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Mar. 8th, 2005 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plutherus"Any technology distinguishable from magic is not sufficiently advanced."
-Corollary to Clarke's Third Law
In the bathroom, I spray foamy chemicals from a plastic bottle onto the tile and wipe it with a rag. The chemicals, a formula worked out through years of research by a team of engineers at some corporation, do the work. I spray it on dirty bathtub, wait a couple of minutes, wipe it off, killing germs and making everything white and shiny again.
Meanwhile in the kitchen, the dishes, arranged on racks in the washing machine, are becoming clean without me having to lift a finger beyond the effort expended to put them there. Later, when they have finished washing, they will be dried by the same machine and when it's done, I will simply open it up, take them out and place them back in their shelves, ready to be used again.
And in the living room, my little robot is happily running around the carpet, sucking up the dust and dirt, depositing it into a box for me to remove and empty.
Music plays over the sound of the vaccuum, recorded by friends of mine in Portland, and pressed into a small disk of plastic and glass, ready to spring forth and fill my apartment at the touch of a button.
While the air outside drops to near-freezing temperature, I am working in a short-sleeved shirt, kept warm by the same air, warmed and piped into my apartment by pressing another button. Rubber, plastic, and glass, artfully arranged, keep the place free of drafts and keep the warm air in and the cold out.
I can make water flow forth, cold and clear and free of impurities safe enough for drinking, or hot enough for washing, at the turn of a knob.
Sometimes, I just love living in the future.
Though I still can't wait to get back to Eugene.
And speaking of living in the future, I'm heading to Seattle in a few weeks, just for the weekend, but flying back and forth always trips me out. I remember my great-grandmothers diary, and the huge, lifechanging, one-way trip she made from St. Louis to Oregon, and contemplate that I frequently do the same thing twice in a weekend. I hope someday my great-grandson (or great grand-nephew as the case may be) will tell his friends how profound he thinks it is that his great-uncle used to dream of someday making the trip to Mars that he makes every summer to come home from school.
-Corollary to Clarke's Third Law
In the bathroom, I spray foamy chemicals from a plastic bottle onto the tile and wipe it with a rag. The chemicals, a formula worked out through years of research by a team of engineers at some corporation, do the work. I spray it on dirty bathtub, wait a couple of minutes, wipe it off, killing germs and making everything white and shiny again.
Meanwhile in the kitchen, the dishes, arranged on racks in the washing machine, are becoming clean without me having to lift a finger beyond the effort expended to put them there. Later, when they have finished washing, they will be dried by the same machine and when it's done, I will simply open it up, take them out and place them back in their shelves, ready to be used again.
And in the living room, my little robot is happily running around the carpet, sucking up the dust and dirt, depositing it into a box for me to remove and empty.
Music plays over the sound of the vaccuum, recorded by friends of mine in Portland, and pressed into a small disk of plastic and glass, ready to spring forth and fill my apartment at the touch of a button.
While the air outside drops to near-freezing temperature, I am working in a short-sleeved shirt, kept warm by the same air, warmed and piped into my apartment by pressing another button. Rubber, plastic, and glass, artfully arranged, keep the place free of drafts and keep the warm air in and the cold out.
I can make water flow forth, cold and clear and free of impurities safe enough for drinking, or hot enough for washing, at the turn of a knob.
Sometimes, I just love living in the future.
Though I still can't wait to get back to Eugene.
And speaking of living in the future, I'm heading to Seattle in a few weeks, just for the weekend, but flying back and forth always trips me out. I remember my great-grandmothers diary, and the huge, lifechanging, one-way trip she made from St. Louis to Oregon, and contemplate that I frequently do the same thing twice in a weekend. I hope someday my great-grandson (or great grand-nephew as the case may be) will tell his friends how profound he thinks it is that his great-uncle used to dream of someday making the trip to Mars that he makes every summer to come home from school.
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Date: 2005-03-09 03:21 am (UTC)