10 Technologies MIA

Fantasy Football writes "CNet lists ten technologies they miss, which includes Napster, the originial Palm Pilot, good keyboards, and more. From the article: 'Technology evolves. Good technologies and products usually survive; poor ones usually go extinct. But not all of the technologies and tech products that have swirled down the drain of the tech gene pool deserved their fate. Here are some big, and some small, ideas that we thought we'd have with us forever, but that unfortunately have gone the way of the dodo.'"

Comments

now before anyone gets started

[thegoogler]

i dont get all the love for kozmo, its like saying "and i want a perpeptual motion machine that makes infinite money too!, AND A PONEY."

there buisness model was fatally flawed, they didnt make any proffit because they basically sold everything at what it cost them, and didnt charge shipping.

Re:now before anyone gets started

[jericho4.0]

You don't get what's to like about a company that sold everything at cost and didn't charge for shipping?

Re:now before anyone gets started

[R2.0]

I remember hearing one of those "audio diaries" on NPR by someone who worked at Kozmo. She had just graduated college with some arts degree, and her job was bicycle delivery in. She was paid over $30k/year and made, on average, 2 deliveries a day, and spent the rest of the time sitting in the warehouse chatting with the other messengers.

When the company collapsed, she despaired of ever finding a job as good as that one, and decided to go to grad school - also in whatever major she had in undergrad (and couldn't find a job with).

Never in my life have I so wished to have the power to disobey the laws of physics, just in order to be able to reach through the radio and slap that stupid bitch silly. She should have been doing backflips, rejoicing that the whole scheme lasted so long, instead of moaning about how unfair life was.

(Didnt' help that I was stuck in Beltway traffic in summer with no A/C when listening.)

RIP

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft BOB
*Sniff*

Re:Keyboard

[seanadams.com]

Uh, that's what it says in the article.

Sorry, I'm new here. Are we supposed to read it?

Re:Space travel - no kidding

[maxpublic]

If the population of the earth keeps growing we won't have enough resources to maintain our current level of living conditions.

While the Earth still has a positive growth rate, that rate has been in decline ever since a certain piece of trash called "The Population Bomb" hit the shelves. If the decline continues we'll hit an equilibrium population of around eight billion when all is said and done. Note that according to the doomsayers who first started whining about population we were supposed to have in excess of eight billion people by the year 2000; it never happened because they didn't bothered to check their facts, which even then indicated that the rate was in decline.

I find it rather interesting that people who still complain about Earth being "overpopulated" fail to mention the declining growth rate, nor the fact that every single prediction they made from the '60's right up to the present has been dead wrong.

As far as the resource argument goes, this only applies if you assume that technological advancement freezes at its current level and never, ever progresses again. Quite clearly that isn't going to happen.

So if you consider the earth as a closed system you have to either raise the standard of living around the world to a level where population growth ceases "naturally" or you have to commit the resources of the rich into forcing the poor not to breed.

The first may eventually happen through technological advancement; the second never will unless you manage to enslave the Earth to a dictatorial one-world government. And so long as folks like me are around, anyone who tries to enforce breeding limits on their fellow citizens will find themselves the subject of a post-natal abortion right quick.

Right, so if we're willing to agree that considering the earth as a closed system leads to the logical conclusion that the world population growth must be controlled by force

We aren't willing to agree. You'll never get a majority of Americans - or anything other than a tiny, tiny minority, I suspect - to agree with your assessment.

We must expand into space.

Settling space is a non-viable population control method. It may be useful for increasing the resource wealth of the Earth itself (your first option - make everyone rich) but no significant portion of the population will ever move off-world. In fact, it'd be a complete waste of resources to even try.

Max

Re:LP's ??? You must be kidding..

[jdonnis]

Try listening to a 10 year old mildly scratched LP.
Then try listening to a 10 year old mildly scratched CD.

The first will be tolerable, the second will drive you to murder.