One reason I'm a cranky old fart is that I'm now living in the far-off 21st century I used to read science fiction about, and it's not like that. I never wanted air cars, which is the standard example; when I see how skillfully many of my fellow citizens manipulate vehicles in two dimensions, I am grateful that they are not moving around overhead. But we didn't get the good stuff either: the Robot Maid or all those nifty psychoactives Robert Anton Wilson dreamed of.
And computers. Computers were going to be devices from which one could manipulate the material world from a safe distance via words and numbers. But no, my computer is trapped in a network, just as my body is trapped in an environment from which I cannot throw anything away because there is no Away. I am continually faced with large entities asking to enter my computer and, they say, improve it. (Fortunately,
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womzilla understands this stuff and tells me which to accept.)
Today, I was offered an update on Norton* Internet Security, which apparently I do not need. I cannot banish it by clicking the magick X; I can choose only "Do it now" or "Ask me again later." This is not the vision I had.
*Not actually invented by the emperor. I believe it is the work of his evil twin brother, T.S. "Burnt" Norton.
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