Humanity has invented a lot of things during its tenure here on Earth. A vast array of tools and techniques, brought into existence by countless thinking men and women. But for all their variety, the vast majority have one thing in common: They seem incredibly obvious.

Take the plow, for example. A simple farming instrument which digs a channel in the ground. Like most good inventions, it solves a problem. People need food. Plants are food, which come from seeds, which grow in the ground. So if you have some seeds and you want to make them grow, you have to put them in the ground. At first you might think to dig a hole with your hands, but it would take forever to plant enough seeds to feed your family that way. If you drag a pointed stone or stick across the ground, you make a really long hole that you can put all of your seeds into. And just like that, you've invented the plow.

But human beings were cultivating food long before the plow came. It can't have been as obvious as I've made it appear here, which is why whenever somebody in our day and age comes up with some brilliant piece of technology, we tend to think that they were pretty damn smart at first, and then we totally forget about them while we get on with using their brilliant new technology. (Ask Philo T. Farnsworth about it sometime.) It is the nature of inventions to be incredibly hard to think up at first, and then seem like the most obvious (or, at least, normal) things in the world afterward.

The fact is, people are thinking up new inventions all the time. But over the last five years or so, we had what has been called, "the technology boom", or, "the telecommunications boom", et cetera. It seems to be tapering off now, as most of the companies poised to usher this new technology into an era of usefulness have gone out of business. But more importantly, the fabulous new things of the late nineties aren't quite so new and fabulous anymore. Back in 1997, it wasn't that hard to find somebody in the media throwing around terms like "future shock". As it turns out, it's really just business as usually.

But we are fortunate, those of us who got the chance to live through it. The last really massive upheaval in public consciousness, (cause by consumer electronics, that is) was back when the first televisions came on the market. A television from the 1960's would look ridiculous sitting next to a brand new Sony plasma flat screen, much as a Commodore 64 looks silly when compared to any of the new, high-end PC's currently on the market. (And it would look even worse if you set it next to a Macintosh -- but merely for aesthetic reasons.)

To all the young folks out there, I propose a bet. US$ 5 says that you'll someday tell your children, "I remember when they didn't even have website addresses on advertisements!"

-B. C. Silvia