Introductions All Around

Welcome one and all! This is “The Future according to Paul”, my first ever blog. I'm excited to finally be starting one. Growing up in the 21^st century, particularly being involved with computers as a major, I've watched the blogosphere grow from a quirky niche in a nascent technology to a whole new form of media. At its onset I never believed I'd contribute to a blog: what did the world care about what I have to say? Popular perception in the early days of blogging was a bit like the current perception of twitter: that it's just a growing mass of the meaningless minutiae of other people's lives.

What's changed? Partially, I'm a slightly more confident individual then my pubescent self. My sphere of interests has expanded past the myopia of middle school to topics generally interesting. I've also started to appreciate the archival nature of the Internet. It's young and exciting, so we lose track of the novelty that easy storage of our thoughts presents. Being able to look back at my thoughts forty years in the future, organized by topic, seems if not valuable at least interesting. Thus was born a new blog into this global web.

With the barrage of text the Internet uses to overwhelm our attention, I thought it important to label this latest volley with the topics I expect to be discussing. As the title suggests, my interests point forward in time. My cares about popular culture is already starting to atrophy. I don't go on adventures, or work in a public facing position I can accumulate anecdotes from. Rather, my thoughts tend to dwell on some slightly obtuse topics: quantum physics and procedurally generated content, the social impact of cheap recording devices and the necessities of work in an automated age. In short, the future. I hope you'll enjoy what I've got to say, and that you'll share your own insights here.