sometimes you gotta give your smartphone a bit of screen time. Its good for it.
this post was submitted on 02 May 2026
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I'm not gonna comment on the fashion, as I'm sure that can't be accurately predicted (hell, I'm not outruling that this prediction might prove accurate in three years..)
But have you noticed that all sci-fi movies have fucking terrible UIs and means of interacting with computers?
Take for example Minority Report: Holographic screens are cool I guess. But then they stand there and flail their arms around to move objects and entities back and forth. Now, imagine controlling a computer for an entire work day like that; You'd be fucking exhausted and crying from the muscle strain.
Keyboard and mouse have been standard for half a century now, and for a good reason. Something else will probably replace it at some point, but YMCA-dancing the instructions will not be it.
This is something i love about The Expanse, the technology actually makes sense.
Most people just have a disposable phone/tablet consisting of plexiglass (just so you have something transparent to actually hold) and a little square in a corner (which is all the actual hardware and projects a holographic interface ontop of the plexiglass), which acts much like an oldschool terminal for a central mainframe system, and you just use it like normal except it can also detect gestures around it.
Next most normal is larger versions of this mounted on the walls, which you can just swipe stuff onto from other devices and interact with more like a TV except your hand is the remote.
And that's like 90% of what people actually use, fancy 3d holographic stuff is only used when the 3d aspect is actually helpful, like visualizing the solar system or if you wanna play a board game or something like that.
And actually i almost feel this moreso for Subnautica 2, the tech in that game actually feels really sensibly futuristic to me. I struggle to put into words what exactly makes it feel so natural but i think generally, it's the same thing as how we have super advanced technology IRL yet most of the stuff we actually use day-to-day are just better versions of what was used in the past.
Candles were replaced with gas lamps, then incandescent flashlights, and now you just use the LED on your phone. Subnautica 2 does that with most of the technology and it's so fucking satisfying.
Take for example Minority Report: Holographic screens are cool I guess. But then they stand there and flail their arms around to move objects and entities back and forth. Now, imagine controlling a computer for an entire work day like that; You'd be fucking exhausted.
I like to think he's just fucking extra. If you rewatch the scene, another dude is working on a pretty normal computer setup, sitting at a desk, not flailing around wildly, normal sized monitor (except the monitor is transparent), etc. He seems to have the option to do gesture interaction too as he selects and moves some images with his pinky pointed at the screen, but seems like there is still a keyboard-like or touchpad interface on the desk. Then they transfer data over with a weird physical drive to Tom Cruise's giant curved monitor and gesture controlled setup using the gloves. He's just an early adopter into more experimental tech formats, like the rich kids who had the power glove for the Nintendo, or someone who has a 8k 60inch curved monitor. I bet even the amount of movements he is putting into the gestures is entirely unnecessary and over the top. He just thinks it's cool.
On the other hand you have Star Trek, which basically invented our modern computing interfaces that aren’t keyboard and mouse.
Yup, they just never figured out to have fuses and relays in the instrument panels. No wonder Geordi is blind.
The sparks are just the UI telling you someone is attacking. Think of it like force feedback on a controller.
There’s an episode of DS9 where they use pen-based computing for a scene. It’s hilarious.
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Kids, gather round. Grampa Simpson needs to tell you something about the times as they was.
Computer concepts that structure our everyday lives were not just unknown to everybody you knew, for most of them they simply made no sense.
Desktop, mouse, file folder (or if 1337, ‘directory’), pixel, distributed, packets - hell the concept of ‘online’ (or “cyberspace” to my peeps. Sup y’all) was more than they cared to grasp and they would just tune out and immediately forget anything you’d said about it.
When this picture was conceived, the amount of people who used computers to talk to other people on a daily basis would have fit in a sportsball stadium. The rest of us lucky enough to have some beige box to kick around were only dreaming. AOL was still half a decade away.
Everyone else in the world - and definitely all of your teachers, parents, extended family, any grown up not already a maths graduate - had NO idea, didn’t want to know, and thought you were weird for caring.
This is 100% accurate.
I grew up in the sprawling suburbs where every other kid had a moped and a swimming pool, but next to nobody had a computer.
My giant middle school, with thousands of kids had a computer club. And there was a grand total of 8 of us computer-owning nerds. Not to mention my Apple ][e cost something $4000 (USD) in todays money.
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I'm so excited! I just can't hide it! I'm about to lose control and I think I like it! Oooh, yeah!
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Oh man, I can't wait!
The Network-Over-CareBear-Stare-Protocol will be much faster, more reliable, and more secure than ethernet and wifi!
The best part is that its real and reading the article does nothing to explain what is going on in the picture.
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losers using keyboard and mouse or even touchscreen, all my homies use rainbow pads, gayest and best eay to use the Internet
This was some prophet's interpretation of what later became Linux socks.
Idk, if you look at it a certain way, we just used radios to transfer instead of light.
The highwaisted pants are already back in and the copper belt could be a flex.
We have three years to crack this mullet though. We need to get moving.
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For some reason it doesn't feel too far off from scanning QR codes.
Except that she's smiling while she does it.
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That's how I do it when I'm on ketamine
We’re actually ahead of schedule. That’s how I show the computer my fake ID. McLovin, organ donor, Hawaii.
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The haircut is just Yolandi’s cut dyed silver. So we’re halfway there.
I do believe CRTs are going to make a comeback.
But for a vastly different reason.
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What. What the fuck is that even supposed to be?
Post-futurism QR code scanning?
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I'm already growing my hair out in preparation 👍
Kapton Tape belt is ready to go!
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Doesn't look that far off from a lot of Unix socks posts with the color stripes between the user and multiple monitors.
no notes
we are kinda there: bunch of nonsense input to get nonsense outputs from multiple computers
Gotta make a reminder in march 2029 to send this in my group chat.
You guys haven't been wearing your leftover Xmas tinsel as a hat?
Ok can do it right now.
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