I had an interesting day yesterday. I spent much of the day working on different projects that I have going right now. Pretty much every one of those projects is work related – things that will earn me money. Every one of the projects involves the Internet too. Oh, I didn’t work all day long, though, I did other things too. I talked to my Mom on the phone, which is sort of a daily thing. I like to stay in touch with her, and hear how she is doing. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve seen her, but with my Vonage Internet telephone, I can talk to her and it sounds like she is just down the street.
The other night, I had two friends over for dinner. One of the people that came for dinner is a Filipino, whom I met over the Internet about 15 years ago, and he is a close friend. The other person who came to dinner is a foreigner who recently moved to Davao. I met him because he was a long time reader of LiP.
Have you noticed a trend in what I wrote above? Well, the common denominator is that all of these things are possible because of technology. Internet technology mostly.
I have lived in the Philippines for more than 9 years as I write this… almost 10 years. It’s a long time to live in the Philippines, but I certainly know many expats who have lived here much longer. One person that I know has lived in the Philippines for nearly 45 years now! He is American. I can hardly imagine what it would be like to live here for nearly half a century! Even though I have no plans of ever going back to the States, I will probably never reach an age that would have me living here for 50 years! I can’t even imagine what it would have been like to have lived here 50 years ago. I have another close friend who has been here for about 25 years now, and still going strong. So, as you can see, I’m just a short timer.
The first time I came to the Philippines was nearly 20 years ago, in 1990. Back then, I visited Manila, Cebu and General Santos City. General Santos was just a backwater town in those days. Many of the roads were dirt roads in the town. The town was very dusty, like the wild west. If you hung around town, you could see horses in the streets. That was only 20 years ago. Imagine what it was like 50 years ago!
Anyway, getting back to my “tech” life here in the Philippines, the day I described at the beginning of this article is actually quite typical. Some days my life even involves much more technology than that. Certainly, such a life was not even available in your wildest dreams 20 or 50 years ago. How would anybody be able to live here during those days? I know, the truth is that the kind of tech I am talking about wasn’t available anywhere 50 years ago.
Being able to just pick up a telephone receiver and dial my Mom or my friends in the States, and not have to pay anything above the basic flat rate monthly bill is astounding. It has gotten to the point where we can live basically anywhere in the world, and be able to cheaply and reliably keep in touch with any other part of the world. It makes like more pleasurable, I think.
As I think about this, it also makes me wonder what people will be saying in 20 more years… I am sure they will look back at the year 2009 and imagine how we could have possibly lived without all the “2030 gizmos” that will be available.
I don’t think I could have lived here in the 1960, or even 1990. I sure enjoy the lifestyle that technology in 2009 makes possible for me, though.
Internet technology has made the world a much smaller place. My fiancee can take a picture with her digital camera and in seconds I can see the picture even though I am on the other side of the world.
Hi Bob – Just wait until you get a Magic Jack phone. $20.00 USD per YEAR. Buy two, set one up and then send it to your mother. You can talk to her all you want – the cost? Only the twenty dollars per year. Soon that will be history too. Free calls on the internet. I started doing that back in the late 90's. Talked to a friend in Japan and never paid a penny, on dial-up. It just keeps getting better. I don't have a TV here in Michigan. Lightning took it out last May. Yet on the internet I never miss a program. Cost? Free, just watch the ads just like on over the air TV. Things sure are moving fast. Sit back and enjoy the ride.
Hi Gary – No need to wait… I have no plans on getting a magic jack. I've tried it before, and was not impressed. I have been a vonage customer for many years now, and will continue to be.
I download lots of US TV shows on Bit Torrent, and rarely watch any TV over the air, just stuff that I download.
Hi Bob – Outside of technology, we may be wishing for the "good old days" of the turn of the century in 20 to 50 years! 😯
I'm happy with today; my opinion about the future will be available tomorrow! 😉
Hi Paul – We probably won't be doing any wishing in 50 years… except maybe wishing we were still alive! 😉
I know technology is amazing. I for one am technology challenged. Instead of a new hard drive I would prefer a nice ball point pen. Ron
Hi Ron – Ha ha… communication across the world with a ballpoint pen is possible, and still enjoyable. It takes a little longer, though! 😆
Hi Bob,
I know exactly how you feel. After living here in Austria for the past 8 years, I can still phone back to Canada and talk to my children and their families, my friends and other relatives. Without the use of Skype it would be a lot more expensive and I would not do it as much. Sure makes for a better life.
Hi John – We certainly live in a wonderful time! And so much that we take for granted didn't even exist 10 years ago!
Good luck on that, Paul! See you on the other side!
I went to a Lea Salanga concert tonight here in Medford, Oregon. I wound have never dreamed in the past that anyone of her stature in the Philippines would ever come to my home town. Over half the crowd here was Philippino. It was great!!!!!! The world is truly getting smaller.
Hi don m – Believe it or not (many won't, I'm sure!), Lea Salonga and I are friends, or were at one time. We've been out of touch for some time now, though. I used to correspond with Lea Salonga back in the mid to late 90's. Lea was on AOL at the time. She is a very nice person, and I do love her singing!
Hi bob,
I used to have a nice penmanship until the boom of technology, I could not even read my own writing! and yes, I blame it all to the technology of today. there's a good side and bad side with the technology, one, I really hated the "text Lingo" on the other hand we are now in the process of creating a "universal language" derived from the technology itself. communicating is very simple nowadays; HOWEVER, there are times you just don't want to talk to someone and you can't just give them alibis, they would always tell you that it is IMPOSSIBLE not to contact you because there are so many ways and cheaper ways to be in touch.
what was like 26 years ago? let me see.. aha! that is when i started my hobby with computers until it became a profession for me. PCjr. and cassette tapes are the "mobile storage" in those days, you can still find them probably in the Smithsonian museum.
Internet specifically makes us feel "connected," less isolated, less lonely. With internet-telephone connectivity, we can talk live, and feel we are "there." It helps people be mobile without giving up part of themselves. Speaking of change, I was in Bacolod in 2002, working on a small project, visited Silay city, Iloilo, Mactan. I thought wow, I could live in any of these places. Coming back to Mactan this year to check things out, I couldn't recognize the place! Only 7 years later. Now I have to look further away but with internet, Supercat, and Cebu Pacific, ahhh…no sweat. Alex
The changes you'll see in the next ten years will astound you. Just today, I read an article about a hand held ultrasound machine that will replace the stethoscope. In a few years household robots will be common place. Within ten years cars that drive themselves will be everywhere. Computer data storage density will increase 50 fold. You’ll have a terabyte on a sold state drive the size of your fingernail. Wi-Fi will be everywhere. Augmented reality will be available for the asking. You'll be able to stroll thru the palaces of Rome without leaving your livingroom. Handheld devices that recognize speech and translate virtually any language on the planet will be common place. Your may even be able to make reservations for a stay at a hotel located in outer space or even on the moon. Stem cell therapy will be common place. Doctors will be regrowing lost appendages. These are just some of the things you can expect.
Bob you must be running Mac or Linux. You wouldn't dare use Bit Torrent with windows or your pc would be dead in a week. Ive never tried Vonage because I never wanted to sign up for a service so I used Skype. Now I have been trying Google Voice which seems to work very well. I have noticed that the last few weeks the connections from the US to the Philippines has been very bad or at least to Northern Samar where I usually call. Another thing tat works great for voice and video is a SIP account to communicate PC to PC.
Hi AlexB – Over the past year or so, I have written many times, and tried to drive home the point about how quickly Davao has changed. We have lived in Davao for nearly 8 years now, and it's not the same place that we moved to. The other day, I drove to a friend's house. Eight years ago, it was a 10 minute drive. It took me an hour to get there. Simply ridiculous. Finding the right balance in a place is not easy now. I am thinking, though, that Davao won't be the right place for me to live in just a few years. I hope I am wrong.
Hi David S. – We certainly live in exciting times! 😀
Sorry this is off subject. Has something happened to your contributing writers Rusty Ferguson. His site has not been updated in quite sometime and now he is not shown here as a writer. If you have any information.
Hello paul – Unfortunately, Rusty has left us, but I hope only temporarily. You are right that Rusty's personal sites are also not updated. I have been trying to encourage him to write, but he told me he is having trouble coming up with things to write about. I think he is burned out a bit. He did tell me that he will return to LiP when he comes up with more to write about, though.
Hi Bob – Interesting and thought provoking article.The only draw back as I see it to the current advancement in communications is the bastardisation of the English language.The youth are using an abreviated version changing daily as we speak and very soon will not be able to write a proper letter if called to do so.
I can understand them using abreviated English when texting but not when e-mailing.Whats your thoughts on this?
Regards.
Jim.
Hi Jim – Actually, dans and I were discussing this a few comments up the page. I am with you 100%, well almost 100%. Unlike you, I also don't like it when texting… I always text in full proper English! 😆 I hate "text speak".
I was about to ask the very same thing earlier, but didn't want to appear nosey, so I deleted the about-to-be-sent message. I hope the "gun-toting fan of ACLU" didn't get annoyed because of some of the off-topic, unpleasant exchanges among a few readers stemming from Rusty's last article, "Culture Clash", through no fault of his own. I have enjoyed reading his articles. And thank you for "lengthening" the contents of the "Recent Comments" column, Bob.
It is incredible if u really think about it, less than 100 yrs ago a message to the philippines would have taken months to get there if at all. Earthquake in Antartica and its a news flash within 5 minutes of its occurance. It astounds me to think i can get up in the morning and be in Manila in under 24 hrs ! GPS, internet access, international communication all packed in a 5 ounce cell in the palm of my hand..but I still have to hunt for 30 minutes to find the TV remote !!!!
Hi John – No, Rusty was not mad or offended at all, just a bit burned out, I am sure. I consider Rusty a good friend, and I think he feels I am a friend as well. There were no hard feelings between us at all, I would say that he is just taking a break right now.
I lengthened the "Recent Comments" to 15, which is the maximum that you can show. Hope it helps!
Hi Brian – If you stop and think about the ramifications of the progress that has been made in the past 20 years alone, it baffles the mind!
15 comments still showing when we Statesiders wake up are better than what it used to be, Bob, thanks again. I also find the format here in LiP easy to navigate once you get used to it. And the size of the font, I thought, was very well-planned in advance, considering that readers who are attracted to this site are more than likely to be wearing glasses. I visited one of the blog sites similar to LiP yesterday, but gave up reading the articles as I had to use a magnifying glass to read them. The font was too small for my vision.
Hi John – I'm glad that you like the design of the site. Thanks for letting me know.
Hey Bob,
I remember when I was a child of about 10 years old, and we were at Disneyland. Six of us in a booth and we called grandma, and she heard us all on speakerphone. We all that it was simply amazing in 1967
Hi hudson – My family and I did the same thing at Disneyland. You and I probably sat in the same booth at Disneyland in Anaheim, making a conference call from the same phone! What a great memory, and you are so right.. it was so high tech. But, today, it is nothing! Amazing.
Kamusta ka Bob,
Technology has definitely leaped and bound. What another 20 years will bring us, I guess we'll see.
Its funny looking back now, in the late 70's the VCR and video games (pong) started coming into the houses, wow movies at the house and not on regular television, but VCR's were so expensive. Now you can buy one at Walmart for $29.95. Then Atari, and computers came along, I saw my first computer in 1982 at our school..old Radio Shack TRS-80's with the huge floppy disks, but never imagined ever having one in the home, AND communicating with people around the world…let alone find the woman I will marry. So now a days, not too much surprises me.
But Bob, back to your article, I think you could have lived there 20, 30 or maybe even 50 years ago. It all comes down to the same way of thinking when you came there 10 years ago…is to just have an open mind, and know what you want to do, and do it.
Amping,
Danny 🙂
Hi Danny – What I know is that if I lived here 20 or 50 years ago, life sure would not be as comfortable as it is today!
Hi Danny – Very true…. you can never miss what you never had! 😉