From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Today in history
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:59:15 -0400 (EDT)
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

"Michael Walsh" <mjw at press.jhu.edu> wrote:

> 1969: Apollo 11 lifts off

Today is also the anniversary of another important event, 24 years
earlier, in New Mexico.

Has progress slowed down?  The 40 years through 1969 gave us
answering machines, antibiotics, computers, contact lenses, cryonics,
fiberoptics, fluorescent lights, freon, helicopters, integrated
circuits, jets, lasers, nuclear explosives, nuclear power, nylon,
organ transplants, photocopiers, radio astronomy, radar, satellites,
supersonic flight, teflon, television, transistors, unmanned probes
to other planets, velcro, videotape, and of course a manned landing
on the moon.

The 40 years since then have given us the Internet, CD and DVD
players, cell phones, DNA fingerprinting, and several medical
technologies that increase life expectancies slightly at enormous
expense.

As much as I like the Internet, that's not much of a comparison.