Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: udet on August 20, 2003, 02:31:42 PM
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50 years ago the future was about a lot of space travel and humanoid intelligent robots, then about virtual reality and so on...
Nowadays we have home computers and GPS and cellphones, which haven't sparked the imagination of many science fiction writers.
Kinda funny if you think about it.
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Originally posted by udet
50 years ago the future was about a lot of space travel and humanoid intelligent robots, then about virtual reality and so on...
Nowadays we have home computers and GPS and cellphones, which haven't sparked the imagination of many science fiction writers.
Kinda funny if you think about it.
How so? Are you saying past writers didn't envision these technologies 50 yrs ago?
Let's see...
Star Trek had hand helds that could communicate over long distance(cell phones), 1984 told the story of a society where your every move is monitored(GPS), and I'm sure there are at least half a dozen stories about beling plugged into the collective(home computers with internet access).
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well, actually, I can't make the connection between 1984 and GPS. In 1984 the monitoring was via a 2 way screen in every apartment.
The communicators in Star-Trek function more like walkie-talkies than phones.
Come on, most of the technologies envisioned in the past have not come to fruition, while othe technologies nobody dreamt of are everyday occurence!
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Originally posted by udet
well, actually, I can't make the connection between 1984 and GPS. In 1984 the monitoring was via a 2 way screen in every apartment.
Ok, you caught me on that one. I have yet to read 1984. However, the 2-way screen is being done today, via telephone.
The communicators in Star-Trek function more like walkie-talkies than phones.
No they don't. The communication is still open channel, does not make use of words to signify the end of one segment of communication(Ex: "What is the status of the ship? Over").
The writers just do not have two people trying to talk over one another on the communicator. Those situations are confusing enough in real life.
Come on, most of the technologies envisioned in the past have not come to fruition, while othe technologies nobody dreamt of are everyday occurence!
The big lie sells easier. As does the truly fantastic. There is probably as well the aspect of the authors not knowing how difficult it would be to create certain technologies(likely they weren't astrophysicist, or engineers).
But we do have variations of the techs you brought up. They just aren't as developed yet. Japan made a walking robot that can traverse stairs, we have game playing computers(abeit, not as good as a human though), and we are in space, but not on Mars.
And another aspect is that authors focused on the darker, social aspects of the techs, instead of the techs themselves. Selling fear is easy and good business for novelists and directors of alledged documentaries.
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What I think is funny is that as recent as 20 years ago (1980's) futurists were envisioning the sleek, efficient automobiles that the new century would bring.
I don't recall any of them predicting that 3 of 4 cars on the road would be big, square, SUVs that look remarkably like the Jeep Wagoneers and Chevy Suburbans of the '70 and 80's and still getting 15 MPG.
Go figure.
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Originally posted by Samiam
What I think is funny is that as recent as 20 years ago (1980's) futurists were envisioning the sleek, efficient automobiles that the new century would bring.
I don't recall any of them predicting that 3 of 4 cars on the road would be big, square, SUVs that look remarkably like the Jeep Wagoneers and Chevy Suburbans of the '70 and 80's and still getting 15 MPG.
Go figure.
Romanticsm without regard to family needs. Twenty years ago marriage was out, and staying sleek, single and free was everything. Who would have thought that people would still breed against preaching of pop culture:)
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Funny you should mention this. Right now I'm reading Toffler's "Future Shock." It is amazing how bang on he was about how the future was going to be. Particularily in regard to Medical Science, Modularization, and Transcience.
Interesting stuff.:eek:
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Originally posted by loser
Funny you should mention this. Right now I'm reading Toffler's "Future Shock." It is amazing how bang on he was about how the future was going to be. Particularily in regard to Medical Science, Modularization, and Transcience.
Interesting stuff.:eek:
Hmmm...Four stars at Amazon, and another I want to get Gibson's "Mona Lisa Overdrive" is 4 1/2. I will keep this in mind for the next book run.
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I guess, at some point in time, every technology will become available. Nobody knows how soon though...
Speaking of soon, I feel that flying cars will hit the market in the next 10 years. There's Mohler Skycar, the Israelis with their Hawk and another one that changes from airplane to autmobile, check oout http://www.aerospectives.com
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Originally posted by udet
I guess, at some point in time, every technology will become available. Nobody knows how soon though...
Speaking of soon, I feel that flying cars will hit the market in the next 10 years. There's Mohler Skycar, the Israelis with their Hawk and another one that changes from airplane to autmobile, check oout http://www.aerospectives.com
No friggin pictures, just a bunch of hype:mad:
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I read Jules Vern's From the Earth to the Moon a while ago and was amazed at how much of the space program he predicted.
He even had Houstan picked as the base for the mission. Imagine that when the book was written over a hundred years ago..
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Originally posted by Habu
I read Jules Vern's From the Earth to the Moon a while ago and was amazed at how much of the space program he predicted.
He even had Houstan picked as the base for the mission. Imagine that when the book was written over a hundred years ago..
Jules Verne did predict most of the fundamental transportation technologies of today.
Btw, the place he picked up for the cannon that launched a capsule into space was Tampa.
However, if you read his book-Paris in the 20th century, you can see that his picture of the future is dead wrong. Although he has written about flying machines in countless books he doesn't mention them as part of the future. In fact, his vision is basically an overextended Victorian era, where things are just bigger (ships,record books, cities)
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"Roswell, NM. '47"
Amazing how much America's technology had advanced from '47 to '03.
The Truth is out There!
:D
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Originally posted by AWMac
"Roswell, NM. '47"
Amazing how much America's technology had advanced from '47 to '03.
The Truth is out There!
:D
Actually, if you're referring to the Aerospace field, Germany, 1939-1945
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Originally posted by udet
Jules Verne did predict most of the fundamental transportation technologies of today.
Btw, the place he picked up for the cannon that launched a capsule into space was Tampa.
I remember him picking Tampa as the place where the launch took place but I also seem to remember Houstan was where the radio was or the project was run out of.
I could be wrong as I read the book 20 years ago.
What stuck me at the time was why the hell would he not have said the launch took place out of London or Germany or France. To pick Florida at that time seem absolutely spooky.
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Ever notice that the closer we get to the world envisioned by sci-fi writers in the 30's, 40's, 50's, and 60's, the greater the market for "ancient history" sci-fi becomes? Conan, Red Sonja, Dragonlance, etc. are examples of a growing market for this type of Fantasy sci-fi.
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Originally posted by DmdMac
Star Trek had hand helds that could communicate over long distance(cell phones)
Also, the tricorder as a smaller version of today's laptop computer.
Funny story you guys might enjoy:
I work in the legal department of a tech company, and most of the people in my department had backgrounds in business and law, not computer technology. When the company I work for first started issuing employees desktop PCs as work tools, I was the only one with a home PC that knew how a PC worked. An addiction to "Air Warrior" had prompted me to continuously upgrade my home system to keep pace with the new AW versions, so I had practical hands-on experience with a lot of the hardware and software mods.
Anyway, I became the informal PC support contact, simply because I was sitting right next to everybody and the official pro desktop support was inconvenient. You can imagine the types of questions that were being asked, from a department of a dozen new computer users. It was becoming irritating to me.
So at lunch I skeedaddled down to my local ToysRUs store and picked up a toy tricorder that lit up and made the beeps and sound effects from the show "Star Trek: The Next Generation".
(http://www.startrekcollectibles.co.uk/acatalog/NG%20TRICORDER.jpg)
Sure enough, as soon as I got back to my desk a female coworker comes up to me and says "Hey, GoFaster, I'm having a problem with Windows opening up this file. Can you help me?" So I grab my tricorder and head over to her machine, press a switch to make the "weedleweedleweedle" noise, then another switch that goes "beep. beepbeep. beep."
"Well, I've got some bad news for ya on this one. According to my reading, I'm picking up a magnetic anomaly centrally located in and around the keyboard area. Have you touched or handled anything magnetic recently?"
"Well, I knocked off a refrigerator magnet this morning and picked it up. Is that it?"
"That's probably it. The best thing for you to do would be to avoid using your keyboard for an hour or so until the magnetism wears off. Just use your mouse for now and avoid touching the keyboard as much as possible."
One second, two second, to let her think about it a bit, then...
"and you might also try clicking Start, then Find, and doing a search to see where the file was saved."
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i cant make any connections about science fiction 'predictions' and stuff we have now...though ive mostly only read heinlen and niven when it comes to science fiction...anyway its best not to take these sorts of things seriously...
gofaster i beleive those things are commonly referred to as fantasy...conan the destroyer red sonja and dragonlance ARE NOT science fantasy...just straight fantasy
science fantasy is more along the lines of piers anthonys incarnations of immortality series
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Where's my dang briefcase that turns into a car? Where's my fancy moving sidewalks? Where's my cool little gadget that when you press a button it gives you a shower, dresses you and cooks breakfast?
I WANT THEM NOW!!!
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Originally posted by Udie
Where's my dang briefcase that turns into a car? Where's my fancy moving sidewalks? Where's my cool little gadget that when you press a button it gives you a shower, dresses you and cooks breakfast?
I WANT THEM NOW!!!
That device was pulled from the market because when the bed folds up like a toaster and spits you out of the top some people were banging their head on the ceiling and they might have sued the manufacturer.