Slashdot Mirror
Do Tools Ever 'Die?'
An anonymous reader writes "NPR recently ran a debate between two commenters regarding the perpetual lifespan of tools... in other words, that no tool ever goes completely out of use. This debate wasn't focused just on mechanical tools based on simple machines, but included electronics as well (vinyl record players, for example). Did you know you can still buy 8-inch floppy drives online? NPR is looking for examples of tools that have gone entirely out of use... any ideas, Slashdot?"
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?
Infuriate left and right
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
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
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
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.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
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.
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
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
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
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.