The Incredible Pace of Technological Development

A couple of weeks ago, on Thursday the 11th of August, 2011, the American Government test flighted the worlds fastest ever aircraft, the Falcon HTV-2. It is unmanned, can travel 20 times faster than the speed of sound and was built to realise the ambition of being able to strike anywhere in the world within 1 hour. 

Its incredible how few people are aware of it, despite modest articles appearing in our national news. If it were meant to be a secret than we wouldn't have heard about it at all. The truth is that the majority of people simply aren't interested. 

I, on the other hand, find the news utterly compelling and was frustrated to find next to no further material pertaining to the story on the web.

Hello?! 13,000mph? Unmanned??!! Is it just me that finds it amazing that technology has now surpassed many forms of science fiction? And what kind of statement does this make to America's enemies? 

Maybe I'm getting too excited. After all, the vehicle crash landed into the Pacific 35 minutes into its flight, rather like its prototype the year before. There was talk of abandoning the project if this flight didn't work out. But I refuse to believe that this amount of development would be put to waste. Billions of dollars have been pumped into the project.

Many UFO sightings and subsequent speculation about US Military Project Aurora bear more than a passing resemblance to the triangular craft, which for me has echoes of the kid's classic "Flight of the Navigator". Nor would this be the first time that life has been known to imitate art.

I feel that more people should be interested in this. Not necessarily in a positive or in a negative way. But the more we're aware of the rapid pace of technological development, the better equipped we will be when the machines finally take over and guess what? Its already started. In Japan they already have robots replacing human workforces and even ones that have sex!

Yes, I've always been a science fiction fan. My Grandma couldn't see the point in watching what she saw as far fetched rubbish but I never doubted the plausibility of plots like Robocop and Terminator. District 9, amongst other things,shows us heavily armoured battle suits, complete with rocket lauchers and plasma and electro-magnetic weapons. How difficult could it be to create one of these and have someone remote controlling it with a joypad?

Anyway, don't let me get carried away. All I'm saying is; the world is changing fast so try and keep up, ok? Don't say you weren't warned!

Modern Man

I'm sitting at my computer. Its just after 5am. I'm tired but I'm wired and so I've decided to start writing a blog. Hopefully I will distill some meaningful ideas from all of the half baked imagery and frustrated thoughts that crowd my brain and prevent me from turning in.

Living in the city really makes one want to go out into the country and wander in meadows filled with wild flowers and butterflies. Similarly, living in the country makes one yearn for the vibrancy of the city. Coming into a city at night, one is compelled by a multitude of illuminated interiors, a different life around each. From a moving window, one notes the urgency with which people attend their engagements and the efforts they've made. We see concrete rivers and stainless steel steeples and we know that we are in the city.

The city of humans.

I'm smoking a joint out back, looking at a pigeon on the adjacent warehouse, wondering if its a pigeon. Its a wet and cloudy start to the day. A van pulls into the back lane to do a u-turn, and stops to deliver the papers to the newsagent. There's half an inch of water in the ashtray. There must be something wrong with me.