I'm not gonna comment on the fashion, as I'm sure that can't be accurately predicted (hell, I'm not outruling that this prediction might prove accurate in three years..)
But have you noticed that all sci-fi movies have fucking terrible UIs and means of interacting with computers?
Take for example Minority Report: Holographic screens are cool I guess. But then they stand there and flail their arms around to move objects and entities back and forth. Now, imagine controlling a computer for an entire work day like that; You'd be fucking exhausted and crying from the muscle strain.
Keyboard and mouse have been standard for half a century now, and for a good reason. Something else will probably replace it at some point, but YMCA-dancing the instructions will not be it.
Take for example Minority Report: Holographic screens are cool I guess. But then they stand there and flail their arms around to move objects and entities back and forth. Now, imagine controlling a computer for an entire work day like that; You'd be fucking exhausted.
I like to think he's just fucking extra. If you rewatch the scene, another dude is working on a pretty normal computer setup, sitting at a desk, not flailing around wildly, normal sized monitor (except the monitor is transparent), etc. He seems to have the option to do gesture interaction too as he selects and moves some images with his pinky pointed at the screen, but seems like there is still a keyboard-like or touchpad interface on the desk. Then they transfer data over with a weird physical drive to Tom Cruise's giant curved monitor and gesture controlled setup using the gloves. He's just an early adopter into more experimental tech formats, like the rich kids who had the power glove for the Nintendo, or someone who has a 8k 60inch curved monitor. I bet even the amount of movements he is putting into the gestures is entirely unnecessary and over the top. He just thinks it's cool.
This is something i love about The Expanse, the technology actually makes sense.
Most people just have a disposable phone/tablet consisting of plexiglass (just so you have something transparent to actually hold) and a little square in a corner (which is all the actual hardware and projects a holographic interface ontop of the plexiglass), which acts much like an oldschool terminal for a central mainframe system, and you just use it like normal except it can also detect gestures around it.
Next most normal is larger versions of this mounted on the walls, which you can just swipe stuff onto from other devices and interact with more like a TV except your hand is the remote.
And that's like 90% of what people actually use, fancy 3d holographic stuff is only used when the 3d aspect is actually helpful, like visualizing the solar system or if you wanna play a board game or something like that.
And actually i almost feel this moreso for Subnautica 2, the tech in that game actually feels really sensibly futuristic to me. I struggle to put into words what exactly makes it feel so natural but i think generally, it's the same thing as how we have super advanced technology IRL yet most of the stuff we actually use day-to-day are just better versions of what was used in the past.
Candles were replaced with gas lamps, then incandescent flashlights, and now you just use the LED on your phone. Subnautica 2 does that with most of the technology and it's so fucking satisfying.
Yes. 20 to 30 years ago I had long black hair and looked like the average black metal enthusiast. However, when people weren't looking I wore a white jumpsuit with capton belt, and a green-tinted fraggle-hair wig.
Kids, gather round. Grampa Simpson needs to tell you something about the times as they was.
Computer concepts that structure our everyday lives were not just unknown to everybody you knew, for most of them they simply made no sense.
Desktop, mouse, file folder (or if 1337, ‘directory’), pixel, distributed, packets - hell the concept of ‘online’ (or “cyberspace” to my peeps. Sup y’all) was more than they cared to grasp and they would just tune out and immediately forget anything you’d said about it.
When this picture was conceived, the amount of people who used computers to talk to other people on a daily basis would have fit in a sportsball stadium. The rest of us lucky enough to have some beige box to kick around were only dreaming. AOL was still half a decade away.
Everyone else in the world - and definitely all of your teachers, parents, extended family, any grown up not already a maths graduate - had NO idea, didn’t want to know, and thought you were weird for caring.
I grew up in the sprawling suburbs where every other kid had a moped and a swimming pool, but next to nobody had a computer.
My giant middle school, with thousands of kids had a computer club. And there was a grand total of 8 of us computer-owning nerds. Not to mention my Apple ][e cost something $4000 (USD) in todays money.
"You are sad," the Knight said in an anxious tone: "let me sing you a song to comfort you."
"Is it very long?" Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.
"It's long," said the Knight, "but very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it—either it brings the tears into their eyes, or else—"
"Or else what?" said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
"Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'."
"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested.
"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed.
"That's what the name is called. The name really is 'The Aged Aged Man'."
"Then I ought to have said 'That's what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself.
"No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is called 'Ways And Means': but that's only what it's called, you know!"
"Well, what is the song, then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
"I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is 'A-sitting On A Gate': and the tune's my own invention."
Well, Bluetooth has been around for over a quarter century and it's still the same old unreliable, roll a six to start standard it ever was. The sooner we switch to rainbow lasers the better
is this one of those things people just complain about because it's cool to complain about it? I've never had much issue with bluetooth and what little i had was solved by realizing my computer is years old by now and i should probably get a modern bluetooth adapter..
As much as I want them to, I don’t think they will. Incredibly expensive to retool manufacturing to produce the tubes again. Who knows though maybe a rich retro gamer would invest.
I can answer the question of, "what is she holding?"
It's wireless communicators.
At that time, people really, really wanted wireless communicators like Star Trek and Dick Tracey's watch. It was the generic representation of, "the future" for all things pop art.
Why was she holding them like that? To represent the concept of these three machines communicating with each other via her wireless control/communicators.
"Prismatic" transfers of energy/information was actually a common trope in sci fi and computer book art all the way into the 1990s. Watch some old black and white sci-fi TV shows and you'll see beams like that everywhere.
How much budget do you think they had to do this? Someone had the wig from a costume already, they borrowed the jumpsuit from a friend, scrounged up what they could in the office, printed off a """'calendar""""", and had an intern add the rays once the photo was developed.
Even if they had the imagination, they simply didn't have the time and resources to do anything.
110 Comments
rem26_art@fedia.io · 61 pts · 108d
sometimes you gotta give your smartphone a bit of screen time. Its good for it.
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 58 pts · 108d
I'm not gonna comment on the fashion, as I'm sure that can't be accurately predicted (hell, I'm not outruling that this prediction might prove accurate in three years..)
But have you noticed that all sci-fi movies have fucking terrible UIs and means of interacting with computers?
Take for example Minority Report: Holographic screens are cool I guess. But then they stand there and flail their arms around to move objects and entities back and forth. Now, imagine controlling a computer for an entire work day like that; You'd be fucking exhausted and crying from the muscle strain.
Keyboard and mouse have been standard for half a century now, and for a good reason. Something else will probably replace it at some point, but YMCA-dancing the instructions will not be it.
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world · 37 pts · 108d
I like to think he's just fucking extra. If you rewatch the scene, another dude is working on a pretty normal computer setup, sitting at a desk, not flailing around wildly, normal sized monitor (except the monitor is transparent), etc. He seems to have the option to do gesture interaction too as he selects and moves some images with his pinky pointed at the screen, but seems like there is still a keyboard-like or touchpad interface on the desk. Then they transfer data over with a weird physical drive to Tom Cruise's giant curved monitor and gesture controlled setup using the gloves. He's just an early adopter into more experimental tech formats, like the rich kids who had the power glove for the Nintendo, or someone who has a 8k 60inch curved monitor. I bet even the amount of movements he is putting into the gestures is entirely unnecessary and over the top. He just thinks it's cool.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works · 23 pts · 108d
On the other hand you have Star Trek, which basically invented our modern computing interfaces that aren’t keyboard and mouse.
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 24 pts · 108d
Yup, they just never figured out to have fuses and relays in the instrument panels. No wonder Geordi is blind.
hakunawazo@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 107d
The sparks are just the UI telling you someone is attacking. Think of it like force feedback on a controller.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 108d
There’s an episode of DS9 where they use pen-based computing for a scene. It’s hilarious.
Rubisco@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 106d
I'm struggling to remember this episode. Which one is it?
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 106d
Can’t remember but i think it was mid-series. Dax and the doctor were in the scene iirc. It was in the - y’know, command area outside Sisko’s office.
DancingBear@midwest.social · 3 pts · 107d
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 107d
Hotkeys, bash aliases, and a couple of hacks in perl I bet
DancingBear@midwest.social · 2 pts · 107d
RamenJunkie@midwest.social · 3 pts · 106d
If you did it all day everyday you would not be exhausted you would be nice and fit like Tom Cruise.
Malyca@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 107d
Hackers was my favorite.
rmuk@feddit.uk · 5 pts · 106d
I ONLY hack from a payphone mounted on a turntable.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 80d
This is something i love about The Expanse, the technology actually makes sense.
Most people just have a disposable phone/tablet consisting of plexiglass (just so you have something transparent to actually hold) and a little square in a corner (which is all the actual hardware and projects a holographic interface ontop of the plexiglass), which acts much like an oldschool terminal for a central mainframe system, and you just use it like normal except it can also detect gestures around it.
Next most normal is larger versions of this mounted on the walls, which you can just swipe stuff onto from other devices and interact with more like a TV except your hand is the remote.
And that's like 90% of what people actually use, fancy 3d holographic stuff is only used when the 3d aspect is actually helpful, like visualizing the solar system or if you wanna play a board game or something like that.
And actually i almost feel this moreso for Subnautica 2, the tech in that game actually feels really sensibly futuristic to me. I struggle to put into words what exactly makes it feel so natural but i think generally, it's the same thing as how we have super advanced technology IRL yet most of the stuff we actually use day-to-day are just better versions of what was used in the past.
Candles were replaced with gas lamps, then incandescent flashlights, and now you just use the LED on your phone. Subnautica 2 does that with most of the technology and it's so fucking satisfying.
FosterMolasses@leminal.space · 2 pts · 106d
Samskara@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 108d
Fashion repeats every 20 to 30 years.
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 108d
Yes. 20 to 30 years ago I had long black hair and looked like the average black metal enthusiast. However, when people weren't looking I wore a white jumpsuit with capton belt, and a green-tinted fraggle-hair wig.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 37 pts · 108d
Kids, gather round. Grampa Simpson needs to tell you something about the times as they was.
Computer concepts that structure our everyday lives were not just unknown to everybody you knew, for most of them they simply made no sense.
Desktop, mouse, file folder (or if 1337, ‘directory’), pixel, distributed, packets - hell the concept of ‘online’ (or “cyberspace” to my peeps. Sup y’all) was more than they cared to grasp and they would just tune out and immediately forget anything you’d said about it.
When this picture was conceived, the amount of people who used computers to talk to other people on a daily basis would have fit in a sportsball stadium. The rest of us lucky enough to have some beige box to kick around were only dreaming. AOL was still half a decade away.
Everyone else in the world - and definitely all of your teachers, parents, extended family, any grown up not already a maths graduate - had NO idea, didn’t want to know, and thought you were weird for caring.
Slashme@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 108d
OK, but this was Unix world magazine...
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 107d
Well there's your context. Even for nerds it was open land.
thal3s@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 108d
This is 100% accurate.
I grew up in the sprawling suburbs where every other kid had a moped and a swimming pool, but next to nobody had a computer.
My giant middle school, with thousands of kids had a computer club. And there was a grand total of 8 of us computer-owning nerds. Not to mention my Apple ][e cost something $4000 (USD) in todays money.
FosterMolasses@leminal.space · 1 pts · 106d
Alright, flex harder on us cool guy lol
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 33 pts · 108d
I'm so excited! I just can't hide it! I'm about to lose control and I think I like it! Oooh, yeah!
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe · 6 pts · 108d
Damn you, now I have that song in my head.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 108d
Tune wedgie!
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe · 4 pts · 108d
Hahaha, I've never heard this term before, it's perfect!
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 108d
What song is this
Slashme@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 108d
I'm so excited.
PrimeMinisterKeyes@leminal.space · 4 pts · 107d
Please calm down then.
And then try to answer the question.
Slashme@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 107d
"You are sad," the Knight said in an anxious tone: "let me sing you a song to comfort you."
"Is it very long?" Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.
"It's long," said the Knight, "but very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it—either it brings the tears into their eyes, or else—"
"Or else what?" said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
"Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'."
"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested.
"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed.
"That's what the name is called. The name really is 'The Aged Aged Man'."
"Then I ought to have said 'That's what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself.
"No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is called 'Ways And Means': but that's only what it's called, you know!"
"Well, what is the song, then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
"I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is 'A-sitting On A Gate': and the tune's my own invention."
hakunawazo@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 107d
Yeah I see, but what is the song called?
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 108d
The pointer sisters, OK!
Slashme@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 107d
Right on, daddy-o!
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 108d
Doin' the neutron dance?
myrrh@ttrpg.network · 1 pts · 108d
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 29 pts · 108d
Oh man, I can't wait!
The Network-Over-CareBear-Stare-Protocol will be much faster, more reliable, and more secure than ethernet and wifi!
CallMeAl@piefed.zip · 25 pts · 108d
The best part is that its real and reading the article does nothing to explain what is going on in the picture.
cholesterol@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 108d
So it might just be what some photographer randomly thought up.
tomenzgg@midwest.social · 3 pts · 108d
When your only tool is the refraction of light, etc.
BygoneNeutrino@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 107d
Does anyone have the entire magazine archived? I want to find out exactly where they were in computing.
hakunawazo@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 107d
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club · 18 pts · 108d
This was some prophet's interpretation of what later became Linux socks.
IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 108d
losers using keyboard and mouse or even touchscreen, all my homies use rainbow pads, gayest and best eay to use the Internet
jodanlime@midwest.social · 16 pts · 108d
For some reason it doesn't feel too far off from scanning QR codes.
The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 108d
Except that she's smiling while she does it.
x00z@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 108d
Bluetooth and Wifi are also what that idea might be. Wirelessly moving data from a storage device to your PC.
bampop@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 107d
Well, Bluetooth has been around for over a quarter century and it's still the same old unreliable, roll a six to start standard it ever was. The sooner we switch to rainbow lasers the better
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 80d
is this one of those things people just complain about because it's cool to complain about it? I've never had much issue with bluetooth and what little i had was solved by realizing my computer is years old by now and i should probably get a modern bluetooth adapter..
ieGod@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 108d
Yep.
+screen casting
+app interactions
BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 107d
Idk, if you look at it a certain way, we just used radios to transfer instead of light.
The highwaisted pants are already back in and the copper belt could be a flex.
We have three years to crack this mullet though. We need to get moving.
Tiresia@slrpnk.net · 5 pts · 107d
Most information is transferred using light, specifically with those desk toys that everybody had in the 90s .
cockmushroom@reddthat.com · 4 pts · 106d
Fwiw, radio waves are light. Just lower in frequency with longer wavelength
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum
TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 14 pts · 108d
That's how I do it when I'm on ketamine
theblurstoftimes@leminal.space · 13 pts · 108d
We’re actually ahead of schedule. That’s how I show the computer my fake ID. McLovin, organ donor, Hawaii.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 107d
Funny enough you actually need to show ID to buy bitcoin to donate Annas archive.
teft@piefed.social · 12 pts · 108d
The haircut is just Yolandi’s cut dyed silver. So we’re halfway there.
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 108d
I do believe CRTs are going to make a comeback.
But for a vastly different reason.
texture@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 108d
well .... whats the reason? :3
vala@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 108d
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20220082358A1/en
MrPnut@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 108d
As much as I want them to, I don’t think they will. Incredibly expensive to retool manufacturing to produce the tubes again. Who knows though maybe a rich retro gamer would invest.
decended_being@midwest.social · 3 pts · 108d
Dare I ask?
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club · 13 pts · 108d
Alien aesthetics mainly, it goes well with the oligarchic world order.
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 108d
Love me some cassette futurism.
PrimeMinisterKeyes@leminal.space · 4 pts · 107d
Is that an ashtray in the 2nd GIF, bottom-left?
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club · 1 pts · 107d
Yes.
Smoking was mandatory back then in the future.
37piecesof_flare@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 108d
Super smash bros competitions, obviously.
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 108d
Close. HERF guns.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 108d
Hans-exclusive radical feminists?
riskable@programming.dev · 10 pts · 108d
I'm already growing my hair out in preparation 👍
Kapton Tape belt is ready to go!
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 108d
But do you have an all-white one-piece pant suit?
riskable@programming.dev · 4 pts · 106d
The one piece shall be mine!
TwoDogsFighting@feddit.uk · 10 pts · 107d
This is just the end of halt and catch fire.
white_nrdy@programming.dev · 3 pts · 107d
I need to re-watch that
TwoDogsFighting@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 106d
It's just as good the second time round.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 107d
They got the gender right tbf :3
thethunderwolf@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 106d
:3
dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net · 9 pts · 108d
What. What the fuck is that even supposed to be?
jasoman@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 108d
Post-futurism QR code scanning?
SoloPhoenyx@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 108d
"i showed u my data chits. Pls respond"
certified_expert@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 108d
we are kinda there: bunch of nonsense input to get nonsense outputs from multiple computers
GhostFace@lemmy.today · 9 pts · 106d
What sort of drugs were they on when they predicted this?
0x0@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 106d
The good stuff.
BurnedDonutHole@ani.social · 4 pts · 106d
Indeed...
FosterMolasses@leminal.space · 2 pts · 106d
Qualudes ofc
onnekas@sopuli.xyz · 8 pts · 106d
Gotta make a reminder in march 2029 to send this in my group chat.
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 108d
Accurate
IhaveCrabs111@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 108d
They got the date right too!
Lee@retrolemmy.com · 8 pts · 107d
Doesn't look that far off from a lot of Unix socks posts with the color stripes between the user and multiple monitors.
texture@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 108d
no notes
dmention7@midwest.social · 7 pts · 108d
You guys haven't been wearing your leftover Xmas tinsel as a hat?
occult@leminal.space · 6 pts · 108d
The original post: https://vox.ominous.net/@occult/116103841606429399
In a thread of similar posts featuring retro-computer advertisements.
Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.uk · 6 pts · 108d
My cousin's had wigs like that in the 80's. It was fantastic.
PrimeMinisterKeyes@leminal.space · 3 pts · 107d
Was your cousin's name Andy Warhol?
username_1@programming.dev · 5 pts · 108d
matlag@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 107d
With the right combination of mushrooms you probably see the wifi electromagnetic waves in these colors.
Agent641@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 106d
You keep drinking the mushroom tea until you are vibrating at the same frequency asthe light waves.
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe · 5 pts · 108d
WTFuck is that hair?
The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 108d
It's a late 20's trend that should be starting up any day now.
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe · 4 pts · 108d
Hahahahaha
Rcklsabndn@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 108d
I like the idea of hairstyles following technology. If vr/ar goggles/helmets become mainstream daily wear the styles would morph to fit.
SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 pts · 108d
Awesome
paraphrand@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 108d
I think we are still on track.
SeptugenarianSenate@leminal.space · 3 pts · 107d
"Strap in!"
FE80@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 106d
The reflective belt should have figured into this UI more.
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe · 2 pts · 108d
Always amazes me the lack of imagination in media like this.
3 generic CRTs - like you couldn't envision a single, wide, curved flat screen?
I suppose she's supposed to be holding oddly shaped punched cards? (Though punched cards were already dead?).
Oh, wait, those are floppies.
Are the floppies projecting data to a screen using color light bars?
Just so bizarre. I thank the creators for giving us this to look back on.
riskable@programming.dev · 12 pts · 108d
I can answer the question of, "what is she holding?"
It's wireless communicators.
At that time, people really, really wanted wireless communicators like Star Trek and Dick Tracey's watch. It was the generic representation of, "the future" for all things pop art.
Why was she holding them like that? To represent the concept of these three machines communicating with each other via her wireless control/communicators.
"Prismatic" transfers of energy/information was actually a common trope in sci fi and computer book art all the way into the 1990s. Watch some old black and white sci-fi TV shows and you'll see beams like that everywhere.
smuuthbrane@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 108d
How much budget do you think they had to do this? Someone had the wig from a costume already, they borrowed the jumpsuit from a friend, scrounged up what they could in the office, printed off a """'calendar""""", and had an intern add the rays once the photo was developed.
Even if they had the imagination, they simply didn't have the time and resources to do anything.
saltesc@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 108d
They could have at least turned the CRTs on.
...or maybe that's what's happening.
smuuthbrane@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 108d
They WERE on, but the magic handhelds are siphoning all the data and power.
DaddleDew@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 108d
At least they got the multiple display setup right
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 106d
I have that hair now. Checkmate!
occult@vox.ominous.net · 1 pts · 108d
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 108d
The JoyCon 3.