I recently read an online forum thread asking readers to recall "drastic changes" in today's society, vs. that of 1989. So, I wrote down a list that grew rather lengthy. An edited list follows:
1989: BBS parties, with local programmers, engineers, bitheads, and occasional civilians.
2009: Twitter "meetups" full of Marketing and PR types.
1989: Coin-op Arcades and Ski-ball.
2009: Consoles and Wii-ball. [seriously, if this game doesn't exist already, I will repurpose Rule 35.
1989: Science (and its fruits) were available, and readily studied.
2009: LOLWHUT?
1989: 5-10 hours a week in a library.
2009: WWW.
1989: The Braves routinely lose 100 games a year.
2009: The Braves are mediocre, missing a division pennant for the fifth time in 19* seasons.
1989: Atlanta metro population: 800k-900k.
2009: 5+ Million.
1989: The Republican Party inagurates George H.W. Bush, as relatively pragmatic successor to Ronald Reagan.
2009: The Republican Party, having been properly exposed as being controlled by klansmen and taliban, wave goodbye to the George W. Bush administration.
1989: Netrek is run from CMU server room, as a half-academic exercise.
2009: Starcraft is the (unofficial) national pastime of Korea, and is the subject of at least one college-level course in the U.S.
1989: MUDs were in their heyday, as a computer geek's diversion.
2009: MMORPGs are a multi-billion dollar industry.
1989: The Berlin Wall fell, amidst a wave that took down most of the Eastern Bloc.
2009: Russia has Europe by the nads, via gas/oil supply, and has reconstituted a "not soviet" block to oppose the rest of the world.
1989: FBI agents were preparing to raid Steve Jackson Games.
2009: The National Security Decision Making Game is a staple at game conventions, and is conducted by former military and State Dept. people.
1989: Speed.
2009: Meth.
1989: Sports competed for airtime with programmed TV and movies.
2009: "The ESPYs" celebrate the subjugation of sports as entertainment properties. [*vomit*]
1989: Software must be designed efficiently, in order to run well, if at all.
2009: Efficiency is drowned in Moore's Law, and is disregarded as much as (if not more than) UI/UX.
1989: Mormons were viewed neutrally, as folks with some version of Christianity that pissed off the Baptists and Methodists for some reason. Whatever.
2009: California reels from fallout from a gay marriage ban; Mormon fingerprints are all over the gun.
1989: Backoffice systems are written on mainframes (or mini-computers).
2009: Backoffice systems consist of separate components/systems and shared interfaces.
1989: Magnetic tape (cassetes and VHS).
2009: DVD is approaching the obsolescence that CD has already achieved.
1989: Satellite TV was rural tech.
2009: Satellite Radio and TV are standard tech.
1989: CRTs.
2009: Flat-panels (of varying types) and digital projection.
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