Better Mind the Computer

An interesting Horizon documentary from the 1980s about how computers were a step away from making us into pets.  I find it particularly fascinating because it comes from a time when even computer engineers had very limited day-to-day experience with computers.  I've been dealing with the things since the punch card days when my university had "a" computer and the more I watch them progress, the more convinced I am that computers are just very fast and very stupid machines rather than nascent silicon gods.

The Eliza segment is the most enlightening, though the documentary writer doesn't realise it.  So is the summing up at the end that shows one man who dearly wishes that he'd been born a slave.

Mirror comb

The mirror comb:  Because combining two things best used simultaneously into something that makes it impossible is always the best option.

Mars and Beyond

Cycle-skating

Invented by a group of trauma surgeons who needed the work

Now that's interesting!

Yeah, I have trouble trying to communicate to my daughter how impressed I was when fire came along.

Man and the Moon

An unfortunate flaw

The machine-gun vest worked well until Howard mowed down three customers while reaching for the box of  tinned peas on the shelf over the counter.

Your call can't be connected

According to this 1932 report, a reflective upper layer of the Earth's atmosphere precludes establishing radio communications with Mars.

That and the planet being a still-born, dead husk of a world, but the layer doesn't help.

Future streets

This 1925 vision of the city of the future always fascinated me.  Why bother with one boring ground-level street system with an underground train at most leading off into the suburbs when you can turn a metropolis into one massive labyrinth of tunnels, warrens and terraces that no one ever leaves in their lives because everyone is hopelessly lost.

Mercury observatory

NASA has long had a waste not, want not philosophy and loves reusing leftover equipment.  Skylab is the best example of this; a space station cobbled together from bits of Apollo hardware.  But the habit set in early with this charming little orbital observatory built into an old Mercury capsule.

It's a wonder that the shuttles ever made it to a museum.

Grey Walter's tortoises

A remarkable story of early cybernetics.

Who would have thought that the start of the robot apocalypse would be so charming

The future of reading

And what problem does this solve?

Paleofuture looks at what they call the iPad of 1935.

More of a Kindle, I'd say.

Space Station V

Unwanted Blog has some pretty impressive blueprints of 2001: a Space Odyssey's  Space Station V.

They don't make 'em like they used to.

Douglas conjunction-class Mars mission

Beyond Apollo looks at Douglas's 1965 study for getting to Mars fast.

I miss the days when talk of a manned Mars mission was something taken seriously.

Future Cars of 1948

The Dynasphere revisited

Recently, we looked at the Dynasphere.  Now, British Pathe presents a more detailed account of this remarkable opossum squasher.

Amazing Anti-Thief Security Case

From a time when security devices had much more entertainment value.

City of trees: 1934

Via Paleofuture.

Tally pen

As a professional writer, the word count function on my processor software is my constant companion.

Who knew that they had it in 1934?

On fountain pens.

Future fashion: 1893

There are a lot of misses in this article from the Strand, but they got the '70s spot on.

Via Retronaut.