[image error] Every once in a while, someone gives you something that completely changes your view on the world. Sometimes it's advice, sometimes it is a story, sometimes it is the severed head of a loved one. In my case, it was an actual item, an iThing, an iPad. First let me clarify that Steve Jobs is not paying me any money for this blog post. Mainly because he is dead, and it is against my personal code to accept money from zombies. 
However, when I got a new iPad for myself I really did notice how clear the picture was. With all the applications zipping about, doing their thing, showing me different worlds and images, it really felt like a window into anther world. Luckily I realised how stupid this was before I tried to stick my hand through it and say hello to whatever beings were living on the other side. I can really see how it will help me with writing though. I can easily take it anywhere to work and write stories as well as research, keep notes and promote the final piece.
Another part of me couldn't help thinking it was all very Star Trek. I watchedThe Next Generation iteration of that franchise more than anything else and the equivalents of the mini-skirted girls who handed Kirk a clipboard to sign (probably sanctioning some emergency birth control from last night's roll in the space hay) had tablet devices. Here I was with one, and despite the fact it wasn't connected to a super computer that could manage and maintain a whole starship floating through the galaxy dispensing federation justice to space evils (which are like space weevils but less tasty), they just had their own power. Still I can do practically anything as long as someone else makes an app for it. I was Star Trekkin'. Yeah! This would have impressed me much more over a decade ago when I still had faith in the franchise, but still - it's cool.
In an interview about science and the same TV show , I remember someone saying that Science fiction really is pushing forward the boundaries of real science. Here is the proof. Anything science fiction writers imagine, people go out and try to make it happen - apart from the destroying the universe stuff, as far as I know. And, it happens a lot faster. Trekkie stars didn't get their tablets until 2400 or something and here we are at the start of the 21st century already. So how are far away is warp drive?
The point to take away from this is that what YOU imagine other people will make happen. So let's write some damn good stories and shape the world or some such motivational bollocks.