A Series of Tubes

Well when the Fallopian tube was invented people didn't seem to see much need for sending payload for more than a mile... it was too prohibitive cost-wise.
sincerely
Derek Smalls

There are more accurate predictions in the article then the one you mention -- for example, the one about foods from tropical countries being transported to American cities in the winter...

Isn't this, in some sense, a description of the Internet? I buy store purchases by "tube" (i.e., the Internet) all the time. My "tube" delivers packages and bundles to my house. The Internet "tubes" collect, deliver, and transport mail over long distances. The Internet connected first to "wealthier homes, then with all homes." "Great business establishments" extend the Internet even further. Pretty prescient to me!

"Isn't this, in some sense, a description of the Internet?"

Yes. In fact, the title of the post refers to a slightly-unhinged rant made a few months back by that slightly-unhinged Congressman from Alaska whose name escapes me at the moment.

If I recall correctly, I think I once learned that NYC used pneumatic tubes to transport mail from the major clearing center in Brooklyn to the post offices in Manhattan (and elsewhere I presume).

IIRC the London bookshop Foyles was still using this sort of system when I visited as a child.

The Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress was still using pneumatic tubes in the mid-1990s. You'd fill out a book request slip, a librarian would stamp it, put it in a cannister, put the cannister in a pneumatic tube, and away it would hurtle to another librarian in the stacks. 30 minutes later you'd have your book delivered to your desk. Pretty cool really.

Underground delivery systems, both pneumatic tube and just ordinary trolley-type, were in use and expanding in many cities and even large towns in the 1880-1920 period. They were (and still are where they are operating) a very efficient method of distribution, but they were knocked out when the gasoline truck appeared with its perception of greater point-to-point convenience. Youngins such as Matt might consider investing in real estate near the (mostly abandoned and sealed-up) stations for those old systems, since they will probably come back into use in some form as the gasoline starts to go away over the next 30 years.

As far as #23, my impression from reading history is that the "cook in vs. eat out {including takeout}" cycle has been going on for thousands of years depending on the availability of food and the available storage technology vs. food tastes. There is nothing new under the sun in either families (and esp. singles) eat out nor in food pundits moralizing about how they "should" cook at home; I suspect you could find such discussions going on in Imperial Rome.

Cranky

slightly-unhinged Congressman from Alaska

Ted Stevens

Then things go awry: "They will purchase materials in tremendous wholesale quantities and sell the cooked foods at a price much lower than the cost of individual cooking." In fact, people are just richer today than they were in 1900 and can afford more costly food-acquisition methods, especially if they save time.

Matt, what are you talking about? This prediction is exactly right. Prices are measured in relative terms. The price of buying a McDonald's hamburger is much less than the opportunity cost of cooking a similar hamburger myself.

Interestingly, the premise here that wholesale purchase will make the food cheaper than home-cooking seems based on the idea that ingredients rather than labor are the main cost of prepared foods.

Bulk purchasing and efficient distribution systems are a large part of the reason fast food is cheaper than home-cooked food. Unskilled labor is worth more per hour today than in 1900 simply because of these systems. Hence, reductions in input costs led to the "productivity increases" that make an hour of burger-flipping worth more now than in 1900.

So I'd say this article is right on the money. Don't know what you're complaining about.

`Prepared food "to go" is now widely available, a concept they didn't really have in 1900 but is well-captured by the idea of being "similar to our bakeries of today.'

I do not know how common it was in 1900, but prepared food to go is a very, very old idea. Chaucer refers to a cook from a cookhouse where they made and sold prepared food to go (distinct from an inn where they had food to eat on the premises). The Cratchetts in 'A Christmas Carol' send the goose to the cookshop down the street. People could not aford ovens and so baking was done on commission. By 1900, that was less true. But I bet you will find it was not unknown.

The prediction of delivery of prepared food through pneumatic tubes was apparently, in fact, correct--I'm surprised a New York City boy like Matt was not aware of this:

http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda-weehawken_burrito_tunnel.htm

I've never considered the busted-ass Geo Metro with the "China Wok" sign on top that's parked down the street from me to be an "automobile wagon," but I guess it is. And as far as that goes, I could definitely make a pizza for less than $15, but I don't know if I could make decent sesame chicken for less than $7.

What's with the repeated Strawberry prediction- I mean I like giant fruit as much as the next guy but when given a important a platform as the Ladies Home Journal Christmas edition you should always predict as much stuff as possible and not waste one of your 29 predictions

Fascinating!

What's with the repeated Strawberry prediction- I mean I like giant fruit as much as the next guy but when given a important a platform as the Ladies Home Journal Christmas edition you should always predict as much stuff as possible and not waste one of your 29 predictions

That's the kind of hater talk you're bound to hear from somebody who's probably still taking the four-day electric ship to Liverpool. You wouldn't even HAVE giant strawberries if we hadn't exterminated so many insects.

"Prepared food to go" seems to have been a feature of ancient Roman city life. Pompeii's streets are lined with the remains of tiny establishments which appear to have sold food and drink to passersby, since there is not enough space in them for guests to sit.

Prediction #4 was my favorite - monorails and subways for everyone! No more noise! The author couldn't have predicted cheap and ubiquitous automobiles in 1900, but even for 1900 it still feels like wishful thinking.

"The author couldn't have predicted cheap and ubiquitous automobiles in 1900"

Except that he did predict it in #6. That's what I get for jumping around instead of reading them in order...

Man I love those pneumatic tube things. They were used to great effect in the movie Brazil.

Wow, people in the past are stupid.

"It's called an automobile folks. It's much fast than a horse and carriage."

Many years ago I stood in the third basement of a hospital, where tube canisters came down, flowed in the open through a system of switching, and then were sucked up to their goals. In those days any small item used by the hospital, and all the paper requisitions for those items, were sent by tube. The flow was continuous and fascinating- it would make a great movie to watch while smoking pot.

Today, most of the supply items are stocked on the floor, and the drugs are delivered in carousels, all ordered, of course, by computer.

Naturally, there were many occasions when tubes got stuck, the system lost suction, etc, so I imagine very few hospitals today still use those systems. They were, however, wonderful to watch in action.

I'm still wondering whether this is a fake - by the standards of these kind of exercises accuracy is really high - about one in two are close to accurate, with many of the predicted concepts not having been introduced untill 50-60 years after prediction (automatic phones, transmitted color photography etc). But if it is, it would make me very interested in knowing what the futurologists of today are predicting for 2100. Has anyone seen any good lists?

Pneumatic tubes are also used in the future, in the NNY TTS.

Change "automobile wagons" to "taco trucks" and the prediction's spot-on.

Matt must not cook much. Once you put in the cost of preparation and cleanup time, there is no question it is cheaper to eat out. This is most noticeable at fast food and burrito-type places, but I agree with the commenter above that it is probably also true at Asian restaurants (Chinese, sometimes Thai or Indian now too).

The prediction accuracy of that list is actually not too bad. They nail a whole bunch of stuff. They overestimate the importance of trains relative to airplanes, but they do predict airplanes. As well as high-speed trains, which are of course common in Europe. They also get instant media saturation.

Peas as big as beets and strawberries the size of your head are a reasonable stab at where produce was going, so long as you also add that the new giant, perfect-looking produce would also be tasteless.

Oh, plus they nail air conditioning, which was actually a really important technology (internal migration patterns since at least WWII have been mainly driven by the availability of widespread air conditioning).

The prediction accuracy of that list is actually not too bad.

You're obviously an apologist for the author as you share their thirst for horseblood.

I have to agree with MQ --- I've seen this link several times this morning, and everybody who links to it seem to do so to make fun of pneumatic tubes, when 20 out of 23 are damn near spot on. Hell, I can't make free throws with that kind of accuracy, never mind predictions about the future of technology 100 years hence.

Most of the predictions in that list are a curious mix of prescient and wrong. All of the predictions about the widespread use of the automobile and how telecommunications would allow instant communication across the globe were spot on (although couched in archaic language). However, there was a bizarre fixation on giant vegetables that (thankfully) never came to pass.

Giant vegetables . . . I can't find a red onion smaller than a softball at Whole Foods. Have they always been that big?

Who eats red onions anymore?

"
Then things go awry: "They will purchase materials in tremendous wholesale quantities and sell the cooked foods at a price much lower than the cost of individual cooking." In fact, people are just richer today than they were in 1900 and can afford more costly food-acquisition methods, especially if they save time.

Matt, what are you talking about? This prediction is exactly right. Prices are measured in relative terms. The price of buying a McDonald's hamburger is much less than the opportunity cost of cooking a similar hamburger myself.
"

Not true. Yes if you want to cook the hamburger from scratch (especially if you plan to slaughter the cow yourself). But you can buy at Sav-On, and especially at Costco, Pierre brand (or something like that) frozen hamburgers that you pop in the microwave for about 90 seconds, that taste (IMHO) rather superior to a Big Mac, and that cost maybe $1.80 each (at Savon) and $1.10 each (at Costco).

This doesn't extend to all food, of course.
I find home-boiled fancy pasta (ravioli and suchlike) to be disappointing, so I prefer to buy that at restaurants --- the extra cost is buying extra quality.
And I hate frying at home because of the mess and smell, so I'm quite happy to pay $8 at a restaurant for an omelette than, in theory, I could make at home for $1 in ingredients.
A much better example, I think, of your point, would have been not a hamburger but the fries. Few of us own deep fryers, even if we do, they are messy and require constant supervision and the general hassle is certainly far higher in dollar terms than the cost of a bag of frys. Unlike hamburgers, I think most would agree that microwave (or oven) fries that rival MacDonalds fries have not yet arrived; not even close.

Not Sav-On --- Safeway. Damn typing too fast.

serialcatowner (12:31) - All of the hospitals I've worked at are still using pneumatic tubes; one of them just upgraded their tube system to a brand-new model. There are always last-minute urgent orders for a drug or a small supply item, and documents that need to be rushed somewhere with original signatures. Management never wants to hire more couriers, so tubes it is.

Oh yeah, and one of those places - which shall remain nameless - allowed you to send urine and stool specimens in the tube too. Double-bagged, but still.

And, since they were using a pretty old system that had no "caller ID" to show where the tubes were coming from, fun was occasionally had by tubing (for example) a take-out cup of coffee.

Prediction #2 is odd. It's correct about the increase in our height, but was life expectancy in 1900 just 35 years? The only other source I can find puts it at 53 for Americans of that era.
And prediction #16 (phonetic spelling reform with C, X and Q banished from the alphabet) was really off. And I wonder how the author thought the sound of "ch" would be spelled with no "c".

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