five thousand years of civilization , more or less , twenty-three hundred years since the libraries of alexandria , over a hundred years since the invention of flight , wafer-thin computers at our fingertips , which can access the intellectual riches of the globe , and judging by the girls in that room , the only advance we 'd made since the invention of fire was turning like into an omni-word , useful as a verb , a noun , an article , the whole sentence if need be .