Can I STEEL it from you?!

I just hope the puns don't pewter out.

Punch cards and now we carry processors several thousand times more powerful than the most powerful supercomputer of 1967 in our pocket smart phone. I still admire Walter Cronkite who was a futurist at heart. Can you imagine anyone one of this caliber and optimism today?

There was a ceramic metal microwave pan back in the 1980's used as a roaster. Mine went the way of the yard sale years ago.

For pure nostalgia K&r

I think Mr. Cronkite had a tin ear.

I remember reading Heinlein's "Red Planet" to my son when he was little. I didn't have to explain any of the science fiction concepts to him, but I did have to explain what slide rules were and why wrist watches were once expensive.

It isn't usually the gee-whiz new technology that catches people up when they try to predict the future. It's not realizing how much of what they're used to will be obsolete.

how our depiction of the future has keyboards and computers.

Yes, this is what I was told at the Enrico-Fermi Nuke back in the early 60's, they even showed us films of autos that were powered by just dropping an atomic pill into the tank once a year...and almost all bought up this crock (not me) then my best friend's father who was a technician at the nuke died in his 40s from cancer and Nader wrote the book, We Almost Lost Detroitabout this same fast breeder nuke that actually used liquid sodium to cool it (molten sodium burns when exposed to air) Yeah, lots of memories, but not warm fuzzy ones, no scary as hell ones...

I worked in a factory in the 1970's where metal parts were heat treated in liquid sodium. It seems there were problems with the heat treater so they called in an expert. I was supposed to take him back and show him the treater since I did the testing on hardness. Liquid sodium is explosive all by itself if cooled too quickly. The expert turned visibly pale and he shut down the heat treater immediately and left the building. It seems the factory had installed a sprinkler system well above the heat treater thankfully it never went off. Such a wonderful idea liquid sodium and nuclear material. The liquid sodium makes a nice explosion all by itself when quickly cooled. At the time asbestos suits were also used by operators in the heat treater. Progress don't you know.

Unbelievable!

They started the heat treater after they eliminated the sprinkler and to cut down the burning of residual oil since there was no sprinkler system, they introduced a degreaser before parts were heat treated. Three people later died in the degreaser over come by toxic fumes. By that time I also had vacated the factory. At least a couple city blocks were spared explosive devistation as had happened at a similar facility. The moral of the story you never know what lurks in factories. I went back to school and never again considered factory work. So people complain that OSHA makes them wear eye protection. Progress through science 70's style.

I want you to know that as a trained chemist I understand the magnitude of what I am reading. I am stunned.

...my Jetsons flying car...