<![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?" - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?" - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?"]]> @RagingTowers: Ahem. "I see what you did there."

*cough* Blech. I didn't think it would taste so bad passing my metaphorical tongue. Ah well, It needed to be said.

Ghede

]]> <![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?"]]> @toopersent: S'alright, I savvy what you're sayin'. I had the same thought - why should e-coli tainted meats incapacitate a few hundred, when it can take out a few hundred thousand?

This is why I don't trust futurists - their futures are boring. He had no idea there would be better uses for pneumatic tube systems in the future.

"This is consumer number Eiiiight five four two one - please send me Heroes season 1 on DVD and a bag of Malteasers immeadiately. Also, I would like a copy of Hustler at 10:30 and something by Tom Clancy at 11."

And let's not even start on the hamster races.

castewar

]]> <![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?"]]> that almost made sense. I'll try harder next time!

toopersent

]]> <![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?"]]> I couldn't think of an easier way of poisoning an entire city easier....

toopersent

]]> <![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?"]]> I prefer my food delivered on a big truck where it's just dumped on

Tube food would give new life to the food fight arsenal.

RagingTowers

]]> <![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?"]]> This reminds me of Maciej Ceglowski's painfully beautiful fake feature article, "The Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel". It is a must-read: [www.idlewords.com]

"By the time they reach Cleveland the burritos are fully heated through and traveling uphill at about twice the speed of sound. A series of induction coils spaced through central Pennsylvania repeats the magnetic process in reverse, draining momentum from the burritos and turning it into electrical power."

rondalescott

]]> <![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?"]]> @lillian27: Never apologize for getting your nerd on in here.

You'd think Sen. Ted Stevens would be all about this technology.

Evil Tortie's Mom

]]> <![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?"]]> I did my final college research paper on pneumatic tube technology. Tubes are still around, just in more discrete applications (secure money transfer between registers and counting rooms, moving medical samples between locations in medical facilities, secure document transfer).

Some are systems are pretty advanced, with "shipping" stations where the capsule can be digitally addressed w/ machine-readable codes on the front, and gates/switches in the tubes that read the destination of incoming tubes and route them accordingly.

Did you know that the first known mention of pneumatic tubes as a transportation/transmission medium was in the year 1667, in a paper delivered to the Royal Society in London by Denis Papin (1647-1712)?. He had been an assistant to Huygens in Paris, working on air pumps, and designed his own double-barrelled model. Now he is actually more famous for having designed and built the first primitive pressure cooker, in part to make cheaper jello. Seriously.

The first working tube system was built in 1853 to connect the main Electrical and International Telegraph Office in London to the branch office at the Stock exchange, 675 feet away.

Whoa, just got my nerd on there..sorry ;-)

lillian27

]]> <![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?"]]> just like being lassoed, everything tastes better when sent through pneumatic tubes.

the earl of weaver

]]> <![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?"]]> @92BuickLeSabre: The pneumatic tubes are the best part! The pneumatic tubes are what makes it science!

braak

]]> <![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?"]]> That's deranged - I love it!

Wasn't this sort of the plot of that Tick episode with the Boilermen?
-Kle.

Klebert L. Hall

]]> <![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?"]]> @braak: I do.

I check the "Municipal Bill of Fare" published on delivery.com or menupages.com or seamlessweb.com. I peruse the daily menu and select my choices directly from the menu and say this is Kitchen 432785F, send me dinner No. 6 at half past 8.

I don't even use cash. I have an account number that I automatically replenish from my desk every month.

The only thing missing is the pneumatic tubes. Although that is a big missing piece. In fact, I feel the only thing missing from most modern technology is the pneumatic tubes.

92BuickLeSabre

]]> <![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?"]]> That's awesome. I would definitely live in this city.

braak

]]> <![CDATA["If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?"]]> I'm not much for the political gridlock, but I definitely have "feminine ravings against household difficulties", so I say let's get this going.

Antiheroine

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