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The Future Now
Jan. 5th, 2011 11:04 am"Are you from around here?" the truck driver asked. "Can you tell me where this intersection is?" He pointed to a handful of vaguely labeled lines forming a sort of map drawn on a piece of paper.
When strangers ask me for directions, my answer is usually " ... sorry, I don't know." I have an astonishing unfamiliarity with my surroundings. I generally know how to get from my home to a half dozen other places in the area, and that's it. I don't remember the street names for many of the streets that I *use*, never mind the ones off my beaten path.
"I don't know those streets, but wait a moment," I answered. "My phone does." I used the maps application that came with my 'droid to look it up. He was pretty close, as it turned out, although one of the streets on his handscrawled map was mislabeled. I showed him the little map and how to get there from here, and sent him on his way.
It strikes me that this point in my life will be brief: that moment between "when I started carrying a GPS with me everywhere" and "when everyone else did too". "Getting directions" is not one of those problems I thought about how technology would solve 20 years ago. It just wasn't something I thought about. I wonder what problems I never thought about will be solved for me in the next 20.
And when will I get my flying car? Come ON, Universe! It's 2011 and *still* no production model flying cars? At this rate, we're gonna get personal teleporters first.
When strangers ask me for directions, my answer is usually " ... sorry, I don't know." I have an astonishing unfamiliarity with my surroundings. I generally know how to get from my home to a half dozen other places in the area, and that's it. I don't remember the street names for many of the streets that I *use*, never mind the ones off my beaten path.
"I don't know those streets, but wait a moment," I answered. "My phone does." I used the maps application that came with my 'droid to look it up. He was pretty close, as it turned out, although one of the streets on his handscrawled map was mislabeled. I showed him the little map and how to get there from here, and sent him on his way.
It strikes me that this point in my life will be brief: that moment between "when I started carrying a GPS with me everywhere" and "when everyone else did too". "Getting directions" is not one of those problems I thought about how technology would solve 20 years ago. It just wasn't something I thought about. I wonder what problems I never thought about will be solved for me in the next 20.
And when will I get my flying car? Come ON, Universe! It's 2011 and *still* no production model flying cars? At this rate, we're gonna get personal teleporters first.
