A Tech Jones
Chapter 6: The Jetsons and The Jonesers
TODAY'S RAMBLINGS
5 Minute Read
Happy Friday. This is the sixth and almost final chapter of A Tech Jones.
Introduction and Chapter 1: Not a Zero or a One in Sight
Chapter 4: Reach Out and Touch Someone
The Jetsons and The Jonesers
Most in Generation Jones will fondly recall The Jetsons. There were many great cartoons from the era, but this was easily the most prescient.
Think of it. A demanding boss insisting on more work. Indifferent children preoccupied with their devices. Trick cars. Robots. Flatscreens. Intelligent assistants. A dog that talks. It was all there.
And did you know The Jetsons was the first TV show broadcast in color by ABC?
But let’s begin this penultimate chapter with tech that was/is big, but barely warrants a mention in this series. That despite 2 of the 3 being a big part of my own life; is that not evidence that my writing is not completely narcissistic?
Fax
Cable and Satellite TV
Video Games
Yes, I co-founded a company in the center of the booming fax industry in 1992. Then there were the aforementioned Casa Integration days of cable and satellite boxes, although my involvement starting in 2002 was way, way after cable boxes hit our lives.
I remember my first, one just like this, in my room in the 1970s. In Albany, a new world opened for me when we got WOR Channel 9 and WPIX Channel 11 from New York, and WSBK Channel 38 from Boston. Because it meant Mets, Yankees, Red Sox, and Bruins. OK, maybe some Rangers, too. On TV, not just that radio I mentioned previously.
For the record, I couldn’t care less about video games, then or now. That’s probably wrong, although the biz is likely not far behind Meta in terms of societal damage done.
But enough nostalgia or whatever it is these things represent.
Indeed, let’s stay in the moment.
Electric Cars
Full disclosure: I’ve never owned an electric car and certainly not the Cadillac Celistiq pictured above. But then again, we rarely drive at all. Yet no review of Generation Jones tech would be complete without their inclusion.
Plus, fax machines and video games can’t help solve the Climate Crisis.
But I will say this: Why can’t we all just get along on the subject? They’re quieter, faster, and modern. If people (read: corporations that corrupt Congress) can still make plenty of money, what’s the problem?
Other than Elonia and Tesla?
Of course, this goes way back. Indeed: Who Killed The Electric Car? came out in 2006.
Where would we be now if they hadn’t . . . killed the electric car in the US nearly 20 years ago?
I believe we can solve both the battery problem (rare earth minerals and not enough storage), the generation problem (nuclear, for the thousandth time), and the charging station problem.
Can’t gas stations be converted to charging stations that offer mani/pedis while you wait for your car to charge? I’m joking but not really? Can we not do anything anymore as a country?
Like build relatively simple infrastructure that quickly and reliably charges an electric car?
Streaming
Remember this graphic from Chapter 2?
Well, now it’s this.
Today, you take a flatscreen out of a box, plug it into power, get it on your WiFi, and go. No cable box. No VCR, no DVD, and no Blu-Ray, either. Likewise your smartphone and Bluetooth speaker. No radio, no CDs, and no vinyl.
Well, maybe some vinyl.
Indeed, streaming, of both video and audio, has destroyed the traditional television and radio industries.
Yet, I still can’t:
Get only the individual channels I want on TV
Pay less than $100 per month to get what I want on TV
Hear/watch sporting events wherever I may be, on whatever device I am using
Nor does one own much content anymore. Hmm.
Self-Driving Cars
I could have grouped this with Electric Cars, and perhaps with the next category, too. But this deserves its own spotlight.
Because being transported in a car with no driver in San Francisco was the most Jetsons thing I’ve yet to experience in my life. Tech or otherwise.
We got into this Waymo on October 21, 2023, our first of many driverless rides. It safely drove itself and us to our destination.
Likely some SF gin mill, but I digress. Because I mean it when I say I couldn’t fucking believe the experience - I felt the future like I never had before.
Well, except for this, the final section of A Tech Jones.
Artificial Intelligence
I normally pop off on virtually any subject. Yes, I am an expert on subjects as diverse as The Dick Van Dyke Show (my list of the best episodes) and The Dolomites (my 2022 Travel Guide), and all too happy to remind anyone near me that I am.
Not this subject. I barely understand Artificial Intelligence, and I certainly don’t know where it’s going to take us. I can only share what I’ve observed and used, and, like the rest of us, hope it doesn’t all go wrong.
But I have been astounded by AI from my earliest experiences. One was via the stability.ai graphics engine, and it was a prompt like “Draw me a classic sports car.”
I - or it - produced this in February 2023.
I immediately sensed the danger for graphic artists. Maybe even car designers.
But of course, AI is also text-focused and what it can do has to be experienced to be believed. Here is what I currently use.
General Purpose
And to create Graphics like the car:
And you may know this already, but there’s a new Search game in town, powered by AI:
What can one do with all of this horsepower? Well, for one thing, Claude, ChatGPT, and others can write software. I had Claude create the HTML and JavaScript code for this, which I’ve shared previously. All with a simple, natural language prompt.
Yet like Dear Leader’s daily actions, I don’t know where artificial intelligence - or technology in general - will take us in the next 50 or 60 years. It’s anyone’s guess.
So I will conclude this final chapter of A Tech Jones with a suggestion you use one of the oldest technologies known to man: a book.
But this book - a shoo-in nominee for a 2025 Portico Darwin Award - offers a sweeping and also addictive look at some of what I’ve touched on in this series, and far more. Definitely recommended.
But for the record, the author was born in 1976. So his direct experience is limited.
That’s a great reminder that no other cohort experienced technology - and continues to - like Generation Jones.
Next: Epilogue: The Tech That Wasn’t and Closing Thoughts
FROM THE UNWASHED MASSES
It’s always great to hear from my former London colleague Randy Smee and he was pleased to see me flying his British flag.
Hey Portico, good to see you still subscribe to the ‘limey lips’ I recommended.
But wow: limey lips! Jeez, even Randy is blowing off the DEI stuff; I guess Dear Leader’s corrosive influence knows no borders.
Thank you for reading this newsletter.
KLUF
New? The future? Superior to what came before it?
Yes, and it’s why it was the 2024 Portico Darwin Album of the Year winner.