Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Scorpius on August 29, 2008, 01:36:58 am
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I found this very interesting.
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/03/24/what-will-life-be-like-in-the-year-2008/#more-4136 (http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/03/24/what-will-life-be-like-in-the-year-2008/#more-4136)
The early 20th century was full of some really really bad ideas:
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2007/09/09/radioactive-safety-control-system/ (http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2007/09/09/radioactive-safety-control-system/)
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They got a fair proportion of that right. Although there were some spectacular misses.
They did get the internet but they missed the PC. :)
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I like the comments:
now, if only they’d started applying this sort of technology to farm machinery: seriously, out here in farming country almost all of the old-timers that I meet have lost at least a finger or two…my 6 neighbours only have 4 arms and 6 hands between them, and they’re still farming.
Hmm...
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:lol:
I guess those farmers have a real version of Spore creature creator out in the barn. :)
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"Money has all but disappeared. Employers deposit salary checks directly into their employees’ accounts. Credit cards are used for paying all bills. Each time you buy something, the card’s number is fed into the store’s computer station. A master computer then deducts the charge from your bank balance."
holy **** they nailed that one.
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Other conveniences ease kitchenwork. The housewife simply determines in advance her menus for the week, then slips prepackaged meals into the freezer and lets the automatic food utility do the rest. At preset times, each meal slides into the microwave oven and is cooked or thawed. The meal then is served on disposable plastic plates. These plates, as well as knives, forks and spoons of the same material, are so inexpensive they can be discarded after use.
TV dinners!
Computers also handle travel reservations, relay telephone messages, keep track of birthdays and anniversaries, compute taxes and even figure the monthly bills for electricity, water, telephone and other utilities. Not every family has its private computer. Many families reserve time on a city or regional computer to serve their needs. The machine tallies up its own services and submits a bill, just as it does with other utilities.
Close enough. Travelocity, Skype, Google Calendar, Turbotax, Quicken...
Computers not only keep track of money, they make spending it easier. TV-telephone shopping is common. To shop, you simply press the numbered code of a giant shopping center. You press another combination to zero in on the department and the merchandise in which you are interested. When you see what you want, you press a number that signifies “buy,” and the household computer takes over, places the order, notifies the store of the home address and subtracts the purchase price from your bank balance. Much of the family shopping is done this way. Instead of being jostled by crowds, shoppers electronically browse through the merchandise of any number of stores.
Amazon's one-click thingy. :D
Besides school lessons, other educational material is available for TV viewing. You simply press a combination of buttons and the pages flash on your home screen. The world’s information is available to you almost instantaneously.
Wikipedia!
Medical research has guaranteed that most babies born in the 21st century will live long and healthy lives. Heart disease has virtually been eliminated by drugs and diet. If hearts or other major organs do give trouble, they can be replaced with artificial organs.
Not quite, but getting there.
Medical examinations are a matter of sitting in a diagnostic chair for a minute or two, then receiving a full health report. Ultrasensitive microphones and electronic sensors in the chair's headrest, back and armrests pick up heartbeat, pulse, breathing rate, galvanic skin response, blood pressure, nerve reflexes and other medical signs. A computer attached to the chair digests these responses, compares them to the normal standard and prints out a full medical report.
I think all of this is possible, but isn't done for whatever reason. Probably because people feel more comfortable with a nurse coming in to take vitals.
No need to worry about failing memory or intelligence either. The intelligence pill is another 21st century commodity. Slow learners or people struck with forgetful-ness are given pills which increase the production of enzymes controlling production of the chemicals known to control learning and memory. Everyone is able to use his full mental potential.
Oh hell yes. :D So way back in 1968, they thought the best part of 2008 would be the drugs? :p
Although I suppose they do have a point. Now the complaint is the overmedication of people. Maybe we missed the median we were aiming for.
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i think these people have been watching too much star trek the original series.. i mean, 200 passenger rocket liners traveling to other continents! lol, probably the quickest way to pollute the planet and would most easily surpass china as the biggest polluter on earth. these bio domes i do not think are possible until industrial giants stop worrying about profit margins them peoples safety. as for these trains running on compressed air, it sounds closer to the Japanese version of the magnetic levitation(maglev) , that runs on a magnetic cushion and the train car can travel higher then 180mph. a brilliant design by far.
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i think these people have been watching too much star trek the original series..
Possibly. The article was written in 1968, smack dab in the middle of when TOS was airing.
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"Average work day is four hours"
Gorram, what planet is that on because it sure as hell isn't this one.
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i think these people have been watching too much star trek the original series.. i mean, 200 passenger rocket liners traveling to other continents! lol, probably the quickest way to pollute the planet and would most easily surpass china as the biggest polluter on earth.
Nope. It could be done more cleanly than current aircraft actually.
For instance HOTOL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOTOL) and its successor Skylon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon). The cancelling of which I rank as one of the dumbest decisions the British government ever made.
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probably a money issue no doubt, noise pollution which the residents of united kingdom especially near the london area and complaining about aircraft being too low to the ground causing a lot of noise. i think of a few more factors that might of contributed, however if what you say is true, i agree about it being a dumb decision.
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IT’S 8 a.m., Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008(...)
We still have some time left to make those other predictions true! :p
Now get back to work!
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This is remarkably accurate, all things considered. Hell, they even managed to get online college courses in there. :)
The radioactive wristband...not so much.
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"Average work day is four hours"
Gorram, what planet is that on because it sure as hell isn't this one.
Sad, isn't it? The fact is that we can easily do as much work (or more) in four hours as we used to do in eight... but we spend that extra time doing more work. This adds to economic growth.
So, you COULD work four hours a day... and make the same salary as someone who worked eight hours a day in 1968 (not adjusting for inflation.) And you could buy a TV (black and white, thirteen inches across) but no computers or video games.
We've funneled the time we've 'saved' into productivity and growth. This is probably not a good thing, since even though we have more 'stuff' we don't really have enough time to enjoy it. This is why I admire countries like Belgium and Sweden, as they're content to have slower growth and fewer riches in exchange for dumping more of the GDP into social education, healthcare, and leisure time for their citizens. Evidence shows that folks in these countries are far more content with their lives than the eternally stressed-out Americans.
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which probably explains why the Belgians seem invisible from Europe.
people probably work less because women have equal rights which produces coupling more often and typically can not wait to get home to do what nature has asked.. this has been my opinion about why people decide to get their work done faster or overtake on streets going 30 or 40 mph faster then you with traffic coming in the opposite direction. but i could be wrong. ;)
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I know this wasn't stated in the article, but one of the big predictions of that time period was that we would be off of oil and on nuclear (or at least for our cars some other alternative fuel). While something close to that did happen in France (they get the vast majority of their electricity from nuclear), we're all still just as hooked on oil now as we were back then. Personally I attribute this to a spectacular failure of leadership with regards to energy issues over the last 28 years.
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I know this wasn't stated in the article, but one of the big predictions of that time period was that we would be off of oil and on nuclear (or at least for our cars some other alternative fuel). While something close to that did happen in France (they get the vast majority of their electricity from nuclear), we're all still just as hooked on oil now as we were back then. Personally I attribute this to a spectacular failure of leadership with regards to energy issues over the last 28 years.
I should note that Iceland is moving towards an all fuel-cell approach for their motor vehicles. Or, not sure if it's fuel-cell, but some non-oil product as they have none of their own and don't want to dependent on imports. I saw this in a documentary a few years back, not sure where they are with it now.
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Iceland uses geothermal power mostly, they have plenty of it.
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I know this wasn't stated in the article, but one of the big predictions of that time period was that we would be off of oil and on nuclear (or at least for our cars some other alternative fuel). While something close to that did happen in France (they get the vast majority of their electricity from nuclear), we're all still just as hooked on oil now as we were back then. Personally I attribute this to a spectacular failure of leadership with regards to energy issues over the last 28 years.
I should note that Iceland is moving towards an all fuel-cell approach for their motor vehicles. Or, not sure if it's fuel-cell, but some non-oil product as they have none of their own and don't want to dependent on imports. I saw this in a documentary a few years back, not sure where they are with it now.
If the US had kept on developing it when Reagan came into office and through the 90's, we'd be making a big dent in oil consumption by now, but we didn't and instead more and more of our oil comes from abroad, basically the US is held hostage.
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I should note that Iceland is moving towards an all fuel-cell approach for their motor vehicles. Or, not sure if it's fuel-cell, but some non-oil product as they have none of their own and don't want to dependent on imports. I saw this in a documentary a few years back, not sure where they are with it now.
They started moving to a hydrogen economy years ago.
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We don't have flying cars now, do we? Or is James May going to do a show on that? :confused:
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I should note that Iceland is moving towards an all fuel-cell approach for their motor vehicles. Or, not sure if it's fuel-cell, but some non-oil product as they have none of their own and don't want to dependent on imports. I saw this in a documentary a few years back, not sure where they are with it now.
They started moving to a hydrogen economy years ago.
Yeah something like that. Everyone can move to iceland when the oil crisis hits the fan. Unless everyone wants to play Mad Max instead.