(It’s The Eighties So Where’s Our) Rocket Packs is the title of a song on Daniel Amos’ Vox Humana
Terry Taylor originally considered titling the album, Vox Robotica
Vox Humana is Latin for “Human Voice”

It’s ironic that with all the advances in automotive technology, thanks to traffic it probably takes me longer to get to work now than it did ten years ago. I love watching the old science fiction movies and see what life in the 21st Century was “supposed to be like.” Sometime about now, we are supposed to be flying to other planets, traveling from place to place in our flying cars, or merely disappearing and reappearing where we want to go. Alas, I still sit at that red light at the intersection of Powder Springs Road and Cheatham Hill Rd every morning and wonder when my flying car is going to arrive.

I jumped on the internet train in 1993 and since then I’ve seen some incredible advances in technology since then. From starting with 2400 baud modems, I communicated over e-mails on text screens, then onto USENET message boards. Next it was instant messenger on Ethernet connections. Now, it’s the World Wide Web and message boards on wireless connection. It’s all pretty amazing. However, one thing that hasn’t changed over the technological advances is how horrid people can treat each other when they can be anonymous or even semi-anonymous and hide behind a computer screen. Despite all the great achievements, the Internet has also introduced invasive spam and viruses, and has made pornography easier than ever to access. All these great steps forward and this is what we have to show for it?

I don’t know, I’m a big fan of technology, I work in a technological field and I love gadgets. I’ve got tons of ’em. However, I can’t bring myself to any of these beliefs that technology is somehow going to make our society better. I have cell phones so I can be available at any time, but I don’t call anyone any more often. I have a PDA to schedule my life and store contact addresses, but it doesn’t help me remember my appointments any better or encourage me to contact friends more often. Something tells me it’s going to take a whole lot more than the little widgets that we create to change people’s hearts and effect real change in each others’ lives.

…but that doesn’t mean we can’t use technology help get it done.