Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Just things I wonder about ... and some people are nice enough to answer. You are welcome to answer, too ... just click on "Comments" and off you go! IF you don't want to be Anonymous, use the Name/URL option and just put in your name ... no URL required .... Starting Jan 28th, 2009, I am using questions from "Table Topics: Right or Wrong?"
Visit me on Facebook ....
Followers
Google Search
About Me
Links
Blog Archive
-
▼
2007
(239)
-
▼
January
(22)
- Question #389
- Question #388
- Question #387
- Question #386
- Question #385
- Question #384
- Question #383
- Question #382
- Question #381
- Question #380
- Question #379
- Question #378
- Question #377
- Question #376
- Question #375
- Question #374
- Question #373
- Question #372
- Question #371
- Question #370
- Question #369
- Question #368
-
▼
January
(22)
6 comments:
Pretty much. I think 20-30 years ago, we all had visions of some high-tech wizz-bang world, and to a great extent we have that.
Change always comes slower than we think, and in areas we didn't consider. Look at the reality:
* We have mapped the human genome!! We can clone animals now. And grow organ cells outside the body. Genetic research is still in its infancy and what will come from that will be amazing and scary. This was all far-out science fiction in the 70's.
* We have mobile phones that can record pictures and video, play music, etc. Remember the 1st mobile phones? They weighed about 10 lbs!
* Our medical science has eradicated several diseases, and our life span has increased dramatically in the past 30 years.
* Not that this is such a great thing, but we have weapons now that NEVER miss.
* The advances in material science has given us new ceramics and fabrics that do amazing things - like new helicopter blades and rotor heads that are basically indestructible, and fabrics that can light up, can stop a bullet, etc.
* On a more mundane level, we have ovens that cook in minutes (used to take hours). Microwave and convection (and combos of both) ovens were not even ideas when I waa in high school.
These are just a few of the amazing things we have today - so I think the 21st Century is pretty amazing, andgetting more amazing every day.
And with all this techno gadgetry, we have closed ourselves off from our neighborhoods, locked our selves in our A/C'ed houses and let human relationships go to pot. And we have a divorce rate of over 50% now.
But other than that, it's not a bad world. (you caught me on a bad day today....)
I AM STILL WAITING FOR A 'BUCK RODGERS' FLYING BELT. THEN THEY
BLOW THEIR HORN.
Well ... I must admit that by now I kind of expected cars to be flying ... and travel to be even faster than it is ...
But there are so many other things that I never even drempt of!! Like this device I am using right now from the comfort of my living room!! I can sit here and access more info in 10 minutes than I ever could have found in a library in 10 hours! I think Wikipedia.com is an amazing website!! I think the internet is amazing!! I think the fact that airplanes fly is amazing!!
I think Bronco said it well, too.
AND, I think someone needs to give Patr a hug!
I find it happening much faster than expected.
I was wondering as a kid about when home computers would become a household item. The internet seems to be an extension of what we used to call satellite technology. Remeber when we just loved seeing B&W TV - LIVE - straight from London. It was only a matter of time before networking drew the world closer, and at the same time makes us more devisive.
When I was born in the 60's some transistors were quite expensive, now you can create a transistor for a billionth of a penny - mass fab'ed on a wafer of pure silicon. This doesn't even take into account how we -soceity - are going optical which is WAY past transistors.
Aldus Huxley; one of the greatest intellectuals of our time, predicted alot of what we are experiencing today - back in 1932. Later in Brave New World Revisitied he wrote that it was happening faster than even he anticipated. I beleive he did an exhaustive research project and modelled mankinds progress and discovered that it fit an all too common curve. He was able to show that our technological advancements could be graphed over the years and it fit a curve we call a natural logarithm ( for the math folks e to the x, or "euler's number' - source wikipedia). In short this curve starts off by rising quite slowly, then at a crucial point it rises rapidly, much like a fighter jet that gains speed on the runway, then shots skyward. Imagine that curve looked at from the side of the runway. The point where the fighter jet went from horizonal to near vertical is called the 'knee' of the curve. Huxley claimed that Mankind is at that 'knee', and the rate of change is going to increase even more. The icons of our daily lives will either change or vanish at an ever incresing rate. Some of us right this very moment don't recognize 'life as it was' and are dealing with or working with things we never even dreamed of.
Try to get ready for the future as it will come faster than we can perceive it. Thats the scary part of the whole Big Bang!
Hmmmm...sort of...only better! I remember my Dad taking us to The World's Fair when it was held in NY in the early 60's. (I was a mere babe! LOL) We went to see the Kitchen's of The Future Exhibit and I was amazed that we would one day have this "oven" that cooked things with Micro Waves! Sounded very "Lost In Space" (as in the TV show) to me! And the Computers they had displayed were enormous but they said one day, we would be able to have some much smaller! LOL I guess they weren't even thinking iPods or Razor phones then! But they did have a movie of 2 people talking via "video phones". They were very choppy and the voices were not synced with lip movements! LOL
{{{Patr))) Hope your day improves!
Post a Comment