Everyone in the modern world will one day have a personal communications device that functions as a combination phone-TV-Internet and GPS unit. Obviously, all bandwidth will be wireless to these units, eliminating the need for conventional network infrastructure, thus removing all high wire telephone lines from our sight. Phone numbers will be largely hidden from view (much the way http://66.253.8.233 is rarely seen compared to pointedstick.net because the words mask the numbers) as these devices will be likely be entirely voice activated and user-interactive. Telephones will be obsolete as two-way video communication becomes the norm.
Radio and media consolidation will be moot as every car will have web access so that you can listen to your friends’ radio programs streamed in high-definition audio from anywhere.
Record companies will diminish as music becomes less a commodity and more a service. As Pro Tools or some competing format becomes more user friendly, musicians will have the means by which to make high quality recordings more easily. Bands will gig more and make their money from shows and merch. Possibly they will offer subscription services on their websites, thus removing the need for record companies.
Cut-and-paste music will become a more popular genre as new ideas and sound sources become more scarce. Possibly "sound designers" will emerge as a genre.
Garage bands will be replaced by bedroom programmers and electronic music will likely overtake the musical forms based on the playing of conventional instruments.
Flying cars will likely never happen, as there’s just no safe, suitable substitute for gravity. We just don’t have any leads on how to manipulate it. However, it will be possible for transportation to become almost entirely free of conventional tire-road friction (this will of course depend on the willingness of petroleum industries to find other things to do than make gasoline). With this, it may be that we will see the closing of many many gas stations.
The space elevator may well be a reality (for those who doubt it, remember that we routinely strap people to 4 million pounds of explosives and blast them into space).
“Infer” means to receive an impression; “imply” means to send an impression. I infer from what you imply.
Referring to text layout – “justified” does not mean “aligned.” To "align" is to set something left, right, or center. To “justify” means to spread out the text to prevent jaggedy columns and line breaks.
Like the text of this page is justified and this one is not (see the ragged right side of the text).
Tomatoes are not vegetables and dolphins are not fish.
This makes a handy refutation for anyone who likes to say "walks like a duck, talks like a duck…" Well, looks like a fish, swims like a fish…could be a dolphin.
Use "its" the way you would use "his" and "hers." No apostrophes for possessive pronouns. Only nouns. The dog’s bark is loud. Its bark is loud. His bark is loud.
"Your" is possessive. "You’re" means "you are." You’re a churlish boor if you’re not getting your grammar on, fool.
A Neat Internet Explorer Shortcut: Say you’re going to google.com. Type only "google" into the address bar, and then hit "Ctrl-Enter." This keystroke command adds "http://www." to the front and ".com" to the back and executes the request. Isn’t that marvelous?
And Now, Your Moment of Zen:
"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence."
— Robert Frost
(side note about "temper." A temper is something that keeps you from getting angry, a limitation of sorts. A temper is not an angry disposition, it is the very opposite. If someone has a temper, that means they’re well in control of themselves. Having a bad temper means having difficulty restraining oneself. It’s like having a bad muffler; losing it means there’s going to be a lot of noise.)
God I love this woman. This column would be worth it alone for the brief examination of the subtext of that famous slogan of western culture. Commercials often use variations of "you can have it all," yet subconsciously we start to ask ourselves why we don’t have it all. Then we feel bad that we don’t have it all, that we don’t have a life, that we’re not exceptional, that we’re not beautiful, or what have you. Which then leads to widespread dissatisfaction. Which then leads to further consumption in the pursuit of having it all. And the cycle begins anew.
Are you satisfied with your life? I know I’m not, but I’m not quite sure why. I’ve noticed, though, that when I’m bored or don’t want to do the stuff I should be doing, I go shopping. I usually buy DVDs that I probably don’t need, books I could easily get at the library, or CDs I don’t need. Jeanette says, "What power have we when our leaders lie to us…no wonder we pick up the credit card and go shopping – at least when we buy things we feel we are exercising choice and control."
The choice and control thing stuck in my mind because I’ve read many times that addictions are sustained by the desire for control – you know what you’re getting and it makes you feel good. Whether you’re shopping, drinking beer, or smoking anything, Process A leads to Reaction B, and who wouldn’t choose to feel good when the alternative is to feel empty and bored? Granted, some processes are healthier than others, but there’s a kinship between all of them in that they are processes that produce predictable (and therefore comforting) results. Add to that whatever amount of chemical pleasure the process produces (be it alcohol, nicotine or just natural endorphines), and you’ve got a formula for addiction.
Typing this, I also discovered "beings" and "begins" are anagrams of each other.
Not sure why, but I started reading a little basic economic theory and I think that if record companies and muscians read this stuff they’d discover how incredibly flawed the business model of today’s music industry is. The most basic model of economic theory is supply and demand. Given the advent of mp3’s and high speed internet connections, the supply of all music recordings automatically becomes near-infinite. With an infinite supply of something, the demand is going to be on pretty uncertain terms when it comes to cost. How do you determine the cost of something that can be replicated infinitely? Todd Rundgren says it’s time for music to be viewed as a service rather than a commodity. I’m inclined to agree.
As I was walking to the microwave just now, a potential blog entry materialized in my mind:
"Every day at lunch when I go to the microwave to heat up my Campbell’s Chunky Soup® I take the Daily Cryptoquote with me to see if I can solve it in the 3 minutes and 30 seconds alotted for proper soup nuking. Most days I fail, today I didn’t."
3 minutes and 30 seconds later this prophecy came to pass. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt clairvoyant. I solved the cryptoquote with 7 seconds to spare.
This is purely for my own amusement and is not intended as any great refutation. Just a resigned "whatever" to the people that enjoy these kinds of email forwards. The best part is it pretends to have been written by Andy Rooney, who despite being a mean, clever old crank, is still a much better writer than this tripe:
