I was recently waxing nostalgic with a friend of mine about all of the amazing things that have happened during the later part of the twentieth century, and the even more amazing things that have already happened during the first few years of the twenty-first. Last century saw computers evolve from simple Turing machines into room-sized monsters that ate punch cards and spat out feeble computations; from there to desk-sized "personal computers" to new portable "laptops" that outperform previous generations exponentially.
We've all seen movies; they were born in 1910 with the release of thefirst movie, and have since found color, sound, and an ever-evolving science of special effects that has recently cumulated in the ability to create a digital army of tens-of-thousands of orcs in the Lord of the Rings using the latest CGI effects.
Clothing? Fashion? Just watch any random episode of VH1's "I Love the 80's" or "I Love the 70's" to see how often that changes. But speaking of TV... you can now get fully digital TV — including HDTV (with an amazing increase in picture resolution) — over Satellite, Cable TV (fiber optic and/or coaxial cable), and even your telephone line.
Cars can now go from 0 to 60mph in 2.9 seconds with over one thousand horsepower. And they can almost fly.
With advancements in nanotech Fleischer's vision of a Fantastic Voyage turns from science-fiction to reality.
But I'm not content with all that. I want more.
I want cars that fly, and not for $500,000 dollars. I want cars that no longer need wheels. I mean, wheels? They were invented by cave men for Christ's sake. We can do better than that! How about a mode of transportation that is clean, efficient, fast, safe, and free? Is that so much to ask for? Maybe if we left the shackles of this "wheel" idea behind we'd make some progress. Damn lazy engineers. I'll never see it in my lifetime.
I also want bionics. I want to be able to lift ten thousand pounds with one finger. I want to be able to access a database via a satellite linkup built into my brain. I want to make the Bwa-mwa-mwa-mwa-mwa-mwa-mwa noise when I run at super-sonic speeds after character-stereotyped bad guys. Again, is that so much to ask? but I'll never see it pre-2100.
That's why I want to live to see the twenty-second century. Oh, that and I want to be able to single-handedly prevent another "millennium bug" fiasco by saying (in grumpy-old-man voice) "When I was young, they all said that the year 2000 would cause all the computers to crash, but they didn't! And we didn't have any new-fangled brain-controlled cyborg computers, either. They were boxes, with type-writers attached to the front using cables. You had to touch them! And they could barely render three dimensions! " and so on...