Neil Hopcroft

A digital misfit

Where does all the hubris go when its not needed?

“…Come evangelists of the Grand New Age proclaiming the future that they stole.”

Time to steal it back. Ten years since the height of the tech bubble? A lost decade?

I was still coding security protocols for an embedded OS stack a decade ago, getting itchy feet when they put us on sanitising somebody elses second rate browser code. No surprise that 60% of the team left within weeks of each other.

The hubris took me too, moving to a ‘startup’ in Oxford where I was to head up the hockey-stick graphed crossplatform mobile strategy. Which was mostly a game of applying hysteresis filters to anything my boss said and making sure we didn’t accidentally hire anyone who was going to leave a good job to come and join us.

What has changed since then? Well, I guess JWZ said it: “Even though we’ve run out of Future, it’s important that we continue to strive to make Gibson’s visions come true.”

What happened to our future? When did we lose it? Can I blame it on Facebook? I’m not sure if I can, but it does seem like livejournal has a much better understanding of how to be a good citizen in the web world, providing some sensible technical tools to allow developers to wire together services with those from other sites (you know you’ve got a FOAF link? not that I’ve seen anyone do anything useful with FOAF, but tahts not the point).

More importantly how do I get my future back?


Categories: Memories.

/ 3 Comments

3 comments

  1. masterofapath

    We didn’t run out of future we just ran out of a positive attitude to the future, and of our sense of wonder.

    We used to view the possibility of man living on the Moon or Mars as exciting, an adventure, something to strive for…

    …now most people would probably just point out that it would be too cold / too hot, very dangerous, and that the expense in terms of financial and environmental impact means that it just doesn’t make sense to even try.

    As to how to get the glorious beacon of a bright and exciting future back… perhaps a low dose of euphorics in the world’s water supplies would do the trick?

    Reply
    • neilh

      Maybe its because its too easy to participate in the future now? Anyone can write a mashup of various web technologies and make the world a better place. Or a worse place. Or more full of pictures of kittens.

      You don’t need to watch in awe as the technological elite put together the next Concorde or Space Shuttle.

      Maybe its that awe that I miss?

      Reply
  2. neilh

    The noise we thought would never stop
    Died a death when the punks grew up

    Maybe I kinda miss that noise, there was a future that was worth fighting for, now we just click through facebook without any *engineering*

    Reply

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