Cell Phones Suck … But is not it amazing that they exist? From everything's-wonderful-and-nobody's-happy deptBy now hopefully have you seen that clip of comedian Louis CK on Conan O'Brien's show (the old, old), which went viral kinda where Louis talks about how "everything is fantastic and nobody is happy ":
It's hilarious and oh-so-true. I'm reminded of it because of David Boaz's post over at Cato @ Liberty blog where he talks about how incredible it is to think about how far phone communication has come in the last three decades:
When I was a kid in the 1960s, and we came back from a visit to my grandmother's, my mother used to call my grandmother, so let the phone ring twice and then hang up. It was important for my grandmother to know that we would come home safely, but long-distance phone calls were too expensive to enjoy unnecessarily. When I entered Vanderbilt University in 1971, my parents had to decide whether to pay for a phone in my dorm. They decided to do it, but most thoroughly upper middle class students on my floor did not have telephones. Telephones cost money back then. Then came the breakup of AT & T monopoly in 1984. Telephone technology and competitive services exploded. In 1982, Motorola produced the first portable cell phone. It weighed nearly two pounds and cost $ 3,995. Within a few years they were much smaller, much cheaper, and sell like hotcakes.
Today some 4.6 billion mobile phones worldwide, and counting, or about 67 per 100 people in the world. The later allows you to perform by hand more computing power than the computers that puts Apollo 11 on the Moon. You can cruise the Internet, find your location with GPS, read books, send texts, pay bills, process credit cards, watch video, record video, stream video to the Web, take and send pictures – oh, and make phone calls from almost anywhere. Unthinkable just a few years ago.
But the point of the post is to question why some are now putting together an event on "Why Your Cell Phone is so terrible," pointed out that it is a little silly to complain when you compare it with what we had .
It is a really good point – but I must admit I can see both sides to this argument. The very fact that even when we do great things, we can still see the error with it, which drives us to keep improving and keep innovating. It is very "cultural enhancement" to driving the growth and innovation. So while I can accept that sometimes it is a shame how much we feel a sense of entitlement to make things better when the amazing thing is not even exist a few years ago, it is hard not to sympathize with the feeling of wanting things to be even better.
And by the way, I am not alone in seeing both sides of all this. This Louis CK video at the top? The one where he mocks the guy sitting next to him on an airplane to get upset that the WiFi in the sky suddenly stopped working? Yes, he later admitted that there was someone sitting beside him, but even get pissed on WiFi not working, although he did not even know the in-flight WiFi existed until he got on the airplane. So yes, everything is fantastic, and nobody is happy … but maybe it is a good ting.33 comments | Leave a Comment .. While Americans from Wall Street to Main Street to focus on much-needed economic reforms that will establish and enforce clear rules across the financial marketplace, we also need to recognize that most Americans do not have the knowledge and skills they need to make the right financial decisions for themselves and their familier.Sidste years FINRA Investor Education Foundation's National Financial Capability Study, carried out in consultation with the Department of Finance, found that too many Americans are giving away their hard-earned dollars to bank and credit card fees. Most do not maintain a rainy day fund for nødsituationer.Få is able to perform basic interest calculations are needed to compare the price of a loan or figuring out how much to try to save. In just about all measures, the study found young adults are the least money kyndige.I December announced the national financial management capacity Challenge, a partnership between the Department of Finance and education focusing on promoting financial education among high school students and assess their knowledge about personal finance. The results are in. More than 2,500 teachers and 76,000 pupils in all 50 states participated in the voluntary exam that shows interest is strong. But scores were disappointing. The average student is just squeaking by with 70% correct. Students failed to answer basic questions about credit cards, car insurance, and compound interest. This shows that we have a lot of work to gøre.Heldigvis we have important models to follow. For example, helping at Stonewall Jackson High School in Manassas, VA, teacher Terri Carson students manage student-run credit union and includes a financial literacy bootcamp in all her classes. She had over 100 pupils take Challenge. Over half of them scored in the top 20% nationwide, 17 had perfect scores. These achievements are laudable, and Carson is working to copy them. She hopes to work with her school and Prince William County School District to ensure that all students demonstrate a basic understanding of personal finance to opgradere.I Today we recognize Carson, and many teachers and students who participated in the national financial capacity of the Challenge, for their commitment to financial education. We hope to see more locally driven efforts to make youth financial education a priority in schools across the country. At the same time we will do our part at the federal level. In our schools, we will promote a well-rounded education that includes financial literacy. We will give consumers the information and training they need to make smart financial choices. And we will work to give all American families with access to bank accounts, they need to manage their daily økonomi.Dagsordenen is ready. Let us go serious financial reform. Let us promote financial access. And at the same time, let us ensure that we give all Americans – particularly our youth – with the financial education they need to succeed in this increasingly complex, fast economy. Their future – and ours – depends on den.Timothy Geithner, the current U.S. Secretary of Treasury. Arne Duncan is the current Minister of Education. And Valerie Jarrett is an Obama White House Senior Advisor.
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