The sophistication of youth

PERUSING the blogs at POTB I spotted an entry on Gavin’s Blog about Google Earth, where he mentions that Google now counts Google Maps as one of it's new applications.

So I clicked onto the link and they’ve done this as it’s the anniversary of the first moon landing back in 1969.

This is what Google says:

“In honor of the first manned Moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969, we’ve added some NASA imagery to the Google Maps interface to help you pay your own visit to our celestial neighbor. Happy lunar surfing. More about Google Moon.”

I wasn’t born at the time though like millions of others, it caught my imagination as a child, however I do remember the first shuttle Columbia and it’s maiden flight. I was 10 at the time and all my friends waited and waited excitedly for the launch.

We all crammed into a friend’s house and watched it with awe. Wow.

It’s funny now that these advancements do nothing for my daughter at all. So much has happened in the last number of years, her generation is just so unimpressed.

They are lucky in many ways and not so much in others. Those around my age group were probably the last to get a big thrill from the weekly installments and bad cliffhangers in the old black and white Flash Gordon.

Or indeed kids now would not be able to sing the theme tune to Champion the Wonder Horse, another of those old programmes which were ancient to us but not sufficiently so to stop us enjoying them in the 1970s.

When my daughter was about five years old she adored slapstick comedy, particularly Mr Bean, she would be in absolute stitches watching it.

So I figured I would try her out on Laurel and Hardy, she lasted five minutes before she got bored.

Kids today are so much more sophisticated than we were, as I suppose we were in comparison to our own parents, but while some things are obviously gains, others are definitely losses.

I suppose that’s just the way of the world.

On another note I came across this on the breaking news website this morning, pity I didn’t come across these generous people this morning.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2005/07/20/story212515.html

Fortune hunters are set to flock to Dublin’s Grafton Street today as a mystery donor gives away €10,000.From 10am shoppers will have 10 minutes to get their hands on crisp €10 notes as a group of models walk up and down the street.By answering one simple question correctly early birds will have the chance to make money for nothing in the no strings attached giveaway.The spending spree, organised by a so-far anonymous businessman, is billed as the first step in a mission to end Ireland’s rip-off culture.And the unnamed man will later launch a campaign aimed at bringing everyday costs for consumers into line with the rest of Europe.