It's freaky

A pal of mine sent me a link to join a VOIP. I had no clue what it was, but I downloaded it as directed. It was a website that allows you to call people over the internet and talk to them for free. He called me from his computer, I answered, and found out that I can talk into my computer and use it as a phone. It was really quite interesting. He then called a friend of his in London, and the three of us had a conference call for free.

The sheer weirdness of this sort of communication development had my very simple brain reeling. One can only imagine where we will be in 5 years time.

I remember when it was a big deal in 1974 when my parents bought my brother a calculator for his high school graduation present. It was well over $100 I believe, and the only functions it provided were multiplication, subtraction, division, addition and percent. It weighed about 5 pounds and came with a snappy leatherette case. It was a magical contraption, and I, being 6 years old at the time, was enthralled. My brother, being protective of his newest piece of technology always kept it out of reach from my childish butter-fingers. Eventually, I too became the owner of a calculator, except mine had about 30 buttons on it and did practically everything except actually write the answers on my schoolwork. By this time, my $15 scientific calculator that I used at school daily had rendered my brother's 1974 calculator obsolete. It eventually was relegated to sitting in the pen drawer in my parents kitchen, and my mother would use it to balance her checkbook. One thing that can be said for that calculator is that it continues to be a useful tool at my parents house, 30 years later. The Fisher's are old-school when it comes to adding and subtracting...