Hobbies Destroyed by Technology

For the record, Im not a Luddite. I dig technology I really do. But, dammit, some of the things from the good old days were just flat out better. Dont argue with me, son. Ill prove it to you.

1. Reading Paper Books

Amazon.Com reported selling 22 million eBooks in 2010. It was the first and it wont be the last year that Amazon sold more eBooks than real books. Meanwhile, libraries have resorted to hiring actual corpses, finding them more than capable of handling current visitor counts.

2. Making a Mix-Tape

I lost my V on Valentines Day. I gave her a mix-tape that I made on a boom box. She was very appreciative. From what my little brothers tell me, sharing iTunes playlists (todays equivalent of a mix-tape) isnt nearly as effective.

3. Playing Board Games

Ask any kid if he plays Monopoly on an actual board and hell kick you in the gonads for your insolence. If he plays at all, itd be on a screen.
But more than likely he doesnt even play virtual board games; hes too busy splattering digital brain matter across the wall in the latest ultraviolent video game. The thrills of buying Boardwalk and Park Place cant even come close.

4. Taping off the radio

Believe it or not, there was a time when new song debuts were a big deal. Youd run to the radio and mash down the RECORD button, just to hold over until the CD (or record?) came out.
Now its all about bittorrent directories (Pirate Bay) and P2P software (Kazaa) and file hosting sites (Rapid Share). And maybe not so coincidentally, albums now have about the same excitement and market value as a bag full of kaka.

5. Farming

There are between 3 and 6 million active farmers in the United States. There are over 80 million active users on Farmville. Need I say more?

6. Sending Letters

Casanova wouldve committed suicide were he born this century. No more love letters to be sent; emails and text messages full of smiley faces and acronyms are the method of the day. No wonder mailmen are going postal, postage prices are going up and college kids have the grammatical grasp of a half-developed coconut tree.

7. Sketching & Painting

Van Gogh created about 50,000 paintings in his lifetime. Most artists today dont even create one. The Photoshop-fueled graphic artist industry is all about pushing pixels around a screen. Such is progress.

8. Dating

Meeting people in person is played out. Its much easier to post a few pictures on ENTER-YOUR-FAVORITE-DATING-WEBSITE-HERE. Then all you have to do is squeeze as many smileys and LOLs and ROFLs as possible into your profile and direct messages. The thrill of the hunt, the tension of chance encounters, the warmth of live conversation are all dead sensations.

9. Spinning Vinyl

In the past, the DJ would juggle records, diving into crates like a frenzied monkey and cutting the mixer harder than white lines. These days, DJs plug their iBook into the stereo system and hit play. Whered the funk go?

10. Collecting Records

Vinyl isnt even safe in the house of the music lover any more. Internet radio (Slacker, Last FM, Pandora, etc.) put the kibosh on that. Some of them use your preferences to choose future songs to play; eventually, every song is your favorite song. When did it become cool to have a computer think for you?

Gujarat’s economy – India’s Guangdong

A north-western state offers a glimpse of a possible industrial future for India

SO MANY things work properly in Gujarat that it hardly feels like India. In a factory packed with kit from Germany and China, slabs of rubber and bags of carbon black are turned into tyres. After being X-rayed for imperfections, they will be distributed across India or sent for export within three days. Sandeep Bhatia, a manager for CEAT, the firm that owns the project, says it took only 24 months to complete, including the normally fraught process of buying land. There is constant electricity, gas and abundant water. The state government, he says, kept red tape to a minimum, did not ask for bribes, and does not interfere much now.

The tyre plant is not the only sign of prosperity in Gujarat. A nearby village may have fodder strewn all over its alleys and mice scuttling across shampoo sachets in the local store, but it also has satellite dishes poking up from the roofs and power metres on the wall of every house. Most of the men, the villagers say, work for small industrial firms for a wage about 50% higher than they would get in the fields. The road to Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s main city, is privately operated and boasts four lanes. It passes through a countryside that is visibly industrialising.

With a long coastline and too little rain for decent farming, Gujarat has always been famous for its traders. When it was hived off from Bombay to form a separate state in 1960, “the question was how Gujarat would survive,” says Narendra Modi, who has been chief minister since 2001. These days Gujarat accounts for 5% of India’s population but 16% of its industrial output and 22% of its exports. Its growth has outpaced India’s (see chart) and it wins accolades from business people. A recent comparison of Indian states by McKinsey, a consultancy, waxed lyrical about Gujarat. It might yet play the role of industrial locomotive for the country, as Guangdong province did for China in the 1990s. There is lots of excited talk about exporters switching from China to India. Sanjay Lalbhai, the chairman of Arvind, a textiles maker and clothing retailer based in Ahmedabad, says such a move is “imminent” in his industry.

Chinese-style, big-ticket projects are part of Gujarat’s formula, including refineries and ports, but so are networks of smaller firms and foreign companies which have now achieved critical mass in industries such as cars and pharmaceuticals. The state government uses the usual tricks to try to jump-start growth, including special economic zones. But more important, it has provided the bog-standard things that businesses pray for across India but often do not getless onerous labour laws, passable roads, reliable electricity and effective bureaucracy.

Against the charge that some people have been left behind, Gujarat can point to reasonable growth in agriculture, helped by irrigation schemes. But the state has a black spot, which dates back to 2002 and an outbreak of sectarian violence. As many as 2,000 people (the official toll is lower) were killed in a month of riots, most of them Muslims. Some say Mr Modi and the state government were complicit in the violence or could at least have done more to stop it.

Might prosperity help heal the wounds? In Juhapura, a district on the outskirts of Ahmedabad dominated by the Muslim minority, a young mason grows angry when asked if he feels lucky to make 250-300 rupees a day ($6-7), saying he only gets work for 15 days a month. Others are more content. A bearded man down the road says his party-decoration business is booming. Behind the till of a shop selling top-ups for mobile phones and stationery for the nearby school, a man in a skull cap says life has undoubtedly improved, although his 82-year-old father, sitting in a deckchair, complains that everything went to the dogs when the British left.

Gujarat could be a vision of India’s future, in which manufacturing flourishes, soaking up rural labour. Its economy is expected to grow by double digits, even as India’s rate slows to 7-8% this year. The state may also be a springboard for Mr Modi, who may contest the national leadership of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, perhaps after state elections due in 2012. Mr Modi is enigmatic on this subject. He has yet to shed his polarising image, but he has at least built up an enviable record on the economy.

Originally at http://www.economist.com/node/18929279

How old Is grandpa?

Stay with this — the answer is at the end.

One evening a grandson was talking to his grandfather about current events.
The grandson asked his grandfather what he thought about the shootings at schools, the computer age, and just things in general..

The Grandfather replied, “Well, let me think a minute, I was born before:

television

penicillin

polio shots

frozen foods

Xerox

contact lenses

Frisbees and

the pill

there were no:

credit cards

laser beams or

ball-point pens

Man had not invented:

pantyhose

air conditioners

dishwashers

clothes dryers

and the clothes were hung out to dry in the fresh air and

man hadn’t yet walked on the moon

Your Grandmother and I got married first, .. … … and then lived together..

Every family had a father and a mother.

We were before gay-rights, computer-dating, dual careers, daycare centers, and group therapy.

Our lives were governed by the Ten Commandments, good judgment, and common sense.

We were taught to know the difference between right and wrong and to stand up and take responsibility for our actions.

Serving your country was a privilege; living in this country was even a bigger privilege..

Having a meaningful relationship meant getting along with your cousins.

Draft dodgers were those who closed front doors as the evening breeze started.

Time-sharing meant time the family spent together in the evenings and weekends – not purchasing condominiums.

We never heard of FM radios, tape decks, CDs, electric typewriters, yogurt, or guys wearing earrings.

We listened to Big Bands, Jack Benny, and the President’s speeches on our radios.

And I don’t ever remember any kid blowing his brains out listening to Tommy Dorsey.

If you saw anything with ‘Made in Japan’ on it, it was junk

The term ‘making out’ referred to how you did on your school exam..

Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, and instant coffee were unheard of.

We had 5 & 10-cent stores where you could actually buy things for 5 and 10 cents.

Ice-cream cones, phone calls, rides on a streetcar, and a Pepsi were all a nickel.

And if you didn’t want to splurge, you could spend your nickel on enough stamps to mail 1 letter and 2 postcards.

You could buy a new Chevy Coupe for $600, . .. . but who could afford one?
Too bad, because gas was 11 cents a gallon.

In my day:

“grass” was mowed,

“coke” was a cold drink,

“pot” was something your mother cooked in and

“rock music” was your grandmother’s lullaby.

“Aids” were helpers in the Principal’s office,

” chip” meant a piece of wood,

“hardware” was found in a hardware store and

“software” wasn’t even a word.

And we were the last generation to actually believe that a lady needed a husband to have a baby.

No wonder people call us “old and confused” and say there is a generation gap. and how old do you think I am?

I bet you have this old man in mind…you are in for a shock!

Read on to see — pretty scary if you think about it and pretty sad at the same time.

Are you ready ?????
This man would be only 59 years old.