I was always a big fan of the Jetsons as a kid. I loved to see the new technology that they imagined. It was always fun looking to the future and imagining what our life would be like. Looking back, it's funny that it seems science fiction never really imagined the cell phone.Technology always made the Jetsons lives better. Arguably, perhaps "too better". Since it is, of course, only a cartoon, everyone always looks happy and healthy. The reality is that people of that world, or at least those in the US of that time, would probably be like those people floating in the chairs in Wall-E.
I'm a fan of technology that makes our lives better. I know that there are some scary things about technology as well. Facebook knows a great deal of personal information about us. (Never mind that we willingly volunteered that information). The big Google "boogey man" knows what city I live in and what web sites I might go to. (I'm comforted by the fact that I'm not so interesting that anyone gives a rip about what I do). Robots are being developed to mimic natural behavior, like the BigDog Beta. SkyNet is a near reality, as evidenced by these freaky things that are completely autonomous.
But there are some technological that make our lives better. The internet, for one. Believing that it doesn't is like "guns kill people" and "credit cards get you into trouble". It's people that make the bad decisions, and we always have. (Of course, those with that belief are probably not online reading this anyway). Cell phones have become an integral part of everyone's ensemble. Yes, they can be a distraction but again, it's all in how you use it. BluRay and HD TV makes us wonder how we did so long without them. Watching 2001 on Blu-Ray and having the surround sound shake my windows during "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" is probably the closest I'll ever get to experiencing seeing that movie for the first time. And, most especially, Single Cup Coffee Makers. These things are amazing. I have a Keurig and there are many others like Tassimo and many of the major appliance makers have their versions of those.
I love the concept. You simply place a single serve cup in the machine, push a button, and viola, hot coffee. Just like on the Jetsons. I like coffee, but I don't need a lot. I drink a cup and it's usually on my way out the door. I usually only drink a cup in a day. My wife doesn't like coffee. With the Keurig, we don't have to make a full pot. Every morning it turns on automatically, I push a button, and we're in business. My wife occasionally drinks a cup of tea and she doesn't have to boil whole pot. Nor does she have to wait for water to boil since it brews in a couple of minutes.
This concept has now been taken to a whole new level. It now goes to 11! My single cup coffee maker now makes single serve sweet iced tea. This is earth shattering for me. I may only drink a cup of coffee in a day, but I drink a lot of iced tea. Sweet tea, at that. And I try to be pure about it by sweetening my tea with all natural evaporated cane juice rather than artificial sweeteners. I thought that I would be severely disappointed with the K-Cup sweet tea. Surely it's high-fructose corn syrup, saccharin, or some other cancer-causing-terrible-for-you chemical. It's bad enough I'm consuming all of that caffeine, I don't need to add to it. To my elation, Celestial Seasonings Southern Sweet Perfect Iced Tea is sweetened with evaporated cane juice and stevia.
This truly is technology that makes our lives better. Or, it makes mine better anyway. Now, we're not quite to the level of Capt. Picard just stating "Earl Grey, hot!" and out slides a hot cuppa tea. However, considering I can talk to my phone and tell it to get me "un-lost" or find a dry cleaners we can't be that far off. And to you my new friend Celestial Seasonings Southern Sweet Perfect Iced Tea, I can only say "Eep Opp Ork Ah-ah"!
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