Word: controller
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...split dramatically over every item on the agenda: Abortion, gay rights, gun control, hate crime laws, capital punishment, affirmative action, Elian Gonzalez. And so on. Nothing is orthodox or unorthodox anymore. We are all fist-shaking schismatics. Cultural pluralism gets wistful for certitudes. Inside every fox, there's a hedgehog ranting. Let me count some of the ways: Last week, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) demonstrated at the CBS offices in New York. They said they were angry because contestants on the CBS game show "Survivor" were roasting and eating rats. "RATS HAVE RIGHTS," the placards said...
...some point, the armada of devices we strap to our bodies like tools on Batman's belt will coalesce into a smaller number of multifunction devices. Equipped with radio links, a pda can serve as an appliance-control remote, a digital wallet, a cell phone, an identity badge, an e-mail station, a digital book, a pager and perhaps even a digital camera. There is sure to be a catchy name for this all-purpose Internet-enabled thingy, perhaps Wireless Internet Digital Gadget for Electronic Transactions, or WIDGET...
...cheap that we will embed them in the cardboard boxes into which we put other things for storage or shipping. These passive "computers" will be activated as they pass sensors and will be able to both emit and absorb information. Such innovations will facilitate increasingly automatic manufacturing, inventory control, shipping and distribution. Checkout at the grocery store will be fully automatic, as will payment via your digital wallet...
...that today is any slouch: We already have onboard navigation systems and infrared night vision and in-car satellite links and antiskid brakes and other electronic Samaritans poised to take control when we screw up behind the wheel. Jaguar's adaptive cruise control, available today, tracks the speed and position of the car in the lane ahead and automatically adjusts the speed to keep a safe time interval...
...walk in, but was infinitely more graceful. The new shoes look as if they have a Frankenstein life and motion of their own; young women walk in them (ungainly and swaying, waving their arms for balance) the way an inexperienced rider sits an energetic horse that is barely under control. These shoes are a dangerous responsibility. Not much liberation there. In fact, the shoes look like a kind of punitive hobbling - a way to keep the women from running away. Are the platforms related obscurely to Chinese foot-binding...