Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

acidcow.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 111 posts

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#41

Post by JonnieCache »

jodrellblank wrote: post #23
51Cards wrote: post #13

They weren't so wrong... sure their form factors were way off but they had all the ideas down... 1. Electronic Books 2. High speed aerodynamic trains 3. Computer aided manufacturing 4. Motorized personal transport 6&7. Ok no one is letting a robot cut their hair or do makeup, but we're using robots for surgery 9. Aerodynamic motorcycles 10. Webcams 11. Where's my flying car! 12. Tanks 13. Electronic news etc. etc. If…

The other big miss is that the outside scenes have one or two people and a lot of green, and the indoor scenes have a tiny amount of utilitarian furniture. There's no sense of stuff and clutter, urbanisation and buildings everywhere and people people people. ( and the train is nothing like high speed and aerodynamic - it has balconies! )

This could be limitations of the artist and of the medium.

These images were produced by chromolithography, a many-staged process of chemical interactions. Adding lots and lots of details and tiny, realistic figures would be difficult. And perhaps expensive. I can imagine a situation where the cost of the process is an exponential function of the number of places different colours have to border each other without bleeding.

It's tricky enough to draw that kind of thing in any medium.

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#42

Post by pbhjpbhj »

pluies wrote: post #38

There's an interesting pun in this one: http://acidcow.com/pics/20110225/future_11.jpg The label next to "concierge" reads "descenseur". It's a reference to the French word for a lift, "ascenseur", from "ascension", "to go upwards". A descenseur would then be the exact opposite of a lift - an apparatus to go downwards. :)

I simply read that straight as being "a lift moving downwards", can you explain the pun?

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#44

Post by bane »

51Cards wrote: post #13

They weren't so wrong... sure their form factors were way off but they had all the ideas down... 1. Electronic Books 2. High speed aerodynamic trains 3. Computer aided manufacturing 4. Motorized personal transport 6&7. Ok no one is letting a robot cut their hair or do makeup, but we're using robots for surgery 9. Aerodynamic motorcycles 10. Webcams 11. Where's my flying car! 12. Tanks 13. Electronic news etc. etc. If…

Ok no one is letting a robot cut their hair

Oh, but how close we are!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bgRszdUdhQ

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#45

Post by pluies »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #42
pluies wrote: post #38

There's an interesting pun in this one: http://acidcow.com/pics/20110225/future_11.jpg The label next to "concierge" reads "descenseur". It's a reference to the French word for a lift, "ascenseur", from "ascension", "to go upwards". A descenseur would then be the exact opposite of a lift - an apparatus to go downwards. :)

I simply read that straight as being "a lift moving downwards", can you explain the pun?

Well, this is the pun; although I guess a better description would be "a made-up word with a meaning that might not be instantly clear to non-French speakers" rather than a "pun".

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#46

Post by a-priori »

pluies wrote: post #38

There's an interesting pun in this one: http://acidcow.com/pics/20110225/future_11.jpg The label next to "concierge" reads "descenseur". It's a reference to the French word for a lift, "ascenseur", from "ascension", "to go upwards". A descenseur would then be the exact opposite of a lift - an apparatus to go downwards. :)

My theory is that this isn't a pun, but rather a term that's no longer in use.

I seem to remember that some early elevator systems had two connected shafts and two cars, instead of one car and a counterweight like modern elevators. In this arrangement, cars go in a loop around a pulley at the top and bottom, always in the same direction. Thus, one shaft is the "up" shaft and one is the "down" shaft.

This image depicts the top floor, so elevators only go down from there. It may have been common practice at the time in France to call the elevator shaft that carries you down to be the descenseur and the one that carries you up to be the ascenseur. Nowadays, ascenseur is used all the time because an elevator car goes both ways.

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#47

Post by jodrellblank »

maushu wrote: post #10

I love this kind of stuff. Requesting more links if possible.

Must tomorrow's man look like this?

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/mags/PopularScience/11-1963/t...

( Taken from http://blog.modernmechanix.com/ which is full of old science magazine clippings )

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#48

Post by jpr »

icegreentea wrote: post #35
segabach wrote: post #18

The one thing they totally failed to predict was the trend toward much more casual clothing. Partially due to technology becoming available to all the classes but even upper class people would find this level of dress over the top for current times. How long before we end up in the stereotypical white space jump suit?

One reason for the "casualization" of dress were the world wars. Rationing and general mood (and having your country ripped apart) made it kinda impossible to dress extragantantly as a rule anymore. After the war ended, it kinda stuck (just like the daily shaving thing).

That sure sounds plausible, but is there any evidence that this was actually the case? I'm always looking for excuses to dress extravagantly and not shave.

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#49

Post by jodrellblank »

pluies wrote: post #38

There's an interesting pun in this one: http://acidcow.com/pics/20110225/future_11.jpg The label next to "concierge" reads "descenseur". It's a reference to the French word for a lift, "ascenseur", from "ascension", "to go upwards". A descenseur would then be the exact opposite of a lift - an apparatus to go downwards. :)

The sense of perspective in these is mind-bending. Look at the lady passenger, and imagine her taking a couple of steps 'away' from the viewer, to approach the green walkway.

By then she has to be short enough to fit under the wing, and after walking over the gangway, she has to be small enough to get in the Alice-in-Wonderland door, under the wing with no headroom, into a box so small the coachman-pilot would barely squash into it.

The walkway is on top of a building high enough to have an elevator, but the handrail varies Escher style from shin-height to shoulder-height along it's ~two meter length. (And if it is shin height like the steps side suggests, then it's of no use, and if it's shoulder height like the door side suggests then she would fall between the railings, and the gap to the door is a circus acrobat's leap!).

Then the wings, which are about the height of the pilot, but also about thrice the height of the door - not to mention it's a winged vehicle which hovers.

"In the year 2000" the unshielded outside light bulb would be a health and safety violation, let alone all the other aerial acrobatic bits!

Post reply on HN