I'm a little behind in my posting lately, but that shouldn't matter because what is happening in the world these days is so positively post-now that it'll probably never go out of style. It seems that a group of hackers in Italy have managed to mess with those in-car navigation systems. In my personal life, I couldn't really care less about this because I don't have a car and (unless someone wants to buy the BlogCampaigning domain name for a lot of cash) I don't forsee myself buying one soon. However, I can see the cause for concern. Immediately, security experts will probably point out that this will make it easier to send an important vehicle (say, the limousine for a head-of-state or an armored car) down a different path, and directly into an elaborate ambush. As much as I would love to plan an ambush like that (planning ANY ambush involving an armored car would be pretty sweet), this technology has way bigger implications for the average consumer. I envision one gas station jamming a car-navigation signal in order to lead drivers away from a rival station. Ditto for restaurants, or even shopping malls. Forget saying that there is trouble down on road, this kind of tech can probably just erase roads. Considering that the majority of the population probably spends more time looking at the screen than the road, they won't even notice and will instead just cruise over to wherever the little machine tells them.
Also in the news this past week or so is a story (via Slashdot) about rival botnet gangs brawling it out for cyber supremacy. I don't know exactly what that entails, but I would imagine that, despite the medium, it gets pretty personal. I would love to hear more details about this whole thing, right down to the average day in the life of a soldier in the botnet mafia.
I still feel like there is money to made in spam, and I'm sure that botnet crime bosses have it good. I know people would hate me, but I could probably just live somewhere awesome and surf my life away on spam money. Sweet, sweet spam cash.
Lastly, I don't even know what this means, but it sounds awesome. Experimental memory created by nanosecond pulses of electric current pushing magnetic regions along a wire? There is nothing that doesn't sound cool about that. (Thanks again, Slashdot)
My friends and I refer to things like the above stories as post-now, where something currently happening in the world resembles a science-fiction film or novel. We also describe the inverse as post-now, where something in a piece of sci-fi resembles modern society, or is at least a few years of easy extrapolation from the current situation. Think Bladerunner, Minority Report, that sort of shit. I'm still working out the details of post-now theory and how it differs from post-modernism, but its going to be hot, so watch out. Oh, and reading Paleo-Future pretty much gives me post-now willies.
I wonder how ol' Billy G feels about all this?
-Parker