Saturday, October 15, 2011

Not the end of an era


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.

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