A student at Northern, knowing I like bird and birding, asked me which App I use. I said “I love the Audubon app.” He said, “You’ve got to get Merlin,” and then he described a few features of Merlin. So, I looked for it, found it, he told me I had the right App, and I loaded it onto my smart phone.
What people can do when the work together, right? It’s amazing.
Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash
That evening Kris and I walked around our lake and as we got into the woods and onto its wood-chip trail, I turned on the Merlin button that ID’s birds by their sounds. Minor miracle, but miracle nonetheless. On our five-minute jaunt through the woods six different birds showed up on my Merlin app. Two observations. (I’m a prof and we have points.) First, the bird song/sounds that I had identified as a Northern Oriole turned out not to be a Northern Oriole but, get this, an Eastern Wood Peewee. Second, another sound, again very much like an oriole, turned out to be a Warbling Vireo. The result of that brief five-minute walk, was that I had identified, or at least Merlin had, two species that were not on my life list. Furthermore, I learned that the oriole sound was similar to but distinct from these other two birds. I leave it to the bird experts to determine if the Merlin app permits me to add these two birds to my life list.
My point is that this Merlin app is awesome. It made me begin to ponder all the other things in my lifetime that have been awesome innovations in technology or elsewhere. What might they be? And what innovations in your lifetime have proven to be uber-significant?
Long, long ago, in a former life, I was a high jumper. I remember when Adidas designed a high jump shoe with a firm heel that had two spikes, permitting a quicker, firmer landing moment. I bet that one surprises you. I can’t think of those shoes without smiling. They were so cool.
Then I remember an IBM Selectric typewriter. Oh my, it had elements that permitted the typist to have different fonts. So I was able to type in both Greek and Hebrew, not to mention italics and bold. But that innovation was nothing compared to acquiring and learning how to use a computer. My first computer was an apple Macintosh 5K. Then we got an external drive for it and it seemed like the Kingdom of God had arrived.
Then came cell phones. I felt like I was talking on the phone too much already. And to talk on a phone one had to be in a given location. Many of you don't even know about that. Or at least you've never experienced that. Give it a try. Our first cell phone was for Kris so if she had an accident or an emergency on her way home from her office, she would be able to call home. It was a boxy Motorola if I remember a right. My first cell phone was a Motorola. I think it was called a Moto Q or something like that. My college students thought I was oh-so cool because I had that particular cell phone.
Then came the Apple iPhone. If one adds to that the absolutely wonderful developments of laptop computers instead of those big boxy desktop computers, Apple could be considered a major innovator during my lifetime period. Of course, that's such an otiose silly statement because it is oh-so true. For all of us.
Speaking of technology like the iPhone, what about the amazing development of maps in our phone, into which we can type or dictate (as I am doing for this post as I use the microphone in MSWord) where we want to go, and that little iPhone will talk through our car to us and tell us when to turn, when to stop, and which road to take next. Have you ever traveled with a paper map at your side? You ought to try that some time too. I really don't know how we got to places that we got to over the years period. I do know that we were not afraid at a corner to ask someone or to get out of the car, go inside a gas station, and ask for directions.
One more and I turn it over to you. Digital books. Or digital journal articles. Or digital encyclopedias, like Wikipedia. Everything is now at our fingertips. Did you ever own an encyclopedia? Our families grew up with the World Book encyclopedia. Many years ago a friend of mine worked at Britannica and he gave me an entire set, brand new, of Britannica. At that time he told me that everything was going to go digital and be online. I chuckled and wondered if that could ever have been possible. In fact I doubted that it could happen.
Until it did.
Everything is at our fingertips today.
You and I are presently in a “conversation” because of the innovations that have reshaped our lives. Daily I enter into your inbox because of the innovations in our world. It's time for me now to go online and order a book and have it delivered to my house, maybe tomorrow.
Sounds great and all, but true happiness is when you get a notification from Amazon saying your copy of The Second Testament which was supposed to arrive on the 27th will be delivered on the 23rd instead. :)
Well, this was certainly a trip down memory lane, reminding me of that first computer stuck on my desk in 1984 - the one that required three floppy disks just to start to write a letter. Then when my employer made me switch in 1990 from the software I had finally mastered to Apple - a completely different computer world. It has been four decades of learning, then unlearning because a new tech was upon us. Now I just want to be allowed to ignore the new stuff, but I can't because the back-up to the familiar goes away. SIGH. It's enough to make me reach for a pen and paper but then this email would remain unsent. SIGH. I'm stuck. The next generations may look forward to "the next thing." Not me. PLEASE just let me write this email before I have to the next new system coming at me.