Imaginary Friends

Okay, so I haven't seen the Jetsons in about twenty years. (Note to self: check Hulu and Netflix.) So I'm just going on ancient, dusty memories here, but it seems that modern life is lacking in a few amenities we were promised as kids by the glowing box. Yeah, we've got Roombas (and Scoobas and whatever they call those gutter-cleaning bots.) There's the  Robomow and  Automower  lines of aimlessly wandering mowers. Honda and other Japanese companies have some pretty cool androids, but who can afford one? Robots aside, where are the flying cars with big glass bubbles? (Edit: Here they are !) Where's the crazy architecture? I'm thinking about this because I spent the day working with an automated parking system. Boomerang  makes the hardware, and ASI has been doing the controls for their flat car-lifting AGV (or robot for short). My job is to drive it around and make sure everything works. I haven't crashed it, yet. (I heard they drove one into a pit whe...

Writers don't have to worry about other people stealing their ideas. There are several reasons for this. First, an idea is such a tiny grain of a thing that by the time it's a book, it's like the author's severed hand, with his or her fingerprints all over it. Ugh. Like that last sentence. What I mean is, books are so personal, no one else can write my books. Even if we start with the exact same idea, the books will turn out completely unique. The second reason might only apply to me. My ideas all sound so stupid, no one would even want to steal them. And I'm talking about the really good ones that I actually get excited about. I have hundreds of weird ideas for stories, but in the last couple of years, I've only had four that I got excited about. The first one is the book I'm working on, plus vague ideas about two possible sequels. Then there's the brilliant idea that came to me at work a couple weeks ago. Wanna hear it? Invisible people driving cars. ...