days, before a gadget wears out, the technology is already several generations ahead of where it was when you bought the last contraption.  You can't keep up, unless you're willing to throw out stuff that still works, just to make room for the new stuff.

Technical advancement far out-paces social advancement. The thing is all this technology has shifted the behavior of people to the extent that they can't actually function as real human beings anymore. People are ADD to the max. They insist on instant gratification. They won't even attempt anything hard. If something becomes difficult, they just drop it. They get focused on their phone and only their phone. They demand entertainment 24/7 and if for one moment they don't get it they scream and whine like spoiled brats. It's pop-culturalism on steroids. They have lost their values. They have lost their idealism. I don't blame technology, because man has always taken the lazy way, the easy way, and have relied on others that had the discipline to actually create the technology that people crave. This is why American students lag far behind the world in education. Highschool football is more important than math and science. The culture is so ingrained in the new technecal toys that they don't know how to do anything but bury themselves in those toys. It's not that they are stupid, just unwilling to get an education. Proof of this is how fast they adapt to the new tecnologies sold to them.
So yes technogy is advancing at breakneck speed but we have paid for it by losing humanity!

I blame bad parenting. Far too many parents find it easier to sit their kids in front of the latest toy to keep them quiet than to actually spend time with them and teach them some values. Sometimes I think we should introduce some sort of "procreation license"; before breeding, people should prove they are fit for being parents.

[Colanth]

A TV repair man would come to your house to keep your TV running for as long as possible.

Because when something went wrong, it was usually a part that could be replaced for $20 including labor - much cheaper than replacing the set.  These days, there's not much in there - a small PC board and a few components.  When something goes bad you can't obtain a replacement part (because it's not a generic one, like a vacuum tube or a capacitor, it's a part obtainable only from the TV manufacturer, and they don't sell the parts), and a new set costs much less in 2003 dollars than having the repairman come to the house cost in 1960 dollars.  (In 1960, $45/week was enough to support a family nicely, so a repair cost about half a week's income.  Today you can buy a good set for $200, while it takes more than $400/week to support a family.)

And color TV was a long time in coming.  There were a lot of half assed attempts to make it work at first.  Yeah, they had colors, but Ed Sullivan might have green skin or bright fuzzy pink.

Blue grass and orange dirt at baseball games too.

 They messed with the concept for a long time.

Sort of.  At the same time that RCA came out with dot-sequential color (the system in use today), CBS came out with field-sequential color (and Sony later came out with a field-sequential set that had a dot-sequential to field-sequential converter in it) that worked a lot better.  (With a color wheel instead of a color tube, you got perfect color every time.)  With computers (that's why we have pretty good color these days - there's a computer in the TV set), field-sequential would look even better and the circuitry would be simpler (and probably cheaper).

We get what the big dog invented, not the best system.  FM stereo still has limited channel separation.  There was another method that had much greater separation, and held up even in a car moving through a city at a fair clip (which almost totally destroys the separation in the current system).  But GE had the money.

Anyone familiar with the external combustion engine?

As far as technological advance, the speed at which technology is advancing is, itself, accelerating.  Technological advance is a second-order (maybe even a third-order) effect.  It's always been that way.  Technology advanced more from 1900 to 2000 than it had from 1500 to 1900.  Anyone alive now, who lives until 2100, and looks back, will probably see more advance in this century than in the past 10 centuries (or more).  It probably took tens of thousands of years to go from using fire to making it.  Today, the equivalent probably takes a few months.  I wish I could live to see what 2100 will bring.  Or even 2050.

[Plu]

When something goes bad you can't obtain a replacement part (because it's not a generic one, like a vacuum tube or a capacitor, it's a part obtainable only from the TV manufacturer, and they don't sell the parts),

That's because it's not economical to sell parts, though. Most people aren't capable of doing the replacement anyway and getting a repairman costs more than buying a new machine, so selling tv parts is basically just a good way to lose money.

We get what the big dog invented, not the best system.

Yep. An unfortunate side-effect of high production and investment costs to get things built. You need a lot of money to make a lot of money, and you need even more money to design and produce a new device. And the people with a lot of money don't give a damn about the best device, they want the one that makes them even more money. Usually the best option isn't the most profitable one.

[Colanth]

When something goes bad you can't obtain a replacement part (because it's not a generic one, like a vacuum tube or a capacitor, it's a part obtainable only from the TV manufacturer, and they don't sell the parts),

That's because it's not economical to sell parts, though. Most people aren't capable of doing the replacement anyway and getting a repairman costs more than buying a new machine, so selling tv parts is basically just a good way to lose money.

That didn't stop them for a long time, though.  One of the earliest massively integrated circuits I fooled around with was one designed to replace most of the circuitry of a radio.  It was available as a replacement part, and we made all sorts of receivers from it.  (It was a lot cheaper than the parts needed to make the same circuits, too.)

BTW, most people weren't capable of replacing most parts on most things since the industrial revolution (how many people can replace an engine bearing in a car), but the parts are available.  Replacing a 30 cent IC in a TV would cost less than replacing the whole set, even including labor.  Not that much less, but that's because TV sets have become so cheap these days.  A very large screen TV costs less than a week's income, while the first (or one of the first - I was too young to be sure now) set, the RCA 630, cost 6 month's to a year's income.  (BTW, not every repairman charges more than a doctor.  I was earning pocket money repairing TV sets before I became a teenager.)

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Let's go back to the good old days of drive ins, the phone bolted to the kitchen wall and Ma Bell would break your legs for fucking with it, long distance rates higher to call your next door neighbor than to call Pakistan, hospitals where people went to die instead of getting healed, women thrown in prison for abortions, mental illness got you chained in a dungeon at a state institution, cops used billy clubs rather indiscriminantly to crack skulls open, driving drunk was acceptable and no or little punishment if you drunkenly ran over several toddlers, CHURCHES EVERYWHERE!, ...... fuck! I could go on.. in fact I should be imprisoned for even publicly saying FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK! Those good old days and dont forget, Nostalgia is a seductive liar.

[PopeyesPappy]

Technical advancement far out-paces social advancement. The thing is all this technology has shifted the behavior of people to the extent that they can't actually function as real human beings anymore. People are ADD to the max. They insist on instant gratification. They won't even attempt anything hard. If something becomes difficult, they just drop it. They get focused on their phone and only their phone. They demand entertainment 24/7 and if for one moment they don't get it they scream and whine like spoiled brats. It's pop-culturalism on steroids. They have lost their values. They have lost their idealism. I don't blame technology, because man has always taken the lazy way, the easy way, and have relied on others that had the discipline to actually create the technology that people crave. This is why American students lag far behind the world in education. Highschool football is more important than math and science. The culture is so ingrained in the new technecal toys that they don't know how to do anything but bury themselves in those toys. It's not that they are stupid, just unwilling to get an education. Proof of this is how fast they adapt to the new tecnologies sold to them.
So yes technogy is advancing at breakneck speed but we have paid for it by losing humanity!

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