I have now got to that time in my life where I am starting to reminisce about how good things were in ‘my day’ and although I love new technology and advances in science – I still think of ‘when I were a lad’ and life was less cluttered. You know – life before a mobile phone!
TV was better, music was better, food was better, life was better and of course all of that is complete nonsense!
However I remember a classic 1970’s kids TV show – ‘Record Breakers’ with the late, great Roy Castle and the McWhirter twins (it was never same without them) and in particular, records broken for the largest number of people tap dancing at the same time, most pies eaten in a minute and the largest amount of dominoes pushed over all in one go.
The domino pushes were the best.
Do a quick Google Search for domino pushes and you will lose half a day of your life watching people on YouTube with far too much time on their hands arranging the most elaborate displays in an old warehouse – and then with a single push – the most fantastic journey begins.
Back in the day (when I were a lad) the domino push resulted in fancy shapes and spirals (if you were lucky!) but now modern technology means that the dominoes can be placed automatically and designed by computers to set off rockets and fireworks and all kinds of fantastic tech.
However, one thing I have noticed (as I do) is that regardless of the advancement of technology it all starts off with one tiny push in the right direction.
And if that analogy is not good enough for you – regardless of how fancy the modern day results are, it is still built on the foundation knowledge of how dominoes fall, how they should be spaced out and what blocks work well in certain circumstances – exactly the same theory as the 1970’s.
Through the decades, people with far too much time on their hands (lets call them developers) have built on the foundation knowledge of the humble domino push to create the most fantastic end-products and continue to push the limits with little plastic bricks (or Ones and Zeros).
Sometimes the paths they lay spiral to a dead end. Sometimes the paths cross and merge and sometimes either by luck or with great planning, they result in a fantastic finale. Given enough bricks and time of course – it could go on forever and continue to amaze us.
Who remembers the ZX Spectrum or BBC Micro or life even before that?
Remember how cool Basic was in developing your own programmes and making your screen flash different colours. Awesome.
Although I did all that at school and have always dabbled in computers – I was never really into it until later in my career when I started to really get interested in the inner workings and helping others with PC problems etc.
It was only when I left the military (back in 2007) that I really started to get into the world of IT and although I was aware of systems before that time – my background was more about breaking into them rather than building them!
However, it wasn’t that long ago in the general scheme of things that I remember thinking how cool technologies such as virtualisation and the Internet were and how tech companies were developing new products and systems almost weekly. I loved it.
In the world of IT you can look back to the good old days with affection but if you have followed the development of technologies over the years you can see the links between each advancement. Operating Systems, Servers, Storage, Networking, Virtualisation, Fibre, Wireless, Smart devices – where do you want to stop?
But look closely and think about how these things have fallen into place and you will see that it all started with a push in the right direction using some basic building blocks and a lot of imagination and creativity.
If you analyse technology you can see the dominoes that have gone before it. Virtual Servers and the Internet forming Clouds, Applications being developed to cater for the increasing mobile world we live in, networking technologies advancing to keep us connected 24/7, playing games, keeping you fit, giving you advice and arranging your life.
But it all comes from the same humble structures that we learned about years ago – network protocols, operating systems, binary, applications and the changing requirements of the user.
It’s just more fancy patterns and more sophisticated results from the same ones and zeros.
Everything we do is just one big domino push. Sometimes the paths you take will spiral to nothing but are great fun. Sometimes you may go down a blind alley but at least you learn things on the way. And sometimes you take a path (could be long or short) which ends in fireworks and flags.
But it all comes from a little push in the right direction and some careful planning. If it requires technology to helps us then embrace it – but always remember that little plastic brick is the key to success.
Understanding the basics and fundamentals can start something very big.
So don’t waste all of your life watching other people doing record breaking domino pushes – take a look at a foundation course in a subject you are interested in – or even better – choose something that you have not come across before and give it a go.
It could give you the push you are looking for and generally costs very little and won’t take long to achieve.
