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Turn-of-the-Century Pigeons Photographed Earth from Above
- mikeash 8y agoA tangent, but: how long until “turn of the century” is assumed to mean the time around the year 2000?
- dingo_bat 8y agoI did assume exactly that.
- matte_black 8y agoAround 2040s. We’re just recently making progress in getting people to stop saying the current year as two thousand whatever.
- egeozcan 8y agoMaybe, saying "twenty" isn't enough of an improvement over "two-thousand" to make it worth the complexity. Compare that to "one-thousand-nine-hundred" vs "nineteen". Also, years less than 10 years ago which are still referenced a lot then require a switch to a different reading convention. This, I guess, wasn't a big deal from 1999 to 2000 because, "twenty-oh-oh" was too awkward and, hey, it's two-damn-thousand!
- BurningFrog 8y agoI'm starting to think never. It's too ingrained. And 2000 was a millenium shift. So I expect a new phrase to emerge.
- vaughanb 8y agoNo, 2001 was the millennium shift. The year 2000 was the last year of the decade, century and millennium. 1999 was when the party started, of course.
- folli 8y agoWhen people that actively remember anything before the year 2000, are in the minority. So I guess this applies to people born in the 80s (and before), so I assume this will be in the 2030s/40s.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- aaronbrethorst 8y agoI think the idea of owning a drone and being able to capture 4K 60FPS video of the earth is cool and all, but I'd much rather strap a pinhole camera onto a Phantom and recreate photographs like these. Hmm, now that I think about it...
- vaughanb 8y agoThe thought that pigeons were high technology, too, is an interesting one.
- Robotbeat 8y agoDo they have to register with the FAA?
- skookumchuck 8y ago> only pigeons could have done before. I find this peculiar. Hydrogen balloons were used for surveillance in the Civil War, 40 years earlier. It would have been easy to attach a camera to a small hydrogen balloon, with a clockwork device to puncture the balloon to bring it down in a reasonable distance.
- fenwick67 8y ago> It would have been easy to attach a camera to a small hydrogen balloon, with a clockwork device to puncture the balloon to bring it down in a reasonable distance. Maybe, but homing pigeons have a few advantages. They return to their home "automatically" and they are not as conspicuous flying through the air.