<![CDATA[io9: 1930]]> http://tags.lifehacker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png <![CDATA[io9: 1930]]> http://io9.com/tag/1930 http://io9.com/tag/1930 <![CDATA[Get Ready For Antigravity! And Other Pieces of Sadly Incorrect Futurism]]> This piece from the 1930s shows scientists trying to come up with antigravity — now it's more than 50 years later and we're still waiting on hoverpads and floating grav-lifts. This poster is part of a series of ">eight that all showcase futures we should have had by now, like fish bowl swimming pools, flapwing flycars, and mining on the moon. In fact, the only two futuristic things depicted here that we actually got are the electronic home library, and robot warehouses where the bots fetch your orders. Sometimes futurism is more hopeful than predictive.

Arthur Radebaugh was a futurist and illustrator who came up with many of the "world of tomorrow!" style of ads that you'd see gracing the inside pages of magazines like Motor, Esquire, Fortune and Advertising Agency throughout the 1930s. He even coined the term "imagineering" back in 1947, and Disney tried to gank it in 1962. Sadly, they were partially successful, since most people automatically think of the Mouse House when they hear that word.

There's an amazing online exhibit of Radebaugh's art at the Palace of Culture called "The Future We Were Promised," which is just a short mouse click away.

]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=359399&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Zorine the Queen of the Nudists and Alpha the Mechanical Man]]> At the height of the Great Depression, the organizers of the 1930 San Diego Exposition thought that a horny robot and a vanguard of big-breasted nudist women might help cheer people up. "Zorine the Queen of the Nudists" and "Alpha the Mechanical Man" were two different exhibits appearing at the event, and history has left this priceless photo behind for us as a memento of their encounter. Where else could you find a robot with sixteen boobs?



5815206_500.jpg Apparently "nudist" meant topless back in the 1930s, because those ladies definitely have something on down below, although Alpha appears to be fairly unclad. It just isn't clear what he's doing with his hands. Is he hiding some sort of a robo-boner? He sure looks happy to be there, at any rate, as do the buxom beauties surrounding him. Although they'd quickly change their tune when he decided to kidnap one of them for some robotic sexytime.

[Ectoplasmosis]

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