The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Science & Nature => Topic started by: jay-ell on February 01, 2008, 08:19:07 pm
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A glimpse into The Future of the Past (http://www.pointlessmuseum.com/museum/usbornebookofthefutureindex.php) -- published in '79 and speculating about technology in "the year 2000 and beyond."
"With more and more artificial organs available, tomorrow's people might be cyborgs -- half human, half *****s."
I know there are a cluster of us who were born in '79, so this book is particularly interesting to me since it shows how much things have changed in my lifetime.
Thoughts?
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Awesome. I remember that book from my junior high school library ('82-'83). Nice little trip down memory lane. I used to pull it out of the stacks, sit at a study desk (the kind with soundproof barriers) and lose myself in daydreams of the future. Funny how autonomous cars were predicted for the 1980-1990 decade and are still "just a couple years" in the future.
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Well, I was 16 days old at the time...
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The Apollo 11 landing is the first clear "current events" type memory I can recall.
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First news story I vaguely remember: The 1984 Olympics
First news story that got "burned into my memory:" The Challenger explosion
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5th grade, standing outside my portable classroom, OKC bombing.
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Those of us who are old enough to remember Apollo 11 can take heart from this story. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080129/hl_nm/depression_age_dc) It's all uphill from here!
And you know, it's just as well that the future turned out not to have those flying cars they promised us. Looking at the drivers around you, would you really want them to be able to leave the ground?
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This is true - most people in cars today can barely master two dimensions, much less a third.
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First news story I vaguely remember: The 1984 Olympics
First news story that got "burned into my memory:" The Challenger explosion
Ditto.
I also vividly remember the '84 Presidential election. It was the first time I got to stay up late to watch the election returns.
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First burned-in memory: 1986 World Series, game six, Wilson hits a slow grounder down the first base line...
I dunno, kids, that's just how I roll/ed.
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My first memory of current events is the first gulf war.
I'll just get off your lawn now, eh guys?
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The OKC bombing was first burned into my head, the Giants- Bills Super Bowl is the first thing like this that I remember remembering.
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The Apollo 11 landing is the first clear "current events" type memory I can recall.
This reminds me of a discussion on the radio the other day. The guest was arguing that Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Obama is meaningless because most people don't really care about Ted Kennedy. The host said anything done by a Kennedy is automatically important. It went on forever and seemed to boil down to whether you consider the JFK/RFK assassinations to be "current events" or "a chapter we never made it to in history class."
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I think my first big memory is Mi Madre was active duty in the first iraq war. The one where we sent american lives to protect oil fields in Kuwait. I remember this because I had to live in El Paso and I was surrounded by barren mountains and desert.
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How could anyone consider an admittedly important event that happened 40+ years ago a "current event"?
On the Usborne books side: I love that space-age calculator watch dude was wearing, with the red LED display. I remember when the first digital watches came out, you had to push the button to see the time and it only came in red LED.
Usborne books are much better today. They focus a lot more on truly educational things without the rampant speculation of that particular book.
If you want to help a split-up family make a little money so we can get back together, buy a book or two from my wife here. (http://www.momsbooksite.com/)
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How could anyone consider an admittedly important event that happened 40+ years ago a "current event"?
That wasn't the best choice of words but it's kind of hard to describe. I guess it's more like, it being something you remember happening vs. being History with a capital H.
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The first bit of national news that I was aware of was Cyclone Tracy in 1974.
Australia, people.
This may not have been the event itself, but discussion in the years immediately after that I remember. It was the Hurricane Katrina (or Andrew) of the time/place. I think what might have made it significant to a 5-year old was that it hit on Christmas Eve. I was probably comparing getting a Tonka truck with getting a national disaster.
The first political thing I remember, which I've mentioned before, is the Gough Whitlam dismissal of 1975. I remember kids in school making up taunting songs for whichever side of the dispute they disagreed with.
I remember the Iran Hostage crisis pretty well, and I was aware of the Reagan/Carter election campaigns. We were getting ready to return to the US at that time, and I thought I should learn about my new home. Mount St. Helens and the inaugural flight of the Shuttle made 1980 a pretty memorable year for me.
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We'll surf like they do in the U.S.A.
We'll fly down to Sydney for our holiday
On sunny Christmas Day
Australia, Australia
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um, I forget the first big event I was aware of... but i have a really clear memory of hearing about the lewinsky scandal. we had to bring in articles for current events, and that was on the opposite side of the article I cut out, and more knowledgeable classmates made blowjob jokes which I didn't understand.
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The first current-event-type event I really remember was the first Gulf War, although the '92 elections were the first ones I took a really active interest in. I, too, am a Dang Whippersnapper.
That said, we had a lot of similarly speculative books in my elementary-school library, and I too found it easy to fall in love with the future that never was. I think my favorite was a '60's-era book about the mid-'90's in which there was a lot of pontificating about how everyone was now a nudist inside the home because it was so much more healthful.
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The nudist thing must have imagined a future with no pets. Dogs and cats jumping on one's nakedness is not terribly healthful, assuming you include an unbroken, non-bleeding layer of skin in your definition of that state.
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WHERE'S OUR FUCKIN' FLYING CARS ALREADY?!?
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We put all that research money into making the internet instead.
Also celebrity-branded running shoes.
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Things I remember looking forward to as a child that never happened:
- Space exploration/travel/colonies
- Flying cars
- Underground cities
- Instant food delivery
- Meals in a Pill
- Holograms/3D TV
- *****s that learn but don't rip faces off
- Hovercrafts/Hovercars/Hoverboards
Things I never would have conceived of:
- DVRs
- Portable digital music players
- Digital convergence/shrinking in general (iPhone vs. Computer+Walkman+Phone+TV)
- Complete ubiquity of information
- Internet porn
- 3D games
- GPS Navigation
Seriously, it's been just over 3 decades and the future's all changed, man. I want my ***** servant and flying car, only they'll both need wi-fi...
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see, what freaks me out is... if you'd told me that we'd have
* DVRs
* Portable digital music players
* Digital convergence/shrinking in general (iPhone vs. Computer+Walkman+Phone+TV)
* Complete ubiquity of information
* Internet porn
* 3D games
* GPS Navigation
I would have freaked out as well. I am not that old. This stuff all happened so fast! (I guess not the 3d games)
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I think the thing that shocks me the most is online shopping. No matter where you live, you suddenly have access to any product you're willing to pay shipping on.
How did we find obscure products before Amazon.com and eBay?
I suppose we just did without. We probably, in fact, never new what we were missing.
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I read a really fantastic book last year, The Third Wave, where the author (Alvin Toffler) talked about de-centralization of media and the production of media by consumers being really important and the wave of the future. He made the comment that when our country was founded, it seemed ludicrous to suggest that one day 99% of our citizens would be able to write a letter. He then suggested that in the future, everyone would record videos, write, record songs, etc.
Now we've got blogs, youtube, cheap digital cameras, garageband, audacity, great video-editing software comes bundled with all Macs... nuts.
it's nuts.
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I think the thing that shocks me the most is online shopping. No matter where you live, you suddenly have access to any product you're willing to pay shipping on.
Yeah. They never predict the really important things, do they?
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Yeah. They never predict the really important things, do they?
I think the important lesson here is that you can, to a surprising extent, predict technology, but you can rarely forsee its application in daily life.
The internet -- this series of tubes I use to communicate with the other voices in Womb@'s head -- was thought originally to be only of interest to research scientists & other academics.
Then again, as Pedro pointed out recently, it wasn't long ago that some skeptics failed to see the practical value of the telephone.
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Yeah. They never predict the really important things, do they?
I suppose the idea was that the *****s would do our shopping for us.
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Mail order shopping is not a new thing. Sears-Roebuck anyone? L.L. Bean? Lillian freakin' Vernon, even?
The internet just made it faster and easier. Just like most everything else.
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I always did a lot of mail-order shopping, but it seems to me that that was almost totally different. The only thing it has in common with internet shopping is the delivery method. Catalogs are like an updated version of door to door salesmen - they come to you, and you can choose from what they offer, and that's it. The internet is like - it's like magic. It's like all I have to do is imagine something and I can have it.
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Mail order shopping is not a new thing. Sears-Roebuck anyone? L.L. Bean? Lillian freakin' Vernon, even?
The internet just made it faster and easier. Just like most everything else.
No paper catalogue I've looked at has antique embalming kits for sale in them.
I'm still waiting for them scientist-folk to invent computer-glasses so I can stop reading *****s as ##### and wondering why ##### would rip faces off when they clearly are not meant to be worn on the head (no eye holes).
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I think a search function is what really makes the difference. With mail order catalogues you have to wait till you find something you like, with the internet you TELL it what you want and it spits up five different options in various shades of neon, pastel or hello kitty.
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Yes, that's the magic. It's like the thing on Star Trek where you tell it what you want to eat and it just assembles it from basic molecules or something.