The Future is Where? ( or I Believe I Was Promised a Flying Car)

Right around the wrapping of every year, I sit in quiet reflection of the past year and of the coming year. I consider where I personally feel my strengths and weakness have been, what I want to occur and what I would like to do in the year to come. And with fair consistency, I find I come back to one small burning ember that begins to rage deeply inside me until it consumes my very existence.

Where is my crazy flying future-car?

My, that's nice. Does it fly?

The year 2010 is nearly over, ushering in the another year along with a noticeable lack of flying cars and moving sidewalks in the sky hung over cities constructed of floating arcologies. Another year goes by without robot butlers in every home [ link ], without food pills or matter replicators.
And not a personal jetpack in sight.

Oh sure, we have nearly instantaneous global communication, including the ability to send and receive live video and audio to anywhere in the world. Computing has shrunk from massively sized hulking monstrosities requiring entire buildings to be housed to being able to be lost in the crack between your drivers seat and passenger seat. Hell, we're even getting close to having near-fully functional robotic limbs for those that have lost their originals. [ link ] But we still don't have flying cars. If we, as a race, make a sentient cyborg before we make a viable flying car, I'm going to be pissed.

This would look awesome parked in your driveway. Or rather flyway.

Now I know it's nobody's fault that the flying car is so delayed into our "Tomorrow of Yesterday". It's seriously difficult to make a flying car move in a safe manner, let along be reliable enough to be used by every Tomas, Richard and Henrietta. Only one company so far seems to be ready to put a model in the market for 2011, the Transition by Terrafugia. [ link ] It kinda looks like a cross between a Cessna and Herbie the Love Bug, but I guess it's all the flying car I'm going to get for now. However, the pictures on Terrafugia's website of the Transition in flight sure do look like they're computer-generated. (CGI: another awesome future innovation that isn't a flying car.)

This is the least fake looking shot. Flight!

In conclusion, while I know I'm not the only one who's got his proverbial panties in a twistie about the lack of flying cars. It's a fairly consistent discussion point on long van rides betwixt the Pockets and the consensus always seems to be the following: There's enough dangers to driving a regular car, why would you want to compound those dangers by flying? I'm not quite sure I have an answer for that. All I'm saying is: This is the future and I was promised flying cars.

Happy 2011 everybody. We hope that your New Year is filled with happiness, prosperity and love. Cheers!

Up for the Downstroke,
-Nate Bellon(bass)