Word: invention
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...wonder that as I became middle-aged, I decided to write an historical novel. And then, by plunging deeply into research for a couple of years in order to invent my fictional version of 1848 - the year Heyday begins - I became even more attuned to the arcs and patterns of history. Indeed, I became hopelessly addicted to the Long View. Last fall, as Wall Street crashed and a very grim New York City future looked very plausible, my historian's tic kicked in again. In my New York magazine column I compulsively imagined the present from the future...
...There's one way to get back into the game: invent new rules. That's just what Fujifilm plans to do later this year when it unveils the world's first 3-D digital camera for consumers. The company hopes that its groundbreaking new gadget - tentatively named the FinePix Real 3D System - will allow it to leapfrog the competition by bringing 3-D capabilities to the masses, at the same time putting a little buzz back into the business of taking snapshots. (See the best inventions...
...that's the moonwalk. It's actually a very simple dance - and one Jackson didn't invent out of thin air. Its origins can be traced back to French mime Marcel Marceau's "Walking Against the Wind" trick, in which he pretended to be pushed backward by an imaginary gust of wind...
...come to invent the flash mob? I sent an e-mail out to about 60 people that said, "You have been invited to join the Mob Project. It gathers an inexplicable mob of people in New York City for 10 minutes or less." There was a Frequently Asked Questions section that consisted of one question, which was, "Q: Why would I want to join an inexplicable mob?" The answer was, "Tons of people are doing it." It was a wink at conformity and herd mentality. I didn't expect people to adopt the idea in other cities. Literally within weeks...
...builds, and ordinary users are figuring out all the ingenious ways to put these tools to use. There's a kind of resilience here that is worth savoring. The weather reports keep announcing that the sky is falling, but here we are - millions of us - sitting around trying to invent new ways to talk to one another...