Beginning a new year in an upward beat

Forward

And here I sit, several months after deciding that I would update at least onece a week, perhaps on a Thursday...

It has occured to me that the purpose of a blog is to post subjects of interest to at least one other person besides the author (and my last post perhaps did not fit the bill).  I intend to do better in the future, and baring the occasional hiatus caused by vacation or research, hope to continue updating this weblog of eccentric curiosity.

Afterward

'I have seen the future and it is us.'  Is that really such a horrible misquote?

There are moments I find myself wondering at what we are doing and/or take for granted as normal.  When I was little, cell phones weighed as much -and were the same size as -camcorders, and the phone-of-the-future used video and would be the size of a breifcase.

Right now, I am sitting in a cafe and typing up a review of material from the "12th IEEE International Conference on Mobile Data Management" concerning crowdsourcing scientific data.  There is a woman behind me using a laptop to speak with someone (with video) about medical treatments, and on my other side are a group of students (and laptops) studying computer animation and literature.   ...And this is normal.

Actually, it's old hat.  Some of the research I'm reading is about to be normal.  It will be interesting to see how the future turns out... and how we make use of this stuff in the future.  Just keep in mind that the future is the present, just a little bit later than now.

Tioraidh an'drasta!