It’s been a while, I know. I’ve been insanely busy in my pedagogical duties here at UC Irvine, however there is so much going on. We now won’t see any virtual reality headsets until Q1 2016, self driving cars are making great strides, or perhaps they’re not, drones are everywhere, from saving avocados to fighting wildfires, and Microsoft had their best product conference ever, which is at once not saying much and on the other hand saying quite a lot (really, if you missed it, you can watch it here; it gave me chills).

Oh, and machines (cats too but we already knew this) might kill us all.

Yet even if they do, what a time to be alive. Then dead. I’m more excited about the capabilities and the future of technology than I have been for a very long time. I’m even excited for the likely unfortunate lessons we’ll be forced to learn along the way. Such is the price of progress, however, and those willing to put themselves in the lion’s den are the ones who will move us further than we would have imagined even a few years ago.

Even so, I still feel that everyone should take a break from technology once in a while, don’t let it own you or control you. My students have to give it up for 24 hours and by and large they don’t like it. I understand where they’re coming from, but I also believe they need it, as do we all.

I’ll never run out of material to post here, there is so much going on. In addition to simply posting about whatever is going on in the world of tech, I’d even like to branch out into doing some reviews of whatever strikes my fancy (Games, hardware, software, devices, whatever), and I may even throw in the occasional music or movie review, relevant or otherwise. I have strong opinions about those as well!

In the meantime, here is an episode of Computer Chronicles detailing the state of virtual reality all the way back in the technological dark ages of 1992. This is hosted, along with many other episodes dating back to 1982(!) and an incredible collection of old software and games, on the glorious repository of old tech known as archive.org. In case you’d forgotten how great a time we’re living in, technologically speaking, this should give you the jolt you need.