the_gneech: (LIGHTNING from my FINGERS!)
the_gneech ([personal profile] the_gneech) wrote2008-01-02 09:30 am
Entry tags:

The Same Old Future

Paraphrased conversation from this morning, posted here mainly 'cause I thought it was interesting.

Context: Riding to work, listening to Yaz on the Sirius radio.

[livejournal.com profile] lythandra: Wow. Back in the '80s, this would have seemed impossible. Satellite radio, the internet...

[livejournal.com profile] the_gneech: Back in the '80s, it was impossible, or we would have had it. The technology was still being developed.

[livejournal.com profile] lythandra: I just mean, it would have seemed too "futuristic".

[livejournal.com profile] the_gneech: It is the future! It's 2008 already! We just missed out on the flying cars.

[livejournal.com profile] lythandra: (laughs)

[livejournal.com profile] the_gneech: We're supposed to have had a colony on Mars and at least two nuclear holocausts by now.

-The Gneech

[identity profile] hbar98.livejournal.com 2008-01-02 03:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes and yes for the flying cars (as long as they are computer controlled and not totally human controlled...) and for the Mars colony. I'm going to go with a "No" on the whole nuclear holocaust thing, if that is okay with you.

[identity profile] stilghar.livejournal.com 2008-01-03 12:38 am (UTC)(link)
Agreed. ^,^

[identity profile] rhanlav.livejournal.com 2008-01-02 03:35 pm (UTC)(link)
As I stated in 2001, "GURPS lied to me!"

Tech Level 8 — Spacefaring :(2001 to 2050?)
Slower-than-light space travel, fusion power, bionic implants, ballistic airliners, cybertanks, orbital lasers, BPC combat armor and battlesuits, gauss needlers, fission/electric power, orbital-collected solar power, cloning, plastiskin [Basic Set]


So yeah, where are my cyborg implants and flying cars and orbital death laser cannons?!

--Salen

[identity profile] jamesbarrett.livejournal.com 2008-01-02 04:08 pm (UTC)(link)
They're hiding. We gave them AI's and now their scared. -Frisk

[identity profile] hantamouse.livejournal.com 2008-01-02 04:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Thats classified.

[identity profile] laurie-robey.livejournal.com 2008-01-02 03:53 pm (UTC)(link)
And then I added, "This May it will have been 20 years since I graduated from college." *boggle boggle boggle*

[identity profile] yippee.livejournal.com 2008-01-02 04:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Riddle me this, mister Gneech...

If you saw the title card come up during Blade Runner, did you mentally read it out as "Los Angeles, twenty-nineteen"? At what point will people stop saying "two-thousand-something" and refer to the years by "twenty-something"?
twenty-ten?
twenty-thirteen?
twenty-twenty?
twenty-one-hundred?

[identity profile] the-gneech.livejournal.com 2008-01-02 05:03 pm (UTC)(link)
I generally use "two-thousand-_____" for 2000-2009, then "twenty-_______" for 2010+, myself.

-TG

[identity profile] goodluckfox.livejournal.com 2008-01-02 05:34 pm (UTC)(link)
We're also supposed to be about finished getting the SDF-1 ready to fly over on Macross Island.

[identity profile] radbaron.livejournal.com 2008-01-03 01:51 am (UTC)(link)
For those of us lucky to be living in Canada (and with "SPACE: The imagination Station" in your programming) the SDF-1 will be landing through Macross Island on Monday, for a full squeeeeee hour each weekday. All the way through Masters and Invid!

[identity profile] fferret.livejournal.com 2008-01-02 08:35 pm (UTC)(link)
My wife just gave me a book that deals with this...I don't have it handy, but I will post a title and link here when I get home this evening.

[identity profile] hossblacksilver.livejournal.com 2008-01-07 05:42 am (UTC)(link)
As for the flying car, when I was working as a contractor at a tire plant, I walked into my supervisor's off-cubical and said, I know you tire industry people are keeping us from having flying cars to keep on selling your tires. ;)