I feel dumb for not remembering where, exactly, but at least twice in the last week, (I think once was in this month’s Wired) I’ve read articles about individuals making technology predictions. In both instances, the individuals were referred to as futurists.
Well, along about 2 years ago, I was calling what I wanted to be when I grew up a futurist. I wanted to be the one making these spectacular predictions about the future! (And then I wanted to write novels based on those predictions, which I still want to do, but that’s for another blog entry.) The point is, I found a webpage about the futurist movement. When you call someone a futurist, by dictionary definition (one of them) you’re calling them an adherent of that movement. Unless you’re a racist, chances are you do not want to be associated with that movement. I stopped calling myself a futurist.
Consider this a segue. (But not a segway.)
I’ve been reading Steven Johnson’s blog this last week, and he linked to two different future-predicting articles today. Connectland got me all worked up about seamless technology and transparent UI. I’m a sucker for that transparent tech argument. I can’t wait until all that’s left is to think about what I want to do, rather than how I want/have to do it. The other one was Doug Miller’s blog post about his library of the future. It made me want to buy a palm or something, just to read e-books! The point is, I now have two new blogs to read regularly.