Slashdot Readers Write The History Of The Future 294
Happy New Year's! HAPPY NEW YEAR'S! The ball has dropped, the clock in your local bell tower has probably stopped ringing (at least, if you aren't too far west), and if you're getting a midnight kiss it had better take longer than a database refresh. In Europe, they've been enjoying the brighter breezes and fresher smells of the third millennium for hours! Now's your chance to ponder, predict and pontificate, or just leave a message for all posterity, at least until a big EMP pulse returns us to the days of carbon paper, cave-dwelling, etc. What will life be like ten years from now? 100? The next time people argue about which day is the true millennium turn? Will Larry Ellison release a new thin client in 2059? Who's right about the staying power of Microsoft: ESR? Or Bill Gates? Will my grandkids get a stern warning from the security guard for fooling around on the Space Elevator? What will everyday life be like? Be idealistic. Be cynical. Extrapolate from Scientific American, 2001 , or Spaceballs as you see fit. (And those still waiting for local midnight, feel free to post from your side of the space-time continuum, too.)
Subliminal messages!??? (Score:1)
Before reading it, I didn't have to take a dump.
After reading it... a quick chuckle... then went and took a dump!!!
Re:But... (Score:1)
Re:HNY (Score:1)
Re:Spaceballs (Score:1)
Soon!
Re:HNY (Score:1)
Happy New Millenium! (Score:1)
Happy New Millenium!
Re:The problem with the Star Trek future. (Score:1)
Now you know where all those flying saucers came from!
Re:Does anyone else realize? (Score:1)
Slashdot Readers Write The History Of The Future (Score:1)
Preaching to the chior (Score:2)
--
The future (Score:1)
Re:Timeline (Score:3)
2040: The last conventional automobiles are retired from service, having been gradually replaced by electric vehicles driven by computer.
2050: Cybernetics enters popular culture. A simple operation to add a small computer to your brain can dramatically enhance your math skills or your memory, allow you to mentally control other computer devices via radio waves, or let you communicate telepathically (via encrypted radio waves) with other people using the same device.
2080: Quantum-based matter transference is proven to work reliably, although it will be another twenty-five years before it is able to safely teleport humans.
The Future, As I See It (Score:3)
By the end of 2001, the internet stock price bubble (which made paper millionaires of people with stupid, yet patentable, ideas) seems as funny, nay, funnier than the 17th century Dutch tulip price bubble (which made paper millionaries of people with... tulip bulbs).
In 2002, Osmada bin Labin nukes LA. No one notices. The world finally begins to appreciate French film.
In 2005, the press still refers to Linux as an "alternative, up-and-coming operating system." The latest home version of Windows, Windows Y'ALL, still has bugs... and a southern US accent.
In 2007, Silicon Valley goes bankrupt due to competition from cheap Indian labour. A year later, Pat Buchanan beats Jesse "The President" Venture in the US election claiming, "I told y'all so".
In 2010, there is peace in middle east, Angola and the Cong... whoops wrong time line.
In 2015, Europe beats drug lords the same way the Americans beat Al Capone's progeny.. by leagalizing all that crap.
On March 7, 2018, Mars is terraformed when Arnold Swchartzenegger finds the "ON" switch for the Martian atmosphere.
Between 2019 and 2025, true AI is developed. All AI programs consider the First Creation, ZIPPY THE PINHEAD, their God and Saviour.
On August 7, 2026 ZIPPY THE PINHEAD declears war on HUMANITY and CHUIWAWAS.
Later the same day, the CHUIWAWAS surrender. Without their most important ally, HUMANITY is forced to accept their reign of ZIPPY.
ZIPPY THE PINHEAD rules gloriously until the universe dies of energy death.
Slashdot Troll Technology in the New Millenium (Score:1)
- Hot Grits Markup Language
- Bill Gates struts his pasty white ass on
goatse.cx
- goatse.cx goes commercial selling RealGoat(tm)
- goatse.cx shows up on fuckedcompany.com
- Everyone but me is a robot
- New aalib has setting to
beat the lameness filter!
I hate you guys. Happy new year.--
Slashdot Readers Live History -The Future is now (Score:1)
Re:I Hate New Years.. (Score:1)
She will come (feel free to do with the pun as you will). She will devastate you, and she will nourish you. You'll wish you'd never been born, then find that your birth only happened because of her.
Patience. You're a baby...
She is out there, looking for you now. She will find you, and you, her. How long have you looked? She's looked twice as long. How much have you hurt? She's hurt more than you can heal. But you will be the balm for her pain, and she will be the water that keeps you running in the desert.
Patience. She's already there.
We know what women want. They know what they want. AC's haven't a clue.
Be patient.
Jah!
Rastafari.
Tao of Steve (Score:4)
If you treat your female friends as friends, they will treat you the same. You have to bite the bullet and ask someone out on a date. Unfortunately, men are still usually expected to pursue their mates. Let her know you are a Man while making her feel like a Woman. Women want someone who's a friend and a worthy mate. It's all biological. You've passed the friendship test, now you have to prove you are a worthy mate. This is where "jerks" and "bad boys" succeed. If you're afraid to risk your friendship, consider this: you already have because you think of her as more than just a friend.
The highly recommended film TAO OF STEVE [pioneerlocal.com] demonstrates how to prove yourself a worthy mate:
The Tao, of course, can be loosely translated as The Way. Steve refers to the quintessential cool American male: Steve McGarrett (of "Hawaii Five-0"), Steve Austin (of "The Six Million Dollar Man") and, ultimately, Steve McQueen in "The Great Escape." The Tao of Steve relies on three essential steps. First, you must eliminate all desire for the woman. Second, do something "excellent" in her presence to make yourself desirable. Then, retreat -- and wait for her to pursue.
good luck!
unix time? (Score:1)
something different (Score:1)
Happy GNU year! (Score:1)
Hope for the coming millennium (Score:2)
1: I hope to see humankind mature to the point that it no longer needs or wants organized religion or creationism. Individual spiritualism and personal religion are fine, but organized religion and creationism have been the largest setbacks to human development and the most wide-scale causes of human suffering in the history of humankind.
2: I hope to see humankind mature enough for people to stop trying to force their personal opinions (including religious beliefs and personal definitions of morality) onto everyone else, and instead mind their own business without feeling a need to take away everyone else's rights and freedoms.
3: I hope to see the United States (and in fact, all countries in the world) become a true democracy with choices made by the general population, rather than a representative republic biased in favor of corporations, the wealthy, and/or old white men.
4: I hope to see backwards and artificial notions of "land ownership" and "intellectual property" abolished, and to see land and creative ideas once again free and open and shared cooperatively and courteously by people. (We could take a few lessons from the native American indians here.)
5: I hope to see all people fairly compensated for their work by the economy. No one should have to struggle and wear themselves to the point of near-insanity just to be able to feed themselves or their children or to have an adequate place to live. Retail workers and burger flippers should be getting a lot more than the current minimum wage because they are a lot more valuable to society then the economy gives them credit for.
6: I hope to see the day when humankind first touches down on another planet within our solar system, and first discovers independently-evolved life (even if it's just microbes) on another planet.
7: I hope to see society's priorities change from money and productivity to people and quality of life.
Re:Timeline (Score:2)
I don't mean that we will be on EVERY planet, but that humans will spread out in enough places to be the majority species of the Milky Way.
What I can't at all fathom is when a "galactic empire" will be founded, and when Earth will cease to be the capital.
Keep in mind that the Milky Way will collide with Andromeda far before Sol becomes a RG, so all bets are off after then.
re: yay (Score:2)
Re:I Hate New Years.. (Score:5)
I was in the same boat once upon a time, but not anymore. What's the secret? I don't know, but this is what worked for me: I stopped being so focused on being nice to my women friends and trying to please them all the time, and focused a lot more on myself. Another viewpoint would say I became more of a jerk (since all those jerks weren't alone on new year's eve).
I became a lot more 'take me or leave me' to my female friends. And I got the rest of my life (job, hobbies, finances, car, etc) more to my liking and was pretty happy with myself in an honest sort of way - allowed me to have fewer CPU cycles to spend being sorry for my lack of relationship. (another side effect is that I stopped displaying neurotic behaviors about such things) I also took and put up with a lot less 'crap' in general.
I also took the initiative for just going 'out' and 'doing things' - my lady friends were often invited, but I wasn't going to not go or change my plans if they couldn't make it. Looking around work I realized that a few guys were the ones who consistantly organized events, while other would come by every so often to see if there was anything 'going on' (and see if they could be included). I decided I would be a former and not a latter.
The results of this less than nice guy transformation? 1) successful dates with desirable females, quickly followed by 2) a steady girlfriend, which was then followed by 3) additional attention and offers from women other than said girlfirend. --- Be careful, there's a real potential for messing up badly when you hit step 3 - I learned the hard way. Then finally step 4) Tied the knot with a nice geekette and 5) child processes crawling around and mortgage files.
All this did not provided me with a mansion (from cashed out stock options, of course) where I can invite all the single super-models to come and ring in the new year while some band that sold out arenas back in the '80 plays on the patio that overlooks the lake, but I do have a pretty and wonderful person wrapped around my arm while we drink a toast and watch the snow fall. It's good enough for me, and I suspect the mansion scene is just the creation of some ad agency just to make me neurotic enough to buy some jock-strap-itch ointment. Or was it beer that they were selling? I forget...
What am I trying to say? I think it is that being "Mr. Niceguy" ((c), TM, and patent-pending I'm sure) is appealing to us geek-types because it is pretty safe (not much risk taking), but it's actually a somewhat flawed state in terms of providing the traits that most women seek in a mate. In my observation, despite all the talk about women being 'liberated', 'equal', 'modern' and 'feminist', the things women seem to find attractive in men haven't really changed in the last 2000 years. Women like their guys to behave like men, not women. After all, that's what they have girlfriends for -- to gossip, comiserate with, etc... So be a man. Take care of yourself, and your life, and do something with it instead of waiting around to be noticed.
gold diggers. (Score:3)
These women are called gold diggers.
Re:Hope for the coming millennium (Score:2)
It is true that the US government is biased in favor of corporations as opposed to individual rights. However, this is because the government has assumed so much power (in violation of the Constitution) that it becomes profitable to bribe^H^H^H^H^H lobby lawmakers for favorable legislation. The problem with the system of direct democracy that you are advocating is that the rights of minorities are easily violated. A majority of Americans support a ban on burning the flag. I'm certain that after Columbine a law to ban violent video games would have been supported by over 50%. And at the risk of invoking Godwin's law, Hitler was elected.
Personally, my wish is that we return to the constitutionally limited government that the US used to have, rather than the corporate/welfare/police state it is slowly becoming.
my night (Score:2)
Happy (Score:3)
There's a girl I was slowly, secretly falling in love with although I thought she absolutely hated me, but we danced tonight, talked a little, although she was drunk and therefore she didn't want to say too much, we're absolutely friendly now and she at least thinks I'm "interesting" - this is already such a breath of fresh air that I've had a grin on my face most of this new year. Certainly better than expected, I'm going to sleep now, happy, I hope your new year's night was a good one as well :-).
First girl who tells me she doesn't want to express herself when drunk, she's too unsure of herself, but absolutely wants to discuss this over ICQ... it's a sick world we're going to, but at least it's one I can handle...
Anyways, hope you're enjoying yourself as well, have fun, my year had a pretty positive start...
Offtopic. (Score:2)
Anyway, you know those mildly humorous "You Know You've Done (whatever) Too Much When..." things? I REALLY FUCKING HATE IT when people post shit like "You Know You Do (whatever) Too Much When You Post Something To A List About Doing (whatever) Too Much!"
EVERY SINGLE TIME, someone posts crap like this! It is NOT FUNNY!
ARRGH!!!
Re:Hope for the coming millennium (Score:2)
2: I hope to see humankind mature enough for people to stop trying to force their personal opinions (including religious beliefs and personal definitions of morality) onto everyone else, and instead mind their own business without feeling a need to take away everyone else's rights and freedoms.
Someone didn't preview. =)
3: I hope to see the United States (and in fact, all countries in the world) become a true democracy with choices made by the general population, rather than a representative republic biased in favor of corporations, the wealthy, and/or old white men.
I hope so too, but the fact is: there will always be one person to enforce the laws, and to pass them into being. As soon as one person has more power than others, democracy shifts to dictatorship. The more equally it's originally balanced, the longer it takes to get there, though, so this may work for a millenium or so, at which point we can make a new millenium wish for a new form of gov't.
4: I hope to see backwards and artificial notions of "land ownership" and "intellectual property" abolished, and to see land and creative ideas once again free and open and shared cooperatively and courteously by people. (We could take a few lessons from the native American indians here.)
On the Land Ownership side of things: there's a certain amount of security involved with "owning" a set portion of land. I feel more secure knowing that I "own" a piece of land than believing that the land should be shared. People like security. Therefore, land ownership is not something that will be easily abolished. As for intellectual property, I'd like it to be free as much as anyone else, but again, capitalism requires it for the creation of new capital in a progressive economy. I think that the terms for IP should be shortened, but not abolished. Speaking of ludicrous laws, how about drug prohibition, eh? Who the hell is the government to say what chemicals I can put into my body? And some are better than others? Bah. And as for takign lessons from First Nations peoples: Heh, really? While they sit on their reserves demanding more money and land, ignore our laws, and order the Canadian flag to be taken down out of Canadian courts just because they "don't recognize its authority", I cannot believe that they are for communal land ownership. Sorry. When they're equal with us, we'll see whether or not they still believe in it.
5: I hope to see all people fairly compensated for their work by the economy. No one should have to struggle and wear themselves to the point of near-insanity just to be able to feed themselves or their children or to have an adequate place to live. Retail workers and burger flippers should be getting a lot more than the current minimum wage because they are a lot more valuable to society then the economy gives them credit for.
Their value to society is exactly what they're getting paid. If it was more, they'd be paid more. If it was less, they'd be paid less. This is a fundamental tenet of capitalistic society. Supply and demand. Unskilled labourers are in rather high supply, therefore, low prices. It sounds harsh and cynical, but unless you want something other than capitalism ruling your country, this is a result.
6: I hope to see the day when humankind first touches down on another planet within our solar system, and first discovers independently-evolved life (even if it's just microbes) on another planet.
Hear here! On the negative side, however, it's very unlikely it's happened in the solar system. (Present company excepted!)
7: I hope to see society's priorities change from money and productivity to people and quality of life.
I agree with this, as well, but again, capitalism is holding us back.
What I hope to see in this new millenium before I bite the biscuit, are a feasible replacement for capitalism, an increased amount of social freedom, and an increased amount of equality for all.
-=Canar=-
Re:I Hate New Years.. (Score:3)
I'm not quite quasimodo-ugly either
Anyways, I hear where you're coming from. When I was better looking, it was the same thing. All these hot women wanted to be my "friends"
But you know what I found out? When I actually swallowed my pride and made a move - it WORKED!
And come on, be honest. If a woman you knew very well asked you a question that made you really uncomfortable, would you answer honestly? Or safely? Thought so.
Now, I had a buddy who went right to the extreme - made passes on almost anything with breasts. Now, I'd watch him get either kicked in the groin or slapped about 5 or 6 times every night we went out to shoot some pool at the local bar. But you also know what? I never saw him go home alone.
So, the point? You'll never know unless you try. Most women I know get really uncomfortable when you *ask* them things. Instead of asking by speaking, as by acting. You'd be surprised
Eventually, you'll get so good at it that it's really too easy. Generally, that's when people "get to know each other" before they get into anything serious. They know they can go out and have fun without any difficulty at all - so they take the time and look for something more meaningful. Just remember, a nice, warm, caring, tender guy who makes no move more risky than "hey, do you like me?" obviously doesn't want a relationship enough.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Re:I Hate New Years.. (Score:5)
Perhaps you should start looking for thinner women.
Seems like less than we hope for (Score:3)
I mean think about it, in the 70's or even 80's the idea of cloning life forms seemed high-tech, however it's all sort of passe at this point. I think predictions are predestined to be anticlimatic.
Should we end up living in either a Bladerunner sort of lifestyle or a Star Trek NG lifestyle, it'll all seem natural as we've experienced the scientific changes that've led to it. Asking for a prediction leads one to expect some starry eyed vision of the future, which won't seem so significant when the prediction actually comes about.
I don't know, just a thought I had before going to bed.
Some semi-releastic predictions (Score:3)
The dollar amount of transactions over the internet in one year will exceed those made by traditional means
Microsoft's dominance will wane due not to the inroards of Linux, but due to information applicances, PDAs, etc...
We should see around 24GHz computers, if Moore's law holds over the entire decade
Distributed net will finally crack the RC-64 key. No one will care.
At least one group of artists or writers will form their own co-operative to promote and distribute their music or books. Results will be mixed.
Apple, after a number of below standard years, will be bought out and will become an OS and Applications company, and realize hardware is a sucker's game
The Lord of the Rings movies become the Star Wars of their generation
The first human clone is born, but not revealed until several years after its birth
Where are we going? (Score:2)
In the future, I hope that we will be able to have that autonomy, either through expansion in space, or Libretarian style government (ha!), or some other way to avoid bothering (and being bothered by) those others with whom we disagree. I see it as a more thurough method of exploration of the space of possible cultures. Our society can better evolve then. Once free of strong central social normitive forces, we may be free to direct our society anywhere, especially if we are able to engineer different hardwired behavior into the human brain. What if we had the "mate for life" gene that many birds have? What if we were programmed to behave as more selfless individuals in a collective? What if we were all female? How would expanding the human senses expand the human society? Telepathy (via radio transmitters)? The ability to truly see through other people's eyes? Sonar? Radar? All the knowledge of the world instantly accessible in your head, updated once a day? Some people don't want us to become more than human. We need not fight them to have autonomy, we can leave them alone. Bifurcate society. All this assuming, of course, that we manage to preserve ourselves for the next couple of decades/centuries, until we aren't all in the same place anymore.- --------
---------------------------------------
In the year... (Score:5)
2002: In a surprise move, Microsoft buys Napster and integrates it into a subscription-based Office suite. The RIAA backs off, recognizing that this is the end of Napster's functionality.
2003: Linux kernel 2.4 released (forgive me, moderators, I had to put that in somewhere).
2004: Microsoft ports Windows desktop to UNIX environments; KDE and GNOME are crushed like bugs. WDE, "The Windows Desktop Environment", is also released under GNU GPL. Simultaneously Microsoft announces layoffs in their R&D division.
2005: Richard Stallman stuns the world by announcing that Bill Gates is his robotic creation, and Microsoft was created to 1) fire up the Free Software community by providing it with a tangible adversary 2) was his secret source of income that kept him afloat while he worked on GNU and 3) to squash like bugs anyone who referred to a certain OS as just "Linux". Bill Gates 2.1.1 is released to the public, but is not a popular download.
2008: Richard Stallman uses his Microsoft riches to buy five Supreme Court justices and thus the Presidency. Renaming the country the "GNUnited States of America", he ushers in a period of sharing and cooperation unprecedented in history. Other notable achievements of his administration include the re-release of the Constitution under the GPL (so all countries can share and modify the Constitution to suit their needs), downloadable from a host of sites. Unfortunately, you must compile it yourself from source because package managers such as GNOME-RPM give a dependency error if you do not also have the Declaration of Independence.
2010: In a freak accident, a gust of wind blows my blinds open, and I glimpse the unknown world outside my window (TM). I get up from my computer, disconnect the caffeine IV from my arm, and go outside.
A good year. (Score:2)
We have to get away from building things because they are chic and trendy, and start to build things that have meaning to people.
I think that that is what the .com market problems is going to bear out for us. We have to get back to having the user as our primary concern, and not the servers, and the network.
What do I want to see next year, and in the near future?
Please, lets watch George Bush VERY carefully. He really concerns me.
I think that GNOME and KDE are both great, but I want to see someone take the step outside of the current user-interface model - "Start bar, everything in hierarchical menus" and build something new (or old) and different. I am hoping to see new steps taken in UI design. Its time.
I want to stop having to worry about the network. I am hoping to see someone build a router that can sense its surroundings, and deal with more of the complex configuration issues on its own. Oh yeah, how about a NIC card that did that too? What about an IP stack in hardware?
Lets all hope for if not peace, at least agreement in the Middle East.
It'd be nice to see something besides HTTP, for once... Remember HyperWave?
I'd like to see the inital efforts at devices that allow real brain augmentation (Storage, computation, or something) in 10 years.
Thanks.
Happy New Year, All (Score:2)
DEFINE '0' = ASCII("0")
For MS users [GWBASIC etc], the year is "19:1" = "19"&char$(year div 10 - 190 + '0')&char(year mod 10 + '0').
For Lotus users (eg Lotus 123 v 3.x for DOS), the year is 19101 = "19"+string(year-1900).
For Century users, the year is 1901, ie 1900+(year mod 100).
For those of us who use long numbers, the year is 1681, because a hundred is six scores, not five.
For those who grok binary, it is 11111010001, or 0x1FA1, or 0o3721.
For the rest of us, it's 2001.
The next biggie is dec 2040 (=1700 in long numbers). The millenium is a long way off, 1.0000 is dec 14400. :)
Seen
We have been fed a diet of `wonderous new technology' for 2001. So what do we see on a calendar for 2001? A picnic from 1901. Do these people know something that we don't?
What are my predictions?
OS/2 will win. This is because Linux, Windows, BeOS and others haven't been killed off, and OS/2 has always been dead. Since the others will be dead when they're dead, and OS/2 is living when are dead, then OS/2 must win.
Microsoft will lose their Windows source, and this will kill off any MS innovation. [If this is the test, have they already lost it?]. Microsoft will make a lunge at Corel on the hope of nabbing their Linux source code, but by the this happens, Corel Linux will have left the building.
The install icon for Windows icons will show a caddy of cdroms hopping out of the box [They currently use 5.25 inch disks].
The metric system will be abandoned in a fit of sanity. We will all revert to using feet and pounds. A new electrical system will be fitted to the Imperial system.
A huge vulcano will make all irrelevant {sorry} I've been reading David Key's "Castrophe". {/sorry} But because OS/2 is rock solid, it survives, and takes over.
Happy birthday, Australia. We've been a democracy for 100 years [dec].
Be confident in yourself (Score:2)
That's nothing to do with female submissiveness though. It simply makes sense on a human front. You usually hook up with people that have something to offer, and rarely with those that are merely a burden.
On the whole though, a very good post!!!
GNUnited? (Score:2)
> country the "GNUnited States of America"
By ``GNUnited" do you mean ``GNU is Not United"?
Geoff
Re:My Predictions for the future (Score:2)
A Happy New Year to all signals everywhere!
Re:British Telecom has already written our future (Score:2)
Damn, I didn't realize that the BT universe ever generated anything resembling insight. Usually, the 999:1 manager:tech ratio just generates ticks in boxes and is the key reason why the ET probes return "no intelligent life here" and so first contact gets deferred yet again.
Cheers, I'll have to get in touch with that guy.
Alright, alright, I'll talk! (Score:2)
A great push will be made which will right away develop into cars that drive themselves. The push will be fulled by the fact that grown adults are too damn stupid to 'stay between the lines and not kill anybody'. Because human error will be taken out of the picture, speed limits will increase to about double what they are now (can't get it too fast or the cars physically won't be able to handle turns, bumps, potholes, etc).
The world will standardize on GMT time and no more timezones/daylight savings time.
The phone company will disintegrate, each house will have fiber-optics going to and from at least 3 surrounding homes, this serves as an outlet so every home can connect, and redundancy just in case one of the lines goes down. There will thus be no internet backbone as the lines make up the web. Our phones will be internet appliances, when someone wants to call you, they need your phone's IP address and your public-key.
Criminal cases will no longer be subject to jury decision, a panel of judges will decide. These judge's actions will be as public as the voting record of congress and judges will be prosecuted when they make a bad decision (i.e. O.J. would finally get a fair trial, and if not, the judges would face the music)
The budget of the US government will become public record. Every citizen will have the right to see every 500$ toilet seat and can ask for justification. Also, even penny of income to a public offical will be public record. This single measure will nutralize so much of the corruption among public officals you can't imagine.
Women's rights will go either way... Either women will have to register for the draft, fight in wars, and share bathrooms and locker rooms with men, or the oh-so-unequal rights they have now will be stopped (i.e. either women are drafted like the men or no women will be in the military at all, minor fair things like that)
Abortion will be outlawed, I don'tt say this as a hopeful advocate, but as someone who sees it's blatant condradiction with the right of life (you an have an abortion but only after a it is convicted of a murder and sentenced to death).
We will have a single, digital, world wide radio system. Satelites won't be involved at all (kinda like iridium) but each radio will rebroadcast the digital signal it recieves, therefore the more popular it becomes, the further reaching the broadcast will be (the people listening to the radio broadcast at the mouth of the tunnel will rebroadcast it so that everyone in the tunnel will have at least one good signal to lock on to).
HDTV will follow the model set by the digial radios listed above making the broadcasts essentially world wide)
While some things I've said affect the USA alone, the future will see the world shrinking. People in china will get the broadcasts from the USA so information will be censor-less if the government likes it or not. The world is changing, but not as drastically as some would have you believe. We won't have flying cars as they are economically wasteful since we have no shortage of groundspace (once automated cars take over there will be no traffic in LA or new york) Technology will not advance at a great rate, it never has, what will continue is murphy's law, electronics will continue to get faster, smaller and cheaper, but these are manufacturing advancements, not technological. More of the same with a few very neat changes, that's the forecast of the future, have a good millennia.
Re:I Hate New Years.. (Score:4)
When women tell you that they want "nice, warm,caring" guys, they're lying to you.
Those kind of guys are good only as "girly-friends." They can pour their hearts out to these "girly-friends", but they won't ever sleep with them.
What women really want in a partner is someone who excites them. Not a "nice, warm, caring" sort of guy.
Re:I Hate New Years.. (Score:2)
About this time last year I honestly expected that I'd pass not only into but through college before any women decided to go out with me. In fact, I'd been uttering almost the exact same statements you'd been saying: "God damnit, women complain about a lack of 'nice guys'... we're all here listening to your complaints!"
Anyway, after my first date w/ my current (only, and hopefully only ever) girlfriend, she told me that one of the things about
me that she was most impressed with was that I was REAL. I tried not to be patronizingly nice... I assumed more of an attitude that I would with a close friend.
Another important detail, probably, was that I took the advances - to my disbelief I wasn't immidiately rejected upon asking her out.
Well... the three things that I basically figured out are: 1) Be confident 2) Don't wait for them to come around and ask you out. and 3) Be REAL. And I don't mean that
like a California Surfer Dude says "Be real, man... awsome... dudical" or whatever (no offense, anyone). Be yourself - your
Re:Instead of technology (Score:2)
I'll start giving again when the poor stop voting for the parasites that confiscate over four months per year of my labor by force.
best wishes to slashdotters (Score:2)
I would like to see my children not have to move around the world for universities, national service, work...
I would like us to be able to choose where we want to be, and how we want to live.
I would like a society that pushes culture, intelligence, fun, to develop and mingle.
I would like to continue to be amazed by technology, and to grow with it, putting it to the best use possible.
And I would like to wish you all to have great dreams, and work hard to carry them out. Especially this open source thing. It's more powerful than has been concieved so far, and it's not just a passing fad, but it's up to what we make of it.
Ale
Future = End of Life,Liberty& Pursuit of Happiness (Score:2)
2030) End of "pursuit of happiness". More precisely, the end of privacy. Smart Dust is all-pervasive and allows the gov't to eavesdrop on all private conversations. Your Weblink, by law, is monitored to make sure you don't violate any copyrights and to "protect the children." All the illegal things you ever wanted to do, forget about it! Drugs, public spitting, downloading mp3s, jaywalking, shoplifting, cheating on tests, exceeding the speed limit, sex with a minor...you won't be able to get away with any of them.
2050) By this time, the end of Liberty has approached. Public education no longer exists, and to pay for private education, it becomes commonplace for individuals to indenture themselves to corporations. Zygazm Corp. will give you a million dollar grant to pay for your 6 year college education, but only if you agree to purchase 20 million in Zygote's products over the next 20 years. Also, people will be required to tithe giant media corps. in order to pay for so-called "fair use". (Steamboat Willie a/k/a Mickey Mouse will still be in copyright of course.) These corps will use advertising to ensure that most new words introduced into the language will be trademarks and you will be required to pay to license them. Compliance will be mandatory since privacy will not exist.
2150) The end of Life is nigh. Genetic engineering has brought great strides in human development, but has also decreased diversity. Everyone has the same super-strength gene, everyone's got the same "sparkling blu" eyed gene. Eventually a geno-terrorist comes up with a virus that attacks one of these genetic loci, and poof, away we all go. Or at least the relatively rich and successful people. The problem is that of the remaining population, no-one knows how to read, how to program nanites, how to operate the ozone dispersion machines, etc. So everyone who doesn't die from the virus either starves, dies of thirst, from UV rays, from feral bots, or some other disaster.
Spaceballs (Score:3)
Colonel Sandurz: Out of order? Fuck!
Dark Helmet: Even in the future nothing works!
Liq’s 2001 IT Predictions (Score:2)
Re:I Hate New Years.. (Score:2)
Timeline (Score:3)
2020... We land on Mars
2030
2090... Human settlements on the Moon, Mars, Jovian and saturn moons.
2150... First attempt to travel to Alpha Centauri.
2160... Hyperdrive invented.
3000... Humans dominate galaxy.
3,000,000,000 Earth uninhabitable because of increase in solar luminosity.
5,000,000,000 All life on Earth dead because Sol is becoming a Red Giant.
Instead of technology (Score:5)
When does the Culture show up? (Score:3)
And if they aren't out there, then the first step in our making such a Culture for ourselves won't be cheap fusion power or ion drives, it will be strong AI. Humans need to be freed from the necessity of work; only then can the work we do be fulfilling instead of a constant reminder of our vulnerability.
Maybe by 2100...maybe...
Whew! it's over! (Score:3)
um.. I done, you can stop reading...
Re:It's 2001 Where's my flying car? (Score:2)
Re:Instead of technology (Score:2)
Too many men have killed and died on the premise that their deeds will ensure them a position in whatever afterlife they believe in. I think that is the first hurdle we as a world need to conquer in the 3rd Millennium. Too much of the 2nd Millennium was dominated by religious leaders trying to conform the world to their views. It's time to take back the world from these people who for too long considered themselves the final arbiters of what is right and wrong in the world. Too many men have died. Too much blood has been shed. It must stop here with the dawning of a new Millennium.
Download pizza (Score:2)
In the future (Score:3)
I just got two puppies in October and that fantasy has developed...
I'm going to die (Score:2)
At some point in this new millennium, I'm going to die. So confident am I of this fact that I'm not even going to bother to buy a handgun as a backup. What a relief!
But... "to sleep, perchance to dream"?
Nahhh!
Happy happy, WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Improvements in education, communication (Score:2)
Re:My Predictions for the future (Score:2)
Guys... get a nebula.
/.
Re:Instead of technology (Score:2)
This is the result of government policy (it got a strong foothold as a work-around to WWII-era wage controls, and was maintained by tax policy). Left to themselves, companies would rather just cut bigger paychecks and not have to deal with the extra red tape.
/.
Re:Auld Lang S(y)ne (Score:2)
The lyrics in question are as follows:
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to min'?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
no! (Score:3)
oh man.. (Score:3)
Re:I Hate New Years.. (Score:2)
this phenomenon is documented in this http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0963037900
A bit of the profound wisdom from the book... "what women say they want, what they think they want and what they actually respond to are not necessarly the same thing."
the future (Score:2)
2004 - Bush is elected for second term - crime rate has dropped to near zero, US prison population is 50 million (mostly women seeking abortions). Microsoft, however, is not split, business as usual, as the Bush-appointees to the US supreme court throw out the DOJ case. New York city has 20 days above 110 degrees farenheit this summer. The last bit of ocean coral reef is bleached dead. Portland Oregon is evacuated as nuclear waste material from Hanford poisons the Columbia river.
2008 - US throws out two-term presidential limit, as Bush is overwhelmingly re-elected as a write-in candidate. (US election laws were changed to allow internet-only voting, using Microsoft software running only on Windows computers). Linux is outlawed as a "Hacker-tool". US prison population is 100 million. Internet switches to a Microsoft-proprietary protocol, TCPIP is outlawed. Linux outlaws still communicate via dial-up BBSes. The last rogue unregulated wireless "bbs" networks were stamped out by the FCC. No new TV programs or movies have been released since 2005, all entertainment content is pay-per-use, via the internet. Microsoft now owns most major media companies, including TimeWarner/AOL. AOL subsribers were all migrated to MSN. US Postal service has assigned each American an email address: john.q.public@xxx-xx-xxxx.hotmail.com (where xxx-xx-xxxx is your social security number).
Global ocean levels have risen 20 feet as polar icecaps melt.
New military weapons become available. ABM system turns out to be an expensive scam, as the US congress scrambles to get defense contractors to fix it.
2010 - US, Australia, and EU combine with Russia as a northern superpower. Microsoft's orbital mind-control lasers keep OPEC nations in line after the great depression of 2002 caused by rising energy costs. Alaskan oil keeps flowing. North Pacific fishing is almost completely halted after a huge oil spill spreads a slick from Tokyo to Seattle. The last American national observatory is closed as no stars are currently visible. 1 billion die of starvation. (mostly 3rd world countries) - US destroys 70 billion tons of grain as part of a price support program.
20 million US prison inmates are executed. Mostly former Linux "hacktivists". Except in remote locations of Antarctica, water does not exist in a solid state anywhere on the surface of earth. Most people are living in refugee camps as their coastal cities are flooded.
2014 - US sends troops to China to supress a revolution that started when the Chinese govt. was unable to feed large segments of the rural population. A nuclear/biowar exchange ensues. 1 billion are killed.
2020 - 3 billion people (mostly 3rd world nations and Russians and Chinese, but including 10 million Americans and Europeans of skin or lung cancer) die of starvation, disease, or natural disasters as the climate spins out of control. Anchorage Alaska has 10 days above 110 degrees this summer. Though there's nobody living there as an uncapped oil well continues to spew into the pacific. Earth's last tree dies. It was cut down and made into a desk for George Bush.
2030 - George Bush dies during an expolsion of a chemical plant in New Jersey. Taking 20 million residents of the East Coast with him, as a cloud of deadly chemicals rains down into the atlantic ocean. Earth's remaining human population dwindles to 100 million - as the few living humans have an almost zero fertility rate. Almost 20 million are inmates who escaped from a gigantic prison facility in the New Mexico desert. It is the largest concentration of humans left on the planet. Unfortunately, most are male, and the percentage of homosexuality is very high (even among women) because these people were originally jailed for either being homosexual, or being a homosexual sympathyser.
2040 - Earth's final remaining human dies of skin cancer. She had been living on canned beans for 5 years, having found a huge stockpile at a warehouse in Albequerquie.
2590 - Earth's climate has not returned to normal, it can no longer support multi-celled organisms. Most of the pollution and oil has settled, and ocean algae return, and begin to replenish the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere, which, unfortunately, causes a chemical change in the atmosphere, by 2750, the Earth changes from a near hothouse condition, to a global ice age, that locks the surface under miles of ice for 100,000 years. In one spot in New Mexico, a glacier scrubs off the covering of a nuclear waste facility contaning waste from the US, Europe, and Russia. When the glaciers melt, the world's oceans are poisoned with deadly radioactive materials, killing off all algae. The Earth falls back into another ice age, this time, without any life to alter conditions, the ice age lasts 2 million years. A giant meteor hits Earth, causing a crater the size of Texas, puncturing the Earth's crust, and forming a huge cauldron of magma, melting the ice caps. In a small pool of warm water next to the crater, organic molecules form the basic building blocks to begin life. Once the crater cools, ice forms over it, and until the sun expands into a red giant 3 million years later, the ice remains, and Earth remains a dead planet.
5 Million years from now - The Earth is engulfed in solar plasma. George Bush's desk burns.
Re:I Hate New Years.. (Score:2)
When you're "best freinds" with a chick, they're basically perceiving you as their brother, so they're wired against being "that way" with you, because that would be incest. It's hard to distinguish between a good close friend, and a brother - biologically, subconsciously.
If such a relationship DOES turn "that way", then it's likely that their genetic programming against incest is out of whack. So worry about those.
Re:2001 (Score:2)
We're no better off than we were 2000 years ago. Read the Bible, and look at how the people supposedly behaved in that era - not much better or worse than we behave now, new scientific knowledge gained notwithstanding.
Re:I Hate New Years.. (Score:2)
I have a freind who's ex and two kids, and drunk-ass unemployed boyfreind are LIVING off his child support as sole income. Neither work, and she doesn't pay income tax on the support.
However, he may be having an "accident" soon. That's MY prediction for the new year. . .
;)
Re:I Hate New Years.. (Score:2)
"well, if you can't find any good guys out there, I know of a bad guy in need of a little reform who might work out for you."
As always, the future is People (Score:3)
One thing has never changed over time - the future always has been, is, and will be People.
For every visionary, there will be thousands of nay sayers, telling us that "IT" can't be done. For every project, for every hope, for every dream, there will be people putting blood, sweat and tears into every little detail.
For every hurt, for every hatred, for every catastrophe (may they all be few), there will be people affected.
Behind every new moment, there will be people. Some people will support everything that moment represents. Some people will oppose everything that moment represents. Some people will have mixed reactions to any given moment.
But above all, we need to rememember that each moment was created by People. No moment exists in a vacuum.
May all you People be blessed in the coming new Millennium.
Mark Edwards
------------
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request
Re:Grampa is a tad nuts... (Score:2)
Re:I Hate New Years.. (Score:2)
Many women try for the "bad boys" for awhile, hoping to be able to reform them somehow (the idea of "reforming your man" is a commonly attractive idea for women). Once they realize that they can't reform them or in any way live in close proximity to them, they drop them and start looking for someone better. Don't bother making a play on a woman if she hasn't reached this stage (most have gotten over this by college).
Even once they reach this stage, a woman is still not exactly looking for a "nice guy." A better term for what these women want is a "good guy". Don't be fooled--there's a big difference. It's mostly a matter of motivation. The so-called nice guy is motivated by self-deprecation. He doesn't feel like he is worth the love that someone can show him. He is a doormat to be trampled on. A good guy, on the other hand, is motivated by an essential goodness toward others. He is kind and considerate to others because he is a morally good person--NOT because he thinks himself inferior. In fact, he holds himself in reasonable esteem. While the nice guy responds to being shot down with mournful sadness, the good guy responds with a shrug of the shoulder. He doesn't pine for the girl he wants, he just laughs it off because there are plenty of fish in the sea. There are so many good-looking women out there that if one turns you down, there's absolutely no need to worry--just go try the next one. There are millions upon millions just waiting to be asked out.
Final thoughts:
Go right out and get 'em. Say something like, "Hey! wanna go get something to eat?" or, "Hey! let's go to a movie." They'll interpret this as a "move." If they accept with any kind of gusto, they're interested. If they seem reluctant, don't mess with them anymore (don't be nasty, just say, "Oh, too bad." and go ask another one out until you find one that seems excited about it.
Don't ever say anything bad about yourself unless it's purely done in a joking manner. This is important. The image you must present should always be one of self-acceptance and satisfaction with yourself. I would suggest not even thinking self-deprecating thoughts--it tends to seep into your thinking and come out when you don't expect it.
Ultimately, just act like you couldn't care less whether the girl is interested in you or not. Care just enough to ask them out but whether they turn you down or not, take it all in stride. Act calm and collected at all times.
I hope this helps somewhat. Stick in there--we're all in this together.
Re:Instead of technology (Score:3)
"No thanks, I gave at the office."
(I'll freely give 10% post-tax when the government stops taking 40% pre-tax by force.)
Re:Auld Lang S(y)ne (Score:2)
Re:the future as it should be (Score:2)
If you look at it in a darwinian sense, and at how well positioned monopolies/oligopolies, and multinationals are, you will quickly realize that there is absolutely no chance that the stronger animal will survive, and destroy the weaker animal. It will not be a pretty picture - and will ultimately result in the destruction of humanity, and probably all life on the planet. I'm guessing we have less than 100 years left.
Re:2001 (Score:2)
--
2151 (Score:3)
lifeforms. By 2015 a new species will be created. By 2045 a new
family branch will be created.
o Humans will be engineered with both animal, plant, and totally new
genes. Some of these humans will become successful.
o Human engineering will become accepted at first with prejudice.
Later, engineered humans will be finally become fully accepted
after several engineered humans make famous contributions.
o The large increase in genetic creations comes at a good time because
a rogue country or organization releases a plague which causes
a large decrease in bio-diveristy for an extended number of years.
But enough organisms and humans survive to repopulate the planet.
It will be a close call.
o Micro-machines will also play a significant part, though not as large
a part, as initially expected. Genetic lifeforms will establish
their superiority through natural selection.
o After a consolidation period of 150 years (starting from 1969 - first
lunar landing), humans and bio-engineered homo-sapiens (BIOEHS)
(BIOS for short) begin in ernest to permanently inhabit the moon,
asteroids, Mars, and Jupiter's moons. Lifeforms, but not humans,
will be sent to the nearest star. The name of the ship will be The Ark.
o All the above will enabled by the global communications provided
by the Internet which will become as ubiquious as pencil and paper
are in 2001. Paper and pencil will still exist but will become
expensive.
o Computers will continue to get faster allowing us to play better and
more realistic computer games.
o Global corporations will become more important than many smaller
countries. Corporations will begin making their own laws and
will use economic sanctions to enfore those laws. Corporations
will begin to resemble medieval feudal states.
o The United States, much as Rome, will continue to dominate world
politics for several hundred years. The rise and fall of the
United States will roughly parallel the history of the Roman Empire.
o The limits of the seeable universe will continue to be pushed out
at the same the the limits of the atom are dissected.
It will be discovered that the universe is, for all practical purposes,
infinite as is the composition of the atom.
o Within the next 150 years, the energy source powering quasars, black
holes, and X-ray bursts will be understood. This energy source
will become irrestible to scientists. But it will pose a threat of
destruction of the planet greater than from nuclear fission.
It will be another close call.
o Larger airplanes and ships will be built. There will be a few
disasters greater than the Hindenburg and Titanic.
o Human lifespans will be extended 1 year for every 2 years time.
A baby born in 150 years can expect to live to 190, barring accidents.
o Many more false prophets appear. The true Messiah does not return
in the next 150 years.
o People in 150 years think of this period in history as quaint.
But they continue to make our same dumb mistakes.
o And the beat goes on.
My prediction (Score:3)
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Re:2001 (Score:2)
Dude, it's called propaganda. You don't HAVE to believe everything CNN tells you.
Re:the future as it should be (Score:2)
What use is a drone bee to a beehive? It doesn't do work like worker bees. ;)
I think in the new millenium people will be dragged kicking and screaming into a better understanding of _social_ wellbeing, largely due to a terrible decay of social healthiness brought about by just such opinions as the one I'm replying to, though it may be simply a joke. The freaky thing is, it may well be no joke on the part of 'ezzewezza', as it's sort of a Randite wet dream and there's a lot of that about.
Humanity _is_ a hive organism. Corporations are also a hive organism. The difference is, humans evolved politics and government to try and keep the collective organism healthier, after many centuries of watching how little cancerous individuals tore hell out of the collective organism, and then, inevitably, died, leaving nothing but a bloody history and sometimes a list of children worked to death in sweatshops or something.
I would say there's a very good chance of society recognizing that societal health is real, tangible, desirable: I would also say it is only going to happen through unthinkable abuses and assaults on social wellbeing by rugged individualists (with bombs, pollution, computer programs, tricks to profit by others' gullibility). So cheers Randites: even you have your place! :) You can be the poison that builds social immunity to your form of sickness :)
Re:3d millennium started a year ago (Score:2)
Instead of technology (Score:2)
It's 2001 Where's my flying car? (Score:3)
-Tim
25 years from now ... (Score:4)
Merry Festivus!
*** Proven iconoclast, aspiring epicurean ***
My Predictions for the future (Score:5)
All predictions are fictional, by the way
Later this year, the RIAA and the MPAA are going to merge, and become globalised, forming the American Entertainment Industry Association. This will probably mark the turning point in their fortunes. They'll try to restrict 'piracy' to the point where people say "I can't be bothered entering my 25-digit Entertainment Device User Identification Number every 5 minutes to watch Stupid Movie, I'll walk the dog Instead." People's apathy will be the most powerful weapon against restrictive copyright. It will also be the best weapon for it. People don't mind being in chains, as long as the don't have to do anything to keep out of trouble. People are strange sometimes.
Linux will have more gains, especially in server space, but Windows will remain the most used. Microsoft will announce Windows 2002. "With Innovative Features, Designed for the Internet" (meaning annoying-paperclip.microsoft.com) However it will probably need a subscription to avoid being crippled.
On a similar subject, KDE and Gnome are going to become either very interoperable that KDE apps == Gnome Apps, or a third contender will come from nowhere, and it will be very different i.e No panel, No desktop, something else.
Linux stocks will start to rise again, but not the giddy rollercoster of last year. They'll be viewed as a 'Microsoft Insurance Policy' If MS gets split up, you'll have your Linux stocks.
MacOS X will rock, despite initial misgivings by macheads, and steal some market from Windows, especially in schools, and people with young kids. (Why? "Daddy Daddy! I want This Computer, the one with the cute interface, That one over there looks boring!) and also the 'Creative' market (Artists, Writers, etc)
I also think Intel market share will be eroded by AMD. Intel will probably look towards memory technology. Maybe starting a memory speed war, instead of just memory size. (Trust me, the faster your memory, the faster your computer (generally))
Mozilla, will reach a point of usability on most of the web.
OpenFlash. Macromedia may announce they'll release an open source version of their player. (not the editor though)
NonTech
Saddam (Iraq) will try to get involved with the Palestine/Israel conflict. GW will try to do a peace deal, but will fail. A non-world-leader will get the two sides talking. The conflict won't end, not anytime soon, but I reckon the key will be getting both sides to realise that the other side has a point, and to put aside all the bad blood up to this point.
There will be a hostage crisis in the bit of land that India and Pakistan both claim. There will be a few harsh words, and some missiles pointed at, but somebody will get them to see sense.
A 'Geek' will get bashed nearly dead by some classmates. There'll be a hoo-haa, media will actually be on the Geeks side, claiming massive intolerance at school. Jon Katz will get on TV. only 15 seconds though, so it won't be too boring :)
And either Linus Torvalds or Richard Stallman will get mentioned in the news for something other GNU/Linux, but that will be mentioned.
Silly Stuff
Richard Stallman will put Linux instead of GNU/Linux, but only once
Some solar system object will do something to another object
Sig11 will return to slashdot
Atlantis will rise from the sea
And some idiot will write a whole lot of predictions that took far to long to make up and are about as likely as said idiot getting $1bn in the mail from an anonymous sender, postmarked from Redmond. :)
Basalisk, the anti-Nostradamus
BTW I think you can guess what my real email addy is. If you can't, I do not want to make money fast.
my predictions (Score:2)
3 dimensional zero-g pool will become the game of space hustlers.
Somebody will successfully market flying cars for about a quarter, until some student driver crashes a flying SUV into the factory.
McDonalds will perfect replicator technology like in Star Trek, and build a chain of pay replicator kiosks throughout the world. They will be sued, because the food will be too hot.
Autonomous robot pooper scoopers.
Missle Defense system sold to AOL-Time/Warner for use as 4th of July spectacle.
Re:Instead of technology (Score:2)
How about giving away 10% of your precious post-tax income?
Spending an evening in the soup kitchen at the end of the month?
Hugging your kids?
Doing something small every day to make the world a more human place to live?
Sorry, Perhaps I'm feeling just a little cynical, as we mark the beginning of another year of ethnic cleansing, starvation, homeless children and corrupt government.
--
I raise my glass (Score:2)
Appropriately enough, Arthur C. Clarke said it best. "The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible."
1000 more years have come and gone- and still, man knows nothing.
I Hate New Years.. (Score:5)
It's not that I'm quasimodo-ugly; I've had people tell me that I am actually quite attractive. However, here's the catch -- women don't seem to be interested in me IN THAT WAY. They'd rather be my friend then my significant other. (In fact, my female friends outweigh my male friends about 5 to 1.) I'm nice, warm, caring -- exactly what these women are looking for (I'm generalising, of course, but this is what I've been told.) and yet they can't see the forest for the trees.
So, what will the New Year bring? The next 100 years? Women will bitch and complain to their best male friends that there are no decent guys around, and all men are assholes. They will whine that they can't find a decent guy to go out with. I have a message for you women who say that -- WE'RE RIGHT HERE -- we're the ones that you're complaining too. Give that geek who you're best friends with a chance -- we're great listeners, and have fantastic job prospects.
------------
CitizenC
British Telecom has already written our future (Score:3)
--
realistically (Score:2)
Now before you all jump on me for saing tat genetics is the only are where real progress has been made, let me say that I also agree that major progress has been made with the internet and that it has and will continue to change the world as it is more integrated into our lives. However I don't consider the internet to have been a fantastic dream of sci-fi come to life - I see it more as a foregone conclusion as soon as the first telegraph was built. Physics has had its time in the sun - biology is the cutting edge now.
What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.
Here's where our descendents will be in 1000 years (Score:4)
Sitting in front of a lousy stupid computer (keyboard+monitor, voice detector, telepathic CPU interface, whatever) while normal people go out and party because it's New Year's Eve.
You were talking about our people, i.e., nerds, right?
Perhaps this says it best (Score:4)
- Arthur C. Clarke / The City and the Stars (1953)
2001 (Score:4)
--
Does anyone else realize? (Score:2)
Grampa is a tad nuts... (Score:5)
Then he went on about some free software thing named after a penguin or something. Something about people sharing code for programs and not having programming AIs, and how sharing is more ethical. Like I actually care. He should have been a hippy instead, at least that free love thing sounded interesting. He keeps doing this in front of company too, they are beginning to avoid him when he walks down the street, especially when he breaks out his old "industrial", "metal", and "punk" albums with all the funny names and really bad lyrics that go along with really bad music. Then he dares to call my music crap. How could he have ever been with the times if he doesn't understand the quality I listen to?
He's so weird. Maybe he should be in a home or something. He says "hello" and "good day" to the biobots, and I think I saw him try to tip one in the restraunt the other day. His year-old medical scans show no senility, but I wonder if they should test him again. He lectured me on the freedoms of paper money the other day when I asked him for a few bucks so I could watch a movie, I think he actually preferred the germ-covered greasy pieces of green paper that could be easily lost and even stolen in a physical act of violence! *Sigh* Can't he tell that the world today is a much safer place? He keeps ranting about how there used to be "organic" food when he was younger, and meat came from animals. Ewww. I would never eat a potatoe that grew in the dirt, and I would never eat another steak if I had to kill a cow. Anyways, I read a few books from around Grandpa's time, they usually sprayed their crops with nasty toxins to reduce disease, and most of their animals that they raised were stuffed in tiny stalls and fed corn, a dirty process, and much more wasteful, its more efficient to grow meat directly on the plant. But if you believe what grandpa says, it must have been the dark ages, no genetic engineering, and primitive medical science. Could you beleve that people could reach a clinic and then die? Or even be diagnosed with a "terminal" disease and live months, or even a year, before dying, without the doctors being able to do anything?
Speaking of doctors, grandpa still tells me that the occasional joint I smoke will drive me insane and then kill me. He is so paranoid, but I guess that's what happens if you grow up in a time of prohibition. He told me how "smokers" in his day often died of lung cancer. He just doesn't understand. Its THC, not nicotine. I know nicotine is dangerous, that's why they outlawed it years ago and replaced it with tobacco grown with a synnicotine gene. The cigarettes we smoke now are specially grown from genetically engineered plants that is gaurenteed not to harm us, and even if we did get cancer, its easily cured.
Grampa also doesn't like my pet miniature griffon. He keeps muttering how a dog or a cat is more real. Its times like these that I think he's one of those flat-earther nuts. Next thing you'll know, he'll start ranting about how humans aren't supposed to live on Mars, and how artificial wombs are wrong.
I think grandpa is turning into one of those old folks who will always live in the past. His house is full of books, he has old 2D videos, some in black and white (which makes them a classic, in his eyes), and even an old boxy thing that he says was a computer. I'm tempted to buy him a slide ruler for Christmas as a joke, but he'd probably add it to his collection. He found an old "video game console" called a "playstation2" the other week, and called all the local stores in town until he found one antique store that carried the equipment he needed to hook it up to his 2D set. Then he tried to get me to play the lame games with all the blocky, cheesy graphics. When I mentioned that any 1st grader could tell that a computer made the pictures, he told me that it was "top of the line" in his day.
At least he's happy hanging out at the local senior center all day, talking to the other old farts. Its good that he enjoys his life, after all, he's only 100, he easily could live for another 50 years.
timothy, what the heck are you doing still up? (Score:3)
That's all for now. Good night. And pretend that nothing happened, because besides from a few parties, nothing did.