There was a time - not so long ago - that virtually no one had a mobile, yet everyone managed to get by.
BBC: NEWS | UK | Education | Warning over 'bullying by mobile'
Your smartphone now harnesses the processing power of a multi-million dollar mainframe computer that not so long ago filled an environmentally-controlled room.
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Not so long ago, government-controlled companies were regarded as half-formed creatures destined for full privatisation.
Not so long ago the foreign-policy establishment was virtually a gentleman's club, relegating minorities and women to low-level staff positions.
The 1991 Ford Explorer reminds us of the days, not so long ago, when gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles ruled the American road.
Not so long ago it was rebound-optimist Jon Corzine of MF Global publicly taking the hit that many others were privately taking too.
Not so long ago, in 2002-2003, the Swans finished one point clear of relegation from the fourth tier of English soccer and into the semiprofessional ranks outside the Football League.
One reason it had the market to itself for so long was that indexing was extremely labor-intensive -- so much so that someone long ago suggested that convict labor be used to keep down costs.
Sam Raimi has brought a very good version to the screens, given that Spider-Man was created so long ago its hardly surprising that Raimi has dabbled slightly with Spider-Man, though nothing major.
Not so long ago, investors would be well-served to build a simple, straightforward portfolio consisting primarily of U.S.-based multinational stocks and high quality U.S. municipal bonds.
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Not so long ago, the notion of a Conservative Co-operative Movement would have seemed like a contradiction in terms.
The regular-season dominance by the 6-foot-1, 240-pound All-American now seems so long ago.
Not so long ago, a torn triceps was a season-ending injury, a running back with a surgically-repaired knee required at least 12 months recovery, and the only place you'd find a 35-year-old quarterback coming off four neck surgeries on Sunday was the broadcast booth.
Not so long ago, I was speaking with a European country-head of a major global telecoms network operator who was enthusiastically endorsing Huawei as a value-chain partner.
Not so long ago, all of the big accounting firms were full-bore tax shelter merchants.
So it was clear as long ago as 1991 that the 32-digit scheme would have to be extended.
It was not so long ago that each of the armed forces was striving for self-sufficiency in warfighting, an expensive and duplicative process.
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We talked about Twitter not so long ago, but for those of you who do not remember - it is a place where you can post messages about what you are doing - no matter how pointless or uninteresting that may be, as long it is not any longer than 140 characters.
It wasn't so long ago that we were supposed to develop our workplace "EQ"--that's Emotional Intelligence--and before that, to remember our Myers-Briggs personality type. (Now was it "ExtrovertedIntuitive FeelingPerceiver" or "Introverted Sensing Thinking Judger"?) Corporate America, it seems, has an unappeasable hunger for the newest, hottest management concepts--all of which, on closer examination, appear eerily similar.
The Y2K Bug, as many now know, is a short-sighted but far-reaching error that was routinely built into computers not so long ago.
Indeed, it wasn't so long ago that Google was stealing top talent from Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) to fuel its growth spurt.
Not so fast, see the Dutch supreme court ruled long ago in favor of the then Netherlands-based Kazaa and only classifies the upload of copyrighted material as illegal.
And so, arguably, three, four, five years ago people became unmoored from their long-term risk tolerances and became purely return-seeking and, now, I think, are in more cases, frankly, being more thoughtful about their capacity to absorb losses.
But we got TiVo not long ago, and discovered the joy of tuning in to programs late, so that we can fast-forward past commercials, and that seems pretty much the ideal way to watch the Oscars.
After being invited to perform during the final interval all those months ago, I did not know what to expect and then - after preparing for so long - I can't believe the Eurovision finals are nearly here!
So, Silicon Valley dwellers, with the cheap land and wide-open spaces of a generation ago long gone you tell us: why stick around?
But most of that was proposed long ago by Mr Obama on the campaign trail, and so can hardly represent an attempt to forge post-election consensus.
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