Fast on the Take

Is the new generation slower than its ancestors? A study proves that and explains that what it is being measured is purified IQ extract and that the decay is caused by environmental neurotoxins.

I was convinced that fast-moving TV series and computer games have refined young people's ability to react faster than old folks like myself, raised on slow monopoly table games or the boring movies of the thirties. Now it appears that Victorians were much faster on the uptake than modern folk!

Yet there may be something in it. In my youth, typists prided themselves in typing 60 words a minute or more and it was marvelous to see their dexterity. I have not seen that in contemporary offices, it takes a lifetime to get them type a letter. I used to type faster than any typist in Tahal, which was an ability I was much interested in hiding, as bosses tended to ask me to help them when they were in a hurry. Which was always.

The illustration is a metal ring puzzle that were very popular in my barrio. Those complicated wire puzzles were devised in Devoto, the neighborhood jail, where time was illimited and materials scarce. I havent seen one in ages.