(no subject)
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2009/10/steampunk-101
Interesting article, and keep in mind how silly early cyberpunk imaginings of the future look now that we're on the cusp of growing entirely new limbs cheaper than some mechanical monstrosity could be coupled to the CNS, now that "everyone" has a portable telephone, camera of decent to Polaroid quality (or better), and the computing power of an 80s Mainframe in their pocket.
I'm posting it here because I thought I was going to write more about it, but I think the following will be shorter than I thought.
Yeah, that paragraph above pretty well says it: HG Wells' works are "quaint" and we can chortle about them now. For example (taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.G._Wells ), "he did not expect successful aircraft before 1950, and averred that 'my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocate its crew and founder at sea.'" That was from his first novel in 1901. By 1915 Kurt Wintgens had shot down another airplane with a machinegun synched to his plane's propeller (to keep from damaging the prop and/or deflecting rounds back into the plane or pilot). What was it, 1980 that Luke Skywalker got his cyborg hand? Gibson wrote Neuromancer in 1984; by 1999, the cyberpunk genre was already well on the way to discarding cyberware for bioware in light of the advances made in a mere 15 years. Nowadays, the idea that some kind of hydraulic robo-prosthesis wired into the CNS would be cost-effective, much less cost-competitive with a vat-grown replacement limb is as laughable as, say, sending man to Mars via a giant Earth-based cannon.
And yet it was at one point claimed with full scientific confidence that driving 100mph would break your neck. Next thing you know, the Large Hardon Collider will be launching cyborg astronauts to Mars.
Plus ça change, chummers. ;)
Interesting article, and keep in mind how silly early cyberpunk imaginings of the future look now that we're on the cusp of growing entirely new limbs cheaper than some mechanical monstrosity could be coupled to the CNS, now that "everyone" has a portable telephone, camera of decent to Polaroid quality (or better), and the computing power of an 80s Mainframe in their pocket.
I'm posting it here because I thought I was going to write more about it, but I think the following will be shorter than I thought.
Yeah, that paragraph above pretty well says it: HG Wells' works are "quaint" and we can chortle about them now. For example (taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.G._Wells ), "he did not expect successful aircraft before 1950, and averred that 'my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocate its crew and founder at sea.'" That was from his first novel in 1901. By 1915 Kurt Wintgens had shot down another airplane with a machinegun synched to his plane's propeller (to keep from damaging the prop and/or deflecting rounds back into the plane or pilot). What was it, 1980 that Luke Skywalker got his cyborg hand? Gibson wrote Neuromancer in 1984; by 1999, the cyberpunk genre was already well on the way to discarding cyberware for bioware in light of the advances made in a mere 15 years. Nowadays, the idea that some kind of hydraulic robo-prosthesis wired into the CNS would be cost-effective, much less cost-competitive with a vat-grown replacement limb is as laughable as, say, sending man to Mars via a giant Earth-based cannon.
And yet it was at one point claimed with full scientific confidence that driving 100mph would break your neck. Next thing you know, the Large Hardon Collider will be launching cyborg astronauts to Mars.
Plus ça change, chummers. ;)