The Future is Now! or Where's my hover car, jet pack, and standard issue laser gun?

I'm 28 years old and I can remember when I was little basically being promised by “them” (the media, popular science, etc.) that hovercrafts, jet packs, and laser guns would be a common thing in the year 2000 or soon after. The year 2000 (if you didn't think the world was going to end) was The Future, you know, like in the Jetsons; but I'm still wanting for my hover car and there's no robot to do my chores.

Yes, I don't have those things and the prototypes that do exist are not very functional, but here are some things we may have forgotten and taken for granted. Some of the first computers weighed around 30 tons (that's 60,000 pounds!) and Popular Mechanics made the prediction in 1949 that they may someday weigh only 1.5 tons. Even science fiction, the genre which imagined up the jet pack, laser gun, and even more wondrous things, dreamed rather small (or more accurately big) when it came to how small a computer would be in the future. Isaac Asimov wrote a story first printed in 1953, entitled, Nobody There But - which was about two men who built computers. They were making a revolutionary small “calculator” which was “about three feet high, six feet long, and two feet deep.” The smallest Asimov dared his characters to dream of someday making the calculator was one that an “automobile” could carry. I remember reading another story that, even though it was based in the future, they were still using microfilm because, I guess, the author thought that would be the medium which replaced paper books.

Just a few years ago CDs were a pretty big deal. We thought the fact that they could carry, what, like 20 songs was pretty awesome. Now we have devices which are around an inch and a half wide and under a half inch thick that can hold around 4000 songs. Also, thanks to e-book readers, you can now hold thousands of books in your hands at one time.

Kids, I know the things I mentioned above may not seem like a big deal to you, but just imagine, a few years ago if you wanted to take music with you on a trip you had to take a bunch of CDs and if you wanted to take a bunch of books, well, your only option was to take paper books (which, I can tell you from experience, is quite heavy) .

As much as I wanted a hover car, I think these capabilities are even cooler. 

Can you think of any other ways in which we have gone beyond what was predicted as the future? Share in the comments. 

The Dangers of Computational Dependency or TomTom and Seri: Downfall of Us All

This is another note along the same vein as the “zombies attack America.” Perhaps this will sound as if I am a conspiracy theorist, but I don't really think it is a conspiracy, rather, it is the natural course of things in the world we live in and there are those who may take advantage of that course. Alright, enough talking around what I wish to speak of.

Today, as I was driving in heavy traffic, I began to think how nice it would be to have one of those cars that practically drives itself. I saw an article in Time magazine or some such magazine about soon there will probably be a car which does completely drive itself. After thinking of driving, I also thought of how when people have a question now, instead of trying to remember the answer from things learned or even asking a friend for the answer, they ask their phone.

I recently watched a documentary, called Digital Nation, and in it a few educators who were interviewed said something along the lines of: children no longer need to be taught answers and facts because they now have access to all the answers at the touch of a button. I do think teaching styles should change over time, I do firmly believe in more than rote learning but, oh, can't you see that despite our phones, computers, an internet filled with information, and so many other modern things, our brains are still our best and most reliable resource? I know they more readily forget things, but they do not easily run out of power, they do not get out of range or hit a dead spot, and it is harder to tamper with them.

Now, if we were attacked by electromagnetic bombs (which can destroy electronic devices using high-powered microwaves) currently, we would be helpless in so many ways, but we could still drive old cars (“pre-computer cars”), because we have the skills to drive; many architects could still design a bridge, because they committed the skills they need to memory; a mechanic could fix a car because they learned how to, and not because they looks up a step by step video every time they do something. The more we commit to electronic memory, instead of committing it to our memory and using electronic merely as a “back-up,” the easier it is to render us helpless.

I was not planning on going in this direction, but my brain took me here, so off I go. Electronic memory and media is also more changeable and easier to change than “good old paper.” It saddens me and scares me a little that so many books, papers, magazines, etc. are moving purely toward the electronic. I can keep a paper copy of the Bible or history book or newspaper in my house and I would know if anyone were to tamper with it. Not only that, I can go to my friend and ask to compare my paper source to his, which, even if they were the same when they were made, are now mutually exclusive (if one changes, it does not effect the integrity of the other). Whereas millions of electronic copies can be linked to one source, can often be remotely accessed, and can be almost simultaneously changed. “Hey, didn't the ending of The Hunchback of Notre Dame used to be different?” “I'm not sure, but my e-book ends the same as yours, so I don't think so.” Just something else to think of.

Note: I am a little biased towards paper books, I like the way they feel and smell, I like that I can underline and, when a friend borrows the book, they can see my underlines. I also enjoy buying an old copy of something and seeing someone else's underlines. I have enjoyed reading a couple novels on a Kendall, and I do want to eventually get one to use when traveling, I also know e-books are better for the environment, but they are just not the same.