People drive so badly and with so much inattention, jetpacks and flying cars would be a murderous disaster. They would be just as dangerous to the bystanders as to the drivers/passengers, too.

Just sayin'

I assume the 'sock' in the first entry was a sockpuppet. Juicy behind-the-scenes gossip, if not quite as exciting as the acrobatic sodomy.

And about the dinosaurs? They go with the sodomy, and if there's no jetpacks, there's no sodomy, and therefore no dinosaurs, which means that evolution is wrong and the Bible is true. QED. (Hey, it makes as much sense as any OTHER Creationist argument!)

I also don't think the future becomes the present. Or rather it does, but the present of a quite different timeline/quantum universe, whereas the ACTUAL present was never our future, but the future of the next timeline down the row, and so on. If you try to get me to explain this I will fuddle you with other logical-sounding but totally nonsensical utterances, and make my escape.

Ooooo--you don't suppose ancient phoenix sightings (or more recent UFOs) were just airborne time travelers looking for a little privacy, do you?

A couple of Pratchett's characters say that time is like a pair of trousers. I'm going to go with this concept until I meet myself coming back up . . . or reach the ankles . . .

A pair of very loose trousers, considering how quickly you run out of it.

Xopher @ 2:

I was thinking of the sock as a sock, and trying to identify why someone would be wearing someone else's socks.

For the other aspect, wouldn't the jetpacks, uh, get in the way? Or, at least, be a burn hazard?

Unless they're dinosaurs.

*A new and unfamiliar definition of 'privacy', if you do it in broad daylight. That's so perverted. You sicko.

You know that it would be untrue
You know that I would be a liar
If I was to say to you
Girl, we couldn't get much higher
Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire

Although honestly? I don't personally *care* about not having jetpacks. I was promised that computing would bring about a paperless office. I still don't have a paperless office.

If I ever meet you, you're in trouble for that song choice. Please keep it up.

For the teleportation, it didn't take much playing of the game Portal for my mind to go there.

Steve Burnett @ 14:

I don't recall where I heard the wisecrack that the paperless office of the future is just down the hall from the paperless bathroom of the future.

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, 1871

KeithS, #16: *hopes that double-entendre was intentional*

Now Dragons, Dragons wouldn't need jetpacks. Because, as you know bub, Dragon flame doesn't actually come out of the mouths of dragons, that concept came about when some mealy-mouthed Victorian prude got offended whilst reading stories to her great-niece. The reality severely limits Dragons from participating in certain acts of airborne sodomy.

It also makes those supposed Dragon-slaying knights look a tad less heroic.

Always have been; always will be.

If you've read JD Robb's "in Death" series of police procedurals set in 2050 NYC, you'll know that this prophecy is correct.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0snTqLQLpBA

Green side up, plz....

Aw, naturally.

Steve Burnett @ 22:

Since no one ever explained the three seashells to me, I'll just stand here and talk about dinosaur sodomy until I have enough tickets to do it the old-fashioned way.

I suppose your jetpack is powered by a beam of neutrinos, and doesn't get hot, and it doesn't matter if your legs get in the way because they pass right through without actually touching any of your precious atoms.

I don't know about the jetpack, but this certainly raised my temperature. Hubba-hubba. After all, interpose yourself in front of enough of a neutrino flux, and eventually you'll get lepton.

Here's a couple of links:
http://www.totousa.com/Default.aspx?tabid=67
http://paperlesstoilet.com/

I want to especially appreciate the way Xopher dragged the conversation DIRECTLY INTO THE GUTTER with comment #2. Xopher FTW!

Formalist!Xopher, FTW!

But dinosaurs with personal helicopters would still have problems.

*I was always told not to speak with my mouth full.

C'mon. Polonius is stabbed behind the arras, and his punctured fuel tank goes up with a muffled whoompf... and Ophelia's mad scene, now with extra TOTALLY AWESOME. You know you want it, too.

I haven't read those, I just drive in the streets of my hometown in an itty-bitty car (Mercury Mystique, inherited from my partner's mom, who we bought it for but decided a couple of years ago she did not need to drive anymore).

People don't pay enough attention manning vehicles that pretty much are on one basic plane of streets. I really don't want idiots so witlessly maneuvering vehicles that are pretty much moving in 3D. My life is in danger enough already.

If you could guarantee anyone 'flying' those things could get a pilot's license before being allowed to fly them, I'd go with it. Otherwise, they are stupid machines.

And improve the mounting on hindquarters.

The jetpack is a lie
The jetpack is a lie
The jetpack's in the future, right?
The jetpack is a lie.
... whaddya think about that, boy?

"Josh, I can think of several ways in which teleportation would make sodomy more fun, too."

You weren't thinking of something along the lines of Douglas Adams'

"I teleported home one night
with Ron and Sid and Meg.
Ron stole Meggie's heart away
and I got Sidney's leg",

with a cast of Ron and Sid and Jock, did you?

You MISSED that ENTIRE subtext of my comment? What did you think I was talking about there?

So Bill @29, you live in a mythical future, this explains a lot. I suppose your jetpack is powered by a beam of neutrinos, and doesn't get hot, and it doesn't matter if your legs get in the way because they pass right through without actually touching any of your precious atoms.

No, the mythical future is inside my head.

The dirty little secret of jetpacks and flying cars is that they belong to the past, not the future.

The rocket belt I wore was amazing crowds when I was in grade school.

Flying cars were cruising down Broadway before I was born.

Hovercraft are rusting in museums.

People who wonder "Where's my jetpack?" may be looking at the wrong end of time.

We're living in the post-future.

This leads to the "many worlds, none of them with jetpacks" interpretation of quantum physics.

Bill #60:

Yep, the past's future has Luna City, warp drive, socialist utopias, Mars and Venus inhabited by natives and colonized by Earthly powers, etc. OTOH, it also has humans enslaved by alien invaders, driven to extinction or driven to barbarity by global nuclear war, conquered by a DARPA project that has unknowingly invented stasis fields, etc. It's kind of a wash.

Well, I know that can happen to dogs...

And it won't be like Y2K.

Things will actually break. All at once.

Father, why do these words cause a ruction?
Moderation rhymes with fun.
Join the post-bronze slip-steam singularists
Everyone!

(We'll work "Roger Ramjet" and "[fudge]packing" into version 1.2.)

Now, where did I put my rocket boots?

On the other hand, 29 years from now, all those unix servers will be so obsolete that they and their programming will have been retired and replaced by something without that bug built into it.

And no one uses COBOL anymore, either.

Dinosaur, sodomy,
Hoist on a jet of free
Neutrons or petards or
Skazlorls or such --

Contra-real-zeppelin
Scrolls off my iphone screen
History's clinamen
Takes and gives much.

I was wondering when someone would bring up COPtors.

abi 58: I didn't think I was introducing anything new.

Serge 66: He was pretty decent...in fact I had the distinct impression that he was excellent.

Kip 71: *applauds*

Ah, Patrick (#41) , all of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at … the stars!

<exits stage left with dramatique flourish, head and hand elevated>

This useless non sequitur brought to you by the letter B for Borscht.

(All those willing to decapitate themselves now will receive free jet packs. 1 to a customer.)

Janet @ 80:

1. Maybe it was the shock of, um, initial contact that got their full attention?

2. I'm sure the outer casings would be heat-proof. . .

P.S. Image one.

Image two.

Q. E. F. D.

Quod erat <present participle of (in)appropriate latin verb beginning in 'f'> demonstrandum?

I believe it was in here. I believe it was a quote from an IM conversation. I believe the quotee was Patrick. It had a line in it that went something like: "The women of Science Fiction are on the move".

It was a masterpiece of comic timing and I wanted to save it off, but I neglected to, and now I can't find it again.

If somebody has it, and doesn't for some reason want to post it, kindly do me the awfully big favor of sending it to me by email. TIA.

Does that mean the same thing as "I can't be arsed about jetpacks"?

Paula@52: requiring a pilot's license wouldn't be nearly enough; at least around Boston, a lot of commuting is done in instrument conditions -- which take a lot more practice to learn to handle. There was a story (IIRC by Kris Neville?) in which the driver (but not the point) was the installation of weather control, because flying cars would be impractical without it.

Alison@65: You mean you haven't seen "Viva La Roombalucion!" And if that isn't enough, just think what a Roomba with extensors (as invented by Daniel Boone Davis in The Door into Summer could do....

The Canadian group "The Frantics" had a similar song closing one of their shows.

Making Love in Outer Space

The retro-rockets crack the sky
I ride upon my fire
I should feel awe as we lift off
But I just feel desire
I felt love spark the first time
We flew a simulation
But now we're on a shuttle
For our cosmic consummation

There's something about weightlessness
My thermostat's red hot
In zero gee please come to me
Find my zero gee spot
Your eyes look lovely in the light
That shines from the Big Dipper
I know we'll get our space suits off
When we get through these zippers

    Making love in outer space
    It's just like science fiction
    Although we have a problem for
    In space there is no friction
    The heavens swirl above our heads
    Your moon blocks out the moon
    We're going to reach orbit now
    Just don't reach it too soon!

I love to stroke your floating hair
And gaze upon your charms
I feel safe and protected
Within your Canadarms
Oh that was beautiful my dear
You're the lover of the century
And if you're ready, so am I
We're going for re-entry
We're going for re-entry

(student makes note to self to recite that koan just as the Singularity hits; that should work)

Sarah, #86: It's been recorded; I have at least one version, but it's on a tape that hasn't yet been archived to CD. If you know any filkers, ask around -- it's a classic, and most of them will be familiar with it. (The colloquial title is "Zero-G Sex".)

Just make sure not to be up in the air when the net's Windows O/S decides that an upgrade will be implemented in 9... 8... 7... 6...

Blue Sky of Death.

This implies that every jet-pack is covered in jam.

This _might_ have further implications for the sodding, but I'm not volunteering to find out, either as subject _or_ observer. More likely, and I know that this is not strictly entomologically right, it means that your jet-pack might end up COVERED IN BEES.

...the technology of which Diet Smith extrapolated into the Space Coupe, used for the first flight to the Moon. I wonder how much that lunar snail shell's meat fetches at Whole Earth's these days.

Declining‡ the participle to form an adverb from that is another matter. My Allen and Greenough gives multiple options for this.

1. Third declension adjectives often have -ter added to them, thus futuenter (214b)
2. The neuter accusative of adjectives and pronouns is often used as an adverb, thus futuente (214d)
3. The ablative singular neuter (or less commonly) feminine may be used adverbially, thus futuenti (214e)

Absent guidance, I'd go for option 1.

-----
† This is Xopher's second excellent and dirty pun in Latin that I know of. It is a delightful talent, and one I envy greatly
* It is unsurprising in this conversation that we should end up (as it were) in conjugation
‡ Inevitably, after a successful conjugation, things decline.

I thought that successful conjugation involved reclining, not declining.

One may or may not recline during conjugation, but after it, there is an inevitable decline.

It was that good.

"It's the Eighties, So Where's Our Rocket Packs?", by Daniel Amos

So, you can fly a little -- if you can sink enough resources into the goal -- but, it's never going to be affordable for everyday use. Indeed, ISTM that the rule visibly holds for "personal planes" in general. (It's not that you have to be rich, but it helps....)

My Latin classes were rather boring as well. When I was younger, I used to think that our teacher had come over during the Roman invasion of Britain and stayed.

David Harmon @ 123:

In keeping with the futurism of the thread, a useful quote from a slightly different context: "Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back." Sounds practical enough, in a futuristic '50s sort of way, to me.

No kidding. I hesitate to bring this up, but 'futuere' is spelled like and even sounds like the French word 'foutu'. So? Well, French being French, its 4-letter words are 5-letter long, even the 'F' word that involves some conjugation.

It was amusing on several levels: Rusian has some very specific aspects of verbs, and time. Things stand (a parked car, "stands", i.e. "Where did I stand my car?"). Some things, which are vertical (like a glass) have a specific sort of standing, i.e., "to stand up". We were warned not to use this as a way of saying a date had not arrived to meet us, as it was a common Russian term saying one had, "gotten lucky."

So, in russian, successful conjugation, of a fleeting nature, are not reclinitory.

2) Help, help, I am IN A ROOM WITH ONE OF THE PARTICIPANTS IN THIS DISCUSSION SEND lube A CO2 FIRE EXTINGUISHER A TEAM OF RESCUERS.

... Oh Hell. Oops. Send an asbestos bucket, size medium. And an alibi.

If it had Murray LeanSteer technology, it would travel sideways in time.

I'd say that, strictly speaking, street travel is almost one-dimensional- the two-dimensional elements are rather limited (except on large empty parking lots, town squares and the like). Which, of course, makes your point even stronger.

Try Jill Sobule's "Jetpack." It's a pretty good jetpack song, and a pretty good New York song.

And if I had a jetpack, I’d bust into your door
Take you by the hand to the Jersey shore
And underneath the moonlight, you’d want me even more
Cause I’d have a jetpack

I like this notion. All power tools should come with neural upgrades (but they should not include consumer/political biases, as I would suppose the programmers would be tempted/paid to put in).

Hmm. Well, IANAP, but cruising probably wouldn't be terribly difficult--at a constant speed the force on your knees would just be gravity plus wind resistance, right? Accelerating would be trickier, but most people can squat roughly their body weight, so you'd probably be okay up to one g-force. Athletes could train up to double that pretty easily. I'm not sure it would be much harder on your knees than downhill skiing.

I think the trickiest thing would be keeping your center of mass balanced over the thrust while travelling horizontally. It would be constantly changing depending on speed, and our monkey reflexes would be pretty terrible at intuiting the right spot, I think. Another neural prosthesis?

Rob Rusick @ 141: "I like this notion. All power tools should come with neural upgrades (but they should not include consumer/political biases, as I would suppose the programmers would be tempted/paid to put in)."

Direct-to-brain interfaces would be a terrible idea if the user wasn't able to protect against things like that. I don't think it would be too hard, though--a faux-pigeon* visual cortex would probably be pretty easy to distinguish from a "VOTE FOR XXX/BUY XXX" program.**

*What, not awesome enough for you? Fine, faux-eagle brain.***

**Or not... "I went for my first flight, and now I have this sudden craving for worms!"

***Although I'm suddenly struck with this image of jetpack-wearing humans flocking together and turning in sync like pigeons...okay, how about we compromise on faux-swallow brain?

Glenn Hauman @ 118:
>Since you're stating that your very old MT install is screwed up[....]

This particular M.T. install is feeling old, but not 'very' old yet, and uninstalling still doesn't feeling like a proper option. Maybe this install is in need of some fixes at a fundamental level, what I believe the young folk don't call a "soul patch".

Yeah, where they are going matters but stability in the air isn't based on that.

I suspect that even when hovering it would be difficult to keep your rocket boots' thrust vectors co-planar in the dorsal-ventral central plane and intersecting above your center of mass. Get the first wrong and you either cartwheel or somersault, get the second wrong and you pirouette. Even if you don't crash into something you'll probably decorate the sky with your most recent meal.

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the vomit.

"Wait, the vomit?!?!?

"DUCK!"

That image is going to stick with me all day....

(In the future, we will speak very strange sentences indeed.)

What would a dinosaur be doing in a stall anyway? It would have to be a very big stall.

Obviously, the dinosaur mishandled the jetpack and now can't pull out (of the stall! What were you thinking?).

Splat!

Taking a wide stance.

I think the easy answer to this is: no high acceleration take-offs. Though as a general principle, any rocket boot that didn't have self-correcting controls would be pretty worthless. (A simple feedback loop designed to recenter the thrust under the center of mass would also work as a Segway-esque directional control: just lean the direction you want to drift.)

Terry Karney @ 146: "I suspect the flight centers in birdbrains aren't hinged to the visual cortex, but rather to the centers of balance, and the feedback from the skin/feathers."

I'd think that jet-pack flight (brute force) is sufficiently distinct from winged flight (aerodynamically sensitive) that the tactile inputs wouldn't be essential. On the other hand, the spacial awareness that enables flocking behavior would make for great collision avoidance programming. IMH, of course.

Bruce Cohen @ 147: "I suspect that even when hovering it would be difficult to keep your rocket boots' thrust vectors co-planar in the dorsal-ventral central plane and intersecting above your center of mass. Get the first wrong and you either cartwheel or somersault, get the second wrong and you pirouette."

Humans are pretty good at keeping their center of balance over a point of acceleration--it's how we stand. We just assume the direction of acceleration is constant over a plane, which wouldn't hold while wearing rocket boots. I can imagine a pretty simple neural hack though, that calculates a theoretical plane of thrust based on the 'boots' current angle/position and feeds that into our inner ear as "level." Combined with boots that can angle their own thrust relative to the wearer, and I think you could create a pretty stable hovering platform.

(An easy solution to the pirouette problem would be a rocket pogo-stick.)

What would a dinosaur be doing in a stall anyway?

About 140 knots--they really need leading-edge slots and flaps.

Of course, the real problem with jetborne rather than wingborne flight is that all the failure modes are horrific. The glide ratio is either zero or infinite, depending on how you look at it, and you're quite likely to be too close to the ground to deploy a parachute. So you need a zero/zero ejection seat.

I'll make sure never to buy pre-owned rocket boots that aren't registered on the BootFax site.

By the way, unless you're Iron Man, will you be carrying the fuel tank on your back, or in your boots? ("Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... Surge Bigbootay!") Of course, if you have a small enough nuclear reactor, the boots really could be superduper reverse vacuum cleaners.

Honestly, both options seem equally and hilariously awkward.

Look out!
Here comes the Ironman

• Scientists track penguin poop from space


• Why our science fiction future fizzled

Come to think of it, this sounds like the premise for an episode of Eureka. After all, they had a story where the town experienced problems with its sewage system. As a result, when deputy Jo Lupo went to the ladies's room to pluck her eyebrows with laser tweezers, the toilets exploded.

not as the guests, but to be tied and fleeced
surprised they were so easy to beguile.
Strange that the monster is not some wild beast

as in the stories told in the warm east;
simple in form, but so complex in style,
ready to welcome victims to the feast

in such a form they think they'll be released
if they'll just come and wait a little while.
Strange that the monster is not some wild beast

but looks so gentle, with face lined and creased
by age and weather, absent of all bile,
ready to welcome victims to the feast

as if he were some calm presiding priest
whose attitude is wholly versatile.
Strange that the monster is not some wild beast
ready to welcome victims to the feast.

Fragano @183, 20 years ago, 1989 - 4th June: Tianamen Square massacre; Death of Ruhallah Khomeini; Fall of Polish Communist government.

That was Bill Higgins, not me. But, yeah, Michaelas did a good job of extrapolating contemporary technology to the way the internet actually turned out.

To be fair, a great deal of the prediction about the use of email, newsgroups, and other communications was written many years ago by Star Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff in "The Network Nation" originally published in 1981 (I have a copy, bought about the time I first got a unix email account). A lot of what happened in the '90s falls into the category of "they predicted that".

-apologies for anti-clonist statement, some of my best friends are clones, but it doesn't get past the fact that a lot of clones are just creepy. My army of clones feels the same way, so respect our feelings on the matter.

It's much harder when the outdated sexual stereotypes are major plot points.

Now he was god to do.

Only weakly godlike, I hope.

At Making Light;

What is it
With Making Light
and villanelles?

What is it
With Making Light
and villanelles?

Sestinas take too much time. By the time you've finished one that's appropriate for a thread, the thread is defunct. So you go to Making Light with the verse form you've got.

(Come back to us when you're advertising no win, no fee lawsuits for jetpack injuries.)