Putting the 'Tech' back in 'Low-Tech'?

Bingo Foo asks: "Have you sharpened a pencil lately? Today was my daughter's first day of first grade. Last night, in preparation, I sharpened some pencils for her. I haven't sharpened a pencil in years, and it was an entirely new experience. It's not made of wood! I'm not talking an inferior substitute, either; it was made of some uber-substance, the way Plato would have envisioned a pencil. What other kinds of technology have changed under our noses while we've been upgrading our kernels? How technological has low-tech become?" I would be interested in knowing who made those pencils and what they were made out of, for one thing.

Comments

Light bulbs

[shippo]

There are a few light bulbs in existance, still working, from around 1910. The reason why these have lasted so long is that *ALL* (or nearly all) the air has been pumped out.

More recent light bulbs only have most of the air removed, allowing the fillament to oxidise, causing it to fail. The brand of lightbulb sold at my local supermarket seem to have had very little air removed at all, judging by their lifetime.

Plastic cork is *evil*

[streetlawyer]

Just a note -- try not to buy wine with plastic corks. Two reasons:

*The wine is invariably cheap shit, and you deserve better.

*Plastic corks are driving the Portugese cork farmers out of business, with fairly disastrous results for an impossibly beautiful part of the earth.