Conversation with my dad

[Philcasi]

I had a really good conversation with my dad about the M3 while watching the unveiling on youtube about Tesla's and electric cars in general after telling him that I reserved one. But during the time we were going back and forth about how battery cars are not yet convenient enough for him, as far as getting one himself, he trailed off and he had a 50 yard stare in his eyes. He said that when he was in the Philippines growing up, all of this technology that we have now were only in comic books. He talked about it how it was only fiction that you could call someone walking down the street using a phone on your wrist or having the ability to own an car that can drive itself down the road. It made me realize and appreciate how far we have come in just one persons lifetime. Please share a common story that you may have about how far technology, cars, etc has come that you've had.

 

[Christopher Chan]

Moore's Law in action.

I think people who lived in the 20th Century would have seen the greatest pace of modernization in human history.

My grandmother was born in the 1920s in Malaysia. At that time, Ford was the dominant player with the Model T. Then came the destruction brought about by World War II.

The commercial jet age emerged after the war and the world got closer with mass communications. In the 1970s, we were still using rotary phones and international calling was prohibitively expensive.

But fast forward 40 years and my grandma is able to talk to her elderly siblings transcontinentally via video on a slab no bigger than a book (FaceTime).

The funny thing is that at no time did my grandma ever ask me how is it possible that she can see her 90+ year old sister back in Malaysia on an iPad. The technology layer just disappeared, it was just communications.

Anyway I always marvel at the changes the people in my grandmother's generation must have experienced growing up in the 20th Century.

 

[umeshunni]

people who lived in the 20th Century would have seen the greatest pace of modernization

In 1903 men flew for the first time. 66 years later, they landed on the moon.

 

[NeverFollow]

In 1981 Akira Yoshino began research on rechargeable batteries using polyacetylene.
Akira Yoshino is a Japanese chemist. Fellow, Asahi Kasei Corporation
Inventor of lithium-ion battery (LIB) used for cellular phone and notebook computer etc.
Polyacetylene is the electroconductive polymer discovered by Hideki Shirakawa,
who later (in 2000) would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for its discovery.

History of the battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lithium-ion battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[doug]

Moore's Law in action.

I think people who lived in the 20th Century would have seen the greatest pace of modernization in human history.

Moore's Law in action (in a generalized sense) should mean the most recent generation sees the greatest pace of technological advancement.

 

[tomas]

Moore's Law in action (in a generalized sense) should mean the most recent generation sees the greatest pace of technological advancement.

Yes and no. Generation like my daughter (b 1987) saw great increases in computing power and capability. But they did not see advent of the computer itself, or the xerox machine, or the fax machine, or.... Sometimes Moore velocity improvements do not have same impact as the first step of automation.

 

[NoPetrolDream]

I had a really good conversation with my dad about the M3 while watching the unveiling on youtube about Tesla's and electric cars in general after telling him that I reserved one. But during the time we were going back and forth about how battery cars are not yet convenient enough for him, as far as getting one himself, he trailed off and he had a 50 yard stare in his eyes. He said that when he was in the Philippines growing up, all of this technology that we have now were only in comic books. He talked about it how it was only fiction that you could call someone walking down the street using a phone on your wrist or having the ability to own an car that can drive itself down the road. It made me realize and appreciate how far we have come in just one persons lifetime. Please share a common story that you may have about how far technology, cars, etc has come that you've had.

I'm probably as old as your dad. I remember when what we're seeing now was the stuff of dreams.

What a great time to be alive!

 

[Jeff N]

My great grandmother was around until I was in high school.

She was born in 1880 about the same time Edison developed his first commercially viable light bulb and before any DC or AC electrical lines were installed in the USA. The automobile industry began when she was in her early teens. The wright brothers first airplane flight took place when she was 23. The very first radio broadcasting began when she was around 30. Television and the first tube-based computers weren't happening commercially until she was nearing 70. She lasted until the first commercial home PCs had just established themselves.

Now that's change!

 

[AudubonB]

Dad lived into his 94th year, and was still going to multiple boards of directors meetings until three weeks before he passed on.
As a 9-year-old, long-distance transportation to his grandparents consisted of taking a night train to Boston, walking across the city by himself from South Station to the boat terminal, taking a steam packet to Bar Harbor, and being picked up in a horse carriage. Work meant hauling lobster pots by hand on a one-lunger....and most of you will be needing to look up what that is. When a little older, on dorys that were powered only by oars.

Three years before he died, he took a ride in one of the Final Five Roadsters.

What a lucky, lucky man.

 

[doublejj]

My great grandmother was around until I was in high school.

She was born in 1880 about the same time Edison developed his first commercially viable light bulb and before any DC or AC electrical lines were installed in the USA. The automobile industry began when she was in her early teens. The wright brothers first airplane flight took place when she was 23. The very first radio broadcasting began when she was around 30. Television and the first tube-based computers weren't happening commercially until she was nearing 70. She lasted until the first commercial home PCs had just established themselves.

Now that's change!

This was very much like my grandmother. She told me all the old Army veterans when she was a little girl were Civil War veterans...

 

[SR22pilot]

The pace in the 21st century will be faster. While the 20th was the age of electronics, the 21st will be the age of biology.

 

[AudubonB]

I have a photograph of my grandmother as a new-born in 1892. Surrounding her are my g-grandmother (b. 1866), g-g grandmother (b. 1836), and my g-g-g grandmother (b. 1812). That makes me one degree of separation from someone who herself was but once removed from not just our Revolutionary War heroes, but our French & Indian War and, at farthest, two degrees from her Mayflower ancestors. I think that's quite a span of the United States experience!

The longevity of that part of my lineage also gives me only two degrees of separation removed not just from my rather famous namesake g-g-g-g-uncle, but getting back to transportation, another such uncle: Robert Fulton.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I met my wife playing an anagramming game on the Internet.

We lived 3,000 miles apart and were able to spend about 5 weeks together each year, and spent several hours each day chatting with text, voice and then video.

The world was already awesome, and now I'm typing this on a 7" touch-sensitive device that's a bit slow, yet far more powerful than the first PC I owned, let alone my first computer. In my pocket is a more powerful computer that I use to communicate by voice, communicate via text, play music (I have several thousand songs on a little thin square that's smaller than 1" square), look at TV listings, take pictures, play games, track my weight, wake me up, remind me of things, help do grocery shopping, get around unfamiliar cities, make notes, control a device I use to watch TV and videos of talks by interesting people from many different fields, and in a pinch to make white noise to help me sleep. It cost me a little over $100, plus about $10 for that little square I can store thousands of songs on. It's not considered a very good computer though.

 

[tander]

I had a really good conversation with my dad about the M3 while watching the unveiling on youtube about Tesla's and electric cars in general after telling him that I reserved one. Please share a common story that you may have about how far technology, cars, etc has come that you've had.

First, thanks for starting this thread, kind of fun. My last surviving Grandpa will hopefully turn 93 this summer. His father drove a horse carriage for a while, and my Grandpa remembers helping to crank the Model T as a child. He grew up as Jewish kid in NYC, spent his 19-21 years serving in Europe, some of which as a POW in Germany, and was lucky to be sent home after escaping and 3 Purple Hearts, he is tougher at 93 than I ever will be. His Father sold his first car for money while he was at war. I don't really have much interest in cars, I appreciate a reliable one and a safe one more importantly, but they are kind of just a necessary evil, it weirds me out when I hear someone describe a car as "sexy" or lust after them, or especially when I see women go after the guy with the nicest car (one of my concerns about buying a Tesla). It's hard to imagine myself driving a flashy one. My parents and him offered to buy me a new car when I graduated from college, but I opted to just keep driving the same hand-me down I'd had for a long time.

But to my Grandpa, he loves them. He used to get a new one every few years, in part because he liked getting the new stuff, and in part because they didn't use to last that long. He still has shrapnel in one eye, and his other eye got to the point where he had to quit driving several years ago, it was really hard for him. I've followed Tesla for two reasons, one is that my old hand me down has gotten way too old and to me buying a gas car seems like buying a typewriter when I could buy a PC, and secondly as an investor. We've talked about Tesla a lot. From his perspective he at first thought that sounded like a joke and listed off a number of car upstart failures that he has lived through and witnessed. That went on for a while, meanwhile I crunched the numbers and invested. Then we went and test drove and S, he couldn't drive but he really liked it (we got to floor it and his heart problems were a concern).

Hopefully he'll make it long enough to get a model 3 or S that can drive for him, I have a reservation for him. Wouldn't it be great if he could live to "see" that? This is a guy who still remembers having to start a car with a crank after-all, and remembers Germans refining turnips (yes turnips, early biodiesel I guess) to run trucks during the war. Who knows maybe he could use the new car to pick up women (my Grandma passed away tens years ago). Will I get a Tesla? They seem pretty flashy compared to my old beater, but then again I know he'd love it if I picked him up in an S for dinner some time (we go out for hot dogs and root beer every week---standard NYC food). There is no doubt that I have benefited and will for many years because of those dinners and his stories (which can be pretty awful, boring, and not p.c.), there is a lot of wisdom in his words, sometimes what to do, sometimes what not to. Hopefully I've learned from much of his hard-won knowledge, had he not escaped from that POW camp he might not have made it home to tell the stories 70 years later. Lucky to get to hear them, even when it's for for the 100th time. I promised him that if I do get a Tesla we'll find a big empty parking lot and I'll let him drive, autopilot will hopefully keep us from crashing. In the meantime, I'm going to take my hand me down for a drive up to the mountain.

 

[doublejj]

I was born in Hawthorn Ca & my father was an aerospace engineer & In the mid 1960's when I was in my teens my father took me back east to Ky & Ohio to visit his side of the family that I had never met, including my 90 year old grandmother. She had one entire hallway wall devoted to a family tree drawing & would fill it in as time went on. I found my name & 2 others that stood out. my last name is Wright & my father never said anything, but there on the family tree wall were the names Wilbur & Orville.
P.S. in the 1960's My dad worked at a company Garrett AiResearch & was part of the team that worked on the Lunar Rover; the only car to drive on the moon....

 

[AudubonB]

Doublejj: Did you - and your dad - see the article this week that the prototype Rover was discovered/recovered recently? If not I'll try to re-locate that.

 

[aronth5]

With all the fantastic changes I've seen one wonders though when will we be able to travel by air faster then when I grew up over 50 years.
With jet planes only slightly faster now and with the security checks it takes longer today than 50 years ago to fly.
I'm looking forwarding to see how the Hyperloop evolves over the next 10-20 years but even Elon has said once you get to cities 700 miles apart or greater Hyperloop transport probably doesn't make sense.

 

[deonb]

I'm looking forwarding to see how the Hyperloop evolves over the next 10-20 years but even Elon has said once you get to cities 700 miles apart or greater Hyperloop transport probably doesn't make sense.

I think Elon is spoiled with flying private.

For the rest of the world even 700 miles driving makes more sense than flying commercial most of the time.

If you have/want to arrive at a specific time somewhere, you can leave your origin later driving than flying 700 miles, UNLESS you're lucky enough in that there is a specific flight that is scheduled to depart at a specific time that would put you at your destination before your desired arrival time, but not so much before that you're losing all of the time gained by flying over driving in the first place.

And I'd sure rather spend 12 hours in a Model S than 7 hours in a combination of taxis, checkin desk, backage check, TSA, airport terminal, airplane, backage pickup, rental car pickup.

When autonomous driving arrives, that choice will be a no brainer for probably up to 1000 miles. Especially if there can be high-speed autonomous car-trains in the future.

 

[doublejj]

Doublejj: Did you - and your dad - see the article this week that the prototype Rover was discovered/recovered recently? If not I'll try to re-locate that.

My dad has passed on, but no I haven't seen it...thank you

 

[FirstSea]

All these amazing advancement in such a small time frame on earth, once humanity truly reaches space, it will be mad exciting. Hopefully I'll still be alive to witness it.