The future ain't all it was cracked up to be

[larryhammer]

Where's my jetpack?

It's after 2000 CE. We've got the computers small enough to put on a desk -- or in a pants pocket. We've got the electric cars (or did). We've got bionic limbs with neural feedback (or are starting to get there). We've got self-heating food packages. We've got clones and robots and spiders from in space and holograms on your money and big red buttons you shouldn't push. We've got lasers that fit in your pocket -- on your keychain, for criminy's sake.

So where's my damn jetpack already?

---L.

Comments

[borntofr4g.livejournal.com]

James Bond managed to wreck all of them while on assignment.

Q shares your pain.

Also, speaking of spiders...

[borntofr4g.livejournal.com]

(My friends find some odd things. Trust me when I say I wasn't poking around at a website for weed.)

http://cannabis.net/drug-webs.html

I like how with the marijuana one the spider just gives up halfway through. Think he got munchies and ran off?

Re: Also, speaking of spiders...

[larryhammer]

I've seen those before. Am still bemused.

---L.

[sfmarty.livejournal.com]

Under the bed?

[larryhammer]

Nope -- though I did find a stash of the cat's paperclips there. Hmph.

---L.

[casacorona.livejournal.com]

Screw the jet-pack, where's my TransMat?

[larryhammer]

That's for the next fifty years, I thought.

---L.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

beamjockey has it (http://beamjockey.livejournal.com/46260.html?mode=reply).

[larryhammer]

He went to that convention I had no idea of when I posted that, didn't he.

---L.

[jankenstein.livejournal.com]

Ask, and ye shall receive.

http://www.rocketbelt.nl/Rocketbeltconvention2006.htm

(thanks to enrobsoaus)

[larryhammer]

So you're saying jetpacks are literally so day-before-yesterday?

---L.

[jankenstein.livejournal.com]

Not at all....I'm saying Reg and I had a discussion about that very subject several months ago. ;-)

I am a huge fan of retro-futurism and collect concept art books on what peoples visions of the future were going to look like. I loooooooove that kind of stuff.

[larryhammer]

You knew about it several months ago and didn't go?

Just sayin'.

---L.

[jankenstein.livejournal.com]

That whole day job and having money part got in the way.

[larryhammer]

Ah. Those things.

---L.

[jamiam.livejournal.com]

Weirdly, I was actually just having this conversation, too: apparently the army discontinued the program because the range was ridiculously small (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Rocket_Belt). So if you were wanting one to shorten your daily commute, I dunno. I think I'd just get a Prius.

I also heard a rumor that landing the thing could be... problematic.

[larryhammer]

Reality is no excuse for shattered dreams.

(I've always been more worried about burning the backs of my legs.)

---L.

[jamiam.livejournal.com]

The air-traffic control nightmare! The mid-air collisions! Not to mention the ridiculous insurance premiums.

(Yeah, why do burned legs never seem to be a problem, anyway?)

They all use hydrogen peroxide as fuel? You couldn't do better with hydrogen/oxygen?

[larryhammer]

The air traffic control nightmare of everyone's personal helicopters!

I believe H₂ + O₂ isn't as exothermic as H₂O₂ + O₂ -- and how much energy (or energy/mass) you get out is the prime consideration in rocket fuel. Well, along with controllability.

---L.