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Inteli-Tube Pneumatic Transportation System — So I realized that Ted Stevens’ reference to tubes is actually based on those old pneumatic tubes (literally) that dominated old businesses until perhaps 1960. I still think they are kind of cool. Poor Stevens obviously could only understand the Net with this analogy and, so he talks about tubes. These are the tubes that he means.
Pneumatic tubes used for transporting physical objects have a long history. The basic principles of pneumatics were stated by the Greek Hero of Alexandria before 100 BC. However, it wasn’t until the industrial age that real work was being done on applying pneumatics to transportation. The first pneumatic tube systems were originally proposed in the early Nineteenth century by George Medhurst, a London businessman. Although his plans called mainly for the transportation of heavy freight, his ideas were eventually adopted for delivering documents and parts by businesses, industry, and government agencies. Those who operated in large buildings, such as the new sky scrapers, or who had offices spread out over a city found pneumatic tubes to be an economical and convenient addition to the work-place.
In the process of looking for a picture of these old tubes I ran across this site and the proposal to send people around in these tubes. Yikes.
Based on both time-proven pneumatic tube technology and Internet packet-switching protocols, the Inteli-Tube system can make this dream a reality, moving beyond the dumb tubes of the past and towards the information-based technology of the future. Instead of packets of data, pods of people and goods are moved through a network of pneumatically pressurized tubes — swiftly, silently, and with little pollution. (Pods will have no on-board propulsion systems; all energy expended to move pods via pneumatic pressure will be external and so can be centralized for levels of energy efficiency impossible with individually powered vehicles. Also, ambient air-pressure differentials between areas on the network may be intelligently managed to offer all-natural and pollution free propulsion.)
Donnie thinks it’s a vacuum…
Right there with you MSwanberg. You mean it’s not magnets?
Actually, when I worked for Gary Fisher, he envisioned a people-mover system carrying 1 or 2 people at a time — bicycle wheels — something that sealed at the edges and traveled through tunnels.
Every old hospital has tunnel systems. That was the kind of thing he thought of converting to a slightly positive pressure for these wheeled devices.
A common complaint in the future…
” I didn’t really want to go there, but I was sucked into it.”
Futurama anyone?
More like Brazil! Anyone remember that movie? Sam tied one tube into another and it basically exploded the buildings paper system.
I believe that many of these old pneumatic tubes, especially in New York City, were converted into fiber optic conduits during the 1990s. The way it was explained to me is that it was much less expensive to pull fiber through the existing tubes than to disrupt traffic and lay new conduit. Kind of interesting how one mode of communication was given new life through another.
I’d hate to be the second user on one of those tubes
likely they would reek of vommit
come to think of it
things might not be so good for the first user either.
You know, i listened to the Senator’s comments on TWIT 60, and the initial rant about a company sending movies currently through fedex, post office… and will soon be sending them for “free” over the internet. Do you think he was talking about netflix? Take that and a late sent e-mail that was blamed on the “internet being slow” and you have a riled up old man.
14:
Spam,spam,spam,spam…..
What is interesting about this argument is that some of the folks involved in originally engineering the ‘net and its protocols are starting to say that with the current (and growing) demands on the system for IPTV, voip and so on, if new investment in the infrastructure of the network isnt forthcoming, it will actually start to fail. They’re saying that the only solution, even though it is an unpleasant prospect, is to allow the telcos to start charging for “premium services” as long as they commit to spending some of the extra revenue on improvements…
I for one was very concerned when the BBC and ITV in the UK announced that all World Cup games would be available on the net for viewing live that there would be extreme slowdown in traffic during the matches. As it turned out, take up of the offering was very small (people seem to prefer watching soccer games on the TV, go figure…) but I distinctly remember that on 7 July last year (when we had the bombings here) the ‘net in London went really slowly because of the huge demands on the various news sites etc
I just wonder whether, with the new bandwidth hungry applications that are around now, whether we’re going to have to get used to this kind of thing on a regular basis in future if there isn’t more inward investment in infrastructure etc.
>> Donnie thinks it’s a vacuum
LMAO!
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/stevens-dumb.html
I remember the Five and Dime had pneumatic tubes at the cashiers leading overhead to the business office. This along with creaking hardwood floors, huge ceiling fans, and the smell of the popcorn and candy counter. I wonder if anyone reading this blog today has any idea what I’m rambling on about.
I don’t remember it at the drugstore or the “five and dime”, but I do remember going to W. Bell & Co. (a “catalog showroom store” in the Washington DC area) 33 years ago, and they used those things. It was totally fascinating. It seemed like the cutting edge of technology way back then. My father bought our first calculator there, around that time – $64 (in 1973 dollars) for a device that did only basic arithmetic, but I’m digressing…
Urban Legend has it that there still a network of these tubes running under Manhattan, and across the East River to Brooklyn. Kind of small, they might hold a hamster or two, but I have heard that they still exist, but are not in use.
There are bigger tubes than that underground in Manhattan.
I used to work at a telephone company and they often referred to circuits as “pipes.” I think the analogy of the internet to tubes and pipes is legitimate so long and you keep in mind that it is alegorical and important differences still remain.
Roc Rizzo –
See # 6. Apparently a good chunk of them are being used as fiber optic conduits.
You guys are gradually stumbling towards the basis for Stevens comments: Who’s building those long ass “tubes” of fiber optic to Alaska these days? Answer: GCI and ACS, and not the companies in the Lower 48 clogging them up.
Interestingly enough, I just caught part of the 1994 movie ‘The Shadow’ over the weekend. In the movie, the Shadow uses an elaborate series of pneumatic tubes to transfer messages back and forth.
The bank I worked for had those tubes for their drive up windows. Still in operation until 2001 when the bank was bought out and the main office closed. Actually, they were very efficient for transporting checks, paper money, etc. The main office drive up had three tellers, four car “stations” and was quite busy right up to the end.
David
Hey, just for fun, I made a T-shirt design about Senator Stevens and his comments. Feel free to check it out here–> Dang Tube Is Blocked
My local bank in Madison, Wisconsin stil uses pneumatic tubes at its drive-up windows; I assume many others do as well. In the mid-1970’s, I worked at a newspaper that used them to send news copy to the typesetters.
I’d love to have an office or store with a system like that…just for the novelty.
As I remember it, there were people who had very grand visions for vacuum tubes.
The article touches on it but I think people had MUCH larger visions for vacuum tubes… certainly for whole cities but I think regionally or even nationally. Sort of like the rail road system but for small items.
As for my memory of using them at the drive-in bank… they often jammed.
I see that Wikipedia has a pretty good entry on what I just mentioned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube
There was even talk of having one for each home, instead of a mail box!
If that system had actually been realized would be filled with spam tubes (or actual Spam?)? Would the Bush administration be secretly spying on our tubes without warrants?
A few years ago, the television series ‘Monster House’ did a futuristic remodel of a house, complete with pneumatic tube system for transfering bottles of beer from the kitchen to the living room.
“The bank I worked for had those tubes for their drive up windows. Still in operation until 2001 when the bank was bought out and the main office closed. Actually, they were very efficient for transporting checks, paper money…”
All banks with multiple drive through lanes have tubes. How else would you get your documents to the teller inside? My bank was built in 2004 and it has tubes.