The author E. M. Forster predicted this sort of attitude in his 1909 novella "The Machine Stops". Part of the story revolves around the exchange of ideas. However, new ideas are looked down upon, as they have not been thought about by lots of people. The attitude was almost that it was not necessary for people to actually think about the ideas, but the chain of passing from one brain to another was enough to give an idea value. We appear to be approaching something similar today.

Related to this is the fact that most young folks have never seen a floppy disk, but it is still the symbol on most programs for saving your file.

The throaty roar of the Cox -049 on a string controlled airplane. And the sound of the inevitable impact was unforgettable as well (but probably similar to modern R/C planes.

I still have one of these. I always wanted one, for some unknown reason (probably because my uncle had one and there was nothing cooler than being able to change the channel from across the room). When I came across one at a garage sale a few decades ago I snapped it up. Makes a great discussion point for sound in my classroom.

When I was growing up, I lived on or near Air Force bases, as dad was a pilot. Pilots in training took their planes supersonic at least twice a week. The sonic booms would rattle the windows. Since then they have tightened up the regulations "boom rides" are only done far away from inhabited areas, if at all.

I still have mine, too. When they were announced, they wanted people to re-sell them. It was a great deal for me. I saved my pennies, got my reseller's paperwork from the city, signed up with Osborne and got my discounted computer (40% discount, as I recall). It was great, the best computer I have ever owned (up to that point). However, I never managed to sell a single unit. Nobody was interested at that point.

Of course, when I was in the lab using a DEC PDP-11, it wasn't THAT outdated...

I got this story with an ad for the church of Scientology... Hmmm. http://wendingourway.com/imagesforsa2/scientology.jpg

My wife got me my wedding ring from metamorphosis designs ( http://www.metamorphosisdesign.com/ ). The designer, John Biagiotti, works with many exotic materials. My wife decided that my ring should be made from 18kt gold and meteoritic iron. Or, if you are more interested in natural history, you could get dinosaur bone...