An excerpt from the 1958 "Disneyland" TV Show episode entitled "Magic Highway USA". In this last part of the show, an exploration into possible future Transportation technologies is made. It's hard to believe how little we've accomplished on this front since 1958, and how limited the scope for imagining such future technologies has become. Witness an artifact from a time where the future was greeted with optimism. Note the striking animation style here, achieved with fairly limited animation and spectacular layouts.

I like how suburban sprawl is anticipated with such glee!

From a technology standpoint, it spans a wide range; some ideas are pure vision, with no sense of reality (cantilevered, fully air-conditioned sky-ways through beautifully desolate mountain ranges?), while others are quaintly myopic (punch cards as storage media for your navigational unit?). Still, a lot of fun.

[Fascinating! I also noted the "vast urban radius" comment... well, we've made it to at least one of the things they predicted. No atomic cars though ;)

Really cool to watch. -k]

Magic Highway USA, circa 1958

] Howard Rheingold is on the hunt again. With his last
] book, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, in 2001,
] the longtime observer of technology trends made a
] persuasive case that pervasive mobile communications,
] combined with always-on Internet connections, will
] produce new kinds of ad-hoc social groups. Now, he's
] starting to take the leap beyond smart mobs, trying to
] weave some threads out of such seemingly disparate
] developments as Web logs, open-source software
] development, and Google.

[ Rheingold is always a worthwhile read i think... -k]

MSNBC - Howard Rheingold's Latest Connection

] Rocket plane SpaceShipOne reached an altitude above 62.5
] miles (100 km) during its brief flight Monday morning,
] making it the first privately built craft to fly in
] space, controllers said.

] Shortly after, the space vehicle landed safely at the
] same place from which it took off.

Welcome to the era of corporate space. Lets hope science fiction has properly prepared us.

[ Hear hear! -k]

CNN.com - Private craft flies into space - Jun 21, 2004

] "Space commercials could embrace huge areas and a
] colossal number of consumers," he said. "This would
] literally be intercontinental coverage."
] ...
] "People would be able to see writing in the skies from
] the Earth no worse than they see the stars," he said.

[ Um, actually, they'd probably see the writing *better* since you'll be BLOCKING said stars. I wish i understood why anyone thinks this is a good idea. I guess maybe if you accept that we're reaching a point where people can hardly see any stars anyway, it's easier to justify, but man, can't we have at least one safe direction to point our eyes and try to remember what it was like to be something other than a consumer?

Yahoo! News - Russian Inventor Patents Space-Ads Device

] The more we highlight and blend in with the most spectacular
] features of the mountain, the more memorable a Clock visit will be
] for the time pilgrims.
]
] If they build it, will you be a time pilgrim?

this is totally awesome. i had lost track of the long now folks, after reading about them a few years back, and i'm very glad to hear that they have maintained the project.

the account here reads like an adventure story, promising something vast in scope, epic and exciting, with hints of mystery and touches of danger.

unless it requires scaling a sheer cliff with my bare hands and no ropes, count me in.

The Mountain and the Clock