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29 July 2010
The Future is Almost Here - Per Terrafugia for a mere $164,000 and the cost of a pilot's licence, you'll be able to park your flying car in your driveway by the end of 2011.→[More:]
Um, I believe we were also promised jet packs, robot butlers, and miniature dehydrated food pills. I suppose one out of four ain't bad. But I've got my eye on you, science.
At this point, I've lived juuuuuuuust long enough to feel like I am in the future, flying cars and jetpacks be damned.
At a party this summer, a friend and I were chatting about Copernicus, and she thought he was Roman. I paused and tipsily said, "Huh, I thought he was Polish."
In the not-very-distant past, this conversation would have moved on to "Huh, I dunno" (in the absence of a handy encyclopaedia). But she whipped out her iPhone and confirmed that Copernicus was indeed born in Prussia, then part of the Kingdom of Poland.
And my big takeaway from that was not "Booya, I'm RIGHT" but "OMG IT'S THE FUTURE."
The absolute non-negotiable indicator of The Future is the flying car. But that ugly contraption is not how I picture it. Therefore, The Future has not yet arrived. For me.