The good/bad/turbulent old/new days/years

Here I am, sitting at my office cubicle killing time before the students' graduation ceremony. Less than 24 hours from now, I'll be on a plane flying over some place between Seoul and Taipei, en route to Hong Kong.

The last time I was in Hong Kong was 1995. That's nearly 15 years ago, for the numerically-challenged. Some people think it's a long time (like my students, who were born around that time) and some people think it's not really that long ago. But when you think about it, 1995 is indeed a long time ago. Let's think about what it was like back in 1995.

In 1995:

• Hong Kong was still British territory.
• Princess Diana was still alive.
• Apple Computer was on the verge of bankruptcy.
• Mike Harcourt was the premier of British Columbia.
• Intel released its new 120 MHz Pentium processor, a drastic improvement from the new 75 MHz processor from the year before.
• The National Hockey League canceled half of the 1994-95 season due to a labor dispute.
• Sun Microsystems revealed its new project, Java.
• The original PlayStation gaming console was released.
• The first consumer 3-D accelerator, Voodoo by 3dfx, was released.
• Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
• The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that discrimination based on sexual orientation is a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
• Approximately 80% of internet users used Netscape Navigator as their primary browser, with only 3% using Internet Explorer.
• The computer game Doom was only 2 years old.
• Windows 95 was released, replacing Windows 3.1.
• Cell phone subscribers in the United States numbered only about 3.8 million (compared to 55.4 million in 2007).
• eBay was founded.
• OJ Simpson was found not guilty.
• The Calvin & Hobbes comic strip debuted.
• Dakota Fanning was only a year old.
• Toy Story won an Oscar.