Life Before Google
I wrote my college thesis on a typewriter. All 100-plus pages of it, with footnotes and endnotes, with telltale white spots where I’d covered up my typing errors. For my research, I consulted the UP Main Library’s card catalogue, a dusty cabinet of drawers containing yellowing index cards arranged in alphabetical order. I wrote the drafts on sheets of yellow legal pad, with a ballpoint pen. When I typed the final manuscript, I made a copy using carbon paper. I still have my college thesis in my files—in hard copy.
How difficult my school life must seem to today’s wired students, how slow and antiquated. Go ahead, dust the gauze wrappings around my ancient analog bones. But what if all the computer networks of the world “woke up”, became conscious, and decided to overthrow the puny humans who depend on computers for everything, from running factories to paying their bills? What if these new digital overlords created indestructible androids to enslave the humans by force? How would you digital dependents survive, much less write your thesis? (Assuming the machines allow people to go to school.)
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
August 8th, 2008 at 06:32
Typewriters… i HATED those things!!!
August 8th, 2008 at 08:47
hahaha funny
i think this wouldnt happen in the next 20 to 30 years
because that kind of technology hasnt matured enough
these new digital overlords would require patches and updates every now and then if this scenario happens now
August 8th, 2008 at 11:29
Relax, libraries are still useful. Staring into a flickering screen for hours isn’t exactly a refreshing experience, and it’s still easier to read out of a page in full Roman typeface glory than look at the flushed whiteness of a standard wiki page.
Problem is kids these days are typically lazy. Well, maybe Keanu Reeves will save humanity from this impending curse, all godmoded Dragonball-like.
August 8th, 2008 at 16:09
This reminds me of a conversation among teenagers I “eavesdropped” in on 2 years ago:
Girl 1: “I can’t imagine life without cellphones!”
Girl 2: “Yeah! How do people get in touch with each other?”
Boy: “If I lose my cellphone, I might as well drop dead!”
The above conversation is verbatim. No exaggeration.
August 8th, 2008 at 18:33
You a fan of the terminator series? One word: SKYNET. It seems inevitable. Haha.
August 8th, 2008 at 22:01
wow, hats off to your thesis in all its raw form. :)
i think theyve stopped producing typewriters now, sad but inevitable.
i envy kids at school now. all is laid out for them, and yet they still have the nerve to slacken.
August 9th, 2008 at 00:28
Kalyo!!! On the tips of my left and right index fingers! Damn those Olympus typewritters!
I used to read topics from encyclopaedia(we had a set at home) flat on my back, fall asleep and wake up with chestpain… Those books were really heavy.
Format harddisk. Reinstall OS. Do not go online so Digital Overlords can’t take over your computer.
August 9th, 2008 at 09:39
i feel for you LOL. :)
August 9th, 2008 at 14:27
The ancient Chinese invented the paper. They used their hands and ink and brushes to scribble on it. Apparently, they didn’t curse whoever invented the typewriter for taking away the joys (and pains) of watching ink bleed all over paper with the use of the hands or what have you. Incidentally, they didn’t cast a hex, too, on the one who invented the woodblock printing “machine” (whoever she/he is) for displacing the art(?) of handwriting to a certain degree.
But I may be wrong. Who knows? Those inventors might still be wandering, only that we can’t see their presence. A curse. Or hex. Feng Shui forbid.
Imagine life before the typewriter.