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by eksith 4666 days ago
I'm reminded of those 60's futuristic reels of what the 80's would be like.

Slight tangent:

"The 1950's was the last time in our history people had any taste in clothing" - Patton Oswalt.

In an ideal world, we'll all dress in 50's - early 60's fashion. Computers won't look, sound or even interact with us like computers I.E. they should be invisible and only have their presence known when we have a guest at the door or an appointment. For this, they should remind us with the soothing voice of HAL9000.

Facebook shouldn't exist and news came in the daily papers made of e-ink. My chair would still be made of wood. In fact, "Things" would mostly be made of wood (new-growth renewable) and maybe a bit of steel for extra support. Concrete would also look like timbers.

At the start of the day, HAL will wake you out of your bed in your 16" x 20" rustic cabin in the middle of a forest and start the coffee machine with a carefully measured Arabica with a water temp at exactly 109C all powered by solar + wind. You put on your bedroom slippers made of recycled materials and head to pick up the paper (same one as yesterday, but now with today's news) and it will actually contain bloody NEWS, not some random malarkey dipped in mediocrity. You sip your coffee with your e-ink paper as you watch snow fall outside (it's September, but the windows will perfectly display the outside in winter, because.... well, just because).

... OK, I'm done.

Edit: I initially wrote August. Forgot, it's already September.

3 comments

That future still sounds a whole lot better than our present. I'm not anywhere near convinced that the 24 hour news cycle and social media are good for anything or anyone.
Breaking news is probably the worst invention we've had so far. Unless something is killing me right now, I don't want to know about this not-quite-news-thing until most of the details (preferably all of the details) are totally sorted out and presented in one serving.

Instead, we have "Breaking: We don't know how, what or why, but it looks like something bad happened... probably". It sucks and it stresses me out for no reason except ratings.

I've started moving away from TV altogether for news just for that reason. There's a set time of day I take in news and that's about it for news for the rest of my waking hours.

Some of those ideas can actually be valid startup-ideas.
A balanced mix of wood & steel or iron is still my favorite form of construction.

Except for in automobiles and aeroplanes, two of the few places I say "good riddance" to wood.

One word: Bauhaus.

Despite having its heyday before Hitler's nonsense, there's so much of modern style that school influenced. There's no reason we can't have traditional materials and blend it with modern sensibilities.

Maybe cars and planes can do with a bit less of it (though I don't mind a wood dashboard), but a carefully curated blend of wood with a nice grain, a sprinkling of glass and a dash of metal on the side can absolutely work well.