Back to the Future Day: 21 October 2015

[Dioltach]

Yes folks, 30 years have nearly passed. The BBC has published an article on what BTTF II got right and wrong in terms of technology.

I must say, apart from the shock of realising that we're already living in the future, the only huge difference with the mid-80s really is communication technology.

 

[Umbran]

A lot of science fiction assumes we will have some major revolution in energy technology (so we get flying cars and hoverboards), but what we've actually gotten is a revolution in information technology.

 

[delericho]

Umm...

Mr Fusion wasn't there to fuel the Delorean, but only the time travel circuit. The car still ran on unleaded - which was a rather key plot point in BttF3. Of course, one could also mention that we still don't have time travel circuits themselves, even 30 years on...

Also, the article says "Likewise, it's hard not to feel the film missed a trick by using a newspaper to warn of Marty Jr's impending arrest, instead of a touchscreen." But a touchscreen, even one brought back from tomorrow, would just hook into the local wi-fi, so would just show the current news. To see tomorrow's news, you really would need hard-copy. And it's not like we don't still have newspapers, even if they are gradually dying out.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So tomorrow we all have to wear double ties?

 

[Orius]

I was going to start a topic titled, "Where's my Freakin' Hoverboard", but it was going to be posted today so it would have the proper date of October 21, 2015. It would have been posted at midnight of course, but then I wasn't sure which time zone to use -- the earliest time zone for 10/21/2015, GMT, my local time (Eastern), or Pacific Time (since Hill Valley is in California), and clearly I was going into overgeek with it. I'll just post what I was going to say here (various observations about things in the movie not limits solely to tech).

The hoverboard probably isn't a great idea to pursue anyway, because of all the concerns about safety. It's even worse with flying cars because look how bad people drive in just two dimensions. You you really want all the accidents that would occur with flying cars?

Has Gray's Sports Almanac been published yet?

I wonder if the cafe with the Max Headroom-styled talking heads of Reagan and Ayatollah Khomeini are popular with people who don't like the recent nuclear talks with Iran in that version of 2015.

Where the hell did Doc Brown get that goofy outfit he's wearing? Did a clown sell him that getup or something, because who dresses like that today? What's with the clear plastic tie? A lot of the clothes are kind of 80s styles on crack, but that stuff went badly out of style back in the early 90s. (Or AFAIK, because I completely ignore style and fashion).

Finally, Mr. Fusion. Consider the implications here. It's apparently a small fusion generator that runs on garbage. Our continuing and failed attempts to achieve economical fusion power is based around using hydrogen (specifically deuterium if i'm not mistaken, but I'm not going to get overly picky about isotopes here). Doc Brown fuels this thing up with waste food, which is going to be complex organic molecules, mostly hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen with traces of other elements. Then he tosses an empty beer can in so this thing can fuse aluminum as well. You know what it would be like to has this kind of energy tech? We wouldn't be worrying about the environmental problems we have with energy production today, and it would also take care of some pollution issues as well. Forget the hoverboard, where's my freakin' Mr. Fusion?!

 

[delericho]

I was going to start a topic titled, "Where's my Freakin' Hoverboard", but it was going to be posted today so it would have the proper date of October 21, 2015. It would have been posted at midnight of course, but then I wasn't sure which time zone to use -- the earliest time zone for 10/21/2015, GMT, my local time (Eastern), or Pacific Time (since Hill Valley is in California), and clearly I was going into overgeek with it.

Surely it should have been 4:29pm Pacific, if you're going to over-geek it?

Finally, Mr. Fusion. Consider the implications here. It's apparently a small fusion generator that runs on garbage. Our continuing and failed attempts to achieve economical fusion power is based around using hydrogen (specifically deuterium if i'm not mistaken, but I'm not going to get overly picky about isotopes here). Doc Brown fuels this thing up with waste food, which is going to be complex organic molecules, mostly hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen with traces of other elements. Then he tosses an empty beer can in so this thing can fuse aluminum as well. You know what it would be like to has this kind of energy tech? We wouldn't be worrying about the environmental problems we have with energy production today, and it would also take care of some pollution issues as well. Forget the hoverboard, where's my freakin' Mr. Fusion?!

Yep, that's probably the big one that would be a nice-to-have. Though who has a home that requires 1.21 gigawatts to power it?

 

[CaptainGemini]

I was going to start a topic titled, "Where's my Freakin' Hoverboard", but it was going to be posted today so it would have the proper date of October 21, 2015. It would have been posted at midnight of course, but then I wasn't sure which time zone to use -- the earliest time zone for 10/21/2015, GMT, my local time (Eastern), or Pacific Time (since Hill Valley is in California), and clearly I was going into overgeek with it. I'll just post what I was going to say here (various observations about things in the movie not limits solely to tech).

Here: http://hendohover.com/

Finally, Mr. Fusion. Consider the implications here. It's apparently a small fusion generator that runs on garbage. Our continuing and failed attempts to achieve economical fusion power is based around using hydrogen (specifically deuterium if i'm not mistaken, but I'm not going to get overly picky about isotopes here). Doc Brown fuels this thing up with waste food, which is going to be complex organic molecules, mostly hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen with traces of other elements. Then he tosses an empty beer can in so this thing can fuse aluminum as well. You know what it would be like to has this kind of energy tech? We wouldn't be worrying about the environmental problems we have with energy production today, and it would also take care of some pollution issues as well. Forget the hoverboard, where's my freakin' Mr. Fusion?!

It would be more dangerous than sticking a uranium rod in a lead box and using the natural radioactive decay power your car. Seriously, fusion generates some powerful radiation and there is no way any part of that car was properly shielded for it.

 

[Dioltach]

Apparently Marty and Doc travelled not just through time, but also through space, and wound up in Australia.

 

[Umbran]

Apparently Marty and Doc travelled not just through time, but also through space, and wound up in Australia.

Nope. They wound up on Jimmy Kimmel.

https://youtu.be/Q0VGRlEJewA

 

[Legatus Legionis]

.