# 2013 as imagined in 1988 **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 23, 2013, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2013-as-imagined-in-1988/659119 "2013-05-23T14:13:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Maiira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2013-as-imagined-in-1988/659119/41 "2013-05-29T21:08:23Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > Everything was predicted that way. Want a movie in your livingroom? Call someone who will push previews to you to look at over a computer network. Want new wall art (wallpaper!)? Call someone to send you images over a computer network. Want to order food delivery? Call someone to set it up. > > Was the search engine that hard to imagine 25 years ago? Yeah, I was just reading this and wondering how much more accurate everything would be if they’d predicted the existence of the internet. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2013-as-imagined-in-1988/659119/42 "2013-05-29T21:51:15Z")
> [@Harvey\_The\_Heavy](#): > > I don’t know, looks like they’re starting construction already. And funny enough, in the painting it looks like the L.A. Times building is gone, so maybe they’re predicting the demise of print media. Actually, it predicts that you will print your own personalised copy of the newspaper in your own home. Rather than the much more obvious solution of downloading it onto an expensive, battery-hungry, heavy, fingerprint-smeared electronic device 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2013-as-imagined-in-1988/659119/43 "2013-05-29T23:02:02Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > The cover painting looks just [slightly off](https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=South+San+Pedro+Street,+Los+Angeles,+CA,+United+States&hl=en&ll=34.049033,-118.242481&spn=0.012676,0.017788&sll=33.743041,-118.31593&sspn=0.012722,0.017788&oq=San+Pedro+street,+Los+Angeles,+CA,+United+States&t=h&hnear=S+San+Pedro+St,+Los+Angeles,+California,+United+States&z=16&layer=c&cbll=34.050349,-118.240902&panoid=xVbx5uORucdNE7RGYCa0gg&cbp=12,321.89,,0,-3.8) to me. Not as much as your picture, which shows City Hall and the Criminal Courts building to the right (east) of San Pedro Street. They should be to the left when looking north; somehow your picture got flipped horizontally. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2013-as-imagined-in-1988/659119/44 "2013-05-30T00:31:32Z")
Paraphrasing: “And here we are, the year 2000! When I was a kid, we thought 2000 was gonna be like The Jetsons or something’. Man, It ain’t even like The Jeffersons!”–Chris Rock Still valid in 2013! ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2013-as-imagined-in-1988/659119/45 "2013-05-30T01:27:09Z")
The article’s 2013 and the real 2013 mashup… 12:15 AM Exhausted from the day, Bill calls the local pornography company to ask what’s available. Trailers for 10 different porn videos appear in 10 different windows on the screen. He selects “Blade Humper,” an “oldie, but goodie.” ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2013-as-imagined-in-1988/659119/46 "2013-05-30T12:09:10Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Not as much as your picture, which shows City Hall and the Criminal Courts building to the right (east) of San Pedro Street. They should be to the left when looking north; somehow your picture got flipped horizontally. The link I posted is to Street View, just lined up as close as I could get it to the scene in the cover painting. The view as I posted it is looking NW along 1st Street from the junction with San Pedro. If you turn 90 degrees to the right then you’ll be looking NE up San Pedro and City Hall is indeed to the left. Two-hundred-storey skyscrapers not pictured. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2013-as-imagined-in-1988/659119/47 "2013-05-30T22:26:45Z")
> [@zbuzz](#): > > The article’s 2013 and the real 2013 mashup… > > 12:15 AM > Exhausted from the day, Bill calls the local pornography company to ask what’s available. Trailers for 10 different porn videos appear in 10 different windows on the screen. He selects “Blade Humper,” an “oldie, but goodie.” Although actually the “video-call a human to get a service remotely” scenario sometimes happens in real-life 2013: 12:27 AM “Bill connects a video link with a lingerie-clad young woman who lives in another city. “Hey Sweetie, I’m feeling sooo horny,” she says in a bored monotone. She enacts various sexual scenarios for him, and the price is automatically charged to his credit card.” ---
**Author:** ![SecretaryofEvil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@SecretaryofEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecretaryofEvil)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2013-as-imagined-in-1988/659119/48 "2013-05-30T23:09:21Z")
I will admit, the article’s bold prediction that “In the future, you can order your robot to change the CD for you if you want to listen to a different band,” got a chuckle out of me. On the bright side, the article seems to have a hard time believing that the crime and pollution situations will improve in the future, but they both have (at least in the United States). ---
**Author:** ![WisdomofLife](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/34f0e0/32.png) [@WisdomofLife](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WisdomofLife)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2013, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2013-as-imagined-in-1988/659119/49 "2013-05-31T06:16:06Z")
I thought it was funny how the author suggests that the future will become more Orwellian though Zack (the kid), a rebel of the future against the man but is really a whining rich brat. Listens to Thought Police, wants to be born in a earlier and simpler time, damages a robot cook, and being watch by authorities though a camera. But haves a variety of entertainment that he gladly uses thanks to Orwellian future development: a robot dog, a ipod for chatting with his Chinese friend, loves using tech for his homework, and haves cable TV in his room- complex things that can control him and watch him. Oh the future will never change XD 😛 . Some parts of the story were odd. Zack is alone in a room with only a camera watching him. This is after he stabs a robot cook in the eye. Is any of school staff worried that he could exit the room easily, ignore the principal over the screen and perhaps decide to take a eye out of a living person instead? :rolleyes:😕:eek::dubious:. I think if I were the school staff, I would want Zack to be watched by a real person to make sure he didn’t pull something more dangerous. I wonder what happen to UC Irvine professor in article who claimed that robots were the next big thing in consumer products didn’t become the next big thing. I wonder if his department was defunded or he was transferred to other department (like engineering). Thinking of Googling his name and seeing the results 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2013, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2013-as-imagined-in-1988/659119/50 "2013-05-31T12:08:44Z")
> [@SecretaryofEvil](#): > > I will admit, the article’s bold prediction that “In the future, you can order your robot to change the CD for you if you want to listen to a different band,” got a chuckle out of me. Let’s take this as an example of prediction what we can dissect. The writer was thinking in terms of robots imitating humans, but overlooked the possibility that there are other ways of accomplishing the same task that don’t emulate human actions. It is strange that CD changers weren’t anticipated even though record changers existed by the 1940’s at least (I once had one for 78s), not to mention jukebox-type changers. And digital storage – large data stores with no moving parts and the ability to transmit sound over distances – wasn’t thought of either, even though such an idea must have popped into the mind of the first person to sample sounds. I myself experimented with digital sound sampling in the late 70s, although I could only store a few seconds at a time. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2013, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2013-as-imagined-in-1988/659119/51 "2013-05-31T14:38:05Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Let’s take this as an example of prediction what we can dissect. The first thing we should dissect is the idea that music will continue to be packaged in album form such that CDs even still make sense. As it turns out, the album was a product of its time and technology, and as technology marches on, art follows it. What can all digital music players do? Shuffle. Play individual tracks at random. They can also play them sequentially, most of them, but shuffle is the feature people seem to use most. It scarcely bears mention that shuffle is to albums what photography was to pre-photographic 19th Century painting styles. Trying to imagine shuffle when your mind is fixated on robotics is impossible. Trying to imagine how the modern mainstream consumes music without shuffle is also impossible. There is no way to separate technology from art; they’re both things humans do, have always done, and will always do. It is still possible to make and sell albums, and people still listen to them as such, but it is no longer the default, any more than painting in the style of an Old Master is a default, or wearing wooden shoes is a default. It has been relegated to the status of being a deliberate artistic choice, and it stands out as such. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2013, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2013-as-imagined-in-1988/659119/52 "2013-05-31T21:14:01Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I was impressed that they forecast modern GPS. But then I checked. The first GPS satellites were launched in 1978 and the announcement it would eventually be made available for civilian use was made in 1983. It may not be impressive that a civilian GPS system exists, but it ought to be impressive that it’s available as a throw in for a device that fits in your pocket. Remember, the [first practical mobile phone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynatac) only preceded the article by 5 years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2013-as-imagined-in-1988/659119.md?page=2)