That we should have to use a keypad to work our will upon a computer is so — tomorrow. Yes, and tomorrow, we will still be frigging with these crappy pieces of future with their crappy Model T software. Star Trek had it right: we should be able to talk to computers, or think at them. When Scotty (Bless James D’s soul) was trying to give a primitive scientist the formula for transparent plasteel, he made the silly mistake of trying to talk to the desktop instead of typing on the keyboard like a good scientist.
So today, we drag our operations along using OS’s that barely respond to our needs most of the time. The fictitious debate between Bill Gates and the GM CEO about how cars would work if they were developed as are computers really touched a nerve.
Perhaps there is hope on the horizon: maybe other gadgets (Backberries?) will take over and let us communicate seamlessly with devices that work.
What got me started on this was another Blog service that I tried to use until it lost three days’ work on me. I’m still mad! We may think we are the future; we are not: we are mired in the dreary dreamy ethos and practica of the early twentieth century. Edgar Rice Burroughs and (surprisingly) Rudyard Kipling had more sense of future than we do.
