A trip down memory lane...

[Dantius]

For an early birthday gift from a friend, I received a boxed set of Carl Sagan's Cosmos series. As I began watching it, it really brought me back. This was what got me interested in science and technology in the first place, and even today, I still find it incredibly fascinating (and worth the watch, if you have 14 hours to spare)

 

Anyways, my personal reminiscing aside, I was wondering if any of you had any particular memories of events or people that influenced you that you would like to share with random people on the Internet.

[Sudanna]

I haven't got a memory, period.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

I remember watching the first of the Space Shuttle failures. It made me realize that the government reacts to the unscripted in very irrational ways.

[Ephesos]

I mean, first thing that comes to mind for me is honestly getting the demo of Avernum 2 installed on my family's computer.

 

Fast-forward three hours, and watch as they try to pry me away from the computer for dinner.

 

Fast-forward a few days or so, and I'm stumbling away from the computer with my mind abuzz as I've hit the shareware barrier.

 

Several years later, and I'm attempting to pursue a career in games. All of which goes away if I never picked up that MacAddict CD.

[Callie]

Congrats on 1000 posts!

 

I remember watching election returns in 2000 and seeing what was thought to have been a win for Al Gore. I had just recently turned eight, so I had no clue what any of it meant, but it was the first time I had learned anything about politics. I almost regret it, in a way.

[Student of Trinity]

The rate at which who you are changes slows down the older you get. The changes you experience probably do get smaller objectively. Even watching your kids take their first steps is a smaller change than taking your own first steps, after all. But the proportional changes are smaller still, since the older you are, the more there is of you that's already there.

 

So I was no particular age in 2000, when 'hanging chads' were such big news. I remember all that, but the age I was then was not any particularly important age, so I have no association of those memories with anything particular about myself from that time. I had to count to determine that in fact I was 32 then. And it is weird to read a post from someone who was eight. Being eight is an important thing; being 32, not so much.

 

I've done a lot and a lot has happened to me in these last ten years; it has been a dramatically eventful decade, in fact. Certainly I must have changed over it. But I don't feel as though I have changed anywhere near as much as I did in the years from eight to eighteen. It just feels as though I did things and things happened, but I myself stayed pretty much the same.

[Slawbug]

Yeah. That's the problem with being an adult.

[Randomizer]

He'll grow out of it when he hits his second childhood.

[Artemis~]

I'm glad that I won't be an adult any time soon. I don't want to have to nag at my kids, talk about dime movies and oldies stations, or fantasize about "back in the day when we breastfed our children and watched flipbook cartoons. Those were the S-word!" But I suppose I won't know the difference later on. Good job to you guys for surviving the seventies.

 

~Artemis and cartoons. I never really cared much for them, even when HDTV was invented. Dantius is going to kill me for implying that he's old again.

[Student of Trinity]

Breastfeeding is a lot more popular now than it was in the 70's, at least in North America. Hospitals push it heavily, practically telling you that it makes kids bulletproof. I don't doubt that it's great, but what they don't tell you is that for many women and babies it's astonishingly difficult.

 

Aging is not really a big deal until you break 70 or so, as far as I can see. Physical deterioration is really pretty mild up to that point, if you look after yourself, and even well past it for some lucky folks. And although there are always good years and bad years, the long term trend is kind of like an RPG. You gain experience and get better at doing stuff, and you acquire better items.

 

Don't think of it as still being young. Think of it as still playing the demo.

[Dintiradan]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

Don't think of it as still being young. Think of it as still playing the demo.

All the good content is before the registration barrier?

Hmmm, what would a keygen translate to for this metaphor?

[Student of Trinity]

Well, it's freeware, so there's no actual barrier. The economics of it are questionable. I think maybe it's an ad-based business model.

[Artemis~]

If it's like the Avernum 5 demo, then I'm going to love life. I liked the demo parts better then the actual game.

 

~Artemis and demos. Someone wise once told me, "hell, we're black. Give us the demo and we're gooood!" That'd be my 12 year old sister. What has this world come to?

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

Hmmm, what would a keygen translate to for this metaphor?

HGH?

[Alorael at Large]

Life's on a subscription model, actually. It's pretty cheap, and most people keep paying without even thinking too much about it.

 

All the good content when you're a kid? Not really. We like to romanticize childhood, but it's really much less blissful when you're living through it. Really, every age has something to recommend it. As a young adult you've got new freedom to enjoy, in staid middle age you've (hopefully) got stability to enjoy and some funds to play with, and in your elderly years you've got retirement and freedom again.

 

—Alorael, who sees nothing wrong with having every year of his life be better than the preceding year. He's doing pretty well with that, and he's hoping to keep it up.

[Slawbug]

There's a lot of randomization in this game. Sometimes you just can't win.

[VCH]

Winning = casting a charm or mind control spell on people. Or in other words manipulating people into doing what you want them to do.

[Unplayable Playable Character]

I wouldn't think you can win. It's like playing Rouge without a final dungeon.

[waterplant]

I once asked my brother-in-law what happens once you've lived 'the best days of your life' - is life just a series of let-downs after that. He said that it's not better, just different. Well, 15 years later I see that he is right. As you age you lose some stuff and you gain some stuff, some of it good, some not so good. Perhaps this continues lifelong - unless you start to believe yourself too much then life becomes set in stone.

 

Originally Posted By: Dantius

As I began watching it, it really brought me back.

 

A similar experience for me was re-watching episodes of Monkey (on youtube). Those that have seen this (I don't think it was released in N.America) might remember amongst all the cool action was some quite remarkable philosophical content. This went way over my head as a kid but after reading the original novel, Monkey by Wu Ch'eng En, I discovered what the story was actually about. A little seed of Sage planted deep within an otherwise culture starved childhood.