Shoe by Gary Brookins and Susie MacNelly for February 08, 2015

You call this the real world?

1947, a very good year…

@ cj7ole “1947, a very good year…”

I’ll say it was, the year I was born in the UK! …They swapped India for me, now THAT was a good deal :-)

Those gadgets can turn on you.

I’m so old I remember when you rented your phone from AT&T. You couldn’t buy them. You had to rent them.

I also remember when you couldn’t buy a phone except through Ma Bell, and you had to pay extra if it was anything but a basic black dial model. Oh, and if you were in a neighborhood that was poor, or mostly the “wrong” race you had to pay a whopping deposit to get one at all. At least we don’t have an arrogant monopoly controlling communications anymore.

1947 again? Anyone younger than 30 would freak.

If you lose your internet connection, you’re back to 1985. If you lose your electrical power, you’re back to 1885.

I read a science fiction story in the 1960’s in which some sort of alien energy beings were attracted to Earth by our first radio broadcasts. They ate all our generated electricity, so no electrical device could operate. No sparks for gasoline engines. Then they subsisted on lightning. Mankind was functionally back in the steam age. This did encourage things like live local music again, though.

add a surge protector

Remember “The Day The Earth Stood Still”? And of course, let’s not forget Joshua 10, verses 12-14…

There is something just a bit weird about using a computer and the internet to read a comic—and many comments—about how difficult-to-use computer technology is… (and if the tech is so incomprehensible, how did so many people figure out how to leave these comments, anyway?)

Not only do I remember renting the phone, our number was 1943. And our neighbor across the street phone number was 9 and that was it!

That big a power outage and it would be back farther than 1947.

I only use my rotary phone now for answering once we switched to Comcast and only tones work.

One direct hit from a solar flair, and it could be 1820 again.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/massive-solar-flare-narrowly-misses-earth-emp-disaster-barely-avoided/article/2533727

And if the sun doesn’t get around to it, Iran and Russia have tested high altitude missiles over the US suitable for an EMP attack.

Stuart,The late Larry Burkett wrote a novel he titled Solar Flare, and it was about how the world, but especially the USA, reacted to a solar flare knocking out all the electricity. Car engines fried and gangs looted journalists’ offices. The Amish stepped in to help others learn how to live without electricity; people had been so frightened by the solar flare effects that they were willing to obey political orders to move to certain areas of the USA and form new communities. Jason and his daughter Wendy were assigned Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

1947? Try 1847, or even earlier.

That’s funny … my Samsung smartphone does all those things his iPad, iPod, and phone do.