If my old SLR had a way of looking at the picture I just took in order for me to know if it was acceptable, I quite missed it in the owner’s manual.
We all agree that film cameras haven’t changed much. But the impact of the digital camera goes far beyond pictures of the Eiffel Tower. We’re watching the Weather Channel on the storm - they are full of pictures submitted by viewers, pictures we would never have seen before. Remember the meteorite in Russia? Without digital technology, we’d have been lucky to see one picture of it. Plus pictures from demonstrations and riots and all sorts of stuff.
Technology isn’t important by itself - it is important because of the changes it enables.
When I saw 2001 at the Capitol Theater in NY, I fantasized about being able to record it somehow to watch it at home. I now have the DVD.
I’d love to go back in time and play The Four Seasons on my phone for Vivaldi.
Back in Beethoven’s time (and after) a symphony was structured to repeat the themes, because once you heard it you were unlikely to hear it again.
One sf trope that we do have is voice recognition. We do it all the time for menus on the phone, and I’ve found my S4 can recognize my voice when I text my wife faster than I can type - and usually more accurately. That’s not total understanding yet, but it works as well as it does with a good bit of semantic understanding.
Expecting something to be easy, safe and cheap as a car =/= drives just like a car.
And yeah, I think this is what is normally meant by “flying car”: a flying version of the family car. Something suitable for doing what you do with an ordinary car, but flies.
So, for my mind, if we could cheaply manufacture self-flying helicopters, run them affordably too, and there was sufficient infrastructure for everyone to fly about this way (i.e. plenty of helipads), then I would say we have flying cars.
Of course, I understand why none of this has happened, and I’m certainly not saying that we should have flying cars any more than we should have moon bases.
My point is just that whenever flying cars are mentioned nowadays, it seems to be in editorials saying that the concept itself and the desire for such a tech is nonsensical. It isn’t.
The only difference is not in the ‘taking’ function, but in the recording. The metering, focusing and exposure controls are the same as film cameras. If you are familiar with a film Leica M camera, you can pick up a digital Leica M camera and use it with little difficulty.
You missed my point. What I said was that the 50 years between 1880 and 1930 produced most of our current technological environment. Most of what has been developed since 1930 are refinements. The telephone, telegraph, phonograph, radio, motion picture, 35mm camera, television, automobile were not mere refinements. They were true innovations, and all were in place (and most were commonplace) by 1930. Of these, only the telegraph was in use significantly earlier than 1880. So, “the Future” really has already happened.
You have to adduce evidence to be taken seriously. If you look at things objectively, you can see the extent of technological change, which did not advance all that much between 500 BC and AD 1850. The only advances of significance (other than military weapons and optical telescopes) that I can point to are cosmetic.
The Victorians were subject to the same diseases as the Athenians, diseases that have been largely wiped out since the late 19th century, thanks to medical advances, most of which were well under way by the 1930s. Penicillin was discovered in 1928. General anaesthesia was first used in 1846 and gradually improved thereafter.
You probably simply unaware that most of the things we take for granted today did not exist at all before 1880, but did exist by 1930.
It absolutely amazes me that people were so enamored of Steve Jobs and Apple. He did not wipe out polio, invent the automobile, television, radio, etc. All he did was tell us we need more stupid gadgets. He was arrogant and unethical. I do not own or use any Apple products.
Melchior, I think you must have the wrong thread. Nobody is talking about Steve Jobs here.
And cameras nowadays do not look almost identical to cameras of even a decade ago. Yes, there are some specific cameras now that look similar to older cameras, but there are also some specific cars now that look similar to horseless carriages. The vast majority of cameras nowadays fit easily into a pocket with a lens that doesn’t even protrude from the very narrow body, and also have phones and computers built in. This, in turn, has led to a revolution in how the devices are used: Nobody would take “selfies” with a film camera, and most people in any age usually didn’t have a camera on their person.
Well, those devices are not all that different in size from the point and shoot cameras of a few years ago. What has happened is that camera functions and phone functions have been combined into one unit.
Here we have a couple of high-end point and shoot cameras from Leica and Contax, circa 1992. These were definitely carried around by people all the time.
What has happened is that film has been displaced, but the camera designs have not really changed except as they would have otherwise anyway (focusing systems, etc.). Canon EOS autofocus cameras came out about 1987!
There’s a reason that many modern digital camera look like 35mm film cameras; they’re being used by a human being. So that form factor is comfortable for the person operating the camera and using the controls. If you look at a webcam instead, you’ll see something quite different. Just a lens, typically in a ball. No controls whatsoever. And some spycams are just a tiny lens.
That says nothing about “the future”, which was the subject of the thread. Still, I’m going to join Really Not All That Bright and drop out of this thread.
I started in typewriters, I wrote my bachelor’s thesis on one. Again, you are looking only at the superficial aspects of a thing. (A very early editor was called Expensive Typewriter.) While it is true that correcting mistakes with rubout ribbons is similar to hitting backspace on a word processor, the process of writing with a word processor is very different from that using a typewriter. First, it is much cheaper to create drafts. Second, you can reorganize sections in a way that is so difficult to do with a typewriter that none but a professional writer would bother. Third, any old guy can add effects, fonts, bold, etc., and not wait for a typeset version.
When I started writing papers, you submitted them on a camera ready form, where you had to literally cut and paste your text onto the sheet.
In the beginning you type in both cases. After that it is totally different.
.jpg){kind=link}
