What the heck is this?

Jake, age 10, and mystery thing

This is Jake. His mom took him to a rummage sale and he found this. Had no idea what it was.

Funny, isn't it... his world only goes back 10 years.

Jake knows Gmail but he wouldn't know typewriters.

He knows computer games. But he wouldn't know Pong, and if he did, he would think it was really stupid.

Jake knows YouTube. He wouldn't know VCR... and goes on and on.

My sister's 5-year-old neighbor was zealously helping weed her flower bed so she asked him if he would like to take a peanut butter and jelly break. Needing his mom's permission, my sis said he could use the phone in the garage to call her. After a few minutes, she checked in on him and he asked, "What's this?"

Our world moves on pretty fast. 

 Alvin Tolfer, in his 1970 book, Future Shock, believed the accelerated rate of technological and social change left people disconnected and suffering from "shattering stress and disorientation"—future shocked... maybe like the person who was present at the Wright brothers' first flight of 112-feet in 1903 and also at the 1969 blast-off of Apollo 11 toward our first moon landing.

To take it one step further, Voyager I, launched in 1977, is now in it's 37th year, traveling beyond our

solar system at 35,000 mph. It is 12 billion miles from earth and theoretically, will travel FOREVER!

Humankind has only been on earth for the final seconds of the 'Big Bang' time frame and in that short time, we have not only broached outer space but have developed skills to destroy mankind in the blink of an eye. How 'future shocked' is that?

Back to the Future has to be the first 'gee whiz' movie that had everyone scratching heads and saying, "Oh yeah, I get it."

Fact is, we DO have a working time machine existing today.... and it is not science fiction. I wrote about time and THE TIME MACHINE in this 2012 post. My, how time flies.