You know you are living in a science fictional future when...

[Paul Beardsley]

This lunchtime, as I was walking across the Guildhall Square in Portsmouth, there was an opera singer performing on the steps of the Guildhall. I'm no expert, but I think she was pretty good, and it's quite unusual for anybody to perform to passersby like that. So I did something very obvious: I phoned my wife so that she could hear the singing over the mobile.

Imagine reading the above in the 1970s. "Are you saying that in 30-odd years time, ordinary people will be walking around with Star Trek-style communicators? No way!"

And of course the idea that I'd be sharing this little story with people on other continents later that day would have seemed... unlikely.

[Wizard From Oz]

Driving in heartland America, over the horizon you begin to see strange shapes looming through the morning light, getting closer you see rows of windmills, glistening white in the sunlight

The scale of the construction defies imagination. Each tower rises over a 150 feet into the air, each blade, made toy-like with distance is forty feet long and needs its own semi trailer to transport

You cant help but smile and think "I am living in the future"

[Paul Beardsley]

Yes, that's the sort of thing I mean.

[novaderrik]

i'll believe i'm living in a science fictional future when i get my flying car.

[Paul Beardsley]

Be careful what you wish for...

[chrissy]

i'll believe i'm living in a science fictional future when i get my flying car.

That is so old fashioned, I use a teleporter now-a-days. :whistle:

[novaderrik]

That is so old fashioned, I use a teleporter now-a-days. :whistle:
a teleporter might be good if you just want to get somewhere fast, but i like to take my time and take in the scenery. you can't go cruising around with a teleporter.

[Van Rijn]

Science fiction future stuff:

When a medical tech uses a hand scanner and reviews the results on a flat screen that could be right out of Star Trek, except for the wires.

Watching a crewed space station that can outshine Venus go overhead.

Seeing a vast and growing library of images and information about other worlds, other stars, other galaxies, even worlds around other stars, and all this on a planet wide information network.

Gigabytes on a keyring.

Personal computers that exceed the specs of supercomputers I used to dream of using.

[Fazor]

The half-foot thick plasma TV in my living room doesn't amaze me; but occasionally I'l realize that, and then the fact that it doesn't amaze me amazes me. :)

[Paul Beardsley]

Yes, that's the point. We should be amazed at what we're not amazed at.

[peteshimmon]

Well getting away from physics, other sciences
have progressed. DNA matching is now good
enough evidence to remove doubt about
convictions. Though strict procedures
guarding against forensic fraud are still
nessessary. And the trick of alternately
warming and cooling a trace sample to "grow"
the DNA to analysable levels was a spectacular
development. Again though care must be used.

Several culprits have now been convicted
decades after the crime. And others cleared!
And I suspect a few convicted people who
cannot admit to a crime want some testing
done to clear their name if possible.

These are science fiction dreams that have
come to pass alright!

[Larry Jacks]

We have computers as powerful as the supercomputers of the 1970s and 80s, and we use them to play games or chat on a network that spans the world. I can sit in my chair and read breaking news stories from around the world. Millions of people carry cameras (still and video) built into tiny cell phones and catch all sorts of things as they happen. A plain and obscure Scottish woman goes on a British TV show and wows millions of people around the world with her voice. With the right equipment, we can watch just about any movie ever made whenever we want in the privacy of our own homes.

And flying cars? I know a man who owns one. He's working on his own design for another one, too.

[mike alexander]

Gene map of a Neanderthal comes to mind.

The SF future that never came was the 1930's and 40's of mighty machines, limitless matter and energy. What happened was that things got smaller instead of larger, that it was faster to push electrons and photons than it was to push metal.

Everything getting smaller. The expected future was landing Huygens on Titan. The unexpected was getting reams of data from a space probe transmitting from Saturn with a five watt radio.

[tdvance]

a Heinlein one--we have this device that can show, in full color and motion, what is happening on the other side of the world, and we use it for....I'll give you a hint--it is called an "idiot box" by some.

We now have a network connecting a very high percentage of American homes together with major databases of information at companies, universities, etc. and we use it for downloading...ok, can't say on this forum!!! Well, ok, I can say "warez" anyway, I guess. For those who don't know the term, warez is a way of installing a virus on your computer (in practice if not in theory).

[tdvance]

The really unexpected is "we have a massive space program, put a man on the moon, AND THEN STOP".

Ok--when I was a kid, finding planets around stars was SF for sure. All kinds of reasons it couldn't be done--Barnard's Star thought to have one, but of course, the errors in measurement were bigger than the effects of the phantom planet. Now, we can find out things about the planet's atmosphere, etc.

[Gillianren]

I was watching The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes the other day, and they had a third-hand computer; the person who donated it to the college did so in lieu of a $20,000 donation. They also had reel-to-reel tapes for it from some company that wasn't actually JPL in that vaguely disguised way, and they had to have a separate room for it.

[peteshimmon]

The old film Things to Come was broadcast in
the early nineties, I had not seen it for
decades. Great ending with the Space Gun
operating. Then I realised the newspapers were
full of the SuperGun affair!

[stutefish]

My job: I maintain an army of robots, each of which does the work of a hundred thousand men.

ETA: I mean, I'm a sysadmin in the e-commerce field. My robots are computers serving the needs of millions of customers worldwide. The number of clerks, secretaries, switchboard operators, and bookkeepers necessary to do this volume of business "by hand" would be mind-boggling.

[chrissy]

I might beat Mike to this one Gillian, maybe it shouldn't play tennis if it is nervous. :D

[chrissy]

Even the simple automatic washing machine, fill it with clothes add your powder and go out, it is all clean when you return.

When a medical tech uses a hand scanner and reviews the results on a flat screen that could be right out of Star Trek, except for the wires.
Well not hand held, but the CT scan is close enough, amazing to see your entire internal body organs from all angles.

[Van Rijn]

Yes, that's the point. We should be amazed at what we're not amazed at.

I often do pause to be amazed, or at least amused, at the science fiction aspects of the world. There are just so many. A couple more come to mind:

A person walking along with an Uhuru earphone, having a real conversation with someone else, somewhere else in the world, essentially using a form of technological telepathy.

Or the Lasik that allowed me a decade without glasses for the first time since I was a kid (it is getting to the point I'll need correction again, though).

[ggremlin]

Two celebrities are fighting over who will instant message 1,000,000 people, people are complaining about the carbon footprint of virtual spam email, but you still can't reserve your room at the Luna City Hilton. Heinlein never saw that one coming.

[Van Rijn]

Well not hand held, but the CT scan is close enough, amazing to see your entire internal body organs from all angles.

I should point out that I was thinking of echocardiography, an ultrasound system where they use a hand held probe and can review the results on a flat screen after being processed by computer. Okay, there are wires and gel, but still, very Star Trek like.

[Gillianren]

They used the wand and screen when I was pregnant with my daughter, I remember.

[Ilya]

My job: I maintain an army of robots, each of which does the work of a hundred thousand men.

ETA: I mean, I'm a sysadmin in the e-commerce field. My robots are computers serving the needs of millions of customers worldwide. The number of clerks, secretaries, switchboard operators, and bookkeepers necessary to do this volume of business "by hand" would be mind-boggling.
Which means, in proper 1950's Golden Age SF context, you maintain an army of robots, each of which does the work of a hundred thousand women.

[darkhunter]

- Your car tells you what the weather is (warm/cold)
- Your car tells you not only how much gas you have left, but how far you can drivee on it and your fuel economy (both instant and average)
- Your car tells you when you need to air up your tyres.

[Tobin Dax]

Perhaps ironically, it seems that I don't live in as much of a science-fiction world as I could do to lack of money.

[novaderrik]

- Your car tells you what the weather is (warm/cold)
- Your car tells you not only how much gas you have left, but how far you can drivee on it and your fuel economy (both instant and average)
- Your car tells you when you need to air up your tyres.

none of my cars tell me those things.

[Noclevername]

Your car can (not mine, but still) tell you how to get somewhere, and which roads are busy.

Kids get toy computers and robots to play with that are more powerful than what was bleeding-edge ten years ago.

There are portable phones that also play music without tapes or albums, takes pictures and "films" movies while also acting as an alarm clock, reminder of appointments or medication, allows you to look up vast amounts of information, act as a secretary and answering machine and send written messages and play videogames.

[Ilya]

There are portable phones that also play music without tapes or albums, takes pictures and "films" movies while also acting as an alarm clock, reminder of appointments or medication, allows you to look up vast amounts of information, act as a secretary and answering machine and send written messages and play videogames.
1950's reader: "What's a videogame?"

Seriously, the whole concept of a game played inside a computer-generated environment (as opposed to computer playing a game, like HAL playing chess) is something no SF writer came up with before Pong made its debut. At least, to the best of my knowledge.

[Van Rijn]

1950's reader: "What's a videogame?"


A few would know. There were early examples of video games in the '50s and '40s, and more in the '60s. I do remember being fascinated by an article in Analog in the early '70s about the game Spacewar. There was a comment by the then editor, John Campbell Jr., that it was a great game, but it would never be popular, because the hardware cost a quarter of a million dollars. Not that many years later I had my own computer that could play Spacewar, and it wasn't anywhere near that expensive :lol:.

This also reminds me, in the early '80s I remember commenting to friends that the whole video arcade business (which was a very big deal at that time) was an unpredicted development of low cost computing. People predicted robots and many other things, but not cheap computer gaming.

[mugaliens]

Your 70+ year old parents are pressuring you to get a cell phone but you're decrying that course of action as being "old hat," and you're instead insisting on a return to simpler times by remaining cell-phone free, in spite of the perplexed comments from friends and family.

[tdvance]

- Your car tells you what the weather is (warm/cold)
- Your car tells you not only how much gas you have left, but how far you can drivee on it and your fuel economy (both instant and average)
- Your car tells you when you need to air up your tyres.

Your car, or at least an add-on device, nags you, sometimes rather obnoxiously, if you don't follow the route it thinks best.

[Paul Beardsley]

There was a comment by the then editor, John Campbell Jr., that it was a great game, but it would never be popular, because the hardware cost a quarter of a million dollars. Not that many years later I had my own computer that could play Spacewar, and it wasn't anywhere near that expensive :lol:.

Van Rijn's entry to the "understatement of the year" competition? :)

[Paul Beardsley]

Seriously, the whole concept of a game played inside a computer-generated environment (as opposed to computer playing a game, like HAL playing chess) is something no SF writer came up with before Pong made its debut. At least, to the best of my knowledge.
Some spring to mind, but I'll have to check the dates. (Besides Van Rijn's post about Spacewar.)

One of Bob Shaw's books - The Shadow of Heaven, I think - had people taking part in an immersive 3D virtual space battle as a way to unwind after work. (1969.)

Ben Bova's The Duelling Machine was another immersive one. As I recall, it jumped its own shark as it introduced teleportation for no good reason, and one character's scenario wasn't exactly fair. (1963.)

Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars featured Sagas - again, they were fully immersive, and resembled the present day adventure games aka interactive fiction. (1956.)

As I've mentioned on several occasions, Stanley Weinbaum wrote about VR back in the 1930s, although the stories didn't really count as computer games stories.

These examples are all immersive - I cannot, offhand, think of any stories that anticipated the standing-up-at-a-console-hitting-buttons type of gaming - but immersive gaming is where gamers would like to be (some of the time at least), and clearly these fictional games were using computing power to maintain the artificial reality.

[eric_marsh]

That is so old fashioned, I use a teleporter now-a-days. :whistle:

The only problem with a teleporter is that they have to kill you at this end to disassemble you and map all your atoms. Of course the "new" you at the other end probably won't mind too much.

[darkhunter]

With a hand-held device attached, your car can tell you whats wrong with it after telling you somethings wrong....

You can watch any broadcast tv show when you want without a tape or dvd beibg involved in thee process.

You can call your tv why stuck in rush-hour traffic and tell it to save a program for you.

You see a person "talking to themselves" and then realize they are actually taalking to a friend somewhen far away (who coud possibly be "talking to themselves")

You can gain a full college education and never sit in a classroom or see your professor.

[Grashtel]

The only problem with a teleporter is that they have to kill you at this end to disassemble you and map all your atoms. Of course the "new" you at the other end probably won't mind too much.
Depends on the flavour of teleporter used, many of them use a wormhole type phenomenon to physically move the subject rather than the Trek style disintegration/recreation.

[Ilya]

These examples are all immersive - I cannot, offhand, think of any stories that anticipated the standing-up-at-a-console-hitting-buttons type of gaming - but immersive gaming is where gamers would like to be (some of the time at least)
I think this is a special case of one major trend (non-trend?) in Golden Age SF -- it almost never portrays intermediate stages of various technologies. There is very little automation in 1950's SF -- unless it is full-blown AI.

[Extravoice]

Yesterday, I walked past the window and saw my wife sitting on the deck wirelessly viewing a video message from a friend on her laptop computer. The thought "welcome to the future" actually crossed my mind.

[Gillianren]

Heck, there's even a new aspect to an ancient technology. For various reasons, I want to read The Canterbury Tales. While sitting at home, I was able to compare and contrast about a half-dozen versions available in libraries scattered dozens of miles away from one another, make a decision, and request that it come to the library when it's available. Yes, I do still have to go downtown to pick the thing up, and the process isn't instantaneous, but I didn't even have to get out of bed to make my selection.

[RalofTyr]

The current presidency reminds me of a '90s token plot element.

[HenrikOlsen]

The current presidency reminds me of a '90s token plot element.
You've been here long enough to know better.
See you in a week.

[crosscountry]

Google Earth and Google Mars

I can do research in 5 minutes that took people lifetimes of work and decades of analysis.

I can download more data to my external hard drive than there was in the entire world the day I was born. And I can do it while eating a sandwich.

[mike alexander]

There are the things, looking back, that now make you wonder, "What were they THINKING?"

Everyone in Niven's Known Space stories seemed to be smoking like a chimney. Even in their little one-man fusion ships. He also had records being taken on photographic film. In the late 60's and early 70's.

Materials science was completely ignored. In Methusela's Children, Lazarus Long picks up a freighter on the moon to transport 100,000 people, lands it on earth, loads up and takes off again without refueling for orbit. The specific impulse for that exhaust must have been awesome, and would have probably burned up the local area for a hundred square miles, while melting the ship to slag.

In his little gem of a novel, James Gunn in The Listeners has a message from a planet orbiting one of the stars of Capella arrive on earth during the term of the first African-American president, Andrew White, who must decide whether to send an answer. In a personal conflict with his son, he is told by his kid (more or less, working on memories a few decades old here):"Do you know why they let you become President, Dad? Because it doesn't matter anymore." The idea that people could move beyond deep-seated predjudice to choose major elected officials based on perceived talent died hard (although Clarke in Childhood's End managed it well before that).

In Silverberg's short story Passengers, the plot hinges on a heterosexual man being forced by a parasitic alien intelligence to turn away from a woman he has grown to love and have a homosexual encounter instead, presented in a way that implies it is the absolute worst, most repulsive thing that could possibly happen. That homosexuals could be achieving a significant level of acceptance in the near future ("It doesn't matter anymore.") was missed by just about everyone (Except maybe Haldeman in The Forever War, although even he indicated that in the far future homosexuals could be returned to the 'normal' heterosexual status).

I find the scientific stuff less interesting than the social stuff. The Cold War would continue indefinitely (see Asimov's Let's Get Together). Airplanes would have six, eight, twelve engines, enough to make it dangerous to step outside in the wind (Campbell, I recall, in Piracy Preferred.). Aliens would always be ultimately understood (Murray Leinster's First Contact) instead of being fundamentally inscrutable (Terry Carr's The Dance of the Changer and the Three).

Truth is, like all literature, SF reflects on the society the writer is in. The idea of predictions is like the guys who look at the stock market. The ones who guess right are hailed as savants, instead of just guessing right.

[Ilya]

That homosexuals could be achieving a significant level of acceptance in the near future ("It doesn't matter anymore.") was missed by just about everyone (Except maybe Haldeman in The Forever War, although even he indicated that in the far future homosexuals could be returned to the 'normal' heterosexual status)..
The Forever War was published, IIRC, in 1976. There were already signs that things were changing.
I find the scientific stuff less interesting than the social stuff.
Ray Bradbury once said "I really write about my contemporaries, I only dress them in galactic clothes". I realized within last year or two that's exactly what I do not want to read. SF provides writer with an opportunity to describe people fundamentally different from present -- or any past, -- time, and to examine how technology influences what it means to be human. I can't help contrasting Heinlein, whose characters 2000 years from now think and act like stereotypical American frontiersmen, and Alastair Reynolds, who managed to make Borg-like collective (Conjoiners) sympathetic. In Time Enough for Love Lazarus Long flat out states[1] that "without women men have no reason to live." In (I think) Redemption Ark Nevil Clavain reminesces how after becoming Conjoined, his sexual relationship with Galyana gradually dwindled: "Not that we stopped loving each other -- far from it. But direct mind to mind communication provides ways of intimacy compared to which sex is pale and not very interesting."

[1] Yes, I know views of a character are not necessarily views of the author. But in this case I feel safe to say they are.

[mike alexander]

I haven't read Mr. Renyolds - or to be honest, too much SF at all in the last 20 years - but since many of Heinlein's characters were on the frontier, it's not odd they sounded like frontiersmen. Just as Asimov's characters sounded like professors. Or Clarke's sounded like professors with tenure.

[Ilya]

That's my point -- Heinlein, Asimov and Clarke all put their characters into familiar milieus. I prefer SF which defines a milieu that never existed, but could exist given some future technology -- and exploring the social implications.

[mfumbesi]

I had a "face-face" conversation with a team from the UK. I never thought of it special until now.

*I'm in Pretoria and they are in London, we were using video conference calling.

[NosePicker]

I love the fact that 'talking computers' used to be ominous...such as Hal or at least awesome as they were in Star Trek. Nowadays, they are just background babblers.

I was watching 2001 on my PC with the speakers going. I suffered a laughing fit that probably the neighbors did not appreciate when the lead character was having his power struggle with Hal. You see, my computer was talking. Hal was talking...on my computer.

My computer cut in with a little Windows balloon asking if it could download updates...and there went the last of my control! I had to turn off the movie. I was crying with laughter and couldn't see anymore.

I used to live in an RV park, I was the first to own a computer there. Now that RV park is lousy with them. Same with my current apartment complex, each with speakers blaring pop tunes, movie sound tracks, and little voices with prompts for windows users. (I've a Windows/Linux hybrid hard drive as some hardware isn't Linux friendly, I was in Windows during the 2001 incident).

[Spock Jenkins]

Many have commented on cell phones. How many are among the millions who no longer even have a land line? My children are going to wonder what those funny looking outlets in the wall are for. We included them in our house, but only had a land line for about six months but dropped it in favor of cable internet and cell phones. Won't be long before cable internet is dropped in favor of Wi-Fi.

I imagine the next step in cable or satellite TV will also be a cell phone distribution model eliminating the need for anything but plugging the TV into the wall. What goes around comes around, I suppose (only with far more channels).

[mike alexander]

You're in the future when your giant flat screen TV can get 350 channels and you don't want to watch a single one.

[MAPNUT]

Along rather different lines, there's serious talk about bringing a mammoth back to life by cloning a well-preserved specimen. I'm guessing it could happen in about 10 years. (See National Geographic.)

[Paul Beardsley]

Along rather different lines, there's serious talk about bringing a mammoth back to life by cloning a well-preserved specimen. I'm guessing it could happen in about 10 years. (See National Geographic.)

That would be a QUITE BIG operation! ;)

[Gillianren]

Anyway, there was serious talk of bringing a mammoth back to life in a book I have from somewhere in the '80s. I'm not sure the likelihood is any higher now.

[Swift]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this... Internet forums. Sure, I was on usenets back in the late 80s / early 90s. But that was still a very small percentage of the population (and it was science fictional back then).

Now, on a regular basis, I correspond and chat with people literally all over the planet, about a wide range of topics. I regularly say things like "someone I know on-line told me ....". I suspect the number of people I know virtually is about the same as the number I know "in real life".

[Gillianren]

I may know more people in real life, especially if you count the people I know online whom I used to know in high school or whatever. But the fact is, I recently reconnected with a lot of those people and can now communicate instantly with old friends who live over a thousand miles away. There are some disadvantages (my daughter's father is trying to be friends again), and it's true that various of my "friends" on Facebook are people I never really knew who are friends of friends apparently trying to pad their counts. But I'd lost touch with two of my dearest friends from back home, and I've found them again with scarcely any work on my part.

[raptorthang]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this... Internet forums. Sure, I was on usenets back in the late 80s / early 90s. But that was still a very small percentage of the population (and it was science fictional back then).

Now, on a regular basis, I correspond and chat with people literally all over the planet, about a wide range of topics. I regularly say things like "someone I know on-line told me ....". I suspect the number of people I know virtually is about the same as the number I know "in real life".

Great posting. I agree and this will only intensify. The sense of 'geographic place' is diminishing when it comes to human interaction. Humans have evolved to be social animals and interaction with fellow humans via electronic media is greater every day. What is 'community' for an 16 year old today? What will it be 50 years from now? Will the idea of a geographic country be obsolete or no more than 'quaint'. Will the 16 year old in Tokyo have more social interaction with a 16 year old in Paris or Havana than he will with the 16 year old who lives next door?

I used to communicate with fellow researchers by mail, perhaps meet them at a conference. Today it's real time chit chat and dialogue with no sense of geographic limitation. It's been a long time since I actually put an article in an envelope, sent it off and then waited some response 'x' number of weeks down the road.

[tdvance]

Along rather different lines, there's serious talk about bringing a mammoth back to life by cloning a well-preserved specimen. I'm guessing it could happen in about 10 years. (See National Geographic.)

Using a modern elephant as a surrogate mother? It might work if living elephants are closely enough related to mammoths. I don't know if that's the case or not. Need compatible hormone mixes, gestation times, etc.

[HAD29]

Paul Beardsley, I worked in the Naval base in Portsmouth for 2 years a few years back. I remember the guildhall square well. Just cross over Commercial Road and turn to your right a bit if I remember. My company put me up in the holiday inn, southsea. Fav haunt was the Sally Port Inn. The ladies behind the bar could do wonders with an expenses claim receipt (Especially Pearl) If there is anyone out there who visits Portsmouth from far afield, and goes to the Sally Port Inn, ask for Pearl. I in all honestly, after just re-reading what I have written, mean that I got a good meal and a fair amount of "free" beer and wine because Pearl and Co. would give me a nice "meal: £45" receipt !!

[Bearded One]

When your phone gets a fatal application error and crashes. :(

[HAD29]

Hehehe, nah, thats not science fiction. That is just the reality I live with a company phone

[Extravoice]

When your phone gets a fatal application error and crashes. :(

The coffee maker in our office recently needed a firmware update! :rolleyes:

[Delvo]

James Gunn in The Listeners has a message from a planet orbiting one of the stars of Capella arrive on earth during the term of the first African-American president, Andrew White, who must decide whether to send an answer. In a personal conflict with his son, he is told by his kid (more or less, working on memories a few decades old here):"Do you know why they let you become President, Dad? Because it doesn't matter anymore." The idea that people could move beyond deep-seated predjudice to choose major elected officials based on perceived talent died hard.I don't get the point here. If it doesn't matter anymore, then they HAVE "moved beyond" it.

In Silverberg's short story Passengers, the plot hinges on a heterosexual man being forced by a parasitic alien intelligence to turn away from a woman he has grown to love and have a homosexual encounter instead, presented in a way that implies it is the absolute worst, most repulsive thing that could possibly happen.A forced unwanted sexual encounter with someone the victim doesn't want to have sex with IS often considered to be pretty much the worst, most repulsive thing that could happen, at least if the victim is a woman. Does the victim in this case being a man make it not matter to you?

[Noclevername]

The only problem with a teleporter is that they have to kill you at this end to disassemble you and map all your atoms. Of course the "new" you at the other end probably won't mind too much.

That depends on how the teleporter works. A spacefold or wormhole model could transit the original "you", no breakdowns needed. A "superparticle" tunnelling method might consider your entire form as a gestalt; you'd arrive just as you left. OTOH, if there's particle-by-particle transportation you can make yourself into anything you like at the other end, and manufacturing would be a snap.

[KaiYeves]

Driving in heartland America, over the horizon you begin to see strange shapes looming through the morning light, getting closer you see rows of windmills, glistening white in the sunlight

The scale of the construction defies imagination. Each tower rises over a 150 feet into the air, each blade, made toy-like with distance is forty feet long and needs its own semi trailer to transport

Same exact feeling, only replace "heartland America" with "Australia".

Looking at- and extending a cautious finger to prod- the insanely miniature communication devices used by one's friends and seeing them laugh at your behaviour.

Watching a spacewalk live on a personal computer.

Having a question about archeology answered in real time by members of an expedition in Turkey. (Three cheers for Robert Ballard!)

Lying in bed and realizing that there are humans living and working in space every minute of every day.

[NosePicker]

The coffee maker in our office recently needed a firmware update! :rolleyes:

Ouch! A computerized coffee pot? My inner Brontosaur is groaning...

[Gillianren]

A friend's dad had a pacemaker put in Friday--and it was considered routine surgery. Our mailman's wife had serious facial reconstruction, and he says some of the scars are as thin as a sheet of paper.

[Paul Beardsley]

A forced unwanted sexual encounter with someone the victim doesn't want to have sex with IS often considered to be pretty much the worst, most repulsive thing that could happen, at least if the victim is a woman. Does the victim in this case being a man make it not matter to you?
No, the point is, at the time "Passengers" was written, an ending in which the possessed man had gone off with a woman would have been much less unpleasant to the perceived audience than the actual ending in which he went off with a man. Indeed, it would probably have been interpreted by some as, "Great! He's going to have a bit of fun before he gets together with the woman he met earlier!"

[Swift]

The coffee maker in our office recently needed a firmware update! :rolleyes:
Now there's an idea for an SF story. Cyber-terrorists crash all the computerized coffee makers on the planet and civilization crashes. :D

[crosscountry]

I've got a NES boxed up on my dresser as a showpiece. How odd is that?


Kids these days start out with an Xbox 360. They'll never know the finer points of 2D gaming.





Shoot, I'm rereading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and in it "electricity" makes everything work. Captain Nemo was able to do things we cannot now, but we no less take electricity for granted.

[Tobin Dax]

Now there's an idea for an SF story. Cyber-terrorists crash all the computerized coffee makers on the planet and civilization crashes. :D
Futurama did that one.

[Extravoice]

Ouch! A computerized coffee pot? My inner Brontosaur is groaning...

Yup. Here is what it looks like:

[HenrikOlsen]

I don't get the point here. If it doesn't matter anymore, then they HAVE "moved beyond" it.
The point of what the kid said was that he got elected because the position had stopped being important, not because his skin color had stopped being important.

[mike alexander]

Thanks, Henrik and Paul. I was trying to come up with a reply, and you each did it better than I could have, and more succinctly to boot.

[Donnie B.]

Ouch! A computerized coffee pot? My inner Brontosaur is groaning...
As an engineer who designs embedded systems for a living, I can assure you: everything has a computer in it now. Except maybe pencils.

[Gillianren]

Heck, I've got a book sitting here that has a CD-ROM--and it's not a book about computers! (It's Vincent Bugliosi's massive, thirty-years-in-the-works book about the Kennedy assassination, and the disc's all end notes and bibliography and things, because there's about 800 pages' worth.)

[MAPNUT]

Years ago in New York City I would see a person walking down the sidewalk talking to somebody invisible, and say to myself, "Hmmm, he doesn't look like a crazy person . . Oh wait, he's talking on a mobile phone!" Now I say, "Hmmm, I can't see what kind of a phone he's using . . Oh wait, he's a crazy person!"

[Swift]

Years ago in New York City I would see a person walking down the sidewalk talking to somebody invisible, and say to myself, "Hmmm, he doesn't look like a crazy person . . Oh wait, he's talking on a mobile phone!" Now I say, "Hmmm, I can't see what kind of a phone he's using . . Oh wait, he's a crazy person!"
:lol:

[MAPNUT]

The funniest related incident I recall was when I walked around a corner and almost bumped into a fellow standing there, and he shouted, "What do you want to fight about, anyway?!" I jumped. Of course he was talking to somebody who wasn't there.

[Joe Meils]

You know you are living in a science fiction world when: you are watching an old episode of Star Trek, and smirk whenever they pull out one of those square computer memory chips that look so much like old fashioned 3.5" floppies, and realize how behind the times the show has become.

You know... when Kirk pulls out his communicator, and you realize your phone is smaller, has GPS, 3-G network capability, a camera, and can also function as a compass, a hand held gaming unit...

You know... when you are strolling throguh Wal-Mart, and come across a toothbrush that will tell you the time, date and your temperature...

Or when you are strolling thtough Wal-Mart cam come across a toy robot... which has more programmable versitility than what Westinghouse ever built into some of their experiemental models back in the 70's...

When you pick up the phone, and start talking with someone who is taking a consumer or election poll... and you don't realize until later that, for the last few minutes, you've been conversing with a machine.

When you come out of a movie, and you just don't realize how much of it was actually a CGI enviroment... until you either see it in the DVD's special features, or a copy of Cinefex... (I had this happen to me with both Children of Men, and Cloverfeild)

[NosePicker]

Now there's an idea for an SF story. Cyber-terrorists crash all the computerized coffee makers on the planet and civilization crashes. :D

Oh ewww, back to the old days of boiling coffee and straining it through a filter...or a tied up sock as I did once when my coffee maker broke. The sock kept the grounds out of the water, and it was the type not to leave threads in the water (it was clean of course).

:shifty:

[NEOWatcher]

...(it was clean of course).

:shifty:

So you like your coffee straight up, not with ameri-toe flavoring?

[NosePicker]

As an engineer who designs embedded systems for a living, I can assure you: everything has a computer in it now. Except maybe pencils.

http://i1.iofferphoto.com/img/item/451/181/01/107681805_tp.jpg

I got my coffee maker from a thrift shop called St. Vincent De Paul for $5 about seven years ago...I think. New, you can pick it up for $20 to $25. It's a Proctor Silex 2-12 cup Cheap Skate special.

It doesn't have a computer in it. It has a water pump activated by electricity when you switch it on. But then, my budget doesn't allow for a sweet fancy. I did wonder about how those thingies worked.

:lol:

[NosePicker]

So you like your coffee straight up, not with ameri-toe flavoring?

I'll pass on the jam thank you...:sick:

[KaiYeves]

When your AP World History review book has a section about space travel. (Yes, it's small, and they combine it with the Arms Race, but it's there! Squee!)

[tdvance]

Ouch! A computerized coffee pot? My inner Brontosaur is groaning...

Flavia makes them, as does Keurgieuuwe3 or something like that.

In a previous office, we had to have one replaced because it kept giving an error code.

[tdvance]

As an engineer who designs embedded systems for a living, I can assure you: everything has a computer in it now. Except maybe pencils.

maybe so, but as a kid, I had this pen with a computer in it--novelty item: digital clock.

[NosePicker]

My MP3 player has a little computer in it. (My toy is dark blue.)

* 1 GB of memory
* built-in FM tuner
* Play MP3/WMA digital Music with 7 bands mode EQ system.
* Dot Matrix LCD display with blue back light
* 10 hours of operation with one AAA battery


http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21yR8Mmxu7L._SL500_AA200_.jpg

[JonClarke]

Flying in an A380, with hundreds of programs available on the entertainiment system, but the best is the view from the webcam in the tail.

Jon

[NosePicker]

Flying in an A380, with hundreds of programs available on the entertainiment system, but the best is the view from the webcam in the tail.

Jon

Sweet!

[Paul Beardsley]

Of course, some aspects of the future run counter to what we could reasonably have expected.

Nearly everyone has a computer now, and that (as has been noted) is science fictiony enough in itself. So nearly everyone has this wonderful processing power at their fingertips.

Yet internet discussions (other than BAUT and a few others) seems to consist mainly of people expressing ill-informed opinions, or abusing people with a different viewpoint.

Moon Hoax Believers could be calculating how much fuel is needed, what speed the capsules pass through the Van Allen belts, what dose of radiation they would receive, and so on. ATMers could enrol on online maths courses, and use commercially available modelling software to see if their theories hold water - never again would we hear, "I don't know the maths, but..."

So why isn't it happening? (Rhetorical question.)

[Gillianren]

Paul, I think what you have done is prove that technology doesn't change human nature. Who knew?

[Paul Beardsley]

Rhetorical question, Gillian?

[Gillianren]

Well, yes. It was merely an observation.

ETA--It was also assuredly not intended as a slight against you. More against . . . well, Gene Roddenberry, I guess!

[Paul Beardsley]

ETA--It was also assuredly not intended as a slight against you.
Don't worry, I didn't read it as one. I'd have put an emoticon afterwards, but couldn't find a specifically "dry, deadpan" smiley!

[Ilya]

Well, yes. It was merely an observation.

ETA--It was also assuredly not intended as a slight against you. More against . . . well, Gene Roddenberry, I guess!
You think Roddenbery believed technology DOES change human nature?

I disagree -- I think Gene Roddenberry (also Arthur C. Clarke) had far too idealistic view of what human nature already is, and believed that technology simply allows all good things to come to the forth.

[Gillianren]

You think Roddenbery believed technology DOES change human nature?

I disagree -- I think Gene Roddenberry (also Arthur C. Clarke) had far too idealistic view of what human nature already is, and believed that technology simply allows all good things to come to the forth.

In my way of thinking, it's not a substantial enough difference of concept. The fact is, technology is never going to make us perfect, either by its own devices or by whatever magic Roddenberry was suggesting. There will always be conflict; technology just changes, somewhat, what there's conflict about--and how it's resolved.

[NosePicker]

Computers are simply a communications device, and makes ******y more effective for the juvenile minded or spreading science chatter for the so inclined. Computers have no control (yet) over who said what at their keyboards. They just send the data faster.

[Weird Dave]

The Forever War was published, IIRC, in 1976. There were already signs that things were changing.
Clarke's "Imperial Earth", while old-fashioned in many ways, is probably still one of the most liberal things I've read in this regard. Sexual orientation as a concept isn't even mentioned much - all we have is the main character moping that a woman he fancied ran off with his male best friend and lover. And we only learn that he's black halfway through the book.

Technologically, SD cards (flash memory) just scream sci-fi at me. No tape, no disc, no moving parts at all. They're the very essence of data slivers.

And on a very slightly different note, I think the IPhone has pretty much crossed the border into "indistinguishable from magic". Not so much its function as phone, portable games console, music player - that's "just" science fiction. But the way the icons appear on the screen, and can be moved round with your fingers, is just a step away from a wizard gesturing instructions to a magic mirror.

[KaiYeves]

Being able to find out from your computer when a permanently crewed space station will be flying over your house.

[NosePicker]

Being able to follow a news story as it develops in real time by refreshing a web page, sometimes every five minutes if it is an unusually fast developing story. Another way to follow in real time news are tools such as Google's Swine Flu web map. There's no need to wait 24 hours for the daily paper.

There are risks. Total immersion in the often negative news can cause emotional downswings. You also have to be certain to seek out balance in your information sources. There are good sources of information, but there are plenty of Woo Woos telling us that Aliens are lurking under the man hole covers...:shifty:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3389/3487566018_4fb629416b.jpg?v=0

[Siguy]

I have a chip measuring less than 10x15x1mm storing 8 gigabytes (68,719,476,736 bits) on a 5x8mm section and it cost practically nothing.

[tdvance]

The number of "levels of abstraction" in technology becomes biological (not astronomical--not so much big as complicated) in size. No one person is an expert in all levels, and many work only at just one level, taking all the lower levels as "given".

(not so simple) example: a hypothetical piece of artificial intelligence software is entirely information, no physical substance, that is built from subroutines, each of which performs functions as complex as what was once considered a computer program, but are simple compared to "AI".

The subroutines are written in some high-level human-readable computer language (maybe C or C++) with an associated "platform" so you don't re-invent the wheel for everything (such as printf--to display text on the screen).

The complier rewrites the human-readable code as assembly (may be steps in between: parse tree that a computer can interpret easily, a register transfer language that is more portable than assembly, and finally assembly, which was how we programmed before high-level languages were improved on enough). The assembler turns it into numbers, which is really the only thing a computer can run.

The CPU takes the numbers, and (in modern CPUs, at least), "decodes" them to call microcode routines (what we call microcode today would have been the main language of a computer decades ago). and these are executed by transistors...no, not quite, still some more levels to go through!

They are executed by blocks on a chip, such as the ALU (arithmetic-logic unit) block, memory control, etc. Then, the blocks were built (designed using some language like Verilog) out of flip flops, gates, "wires" (that are really paths in silicon). Each gate, flip flop, etc, has been designed and optimized in RTL (resistor-transistor logic)--but there is still something missing! even when IBM, say, gets the verilog specs, they don't just convert to RTL and build it--there's "floor planning" (putting the transistors, etc. in an optimal order on the chip(s) so data doesn't travel so far, since it "only" goes the speed of light) and though automated mostly, may need to be tweaked by hand (emergent issues occur--"parasitic capacitance" between so-called "wires" too close together causing data slowdowns, etc.) and extra resistors put in here and there to get the voltage right, extra capacitors here and there to make sure a flip flop gets power quickly when it needs it, the power supply being a good 15 inches away, and so on.

Then, this is built physically on an integrated circuit chip--that is a whole new can of worms (I told you it was biological!) , a technology well-developed with tons of innovations making them what they are today. A tiny, submicron area of the chip would be a single transistor or resistor or capacitor, etc. Now it is starting to look like chemistry and/or quantum mechanics--silicon with impurities added, just the right amount, to make it behave like the required electronic component. Note--many chips are thrown away as useless--even today, the process is not absolutely perfect. It used to be, you throw away 9 out of every 10 chips you make. Today, it's closer to 1 out of 20 or 40 or so, depending on the complexity of the chip.

The component works via effects (many discovered in the quantum-mechanical research of Bardeen, Shockley, and, you know, the third tenor..er...scientist). These are essentially "solid state radio tubes", since they were invented to be a better, faster, cheaper version of "radio tubes" (invented by De Forest, almost invented by Edison but he didn't see the significance). (and I haven't even mentioned all the manufacturing involved--glass, silicon, wires, etc, don't grow on trees--they grow in factories).

Ok--it's not truly biological as we *can* follow the zillions of threads backward in abstraction from the AI software, at least in principle, but it's getting close. As machines help design machines (remember, parts of chip design are automated, translation to lower level languages is automated, but also we have IDEs--integrated development environments, like NetBeans--and editors (e.g. xemacs) that automate parts of code writing, mostly the grunt work, but more and more as one goes on--someday...., and we do have special-purpose tools, e.g. lex and yacc, that write C code based on (much shorter) specifications about what it should do).

Thus, the programmer doesn't know what his lowest level code is doing because another program wrote it. He doesn't know what the hardware does with the code, because that's the engineer's problem. And so on.

If this goes on....someday we will have a Library-Of-Alexandria-ish problem, but perhaps in the milder form, where we forget how to do the lowest levels, but take the highest levels of abstraction of a technology as "given". Chips? well, this machine over there puts them out. Nobody knows how it does it or how these chips work. THAT is the future.

But my point is, 90% of it is already here, and that seems very science fictiony (sipled milk, anyone?).

[KaiYeves]

When with a few clicks and some typing, I am able to find out that NASA.gov is the 437th most visited site by Internet users in the United States! (http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nasa.gov)

[Van Rijn]

When with a few clicks and some typing, I am able to find out that NASA.gov is the 437th most visited site by Internet users in the United States! (http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nasa.gov)

Heh. Speaking of science fiction, imagine parsing that statement pre-internet. A person would probably realize that it was talking about something involving NASA, and traffic on a network, but they wouldn't know the underlying context, or what you were clicking.

[mugaliens]

Well...

Heinlein's "Mike" computer, of Luna origen, became self-aware during one of his short stories. He wrote it in the 1950s, if I'm not mistaken. Among Heinlein's narratives were Mike simulating both voice and videophone conversations of many others.

No 3d simulations, per se', though...

[NosePicker]

Well...

Heinlein's "Mike" computer, of Luna origen, became self-aware during one of his short stories. He wrote it in the 1950s, if I'm not mistaken. Among Heinlein's narratives were Mike simulating both voice and videophone conversations of many others.

No 3d simulations, per se', though...

Imagine a kid with the name 'Google'?

[crosscountry]

When with a few clicks and some typing, I am able to find out that NASA.gov is the 437th most visited site by Internet users in the United States! (http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nasa.gov)


following up on that I checked out cnn.

http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=r&b=ffffff&r=6m&u=cnn.com&

Cnn.com is the 15th most hit site in the US. But look at January and November!!!

[crosscountry]

actually, there's a lot of information on that chart. you can see the periodic (work week) highs and weekend lows. Holidays like Christmas and new Years are slow, and then of course there's the almost complete evenness throughout the rest of the time. The same people do the same surfing every day.

[crosscountry]

and google.com is numero uno in the world with approx 30% of all internet traffic.:surprised

http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=r&b=ffffff&r=6m&u=google.com&

[crosscountry]

face book is taking over

http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=r&b=ffffff&r=2y&u=facebook.com&

[crosscountry]

oddly google.fr has the same periodicity but the amplitude between peak and low is not as pronounced
http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=r&b=ffffff&r=6m&u=google.fr&

[crosscountry]

and then there's twitter

http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=r&b=ffffff&r=2y&u=twitter.com&

[KaiYeves]

But look at January and November!!!
Must be from the election and inauguration.

Heh. Speaking of science fiction, imagine parsing that statement pre-internet. A person would probably realize that it was talking about something involving NASA, and traffic on a network, but they wouldn't know the underlying context, or what you were clicking.
And pre-1958, they'd have said "You spelled NACA wrong!"

[mahesh]

Imagine a kid with the name 'Google'?

I would have thought 'Google' was two words....
Go / Ogle

[TrAI]

Hmmm... Well, I must admit that using my tablet/convertible PC has a sort of Sci-Fi feel to it, I can move stuff with my finger or use a wacom digitizer pen to draw or write. I can have tousands of books or hundreds of high resolution pictures on a piece of plastic the size of a stamp.

I can download audio versions of old sci-fi books from Librivox and listen to them on my MP3 player. It can store enough audio for many workdays, and only needs a AAA battery, and could be used as an audio recorder if I ever needed one.

There are websites where I can see videos made by people anywhere in the world, and everytime something happens, there is always somebody around to record it. I can listen to music that was not played by a human, and songs no human sang, and these nonexistant singers have even been given names.

I can buy something on the web, pay it on the web, and get the package delivered at my door.

If I do not know where somewere is, i can just go online and get a map that shows me. If I need to figure out what busses to take to get somewere, I can just go to a website, enter where I am, where I want to go, and when i want to go and I get a list of the possible choices for getting there.

I am not sure if one can call it Sci-Fi futuristic, but around here it has become popular for supermarkets and companies to build new structures that basicaly is a steel skeleton with walls made from two metal sheets with insulation sandwiched between them. Anyway, the point is that it is surprising how fast one of these things can be built.

I can put some food on a plate in the microwave and some minutes later, it is sizzling hot, and still I can take out the plate without burning by hand...

Well, there are probably an endless amount of other things that could be mentioned, but this post is getting to be rather long now...

[KaiYeves]

When the digital avatars of my two brothers can play a duet together in a completely fictional Middle-Ages world just by typing a few keys on their keyboards.

[Delvo]

actually, there's a lot of information on that chart. you can see the periodic (work week) highs and weekend lows. Holidays like Christmas and new Years are slow, and then of course there's the almost complete evenness throughout the rest of the time. The same people do the same surfing every day.And the two big spikes are near the times of the American elections and the Presidential inauguration.

[mike alexander]

...when humans are warming up their planet. Back when only puppeteers did stuff like that.

[darkhunter]

If you know the correct terminology there are very few things so obscure that you cannot find them by typing a few words on a computer and getting information about it.
And as stated above, you can do this anywhere....

You can find out (roughly) what the weather will be like in a week.

We have a picture of Earth where it only takes up a few pixels (from Voyager's "Family Portrait").

You have to potential means to communicate with anyone in the world.

You can have an audience of millions, and never see a person face to face.

[crosscountry]

I can be in Paris in a matter of hours - not weeks, and be entertained the whole trip, and it's relatively cheap to do.

[mike alexander]

...when you complain about the future stuff. ("The internet is taking SO LONG to load today.")

[Gillianren]

We have a picture of Earth where it only takes up a few pixels (from Voyager's "Family Portrait").

There is such thing as a pixel?

[Arneb]

What he said.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGYx35ypus&feature=related)

[Tobin Dax]

What he said. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGYx35ypus&feature=related)
I'm really amused (and appalled) by the guy on the airplane when they lose their internet connection.

[tdvance]

that reminds me--I was joking, but, last year at the Almost Heaven Star Party on top of Spruce Knob, WV, we had a storm come through and knock over the antennas that gave us our wireless internet. So when I came home, I told a cousin how I was roughing it and loving it, till it got too rough--and I lost my internet!

[Noclevername]

A while back I got a cut finger, and they put on a gauze-ish strip that clotted the blood, never had to be removed, absorbed into the wound and helped speed the healing process as it dissolved. And this was some ten years ago.

[GeorgeLeRoyTirebiter]

I'm really amused (and appalled) by the guy on the airplane when they lose their internet connection.

I heard Louis CK admit in a radio interview that that guy didn't really exist. It was actually Louis himself who was so upset about the internet service failing before he realized just how ridiculous that was.

[crosscountry]

I'm really amused (and appalled) by the guy on the airplane when they lose their internet connection.

yea, by chance he'll be in Austin this Friday, and I plan to go.

[Tobin Dax]

I heard Louis CK admit in a radio interview that that guy didn't really exist. It was actually Louis himself who was so upset about the internet service failing before he realized just how ridiculous that was.
That's not too surprising. I'd probably do the same thing myself. :)

[Paul Beardsley]

Nice sketch!

I liked the line about "you are sitting in a chair in the sky!"

We really should be awed everyday by the everyday. I wouldn't mind that people don't if only they'd show a bit more respect towards the ones who make their amazing lives possible.

[KaiYeves]

When somebody in Minnesota can read a poem you've written before your parents do. (Because they were out that night and SpaceVidcast was doing a show.)

[SeanF]

...when you complain about the future stuff. ("The internet is taking SO LONG to load today.")
Our local cable company has a television advertisement touting their video-on-demand service, and how you don't have to wait to watch a movie. Part of the ad is naming a bunch of other stuff that you do have to wait for.

On that list?

The microwave.

:doh:

[NosePicker]

Our local cable company has a television advertisement touting their video-on-demand service, and how you don't have to wait to watch a movie. Part of the ad is naming a bunch of other stuff that you do have to wait for.

On that list?

The microwave.

:doh:

...I beg your pardon?

[Tobin Dax]

Our local cable company has a television advertisement touting their video-on-demand service, and how you don't have to wait to watch a movie. Part of the ad is naming a bunch of other stuff that you do have to wait for.

On that list?

The microwave.

:doh:
A burrito takes a minute to cook. I want it now! :whistle:

[Swift]

I want instant gratification and I want it NOW!

[KaiYeves]

I don't care what apathy is!

[crosscountry]

I am not argumentative!

[peteshimmon]

You dial up the latest pictures of the
Martian surface from two robots that have
have been at it for five long years1

When I were a lad I had to make do with 22
fuzzy pictures from a flyby that took 2 weeks
to sort out. And I had to walk to school
in the freezing weather and sleep in cold
bedrooms etc etc.

[Paul Beardsley]

Try telling that to young people these days... They won't believe you!

But I remember, back in 1980, my brother went on holiday to America, and visited (I think) Cape Canavarel. He brought me back some quality prints of the Viking mission, which I kept on the wall for several years. Viking has been bettered in recent years, but looking back, I still feel the awe of seeing the first pictures taken from the surface of Mars. The day before 20 July 1976, it was all speculative. Then suddenly we actually knew what at least a part of the Martian surface looked like.

A lot of people - especially SF writers - feel disappointed by the space programme. It's true, we don't have lunar cities, and nobody has set foot on Mars. But the fact that we do have real close-up views of other words is staggeringly awesome. The fact that we know that the universe feels no compulsion to conform to our expectations is a wonderful thing - and frankly, it makes up for the fact that there are no cities or princesses on Mars.

[Gillianren]

I went to the post office today to mail a couple of Mothers' Day cards, and the only vending machine in the place didn't take cash. I actually had to go to the counter to give them my eighty-four cents.

[Delvo]

I wonder what things we're used to, having had them for what seems like a long time to use or even our whole lives, but which the next generation will think we must not have had. For example, based on the way my parents depicted the world they'd grown up in, I thought they must not have had electricity all along but gotten it at some point as adults. It just seemed to fit in with the general theme, I guess. My mother thought this was hilarious because electricity was obviously common long before she was born, and she told me that it's a running joke among people her age that their children all seem to think that way.

[KaiYeves]

When you can find (http://image46.webshots.com/47/7/30/81/308173081xTAZUA_fs.jpg) photographs of artwork (http://image53.webshots.com/153/8/65/75/492686575wtMNce_fs.jpg) in the United States Capitol online in seconds that it would probably take half an hour to find if you were in the actual building with a map. (At least with my sense of direction.)

[NosePicker]

When you can find (http://image46.webshots.com/47/7/30/81/308173081xTAZUA_fs.jpg) photographs of artwork (http://image53.webshots.com/153/8/65/75/492686575wtMNce_fs.jpg) in the United States Capitol online in seconds that it would probably take half an hour to find if you were in the actual building with a map. (At least with my sense of direction.)

Your links lead to error pages :sad:

[Gillianren]

Your links lead to error pages :sad:

And anyway "a link to the picture" is not at all the same as "being there yourself." Oh, it's nice to have, but I'd rather be there in the National Statuary Hall.

[tdvance]

When you and a friend are driving somewhere and he pulls out this big contraption he calls a "map" to see which way to go, and you laugh for not having used one of those for a while.

[KaiYeves]

I would like to be there in person, for sure, but it's nice to know what the actual artwork looks like so I don't walk past it by accident if I do go there.

[crosscountry]

when I can use my credit card in Europe and their machine checks my account in the US within seconds, and I make my purchase.

When we get worldly news in real time from an internet broadcast.

Can you imagine waiting weeks to hear how things are going? Before telephones or telegraphs armies were sent to fight, and the people back home had no idea how things were going.

[geonuc]

Before telephones or telegraphs armies were sent to fight, and the people back home had no idea how things were going.
Tragically, there are numerous historical examples of battles being fought after the governments of the warring sides made peace. So, you might say, you're living in a sci-fi future when your armies know when not to fight. :)

[DonM435]

[QUOTE=Paul Beardsley;1473780]

...

Imagine reading the above in the 1970s. "Are you saying that in 30-odd years time, ordinary people will be walking around with Star Trek-style communicators? No way!"

...
QUOTE]


I believe that the best prediction of the cell phone was by the "science fiction" writer who drew the Dick Tracy comic strip.


I frequently have my knees x-rayed due to arthritis problems. It's kind of nice that they've developed the hardware to the point where I don't have to take off my pants and put on one of those bizarre hospital gowns. Just stand there and let the x-rays do their stuff.

[Swift]

I frequently have my knees x-rayed due to arthritis problems. It's kind of nice that they've developed the hardware to the point where I don't have to take off my pants and put on one of those bizarre hospital gowns. Just stand there and let the x-rays do their stuff.
Even more so, there are digital x-rays (http://www.dexis.com/), where the image is recorded by a digital detector, not on film (my dentist has one).

[Fazor]

Even more so, there are digital x-rays (http://www.dexis.com/), where the image is recorded by a digital detector, not on film (my dentist has one).

Saves on film, and in some applications, would allow quicker access to image enhancement techniques (You just have to say the word "enhance" and hit a single key, right?).

Things that should not go digital; many of our applications for insurance are now digital. Save's paper! Go green! Right? But they're legal documents that require physical signatures - so you have to print them anyway. Often, since more business is coming from over-the-phone or internet transactions, you need to print them twice, so that when the purchaser fails to sign and return the first, you have a backup copy (digital copies aren't always available after the fact). So by going green, I'd estimate we use 30% more paper than before.

[Swift]

I'd estimate we use 30% more paper than before.
See, that's the "fiction" of living in a science fiction future. The fiction is/was that using computers would save us paper. ;)

[Ilya]

I frequently have my knees x-rayed due to arthritis problems. It's kind of nice that they've developed the hardware to the point where I don't have to take off my pants and put on one of those bizarre hospital gowns.
Was it ever truly necessary to take off your pants and put on bizarre hospital gown? Or was it just a CYA thing, like the ban on cell phones in the hospitals? (AFAIK, no hospital device was ever actually harmed by a cell phone transmission.)

[Gillianren]

See, that's the "fiction" of living in a science fiction future. The fiction is/was that using computers would save us paper. ;)

To be fair, by writing a book or term paper or whatnot entirely on a computer, it's possible to revise the thing until you're satisfied with it before printing it out. I gave a copy to a friend recently to go over, and I haven't even finished writing the thing--I loaned him my data stick. And he's going to return the stick with pictures he took using his phone. (No, I'm not expecting them to be as good as photos taken with a camera. However, my camera was out of batteries at the time the pictures were taken.)

Geonuc, are you thinking of Andy Jackson, too?

[mike alexander]

Was it ever truly necessary to take off your pants and put on bizarre hospital gown? Or was it just a CYA thing, like the ban on cell phones in the hospitals? (AFAIK, no hospital device was ever actually harmed by a cell phone transmission.)

My experience has been that the one thing the gown doesn't do is CYA.

[Extravoice]

Even more so, there are digital x-rays (http://www.dexis.com/), where the image is recorded by a digital detector, not on film (my dentist has one).

My dentist claims that the digital sensors work with lower power x-rays than the film versions. If true, that's a good thing.

Now, if she didn't need to stick the sensor in my mouth...

[KaiYeves]

When kids in rural Australia, half an hour from Tamworth, can see images of Enceladus from a robot camera orbiting Saturn just as clearly as if they were at JPL watching them come in.

Probably the most touching moment of my People to People Australian trip.

[tdvance]

Don't live in town? No problem! You order from Amazon.com. It's the Sears catalog of the future!

[Extravoice]

Don't live in town? No problem! You order from Amazon.com. It's the Sears catalog of the future!

And you can read reviews of the products by people who already own them. (That may not be science-fictional, but it is one of my favorite things about Amazon. Well, maybe video reviews are a little sci-fi)

[Van Rijn]

And you can read reviews of the products by people who already own them. (That may not be science-fictional, but it is one of my favorite things about Amazon. Well, maybe video reviews are a little sci-fi)

Though you should take the reviews with a grain of salt, especially the five star reviews.

There was a thread sometime back about an ATM book where it seemed pretty clear that negative reviews with comments on the bad science were being pulled. If you just went by the reviews on that site you would likely get a distorted view of the book.

It isn't a consistent issue (I've seen other things get what appear to be fair reviews), but I wouldn't trust the reviews too far.

[mike alexander]

There's a story here... Oh, yeah, the immortality serum is great, but 200 years after taking it your IQ drops to 25. Sorry 'bout that.

[tdvance]

Though you should take the reviews with a grain of salt, especially the five star reviews.

There was a thread sometime back about an ATM book where it seemed pretty clear that negative reviews with comments on the bad science were being pulled. If you just went by the reviews on that site you would likely get a distorted view of the book.

It isn't a consistent issue (I've seen other things get what appear to be fair reviews), but I wouldn't trust the reviews too far.

I'd say there are plenty of biased 5-star and 1-star reviews, not so much bias in the ones in between. But as always, got to actually read the review rather than count the stars--often the biased reviews "tell on themselves" in the writeup (e.g. so much hyperbole you could fill the Grand Canyon with it).

[Swift]

There's a story here... Oh, yeah, the immortality serum is great, but 200 years after taking it your IQ drops to 25. Sorry 'bout that.
Actually, there was a science fiction story that had that idea as a minor element. In Robert L. Forward's book Rocheworld, the astronauts take a drug to slow down their aging, for the interstellar trip. But one of the consequences of the drug is that it drops their intelligence to that of a child, while they are taking the drug. At the end of journey (IIRC it takes 40 years, during which they physically age about 10 years), they stop taking the drug and return to normal.

[stutefish]

... there's a robot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Hawk) "certified by the FAA to file its own flight plans and use civilian air corridors in the United States with no advance notice".

[KaiYeves]

Okay, so the STS-125 launch happened to be during the period I have art, my art teacher happens to be really nice, and I happened to have much of my work done, so I was able to go to the computer lab to watch it.

Now, our computer teacher used to be the head of Stage Crew, so she likes me a lot, and once I got the live feed on SpaceVidcast up, she actually put it on the SmartBoard and turned the sound up, so everybody in the class could hear it.

Now, SpaceVidcast has a chat-box under the video stream, so I typed "I'm watching with all my friends in computer class!"

Most of the other people typed back something like "Hi, Kai's computer class!", but one person typed "Now all you school kids watching, remember when you grow up to vote all the politicians who don't support this out of office." (Remember, this was flashing onto the screen the whole class was watching.

So yes- you know you are living in a science fictional future when you can be digitally embarrassed in front of all your friends by somebody you don't even know.

[Larry Jacks]

So by going green, I'd estimate we use 30% more paper than before.

I only wish I'd bought stock in paper companies when everyone was talking about "the paperless office." It'd be interesting to see how those stocks performed over the last 20-30 years.

[Weird Dave]

When you see an honest, no-funny-glasses 3D TV.

About a year ago I went to an open day at the Diamond Light Source (http://www.diamond.ac.uk/) (Synchrotron). For a start it looks seriously sci-fi from the outside (less so inside - rather more concrete and rather less polished stainless steel than you usually see in the movies)

There were various scientists showing off what it would be able to do, such as find the structures of viruses - including 3D-printed (rapid prototyping) models. And there was a 3D TV just sitting there, showing a spinning CGI virus. And no label. If that was me, there'd be sign there saying:

"Come and look at this computer-model of a virus
on our
3D Television!"

I think it must have been one of these (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereoscopic).

Also, they had a robot-like arm with a little sphere at the end. You hold the arm and touch stuff with the sphere, and the computer (knowing what the angles of all the joints are) constructs a 3D model of the environment. They used it to check the precise positions of various important parts of the sychrotron.

[peteshimmon]

When you read details of expense claims
derived from hundreds of thousands of such
claims. In days gone by someone would have
had to nick several filing cabinets full of
paper but now its all on a cdrom or datastick.

[KaiYeves]

When you can sit underneath the wing of an airplane that flew from New York to London in 3 hours and eat lunch with your family. (Concorde Alpha-Delta at the Intrepid museum)

[mugaliens]

Even more so, there are digital x-rays (http://www.dexis.com/), where the image is recorded by a digital detector, not on film (my dentist has one).

Nearly all x-rays taken these days are digital, for a number of reasons, the principle one being the fact they're far less expensive, per x-ray, than film. The second one is that they're loaded into the hospital's patient administration system, which allows any doctor seeing the patient to view the x-ray.

[mugaliens]

Don't live in town? No problem! You order from Amazon.com. It's the Sears catalog of the future!

Try wiping your, uh, um...

Nevermind. I guess outhouses aren't part of the future, anyway.

[Delvo]

Nearly all x-rays taken these days are digital, for a number of reasons, the principle one being the fact they're far less expensive, per x-ray, than film. The second one is that they're loaded into the hospital's patient administration system, which allows any doctor seeing the patient to view the x-ray.Technically, there are two common modern ways to get those images in the computer, and only one is "digital", meaning captured originally by a digital sensor. The other option is to use a "CR" plate about the same size, shape, and weight as a film casette, which records an analog image, and then plug it in to a reader which pulls out the part that has the latent image recorded on it, scans it, digitizes its information, clears it, and slides it back into the cassette to be reused. "CR" came along before true digital sensors did and was named, as an alternative to film radiography, "computer/computed/computerized radiography".

As a radiography student, I've worked with both, and even handled some film. Overall, I prefer CR. It's not as fast, but the difference between a few seconds and maybe 20 seconds is small, and the separate, independent sensor cassette allows more options and freedom for positioning. (And positioning to get the image at just the angle you need is a very big deal!) Also, digital sensors not only are fixed to the machine but also have a built-in "bucky", which slightly increases the distance between the anatomy of interest and the sensor and filters out some of the radiation. Sometimes you want or need that, but sometimes you don't really want it, and using CR cassettes gives you the choice.

For those reasons, even in the true digital radiography rooms with the built-in digital sensors, we still bring in CR plates for some exams. Also, even if the entire X-ray department were to use nothing but digital rooms, the hospital would still need CR readers and cassettes because they're the only way to get an image from the "portable" machines, the ones that get taken in to patients' rooms or out to their homes, because you physically can't build in a digital sensor for those. As a result, even hospitals and clinics that never touch film at all and are fully computerized have either all CR, or at most a mix of CR and digital.

(The thing about dentists doing it either way intrigued me; I'd never heard of digital sensors that small, but I've also never seen a CR image receptor that small either.)

[NosePicker]

Imagine being able to tune out all the nonsense of a commercial flight with You want a big screen TV with surround sound. Grab up some iTheater video glasses. (http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20060820/itheater-portable-video-glasses/) Yes, I said glasses and they only weigh 3 ounces.

Right now they're pricey at $550, but worth the cost to the frequent flier who has to deal with the obnoxious fellow passengers and often ill-behaved children.

[clint]

A person walking along with an Uhuru earphone, having a real conversation with someone else, somewhere else in the world, essentially using a form of technological telepathy.

Haha, that reminds me of my mother-in-law all worried about a friend of mine she saw walking up and down the sidewalk talking to himself... :lol:
(that was a few years ago, when earphones were not as common as today)

[tdvance]

Nearly all x-rays taken these days are digital, for a number of reasons, the principle one being the fact they're far less expensive, per x-ray, than film. The second one is that they're loaded into the hospital's patient administration system, which allows any doctor seeing the patient to view the x-ray.

And a third reason--saves scanning it before sending it to Bangalore so that an MD can do what a technician in the US would do, but cheaper.

Ok, you know you are in an SF future when it's cheaper to have someone on the other side of the world do it!

[Zachary]

The fact that I could be reading this on my hand-held entertainment device (read: ipod :P) is pretty amazing. This chunk of metal in my hand can play so many songs that you could fill a house with the vinyl copies.

Scientists and engineers all over the world have clubbed together to dig a 21km tunnel under the earth, fill it with giant magnets and shoot stuff around it at velocities touching lightspeed. The fact that we even have a reason to do that is very SF to me.

I was talking with my project supervisor about it the other day; CERN (I think it was CERN, could have been a telescope...heh) can put out 2 gigabytes of data a second. How many magnetic tapes from the 1950s would that take?

The world's such a mishmash of old and new. I'm writing this post on a computer that would make scientists of 50 years ago stand back in awe. Said computer is resting on a wooden desk next to a rather shabby blackboard; both of which wouldn't have looked out of place 100 years go.

[NosePicker]

Try wiping your, uh, um...

Nevermind. I guess outhouses aren't part of the future, anyway.

There are still port-a-Johns in use. Especially during events where large crowds of people gather. Or during construction work. They are plastic portable 'buildings', to put it politely, but they are supplied with rolls of T.P. so you don't need a Sears Catalog or a newspaper anymore.
:lol:
There are permanent outside ...uh...um...but those presume you carry your own relief supplies in your purse (if your a lady) or your pocket (if your a gent). Such rugged utilities are located in locals far removed from civilization such as hunting and critter reserves.
:hand:

[TrAI]

Technically, there are two common modern ways to get those images in the computer, and only one is "digital", meaning captured originally by a digital sensor. The other option is to use a "CR" plate about the same size, shape, and weight as a film casette, which records an analog image, and then plug it in to a reader which pulls out the part that has the latent image recorded on it, scans it, digitizes its information, clears it, and slides it back into the cassette to be reused. "CR" came along before true digital sensors did and was named, as an alternative to film radiography, "computer/computed/computerized radiography".

As a radiography student, I've worked with both, and even handled some film. Overall, I prefer CR. It's not as fast, but the difference between a few seconds and maybe 20 seconds is small, and the separate, independent sensor cassette allows more options and freedom for positioning. (And positioning to get the image at just the angle you need is a very big deal!) Also, digital sensors not only are fixed to the machine but also have a built-in "bucky", which slightly increases the distance between the anatomy of interest and the sensor and filters out some of the radiation. Sometimes you want or need that, but sometimes you don't really want it, and using CR cassettes gives you the choice.

For those reasons, even in the true digital radiography rooms with the built-in digital sensors, we still bring in CR plates for some exams. Also, even if the entire X-ray department were to use nothing but digital rooms, the hospital would still need CR readers and cassettes because they're the only way to get an image from the "portable" machines, the ones that get taken in to patients' rooms or out to their homes, because you physically can't build in a digital sensor for those. As a result, even hospitals and clinics that never touch film at all and are fully computerized have either all CR, or at most a mix of CR and digital.

(The thing about dentists doing it either way intrigued me; I'd never heard of digital sensors that small, but I've also never seen a CR image receptor that small either.)

Hmmm, I believe the dentist clinic I go to uses CR plates, they are small pastic things pretty similar to the more classic film carriers used by dentists to take X-Rays, but when exposed, the operator just slides it into a slot on a machine next to the computer, and shortly there after the image comes up on the computer, and can be added to my patient files. There are digital sensors for dentists, too, like this one (http://www.dexis.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=101) but I suppose they are thicker and more unwieldy, due to the cable.

Not that long ago, I was to have a wisdom tooth removed, and then they used a dental tomograph machine to image the entire jaw, to help determine if it had to be removed by surgery or if it could be just pulled normaly. That machine seemed to use digital sensors. I suppose that for such a machine, where the X-ray projector and the detector are part of the machine, and just moved around the patient, it is more convenient to have a digital sensor than having a film or CR plate.