I was having a beer with a friend when his cell phone rang. After
reassuring his wife that he was certain to forget to buy milk on the way
home, he hung up, looked at his phone contemplatively and said, "Do you
think that cell phones would look like this if it wasn't for Star Trek?"
Well, actually, no, they wouldn't. Apparently Martin Cooper, the chief
engineer at Motorola who developed the cell phone in 1973, is on record
as stating that Star Trek was his inspiration.
- Sid
And now you see an extension of that cell technology phenomenon. There are numbers of people, with numbers of their own (as in phone, but actually when you think of it not limited to that type of number either), who walk and talk and drive around with these things, like electronic growths, sticking out their ears. I wonder if people have sex wearing the damn things?
ReplyDeleteWhy do they wear these things? Do they do it so that they can always be accessible, always be in touch, a hub of communication, or is it just so that they can have the latest electronic contraption dangling from their lobes? I don't know. All I will say is that I find the trend a little bit alarming.
And I find that the whole thing looks a bit Borg to me, and even at that it still could be considered Trek inspired. Wow.
I wonder when the first phone implant will occur?
Just to interject a note on this mobile cell phone phenomenon, and I don't want to get into a great discussion at this point about the whole thing, but in some ways I see the phone as a 'distancing' tool from physical human interaction. I'll just mention that I have been in situations, like in bars, where everyone around a table is so busy talking on their cell phones that they don't relate to the others seated around them. Ever see that?
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