I once charged my portable blender using a power bank daisy chained to one of my laptops which was also powering a desk fan, the future is strange man.
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2025
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the future is a fucking fire hazard
"Electrical fire hazard" is definitely something someone from the 70's would understand.
But what about exploding batteries?
My digital thermostats have Alexa built in. When I first installed them I went around telling people "I know I live in the future because my thermostat can play the Beatles".
Also, I have a heated coffee mug. I have legitimately used the sentence "My coffee mug is doing a firmware update."
They'd probably be confused as to why it needs charging. "I don't charge my doorbell, so why the manual process? Is running copper wire prohibitively expensive in the future?"
The folks in this thread are misinterpreting the comment. It's not that someone from 1970 wouldn't understand the concept; it's that they would rightfully think that it's stupid and judge you for putting up with it.
The 70s might not want to throw shade…
That's twice I've posted that this week.
This is the food equivalent of a liminal space, I do not like it and I wish to shed blood over it.
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Can confirm, have boomer parents who wonder wtf is wrong with everyone just freely giving up all their personal data to the people they spent 15 years being drilled not to give their information to.
On the other hand;
“I don’t care because I have nothing to hide.” - My mother, born 1961, when told she should stop using Chrome.
Neither do I. But why give up something I don't have to? If it's valuable to someone else, I should at least get some compensation for it.
Even in the early 00s it was already hard to grasp for some folks. I had friends who called me a liar for claiming that I could charge my mp3 music player by slotting it in the USB port of my tower as opposed to swapping out AAA batteries
When "Lithium Ion" sounded like something from Star Trek.
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Well, I realize that 1970s sounds like an age of dinosaurs to some people... But, people back then weren't cavemen. They had electricity, batteries, video cameras, telephones.
The concept of an electric outlet in a couch is easy - not sure, but they might even had such things back then. Like to feed a lamp or something. USB is just low voltage and different connector, from the power transmission perspective.
The concept of a speakerphone with video signal is also easy. The only thing to grasp is that the devices and batteries became that miniature and efficient. Oh, and wireless.
Explaining that all video and voice recordings from all these neat devices are actually stored by a gigantic corporation, processed with voice and face recognition algorithms, and used to enrich personal profiles collected on all parties of the conversation to boost profits of said corporations, and many people even pay for this - THAT I would find complicated to explain.
It's not that they would be dumbfounded like a caveman, it's that there would instantly be a lot of weird questions.
Why do you bother to have electricity coming out of your couch? Why is a "doorbell" on battery, those are just buttons wired to a chime? Why did you call it a doorbell if it's an intercom with camera? What do you mean you answer the doorbell using your phone? Why do you call it a phone when it's a computer that you barely use to talk on it?
Yes you could explain things and they would catch on, but the sentence would be odd, and not likely a trajectory for terminology and applications of technology they would have naturally expected.
All sorts of times I reflect on how much I'd have to explain odd sentences to even how things were 30 years ago. Like using your phone to turn off the lights.
Mobile phones wouldnt be strange by the 70's. Two way handheld radios and car phones been around since the 40's and the first cellphone was demonstrated in 1973.
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"In the future we have a standardized cable called a Universal Serial Bus, and it's used for connecting to computers for things like information and/or power transfer. They're super versatile, you know those personal computers you saw in the news last year? Well a USB could be added to connect a future computer without a keyboard and mouse to a keyboard and mouse with the same port and never worrying about brand differences or multiple types of wires or any of that, which makes them easily replaceable parts.
They're so common that you find USB ports on devices, walls, and even people's furniture. The reason you might want it in your furniture is to connect your handheld mobile phone which will run off a grid of towers transmitting low energy high frequency radiowaves, but their batteries drain pretty fast during regular use and need to be recharged frequently. People spend a lot of time on their phones in the future."
"So can you like order a pizza from anywhere?"
"Yes but people in the future don't call anymore. They use a tiny screen on the face of the phone to access a digitally transmitted form to fill out that has all the food options, payment info, and recieving address. You can even get financing for it, the payment split up in smaller regular payments automatically transmitted from your bank balance."
"That's rad!"
"It is not. We hate the future."
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A couch with a power outlet baffles me
Might as well have it if your couch has electric adjustments anyway...
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When I was last shopping for furniture, one of the immediate disqualifications was anything that required a power cord. I don't need or want anything motorized, built-in chargers, bluetooth speakers, and I especially don't want LED lighting in my chairs. All that crap is designed to fail / break. Not to mention that standards change quicker than furniture gets updated in my household. Most of those USB ports were old 5V USB-A crap that can't keep up or crappy old bluetooth standards & antennas with poor quality speakers that I would never use anyway because my receiver is far, far better. And fuck LED lights in everything. Fuck that to Hell along with the people that make/invent that bullshit.
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