> I think Kurzweil is a total blow-hard, along with the Mathematica guy. All these great 'predictions' don't take a lot of intellectual depth to make, to be fair .. all you had to do was read a bit of sci-fi in the 60's and 70's, and try to understand that your fellow engineers were reading the same (mostly Vernor Vinge) stories, on the basis of a few top-10 lists .. and oila: you can see what is going to happen.

>Big Sci-Fi has been driving technology - and thus, our modern culture - for decades now. There's not a single advance in our modern lives that wasn't speculated first, by some sci-fi author.

Oh wow. If I judge by the stuff my generation grew up with, my children and grandchildren are going to see their parents trying to invent some really cool/weird stuff.

I mean, sure, string-theoretic worldgates for interstellar transport will never actually work, but apparently by 2040 we should have futurists predicting them for 2065, and by then God only knows. I mean, giant mecha are already in the works, so things'll be pretty cool then.