What is "My Two Bits?"

My Two Bits is the official editorial page for the editor of Techtite.com. Techtite will accept reader submissions, for reviews as well as any editorials deemed well written and pertinent to this web site's audience.

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---DEATH to pop-up window commercials!

---Off the "Daily Radar"...

---PG-13: An Asset, or a Curse?

---Sept. 11, 2001...

---Down with pop- ups: THE SEQUEL!

---Movies "Based on a Video Game"? YOU WISH!

---25 Years, and STILL no Light Saber!

---Why "Ludicrous Gibs is cool, and "Suggestive themes" is banned...

---Star Wars: It's All The Same To Me...

---Bulletin Bored.

---Is it Ever TIME for Matrix Spoilers?

---No Fate But What We Make...PERIOD.

---Mac Attacked.

---Screening the Screener Ban.

---Robin Williams, Multiplayer, and You

---Is Chrissy Snow in Charge of Disney...?

more>>>>>

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My Two Bits for January, 2004 is titled :

Where Are My Flying Cars...?

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With each new year, I'm often thinking about new technology these days, or the near lack thereof. Not that there isn't any of it; just not as much as someone would think, this being a "new millennium" and all. There is a whole lot of buzz online, about the upcoming "Playstation Portable" (a.k.a. the PSP), though little is known about that. The only think for sure (it's not slated until holiday season 2004) is that it's a portable game system, using little mini-discs (a CD-quality game on the go...? Cool!). It matters little because the official specs aren't out yet, or at least not publicly.

Why is this the only new technology worth talking about, four years into the new millennium...? I'm reminded of a commercial some years back, starring Avery Brooks from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where he laments, "It's the new millennium. Where are my flying cars? I was promised flying cars!" The commercial concluded with some hogwash implying that we don't need flying cars as long as we have [product name here]. I can't even remember what product he was selling; a good reason why this commercial is no longer on the air don't you think?

However, natty commercialism notwithstanding, the question has merit: where are our flying cars? It doesn't even have to be a car; a "speeder bike," a la Return of the Jedi, would suffice. It seems logical, actually, that the first automotive device to defy gravity would be a bike, since it'd take less power to make a bike float in mid-air than a car. That makes perfect sense, right?

Now, the diehard car lover may ask --and rightfully so-- "Why do we need flying cars?" Anyone who's in Northeast America this winter, however, doesn't have to ask! No sooner does some news byte bring up "global warming" each summer, when we go through another record snowfall come winter. Shovel the driveway in the morning, only to look out the window four hours later, and see it's just as bad as it was before you shoveled it. Flying cars means no more shoveling, because, hey; no tires! Sure some people would still want to go out in the snow in their spaceman-sized boots and waddle their way through shoveling their driveway until it's spotless. Let them. I'd just as soon jump into my flying car and zip along without a driveway-shoveling care in the world, thank you very much.

Ironically, my head isn't in the clouds as much as you may think. I'm not talking about "flying cars" as in flying around in small planes that can go to Paris and Rome overnight. I'm simply talking about a car that floats roughly a foot and a half in mid-air; that's all. Think of what that simple 18 inches would mean. We'd still be far below any telephone lines, yet well above any crack, pothole, or unplowed road below us. No more flat tires! No more skidding in wet roads! No more bumpy roads! No more pothole worries! Not even roadkill would be a worry anymore...unless, perhaps, you have a "flying squirrel" story I'd love to hear about.

Given such a boon to our automotive way of live: where are all the flying cars...?!? Conspiracy theorists would tell you this is because the oil barons still need their oil, and ergo, we still need to drive the same oil-guzzling automotive clichés driven by our great-grand-pappies...that is, until there's no oil left. I am not such a conspiracy theorist, myself, though I will say this much: what happens when all the oil is gone? Imagine this world if it does not make some smart innovations prior to its oil reserves finally, inevitably, going dry. There will indeed come a time --maybe not tomorrow, next year, or even next decade, but still, much sooner than you think-- when we will have run out of all oil to dig for. Oil was created after millions of years, and as such, is quite finite: even more so, when some estimates say that in America alone, we guzzle over 350 gallons of gasoline per day. After such oil is gone...what? Will we go back to riding horse-driven wagons, or better yet, will someone with a brain larger than a tic-tac make, say...a flying car? Please...?

I don't know. Maybe it's just the season. It's January, I've had to shovel the driveway again when I just did so the day before, and I'm wondering how cool it would be to have a car that didn't need a shoveled driveway at all. It's a pipe dream by modern standards, I know, though think of all the innovations made in the past 30 years alone, albeit very slowly; personal computers, compact discs, DVDs, and so on. A flying car is hardly infeasible. It just isn't likely to happen anytime soon. Maybe someday, a major car manufacturer will have to shovel a really large driveway, and with necessity being the mother of invention, we'll finally get our flying car. Unfortunately, that day isn't now...and it's time to shovel the driveway again. Didn't I just do that...?

As Always: I'm Techtite, and these are My Two Bits...