No, we all live in the present, all the time. 'The future' is just an idea in your mind, a mental projection.
Besides, the future isn't what it use to be;-)
I have this "flying vs driving" debate with my wife all the time. She loves to throw the "...statistically flying is safer than driving" argument in my face, but as previously stated, statistics are aggregates of information, and I'm not an aggregate... I'm one person. At the personal level (where it counts to me) the argument comes down to one of control vs no control. When I step on to a plane I'm handing all control of my personal safety over to a company/people I don't know. I have no idea the mechanical condition of the plane, the capability/experience of the pilots, what weather conditions the airline consider an "acceptable risk", etc. At least in my own car I'm both aware of its mechanical condition and I'm in control, to the best of my abilities, of when and how I get from point A to point B. I can choose to remain focused on the road, aware of the conditions, and not distracted (no, I don't text while driving). I've been in plenty of driving situations where suddenly 'shit happens' (an idiot is heading straight for you trying to pass five cars, a deer jumps out in front of you, etc) and because I was wide awake, focused, and in control I'm still here to write this post. As cool as flying is (and I've flown plenty) I'd rather take my car any day.
I used to work for a large US defense contractor back in the 'bad old days' (ie: the mid 80's), hacking Ada code elbow to elbow (literally) with 50 other software engineers on a VAX system that was design for about 25 users max. We were all crammed into a long hot closet they called the 'terminal room' containing two long rows of cheap folding tables covered with VT100's every three feet. The system was so slow that it couldn't keep up with the slowest typists, esp with everyone attempting to compile their bloated Ada programs. Lags of up to 30 seconds between pressing a key and seeing the screen respond were just considered normal. Management didn't care because our fat government contracts were 'cost plus', meaning they actually made a profit on every engineering dollar they could justify spending. Rather than spending money on new hardware (which would just have been an 'expense') they had us working 80+ hours a week to meet schedules. I've had to deal with plenty of other lousy programming environments since then, but nothing to compare with that one.
Slashdot Mirror
A bit outdated, but I'm sure it could be re-tooled for the modern programmer's desk ;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54g_vxovsjY
... but we all live in the future, all the time.
No, we all live in the present, all the time. 'The future' is just an idea in your mind, a mental projection. Besides, the future isn't what it use to be ;-)
I have this "flying vs driving" debate with my wife all the time. She loves to throw the "...statistically flying is safer than driving" argument in my face, but as previously stated, statistics are aggregates of information, and I'm not an aggregate ... I'm one person. At the personal level (where it counts to me) the argument comes down to one of control vs no control. When I step on to a plane I'm handing all control of my personal safety over to a company/people I don't know. I have no idea the mechanical condition of the plane, the capability/experience of the pilots, what weather conditions the airline consider an "acceptable risk", etc. At least in my own car I'm both aware of its mechanical condition and I'm in control, to the best of my abilities, of when and how I get from point A to point B. I can choose to remain focused on the road, aware of the conditions, and not distracted (no, I don't text while driving). I've been in plenty of driving situations where suddenly 'shit happens' (an idiot is heading straight for you trying to pass five cars, a deer jumps out in front of you, etc) and because I was wide awake, focused, and in control I'm still here to write this post. As cool as flying is (and I've flown plenty) I'd rather take my car any day.
I used to work for a large US defense contractor back in the 'bad old days' (ie: the mid 80's), hacking Ada code elbow to elbow (literally) with 50 other software engineers on a VAX system that was design for about 25 users max. We were all crammed into a long hot closet they called the 'terminal room' containing two long rows of cheap folding tables covered with VT100's every three feet. The system was so slow that it couldn't keep up with the slowest typists, esp with everyone attempting to compile their bloated Ada programs. Lags of up to 30 seconds between pressing a key and seeing the screen respond were just considered normal. Management didn't care because our fat government contracts were 'cost plus', meaning they actually made a profit on every engineering dollar they could justify spending. Rather than spending money on new hardware (which would just have been an 'expense') they had us working 80+ hours a week to meet schedules. I've had to deal with plenty of other lousy programming environments since then, but nothing to compare with that one.