Some Words

The other day there was a NY Times article about novelists predicting the future. Now, on a long enough time scale, that’s going to happen with fiction. Of course the NYTimes article don’t talk about how Asimov had sentient androids with “positronic brains” wandering around the same world where people still used slide rules for calculation. That sort of missed prediction just gets swept under the carpet, despite the fact that people have long looked to Asimov for ideas on the kinds of tech they should try to invent. On some level, there is predictive power in science fiction, because if it’s possible, compelling, and grabs the mind of someone at a young enough age, they will grow up to try to invent it. The possible becomes the real. And IO9 had a nice little takedown of the article, much needed. So it was with a sense of self amusement that I notice today, while looking for oxygen bleach, that Target sells compressed scented air. Oh my God! Spaceballs predicted the future!