The future's so bright I gotta wear shades

[susie_flo]

My work ethic has gone on holiday a day early, so I have decided to waste some time on LJ.

I may have got the wrong chromasomes at some point, cos this post is mainly about Stuff and just how much I love it...

G and I recently became proud parents of Mrs Norris, a cute little robot vacuum cleaner who bimbles around our flat doing the hoovering all by herself, before pootling back to her docking station to re-charge.  When she's finished, she plays a trimuphant little tune to let you know.  One day she was naughty and broke a vase, then she tried to clean up after herself.  (We told her off in the way you might tell off a kitten that has just broken a christmas bauble.)   Really I can find no down side to this... everyone needs to get one.  Robot servants are the way of the future!

Ohhh - the future.  I've had several discussions recently about my deep envy for future generations, who are going to experience so much more exciting stuff than I will ever see before I die. 

For example, is there anything more exciting right now than rapid prototyping?  The idea of a machine that 'prints' fully working 3d objects that you drew on your PC...  the possiblities are endless.  Ok, right now it seems to be mainly used for producing white plastic prototypes, but imagine when they make one that contains the entire periodic table as 'ingredients' that it combines and assembles based on whatever you tell it to make...  gadzucks.

Few people seem to share this future envy with me.  G's mother argues that she would prefer to go back in time and live the life of her mother's generation, when life was simpler.  Hmmmm.  It's not that I don't love a bit of vintage, but I have trouble getting my head around this, especially from a female point of view.  It seems to me that everyday life has never been so good for women in this country.  Am I wrong?  Our great grandmothers appear to have spent all their time skivvying around the house, spending whole days on laundry and ironing.  Who would want to go back to that?  Not to mention dying in childbirth all over the place, and not being taken seriously in the workplace... assuming they could even get into the workplace. Yeek.

Give me a future where gaming and cinema have merged to become a great big 3d interactive reality experience...  where you can get anything you want made by the machine in the corner of your room... where blindness and deafness are conquered by fully working robotic eyes and ears, and you can grow a new limb from your own cells, and combat the ageing process.  I hope I get to see some of these in action before I die.  

Comments

[steer.livejournal.com]

Rapid prototyping things are really pretty cool but I did get to thinking "what would I build" -- I bet I'd just download things from the internet and procrastinate rather than actually being creative.

I wish I had a robot servant to clean -- our flat is a little too cramped for Roomba. I bet it encourages you to keep things off the carpet too.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Hmmm - well if we're talking about current levels of technology, I did see an amazing youtube video where some guys in the states created a torch on their RP machine, including all of the inner workings and a space for the batteries. When it was finished, they took it off the machine and inserted batteries and switched it on, and it worked! Pretty cool... so I'd say there are lots of possiblities for getting custom-designed gadgets made.

But if we're in fantasy future land... I reckon you could use it to get food made to order! A big mac with cheese that had never been near a sentient being... (I think it would be hard for me not to make custom-designed kittens all day)

Anyway I bet you could have a roomba in your place. Our flat is not big at all... and yes, apparently the newfound tendency to pick things up off the floor is known as "the Roomba effect" :-)

Next I want someone to invent robot arms that come out and clean around the loo and the bath after each use, then tuck themsenves away again afterwards.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

About the kittens... obviously I didn't mean as food!

[steer.livejournal.com]

Wow-- the torch exmaple is really cool. Presumably there was also a bit of wiring to do though. It's not quite there to a "replicate me a computer" yet.

I love buying computer games online -- buy, download, play -- I don't need to go to the shops or wait for the postman. Perhaps rapid prototyping can soon bring this to other types of goods.

Our flat is both small and cluttered unfortunately. There are lots of table-legs and obstacles.

I think the Japanese have loo cleaning robots already. I bet they do.

i am writing this from a pub with wifi using my beautiful cute and tiny eee pc. That's pretty good on the "futuristic" front.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

Ooh I have Hoover envy now.

I know what you mean about missing out on future delights.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

You must get one - it is a necessity!

Of course, what will really piss me off about the future is if they find a foolproof way to prolong youth and beauty just after I have turned into a shrivelled old hag with only a couple of years left to go...

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

It's wierd watching how some things are going retro and staying that way for environmental reasons - cloth pads haven't been in common use since the 50s or 60s, I guess, and people stopped taking their own shopping bags to the supermarket in the 80s.

God yes, washing day was called *day* for a reason - you spent the whole flaming day doing it!

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

It's true... I pat my robot on the head then skip off to the shops with my handwoven eco-bag...

I guess life these days has all gone a bit Cath Kidston with a sprinkling of Philip K Dick :-)