Living in the future
Yesterday I watched the Space-X launch come apart mid-flight.
Obviously, this is a bad thing. But it wasn't a manned craft, so it doesn't get big headlines. Which leads to the thought that space launches are now so common that we don't get freaked out when one fails. We get freaked out when people are hurt, but for a crewless launch, hey, it's just a failed space flight, we'll send up another. The folks on the ISS have enough oxygen and food to get them along until we send another resupply ship.
So there's one evidence of living in the future.
Let me also note that there was no fanfare that a launch was happening--another marker of how routine it is. I only knew about it because I was checking my Twitter feed and the various astronauts I follow were tweeting the link to NASA's live webfeed and the launch was imminent. So I figured I might as well watch it.
The other thing is, I watched that launch on a lightweight handheld device while sitting on my toilet. Not that the toilet is relevant in particular, but as an example of the phenomenal mobility of our communications devices, that's pretty awesome. As little as a decade ago, that wouldn't have been possible. Now I think nothing of carrying an iDevice everywhere I go, including the loo.
And that I watched the launch via a technology that allows people to select from millions of options is also cool. I grew up in era of broadcast television: you watched what the airwaves could bring, the number of channels were limited, and your schedule was whatever the broadcaster decided. Now we have access to a jillion things, from professional television shows and movies to some kid walking around her school with a webcam on her phone, all available for us to watch on whatever schedule we choose. Plus, obviously, live streaming of events as they happen, from rocket launches to puppies in their playroom.
And you can watch them anywhere you have internet access, which is a pretty broad swathe of the planet these days.