Oldest Man Alive - Born in 1896

[Brian Peacock]

Wait till you see the piccy.

[pErvinalia]

So, they found Hitler alive after all.

But yeah, imagine all the stuff that guy has seen, and how much the world has changed in his life. Incredible to think.

[JimC]

Dammit, you're agreeing with 42 again!

[pErvinalia]

Well it's not a particularly controversial idea. You should be more shocked that 42 cares about something other than cultural Marxists under his bed...

[devogue]

So, they found Hitler alive after all.

But yeah, imagine all the stuff that guy has seen, and how much the world has changed in his life. Incredible to think.

He's probably just seen building sites and a table. He looks like a boring old cunt

[Hermit]

Just imagine that even for us, the world was totally different just 20 years ago. No internet, no smartphones. I totally strange world. I cannot imagine life in the world of 20 years ago, although I did.

We did not have smart phones, not even normal mobile phones 20 years ago

You're a bit sloppy with the numbers. I bought my first modem and my first mobile phone 26 years ago, and I was by no means an early adopter. Both gadgets had by then well and truly become sufficiently affordable to be regarded as products for the mass market. In the case of the phone, I was pretty much pressured into buying one when people I delivered to and picked up from during my daily rounds stopped asking: "Are you on the mobile?" and started asking: "What's your number?" instead. Buying the phone turned out to be a great money and time saver. It also made my job run more smoothly. My little sister bought her first mobile phone around 35 years ago.

The modem was for fun. Granted, the world wide web was yet to come, but there were heaps of bulletin boards, usegroups and information gateways. It was the stuff I dreamt of while reading computer magazines during the 1970s when 12MB Winchester drives with stepper motors were the size of a bar fridge and very, very expensive. I could download entire books (in ASCII format), look up the names and addresses of company directors, and do all sorts of other stuff for the price of a dial-up internet subscription.

I've talked with my grandparents (on my father's side) both of whom were born in the 1880s often and for long enough to get the drift of their Zeitgeist. Although they sometimes objected to aspects of what were modern times in the 1960s, I doubt they'd be bewildered or unable to adjust to the 21st century. The future has never been as unimaginable as some people claim. Here's a prediction of people skyping on a mobile phone as imagined in 1929:

[pErvinalia]

Just imagine that even for us, the world was totally different just 20 years ago. No internet, no smartphones. I totally strange world. I cannot imagine life in the world of 20 years ago, although I did.

We did not have smart phones, not even normal mobile phones 20 years ago

You're a bit sloppy with the numbers. I bought my first modem and my first mobile phone 26 years ago, and I was by no means an early adopter. Both gadgets had by then well and truly become sufficiently affordable to be regarded as products for the mass market. In the case of the phone, I was pretty much pressured into buying one when people I delivered to and picked up from during my daily rounds stopped asking: "Are you on the mobile?" and started asking: "What's your number?" instead. Buying the phone turned out to be a great money and time saver. It also made my job run more smoothly. My little sister bought her first mobile phone around 35 years ago.

There were no mobile phones 35 years ago.

I remember we had one at our department in the university that we took with us for field trips. It was the size of a brick. That was in about 1994. I got my first mobile around the year 2000 somewhere. Mobiles were properly mobile by then.

[Hermit]

Just imagine that even for us, the world was totally different just 20 years ago. No internet, no smartphones. I totally strange world. I cannot imagine life in the world of 20 years ago, although I did.

We did not have smart phones, not even normal mobile phones 20 years ago

You're a bit sloppy with the numbers. I bought my first modem and my first mobile phone 26 years ago, and I was by no means an early adopter. Both gadgets had by then well and truly become sufficiently affordable to be regarded as products for the mass market. In the case of the phone, I was pretty much pressured into buying one when people I delivered to and picked up from during my daily rounds stopped asking: "Are you on the mobile?" and started asking: "What's your number?" instead. Buying the phone turned out to be a great money and time saver. It also made my job run more smoothly. My little sister bought her first mobile phone around 35 years ago.

There were no mobile phones 35 years ago.

I said "around 35 years ago". Maybe it was 33. Anyway, hers looked something like this



and the hardware alone cost about AU$4000 in 1983 or 5 money. Of course you couldn't put it in your pocket, but since it did not need to be tethered to a copper line while making or taking a call, it was a mobile phone.

[pErvinalia]

God I wish I could find what was like the first viral meme that I ever experienced, probably 15 years ago or so. It was a funny looking french guy with a "hands-free" mobile phone masking taped to his head.

[Hermit]

God I wish I could find what was like the first viral meme that I ever experienced, probably 15 years ago or so. It was a funny looking french guy with a "hands-free" mobile phone masking taped to his head.

This one?



There are a lot of pics of hands free phone techniques around. Some are quite good.

My first phone, round about 1992, was this one, or quite similar:



I actually did carry it around in my pocket. It came with two batteries. The standard battery lasted eleven hours if I didn't get too many calls. The long-life one was good for 23, but it made my pocket bulge even more than the standard battery. After 18 months or so neither battery lasted anywhere near those durations. When the network switched over from analogue to digital I was quite happy to get a new, smaller phone with a smaller battery that nevertheless lasted longer.

[pErvinalia]

Haha, found it from your google link!

[Brian Peacock]

I think the most significant changes in the old boy's lifetime must be things like improvements in water management, developments in the germ-theory of disease, the widespread adoption of affordable domestic appliances such as cookers, washing machines, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and central heating systems, and access to cheap pornography.

[pErvinalia]

[Hermit]

I think the most significant changes in the old boy's lifetime must be things like improvements in water management, developments in the germ-theory of disease, the widespread adoption of affordable domestic appliances such as cookers, washing machines, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and central heating systems, and access to cheap pornography.

...and cars for the masses. They did not even begin to be affordable until the model T Ford began to be produced in 1908 when he was twelve years old, and I guess it made no impact in Chile until decades later.

[Animavore]

He witnessed a number of seismic shifts in science in his lifetime. The size of the known universe changing size to enormous proportions. Relativity. The big bang theory. Quantum mechanics. Genetics.

Although there have been interesting discoveries in my lifetime, they've all added to these established sciences, and a few more before. There has been no paradigm shift in my life. Nothing that has changed everything we thought we knew. And I don't know that I'll ever see one.

Waiting for a neurological Darwin to give us a naturalistic view of the brain and kicks out one of the last remaining pillars of religion.