Where did my Future go?

Commander Smivs · Post by **Smivs** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 5:10 pm

Growing up as a kid in the 60s the future looked really promising. Man was going to the Moon and there was talk of Moon-bases and journeys to Mars. Great stuff.
And as a British lad, I loved the incredible things we were doing with technology, Hovercraft, the straight-from-Thunderbirds supersonic Concord(e) and my favourite, the Harrier 'Jump-Jet'. Wow! How cool were things going to be when I grew up?
Well, not very, as it turns out. The space things just haven't happened and are unlikely to in the near future. Hovercraft have survived up to a point, but we can no longer cross the Channel on one like I did as a kid, Concorde's fate was sealed a few years ago leaving the World without a civilian super-sonic transport (what a backward step!), and today

we learn that the Harrier is to be 'retired' as part of the UKs defence re-alignment.
So where has my future gone?
Oh, well at least we've got the Internet, and even the concept of a Computer of your own at home was not even a pipe-dream back then. So, OK, not the future I'd hoped for, and many disappointments along the way, but I guess it's turned out well in ways we couldn't even imagine back then.

</nostalgic ramble>

Darkbee · Post by **Darkbee** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 5:21 pm

Humans are notoriously bad at predicting the future, unless you're Nostradamus. Oh wait, he was pretty bad too. Doh!

I think the space-age living predicted in the 1950s (al-la Jetsons style) was even more amusing.

It seems like we tend to focus on the things that are important to our society at the time and then extrapolate them, whereas we fail to recognize that things that are important to us now, might not be so to future generations.

The other issue of course, is money. Going into Outer Space costs money with little or no commercial value (it's mostly scientific) and let's be honest, money makes the world go round. The only money I could see being made commercially from Space travel at the moment is the scrap metal business from satellite recovery.

Even the "tourist" industry is doubtful at this stage of the game.

In terms of tomorrow's future today, you can't deny that the Internet is pretty amazing. I mean who knew you'd be able to announce to several million people in a few keystrokes that you'd just landed at JFK airport, New York and the toilets need cleaning?; (seriously though, the Internets is pretty amazing and shaping our societies!)

One device I'm sad that didn't make it or you don't see much is, is a holographic arcade game that I used to play. It was like Dragon's Lair but in 3D (using holograms). I thought how could would that be if they made movies that way, but nothing ever seemed to come of it. Having said that "3D TV" seems all the rage these days, although we still don't seem to have progressed very much from wearing silly glasses.

My biggest disappointment though has to be that my 2050 vacation to Moonbase Alpha is looking undecidely shaky at the moment.

CheeseRedux · Post by **CheeseRedux** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 5:49 pm

I Want My Jet Pack!

Warning! Clicking on that link will read to a web page. On that web page there are other links, leading to other web pages. These web pages also have links. 6 hours later you will wonder why you ever thought playing Oolite made time disappear.

No, that didn't come out quite right.

Warning! Clicking on that link will read to a web page. On that web page there are other links, leading to other web pages. These web pages also have links. 6 hours later you will wonder why you ever thought playing Oolite made time disappear.

Ah, yes, much better.

Commander Smivs · Post by **Smivs** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:02 pm

Which begs the question...

Why are we all here and NOT playing Oolite?

Edit:- Good point, so I'm off to play Oolite now. Back in
1 hour
15 kills
2674Cr profit
however long it takes to get to 'Press Space, Commander'

Delete above as appropriate.

Website · Post by **Cody** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:07 pm

Smivs wrote:
Which begs the question...Why are we all here and NOT playing Oolite?

It must be the company… if I hadn’t become involved in the forum, I’d have 20,000 kills by now.

maik · Post by **maik** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:28 pm

El Viejo wrote:
Smivs wrote:
Which begs the question...Why are we all here and NOT playing Oolite?
It must be the company… if I hadn’t become involved in the forum, I’d have 20,000 kills by now.

Same here. I find myself spending *much* more time on the forum and in the Wiki lately than actually playing Oolite...

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:36 pm

El Viejo wrote:
Smivs wrote:
Which begs the question...Why are we all here and NOT playing Oolite?
It must be the company… if I hadn’t become involved in the forum, I’d have 20,000 kills by now.

I have 1000x more posts on this forum than I do kills in the game! (I kid you not)

Commander Smivs · Post by **Smivs** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:36 pm

Yep, Look I was barely gone 30 minutes. Mind you it was fun, I got into a tussle with a Gecko of all things and this guy could duck and weave! I've never seen such dedicated evasive flying. Impressive. Shame I had to kill him really.

Darkbee · Post by **Darkbee** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 7:44 pm

RE: Warning! Clicking on that link will read to a web page. On that web page there are other links, leading to other web pages.

Darkbee wrote:
...you can't deny that the Internet is pretty amazing...

In 50 years time we'll all be riding around with Internet enabled jet packs, oh and a little built-in gaming console to play Oolite... and there'll still be morons causing accidents because they're not paying attention to where they're going, coz they're surfing the web or playing Oolite or both.

Dispatcher: Viper-1, this is home-base, we have a 8 jet-pack pile-up on highway 13, can you assist? Over.
Viper 1: That's a negative on the assist home dawg, my Internets is broken so I can't use GPS. Over.

Website · Post by **Cody** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 9:22 pm

Ambush at Quusanri witchpoint.

I decided to follow Smivs’ example, and took Rolling Thunder out for a spin. Pulled out of the torus station at Xevera… that’s such a large station, you have to clear it off the scan before you can jump. Emerged in Quusanri system… only one ship on the scan, a Python, which started pleading for help, so I went to assist. To my surprise there were two groups of bandits, one of four and one of five, and of course they turned on me. I managed to take all nine out, at the cost of all four missiles and a few items of damaged kit… it was close run. The poor old Python had been gutted by the time I’d finished, so I had to scoop its cargo… that and the pods from the bandits almost filled an empty hold. All in all, a very satisfying little flight… what a game!