Geek in Review: Column Nineteen

Wasn't it just Wednesday? What the hell, man? I'm scared, Dave. I think my mind is . . . going.

Anyway, it's time for a new Geek in Review. This one is all about technology, and its role in my life:

I reached into my pocket and pressed play on my shuffle. Oingo Boingo's When the Lights go OutDark at the End of the Tunnel on repeat while I wrote the first drafts of what eventually became Just A Geek and Dancing Barefoot. I cradled my tiny iPod shuffle and its 240 songs -- about 26 albums or so -- in the palm of my hand, and began to jog.

And that's when I had it: I held, in the palm of my hand, a gigabyte of memory, and on that gigabyte of memory sat more music than all the records I owned just before the CD came out in 9th grade. I've grown up and come of age in a world where technology advances so rapidly and costs come down so quickly, I totally take it for granted.

I thought I'd hit about 1200 words, and ended up finishing somewhere closer to 1700, because I'm so goddamned wordy. The Newswire is gloriously safe for work at the moment, (I'm actually queuing this up at midnight, because I'll be out with Mrs. Wheaton when this goes live, not celebrating "that bullshit Hallmark holiday") so please enjoy, and please let me know what you think.

Comments

[Insane_in_Huron]

I agree completely about the "bullshit Hallmark holiday"; although, my girlfriend feels different about it...

Probably one of the most awkward moments in our relationship so far when I told her how I felt about it, without realizing she felt very differently about Hallmark Day.

[Astin]

Interesting choice of pull-quote. In "How William Shatner Changed The World", they connected a single scene in TNG with the creation of the iPod. How seeing Data listent to multiple songs at once in his quarters and being able to instantaneously turn them on or off on command inspired the engineer who developed QuickTime to... well, develop QuickTime. Since it was nigh impossible at the time to store an entire album's worth of songs a computer, let alone access them with a command. From there came the popularization and development of media compression and formats and useable digital media... all the way up to the iPod and beyond.

And here's Wil Wheaton being impressed by the technology the show he was part of inspired...

[Craig Steffen]

Cool. What you said. I do try to remember that the stuff that I had would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. And the same is true for the next generation--kids are using computers in the classroom starting in grade school (in more affluent school districts).

Congratulations on beating the Legend of Zelda! That was one that I beat within a year or so of it coming out. My step-brother and I did it almost without any outside help; I seem to recall not being able to beat Ganon because we thought it was something to do with the warp whistle. I played it so much one summer that as I drifted off to sleep, I would be dodging Octoroc rocks the in my head. (The only other time that has happened was much later in grad school I installed Star Control 2 on an emulator on my machine...and after weeks of playing it constantly, as I went to sleep, I would hear the Star Control battle music. Great days, great days).

There are other games, though, that I played when I was young but didn't beat until I was much older. I still haven't beaten Final Fantasy, for instance. I have the cartridge I was playing it on, but I don't have a working NES.

Wil, we're glad you're around and still doing cool stuff. I'm behind on inDigital, I just downloaded eps 9-12 today, but I was very pleased to see the evil-dimension-sporting-a-Van-Dyke Wil jamming on the Guitar Hero controller.

Can't wait for the next book, which I will order from Monolith and not ****ing Amazon.

And keep up the TNG reviews--they are very interesting, and funny.

[James Casey]

Ah, you see, I thought that de Saint-Exupéry post was a lead in to 'that bullshit Hallmark holiday', and although I heartily agree it is a bullshit Hallmark, holiday, I still thought, "Ah, that's nice," purely because it's always nice to see reminders of people in love.

[Drev]

My wife and I both feel the same way about this "stupid Hallmark holiday", but it is a good excuse to stop your daily rigamarole to just say those three big words. It's very easy to forget to say them day-in, day-out.

Also, my wife abhors gold and diamonds. How lucky am I?

I totally feel where you're coming from with the whole technology thing.... Not too long ago, my wife and I were talking about how quickly computers become obsolete, etc., and just the rapid pace of technology in general. It was a "10 years ago, whoever would have thought..." conversation. In order to make a point that I don't recall at this time, I took my iPod out of my pocket and said "Whoever would have thought that I could carry my entire music collection in my pocket?"

And that's when it really hit me, how far technology's come in just the last 10 years.

Another thought this brought up.... I remember watching "I, Robot" (yeah, the Will Smith one) and thinking it seemed a little far-fetched that we could have such advanced AI in just ~50 years. But then I thought about the differences in technology, specifically computers, between the 1950s and now, and I realized that Yeah, we're totally capable of that.

What are they going to call this period in history? The Technological Renaissance? The Technological Revolution?

Anyway... I'm looking forward to reading your article at home.

[Omaru]

"bullshit hall holiday"
sorry can you bea little more specific than that, there's at least 12, or perhaps you mean the one that I refer to as "Annual self singular awareness day"

Onto something of more importance, have you seen the new thundercats design? I think they might be re-imagining them a`la turtles and batman and that makes me one unhappy pappy.

[KILNA]

I'm astounded by progress sometimes. The Amiga 1200 was my first computer with a hard drive. After computing for nigh on a dozen years with floppies I finally had 40 whole MEGA-bytes of storage!

The video card with the smallest amount of RAM available (read: obsolete) at FRY's as of today is 128MB.

That is over 3 times the size of my first permanent long-term storage being used for a framebuffer relevant for small fraction of a second. Freaking amazing.

[justme]

Wil, your perspective is timeless.

My grandfather saw the first car drive into his town, and watched the space shuttle launch. Our children have more computing power on their desks than that same space shuttle had when it first launched (that may be an exaggeration, but not a large one).

The progress is really amazing, and like many people, I wonder where we're going next and whether I'll be able to keep up. And I wonder how we'll hang onto our civility as we become more and more anonymous, but I don't have to tell you about that, do I?

[WalkerPA_Ranger]

One of the posters on SG wondered why, with the ubiquitious technology we have today people would pine for the days of the 50s and 60s. I can agree with that to some extent, since that time was third-world backward compared to what we have today. However, I have no problem pining for the halcyon days of the 80s. Mostly because I actually had access to the internet in its proto-form. It was a much sparser place, to be sure, but the participants were of a much different sort from those who participate today.

Plus we were able to get away with a lot more stuff than today's litigious and PC society allows.

However I wouldn't trade my gadgets and always connected tech for just about anything, so I suppose it's a trade-off. Hell, even my parents dig their iPod shuffles that I gave them. While my dad likes to race 60s-70s era musclecars, his race car is equipped with the state-of-the-art tech of go-fast gadgets (real ones, not stickers) and he admits that they make his hobby much more enjoyable. It's a marraige of old-school and the latest improvements (you should see his interior; all '70s vinyl, plastic, steam guages but also all kinds of digital readouts and computer panels to keep him up to date on the health of the car and dial-in the best times. He's real proud of them too!)

[Daniel Sroka]

Like you, my career and my ability to help support my family is all thanks to technology. I'm a photography who creates my own art prints (without the chemical stench of a darkroom), and sells them to people around the country through my own online store. This was not even possible just 10 years ago. It's stunning, and a little humbling.

I recently got my first computer out of storage, and now have it sitting on a table in my studio. It's an Apple II (not a plus, not an E, an actual II, serial number 948 from 1976). I look at it, hit the keys, and the memories flood back. That little beastie started me on the path to my life, my career, and so many of the things in the world that give me pleasure and hope. Amazing.

[One Salient Oversight]

Allow me to be a spelling Nazi.

It's Nineteen, not ninteen.

Love you Wil. Sorry.

[Suzanne]

I tried to give you a "Digg It" at the SG site, but was sent to a column on Porn Reviews. Ah sure, I digg that.

What I was going to say is that my favorite columns of yours involve wistful walks down a technological memory lane, full of appreciation for the things we now take for granted. It's amazing that we can now call a (Vista-running) computer a piece of s$*! when it doesn't perform the way we expect. Because we do now expect these amazing things - they are a part of the everyday, familiar life. And that's pretty cool.

I'll have to thank Shane Nickerson here - I found him on myspace (I know, myspace is lame but I love it), and made my way here to your blog via Nickerblog. Glad I did.

[Wil]

Argh. That's incredibly embarrassing. THank you, One Salient Oversight for pointing that out. I don't know how I missed that.

(Actually, I do: I put this up at midnight last night and just wanted to get into bed.)

[Suzanne]

And I have to add about the Hallmark holiday bullshit - I just posted a blog about that at my myspace: http://www.myspace.com/talkswaytoomuch

I too think it's a bullshit holiday most of the year, but then find myself wanting a little extra bit of love on this day. Advertising works!

[Ximeia]

You can scape it at: http://tech.netscape.com/story/2007/02/14/wil-wheatons-geek-in-review-column-ninteen

I love your column!
*Xime*
And sorry, I made the same mistake (the Ninteen thing)! SORRY :(

[bryan]

It is mind bogging to think how far technology has come in a relatively short period of time. Thinking about going from casettes that held 8 - 10 songs to an 80 GB ipod video that holds thousands of songs and video... it's amazing. I can only image where we will be in another 20 years.
bryan
http://isitjustme-bryan.blogspot.com

[R]

Totally. I was just thinking a couple of days ago (while watching Star Trek, natch) that it's amazing that my grandfather lived from horse-and-buggy days to the age of the internet. And I literally can't imagine writing a dissertation on a typewriter. Just imagining it is awful! I can barely do it on my computer...

[John Fiala]

Great column, Wil. I had the same sort of feeling back when I first got a PDA - with fold-up keyboard - and felt the future shock shaking along my spine. Feels good. :)

And I want to ditto the suggestion in the SG comments - do some board games for your next column!

[Witchsistah]

Hey, y'all don't hate too hard on that "Fake-ASS Hallmark Holiday." I got ENGAGED on it this time. Complete surprise and didn't see it coming, well, not for this VD. Which makes me wonder about my normally, Spiderman-fine, girlfriend sense. Actually, it's the first time anything really romantic (that I didn't have to push and hint to death) actually happened to me on that day so I'm cool with it now.

But now I gotta plan a wedding. Damn!

[Keith]

I tried explaining how cool the terabyte hard drive is to my wife and she was equally like, "yeah, so?" which is exactly what she said to me after I explained that the iPod I bought her for her birthday had ten times the storage capacity as all the supercomputers NASA used to put a man on the moon.

[Witchsistah]

Yeah, Keith, my guy tried that mess with me when we were discussing the whole engagement deal a few months ago. He said I could have an engagement computer (a new one--the one I have works fine for my needs) instead of a ring. I told him he must have been planning on remaining celibate for the rest of the century.

I like my technology as much as the next end user, but uh, er, hell to the naw.