Tag: technology

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Oh, THERE’S My Flying Car

When the pandemic first hit, many people joked that we had become the Jetsons. After all, many of us work over monitors. We’ve got wristwatch computers and flat-screen TVs. We even have electronic assistants and housecleaners, even if they’re named Alexa and Roomba rather than Rosie.

But there was always one big exception. One that rose to the level of a meme.

“Where’s my flying car?”

Well, the favorite sci-fi staple may finally be waiting in the wings (er, so to speak). The Associated Press recently reported that the Alef Aeronautics Model A has received its airworthiness certification from the Federal Aviation Administration. Ironically enough, it’s still waiting for its highway certification, but if that goes ahead, the Model A could hit the market in 2025.

Er … yay?

I’m a sci-fi geek. (I know, you’re shocked.) So part of me does find it cool. But I’m also a long time Front Range resident. And so, I have to ask the obvious question.

“Flying cars? Have you seen the way people drive when they’re on the ground?”

OK, curmudgeon moment over for now. But it brings up a couple of useful reminders.

The first is that, even with the most amazing technologies, there are always tradeoffs. The automobile came as a godsend to many large cities, where horse manure had become a serious public health hazard. (New York City alone had to deal with 100,000 tons per year at one point in the 1880s.) Nobody had yet anticipated that we’d also have to deal with carbon emissions, drive-throughs on every corner, and people who head for the grocery store at 70 mph with no turn signals.

But in a way, that’s the easy one. We make changes constantly in our world and we’ll make more. And while we regularly create problems, we also create possibilities. If we can see what needs doing, and we’re willing to seek a solution, we’ve got a chance.

But that brings up the bigger challenge: us.

To put it simply: technology can change rapidly. Human nature doesn’t change much at all.

Go back to ancient Rome and you’ll find parents complaining about how their kids have lost all respect for authority. (And probably kids complaining about how their parents are out of touch.)  Step back even a century or two, and you’ll see people saying how morality is doomed because of the movies … or the waltz … or novels. And of course, we’ve all heard how customer complaints for bad service go back to the Bronze Age.

We still hope, worry, fear and wonder. We’re still capable of the most amazing bursts of creativity and the most idiotic bursts of stupidity imaginable. The tools can enhance that, but they don’t replace it. Even recent developments in AI are still set against a context of our wants, our anxieties, our priorities and our deep-seated need to see what Bart Simpson would have looked like in Shakespearean times.

That means we have choices to make. We always have. If we ignore everything except our own wants, needs and impulses, no tool ever invented will make things better. But if we reach to our neighbors with open hearts, if we let ourselves actually see the world instead of just the parts we like … well. That’s when we and our tools can work from the best of us.

It just takes a willingness to look to the horizon.

And while you’re looking, watch out for that Model A in the wrong lane.

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Words to the Wise

The seeker of truth gasped as he reached the summit. The all-seeing oracle stood before him, its single green eye piercing the mysteries of the universe. Surely, understanding was at hand.

“Oh, great one,” the acolyte proclaimed, “share your wisdom with this unworthy pilgrim, that even the smallest crumbs of enlightenment may illuminate his way.”

And lo, the oracle did consider, and the eye did peer, and in what seemed mere moments the deathless words appeared.

“ON A SATURDAY MORNING,” the voice chanted, “WHATEVER YOU MIGHT HAVE FELT CANNOT BE UNFELT.”

Um. Yeah.

No, I haven’t turned my talents toward writing purple-prose fantasy novels, or inspiring the next great cult movement. (Between the Denver Broncos and “Hamilton,” all the good fanatics have been skimmed off, anyway.) Instead, I’ve been quietly amusing myself with one of the Internet’s more curious toys, the “Inspirobot.”

This has actually been around for a couple of years at inspirobot.me, but it’s only in recent months that it’s attracted mass attention. Essentially, it’s an instant “inspirational poster” generator, designed to pull up an enlightening backdrop and randomly generated timeless wisdom.

Trust me. Deepak Chopra this ain’t. So far, the words for the ages have included gems such as:

  • “A dream and a suit kills.”
  • “Quit being.”
  • “What seems cool to musicians, seems uncool to the person behind the mask.”
  • “Prepare for ambition. Not imprisonment.”

It kind of makes the magic 8-ball seem deep and profound, doesn’t it?

Once in a while, it’ll actually hit something kind of … well, understandable, if not actually deep. Things like “Be happy, or forget it.”  Or “Don’t be kind. Be extremely kind.” Or my personal favorite, which cannot be run in its entirety in a family newspaper, “Sometimes one needs to call a s***show a s***show.”

Simultaneously, I find this comforting, and frightening, and maybe even a cause for hope.

The comforting part is simple. Our computers, which have mastered chess, triumphed at go, and embarrassed the greatest Jeopardy masters in history, still create hilariously bad fortune-cookie aphorisms. So there’s still one post-journalism job market left open for now.

The frightening part is how easy it is to distill meaning from even the most awkwardly constructed phrases. ( I’m still waiting for a philosophical movement to begin around “Liars find meaning in grown men” or “A glass of wine beats levitation.”) Many people do it every day with their favored politicians, personalities, and public figures, reinterpreting their words and actions to fit a comfortable world view. Once again, it’s all too easy to invoke the Paul Simon rule: “Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”

And the cause for hope? However badly we may strain the search for meaning, we are still searching for it. We want things to make sense, even if we don’t always go about it in the right way or look in the right places. That’s at least the first step toward building something.

Of course, it still helps to have good material. And that’s why I’ve started to step away from the oracle of the Inspirobot and toward the Way of Gil. My six-year-old nephew has begun writing down his own dictates for life, and I rather like the direction:

“Good sport when you win but be nice.”

“Think, get so you know and reber (remember) so you get a A+.”

“Have fun, don’t play too ruff. But have fun!”

Mister Gil, the mountaintop awaits.

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The Kitchen-Table Journalist

I think I’m becoming a rumor.

That’s usually my wife’s job. When we lived in Kansas, Heather got out of the house so rarely that she said people would decide I was making her up – or that I had quietly buried her in the backyard, between the rosebush and the rabbit warren.

Now it’s my turn.

It’s been the same cause both times: Heather’s chronic health issues. Sometimes she hurts so intensely that she needs me close by for even basic things. Sometimes Missy has a cold or something else that keeps her out of her day program, and Heather lacks the strength to deal with her by herself for a long period of time.

Either way, it means it’s once again to discover those three prominent words of the modern workplace: “Work From Home.” Sometimes for days at a time.

I’m lucky. I know that. Between cell phones and the Internet, being a home-based reporter is easier than it’s ever been.  And I’ve got a lot of company. According to the Census Bureau, almost 10 percent of Americans work at home at least one day a week; almost 4.5 percent work the majority of their week that way.

If the scholars are right, it’s even good for me. One study out of Stanford of a Chinese travel agency found that telecommuters were more productive, were sick less often and had less turnover. The main drawback was they also got promoted less often.

I can believe the productivity gains. When your desk is the kitchen table, you feel a pressure to justify every minute, to make sure your boss knows that you’re not just curled up with a soap opera and a can of Coke. And since you’re in familiar surroundings, able to attend to domestic needs as they occur, that surely doesn’t hurt.

But there’s a less obvious downside, too. When you work from home, it gets increasingly difficult to tell which one is which.

I’m sure most of you know what I’m talking about. Ideally, home’s supposed to be the place where you get away from work, where the problems of projects, deadlines and office drama can be replaced with the problems of chores, bills and family drama. And among all that, it’s the chance to recharge, to be with the people you’re doing it all for, to get back in touch with the world of pets, paints and bedtime stories.

But when the workplace becomes the homeplace, the boundaries disappear. The outside stress comes in, by invitation. And you begin to understand what the Flash felt like as you dash between the roles of employee, spouse, parent and sickroom attendant. Often at the same time.

Put it this way. Human cloning can’t come fast enough.

Don’t get me wrong. Telecommuting is convenient and I wouldn’t turn it down for the world. But it’s also exhausting. Work from home is no disguised vacation day. Sometimes it even makes you long for the comparative sanity of the office, where you’re only one thing to one person.

And yet, even as it creates a strange marriage of two worlds, it also makes it possible to keep those worlds going.

When I first started out, at The Garden City Telegram, I had a similar stretch of time where Heather’s needs would often call me home. Back then, my answer was to work an unholy number of hours when I was at the newsroom, to trade off against the times I wasn’t there.

This is better. Not perfect, but better.

And better still will be the day when my worlds no longer need to collide. When Heather is again well enough to throw me out of the house. When my co-workers can stop listing my appearances with those of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster and my boss can actually see me in the flesh.

I wonder if I’ll need a name tag?