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Post by Nalkarj on Jun 29, 2018 14:30:10 GMT
I wonder if anyone else remembers these books: I took them out of the library all the time as a kid; I was fascinated by the first one in particular, which had such truly captivating entries as the Amphicar, a three-decker Soviet airplane, and (heh) driverless cars. (There was apparently a third one, The Future World of Energy, but my library must not have had it.) I actually checked my hometown libraryâs catalogue the other day and found the books werenât there any longer, unfortunately⌠Oh well. They were great. Interesting article here about them:
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 2, 2018 12:11:41 GMT
Hereâs the third one: Apparently it was written by a different author, which might have been why my library didnât have itâŚ
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 2, 2018 12:16:17 GMT
Thereâs a line in the article about another hypothetical transportation-technology I remember from the book, ââŚthe Planetran, a sleek magnetic levitation train propelled by electromagnets, [that could] whisk passengers from New York to Los Angeles through underground tunnels in less than an hour.â Whew. I remember wondering why on earth we didnât have any of this stuff!
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Post by Nalkarj on Aug 5, 2018 2:15:35 GMT
So Iâm still not entirely sure if Iâm the only one who remembers/likes/liked these books, but⌠Iâm in Washington, D.C., for a conference this weekend, and something that kind of amazed me was how much the D.C. Subway/Metro reminded me of The Future World of Transportationâor just Disneyâs Epcot in general, maybe. Iâm used to the Boston T and the New York subway, the former remarkably inefficient and the latter notoriously dirty, and compared to them both the sleek, â70s-futuristic design of the D.C. Metro is really interesting to behold. Not that itâs particularly goodâI especially think the organization of the metro lines leaves much to be desired. Or even that the architectureâs particularly amazing; I know someone who despises the D.C. metro (she thinks it makes you feel deep in the ground in some subterranean, post-apocalyptic, claustrophobic tunnel, Ă la Beneath the Planet of the Apes, maybe).* And the ticketing system is terrible and confuses the heck out of me. (Perhaps, if we have any Washingtonians here, they can explain it to me. ) But I did have to do a double-take when I was riding it today, because it really did feel like I was seeing in real life what Iâd read about in The Future World of Transportation. (I did ride the D.C. Metro years ago when I was a kid, but I guess I didnât think of the book at the time.) The DC Metro was first opened in â76, and Transportation came out in â84, so itâs not that surprising, but I was amused and kinda nostalgic. *With that said, I rather love the cathedral ceilings of D.C. Metro stationsâa striking combination of brutalist (which I usually hate) and neoclassical. But that may be because of my fondness for the futurism in these Disney books.
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Post by President Ackbar⢠on Aug 5, 2018 2:17:45 GMT
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Post by Nalkarj on Aug 5, 2018 2:22:28 GMT
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Post by President Ackbar⢠on Aug 5, 2018 2:25:05 GMT
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Post by koskiewicz on Aug 5, 2018 3:54:42 GMT
future, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured. -Ambrose Bierce
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