I love technology. But I mean I love all of technology, today's, tomorrow's and even yesterday's. I love to question whether today's technology is always better than the past. Or I like to at least look at technology's past and revel in the excitement of past years. Take these two examples, for instance.
Street cars (also called "trolleys" in the US) have almost disappeared from the United States. At one time, every city had them. Today only a handful of cities are left (San Francisco included) that still run them. San Francisco, in fact, is one of the few places where they play an important and expanding role in public transportation.
Some years ago (about 20) San Francisco bought a fleet of the latest street cars built by the Boeing company. Recently they added a fleet of new cars built by the Breda company of Italy. The Boeing cars have proved to be difficult to maintain and breakdown more often than they expected. The new Breda cars are noisy and complicated and also expensive to maintain.
Back in the 1930's a new (at the time) streetcar was developed called the PCC. It was so successful that it was ordered and ran in almost every major city all over the US and Canada, in Philadelphia, Toronto, Cincinnati, to name just a few. A few years ago the last ones were retired from service. But - - -
All of the remaining PCC cars were recently bought by San Francisco. They were extensively rebuilt and each one was painted in the original colors of the different cities in which they had run in many years ago. Now they all run up and down Market Street, which is San Francisco's main drag. They are (and were) so well designed and built, that today they are almost maintenance free and less costly to operate that the more modern ones. They are now 60 years old, and are expected to last at least another 60 years in San Francisco. And, boy are they fun to ride. Inside each car is a little brochure that describes the history or each car running on the line. In 60 years, when the PCCs will still be running in San Francisco, the Boeing and Breda cars will have long ago been retired to the junk heap.
It's commonly called "stereo" these days, but stereo represents the continued desire to reproduce live, real, High Fidelity theater sound in your home. Modern High Fidelity is quite good. If you spend $10,000 or more on a good "stereo" system these days you can ALMOST get a sound that is equal to the real, live thing. ALMOST, but not quite. In 1905 you could.
The first attempt to produce "mechanical" sound in the home was invented in the early 1900's. It was so popular, in fact, that by 1920 half of the pianos sold in the United States were "Player Pianos".
Now, it is true that the "performance" of a player piano is (and was) a bit stilted by today's standards. Nuances of loud and soft, for example, were not fully possible in a player piano. But, the sound itself was 100%, absolutely real. It was the sound of a real piano in your home because it was a real piano. 100% High Fidelity.
With the coming of the phonograph, the popularity of the player piano waned. With improvements over time, the phonograph developed ultimately into today's CD player. And the sound of today's best CDs in a good CD player is ALMOST 100% high fidelity. But not quite. The only true 100% high fidelity ever invented was the player piano in 1900. Will we ever equal the high fidelity of a player piano in modern sound reproduction. Highly unlikely. Well, I love my CD player, but whenever I see an old player piano in a store or bar, etc, I ALWAYS drop a nickel in. 'Cause I love that High Fidelity sound (and the tunes too).
______________________
What does this have to do with diapers, you may ask? Well, nothing except that the person writing this just peed into his diaper without knowing it - like a baby.
