This thread reminds me of the Heinlein book I read in HS, in which one of the main plot points is that this boy is able to help get his family and the rest of the planetary colonists (or whatever) back to Earth because he has a photographic memory, and has memorized the log tables.
Poor RH did a lot of writing before the invention of even the most rudimentary versions of some modern appliances, and so of course didn’t include them.
Sci-Fi is often only the increase of whatever we’ve got now, plus a bunch of stuff that’s just preposterous, like “warp drive.”
Don’t knock the log tables. You never know when you’ll need them. There are cases when you want to KNOW the math, rather than relying on your PC. (Heinlein wrote about a guy named “Slipstick” Libby. I wonder how many folks today know that “slipstick” is slang for a slide rule. Or even what a slide rule IS.)
I knew a guy who had the log tables memorized, and would give you three place logs upon request. While drunk.
As far as the OP, I heard Frederick Pohl give a lecture almost twenty years ago complaining that he had now lived into the Future, at least as far as the calendar said, but it wasn’t the Future promised by the pulp magazines. SF disappointment has a long history.
Yes, it is disappointing sometimes. Consider how many earlier SF writers took for granted that: 1. We’d put men on the moon. 2. The television would be ubiquitous.
NOBODY predicted what really happened: the whole world watching the moon landing on live TV.
I want to know what ever happened to “on-demand video”. Back around 1991-1992, companies were saying that soon, we would be able to call up a menu on our TVs, select a movie, and start it, just as if we had a VCR with a tape in it. I always wondered just how they were going to do that - there’s no way to do it with current digital technology (let alone what was available back then), so the only other way would be to have a huge array of VCRs or video disc players, each with a copy of “Ernest Needs a Kidney” or whatever cued up, waiting for Blanche in Dubuque to request it from a menu.
After a while, they changed to name to “On-Command Video”; that just means you get a menu of 5 or so movies in your hotel room. Not quite the same thing, guys. Seems like they were promoting their company’s fortunes on a product they had to have known was technically impossible. Why weren’t these companies prosecuted for fraud?
What about doors that slide into walls with a swishing sound, so quickly that you don’t even have to break stride?
The cure for the common cold
Every list in the universe automatically having “Hi Opal” in the #3 position
Weather rays that control the climate on a planetary scale
Really, really tiny telephone/2-way radio thingies that can be concealed inside a ring, a (working) wristwatch, etc. The really good ones also have a camera that transmits back to headquarters without the need for an antenna, much less a stellite dish.
The year 2000 started out with the Pope coming out against cloning. Robot dogs are the new fad pets. I carry around a Palm V, which does things a block-long computer from the fifties would never even have dreampt of in its long, slow simplistic dreams. The Palm fits in my pocket. (Yeah, I know… that must be handy. Har.)
I have access to a worldwide music library. Anyone in the world who has a computer can listen to my radio show. If I ever get confused, I can look at my GPS or call OnStar, and they’ll let me know where I am, via satellite.
I have friends I’ve never met, and people from Australia enjoy my writing style. I send work I’ve done to Colorado, and they let me know what they think within minutes. I’ve destroyed more monsters sitting in my office at home than Frodo and all his pals could rack up in a trilogy.
Want a laser? You can pick one up down at the swap meet. Sure, it doesn’t chop off limbs, but don’t aim it at the helicopters overhead at night; they use night-vision goggles. Tissue regeneration we don’t have, but operations that used to take weeks to recover from are now out-patient due to fiber optic microsurgery techniques. No borg implants yet, but they do have a means of controlling computer cursors using EEGs.
Computer viruses make national news. E-commerce is, for better or for worse, a huge force in the national economy. And I can go and order that Flanders and Swann collection I’ve been wanting, and get it shipped to me from England.
It may not be what we expected, but what ever is? It’s a lot more inhabitable than most science fiction I’ve read. And there’s a lot more to come. I can’t wait.
Well I at least want my goddam household robot! I’ve been waiting for YEARS! Here it is 2001 already, and I STILL have to run the vacuum, scrub the sinks and tub, change the sheets, etc. I’ve been wanting a household robot since I was 12.
However, I now realize that a household android would be even better. An android wouldn’t just be for housework. He’d be fully functional, if you know what I mean. And programmable.
I remember the Heinlein book in which the teenage protaganist saved the ship due to having memorized the log tables or whatever, but I can’t remember the title. His family wasn’t along. He was a crewmember with a low-status job. The better jobs could usually be had only if you were born into them; there was some sort of cast system in effect.
I want my job to be done by a computer. Or just the typing parts - there’s gotta be a better way of getting massive amounts of data into a computer file other than me sitting and typing every stinking character.
And what exactly happened to the life of luxury we are supposed to be enjoying with all of our time and labour-saving devices?
Ah, there’s a question. Well, despite what the author of “The Celestine Prophecy” says, I don’t for a minute believe that people will ever just sit around grooving spiritually. There’s always something that needs doing. We do have greater efficiency because of computers, etc., but look at the work that goes into maintining all the communication devices and networks.
I hear that France just shortened its standard work week to 35 hours, but that’s called “a choice.” They just voted to become even less of a world economic power. I have a feeling that Americans, and especially many Asian countries will not be making that choice.