If We Need SF, What’s The Best Form?

Back on April 26th I did a post on how there’s a kind of SF Gap. My theory can be roughly summarized as:

  1. A lot of our SF dreams and ideas have come true (often in consumer electronics).
  2. It’s all pretty standard.
  3. SF looks a lot alike – or in some cases is so way out it doesn’t give us something to reach for.
  4. We therefore lack the inspiration to create new technologies.

Well you can guess that got people talking at the original article, and fellow writer Serdar had his unique insights on a larger “personal gap” and on technology and deception that are well worth reading – and joining in on the conversation.

Clearly I touched a nerve. OK, nerves for me, Serdar, and some regulars, but that’s still some important nerves that my grubby literary fingers prodded. In fact, Serdar’s feedback got me thinking . . .

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Now This is How You Teach TCP/IP Headers

Use legos.

Yes, this person figured out a way to use legos to represent header files and make them easier to understand.  If you don’t know what a header file is . . . well then you probably don’t care.  If you do care, this is a great instructional tool to explain IT issues to people . . .

Thanks to Boing Boing.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

The Great Science Fiction Gap?

I was talking with a friend who’s a fellow Silicon Valley resident and professional about the various devices and gizmos we’d seen – and that frankly we weren’t sure about what the holidays would bring. Nothing enthused me, the gaming platforms seemed to be headed for weirdness and overstepping. Nothing seemed, well interesting. Or new.  Or meeting a need.

This quickly led to discussions about innovation, where we needed to innovate, and why we innovated. This in turn led to science fiction.

A realization settled: we’re living in the technical worlds that we saw created in the 80’s and 90’s.

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