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 ;)
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I think its unfair to call the technology outdated when it still performs some tasks better than its modern counterparts.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.
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
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?
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
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".
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.
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.
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
Point the hour hand in the direction of the sun (Keeping it horizontal of course), and the point between the hour hand and 12 will be South. For you "Below the belt" /.rs (South of the equator ;-) it'll be pointing North.
Cheers!
--RjS
Never give any object more potential energy than you want it to have.
I think this applies to almost all of the technologies on that list. I think it boils down to one thing that people think, "I like this technology, it works for me, so i'll keep using it."
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
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.
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.
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.
Annoying, wasn't it? Here is the link to the full article that I saw in that Google search though.
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Well, on the multi-part forms I've used, there's usually spaces for a customer to sign (think - car repair forms at most major dealerships.) Using the same impact during signing (pressure), you get multiple copies, one for the dealership, one for records, and one for the customer, all with the same signature.
I'd hate to have to sign for work multiple times...
Karnal
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.
For many processes, the multipart form is preferred because at certain steps along the way, one sheet is ripped off while the rest proceed along. If you printed multiple copies on a laserjet instead, you'd have to collate and staple (or do something else) to keep the appropriate copies together - hardly an efficient alternative...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
If you have numbered multipart forms then this ensures that the sheets of paper you sign/ship/mail are part of the original multipart form and not a reprint.
Many places want original paperwork, you can't guarantee it with a laser. Dot matrix is still a darn useful technology.
Trolling is a art,
CLI
The ______ Agenda
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
How on earth can you describe an analog watch as more intuitive than a digital watch? More elegant, certainly. But intuitive? A digital watch shows the numbers. If you can read them, you can tell the time. An analog watch uses one set of numbers (or positions, as many don't even have actual numerals on the face) for two different things. You have to learn what each hand means, and what each position means in the context of each hand. Once you learn it, it becomes straightforward and easy, but it's definitely the opposite of intuitive.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
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.
--
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.
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.
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've got a pair of Waltham pocketwatches, one with an 1898 movement, and one that is probably from the 1930s.
Both of them work, and keep good time.
I also have a pile of dead, broken down computer hardware, and can point to any number of software projects that are unmaintained, unfinished, or otherwise at the end of their lives. All of these are, at best, half the age of the younger watch.
If nothing else, carrying an old-fashioned watch is a reminder about building things to last...
I find that LED clocks are more intuitive. People who say they can't read them must just be stupid and unable to read the most intuitive clock in existence.
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.
Exactly. I typically do not want to know the exact time time, but want to know how far away I am from some past or future time.
Grand Central Terminal used to have analog clocks, and if I was running for a train it was easy to see if I had time to make it, but when they changed to digital I had to stop and do time math to figure things out. Sounds trivial, but looking at the distance between the minute hand and some numeral was easier to parse than a string of digits.
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
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 ask because any time format is arbitrary until you learn it. The digital format in particular makes no sense without initial reference to the standard 12 hour analog clock face. The first two digits represent hours, an arbitrarily defined one-twenty-fourth of the day. The next represents minutes, an arbitrarily defined one-sixtieth of an hour. Without reference to the 12 or 24 and the 60, you have no idea what 09:30 is. It might be just under a tenth of a day, it might be that the day is nearly over. It might be that within whatever section of day the first two digits represent we're nearly one third of the way through, or it might be that we're half way through.
The analogue clock is very clear at first glance, and you only have to look at it a couple of times to know what every aspect of it represents. There's a large hand that goes around quickly, and a small hand that doesn't. At a glance you can see that the small hand is a little over three quarters of the way around, and about the only unintuitive bit is that it's not refering to three quarters of the day, but three quarters of half a day.
That's why it's more intuitive than a series of six digits. Oh sure, it could be more intuitive, but unless we move to a decimal time system, I don't think a digital format is going to be as close to "intuitive" as a clock face for a very long time.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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?
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/".
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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.
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.
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...
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.
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