Randomness
July 5, 2009
The computer on my desk has one TERABYTE of space, and it’s almost half full -
ten years ago I didn’t even had a gigabyte of space in my main machine. I carry
a computer … in my pocket … that I can use to surf the web anywhere. No
wires. And I can use my pocket computer to show pictures of our vacation half a
world away to a friend over a dinner of seafood. We’re hundreds of miles from
the coast. And I can use this same device to call around the world at any time.
In a few months, I’m going to get on an airplane and fly from my home in Alabama
to London. I’m going to FLY. Through the air. And I’m going to be there in a
little over 10 hours. A hundred years ago to get from London to New York took
like two weeks via steamship, and then you had to travel by train and horse
carriage. It could take a month or more to travel that distance, but I’m gonna
do it in 10 hours.
When I was a kid, our TV got 3 channels on an old 19” TV that took minutes to
warm up. My TV today has close to 500 channels, all of them perfectly clear and
some of them in beautiful high-definition. Oh yeah, and it’s 42” wide, less than
the width of a ream of paper, and turns on almost instantly.
I never go to a bank anymore. My paycheck is electronically deposited to a bank
that has one physical location … in Texas, more than five hundred miles away.
And if for some reason, I do have to deposit a check, I can scan them in at my
house and send them by computer to be instantly deposited.
People, welcome to the future. We’re here. And it’s just going to get cooler.
Read More