Tales of Future Past

No, not the classic Moody Blues Album (the one containing "Nights in White Satin"), that's Days of Future Past.

This one's courtesy of Tramtown, an excellent blog I should visit more often.

So many blogs, so little time.

Tales of Future Past is an extensive site, detailing The Future from the perspective of 60-90 years ago.

It's a site full of wry wit and some insight.

... those who made such predictions never really considered the effect that such weapons can have on a society even if their use is only a potential, which is particularly odd because the people of the '20s, '30s and '40s had first-hand experience of some of the most nightmarish wars in human history. Meanwhile, those of us who lived through the Cold War were well aware of the prospect of ending up as piles of radioactive brochettes, which tended to put the damper on the best of parties.

Consider the title illustration above from 1915. It depicts the Radium Destroyer; an insect-legged fighting machine of utter destruction sporting a radium death ray capable of laying waste to whole continents faster than an EU directive. Such power blasting wide and free would have even given General Jack D. Ripper pause. And this was supposed to be light reading!

If you want to see the illustration in question, just surf on over there. You won't regret it. For an extra treat, try turning off the graphics - some of the "alt" (alternative text") captions are hilarious.

Beauty I'd always missed
With these eyes before,
Just what the truth is
I can't say anymore.

Sorry, that's the album. But appropriate, nonetheless.