Archive - Imperfect Now

Original Introduction

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
- 1943 Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM

In retrospect, Waton’s observation seems silly and uneducated. But the trouble with the future is, it’s just hard to know. We think we might though.

The Futurists of the 1920’s had a grand vision of society and technology best represented to the modern audience in the classic Metropolis. But they were not the first nor were they the last to develop grand ideas of what the future will hold.

At the World’s Fair in 1939/40, the exhibit The World of Tomorrow offered some insights into how the people of pre-war America saw the future. We weren’t there, but we can imagine today they would be impressed.

We think engineers, something we are not, are brilliant individuals. But sometimes, they concentrate on developing science rather than developing technology—the cultural result of melding science with practical applications. Imperfect Now is a blog dedicated to exploring these future technologies, today.

We are not crazed. [Maybe.] Our predictions will mostly be for the short term time frame—18 months to 3 years. Still, we expect to be proven wrong.

Imperfect Now also intends to editorialize the technological revolution we live in. Trends in art, gadgets, and society are all fair game. Imperfect Now will try to avoid politics unless it relates specifically to the development of the future. Our observations will be based on fact, but the end products will venture into the fantastic.

Our goal is to publish on a regular [if infrequent] schedule. We will begin posting our articles every Monday, but promise they will be substantial. If we find the arrangement unsatisfactory, we will move to more frequent intervals.

History is of course the only influence on the future. Our influences are those historical visionaries who developed things like flying cars, nuclear jet planes, and lunar colonies. But we believe as much in art as we do science.

Now may be imperfect, but we’re hoping our future will be.

Editor's Note

I first came across futurism during an art history class at Rutgers College. When my career moved towards design and advertising, I began reading up on product design, layout, and style. The aggregate of art history and sci-fi pop art was the romanticizing of yesterday’s concept of the present.

I think our society may have let down some of the folks hoping for auto-pilot cars and personal helicopters.

That aside, I’ve also always been fascinated with the Popular Science magazines the barber’s shop had in the waiting room. But I’ve never been particularly good at science. The internet has made available to me a vast library of information, primarily from Slashdot.org, on new trends and technologies. Yet, I think we can do better.

I had been thinking of creating a site dedicated to these fantastical technologies for a while now. The blog format I think will lend itself to more frequently publishing than a static site might simply be, and so will encourage my own imagination.

Perhaps if I was a better engineer, I could turn these ideas into money making toys to sell to world. But alas, I can’t. Instead of letting these dreams simply disappear, I am putting them on the internet in hopes of buying them some day soon.

Articles

Give Me My MTV, for A Price
Dial Up Your Toaster
A New Kind of Interior Decoration
Blogs Could Replace Publishers?
The Next Mobile Revolution
Wi-Pods: Future of Music Players
Cities Without Cars
The AOL Box
Desktop Computers, To Go.