Science Fiction

  A friend pointed me to a blog post :"Science fiction is a rip off. I want the future I was promised, dammit! Where are the jet packs and teleportation devices?" The post doesn't have anything particularly original, profound, or clever, but it's a complaint I hear every now and again. "It's the 21st century now, so where's all the cool stuff?"
  We launch stuff into orbit so routinely that nobody notices. The Navy is testing battle lasers. Cellphones look like Star Trek communicators but do much more than the show's writers ever imagined. We have discovered planets around other stars. Anyone with a computer and a network connection can video chat with someone on the other side of the world. We're creating nano-machines and genetically modified organisms. Direct neural interface devices are being developed to restore sight to the blind. We have this thing called the Internet. And on and on. The future is all around you!