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juzo_kunUh. Whoa. 2020.
As someone born in the middle of the Generation X, this year always seemed do far and so, what can I say? Wow. The future. Cyberpunk! Space Odissey sequel! Lotsa neon everywhere!
I had a brief stint with cyberpunk, when it rose to prominence right around the start of the eighties. And now that I use computers and technology I can tell how we might be here... for the worst of its predictions. Global warming, check, corporations abuse of power, check, an abyss between the rich and the poor, check, omnipresent surveillance, check, IT warfare, check. And regarding artificial intelligence, we're not at Wintermute level (...thank Zeus!) but some of the things as image recognition and big data processing are quite impressive... and more often than not used for really opaque purposes.
Anyway. This is also the year -- later this month -- where I'll be Officially A Dinosaur, a.k.a. fifty years old, and sometimes I think at how technology evolved in the years I had availability of it and whoa. That was a loooong trip.
At the moment, I have a full blown communication/recording/play/work device in my pocket, and without having to stick plugs in my brain, haha! Which are good for the "cool" factor but in reality, thank but no thanks! I hope to see more and more the positive things that were part of cyberpunk, like the super-quasi-magical advanced medicine and space colonies.
Because, whatever, it's never too late to dream a bit.
As someone born in the middle of the Generation X, this year always seemed do far and so, what can I say? Wow. The future. Cyberpunk! Space Odissey sequel! Lotsa neon everywhere!
I had a brief stint with cyberpunk, when it rose to prominence right around the start of the eighties. And now that I use computers and technology I can tell how we might be here... for the worst of its predictions. Global warming, check, corporations abuse of power, check, an abyss between the rich and the poor, check, omnipresent surveillance, check, IT warfare, check. And regarding artificial intelligence, we're not at Wintermute level (...thank Zeus!) but some of the things as image recognition and big data processing are quite impressive... and more often than not used for really opaque purposes.
Anyway. This is also the year -- later this month -- where I'll be Officially A Dinosaur, a.k.a. fifty years old, and sometimes I think at how technology evolved in the years I had availability of it and whoa. That was a loooong trip.
At the moment, I have a full blown communication/recording/play/work device in my pocket, and without having to stick plugs in my brain, haha! Which are good for the "cool" factor but in reality, thank but no thanks! I hope to see more and more the positive things that were part of cyberpunk, like the super-quasi-magical advanced medicine and space colonies.
Because, whatever, it's never too late to dream a bit.
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Thursday, 2 January 2020 14:30 (UTC)My own reaction to the arrival of 2020 can be summarized as "man, I miss the energy and optimism of the Turn of the Millennium celebrations".
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Friday, 10 January 2020 13:00 (UTC)no subject
Friday, 3 January 2020 03:42 (UTC)Yeah, I could wish we had a few more of the pluses from cyberpunk and fewer of the downsides. :/ Nothing to do but our best, I guess. Here's hoping we can all make progress!
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Friday, 10 January 2020 13:08 (UTC)Fun fact: when I started the machines I used to print proofs worked in a way sligtly similar to HTML coding. But. Making a mistake in HTML? Just save the file and re-upload. Make a mistake in a phototypesetting machine mean throwing away yards and yards of paper proofs, depending at what point in the text you made the mistake.
(don't get me started on PostScript)
Good old times, how I don't miss them.