How Did We Go From 1’s and 0’s to Hollywood Blockbuster’s?

/ bensbitterblog

Warning! The lightning bugs are going off in my head!

I have a very creative mind that is very limited technically. I can see something small in nature like a leaf or a bug on the ground and my brain synapses start sparking. A million different lightning bugs go off in my head. I can immediately think of a hundred different metaphor’s on how a tiny little bug applies to hundreds of different little applications. If I was a dynamic person, that wasn’t lazy or had a voice that didn’t put people to sleep, I could be a motivational speaker.

On the other hand, you can ask me to do my 4th grader’s math and explain to him how a stupid number works with another and my brain shuts down like a teenager being told they have to, like you know, do stuff. My brain turns into a vampire who has seen a little too much light. It goes and hides in it’s coffin.

The other day my mind was little Red Riding Hood. It was skipping along a little path to go to Grandmother’s house, you know, wandering, and it came upon a little question.

1 and 0’s…and maybe the other numbers too.

How did we as a society go from two numbers, 1 and 0 specifically, to where graphics and movies and all these amazing things computers do today? Like honestly, today we have video games and movies and graphics that boggle the mind. I don’t quite have a 4K TV yet (it’s coming though, I can feel it), but the amazing amount of graphical power that a TV, movie, or video game boggles the mind.

60 or 70 years ago, computers didn’t even exist. In the 60’s people were watching TV, but only in black and white. Along comes some lazy genius in that time period, who decided that he or she didn’t want to do things by hand anymore and wanted to make a machine do it. So he or she saw that two numbers in succession could do things for them. So he or she invented a machine with 1 or 0’s to do things for him or her.

All of a sudden, the lazy people of the world united. They also wanted things to be done for them, so they looked at the 1’s and 0’s and decided they wanted those numbers to do more things for them. I’m sure there are many steps that got us here, but essentially every word you type, every graphic you make, every movie you watch involves some sort of combination of 1’s and 0’s. It is a little mind blowing that that is the case.

It makes my brain explode to think of all the lazy geniuses it took to get us to a place where my kids can play games, watch movies, get make up tutorials from some little punk kid from a state 100’s of miles away, or two dinkazoids spazes named Logan and Jake Paul can make millions of dollars by yelling into a camera and doing made up World’s Records with more of their punk friends.

Uhhh….

My tiny little mostly unused brain just wants to know how these amazing inventions went from 1’s and 0’s to the mighty graphics that can revolutionize the world. I can’t even imagine how a stupid text message that I make can magically appears on my wife’s phone. I just can’t comprehend how 20 years ago I thought that it wasn’t even possible that I could type my idiotic thoughts and somehow someone from India could read about it.

Does anyone else ever think how 1’s and 0’s have taken us so far in this world? Or am I the only one that thinks that?

ARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH

Bitter 10010101011101 Ben

60 thoughts on “How Did We Go From 1’s and 0’s to Hollywood Blockbuster’s?”

  2. I’ve thought about all of this, too!
    But with the mind I have I’m not sure you should feel good about that. Ha! 😀
    Anyways…I can’t figure any of this out…like how my smart-phone works (which I was surprised they gave to pea-brained ME! 😛 ), but I sure do enjoy all of it! 🙂
    HUGS!!! 🙂

    Like

    Reply

  3. I gave up trying to figure out how telephones and records work. Now I just place a plate of 1s and 0s on my hearth each Christmas to thank the tech gods that made it possible. Oh, wait. Maybe that’s Santa Claus…

    Like

    Reply

  4. This reminds me of a math joke that I pretended to understand for several years. I sort of get it now, which means I tell it to people in the hopes that it will make me look smart and catapult me to the top of the social ladder (hasn’t happened yet).

    Anyway, here’s the “joke”: There are only 10 types of people in the world–those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

    Like

    Reply

  6. This blows my mind as well.

    I find it sooo cool that music, or intricate photos, or well anything can be reduced into 1s and 0s. It might as well be magic for all that I understand of it.

    If I went back in time, I wouldn’t be able to pretend to be a genius and invent the computer or microchips etc. I’d know they’d be possible, without knowing how to make them/become super rich. Doh.

    Like

    Reply

  8. Ben, I have spent too much time in my life trying to figure out how the hell tvs work and especially how radios and cellphones work. I just don’t understand how my sound wave can travel oceans and end up perfectly in someone else’s ear. That shit is scary and confusing. You are not alone.

    Like

    Reply

  9. What’s also crazy is how those 1s and 0s are floating all around us in the air, traveling from one point to another. We are literally surrounded by 1s and 0s.
    Also: “every word you type, every graphic you make, every movie you watch…” reminds me of Sting’s famous stalker song.

    Like

    Reply

  10. This is amazing. I think about this regularly. My husband is a tech enthusiast, and he wrote a dissertation for his Masters which detailed the history of technology from binary digits all the way to the complex graphics it is comprised of today – I mention this because I had to edit the document, him being dyslexic and me being an editor by profession – and while I barely remember any of the detailed technicalities (like you, I am more creative than mathematical – although I am sure those ‘lazy geniuses’ had to be both mathematical AND creative in order to connect those dots and make something tremendous out of 0s and 1s…), I do remember feeling flabbergasted and quite out of my depth thinking about how far the world has come. I know it was a collective of minds, but it is still flabbergasting, and shocking, and makes one feel confused and small in the grander scheme of things.

    Like

    Reply

    • Absolutely. I’m sure there are like 5 people out there that have the unique ability to be both creative and technical (and ambitious enough to make something world changing) that were able to make this happen. I just wish I were one of those people, so I could get accolades, money and no time to myself. Actually, just kidding. I prefer my laziness.

      Like

      Reply

Your Bitter Comments

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.