Slashdot Mirror
Ten Technologies That Refuse to Die
kudyadi writes "Technology Review has an interesting article on, as the title suggests, ten technologies that we continue using despite advances made in the same. The best example is that of analog watches, "Compared to today's digital timepieces, old-fashioned, sweep-hand watches are pathetic one-trick ponies. Digital-watch wearers can check temperature, altitude, and the time in Tokyo, play tunes and games, and send messages. Can wristwatch videoconferencing, Web surfing, and tarot readings be far off? But what digital watches can't do, according to sweep-hand proponents, is display the time and context as elegantly and intuitively as an analog model."" Interesting counterpoint to this post from a few years back about technologies that didn't manage to hang on. And Bruce Sterling has a short list of ones he'd like to see go away, too ;)
An outdated piece of crap, yet this technology refuses to die!
You have to admit, no matter what side you're on...it's amazing the Mac has lasted this long after being pronounced dead several times.
Best Buy can have you arrested
*BSD
sulli
RTFJ.
They still serve a very important purpose for many businesses: Multipart form printing.
One company I work with prints 4 part invoices for in-home services. We've tested alternatives, but have yet to find a non-impact printer capable of getting the job done.
I think its unfair to call the technology outdated when it still performs some tasks better than its modern counterparts.
How many roads must a man walk down? 42.
Guess what? I just want a watch that tells time. I don't want that's tacky, but most digital watches come with this ungainly feature.
Do you love freedom??? Do you love freedom!!! DO YOU LOVE FREEDOM!!!!!!!!
No need to throw the Fortran libraries away, though, just wrap them in a higher level language. Chances are it'll be fast enough, and it'll almost certainly be a lot easier to use.
The Army reading list
BSD is dead! ;-)
Over half of my school still uses Windows NT, even though they did het hacked a few times. They finnally got a XP site license for the student computers, but the staff ones still use NT
This signature was left intentionally blank.
It would have been nice if the author of the article had pointed his Bruce Sterling link to Bruce Sterling's article, instead of Google search results.
Or maybe he's trying to avoid Slashdotting something?
When you get to hell -- tell 'em Itchy sent ya!
bitter when burnt, I remember betamax.
Cars with wheels.
Buildings that need ground to support them.
So, where are the flying cars and cities on clouds damnit?!
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
SMTP and identd
My favorite quote from the article:
"And you needn't worry about your system going obsolete if it already is."
How true...
Sig? What sig?
The great thing about analog watches is that if you're ever lost in the wilderness, but your watch still works, you can use it like a compass.
I don't remember exactly how, but assuming that your watch is set to the correct local time, it'll work. It has something to do with the angle of the hour and minutes hand compared to the sun's distance over the horizon.
floppy drive
Is one of them forced subscriptions to read a single lightweight online article?
Yes, there are some people who use them, but there are fewer and fewer forms to fill out these days that aren't automated.
John
Watches are jewelry, you techno-elitist snob. That's why people don't "upgrade".
What next. I should get my wife cubic zirconium because it looks the same as a diamond but is much cheaper because it was made with "technology". I'm just soooo old fashioned.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
the company i work for uses foxpro. might as well be writing code in sanskrit
And when was the last time YOU saw a pimp who dressed like a straight man?
Clippy
Hacker Media
As the owner of a Bulova timepiece, I am insulted that the other values of older technology like a watch are not considered. For example, the artistic merit and fine craftsmanship of my watch are enjoyable to me every time I use the watch. On a shallower note, it's dead sexy. The same conundrum was brought up about photos vs. oil paintings at the beginning of the 20th century -- sure, photos represent a "clear" picture of something, but they in no way diminish the quality and value of an original Rembrandt painting.
stuff |
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches."
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
Some of us forget that "new" is not necessarily "better".
I own a decent Hamilton watch and feel a little sheepish that it is powered by a battery since the classic Hamilton watches are known for their wind-up machinery. I'm often on the lookout for a good deal on a wind-up because they are works of art. I use a digital watch for some athletic stuff, but aside from that you can't touch the class of "classic" watch machinery.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
Analog watches will stay around for exactly the reason mentioned -- they are elegant and intuitive. Sure digital watches can do a lot more, but nobody cares because they look like ass. Wearing a digital watch with teleconferencing and web browsing is one of the surest ways to not get laid that I've heard of in a long time.
It is just like over complicated phones. All I need it to do is keep time. Why does every device have to do 11,274 different things?
I've had countless digital watches, most are in the garbage. I also have one or two 'analog' watches that I simply wind up and they work. No batteries, no looking for the manual to figure out how to set the time in Tokyo, no calibrating altitude and temp.
Look at all of the newer technologies today that are:
1. Easier to read
2. Easier to code
3. Object-oriented
4. Facilitate MVC-type architecture
With Python, PHP, J2EE, and so forth, why is Perl still around?
dinner: it's what's for beer
Digital watches are dead as... dead. I can't recall seeing one for sale for ages (I live in Finland)
I use my cellphone as timepiece. Occasionally i use a ten year old analog wristwatch (OK, I've got a digital one as well, got that one twenty one years ago)
As a musician I believe that tubes will never die. The only thing that solid state and digital amps do well is suck. I use a Marshall JCM2000 DSL100, and i wouldnt have it any other way.
Along the same lines is 2 inch tape. The article touches on the fact that studios love it, but the reason is the same as why I and lots of others like tubes. They sound alive. You can run a million filters to emulate speakers and amps, but it never has the flaws that make a good natural recording. You need subtle faults or everything sounds sterile. I like pro-tools, but it's way better as an editing platform than a recording platform. Plus, Disk drives have a mean time to failure of what???...18 months or so? We can now remaster analog tapes from the 50s with no problem. Try to get the original tracks for a linkin park session in 50 or 60 years..good luck.
I also followed the "technologies that didn't manage to hang on" link only to find a highly ranked post speaking negativly of ribbon mics. I just used 2 awesome ribbon mics for a drum session and they sounded so incredible that they are at the top of my list of pro audio gear.
Don't confuse "Wouldn't live without" with "won't die"... Please.
The / in
Just ask my Designing Compilers classmates, sheesh.
My mother's a nurse, and she told me once that she MUST have an analog watch with a second hand when counting somebody's pulse. I tried it once, and she's right - you just can't count both pulses and seconds if you're looking at a digital display.
I think what's happening here is that with the analog watch, you use the "number" part of your brain to count the pulses, while you use the visual part of your brain to see when your 60 seconds is up (by looking for the position of the second hand).
With a digital seconds readout, you end up using the "number" part of your brain for both tasks, and you get screwed up.
Wires... when can I have wireless everything? Yes, that's right, I would like wireless electricity too!
Hansel USA - Chut up and read!
The one listed is Pay for Play...
Are we still so unevolved that we still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea?
Come on people.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
The article mentions laser turntables for vinyl discs.
Imagine if big companies decided to mass-market those laser turntables and bring the price down to a more manageable level...
Now THAT would be a good thing for both audiophiles and the RIAA. I think.
Man, the one time I actually try and read the articles, one costs money and the other is a dead link from another Slashdot article!
Trying is the First Step to Failing --Homer Simpson
Digital watches were really trendy when they first appeared, but when you could get one for $5, analog watches came back into fashion. At about that time, I was given a watch that was a digital watch internally, but instead of an lcd, it had motors that moved the arms. It was rather funny changing modes and watching all the hands spin to their new locations.
The real point here, though, is that form is more important than function when it comes to fashion. Hence, analog watches (and SUVs, and...).
Do you think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
For ten years, now, the media have been saying that any day now chemical photography will just go away. Bloom County, back in the early nineties, had Opus and Milo flushing a 35mm SLR down the toilet lamenting, "Oh, little Nikon, we hardly knew ye." And that was back when you couldn't touch a decent digital camera for under a grand.
And yet people are still buying 35mm film, shooting pics on it, and having it processed. Those single-use cameras (manufacturers bristle at the word "disposable") are still quite popular.
I do see more and more people with digital cameras nowadays, naturally, but rumors of the death of chemical photography are greatly exaggerated. University art departments still teach the old-fashioned methods.
I could go on and on about this forever, but there are other and better posts to read below.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
And an important aspect of moving hands is that they convey information in their movement: in a cockpit the altimeter can be "read" very quickly to show whether the aircraft is ascending or descending. On a watch I can get an approximate time (it's almost 4:30pm) in a glance. Yet another example is a digital vs. analog scuba diving pressure gauge: the position of the mechanical arm can be understood very fast without worrying about the exact number of PSI left.
John.
Bidets are a 19th century innovation, and here we are (in America at least) cleaning our nether regions with paper. How barbaric!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
When you own that much pussy, you don't have to wear levi's.
Someone should make a digital watch where the face is a little color LCD ... that displays the face of an analog watch. Make it have several different variations that change with a press of a button.
I just to have watch so that I can see the time. Is that too little to ask for?
This guy needs to pull his head out of his arse...
The digital watch wishes it were as useful or stylish as the analogue.
Some people prefer their watches to tell the time and the time only you know. Maybe the date too.
/. Where the truth
The article makes it sound like analog watch is a bad thing. However, when I look at my watch (analog, of course) I am not really putting any effort to read time. I sort of know that its like 4:20 as I am writing this. It makes it easier too for e.g when I am driving as it doesn't really take my concentration away from the most important thing at that time which is driving.
However, I've owned a digital watch and it takes *some* effort to *read* the actual time. And even after doing that, I form a mental image of what time it is in terms of analog look.
Digital watch? No, thanks. I'ma keep my analog. IMHO
Free XBox, PS2
Create a WAP wireless server now
Most of the mentioned bits of technology continue to be in usage because most people don't have the money for the more advanced versions. Radios and pagers are excellent examples of these.
The more interesting bits are the items that are, in many cases, cheaper in their newer versions. Specifially mainframe computers. I've read report after report citing these as quick targets of replacement by distrubuted networks et al. Yet they keep being both made and purchased.
Fax continues because people are lazy. Come on! Learn to print out an email and stop expecting your printer to do it for you!
Two things I like about analog timepieces:
The first is that you can usually make out the time further away, and in poorer lighting conditions, from an analog clock versus a digital.
The second is that you can use your analog watch as an impromptu compass. In the northern hemisphere, hold the watch flat and point the hour hand towards the sun. Now bisect the angle between the hour hand and the figure 12 (ie. noon) on your watch to give you a North-South line. In the southern hemisphere, hold the watch dial and point the figure 12 (ie. noon) towards the sun. The line that bisects the angle between the hour hand and the figure 12 is the North-South line.
Sco Unixware
(although i think thier web server already died)
Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind. -- Mark Harrold
some people are just spending way too much time around pimps...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
...it actually points out why these "old-fashioned" technologies continue to be popular. You wouldn't know that from the /. intro.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
i've seen several pimps with digital watches. They like the built in timer and calculator type.
pagers are refusing to die?
riiiiight....
a Ad revenue is down, we've /|\ /| Anderson, GENIUS! /|
a got nothing to write about, uuuh.. well we acould could
a / and it's a slow news day! / post a fluff top 10 list
a O Ideas, everyone, NOW! o to Slashdot a again..
a <|>
a | \ |
a
Putting a fifty pound, 21-inch cube of leaded glass and plastic on my desk is ridiculous. Flat, thin, flexible big-screen monitors would be the way to go, so you researchers and engineers better get to work.
Douglas Adams refererences aside I used to wear a digital watch and thought that it was cool, until someone pointed out that whenever we see a digital time display we always visualize the hour and minute hands in our minds before we can read the time.
I now wear an analogue watch and avoid conversion losses.
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The western diet has yet to reflect the use of refrigeration.
Yeah I have to agree, sound is much better, off of a record, using tubes etc.
Regardless, am I just crazy or do most high energy applications still use vacuum tubes primarily because it takes and act of god to malfunction a tube. Those things can overheat until they melt and they'll still run. I think they still use them in the airline industry for the ground-based communication etc. for such a reason.
Mainframes have adapted and are now partionable and domainable such that one mainframe can be partitioned into many sub-mainframes for different departments or divisions.
Hardly a dieing technology. Been kinda of robust for the last 40 years or so.
Think about it, before computers, we have spam in paper form. Despite telemarketing efforts in telephone calls, email, web site, even games, I still receive unrequested mail catalogues in my physical mail boxes.
1. Gameboy Advance - Built on older hardware, from technology that was available almost 10 years ago. 2. VCRs - Who still actively uses one? 3. PS2 ports
Oh man, those are still in fashion! Just look, you can be a full-fledged MUSICIAN with these things!
symphony for dot matrix printers
Those big old machines keep the world running (I mean, if we agree that money moves this fscking world... :P)... I cannot imagine a bank trusting all its data to a cheap PC running XP or whatever... not even a Sun SPARC could handle that volume of data processing....
Also a well crafted analogue watch can look far more sophisticated than a glowing piece of plastic jammed with buttons.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Remember when tech experts said that paper was going to disappear, and everything was going to be electronic? With notebooks and PDAs and TabletPCs and so forth, why would we want anything on paper?
And yet, still, most people will print out and keep a hard copy of anything of length that they want to read or hold on to.
dinner: it's what's for beer
How about M$ Windows!?!?!?!?
No wait, windows is not a technology, it's a cheap nockoff!!!
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
One thing I found really irritating about the MIT article: the author's assumption that "impact" is just a fancy name for "dot matrix". Apparently it's never occured to him that printers can use type elements, just like typewriters.
They just had to add one computer language, didn't they? Why not add a couple of text editors too?
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
I'm actually somewhat surprised to see VHS not being listed. Despite large chains like Circuit City and Best Buy having gotten out of VHS sales, people still refuse to upgrade even to a $40 WalMart DVD player. These same people will complain to any employee at a store that sells or rents DVDs about how they don't have enough VHS tapes, but won't even consider the idea that times have moved on from the format.
I have a technology they missed (granted, it is somewhat specialized), and one I feel they incorrectly marked.
The one they missed is IEEE-488 (a.k.a. GPIB) - a control bus used in instrument control. 1 Mbyte/sec (unless you used a bastardized protocol), 30 units maximum, length limits, interface cards that cost US$500 or more, yet customers are STILL asking for GPIB over USB or Ethernet.
The one they wiffed on is vacuum tubes. Sorry, but when it comes to making high power RF amplifiers tubes are hard to beat - it is a great deal easier to use a vacuum tube running at 3000V to make a kilowatt of RF than a transistor at 30V - and when you get up to microwaves (2GHz and up) tubes are kings. True, when a (sic)audiophile(cough) claims tubes are better for low power audio.... Well, as a coworker of mine says, "I don't argue with wheelbarrows - I push them."
www.eFax.com are spammers
I don't like digital watches. I'll use an analog watch as long as it's going to be around. I just take a peek at it and have a graphical representation of time. It's just like a pie chart if you wish. Hm, Douglas Adams didn't have very good opinion about digital watches as well:
"Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea."
I am the owner of a combination analog and digital watch. I find that the analog part is truely invaluable because with a simple glance, I can get a "mental picture" of say, time left until an appintment, etc. I don't have to do any "mental math" to figure out a time span. Just "seeing" the analog representation is far more effective for me than a digital counterpart.
On the other side, however, the digital part is used for alarms, and dates--analog versions of these would be simply too cumbersome on a small, watch face.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
One concept that seems to be lost on many people in the technology field was reinforced repeatedly by my mom in earlier years: "A true artist is able to determine when to stop." She herself was an artist.
Many tech people have tremendous hubris, and feel there is always something that can be improved upon. But is this actually the case?
I'd be inclined to say there are many projects out there which are truly done. The VSFTP daemon comes to mind. Development is hardly anything anymore, because the application does what is should securely and functionally; it's also lightweight and well coded.
That software is done, and it truly is wonderful. This same thing applies to wristwatches. While newfangled doodads tacked onto every angle of a product is very much in vogue amongst humans, it's certainly not the best way to make a useful item.
It's a WATCH.
...
It tells TIME
You use a phone to make a call.
You use a watch to tell time.
You use a TV to see television.
You don't use a watch to listen to the radio or to see porn or...
Oh...
This is one I'd like to see us get past. It's the most in-efficient way to get around. I can't wait for teleportation...
Those are moot points.
The -only- problem is the display of time, which is either displayed by the hands stuff, or a digital text read-out (be it 7-segment LCD style, or more elegantly).
The hands style is simply much easier to read - it's the same reason a lot of cockpit gauges are not numeric read-outs. It only takes a fraction of a second to see that a hand is pointing to the left, middle, or right. Takes more time to read whether a number is negative, zero, or positive (just an example) - and you may not have that time in a critical situation.
That said, there -are- 'digital' watches that do use the 'hands' display in an LCD. However, they are often difficult to see - e.g. dark hands over a mid-grey background (you know the kind). Pretty much defeats the purpose.
The ones that have a nice white background or a backlit display (bye battery) work nicely though.
Is it true that for a document to have some merit, it has to be either hand delivered, faxed or mailed? If you email a document, it can't be presented as evidence in court? I thought that is why Fax is still being used to send out invoices, because if a dispute arises, a court will accept a faxed document as authentic, while an emailed document would be susicious to forgery.
Dot matrix printers can print half a page, stop and print the second half the next day. And you can read the result between the 2 jobs.
You can use it as an ouput terminal.
Try to do that with a laser printer. Won't die anytime soon.
Iraq: war to save the U
NO KIDDING!!!
This is a general trend of adding garbage to an otherwise simple device. Digitals watches, cell phones, etc.
If you're going to have a multipurpose machine, like a computer, then call it that. Otherwise you end up with a watch that takes the temperature, tells time, takes pictures, has an address book, and makes calls.
Then your cell phone makes calls, tells time, takes the temperature, takes pictures and has an address book.
Your handheld address book tells time, takes the temperature, takes pictures, makes phone calls.
Your digital camera takes pictures, tells time...
I had to laugh when I read the story on slashdot. How can OLD watches still hang around that just tell time?
BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT A WATCH IS FOR.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
The article mentions reel-to-reel tapes in an audio context. In a similar vein, my company still has to supply tax data to most state tax departments on tape cartriges. I think they're 3580 or 3590, the reader looks kind of like this one.
Fortunately, all I have to do is create the data files (using more modern tools). There's a group of folks who take care of writing the tapes... they've been with the company forever, and we're just hoping they don't all retire before the tape cartridge format does!
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Long live BSD!
So as strange as this may sound fortran can be much faster!
The Raven
How about it!?!?
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
Seriously... when are we going to get rid of these spinning platters? There's no incentive to come up with new tech cuz the old tech is cheap and known, despite the fact that it SUCKS for multiple reasons (reliability, speed, noise.)
Just look at swordboy's sig... WHERE are Solid State Hard Drives!?!
~Berj
One of the things that drove me to get a record player was to digtize my father's large LP collection. He has hundreds of "classic" Salsa and Disco albums that will never be sold again. I got a nice Sony LP player and I'm using EAC to dump it to MP3. He'll have blast hearing those old albums in his car!
Oh yeah? *My* computer refuses *not* to die!!!! Nyah, nyah, nyah! :P
-1, "1337" speak
Designed as an interemediate protocol, yet here we are.
Floppy disk drives. (barring Apple.)
14.4k modems in the early 80s?! I'd like to know where the author got one of those . . . my 2400 was blazin' fast circa 1988.
*NIX..
it just wont die.. but then again maybe that's a good thing!
He most certainly should have included old floppy drives. I no longer order a floppy drive when buying new PCs or Laptops for my company, but you can still get them if you want. USB keys are just too dang handy and hold alot more data. I'm amazed that the ole 3.5 disk is still around. At least that is better than the super old 8 inch disks I used so long ago.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
from the eyes of a non-techie:
Could you please explain counter-clockwise to me again?
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
Mike Royko wrote about being given one of these watches many years ago, back when he was alive even.
."
The tale went, IIRC, he was in a tavern (assuming the Billygoat Tavern), when a sharply dressed man walked in.
Royko: "Hey, nice watch, Oyster Shell?"
Other guy: "Yea"
Royko: "What does it do?"
Other guy: "It tells time."
Royko: "Ah, well this beauty tells time, temperature, altitude, does math . .
Other guy: "That's a NERD WATCH! HAHAHAHA! Hey everybody, this guy has a nerd watch!"
Or something like that.
Earlier than that Royko mentioned that he saw no progress in having to use both hands to tell the time (back when you had to press a button on the watch to turn on the LED display).
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
The QWERTY keyboard, which was actually designed to slow folks down (and to make typing "typewriter" fast!) is long overdue for death. If you want a speed boost or to give your wrists a break, try Dvorak. Check out Jared Diamond's "The Curse of QWERTY" on the matter.
Of course, I just started, which is why the above is written in zealot mode, and though I can attest to the comfort I haven't seen a speed boost yet. But I'll give it time...
VHS, on the other hand, deserves to die. Now. VHS is just evil.
http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/bulletin/EdDesk.nsf /All/F7543E465461D19BCA256DBA000803A7
Start Running Better Polls
They are not examples of obsolete technologies by the simple evidence that people still buy all those things.
The market will speak. You don't want a comitee telling everyone what to use do you?
Pointy things and blunt objects can be effective weapons too - just because new stuff is available doesn't mean "old stuff" stops working.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
That's right, fuck that ass Michael! Harder, HARDER!
/ /\ /\ /|/ \
a O O
a
a \--|
a
I use an analog watch as a jewelry. I have at least 3 clocks available at any one time. My watch, my phone, my organizer, my ipod.. i could go on and on ..
Closed-source software. I'm not trying to be a troll, but in a few years--or decades-- just about everything will be open-source. Either that, or everything will be in encased, kiosk-like, un-hackable, un-moddable, Windows Embedded PCs. :shudders:
On
Not that this is apropos of anything, but I remember reading something that stated in the entire history of mankind, only two perfect devices have been created: the clock and the hammer.
For both of them the rationale was that they perform their tasks with ease, are intuitive to use and aren't bogged down with needless extras (which cause confusion).
Here's a real link to the article instead of having to look through Google:
Ten technologies that deserve to die
Gone are the times when the floppy is the only rescue tool for a b0rked computer. Bootable CDs and USB drives have fixed that. So why are they still around? For all intents and purposes, USB drives beat floppies in every respect: physical size, storage size, access time, mtbf.... the list goes on.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
Posted 2/4/2004 9:44:24 AM by Vivek Rao
Subject: Fortran
The passage on Fortran mistakenly asserts the latest standard is Fortran 90. The latest standard is actually Fortran 95, and Fortran 2003, which offers object-oriented programming and interoperability with C, will be finalized this year. To learn about modern Fortran one should not rely on sloppy journalists but instead visit the site www.fortran.com or peruse the comp.lang.fortran Usenet newsgroup.
How about light bulbs? We have LEDs, fluorescent varieties, energy efficient high lumen low wattage bulbs out the wazoo, and we insist on using expensive, high heat output incandescents. An Edison bulb, for crying out loud, would work in a modern lamp, more or less.
How about pulse-dial telephones? The phone company still has to send 90 watts down the line whenever the phone rings so that on the off chance some bulky receiver with an honest-to-god bell will get enough power to vibrate?
Give me a break. Analog watches? At least they have style.
This list is of devices that work perfectly. They do what they need to without any obnoxious interference. My analog watch tells me the time when I look at it. I never see the latest sports scores or the temperature. I get what I want. The author seems to have left off the broom. Why didn't the broom die when the vacuum was invented? Because the broom served its purpose quickly and efficiently. The broom has been used for at least 5,000 years and will probably continue to be used until humanity is destroyed. Thank goodness for places like OldVersion.com . Newer isn't always better.
...are a neat idea?
Old Technologies that Refuse to Die (but need to):
Broadcast Commercial television,
Exploitative Record Company Contracts,
Spam, the email
Spam, the meat
The Cumbustion Engine or at least
The S.U. V.
hollow point bullets
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
#11: Rolling Papers
Despite innovations in pipes (such as the famous Protopipe) and bongs (such as the infamous Triple Chamber Mason jar bong), people continue to use rolling papers for their smoking enjoyment. Zig-Zag papers continue to be a popular choice, with others using everything from toilet paper to yellow pages. Small wonder: joints are fun, and that's not going to change for a long time.
BTW, in "researching" for this post, I found a site called "Smokedot" very similar to Slashdot. I wonder if there is a "Smokedot effect" too and what that would entail...
Here in Greece, pagers were never popular. In fact, i have never even seen one and i don't know if the service is still offered.
Cell phones on the other hand have been extremely popular.
So, it's dead here...
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
In one word: Reliability.
Watches, typewritters, dot-matrix printers, pagers... they all have the same qualities. They're cheap, they're reliable, and they require almost NO manteinance whatsoever. Listening to the radio is one flick of a switch away almost anywhere, you don't ahve to keep remembering to plug your laptop to the mains to recharge the battery if you happen to need typing.
Newer, more features and more bells and whistles don't mean better. My 50$ swatch will still be ticking in 10 years time, I might have to change the battery once. I'll stick with it, thankyouverymuch.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
The article does not mention that the real reason impact printers are still used so much by banks and other businesses is to produce multi-copy forms. Yes, you can print several copies of a page on a laser or inkjet, but there is no way to get them to feed tractor multi-parts forms!
The slashdot article referenced in this one links to a page long gone. The tech review article by Bruce Sterling can't be had without giving up your children...Here are the lists for your perusal.
The 10 we use:
Analog Watches
Dot-matrix printers
Typewriters
Broadcast radio
Pagers
Reel-to-reel tape
Vacuum tubes
Fax machines
Mainframe computers
Fortran
The 10 that Died:
Electric Trolley
Pneumatic Post
Amiga
Ribbon Microphone
WordStar
Edison's Wax Cylinder
Slide Rule
Reel Mower
Automatic Watch
Airship
The 10 that deserve to die:
Nuclear Weapons
Coal based power
Internal comustion engine
incandescent light bulbs
land mines
manned spae flight
prisons
cosmetic implants
lie detectors
DVDs
Personally, I'm very happy with my Tag Heuer, and its a very stylish watch, but I also once owned a calculator watch, which, while fun to play around with when I was bored...wasn't nearly as functional as it could have been (small keys) and looked hideous.
For some reason, the rule with accessories (not counting iPods and the like) still seems to be that if it has electronics in it, it cheapens the value. This should start to change as technology develops to the point where truly integrated wearable computing is mainstream. Then expect to see all manner of expensive digital jewelry. We'd also probably need celebrities to endorse something like that to help it gain popularity, but still.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
> what digital watches can't do, according to sweep-hand proponents, is display
:(
> the time and context as elegantly and intuitively as an analog model.
Intuitively? INTUITIVELY?!
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Analog watches are the antithesis of 'intuitive' as far as display time goes. And the ones without numbers on them are the _WORST_. Yeesh. There's never a Carp around when someone needs slapping.
ok, i thought analog watches was a bad inclusion, but vacuum tubes?! Why not throw this round thing called "The Wheel" in there, too? It's old and freaking won't die!
I love my Crate tube amp. It's so nice sounding.
This article... it's credibility is wavering at the moment. The author must have spent a whole 5 minutes looking for inspiration before giving up and writting this lousy article.
One of the things I really like about analog watches, and I really couldn't place it until I started using Linux, was that there are several different ways of reading time on an analogue watch.
For example, when I look at my analog watch and I see the minute hand on the 9, I automatically think "It's quarter till..." same for "5 after" "half past" etc.
Also, I like my analogue over digital when cooking. If I'm cooking for 10 minutes, I just look at the minute hand and I can immediately fix in my mind where the minute hand needs to be when the foods done.
I never really thought about it before, just knew that for some reason I could always read an analog watch faster and chalked it up to what I was used to. Then the other day I was screwing around with the clock settings, and I came across the Fuzzy clock. After looking at it briefly, I realized... The analog watch is like looking at the digital clock and the fuzzy clock at the same time.
nobody even mentioned the 3.5" floppy drive?
You can use an analog watch, if it's correctly set, to find your direction in the wilderness. Point the hour hand at the sun, and halfway between the hour hand and 12 o'clock will be either North or South, depending on your lattitude and time of year.
Yeah, that's not much, but it's cool. It also means you can set your analog watches with a compass, and, with a little math and a sure reckoning of where north is, estimate your lattitude by finding how close the sun is to vertical, and in which direction it deviates.
Thinking about this problem has brought to my attention that I've been a Boy Scout for far too long...
"Ten Technologies that are more or less obsolete in general use but still serve small niches better than newer technologies."
And does the author really think 14-kilobit-per-second modems! were a product of the early 1980's? We weren't lucky enough to get those until the mid-1990's. Maybe he's just LUCKY that he doesn't remember 110-baud acoustic couplers...
I thought it would be great having a watch that tells the temperature. So I bought a Casio that does. Only on detailed reading of the manual did I discover the flaw. The temperature sensor is in the watch and the watch is on your arm, so it basically tells you the temperature of your arm. (You can take the watch off and wait 30 mins to get the temperature of wherever you put it, but what exactly is the point?)
About the only thing it tells me is wether my arm was above or inside the covers while sleeping (it records the temperature every hour).
The watches that tell you your altitude are even more useless. They actually just measure the air pressure. So the way you use them is that you tell the watch what your altitude is, and then it tells you what the alititude is.
Despite my usual love for evereything new and advanced, I have a strong love for mechanical watches. I wear an IWC Portofino right now. It doesn't even glow in the dark and I need a separate alarm to wake me up. All it does is tell me the time and date. But I'm fairly sure I would be wearing the same watch for the forseeable future and I have a greater love for it than any of my previous watches.
Why? Because ironically good timepieces should be timeless. Even a good mechanical watch from the 50's or earlier would still work and look nice if it has been taken care of. On the other hand, anything that's technologically advanced is the opposite. They're very vulnerable to the passage of time. The own selling point of technology is that they're somehow futuristic or advanced but once that future has arrived, they lost their charm. A well made time-piece or anything that is "timeless" has other qualities that age better.
I think a good part of it has to do with the person's personality as much as anything else. Having taken the technology route so many times, I'm happy to know that I have something, however small, that will last and do one thing really well day after day.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Still beats the internet for news.
It's been around for 30 years or something.
a beg, bitch! what's my name? / /| /|/ <| --|\ /|\ /| .
a break his . beg!
a teeth! \ | '
a \ ` |
a O O O/ O
a
a | | \O/ |
a |\ |\
a
a |
a 'mmph glurgle whimper
...being a bitch and posting with a karma bonus for such a pedantic comment.
Good lord, fax needs to go away. I've bitched and moaned about this at my office for FIVE YEARS.
... what are you thinking?
In addition to that, there needs to be some way of physically inflicting pain upon people who print documents and don't pick them up from the printer. It's a waste to print at all, but if you then don't even get your wasted print out
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
The underlying technology behind modern cars is the same as 100 years ago. Hopefully hybrids will change this, and fuel cells, etc.
1. basic (+,-,*,/) calculators, still around, cheap, but I would rather have a $10 old PalmIII than an $10 dumb calculator
... make things easier for baggage handling, ticket processing, passport/custom, etc.
2. TV "channels" - why can't TVs show a menu matrix of stations by name (wnbc,kwgn,abc,cbs, etc.) instead of channel numbers??? (tivo like?). Same with VCRs - the fact that most people can't program a VCR is because the interface is still too cumbersome.
3. junk mail (snail mail) - can't we have a mail-shredder appliance that automatically destroys any flyer from the local supermarket or realtors?
4. VHS - will still be around, until DVD recorders get under $100
5. Complicated remotes (see #1) - Do we really need more than 30 buttons in our remotes? Menu systems please!
6. Anti-piracy mechanisms - don't work, why bother to put them in the first place? Lower the prices, you will sell more. Better yet, close major record distribution labels and leave everything to Apple.
7. Heavy Combustion engines - why aren't there any smaller, safer, better, lighter cars yet? Instead, more SUVs and bigger cars.
8. Planes - can't we have better/faster trains?
9. Excess kitchen appliances - in the old days all you had were pots/pans/grill, no new super-ultra-blender-4000 nor MykeTysons Grill.
10. Bloated apps. I was recently looking and an old machine I have at home - 30MB was enough to hold a graphic environment and basic word processor/spreadsheet - maybe 90% of what the average joe ever needs (being the other 10% a web browser).
it seems that Token ring and the OSI 7 layer network stack (not the model, but an ACTUAL implementation) refuse to die.
And this is true on both sides of the pond.
I can't see radio ever dying until our cars drive themselves. You can't (well shouldn't) watch television while driving, so radio is really your only alternative.
That's a Hooke watch to those of us reading
Neal Stephenson's "Quicksilver".
If you can find a better way to distribute information for low cost, reasonably long range, low power, flexibility, small size and relatively simple design, I'd like to see it.
Streaming content on the web? Not without a computer and high speed connection.
XM radio? Big cost rampup to get a satellite constellation up and high cost of the receiver.
Blaze a trail to the New World
The reason watches with moving hands are so successful is that [...] they are extremely fast and easy to read. [...] On a watch I can get an approximate time (it's almost 4:30pm) in a glance.
I think we agree, but I would put it this way: the act of reading an analog display degrades gracefully. If you want accuracy, you can take your time and examine the tick marks closely. If you glance at it, you get a general idea.
With a digital watch, if you glance at it and you only manage to catch the last two digits, you're not much the wiser.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
Most digital watches have a "chronograph" or "countdown" feature that would allow her to select 60 seconds, press start and then take her finger off the button, grab the wrist....oh...
with the advant of cheap CD-rw burners and dirt cheap flash media its amazing the floppy disk is still around
And #11 technlogy that we wish would die is...
"Free" web pages that require subscriptions to view them. Fuck off asswipes, I'm not paying you a time tax on top of giving you the priviledge of engaging my attention long enough to read what you have to say. What goddamned arrogance.
Remain calm! All is well!
CLI
The ______ Agenda
IMHO, there's really no good reason anyone should need a typewriter for the purpose of filling out purchase orders!
The problem is, your workplace is still using the "old tech" of carbon paper based forms.
The last company I worked for that made us fill out multipart purchase order forms finally phased them out completely. They installed new computer software that let employees complete the whole purchase order online. Sure, a few people complained and moaned about how much harder it made things - but over time, even they started getting used to it. (How often do you re-order something from the same supplier? I bet it happens fairly often. Sure is nice to have the PC fill in the whole address for you when you key in the name of the vendor, because it remembers them all in an address book.)
It's also nice when someone needs to locate an old purchase order to figure out when a warranty expires or what was paid for a product the last time it was purchased. Just do a quick search in the computer, instead of digging through thousands of papers in a filing cabinet!
Ooooh My God I'm dropping fast!!!
Time doesn't speed up or slow down such that I can see the change in the way the hands on my watch move (and even if it did/does I would be changing with it to a net no change). Else it might be suppior to digital.
That you tend to say things like it's a quarter to six when using an analog watch versus It 5:45 doesn't slow me down one tick either, or make being close to six feel more palpable. If anything it just shows how hard it is to read an analog watch, and thus we just guess at the time instead or really knowing it.
Letter To Iran
Fortran is far from dead, look Fortran is even part of the .NET Framework...
It might still be too early to tell, but I suspect that analog photography will find a small niche indefinitely.
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
FTP needs to die already.
Not really. They're two-trick ponies; they tell me the time and the date. Last time I checked, "timepiece" meant "something that tells time".
Digital-watch wearers can check temperature, altitude, and the time in Tokyo, play tunes and games, and send messages.
None of which matters. I don't give a crap about the temperature, because it's moot; if I'm too cold or too hot, my body will tell me, and I'm usually smart enough to, based on time of day, season, location etc...figure out what I'm gonna need to wear(I may even, gasp, open the door and stick my head outside to see for myself). I don't give a crap about altitude, because honestly, that doesn't really mean anything to me, unless it comes on the news that anything under 1000 ft ASL is going to flood within the hour because the whole antarctic shelf just collapsed. I certainly don't give a crap about the time in Tokyo, because if I needed to know that sort of thing on a regular basis, I'd know what the differential is, and be able to do the rather easy math(anyone that can't do addition/subtraction for number under 30 needs serious help). In the meantime, I'll guess that they're approximately 12 hours behind EST since they're on the opposite side of the world.
In fact, the only reason I need a timepiece- since I(and most other people) can tell roughly what time of day it is...is because we need to be at certainly places at certain very specific times, where guessing isn't appropriate. The date function is small because we only need to look at it once a day, maybe twice, to remind ourselves. Form, meet function. So pardon me while I buy the nice, simple analog timepiece that looks nice(and will look nice for at least another 100 years) while you buy your stupid little toy that will break in 5 years(it'll be out of style in 6 months, if you're lucky). Were electric analog timepieces an improvement? Not really. Manual wind, I can sync to my computer, or even a radio program. But my electric analog watch needs battery replacement every year or so, and since it only comes out on special occasions, it's nearly always dead.
I have the same objection to cameraphones. I want my phone to do 3 things. a)let me find a number for someone I know b)let me know when someone is calling c)let me make calls.
Notice nowhere in there was "annoy coworkers with polyphonic ringtones." Or "take pictures"(I use my camera to take pictures, and they look 1000x better than anything any cameraphone will ever produce). Or "tell me the weather". I haven't even bothered to use the AIM functions, or SMS. I use my phone for one thing- telephone calls.
I once mentored for the middle school science olympiad. Mind you, these kids are supposed to be the brightest of the bunch- the kids who enjoy science and thinking on their feet. "Okay, you guys have until 3pm to finish this practice". (loooong pause) "Um, we don't have any watches on." "There's a clock right there on the wall." (blank stares.) "Um...we don't know how to read those kinds of clocks". How pathetic is that?
Please help metamoderate.
I am a die-hard analog watch fan. Digital watch faces just look cheap to me, no matter how expensive they are.
Analog doesn't also mean not digital either. My Seiko has an analog face, but with digital internals. It has an alarm, chronometer, stop watch, and timer. It uses stepping motors to control the hands.
So, is this a digalog watch?? Or is it anagital?
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
they are getting out of the film CAMERA business.
they are not giving up their chemical and film businesses.
Well I for one LOVE my tube amp...soon, hopefully to be ampS. My end goal is to have a mono-block tube amp for each channel of my HT..
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Yup, he's right. It's on our New York State checkout list, right next ot NYS State cert. card, penlight and trauma shears. Analog watches for EMT's and Paramedics are mandatory.
My TAG Heuer Formula 1 has taken one shit kicking after another; stills ticks away like a champ at work.
I don't think the digital plastic equivalent would hold up.
--
1. Hard to quickly read while driving at night even with backlighting, give me glowing analog hands!
2. Display fades & hard to read when very cold
3. batteries are not standardized, store might not even have your size!
4. batteries are required; if your watch dies while you're traveling in third world country you're likely S.O.L.
5. using digital watch as stopwatch/timing requires pushing buttons, with analog can easily do just by looking
I far prefer analog watches to digital, but it still takes me 1-2 seconds to read time on an analog after years of practice, while digital is instantaneous. Analog gives you a better sense of change over time, important for speedometers but perhaps not for a spot reading like on a watch. In other words, digital gives you the value of a function, analog the derivative.
Human Sex Partners
Table-ized A.I.
I prefer wind-up watches. I put myself thought school repairing them in the late 70's. They are now back in vogue.
From the article: "Vacuum tubes Audiophiles have sustained another technology that's even older than magnetic tape. In the 1970s, compact, energy-efficient transistors boded to replace vacuum tubes entirely. But transistors couldn't satisfy some guitar players and hi-fi cognoscenti."
As a guitar player, I'm insulted that this article lumps me in with the conspicuously-consuming audiophiles that drop hundreds of dollars on cleverly marketed cables. Tubes aren't an imaginary sound modifier in guitar amps, they are universally agreed to distort (clip) in much nicer ways when sent an overpowered signal compared to transistors. Only now in the 21st century are we beginning to see digital amps that can compete with this "ancient" technology. The article is correct that the consumer-level tube market is helped along by musicians, but the reasons have nothing to do with Audiophile-type superstition that seems to be implied. The tube vs. solid state harmonic patterns are quantitively different, and empirically better. I would no go so far as to label us as the cognoscenti, but rather people who aren't obviously deaf (and anyone here who has heard a clipping solid state amp will agree).
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire
If you're wearing an analog watch and someone asks you what time it is, you say: a quarter to 10.
If you're wearing a digital watch: it's 9:43 and 17 seconds!!! Urk!!!
Geez... ya sound like a total dweeb!
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
So, don't count. Pick a start time and an end time, neither of which have happened yet (which could be one minute apart as the example goes). Start couting when the start time appears on the digital watch face and count every beat until the end time appears on the watch face. Multiply by an appropriate amount as needed. When I'm taking my own pulse (either using analog or digital devices), I end up doing the exact same thing. I always find the digital method easier to do as many less-expensive analog watches/clocks have a jittery second hand (which second is that pointing at now?).
Besides, I've never met a nurse that takes 60-second pulse readings anymore, it seems the ones I run into always take 10 or 15 second readings and multiply by 6 or 4 respectively.
This review of the Microsoft "smart" watch pretty much sums it up.
An excerpt:
Why did Microsoft bother? Rick Rashid, the company's head of research, said last January that the idea was to "take everyday devices and make them better at what they do, without turning them into computers."
But what the company wound up doing was giving us yet another manual to digest, yet another AC adapter that has to be packed for vacation, yet another gadget to remove at the airport security line, and yet another subscription charge on your credit card bill. Enough already.
My mother's a nurse, and she told me once that she MUST have an analog watch with a second hand when counting somebody's pulse. I tried it once, and she's right - you just can't count both pulses and seconds if you're looking at a digital display.
:35, count the pulse until it reads :35 again. If she can't do that, perhaps there is a neurological problem.
Dude, that is a very easy thing to do with a digital watch. IE, look at the seconds, if it reads
Also, many digital watches include a countdown timer that you could set to 60 seconds.
I think handwriting technology (pens, inks, paper) will be another one. I admit that I have never hidden my love of fountain pens, but even the average Bic has a role. Jotting down a small bit of information while on the phone or standing somewhere is just simpler and quicker with pen and paper.
PDAs have their role, but they can be slow. Plus, I can't jot something down and tape it do a doorway or under a windshield wiper with an LCD screen.
because you cannot read a digital watch without your glasses on. I can also just elliptically glance at an analog clock, and I know what time it is. With digital, I have to focus on it to read it.
Not everything is about tech, sometimes it all comes down to style. This goes for watches.
Sometimes it is about the way it works. I can't wear a battery driven watch, as they stop working within 6 months. The record was 2 days before one stoped. I take them off put them on the counter. Then they start working within about 2 hours. Put them back on, I might get anouther couple of days....they stop again.
So I stick with a self wineding(spl?) match that never gives me an issue. I must have some kind of freaky electrostatic field around me or something.
Or it could be that I have been struck by lightning...6666666..66666...66669 times.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
COBOL will still be around years from now, along with the cockroaches and vacuum tubes.
Friends in the nursing professions all use analog watches. It's apparently difficult to take a pulse with a digital. Counting while watching a number changing is hard on the ol' brain.
I'm wearing, as we speak, a watch my Grandfather wore 57 years ago that was given to him when he retired from the railroad. It's engraved on the back with the year 1947.
It's and Elgin and it keeps great time. All I have to do is wind it every morning.
No batteries, no weird functions and it's VERY easy to set. It just tells me the time, which is all I need on my wrist.
It will probably be handed down to my son, along with my Martin guitar...another analog thing in this world of Les Paul guitars with ethernet ports.
57 years from now, if my son takes care of them, they'll still be good. I treasure things that I can just pick up and go with. I just pick up my watch, wind it and bam...I'm off. Same with my Martin. I pick up my guitar and play...just like yesterday...then I get on my knees and....whoa, sorry, was channeling Pete there.
But you get my point. Perhaps some of these technologies refuse to die because they just plain work.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
It's very old and very formal but to heck with the stogies... It's the only watch that won't get caught in a computer nor does the band break and get lost. I need to know the time it stays out of sight, and hard to lose. When I was in the army it was perfect, small in the pocket unseen but always ready to do it's job tell me time.
I'm told you are what you eat, does that mean I can be you by tomorrow with some A1?
No need to run the numbers through your head and do comparisons. Just like on a plane, where you may not have the time to figure out "Hmm. 500. 400. 300. Let's see... Uh oh!" WHAM!!
Is there nothing that can be said for style these days? I've never seen a single digital watch that's half as stylish and good-looking as even a moderatley-priced analog watch.
/. crowd says.
Beautiful analog watches are works of *art* people, you can never replace art with technology, no matter what the
But the spirit of the watch still flows with fashion, and I think that the personal timepiece is one of those magical places in which technology and fashion can merge to produce absolutely wonderful things.
And I like it that way. My cell phone is a phone and my watch is to tell the time. I just plunked down about $400 for a nice Seiko that, guess what, tells time. Looks nice too.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
A) digital watches are for little kids /real/ watch without some pansy-ass digitial compas
B) if you spent a week in the boyscouts you ought to be able to figure out directions using the hands on a
C) who cares what altitude you're at? if you're a pilot, you ought to have an altimiter in the airplane
D) analog watches take craftsmanship which is something which seems to be a lost concept in today's market economy.
I am still sticking to my 32 column abacus instead of upgrading to the new fangled 64 column one. From what I hear on slashdot 32 columns is faster than 64 columns....
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
If you want a watch to tell time, buy any $2 or $30 job and when it needs a new battery just buy a new watch.
But, you probably don't need a watch. Your cel phone, car, coffee pot, desk phone, computer(s), microwave, car and God knows what else all tell time for you.
So why do people still buy watches? Status and adornment. Plus there's that collecting thing. Essentially they're either bought for the jewellry value (hey, is jewellry obsolete?) or for the complicated mechanics inside them - the "movement" as the guts are called.
If you look at the numbers from the Swiss luxury good sector they're staggering in both volume of units shipped and price and the average price is increasing. A "decent" watch can barely be had for under a grand. A "good" watch starts at five grand and it just goes up: 10K, 30K, 80K, 250K... whatever you want to spend. Wanna spend millions? No problem, how bout a vintage Patek repating moohphase chrono pocketwatch. One of three made went for something like $13 million at auction setting a new records. Obsolete? You bet. That's sorta the point. But, we're dealing with extrinsic worth here, not intrinsic value or marginal utility.
The watch thing isn't about telling time for the most part. The in-joke in the watch crowd ia a "watch idiot savant" or "WIS": a guy that stares at his watch for an hour but deosn't know what time it is. He's staring at the dial, the applied markers, the hands, what have you. The watch as art might be a good way of thinking about this.
The attraction is a tiny case with up to hundreds of parts in it that all do something and are probably very highly finished, shiney and damn near pefect. And like Lays chips... you probbaly can't stop at one. So, if this bug bites you (phear this!) you'll probbaly up with, uh, quite a few. It is a sickness, no cure is desired.
I'm currently wearing a 60's Rodania Valjoux Caliber 72 chrono [1] and have no use for quartz gizmotronic fluff. I use the chronograph at least once a day and bottom line: mechanical ones are still more reliable and servicable than quartz ones and are cheaper to fix. In 50 years I'll still be able to get parts for this watch. In 10 years getting a quartz module for a Movado will almost certainly be impossible - it's merely "extremely difficult" at the moment.
I suspect the author of the referenced article doesn't know much about watches.
[1] You'll need to go to http://support.open-rsc.org/ to be able to see this.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Yet ever SF movie I have ever seen has an automatic, sliding door of some kind. Something mechanical with low MTBF and always in places where you can not afford the failure. IT always breaks down due to some computer Malfunctions and the protagonists always get temporarely stuck.
Windows?
The article states that dot matrix printers are still alive. But you have to remember that the dot matrix printers today have little to do with the dot matrix printers of the past in terms of reliability, functionality etc... They have evolved even though the principles are the same.
If you want to take the article's point to the extreme consider the ultimate technology that will not die... electricity.
I can glance at my analogue watch and know 'the time'. I need to STUDY a digital watch to work out what it's telling me. Generally, people do not need to know to the second what the time is. ANY watch is always inacurate in any case, so it's kidding yourself to think that knowing it's 10:24:52 of 14:45:12 is any more accurate than "twenty five past 10" or "a quarter to 11".
Looking at space, radio, science and computing from a 'down-under' amateur enthusiast perspective.
Yes, I went through the digital watch phase. I had one of those fancy ones with a scientific calculator. One day I realized something, "damn, this watch is butt ugly!"
So I switched to analog watches. I two, a very stylish Citizen and a Laks 128Meg/USB drive (to satisify my geek side). When we dress up to go out, I wear the Citizen. For everyday use I wear the Laks.
The Citizen watch may not be a Rolex or a Buliva, but I don't have to worry about someone killing me for it.
-- Will program for bandwidth
in the dying light of the LP, there were touchless laser tone arm/pickup systems to be had for the over-rich. some audible groove-skipping occurred occasionally, and they never really got from the over-rich to the audiophile market. good mechanical tone arms (my KMAL arcuate mercury-puddles, no-wires arm qualifies, as do many more thousands of good wired arms) won't, especially if you put a dime over the cartridge. or a Memorex cassette reel-stop plug if the dime causes the cartridge to bottom on a record warp.
MP3 garble does exist on complex recordings, and it's about the same as a visible "clonk"-ing scratch on your old stacks 'o' wax in the disturbance category. enough to get PO'ed, not enough to search for the shotgun. the more things change......
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
for years people have been predicting that tape backups would die... but its still here, and i don't think it is going away anytime soon!
despite advances in disk-based storage and optical disks as a means to backup data, tape is still predominant. optical disk is nice for very fast restore, but they are very slow in terms of backup. since users tend to backup data regularly and (hopefully) never have to restore, optical disk seems to be lacking. disk-based storage (for whatever reason) is not yet widely accepted.
many in the data protection industry joke that tape will never die!
I think sex is the most animalist thing we do, and yet it is still numero uno on our to do list. So much for technology.
With C99, the most recent revision of the C standard, they added a new keyword restrict, to make "restricted" pointers. Basically, by using this new feature, it is possible to write code in C that is as easy to vectorize as Fortran.
Of course, its available only in recent compilers (gcc 3 for example) that may or may not be as good at this type of optimizing as Fortran compilers, but hopefully this argument for starting new development in Fortran can finally be put to rest.
The article says analog watches are more "intuitive," but are they really more intuitive than a simple LCD watch that says "4:15 PM" when the time is 4:15 pm? A watch with hands even has two different scales of measurement - one revolution of the short hand is 12 hours while one revolution of the long hand is 60 minutes, so when the short hand points to "4" it means "20" - huh?
I guess we can all argue about a nebulous word like "intuitive," but I'll bet you $5 I can teach a classroom full of Kindegardners to read a simple LCD watch faster than they can learn to read a Rolex.
So it's not a matter of functionality or intuition at all, but HABIT and STYLE!
I have yet to see an analog that can match the elegance of my old digital LaserBeam WristWatch... Press the little button and the hands magically *Disappear*
I suppose Fortran has a lot of momentum, (I think my alma matter just dropped it from the ME requirements in the last five years or so) and thus many non-CS persons who use it out of habbit. However, it seems that once someone learns how to program in Matlab, they never go back. It's just so damn quick to prototype ideas with.
"Uh... yeah, Brain, but where are we going to find rubber pants our size?" --Pinky
Analog sweep-hand watches are more aesthetically pleasing (to many, myself included).
Plus, your brain can see the simple 2-element picture (two hands) and know immediately, even subconsciously, what the current time is. For years I wore a watch that didn't even have any markings. Just pure blank face and two hands.
Digital watches, even simple ones that merely display the time, require more brain processing to understand.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
...these 10 technologies aren't as obsolete as you might think.
If you want to see technology that shuold die, we should look at the internal combustion engine(non diesel anyway), coal fired powerplants(there are many alternatives), mining(minerals, including salt can be extracted from sea water or skimmed from the ocean floor, leaving fresh pure drinking water for all).
What?
But what digital watches can't do, according to sweep-hand proponents, is display the time and context as elegantly and intuitively as an analog model.
I don't know about anybody else but I grew up telling the time with digital displays. It takes me a fair bit longer working out the time on old clocks and if there's light on the clock it can be hard to distingush between the hour and minute hand. As a result I will often look at an old clock and then take out my phone in stupidity (which usefully has the time in large characters as a 'screensaver').
Bloody things, I hate them and want them to die a horrible painful death. I haven't used them for like 5 years, but I still run into people that won't let them go for CD's or DVD's now :( grrrrr...
the reason here is simple, a watch is a piece of jewelery, along with cufflinks and a cross and wedding ring, that a conservative man will wear...
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
I'm a total tech head, but I love analog clocks and watches. They just look nicer. They have aesthetic appeal, something the geek world too commonly ignores.
--- Ban humanity.
But me being gouged is the whole point of it.
Until recently, C lacked a complex primitive data type. C++ still lacks one. This rather minor oversight was enough to make C/C++ extremely awkward for numerical computation.
Visual Basic is the bastaradly language that has refused to die and continue to pollute Computer Science. This should have beenn the number one on the list.
the first thing I thought of was IPX/SPX.
Yes, but what happens when your batteries run out?
(btw, my watch batteries don't "run out"; I have a pocket watch that I wind; yes, I'm that old-fashioned)
Nathan's blog
It looks great and never needs winding. Best of all I don't have to worry about the electromagnetic field from the battery zapping my nervous system. And if there's a nukyuuular war my watch will still work! Ha suckers! No one of you will know what time it is except for me!
/takes off tinfoil hat
I was really happy to find vacuum tubes on this list. Despite the advamces in DSp and related technologies, nobody has managed to make a solid state guitar amp duplicate the tone and dynamics of a tube guitar amp. While it may be good enough for a lot of folks, it's not for a lot of others.
And the Soviets definitely ran way more tube gear than us, as they were convinced a nuclear war was probable. This is well documented. The fall of the Soviet empire, and the subsequent selling of most of ots assets, put *tons* of tubes into the market- far more than we've yet seen from US stores.
I dispensed with a variety of multi-functioned digital watches when I finally got sick of changing the batteries. Self-winding clockwork is hard to beat.
The rolex and the timex both do the same thing, they tell time. The rolex gains 3 seconds per day, the timex looses 20 seconds per year so the timex is 50 times more accurate at keeping time. In addition the timex has big easy-to-read numbers, a reflective background so you can damn near read it by moonlight and a light for when its real dark. The timex also has a stopwatch, alarm, 2nd time zone display and up/down timers (all perfectly sensible time-related functions) all of which the rolex desn't have.
But he still thinks his watch is "better". He just can't say why.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
I like the mix of analog/digital watches. The only digital watch I could find that emulated an analog watch, was a Casio. I bought it in the early 90's. That was a great watch, but I couldn't find a replacement for it, so I went with a nice mix Citizen titanium worldtime watch. And its an echo-drive, never have to replace batteries, its solar. Has the digital date on it, and the normal digital features, and the hands glow in the dark. So yes, analog is still here, but there are lots of enhancements to standard "Analog". Diving, Sailing and Pilot watches are the only ones that come close to the look of both technologies, but are overkill for just a nice digital looking watch.
So, I would say the article is wrong about digital watchs. They can display analog type faces, my first casio back in the 90's did. Most high end watchs are just a combinination of both.
Youzzorz sux0rz beezatch!
An analogue watch not only displays the current time - but has the reference points for a whole 12 hours. It is vastly more suitable to plan future events/refer to past events. The brain nearly subconciously reads the distances - and the 12 hour clock-face is so ingrained that we can work out relative times instantly. A digital watch involves adding and working out what area of the day the time is.
One could argue that it would work better using a 24 hour circle - but we would have to have been brought up with that as kids. Old habits die hard. I admit that the analogue clock-face has to be explained to kids in school - but it's sure worth the effort.
The only difficulty with analogue clock faces is the problem of translating to 24 hour for checking against time listings (train, bus, TV, etc.). But dealing with the add/subtract 12 hours thing is a minor issue really. On that subject - one doesn't even always have this benefit with digital clocks - my alarm clock, most annoyingly, doesn't have 24 hour display.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
I'd need to see proof of that. It seems to me that make too many of those things to have any collectable value.
Even a modern classic, like say, a current Omega Speedmaster has dubious apprection potential - whereas the original 1957 Mark I version has gone from $400 to $4000 in eight years (and was well under $100 new)
Need Mercedes parts ?
... is confidentiality laws. Regulations in my field prohibit emailing certain information (yes, even though we COULD use PGP etc., the legislators havent' caught on). Faxing is OK.
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Link
--- Ban humanity.
This is one I like. IMO, broadcast radio has survived because it works. You can have a cheap $2 walkman to listen to the radio, or something more fancy. With analogue radio, there are no technology licenses, no patents and no trying to find the specs to some properiety file format or codec.
Now digital radio involves a bunch of semi open technologies, patents and licensing. Sometimes it just seems like technology for technologies sake, and maybe locking people into the royalty cycle?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Microelectrodes for electrochemistry is just so out dated now that we have Fluorescent Confocal Microscopy.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
Various MicroSoft technologies: DOS, win9x, Internet Explorer, Outlook [Express]. And the craptacular x86 architecture. Fossil fuel as a power source.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Well, technically, a vacuum tube does the same thing as a transistor, so the smaller, lighter, cheaper, cooler, and usually more reliable transistor should have replaced the vacuum tube, right?
Do you ever ask yourself -why- vacuum tubes sound better? There's a specific reason.
See, in a guitar amp, what you really want to do is overdrive the sound, creating distortion. That's the nice fuzz sound. When the signal is overdriven, the semiconductor clips off the top of the sound wave.
Vacuum tubes and transistors clip sound waves differently. In a transistor, the clip stays high until the signal drops, causing a square-shaped clip. In a vacuum tube, the signal drops after the clip, creating a sawtooth-shaped clip.
Brass and strings have sawtooth-shaped waveforms. Computers make square-shaped waveforms. So most people "like" the sound of a sawtooth better. So people like the vacuum tube sound better.
MOSFET transistors are now being used in solid-state audio equipment because they, too, have a sawtooth clip when they distort. Now note that this only matters if you actually overdrive the sound; folks who think a tube amp that isn't distorting sounds better than a solid-state amp are probably imagining things. But your Crate sounds better than my solid-state pedal because of the way the semiconductors in 'em clip.
A perfect machine that transports humans efficiently, cleanly and quietly. It's been evolving steadily as new materials with improvements in rigidity and weight appear, it's had a few additions in the shape of shock-absorbers, but essentially it's the same beautiful engineered object.
WHORE!
I prefer a sweep second-hand watch because it's much easier to take a pulse. It's difficult to count both heartbeats and seconds at the same time, especially during the course of a medical emergency. Much easier to count heartbeats and determine the elapsed time by watching a second-hand move through an arc. Completely different parts of the brain are at work.
QWERTY keyboards should be on that list. Despite much advanced input devices and more efficient keyboard layouts eg DVORAK, the QWERTY layout refuses to die!
> I am a die-hard analog watch fan. Digital watch faces just look cheap to me, no
> matter how expensive they are.
What do you mean? Nothing says class quite like a tacky black lump of plastic stuck onto another piece of bendy black plastic with holes in it.
Some primitive, war-like societies still use Imperial units of measurement. 12 inches to the foot, 3 feet to the yard, 220 yards to the furlong (important if you're a horse), 8 furlongs to the mile, and on on.
DVD is not a suitable replacement for VHS. VHS lets you record for very little money.
DVD recorders and blank media are still expensive.
I began collecting watches 25 years ago when the $175 Seiko (and that was half price) I got screwed up badly. I bought an weird old Bulova in a pawn shop for $20, carefully scraped the blobs of white paint off it, then wore it for 7 years before finding a differnt old watch I liked better. I have maybe a dozen of this model now, the curvexes made between 1938 and 1945 but still have that pawn shop special and it still works.
Sadly, Bulova made so many of these things they'll never have tremendous (four figure) collectible value, but if you were to try to replace it with something modern that has that good of a movement, finished that well, in a gold case, it would cost you tens or even hundreds of time more that what you'd pay for one of these.
The stuff Bulova sells today, like almost every other great brand from the past is mosly cheap very high volume Asian junk, not the Swiss stuff from days of yore.
And hey, what says "geek" more than an a Bulova Accutron spaceview?
Need Mercedes parts ?
I hope Windows makes the DIE list.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
the method of signing things is outdated too.
When someone can pick up there tablet, read the document, and click a "signature". Howmuch paper work will we really need?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
NinnleBSD will never die!
Just keeps getting better all the time, like Ninnle Linux!
Yes, but then you have to set it. With an analog watch you simply wait until the second hand gets to one of the quarter minute points and watch it go round.
The nursing school I worked for stipulated analog watches because of their simplicity and the fact that they just work.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
"I've had countless digital watches, most are in the garbage."
Agreed. My testament to analog watches strength:
I fell off of a shopping cart moving at approximately 10 mph in a parking lot. I got a concussion and skinned a decent proportion of my face, leg, and arm. My hand and forearm, however, remained intact. How? My watch took the impact - the face has deep parallel scratches from my hitting/sliding along the asphalt, and there's even a tiny chip/hole at the edge (meaning it gets fogged up in steamy environments). The watch (a dirt-cheap Coleman), didn't lose a tick. That was three years ago, and while I had to replace the band, it's held up perfectly (though it's hard to see the date through the scratches). Would a digital watch take that kind of impact? Not bloody likely.
I'd say it hangs on pretty well. Especially the post it kind...
I love technology as much as the next person, but I have yet to see a woman in a bar compliment a guy on his Casio calculator watch whereas my Movado has never failed to draw a compliment be it from a woman in a bar, a date at a restaurant, or in a meeting with a prospective client.
Technology has it's place and I am an unconditional supporter and user of it, but if I want bells and whistles I have my cell phone... if I want to make a lasting first impression of style, nothing makes the statement like a finely crafted timepiece...
I am suprised the floppy did not end up on the list since he mentioned analog watches. Despite being very useful it still is a technology many manufacturers have been trying to kill for ages. I can't even remember how many times I have read that manufacturers will no longer ship FDD's on new computers.
True ravers don't need drugs
Where can I list that 19th century "invention"
that refuses to die ?
Toon Moene (GNU Fortran maintainer).
As for faxes, they have one important feature, signatures. Sure, a PGP signature is more likely to be correct, but for paper contracts, a signature is a good indication that someone read and accepted it (which is why real estate and attorneys use them).
Pagers? Cops can't use cell phones, but do have room for pagers. Phones are about as wide as pagers.
Radio is still going on because watching TV while driving may be a little dangerous.
Typewriters are used for filling out forms. That's about it.
Analog watches simply look better than digital watches. Watches are jewelry after all.
Dot matrix is used for multi-part forms.
Since analog is the original form, and has the most sophsticated interface...it kind of follows that the digital watch is really just a technical triviality, doesn't it?
I was actually trying to agree with the post that I replied to (and you) that analog would be better. My point was that you would have to use both hands to set the digital watch. I guess you could hold the wrist with the hand that has the watch on it though.
Another thing I wondered about was whether the patient would feel more stressed by hearing beeping sounds from a digital watch.
Anyway, I expressed it badly.
No need to get into this argument, just see Slashdot's tenth most active story ever (at least at the moment). It's all been said I suppose.
Time was, back in the 1980s, that the clickety-click of dot matrix was the sound of progress.
That was a daisy wheel printer. A matrix printer goes **AZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ**, a noise which can compete regarding cruelty with a modem trying to get a handshake.
bash$
I'm sorry but I think your argument has a weak point:
Quote: A digital watch shows the numbers. If you can read them, you can tell the time.[[snip]]You have to learn what each hand means
Have you considered how long it takes for someone to learn reading numbers, especially a child? I remember being able to tell the time of the day before being able to read numbers.
You know your a 'dirty old man' the first time that you make love to a woman who doesn't know what a typewriter is.
An analog watch hows where you are headed and where you were.
Conversley, a digital one tells you where you are in a moment of time.
A very short glance tells you where the minute hand is. The lighting must be just so with a digital display and reading numbers just takes more time.
Donald Duck will have a SCREAMING ORGASM when he finally replaces his analog watch with a digital one.
Here's another link to the sterling article as the technology review didn't work for me (members only or something). This one's from MSNBC :-)
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3131183/
C My baby made the list .lt. 1440)
C It's so nice
implicit none
integer nodes
parameter(nodes=1440)
C
C Talk about the language that won't die!
C
nodes = 0
do while(nodes
write(*,*) 'Hi! I'm FORTRAN, the undead of programming languages!'
C
write(*,*) 'I have no idea what a pointer is!'
C
write(*,*) 'Or a class, for that matter!'
C
nodes = nodes + 1
C
end do
C
write(*,*) 'And it's impossible to tell when one line ends and the next begins!'
C
write(*,*) 'And I put a LF at the end of every write statement. How convenient!'
C
write(*,*) 'Well that's all for now. I guess I'll return to the operating system without a return code!'
C
end
Wind up watch: Wind up watches have the distict advantage of not needing a battery.
True true the battery powered watch needs a battery only once in say 1 or 2 years it still needs it and a watch is a technology some people want to have around no matter what.
So why would people want anolog battery watches?
While there are a number of preceaved advantages (IE false) there is one real advantage.
Notice how Timex never clames it's watches "take a licking" anymore?
I personally use digital watches but... I've never replaced a watch battery.. a whole watch yes but a battery no...
But I'll continue to buy digitals becouse they are quite cheap.
Dot matrix/Hammer printers: Those printers are capable of being very compact. If you need a portable receapt generator what is better than a printer calculator? A more advanced version of same is on your typical cash registar.
While lasers and ink jet printers are still bulky enough to not fit in a PDA sized box.
Also like the digital watch there are environments that don't like the ink jet or laser. The printer dosen't get damaged but the paper feed is just complex enough to rip paper in damp air.
Pocket calculators vs PDAs: Price aside pocket calculators today appear to have three distict advantages.
1. You can get one with all the features you need usually at a reasonable price.
2. Solar powered calculators are the norm.
3. I admit I tap on the screen but most people still won't do that.
And then there is the problem of handing over your PDA when someone needs a calculater. Would you?
There will always be a "batter" way but some times the simple tools are the best tools.
I don't actually exist.
they are also better, because they tick.
I don't remember the number of time I was checking reactivity of an interface, with my left hand near my left ear. Full visual control of the screen, full tactile control (being right-handed) of the mouse, full auditive control of the time.
I think the reason that analog watches, as well as some other technologies, stick around is due to nostalgia. There's something that clicks inside some people when they see an analog watch. It says class and elegance, which lots of people associate with a bygone era.
I know that every time I look at my analog watch, I remember my grandfathers old wind up pocket watch. I remember wanting to play with that watch instead of having my own super 1337 digital watch.
Some Rolex have a rotating bezel which is used as a stop watch/timer. It's simple, modeless, and makes sense. I use my Rolex's bezel while diving, running, and or any other occasion I want to time something.
Well, the US are a bit slow in some way here. :)
In Norway pagers are already obsolete. They shut down the net some time ago, now it's imposible to use them. What they did - cellphones did bether.
I guess someone found out cellphones isn's that dangerous in hospitals after all
"If you keep an open mind people will throw a lot of garbage in it."
My favourite watch is a Casio Twincept, it's a standard analogue watch with an LCD overlay, About the most advanced function it has in this form is a 20 number phone book, but it wouldn't be too difficult to shoehorn a 20+Mb flash memory in the back, If the author has that big a problem with the clumsiness of digital watches, why not use a hybrid?
Rotary movements don't take up that much space nowadays, just have the digital display over the top till they reach the required power/resolution requirements
Cliff
In SOVIET RUSSIA the hot grits profit you!
I do too - A valve (tube) amp provides great sound for a guitar, and with the cover off great mood lighting for those romantic occasions!!!
*--BigMan--- Time flies like an arrow.. but personally I prefer a nice glass of wine!
I also have a nice Waltham pocket watch (hunter style case) The movement was made in 1901 and it keeps good time (looses aprox. 1 minute per week)
There's nothing intuitive about an analog watch. The damn things confuse me every time I look at them. I usualy wind up craning my neck slightly to the side, and counting up the minutes in my head.
"Who cares about style?" quipped Freddot P. Nerdmeister. My plastic dining room table is functional and it can serve as a sail if my house is ever transported to a desert island!"
My CueCat refuses to die :-P
don't need ELECTRICITY!
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
you totally missed the point, your brain is concentrating on counting the pulse, the nurse does not need to be stuffing around pushing buttons on a digital watch, once glance at the seconds hand is all see needs
-
Mentally compute what the display will be at the end of the time period, watch for that pattern while counting pulses.
-
Note the beginning time, count a fixed number of pulses, subtract beginning time from ending time and divide into pulse count.
I would recommend method 1 for an emergency situation, but method 2 gives better practice with mental math.Bullshit. I'm a medical assistant and I use my digital watch to measure pulses and respiration all the time.
Java Date is one of the most obtuse constructs the language. And it doesn't seem to die either. Yeah, it's been deprecated, but I still find myself backsliding and putting that abomination in my code every once in a while. It's hard to bring myself to use Calendar. I wish they would go in and create a date package with a bunch of date objects and tools. i18n of dates needs a look too.
paper! According to the list, three of the items require it for use. Many of the others were brought to life from a design .... on paper.
Until they start beaming digital images into our brain for a "digital to neuroreceptor" converter to use, this granddaddy of them all will still be around. Until then enjoy your books on the throne and keep complaining that the software company did not include a "printed" manual.
The widespread use of inkjet printers for black&white text output is, IMHO, severely misguided and is a result of heavy advertising campaigns as opposed to technical superiority. Anyone who has owned a modern inkjet is familiar with the scam - cheap printer, ruinously expensive cartridges. The per-page cost of a dot-matrix printer is negligible. An affordable, efficient, and mostly acceptable image-quality (for everyday work) printer has been declared obsolete with very little reason.
I use method 1 myself, which is similar to the way people do it with analog watches anyway. Can you imagine someone trying to count the number of times the second hand moved at the same time as trying to count a pulse?
Your post is the most insightful one in this entire story.
...because the people in charge fuck it up.
My company sells software to distributors. IT has an EDI component that allows them to buy from other companies who don't buy our software.
We stick strictly to standards layed out by those who control EDI. However, all the other companies do not and invariably these companies, one company in particular, really bork the shit up by hand entering some EDI document that failed or inserting humans in the process when a computer should have just processed it normally.
Our customers suffer because people they deal with don't know how to stick to standards. Some of them have dropped back to paper and faxes because someone in the pipeline, probably some very scared data processors, don't like standards or EDI.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
It was the analog wrist watch that they used to devise a crude compass.
Keep the hour hand on the Sun and North will be halfway between it and the minute hand.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
I believe that the the between point the side that later then the current time?
and if its earlier then the current time that would be north.
So its 8am, 10 would be South and 4 would be North.
I think it applies to both hemisphers, since the sun moves east to west everywhere on the plant.
Also, small bodies of water that don't stand for very long drain in acording to the shape of the container.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Which pretty much negates your point, doesn't it?
I have had the T720 since it was available, and I count the number of times it has done something wierd on ZERO fingers.
However, my brother (and the company I work for) has had nothing but trouble from the StarTac phones. They drop calls when you walk under a tree, antenna break off if you look at them funny, doesn't ring when someone calls you, yet informs you of a missed call, etc. etc.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I'm up to about 80% rechargeable usage now. (When you watch about 6 hrs. of TV/week, the remote lasts YEARS.)
Like Sterling's list. My area power company sells energy-efficient bulbs on their web site for about 1/2 price.
Most people just need to know what time it is where they are standing. All the bells and whistles are annoying and pretty much useless. They also cause a loss of reliability, the more complicated you make it, the more likely to break. Try and find something better than a 12.95 Timex(now about 21.95) that will last 6 to 8 years with no trouble. Just like an article earlier this week about the demise of simple cell phones. Lets add more crap, why? Because we can, it doesn't have to make sense. No one NEEDS to be that connected.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
How many people here have ever been subjected to a digital speedometer? They've only been put on a few cars in the past, and it seems that they're always eventually replaced with an analog dial. The reason of course, is that you can tell at a glance how fast you're going. With a digital readout, you have to actually read it.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
I knew one of these... she would print everything she liked and keep it in many folders. What was worse is it was all in color! No wonder IT departments have to keep sending out those "DO NOT PRINT PERSONAL..." emails all the time. I was guitly of the print-a-color-map for directions, now I have the PocketPC maps and that rocks.
Another thing that amazed me was working for a company where everyone had laptops and the meeting organizers still printed copies of the presentation for everyone... try email.
you totally miss the point.
How do you count 1 minute with an analog watch? You look where the second hand is now, and wait for it to come around again.
How do you count 1 minute with a digital watch? You look at the seconds value and wait for it to come around again.
IT'S THE SAME BLOODY THING!!!
25 years and still ticking. :-)
AlGore invented it too!
I've got one from Decware I started with the SE84C...SET amp. Great, but, you gotta have very efficient speakers...I think I'll bridge this, for my center channel, and go with the mixed SET/Push Pull amp hybrid thing they've come out with..the Torii....That should give me the sound and punch I need...I've lost a tad of hearing over the years listening to loud distored music in the past...
What tube gear do ya'll have?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
When even Intel themselves try to drive a stake through the heart of the 80x-friggin'-86, AMD has to extend this old 'n' moldy architecture to 64 bits and saddle us with that rusty old stinker for another couple of decades. Was it really all that great even when it was brand spankin' new? Geez, will you all just finally freakin' let go? Please?! Pleeezz!!!!! Augh!!!!!!
I thought mankind was descended from the B-Ark colonists -- you know, the hair dressers and telephone sanitizer salesmen. Where do apes come in to the picture?
In almost all the examples, the technology described has not been "surpassed" it's that some areas where it was once used, have had new innovations take it's place. The whole best tool for the job thing.
And just because it's newer, faster and smarter doesn't make it the better tool for the job. Despite how easy it is to use my magnetic tip power screwdriver to take out components from a computer case, it's much easier to use a manual screwdriver because it's thinner.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Rather than add even more new keywords to the language, C++98 put the can-optimize-for-various-parallelisms numerical arrays in the library. The std::valarray template is defined to be free of aliasing, so implementations are allowed to chew hell out of the numbers. (Many don't, yet.)
FORTRAN 200[03] then went and added even more weird and wonderful features. :-)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
... Analog watches dont need to be read, in fact, a quick glance at an analog clock provides us with a picture; which is processed into an understanding of the time much more quickly than a digital display which needs to be read and interpreted via the language centre of the brain.
:)
Of course, a person not "familiar" with an analog clock will take longer to read it, but with practice this time drops; time to read a digital clock remains fairly static and relates to a persons native reading speed and numerical literacy.
Of course, I could just be full of shit
err!
jak.
n/t
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I own the gold version of that watch, and i had the atainless version as well, most useful watch I've ever had, and it keeps dead on time. Don't let the battery die for more than a day tho, the stainless one froze up and refused to work as the internals don't like not to be under constant power.
A paper trail is harder for the other guys to get rid of.
There are 10 kinds of people: ones who understand ternary, ones who don't, and ones who think this joke is about binary
I have three watches. A Tissot (the sweet touch screen version, that I use because It is very handy to have an accurate compas and altimiter when hopelessly lost on a mountain...), a gold Rolex, and a swiss gold pocketwatch. I use the gold watch only when I need to look good (theater, dinner parties, etc.), and I use the pocketwatch whenever I wear a Tux. These two watches are nothing more than jewelry, something to add a little shnazz to my nerd physique... A watch should be comfotable, and accent the owners style, not just a soulless piece of functional machinery. (On a nerd note, I recently put my pocketwatch next to my schools giger counter... Yep, I got the original radioactive glow paint. Nothing seys sex appeal like a tumor...)
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
Just stupid. Diamonds aren't pretty. They are little rocks. There are hundreds of other pretty rocks that are much cheaper and prettier. Use diamonds only when you really need a really hard rock. Like grinding or drilling carbide.
While enterprise systems today have embraced clustered server strategies, mainframes still beat out these when it comes to handling thousands of simultaneous I/O connections at once. My 2 cents
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Dunno about anyone else, but IMHO toilet paper is for wipin' the water off your ass (the ads that market it as absorbent...)from the splashback of a straight down drop... If your using TP to clean the shit off your ass you need to do some groundskeepin back there or get some more fiber in your diet.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The problem with this article is that it has this idea that more tech = good. That's not the case. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. There's no reason for me to get rid of my 1.44 MB floppy when I need it to put a small file on it (as I needed to copy the linux-wlan-ng source a few days ago). There's no reason to get rid of mechanical watches for a similar reason: good watches are an example of brilliant engineering and craftsmanship. I have a self-winding Rolex that's "powered" by the movement of my wrist. No electricity needed. I don't need to wind it, I don't need to replace a battery. I just wear it, and it winds.
To put that in a geek context, that's excellent programming. It's the difference between clean code and Features Galore. Features Galore might be nifty, but simplicity is usually the Right Thing(TM).
I have discovered a truly marvelous
I bet I know why women prefer analog watches... because thier fathers wore them. This is another area where girls and guys are fundamentally different. Girls like guys who smell like barbecue, where the same cologne their dad did, an anonlog watch, have grey acents in thier hair, etc... But if a girl reminds a guy of his mother, the relationship'll never get really serious.
Nice! Now every "BSD is dead" post will have an obligatory anonymous "You bastards!" response.
The killer of all the digital equipment was always that it wasn't as easy to use as the cassette recorder: Start, Stop, Record, Rewind is all you need. Never has any company designing an electronic replacement managed to keep the interface that simple.
Presenting different content to Google than to random visitors is deceitful. They want the Google goodness of appearing to offer publically available content, but don't actually want to offer it. They're effectively lying to Google. If you don't want to offer content to non-subscriber's, that's fine. (I pay for two subscriber only online magazines that I respect. They play fair and their content either isn't indexed, or only the table of contents and summary pages are indexed.) But don't lie about the availability of content to Google. (I'm complaining now because this article features just such an example regarding Tech Review's use of this sleazy trick. My other pet peeve is IGN.)
Anyway, if you encounter this crap, step one is to report the site to Google. This is a case of "Page does not match Google's description" and "Cloaked page" and is clearly web spam.
Step two is to read the page anyway. Set your web browser's user agent "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)" and you're good to go. You may also need to disable JavaScript so you don't get redirected. Personally I just suck down the page with "wget --user-agent="Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html) http://www.example.com/".
Search 2010 Gen Con events
The Mars and Rolex "Perpetual Motion" watches are analog watches.
Most people here are discussing digital watches with analog faces. IANAWS, but on the inside is the same quartz crystal based timing system....
I also submit that if you buy a true analog watch, you do so for reasons beyond simply wanting to know what time it is, where you are, at a glance.FYI, when you use a quote that spans more than one paragraph, you should start each paragraph with a quote.
a "Mod parent up!" / /|\
a
a O
a
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I have noticed something surprising happening when I look at my analog watch.
I'm worried about a scheduled event, so I look at my watch and decide I have time, without even thinking about the number of minutes or the time. Then moments later, if I wonder what time it is, I have to look again because I never actually read the time as such. Sometimes I can recall an image of the position of the hands, but usually not.
This is why analog dials are so useful. I can look at my speedometer, and see my proximity to the speed limit instantaneously, and even estimate the rate of accel or decelleration.
Besides, you can use an analog watch as a rough compass, if you can see the direction of the sun. Point the hour hand at the sun, and South is midway between noon, (in the closest direction) and the hour hand. Substitute North for South above if you're in the southern hemisphere.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
Just try it, it doesn't work. Just looking at the numbers makes forget the pulse count.
HP was going to kill their calculator line, but last I heard they gave it a reprieve and are introducing some new models.
I'm sure your right but when you think about it I can walk into some dollar store and buy 100 cheapo watches for the same price. If each one of them were to only last 6 months that would be 50 years worth of watches, and you would get a brand new one 2 times a year.
Don't get me wrong thou, I would not be caught dead in one of those things.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
I've got a Harmon-Kardon 'Award Series' 400 integrated amp.
The biggest problem with it is that the phono preamp and the power amp are so low-noise that it's hard to judge how loud the volume is set. You can crank it all the way and there's no hiss or hum. But if you then set the tone-arm on the record, the incidental 'rumble' practially throws you across the room.
Good old solid-state 'hiss' noise- it's still with us except for the most expensive gear.
---
I must confess I don't have it any more.. a few years ago when I moved I gave it to a cousin of mine who is a bit of an audio-phile. It was a Leak TL/12
12 watt power amp & pre-amp. It was built in 1950 and probably is worth a lot - I just didn't have room for it and wanted it to stay in the family because it was my grandfathers. As far as I know it's still going. I must ask him some day!
*--BigMan--- Time flies like an arrow.. but personally I prefer a nice glass of wine!
No. Take a look at any bottom of the line Casio (for example my $10 F-28W). Surely you'll find it intuitive, and even elegant.
If you wanna bitch about something bitch about those gaudy fossil watches. Looks like your wearing a wonder woman bracer on your wrist.
all = call (hopefully that's obvous, but...!) :)
problem solved.
Apparently not if the people claiming that not having a flashy watch will significantly impact my chances of getting laid are correct.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Fact: You're a really weird guy
This article should be titled, "The ten things that people are still using despite significant pressure not to."
I work at a college, and see the same thing. We recently started giving all students Novell Netstorage accounts in the hopes they will save on there, but no, they still love their floppies. I've seen people come in with floppies broken in half that they have sat on wanting to know if we can recover it.
We do use a program called badcopy that has been pretty good about recovering damaged floppies.
I have blog like everyone else
Analog watches: I use analog watches exclusively, and it's not because they're easier to read, even though I grew up before digital watches were available. Analog watches are essentially fashion accessories, distinguished from other jewelry only in that they happen to tell time. (This is especially true if you're part of the crowd that buys expensive Rolexes and the like.) For myself, I just prefer a simple, inexpensive, and tasteful analog watch over an ugly black piece of plastic with a primitive multi-segment LCD display that looks like a refugee from the late 70's.
Dot-matrix printers: This is probably lost on folks who came of age after inkjet and laser took over, but I find it a lot easier to read code when it's not interrupted by arbitrary page breaks. I long ago got in the habit of printing out code modules on greenbar paper, marking them up with highlighters and ballpoint notations, and tacking them to the wall. The later 24-pin models are reasonably quiet, perfectly legible, fast, and cheap as hell to operate. Moreover, they last forever, too. I still have and use an Epson dot matrix from 1984, and it works as well as when it was new. And if you want to do multipart forms, you can't use anything else.
And while this wasn't on the list, I have to mention...
Analog film cameras: There are still a lot of things you can't do as well digitally, but even if that were not the case, that's missing the point. Photography is an activity, just like snowboarding or building hotrods. Even if digital was better across the board, a lot of people would still use film cameras, just as a lot of people kept painting after film arrived.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
...are debugged and optimised since 40 years. Yeah they are old but they do the work, as quick you can do it in your C, and my compiler are debugged, optimised, and the program are also debugged and optimised. 40 years long. Talk to me again in 20-30 years when your C program are as optimised and proved bug free and I might consider dumping the language. And this is also true for multi processor machine.
A final point : what matters is the hardware and technology it used on, behind the "language". language does not matter. I can freaking do it in BASIC, C, Fortran or cobol as long as the compiler do the fastest optimised code possible for the CPU. Language like fortran are after all abstract to make programmer communicate easier with machine thanwith direct language machine (hexa) or assembler. Higher language add wrapper of "easieness" of use, but there is *nothing* you can do in java/c you cannot do in other language. It is a translation device to make it easier for Man to use it. What matters is what generated by the compiler.
And this is essentially why a lot of people are not ready to give up on fortran especially in academic circle.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Insert obligatory BSD reference here
Ohhhh...the Parker Jotter is a classic! Major advances in ballpoint technology came with that pen (seriously). It had a textured tungsten ball, to allow better ink flow and writing. The cartridge rotates 90 degrees with each extension, to promote even wear (that's what the literature claimed--even had a demonstrator version to show it).
Parker has now come out with gel ink refills for the Jotter. Nice, because gel is less susceptible to check washing that most inks (certainly more than standard ballpoint ink). Have you given those a shot?
Ah, floppy benefits. Okay:
* 3.5" floppies have locking tabs. This is a pretty simple, physical way to ensure that you don't accidently erase something important. It would be easy to put this on USB drives (a switch might cost 5 cents more), but it isn't done. For CDs, this is already in place.
* Floppies are rewriteable. CDRs are not, and -RWs are still not in a particularly nice way. It's easy to just dump a file on a floppy. For USB drives, this is already in place.
* Floppies are truly universal. Unless you're dealing with a Mac, a machine *will* have a floppy drive. Network connectivity could be down, the thing might not have USB support (getting quite rare), but machines dating back *ages* have floppies.
* Floppies don't push media constraints much. If machine A can read a floppy, machine B probably can as well. I find that a CD burned by one drive may well not be readable by another.
* Floppies are cheap. CDs are cheap, but USB drives are not. I can just give someone a floppy with a document on it and not worry about it. The same is not true of USB drives.
* For troubleshooting, I may want to boot into some kind of emergency environment (say, Knoppix or Superrescue) on a CD. Many machines have only one CD drive, and using the emergency CD ties this drive up. If I also want somewhere to write data (IP address/network information etc), I need another device. Floppies work well, CDs don't (unless you have multiple CD drives). USB drives probably work.
* There are some devices with floppy output still in use -- older digital cameras being the biggie.
So, I guess what I want to say is that most things the floppy can do can be replicated by *either* the CD or the USB drive, but not by a single one. It has a pretty unique role.
That being said, I *very* rarely use my floppy drive. Next time I put together a computer, I could save $5 by leaving it out -- but the benefit of having it it, the knowledge that there's a pretty solid universal interchange device in there is just worth the $5 to me.
May we never see th
The sweep-hand watch may be outdated, but I've used it numerous times for middle school science and math students as an everyday example for understanding the concept of periodicity. Sure, a digital watch displays periodicity, but not to the same extent as a sweeping second hand that shows the same repeated action over and over.
There he is complaining about DOT printers and yet we purchased 40+ thermals just last year.
What it comes down to is we have an article full of ignorance of the application of many of these items. Just because he doesn't need them or work in an industry that can use many of them they suddenly become obsolete.
It is like the egos of pc-server people who always claimed they could supplant the mainframe. Sure, in certain low impact areas it was fine. Put someone's job on the line and a lot of peoples money and you go with something that is guaranteed to work.
As for the printers. Dots and Thermals are great in warehouse settings. Rugged lasers and such are very expensive. Changing cartridges is not something you can trust most warehouse people do either.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Use a non-broken OS.
I first got hooked on analog watches when I took a vacation to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I visited the National Watch and Clock Museum in Columbia Pennsylvania. Looking at the detailed construction of American pocket watches from the late 1800's and early 1900's facinated me. THESE are real time pieces, with hard steel gears meshing with softer brass gears, mounted on pinions that are encased by jewels. The balance has tiny screw weights to make the balance "balanced". Most of the gold-plated cases were warrented for 20 or 25 years! These devices were designed to last your lifetime, not designed with built-in obsolescence like today's products. More importantly, they were built by real people with TALANT in engineering, metallurgy, and art. Many of the the movements had very decorative Damaskeening engraved on the plate nickel and stainless steel bridges. Waltam competed fiercely with Damaskeening.
To date, I have several American pocket watches, the oldest made in 1886 and the newest made in 1912. I even managed to find a 17 jewel Waltam Appleton Tracy Railroad pocket watch at an auction for $58 back in 1992. It needed some work, so I took it to a certified master watchmaker to replace the main spring, cleaned it using ultrasonic waves, and lubricated everything again. THIS WATCH KEEPS PERFECT TIME, and it's almost 100 years old!
Now I wear an Orient (subsidiary of Seiko) that has an automatic winding mechanism, has a second hand sweep, tells the day and the date, has a 21-jewel movement, is water resistant to 50 meters, is made of all stainless steel construction, and it only cost me $40 (you have to know where to get them at low cost). I wear THIS watch because I work around NMR instruments ALL DAY and it is unaffected by the superconducting magnets and the 10 Gauss magnetic field. The only thing "wrong" with the watch is that it gains 5 minutes every two weeks, otherwise, I'm VERY happy with THIS cheapo analog watch.
ALL YOUR TIME ARE BELONG TO THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM.
With Intel apparently backing off of Itanium a bit and AMD taking the 64-bit x86 platform more mainstream, it appears this wizened, over-stretched invention will stick around for many years to come. It needs to die. I don't know if the VLIW approach of Intel--which makes life harder on compiler writers--is the solution, but an ancient CISC architecture sure as hell ain't it.
With a digital seconds readout, you end up using the "number" part of your brain for both tasks, and you get screwed up.
We used digital stopwatches when I was in high school, iirc. It's actually not that hard, you don't look for the *number* of the time you'll stop at, you look for the *picture*. Using analog just makes it harder to convert the picture into a number. (which is counterproductive in most other situations)
is display the time and context as elegantly and intuitively as an analog model I don't believe that. Children have to LEARN to read analog watches, not digital ones.
I've been fucking my mom for years, you insensitive clod!
Somewhat OT, but it is interesting that you bring up Casinos not having clocks. It seems from my experience that indeed they do not, and I wonder if this is based on some concept that "if they don't see the time, they won't think how long they've been here losing money."
Department stores... same idea I suppose too. Anyone got a take on this?
This technolgy is used for about decades. Nobody use it anymore. But every new PC has one. But Why ?
Some technologies dont need to die because they're at their pinnacle.
not much more you can do with a watch than put a buncha crap that interferes with you needing to tell time, analog looks more stylish, digital watches remind me of a child's watch, before they learn analog.
it's like with cell phones, while it's neat that it has a buncha new stuff on it, it isnt really that much of a useful advancement in technology. I just want to use the phone, not play games and stuff, some of the only usefull addons are address books, email, and speed dial. (which has been around for ages) otherwise... most of the other features, such as voice recording, cameras, games, ringtones, etc are useless and often annoying. I dont want to hear some pop song in 8 bit or in polyphonic tones.. bad enough the music sucks.
basically, any technology that can do its job efficiently and is still useful, will never die, people just like newer things, it's like tv's...
"GET THIS NEW SONY 476ZSDSX! now your screen can be one pixel larger than before! now with tons of useless features you'll surely never use!"
computers are one thing (though never truly obsolete, unless it's an apple II or ENIAC)
but with most technologies we have, they've hit their pinnacle and there's really not much to improve on to necessarily make them better, if they want to make phones better, they should make the sound quality better.
Transistors sound very good on even notes, but absolutely horrible on odd notes. Vacuum tibes still sound great on both.
With all the old and new technology available to today's guitarists, both transistors and vacuum tubes, the wah-wah and having a synth play a certain note when you play one, to pickups with electronic features, you'd think every guitarist today would have a sound as unique as Jimi Hendrix. Yet the opposite is true. Too bad Hendrix died so young; if he'd lived long enough he could have shown us all what could be done with all this stuff instead of most musicians all sounding like they're in the same band.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
Why in the world would you ever want to date a woman who chooses people based on the fucking watch they wear?
Because I'm choosing her on the basis the size of her tits.
They forgot paper. Remember visions of a paperless office? We're now using paper far more than ever before.
Of course, no technology can ever truly die -- we still use fire and plows, after all. Still, I think if you compare the sales of manual typewriters (~500k/year, according to the article) with the sales of computers, I think you can pretty much pronounce them "mostly dead".
>|<*:=
Also of note is the reason why we still have a dot-matrix at work: It can print pages/reports on longer paper than a standard laser (and most inkjets). We have some old software (DOS) that hasn't been replaced yet (oh please *DEITY* somebody replace it soon) that requires the dot-matrix simply because there are no functions to change between printing landscape/portrait mode on the captured port for a laser (and besides, this big momma of a dot matrix is still longer than a laser page either way, even against A4)
Ask any nurse if taking a pulse is easier with a analog or digital watch. Try it sometime. It can be done, but takes quite a bit more mental power. I think that it has to do with the part of your brain that you are using to count pulses. I would bet that it is same the part that you use to read a digital watch. Where reading an analog watch apparently takes a different part of your brain.
The schools don't upgrade because they can't afford to. It's not because it's better or for nostalgia purposes but because M$ is a money grubbing whore. Schools always wanna be leading tech when it comes to technologies that prepare the kids for a real world job (think IT & vo-tech type jobs). It's bragging rights pure and simple and unfortunately most schools can't afford to brag. BELIEVE ME we all want win95 & NT4 to die. Blame M$ just like we always do :D
is tell the time! At my current location.
I could care less what the temp is on my wrist. Nor what the time is in Japan. Not only that but most digital watches are fugly, and frankly my watch is as much a piece of jewelry as it is a time telling device. Anyhow, I like the old Unix maxim: do one thing, do it well. And for telling time, a well-crafted analog watch does just that.
- I love animals. I try to eat at least one a day.
With a digital clock you have to read the number do the math and then figure out what the resulting number means. That's too much work if your real attention is on something else.
With an analog clock you just note the distance. As that distance gets smaller, so does your time left.. simple as that.
If I have to wake up at a specific time without (or ahead of) an alarm clock, I'll look at the time, convert to analog if necessary (I have a digital watch) and imagine the movement that has to occur between now and when I have to wake up... then I'll go to sleep and wake up at the apointed time.
Dunno why it works. I read it in a (fiction) book once, and tried it. It worked, so I kept it in my bag of tricks.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
What about floppy disks? I'd be happy if I never had to mess with slow, low-density, prone to failure magnetic POS again.
- I love animals. I try to eat at least one a day.
THESE are real time pieces, with hard steel gears meshing with softer brass gears, mounted on pinions that are encased by jewels.
You got something against Cesium atoms? Those are real time pieces, too.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Edison's incandescent light bulb has changed little if any since it's invention in 1879 (Yes, Sir Joseph Swan beat Edison to the punch in 1878). In fact, a light bulb from the 1880's would glow if screwed into one of our "modern" sockets, which also haven't changed. Now, that's a technology that refuses to die.
Yes, but what about one fails at the worst possible time? Are you going to carry two watches around with you whenever you're on call?
"Just try it, it doesn't work."
I jusd did. It worked.
BUT: I have a watch with both an analog and digital reading and I always use analog because it is a good amount easier.
Some years ago they came out with screw-socket fluourescents. They lasted longer per purchase dollar and cost less to use than light bulbs. But except for installations where changing lots of bulbs constantly was labor cost prohibitive, they never caught on.
SciAm ran an article about them some years back. A focus group was formed to find out why. My favorite quote of one of the participants was "This solves a problem I don't have". Now if only more people could think this way when confronted with incremental obselescence.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Actually it isn't. They use separate parts of the brain. Watching for the same time again from the digital clock engages the part of your brain that thinks about numbers, a part that's already used for counting pulse beats. Watching for the second hand to return to the same place engages the part of your brain that deals with spatial relationships.
I'm not saying it can't be done; I just did both with the same results. BUT, I did find the analog reading a good amount easier.
LOL! That is one of the funniest things I've read on /. I never thought of it that way. I will never be able to look at TP packages the same way again.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If there's an emergency, I can always count on a $5 pack of floppies to save my ass.
What kind of emergency are you talking about? I hope not a flood, for instance. A $5 pack of floppies couldn't float your cat, let alone your heavy ass.
In Victoria (the state of Australia where I live), they recently passed a law that says pokie venues have to be smoke-free. Funnily enough, pokie turnover dropped quite a lot, because the gambling addicts were all heavy smokers as well, and making them go outside and stop for a minute was a great circuit-breaker...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Realtors (Home finding/selling humanoid technology) Movie Rental Business (Brick and mortar humoind with low IQ technology) NewsPapers (paper waster technology)
11) Windows 95/98
Declared dangerous and obsolete by Microsoft, the largest software company in the world, Windows 95 and its late cousin Windows 98 still dominate the personal computer landscape. Many users who swear at Windows, no matter what version, still prefer to have the same bag of problems, rather than a whole set of new ones. "Besides", says Joe Schmoe, a Windows 95 afficionado "since I upgraded my computer to a new Pentium 4, my new machine boots in a 1/10 of a second, compared to newer versions of Windows that take longer". Although the staple of Microsoft's profit machine will continue to chime in with a new must-have version every couple of years, with attempts to shoot the kneecaps out of previous versions, Windows 9x is bound to stay online for many years to come
Ruby on Rails Screencast
OK, we've got various high-tech frame materials, clipless pedals, gel-cushion seats, and digital computers.
But most of us are still using century-old drive chain and derailleur shifting technology. Because it's still the most reliable and effective system, I suppose.
And his top 10 list proves it again.
Self appointed saviour and savant.
And he actually expects to be taken seriously.
whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
I prefer analog, that is if I wore a watch.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
It's like the difference between 1.853metres and THIS tall. Unless you're in a (rare) situation where that last 3mm makes a difference, then this tall will probably do a better job of getting across just how tall that blonde you just missed was.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Doesn't do much but tell time and work. No winding, big clear easy to read display, accurate to the second and still on the 1st battery after 3 years. It's easily the best, most reliable watch I've ever owned.
I have an expensive analog "dress" watch that sits at the back of my sock drawer ignored and unused because it's too much hassle.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I once took a short coure on heurology (sp) I was told my the course trainer that digital watches were popular only as a fad. He said the only thing that technology had done for modern analog watches was the power, instead of winding a spring most modern analog watches use a battery to provide power, other than that little has changed in decades. An example I think of 'they got it right first time'
How about the bicycle? Sure, they get lighter and are equipped with fancier doo-dads all the time, but the basic has remained the same for a century. No other human powered vehicle has come along to challenge it (skateboards and scooters sell but nothing like bicycle numbers)
A human on a bicycle is at least 100 times more efficient than a human walking or running. There are more efficient animals than humans, but few if the human is on a bicycle going about 8mph.
I think it's possible that a human on a good longboard skateboard with large, soft wheels may be even more efficient assuming smooth pavement (though he's not seated so maybe not) but a bicycle is obviously able to handle a wider variety of terrain.
When a woman asks a man for the time, she's really testing his sense of taste and classiness.
You don't say? When I ask a man for the time I want to know what time it is. Does that make me a man?...
*checks in pants*
... nope, no dick in there.
Analogue watches are better because they display time as a vector, not a scalar. That digital watches are ugly is just a coincedence, not the real reason they suck.
DVD burners will be commonplace and cheep by x-mas 2004. (ie less than $150 for the recorder, media cheaper than blank VHS tapes)
Another thing a nice analog watch gives a user that a digital watch does not.
Time perspective. You use an analog watch you get a feeling for "how long away" a certain time is. When you use a digital watch you only know exactly what time is currently is, it does not give you a relation to time. This is the primary reason why digital speedometer displays in cars did not work well with people. Current speedos are still digitally signalled in most cars however they display in a nice analog fashion.
How the hell do you compare a digital watch to an analoug watch. 1. an analoug watch is over a 100's of years old and has stood the test of time. the digital watch is only say 20 years old. 2. a cell ph has the same if not more functions and you dont need that much shit doing the same stuff 3. a anagloug watch has a much more elegant look to it.
Amazing the functions that those Japanese cram onto watches these days.
> Digital-watch wearers can check temperature, altitude, and the time in Tokyo
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Modern Mac has the old ROM stored on disk, Openfirmware, OS X, (S)ATA, CD/DVD-RW, USB, Firewire, PCI, AGP, RJ-45, Ethernet, DVI, PowerPC... note that the Mac has grown more in the direction of the PC than vice versa
I do not know Macs, so I may have missed something, but which of these started with the Wintel PC?
ROM/Open firmware - The news is that Wintels may do this soon, but I have yet to see motherboard without ROM BIOS.
OS X - Unix, not Wintel
SATA - From the harddrive manufacturers. The implementation for Wintel has the BIOS must faking one of the standard IDE positions so that MSWindows thinks it is running from "C:". This reduces the number of drives that can be used in a dual IDE/SATA PC, and encourages the consumer to find an OS that can fully use the hardware. This could not have been planned by MS.
CD/DVD-RW - Consumer technology coopted by the computer world.
USB - The Wintel answer to Firewire.
Firewire - Apple. It is so much an Apple technology that Intel refuses to incorporate it into their motherboards.
PCI, AGP - Hardware manufacturers, but they are the standards for Wintel. Be thankful that Apple has decided to follow the "standards" for commodity hardware.
RJ-45, Ethernet - Ethernet came from the mainframe/Unix world. It barely touched the Wintel world until the late 80s. The RJ45 plug was a quick prototype that accidentally made it into production. The engineers are still kicking themselves for designing a plug that is designed to catch on EVERYTHING.
DVI - I do not know who started this.
PowerPC - IBM. Was it first designed for Apple or Microsoft? Does anybody other than Apple and IBM use it?
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
... punishable by large fines or imprisonment or both. Because Crate amps are CRAP.
Despite all the advances in in technology and manufacturing, old musical gear still reigns supreme in many areas. A vintage Neumann U47 mic (like the Beatles used) fetches a tidy sum and sounds better than most anything made these days. They don't make the exact replacement vacuum tube for it anymore, but there are close substitutes.
And speaking of tubes - the rich nonlinear sound of a tube amplifier hasn't yet been replaced by a more modern equivalent, especially for electric guitar. I think one of the articles mentioned vacuum tubes.
Piano, horns, guitar - most all acoustic instruments have nice sounding synthesized sampled versions that can be had at a fraction of the cost. These can be played from your computer or a keyboard. Yet the physical instruments, as expensive and potentially out of tune as they are, will probably always be preferred because of their human interface. Similarly, drum machines, which do not show up late or steal your girlfriend, are not replacing human drummers playing acoustic drums, except in 80's music and certain "techo" genres.
"In the early 1980s, at the dawn of the PC age, high-volume electronic storage and transmission--360-kilobyte floppy disks! 14-kilobit-per-second modems!"
I've been robbed.. Why is it I stumbled through the 80's with 300bps, 1200bps, and 2400bps(end of the decade) modems when they had 14Kbps modems available in the early 80's.. My 1200 baud modem was a $700 modem in 1988!!
I'm a west coast guy, it's late in the day, so nobody will read this anyway, but...
I've read all of the analog vs. digital debate. It's great to see such spirited debate over these simple devices.
This is the way I see it:
So here is my takeaway:
For what it's worth...
Part I
So three guys are out hunting one December morning. About an hour after eggs, bacon and hot coffee, one says to the other two "Damn I gotta sh*t, where's the toilet paper?". After searching in vain they realize he's sh!t outta luck - the TP was left at home. The only foliage to speak of is pine needles and cones and no one is willing to sacrafice a garment for the dirty deed. Then one of them has a bright idea(!) -"Hey, I know just use a dollar!".
The hunter quickly headed for the nearest private spot, and in a few minutes he returned - covered in sh^t all over his hand and arm.
"What happened!?" - the other two hunters exclaimed - "Did you run into trouble? We thought you were going to use the dollar?"
"I did, but it wasn't as easy as you might think." - he said.
"Why not?" - they asked in unison.
"Well" - he started, "have you ever tried wiping your ass with three quarters, two dimes and a nickle???"
Part II
A bear and a bunny are in the woods taking a shit in the same thicket. The bear says to the bunny - "Do you ever have a problem with sh|t sticking to your fur?"
"Why no, I don't, at least not that I'm aware of." - says the bunny.
At that point the bear picks up the bunny and neatly wipes his ass.
Stuff that matters.
I once hit the gas pedal until the speedometer was pointing to 'H'. Heh...
You don't need numbers to tell time on an analog watch, which is the point.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Another factor that most people aren't aware of is the speeding issue.
It's easy to fudge your speed a bit with an analog speedometer. You can't easily tell EXACTLY how fast you're going (unless your eyes leave the road for a dangerously long period of time), so most people feel very comfortable letting their speed creep up a bit. 2 over, 5 over, *shrug* it's close enough. And the secret thrill if getting somewhere a tiny bit faster is always a plus.
Digital speedos tell you instantly, and exactly, how fast you're going. Short of cruise control, most people don't drive at the same speed very consistently, and you really notice this with a digital speedo. It makes people uncomfortable to know their exact speed. It's also a lot harder to tell the cop that you think you were only going "a few over" when you know damn well you saw 65 on the dash.
Of course, to people that regularly go 20 over the limit, it's a moot point.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
My iBook is back for the third warranty repair. It may refuse to die, but I may have to let it after the warranty is up.
Whats wrong with all the items in the list? So that means any and all work of art should go too, right? I mean, they are all OBSOLETE!! An oversized naked guy? (Michaelangelo's David) A dumb looking woman looking at you? (Da Vinci's Mona Lisa) What about that old old old and "obsolete" London Bridge? Don't even get me started on the Eiffel tower!!! There are people like me that actually LIKE "Obsolete" stuff. Case closed. (Ever seen a "Low-fi" movie? They rule.) Dr C
Sorry, but analog watches are not the greatest. I have a beloved Seiko digital watch that needs to be replaced, but I can't find a suitable replacement. Have you even looked for a decent digital watch? I can't find one! Most watches now are analog dial retro crapola. I used the watch's digital storage capability to store my many different passwords for mainframe systems and program access.
I don't wear jewelry, contrary to clueless claims of previous posters that that is why men wear watches. And I don't have and don't want a cell phone (so no clock function). (I have an amateur radio license so can use a REAL radio to communicate with no per minute charges.) And, yes, I can make phone calls (autopatch) with the radio.
I bet you think calculators are the pinnicle of computational excellence (excluding full blown computers). Actually, slide rules are far easier to use when evalulating ratios and proportions. Quick and easy to read a fraction from the slide rule compared to reading a decimal calculator result.
And for the truely clueless...this is not a troll!
Heisenberg may have been here.
"And you needn't worry about your system going obsolete if it already is."
Actually, this is a major problem for typewriter owners. Replacing the "wheel" (for electric typewriters that use that system) can be near impossible these days and the replacements are often shoddy and break. Finding ink tape compatible with your typewriter is also quite difficult and possibly rather expensive, depending on the obscurity of your model. While mechanical typewriters tend to be sturdy workhouses, I'd shudder to think about having to get an electric one fixed, especially if it turned out to be a model not favored by businesses. (Some businesses still make use of electronic typewriters; others have switched to laser printing on forms.)
I worked as a paramedic (sort of) for one year and never got problems using a digital watch when counting someone's pulse. When you start counting at second 33 you simply stop at second 33, there is no need to count the seconds. The same it goes with fractals of a minute, before you start to count you wait for the next even number, say second 40, and measure when to stop, as for 40 it would be 55 when counting the quarter of a minute. Since when is arithmetics such a big deal?
You mispelled gaudy.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
minty fresh!
Some things in life aren't about pure functionality. I'm a mechanical watch hobbiest, and I get the asked "why" a lot. I have a longer explanation on my webpage if you would like a more poetic answer.
Part of the appreciation of a fine mechanical timepiece is purely artistic. If you've ever seen the inside of a Patek Philippe watch, you might understand the appeal. Or you might not. Art is funny that way.
Some of the appeal comes from the marvel of mechanical automations. Ever take a look at how an automatic transmission works? It's pretty fascinating. The same applies to mechanical watches. It's quite wonderful to understand how a swiss lever escapement keeps accurate time.
There's also the sentimental value. I have a nice mechanical that I received as a graduation present. One day, I hope it will be a graduation gift for my children, and the beginning of a new tradition.
If you can't find any value in art and sentiment, well, it may comfort you to know that some of them can be considered an investment. Over the last year, I've had some watches appreciate in value. I believe this trend will continue.
But I am certain that in 10 years, your timex will still be worthless.
--
#include <malloc.h>
free(your.mind);
i got an ImageWriter II in...1987? with an apple IIGS, that printer is still alive and kicking. it's built like a tank (fell off a 6' cabinet more times than i can count) and will print on ANYTHING. like..i cut up a BROWN PAPER BAG from the store once, because I only had enough fanfold holey-edge paper for my final draft. Is there an OS X driver for this sucker? my i560 is a great laserjet, but sometimes...
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
It really all depends on what you grew up with, and where. Analog more closely represents the "real world". The earth spins, and the shadow of your sundial spins around with it. It's cyclic as well, showing the whole period of sweep for 12 hours.
Digital watches always scream the same time: It's always NOW. NOW, NOW, NOW. There is no sense of future or past inherent in the digital watch. For people who grew up in a time when past events and future possibilities were important enough to receive attention whenever consulting the current time, the digital watch is lacking.
Finally, as an oceangoing navigator, there is something very basic about the analog chronometer that is completely lacking with those little LCD's. 12 Goes into 360 just fine, which can be handy when thinking in terms of time being relative to a circle on the globe. It just isn't as apparent on the digital watch. There are a bunch of short-cuts when figuring out position that just isn't suited for digital. Also, a wind-up chronometer is somewhat less likely to suffer EMP from close lightning.
The hands on a analog watch are simply pointers to integers. Seems natural to me.
Here's the non-Australian version of the same article.
- Murphy's Corollary: - It is impossible to make things foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
I have my grandfather's Rolex on now, i keep it to within about .5 sec of my computer time, which is autosync'd to the NIST clock, corrected for longitude and network lag. It's a workable solution - I don't think the watch can be set that accurately. Anyway, why do you need to know the time (on your wrist) to the s?
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Liner Algebra PACKage - "...written in Fortran77 and provides routines for solving systems of simultaneous linear equations, least-squares solutions of linear systems of equations, eigenvalue problems, and singular value problems. The associated matrix factorizations (LU, Cholesky, QR, SVD, Schur, generalized Schur) are also provided, as are related computations such as reordering of the Schur factorizations and estimating condition numbers. Dense and banded matrices are handled, but not general sparse matrices. In all areas, similar functionality is provided for real and complex matrices, in both single and double precision."
It's the de facto standard for any kind of computational science - i'd go so far as to say this is the Rock on which all computerized quantum calculations are built on. At least, mpqc and Gaussian both need it...and are written in Fortran IIRC...
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
I currently have two watches, both are analog. When I look at my watch, I don't have to read the digits, or run through my head what "4:32" actually means, because it is second nature to look at an analog watch and simply realize "half-past four". Simple, effective, and fast. One of my watches I got about 4 years ago. The band has worn out (and been repaired), and I wear it on a clip at my waist. Not only does it work, but it has character and personal value, because it has been built to last. Most digital watches ar enot built like that, instead they are multipurpose gadgets designed to be used and then replaced. My new watch is the midas remote control watch from Thinkgeek, and I will admit that I still like my other watch better. Despite the remote being occassionally handy, and always fun to have, it still does not convey the simple happiness that of a rugged, well-working piece of machinery. All of this is why some old technologies will always be around, because they do their job, do it well, and last forever.
So a vast number of tried-and-true Fortran 77 programs jibe with the current Fortran 90. Microsoft, take note.
What the hell is that supposed to mean? Some random journalist just wanted to take a free shot at Microsoft, I guess - doesn't make any bloody sense, though.
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19980603
'Nuff said *shivers*
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Exactly. I race... I just cannot get into the Tack Tick. There's something about the fluid compass, the motion corresponding with the boat, and the quick and easy ability to figure out tacks and course changes.
I also race cars sometimes... there's a reason analog instruments are preferred. A *very* quick glance down instantly tells you what you need to know, almost without taking your eyes off the track. A pressure driven analog oil gauge can tell you information about the condition of your engine from the motion of the needle, something you wouldn't get from a digital instrument.
There are lots of times that analog is superior.
Larry
Who listens to what Bruce Sterling says anymore anyway?
We've had this television system here in the US for over 50 years. Even with all of it's problems, it still works pretty well. Our main production switcher is an Ampex AVC Century who's innards date back to the mid `80's, when dot-matrix printers were all the rage. We still have U-Matic tape decks to play back archive tapes. That format came about in 1971. (Also Betacam 1981 and 1-inch Type-C 1977) You want to see vintage technology? Just walk into an average TV station. :)
It's mandatory to wash your hands before returning to the land of Dairy Queen.
Compass and straightedge?
Calling atheism and agnosticism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.
I've used a digital watch all my childhood, and because of that it takes me much longer to read an analog watch than a digital watch. You say with an analog watch you get a better feeling about time intervals, well for me it's the other way around.
Since 2 years ago I also have a car with a digital speedometer, and I can read it very fast. It is, however, more difficult to see whether I'm driving a constant speed or I'm slowing down or accelerating a bit. It's largely because the update frequency of the display is quite slow, because my parent's car also has a digital speedometer with more frequent updates and there it's easier to see acceleration. I admit though that an analog display is easier for observing acceleration.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
Turntables were mentioned briefly in the article, but I think they deserve a spot on the top 10. For live DJ events there is no replacement, though manufacturers have been trying for over a decade. You have quick seek access to the entire song by picking up the needle and moving it left or right, and fine-grain control of position by rotating the vinyl by hand, as well as quick start and stop (with direct drive tables), speed control, sometimes reverse playback, and analog sound (critical if you are a hip hop DJ or turntablist for scratching). There's a lot of downsides; the vinyl is fairly fragile, susceptible to dust and scratches and is worn slightly every time you play it, the stylus can easily break, vibrations can cause the needle to jump, the motor can burn out, etc. Even with all the negative elements of this aging technology it's still the only way to go.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned it already.
The phonograph is a technology that will never die and it plays songs so much better than any of those new-fangled 45's
Both are good. Thats why I only have analog watches that ALSO have a digital display. I get all the multi time zone, timer, yada yada features and the more intuitive interface of the analog face. It can't be beat.
I made a format for a page of labels, chose any label still available, type away and print.
A 2 minute process.
I save myself a bit more time by printing one or two pages of labels of frequently used addresses.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The apes are the colonists who successfully adapted to life on earth without civilisation. The hair dressers survived by cutting the apes hair. I don't know how the salesmen survived but I guess the economy was based somehow on the hairdressers.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
... is not a generalized human trait.
And most digital watches have a feature to count down and then sound an alarm, which seems perfect to fully coincentrate in those pulses while stopping looking at the watch.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Probably already said somewhere but is essence an
analog clock (well the mechanic ones of course) which flips between two stages is digital. And a digital clock, which often uses a harmonic oscillator (crystal), is analog.
Not that this great info adds anything to the discussion.
.... onw would think that you can set it by default to 60 seconds.
I am a qualified first aid person and the watch type does not even come into the pciture when taking the pulse of somebody, that is some kind of oddity that they are obviously teaching in schools (which is unsurprising since schools are conservative places where the obvious advantages of newer technology take some time to filter down).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... they themselves mention that you don't need the analog watch, which can be replaced by a drawing with the time infered from your trusty, vastly superior, digital watch.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
1.- How hard is to press one button?
2.- What is very cold? Why it should be harder to read?
3.- Change your store, they are obviously lousy.
4.- If you are unfortunate that your 2 or 3 year long lasting battery dies at you in Timbuctu, then go to the local market and buy a cheapo digital watch. Oh wait, they may have the battery there!
5.- Yeah, and lets hope you don't need any accuracy.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
'been reading Freud too much??
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
Analog watches prevail because the user interface is better
Surely you may have som UI studies to back that one up?
Of course not, you prefer it and that is fine, but do not claim things that are patently unproven.
Just at looking which kind of watch is sold the most I think the market has spoken, analog watches have found their last refuge in the uppermarket where snobbery is the only obviuous reason people choose to still buy them.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Definition of analog: "Of, relating to, or being a device in which data are represented by continuously variable, measurable, physical quantities, such as length, width, voltage, or pressure."
I submit that just because a watch has moving hands does not make it analog. Many moving-hand type watches keep time by using quartz crystals. Guess what? They count the number of vibrations of the crystal and tick one second every 32768 oscillations. Since they count, they are, by definition, digital.
True analog watches are ones that you usually wind up every day, the ones that have springs and weights inside to oscillate naturally every second, without any circuits to count the number of oscillations.
It is (at least) theoretically possible to hook up an LCD to a spring-weight mechanism; that would still be analog. But anything with quartz crystals and 15 half-adder circuits must necessarily be digital.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
I do this all the time so I do know it works. Watching for a comparison match (which can be any visual cue) doesn't make me lose count.
What tube gear do ya'll have?
Boss GT-3.
Only women need tubes.
Like what I said? You might like my music
Piano synthesizers are absolute CRAP! You try belting a Rachmaninoff prelude or a Beethoven sonata, or goodness some Chopin or Liszt out of a Steinway model D or enjoying the smoothness of something new or different (Petrof, Shigeru Kawai, Overs, there are beautiful instruments out there!) and then sit down at a "Roland digital grand" which has the same interface and claims to be a real instrument and tell me it's as good. It's not a piano unless hammers hit strings and it needs a whole soundboard to resonate it properly. And if you think you can do this synthetically, well many have failed before you.
It is worth noting that in a concert instrument we would not amplify the sound at all with microphones and speakers. If a 7-foot-6 semi-concert grand isn't big enough (they go from large loungeroom to 500-seater theatre) then you upsize to a 14-footer.
Also note that rather than trying to find the right samples, a tuner/technician can actually change the nuances of the instrument depending on the music to be played (timbre, tone, tune, it all counts) and that with over 7000 moving parts in your average action, thinking you can copy it cheaply even with a variety of samples just isn't going to work very well.
Pianos are one instrument and keyboard synthesizers are another.
I immediately thought "tungsten light bulbs", when I read the title of the article, but didn't see it mentioned. A glowing wire to produce light is ancient technology, and about as efficient with its energy as using a truck to do your daily shopping. Modern gas discharge lamps produce the same amount of light at 1/7th of the power, last 6 times longer, and even produce the same 'cosy' type of light nowadays... Ok, tungsten light bulbs can be made really small, and are cheaper, but still... For general use, I don't really understand why the 'saving light bulbs' haven't caught on as much as I'd espect.
Would that be the "blue time of day" (BTOD)?
Id be interesting to see a list over (basically good) technologies that some people say are dead - and som say theyre not.
- How bout the good ol Amiga?
- What about it?
- Is it dead?
- Noooo... there is something happening I think...
- Is it alive?
- Not really...
Certainly.
But try transfering data between a modern machine, and a (unnetworked) 14-15 y.o. machine without USB?
.
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
An analog speedometer works like this:
On the tailshaft in your transmission there is a gear. There is a meshing gear in the speedo sending unit. This gear is turned by the tailshaft on the transmission, obviously, and causes the cable to turn. The cable, inside your speedo gauge, is headed by another gear, which goes through a series of gears that results in placing the needle on the gauge (and advancing the odometer).
The "series of gears" might apply for the odometer, but I don't think they are necessary for the actual speedometer.
The last time I checked, the cable drives a small rotating magnet which is in close proximity to a metal disk that is attached to the needle's axle. The rotating magnet thus induces currents in the disk which in turn eventually results in a torque being applied to the axle. A spring resists the free rotation of the needle giving a reading which is proportional to the speed.
It's not real-time at all, and is usually 1-2 seconds off. So it's not "instant information" as you put it, it's actually old information by the time you see it.
There may be a lag of a second but that'll surely be just for filtering purposes so that the displayed reading is steady. In a sense, the same thing MUST happen with the analog speedo. There needs to be some damping in that too or else it'd oscillate up and down - in fact you can see it occur with old speedos which, presumably, are worn out.
"We use vacuum tubes because they sound good," says Victor Tiscareno, a trained violinist and vice president of engineering at Red Rose Music, a maker of high-end home audio systems. Low-distortion, solid-state-transistor sound "looks lovely on an oscilloscope," he explains. "But what we measure and what we hear aren't the same. Vacuum tubes just sound more human, more lifelike.
If on an oscilloscope or spectrum analyzer you can't see distortion -- and clipping would be the _very_ visble -- it's because it doesn't exist.
Basically this claim that there's something magical about tubes that you can't measure or see with any tool, is just the saddest case of "the emperor's new clothes." Claim that something can be seen or heard only by the truly gifted (in this case, audiophiles), and enough idiots will start convincing themselves that they're seeing/hearing it too. Just to seem gifted too.
If you believe in that, might as well start believing in Bigfoot too. Noone's seen them or been able to photograph them, but they're there. Just trust me that it's there. See the analogy with the whole tubes issue yet?
That said, I wish I knew which marketing guy started the whole scam, elevating an inferior technology to fashion status over night. That one was a genius. I sincerely hope he/she was handomely rewarded, seein' as decades later there's still a sucker that falls for it every minute.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
you can make multiple copies on a laser printer. You just have to line up the micro inked sides the right way.
Interesting that they mention watches and "analog" technologies.
Remember when some auto manufacturers put digital gauges in autos? Some in racecars?
They were a disaster and were quickly removed. The reason it turns out is that we have built in proximity and size analysis functions in our brain that allow us to gauge relative quantities of size, position and speed extremely fast. A survival mechanism as in the real world with predators - size speed and proximity do matter. It is also useful to gauge the approximate time of day so you know how long you have to bag that beast for dinner before the night comes down on you.
So we look at an oil pressure gauge and our brain can classify it as a threat/non-threat based on it's position and relative "size". We glance at our watch and make an instant analysis of where we stand in the day.
A neat trick - next time someone looks at their watch (analog) immediately ask them what time it is - they will have to look again because they didn't actually read it - they simply gauged the positon of the hands to get an approximate indication of time. This is why digital gauges were removed from autos - it is dangerous and time-consuming to have to actually take your eyes from the road to actually read the gauge which is necessary to extract the information. Seems sensible to use inherently superior faculties rather that moan about how they don't fit into hi-tech. Now when they get Gibsons' "Microsofts" for a direct data feed maybe we can move along...
Regards,
BubbaJon
Let me add #11 to the list.
The U.S. has this bullheaded, senseless addiction to a system of measurement where temperature is graded between the lowest and highest reproducible temperatures in a 19th century lab (this is the 21st century we're in now, isn't it?) and where linear measurement is based on the length of some long-gone king's thumb, foot and arm. What the fuck?!?
There is no reason why we should not adopt the metric system but for flat out stupidity!
Why are there three teaspoons in a tablespoon, but only two tablespoons in an ounce, but then 8 ounces in a cup but only two cups in a pint, and two pints in a quart, but then 4 quarts in a gallon? MAKE UP YOUR DAMNED MINDS!
If I had my choice, I wouln't touch the U.S. "Standard" system with a 3.045m pole!
www.wavefront-av.com
What a shallow, whiny article!
Heh! That is pretty funny. I will say this though. I still use 2-part hand-filled-in forms when I do on-site service work. There's a good reason though. Until I complete a job, I don't usually know how long it will take, or what parts (if any) might be needed to fix something.
All of our copies of these paper forms get entered into the computer system at the end of the day, though, and then they're no longer needed/saved.
(When I have to take a PC or peripheral back with me to work on in the shop, I do bring it back to the customer with a computer-printed receipt for the total.)
This is more rumor than fact-based, but I was reading another forum regarding SD flash cards those used in cameras and new solid-state camcorders. Word is going around that high capacity flash RAM (like 512MB) made in Japan are good, but lower capacity flash RAM is being heavily outsourced to China, apparently along with quality problems.
the protocol translator is what I meant.
Those things are expensive as hell to buy, so now I'm trying to find info on the WTEC3 system used by my Allison transmission. I have no idea what the Cat engine uses at this time.
I've also started researching OBD-II for tapping info out of my pickup trucks.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
If you give a digital watch to someone who can't tell time, they are ok - unless the watch is broken. If the display reads 9:74 or 54:12, they will have no idea that it is malfunctioning.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
Regards Luke
#include witty_one_liner.h
Thank you.
When I was looking to spec systems a few months ago, I did not look at these much.
- The Intel D845PEBT2 motherboard has the 845PE chipset.
- The D865PERL motherboard has the 865PE chipset, but at least it supports the 800Mhz bus. Two of the four configurations support Firewire.
I require the Intel 875 chipset for a modern system. The only Intel motherboard using the 875 chipset is the D875PBZ, and it does not have Firewire. Intel does not have a "latest technology" motherboard that includes Firewire. I am still surprised Intel only has one motherboard demonstrating their latest and best chipset. But it is nice to know that Intel includes Firewire on some of their motherboards.
---
(I apologize for the poor grammar in the original post. I bumped the ENTER key while fixing the Subject. I expected a few flames about the grammar, but thankfully all the responses have been informative.)
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
"I don't know what language engineers will be programming with in twenty years, but I know they'll call it 'Fortran'" -- Attribution Lost
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
"If you're not on-site" should be "If you're not in the office" or "If you're on-site". Wires crossed, my mistake, etc.
Courier companies would be sacrificing precious space for packages if they had a xerox in the van. It also still takes more time than copy paper, so long as it's well perforated, but speaking personally, I don't mind using a stylus and waiting a few seconds for a printed receipt. That in itself raises the question, though, of what's "original" - if you accept the digitised signature, fine, otherwise you need to sign on paper and deal with either the copy paper or the time/equipment requirements.
NB: YMMV. IANAL. Take the above with a grain of salt.
>I meant situations where you actually don't ever convert the time to numbers
You analog watch folks keep saying that, and it's really freaking me out! Time is numbers! My work day starts at 7:00. That's seven colon zero zero (colon zero zero secons). That's what I picture in my head when I think of the time I need to be at work not 210 degrees. Yeah we all learned how to do the analog clock thing as kids in school, but I promtly forgot it (just like doing multiplication tables in my head) and continued using my digital watch.
Every writen schedule uses numerals and every verbal appointment is spoken as numbers, these are the things I need my watch to match up with. Time is not some vague thing about where the sun is in the sky. It's about being in the conference room at 9:20am (that's nine colon two zero). On the few occasions I've needed to rely on analog clocks, I always have to convert the hand positions into numbers before I could figure out anything else.
When broken, an analog clock is still correct twice a day. when broken a digital clock is right zero times a day. therefore an analog clock is infinity times more correct than a digital clock, provided the two are broken. They are also equally as correct when both are functioning properly.
Frankly, I want the one that is infinty times more correct, broken or no. (and if I suspect my watch is slow or fast, I can buy a digital, and break both of them.)
Not a problem, I've done it many times. There's a section in the law that allows people to have very small quantities of radioacrtive stuff just for this.
FYI, Radium was used on watch dials well into the 1960s.
If you have a WW I watcht at doesn't work right, get it fixed.
Need Mercedes parts ?
With a tracked, sliding door, you could in theory get a decent seal, but I doubt it'd be enough to withstand both wear from repeated opening and closing, and the pressure created by the explosive decompression of a spaceship.
I would assume that this comes down to one of three things --
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
You're thinking of quartz watches, son. Real watches tick.
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That's the first time I've heard this story about the origins of the wristwatch. What I heard was:
At the time of WWI, soldiers were carrying pocketwatches, which had been getting smaller for literally hundreds of years. In fact some small womens watches were "convertibles" that could be used as a pocketwatch or, affixed with a ribbon, worn on the wrist. Men would not wear them though, they were seen as too efffeminite.
But, for soldiers they made sense, it freed up a hand, so soldiers were forced to wear wristwaches on leather straps. When the was was over they were no longer seen as effeminite and by the end of the 1920's the wristwatch had taken over.
As far as I've been able to tell the first wristwatch was made by Alfred Lugrin (foudner of Lemania) for the Italian Navy in 18-someting.
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THe hot tip for UUCP in that era was the Telebit Trailblazer 19.2Kbps modems. Never mind they were like $7000 a pair.
14.4 came much later.
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I work in a building that has very little cell phone coverage, but pagers work just fine. It would be great to go down to one device, but it just isn't feasible when the reception is so bad.
-- Charles A. Plater
The old name was a hoot, too. "MD", as if doctors did anything but use it, like the rest of us.
I do remember seeing, in the early 1970s, a dispenser for those wax paper-like seat guards in a restaurant. It had the then-current "MD" logo, but it had been vandalized to read "VD"
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton