I dunno. In the early nineties, when Hayes, one of the really big modem companies, damn near went belly up (I can't remember why), I asked a cutting edge networking guy why we didn't have wireless communications yet. He told me it was impossible, and then proceeded to list all the reasons why it would
never be feasible.
You can now buy a web-browsing hand-held computer that you can carry, if not anywhere, than a rather lot of places and pull massive amounts of data onto the teeny screen (by the standards of the early 90's, when a comp-sci major told me that if I wanted unlimited storage for a PC my department was ordering, I needed a one Gigabyte drive [I think, may have been four], because I'd
never fill that sucker up) without really thinking about it and with nary a wire in sight. You don't have to be Lt. Uhura or Spock, either; it's so easy absolute morons can do it.
If that's not gee-whiz enough for you, Carl, you've got higher standards than we'll probably ever live up to. If that's the case, I think you, to satisfy your lust for novelty, may need to be the one who volunteers to get teleported the first time.
The real problem with flying cars is that very few people seriously want them. If they did, we'd have them. Ditto for space exploration. But we love to yak mindlessly, lookit each other's images, and let one another know the instant we get married, get drunk, fall down, or fart, depending on our priorities. Thus, behold the smart cell-phone.
And with farts, I think I've almost got us back to the thread topic (only fair, since I derailed it quoting
"The Electro Gypsy"). How many farts can the QC movie have and remain semi-tasteful, and how many can it
not have and still be QC?
