By The Way...

Friday, August 31, 2007
1:17:00 PM EDT
Hearing I'll Be All Right Without You -- Journey
Travel back with us to the magical time known as 1979 -- Yes! Disco is still hanging on! -- and groove to this imagining of the living room of the future, set, one presumes, some time around the turn of the century (this century, silly person).

While it's easy to see the things it's gotten wrong -- mostly sartorially -- it's also interesting to look at the things it got right, or close to right: e-mail, online commerce, DVDs and so on. Those crazy futurists! I'm just glad the future doesn't look exactly like it was imagined. I look terrible in orange jumpsuits and calf-high boots.


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This entry has 6 comments: (Add your own)

• #6 Comment from mlmontagne 
  9/3/07 2:50 AM | Permalink

  What I find most interesting among all the things they got right, is one that they got wrong. I their discussion of virtual commuting and of electronoc mail, they imagine that letters and documents would still be produced on paper and then scanned for electronic mailing and, presumeably, printing out, fax like, at the other end. The idea of purely electronic communication, produced on a computer screen and stored in computer memory did not occur to them. That was less than thirty years ago, my goodness what will life be like thirty years from now? I can't wait!
  Michael
• #5 Comment from ptrburd 
  9/1/07 12:00 AM | Permalink

  Yeah, apparently in the future, spying on your neighbors is a fashionable activity.
• #4 Comment from swmpgrly 
  8/31/07 8:24 PM | Permalink

  lol im with you on the jump suits
• #3 Comment from chizzle3006 
  8/31/07 2:51 PM | Permalink

  I LOVED these books as a kid.  I pored over them in the library and took them out all the time and couldn't understand why my parents wouldn't let me steal them!!!
  
  But the decor is outre and that rooms looks wicked small and claustrophobia inducing.  And yeah, the jumpsuits are a bit...  y'know.  The junior voyeur with the camera is a bit creepy.  And like anybody watches soccer now???  
  
  Jesus.
• #2 Comment from drphilphysics 
  8/31/07 1:38 PM | Permalink

  Wait, I've seen this set on Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Haven't I? (grin)
  
  Dr. Phil

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