Further to Mr. Stross’ point about the future collapsing wave-like into the present, this evening I used Google Video Chat to talk to Boston for free, at which point my interlocutor said, slowly drawing his spoon free of his mouth, “You know, every day, we’re waking up in the world we read about in books as children.”
“That’s true, we are.”
“I want to cover this wall in screens. I want to talk to everyone in those screens.”
“Like The Family,” I said, referencing Bradbury.
“I mean, I carry my life with me in this little piece of metal. Everything’s there.”
“Hey, at least you haven’t implanted something that’s bound to leak out inside you,” I said, referencing Gibson.
“…That’s what she said.”
(This is exactly why we’re friends. That right there. Well, that, and a bunch of other things. But you get the gist.)
But it does make me think — depending on how many little windows there are, I could organize dinner parties across time zones. I could have my boys with me again, from Seattle to New York and all points in between. The interface is that simple. My camera and mic are that good. I’d just have to make sure that my meal was relatively un-messy, so as to avoid strategically-crippling spills. The more I think about this, the more desperately I want it, especially as American Thanksgiving draws near.
Where was this feature on election night?