March 25, 2012

• My (Possibly) Last Word on the Jet Pack Thing

  Maybe its because by day I’m working on historical projects and by night I’m often writing fiction about the future — but I sometimes get fed up when people tell me: 1) That things were much better in the past and/or 2) we didn’t get the future that we were promised in the 1950s and 60s (flying cars, inflatable houses on Mars, atomic powered toasters, personal jet packs and the like). 

  In response to Complaint #1, I will say that there is a great deal of value to be learned from the study of history but the more you study it, the more you realize that life in the past was very, very hard and it is the responsibility of those of us living in the present to do everything we can to make sure that it doesn’t get that hard again.

  As for Complaint #2, let’s briefly review how I spent last week in the 21st Century:

  On Sunday Helen and I went down to the Glenn Gould Theatre at the CBC Broadcast Centre.
   
  The concert we attended was called “Into the West” and it featured a new generation of fantastic classical and jazz musicians doing arrangements from classic Italian westerns.  Amazing stuff  If you see the CD of this, pick it up!

  http://steventsitsos.com/posts/into-the-west/

  I also got to revisit the Broadcast Centre — I did some planning work on this project way back in the 1990s and every time I walk into the main foyer I feel like I’ve just walked onto a set piece from H.G. Wells’ Things to Come.

  

  Not yet convinced we live in a wondrous era?  Okay, let’s skip over to last Wednesday.  I’m coming back from my physiotherapy treatment where they are using portable electrical stimuli and ultrasound to treat my damaged hip — without the need for surgery or medication!  I get on a bio-fueled TTC Viva bus which is also equipped with a hydraulic lift to allow any kind of wheelchair to roll on board in the same amount of time it takes an able bodied person.

  

  It even has a bike rack at the front!

  The barrier free access comes in handy on that particular trip because at  the next stop one of the passengers is indeed a wheelchair user.  And what a wheelchair!

  

  It is electrically powered, can do 360 degree turns and is operated by a joy stick control.  The technology looks more advanced than NASA’s lunar rovers back in the Apollo days.  I wonder if this is an example of what Bucky Fuller was talking about why we need human space flight — to go out there to work out all these technical problems so we can come back and apply them to making life better on Earth.

  Stay there.  I’m not done yet.  I have to transfer to the bus to the subway system.  Now Toronto’s subway system is rather old and it certainly no longer represents the leading edge in comparison to places like Singapore and Shanghai. 

  

  Even so, it’s a very good service that I am very grateful for.  While I believe the immediate future for the City is light rail, our subway system is great and it’s going to be even greater in the coming decades.

  But it’s what I saw inside the subway car that truly amazed me!  People were checking their voice and text messages on smart phones and   they were listening to music or watching videos on media players with more content than my entire LP and VHS collections from the 1980s. 

  
  They were even reading books on eReaders that had memories  greater than the paper holdings of my local public library.  (BTW, the fact that our library workers have been forced out on strike is yet another local scandal that needs to be resolved as soon as possible|!)

  http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1151498–city-of-toronto-union-talks-key-issues-unresolved-inside-workers-say

  The clincher  on the subway was when I saw this person using a musical keyboard ap to play piano music on his tablet computer. 

  

  We couldn’t hear what he was playing because he was being a considerate passenger and using his headphones — but from the speed and and dexterity of his fingers he was obviously and experienced and passionate musician.

  

  So let’s just pause for a second and think about all the communication, entertainment, educational and creative capacity possible in one subway car in Toronto on a March afternoon in 2012.   How do you think it compares to the same capacity to a subway car in 1975?  To a school?  A library?  A university?  A mid-sized city?  People in 1975 were definitely not stupid but people in 2012 are definitely pushing around and taking in a lot more data and ideas.

  And finally…on that same Wednesday in the 21st Century…Helen and I indulged ourselves and went to a second performance in less than one week!  This time we went to the Queensway Cineplex to watch the HD Video performance of last summer’s Stratford production of Twelfth Night. 

  

  It was incredible!  The High Definition video made you feel like you were right there and it’s wonderful that there is now a permanent record of a truly fun and important play.  If a cinema in your town runs this programme go and see it.  It also looks like its coming out on DVD which you can either order or eventually see at your local public library:

  http://store.stratfordfestival.ca/product.php?productid=942

  So jet pack people.  I want to go to Mars too.  Or at least go a suborbital flight on Virgin Galactic.  These may not happen for me.  But I, and I hope you, can appreciate that a lot of the promises for the future that were made to us when we were younger have indeed been delivered.  We are facing some tremendous challenges as we move deeper into this century but we also have some really cool and incredible tools and perspectives to help us successfully meet these challenges — and go beyond!

  

  PS – I drew this picture of a retro-style rocketship using a Wacom Bamboo drawing tablet and Corel illustration software.  It is an original image produced entirely through the medium of my laptop computer and those extensions.  It also would have been impossible for me to do this just ten years ago.

  http://www.wacom.com/en.aspx

  • 12:16 am
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