With mobile phones that take photographs, cameras that take movies, camcorders that record mp3s and mp3 players that take your mother out on her birthday and keep the kids entertained while you have a lie-in, I think it's fair to say that technology has gone bonkers beyond anyone's wildest expectations.

Things are happening at such a ridiculous rate that no-one even bothers to question rapidly advancing science any more. No-one wonders whether it's ethical or right or even actually possible; all we are worried about is how much it costs, whether next door's got one, and if it's any cheaper if you buy it on the internet.

For example, yesterday I was reading a story on a website about the world's biggest, cleverest supercomputer that is being built somewhere in the UK. This isn't something you can pick up at PC World or Comet, mind. This is quality kit. I'm not sure how much it's going to cost, exactly, other than the fact that the government has just put in an extra £52 million to the project.

And what's so good about this doohickey? Well, I'll tell you. According to the story I read, right, this computer can run at 100 teraflops. Impressed?

I'll bet you are.

Alternatively, you might be sitting there wondering what in the name of Dickie Davies a teraflop is, just as I was when I read the piece and, doubtlessly, still would be right now, had I suddenly ceased to care.

You see, we just don't worry about this stuff any more. "100 teraflops? Sure. Whatever, " we sigh when the scientists announce something momentous. We're quite blinded by science. When you hear your mother saying things like: "I've ripped it to mp3 format and I can burn you a disc if you like" then you know the time has come to lie down in a darkened room and await the arrival of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

It can run at 100 teraflops. Great. I won't even ask what a teraflop is. I don't care any more. We've gone technology crazy. They've even given this new computer a name. Hector. Oh, the fools. Don't they watch science fiction films? The first thing a supercomputer does when you give it a name is try to take over the planet, or at least obliterate all life on it.

And "Hector"? If you were the cleverest artificial intelligence on the planet, would you want to be called Hector? I guarantee that within three short years it will have renamed itself The Mighty Brain and we will all be its mindless slaves, existing only to bring it monitor wipes and Hoover out its colossal keyboard.

Pretty much round about the same time yesterday there was another crazy technology story running. Scientists are going to use a gigantic catapult to send things to the moon. Oh, really? Wow.

How many teraflops does that run at, I wonder?

Are they going to let Hector fire it, do you think?

If these were doing the rounds a couple of days earlier, they'd have been sure-fire, gilt-edged April Fools stories. But no; apparently they're real. It just goes to show how numb we've become to the advances of science that we just let these things wash over us with barely a smirk or a raised eyebrow.

Of course, I'm not saying we should all run to the hills, afeared of modern life. But perhaps a little more wonder and thoughtfulness about the pace at which things are progressing is called for. One day we're going to wake up and we'll be living in the future, and when we all start getting paid in teraflops we might wish we'd taken a bit more notice while we were still in the present.