Technology

Technology

My first experience with technology was when I worked for a grocery store called Dominick's Finer Foods. We used a hand held unit called a Telzon machine. This was a hand held unit, which came out in 1986, had a laser gun attached to it and you were able to order product and keep inventory on it. Previous to this we had to order everything manually with books. Each product had a UPC code and we had to manually write the amount of product for each code. The bad thing about the system was that the chance for error was great. With Telzon machine ordering product was much easier because all you had to do was walk down the aisle, each product was represented by tag, and if he needed the product you would just aim the gun at the the tag that represented the product and the machine would beep back at you confirming the order and presto the product was ordered. Previous to this writing in order for product took three times as long and was less accurate. This was a major innovation in a grocery store.
The bad thing about this machine was that periodically during transmission it would malfunction. The result of this malfunction might mean if you ordered a particular quantity you would receive a different quantity. For example, I once ordered two cases of tuna fish and receive 50. That week we had what they call in the grocery industry and manager's special on StarKist tuna. I made a display, put the tuna in the middle of the display, and on the sides of the display I put mayonnaise. Then I put a price on each of the items and oddly enough it sold within a week, at 25% profit. The point I am trying to make is that this particular machine saved many labor hours but sometimes caused hours to be spent due to mistakes. All in all this made the job much easier and is used still today. Surely, they have made advancements with this technology and eliminated most of the problems that occurred in the past.

The Third Culture

The Third Culture

The Third Culture is created by the internet. This culture is good for some participants and can be bad for others. This culture or Secret Cyber world that helps people that are shy and have problems expressing themselves in a traditional face to face forum. Without this Third Culture, the members of this Culture wouldn't be able to express their ideas and opinions and discuss their point of view with their peers. Chat rooms, news groups,Im's and email is the medium for this. The confidence that they might be lacking when trying to relay ideas is increased because they can take their time, think about what they want to say and them proof read it. Bingo, they got their point across.

The bad thing I see is sometime, people of this culture get addicted to it. I have seen this in all age groups. They get started playing these games "building their character", and forget about real life. They spend their life on this machine in a world that is not real. This is unhealthy mentally. I have seen this happen to a 43 year old man. All of his free time was spent playing this game. He neglected his wife and children and finally his wife had to put her foot down over his addiction.

Another negative that can transpire due to this culture is not being able to relate to people. In the real world we have to interact with people. I have observed that some of the younger people who are computer geeks have a difficult time interacting with people face to face. When the time comes when they have to work, interaction with people is the most important aspect of a job. Your boss, your co-workers, clients and general public the are crucial ingredients that will determine your success. Home schooling is very popular now. Scholastically it may be better but socially it is a catastrophe. Kids need to interact with other kids. Especially when they are in high school. This time is the most crucial time of your life. You need to observe and react to your environment around you. Too much of being in this Third Culture is not good! Like my Italian Grandmother said, who came to the United states in 1923, too much of anything is no good. She had wisdom beyond her intellect.

Popular Culture

I feel popular culture is a Corporate Giants’ best friend. What drives sales? What does everyone want? Retail sales are driven by fashion, fad, and the monkey see monkey do principle.

For example, the iPod. MP3 music players have been available for years. Marketing geniuses at Apple targeted the young and influential popular culture. My opinion is that most of the popular culture is mostly made up of young people. Big business knows this and capitalizes on their naïve vulnerability. iPods are in vogue and you wouldn't be caught dead with a knockoff version of the iPod. The same holds true of clothing, hairstyles, fashion, and even personality.

Popular music is one area that is heavily influenced by pop culture. Rap, Hip-Hop and other categories of today's music is geared to appeal to pop culture and to sell records for corporate America. Content and talent are overlooked. Record companies are in it solely for money and not to make a name for themselves. Once upon a time, record companies like Jam, Capital and especially Charisma from England concentrated and new progressive music. They actually cared about content. Pink Floyd predicted this would happen in the future. Their 1973 song Money off the Dark Side of the Moon talked of how pop culture and Money would rule.

The United States is by far the main producer of popular culture. How convenient is that? All the corporate companies are based in the United States and they love the fact that they can feel the pulse that pop culture creates and they can jump their next victim.