by Domnall Óg
Home >> Forty-Five
I want to see 3DTV on a screen as thin as paper and with quadrophonic wireless speakers hidden in the walls. I want a HoloPod – an iPod that projects a hologram of the artist whose music is playing. I want the hologram to increase in size as you turn up the volume.
I want cars to run on a new fuel that is so cheap we can forget about aerodynamic designs and go back to the elegant forms of the 1940s. I want cars controlled by chips so that you can’t crash on the motorway. And silent engines so we can hear the birds again in the big cities.
I want mobile phones replaced by technical telepathy. We should only have to think of someone to be able to communicate directly with their own thoughts. Telefonica becomes Telepathica and Vodafone becomes Vodathink.
I want teleporting – the moving of things from one place to another without an intervening journey. Fridges should know when we need milk and teleport a tetrabrick from Carrefour. Christmas trees should just appear in the corner of our living rooms in December and then teleport back to the forest after Three Kings’ Day.
Teleporting should end forever the nightly battle to get the kids to bed. You press that button, they vanish! They find themselves under a duvet which is locked for nine hours (another invention).
I want depressants. Instead of sending people to prison we should inject them with depressants so that they feel an unutterable sadness. In the absence of a conscience, it’s the next best thing. When their sentence is complete, they come off the depressants and see how happy they can be by just staying out of trouble.
I want all books to weigh the same as a sheet of paper. We could have entire libraries condensed into a tiny chip and even incorporate newspapers too. The Amazon rain forests could breathe easier.
Forty-five years is, for some, a very long time. Anything could happen in the next forty-five years. We might make tremendous breakthroughs in medical science and eradicate cancer and AIDS. We might fly to Mars and colonise the Moon. Maybe we’ll find a way to irrigate the deserts and refreeze the polar caps.We might use a scrap of John Lennon’s DNA and bring him back to play with Elvis and Hendrix.
We might even find a way to stop people feeling melancholy on their forty-fifth birthdays.
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Happy birthday, Donal! I wish I could now be teleported to Madrid to share some calorie-free and non-alcoholic Guinness with you (though I suppose that you would be very much against such an invention).
Like Lazarus lying in the cold tomb, you have light years of life ahead of you. Life begins at 45!
Happy Birthday Dónal!
Seeing as it is your birthday, I wanted to give you some excellent news regarding some of your dreams: There are cars that exist that run on “renewable” fuel, but they aren’t on the market yet, and I am not talking about the electric cars you see on the news nor the hydrogen buses you see in Madrid.
I would be very surprised to find out that prisoners are not already drugged up to the point of no return.
And now that your forty-five, you can now enjoy the best of all: reminiscing about “the old times” which for you will always be a brand new experience!
-Paul
Great pictures! You look like Oscar Wilde! What you told me last week I now return to you…something about the caterpillar and the butterfly. 45 and alive! Happy Birthday! Today you get to cut your cake and eat it too.
Zoriooooonak Zuuuriiiiiiii
Zoriooooonak Zuuuriiiiiiii
Zoriooooonak Dónaaaaaal
Zoriooooonak betiiiiiii!!!
(too bad we don’t have audio comments yet… I’m gonna have to consider that!)
Happy birthday! :D
Hi,
¡Happy Birthday Dónal!
I don’t like to agree with you I’m afraid – I want life to be more simple! I think life is too complicated now and people carry round too many things – ipods, mobile phones, pda’s etc. I would like to live 100 years ago but with the medicines of today! People today are in too much of a hurry!
Saludos,
María
Hello,
Happy birthday, Dónal!!! I’ve always thought you’re as younger as you feel and you have the spirit and passion of a teenager, so forty-five? No way!!! No older than 20, I would say!
I’m not very fond of technology, at least not in every area of our life. Controlling everything just by pushing a button? No, thank you. I want to have the opportunity of taking risks in my life, commiting mistakes and learning from them.
Teleporting? That’s a good idea, being one moment in Madrid, the next on a beach enjoying the sea, I have no problems with that technology!!!
Enjoy this day,
Paloma
Hello Donal,
Happy B-day!!!
I think you could make a lot of money by doing some science fiction movies !!!
I really liked your ideas, but I am not sure that I want all of them to become a reality.
Best regards,
Cristina
Happy birthday,
I notice that you are a little melancholic, but don’t worry, the second forty five years will be more interesting when your dreams could be real.
Enjoy today and live happy, your future is here inmediatly and your dreams too.
Gloria López
Happy birthday!
¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡
They are candles! ¿podrás con todas? ja ja ja. Ondo pasa.
Susana.
Thank you all for your kind words!
It was Gina saying that I looked like Oscar Wilde that reminded me of one his sayings
” To regain my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or become respectable.”
It is a sentiment I wholeheartedly endorse!
Thank you all again!
Happy birthday with a little delay!!!!!
I’ve enjoyed a lot with your letter, it reminds me the “The Beatles” period with LOVE , PEACE, FREEDOM, HAPPINESS…
I would like it won’t be a dream but a reality!
I agree with Dónal. Congratulations for your article about how may be our technological future, but I think there is a very long road to walk. In any case, I’ve remembered what answer a NOBEL PRIZE when he was asked about the best thing of 20th century, and he answer that the best discovery isn’t a new technology, but we can change our world only changing our minds.
Best wishes,
Carlos..-