Nostrabezas

I like when people draw pictures of what the future will look like.

Like, like, like. Like like.

Everything is always pristine white or onyx black. There's an exorbitant number of lights and technology isn't innovative, it's just an advanced version of what we have already.

For example, we have cars now, future predictors always draw future cars or air cars. Are we going to need cars in the future? What if we can make people think they're somewhere they're not? Or how about televisions. They keep getting bigger, with improved picture quality, but I don't really see a need for them to be separated from the Internet. Why don't we just stream all our shows? We do it already, the technology is just not as pervasive as it should be.

Predictions of the future are linear. They take what we have today and shoot that out 20, 50, or 100 years into the future, but that's not how evolution works. Improvements are not isolated instances. Every time we have an improvement in one field, that improvement lends itself to every other field.

Predictions shouldn't be straight shots off of what we have today. They need to be part of a web of innovation that all works together.

For example, the World Wide Web. Before we had the WWW we had two, separate innovations: the Internet and HyperText. The Internet was just a collection of connected computers that could communicate. HyperText was a software program that allowed you to traverse text by clicking on HyperText links. Wikipedia is a great example of HyperText at work. These two technological improvements were very separate until Tim Berners Lee came along. He made the necessary connections between HyperText and the Internet thereby developing the World Wide Web platform that we use today.

If predictors looked at the Internet and HyperText back then, they'd just linearly improve those technologies. The Internet connections would get faster and more data could get sent through using different protocols. HyperText would just allow you to navigate through more and more information on a single machine.

The real future is going to be hybrids. Taking one idea and smashing it into another.

Smart phones and GPS? "Damn I have to pee, where's the closest restroom?"

Eye-tracking and 360 webcams? "Hey Bill, does this look infected?"

RFIDs, smart garbage cans and smart phones? "Looks like someone finished the milk, good thing they did it while I was at the grocery store."

Of course, who knows if we'll even have grocery stores down the line. But then again if no one cares to improve on it, they're going to stay the same. Kind of like body hair.

There are so many things that can be done by forcing technologies to mate. But don't focus on what we have, take a look at the minor annoyances in your life, develop a simple solution and see if we've got the goods needed to produce something like that. Chances are we do, and chances are, whatever you come up with will get mixed in with something else later on down the road.

Get some Crayola crayons, they'll never be improved upon, and draw up your own pictures of the future. I doubt anyone will do this, but if you want, put them online through Flickr or something and post the link as a comment. Use lot's of color, I'm tired of high contrast futures, they're so bleak.

Go wild. Use robots and kittens and chandeliers with color changing LEDs.

Wait a minute, I'm inspired. Next time you read this I'll have my little plan outlined. Get ready. Get excited.

Rewind.

Oh yeah, unconsciousness. I've been thinking lately, mostly existential thinking. What if everything has a consciousness? That would explain the probability of quantum mechanics. Imagine everything has a consciousness, from the cells in my body, to atoms to me, a bunch of cells thrown together. Now my consciousness has a memory connected to it which helps me make decisions, but in the end I get to make those decisions.

Don't think about this too hard. I need it to be right so that I can think I have some kind of control, cause without that what is there?

Two days ago unconsciousness was Zen. It still is, it's nothing. Don't go for Zen. Go for something, cause why not?

Fast foward.

So next time you check here, you're going to blown away. My new idea is boiling and when it's ready, well, it's going to change your world.