GOF means Goblet of Fire

That title is for those few uninitiated and unimaginitive people who don't know what the acronym means. Like Sameer, with whom I was chatting a couple of hours back. I mentioned that I was going to watch GOF in an IMAX Dome on Saturday. He said that this was the third time that someone mentioned GOF, and he still didn't know what it meant.

Anyways, I've waited for this movie for like 6 months. Okay maybe not 6 months, because right about then I was probably waiting for the HBP. But the amount of time I've spent at Mugglenet and J. K. Rowling's official site is to be observed to believed. I've seen all the trailers, and all the "leaks" that are now blatantly available on msn video. Cast interviews, scans of interviews and reports from magazines, and scores of reports by people who've been fortunate enough to witness sneak previews of the movies.

But I didn't intend to write this post about Harry and his chums. Really I didn't. I wanted to talk about Magic.

The quote by Arthur C. Clarke seems appropriate here, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." And seriously, think about it. It was around ten years back that Philips (I think) introduced the first shock protected portable CD players that depended on caching rather than damping. How long ago do you think the first mp3 players were introduced. Now imagine that you took your mp3 player 15 years back in time. Awe. 50 years back in time, you might run the risk of being burnt at a stake.

I have been lucky enough to be associated with technology at its forefront (more so than other people, at least). But my trade isn't as dependent on hardware as lets say Sumit's is. Or Sam's is. These people can see it in much more relief than even I can. In the US I'm in awe of cheap broadband (just coming to major cities in India) that make online gaming possible (and things like MMORG, or some such acronym). I marvel at the fact that almost every shop I visit accepts cards. The corner store (bania) at my place back in India started doing so recently, and I swear that that's the first one that I know of.

I marvel at having 1GB of memory in my camera and 40 GB in my portable music player. My 4 year old PC at home has 512 MB of RAM ( though I paid through my nose for its 80 GB hard disk).

I can keep the proofs coming on and on. Gaming HCI at the cost of what a mouse used to be 5 years back. Display cards on home PCs that can do now what was only possible on SGI systems 5 years back. The list is endless.

What I mean to say is that we are wizards to the past and muggles to the future. And if you dream about personal flying cars, conveyer belt public transport, holographic TV and Matrix like VR games, just put these thoughts down so that you know when they come, how badly you inadvertently underestimated technology.