<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 14 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:windowtext;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>A comment I read here has been rattling around in my brain, the common saying “The future ain’t what it used to be.” Usually this comment goes with noting we don’t have power too cheap to meter, and we don’t have flying cars and we don’t have yakkity yak and bla bla, and too bad for us. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>To that whole notion I must say as politely as I can, bullshit. Sure some things didn’t work out for us, but look what we did get that no one really anticipated, even AC Clarke. Right, we don’t have flying cars like the Jetsons. Road travel is remarkably similar to how it was in my own childhood. But look what we did get: a new technology for getting information into the home which is so good and so effective, many of us don’t want to go chasing off somewhere else, even if we could fly out of our own driveway. I wouldn’t give up my internet for flying cars, given the choice of a trade straight across. Think about that. The future is better than it used to be.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Consider Asimov’s notion of a company being formed to create an encyclopedia of everything, as in the Foundation series. They struggled so hard to get that, and yet along comes Wikipedia in our own lifetimes, we put together something that actually is better than Hari Seldon’s Encyclopedia Galactica, all put together in a few years by volunteers. We didn’t need to collect the most intelligent minds in the galaxy, we made do just fine with a few tens of thousands of ordinary hipsters, and now the product exceeds our wildest imagination even if the information in there isn’t always correct, it’s free, it’s available in our own homes instantly always. The future is better than it used to be. The right now is waaay better than it used to be.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>