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Ten Technologies That Shouldn't Have Died?
Ant wrote to us with an article that's sure to provoke some discussion. The feature highlights some of the technologies that have more or less died off and perhaps shouldn't have.
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actually hydrogen really isn't that flammable either.
contrary to popular belief, it wasn't hydrogen that caused the Hindenburg disaster. Rather it was the paint used on the shell of the airship, made from components very similar to what is used in today's rocket fuel. A static charge caused this paint to ignite, thus sending the airship to its end.
The impressive photos of the Hindenburg burning show massive amounts of flames. Hydrogen burns clear so what was burning (visibly) wasn't the gas.
As a result of that accident hydrogen has gotten a really bad rap when it's not all that dangerous and has a lot of benefits. Clean cars being one example.
So add the "commonplace, everyday use of hydrogen" to technologies that have been given up on.
Ribbon mics are very delicate, and the ribbon is succeptable to damage. One idiot blowing into the mic ("Hey! Is this on??") can tear the ribbon.
Sure, they sound warm, and sound much better "than carbon and early condenser microphones." But we don't use carbon microphones (professionally) either. Condenser mics have come a long long way since then also.
The biggest benefit in the ribbon mics was the internal tube pre-amp. There are better mics today using tube pre-amps that aren't nearly as fragile.
"They have this figure-eight pattern--they accept sound from the front and back, while rejecting sound from the sides." This is silly. Most modern-day large element recording mics have this capability. It was one of the first to have the capability, but certainly not the last.
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Ridership peaked in the late 1920s
Well, no shit. Cars became available to the middle class. Has nothing to do with Streetcars versus GM manufactured buses.
Ridership peaked in the late 1920s,
True, but most major cities' bus routes run exactly on the old streetcar lines. So consider this advantage theoretical.
Streetcars require dedicated rights-of-way.
False. They are called *Street*cars, you know.
First of all, after the depression and the rise of autos, most of the nations private streetcar systems were in serious decline when GM moved in, with cars and tracks dating back to the 1890s. However, that forstalled the inevitable, since even after the bus conversion, almost every US mass transit system was in public recievership by the early 1970s anyway.
Second, buses were only more economical in the era of cheap 50s gas and friendly loans from General Motors. If anyone had the choice in keeping an electric system or switch to gas today, they'd stick with electric. Also, unlike those 50-year old streetcars, none of those GM busses lasted longer than 20 years before having to be replaced, by the taxpayers.
Third, GM's tactics in this business were horrible. In Minneapolis, for example, they conspired with mobsters to essentially loot the system, and left the company as a bankrupted shell after they had to rip up the lines and sell the fleet for scrap. Where once the only sigificant operational cost was labor (the system was powered by a hydroplant), they then had big loans from GM and ongoing gasoline and tire costs. These sorts of tactics from a company that a 70% marketshare at the time were disgusting. This is hardly a secret conspriciy theory either -- GM ran newspaper ads bragging about what they were doing, and knew that in an environment where 'Whats good for GM is good for America', and the faux moderinity of gasoline busses, they were politically safe.
Well, anyway, stand out on Market Street in San Francisco some time with your dollar. See if you get on the 40s streetcar or the 80s bus, and see which provides better service.
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I'm sorry, but this article isn't quite clear on its own concept. Many of these technologies deserved their fate, often for fatal flaws pointed out in the article. It's more of a wishlist of technologies which proved infeasible. Sure, the wax cylinder was a better recording medium, but a full orchestra in your pants would be better still. It's like the author is complaining to god that the laws of physics should have been altered to make these ideas practical.
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They are making a well-deserved comeback, with high appeal for environment and neighbor conscious people with yards smaller than a polo field.
Yeah, I was just thinking about this very thing, while writing some email in WordStar on my Amiga, and listening to MP3s on my portable wax cylindar player, on my morning zeppelin commute to work.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
They're just not mainsteam. :)
;)
;) Good technology never dies; it seems more like the really good ideas get delegated to "fans" or people who don't fall prety to marketing and/or the feeling they need the latest and greatest.
You know all those subways in New York? They're powered by electricity. Sure, the metaphor is a little different, but the idea is still there: Electric powered mass transit.
Pneumatic tubes? Bah, Home Depot and Costco use these systems to this day. I worked for a company a couple years ago that maintained these systems; cashiers use them to deliver money to the vault in the back.
Amiga? HAH. I still have a functioning Amiga 2000.
Don't many studios still use some varient of the 'ribbon microphone'? Admittedly my expertise is starting to peter out, but I do know it's common for either recording artists or movie people to use older technologies because they sound (or look) a certain way.
Reel mowers, bah. I had a friend during childhood who's parents still used one.. they made him mow the lawn with it as punishment.
Only commenting on the stuff I know.
Just because you don't see a representation of it on every street corner doesn't mean something has dissappeared.
The airship shouldn't have died? The slide rule? Slide rules are great, but they don't run Pac-Man anywhere near as well as my HP48sx.
Seriously, what about some of the great ones? Betamax, or Sony's 8mm wallet-sized videotapes?
What about remote GUI login? Unix had it, and Windows never caught up (no, pc anywhere doesn't count). People still don't know that they should be able to log into their home computers wherever they are.
What about guns? Colts are collectors items not because they're old but because they're the best revolvers ever made. Today's guns suck by comparison - the tolerances are way down, machined rather than hand matched.
IBM's butterfly notebook?
actually playing music on MTV?
we should do a slashdot article and pick the 10 best abandoned technologies. these don't even come close.
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What happens when you outlaw guns
Neither do you, if you think that modern technology isn't used at any point in the process. Yes, the swords are made the same way, with a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Yes, they're still made with alternating layers of clay and metal. Yes, there's still a lot of ritual that goes along with the creation of a sword.
And yes, modern metallurgical techniques are used.
Who do you think reads all those graduate theses which have been written on Japanese swords? Swordmakers, for the most part. Because once you take a good, hard look at what makes a Masamune so perfect, that gives you a big hint as to how to make your own swords better.
Your comment is about as informed as someone saying "violinmakers haven't changed their techniques in hundreds of years". Considering that some scientists come tantalizingly close to producing Stradivarius-quality instruments by careful study and analysis, violinmaking is undergoing rapid change due to modern technology.
This is the way the world works. The world wants it fast, cheap and good. The merchant says "fine, pick two", but the prosperous merchant says "fine, I'll give you all three". The second kind of merchant puts the first kind out of business.
Science is a wonderful tool with which to drive down costs of quality goods. It doesn't replace the human touch, nor can it ever replace human expertise; but people who say that science has no adjunct role to play are smoking crack.
Even when it comes to swordmaking.
This applies to just about everything mechanical, not just firearms, BTW.
... machined rather than hand matched.
.18 or so), operational tolerances up.
Colts are collectors items not because they're old but because they're the best revolvers ever made.
Which Colt revolver would this be? The Single Action Army? The Patterson? The Python? The King Cobra? All of them are remarkable weapons (I've used all of them save the Patterson). All of them were machined.
Samuel Colt didn't "hand match" his weapons. He was smarter than that. The virtue of Sam Colt's weaponry was that the parts were all interchangeable, and that's only possible with machining and mass production, not handcrafted individual objects d'art.
Today's guns suck by comparison--the tolerances are way down
My SIG-Sauer is manufactured to tolerances which are usually reserved for jet aircraft. My Kimber M1911A1, likewise.
You also seem confused about tolerances in general. Saying that "tolerances are way down" is a good thing. That's like saying "tolerances fifty years ago were 0.1mm, tolerances this year are 0.01mm." If tolerances are down, that means manufacturing techniques have improved.
Now, manufacturing tolerance isn't the same as operational tolerance. Operational tolerance ought to be very high--weapons are expected to tolerate many different kinds of ammunition without a hiccup, in the most awful conditions. A modern 9mm Glock will chamber any 9mm ammunition you want to throw at it--AET, JHP, LRN, hardball, Glaser, whatever. A 9mm Browning, built in 1935, suffers feed failures on anything other than hardball unless you've had a gunsmith do a throat and ramp-polish on it.
Modern firearms: manufacturing tolerances down, operational tolerances up.
This, by the by, is reflected in every other manufacturing field. You remember the early '80s, when people had massive air conditioners running in their computer rooms? Now, in 2000, it can be 90 degrees in the house and I don't have any qualms about firing up my dual Pentium IIIs. Manufacturing tolerances down (from point-whatever micron down to
Compare an F-22 against an F-14. Your average F-14 spends more than half of its operational lifetime on the ground being serviced. The average F-22 doesn't. Manufacturing tolerances down, operational tolerances up.
A $10 toaster from 50 years ago is big, clunky, heavy and totally reliable. A $10 toaster today is lightweight and totally reliable (at least, mine has never failed me). Manufacturing tolerances down, operational tolerances up.
Good grief. Show me one, just one instance in which devices manufactured with modern techniques aren't as good as devices manufactured with traditional techniques. Even Japanese swordsmithing has gone modern. Four hundred years ago, smiths had to resort to crude and inexact methods to measure certain vital characteristics of metal. Today, smiths use modern metallurgical know-how and thermocouple thermometers to determine exactly what the optimal temperature for forging and tempering is.
Good grief.
In the interest of efficiency, I suggest the immediate implementation of pneumatic tubes to transport floppy & ZIP disks containing data from computer to computer. Use of proven pneumatic technology is superior to untested 'copper wire' and 'fiber optic' technology for the transfer of data.
Additionally, money being spent on creating larger monitors should be redirected to productive tasks such as maintaining the nationwide Pneumatic Tube Network. Those seeking larger screens for their comp-uters should simply use Fresnel lenses.
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