At the risk of showing my age......

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I can remember and still have a scientific slide rule in my desk. I used them when taking some engineering classes in the early '70s.

While I was stationed at NAS Kingsville, TX, Sears had an advertising mistake and I took advantage of it and bought my first HP scientific slide rule calculator. Even with the advertising mistake it was over $100 which was a chunk of change for an E-6 with a wife and 3 kids at the time. It would take some work to remember reverse polar notation....


Now most people don't know what a slide rule is for ........and calculators with a lot more capability are a lot cheaper!

And this deaf guy is sitting here listening to music CDs via a set of head phones and a cochlear implant. Is my hearing perfect? No! But every night when I remove my hardware prior to going to bed, I am reminded what my 17 months of being deaf was like.

We live in a wondrous time.

[Matt Meiser]

Definitely showing your age. I'm closing in fast on 20 years since graduating from engineering school and I've never touched a slide rule. The incoming freshman my senior year were required to purchase a laptop, one of the first such programs in the country.

But I do remember the excitement of my school activating the ethernet network in the dorms half way through my sophomore year which let me use the internet without a modem. On the disc included with the network card (which we had to buy from the bookstore if we wanted to connect to the school's network) was an odd program called Mosaic to access a new thing called the World Wide Web but most of us were still using Gopher.

And I've got an 11 year old daughter who's never had to wait for pictures to be developed, even at One Hour Photo, who has her own smartphone, and who's used to free Wifi at most restaurants and stores.

[John Coloccia]

Slide rules are still in use, actually. Pilots use a device called an "E6B". Without getting into the details, it's really nothing but a rotary slide rule. I still know of no quicker way to do very fast calculations of all sorts of useful things in flight.

I think there's an interesting thing that happened in the 80's.....you have the pre-computer generation, and the post computer generation....and I know we had computers in the 40's, but I mean widely available PCs. It completely changed the way people view the world. Maybe it's very similar to pre and post industrial revolution. Pre and post plastics....Bakelite changed the world. There are events like that which cover multiple generations, so you have 2 or 3 generations that all reminisce in unison about the way things were.

I've wondered about your hearing. I'm terrified of going deaf. I would be OK if I went blind...it would suck, but I would go on. I don't know what I'd do if I went deaf. It certainly is an exciting time to be alive, but I wonder if teenagers really have an appreciation for the exponential change that's happened in the last 70 years.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

John,

While the thought of being deaf is terrifying......when you wake up deaf like I did nearly 3 years ago (July 8, 2010) you have 2 choices..... deal with it or let it deal with you. I chose to deal with it. I have little doubt you would deal with it too. I struggle on the telephone because telephone is audio is so poor and it can be at my end, your end or between us, whether it's telephone land lines or cell phones.

Face-to-face conversations I handle well. The probable cause of my deafness has been diagnosed as Meniere's disease though typically people go deaf gradually with Meniere's disease. It also can effect balance and seems to be cyclic. I have periods of time where I stagger like I am drunk though I haven't consumed a single beer that day or that early in the day. On those days, I stay out of my shop for obvious safety reasons.

For 17 months from the time I awoke deaf until my cochlear implant (CI) was activated, that was a struggle! I quickly without any conscious effort began reading lips but still had to resort to pen, paper or whiteboard. We quit going out for dinner with others as I couldn't hear what was going on.

The difference with a CI? Tonight we went to dinner in the same restaurant where 2 years ago we agreed we would quit going to dinner because of my deafness. Tonight we discussed the details of the upcoming honeymoon I am taking my wife of 45 years on. I met her on a blind date 12 days before leaving for Navy boot camp, 3 days later I asked her to marry me, 8 days later I signed over my checking and savings accounts. 2 days after I came home for Christmas from boot camp, we were married. We couldn't afford and didn't have a honeymoon. I made her earn it. And considering she's put up with me for 45 years, she is getting her deserved rewards......

[John Coloccia]

Not to derail the thread, but interesting that you mention reading lips. Have you ever heard of the McGurk effect?



Sounds like you really did make her earn that honeymoon! Good things come to those who wait

[Brian Kent]

Ken, I am just so happy about your cochlear implant. I first heard about that technology when a 7 year old girl named Katie got one and could hear for the first time. A year later another little girl in our church got one. She was also 7 years old and named Katie. Katie #1 just graduated from High School and is doing excellently.

[Frank Trinkle]

Saw this incredible video a few weeks ago. It clearly shows what a difference hearing can make!

Deaf Child Hears Dad for the First Time - PRECIOUS Reaction!

[Jim Matthews]

I use precisely this sort of example when I hear whinging about how the World has degenerated.

The real problem is misuse of such breakthrough technologies.
Laptops can access more information than the library at Alexandria,
but are mostly for playing Angry Birds or Cat videos...

[Gordon Eyre]

I still have my slide rule. Now whether I can still use it is a question unanswered.

[Michael Weber]

I'm getting a.CI July 18. Been thinking about the possibility (having witnessed technology advancement the last 30 years) that soon cochlear implant performance will be so advanced that bionic hearing ability will surpass natural hearing. Implantation and programming might be so simple that normal hearing people would get them to take advantage of the enhanced abilities (whatever those might be). Then infants implanted at birth? Crazy??? Going for a walk now

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Michael,

You know how I feel about CIs. I don't think we will have to worry about enhanced abilities in my lifetime.

[John Coloccia]

Being surrounded by that "CHIH CHIH CHIH CHIH CHIH" Six Million Dollar Man sound all day would drive me batty, anyhow.

[Mike Henderson]

When I went through engineering school, it was all slide rules. I got pretty good at it when I was in school, but now, I'd have to go back and figure out how to use it again. But I'd never do it because there's much better ways of doing calculations now, such as MathCAD and MATLAB. Or even a spreadsheet.

Mike

[Michael Weber]

Michael,

You know how I feel about CIs. I don't think we will have to worry about enhanced abilities in my lifetime.

Back from my walk and Ken I do know how you feel about CI's. I hope a year from I feel the same. With rapid advances in genetics, bionics, electronics and miniaturization, possibilities boggle my small mind.

[Matt Meiser]

But I'd never do it because there's much better ways of doing calculations now, such as MathCAD and MATLAB. Or even a spreadsheet

Wolfram's Mathematica was big where I went to school--wonder if they still use it or have moved on to something else?