4 ms·

What people in 1899 thought would happen to travel technology

18 points by justinY 14y ago

daviddisco 14y ago
I was surprised to see such accurate depictions of airplanes. This was four years before the Wright brothers made their first flight.
- kristopolous 14y ago
  That's because those are from 1910: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century._Flying_police.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century... while ones from 1899, not so accurate: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century._Air_postman.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century... The 1899 depictions are due to earlier models from people like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_P%C3%A9naud http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_P%C3%A9naud and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cl%C3%A9ment_Ader http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cl%C3%A9ment_Ader
flexie 14y ago
Funny how predictions on the future are often just extrapolation of recent advances in technology.
- derleth 14y ago
  > Funny how predictions on the future are often just extrapolation of recent advances in technology. And then everyone looks at them through the lens of recent technology and hails the most idiotic predictions as visionary.
- JumpCrisscross 14y ago
  "software will eat the world"
- aaronbrethorst 14y ago
  William Gibson on science fiction: [The] reason [science fiction is] powerful is that it resonates of history. It doesn't resonate back from the future, it resonates out of modern history. http://boingboing.net/2007/07/08/william-gibson-expla.html http://boingboing.net/2007/07/08/william-gibson-expla.html
- cubancigar11 14y ago
  Directly quoting from Orientalism (E. Said) since he said it best: "The French philosopher Gaston Bachelard once wrote an analysis of what he called the poetics of space. The inside of a house, he said, acquires a sense of intimacy, secrecy, security, real or imagined, because of the experiences that come to seem appropriate for it. The objective space of a house—its corners, corridors, cellar, rooms—is far less important than what poetically it is endowed with, which is usually a quality with an imaginative or figurative value we can name and feel: thus a house may be haunted, or homelike, or prisonlike, or magical. So space acquires emotional and even rational sense by a kind of poetic process, whereby the vacant or anonymous reaches of distance are converted into meaning for us here. The same process occurs when we deal with time. Much of what we associate with or even know about such periods as "long ago" or "the beginning" or "at the end of time" is poetic — made up. For a historian of Middle Kingdom Egypt, "long ago" will have a very clear sort of meaning, but even this meaning does not totally dissipate the imaginative, quasi-fictional quality one senses lurking in a time very different and distant from our own. For there is no doubt that imaginative geography and history help the mind to intensify its own sense of itself by dramatizing the distance and difference between what is close to it and what is far away."
ekianjo 14y ago
Well, hotels on the room... we kind of have that with sleeper trains and bar services in wagons. Not too far :) And playing sports underwater: already exists. Net: we did not fail at everything.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
holdenc 14y ago
I like the strapped-on-whale powered submarine. Any ambitious valley billionaires ready to fund trips through the ocean on whale powered submarines? Just make sure to collect the money before they get on the submarine.
- nsns 14y ago
  Shouldn't we use technology to stop exploiting animals?
isuttle 14y ago
Pretty awesome to see croquet being played on the ocean floor. Why not?
MojoJolo 14y ago
I'm really wondering if technology just happens because there's a need, or just because it was based / inspired on art, movies, etc.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  A bit of both I'd expect. Art is inspired by need, while technology is informed by art. See for example cell phones - wireless communication was the need, popularized in many sci-fi shows in more specific, imaginative forms, and later informed the actual product (flip phones/Star Trek communicators).
  - MojoJolo 14y ago
    I'm also inclined to that answer. But a quick thought though. Isn't art is inspired by imagination? Which is if "art is inspired by need", it maybe be just a need based from imagination. Maybe not a really a need.
Cogito 14y ago
This keeps showing up on HN for some reason! Some previous discussions and articles for those interested: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4316895 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4316895 http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/06/30/france-in-the-year-2000-1899-1910/ http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/06/30/france-in-the-year-... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2271197 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2271197 http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2010/5/2/jean-marc-cotes-visions-of-the-year-2000-1899.html http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2010/5/2/jean-marc-cotes-vis... http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007/9/10/french-prints-show-the-year-2000-1910.html http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007/9/10/french-prints-show... http://acidcow.com/pics/17678-futur-imagined-23-pics.html http://acidcow.com/pics/17678-futur-imagined-23-pics.html

18 points by justinY 14y ago

I was surprised to see such accurate depictions of airplanes. This was four years before the Wright brothers made their first flight.

kristopolous 14y ago
That's because those are from 1910: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century._Flying_police.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century... while ones from 1899, not so accurate: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century._Air_postman.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century... The 1899 depictions are due to earlier models from people like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_P%C3%A9naud http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_P%C3%A9naud and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cl%C3%A9ment_Ader http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cl%C3%A9ment_Ader

flexie 14y ago

Funny how predictions on the future are often just extrapolation of recent advances in technology.

derleth 14y ago
> Funny how predictions on the future are often just extrapolation of recent advances in technology. And then everyone looks at them through the lens of recent technology and hails the most idiotic predictions as visionary.
JumpCrisscross 14y ago
"software will eat the world"
aaronbrethorst 14y ago
William Gibson on science fiction: [The] reason [science fiction is] powerful is that it resonates of history. It doesn't resonate back from the future, it resonates out of modern history. http://boingboing.net/2007/07/08/william-gibson-expla.html http://boingboing.net/2007/07/08/william-gibson-expla.html
cubancigar11 14y ago
Directly quoting from Orientalism (E. Said) since he said it best: "The French philosopher Gaston Bachelard once wrote an analysis of what he called the poetics of space. The inside of a house, he said, acquires a sense of intimacy, secrecy, security, real or imagined, because of the experiences that come to seem appropriate for it. The objective space of a house—its corners, corridors, cellar, rooms—is far less important than what poetically it is endowed with, which is usually a quality with an imaginative or figurative value we can name and feel: thus a house may be haunted, or homelike, or prisonlike, or magical. So space acquires emotional and even rational sense by a kind of poetic process, whereby the vacant or anonymous reaches of distance are converted into meaning for us here. The same process occurs when we deal with time. Much of what we associate with or even know about such periods as "long ago" or "the beginning" or "at the end of time" is poetic — made up. For a historian of Middle Kingdom Egypt, "long ago" will have a very clear sort of meaning, but even this meaning does not totally dissipate the imaginative, quasi-fictional quality one senses lurking in a time very different and distant from our own. For there is no doubt that imaginative geography and history help the mind to intensify its own sense of itself by dramatizing the distance and difference between what is close to it and what is far away."

ekianjo 14y ago

Well, hotels on the room... we kind of have that with sleeper trains and bar services in wagons. Not too far :) And playing sports underwater: already exists. Net: we did not fail at everything.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

holdenc 14y ago

I like the strapped-on-whale powered submarine. Any ambitious valley billionaires ready to fund trips through the ocean on whale powered submarines? Just make sure to collect the money before they get on the submarine.

nsns 14y ago
Shouldn't we use technology to stop exploiting animals?

isuttle 14y ago

Pretty awesome to see croquet being played on the ocean floor. Why not?

MojoJolo 14y ago

I'm really wondering if technology just happens because there's a need, or just because it was based / inspired on art, movies, etc.

potatolicious 14y ago
A bit of both I'd expect. Art is inspired by need, while technology is informed by art. See for example cell phones - wireless communication was the need, popularized in many sci-fi shows in more specific, imaginative forms, and later informed the actual product (flip phones/Star Trek communicators).
- MojoJolo 14y ago
  I'm also inclined to that answer. But a quick thought though. Isn't art is inspired by imagination? Which is if "art is inspired by need", it maybe be just a need based from imagination. Maybe not a really a need.

Cogito 14y ago

This keeps showing up on HN for some reason! Some previous discussions and articles for those interested: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4316895 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4316895 http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/06/30/france-in-the-year-2000-1899-1910/ http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/06/30/france-in-the-year-... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2271197 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2271197 http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2010/5/2/jean-marc-cotes-visions-of-the-year-2000-1899.html http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2010/5/2/jean-marc-cotes-vis... http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007/9/10/french-prints-show-the-year-2000-1910.html http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007/9/10/french-prints-show... http://acidcow.com/pics/17678-futur-imagined-23-pics.html http://acidcow.com/pics/17678-futur-imagined-23-pics.html