Technology

[arthwollipot]

I just finished a brief video chat over Skype with a JREF friend! Me in Canberra, her in Scottsville, Virginia, USA. There's a distance of almost 16,000 km between us, but we could see each other and chat as though she were in the very next room.

Ain't technology wonderful? I keep saying things like "where the hell is my jetpack" but it's things

Comments

[politas]

Glad you've finally realised it.

I carry a device around in my pocket that lets me communicate with people around the world, can send pictures and text, stores a decent bookshelf worth of books, plays music, stores other random pieces of information, such as a complete listing of my DVDs, and has the capacity to do other amazing things. We have electric cars, computers that respond to spoken commands, and we're seriously working on stopping cancer and the common cold.

This is quite definitely the future, and it is amazing.

[arthwollipot]

I don't have one of those yet. I just have a phone that I can take with me anywhere, and if you'd told me when I walked into the library at Ginninderra High School that day to find all you guys playing Dragonquest that I'd be able to carry a phone around with me everywhere, I wouldn't have believed you.

[politas]

Hell, in those days, we were impressed by programmable calculators (devices that were way too expensive and hard to use for normal people). And now I've carry a computer around with me! One that, though it does far more than those old programmable calculators, has a much, much smaller user manual!