2001

As noted below, I've been reading Arthur C. Clarke's masterful 2001: A Space Odyssey. All I can say is Clarke's reputation is well deserved and his work is making me reconsider the way I approach my job.

One of the things I had forgotten in the last 15 years, was how futuristic 2001 seemed. Clarke put the year on the map, so to speak and in the 70's, 80's and 90's, 2001 the year, not the movie, was synonymous with technological progress and futurism.

By the time we got to 2001 life was a lot better than say, 1951. The space race had stopped. We had no bases on the moon or space stations, but one could see tech everywhere. The internet, flat screen TVs, Ipods, these were the first truly futuristic technological advances, at least for people my age who grew up watching the Jetsons.

So 2001 was a marker in the future.

September 11th changed all that.

Personally when I think of 2001 I recall a hot summer in and later cold autumn in an isolated farm house in NJ.

Thinking back now, I recall dial up modems, an internet where social networking didn't exists and blogs were still in the underground. Rather than futuristic, 2001 seems stuck in the 1990's.

Mostly, its a year stolen from us from Islamic terrorism.

Arthur C. Clarke's 2001, 2001 was not.