Things kids born in 2011 won't know

[speedyox]

Kids today will likely have never seen a B&W TV, a Sony Watchman portable TV or Discman CD player. Gameboy. tape based analog phone answering machine, rotary dial phone....

Still own the discman CD player and orginal gameboy. I use the gameboy regularly to play tetris. Minisnick loves playing with it too. If he hears the tetris music he come crawling from where ever he was and just about rips the thing out of my hands.

A 12 year old discman is the CD player in my component stereo system... Not that I've put a CD in it in the last 4 years.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

I won an Odysee (sp?) game system in 2001 and it went straight into the closet.

never heard of it, why didn't you sell it if you weren't going to use it?

Ditto. The only other unsuccessful systems I've known are the Saturn and the Jaguar.

i looked it up, if it was the odysee 2 system there was a place online selling it for $150, but I think it had some games with it.

No games with this one, and you couldn't get any for it back then, since it was going out of production. I won it at an open house at ReturnBuy, a failed internet sales venture.

My wife keeps telling me to put it on eBay, which I guess i should. probably just put it in a yard sale.

 

[Flyer_PE]

Speaking of failed gaming systems, I was the proud owner of a Colecovision. Mine worked for a whole three weeks before it crapped out. It got returned for a refund.

 

[ALBin517]

Travel agents will disappear. I see it already locally here.

My folks used them when I was a kid sometimes, but I've never used one since I've been planning my own trips.

It's so easy to book a flight or car on Orbitz and Hotels.com is good for lodging. Plus it's really easy to research your destination and line up activities.

My brother was a travel agent for AAA (before going into the insurance part). He says the only reason to go through a travel agent is to have somebody to blame when things go bad. "We are trying to check in and the hotel won't give us ocean view like we paid you for. Fix this."

Personally, I hate checking bags, free or not. I tend to travel with one of those luggage bags that is designed for carry on travel, you know the ones, that are shaped perfectly to fit in the overhead bin. I've been able to do a week long trip to CT with one of those and didn't feel underpacked at all.

We do a warm-weather international vacation for a week, every year or two. We go only with a carry-on each. I take all the toiletries for both of us but still have room for socks, underwear, a few thin shirts and a few pairs of pants.

Not to mention, not having to wait for checked baggage means always being first in line at customs. I'd guess we save 1-3 hours each way by not checking bags. (More time is saved when there is a layover.)

Also, we NEVER lose luggage.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

I know that anecdotes are not the rule, but not checking baggage doesn't mean you won't lose it. My cousin was traveling from NYC to Dallas. He had 1 carry-on bag with him. By the time he got on the plane, ALL overhead bin space was full, so they forced him to gate check his bag. When he got to Dallas, he was missing his laptop, camera, phone, and iPod Touch. He filed a complaint with American Airlines and got the equivalent of a giant middle finger. They basically said that the implicit contract that he entered into when he bought his ticket is that AA is not responsible for lost baggage/items.

 

[navyasw02]

Personally, I hate checking bags, free or not. I tend to travel with one of those luggage bags that is designed for carry on travel, you know the ones, that are shaped perfectly to fit in the overhead bin. I've been able to do a week long trip to CT with one of those and didn't feel underpacked at all. My wife on the other hand had not only a carry on, but also a duffel bag that we had to check. Granted, she had my son's clothes in her bag as well, so I can't give her too much grief.
As far as things kids born today won't know when they are our age...

Public Pay Phones.

I agree with you about checking bags, I try to avoid it like the plague. It's actually not bad to carry on bags now, I flew on the first day when the airlines started charging bag fees and every jerk was trying to stuff their suitcase into the overhead. Now people have accepted it and gotten smaller, more manageable carry ons.

Kids born today wont know what "Shake it like a polaroid picture" means.

 

[navyasw02]

They very likely also won't know who Andre 3000 is!

He hasn't put out an album in so long, I almost cant remember who he is.

 

[snickerd3]

mini loves andre 3000 he shakes his butt to the polaroid song

 

[DVINNY]

I was told long ago that the Polaroid picture shakeing did not speed up the development process and could only cause inconsistent development, and to NOT SHAKE the photo.

That means severe self-restraint

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

shakeing did not speed up the development process and could only cause inconsistent development

Yeah, I know, this probably explains most of my problems.

 

[Road Guy]

My VIC-20 failed to come on when I tried to power it up recently. I had to hack a new power supply together, the old one didn't work, and unfortunately it was potted, so I just threw it out and cut the end off and wired up from my bench supply.
I haven't tested to see if my old Walkman WM-10 works (the one that's the size of a cassette tape case). I remember paying like $90 for it back in 1984 or so. Lots of childsitting money went in to that thing (yeah, I watched one kid for $$...).

I don't know if my Discman works either. I still have it though.

Even have my big Mitsubishi Jambox. I also have my Grandfather's old Sony portable Tape/Radio/TV. It's a 3" B&W TV with a tape and radio unit. Looks like a piece of test equipment. That still works.

My kids look at all my old junk and laugh...

we were watching back to the future last weekend, and if your recall the scene where 1985 Marty put on the suit and put the walkman on his dad's ears, slid a cassette into the walkman and turned it on while his dad was asleep.. anyways, my kids all asked what that was? (the walkman and then I had to explain to them what a cassette was)...

 

[DVINNY]

And in '85 that Walkman was the BIG THING.

It's funny. We are almost to the future that Back to the Future II was based on

 

[Dleg]

I won an Odysee (sp?) game system in 2001 and it went straight into the closet.

never heard of it, why didn't you sell it if you weren't going to use it?

Ditto. The only other unsuccessful systems I've known are the Saturn and the Jaguar.

I have a friend who collects old video game systems and sells them. He paid a premium a couple years back for a prototype of the Odyssee 1, and sold it for a few grand. There was also an Odyssee 2, IIRC. My nextdoor neighbors had one, probably about 1980. I remember playing some space shooter that seemed really advanced to me at the time.

Personally, I hate checking bags, free or not. I tend to travel with one of those luggage bags that is designed for carry on travel, you know the ones, that are shaped perfectly to fit in the overhead bin. I've been able to do a week long trip to CT with one of those and didn't feel underpacked at all.

Traveling overseas is the main reason I carry a lot of carry-on. I always make sure I have enough clothes and toiletry to survive for a few days in my carry on. My checked luggage has been "lost" on at least three occasions, once when I was attending a conference. Having what I needed to survive the 2 days it took the airline to find my stuff was a lifesaver. (And note that all three occasions were big American airlines, not foreign carriers.)

The longest I went without my luggage was a week, but I was visiting my parents and was in the states for shopping, anyway, so it didn't hurt too bad.

 

[Exengineer]

Two things kids born in 2011 will not remember are bank cards and credit cards. All their account information will be found on a microchip embedded in their hand that they will scan in front of a reader to access money or credit lines. They may also ask "what's a university?" because that is a mode of education that will become obsolete with on-line and on the job learning being more effective and far less expensive.

 

[Road Guy]

And in '85 that Walkman was the BIG THING.
It's funny. We are almost to the future that Back to the Future II was based on

was it 2015 they went to in the 2nd movie?

 

[navyasw02]

Two things kids born in 2011 will not remember are bank cards and credit cards. All their account information will be found on a microchip embedded in their hand that they will scan in front of a reader to access money or credit lines. They may also ask "what's a university?" because that is a mode of education that will become obsolete with on-line and on the job learning being more effective and far less expensive.

I disagree, online education is massively expensive. My wife has the student loans to prove it.

 

[navyasw02]

And in '85 that Walkman was the BIG THING.
It's funny. We are almost to the future that Back to the Future II was based on

was it 2015 they went to in the 2nd movie?

Yea 2015. I watched it a few days ago, we're actually not too far off on a lot of things from the movie. They have 3d TVs, books that are now vintage, a few other things. No flying cars or Mr. Fusions yet though, but that'll be coming soon.

 

[Master slacker]

Retro weekend was a bust. Couldn't find Diablo or Tie Fighter. The ole Atari still works, but that wasn't my funnest goal.

 

[maryannette]

My grandmother was born in 1900 and died in 2001. It was interesting to talk to her about the changes she had witnessed in her lifetime. Same will be true in every decade.

 

[ElCid03]

I am suprised that you guys are leaving out great shows like "Good Times", "Voltron", and the standard 1980's greeting, "Thundercats Ho!!"