Now you can find out: the book will remain a book, and there is probably no replacement for the old and reliable notebook. A collection of low tech predictions for the new millennium
By Michal Pelati
Just last week, a few days before the end of the millennium, low tech products suddenly returned to the center of attention - those objects, and the habits that accompany them, that accompany us every day, and to which our attitude has always been ungrateful. We never gave them another look, and only this week their dignity returned and shined anew. In the frenzied preparation for the 2000 Bug, who didn't look for a moment with renewed affection at their notepad, crumpled phone book or coffee mug, knowing they would always be there, for better or for worse?
At a time when futurists and analysts are quick to eulogize almost everything we know, it is nice to present the list of reliable and independent products and habits, low tech products that will accompany us into the next millennium as well.
Victor Petrosky reviews in his book "Useful Objects" (with a worker) the tools and devices that surround man in his daily life. According to his list, there are about 20 such items in every home, and they all deserve respect. But each of us has his own list of objects that will give him security even in the era of digital broadcasts, and also when the support department orders us to turn off and on the computer until the hard disk finally collapses. For those who are not ready to be dazzled by high-tech items that fail too frequently, here is an alternative list.
* Bicycle. This sporty transport vehicle has survived the last thousand with elegance, and it easily jumps into the next thousand. In 1840, the Scotsman Kirkpatrick McMillan built the first pair with pedals, and in 1865, a more advanced version was built in Paris called "Loluciped".
Today you can ride with a basket in front, with a small plastic seat in the back, and of course you can do it as a vigorous sporty hobby. The bikes do not pollute and do not consume fuel, and most of them are cheaper than any car or scooter.
Forecast: low tech in every self-respecting city there are bike lanes. If enough pressure is put on mayors in Israel, there will soon be trails here as well. So maybe the riders can get rid of the weird helmet on the head.
* Fasteners. Paper endures everything, even obituaries are insulting (see, for example, analyst Esther Dyson's book, "Release 2," which unequivocally predicts the disappearance of paper). Some claim that the computer screen will replace the printed paper, but in the meantime the desk of the majority of the population looks like the desk of a composer from the 19th century: piles of paper, lists and drafts (and this is without mentioning the bills that arrive every month and disappear by themselves, the very important telephone numbers listed on torn envelopes, and the reminders of the missed meetings two days ago). For this purpose, the fastener was invented: a simple bent iron wire, which brings together all the important things in life. It was invented in 1898 by Matthew Scully, an American who was a year ahead of the Norwegian Johan Waller, and won the recognition of working people everywhere.
Forecast: low tech fasteners, not only will they not disappear in the next millennium, they will also be marketed in colored or transparent packaging, and nimble entrepreneurs will sell them as advertising space: Yanai container fasteners, "High Five" fasteners, and fasteners for the new man.
* The grocery store. The future holds an abundance of free time for the consumer minded person.
At the same time as shopping at the supermarket will become a form of entertainment, people will still visit the neighborhood grocery store or the jade shop. The days of the neighborhood grocer and old as the trading days in the big cities. According to the historian Prof. Zvi Razi from Tel Aviv University, the closest date to the birth of the grocery store as we know it is the third century BC, with the invention of the coin.
The person's constant walk to the grocery store will continue - because who today remembers to buy everything at once? Thus, milk, bread and vegetables will continue to be the most sought-after products in the neighborhood, while the supermarket will dominate the rest of the groceries.
Forecast: low tech grocery stores will specialize in products that are always missing: rolls, chocolate and dairy products, salad vegetables (preferably packaged). The supermarket will be an adventure scene for new products and huge economical packages. The supermarkets that will perfect the art of deliveries will survive, but despite everything, the buying itself will continue to be done by the consumers themselves.
* a room. The personal living space that has not changed for hundreds of years in its forms
The difference (Robert Adam, the 18th century British architect developed and promoted
the interior design whatever it is. The Jewish room, as a place of study, existed
already from the 13th century).
The room will probably also accompany us into the next millennium: it may have versions
Various, from "loft" to double rooms with high ceilings, but those who work most
During the day in an open space he would prefer to return home to his own room, which symbolizes the
his individuality and privacy. The Israelis, for example, greatly developed the "living room", and in it
They usually set up huge TVs and comfortable couches, then get together
On Fridays to talk about "the situation". Will this habit change? It seems not.
There will always be something to argue about.
Forecast: low tech discussions and seminars will be held on crucial questions:
Children's rooms connected to the house, for or against? Is the kitchen supposed to expand?
And include sofas? And - how many more rooms can be added to the house
in the suburbs?
* Personal signature. A strange custom that has known many incarnations since the invention of writing in 2000 BC. Although paper was only invented in 100 AD, in China, personal signatures in abstract styles were probably drawn on the cave walls as well. Today we are mostly aware of the signatures of rock stars, or personal dedications of authors with a signature on their books. The wax seals that were designed to prevent letters from being opened, not always successfully, have already disappeared. Today, people can also be identified by the eyeball or palm marks, but these are no substitute for the imagination and creativity of a handwritten signature.
Forecast: low tech The Internet will immeasurably increase the possibility of trading in signatures. And since the web is a paradise for collectors of the most obsessive type, there may be a demand for just autographs - even yours, preferably accompanied by a photo or home video clip.
* Tickets for shows. Apparently it's just a small and meaningless note, but it promises to change your life for the next few hours. It arouses expectations from the moment you hold it in your hands. The expectations are focused and modest: the longing for good places. There are more important tickets and there are less important ones: in some homes in Israel the ticket to the Beatles concert, which was canceled for Direon Olam in 1964, is still kept. themselves for small works, such as the tickets for Andy Warhol's "Factory" shows. To this we can add the excitement of buying the tickets, and the sense of achievement in buying a good ticket at a not high price.
Forecast: low tech This item can have a replacement, but why replace it?
The next thousand: the book will remain a book
What will happen then to the desire to keep as a souvenir some nice moments that have passed? A ticket to an event will become an event itself, a valuable item. Efforts will be put into it - especially in the decades when it will no longer be possible to enter a club party without an invitation.
* drawer. When you want to write songs for a drawer, you should have a drawer to put them in. A real drawer, of the familiar type that is attached to the desk. A real drawer, with a handle and key. Although you won't see the songs to anyone, you still don't want to lose everything in the next power outage, or in an unknown partition between the computer libraries.
The drawer is one of the main victims of the high-tech generation, which abuses it slowly, but steadily: in the first stage there were diskettes that people carried with them from place to place, then there were personal computer libraries, computer login passwords, and today monstrous developments such as "firewall" software that secures information on the network, And the hand is tilted.
Prediction: low tech The world is always divided between those who like to see their precious lists with their own eyes and those who are willing to put their trust in the virtual unknown. It only takes one massive disappointment from the online world (and it probably won't be Bug 2000) for the public to go back to the drawer. This crisis will happen, it's just a matter of time. Until then, the drawer, to her disappointment, will contain mostly computer diskettes and backup tapes. That's something too.
* Fork, spoon and knife. True, there is always a chance that in the near future food products will be marketed cut, packaged and ready, and it will only be necessary to season them. In that case, presumably, only the spoon will survive. But this is what the French people were created for, the enemy of prepared food of its kind. Since the French chefs stood a moment of silence when McDonald's entered France, they vigorously protest its existence, and promise the continuation of creative cooking.
The first household knife was created about a thousand years ago. Then it was customary to indicate on it the name of the owner in the first person, such as the inscription "Gebhart is my owner" which was stamped on a Saxon knife (such inscriptions were then reserved for knives only).
Prediction: low tech kitchen tools will survive and be easily perfected in the next millennium, along with the flourishing of cooking workshops, which will become more and more esoteric. It is possible that if we work less, we will cook more for our pleasure and use lighter, smaller and more convenient cutlery.
* a bed. Surprising, but it's an object whose basic principle hasn't changed at all in almost 5,000 years. Thirty dynasties of pharaohs in ancient Egypt supported their heads on an ascetic support device placed on a hard bed and used as a bed.
At the height of the Old Kingdom, around 2160 BC, the pyramids at Giza and other elaborate structures were built, but the minimalist bed form remained. Since then, fortunately and with the help of the hedonism of kings throughout history, pillows were added to the bed, silk fabric and blankets were invented, and the bed became a stable, comfortable and unchanging item. In the 60s and 70s, the bed went through several strange incarnations - such as the American water bed - but after these extravagant years, the bed marches into the next millennium with complete confidence.
A record and parable for the uses of a bed was recorded in Yves Rover's 1968 film "The Happy Alexander". Philippe Noire in the lead role fulfills the dream of many in the film: to stay in bed and not get out of it until the end of days.
Forecast: low tech, the bed will remain as it is, more inviting than ever. It will only be placed in more places. On the one hand, there will be more free time, and on the other hand, the employers may have to invest more in their employees and provide them with sleeping places in the workplace as well (demand increases especially after lunch).
* Book. The MIT Media Lab has been working on the development of the e-book for more than four years. Today there are already flexible pages that are loaded from a computer, and are more reminiscent of bath books for toddlers. The idea is to load a different book into the device each time, and to give the computerized text the desired portability - the one that makes book lovers take them to bed since the invention of commercial printing presses in the 18th century (printing was indeed invented by Johann Gutenberg back in 1445, but he went bankrupt in fast, and like other inventors was not sufficiently appreciated). Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, also has a proposal for an e-book: a handheld computer-like device.
In the meantime, the paper books continue to be published, and they should be treated like any other low tech product: with a lot of love, and knowing that what is printed on the paper will not be erased just like that with the stroke of a keyboard.
Forecast: low tech like the records (see below), the time will come when it will be very worthwhile to return to the paper books, the price of which will decrease. After all, you won't be able to keep up with the pace of technological development anyway.
* Notepad. The perfect low tech product, created in the second century AD and accompanying us to this day, with only minor changes. Until the 11th century, humans used a notebook that was a bundle of parchment. Then the use of paper began to spread. The notebook is portable, convenient, fits in the pocket and is very reliable. There is no limit to its use and design possibilities.
Outlook: low tech notebooks open automatically with pins and other simple markings, exactly where requested; Notebooks are tied to the bag with a thin silver chain so they don't get lost, extra thin notebooks that can be carried in an inner pocket of evening clothes, and more. Everything you ask for and will come to your mind. The main thing is that what you wrote will be close to you.
*
records. Useful advice: go and buy records now. Black vinyl records, with large and fancy covers, at extremely low prices, are waiting for you in second-hand stores. There are several reasons for this step: the records are much cheaper than the discs, which will go out of the world much faster than them (the first flat record was invented by Emil Berliner in 1887 and it finally left us only 100 years later). The discs have been with us for almost two decades, and it is already clear to us that their days are numbered, a fact that does not reduce their price.
Forecast: low tech records will be bought in large quantities and cheaply. In a better world full of sentiments they could change the disks again.
If everyone is waiting for streaming media on the Internet anyway, it is better to do it to the sounds of "New Order" records, 70's records or old jazz records. It's true, you have to get up and change sides, but even so, you impatiently skip songs on the CD because not everyone has patience.
It is understood that we have passed over many other low tech objects, quiet and beloved soldiers from the last century, which would be too short to detail. According to Henry Petroski, there are tens of thousands of them who are waiting quietly, anxious for their fate in the new generation, and asking that we not forget them.
And really, apart from dusting occasionally, why would we forget?
