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["Michael D. Thomas" <mdthomas AT mindspring.com>]

> I think it can pretty much be stated that every technology that is
seen
> as cool by geeks and is seen as an ends will stay on the napkin where
> it belongs. Any technology that is seen as useful by normal people and
> is seen as a means and not as an end what will migrate from its napkin
> to reality.

Of course, there is a cost-benefit analysis that is done. I think a
bigger computer monitor would be useful, but I'm not willing to pay for
it. I may not even be willing to make space on my desk for it. Many
technologies would be considered useful by many people -- but at a much
lower price point. Some technologies are able to get a foothold with
early adapters and luxury buyers, drop their price point, and go mass
market. Others don't -- either because they can't or because they aren't
lucky.

A really good book for this kind of discussion is "Beyond Engineering:
How Society Shapes Technology" by Robert Pool. One of the more
interesting points made is that great useful technologies often are
/not/ welcomed with open arms, while DOA technologies are over-hyped by
even the cynics.

For instance, the jet engine took years to, um, take off. Both the Brits
and the Germans had the technology years before WWII. Both stalled in
developing it. The key reason was that a Kuhnian upheaval was needed in
the aeronautical engineering corps and throughout the industry. New
technologies face the inertia of old. 

On the other hand, all things nuclear were golden in the 1950's, just as
superconductors were in the 1980's and the web was in the 1990's. Our
very own government spent years and billions of dollars trying to
develop a nuclear airplane. Think about it -- a nuclear airplane.
Nuclear reactors flying overhead. Radioactive airports. It doesn't seem
particularly practical, does it? The US government spent $1 billion
between 1951 and 1961 on the project.  That's over $7 billion in today's
dollars.