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2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

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Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#91

Post by pluies »

wnoise wrote: post #73
a-priori wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 depict…

> some early elevator systems E.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster

This is amazing. I didn't know this system at all. a-priori's comment is probably in the right then!

(And "descenseur" seems to be an actual French word according to http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/descenseur, so much for showing off and knowing my native tongue.)

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#92

Post by riffraff »

lloeki wrote: post #86
kenjackson wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok no one is letting a robot cut their hair Although we are using a electric mechanical device to do so. In particular with shaving we have devices that do all the cutting and make it virtually impossible to cut yourself. So kind of similar even there.

And there are electric hair driers, hair irons, shavers and various chemical products allowing one to change hair shape and color at will.

the hair perming helmets or whatever they are called still seem futuristic to me, but hair irons and hair dye have been around for a few millennia

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#93

Post by subwindow »

A lot of the concepts are correct, but the surprising thing is the lack of advancements in materials. The images use cloth, soft metals, wood and canvas for everything. It's almost impossible to state how big an impact plastics and high quality metals have made on our day-to-day lives.

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#94

Post by jrockway »

Zak wrote: post #58
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…

Personalized flight on the whole was really the only big miss. I think the main reason that isn't more mainstream is that even with small planes, we chose to emphasize safety far more than with road vehicles. I don't know why that is; I'd gladly trade some amount of safety if it meant I could afford to own and operate a plane. A Cessna 172 is no more complicated than an economy car. It costs $275,000 due to regulatio…

Fly an ultralight instead? Then you don't have to deal with regulations and all that.

I think if people really wanted to fly, there would be mass-market ultralights. But the reality is that driving is just as good and feels safer and easier to understand. (What do you if you get lost flying? You can't just pull over and ask for directions.)

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#95

Post by treeface »

Zak wrote: post #85
treeface wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Cessna 172 is no more complicated than an economy car. Not trying to sound snarky here, but have you ever piloted an airplane? The pre-takeoff checks take a little while, require a good bit of technical expertise, and are absolutely required if you want to be pretty damn sure that your airplane won't fall out of the sky. Safety is, at times, overemphasized, but then again your car won't fall from the sky when it st…

Well, there was this time when I was two and I was sitting on the pilot's lap.... I've spent a lot of time as a passenger in small planes and I have a good idea of what's involved in a preflight. I'm not against safety in general, but I think lawsuits and government oversight have really held back general aviation. A plane should be more reliable and therefore expensive than a car with a similar level of sophisticati…

Righto...thanks for the explanation, and sorry for the confusion on my part.

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#96

Post by alphakappa »

dirtyaura wrote: post #81
burgerbrain wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"no practical text-to-speech" Huh? How do you figure? I use text-to-speech all the time and besides sounding distinctly robotic, it works extremely well. And the current state-of-the-art stuff is damn near as good as HAL9000. EDIT: and we do have practical home robots, they're called roombas and programmable microwaves. They just don't look like something out of the Jetsons, and we've seen the technology improve over…

Ok, granted, text-to-speech works, but it's still not good enough for main stream adoption. Roomba, on the otherhand, is a pathetic, if you compare it to visions.

Not only is it good enough for mainstream adoption, it is mainstream. It's available in cars and practically every GPS device these days. Any time you call your credit card company, you deal with TTS (plus a fair bit of speech-recognition).

As for robots, sure we don't have robots of the kind in the images shown, but the machinery we use to build skyscrapers in a fraction of the time it took 100 years ago is quite amazing. The heavy-earth machinery, cranes, railway-track building machines etc don't look like robots, but they do the same stuff.

The future is definitely here :)

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#97

Post by jcitme »

jrockway wrote: post #94
Zak wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personalized flight on the whole was really the only big miss. I think the main reason that isn't more mainstream is that even with small planes, we chose to emphasize safety far more than with road vehicles. I don't know why that is; I'd gladly trade some amount of safety if it meant I could afford to own and operate a plane. A Cessna 172 is no more complicated than an economy car. It costs $275,000 due to regulatio…

Fly an ultralight instead? Then you don't have to deal with regulations and all that. I think if people really wanted to fly, there would be mass-market ultralights. But the reality is that driving is just as good and feels safer and easier to understand. (What do you if you get lost flying? You can't just pull over and ask for directions.)

if you need directions you're kinda missing the point of flying...

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#98

Post by Nagyman »

treeface wrote: post #59
Zak wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personalized flight on the whole was really the only big miss. I think the main reason that isn't more mainstream is that even with small planes, we chose to emphasize safety far more than with road vehicles. I don't know why that is; I'd gladly trade some amount of safety if it meant I could afford to own and operate a plane. A Cessna 172 is no more complicated than an economy car. It costs $275,000 due to regulatio…

A Cessna 172 is no more complicated than an economy car. Not trying to sound snarky here, but have you ever piloted an airplane? The pre-takeoff checks take a little while, require a good bit of technical expertise, and are absolutely required if you want to be pretty damn sure that your airplane won't fall out of the sky. Safety is, at times, overemphasized, but then again your car won't fall from the sky when it st…

172's were introduced in 1956. I'm certain if personal flight were more mainstream, flying could be quite as easy as hoping in your car. Further, it's easier to automate flight because of the vertical space available for traffic separation. The hard part is space for taking off and landing.

I personally don't agree that safety has held personal flight back. It's just not practical except for longer distances.

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#99

Post by skore »

joelburget wrote: post #27

Looking back at old visions of the future, they always seem to imagine the obvious things, e.g. flying cars and nuclear power. What I haven't ever seen is anything close to modern computers, which arguably have just as profound an impact on our lives and are probably more impressive technologically.

Another well known phenomenon in old science fiction is the utter lack mobile phones. Flying around space, shooting at each other with laser rifles. And then they hop into a phone booth to have A VIDEO CALL! (Yes, I'm looking at you, Blade Runner.)

(And before anybody mentions Star Trek - Those were actually more like small and fancy Walkie-Talkies. Deal with it.)

Re: 2000 as Seen in 1910 (23 pics)

#100

Post by quinndupont »

ugh wrote: post #4

Paleofuture has – as always – at least some context: http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007/9/10/french-prints-show... I wonder to what extent these prints are just jokes. Will someone in a thousand years look back at Futurama and think it was a serious prediction of the future?

They totally stole those images from Paleofuture. Lame.
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