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June 22,
2003 emptying out my pockets at one point today on the tailgate i was struck by how similar the contents were-- my butane lighter (of course i use mine for heat shrink tubing), my pocketknife, candy (simple carbohydrates!), some coins -- but also at the new additions... keys, my led flashlight and my ericsson bluetooth-enabled cellphone. the categories then...
keys have been around for a while... maybe 500 years. light became a pocketable category for the common man really only in the last 50 years, communication only in the last 10 (25 if you include the walkie-talkie). i suppose you could lump computing in with communication since my cell phone has a calculator, address book, games... and will no doubt have more soon. i wonder what we will have in our pockets in 100 years? how about 1000? 10000? 1 million years? will we have pockets? if an unfortunate soul in alaska gets caught in a snowbank and frozen for 1000 years, what will be in the pockets of the people that dig him up? my bet is that computing will soon move into the brain via organic rather than silicon processes... (after all, we already have a squishy organic computer in our craniums right now, it just needs to be augmented with a component optimized more for computation, number crunching and digital communication--in addition to the excellent system we already have optimized for learning, quick association and time-based memory preferencing.) perhaps our eyes will be re-engineered to be more sensitive to light. as long as we grow, and as long as our cells need replacement from time to time, food we will still need. fire... can't roast marshmallows or light cigarettes without fire. plus, heat shrink tubing isn't going to change anytime soon! money... hmm... it has a certain charm, doesn't it? plus its hard to put a bag of marijuana on your charge card.... cutting. i would imagine we will still need exterior tools to perform tough tasks. keys? well, there are cars with electronic door locks, but they're not really that popular. if you give someone the combination, then you have to reprogram your locks if you find out that you don't trust them anymore. not too difficult i suppose. you can forget your combination, but you can also forget your keys. but i vote that keys and simple mechanical locks will be around for quite some time. they have a certain simplicity and elegance which is hard to beat. they use no power, and there is a comfort in knowing that that if you lend a key to someone and they give it back, that only you can get in again. need more security? add more locks! certainly nothing is foolproof, and any form of physical security can be defeated... but keys work pretty good for the most part. i think the future finders of today's icemen will have keys.... more spurious random predictions:
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