Saturday 1 January 2000

Pic of the day: Screenshot from Civ2, the Mars Now scenarion. As you can see, the terraforming is proceeding on schedule. You know, when I was a kid, I thought perhaps I would have visited Mars sometime around now. Keep dreaming...

When I grew up, in the 60es, the future was Year 2000. In the year 2000, you will
-fly your car to work
-go sightseeing on the moon, perhaps Mars
-have robots doing the housework
-have big flat TV-screens at home
-use picture telephone.

Well, the flying car is (as usual) right around the corner. If you have a few hundred thousand dollar, you may pre-order one. But perhaps you should wait. Perhaps the price will come tumbling down. Or perhaps the car will, as they're still building the first prototype. As usual.

Instead of sightseeing on the moon, the new generation is starting to doubt that there ever was a manned moon landing. The pictures are fake, I hear ... and bad fakes too, with wrong lighting and stuff.

The robots have yet to move out of the factories in any noticeable number. Artificial intelligence is stalling. Try any search engine on the Internet and tell me you would let that kind of artificial intelligence loose on your unsuspecting cupboards.

The TV is slowly, slowly going digital ... but it still looks basically like it did at the end of the 60es. Some more variation, perhaps. Flat screen technology still exists ... I regularly use a flat screen to compose my diary on. But the upcoming merger between TV and wall art has so far been avoided, thank goodness.

The video telephone is also stalling, as is good and proper. We would not want our female friend to wait half an hour or two before answering the phone in the morning, now would we?

On the other hand, mobile phones are everywhere. Except possibly in bed. And there are other things that few if anybody thought of in the 60es. The Internet is winding its way into our lives, even remote farms are connected to the world wide web. (Happy new year, brother!) And three of the computers at work decided it was January 4th, 1980. I know, because I was there.

In the year 2000, you will work on New Years Day.

Then again, it was a beautiful morning. The sky was partly cloudy, and the clear parts of it had that nameless color that skies have as they change from morning to day. Blue, but not just blue. And streamers of fog hung above the river. Near the bridge, our bus momentarily disappeared into the gray with all of its four passengers. But soon the day shone again, and the grass gleamed yellow-green in the sun. Someone must have prayed for mild weather just in case. The electricity works quite fine here, incidentally, as do all other basic services.

I hear that in the USA, IT personnel have to work 12 hours shifts all over the weekend. That bites. On the bright side, they get food. I guess I should have brought with me a couple yoghurts from home. Clear soup is not very filling. Then again, it is probably not very fattening either.

Here's my new year's resolutions for the year 2000:
- Lose fat and gain muscle without eating less or exercizing.
- Find True Love without risking anything.
- Become famous without being criticized.

Still dreaming about striking it lucky? It is never too late! This week, an until now quite non-famous woman here in Norway won a lottery that will give her kr 20 000 ($2500) per month for 15 years. Time to start living life for real! The lucky winner is 91 years old.

Gaah. I just read Nova Notes for Dec 31. Look, I wrote about the flying cars and robots and the moon before I even logged on. I'm not going to rewrite it now. The reason for the suspicious similarity is probably that we both were alive during the 60es. The 1960es, I mean.