Wow... 2010. How did that happen? I remember sitting in elementary school in January 1980, Our teacher asked the class to share our "predictions of what what we thought life and the world would be like in the year 2010.
We all had the typical "kid answers"; flying cars, cities under the sea and on the surface of the moon and suborbital fights that would get you from New York to Tokyo in twenty minutes. Basically life in 2010 would be one big episode of "The Jetsons".
Then in 1983 the consumer electronics industry was going to put the future in the palm of our hands!... Well, sort of....
That next year in 1984, Hollywood did for 2010 what it had done for the year 2000 sixteen years earlier. With the 'sequel' to "2001 A Space Odyssey", "2010 The Year We Make Contact" gave us a less fanciful , but none the less fantastic image of what awaited mankind at the dawn of the 21rst Century's second decade. Space shots to Jupiter, colonies on Mars and the ever present talking computer to do our work for us.
A good friend of mine who was with me in that classroom 30 years ago, recently lamented how much the reality of 2010 didn't match our predictions. I told him, when you compare just how different life is now in relation to technology , it really is remarkable. He wasn't all that convinced. So I reminded him of the computer games we used to play when we were kids, on my old Apple computer. I remember that machine well. It was my first "real computer". It was an Apple IIe. When my Dad brought it home I was in awe. This was machine that was going bring "the future" right to me...
Now I carry in my POCKET a Blackberry that costs a fraction of what that machine did, and can do more than 10 of those machines ever could. Pretty amazing when you think about it.
Granted, we don't have flying cars that take us to floating cities and shopping malls, but I am typing this blog entry on a netbook computer on a wireless network, while having a Skype video chat with Eric in London. So 2010 may not be the Jetsons or the year we "Make Contact" but all in all, it's shaping up to be the start of a pretty cool decade.
Happy New Year ,and New Decade Everyone!
1 comment:
Amen brotha! I was talking to a friend of mine about similar things. It is interesting yet disappointing at the same time. No flying cars or 20 minute flights from NY to Tokyo, but with BlackBerrys and cell phones...how did we survive with the Apple IIc (which was my first computer, no hard drive only floppy discs).
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