I'm 55 and I think the present is more shocking now than it was in the 1970s and 1980s. For me, the 70s and 80s were about presaging modern times. I think the first time I could look up the card catalog at my local library, ~1986 on gopher, I began to believe viscerally that all this internet stuff and computers was going to seriously matter SOON. Within a few months of that I saw my first webpage and that literally (by which of course I mean figuratively) knocked me in to the next century. I was flabbergasted.

Part of what was so shocking about being shocked was that it was, in some wierd sense, exactly what I expected. I had played with hypercard on macs years earlier and the early web was just essentially a networked extension of that. In my science fiction youth, I had always known or believed that knowledge would be ubiquitously available. I could summarize as saying there were no electronics in Star Trek (the original) that seemed unreasonable, from talking computers, big displays, tricorders and communicators. To me, faster-than-light travel, intelligent species all over the universe that looked and acted like made-up humans, and the transporter all seemed unreasonable.

Maybe what was shocking about the webpage is that it was so GORGEOUS. I saw it on a biggish Sun workstation screen. Text was crisp and proportionally spaced black type on white background. Pictures were colorful and vibrant. hyper-text links worked really fast. The impact of actually seeing it was overwhelming compared to just believing that someday it would be there.

As a 55 year old it feels to me like we are careening towards a singularity. The depth of processing power and sensor varieties that can be used in smartphones has barely begun to be explored. Meanwhile, these continue to get more powerful, more beautiful, and with more sensors available. Google autodrive cars: of course all those ideas about building guidewires and special things into the roads is dopey. At least its dopey if you don't have to, and google shows you don't.

Years ago when looking at biotech I commented wonderingly to my equal-aged frriend: isn't it amazing to think that we could be among the last generation to die. My only consolation in knowing I will probably not make it until the singularity is that the way these things go, it will probably be delayed until 2091 anyway so I won't just miss it by a little. And meanwhile, it doesn't take much to enjoy the sled ride down the event horizon as the proto-singularity continues to wind itself up.

Live long and prosper, my friends.