Do Tools Ever 'Die?'

Flint axes by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 04:46 · Score: 0

Well, it's been a long time since I've seen a flint axe in use...

Re:Flint axes by Veldcath · 2011-02-01 04:52 · Score: 2

Still being made and used by historical buffs (I've talked with a guy who was actively making stone tools to show how it was done), and a pair of anthropologists go around demonstrating how stone knives could be very good at taking apart animals that hunters had brought down. All that stuff is still being made and used, if only to show how it was made and used.

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Re:Flint axes by Nethemas+the+Great · 2011-02-01 05:00 · Score: 1

Even if the "flint" ax was no longer in use axes are and I think that would disqualify it.

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Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
Re:Flint axes by xevioso · 2011-02-01 06:03 · Score: 1

Young kids in Boy Scouts often learn to make basic flint axes on camping trips. We did it a few times when I was growing up. Learning to sharpen stones, tie a good piece of sharpened flint to a stick... just to see if it could be done easily.
Re:Flint axes by Runaway1956 · 2011-02-01 06:54 · Score: 1

All I could come up with, was flint arrowheads. They must be dead, because they've all been buried, right? Then, you go and ruin my lame attempt at a joke by pointing out that Scouts still craft these kind of things. *sigh*

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Re:Flint axes by jc42 · 2011-02-01 10:26 · Score: 1

Even if the "flint" ax was no longer in use axes are and I think that would disqualify it.
Indeed. And the "flint" part is alive and well, in a slightly refined form. Some of the sharpest blades available are make from several kinds of flint-like or glassy minerals. One of the markets for these is in surgical supplies, where small, extremely sharp knives are quite useful.
I read a funny story a couple of years ago about a physician was on board a flight somewhere, and realized that in his shirt pocket he had a packet of obsidian blades in his pocket. Since they were glass, the scanners at the airport hadn't seen them. But he realized that in expert hands (such as his ;-), they could be very deadly weapons, though of course he used them to save people's lives. Part of the story was his wondering whether he should have informed the airline people of his mistake.

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Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.

How sillilly obvious by A+nonymous+Coward · 2011-02-01 04:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

How many times have we read about NASA tapes and such from early missions where the hardware to read them has long since disappeared, and no one is even sure what format the tapes are in?

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Infuriate left and right

Re:How sillilly obvious by sznupi · 2011-02-01 04:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

TFA is about cherishing biases of our memory... We don't remember, we are hardly aware of those types of artifacts which disappeared.

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:How sillilly obvious by men0s · 2011-02-01 04:54 · Score: 1

So the answer in this case would still be no. If someone were to find the hardware (aka tool) to read the NASA tapes, it would be put to use.

Tools only die (or become obsolete, rather) if the use for them no longer exist. So once they found the hardware, read the NASA tapes, threw the data onto some modern spinning platters, what of the tape reader? Do they keep it around in case more tapes are found? Do they moth-ball it in some museum storage warehouse? Or do they just salvage working parts and melt the rest?

Also, tool and die in the title, cute =)
Re:How sillilly obvious by gurps_npc · 2011-02-01 04:55 · Score: 1

I was going to ask about the tools used to make the space shuttle, but this is the same idea.

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Re:How sillilly obvious by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:03 · Score: 1

Well, I can name a few tools that aren't used any more:
The enigma machine
the Grand Arcanum (various alchemical processes intended to produce the Philosopher's stone)
The Inca "knots tied in a rope" document format.
Ancient Egyptian stone drill bits.
Greek Fire (though arguably Napalm is a modern equivalent)
The ancient Babylonian legal code (Hamorabi I think)
Vacume tubes
Any of a number of calendars from civilizations that didn't make it to the 20th century.
Aristotle/Arcamedies model of the Universe
The 4 Humors
Re:How sillilly obvious by Miamicanes · 2011-02-01 05:11 · Score: 1

> Vacume tubes
As long as you don't count microwave ovens and high-power commercial radio transmitters, just to name two really obvious uses that aren't going away anytime soon...
Re:How sillilly obvious by gfreeman · 2011-02-01 05:14 · Score: 2

Vacume tubes
Still being manufactured, still in use - especially in the music industry.

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Re:How sillilly obvious by EMCEngineer · 2011-02-01 05:15 · Score: 1

Nice list, but vacuum tubes are still in use. They're less common, but very much in use. I would add the abacus and sounding line to the list. While a handful of people worldwide may still use them, they have been replaced by calculators and electronic depth finders, respectively.
Re:How sillilly obvious by queazocotal · 2011-02-01 05:19 · Score: 2

Don't count on microwave ovens for too much longer.
I've just been doing as a hobby project a simple design of semiconductor only microwave.
It has major advantages - it can have a _much_ larger fraction of the cabinet as cooking volume - especially in small units.
It can be smoothly varied easily in power.
Of course, it has the disadvantage that instead of $20 for a 900W magnetron, the semiconductors to power it would at the moment cost around $1500 for the dozen or so devices needed. (in quantity)
I would expect to see the first solid state microwaves on the market perhaps in 2020 or so.
At which time, the days of the vacuum tube will be numbered.
Already in a moderate fraction of homes, the second to last valve has gone away. (the cathode ray tube)
Re:How sillilly obvious by YrWrstNtmr · 2011-02-01 05:20 · Score: 1

Well, I can name a few tools that aren't used any more:
Vacume tubes

Oh please.
Re:How sillilly obvious by TheMidget · 2011-02-01 05:23 · Score: 2

Any of a number of calendars from civilizations that didn't make it to the 20th century.
The Mayan calendar is still in use by the US army (who will go on Defcon 3 on 2012-12-21)
Re:How sillilly obvious by 7x7 · 2011-02-01 05:24 · Score: 1

I would say that since there is still a large amount of magnetic tape in use... everywhere. This tool is still in use. I'm sure there are thousands of models of hammers that are no longer made, but hammers are still use... everywhere.
Re:How sillilly obvious by 7x7 · 2011-02-01 05:34 · Score: 2

The enigma machine - True, though used as a learning tool

the Grand Arcanum (various alchemical processes intended to produce the Philosopher's stone) - But I dare say chemistry is huge.

The Inca "knots tied in a rope" document format. - But documents in written languages are pretty common.

Ancient Egyptian stone drill bits. - But drill bits can be found here and there.

Greek Fire (though arguably Napalm is a modern equivalent) - Yes, Napalm and, well, bombs.

The ancient Babylonian legal code (Hamorabi I think) - But law codes and rule of law is rather abundant.

Vacume tubes - I think this one is beaten to death by other comments.

Any of a number of calendars from civilizations that didn't make it to the 20th century. - Yeah, but we didn't stop using calendars.

Aristotle/Arcamedies model of the Universe - Again, models of the universe do show up occasionally.

The 4 Humors - Borderline. There are new biological models that we use.

Inventions are not always tools. Tools accomplish a task. To extrapolate, the AMC Gremlin and the Ford Pinto are no longer manufactured, but that by no means indicates that we stopped using automobiles.
Re:How sillilly obvious by nospam007 · 2011-02-01 05:36 · Score: 1

Millions of people in Asia still use abacus every day.
Re:How sillilly obvious by damnfuct · 2011-02-01 05:38 · Score: 1

Cavity resonators are cheap and easy to make (particularly in the microwave region), and with PWM control ("inverter" type microwaves) of the transformer inside, it'll likely still be a good trade-off in price versus performance.
Re:How sillilly obvious by denzacar · 2011-02-01 05:40 · Score: 2

I would add the abacus
No kindergarten-aged children or relatives I presume? Or friends/relatives who teach kindergarten children?
Abacus is a very simple and useful tool when teaching basic number concepts and operations. Also, it is a very useful tool for the blind.

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Re:How sillilly obvious by damnfuct · 2011-02-01 05:40 · Score: 1

The Mayan calendar is still in use by the US army (who will go on Defcon 3 on 2012-12-21)
If there is any truth to this, it's probably only because of the mass hysteria that has already been spread around the internet/country about that ridiculous date.
Re:How sillilly obvious by hazydave · 2011-02-01 05:44 · Score: 4, Funny

> Vacume tubes
Dictionaries and/or spell-checkers?

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-Dave Haynie
Re:How sillilly obvious by queazocotal · 2011-02-01 05:44 · Score: 1

For the next few years, sure.
Given that they are at best 60% efficient, and rather physically large and heavy, they would be a great candidate to swap with an inexpensive silicon part.
Even in the best inverter microwaves, the magnetron uses up a large slice of the cabinet.
This is not likely to happen soon, but in my lifetime, I'd be surprised if it diddn't.
Re:How sillilly obvious by Cwix · 2011-02-01 05:46 · Score: 1

lol

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Re:How sillilly obvious by Mister+Whirly · 2011-02-01 05:48 · Score: 1

Yep, I was going to say you must not be a musician or know many if you think vacuum tubes are not still around. Amps with tubes sound superior to amps without them.

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"But this one goes to 11!"
Re:How sillilly obvious by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:50 · Score: 0

You really are that gullible aren't you?
Re:How sillilly obvious by ArcherB · 2011-02-01 05:51 · Score: 1

Vacume tubes
Still being manufactured, still in use - especially in the music industry.
True. I believe the military also has use for vacuum tubes as they are not susceptible to EMI.

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Re:How sillilly obvious by Onuma · 2011-02-01 05:52 · Score: 2

Guitar (and other sound-related) Amplifiers!
That classic Marshall Amp sound is based around the tubes -- solid state amps can not perfectly mimic the sound of tube amps. I've got a Vox hybrid which makes a fairly good compromise between the two, but there's still nothing like tubes where sound amplification is concerned...at least not to many audiophiles.

I think tools themselves can become obsolete, but the basis behind them will not die. Just because a stone axe is no longer commonly used, doesn't mean the basic technology of a weighted wedge isn't. We've got motorized log splitters which are nothing more than a mechanical axe on a horizontal plane.

Stone drill bits --> Carbide & Diamond-tipped bits
Hammurabi's Code --> Modern legislation
Enigma --> COMSEC / Encryption

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Re:How sillilly obvious by xaxa · 2011-02-01 05:56 · Score: 1

On the subject of transport, how about water troughs (en_us: track pans). Very long troughs of water placed between the rails on a railway track, enabling a steam locomotive to scoop up water on a long-distance journey without having to stop.
(I have a steam-train nerd friend...)
Re:How sillilly obvious by jellomizer · 2011-02-01 05:57 · Score: 1

A lot of audiophiles still say vacuum tubes are better for amps then transistors. As well it gives a pure distortion effect vs. an emulated one.

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Re:How sillilly obvious by arth1 · 2011-02-01 05:59 · Score: 1

The abacus is still in use aplenty in many parts of the world. They work just as well outdoors in rain and sunshine, and don't require any batteries. (Which, incidentally, is why some engineers still carry a pocket slide rule.)
Depth sounding lines are also in use - in muddy waters, an electronic depth finder can be of less value.
Re:How sillilly obvious by commodore64_love · 2011-02-01 06:02 · Score: 1

The article is about outliers, such as record players. Most formats disappear and become unusable unless you want to buy a used, worn-out unit:
Grammophones (the round cylinder things)
RCA CED (videorecords)
Betamax
Umatic
8 tracks
Compact cassettes
Digital compact cassettes
78s
Floppy drives for 8-bit Apples, Ataris, Commodores, TIs

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Re:How sillilly obvious by iSzabo · 2011-02-01 06:11 · Score: 1

Betamax is still very popular in commercial television: many news stations record on Beta.
Re:How sillilly obvious by bluefoxlucid · 2011-02-01 06:21 · Score: 1

The Abacus (particularly Soroban and Suan-Pan, more the Japanese Soroban these days) teaches the mind to deal in numbers as isometric spatial registers in base 10 with a low and high register.
In effect this eliminates the conceptualization of large numbers: 1,379,482 for example people will often remember as "1 million, three hundred and seventy something thousand and some odd numbers." Why not "1 million, something and 79 thousand, four hundred something two"? Because the bigger numbers are conceptually more significant. The whole number is not a stream of digits as on paper; it's an atomic unit in your head, with a certain representation of resolution.
Numbers become easier to remember and work with when they're isometrically referenced. The mechanism to add numbers is a quick register overflow process that becomes quite mechanical; subtraction is a bit tougher to grasp, but then simple; multiplication, division, powers, roots, and the like are all methodical. Because of this, study of arithmetic on the Soroban trains the brain to solve math problems mentally, quickly, at a glance.
That's all well and good, but the question isn't "are we stupid for abandoning this tool?" but more "do we still use it?" They do in Japan, at least in some schools. Hell, they still manufacture them, and I've had one imported; one day I'd like a fine wood-and-bone one as well.
I am rather unknown for my baseless theories on the teaching of math; but it is a subject that I enjoy reflecting on. I think one major failing in the US school system is the discrete separation of subjects: we should not have Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, and Calculus. It's been a while since I've reflected on this and my theories have been refined: we should have "Basic Math" and "Advanced Math" as teaching courses. "Basic Math" would begin with Arithmetic on Soroban, and introduce Algebra concepts as early as possible-- not elementary algebra, but the concept of (x + 2 = 5) rather than arithmetic as (5 - 2 = x).
As concepts are solidified, we begin introducing relevant algebra, but we pay mind to finishing arithmetic. As concepts of Geometry come within reach, we should explore them to demonstrate the algebra further. Eventually we'll have finished all arithmetic concepts, be focused on Algebra, and have a fine footing into Geometry. Basic math should focus on finishing Elementary Algebra (what we call "Algebra 1 and 2" today), with strong call-forwards into Geometry. The study of all forms of elementary Geometry should be the lead-out in the same way as modern teaching: we enter Geometry mixed with Algebra, but we lead out as Geometry studied as a discrete course in mathematics.
After Geometry, we step from "Basic Math" to "Advanced Math." With our firm grasp on Elementary Algebra and Geometry, we tackle Trigonometry head-on. Applications of Trigonometry should be used as reinforcement, as well as call-forwards into Precalculus; we should bleed into Calculus--most of "PreCalculus" is covered by Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry--will call-backs to Geometry and Algebra to re-enforce them during application as we enter deeper into Calculus (i.e. integrating PreCalculus more and more as we finish Trigonometry and move more deeply into Calculus).
This is how I believe advanced mathematics education would function. The use of the Japanese Soroban as a teaching tool is a significant part of that not by quantity but by impact: the student becomes capable of understanding and performing foundational arithmetic extremely well. The foundation in Algebra and Geometry as "Basic Math" is, as well, significant; Trigonometry paves the way for engineering and Calculus, and Calculus also paves the way for engineering (note that Trigonometry is considered the root of all engineering: it is the branch of mathematics that enabled the great philosophers to design things like pyramids and complex sculptures and ships and complex weaponry and buildings that don't fall over). Study into e

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Re:How sillilly obvious by cayenne8 · 2011-02-01 06:27 · Score: 1

"Well, I can name a few tools that aren't used any more: The enigma machine
the Grand Arcanum (various alchemical processes intended to produce the Philosopher's stone)
The Inca "knots tied in a rope" document format.
Ancient Egyptian stone drill bits.
Greek Fire (though arguably Napalm is a modern equivalent)
The ancient Babylonian legal code (Hamorabi I think)
Vacume tubes
Any of a number of calendars from civilizations that didn't make it to the 20th century.
Aristotle/Arcamedies model of the Universe
The 4 Humors

Well, for one Vacuum tube are quite alive and well for many things, first that comes to my mind are for higher end guitar amps, and stereo amplifiers.
As for " The Inca "knots tied in a rope" document format.", I'll cede that it is no longer used as a document format, however, I understand it is now re-purposed as an effective sex toy.

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Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:How sillilly obvious by burris · 2011-02-01 06:27 · Score: 1

A respectable fraction of homes, millions, contain guitar amps made with tubes. The days of the 12AX7 and EL84 will not be numbered when people switch to SS microwave ovens.
Re:How sillilly obvious by cayenne8 · 2011-02-01 06:30 · Score: 1

OOoh...how about laser disks and laser disk players?
There's a few around (I have one in storage)...but you sure don't see many of those anymore...

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Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:How sillilly obvious by tinkerghost · 2011-02-01 06:34 · Score: 1

Possibly still in use in India - they have several steam trains in commercial operation still.
Re:How sillilly obvious by icebike · 2011-02-01 06:37 · Score: 1

How many times have we read about NASA tapes and such from early missions where the hardware to read them has long since disappeared, and no one is even sure what format the tapes are in?
You've read it, but that does not make it true.
These tapes can be read by gear still available on the salvage market or in museums. (The tapes themselves may have deteriorated over time, but that's a different issue).
NASA may no longer have the gear, but somebody does somewhere.

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Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Re:How sillilly obvious by N0Man74 · 2011-02-01 06:40 · Score: 1

Is this really a fair comparison? Data tapes, recorders, and readers are most certainly still in existence. Variations in the size of the tapes or the format of the data are kind of a moot point.
I heard this story on the radio this morning, and I felt like they were looking in the wrong places anyway. They mostly were searching for obscure farming equipment from 100 years ago. If I were to go around searching for obsolete equipment, I would probably search in a field (no pun intended) outside of farming.
I would search for tools used in a field of study where perhaps our knowledge of the subject has changed so radically that the tools have not just become outdated, but proven to be counterproductive to the goal (such as maybe in the field of medicine). But even there, the tools might still be made not for actual use, but still produced in modern times because of historic value.
Re:How sillilly obvious by sexconker · 2011-02-01 06:41 · Score: 0

Yep, I was going to say you must not be a musician or know many if you think vacuum tubes are not still around. Amps with tubes sound superior to amps without them.
It's been ages since I've heard audiophile talk. Yup. It's still bullshit.
Audiophiles are worse than the "The moon landing was a hoax!!" nutjobs.
Re:How sillilly obvious by das3cr · 2011-02-01 06:54 · Score: 1

> Vacume tubes
Alive and well in a lot of different guitar amps.

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Hurricane Island Outward Bound
OB
Re:How sillilly obvious by icebike · 2011-02-01 06:55 · Score: 1

TFA is about cherishing biases of our memory... We don't remember, we are hardly aware of those types of artifacts which disappeared.
Exactly.
Those tools from long ago which are no longer in use have passed into history without being recorded.
They probably weren't very good to begin with, and were quickly replaced by something else.
A trip through a tool museum would reveal many tools found over the ages that are no longer used, or
even made, and some museums have artifacts they are hard pressed to even suggest a use for.
The fact that these exist and are used for teaching seems at best a disingenuous use of the
concept of being "in use".
Examples include those found here: http://www.davistownmuseum.org/PDFsforInventory/WebVIIinteractiveCollection_PDF.pdf
some of which look close enough to current tools to just lump them in with similar objects
so as to dismiss them from interfering with their pet theory.
There are entire web sites dedicated to this, such as http://www.farmcollector.com/equipment/tools/old-farm-tools-what-is-it-july-2010.aspx
To say many/any of these are still in use stretches the meaning of STILL and IN USE.

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Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Re:How sillilly obvious by khallow · 2011-02-01 06:56 · Score: 1

The enigma machine
Useful as a piece of important history.

The Inca "knots tied in a rope" document format.
I made a crude quipo just to see how it was done. I keep it around to jog my memory in case I want to do it again.

The ancient Babylonian legal code (Hamorabi I think)
Still around in modern legal codes. And a lot of personal interaction follows similar precepts,

Old models that never really worked in the first place are IMHO good examples. I doubt anyone will use the "4 humours" or try to make a "philosopher's stone" again. Having said that, there may well be a modern alchemist or astrologer clinging to those old beliefs, perhaps as a sort of nostalgic cachet.
Re:How sillilly obvious by irussel · 2011-02-01 07:00 · Score: 1

>It's been ages since I've heard audiophile talk. Yup. It's still bullshit.
He's referring to guitar amps, not stereo amps. In the case of guitar amps, tube amps DO sound better than solid state. You don't get the natural harmonic distortion or volume dynamics of a tube amp in a SS. I've played SS amps that try to mimic tube amps, but its still sterile sounding compared to the real thing.
Now in the case of stereo amps, if you want accuracy, then sure, go with SS.
Re:How sillilly obvious by sznupi · 2011-02-01 07:01 · Score: 1

A lot of them also imagine new physics for cables or have ABX anxiety (which, when they meet with anxiety trigger, of course disturbs them enough to temporarily impair their spectacular hearing)

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:How sillilly obvious by I8TheWorm · 2011-02-01 07:02 · Score: 1

And my Fender Bassman amp. Good tubes are getting harder to find though, expecially the matched pairs from radios used in WWII.

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Re:How sillilly obvious by Mister+Whirly · 2011-02-01 07:03 · Score: 1

I am not an audiophile. I am a musician and tube amps sound better than newer non-tube amps. Look at any band that has a decent budget and notice the amps they use - yep, tubed amps. This isn't to look cool and impress people. I agree most audiophiles are full of shit with their $2500 cables, but this is not the same case. Ask any musician which type of amp is better.

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"But this one goes to 11!"
Re:How sillilly obvious by sznupi · 2011-02-01 07:04 · Score: 1

That seems to be at least rapidly fading for a solid few years? Starting from around the times of DV-like formats.

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:How sillilly obvious by A+nonymous+Coward · 2011-02-01 07:04 · Score: 1

No, that's the point, thousands of tapes with no known method of reading them.
Of course, some responses have been that tape is tape, and since other mag tape formats are still viable, therefore the tool hasn't disappeared. But that's wrong. The tech remains, but the specific tool has disappeared.
If NASA says it can't read the old tapes, it's well and fine that you have faith in museum units being able to cough up working units someday, but they haven't, so I think [citation needed].

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Infuriate left and right
Re:How sillilly obvious by superdave80 · 2011-02-01 07:10 · Score: 1

(I have a steam-train nerd friend...)
Riiiiiight. And my "friend" has this problem with such and such.
This is /. You can safely admit that you are a nerd about anything. No need to hide it.
Re:How sillilly obvious by icebike · 2011-02-01 07:12 · Score: 1

I have a box full of 5 inch floppies, but no disk drive in any of my machines can read theses.
Does that mean they are unreadable (ignoring the obviously coffee stained ones)?
It is strictly a cost/benefit calculation. Its not worth anyone's time and effort to assemble the old
mainframe gear necessary to read these tapes. The gear all exists.

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Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Re:How sillilly obvious by Bill_the_Engineer · 2011-02-01 07:25 · Score: 2

The parent comment was marked insightful with very little research.
Exhibit A: http://science.slashdot.org/story/08/11/10/0641226/Drive-From-Sydney-Museum-Could-Unlock-NASA-Moon-Data
Some helpful Australians are using the drives found in Perth in attempt to recover the data on moon dust.
Exhibit B: http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov/articles/la-times-article-features-newest-lunar-images
Nancy Evans recovering lunar images from the FR-900 Ampex tapes.
Myth Busted.
Apparently those tools still exist, just had to be found and restored.

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Re:How sillilly obvious by sexconker · 2011-02-01 07:25 · Score: 1

"natural harmonic distortion or volume dynamics"
The correct term is "NOISE".
I'd be fine with hipsters and audiophiles if they just admitted "I like hearing noise. I prefer what is, in every mathematical, scientific, or other objective measure, inferior.". But they never say that. They claim what they like is better, and offer up countless meaningless terms to describe audio and how it pleases them. We have this thing called an oscilloscope. It has proven every single audiophile claim with regards to hardware false. Yes, cheap digital amps produce trash. Good digital amps don't. The only way an audiophile can show a tube to be better than digital is to cherry pick both ends and ignore the 1000% price difference.
Re:How sillilly obvious by twistedsymphony · 2011-02-01 07:43 · Score: 1

I took "still in use" to mean "in concept" for instance, when building ancient stone buildings they'd put log rollers under the stone and carry the rollers that rolled out the back to the front.... this tool is no longer used, however the concept still exists in modern tank style treads. Similarly while some obscure tape format might not be used anymore, there are a lot of places that still use "magnetic tape" for recording, backup and storage.

if you take the question at face value, then there are literally thousands of readily available SPECIFIC tools that are no longer used (or at least not commonly used or supported) but if you consider the question on a conceptual level then I can't think of a one.

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Collector's Edition
Re:How sillilly obvious by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 07:56 · Score: 0

The early NASA stuff was done at such a break-neck pace, very little was documented. Things were being invented/built as needed. I don't think that's a very good example really.
Re:How sillilly obvious by frank_adrian314159 · 2011-02-01 08:04 · Score: 1

At which time, the days of the vacuum tube will be numbered.
Something that they've been saying since 1960 or so. The reality is that, as long as there are musical instrument amps and high-end audio equipment, those tubes are going nowhere. These industries consume hundreds of thousands of tubes each year. There are currently twenty-nine manufacturers of vacuum tubes in the world, eight of which produce tubes for audio equipment. Even if the industrial uses of tubes went away, those eight manufacturers (or their replacements) would still be cranking them out.

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That is all.
Re:How sillilly obvious by tinkerman · 2011-02-01 08:07 · Score: 1

Well - I am on the air with a TV transmitter - It uses an IOT - which is a vacuum tube. So is the protection - a Thyratron.

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Re:How sillilly obvious by tinkerman · 2011-02-01 08:12 · Score: 1

IOT efficiency - 72% (HPA only)
Solid State amp - approx 30% (Class AB)
Power bill for TV station transmitter output 23kW TPO in 8VSB Digital operation - $7500 / month.
Power bill for TV station transmitter in solid state - "Priceless"

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Re:How sillilly obvious by mattack2 · 2011-02-01 08:14 · Score: 1

not elementary algebra, but the concept of (x + 2 = 5) rather than arithmetic as (5 - 2 = x).
I think that elementary schools already do this, as well as the latter. Except that instead of 'x', they put a box there.
2 + [] = 5
I wish they actually labelled it as algebra at that point. It seems to me it would make some kids happy ("Oh cool, I already know some algebra"), and make other kids less afraid of math ("algebra really isn't that hard").
Re:How sillilly obvious by mattack2 · 2011-02-01 08:17 · Score: 1

But isn't "Betamax" use[d] by professional production, unrelated to, except by name, Betamax as used in homes?
Re:How sillilly obvious by tinkerman · 2011-02-01 08:17 · Score: 1

I have a wire recorder. Still worked last time I tried it. Cord has deteriorated to "Danger - Will Robinson!"

--
Sorry - Errors from my BlackBerry
Re:How sillilly obvious by tinkerman · 2011-02-01 08:22 · Score: 1

BetaCAM is not BetaMAX. One is a low res consumer format, mostly surpassed by VHS. The other is still something the station acccepts.

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Sorry - Errors from my BlackBerry
Re:How sillilly obvious by Doctor+Faustus · 2011-02-01 08:36 · Score: 1

Ask any musician which type of amp is better.
Not any and every musician. Other guitar players do things I like with (some) tube amps, but they sound completely wrong to me when I plug into one.
And I've never heard a clean tone from anyone better than what you get from a Roland JC-120, which is solid state.
Re:How sillilly obvious by Mister+Whirly · 2011-02-01 08:46 · Score: 1

I had this exact same discussion about 2 months ago with a group of musicians, and out of the 12 people that were there, 1 preferred solid state amps over tube amps. I am not claiming that 100% of musicians think tube amps are better, but probably a good majority.

It also depends on what kind of sound you like. if you like a "cleaner" sound, you will probably prefer SS amps. If you like a warmer "dirty" sound, you will probably like tube amps. Most of the musicians I know play in rock bands where the latter sound is preferred. There are certainly advantages to SS amps, but in my opinion the sound is not one of them.

--
"But this one goes to 11!"
Re:How sillilly obvious by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 09:06 · Score: 0

...at least not to many audiophiles.
Must......resist.......derogatory.....coat hangar.....comment....
Re:How sillilly obvious by bluefoxlucid · 2011-02-01 09:06 · Score: 1

They don't actually teach you a formalized method for solving those, they just tell you "figure it out." They don't show you that you can subtract 2 from both sides and get [] = 5 - 2 = 3.
And yes, I am a pedant against oversimplification, and only do so as lack of knowledge on my part. We should label things with correct technical jargon at all times; I'm tired of people telling me it's okay for non-technical people to refer to the system as the "CPU" or "hard drive," and in fact I was taught in 10th grade that the system is "The CPU." The CPU is a micro-processor (MPU) inside the damn system and it's called the CPU for a reason (someone tried to tell me technically I was referring to "the MPU," but the FPU and GPU and DSP are all MPUs too; guess what CPU means?).
Coming back 5 years later and telling you all this shit is wrong or all this shit is right but we now have to label everything properly is detrimental. I take this as far as to say we should teach kids what addends, minuends, subtrahends, multiplicands, multipliers, dividends, and divisors are; in school they told us what a dividend and a divisor are. It just gives good structure and makes talking about stuff easier. I've also seen ridiculousness where we try to do reverse-abstraction, talking about technical things "in non-technical terms" at length... so the conversation is full of overly verbose explanations of things that actually do have a name, but we won't say it because it's "confusing jargon." Do you know why we name shit?

--
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Re:How sillilly obvious by Doctor+Faustus · 2011-02-01 09:08 · Score: 1

Yes, definitely a strong majority, just not unanimous.
For most purposes, I like absolutely as clean as possible, or really, really dirty. I'm only interested in the more moderate, warm tones you get from most tube amps, alder-body guitars and non-distorted humbuckers when I'm playing blues.
Re:How sillilly obvious by Mister+Whirly · 2011-02-01 09:14 · Score: 1

Yeah, I was mostly making that statement to refute an earlier claim that there is no discernible difference between tube and solid state amps, and that any claims were "Audiophile bullshittery". That is certainly not the case as we have demonstrated by our discussion here. Apparently the differences you and I hear in the sound of the two different style amps is utter bullshit, and all in our heads. And an oscilloscope can prove it!

--
"But this one goes to 11!"
Re:How sillilly obvious by sznupi · 2011-02-01 09:51 · Score: 1

You said "tube amps sound better" - that is NOT remotely the same as "different" (or "customary sound", "being used to", "instilled preference")

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:How sillilly obvious by queazocotal · 2011-02-01 09:53 · Score: 1

I question this somewhat.
Fashion in music is hard to predict.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skiffle - for example.
A retro take on 1930s music, in the 1950s.
Diddn't last that long, and was soon left to wither.
The same might happen to valve guitar amps - fashion moves on.
The reaction against transistor amps, and reluctance to embrace DSP was largely fueled by some early very bad attempts at it.
The newer generation may not see this as a good reason to continue with valve amps, versus a solid state amp with a 'valve' setting.
Consider for example that many DJs now are moving, or have moved away from vinyl, to various forms of computer based system, even for 'scratching'.
Re:How sillilly obvious by sznupi · 2011-02-01 09:54 · Score: 1

By this logic, colors silver, white, gray, and black are "superior" for a car, when compared to other.

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:How sillilly obvious by hairyfeet · 2011-02-01 09:58 · Score: 1

While this is true, you'll never see tubes completely die, neither will you see reel to reel tape, for one VERY important reason: Music. Tubes amps and analog tapes give a nice musical freq response we so far haven't been able to completely replicate with solid state. I have heard a few that sounded close, especially on acoustics, but so far no dice.
I have a little studio setup and having a tube preamp is definitely a must to "warm up" the digital recordings. I have also started hitting pawn shops and yard sales to pick up early solid state as I'm finding those early germanium chips and single use devices were also more musical IMHO than the new DSPs. I picked up an old high end reverb tank and the difference in tone between it and those DSP chips especially on vocals and drum tracks is huge, so I'm sure just like you can still get reel to reel multitrack tape you'll be able to get tubes for quite a long while yet.
Personally I would have said ISA card PCs a few years back, but now that I have run into a couple of industrial machines that run on the things I wouldn't be surprised if ISA card PCs are still being built for controllers for these expensive automated industrial machines. Maybe the guy is right and once invented tech just doesn't really completely die out?

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:How sillilly obvious by sznupi · 2011-02-01 09:58 · Score: 1

Absolutely anything can pass "as a piece of important history". Bones of dinosaurs have great impact on us, "as a piece of important history"

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:How sillilly obvious by Mister+Whirly · 2011-02-01 09:58 · Score: 1

Yes, that is true. They do sound better to me. I didn't specify the "to me" part as I thought that was implied as "better" is a opinion, and not an absolute. I probably could have chosen my exact wording better, but I assumed people would understand the point I was making.

--
"But this one goes to 11!"
Re:How sillilly obvious by Jon_S · 2011-02-01 10:00 · Score: 1

I have a box full of 5 inch floppies, but no disk drive in any of my machines can read theses. Does that mean they are unreadable?
Probably. You ever try to read a very old floppy even if you had the right drive?
Re:How sillilly obvious by uglyduckling · 2011-02-01 10:03 · Score: 1

If you think harmonic distortion and volume dynamics are "noise" then you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. He's referring to guitar and bass amps, not hi-fi amps. For musicians, these form part of the sound. The way vacuum tubes distort (which is the correct tern, by the way) when pushed hard is very musical, and very hard to simulate in solid state or software. Ditto the particular dynamic range compression that tubes exhibit when pushed.
Re:How sillilly obvious by sznupi · 2011-02-01 10:05 · Score: 1

"Pleasurable" is the word you're looking for and certainly should have used in the first place (also because it covers even factors like ~nostalgia), without "assumptions" made in such definite tone... (a lot of people do blindly follow the "absolutely untouchable benchmark" crap with vacuum tubes)

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:How sillilly obvious by Mister+Whirly · 2011-02-01 10:06 · Score: 1

Well yeah, everyone knows that Captain Obvious! The verdict is still out on green though.

--
"But this one goes to 11!"
Re:How sillilly obvious by uglyduckling · 2011-02-01 10:07 · Score: 1

But when things sound different, most people will think that one sounds better, and one sounds worse. 'Better' is a term for something that is different in a good way. The vast majority of guitarists would choose a valve amp, and if they don't it's probably more of a price issue (i.e. can't get a loud enough valve amp within their budget) rather than to do with the valves per se. Those that really do chose a solid state amp on its merits will usually have a valve simulator or even a pedal with a valve in it, in their effects chain.
Re:How sillilly obvious by sznupi · 2011-02-01 10:16 · Score: 1

You're arguing that colors silver, white, gray and black are 'better' for a car.

(generally, the main problem with such definite statements - about what is, in essence, just a straightforward approach of building circuits which sound enjoyably - is how the pleasurable end results are, if anything, largely due to inherent flaws of vacuum tube)

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:How sillilly obvious by innocent_white_lamb · 2011-02-01 10:35 · Score: 1

I would add the abacus and sounding line to the list.

I have an abacus, sitting on the bookshelf right beside me within easy reach of my chair. In fact, it's position such that I can use it without having to move it or get off of my chair.

I use it for binary arithmetic and "bit modelling"; it's a great aid to thinking and remembering how X relates to Y when I'm doing something three screens lower in the code.

--
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Re:How sillilly obvious by Anachragnome · 2011-02-01 10:48 · Score: 1

"How many times have we read about NASA tapes and such from early missions where the hardware to read them has long since disappeared, and no one is even sure what format the tapes are in?"
Actually, I think they located four of the machines used to read those tapes, and are currently backing up the data on the originals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Orbiter_Image_Recovery_Project
As far as dead tools go (George is still around...), this show from the 70's was one of my favorites. Betty White rocks, and David Letterman was a hoot, even when wearing polyester.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar's_Club
Re:How sillilly obvious by commodore64_love · 2011-02-01 10:53 · Score: 1

>>>Betamax is still very popular in commercial television
Bullshit. They use betaCAM not betamax. I really, really wish people would stop spreading This bit of misinformation.

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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Re:How sillilly obvious by Bing+Tsher+E · 2011-02-01 12:22 · Score: 1

We are talking about amplifiers used with musical instruments, not amplifiers designed for 'high fidelity.' High Fideltiy means they are not supposed to have any unique characteristics whatsoever. They are supposed to have perfectly flat characteristics and not introduce any change at all to the recorded music program.
This is very different from amplifiers used for Musical Instruments, which are generally supposed to have unique characteristics, as they are the originator of the music, not something designed to 'faithfully reproduce' it.
Re:How sillilly obvious by Mr.+Slippery · 2011-02-01 13:22 · Score: 1

Consider for example that many DJs now are moving, or have moved away from vinyl, to various forms of computer based system, even for 'scratching'.
Dude, you could not have picked a worse example.The popularity of the vinyl LP is one the rise. Perhaps a hipster fad, perhaps not -- if Monster Cables and Brilliant Pebbles can find places in home audio, I think the LP can find a niche.

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Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Re:How sillilly obvious by Mr.+Slippery · 2011-02-01 13:29 · Score: 1

The correct term is "NOISE".
Noise is undesired signal. Music is controlled signal. A musician who can control the signal generated by a tube amp is not making noise but is producing music.
So: YDKWYTA. STFU. HTH. HAND.

--
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Re:How sillilly obvious by Mr.+Slippery · 2011-02-01 13:38 · Score: 1

the pleasurable end results are, if anything, largely due to inherent flaws of vacuum tube
If the results are pleasurable, the characteristics in question are not flaws.
The fact that a screwdriver makes a lousy hammer is not a flaw in the screwdriver, it's an error on the part of the person using the wrong tool. The fact that a diffraction grating, or a lighting gel, changes the light coming through it, is not a flaw, it's an error on the part of the person who does not understand their proper use. Likewise, the fact that a tube amp introduces certain distortions/filtering into an audio signal is not a flaw.

--
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Re:How sillilly obvious by AdhSeidh · 2011-02-01 14:45 · Score: 1

Vacume tubes
I presume you mean Vacuum tubes, they are alive and well, go an visit a HiFi or guitar amp shop they will have plenty for you.
Re:How sillilly obvious by CohibaVancouver · 2011-02-01 14:47 · Score: 1

Vacume [sic] tubes
Lots of tube amps still around - For example:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-10423476-47.html
Re:How sillilly obvious by PyroMosh · 2011-02-01 16:18 · Score: 1

I think you've hit the nail right on the head.
There's we've been conditioned to consider certain things to sound "correct" because of certain almost subliminal noise characteristics. It's a form of nostalgia, really.
It's the same thing with vinyl and the "hiss" and popping sounds that it produces. It's technically inferior, but it sounds *good* on a subjective level.
There's nothing wring with saying you prefer a certain sound, but that doesn't make it "better" or "superior".

--
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
Re:How sillilly obvious by PIC16F628 · 2011-02-01 19:07 · Score: 1

I am an Indian living in India, am a rail fan and I can say that there are unfortunately no more steam locomotives in India except in 3-4 places (historic routes like Darjeeling mountain or Nilgiri mountain railways). I see more opportunities in Europe and USA to sight and travel in steam trains as there are many enthusiast supported lines there. None of the tracks here use water troughs. I have travelled in steam trains in India several years ago - but none of them used troughs.
Re:How sillilly obvious by Smidge204 · 2011-02-02 02:00 · Score: 1

The enigma machine - still used and replicated by enthusiasts and historians
The Grand Arcanum - Is something that never actually existed in the first place a valid example?
The Inca "knots tied in a rope" document format. - They're called Quipus. Might be your only valid example.
Ancient Egyptian stone drill bits. - Stone drill bits (and stone tools in general) are still made and used.
Greek Fire - Hard to say since nobody really knows what the stuff was made of.
Babylonian legal code - Arguably not a tool, though we still use written laws today.
Vacume [sic] tubes - See other posts; not even close to dead.
Ancient calendars - Arguably still used for archeological/anthropological research and other historian activities.
Aristotle/Arcamedies model of the Universe - Unfortunately, Geocentrism is alive and well. But again this isn't really a tool in the common sense of the word...
The 4 Humors - Not really a tool either IMHO, but culturally some of it lingers in modern medicine. Then there's the whole "alternative medicine" sack of shit that's all about balancing internal chemistry and whatnot... same snake oil, different vocabulary.
----
I would submit various medieval torture devices as examples of tools that are no (thankfully) longer produced or used.
=Smidge=
Re:How sillilly obvious by sznupi · 2011-02-02 03:24 · Score: 1

As are shielded semiconductors; it's not about EMI.

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:How sillilly obvious by sznupi · 2011-02-02 03:27 · Score: 1

It;s basically a question of how much you're willing to water down the question, in proving your point... (anything we're aware of is used as learning tool)

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:How sillilly obvious by sznupi · 2011-02-02 03:41 · Score: 1

Medieval torture devices are still, in very limited way, used by enthusiasts, historians and fetishists.

See how meaningless any argument becomes once you water it down sufficiently, including "they're used to know about how they were used"?

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:How sillilly obvious by 7x7 · 2011-02-02 04:09 · Score: 1

That's a good point, but it occurs to me that OpenSSH is in many respects a virtual enigma machine. I think a lot of the comments are mistaking inventions with tools. If encryption is a tool, the enigma machine is a version of it. If inventions are tools, then the entire NPR question is stupid because we know for certain that nobody uses the Inca knot writing since nobody knows how to read it. Or are we looking at three distinct areas? Tools, inventions, and concepts... the line is blurry.
Re:How sillilly obvious by sznupi · 2011-02-02 04:31 · Score: 1

...if having an analytic mind capable of any technology is a tool...

Yeah, what I was saying.

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:How sillilly obvious by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-02 10:08 · Score: 0

I really, really wish people would stop spreading This bit of misinformation.
I have a friend who works Master Control for a TV station, and she says it's BetaMAX.
Now, it is possible that she is misinformed. However, given that you have failed to provide a citation, it's your word against hers, so you'll forgive me if I put a higher ranking to the word of someone who actually works in the industry.
Re:How sillilly obvious by toddestan · 2011-02-02 14:46 · Score: 1

I have, with decent success if the floppy is at the latest, from about 1993. If it's newer than that, forget it, even if it's fresh out of the box.
Re:How sillilly obvious by Smidge204 · 2011-02-04 06:44 · Score: 1

Medieval torture devices are still, in very limited way, used by enthusiasts, historians and fetishists.
Uh, no. No they are not. If some of those devices are used, people die - since that's how they work.
Getting kinky with a set of nipple clamps is a far cry from using a "Breast Ripper."
=Smidge=
Re:How sillilly obvious by onepoint · 2011-02-05 13:51 · Score: 1

>>The Inca "knots tied in a rope" document format
This one I know was still used up to 1995 in Peru, since I would buy wool sweaters and import them to New York...
on one occasion I happen to get to the warehouse up in the high-Andes, and I saw a supervisors looking at multi-colored
knotted string, thought maybe it was a new product to sell or something, the guys all laughed, it was the inventory count with
whom deliver it AND whom/what village made it.
Talk about compressed data LOL
Is it still used ? I have no clue but I can not think of why it would not. explore the back country of Peru - Bolivia and you most
likely will find it being used in some manner or another.

--
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Re:How sillilly obvious by sznupi · 2011-02-11 16:55 · Score: 1

...unless in a limited way.

Or do you think "The enigma machine - still used and replicated by enthusiasts and historians" to send vital secret communication, to direct submarines at high seas, sink merchant ships, communicate with invading armies, etc.?

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:How sillilly obvious by Smidge204 · 2011-02-11 23:35 · Score: 1

The purpose of the Enigma machine was not to direct submarines and armies. Its purpose was to encrypt and decrypt messages. And it is still used for exactly that purpose. The content of the messages, and the personal motive for encrypting them, is inconsequential to the purpose of the machine itself.
=Smidge=
Re:How sillilly obvious by sznupi · 2011-02-15 20:40 · Score: 1

Not quite, Enigma now can hardly serve its purpose... which was keeping things secret, not merely "encrypting and decrypting messages"

The thing is - by your original criteria for it, absolutely any physical or cultural artifact that we're aware of... is still in use. It's certainly of interest to historians (or archeologists; that's what they do), often to enthusiasts. Anything we're aware of is used as a learning tool.

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:How sillilly obvious by sznupi · 2011-02-15 20:46 · Score: 1

Don't bring utlity into what looks very much like veblen / giffen / experience goods / bandwagon effect. Into "touchy-feely" (nothing bad with that, that is the whole point of music, but...) artistic expression which we share to most striking degree with animals, even when diverged from our lineage 250+ million years ago.

In a world of loudness war, dynamics compression, bass boosts, or (a bit different area) over-saturated default TV settings. With reasons for choosing vacuum tubes also touching on Price tag can change the way people experience wine or Price of a Medication May Affect How Well It Works. Valued "natural" diamonds because of their...flaws.

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One that hath name thou can not otter

kdawson? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 04:46 · Score: 2, Funny

I'm pretty sure he's still sucking in oxygen

Obvious one: by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 04:47 · Score: 1, Funny

Slashdot editors.

Re:Obvious one: by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:19 · Score: 0

Yo mom.
Re:Obvious one: by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 08:32 · Score: 0

Something cannot die if it never really existed.

Hitler died by ObitMan · 2011-02-01 04:47 · Score: 2, Funny

Hitler Died, He was a tool.

--
Who run Barter Town?

Re:Hitler died by PsychoElf · 2011-02-01 05:09 · Score: 1

Flamebait? Really? For who, neo-nazis?
Re:Hitler died by PsychoElf · 2011-02-01 05:13 · Score: 1

Thank you for modding gp Funny! Whoever modded it flamebait should be shot.
Re:Hitler died by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:14 · Score: 1

My parents are Nazis you insensitive clod
Re:Hitler died by maroberts · 2011-02-01 05:14 · Score: 2

Hitler Died, He was a tool.
Yes, but he's still used frequently as a tool in Internet conversations.(/godwin)

--
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Re:Hitler died by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:15 · Score: 0

I get the humor.. but on that note....
There are plenty of tools similar to Hitler (or such bastards) all the time in this world. So the actual tool tool will never die out. Some makes a name of themselves, others only gets to the highschool level and stays there for the rest of their lives.
Funny enough. My proof of validation is : parasite - Much better term for Hitler and co.
Re:Hitler died by stms · 2011-02-01 05:26 · Score: 0

You'll Die, You're a tool.
Re:Hitler died by mark72005 · 2011-02-01 05:33 · Score: 1

Sic Semper Tytoolus!
Re:Hitler died by Scrameustache · 2011-02-01 05:33 · Score: 1

Hitler Died, He was a tool.
He still gets a lot of use. Assholes worship him, comedians speculate about what they would do to him if they had a time machine... he still gets mileage.

--
You can't take the sky from me...
Re:Hitler died by Sulphur · 2011-02-01 05:48 · Score: 1

Hitler Died, He was a tool.
He still gets a lot of use. Assholes worship him, comedians speculate about what they would do to him if they had a time machine... he still gets mileage.
YMMV; however, there seem to be a lot of offerings of Hitler 101 for repeat customers.
Re:Hitler died by Hogwash+McFly · 2011-02-01 06:55 · Score: 1

Living up to your name, I see.

--
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Re:Hitler died by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 08:50 · Score: 0

Jason Castro was a tool. Jason Castro is Alive, and soliciting funds from his fans for pot^h^h^h a new laptop
Re:Hitler died by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-02 10:46 · Score: 0

Hitler Died, He was a tool.
Fox News has Hitler in pretty heavy rotation last I checked. Hussien was Hitler, now Obama is Hitler. (The radical left uses this a lot tool, Fox is about the only "news" station that makes heavy use of it, though maybe MSNBC does too and I, like everyone else, just don't watch it)
Hitler has never been so popuar

Tools for Encryption by eldavojohn · 2011-02-01 04:48 · Score: 3, Informative

Aside from learning venues (which you could argue every tool has to offer), there's a whole range of tools of encryption that no longer function as they were intended when they were created. From Rome's Scytale to Germany's Enigma Machine, none of those tools are useful today on account of how easily they are cracked.

--
My work here is dung.

Re:Tools for Encryption by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:06 · Score: 0

Aside from learning venues (which you could argue every tool has to offer), there's a whole range of hand tools of encryption that no longer function as they were intended when they were created. From Rome's Scytale, to Germany's Enigma Machine, hammers with broken handles, to a dull ax, none of those tools are useful today on account of how easily they are cracked. broken.
Re:Tools for Encryption by RavenChild · 2011-02-01 05:15 · Score: 1

I remember having to emulate older machines and systems such as the Enigma in one of my college classes. I'd have to say the Enigma is still a relevant tool today (be it for learning and not hiding wartime transmissions).
Re:Tools for Encryption by xednieht · 2011-02-01 05:16 · Score: 2

They are still useful if they are repurposed they simply may not be useful for the original objective for which they were designed. Think the original apple computer selling for $200K+ recently.

--

Hope is the currency of fools
Re:Tools for Encryption by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:19 · Score: 0

(be it for learning and not hiding wartime transmissions).
Is it asking too much to have you read two whole sentences? That's exactly what the original post opened with! And what retired tool doesn't offer a lessons learned or formative history information?
Re:Tools for Encryption by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:25 · Score: 1

Those encryption tools could be used to demonstrate poor algorithm implementations so that security researchers could apply those learnings to developing better tools.
Re:Tools for Encryption by KeithIrwin · 2011-02-01 05:51 · Score: 4, Insightful

A scytale was a club carried by every Spartan (not Roman) officer. It was used as a bludgeon first and possibly a cryptographic tool second, but the historical records of its cryptographic use weren't written until a couple hundred years after the claimed use. None of the historical accounts which were contemporary to the time make any mention of them being used for any purpose other than hitting people (Sparta was known more for military might than for its intellect). So it's quite likely that their cryptographic use was invented after-the-fact by some historian and then repeated by others rather than an actual use.
I also disagree with the idea that either the hypothetical scytale or the cryptographic rotor have really gone out of use. People still, unfortunately, roll their own cryptographic schemes and one of the things that this implies is that they reinvent the wheel or sometimes randomly copy ideas from history. Hardware versions of the cryptographic rotor and the scytale are probably extinct, but the software implementations undoubtedly live on and are in use, even though they shouldn't be.
Re:Tools for Encryption by DrMaurer · 2011-02-01 06:45 · Score: 1

In use is not necessarily useful. Enigma is used as demonstration of a historic invention and could be used by history buffs and such.
I know it's a cop-out. The term "use" should be strictly defined here. Seriously. No, I am not Bill Clinton.

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Dan
Re:Tools for Encryption by CraftyJack · 2011-02-01 06:49 · Score: 2

A scytale was a club carried by every Spartan (not Roman) officer. It was used as a bludgeon first and possibly a cryptographic tool second
So, more of a codebreaking tool? http://xkcd.com/538/
Re:Tools for Encryption by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:56 · Score: 0

by some historian

Do you mean "by some Glen Beck"?
Re:Tools for Encryption by glittalogik · 2011-02-01 12:18 · Score: 1

Rubber-hose cryptanalysis has has a long and ouchy legacy.

Modem? by DuoDreamer · 2011-02-01 04:49 · Score: 1

Acoustically coupled modems.

Re:Modem? by i.r.id10t · 2011-02-01 04:50 · Score: 1

The TDD machines for deaf people to use are very similar to a "coupled' modem set up...

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Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Re:Modem? by Paintballparrot · 2011-02-01 04:52 · Score: 1

2 years ago when I was working at a convenience store we were still using them to order cigarettes.
Re:Modem? by operagost · 2011-02-01 04:58 · Score: 1

Heck, I doubt anyone is using a modem in K56flex or VFast mode.

--

Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Re:Modem? by Misch · 2011-02-01 04:59 · Score: 1

Home pacemaker evaluation kits also have something similar to an acoustic modem. A little more forgiving than acoustic modems (One can use a modern cordless phone and just lay it down over the connection points.)

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--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Re:Modem? by History's+Coming+To · 2011-02-01 05:01 · Score: 2

Very probably being used in Egypt as I type - when ADSL is taken down you need an old school modem, and I bet at least one person has had to dig out the old rubber cup version.

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Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
Re:Modem? by rickb928 · 2011-02-01 05:06 · Score: 1

Perhaps only every month or so. Our second oldest incoming pool will sometimes negotiate K56Flex connections, if something about the X2 fails.
It's multi-protocol. Even remembers Multitech's bastard Unix method, which shall be forever unnamed.

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Re:Modem? by negRo_slim · 2011-02-01 05:21 · Score: 1

and I bet at least one person has had to dig out the old rubber cup version.
I'm not so sure, IIRC the head set coupled modems topped off at fairly low speeds.

From Wiki:

The practical upper limit for acoustic-coupled modems was 1200-baud, first made available in 1973 by Vadic and 1977 by AT&T. It became widespread in 1985 with advent of the Hayes Smartmodem 1200A.
At those speeds you'd be hard pressed to find a service you could use effectively.

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On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Re:Modem? by dlingman · 2011-02-01 05:33 · Score: 3, Informative

Nope. LG washing machines use this to report problems to the service counter. You dial a number, hold the phone to the washing machine, and it hisses to the other end...
Re:Modem? by PCM2 · 2011-02-01 05:33 · Score: 1

At those speeds you'd be hard pressed to find a service you could use effectively.
Nonsense. There are plenty of us on here who dialed in to BBSes at those speeds every day for years. Nothing's stopping anyone in Egypt from setting up a BBS today.

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Breakfast served all day!
Re:Modem? by ShavedOrangutan · 2011-02-01 05:33 · Score: 2

It's been a few years, but the last time I used dialup, v.32 9600bps still worked.

What really amazed me was a friend who still had a US Robotics HST modem from the very early 90's (9600 bps) that would connect at 56K (X2?) after just a firmware upgrade. Talk about a tool that never dies! Of course, those things were almost $1000 when they came out.

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Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
Re:Modem? by mark72005 · 2011-02-01 05:36 · Score: 1

"the revolution will not be tweetivized"

(by the time he got the tweet posted, the revolution was over)
Re:Modem? by drinkypoo · 2011-02-01 05:53 · Score: 1

I used to use a 5-line 1200-baud (with USR modems) text-only BBS in Santa Cruz... I put a lot of hours into it. When my modem went tits-up, I used (for a short time, until I found a new donor) a 300 bps, ~40x20 B of A Homebanking terminal. It was painful, but it was still faster than walking to where the terminal was located, and available to me at more hours.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Modem? by commodore64_love · 2011-02-01 05:56 · Score: 1

>>>I doubt anyone is using a modem in K56flex or VFast mode.
V.Fast == proprietary19.2 kbit/s so you're probably right. Nobody is using that standard. K56flex is what my Windows98 laptop uses. AOL handled it just fine last time I tried, although it was a lot slower (45k) than standard V.90 (53k).

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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Re:Modem? by Martin+Blank · 2011-02-01 05:56 · Score: 1

I still have a couple of USR external modems at home. I need to get a USB-DB9 converter to use them on my current systems, but there's something about having the old tech around that I find comforting.
Then again, it's not terribly useful for me, as my landline is VOIP through Vonage. If my cablemodem goes down, so does my ability to use a POTS modem. Maybe the old lady a few doors down will let me use hers. :\

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You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Re:Modem? by yotto · 2011-02-01 06:02 · Score: 1

We have about 4 dozen of these at work that have been working for hours at a time, every day, for over 15 years.
Why upgrade? You could hammer a nail with them and they'd keep answering calls.

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Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
Re:Modem? by ColdWetDog · 2011-02-01 06:21 · Score: 1

I just bought a USB external modem from Amazon. Somebody uses them because there are four or five models available at present. I bought it as a backup / mobile solution for a fax machine. I know of dozens of modems in use, mostly for remote machinery control and data collection. Not everything ought to be hooked up to the Internet.....

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Re:Modem? by negRo_slim · 2011-02-01 06:43 · Score: 1

Nonsense. There are plenty of us on here who dialed in to BBSes at those speeds every day for years. Nothing's stopping anyone in Egypt from setting up a BBS today.
I said you would be "hard pressed" to find a service you could use effectively and a BBS would not be effective. You are too dependent on in bound lines; at best you could provide communication to perhaps a handful of users at any given time. Not to mention the fact only a small subset of computer users are likely to have any experience utilizing such an archaic technology, let alone in Egypt where in all likelihood their telecommunications infrastructure and familiarness with the technology are all probably fairly recent.

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On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Re:Modem? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 07:57 · Score: 0

I just bought a USB external modem from Amazon. Somebody uses them because there are four or five models available at present. I bought it as a backup / mobile solution for a fax machine. I know of dozens of modems in use, mostly for remote machinery control and data collection. Not everything ought to be hooked up to the Internet.....
Sure... but I bet you didn't get an acoustically coupled USB modem. (If you are not old enough to know what an acoustically coupled modem is, look it up... hint: it is not a piece of hardware which you plug into a phone jack).
Re:Modem? by nurb432 · 2011-02-01 08:58 · Score: 1

BBS's will return when bandwidth is so heavily restricted,and content 100% monitored.

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---- Booth was a patriot ----
Re:Modem? by innocent_white_lamb · 2011-02-01 10:44 · Score: 1

A business I do some work for has several US Robotics modems hooked up to a computer that's in use as a fancy answering machine. It works well. (Particularly since I set it up for them!)

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If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Re:Modem? by PCM2 · 2011-02-01 16:48 · Score: 1

I said you would be "hard pressed" to find a service you could use effectively and a BBS would not be effective. You are too dependent on in bound lines; at best you could provide communication to perhaps a handful of users at any given time.
Given that the alternative is for nobody to know what's going on in any part of the country at any given time, I'd say that's effective enough. Remember that not just Internet routers but entire mobile networks have been knocked down by the Egyptian government. I don't know for sure, but I'll wager Egypt is one of those countries where more people have mobile phones than landlines. Whatever uses those few landlines to best result is effective. The earlier poster was talking about acoustically coupled modems -- if you're resorting to that, a BBS system to spread news and information is cake.

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Breakfast served all day!

example of a tool no longer in use: by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 04:50 · Score: 0

Tools used by Incas for ritual human sacrifices.

Re:example of a tool no longer in use: by Nethemas+the+Great · 2011-02-01 05:04 · Score: 1

Haven't read the latest US manual on terrorist information extraction have you?

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Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
Re:example of a tool no longer in use: by flaming+error · 2011-02-01 06:32 · Score: 1

Seems like human/animal sacrifices would have been done with blades.
I'm thinking/hoping most medieval torture devices have fallen out of use.
Re:example of a tool no longer in use: by gorzek · 2011-02-01 06:45 · Score: 1

Again, it isn't about whether they are still in use, but whether they still exist in any form. Medieval torture devices are certainly still around: as movie props and museum pieces.

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Check out my world simulator thingy.
Re:example of a tool no longer in use: by flaming+error · 2011-02-01 06:59 · Score: 1

> it isn't about whether they are still in use, but whether they still exist in any form
Ah, so there's the problem. What target are we aiming at? How do we define the death of a tool?
Here are the definitions/descriptions I found in TFA:
1) "no species of technology that have ever gone globally extinct"
2) "any [invention, tool, technology] that has disappeared completely from Earth"
3) "a tool, an invention that is no longer being made anywhere by anybody"
4) "technology that has disappeared completely"
If something has "disappeared completely", we don't know about it. The game is rigged. By definition.
Re:example of a tool no longer in use: by BluBrick · 2011-02-01 07:57 · Score: 1

Tools used by Incas for ritual human sacrifices.
Admittedly, we no longer sanctify them or use them for human sacrifice, but we still have and use knives.

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Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!

Of course tools die... by msauve · 2011-02-01 04:50 · Score: 1

and for anyone who doubts that, I have two words: Harbor Freight.

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"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law

Re:Of course tools die... by alta · 2011-02-01 05:02 · Score: 2

Are you commenting on how this place is where good tools go to die...
Or how they sell such crappy tools, that they will inevitably die.
I've bought a good many tools from harbor freight, and yes, I know what you're talking about. Everything is crap, so only buy things you'll rarely use or they can't hardly screw up.
Bad tools to get at Harbor Freight:
cordless drill
sawsall
anything electrical
anything precision
Good tools to get at harbor freight
hex wrenches
rubber hammer
traffic cones
C clamp

--
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Re:Of course tools die... by wideBlueSkies · 2011-02-01 05:23 · Score: 2

I'd stay away from the hex wrenches. Most likely they are made out of that cheap stuff that strips easily under moderate usage. Same with socket sets.
Unless one is using them for hobby/very light home use, one is better off with Sears Craftsman tools - at least in the US.

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Huh?
Re:Of course tools die... by Mandelbrot-5 · 2011-02-01 05:24 · Score: 1

I mostly agree with you, however I was very impressed with the Chicago Electric cutting torch I got for $50. I used it almost everyday for 2 years in a shipyard, made better cuts than a $300 victor. It even worked after someone ran it over with a fork.

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Math is like sex. People who get it are popular in class, people who don't are not.
Re:Of course tools die... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:36 · Score: 0

I have been offered and try to use the following advice: purchase cheap sets of wrenches, sockets, etc. As they wear down, break or are misplaced replace the individual parts with multiples of high quality tools with lifetime warranty; those are the ones you are actually using.
Re:Of course tools die... by Jake+Griffin · 2011-02-01 05:40 · Score: 1

I think the fact that they were eating (with or without a fork) when they stepped on your torch is irrelevant. Unless they were eating something heavy enough to make a significant difference in the impact their foot made on said torch...

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SIG FAULT: Post index out of bounds.
Re:Of course tools die... by drinkypoo · 2011-02-01 05:47 · Score: 1

Craftsman hand tools are dandy. They are built like tanks, if a bit cumbersome, and they have the same warranty as the super-expensive stuff. They're not particularly cheap any more, but still half the price (or less) of some Snap-On or Mac kit. On the other hand, their power tools are shit and only a very small slice of their gas equipment is worth a damn. Further, they attempt to obscure the actual make and model of their rebadged equipment they sell in their store, so that they can sell you parts for often as much as 400% of the actual street valure. Please, never buy anything from them that does not have a lifetime warranty. You are rewarding bad behavior, even if you yourself get lucky.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Of course tools die... by mlts · 2011-02-01 06:06 · Score: 2

Even Craftsman is slipping in quality. Their stuff still has a lifetime warranty, but compare a socket wrench made now to one made 10-20 years ago, and you find that they definitely are not as well built.
I'd highly recommend Snap-on or Mac Tools. Both of those still are high quality. They are expensive, but if someone uses a tool often, having the assurance that a tool isn't going to break and possibly injure is a good thing. However, for people who occasionally reach for the toolchest, the Sears offering is for the most part good enough. This also applies to the other store lines with lifetime warranties -- it is good quality, but not as good as Mac or Snap-on
For bicycles, I'd recommend Park Tools.
Re:Of course tools die... by ThatMegathronDude · 2011-02-01 06:33 · Score: 1

Craftsman quality has gone down significantly since the brand was purchased in 1991. If you want tools that last, get Snap-On or Mac.
Re:Of course tools die... by drinkypoo · 2011-02-01 06:37 · Score: 1

Craftsman doesn't sell the good socket wrench in the store. You have to order it. Last I checked it did not cost any more than the one that is in the store. It's the one you don't have to turn as far; it also lasts longer because they actually deburr the parts and such. Buy wrenches and screwdrivers in packs on sale and pad them out as needed; buy sets of sockets, but don't get the sets with wrenches. I abuse the crap out of my Craftsman tools, they are not mostly the old ones (although I DO have some vintage Craftsman stuff I've got at estate sales and such, and it IS nicer in form.)

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"

George W Bush. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 04:50 · Score: 0

Someone was gonna say it, might as well be an anonymous coward.

Re:George W Bush. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:02 · Score: 0

Its not like you've done anything useful either you tool.
Re:George W Bush. by FingerSoup · 2011-02-01 06:09 · Score: 1

No people still use him for Cannon fodder all the time. He's too big of a target to stop using....

I know I couple that SHOULD by ArhcAngel · 2011-02-01 04:51 · Score: 1

Here are some Tools that need to receive a Darwin award.

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"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K

Radioactive tools by rednip · 2011-02-01 04:51 · Score: 5, Interesting

Some time ago radiation wasn't well understood, and a number of tools were built to take advantage of it for personal use. The radioactive shoe sizer came to mind right off the bat, but a searching for it I found a number of tools that were certainly ill advised. http://www.thingamababy.com/baby/2006/05/fun_with_radiat.html http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/offbeat-news/10-radioactive-products-that-people-actually-used/1388

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The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.

Re:Radioactive tools by ElectricTurtle · 2011-02-01 05:08 · Score: 1

Holy crap, that stuff is sick... somebody call NPR because those things are definitely the nail in this topic's coffin.

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I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Re:Radioactive tools by rarel · 2011-02-01 05:17 · Score: 2, Funny

I guess technically they're just half-dead, being radioactive and all... :p
Re:Radioactive tools by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:20 · Score: 0

So, in looking back at all the stupid things a previous generation was doing, my questions are these:
What stupid things are we doing, that a future generation will be in disbelief about our stupidity? What things are we eating and drinking that, 100 years from now, our descendants will wonder how we didn't all just keel over dead?
Re:Radioactive tools by Thud457 · 2011-02-01 05:30 · Score: 1

What things are we eating and drinking that, 100 years from now, our descendants will wonder how we didn't all just keel over dead?
beef
Maybe any factory-produced animal meat. Probably won't be able to afford it. Might eventually give it up out of disgust.

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the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Re:Radioactive tools by MightyYar · 2011-02-01 05:32 · Score: 3, Insightful

What things are we eating and drinking that, 100 years from now, our descendants will wonder how we didn't all just keel over dead?
Beyond obvious things like tobacco, when I lived in NYC I was always struck by the rich inhabitants coming out of the Whole Foods with their organic produce and stepping into the exhaust fumes of a million cars and buses. Yeah, it'll be the Apples that kill you...

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W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Re:Radioactive tools by FrootLoops · 2011-02-01 05:32 · Score: 1

On the back of the tube it was stated that, ‘radioactive radiation increases the defenses of teeth and gums... cells are loaded with new life energy, the destroying effect of bacteria is hindered... it gently polishes the dental enamel and turns it white and shiny.'
This is why I hate the marketing department.
Re:Radioactive tools by TheCarp · 2011-02-01 05:37 · Score: 1

Think drugs, and I don't mean pot or coke. I am sure that people of the future will have as big an appetite for them as we do, and will easily understand their appeal. If there ever was a product that sold itself... its not clear to me why drug dealers got the name "pushers", when most of the "pushing" that they typically have to do is of the "dude, don't call me at 3 am", or "How about you pay up front?" variety.
I am thinking, antibiotic overuse, psychiatric medicines. Putting developing kids on amphetamines to make them sit still and pay attention in school?
Now, if you will excuse me, my coffee cup is empty and needs a refill.

--
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Re:Radioactive tools by Lashat · 2011-02-01 05:42 · Score: 1

Wouldn't we class these "tools" as "snake-oil" or psuedo-science by today's standards? Can we really say were tools at all?

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For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Re:Radioactive tools by steelfood · 2011-02-01 05:42 · Score: 1

Makes you wonder what people'll laugh about in 100 years time when they look back at the products we use and take for granted everyday now.

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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Re:Radioactive tools by damnfuct · 2011-02-01 05:51 · Score: 1

Possibly HFCS everything; definitely most alternative medicine and new-age treatments; zealousness for unrealistic technologies; excessive fear about anything scientific.
Re:Radioactive tools by hey! · 2011-02-01 05:59 · Score: 1

I dunno. It depends on your criteria for "still actually used". It seems to me that obsolete tools are obsoleted in different ways:
(1) The tool has been superseded by refined versions of itself. (Metal ax replaces stone ax)
(2) The tool has been superseded in its primary economic role by different tools. (Guns and bullets replace bows and arrows)
(3) The role itself has become obsolete. (Shoe fitting fluoroscopes).
The shoe fitting fluoroscope may be the closest thing there is to an extinct tool, because you would never build such a thing for such a purpose today. However, there *are* still fluoroscopes in use. Presumably you *could* use them to fit shoes, but they lack the refinements that would make the convenient for using in a retail environment.
For that matter, so far as I know people are not building new steam locomotives either. That doesn't mean that rail museums aren't refurbishing and using them. I'm sure that steam engines are being produced that *could* be adapted to pull loads over rails, but they wouldn't have the performance and form factor to make that practical.
Both these technologies (shoe fluoroscopes and steam locomotives) are good choices for extinction because they aren't things you would either build or use casually (unlike a primitive ax or bow). Even so, it seems to me that the truth of the statement "No tool ever dies" depends on what you mean. You can falsify it by being unreasonably narrow (e.g., many early airplanes of which there are no surviving examples or design documents are extinct, although *similar* aircraft are being built by homebrewers). You can make it true by being unreasonably permissive (fluoroscopes are still in use in medicine and *could* be used to fit shoes if you wanted to).

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Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Re:Radioactive tools by amRadioHed · 2011-02-01 06:04 · Score: 1

The shoe fitting fluoroscope was certainly a useful tool.

--
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Re:Radioactive tools by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:48 · Score: 0

If shifting the goalposts for every counterargument to the radio debate piece allows you to sleep at night, knock yourself out.
Re:Radioactive tools by petermgreen · 2011-02-01 07:13 · Score: 1

Afaict radioactive glow in the dark paints are still used in some products though these days they use tritium rather than radium (tritium is much safer than radium for a couple of reasons, firstly it's not a toxic heavy metal, secondly it decays in a single step to a safe decay product producing a relatively weak beta particle which is enough to power the phosphor but not strong enough to be a singificant danger).

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note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Re:Radioactive tools by petermgreen · 2011-02-01 07:19 · Score: 1

Most of them were but some of them but a couple were legitimately useful.
Paints that glow in the dark without external power are useful. Indeed I belive radioactive paints are still used today though they use tritium rather than radium.
The shoe fitting flouroscope also did what it said on the tin though how useful that was is debatable.

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note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Re:Radioactive tools by RDW · 2011-02-01 07:20 · Score: 1

'Wouldn't we class these "tools" as "snake-oil" or psuedo-science by today's standards?'
They were snake oil even by the standards of the time. From 'Popular Science' magazine in 1932:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SSgDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA9
'Radium - Life-Giving Element...deals DEATH in Hands of Quacks'
The whole magazine is worth a look, incidentally. The next item ('Flying Tanks - War's Deadliest Weapon'), nicely illustrated by a formation of biplane-tanks flying into battle, might qualify as 'dead' technology, but Wikipedia suggests there were subsequent experiments:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winged_tank
Re:Radioactive tools by petermgreen · 2011-02-01 07:27 · Score: 1

Actually i'd say the "shoe fitting flouroscope" fits into a slightly different category from those you described."tools deemed too dangerous to use" the role itself isn't gone, we still need to fit shoes but we went back to doing it the old fassioned way. It was determined that the benifits of being able to see inside the shoes did not outweigh the dangers of using x-rays.

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note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Re:Radioactive tools by sznupi · 2011-02-01 07:35 · Score: 1

Probably general levels of higher vertebrate meat consumption (from whatever source) in many places, falling into the trap(*) of basing most meals around it.

(*) Strong preference for unspoiled meat is understandable, it was a great news for many millennia of our evolution. Great news also because of being not the most straightforward food to get, not a case of meatwall in the supermarket.

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One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:Radioactive tools by sznupi · 2011-02-01 07:57 · Score: 1

For that matter, so far as I know people are not building new steam locomotives either. That doesn't mean that rail museums aren't refurbishing and using them. I'm sure that steam engines are being produced that *could* be adapted to pull loads over rails, but they wouldn't have the performance and form factor to make that practical.
People are building new steam locomotives ... sometimes (I think it might be a bit more common with narrow gauge ones, especially of mountain varieties)

They are not used only by museums, too. It's not too hard to find a completely regular, daily service - as is the case near my place (seriously, absolutely normal scheduled passenger service, with one end on one of the biggest rail terminals in my country; I sometimes use their route)

--
One that hath name thou can not otter
Re:Radioactive tools by hubie · 2011-02-01 09:33 · Score: 1

we still need to fit shoes but we went back to doing it the old fassioned way.
Your way is so five minutes ago.
Re:Radioactive tools by maxwell+demon · 2011-02-01 10:31 · Score: 1

However you have to admit that it probably killed a few bacteria. :-)

--
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Re:Radioactive tools by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 12:49 · Score: 0

To add:
Microfilm 35mm - There are a dozen types of film / processing systems and the tools that go along which may not yet be extinct, but they are dieing out fast. This includes things like planetary cameras (they are all digital now), scope cameras (all digital), light tables (kinda still exist if you can repose them), Vellum film, Cellulose film, nickel film, diox film etc etc etc. Oddly enough, microfilm is still in common use, in every county in the USA. County recorder offices still use it, because it's the ONLY federally backed "archive" system that exists. Meaning if the government requires a record to be kept of it over long term, then it has to be microfilmed at some point. Oddly enough, most of the systems are digital now and they don't actually photograph every page anymore, they just run the TIFF files out to a Kodak Microfilm printer. It makes a lot of noise, and in the process, puts the TIFFs onto the microfilm (usually 16mm these days).
Any case, A LOT of tools and processes have been lost over the years in relation to microfilm. Dealing with non-digitally created microfilm over many decades storage is an art form, and few people know it. 20 years from now, almost all of them will be dead, and it'll be interesting. The nice thing about microfilm (and why it's mandated still) is that you can read it with a magnifying glass and a light source. (stone age tools). So most of the tools lost in the microfilm trade will be re-invented fairly quickly.
This same lesson should be important to geeks as digital media start to age and degrade. If you don't keep it live, do you plan to keep it at all?
Anyone here can read a 24 inch disc? Not sure which kind, but it's got a silver edge and bronze colored medal with grooves like a record. It weighs a lot. Wait, I know, how about that pile of IOMEGA zip disks? Surely you've got a working reader? (sorts through pile of drives) push-CLICK next push -CLICK next push-CLICK next push-CLICK next push-Whrrrrr oh good... but we trashed the disk with the first drive. :(
Re:Radioactive tools by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-02-01 14:10 · Score: 1

I suspect that it depends on whether they are looking at the historical record left by the optimists or the pessimists...

The humor in a lot of the old quack remedies and dangerous radiation stuff and so forth is not so much in that it is badly wrong, though that is a necessary condition; but in the fact that it is so earnestly, stridently, boundlessly optimistic about how wonderful it is, while simultaneously being dangerously wrong.

As best I can tell, that sort of hucksterific techno-utopianism is now not extinct; but certainly controversial. The competing strains of "Yeah, this is hardly perfect, and I'm sure it will be replaced by something better as new research comes out; but it is the best we have now." and "This is terrible, progress is probably a carcinogen, we should be much more careful!" are much more common and visible. Those will likely be less amusing.

Somebody who is utterly wrong and wholly enthusiastic is funny. Somebody who is utterly wrong but, even at the time, openly admits that he is working from provisional data that will probably be overturned, just isn't as amusing. Pathetic, perhaps, if the error is grievous enough; but just not all that funny.
Re:Radioactive tools by drinkypoo · 2011-02-01 15:37 · Score: 1

Both these technologies (shoe fluoroscopes and steam locomotives) are good choices for extinction because they aren't things you would either build or use casually
Steam Locomotives

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Radioactive tools by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 17:25 · Score: 0

you really think 0xDEADBEEF is our primary 0xBAADF00D ?
Re:Radioactive tools by FrootLoops · 2011-02-01 19:52 · Score: 1

Hah! Good point. However, the marketing just says "the destroying effect of bacteria is hindered" instead of "destroys bacteria", so they even got that at best only partly right.

Lost technologies by c0d3g33k · 2011-02-01 04:51 · Score: 1

I'm guessing that technologies used in the past to accomplish feats that are difficult to replicate in modern times would be a fruitful area to find examples. Sadly, identifying the tool itself would not be possible since they are "lost". Examples that come to mind: tools used to build the pyramids.

This probably isn't what TFA really is after, though.

Re:Lost technologies by dadelbunts · 2011-02-01 06:05 · Score: 1

A problem with that is, are they lost tools. Or lost techniques for known tools.
Re:Lost technologies by negRo_slim · 2011-02-01 06:31 · Score: 1

Examples that come to mind: tools used to build the pyramids.
You mean rocks?

--
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Re:Lost technologies by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-02-01 14:23 · Score: 1

I have a candidate for your category: shipbuilding. Now, modern techniques of fiberglass composites for the small stuff and steel for the big stuff happen to work pretty well indeed. The captain of a galleon from the age of sail would wet himself if he saw what a modern tanker or container ship can do in terms of transport. The captain of a man o' war would never even get to see his modern counterpart, since only one party can engage over the horizon...

However, the raw materials needed to replicate or improve classic wooden ship technologies are basically unavailable. We know what they are; but they are somewhere between "brutally uneconomic" and "simply not to be had". A good wooden warship could consume the better part of a forest worth of the finest old-growth oak. A wooden navy meant hundreds to thousands of tons of the finest timber. No '20-year-old-pine mixed with epoxy and sawdust' tree farm crap. Virtually all old-growth hardwoods, including parts that had to grow in the correct shape(they eventually adopted some compositing techniques out of necessity; but the really hardcore examples have things like masts and hull ribs formed from single pieces taken from trees with the correct shape and grain for the application).
Re:Lost technologies by whit3 · 2011-02-02 12:22 · Score: 1

Rent _Mutiny on the Bounty_ (1962), and look at the DVD extras menu for a nifty video of the ship they
reproduced for the film. Wood cost makes it
infeasible to do that nowadays, and skills are
probably scarce, too.

You'd be hard put to find a dump rake still in use by John+Hasler · 2011-02-01 04:51 · Score: 1

n/t

--
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.

stone cold dead tool by dgdriscoll · 2011-02-01 04:51 · Score: 1

button hooks for high button shoes. Anyone still using one?

Re:stone cold dead tool by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 04:55 · Score: 0

button hooks for high button shoes. Anyone still using one?
I was going to name button hooks too, until I Googled them and found that they're still being made and used (for handicapped people for instance). Just the high-button shoes have gone out of style.
Re:stone cold dead tool by Primitive+Pete · 2011-02-01 05:17 · Score: 1

I would bet a small sum that there's a reenactment fan out there somewhere with a collection of these thing, plus a few buggy whips besides.
Re:stone cold dead tool by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:50 · Score: 0

I'd double your bet with one that states that someone is using them in a sex acts.
Re:stone cold dead tool by DrMaurer · 2011-02-01 06:47 · Score: 1

I am sure you can find a fetishist for the shoes...

--
Dan

Maybe they are right by bigredradio · 2011-02-01 04:51 · Score: 1

First thing that came to mind was a party line. But from wikipedia -

"One example of a community linked by party line is in Big Santa Anita Canyon high in the mountains above Los Angeles, near Sierra Madre, California, where 81 cabins, a group camp and a pack station all communicate by magneto-type crank phones. One ring is for the pack station, two rings for the camp and three rings means all cabins pick up."

--
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX

Re:Maybe they are right by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:25 · Score: 0

There are definitely plenty of people on party lines; in fact, I know a few.
Re:Maybe they are right by dzfoo · 2011-02-01 05:51 · Score: 1

The problem that I see (in the /. comments and the NPR story) is that the examples being considered are from relatively recent times; yet the story insisted on applying its thesis to the entire breadth of human history.
-dZ.

--
Carol vs. Ghost
...Can you save Christmas?
Re:Maybe they are right by innocent_white_lamb · 2011-02-01 11:18 · Score: 1

Party lines are still in common use in most places, including the largest cities, but we call that "distinctive ring service" and the phone company generally charges extra for it.

--
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!

/. News Network by Even+on+Slashdot+FOE · 2011-02-01 04:51 · Score: 1

This just in - people still make vinyl records, and people buy them because (they think) vinyl records sound better than any other recording medium.

Also, all those 386 processors that are still in active use need to be replaced occasionally.

Re:/. News Network by Seumas · 2011-02-01 04:59 · Score: 0

At least our tax dollars aren't funding stupid slashdot stories. :/
Re:/. News Network by imakemusic · 2011-02-01 05:03 · Score: 4, Interesting

People also buy vinyl because it is easier to mix with. You have direct physical control over the movement of the disc and therefore the speed of the music which gives you more control for beat-matching and makes scratching possible/easier. Obviously, it has it's disadvantages. Your bags are heavier, vinyl can get damaged, it takes longer to find a piece of vinyl than search a digital disk etc. but as a tool for this specific job, many still (rightly, in my opinion) consider it superior.

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Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
Re:/. News Network by BitterOak · 2011-02-01 05:13 · Score: 1

This just in - people still make vinyl records, and people buy them because (they think) vinyl records sound better than any other recording medium.
Also, all those 386 processors that are still in active use need to be replaced occasionally.
Have any of those people compared vinyl to super audio CD's (SACD)? I agree that vinyl can carry details that conventional CDs lack (at the expense of dynamic range and some distortion), but I always understood SACD to be the best of both words: the low amplitude detail of vinyl (which adds warmth, spacial definition, detail, and good blending of orchestral instruments (especially in classical music)), and the clarity, low noise floor, dynamic range, and consistency of CDs. Has anyone seriously claimed vinyl sounds better than SACD (assuming good playback equipment, of course)?

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If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Re:/. News Network by tlhIngan · 2011-02-01 05:22 · Score: 2

This just in - people still make vinyl records, and people buy them because (they think) vinyl records sound better than any other recording medium.
You may scoff, but while it was highly debatable in the 80s and mid-90s, these days it's likely to be on the truer side than it was ever before. It's not that CDs are "clinical" or "sterile", but that CDs enable a whole range of audio abuse, the most common one being, well, LOUDER IS BETTER!!!! In no medium until the CD has it been possible to store a dynamic range compressed audio without giving up something. On vinyl, a loud mix means less audio can be stored, while it doesn't matter on a CD.
The other effect is what makes tube amps "better" as well - what happens when you overdrive them. A vinyl record when clipped doesn't hit a hard stop - it hits a soft stop and ends up distorted. Ditto a tube amp - overdrive them and the waveform distorts. However, do that to a CD or transistor amp, and you get clipping. The harmonics induced by clipping the audio are far more harsh to most people's ears than the soft-clip distortion you get with vinyl/tube.
Also why some of the best guitar FX pedals use tubes in their final stages - you want that nice distortion, tubes are really the only way. The alternative is to waste a lot of ADC/DAC and DSP processing power by not using the full dynamic range so there's no possible way to clip, and then process the signal to add soft-clip effects.
Anyhow, there may be some truth to it - because vinyl is still around, yet it's been replaced twice, and still sticks around. The first time was the compact cassette where a full record could be contained in a pocket-sized album. The second time is the CD, which killed tapes, but never really killed vinyl. There's probably a reason for that.
Re:/. News Network by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:25 · Score: 0

(they think) vinyl records sound better than any other recording medium
No, they really don't. They think vinyl is actually the WORST medium for recorded music. Which means it takes quite a lot of work to master an album for vinyl. Which means someone who knows something about mastering needs to do it.
The audio master put on vinyl is different from the audio master put on CD. In many ways, it's worse, due to the contortions you have to do just to get it working on the media, which, it deserves repeating, is awful. But in one way it's better: by necessity, it was almost always mastered by a moderately competent human being.
CDs are so forgiving that you can hand that job off to the intern, or even a completely automated process, and the result will still produce sound. If you took your average "loud" crappy CD master and tried to put it on vinyl, the needle couldn't stay in the groove.
SACD and DVD-A also tend to use different masters than CD--not because of necessity, but because of their niche. They also tend to sound better than CD (due to mastering, not any inherent advantage of the media), but they have limited catalogs and require expensive equipment. And occasionally they will still use the exact same master as the CD (because the formats are equally forgiving). So vinyl still wins all these years later.
That's not to say there aren't well-mastered CDs out there. There are. And they sound way better than vinyl.
Re:/. News Network by powerlord · 2011-02-01 05:34 · Score: 1

This just in - people still make vinyl records, and people buy them because (they think) vinyl records sound better than any other recording medium.
No kidding!
I was floored the other day when I saw someone looking over a record on the Subway and I realized it was for a Lady Gaga album.
Wife wondered why I started laughing.

--
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Re:/. News Network by Kjella · 2011-02-01 05:38 · Score: 1

I think I remember seeing a fake dual vinyl player built just for this purpose in some magazine. Basically you hooked it up to the computer and controlled songs as if they played on vinyl, the driver also added suitable scratching if you wanted. Never mind all the other neat things you can do with the computer, it seemed like a superior solution. True, it's niche but so is doing that in the first place...

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Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Re:/. News Network by drinkypoo · 2011-02-01 05:43 · Score: 1

I keep hearing that CDs killed tapes, but there is really no evidence of this. I still see tape players everywhere, and I still see tapes for sale. This would not be true if nobody was using this stuff. I do believe that they are using it mostly for, uh, time- and format-shifting.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:/. News Network by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:47 · Score: 1

Even this is quickly changing. I've been going to clubs/raves for some 12 years now, and in 1999, they used almost exclusively Technics 1200s and vinyl. Nowadays it's all CDJs or laptops and vinly is actually extremely rare, except for within a few select genres like Hip Hop and DnB, but even those are changing. What happened is that CDJs actually got really, really good and are great to mix with and offer mixing features that are not possible with vinyl. The distribution has also almost completely moved to outlets like Beatport and many dance labels aren't even producing vinyl, and many vinyl stores of the 90s have gone out of business.
As computer power increases and technology evolves - that hands-on feel of records becomes easier to simulate. I don't expect them to be very common for much longer - even in the DJ world.
Re:/. News Network by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:52 · Score: 0

Really? Still?
I mean, seriously, pack a couple iPads, there's probably an app for that.
Even the DJ Hero kits should be good enough input devices to control an mp3 player+plugins to fill your beat-matching needs.
Re:/. News Network by oldmac31310 · 2011-02-01 05:54 · Score: 1

People also buy vinyl because there is still a lot of music that has not been reissued in other formats (such as the ultra modern 8 track cassette tape!).

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http://www.acetonestudio.com
Re:/. News Network by pedestrian+crossing · 2011-02-01 05:54 · Score: 1

I think I remember seeing a fake dual vinyl player built just for this purpose in some magazine.
http://www.dn-hd2500.com

--
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Re:/. News Network by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:02 · Score: 0

Actually, vinyl records are better than CDs/mp3s/etc.
It's just that most audiophiles repeat what they heard somewhere without knowing the caveat. Specifically, the quality of the recording medium is usually not the limiting factor.
I can clearly hear the difference between high and low quality sound over €1000 headphones. Common consumer models? Forget about it.
Re:/. News Network by bgspence · 2011-02-01 06:12 · Score: 1

And I still use 8-Track tapes because they play in my car
Re:/. News Network by trnk · 2011-02-01 06:15 · Score: 1

It's called Traktor Scratch, and these days it's fairly widely used among DJ's: http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/dj/traktor-pro/?content=1085 It'll never feel the same as playing real vinyl though.
Re:/. News Network by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:27 · Score: 0

I love vinyl, the only music I buy these days is on vinyl. And you want to know why? Because the LOUDNESS WARS can't touch vinyl, that's why.
I also love tube amps, no solid state amp will ever get to the level of a good old Mesa Boogie .22 Studio Pre-amp, or Fender Princeton blackface, or a Marshall Bluesbreaker, or a Vox AC30.
Oh yeah, while we're at it, I also write with a fountain pen on actual notebooks, with actual paper.
Re:/. News Network by imakemusic · 2011-02-01 06:28 · Score: 1

Yeah, things like this have been around for a while but it really depends on what you're doing.
If you're only mixing they're perfect - you can find a track almost instantly and they save you lugging a load of vinyl around...although it often means you've got lug around a whole different set of kit and you've also got to figure out how and when you're going to plug it all in without stopping the sound from the DJ who is playing before you (I used to work as a sound engineer in a small venue. Trust me, this can be annoying. Not just for the engineer or artist but for the crowd - cutting the music while the next act sets up is a surefire way of emptying the dance floor).
However if you're a scratch DJ it's a different kettle of fish. I'm not a great scratch DJ but put me on, say, Final Scratch (or any one of these, though to be fair I'd expect time-coded vinyl to be slightly more laggy than the HD2500 mentioned below...but I digress...where was I....) and I will suck balls.
It, like all things, is subjective.

--
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
Re:/. News Network by Pentium100 · 2011-02-01 06:31 · Score: 1

I do not hear much of a difference between a record and a regular CD, but I can find more music that I like on records (probably as something to do with the music being old enough to be released on records and not CDs), the records are usually cheaper (used record vs re-released music on CD) and in some cases the record sounds better (because the CD was remixed, redone or just compressed). Also, I like older technology and I still borrow records and copy them to tapes (open reel or cassettes).
Re:/. News Network by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:34 · Score: 0

A vinyl record when clipped doesn't hit a hard stop - it hits a soft stop and ends up distorted.
Anyone who's mastering vinyl so that it's clipping needs to have their ears examined. Ditto for anyone who's paying $30k for a "Hi-Fi" tube amp and then overdriving it (the EXACT FUCKING OPPOSITE of "Hi-Fi"). The guitar amp case is valid, but it's completely unlike the other cases in that the distortion *is* the desired result.
Re:/. News Network by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:34 · Score: 0

"Warmth" is acoustic distortion, which could be applied via electronic filter if desired. "Spacial definition, detail and good blending" have far more to do with the audio engineer than the fact that the music is on vinyl. The fact that "modern" music is largely overcompressed dreck is what gives audiophiles the ammunition they use against CDs. By the way: how many audiophiles does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Only a philistine would appreciate the punchline with the ATROCIOUS acoustics in here.
Re:/. News Network by Pentium100 · 2011-02-01 06:35 · Score: 1

While CDs greatly reduced the number of pre-recorded cassette tapes, blanks are still made and people (like me) are still using them. Even reel-to-reel tape is still made (and is extremely expensive, but people are buying it).
Re:/. News Network by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:35 · Score: 0

More importantly, vinyl records look better than any other recording medium. If you've gone to the effort of recording an album and getting it out there, putting it onto a giant disc with nice artwork is still a good finishing touch.
Re:/. News Network by profplump · 2011-02-01 06:38 · Score: 1

For the people who can get over the fact that each technology has advantages, it frequently turns out that the technical aspects of the transfer/mastering process make a bigger difference than anything else. Here's one example where a series of CD/SACD/LP sets of the same album are compared:
http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?p=885485
Re:/. News Network by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:39 · Score: 0

Three times. Don't forget 8-tracks.
Re:/. News Network by CTU · 2011-02-01 07:28 · Score: 1

This just in - people still make vinyl records, and people buy them because (they think) vinyl records sound better than any other recording medium.
Also, all those 386 processors that are still in active use need to be replaced occasionally.
It is better. All other recording medium I know of are digital. Records uses an analog format so they can better replicate the audio as it sounded like when it was recorded. Although I really don't know anybody who can tell the difference.
Re:/. News Network by petermgreen · 2011-02-01 07:32 · Score: 1

I'd think with good quality optical encoders driving into a FPGA you could make a digital scratch play system with extremely low lag.

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note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Re:/. News Network by petermgreen · 2011-02-01 07:39 · Score: 1

I remember an article in EPE that reckoned you could get a valve like sound from a FET based amplifier amp by desinging it like a valve amp.

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note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Re:/. News Network by uncledrax · 2011-02-01 08:39 · Score: 1

Vinyl is apparently very common still in places like Jamaica.. they press some local artist, he gets his play from the record, then they melt them down and repress a different artist.
It's not just for snooty DJs and Audiophiles like you think

--
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
Re:/. News Network by SkOink · 2011-02-01 09:18 · Score: 1

In no medium until the CD has it been possible to store a dynamic range compressed audio without giving up something. On vinyl, a loud mix means less audio can be stored, while it doesn't matter on a CD.
This is a bit off base. The "loudness" of a vinyl recording has to do with groove depth. "Louder" audio has nothing to do with how much audio could be stored, which is a function of groove width. Also, the whole point of dynamic range compression is to improve audio fidelity in lossy systems such as tape decks or radio broadcasts. That's why u-law compression is built into our telephone standards, with a compressor on the transmit side and an expander on the receive side.

The other effect is what makes tube amps "better" as well - what happens when you overdrive them. A vinyl record when clipped doesn't hit a hard stop - it hits a soft stop and ends up distorted. Ditto a tube amp - overdrive them and the waveform distorts. However, do that to a CD or transistor amp, and you get clipping. The harmonics induced by clipping the audio are far more harsh to most people's ears than the soft-clip distortion you get with vinyl/tube.
Also why some of the best guitar FX pedals use tubes in their final stages - you want that nice distortion, tubes are really the only way. The alternative is to waste a lot of ADC/DAC and DSP processing power by not using the full dynamic range so there's no possible way to clip, and then process the signal to add soft-clip effects.
There's nothing magical about vacuum tubes. They amplify and clip according to physical processes, and can be described as mathematics just like anything else. An ADC -> DSP -> DAC system is more power efficient, more easily reproducible, much more reliable, and more rugged than any tube-based anything. Ponder this - if you were looking for a specific sound to add to your guitar playing, wouldn't you rather have something _specific_ and consistent from use to use than something which is temperature-dependent, age-dependent, and tube-brand dependent?

--
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.

Analog Cell Phone by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 04:52 · Score: 0

Do analog cell phones still work?

Re:Analog Cell Phone by Nethemas+the+Great · 2011-02-01 05:06 · Score: 1

I doubt it counts. Cell phones haven't gone out of use, just the method of data transmission.

--
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
Re:Analog Cell Phone by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 11:39 · Score: 0

Yes they do. As can be witnessed by my (T-Mobile) phone that switched to analog last night when looking for a signal. In analog mode it completely drained the battery dead within a few hours where I normally go a week on one charge.

Cotton fishing lines by XanC · 2011-02-01 04:52 · Score: 3, Interesting

I heard someplace that the quickest ever total replacement of a technology was cotton fishing lines. Cotton lines must be replaced every season. When nylon came out, it was cheaper than cotton, and lasted forever. Is there any use for cotton fishing lines anymore?

Re:Cotton fishing lines by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:03 · Score: 0

Maybe they should use them for sea and ocean fishing if they wear down?
Re:Cotton fishing lines by Gertlex · 2011-02-01 05:07 · Score: 1

I bet it works as dental floss.
(No idea, nor do I care to bother to look, what dental floss actually is made from.)
Re:Cotton fishing lines by rickb928 · 2011-02-01 05:10 · Score: 2

Nice try.
It would be something I might use to teach a kid handline fishing. Nylon can be rough on your hands, though cotton will also burn. And it's biodegradable, so when they hook a good-sized bass, if they let it go the line won't entangle generations of fish. Hopefully.

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Re:Cotton fishing lines by circletimessquare · 2011-02-01 05:12 · Score: 3, Interesting

considering the continued harm to marine organisms that drifting nylon nets and lines do, there is a case to be made to bring cotton lines back. or rather, some sort of synthetic substance that is as strong as nylon, for awhile, but then degrades in the environment

--
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Re:Cotton fishing lines by Virtucon · 2011-02-01 06:22 · Score: 1

Fly fishing. I use cotton all the time. It casts better than nylon.
Grandfather Clocks, older clocks used cotton (earlier cat gut) lines. I still use cotton line for hanging the weights that drive the clock mechanisms.

--
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Re:Cotton fishing lines by TemporalBeing · 2011-02-01 06:58 · Score: 1

it's called rope. don't hang yourself with it.

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Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Re:Cotton fishing lines by pspahn · 2011-02-01 12:46 · Score: 1

I've been fishing nearly my whole life, and I have never once heard of cotton fly line. A quick search for someone that sells it is proving fruitless for me as well.
I'm curious, is this for fly line? Backing? Leader? Tippet?
I mean, I guess if it casts better, that's a plus, but what's the point? If you're spending more time respooling your reel every time you go fishing because of the deterioration of cotton line, how much time are you wasting standing on the bank instead of wading in the water?
Admittedly, I'm also a non-believer in the hopper-dropper methods. The extra time you take to rig up a dropper and all the attention required to make sure your line remains knot and tangle-free could be spent just floating a regular fly. My philosophy is to maximize the time I have a fly in the water. Anything (girlfriend, knots, wrong fly, crappy line, etc) that reduces the time my fly is in the water is something that is counter-productive to the act of angling.
But that's just me.

--
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Re:Cotton fishing lines by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 15:28 · Score: 0

most kinds of traps - crab traps, lobster traps, black cod traps etc - are required to have an escape panel made from cotton or otherwise biodegradable material. most large fishing nets are too.
Re:Cotton fishing lines by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-02 05:58 · Score: 0

Nylon fishing line ("monofilament") does not last forever. It is subject to deterioration due to the sun's UV radiation, weaknesses imposed by stretching, wear from friction, etc.. Heavily used monofilament typically is replaced on a seasonal basis.
Re:Cotton fishing lines by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-12 21:13 · Score: 0

But does that really count? Just material it is commonly made of changed, fishing line didn't stop being used.

Mercury-based medicines? by Theatetus · 2011-02-01 04:52 · Score: 1

Not sure if that counts as a "tool", but I really don't think anyone uses them anymore. The Blue Pill and the Corrosive Sublimate are pretty much gone.

--
All's true that is mistrusted

Re:Mercury-based medicines? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:09 · Score: 0

Homepaths still use mercury. Of course, they dilute it to the point that they're basically just selling water.
Re:Mercury-based medicines? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:20 · Score: 0

Still in use.
Mercurochrome is actually pretty good for disinfecting wounds (I've used it myself), but it's banned in the USA (your country, I presume) because it has not been definitively proven safe.

Very easy answer by HappyCycling · 2011-02-01 04:53 · Score: 5, Informative

The shoe-fitting fluoroscope.

Basically a box that you put your feet into where x-rays are fired upon your feet and you can look into the viewing ports on the top and see the bones in your feet for the purpose of getting correctly sized shoes.

It was used during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s and was subsequently discontinued after employees experienced radiation burns from the constant exposure.

http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/shoefittingfluor/shoe.htm

Re:Very easy answer by Tablizer · 2011-02-01 04:58 · Score: 2

You could probably lump a lot of asbestos and lead products under that pattern also (at least in the US). Sometimes it takes a while to get a safety clue.

--
Table-ized A.I.
Re:Very easy answer by queazocotal · 2011-02-01 05:23 · Score: 1

The smoke enema machines used to resussitate drowning victims.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_smoke_enema
Re:Very easy answer by WillyWanker · 2011-02-01 05:32 · Score: 1

But similar devices are still in use today, for example, as gastrointestinal diagnostic tools.
Re:Very easy answer by Stooshie · 2011-02-01 05:33 · Score: 1

Still being made (though not for shoe fitting). http://www.southportandormskirk.nhs.uk/news/news_item.asp?NewsID=162

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America, Home of the Brave. ... .and the Squaw.
Re:Very easy answer by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:34 · Score: 0

Up to at least the mid-late 60s in the UK - although thankfully my parents were too sensible to let me use one.
Re:Very easy answer by bzipitidoo · 2011-02-01 05:40 · Score: 1

Indeed. Way back in the 1930's, they realized Bisphenol A mimicked estrogen. But they weren't sure if that was a problem.
Don't forget radium watch dials. And while I'm talking about watches, how about those 1970s digital watches with LED displays?

--
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Re:Very easy answer by damnfuct · 2011-02-01 05:59 · Score: 1

So good. I wonder if this existed before the idiom, or the opposite?
Re:Very easy answer by wings · 2011-02-01 06:01 · Score: 1

discontinued after employees experienced radiation burns from the constant exposure.
and sterility.
Re:Very easy answer by Richy_T · 2011-02-01 06:30 · Score: 1

New LED watches are being made today.
Re:Very easy answer by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:43 · Score: 0

Asbestos is still used a lot in the US. Its use isn't as banned as people think. http://www.epa.gov/asbestos/pubs/asbbans2.pdf
Re:Very easy answer by shawb · 2011-02-01 06:46 · Score: 1

With asbestos and lead, the tools still exist but were simply redesigned with other materials. In the case of the shoe-fitting x-rays, we do not have a replacement tool with anywhere near the same function. The closest we have is this contraption, and it would take a very strong argument to convince me that those are the same tool.

NB: correct contextual usage of the word "contraption" obviously gives greater weight and style to my argument. Nanny Nanny.

--
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
Re:Very easy answer by PitaBred · 2011-02-01 06:51 · Score: 1

It can take a while to get a safety clue when the harm isn't immediately obvious.

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Re:Very easy answer by zildgulf · 2011-02-01 07:52 · Score: 1

You also may want to look at this article in Wikipedia as well.
Re:Very easy answer by zippthorne · 2011-02-01 12:38 · Score: 1

Yeah, but shoe-fitting is only one application of the fluoroscope, a tool which is still in use in other areas.

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Can you be Even More Awesome?!

Need some time by Lev13than · 2011-02-01 04:53 · Score: 4, Funny

Too easy - I just took a bunch of pictures of obsolete technology to include in my response (and to make it authentic I shot it on film). Now, if you can please hold on a bit I just need to send the roll off to get processed into Kodachrome slides. Shouldn't take more than a few days, so please check back.

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When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire

Re:Need some time by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:36 · Score: 0

Not quite. Kodachrome can still be developed, but only in B&W.
Re:Need some time by tinkerghost · 2011-02-01 05:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

Sorry the last Kodachrome processing line in the US just shut down a month or so ago --- you'll have to process them by hand.
Re:Need some time by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:31 · Score: 0

whoosh
Re:Need some time by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:31 · Score: 0

Do you have any audio of this? On 8 track tape?
Re:Need some time by Richy_T · 2011-02-01 06:33 · Score: 4, Funny

I thought the "whoosh" was no longer in use but I hear it's been seen in the wild recently.
Re:Need some time by Relayman · 2011-02-01 06:37 · Score: 1

He knew this when he posted. But you can't do it by hand unless you can get the specific dyes required for the process.

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If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
Re:Need some time by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:41 · Score: 0

Sorry the last Kodachrome processing line in the US just shut down a month or so ago --- you'll have to process them by hand.
Whoosh!
Re:Need some time by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 07:08 · Score: 0

Sorry the last Kodachrome processing line in the US just shut down a month or so ago --- you'll have to process them by hand.
*Woosh*
Re:Need some time by zildgulf · 2011-02-01 07:54 · Score: 1

They took my Kodachrome away! What's next, my slide rule and dictaphone?
Re:Need some time by OldeTimeGeek · 2011-02-01 09:05 · Score: 1

If you've got the chemicals. Dwayne's Photo didn't stop processing Kodachrome due to lack of business, they stopped because the only supplier - Kodak - stopped making the developing chemicals and they eventually ran out.
Re:Need some time by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 14:54 · Score: 0

You probably can't process them by hand as the reason the last one shut down was the lack of chemicals from Kodak.

cassette to 8 track adapter. by w3rdna · 2011-02-01 04:54 · Score: 1

cassette to 8 track adapter.
http://technabob.com/blog/2008/04/08/betamax-to-hd-dvd-converter/8track_cassette_adapter/
I bought one of these for my Grandparents once.

Re:cassette to 8 track adapter. by MonsterTrimble · 2011-02-01 05:38 · Score: 2

When I was back in high school (early 90's) my friend owned a 1978 Oldmobile Cutless with an 8 track. Since we only had CD's we used a CD to cassette adapter in the cassette to 8 track adapter to listen to music while we drove around. not exactly the coolest setup ever, but it worked!

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I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Re:cassette to 8 track adapter. by KeithIrwin · 2011-02-01 05:54 · Score: 1

There are people who still have 8-track players in their cars and combine these with cassettte-adapters to people able to hook a portable CD player or mp3 player up. They're few, but they exist.
Re:cassette to 8 track adapter. by pecosdave · 2011-02-01 17:35 · Score: 1

In the 90's my parents still had their old 70's 8-Track/Vinyl stereo. I put the cassette adapter in, then put an 1/8th inch jack to cassette adapter into that so I could plug in my CD player. Sounded as good as that stereo ever sounded.

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The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.

At least one tool has gone entirely out of use by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 04:54 · Score: 0

Digg.

You must be young... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 04:54 · Score: 0

I mean, If you live long enough, you will know which tools are no longer used.

usless tools by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 04:54 · Score: 0

NPR is a "tool" that should be tossed out. It's as useless as tits on a bullfrog.

Okay... by Tablizer · 2011-02-01 04:54 · Score: 0

NPR is looking for examples of tools that have gone entirely out of use... any ideas?

NPR ;-)

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Table-ized A.I.

Dead tools by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 04:55 · Score: 0

Paglo's rogue scanner is apparently dead since it requires their server and it isn't responding.

Self-selection by Roger+W+Moore · 2011-02-01 04:56 · Score: 1

How many times have we read about NASA tapes...

Therein lies the problem. Any invention that we have heard of or read about is probably because somewhere, somehow it is still in use. Unless you happen to be a historian specializing in weird inventions you probably have never heard of inventions which are no longer made or used.

The rack by omfgnosis · 2011-02-01 04:57 · Score: 1

I am sure (and afraid) I'll be corrected, but I'm sure I haven't heard of any modern usage of the rack.

Re:The rack by Tablizer · 2011-02-01 05:00 · Score: 1

Unless you check Cheney's basement

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Table-ized A.I.
Re:The rack by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · 2011-02-01 05:02 · Score: 1

I'm sure there are chiropractors that are interested in it.

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Technoli
Re:The rack by Minwee · 2011-02-01 05:02 · Score: 2

Perhaps you're just not reading the right personal ads.
Re:The rack by History's+Coming+To · 2011-02-01 05:04 · Score: 1

You clearly haven't been to any BDSM dungeon parties recently. To be fair, neither have I, but I can't imagine there's nobody using them any more.

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Re:The rack by multipartmixed · 2011-02-01 06:00 · Score: 1

My physiotherapist has one of those. Fuck does it ever hurt.

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Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Re:The rack by SleazyRidr · 2011-02-01 07:50 · Score: 1

Actually I guy I work with has back problems. He was explaining the treatment he was getting, and it's basically the rack.

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Is 1563649 a prime number?
Re:The rack by Kosi · 2011-02-01 14:05 · Score: 1

Maybe the CIA and alike are using more modern torture mechanisms. But what about other parts of the world?

Antikythera mechanism or Henges by EMB+Numbers · 2011-02-01 04:57 · Score: 2

The Antikythera mechanism is a 'tool; that is no longer in use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

How about Henges ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henge

Re:Antikythera mechanism or Henges by ElectricTurtle · 2011-02-01 05:22 · Score: 1

Sorry, but no. The Antikythera mechanism has been reproduced several times in fully functional form and 'used' by those reproducing it.

You would also do well to read your own link, depending on whose definition you're using 'henges' may not have been, categorically, tools at all. Some had astrological functions, others appear not to have had anything more than local topographical significance, which really doesn't make them tools any more than the landscaping at a community park.

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Re:Antikythera mechanism or Henges by queazocotal · 2011-02-01 05:24 · Score: 1

http://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=1958.0 or not.
(lego Antikythera)
Re:Antikythera mechanism or Henges by ceoyoyo · 2011-02-01 07:56 · Score: 1

"Used" in the context of this article implies used reasonably regularly for some purpose other than historical interest.
Viking ship replicas are occasionally rebuilt and sailed around for a bit as well, but you wouldn't say that they're used today.
Re:Antikythera mechanism or Henges by Sam+Nitzberg · 2011-02-01 08:03 · Score: 1

The original is no longer in use, but I respect the effort this team performed (video link below) to replicate an analogue of it using Legos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLPVCJjTNgk
Re:Antikythera mechanism or Henges by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 08:18 · Score: 0

Not so! Here is a very recent Antikythera machine made of legos: http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/01/29/0336249/A-Lego-Replica-of-the-Antikythera-Mechanism
Re:Antikythera mechanism or Henges by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 11:37 · Score: 0

i thought about that but scientists are working to replicate it.
http://blog.dugnorth.com/2008/12/working-replica-of-antikythera.html
Re:Antikythera mechanism or Henges by bWareiWare.co.uk · 2011-02-01 20:57 · Score: 1

Looks like they are still manufactured: http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/01/29/0336249/A-Lego-Replica-of-the-Antikythera-Mechanism
Re:Antikythera mechanism or Henges by KritonK · 2011-02-01 23:14 · Score: 1

The Antikythera mechanism is a 'tool; that is no longer in use.
Nope--still being made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eUibFQKJqI !!!

Stonehenge? by handy_vandal · 2011-02-01 04:58 · Score: 1

Does anyone actually use Stonehenge for its intended purposes?

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-kgj

Re:Stonehenge? by Minwee · 2011-02-01 05:04 · Score: 1

You mean making it 10" tall and putting it on a stage?
Yes, I'm pretty sure that happened at least once.
Re:Stonehenge? by PointyShinyBurning · 2011-02-01 05:04 · Score: 1

Does anyone actually use Stonehenge for its intended purposes?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/wiltshire/hi/front_page/newsid_8750000/8750983.stm
Re:Stonehenge? by metalgamer84 · 2011-02-01 05:15 · Score: 1

It was actually 18" high in Spinal Tap ;)
Re:Stonehenge? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:16 · Score: 0

Does anyone actually use Stonehenge for its intended purposes?
It was built as a conversation piece... so, yeah
Re:Stonehenge? by SnarfQuest · 2011-02-01 05:21 · Score: 1

You mean, as a tourist trap?

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Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Re:Stonehenge? by ElectricTurtle · 2011-02-01 05:25 · Score: 1

There are Neo-Druidic groups that use it for a purpose related to its design (which may or may not overlap with its 'intended purpose' as that is lost to history and only guessed at by archaeology and anthropology), so yes.

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I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Re:Stonehenge? by Scrameustache · 2011-02-01 05:50 · Score: 1

Does anyone actually use Stonehenge for its intended purposes?
A gathering spot?

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You can't take the sky from me...
Re:Stonehenge? by Tetsujin · 2011-02-01 06:27 · Score: 1

Does anyone actually use Stonehenge for its intended purposes?
What, you mean its purpose as a marker of the location of the Pandorica?

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Bow-ties are cool.

Tools by mattwrock · 2011-02-01 04:58 · Score: 1

I wanted to say Bill Gates, but since he "curing" polio, I will go with Larry Ellison

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"Ones and zeros were everywhere. I even think I saw a two!" - Bender

Re:Tools by catmistake · 2011-02-01 06:01 · Score: 1

First modern tool that comes to mind that won't be getting much use anymore is Paul Allen's yacht's helocopter

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The Admin and the Engineer
Re:Tools by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:03 · Score: 0

Why the scare quotes?
Re:Tools by treeves · 2011-02-01 07:51 · Score: 1

Maybe because the Gates foundation is not really trying to cure polio, but rather to eradicate it, so that cures are not necessary, as was done with smallpox.

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...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.

Corey Haim by Kookus · 2011-02-01 04:59 · Score: 0

I think he's dead.

ofcourse they die by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:00 · Score: 0, Informative

michael jackson died on June 25, 2009

Re:ofcourse they die by FingerSoup · 2011-02-01 06:22 · Score: 1

And people are still using his name to make money for themselves....
Re:ofcourse they die by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 08:25 · Score: 0

they will also die...

Dead writing tools. by qbzzt · 2011-02-01 05:01 · Score: 1

Papyrus for writing (as opposed to other uses). You can still buy it as a souvenir in Egypt, but paper superseded it for any other form of writing. Coming to think of it, I haven't seen many clay tablets used lately. Note that parchment is not quite dead - it is still used by Jews for Torah Scrolls.

If we include software as well as hardware, Hieroglyphs and Cuniform are not in use anymore. Neither are a bunch of ancient languages - people still use Latin, ancient Greek, and Hebrew - but most languages used at that time have been abandoned by all except scholars.

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-- Support a free market in the field of government

Re:Dead writing tools. by rickb928 · 2011-02-01 05:13 · Score: 3, Informative

The point of the NPR article (which I listened to this morning) was hese tools were still being produced and used, even if only by hobbyists etc.
Papyrus qualifies. Still being made and used.

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Re:Dead writing tools. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:16 · Score: 0

All of those things are still in use for their intended purposes. Fallen out of popularity, sure, but I can even buy Papyrus online for writing purposes.
Artists use all of these, including clay tablets. You can even get formal instruction on its use... so it's far from falling "completely out of use".
Re:Dead writing tools. by fermion · 2011-02-01 05:34 · Score: 1

This is along the line I was thinking, but again, such writing is likely used somewhere. For instance, I use a glass dip pen for certain work. The fact that they can easily cleaned of ink allow for multiple inks to be used without the need for multiple pens. While I used dip pens in high school for draftings, I did not learn about glass varieties until after college.
In this way I think that saying tools never go out of use is a bit of a grand statement. While the concept of a tool may still be in use, a particular implementation may not be. We still use have various things to write on, not all made of wood pulp, but some forms are clearly no longer made. We still have manual hand drills, but I would wager there forms that only exist in sketch form in old books. As far as floppy disks are concerned, maybe they can be bought, but I doubt they meet the specification of the originals. The originals had to endure some stress for daily use. Even by the late 80's floppy I noticed that floppies were not as durable as they once were.

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"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Re:Dead writing tools. by SnarfQuest · 2011-02-01 05:37 · Score: 1

The Egyptian language was Coptic, which is still in use today. The written form is different, but the language is close enough that the Hieroglyphs are understandable. Coptic language
Is English no longer in use because it's different than what Shakespeare used?

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Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.

Newspapers - how hard was that? by HiredMan · 2011-02-01 05:02 · Score: 1

Newspapers... well for reading anyway. I guess people may still use them for "proof of life" photos and ransom notes, but not reading.

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Bill Gates - Creationist?!?

Re:Newspapers - how hard was that? by Junior+J.+Junior+III · 2011-02-01 05:19 · Score: 1

There's also window washing, wrapping fish guts, lining the bird cage...

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You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Re:Newspapers - how hard was that? by dcw3 · 2011-02-02 08:32 · Score: 1

While newspapers have scaled way back due to the availability of news from other sources, they're far from disappearing. My wife and I still buy the weekend version of the Washington Post. I don't know of a better source for local sales/events, and I can lay on the couch and read between commercials. Yeah, it's probably all available for free on their site, but my wife doesn't need to go looking up and printing out 20 coupons that she'd simply clip.

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Just another day in Paradise

Libraries by h00manist · 2011-02-01 05:02 · Score: 2

Libraries have this problem building faster and faster. Instead of just books, they have rapidly growing archives of media in oddball, forgotten formats and rooms full of old equipment to read it.

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Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/

Re:Libraries by Phoghat · 2011-02-02 07:29 · Score: 1

Microfiche anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

Vinyl, yeah - but 8-track tapes are dead by billstewart · 2011-02-01 05:02 · Score: 1

Unlike vinyl, nobody ever really loved 8-track.

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Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks

Re:Vinyl, yeah - but 8-track tapes are dead by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:52 · Score: 0

I volunteer at a community radio station. Up until a few years ago we used 8-track tapes (we called them "carts") for pre-recorded public service announcements. There were usually about 3 or 4 PSAs per cart, with special tones in between so they could be easily cued by a machine.
We've since moved to using CDs (and more often, just playing a sound file from a computer), but it wouldn't surprise me if they were still in use by other small radio stations. I kind of miss them---no need to worry about breaking or losing a case, and a cart is far less fragile than a CD.

The tools used to build StoneHenge by gurps_npc · 2011-02-01 05:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

Someone already mentioned the pyramids. The key thing about tools we no longer make is that we lose the NAMES for around the time we lose the tool. Because once we stop making them, we stop talking about them. Here is another example, from less than 200 years The original 'phonograph' used a wax cylinder instead of a vinyl LP disk. They had a 'mechanism' that would shave the cylinders, erasing the current recording and allowing you craft a new one. We don't make this tool anymore and no longer even have a name for it, siumply because we would NEVER under any circumstances, shave an existing 200 year old musical cylinder.

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excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com

Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by rickb928 · 2011-02-01 05:17 · Score: 1

There are several groups gathering and transcribing these old wax cylinders to digital media. so they are indeed playing them to this day. I suspect at least one of these machines will record, and so it can still be done.
And many of the tools used to build the pyarmids are in regular use today. levers, incline planes, etc. We think of them as ramps and teeter-totters.

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by _0xd0ad · 2011-02-01 05:30 · Score: 1

Stonehenge itself was a tool, and probably a better example of a tool that has truly "died". We're not even quite sure how it was used, or what it was used for.
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by gurps_npc · 2011-02-01 05:42 · Score: 2

Read the entire comment. I was not talking about tools to record them, I am talking about tools to ERASE the old wax, so you can record a new one on top of the old one. Like I said earlier, generally you forget the name when you stop making the tool. The tools used to make the cylinders were called ediphones. As for tools used to make the pyramids, you need to prove that ALL of them are still in use, not simply the ones we know about. Again, we forget the tools we no longer make. The fact that we no longer know exactly what tools were used to make the pyramids is pretty solid proof that we have forgotten them.

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excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by Sensiblemonkey · 2011-02-01 05:55 · Score: 1

Stonehenge itself was a tool, and probably a better example of a tool that has truly "died". We're not even quite sure how it was used, or what it was used for.
Not necessarily, for all we know the sole purpose it's architect(s) intended was for it to act as an enigma inspiring reverence and awe.
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by Gorphrim · 2011-02-01 06:01 · Score: 1

Tell that to the BBC...

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Queens of the Stone Age - they rule
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by dadelbunts · 2011-02-01 06:19 · Score: 1

But how do you know the tools are not in use if you dont know what tools were used. Thats a very bold leap of faith to claim that something is not used because you cannot identify what was used. The Egyptians could of very well used tools still in use today, they just used them in ways we dont know about. I for one find it VERY silly to state you dont know what tool was used to perform a task, then claim that tool is not in used anymore.
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by rickb928 · 2011-02-01 06:25 · Score: 1

"Read the entire comment. I was not talking about tools to record them, I am talking about tools to ERASE the old wax, so you can record a new one on top of the old one. Like I said earlier, generally you forget the name when you stop making the tool. The tools used to make the cylinders were called ediphones."
And the machines used to shave them were called 'shaving machines' We still have pictures, and some are still around. I'm wondering if anyone makes them. In 2004, the players were still being made, but i can't yet find any rferences to shavers, which would be the best way to prepare blank cylinders. Casting just doesn't give a smooth enough surface.
As for tools used to make the pyramids, you need to prove that ALL of them are still in use, not simply the ones we know about. Again, we forget the tools we no longer make. The fact that we no longer know exactly what tools were used to make the pyramids is pretty solid proof that we have forgotten them.

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by rickb928 · 2011-02-01 06:30 · Score: 1

Oh, and I forgot...
"As for tools used to make the pyramids, you need to prove that ALL of them are still in use, not simply the ones we know about. Again, we forget the tools we no longer make. The fact that we no longer know exactly what tools were used to make the pyramids is pretty solid proof that we have forgotten them"
I'm not sure I agree with your premise, but not knowing what was used then is not the same as the tools not being in use. We can surmise a lot from how pyramids would have been built, just from our own experience, and I;m windering if you think some tools are forgotten, as in what function or purpose is not met by tools we know of? Do we know enough about what was available to show that all the tools we know about are sufficient to build the great pyramids? I think so.
This is not a good example. Try dictating machines, such as belts and discs, and special cartridges. Some of those are probably both not used and not made any more. However, the principles of magnetic recording are still in use, even for audio. If the form factor is your issue, well, I thinkl that's maybe not applicable and not the point of the article.

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by roman_mir · 2011-02-01 06:52 · Score: 1

Buddy, I just shaved a 200 year old musical cylinder, I do it periodically when I get tired of listening to the same thing over and over.
Just now I put the newest lady Gaga hit onto a wax cylinder marked as 'Greetings to Edison by William Ewart Gladstone, December 18th, 1888'. I had to shave that cylinder clean to do that first and some new wax had to be applied as well. So don't you be dissing no wax cylinder shaving units! They are as useful as they ever were.

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You can't handle the truth.
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by vux984 · 2011-02-01 06:54 · Score: 1

This is not a good example. Try dictating machines, such as belts and discs, and special cartridges. Some of those are probably both not used and not made any more. However, the principles of magnetic recording are still in use, even for audio. If the form factor is your issue, well, I thinkl that's maybe not applicable and not the point of the article.
I read the article pretty carefully, and it appears to me that any tool not being actively made today would qualify.
The idea that some application of the technology that unpinned the tools utility might still be in production doesn't qualify.
The x-ray shoe sizer is a dead tool. The fact that we still use x-ray machines to look at broken bones at hospitals is a different tool. (Although one could reasonably argue that its the same technology.)
Looking at history we can see examples of a technology that was used, that was lost, and that was later rediscovered. The mechanical reaper for example was invented, and then lost for hundreds of years, and then re-invented.
It is entirely plausible something else was lost which we haven't rediscovered yet.
However, the fact that we know the mechanical reaper was lost for a while by itself invalidates the articles premise... technology and tools can be lost, and have been lost.
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by shawb · 2011-02-01 06:56 · Score: 2

I have seen a wax cylinder shaved and recorded over in a demonstration in a class, although I can not recall if it was music or science. The cylinder was a replica made by a hobbyist, and I recall that a phonograph horn was made from paper and a straight pin to demonstrate how simply the technology is. However, this would qualify as far as the NPR article is concerned. Although I may be old enough that this isn't done in schools anymore so only qualifies as anecdotal evidence rather than proof.

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I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by CAIMLAS · 2011-02-01 08:26 · Score: 1

I don't think that really qualifies.
It's like saying we no longer use sledges because the pneumatic hammer was invented - or that a stone axe is a 'dead tool' because the hammer was invented. No - they just get an upgrade. The fundamental tool is the same, albeit somewhat incompatible. The work performed is performed by other tools to superior methods.
But, maybe I'm missing the point. In my mind, a sextant isn't dead any more than a slide rule or abacus - even though they're no longer used except in the rarest of situations. People still use primitive cryptology methods today for method transmittal, after all - that doesn't mean the tools are dead.
In my mind, a 'dead tool' would be a tool that is no longer used at all, not simply replaced with a superior model. The tools we have which replaced that 'unnamed tool' is the hard drive/microphone/whatever. The tools used to make the pyramids, however, are another story entirely: whatever they did to make them, we can't figure it out using existing methods/practices or reconstruct them using known tools.
Good examples of 'lost tools' are the metallurgy/manufacturing methods used to make various ooparts - for instance, the tools used to derive the information used to create the Greek Antikythera mechanism (mentioned here on /. recently, even), or the supposed 'rust-free iron' fossilized hammer or plastic disc ooparts found (true or not, these things are very fascinating for the 'lost tool' fascination alone, despite this site's mission - http://www.s8int.com/)

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Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 08:47 · Score: 0

This reminded me ... the Mayan calendar will probably fall into disuse one way or another :)
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by orkysoft · 2011-02-01 11:54 · Score: 1

It's called an MC-RW device.

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I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by zippthorne · 2011-02-01 12:41 · Score: 1

Then we really can't be sure that it's class of tool is no longer in use, now can we.

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Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by rickb928 · 2011-02-01 15:26 · Score: 1

Well, I didn't buy the article's premise either, so I'm not losing anything. But how we define a tool would be instrumental in proving the premise. You're taking the side of the entire tool, not the concept. Works for me.

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 22:07 · Score: 0

It's called a Dorithometer, There!
Re:The tools used to build StoneHenge by _0xd0ad · 2011-02-02 02:22 · Score: 1

That's a bit like saying buggy whips are still in use since an auto's gas pedal does basically the same thing.

Consumer media by JBMcB · 2011-02-01 05:04 · Score: 1

Dead and buried:

Elcaset - giant higher quality analog cassettes
DCC - digital cassettes backwards-compatible with analog cassettes.
D-VHS - digital home movie format killed by DVD, though it carried a higher quality picture

--
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.

Re:Consumer media by YrWrstNtmr · 2011-02-01 05:16 · Score: 1

Elcaset - giant higher quality analog cassettes

I *almost* bought one of those when they were around. Convienience of a cassette, fidelity of a reel to reel.
Re:Consumer media by RyuuzakiTetsuya · 2011-02-01 05:20 · Score: 1

D-VHS - digital home movie format killed by DVD, though it carried a higher quality picture
oh the irony of A VHS format being beaten by a format with worse picture quality...

--
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Re:Consumer media by MightyYar · 2011-02-01 07:01 · Score: 1

D-VHS - digital home movie format killed by DVD
It doesn't take away from your comment at all, but I don't think D-VHS was killed by DVD... it had numerous other issues. For one, it was expensive (especially the media). Two, it had a horrid copyright scheme that limited it too much. Third, it's inputs and outputs were non-nonsensical... no digital output?
In short, the media cartel decided to kill it because it could record, and at the time the DVD could not.

--
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Re:Consumer media by dcw3 · 2011-02-02 08:36 · Score: 1

D-VHS - digital home movie format killed by DVD, though it carried a higher quality picture
Good thing I still have, and use my Toshiba Betamax!

--
Just another day in Paradise

The Internet in anti-government actions by h00manist · 2011-02-01 05:04 · Score: 1

The Internet died in Egypt last week. Also much of its credibility for use in anti government actions.

--
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/

Re:The Internet in anti-government actions by MikeDirnt69 · 2011-02-01 05:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

Censorship is a very usefull tool, one of the most ancient too. It can make other tools useless! And this is how you make a offtopic message "ontopic".

--
Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
Re:The Internet in anti-government actions by MightyMartian · 2011-02-01 05:17 · Score: 1

Mod +5 Sad but Insightful

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:The Internet in anti-government actions by davburns · 2011-02-01 06:44 · Score: 1

Really?
I think that turning off the Internet is pretty much an admission that regime change is inevitable. A legitimate sovereign power can enforce its laws without completely blocking everything.
You might as well suggest that ballot boxes are dead tools because they haven't been used in Egypt in a few decades... but they aren't, and they'll probably be used again very soon.

vanilla ice = useless tool by jsepeta · 2011-02-01 05:06 · Score: 1

BURN!

--
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.

Re:vanilla ice = useless tool by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:15 · Score: 0

Hey, just because you prefer chocolate doesn't mean nobody likes vanilla!
Re:vanilla ice = useless tool by spydum · 2011-02-01 06:04 · Score: 1

I don't know, the guy does pretty good house remodels down in Florida these days.

All because you can buy it doesn't mean it's used by mschaffer · 2011-02-01 05:06 · Score: 1

All because you can buy 8" floppy drives doesn't mean they are used. Some people just like to buy old things. Since the 8" floppy was introduced in 1971 it still has a way to go before it is considered a bona fide antique.

Paper tape by www.sorehands.com · 2011-02-01 05:07 · Score: 1

I have not seen paper tape used in a long time.

--
Fight Spammers!

Re:Paper tape by SnarfQuest · 2011-02-01 05:17 · Score: 1

There is still a lot of old CNC machines that use paper tape, or often mylar tape because it lasts longer.

--
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Re:Paper tape by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:27 · Score: 0

I have not seen paper tape used in a long time.
So you've obviously never done/seen a drywall job. Paper tape is used to tape the joints between two pieces of drywall.......
Re:Paper tape by RapmasterT · 2011-02-01 05:36 · Score: 1

I have not seen paper tape used in a long time.
The military still uses paper tape in some limited capacity. It has the advantage of being electromagnetic pulse proof, and in a hermetically sealed container it has an almost unlimited lifespan.
Re:Paper tape by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:01 · Score: 0

Not true; many people continue to use paper tape for personal medical applications (ostomy) when faced with sensitivities to the adhesives or materials used in other tapes. It is easily available in the first aid aisle of most pharmacies.
Re:Paper tape by Strider- · 2011-02-01 08:19 · Score: 1

Also has the benifit of being easy to completely destroy. Until recently, one of the common ways of distributing cryptographic keys was encoded on nitrated (flash) paper. Once the key was read into the encryption device, the user would ignite the paper, causing it to almost assuredly burn up completely, destroying any trace of the data on it. By the same token, if your position was compromised it was very quick to destroy and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.

--
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Re:Paper tape by Zoxed · 2011-02-01 08:42 · Score: 1

> The military still uses paper tape in some limited capacity. It has the advantage of being electromagnetic pulse proof, and in a hermetically sealed container it has an almost unlimited lifespan.
I think you will find they use paper for development, but then Mylar for the deliverable.

Punch Cards? by slashgimp · 2011-02-01 05:08 · Score: 1

These guys are neat for what they still sell and service, in addition to punch cards and hardware the process them:
http://www.cardamation.com/

Linotype machine or Paige Compositor by EMB+Numbers · 2011-02-01 05:09 · Score: 2

Linotype machine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine
Paige Compositor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paige_Compositor

Re:Linotype machine or Paige Compositor by WillAdams · 2011-02-01 05:29 · Score: 1

Letterpress has been having something of a revival of late as a way to create upscale documents.
I just purchased a reproduction of the Goddard Broadside version of the Declaration of Independence:
http://mbelloff.tripod.com/goddardbroadside.html
Also, while it's been over a decade since I was there, a small newspaper / printer in rural Virginia was still using their Linotype for numbering jobs the last time I visited.
William

--
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.

Space Shuttle by Toe,+The · 2011-02-01 05:09 · Score: 1

The most complex mechanical tool ever built is being decommissioned.

I doubt it will serve much use except in museums after that.

Re:Space Shuttle by SnarfQuest · 2011-02-01 05:29 · Score: 1

Another similar example would be the SR-71. They actually destroyed the tooling used to build that plane so that no more could be built.

--
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.

Marriage by __aayejd672 · 2011-02-01 05:09 · Score: 3, Funny

My tool hasn't been in use since I got married.

Re:Marriage by Tuan121 · 2011-02-01 07:27 · Score: 1

Then you made either a mistake or a lame joke.
Re:Marriage by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 19:28 · Score: 0

So much for a "bigpistol" then eh?
edit: capcha was "passion" lol
Re:Marriage by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-02 02:41 · Score: 0

Is that why you're advertising it (see nick) :P
Re:Marriage by dcw3 · 2011-02-02 08:37 · Score: 1

My tool hasn't been in use since I got married.
The problem is that you still think of it as yours.

--
Just another day in Paradise
Re:Marriage by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-10 18:55 · Score: 0

Don't believe you, its just become a manual self-started tool....

If you need an example by Steauengeglase · 2011-02-01 05:10 · Score: 3, Informative

Just look at the textile industry. There are lot of odd tools they used from the early 1900s that today, we honestly have no idea what they are even used for. That doesn't even include the mountains of wood bobbins, loom repair devices, etc.

Greek fire by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:10 · Score: 0

we cant make it...

Re:Greek fire by RapmasterT · 2011-02-01 05:38 · Score: 1

we cant make it...
yes we can. the fact that there's disagreement on what it consisted of doesn't mean that we're unable to make every single one of the argued varieties.

Planned life cycle by mapuche · 2011-02-01 05:11 · Score: 1

I do animation/video post-production. A couple of years ago Adobe Premiere 5.5 (bought circa 2000) stop working, then a message appeared: "this version is too old, please update".

the stones. by mevets · 2011-02-01 05:12 · Score: 3, Funny

I saw a documentary about stone-age families. Apparently they used baby wooly mammoths to wash their dishes, and adult wooly mammoths to shower themselves. The woolly mammoth is quite extinct, so it is unlikely that it is still in use.

Re:the stones. by MooseTick · 2011-02-01 05:23 · Score: 1

Mr Slate called. He wants his joke back.

--
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
Re:the stones. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 12:41 · Score: 0

that wasn't a documentary you doofus that was the Flintstones
Re:the stones. by mevets · 2011-02-03 18:07 · Score: 1

Thanks for straightening me out on that one; wow do I feel foolish now. I'm glad to be part of a community that is so knowledgable, and willing to help people when they stumble. Thank you Mr Coward for your part in making SlashDot what it is.

Manual Typewriter by curmudgeon99 · 2011-02-01 05:12 · Score: 1

Well, I work with the most cutting edge technology in my day job but in the evenings when I go to write fiction, I use a 1917 manual typewriter. It works today as well as it did in 1917, which is perfectly. Granted, I eventually have to type it into my computer for further rewriting but nothing beats the manual typewriter for writing fiction. A computer just does not serve the task as well.

Re:Manual Typewriter by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:39 · Score: 1

Well, I work with the most cutting edge technology in my day job but in the evenings when I go to write fiction, I use a 1917 manual typewriter. It works today as well as it did in 1917, which is perfectly. Granted, I eventually have to type it into my computer for further rewriting but nothing beats the manual typewriter for writing fiction. A computer just does not serve the task as well.
Perhaps it's time to invest in a $20 OCR scanner?
Re:Manual Typewriter by curmudgeon99 · 2011-02-01 05:44 · Score: 1

It is an editing step so I want to choose.
Re:Manual Typewriter by drinkypoo · 2011-02-01 05:50 · Score: 1

If it works so perfectly, why can't you just OCR the output with a $5 used scanner and some $50 software? (I haven't looked into the free OCR stuff in a while, but last I checked it was pretty ghastly. On the other hand, you might find something outdated at the thrift store or on eBay for a song.)

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Manual Typewriter by curmudgeon99 · 2011-02-01 05:55 · Score: 1

I have tried OCR and it's not worth it. Also, when copying a 105,000 word novel such as mine The Butcher of Leningrad", speed is not the issue: quality is. When I am forced to type from my paper manuscript into a Word document, I silently omit the less-than-stellar parts. So, this is a quality step and doing an OCR would skip that step and lower the quality. So, no thanks. http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/leningrad

classic outdated tool by Quiet_Desperation · 2011-02-01 05:13 · Score: 1

Buggy whips- no, wait, my dominatrix has a whole set of those. Never mind.

Re:classic outdated tool by rogueippacket · 2011-02-01 05:23 · Score: 1

Definitely outdated - but buggy whips are still used in North America by societies which solely rely on horses for transportation.
Yes, North America still has societies which solely rely on horses for transportation =)
Re:classic outdated tool by khr · 2011-02-01 06:23 · Score: 1

Not to mention Central Park in New York City...
Re:classic outdated tool by Quiet_Desperation · 2011-02-01 07:48 · Score: 1

True. My dominatrix is Amish.
It's a lot hotter than it sounds.

Re:You'd be hard put to find a dump rake still in by Attila+Dimedici · 2011-02-01 05:13 · Score: 1

I am quite confident that at least some of the Amish still use them.

--
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison

MS Access ... by Stooshie · 2011-02-01 05:14 · Score: 1

... Now that should die!

--
America, Home of the Brave. ... .and the Squaw.

it gets even better... by Thud457 · 2011-02-01 05:15 · Score: 1

NPR is a "tool" that should be tossed out. It's as useless as tits on a bullfrog.

they were interviewing the founding editor of Wired , and we know what a bunch of hype tools those guys are!

--

the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

How about old Memory? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:16 · Score: 0

Like... Mercury delay line memory.

Knowledge dies with its population by h00manist · 2011-02-01 05:18 · Score: 1

When the last holder of an idea dies, the idea dies, unless someone discovers it again, or find some documentation. Has happened many times in history. Concrete, or other liquid stone, is thought to have some forms in the past which are no longer known. It was also used in Rome but largely forgotten for about 1000 years.

--
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/

Challenge is not one unused item... by vlpronj · 2011-02-01 05:18 · Score: 1

Just came back from RTFA. Apparently, the original challenge was ""I say there is no species of technology that have ever gone globally extinct on this planet.". Meaning shoe-fitting fluroscopes are ancestors of the modern X-Ray and CAT scan. Various tape technologies led to DVDs. The rack led to ratchet straps to hold cargo in place (mostly kidding). So, a entire branch of knowledge, no longer used.

Thanks to MTV by CaptainLard · 2011-02-01 05:20 · Score: 1

And the Jersey Shore, tools do seem to stick around forever.

hit the ER, you'll get lots of it on you by swschrad · 2011-02-01 05:21 · Score: 1

paper tape is widely used medically yet. paper roll for gluing in place is a staple of the drywall industry for seam joining.

now, if you're talking Scotch 100 paper recording tape, you'd be on to something.

--
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?

The actual question. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:21 · Score: 0

Was whether or not Technology/Tools ever Die and the hypothesis was that you could still find every tool ever invented still being produced. somewhere.
(I was listening to the show on the way into work this morning).

But I think the individual hypothesizing really didn't step back and think about it before he decided to put his hypothesis to the test.

I don't think even 3rd world countries would use a Fluoroscope for shoe fitting, even if they could afford one. Let alone the plethora of other product which
utilized radioactive elements, as mentioned in the other posts.

I do find it somewhat humorous the one thing the radio-host could not stop talking about was how "...No one makes carbon paper any more..." which is completely false and so easily disproved it isn't funny. So, the entire thing was rather a waste of time on the air waves...I have come to expect that of NPR however.

Re:The actual question. by Stooshie · 2011-02-01 05:30 · Score: 1

Fluoroscopy devices are still made (although not for shoe fitting). See http://www.southportandormskirk.nhs.uk/news/news_item.asp?NewsID=162

--
America, Home of the Brave. ... .and the Squaw.
Re:The actual question. by khr · 2011-02-01 06:26 · Score: 1

I do find it somewhat humorous the one thing the radio-host could not stop talking about was how "...No one makes carbon paper any more..." which is completely false and so easily disproved it isn't funny.
Carbon Paper?
Wow, I haven't seen carbon paper since... Hmm... I guess not since last night when I took my laundry to the dry cleaner around the corner and he used carbon paper to write on the ticket, giving me the carbon copy to bring back later this week...

Philosopher's Egg and other alchemy by EMB+Numbers · 2011-02-01 05:21 · Score: 2

Philosopher's Egg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aludel
Philosophical furnace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanor
Cupellation

Re:You'd be hard put to find a dump rake still in by Sponge+Bath · 2011-02-01 05:21 · Score: 1

I had to look that up. Initially I had an image of old time people covering a pile of excrement using a special rake.

Tools to make tools by unrtst · 2011-02-01 05:24 · Score: 1

My Grandfather was a mechanical engineer. He made many tools to help make other tools. I've seen many of them, and they were custom one-of-a-kind things. I'm certain that at least some of those are no longer in use anywhere (his certainly are not - they're in storage). Others may have come up with similar tools, but their limited use combined with evolving technology means they probably aren't in use anywhere anymore (at least some of them).

One of these days, I'd like to catalog what's left of them. It's an interesting looks into both how things were done, and specifically into what one of my ancestors did.

I didn't intend to follow in his footsteps (didn't try not to either), but I find myself playing a similar role in software development - making the (software) tools that the other devs use to make the product.

Nothing to see... by dzfoo · 2011-02-01 05:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

I heard the story on NPR this morning and I think it's overrated. In my opinion, by including in the report tools and inventions that are custom made for leisure or passion and not necessity or practical use, the scope of invention "death" is reduced artificially.

The report included some examples of old farming implements that are still in use in some developing countries, ostensibly because they cannot afford the newer technology and the old tools are certainly effective. These surely are examples of old technology that is still "alive."

However, the problem is that, while the authors concentrated on the advertisements shown on a late-19th Century Farmer's Almanac, and offer these as proof; they extrapolated their observations to apply to the entire breadth of all human civilizations.

I disagree with this. Obviously some inventions have become obsolete when newer and better technology superseded it. The fact that some fringe group or individual continues to manufacture ancient items for study or pleasure (with no intention to apply or use it in practice), does not mean that the technology is still "alive". Such technology is obsolete and out of circulation for practical use. Understanding or knowledge of it may still remain, but it is effectively dead.

Their thesis then can be rephrased as such: Knowledge acquired by humanity throughout the course of history is accumulated and seldom lost. This is a much more intuitive and obvious assertion than the original one, but also a much less interesting one.

-dZ.

--
Carol vs. Ghost
...Can you save Christmas?

Re:Nothing to see... by betasam · 2011-02-01 05:40 · Score: 1

I am in complete agreement. "Inventions" are defined too loosely themselves. Their utility has not been defined in terms of a specific purpose and context. The time-scale (and therefore chronological context) of the invention has not been defined. If all premises are ill defined or undefined, there is no point to debate. Each reply to the post is a new argument in a new context. So, absolutely, nothing to see here.

--
No Greater Friend, No Greater Enemy! (Lucius Cornelius Sulla)
Re:Nothing to see... by Lumpy · 2011-02-01 06:00 · Score: 1

There are IMPORTANT tools for farming that are being made illegal by Monsanto to further promote their mob like business.
Seed cleaners; these are IMPORTANT to agriculture, but if you own and operate one you will be descended upon by a sea of lawyers for IP infringement.
Honestly, if the Jihads are after the great Satan, They need to target the Monsanto offices everywhere. That company is the largest evil doer on this planet.. Even Satan worshipers think they are too evil.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:Nothing to see... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 07:23 · Score: 0

Right, the real point is that knowledge is seldom lost. And I don't know of any knowledge that has been completely lost to mankind. I wonder why that is?
Re:Nothing to see... by dzfoo · 2011-02-01 07:44 · Score: 1

Because it is most likely recorded somehow. It does not necessarily require it's use or manufacture to continue, nor does it need to be maintain in the active consciousness of modern cultures, if that is what you were suggesting.

--
Carol vs. Ghost
...Can you save Christmas?
Re:Nothing to see... by Ramin_HAL9001 · 2011-02-01 16:12 · Score: 0

Exactly right. Take the Babbage Difference engine, or the ENIAC or any old computer that use vaccuum tubes for their logic circuits. These tools aren't useful, but they still exist in museums, and enthusiastic hobbiests may build their own working modles of these machines. But this doesn't qualify as "use" and they are definitely obsolote. The Von Neuman architecture is certainly still in use, but what are we talking about here? The architecture or the machine itself? The NPR guys are obfusticating definitions for the sake of some stupid debate to fill air time (they do that a lot, I think). I think this fuzzy terminology is the same confused logic behind all software patents, by the way.

Bob Dole by GhettoJew · 2011-02-01 05:25 · Score: 1

Bob Dole

Nope: by Hartree · 2011-02-01 05:26 · Score: 1

They're still in use. In museums and as research objects. And, in fact new versions of them have been manufactured so as to better understand how they were made.

They haven't died out. They've been repurposed.

We have quite a number of people who as a hobby or part of their job make new flint arrowheads with the same ancient tools.

Pyramids by SnarfQuest · 2011-02-01 05:26 · Score: 1

How about the tools used to build the pyramids? They have fallen so far out of use, that we don't even know what they were. Numerous theories exist, but a theory isn't the actual tool set and is likely wrong.

--
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.

My Mother's Husband by wideBlueSkies · 2011-02-01 05:27 · Score: 1

The biggest tool in the universe. He's obsolete but she still uses him...

--
Huh?

here are a few by Chaseshaw · 2011-02-01 05:28 · Score: 1

slide rule, long-hand square roots, minidisc players, zoetropes, cuneiform -- These commentators were pretty presumptuous. "No tool ever goes completely out of use" is a much stronger statement than "every tool I can think of is still in use"--because you won't think of a tool you've never heard of or never used.

Re:here are a few by hey! · 2011-02-01 06:05 · Score: 1

All of which somebody somewhere no doubt still uses. Heck, you can still buy minidisc players.
I even read a story last year about a band that released a steampunk themed song on wax cylinder (dug it up for you:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10171206).

--
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Re:here are a few by tinkerghost · 2011-02-01 06:25 · Score: 1
slide rule, long-hand square roots, minidisc players, zoetropes, cuneiform -- These commentators were pretty presumptuous. "No tool ever goes completely out of use" is a much stronger statement than "every tool I can think of is still in use"--because you won't think of a tool you've never heard of or never used.
hmm ----
- slide rule - have 1, use it infrequently, but use it
- minidisc player - have 1, bought up the stock at a discount store of the disks.
- Long hand square roots - still teach them in school - fundamentals & foundations you know
- zoetropes - still published in kid's magazines as an afternoon project (or were as of the 90's)
- cuneiform - tougher to call, the tools used to make the marks are identical to the ones used in clay sculpting today. There are some people who do cuneiform as decorations/museum pieces.
Additionally, I know people who use:
- scythe - I prefer it to clear light brush on my property
- curtain stretchers - cotton lace curtain's don't appriciate washing
- Quilt Loom - grandmother used one until she died, know several quilt makers who have them.
- steam engine pumps - know at least 1 place that actively uses 1.
- Water wheels - local restoration vilage around here has a working sawmill with one, guy on the bottom of my street has one that powers his other lawn decorations in the summer.
- wind mills - know several places that use them for water pumps, as well as the comeback for making electricity.
It's quite hard to think of something that's not either directly in use still, or it's decedent isn't in use. Someone pointed out that the cylinder shaver for Edison's wax cylinders doesn't have a name, yet it is actually still used in the Edison museum, where they show how the recordings were done - using wax cylinders made just for that purpose.
Re:here are a few by PCM2 · 2011-02-01 06:27 · Score: 1

But all of the things you've mentioned are still produced and are still in use. Many pilot's watches come with built-in slide rules. I don't know of any mechanical tool that can help you do longhand square roots, but the math certainly isn't forgotten. You can still buy a wide range of minidisc players, recorders, and discs, brand-new on Amazon. There are plenty of zoetropes around in museums or used as novelties, and children make them out of paper for fun. I'm not sure cuneiform counts as a tool in this sense, but even if it should, it's not as forgotten as some other languages whose last speakers have died.

--
Breakfast served all day!

The Wooden Plow Shear? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:30 · Score: 0

Oh yeah, the wooden plow shear business is just thriving....

Windows ME by iB1 · 2011-02-01 05:31 · Score: 1

Surely Windows ME must count as a "tool" that no-one in their right mind uses anymore!!!

the security allen wrench..... by inerlogic · 2011-02-01 05:31 · Score: 1

i used to put plates on my car....
i can't find the damned thing, and no one sells 'em anymore, they all sell star ones now....

Re:oblig by mark72005 · 2011-02-01 05:31 · Score: 1

I favor a less funny, more useless answer: Internet Explorer.

Antikythera mechanism by mayberry42 · 2011-02-01 05:31 · Score: 1

the Antikythera mechanism? it's been out of use for thousands of years. One could, however, argue that it can be used as a "learning tool", however more in the context of understanding the knowledge and wisdom of the anciet greeks, rather than for astronomical observations, but still...

Many a medical tool has gone to never come back by mpieters · 2011-02-01 05:32 · Score: 3, Informative

Due to changes in medical knowledge, plenty of 'tools' used in medical practices have fallen into disuse because the underlying medical theory has been dis-proven.

As an example, I present to you the Tobacco smoke enema device. How many of these do you think are still in use today? Do you really want tobacco smoke blown up your backside when you just have been pulled out of the water with a set of bellows and a pipe? Yet in the 17th and 18th centuries they hung these things all along the river Thames to help 'warm' people just pulled out of the water.

--
"The truth shall make ye fret" -- The Truth, Terry Pratchett

Re:Many a medical tool has gone to never come back by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:19 · Score: 0

People are into stranger things than you'd expect...Hell right now some /. user is probably making one as we speak!
Re:Many a medical tool has gone to never come back by dadelbunts · 2011-02-01 06:24 · Score: 1

Thats not how im supposed to smoke!!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!
Re:Many a medical tool has gone to never come back by tinkerghost · 2011-02-01 06:27 · Score: 1

Given the number of things people use in "High Colonic" (WTF!?) treatments, I wouldn't be surprised if at least one person was still using these.
Re:Many a medical tool has gone to never come back by 517714 · 2011-02-01 08:37 · Score: 1

Politicians and advertisers still blow smoke up our asses, but they use television.

--
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Re:Many a medical tool has gone to never come back by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 08:57 · Score: 0

You're just blowing smoke up our asses!
Re:Many a medical tool has gone to never come back by alfredo · 2011-02-01 10:58 · Score: 1

Now you know where the phrase "blowing smoke up your ass" comes from.

--
photosMy Photostream
Re:Many a medical tool has gone to never come back by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 14:15 · Score: 0

"Do you really want tobacco smoke blown up your backside"
well, maybe not for medical purposes...
Re:Many a medical tool has gone to never come back by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 15:52 · Score: 0

Or legitimate medical tools, such as the predecessor to the scalpel, the fleem.

Do Tools Ever Die? by D+Ninja · 2011-02-01 05:33 · Score: 1

No...they just simply...fade away.

The nix-1 by BlueShirt · 2011-02-01 05:33 · Score: 1

I originally thought of the nixie tube.

It seems to be popular with hobbyists and collectors, but it's unlikely to be used as a work tool anymore.

Re:The nix-1 by Pentium100 · 2011-02-01 08:59 · Score: 1

But they are still used as numerical displays, even though the only new devices that use them are clocks.
Also, a lot of old devices use them, and if the device works well enough it can be used (say, a frequency counter) as well as a new one.

Honest Politician by PortHaven · 2011-02-01 05:34 · Score: 1

I can't remember the last time this, or any, nation used one in government.

Re:Honest Politician by PRMan · 2011-02-01 08:05 · Score: 1

The onus is on you to prove that one ever existed...

--
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Re:Honest Politician by currently_awake · 2011-02-01 18:11 · Score: 1

Sorry, the original article explicitly excludes works of fiction. I can't recall any time a nation or government used an honest politician.

Worse Than Usual by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:35 · Score: 0

Wow, I am surprised by how myopic the Slashdot regulars are on this subject.....

I think the hypothesis is that the tools from the past are still being created and used at least in some fashion somewhere in the world, not that they are still useful or still in common use; the tool may only be being used as a learning aid for history classes but it is still being created. Just as some animals only exist in Zoos at this point, but the fact is they still exist and are not extinct.

Most (if not all) of the examples I see in the responses are examples of commercialized attempts at finding a novel use for an existing tool; just because the commercial venture failed does not mean the tool it was based on ceased to exist or isn't being created by some one else.

Moreover, listening to the piece I do not think this hypothesis includes electronics and processors as tools, it seems to be strictly limited to mechanical tools.

Lastly, since when do anecdotal responses to hypothesis pass muster round here? If I read one more "I haven't seen anyone using X in a long time" with out any effort to actually find out if someone is making said tool, i'm gonna puke. (for the literati here, have fun turning phrases with that)

-AC

ancient greeks? by WillyWanker · 2011-02-01 05:35 · Score: 1

Didn't scientists discover some tools believed to be ancient Greek that they have no idea what they are or what they were used for?

Re:ancient greeks? by Sulphur · 2011-02-01 07:22 · Score: 1

Didn't scientists discover some tools believed to be ancient Greek that they have no idea what they are or what they were used for?
Its a pomegranate peeler.
I for one welcome our unknown tool wielding overlords.

Finger and gopher protocols? by C_Kode · 2011-02-01 05:36 · Score: 1

Now, Wikipedia says some nostalgic people still use gopher, but the last person I remember using the finger protocol was John Carmack at ID Software.

Greek fire. Roman ballistas. by jlusk4 · 2011-02-01 05:38 · Score: 2

I understand the technologies for both of those things have been lost. (Apparently, the Romans had some trick they did with oxhairs or sinews or something that gave their ballistas a lot more power than the competition.)

Re:Greek fire. Roman ballistas. by dkleinsc · 2011-02-01 06:02 · Score: 1

Both Greek fire and Roman ballistas have been recreated with something approaching historical accuracy, primarily for academic purposes

--
I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
Re:Greek fire. Roman ballistas. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 07:00 · Score: 0

I hope some coffee wench doesn't misread your post and start wearing ox hair to work at Starbucks. :-/

A lot of technologies die.... by cptdondo · 2011-02-01 05:38 · Score: 1

Anyone even heard of a railroad pen these days? How about french curves in the shape of naked women? I'm sure that anyone who is into medical history could find classes of tools that are no longer used or made. Ditto almost any production technology that has been completely transformed by the use of computers.

The claim that a tool has never gone out of use is ludicrous.

Re:A lot of technologies die.... by cptdondo · 2011-02-01 06:19 · Score: 1

On further though....
Any tool that has gone completely out of use is forgotten. Any tool we can think of pretty much by definition is one for which we can think of a use, with the possible exception of some artifact we might see in a museum.
But obsolete tools are not considered valuable, so there would probably be little effort made to preserve them for posterity; we preserve those things we consider valuable.
So we're left with trying to prove that a tool that no one can remember and that was discarded actually existed. Sort of like proving that you don't beat your kids. You can't prove a negative.

What's the advantage? by name_already_taken · 2011-02-01 05:42 · Score: 2

Don't count on microwave ovens for too much longer. I've just been doing as a hobby project a simple design of semiconductor only microwave. It has major advantages - it can have a _much_ larger fraction of the cabinet as cooking volume - especially in small units. It can be smoothly varied easily in power.

Of course, it has the disadvantage that instead of $20 for a 900W magnetron, the semiconductors to power it would at the moment cost around $1500 for the dozen or so devices needed. (in quantity)

I would expect to see the first solid state microwaves on the market perhaps in 2020 or so. At which time, the days of the vacuum tube will be numbered. Already in a moderate fraction of homes, the second to last valve has gone away. (the cathode ray tube)

Sounds interesting, but wouldn't it be less efficient than a magnetron?

The cavity magnetron doesn't suffer from the main disadvantages of vacuum tubes - there's no heater filament that can fail, and there's no fragile envelope like the glass envelope found on most familiar vacuum tubes. The magnetron self-oscillates, so the circuitry to drive it can be remarkably simple - in many cases just a transformer, a diode and a relay. Presumably a simple PWM controller can be used to modulate the cooking intensity. The magnetron is also very low cost to produce.

A solid state microwave oven will still have to have a motor to drive the turntable or other food-moving mechanism, and room for an interior light and possibly a cooling fan, and similar control electronics.

Given the very low cost of producing magnetrons, and the fact that a semiconductor alternative which would presumably need to have some kind of antenna or emitter which would consume space along with the semiconductors themselves, will there really be a business case for it? How small do you expect the microwave-emitting package to become given the power level required?

--
Putting moderation advice in your .sig lowers your karma!

Re:What's the advantage? by queazocotal · 2011-02-01 06:43 · Score: 1

Primary advantage is that you lose the ~10cm slice you need to take off one side of the oven.
Secondary advantage is you can wind up the microwave power, while not going over the
limit of the plug power, or reduce electricity consumption.
Tertiary advantage is that it makes small ovens easier - for example, I'd quite like a 300W desktop microwave, with just enough volume for a large burger, or cup of coffee.
Current magnetrons don't really scale well.
Quaternary advantage is it's 'new!' and something marketing can sell on.
Fifth advantage (I am not going to wikipedia to work out the proper word) it makes emitting in multiple areas over the cavity possible, which can even food heating, and reduce or eliminate the need for a turntable.
If you can get the efficiency up (from the current 60%), you may even be able to reduce the fan a bit.
Finally, the driver will be cost, as it's cheaper.
Also - in principle, you can eliminate
Re:What's the advantage? by mrmeval · 2011-02-01 09:26 · Score: 1

Sharp and others tried a solid state power supply to replace the transformer, capacitor and diode in the 1990s and quickly dropped them. It seems that switching supply was not up to the task at that time. These used a magnetron which will be cheaper for this application that a solid state device of equal power for a long time.
I think some of the lower power microwaves now have switching supplies. These still have transformers but are more efficient.
As to the motor, there are two, one for the microwave stirrer and one for the turntable. Some abortions used the same motor for both with a penelty on simplicity. Now there are two smaller motors.
About the one thing that they can do is go to white LED's and position them so they actually light things up.

--
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Re:What's the advantage? by evilviper · 2011-02-01 20:34 · Score: 1

Even high end microwaves often have a stationary tray. The fan could be eliminated to great effect.
The cost argument doesn't hold up with microwaves of all things. First you have to remember they cost more than a car when they were introduced. Much more recently, you have things like digital timers coming to dominate, despite added cost, complexity, and false precision, which just made it take longer to set. And how about the afore mentioned high end microwaves that still cheap out and omit a turn table.

--
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant

Define 'Tool' by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:43 · Score: 0

I thought the headline was referring to one of my coworkers

COBOL by simplypeachy · 2011-02-01 05:44 · Score: 1

COBOL since it's now post-Y2K...right? (Please be kind, and lie to me, if not)

Re:COBOL by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-02 08:54 · Score: 0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobol
2002 update, .NET .....
Not dead yet

Thumbscrews by PPH · 2011-02-01 05:45 · Score: 1

No, wait. I'd better check with HR first.

--
Have gnu, will travel.

"He's an old hippie, and he don't know what to do" by Animats · 2011-02-01 05:45 · Score: 1

Kevin Kelly? "He's an old hippie, and he don't know what to do." He spoke at TechShop recently, promoting his book "What Technology Wants". His talk was more clueless than I'd expected. Technology does have imperatives, as does capitalism, and their interaction is very important. But he doesn't go there. He mostly talked along the lines of "technology is what you didn't have as a kid". Nostalgia, in other words.

Found one by harris+s+newman · 2011-02-01 05:46 · Score: 1

How about the Lunar Lander? Do they still make replacements for that?

vinyl = best human-interface for DJs by Heretic2 · 2011-02-01 05:47 · Score: 1

Vinyl will always be in because it is superior for DJs mixing music. Even in the age of digital recording, time-coded vinyl is all the rage to overlay the digital recordings onto a more user-friendly interface.

Re:vinyl = best human-interface for DJs by LikwidCirkel · 2011-02-01 05:53 · Score: 1

I take it you've never heard of CDJs. I've been going to clubs/raves for some 12 years, and while in 1999 it was almost exclusively vinyl, nowadays vinyl is actually very rare for DJs, expect for a few exclusive genres like Hip Hop or DnB, but even those are shifting away from it. CDJs and laptop software just got really good, that's what happened. Many techno/dance labels don't even press records any more, because they get way more value from Beatport and CDs.
Re:vinyl = best human-interface for DJs by Voyager529 · 2011-02-01 13:42 · Score: 1

Timecode exists for both CDs and vinyl. All the titles I'm aware of (Traktor, Serato, Torq, PCDJ, Virtual DJ, Deckadance, Mixvibes) support timecode either way. The irony is that nearly all of the features of a CDJ are useless when spinning timecode. The looping and hot cues still work, but you won't get any of the stutter, reverb, or EQ effects working, nor is pitch lock handled on the deck level (the software handles that).
The argument between CDJ and turntables is the DJ version of vi vs emacs. CDJs have the advantage of never skipping or finding the needle in a weird place you didn't want it, though most timecode-supporting titles match this by providing 'relative mode' that tracks motion instead of needle location. CDJs afford hot cues and more instant stopping and starting, but again most of this is handled in software, and MIDI controllers allow the jock to assign virtually any function to a single key press, again limiting the exclusivity of the feature to CD. Turntables' advantages are less technical. I find that audiences simply respond better to vinyl spinning - I'll have a dozen people come up to me and make a comment when I'm spinning vinyl, but nobody asks me anything when I'm using a CD deck or MIDI controller. Second, while Denon 3700's have uniquely catered to this one, the overwhelming majority of CDJ platters are static and provide no tactile feedback to a jock used to the feel of a 'slip cue'.
The lack of vinyl pressing is mostly what you're talking about - Serato plays tracks from beatport and it costs a LOT less to double check that an MP3 is Serato compliant than it is to press and distribute a couple thousand vinyl copies. Some of the more major releases get pressed to vinyl, especially those that end up being sold to the general public in stores like Hot Topic or audiophile releases that get pressed to 180-gram unrecycled vinyl, but they are admittedly in the distinct minority.

A tool that's gone completely out of use by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:50 · Score: 0

Lunar landers.

Mama don't take my Kodachrome away... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:50 · Score: 0

Mama don't take my Kodachrome away. A lovely film, but too expensive to process. It was too complicated a process to undertake at home, unlike many other color films. There was much ado recently when the last certified lab shuttered support for Kodachrome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodachrome/

This isn't just a digital photography thing, either. Some top-rung photographers love their film; they know exactly what it will do for them. But they're not stupid; they know the advantage of the digital darkroom, the lightroom. So they use their film, but scan the negatives so they can do digital photoprocessing and printing.

Useless human tool... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:52 · Score: 0

Appendix? As in the vermiform kind, not the ones at the ends of books.

Russian space station by carpefishus · 2011-02-01 05:53 · Score: 1

The toilet seat from the Russian Space Station is no longer use or even exists any more. http://i590.photobucket.com/albums/ss345/Jon_MW_16/dlm106__134.jpg Arguably, it is a tool.

--
Facts take all of the premium out of arm waving - T. Reynolds

I'm married by bendytendril · 2011-02-01 05:54 · Score: 1

So guess which tool of mine is no longer of use :(

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sig: pv qid

Re:I'm married by BillX · 2011-02-01 14:18 · Score: 1

One married guy to another, it's definitely not the Shop Vac.

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Caveat Emptor is not a business model.

You don't have the DIY network do you? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 05:54 · Score: 0

Vanilla Ice project.

You'd be surprised by KC1P · 2011-02-01 05:55 · Score: 1

Once I made up a batch of little circuit cards that adapt the 8" drive bus to work with 3.5" controllers, and put up a dinky little web page advertising them at a price that would just about get me my money back (with nothing for my time) if I ever managed to sell all ten. Now it's twelve years later and I sold eight of them in January alone!!! Usually it's more like one a month but it absolutely blows my mind how many other retro-geeks like me are in the world.

Admittedly the users are mostly/entirely people like me who want to take snapshots of all their old disks for use under emulation, so that might not fit the definition of "using" them (since they'll stop once they have read everything).

It's kind of funny that CDs aren't considered antiques, even though they came out in 1982 so they're not that much younger than 8" floppies. I guess no one ever really thought they were too big (physically) or expensive so the upgrade path was just to increase the capacity at the same form factor and maintain backward compatibility (so it's convenient to keep using them even now, for things that fit). It was very odd that the first direction floppies went was to the 5.25" mini-floppies, which were slower and had much less capacity, instead of upgrading 8" drives to store 8 MB per disk or something amazing like that.

Anyway I'd love to know where the original poster thinks you can buy brand new 8" floppy drives. My Googling just turns up mislabeled NOS 5.25" stuff, and a blank media vendor whose page is copyrighted 14 years ago.

Re:You'd be surprised by petermgreen · 2011-02-01 07:58 · Score: 1

It's kind of funny that CDs aren't considered antiques, even though they came out in 1982

About the same time as the 3.5 inch floppy.

so they're not that much younger than 8" floppies.
Remember that in the days of 8 inch floppies and even 5.25 inch ones the computer industry was still very specialised with new and incompatible computers coming out all the time. Even if the disks were physically the same between two different computer systems they probablly weren't compatible. Afiact it was teh later 80s before PCs really started dominating the computer industry.
CDs OTOH were a product of the music industry which moves much slower their use for computers came later (apparently it was created in 1985 but afaict it didn't become popular until the early 90s).

--
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register

Re:Nothing to see...just the smoke by cof · 2011-02-01 05:56 · Score: 1

Greek fire [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire]. Quite the rage a few years ago in the Byzantine navy. Can't find it anywhere today.

Damascus steel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel] is, almost, another example but diligent research by a second source has made it available once again.

Unused Tools? by Corporate+Drone · 2011-02-01 05:56 · Score: 1

"NPR is looking for examples of tools that have gone entirely out of use... any ideas, Slashdot?"

Oh, trust me ... Slashdotters are famous for having tools that never get any use...

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mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...

Coach by carpefishus · 2011-02-01 05:56 · Score: 1

My highschool football coach died last year. He was a tool.

--
Facts take all of the premium out of arm waving - T. Reynolds

ANNRRT. Try Again. by Lashat · 2011-02-01 05:57 · Score: 1

http://www.rowserakes.com/dumprake.html Still the best way to rake cut hay.

--
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I got a list... by Lumpy · 2011-02-01 05:57 · Score: 1

Archie, Finger, Veronica, WAIS......

Oh wait, Physical tools?

I'm guessing all the SAE sockets I own. Except for throwbacks everything is metric. Hell even Harley has metric bolts and nuts on them, and American cars as old as 1984 were all metric.

I dont use the oil can oil spout I have, it was designed for oil cans and is unusable for any current use without heavy modification.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.

Re:I got a list... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 12:12 · Score: 0

Software tools...My *original* ls.exe command, compiled from system V sources, and slightly modified for DOS, still works in Windows 7 command line. Turbo Pascal 3.0.1 crashes a command windows in any NT system.
Try doing a search for *.exe, and sorting by date, and what is the earliest?
ROGUE.EXE 4/7/1986.
IBM XT Technical Reference Revised April 1983.
I will ignore the EMPIRE.DAT save file dated 1/1/1980, that was probably left over when my turbo XTs battery failed.
I have the source code to Hamarabi.bas, which dates back to David Ahl's Games in Basic book, which was in the first edition, from April 1978, which I typed in in the early 80s. It is a simulation tool,
but Lander.bas, has been lost. I typed that in in the early 70s, it is also a simulation tool

An impossible task by BuffaloBandit · 2011-02-01 05:57 · Score: 1

By virtue of the fact that we can recall the tool, means that it still has some cultural relevance. Any tool named on this list is an argument for the tool still "living". The examples we should be citing are tools used in 79 A.D. of which there are no records, and no remembrance of. Those tools have truly "died" but we will never know what they are.

Regrettably by reboot246 · 2011-02-01 05:59 · Score: 3, Funny

I don't use my tool as often as I did when I was younger. There may come a day in a few years when I won't use it at all, except for draining the bladder.

"What Is It" blog by Sooner+Boomer · 2011-02-01 06:01 · Score: 1

Here's an entire blog, spanning several years, of obsolete tools and other objects. Some are quite fascinating.

--
Chaos maximizes locally around me.

Analog computers? by erice · 2011-02-01 06:02 · Score: 1

I am surprised that no one has mentioned analog computers. There used to be free standing (as opposed to embedded) electronic analog computers for doing various scientific and engineering computation. While old units certainly exist and hobbyist and preservationists play with them, I doubt any are actually in use as tools.

Re:Analog computers? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-02-01 14:34 · Score: 1

I don't know whether it counts, since the purpose has changed markedly; but the principles behind electronic analog computers migrated more or less wholesale into analog synthesizers. Now its all about getting outputs that sound cool, rather than outputs that model a system being computed; but a lot of the designs and operating principles are extremely similar.

The mechanical and hydraulic ones, though, I'm pretty sure are museum-only at this point...
Re:Analog computers? by whit3 · 2011-02-02 12:56 · Score: 1

The idea of analog computers was to make a box
with operational amplifiers to generate and manipulate signals. This is still alive today, in all circuits that
use operational ampllifiers, but it isn't surrounded by a box and labeled 'computer'.
An online electronics parts supplier lists, under
'operational amplifiers', over thirty thousand items.

Shoe stretching tools... by rsmoody · 2011-02-01 06:04 · Score: 1

My grandfather owned a shoe store in a small town. He had all sorts of tools used to stretching shoes, making a dimples for corns and some others that quite frankly looked like some sort of medieval torture device. That I know of, after the store closed, they disappeared. *sigh* They remind me of my grandparents, I miss seeing them, the tools and my grandparents. Perhaps they are still used in shoe repair stores and mom & pop shoe stores.

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45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2

Re:Shoe stretching tools... by xenoc_1 · 2011-02-03 10:55 · Score: 1

You'll find modern equivalents in any good bootfitter's toolkit - just go check out your local ski shop.

Greek Fire by Krater76 · 2011-02-01 06:06 · Score: 1

How about Greek Fire?

A secret formula used by the Byzantines that is lost to history. Sure it's been 1500 years but is still is an example of a useful technology that is no longer produced.

I have to wonder though, the recipe to Coke is a guarded trade secret as well with very few knowing the exact ingredients. In 1500 years will historians argue over what it was made of?

--
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry

Artefacts with unknown purpose? by damnfuct · 2011-02-01 06:06 · Score: 1

Some archaeologist could probably find something that looks like it was made for a purpose, the purpose is unclear, and it doesn't resemble any known tool. Not saying it'd be conclusive (more than one way to skin a cat), but it'd probably be a good start to look for real "dead" tools.

My first thought - by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:07 · Score: 0

Guillotine.

I'm sure there are lots of tools of war that are no longer made. The weapons list from 1st Ed. AD&D Players Handbook is a good place to start. Bohemian Ear Spoon, anybody?

Re:My first thought - by imgumbydamnit · 2011-02-01 07:27 · Score: 1

Yup, mine too. I found references for last guillotine execution as Hamida Djandoubi on September 10, 1977 (Wikipedia and http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/guillotine.html)

--
To err is human. To arr is pirate.

Ronald Reagan? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:10 · Score: 0

Ronald Reagan was a tool, and to my knowledge, he no longer exists.

some ideas by scharkalvin · 2011-02-01 06:13 · Score: 1

4 track tape carts and recorders,
'great american time machine' (that's the VCR that came out BEFORE the betamax, cassettes went in the machine the short side first) tapes and machines
8 track tapes and recorders
blank Edison cylinder records?
'B' batteries?
model "T" spark coils?
spare tubes for DeForest Radio Jr. (think I got him here)
left handed monkey wrench (just kidding)

Curta calculators by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:15 · Score: 0

Curta calculators. http://www.vcalc.net/cu.htm

WWII Cargo Glider Snatch Pickup winch by ImWithBrilliant · 2011-02-01 06:18 · Score: 1

I know a guy who was trying to recreate a CG-4A cargo glider snatch pickup for a Normandy anniversary, but couldn't find the necessary winch to fly in the pickup tow plane. He could use the All American Aviation model 80, model 120, or I'd like to see the model 160 winch. Blue prints are supposedly in the Smithsonian but none have existed for decades.

--

Is it a rule, that there's an exception to every rule?

Silicon Heaven by plut4rch · 2011-02-01 06:18 · Score: 1

Of course tools die. They have to go to silicon heaven. Is it not written that the iron shall lie down with the lamp? If they didn't, where would all the calculators go?

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An intriguing solution to a problem that should never have existed in the first place...

Cotton Gin by RazorSharp · 2011-02-01 06:21 · Score: 1

Manual (non-computerized) alignment racks. I think you can buy typewriters still but I wouldn't be surprised if they disappear.

--
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."

Biblical tools by Myopic · 2011-02-01 06:34 · Score: 1

The Bible names several tools which scholars cannot identify. I'm not a Biblical scholar so I can't name them from memory, but there were units of measure and other weird tools for which the Bible gives the name but no description, and none survive today.

This forum is so completely chock full of great examples of tools no longer in use that the premise of the article is preposterously stupid.

Re:Biblical tools by radtea · 2011-02-01 09:13 · Score: 1

The Bible names several tools which scholars cannot identify.
Not just the Bible. Various ancient stories include mentions of things that are uninterpretable. The one that comes most easily to mind is the "stone things" that moved Gilgamesh's boat across the waters in his search for Utnapishtim (who was the basis for the Noah figure in the Biblical flood story, as near as any unbiased scholar can tell, although people with a prior bias regarding the Bible not being a collection of derivative fairy-tales sometimes argue differently, although unconvincingly.)

--
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Re:Biblical tools by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 12:31 · Score: 0

Wasn't the Bible 420 friendly with a burning bush and all? Wasn't like... Moses a tool? Adam was a tool, as well as the serpent and the apple.
The Cubit! Bill Cosby had a skit... forgetit.

Wire recorders by drdrgivemethenews · 2011-02-01 06:45 · Score: 1

I finally got rid of my Grandpa's wire recorder the last time I moved.

Technology never dies. by RonTheHurler · 2011-02-01 06:47 · Score: 1

Even something as obscure as the Breast Drill - http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/12/hand-powered-drilling-tools-and-machines.html#more

Apparently can still be purchased at Sears. http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00934093000P

According to Kevin Kelley, Technology never dies. -- http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2010/11/kelly_on_techno.html
About midway through this hour-long podcast, Kelly describes an experiment where they took a 100 year old Montgomery Ward Catalog, and managed to find everything in it still being manufactured somewhere.

I myself still manufacture ancient Catapults and Trebuchets, -- http://www.rlt.com/ -- both small model and full-sized machines. (Fortunately, I was NOT the maker of the drug launching catapult found at the Mexican border that was in the news recently.)

Re:Technology never dies. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-08 16:52 · Score: 0

Technology wise WAP, Punched paper tape
Surgery wise - hand operated trepanning tools
Video - V2000 ... ahhhh Elcassette
Auroch saddle/harness

Out of Use Tools by Shugart · 2011-02-01 06:47 · Score: 1

I know of a few out of use tools! G.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates to name a few.

--
History is so yesterday!

Left-handed Bacon Stretcher? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:50 · Score: 0

First thing that came to mind.

Wives are making themselves obsolete... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:50 · Score: 0

...when they insist on expensive household gadgets/tools that replace their free (as in beer) services.

Re:Wives are making themselves obsolete... by Dcnjoe60 · 2011-02-01 07:28 · Score: 1

In most states, it is now against the law to give your wife so much beer that she services you freely.

Apple's Newton by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 06:53 · Score: 0

Nuff said...

8-Track tapes by lythander · 2011-02-01 06:57 · Score: 1

I worked for a railroad electronics company that at the time (~1999) was the last place making 8-track tapes for use in locomotive data recorders (like the black boxes in planes.) And then we quit and went to solid state memory, and quit making tapes, which of course meant the industry would have to buy new recorders.

How about..... by ScottDB · 2011-02-01 06:58 · Score: 0

the mimeograph machine (with purple ink) that I remember from my high school days in the 70's. Anybody still using them??

Re:How about..... by rrhal · 2011-02-01 10:28 · Score: 1

Still being used by school districts throughout the land with no budget for a Xerox.

--
All generalizations are false, including this one. Mark Twain
Re:How about..... by Mad+Marlin · 2011-02-01 13:02 · Score: 1

About 2004 while I was finishing up my BS degree, the professor brought us a bunch of those old purple sheets for a handout one day; I hadn't seen them since around 1987 or thereabout. Apparently both photocopiers had broke in the math/comp. sci. departmental office, but she saw that sitting in the corner and it still worked.

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Best Slashdot comment ever
Re:How about..... by whit3 · 2011-02-03 08:20 · Score: 1

>About 2004 ... the professor brought us a bunch of those old purple sheets for a handout
Impressive! The stencil had to be typed on a typewriter or other impact printer,
as well as finding the mimeo stencils, and a supply of alcohol, and the mimeo drum!
It would be harder to use the old dictaphone (the acetate
belt type, with acetate old and brittle since it'd have to be pre-(1970?) manufacture).

I have a large old book... by Rubinstien · 2011-02-01 07:04 · Score: 1

...that is probably full of examples. I don't have it close at hand, but I remember such strange things in there, such as using a bowstring to separate and sort beaver fur into different lengths for making beaver felt hats. It is truly an interesting old book. I have another, an old machinist's handbook, that tells the precise mixtures of old and new bone to burn in your forge for producing various grades of carbon steel, and how to drop-test locomotive axles to verify the strength of a weld.

Re:Tools that have gone entirely out of use by sorak · 2011-02-01 07:08 · Score: 1

If by "since Obama was elected" you mean March 20th, 2010, then yes.

some out of use by kubitus · 2011-02-01 07:10 · Score: 1

halberd
iron armour
lead pencil
slide rule

Re:some out of use by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 08:58 · Score: 0

Nope. Halberds are still in use, albeit for ceremonial purposes.
And slide rules are still prevalent in many third-world countries.
Re:some out of use by germansausage · 2011-02-01 14:07 · Score: 1

Re: Your first item. The Swiss Guard still use them every day.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-art/623972/122952/Swiss-Guards-outside-the-Vatican-palace-Vatican-City

Not real common anywhere else, I'll admit.

My point is... by mschaffer · 2011-02-01 07:19 · Score: 1

The original poster was implying that just because a tool is being sold that it is still in use. I don't think that's necessarily a valid conclusion.

I know there are quite a bit of retro-geeks around. (Myself included---every once in a while I like to dust off my Curta calculator and grind away with the "pepper mill".)

By the way, Kudos on the floppy adapter!

Delete Key by DalDei · 2011-02-01 07:24 · Score: 1

Oh and the Backspace Key.

COBOL and the Mainframe by Dcnjoe60 · 2011-02-01 07:26 · Score: 1

What about COBOL and the Mainframe? I've been hearing how they've both been dead since the early 1980s. Surely, with all of the press given to the death of these to tools, they are no longer in use in the new millennium. (He says sarcastically)

Pen Knife by goombah99 · 2011-02-01 07:27 · Score: 1

How about a pen knife. Oh sure they still make things called pen knives but none of them are much good for actually cutting a quill to make a pen nib.

How about those head clamps early photographers used to use to hold the subjects still for a long duration exposure.

How about a postal mail perforator (used to infuse mail with fumugants to kill dread diseases).

magnetic bubble memory and paper tape readers.

--
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.

Re:Pen Knife by whit3 · 2011-02-02 09:15 · Score: 1

The 'pen knife' is just a whittling tool; modern ones
would carve a point in a quill just fine, if you can
find someone who's mastered the technique.
There are quill pens available in modern times,
as museum-reproduction-quality decorative items.
Calligraphy aficionados have the skills and tools to
sharpen 'em, too.
'head clamp' is now more used for brain surgery
than for photography.
As for 'paper tape readers', a recent one was
made to transcribe player-piano tapes to MIDI
format. If you mean the 1" tape for ASR-33
teletypes, that's more easily read with a
scanner and character recognition software...
but it could be argued that such a software
solution is still a 'paper tape reader'.

Turnspit dog wheels by Ken_g6 · 2011-02-01 07:28 · Score: 1

Turnspit dog wheels are no longer used, because the turnspit dog that was used to turn them is extinct.

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(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)

Re:Turnspit dog wheels by russotto · 2011-02-01 11:01 · Score: 1

Turnspit dog wheels are no longer used, because the turnspit dog that was used to turn them is extinct.
Best I can tell it's the other way around; the turnspit dog went extinct because the roasting jack replaced the dog wheel. Assuming the whole turnspit dog thing isn't a 150-year-old hoax.

Tools are like slashdot stories by Dcnjoe60 · 2011-02-01 07:29 · Score: 1

Tools are like slashdot stories. They don't die. They don't fade away. They live on long past their useful life.

telegraph by goombah99 · 2011-02-01 07:30 · Score: 1

While morse code and telegraph keys still exist, the telegraph transmission system is long gone. Unless you count the T in AT&T

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Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.

Re:telegraph by WorBlux · 2011-02-01 19:19 · Score: 1

It's be easy enough to hack to a common telephone and line to transmit telegraphs. The concept though (words over wire at the speed of light) is how you are getting this message.

Hog oilers by ATOMISCHE · 2011-02-01 07:34 · Score: 1

Hog oilers are no longer in used because of modern pesticides and antibiotics. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=hog+oiler

Curta calculator by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 07:35 · Score: 0

You don't have to go back to the Antikythera. Curta's are strictly collectibles now.

How finely are we splitting hairs here? by SilverJets · 2011-02-01 07:35 · Score: 1

The article says that paleolithic hammers are still being made. Maybe. But are they being made to be used as tools or are they being made to demonstrate early techniques that we (humans) no longer use? What about clovis tools? Sure, there are scientists still making them in their fields to demonstrate the techniques that were used, but you don't see a group of people running across the plains with their clovis point weapons chasing a herd of animals.

That said. What about 8-track tapes? Sure, magnetic tape is still used in one form or another but are 8-tracks still used anywhere? Are they still being manufactured?

Again, how finely are we splitting hairs here?

Tool transitions.. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 07:37 · Score: 0

... take a while simply because not everyone in the world is rich. Let us not forget there are billions of people who do not have western lifestyles, what we consider out-dated and obsolete will be something to a person that doesn't have as much.

Not only that most of humanity just isn't that bright and can't move to the newest tools simply because it's beyond most of their populaces capacity.

Comptometer by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 07:40 · Score: 0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comptometer

Do tools ever die? by MouseR · 2011-02-01 07:45 · Score: 1

Yes, I believe every tool die at some point. But its the douchebags we need to worry about.

The original tool by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 07:45 · Score: 0

Hand Axe. Gone.

out-of-use tool by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 08:25 · Score: 0

George W. Bush.

Not as long as they're Craftsman by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 08:28 · Score: 0

Then you can always return them for a new one.

vi by Zoxed · 2011-02-01 08:37 · Score: 1

I am pretty sure that no-one uses "vi" any more: luckily Xemacs has a vi mode !!

Re:vi by mdsolar · 2011-02-01 09:43 · Score: 1

Young fool. Only now, at the end, do you understand. Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the Dark Side! You have paid the price for your lack of vi.
Re:vi by Kvasio · 2011-02-01 15:23 · Score: 1

frankly - I do and I know some others who do use vi or vim.
But (paraphrasing four yorkshiremen sketch): VI - WHAT A LUXURY! In my times we used ED, we haven't dreamt of using anything more than line editor!

Absolutely! by drunkennewfiemidget · 2011-02-01 08:38 · Score: 1

There're a couple dead people I know that were real tools.

Also, steam powered wooden dildos.

You're welcome.

Re:All because you can buy it doesn't mean it's us by Pentium100 · 2011-02-01 08:47 · Score: 1

Ok, where can I get a 8" floppy drive (and preferably at least one floppy disk too)?

Crocodile Shears by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 08:47 · Score: 0

They don't use these any more, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile_shears

Tools never die? by Chris+Mattern · 2011-02-01 08:50 · Score: 1

I dunno--I don't see many stone hand axes these days.

*Popular* Tools Never Die by Jhyrryl · 2011-02-01 08:52 · Score: 1

If someone remembers it, then yeah, someone is probably still making it. But plenty of tools have been invented over the centuries that no one remembers, and therefore, no one is currently making.

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Jhyrryl

Just look at the History Channel.. by X_DARK_X · 2011-02-01 09:29 · Score: 0

There are many artifacts found for which we have no explanation as to how they were used. Lets take the Baghdad battery for example. Is it a battery? Is it medicinal? How bout the Pyramids at Giza? How were those tools used, propaganda? esthetics? What about the Moai of Easter Island? All the monoliths were "tools" same as magnetic tapes we use today. How bout we say that all tools from recorded history still are used, and those from before, are not.

I still have a slide rule by Kittenman · 2011-02-01 09:32 · Score: 1

Just saying. I must be the only one. Thought I'd keep it for my great-grandson's show-n-tell (in the far future, I hasten to add). And I hope to accompany it to show the kids how it works.

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"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill

WHERE?!? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 09:36 · Score: 0

I, and no doubt a great many others, have got a basement full of 8" floppies. Where can I buy an 8" drive?!?!?!?!?! Don't just toss that out there and not provide a URL! Jerks.

well not many use by mjwalshe · 2011-02-01 09:37 · Score: 1

stone hand axes any more

Jar opener by mdsolar · 2011-02-01 09:39 · Score: 1

Used to have a jar opener that gripped the jar lid as I twisted the handle. Worked great for those pickle jars with too much vacuum. Can't find a new one anywhere. Now I have a great bulky electric contraption that does the same thing using 400 times the storage space. The other day it asked me 'Do you want me to sit in a corner and rust or just fall apart where I'm standing? ' How depressing.

Do old tools ever die? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 09:48 · Score: 0

Manuel Noriega was a tool of the US CIA.
The Shah of Iran (Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi) was a tool of the US CIA.
I won't even mention Dub-ya, but Sr. was number one spook at the CIA.

no value by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 09:52 · Score: 0

HD DVD Players... Thanks Microsoft!

The Pen Knife still exists! by Roger+W+Moore · 2011-02-01 09:56 · Score: 1

How about a pen knife. Oh sure they still make things called pen knives...

This is consistent with the point I was making...the thing is still made although the primary use has changed therefore you have heard of it because it is still useful.

How about those head clamps early photographers used to use to hold the subjects still for a long duration exposure.

...as opposed to head clamps doctors use to hold their patients heads still for NMR imaging and also during brain surgery?

How about a postal mail perforator (used to infuse mail with fumugants to kill dread diseases).

...compared to paper perforators designed to score paper for easy separation by hand.

magnetic bubble memory and paper tape readers.

Paper tape is still used in high school physics experiments to measure accelerations and knitting machines use it to store patterns not to mention various kids toys. So while most of these inventions are perhaps no being used for what they were originally intended they are still being used.
However I think you have a point with bubble memory the reason being that it is a recent enough defunct invention that you can (presumably) remember it being used, or at least being talked about by someone who used it.
So except for recent inventions, I would argue that just because it is hard to think of a tool that is no longer being made that does not mean they do not exist...it just means that you probably haven't heard of them because they are now useless.

All Intel i8008 calculators and microcomputers by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 10:01 · Score: 0

All Intel i8008 calculators and microcomputers have been made obsolete by newer and better hardware and software.

Can vs. do by hacksoncode · 2011-02-01 10:28 · Score: 1

I think it's a very much more interesting question to ask what technologies we *can't* replicate in modern times, vs. ones that have just become obsolete.

Examples include: Stradivarius violins, Greek Fire, Damascus steel, etc.

Then there's another category of technologies where we could theoretically do it, but we've lost the necessary tools and designs, and it would take a big research project that probably will never happen because there are better solutions now. E.g. the Saturn V rocket.

Several groups by geek2k5 · 2011-02-01 10:30 · Score: 1

Civil War reenactors, Victorian era reenactors (Dickens), and steampunk costumers would be people who use button hooks for high-button shoes. Plus Hollywood.

Buggy whips would be even more common among those who train horses to pull carts and sulkies.

Turbo Tape ? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 10:35 · Score: 0

Many tools for obsolete computers can be declared out of use imho

The IBM 5100 will go obselete by Gandalf_the_Beardy · 2011-02-01 10:45 · Score: 1

Well it will according to John Titor anyway.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor

Asbestos Plane by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 10:50 · Score: 0

I doubt many people would find a use for this old tool
http://mrevil.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/interesting/plane/

Turn signals by alfredo · 2011-02-01 10:57 · Score: 1

I haven't seen one for a long time, they must not be made anymore.

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photosMy Photostream

Downvote parent. He's blowing smoke up your ass. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 11:11 · Score: 0

And yes, I would like it if we still got that level of care today.

Obsolete tools by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 11:24 · Score: 0

I have a small tool marked WE (Western Electric) for changing plug in lamps in telephone switchboards. Does anyone remember telephone switchboards?

vacuum tubes by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 11:37 · Score: 0

Try and buy one now, it's freaking impossible.

Re:vacuum tubes by glittalogik · 2011-02-01 12:23 · Score: 1

http://www.vacuumtubesinc.com/Catalog/CatalogDownloadPage.aspx

Yup! by Greyfox · 2011-02-01 12:18 · Score: 1

Robert Novak died August 18, 2009, of a brain tumor.

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I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

Medieval surgical implements? by glittalogik · 2011-02-01 12:22 · Score: 1

Having trouble tracking them down again but I've seen photos of a medical device that was essentially a concave hemispherical head on the end of a small pump, that was used to correct vision for a few hours at a time by suctioning the eyeball into shape. I'm pretty certain they're no longer in use.

oldowan by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 12:54 · Score: 0

Oldowan tools have completely fallen out of use.

George W. Bush... by Zenin · 2011-02-01 13:51 · Score: 1

...now there's a useless tool if there ever was one.

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My /. uid is better then your /. uid

Easy. by wonkavader · 2011-02-01 14:27 · Score: 1

Greek Fire.

Counterclockwise Clocks by Dean+Edmonds · 2011-02-01 14:34 · Score: 1

It took a while before everyone standardized on what we now know as "clockwise", but once upon a time there were clocks which spun the other way.

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-deane

Re:You'd be hard put to find a dump rake still in by John+Hasler · 2011-02-01 14:47 · Score: 1

I am quite confident that at least some of the Amish still use them.

I know of none who do. The Amish are not who you think they are.

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Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.

No brainer by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 14:51 · Score: 0

K-Tel DVD rewinder. I haven't been able to find one for ages.

Re:ANNRRT. Try Again. by John+Hasler · 2011-02-01 15:07 · Score: 1

> http://www.rowserakes.com/dumprake.html

That's... amazing. Do those people make a hayloader as well?

> Still the best way to rake cut hay.

I'll stick with my side rakes.

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Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.

Aztec Sacrificial Altars by Culture20 · 2011-02-01 15:34 · Score: 1

I don't think one has had a sacrifice in quite a while.

8-track, 2.8" floppy, "Stringy floppy" by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-01 15:56 · Score: 0

I think 8-track stuff is long gone. It wasn't around for very long before cassettes overtook them. I also remember back from the TRS-80 days a hard drive alternative that used wafers with continuous loop 1/8" tape in them called "Exatron Stringy Floppy" drives I've never seen since. I also have a Roland S-10 sampler synth that uses 2.8" floppies that typewriters used as well....

Clarification Needed. by Chardansearavitriol · 2011-02-01 16:51 · Score: 1

Does this "not dying" thing include tools that exists solely for demonstration of historical applications? And does it include earlier versions that are wholly inferior of more current versions? If no, then: Arrow shaft straightener. That weird thing they used to make joust lances...you know, the one with the two rotating ends and the crank that would make it spin around all wobbly. We may use things like that, but not that. You could also include most swords and polearms. I do not think things that exist only because they look neat is a good reason to consider a tool not-dead. But thats just my opinion.

Re:You'd be hard put to find a dump rake still in by Attila+Dimedici · 2011-02-01 23:47 · Score: 1

I know quite well who the Amish are. I have distant relatives who are Amish. I do know that I have seen Amish using a dump rake as recently as ten years ago.

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The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison

item != tool by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-02 00:30 · Score: 0

A record player is a tool? Does that make a pillow a tool too?

but don't 4get... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-02 03:17 · Score: 0

4 prostate health, ernest borgnine recommends frequent draining;-)

Carbolic Smoke Ball by krsmav · 2011-02-02 04:22 · Score: 1

One of the first case reports you read in law school is Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball Co. A rubber ball with a tube sticking out of it was filled with carbolic acid, and the user/victim put the tube up his/her nose and breathed the fumes. This produced a strong flow of mucus, which was advertised to wash out flu germs. (This was during the 1889-90 flu pandemic.) For more than even a lawyer would be interested in, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlill_v_Carbolic_Smoke_Ball_Company.

Good News by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-02 05:55 · Score: 0

Jerry Falwell is a dead tool.

Babbage Difference Engine? by Kennita · 2011-02-02 10:53 · Score: 1

I saw a replica at the Computer History Museum demonstrating how it worked, but I wouldn't say it was actually used any more.

Re:Radioactive tools IN YOUR PANTS by xenoc_1 · 2011-02-03 08:03 · Score: 1

Yes, it's still around, or its conceptual descendant. Now at an airport near you looking for scrotal contraband.

Microprocessor development tools by pjwhite · 2011-02-04 02:28 · Score: 1

I have a shelf full of development boards and software tools for obsolete 4-bit and 8-bit microprocessors from the 1980s. I have a "Universal Development Laboratory" that requires knowledge of the Forth language for operation with software on 5.25 inch floppy disks and assumes that your computer has two floppy drives and no hard drive. If not completely dead, these tools are in a deep, deep coma.

Be very afraid by dbIII · 2011-02-05 01:35 · Score: 1

And yet finger and gopher were themselves used by some as a replacement for the tobacco smoke enema device mentioned above.

TED talk by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-11 05:44 · Score: 0

There's a TED talk about this exact subject

http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_on_how_technology_evolves.html

Counterexample: The Brazen Bull. by GargamelSpaceman · 2011-02-14 02:41 · Score: 1

I doubt these are still being manufactured and used.

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615 comments