Will we or our followers look back at this time and regard it as the ‘Golden Age’ of communicating with each other, a last burst of collective imagination before the shutters come down on human endeavour. ‘They’, whoever ‘they’ are cannot be far from introducing the invention that will rock the world, end war, end strife and keep the population satisfied beyond it’s imagination and imagination will be the key. The pixels that are gently glowing on your screen are the afterwash of my mind and my fingers, it is the digital pixie dust that I have conjured up for you to read, or ignore, it makes little difference to me, the joy is in the creation and the afterglow that comes from a large number of comments is the cherry on the top.
So if we accept the fact that the electrical impulses from my brain have caused a mechanical action in my fingers to press keys which then turn the keystrokes back into electrical impulses, when ‘they’ develop a way of cutting out the mechanical part and hardwire my brain to the computer, everything I think will appear before me on a glowing screen. Now lets extrapolate that, let my mind run riot with every fantasy that I have ever wished to see before me. Now give me a total immersion suit so that every move, every caress, every explosion of lust and perversion (this is for illustrative purposes only, I’m just taking it to its logical conclusion) will be laid before you, every wish will be your command. You wont need drugs, you wont need booze, you wont need porn, just think it and it will happen. The streets will empty, travel will stop, who needs to pay to go to Las Vegas, just imagine the strip and you will always be a winner from the comfort of your own home. It will cause massive problems as no one will want to work, what good is money when you can live the lifestyle of the rich and famous from the comfort of your fifty bed mansion in your minds eye, Sounds fun eh?
Boadicea's Chariot 
I’ve even come up with a name for the whole thing….popporn.
The Matrix………..
I don’t like popcorn.
I was thinking the holodeck, Star Trek. Not that I’m a Trekkie or anything. Oh no. But live long and prosper, obviously…
You know what, OMG, I wouldn’t want to be rich or famous and I wouldn’t want a mansion I’d just like to go live by a beach somewhere warm enough to swim and snorkel every day, cycle, write and paint. That’s it really. And I can go there in my imagination so I don’t need to wait for “them” to invent the technology.
Hullo Levent,
Sorry OMG, but I have just laid out for a fortnight in Turkey at the end of Apr and start of May. Beloved and I will be staying near Side and wondered if you had any recommendations on things to do and see.
Now OMG,
Try reading the Otherland books by Tad Williams. He covers all this in the most excellent detail.
OMG: Very creative, and good fun, but it sounds like purgatory to me. I much prefer the face to face stuff especially when it involves the gentler sex (enough double entenderes for you there?) I would suggest a long lie down with a damp facecloth over your head, that or a move away from the Aussie Shiraz to a watery Cote du Rhone (something well under 10%)
Buggrit that’s entendres, crazy language English.
… er, that’s French actually, LW. 😦
Any popcorn Pseu? or the sweet stuff? I quite like the salted popcorn. They give it to us at our community cinema screenings. And a glass of wine.
Sorry Bearsy I don’t “understand”. 🙂
Hi Ferret,
So you have picked a tourist location. It may be a bit cold for sea on those days, but may work for you. It’s been quite long since I have been there. I just remember I liked there, nothing more. Tomorrow I’ll ask my collegues and get back to you.
Btw, needless to say, we would be glad to welcome you here in Kutahya too.
… er, no LW, it means “hear”, old chap. 😦
No popcorn really… it’s the smell and the polystyrene texture. But if I have to have any it would be the sweet stuff!
Though my bit of futuristic frippary would raise a few laughs, some nice snappy, witty remarks there, this site is building nicely. Early start tomorrow so I’m off to the kipmobile for some zizz.
Yo, excellent stuff, OMG, have a good snooze 🙂
Yes Bearsy, it was my etymological wit peeping through, but now that meaning has disappeared like the expression itself in modern French.
Wiki, (where else?) The expression comes from French double = “double” and entendre = “to mean”, “to understand” (note : just means “to hear” in modern French). Although it was a French expression when adopted into English, and although both words are part of modern French, their use together has disappeared in modern French. Double retains the same meaning in French, but entendre translates nowaday to “hear”. French refers to such phrases with the term double sens (literally “double meaning”).
… yeah LW, I was only being silly. It still carries connotations of ‘understand’ in many French expressions. Careful, or Claire and Isobel will put us right …
Heaven forbid Bearsy, I’m off to the kitchen it’s dinner time here.
Janh1, you denied the StarTrek thing a little too quickly.
OMG, you are forgetting there will always be a need for software upgrades, and there will be the inevitable blue screen of death from time to time. And think of the hifi buffs who will insist on having gold plated fibre optic cables for plugging into the brain and then bore everyone with how they believe it gives better reproduction at higher frequencies. Some of us will still have a job.
Entendre does translate as ‘ to hear’ in most spoken French, although it can also be used to mean ‘to understand’ as in ‘entendu’ = ‘understood/agreed.’
I just wish my three year old would understand the meaning of bedtime…
Good morning OMG
A pleasure machine, pity it’s still only in the conceptual stage at the moment.
Have you thought of entering politics? From what I read and hear your parliamentarians appear to already have all theses perks!
🙂
It already exists and has a name. Heroin.
“…everything I think will appear before me on a glowing screen…”
Unfiltered, that should scare everyone silly.
“…everything I think will appear before me on a glowing screen…”
Unfiltered, that would scare me silly…
God bless filters.
I’ll second that Marinaid!
Thinking about thinking is thought-provoking, Boa. A Zen joke is called for, I’d say.
Q: What did the buddhist monk say to the pizza vendor?
Correct.
OK, Bearsy, but have you heard this one?:
When Mozart passed away, he was buried in a churchyard. A couple days later, the town drunk was walking through the cemetery and heard some strange noise coming from the area where Mozart was buried.
Terrified, the drunk ran and got the town magistrate to come and listen to it.
When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave, listened for a moment, and said, “Ah, yes, thats Mozarts Ninth Symphony, being played backwards.”
He listened a while longer, and said, “Theres the Eighth Symphony, and its backwards, too. Most puzzling.”
So the magistrate kept listening; “Theres the Seventh… the Sixth… the Fifth…”
Suddenly the realization of what was happening dawned on the magistrate; he stood up and announced to the crowd that had gathered in the cemetery, “My fellow citizens, theres nothing to worry about. Its just Mozart decomposing.”
Ouch…
True, Boa, but it, arguably, beats thinking about thinking. :^)