In the last month both Steve Jobs and Dennis Ritchie died. Is this the end of an era? Does it mean that innovation is dead? I don't think so. Have you seen kids with computers? The other day I watched a girl try over and over again to take a picture with her mother's digital camera. The girl appeared to be less than a year old! Granted she didn't succeed in taking a picture, but that didn't stop her from continuing to try!
According to Ray Kurzweil, "An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense 'intuitive linear' view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate)." He calls this the law of accelerating returns. I'm excited for the future. I just wish somebody would figure out this death thing so I can be around for it! :-)
I drew the picture by the way, which is a self-portrait, on my first Mac in 1984. One of the more amazing things about it is that my husband still had a copy of it in a format that we could still read, and on a medium that we could still read, on our modern-day Macs.
