X-Message-Number: 32957
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 08:51:59 -0700
Subject: Re: Future Fatigue
From: Keith Henson <>

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 2:00 AM, MARK PLUS <> wrote:

snip

> I don't see why it has that reputation now. I turn 51 next month, and
> nothing in my life has given me "future shock," mainly because of all
> the fraudulent promises of technological transformations I've heard
> since my childhood. (And you know what I refer to.)

I think you have used the wrong word.  "Fraud" is where something is
promised and the person making the promise knows they cannot provide
it.

Flying cars fit in that category.  They are not impossible from the
physics, just beyond the state of the art in materials and were beyond
the state of the art for control technology.  Have you seen this:

http://vimeo.com/6194911

I am . . . 17 years older than you are.  My memory goes back to almost
before computers.  I was programming computers when memory was a
dollar a byte.  Flash memory (faster than the dollar a byte memory of
long ago) is now around a dollar a GB.  So the 8 GB USB memory stick I
carry around would have cost $8 B long ago, filled perhaps a thousand
semi truck trailers and taken a substantial hydro plant to power it.

Of course computers improved and fell in price over decades so it was
not shocking until you look back and think about how much computers
have changed.

Think about it, a billion to one.

Keith

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