Enduring Icons and Bright Ideas.

While reading the Beloit Mindset List for the class of 2016, I stopped at # 27:

Outdated icons with images of floppy discs for “save,” a telephone for “phone,” and a snail mail envelope for “mail” have oddly decorated their tablets and smart phone screens.

I hadn't really thought about that before.  Suddenly a light went on in my head.

I had been idlely wondering if, since the familiar incandescent light bulb is being  phased out, would the newer fluorescent bulbs come to represent bright ideas.  However, these other ancient icons have persevered; why not the old light bulb?

I have a theory in connection with the bright-idea idea.  I remember little drawings of Thomas Edison with his light bulb hovering above his head in a thinking-cloud frame.  This was the pictograph of Edison inventing the light bulb. I think this image led to the now common use of the pictograph above for having a bright idea.  Maybe people zillions of years in the future will still use this icon and have no idea why it should represent a bright idea.

Think about that, will you.

Not Really Old...

...but very funny!

More History of the Future!

Thanks to Steve who saved the Wall St. Journal article that sent me looking for images of Arthur Radebaugh's syndicated strip: "Closer Than We Think"  This stuff is my kind of stuff!

Romeo's Thumbs and the Future of Felines

Romeo is a polydactyl cat.  He has one extra toe on each front paw. These cats are common on the East Coast, so are sometimes called Boston Thumb Cats.  Hemingway favored this kind of cat, so it is sometimes called a Hemingway Cat.  (Thanks to Julie & Dave for this info.)

 One of the many six-toed cats at the Ernest Hemingway House in Key West, Florida.

The extra thumbs are not necessarily a disadvantage; they can give the kitty extra dexterity.  I believe the polydactyl cat's extra dexterity (and Hemingway's favor) will allow it to eventually take over the feline kingdom.  In a thousand years, cats will have paws capable of making tools.  Then, I have no doubt, the kitties will build a sophisticated material culture.

 Ultra-civilized felines of the future. 
Artist's conception.

The Risks of Prediction

I know there have been many grumpy books and articles about the wonderful future that never happened. ( For instance, Where’s my jetpack? : a guide to the amazing science fiction future that never arrived / Daniel H. Wilson ; illustrated by Richard Horne. New York : Bloomsbury USA : Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers, c2007)  But I like to think I was in the vanguard, since I mounted a display back in 2000 about the many unrealized predictions for that year.  I limited my material to respectable academics and think tanks, though I did use a few pictures from old science fiction pulps.  Here's a future chronology I used from The Book of predictions / [compiled] by David Wallechinsky, Amy Wallace, Irving Wallace.  New York : Morrow, 1980, c1981

A Chronology of the Future

1985

 People work a 4-day, 32-hour week.

1987

 The U.S. legalizes marijuana.

1988

 The first human being is cloned.

1989

 Weather forecasting achieves accuracy for 30-day periods.

1990

 Daily body checkups by computer provide ample warning of any impending illness

1992

 The first human is brought back to life after being frozen and thawed.

1993

 After a stock market crash and major depression, the U.S. ceases to be a great power.  The Soviet Union dominates most of the world.

1998

 First tourist service to outer space.

2000

 Cocaine is legalized in the U.S.

 A shortage of oil starts a large-scale migration of people from cold to warmer parts of the world.

 50,000people are living and working in space.

 The first children are born off the Earth.

Mechanix Monday

Page 37 features some interesting inventions...

The most interesting to us futurologists is the early version of the audiobook.

House of the Future (in 1931)

Big Heads? Bad Idea!

In the world of old science fiction (60s and earlier) your super-advanced aliens and your super-evolved human beings usually have big heads, like Gwyllim Griffiths (top) in the Outer Limits episode The Sixth Finger or like the aliens from the Star Trek episode The Menagerie

It makes sense.  Our pre-human ancestors had smaller brains, so our descendents a zillion years from now should have gigantic brains.  But I notice that these beings pictured above still have spindly necks like the current homo sapien.  How could a neck that thin support all that extra brain and skull?  I say it couldn't.  If we want to grow bigger brains, we must concurrently grow thicker, more muscular necks.

However, there is another evolution solution.  We now know that the brain isn't the only place with neurons; just look in your gut.  The gut brain rests on a solid base and could safely grow much bigger.  This is the place for brain evolution.  Guts are the thinkers of tomorrow!

Science Fiction Past

I recently watched Colossus:  The Forbin Project, made in 1970, for the first time.  This computer-overthrows-its-masters flick impressed me more than I thought it would. The acting, music and camera work were all pretty good, at least according to my untutored taste.  At the time this movie came out, I was satisfying my science fiction needs with grade B Tokyo Monster Mashes and radiation-enlarged bug invasions.  (John Taine's The Iron Star, 1930, started the rage for mutations in sci-fi, which became very popular after the atom bomb.*)

I was a science fiction fan from early youth to High School.  I remember the Space Cat series of books from my youth: Space Cat Goes to Mars; Space Cat and the Kittens.  Robert Heinlein then Isaac Asimov were the favorites of my mature years. I got very picky about the kind of sci-fi I'd read.  No spells or wizards allowed; I wanted hard science.  Hard, but not too hard.  I hated stories wherein interstellar travel took years and years, and the crew was either in suspended animation or was spending their whole lives in space so their grandchildren could get to a new planet.  Screw that!  There had to be warp drives.

Another rebellious-computer movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, came out a couple of years before Colossus.  The technology in 2001 thoroughly awed my 13-year-old self.. The stuff that should have awed me didn't.   The black monolith, the space baby, the philosophical implications of HAL's rebellion passed through me like water in a sieve.  Here was a serious sci-fi movie showing me, as accurately as it could, what space travel would be like in my lifetime.  Sure, they didn't have warp drives, but at least a person could get to the moon in relative comfort.  My future in space looked bright.
My sci-fi bug died off in college.  I no longer want to go to the moon.  An interesting article from the Guardian of London talks about the psychological problems the moon astronauts had after returning to Earth.**  After, all going into outer space is heaps different from going to sea.  Living in a space station would be like living in a very small shopping mall with no stores and really bad food.  And taking a walk on the deck requires a spacesuit.

*Brian Stableford Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature, The Scarecrow Pr.: Lanham,MD, 2004. p.243.
**The Guide: Lost in Space: Space it's big and scary and does funny things to your brain. Andrew Mueller blasts off in search of the astronauts who left their marbles somewhere in the upper atmosphere. The Guardian (London) - Final Edition, March 31, 2007 Saturday, page 10.

Forecasting Interior Decorating Trends

The other day I watched The Illustrated Man, adapted from the Ray Bradbury collection of the same name.  A crazy bum, who is covered with tatoos, tells a young man he meets that a woman from the future did the "skin illustrations," which "come alive" if you look at them long enough.  This coming alive involves diversions to 3 short sci-fi stories.  It's the first story that concerns me here;  in it, the tatooed man and future woman live in the future in a futuristic house.  The scenery people for IM made the then-common assumption that future interior decorators would work entirely in white.  White walls. White floors.  White ceilings.  White furniture.  Why this whiteness?  One theory:  people in the future will like to show off the fact that they needn't opt for the darker colors that don't show dirt, since they have robots to keep everything spick and span.

The bum/future-man, played by Rod Steiger, complains about the economic necessity (in the future)of allowing people to work only six months out of the year.  What is he to do with that other six months?!  Why couldn't he brighten up his existence with some color?  Hook a red rug.  Buy a blue couch.  If he had invited his young son to help him paper the walls and paint the furniture, maybe they would have bonded.  And his wife and daughter could also have bonded while looking through decorating samples and buying fancy pillows. Interior decorating could have brought this family closer and perhaps the kids wouldn't have set the parents up to get killed.  Just a thought.

TV Executives Take Note

Remember 1900 House and Frontier House and all the other reality shows in which people learned how crappy it is to live in the past? When is some network going to make Future House, in which volunteers learn what it would be like to have robots do all the housework and commute to the job in a hovercraft? As Criswell said, "We are all interested in the future, for that is where we will spend the rest of our lives."*
*Prologue in Plan 9 From Outer Space

Welcome Back Retrofuture!

Yes, one of my all-time favorite sites is back on the web. I can once again indulge my nostalgia for the future.

The Beautiful Future

This lovely picture is courtesy of Retrofuture, a guy who posts on Flickr. Was he involved in retrofuture.com? I don't know. But I do know I want to follow his example in dredging up old, ridiculous visions of the future, scan them, and post them for the benefit of all humankind.

The Future is History

Well, it looks like Retrofuture, one of my favorite sites, is gone. The link has been dead at least a couple of days. The creator compiled old predictions of our wonderful science-blessed future. You know, flying cars, jet packs, robot maids. A month ago I sent the guy an article about robots we could marry by the year 2000 (see my February 10 post). I was nettled when he didn't respond. And now he and his site have been swallowed up into the abyss.

Millennial Memories in Anticipation of Valentine's Day

From lileks.com

It was just about 10 years ago that I started seeking year-2000-predictions for a library display. I only wanted prophecies from scientists, academics, and think tanks--respected intellectuals. I remembered prophecies made when I was a teenager: 3-day work weeks, colonies on the moon, robot servants. Some economists in the 60s had worried that an excess of free time would plague the 21st century. Frankly, I was pretty pissed off at the way things turned out. In the name of truth, justice, and the American Way, I needed to hold these prophets up to ridicule.
Most of the predicting happened in the 60s and 70s, after which it tapered off. But I did dig up one daring futurist who, from the standpoint of 1982, predicted that we would be able to marry robots by the year 2000. OK, you may ask, why would I want to marry a robot? You can just buy a vibrator. Why should a more sophisticated masturbation aid require matrimony? Well, Arthur Harkins (University of Minnesota) expected we'd have real artificial intelligence by now that would make robots a lot more interesting. They might even be smart enough to have their own preferences about whom they wanted to marry. But even without AI, "The great bulk of human relationships are formulated on a ritualistic basis, which is to say that most humans, in their relationships with wives or lovers, expect a kind of metronomic precision of expected behavior and expected responses to occur over time," he explained.* Ick.

O.K. I was not bitter about the failure of the robot-marriage prediction. My first thought was that if this guy was married when he gave the interview, his wife would've killed him.

I googled Arthur Harkins. He is still alive and still at the University of Minnesota.
*Computerworld, May 17, 1982 p.19