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Sometimes I don't think we realise or appreciate just how old things are and how they've survived through consistent and conscious effort. A century is beyond t
by ljm 8y ago
Sometimes I don't think we realise or appreciate just how old things are and how they've survived through consistent and conscious effort. A century is beyond the lifetime of most people. A lot of similar-style public transport in the US was practically killed between 1920-1940 with the dawn of the car.
In the UK you might live in a house that is 100 years old, and in London you take a tube train through a tunnel carved out 120 years ago, or something. But it rarely registers that you are using what we in tech would consider way beyond a relic.
Your automated train on the Victoria line was done in the 60s or 70s, the DLR (similarly automated) a decade later. They were so weird at the time that, story has it, the drivers couldn't read a paper in the cabin because it freaked passengers out. Despite the fact they weren't in direct control. Still, automated is weird and it's half a century old.
So what does this say about other historical events that are slipping beyond our collective conscious, like the two world wars? Or even something like 9/11 where there is a whole generation who never saw that?
And what does it say about knowledge? What we keep in our awareness and what we pass on to historians?
- albertgoeswoof 8y agoMy house is 130 years old, I wish I could see if it will remain standing for another 130, and what changes to the world it will see.
- Veen 8y agoI’m curently living in an 18th Century thatched cottage. It’s a cobb cottage, so made of compressed clay and straw. I love it, except for the low ceilings and beams, on which I’ve whacked my head many a time.
- jonaswi 8y agoI currently have my office in a building that was built durinf the year 1265. Still to this date I find this fact fascinating whenever I get reminded about it.
- osrec 8y agoIs that in the UK?
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- benj111 8y agoI think prior generations seem to be less self aware than we are now, either that or they've experienced more 'wonders' of the age. I cant ever remember a story about the first time someone saw a car, a plane, a jet, the moon landings. Whereas now we seem much more willing to discuss our first computer/ mobile phone, the early internet. Conversations with my grandad about the war were limited to stories about scorpions in boots etc. I can't imagine younger generations being so silent on the subject.
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- quotemstr 8y agoI suspect we live in an anomalous time in the history of software. Already, I feel like the ecosystem is settling into a form it will retain for some time. A hundred years from now, our descendants will still probably be using Linux, and they'll see it as much as a relic --- or not --- as we see old subway tunnels.
- kakaorka 8y agoIf Linux survives that long I will be very happy. It always reminds me of how great collaboration between humans can be :)
- ascorbic 8y ago100 year old houses are relatively new by UK standards. A large proportion of the urban housing stock is Victorian terraces (i.e. pre-1900). Rural houses are usually older. The suburbs/urban sprawl are the main exceptions. [1] Partly this is because we don't build enough new houses, but it does mean there are lots of lovely old buildings. My house is 250 years old. It's nothing remarkable. Next door is about twice that age. [1] https://maps.cdrc.ac.uk/#/metrics/dwellingage/ https://maps.cdrc.ac.uk/#/metrics/dwellingage/
- somecontext 8y agoIn case anyone was curious, this website suggests that ~20% of the housing stock in the UK is over a hundred years old: https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/English_housing_stock_age https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/English_housing_st...
- goodcanadian 8y agoSometime around my grandmother's 85th or 86th birthday, out of the blue, she said to me: "You know, in school, in history class, 100 years seems like a long time; it's not really."
- open-source-ux 8y agoHere is Baker Street Station in 1863 and in 2018 - still recognisably the same station that opened over 150 years ago: https://twitter.com/mrtimdunn/status/951170658171580417 https://twitter.com/mrtimdunn/status/951170658171580417 https://unsplash.com/photos/2kp-Nn1Z6B8 https://unsplash.com/photos/2kp-Nn1Z6B8