Steven wrote:
>(* Now, if I could just find a book that adequately covers the next
> ten or fifteen years of the Internet's development...)
In 1987 I was mighty proud of myself for simply being able to use
WordPerfect on a DOS machine. I thought I was really hot shit when I
learned how to send text to the typesetter on a 5 1/4" floppy.
That same year, my Native American teacher Rose Morningstar described a
scene of the future in which a college professor could stand in the middle
of a desert with his students around him and access "vast libraries of
information" through a small device held in the palm of his hand. Though
that scenario sounded farfetched at the time, it is now a very realistic
expectation.
Rose also talked about computers becoming partially organic and partially
mechanical. She sees each of us eventually using our mind as an input
device for our computer, which see foresees being a "tiny gold headband."
This idea of an organic computer seemed even more far-fetched than the
previous scenario, yet just recently I read that scientists have
successfully implanted a microchip in a paralyzed man's brain which he can
use to control his limbs simply by thinking, "move." When you compare the
clunky DOS PC that I was using in '87 to a Newton or to a Palm computer,
the notion of an implanted computer doesn't seem farfetched at all.
Closer to home, in 1987 when I first met her, Rose was laboriously involved
with final edits on galley proofs for her first book, which was published
in paperback by Harper Collins. Next week, anyone in the world who types
www.rosemorningstar.com into their browser will be able to read Rose's
second book (which is the reason I was asking about Telnet in the first
place). Rose may be quite the visionary, but she is nonetheless astounded
that people will be able to read her book by simply typing her name.
Isn't it amazing the changes in technology, the major paradigm shift in
communications, that has happened just in the ten years since I was trying
to whip those 5 1/4" floppies into submission?
Suz
Suzanne Stephens, Dave Stephens Design; Ashland, Oregon
541-552-1190, 541-552-1192 http://www.KickassDesign.com/
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