I do not see how a lack of stupidity counter-indicates irrationality. An insane person may not be rational, but that does not necessarily imply stupidity. The two properties seem to be unconnected.
stupidadj. 1. Very slow of apprehension or understanding; mentally sluggish. 2. Affected with stupor; stupefied: stupid from drink. 3 Marked by, or resulting from, lack of understanding, reason or wit; senseless: stupid acts. 4. Tedious; dull; boring.
rationaladj. 1. Possessing the faculty of reasoning. 2. Having full possession of one's mental faculties; sane. 3. Conformable to reason; judicious; sensible. 4. Pertaining to reason; attained by reasoning. 5. Pertaining to rationalism.
Afghanistan has had its way with more than one super power. The English had their fun there, too, back when they were the Victorian imperialist. Kipling bore witness:
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
First, a small caveat here. I used to be a Forth expert, but
that was in the 70's and 80's. Forth has changed much since then.
When I write of Forth, I am writing about the Forth I knew back then.
I'm not sure if I would be an expert in the Forth systems of today.
But I cannot imagine that things have changed that radically that my
comments wouldn't apply in general to today's systems.
One starts understanding Forth by thinking small. What makes Forth
still an attraction for many computer users, even after three decades,
is what made it so attractive in the first place. It goes very fast
in very small places. In the 1970's, Forth was attractive because all
computers were small. Today, there are still many applications that
have need for small programs on small hardware. NASA uses Forth in
space. Almost any application that puts a premium on small program
size could use Forth. The embedded market comes to mind.
Forth is its own language, its own development system, its own API,
and its own user interface. (Some also say that Forth is its own
religion, but I digress.) Traditionally, Forth is built directly on
top of the hardware so there is usually no operating system. This is
something which it does particularly easily and well. With Forth, one
doesn't need an OS. That hasn't stopped people from extending Forth
so that it does run on an operating system. There are multiple Forth
implementations for Linux. There's one that runs on the Palm Pilot,
too.
Forth is extremely interactive. Working in Forth means interacting
with Forth from beginning to end of a project. Forth is its own
toolset. It includes editors, compilers, interpreters, etc. Often
sophisticated tools unheard-of in other computing domains are
available, like meta-compilers for compiling whole Forth systems from
old ones, decompilers and disassemblers for creating source code from
compiled code, and other fanciful things.
Windows users inevitably chafe at Forth. Not able to understand a
simple Unux console where one is able to do everything a Windows user
can do, the Forth console seems like a desert. To every typed command
it responds with either cryptic gibberish or the equally puzzling
ok. There is not only no graphical hand-holding, there isn't
even an operating system to comfort the user. To the uninitiated it
seems unnecessarily barren. To the everyday Forth user, that's just
fine.
The Forth language and tools are small. There is only a rudimentary
parser implementing an absolutely context-free and grammar free
language. There is no error trapping unless you put it in yourself.
All data is stored on a push down stack which operates with RPN just
like an HP calculator. Floating point is not supported, but powerful
rational integer arithmetic is. Savants won't have to dust off their
rational approximations.
The language has compiler building elements built into it. You can
create your own mini-compilers at will. The fact that floating point
isn't part of Forth doesn't mean that it can't be. There are all
sorts of extensions available for any number of purposes, including
floating point and a bazillion operating system ports.
Although there is an ANSI standard, don't bet that adherence to the
standard will mean code will be portable. Generally, so much of any
given Forth installation is local enhancement, code just can't be made
portable. Then there's the OS problem. A Forth running on top of an
operating system is guaranteed to be non-portable to anything other
than an identical installation. At least in the pure Forth
environment one doesn't have the OS in the way of the standard Forth
core functionality.
The Forth language is composed of a collection of words, each
of which contains the implementation of a particular computing task.
Forth words can be considered like functions in any of the more
traditional computer languages. Where Forth differs is in the details
of the implementation and the extent to which the Forth model is
implemented throughout the system.
At the bottom, Forth starts with a core set of words which are written
in the native language of the processor. But with Forth, even these
core elements are not traditional machine language. All of Forth,
including its machine language core, is implemented in Forth.
Although Forth's machine code core is executed directly by the CPU,
the entire process is under complete control of the Forth interpreter.
Forth isn't slowed down by this interpreter control. The interpreter
gets out of the way so that the native code runs at native code speed.
The Forth interpreter is tiny, even miniscule. On the general purpose
processors of today, a Forth interpreter inner loop is a trivial task,
often composed of a single CPU instruction which is assembled wherever
it is needed. This kind of efficiency fairly screams for a hardware
implementation. Thus, there are small, inexpensive processor chips
which implement Forth in hardware.
The body of a Forth word is composed of two main elements, a code
field and a data field. The code field contains the address of native
code which executes the word; the data field contains information
which depends on the type of word. For words coded in native code,
the data field contains the actual assembled machine instructions for
the word. The code field of such a word then points directly to the
first machine instruction in the data field. For normal high level
interpreted Forth, the data field contains the sequence of code field
addresses of the Forth words that make up its definition. The word's
code field then points to the Forth interpreter.
The inner loop of a typical Forth interpreter steps through the list
of code field addresses in the data field of a word, dereferencing
each, and passing the result to the CPU's instruction pointer for
execution. On many architectures this is a single CPU instruction.
If the referenced word is another high level Forth word, the current
interpretive address is saved on the return stack (push context) and
the interpreter inner loop is reentered at the next lower level. If
the referenced word is one implemented in native code, nothing more
need be done since the inner loop will have already pointed the CPU to
the word's native code.
Each Forth word ends by jumping to the code that pops the stack to
restore the interpreter to its context before it began executing the
current word. Often a single instruction, this code is usually
assembled in situ.
From another point of view, the Forth interpreter threads its way
through the code until it eventually bottoms out at a word defined in
native code, which the processor merely executes.
The reduction of a function call to a bare address saves considerable
space. The interpreter for such encoding is so small that it can be
placed in situ. There are Forth implementations which save the
dereferencing step in the interpreter inner loop by placing the code
in-line in the code field. Forgoing floating point for near native
rational integer math adds tremendous efficiency. All of these
savings are replicated from top to bottom in any Forth implementation.
It's not surprising that compiled Forth is much smaller than almost
any computer language known. Typically, entire Forth implementations
are tens of kilobytes, not megabytes. Typical run-time programs are
often very few kilobytes. That's tiny. To top it off, they run at
near native code speed. That's fast and tiny.
The paper says nothing about the speed of light.
It says that Alpha, the fine structure constant, may have been a tiny bit smaller in the past (a change of 1 part in 10^5 in 13-15 billion years).
What this says about C, if C is even a contributor to the effect, is that C was slower in the past. This is precisely the opposite of what the wacko Xtian fundies would need for their claims. In other words, this work tends to falsify Creationist claims.
The goal is to increase the power of the CPU while simultaneously reducing power consumption. The ARM technology is lean and mean and fits that bill perfectly. It's a very impressive technology; my little NetWinder flies. Who needs an old bloated, power hog like the x86 or clunky code morphing like the Crusoe?
With this move, Palm technology will get a big shot in the ARM. How long before Palm adopts ARM Linux as an API base? With an existing hardware platform and months head start the Agenda VR3 is looking sweet right now.
Junkyard Wars is about the only TV show I watch regularly.
And yes, I am fully aware that the junkyard is stocked. They openly admit it on some shows. It is also obvious that the hosts offer design help to teams who may have things very wrong. And yes, they fudge a bit with the ten hour time limit. Who cares. What's left is an amazing look into the art of complex problem solving.
Watching the two champion teams (U.S.A.: The Long Brothers and U.K.: The Megalomaniacs) come up through the ranks one had the distinct feeling that they had a special ability--something Finns call sisu, a tenacity of purpose--that helped them triumph. Some of the contraptions were positively ridiculous, with the Megalomaniacs walking machine a prime example.
In spite of the pre-rigging of the shows, there are some amazing surprises, like when the Long Brothers used a pair of panty hose (donated by a female member of the opposing team) to cradle a raw ostrich egg for their junkyard rocket payload. By the way, it survived both launch and landing giving the Longs a clear victory.
Another element I enjoy is the feeling of good-sportsmanship between opponents. Teams often help each other get to the final test. When all is said and done there's a feeling that the fun is in the journey, not the victory. They certainly aren't going through hell for those Junkyard War trophies.
In short, Junkyard Wars is one of the best education programs I've seen in a while on the commercial networks. I look forward to it every week.
Is there any truth to the rumor of cannibalism during last season's filming of Survivor?
This is a place where gun store owners are given a list of stolen credit cards but not a list of criminals and maniacs. And now they're thinking about banning toy guns... and they're going to keep the fuckin' real ones.
Everybody and there brother has submitted what has to be the least interesting story in months.
Somebody please teach CmdrTaco the difference between there, their and they're.
Any of these processors would turn in very credible performance on a Linux-based system.
We've come a long way in the past couple of years. Might it be time to test the market on a non-Windows general purpose computer? How about one that's portable and has respectable battery life?
The success of the Compaq iPaq 3600 speaks volumes for the market for such a device.
However, basic research, like everything else is best handled in a market environment. Individuals should be free to fund the basic research they see as the most valuable.
How many would choose to fund Fermilab? What private concern would or could find the money to support Jet Propulsion Laboratory? Don't forget, the government funded the manned lunar landing to which we should thank for our own microcomputer industry.
The list goes on and on and on. First, and foremost it includes the very infrastructure that supports Slashdot and everything else that matters to geeks. Without government funding there would be no Internet.
Pshaw! No matter what your political persuasion, naive extremism is rubbish. This includes libertarianism.
Tell your father that the CD copy of his John Denver album is an entirely legal one. If he has a copy of the album, it is totally acceptable by principles of fair use to have a CD copy of the same material. Who says so? The U.S. Supreme Court, for one. See the Sony Betamax case.
Morse 2000 Outreach is a great organization, dedicated to the use of Morse code as an enabling technology with those of limited mobility. I highly recommend them as a resource.
One wonders how many servers are running Linux that weren't counted because there was no sale required. Looking at the latest NetCraft numbers is telling. Microsoft has recently been slowly losing Internet server share to Apache.
However, it is legal to put the book in a bag with the bookstore's name on it, or even wrap the book in brown paper and tie it with a string. This in no way changes the copyrighted material.
What computer manufacturers were doing is precisely that, wrapping Windows in their own packaging. That is entirely legal in spite of any interpretation of the copyright law.
Microsoft just doesn't get it. And their Nanner! Nanner! Did not! Did not! defense isn't going to work.
The printing press was directly or indirectly responsible for the opening of educational opportunities for the common person, the overthrow of political systems throughout the Western world, a total revolution in learning and thought, the disenfranchisement of a thousand-year-old religious governing authority and the founding of a methodology by which all future scientific advances are based. These are just the high points. For the sake of brevity I'll stop with them.
These are some of the reasons why Gutenberg's printing press is unanimously held in such awe. The consequences of a common person being able to apply a new technology to distribute information to others is so powerful that it literally changed the fabric of mankind's existence. Virtually everything that came after Gutenberg was transformed by it.
For this past millenium, no other innovation or invention has had the sweeping effects of Gutenberg's simple application of a wine press to movable type. His fame is justly earned.
Useful as it is, I don't think zero qualifies as a gadget. I do have the plow on my list. I just named it differently:
3. Inclined plane.
Mine was a hurried list. But if the plow deserves an entry of its own, what does one remove? Note that I missed the electric light. Artificial light could be covered under fire (flint and steel). What would you take off to make room for something else?
Decisions get tough and certainly you can't take off too many of the other items. You absolutely cannot take off the printing press. Don't you think that the telescope should belong as well? How about the steam engine? It's an interesting exercise. All the items on my list have had extreme impact on the growth of mankind. Yet there are others as well. Maybe the list should be longer than ten.
The definitive top ten gadget list of all time? I don't think so.
Other than an extreme bias for the past century, your list achieves nothing other than taking up space on a page.
Three different pairs of items on your list serve identical functions. The transistor is just a vacuum tube which uses quantum mechanics instead of electrical properties. Isn't the telephone just another way to telegraph a person's voice? Radio and television use an identical technology to do basically the same thing.
Electric hand dryers? I'm incredulous! Aren't these the insidious things found in public washrooms on Interstates and fast food restaurants which use several amps of power to not quite completely dry people's hands? For crissake. You could run an electric chair on that much power! If they work so damned well, why don't people have them in their homes? They don't because they don't. Bah!! Idiocy!
You didn't work very hard on this list did you Mr. Krakow?
I hope people use your list as a firestarter at the earliest opportunity.
Without even exercising my brain cells too much I can come up with a far more representative list. As far as the impact on the history of mankind, here are the gadgets that make up my list.
Here they are, fast and dirty:
The flint and steel. Light fires just about anywhere. Served mankind for millenia, well before anybody thought of smoking tobacco. There's one in every Zippo cigarette lighter.
The wheel. Reduce friction between sliding surfaces.
The inclined plane. If you use this with the previous item, you can build huge pyramids.
The pulley. A work multiplier. Simple, elegant, useful. Lift big, heavy things.
The aquaduct. Move water from one place to another. Revolutionize agriculture. How else could so many people live in Barstow, California?
Printing press. Anybody ignoring this gadget didn't bother reading their history.
Steam engine. Mankind needed power to think up all the gadgets of the past 250 years.
The telescope. Perfected by Newton and Galileo. Still used in its basic original forms. Does much more than stretch man's vision. A must.
Vacuum tube/transistor. You got this one right. An electric valve either way you call it. It's one gizmo, though, not two.
Sorry, you are wrong here, too. After WWII, many famous scientists who had worked on the A-bomb left physics forever. Others continued with only non-nuclear work. Some of them formed political lobbying organizations to fight the wacko politicos who had taken control of their creation.
And then there is the matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was stripped of his security clearance and forbidden to work on what was his pet project simply because he had organized scientists against the "Super" (the H bomb). This is the man most responsible for the success of the bomb project in the first place. Of course this latter event came right out of the wild, Reds under every bed McCarthism of the 1950's and 1960's.
So your cynicism is mis-applied here. Scientists are almost never the problem in these matters. It's those ignorant of science, or those who have an agenda, who screw up everything. This is why leaving this to the scientists is generally a good thing to do.
Scientists will indeed ask themselves, "Is it really worth it." We need to allow them to do it on their own.
Slashdot Mirror
Another appropriate quote:
There is bitter fruit in Afghanistan. I hope the decision-makers in Washington are not being reckless.
One starts understanding Forth by thinking small. What makes Forth still an attraction for many computer users, even after three decades, is what made it so attractive in the first place. It goes very fast in very small places. In the 1970's, Forth was attractive because all computers were small. Today, there are still many applications that have need for small programs on small hardware. NASA uses Forth in space. Almost any application that puts a premium on small program size could use Forth. The embedded market comes to mind.
Forth is its own language, its own development system, its own API, and its own user interface. (Some also say that Forth is its own religion, but I digress.) Traditionally, Forth is built directly on top of the hardware so there is usually no operating system. This is something which it does particularly easily and well. With Forth, one doesn't need an OS. That hasn't stopped people from extending Forth so that it does run on an operating system. There are multiple Forth implementations for Linux. There's one that runs on the Palm Pilot, too.
Forth is extremely interactive. Working in Forth means interacting with Forth from beginning to end of a project. Forth is its own toolset. It includes editors, compilers, interpreters, etc. Often sophisticated tools unheard-of in other computing domains are available, like meta-compilers for compiling whole Forth systems from old ones, decompilers and disassemblers for creating source code from compiled code, and other fanciful things.
Windows users inevitably chafe at Forth. Not able to understand a simple Unux console where one is able to do everything a Windows user can do, the Forth console seems like a desert. To every typed command it responds with either cryptic gibberish or the equally puzzling ok. There is not only no graphical hand-holding, there isn't even an operating system to comfort the user. To the uninitiated it seems unnecessarily barren. To the everyday Forth user, that's just fine.
The Forth language and tools are small. There is only a rudimentary parser implementing an absolutely context-free and grammar free language. There is no error trapping unless you put it in yourself. All data is stored on a push down stack which operates with RPN just like an HP calculator. Floating point is not supported, but powerful rational integer arithmetic is. Savants won't have to dust off their rational approximations.
The language has compiler building elements built into it. You can create your own mini-compilers at will. The fact that floating point isn't part of Forth doesn't mean that it can't be. There are all sorts of extensions available for any number of purposes, including floating point and a bazillion operating system ports.
Although there is an ANSI standard, don't bet that adherence to the standard will mean code will be portable. Generally, so much of any given Forth installation is local enhancement, code just can't be made portable. Then there's the OS problem. A Forth running on top of an operating system is guaranteed to be non-portable to anything other than an identical installation. At least in the pure Forth environment one doesn't have the OS in the way of the standard Forth core functionality.
The Forth language is composed of a collection of words, each of which contains the implementation of a particular computing task. Forth words can be considered like functions in any of the more traditional computer languages. Where Forth differs is in the details of the implementation and the extent to which the Forth model is implemented throughout the system.
At the bottom, Forth starts with a core set of words which are written in the native language of the processor. But with Forth, even these core elements are not traditional machine language. All of Forth, including its machine language core, is implemented in Forth. Although Forth's machine code core is executed directly by the CPU, the entire process is under complete control of the Forth interpreter. Forth isn't slowed down by this interpreter control. The interpreter gets out of the way so that the native code runs at native code speed.
The Forth interpreter is tiny, even miniscule. On the general purpose processors of today, a Forth interpreter inner loop is a trivial task, often composed of a single CPU instruction which is assembled wherever it is needed. This kind of efficiency fairly screams for a hardware implementation. Thus, there are small, inexpensive processor chips which implement Forth in hardware.
The body of a Forth word is composed of two main elements, a code field and a data field. The code field contains the address of native code which executes the word; the data field contains information which depends on the type of word. For words coded in native code, the data field contains the actual assembled machine instructions for the word. The code field of such a word then points directly to the first machine instruction in the data field. For normal high level interpreted Forth, the data field contains the sequence of code field addresses of the Forth words that make up its definition. The word's code field then points to the Forth interpreter.
The inner loop of a typical Forth interpreter steps through the list of code field addresses in the data field of a word, dereferencing each, and passing the result to the CPU's instruction pointer for execution. On many architectures this is a single CPU instruction. If the referenced word is another high level Forth word, the current interpretive address is saved on the return stack (push context) and the interpreter inner loop is reentered at the next lower level. If the referenced word is one implemented in native code, nothing more need be done since the inner loop will have already pointed the CPU to the word's native code.
Each Forth word ends by jumping to the code that pops the stack to restore the interpreter to its context before it began executing the current word. Often a single instruction, this code is usually assembled in situ.
From another point of view, the Forth interpreter threads its way through the code until it eventually bottoms out at a word defined in native code, which the processor merely executes.
The reduction of a function call to a bare address saves considerable space. The interpreter for such encoding is so small that it can be placed in situ. There are Forth implementations which save the dereferencing step in the interpreter inner loop by placing the code in-line in the code field. Forgoing floating point for near native rational integer math adds tremendous efficiency. All of these savings are replicated from top to bottom in any Forth implementation. It's not surprising that compiled Forth is much smaller than almost any computer language known. Typically, entire Forth implementations are tens of kilobytes, not megabytes. Typical run-time programs are often very few kilobytes. That's tiny. To top it off, they run at near native code speed. That's fast and tiny.
Therein lies the longevity of Forth.
Want to know more?
Try the History of Forth at Forth, Inc.
What this says about C, if C is even a contributor to the effect, is that C was slower in the past. This is precisely the opposite of what the wacko Xtian fundies would need for their claims. In other words, this work tends to falsify Creationist claims.
The goal is to increase the power of the CPU while simultaneously reducing power consumption. The ARM technology is lean and mean and fits that bill perfectly. It's a very impressive technology; my little NetWinder flies. Who needs an old bloated, power hog like the x86 or clunky code morphing like the Crusoe?
With this move, Palm technology will get a big shot in the ARM. How long before Palm adopts ARM Linux as an API base? With an existing hardware platform and months head start the Agenda VR3 is looking sweet right now.
And yes, I am fully aware that the junkyard is stocked. They openly admit it on some shows. It is also obvious that the hosts offer design help to teams who may have things very wrong. And yes, they fudge a bit with the ten hour time limit. Who cares. What's left is an amazing look into the art of complex problem solving.
Watching the two champion teams (U.S.A.: The Long Brothers and U.K.: The Megalomaniacs) come up through the ranks one had the distinct feeling that they had a special ability--something Finns call sisu, a tenacity of purpose--that helped them triumph. Some of the contraptions were positively ridiculous, with the Megalomaniacs walking machine a prime example.
In spite of the pre-rigging of the shows, there are some amazing surprises, like when the Long Brothers used a pair of panty hose (donated by a female member of the opposing team) to cradle a raw ostrich egg for their junkyard rocket payload. By the way, it survived both launch and landing giving the Longs a clear victory.
Another element I enjoy is the feeling of good-sportsmanship between opponents. Teams often help each other get to the final test. When all is said and done there's a feeling that the fun is in the journey, not the victory. They certainly aren't going through hell for those Junkyard War trophies.
In short, Junkyard Wars is one of the best education programs I've seen in a while on the commercial networks. I look forward to it every week.
I'll read another sci-fi book when sci-fi authors start telling their publishers, "Fsck you, the story begins and ends in one volume."
Everybody and there brother has submitted what has to be the least interesting story in months. Somebody please teach CmdrTaco the difference between there, their and they're.
Compare the above numbers with that of the StrongARM/XScale technology:
StrongARM @ 233 Mhz consumes 725 mW @ 2.0v.
Intel XScale @ 400 Mhz consumes 500 mW @ 1.0v.
Intel XScale @ 1000 Mhz consumes 1.6 W @ 1.8v.
Any of these processors would turn in very credible performance on a Linux-based system. We've come a long way in the past couple of years. Might it be time to test the market on a non-Windows general purpose computer? How about one that's portable and has respectable battery life?
The success of the Compaq iPaq 3600 speaks volumes for the market for such a device.
Notice that the article cited in the previous message has been modified so that the cited words are no longer there.
This was the cover story. Does anybody have a printed copy of the magazine to verify the attribution?
How many would choose to fund Fermilab? What private concern would or could find the money to support Jet Propulsion Laboratory? Don't forget, the government funded the manned lunar landing to which we should thank for our own microcomputer industry.
The list goes on and on and on. First, and foremost it includes the very infrastructure that supports Slashdot and everything else that matters to geeks. Without government funding there would be no Internet.
Pshaw! No matter what your political persuasion, naive extremism is rubbish. This includes libertarianism.
This is superbly argued.
Tell your father that the CD copy of his John Denver album is an entirely legal one. If he has a copy of the album, it is totally acceptable by principles of fair use to have a CD copy of the same material. Who says so? The U.S. Supreme Court, for one. See the Sony Betamax case.
But I kind of like the linuxsucks site.
The guy has a sense of humor. I dropped in and had a good laugh at myself and many other Linux advocates.
We need to laugh more at ourselves. Kudos to the linuxsucks webmaster.
Battlefield Earth, it's not as bad as it looks.
Morse 2000 Outreach is a great organization, dedicated to the use of Morse code as an enabling technology with those of limited mobility. I highly recommend them as a resource.
Apparently people haven't been paying attention to Blaise Pascal's maxim in the subject field.
One wonders how many servers are running Linux that weren't counted because there was no sale required. Looking at the latest NetCraft numbers is telling. Microsoft has recently been slowly losing Internet server share to Apache.
However, it is legal to put the book in a bag with the bookstore's name on it, or even wrap the book in brown paper and tie it with a string. This in no way changes the copyrighted material.
What computer manufacturers were doing is precisely that, wrapping Windows in their own packaging. That is entirely legal in spite of any interpretation of the copyright law.
Microsoft just doesn't get it. And their Nanner! Nanner! Did not! Did not! defense isn't going to work.
These are some of the reasons why Gutenberg's printing press is unanimously held in such awe. The consequences of a common person being able to apply a new technology to distribute information to others is so powerful that it literally changed the fabric of mankind's existence. Virtually everything that came after Gutenberg was transformed by it.
For this past millenium, no other innovation or invention has had the sweeping effects of Gutenberg's simple application of a wine press to movable type. His fame is justly earned.
3. Inclined plane.
Mine was a hurried list. But if the plow deserves an entry of its own, what does one remove? Note that I missed the electric light. Artificial light could be covered under fire (flint and steel). What would you take off to make room for something else?
Decisions get tough and certainly you can't take off too many of the other items. You absolutely cannot take off the printing press. Don't you think that the telescope should belong as well? How about the steam engine? It's an interesting exercise. All the items on my list have had extreme impact on the growth of mankind. Yet there are others as well. Maybe the list should be longer than ten.
The definitive top ten gadget list of all time? I don't think so.
Other than an extreme bias for the past century, your list achieves nothing other than taking up space on a page.
Three different pairs of items on your list serve identical functions. The transistor is just a vacuum tube which uses quantum mechanics instead of electrical properties. Isn't the telephone just another way to telegraph a person's voice? Radio and television use an identical technology to do basically the same thing.
Electric hand dryers? I'm incredulous! Aren't these the insidious things found in public washrooms on Interstates and fast food restaurants which use several amps of power to not quite completely dry people's hands? For crissake. You could run an electric chair on that much power! If they work so damned well, why don't people have them in their homes? They don't because they don't. Bah!! Idiocy!
You didn't work very hard on this list did you Mr. Krakow?
I hope people use your list as a firestarter at the earliest opportunity.
Without even exercising my brain cells too much I can come up with a far more representative list. As far as the impact on the history of mankind, here are the gadgets that make up my list.
Here they are, fast and dirty:
That's it. Please comment.
And then there is the matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was stripped of his security clearance and forbidden to work on what was his pet project simply because he had organized scientists against the "Super" (the H bomb). This is the man most responsible for the success of the bomb project in the first place. Of course this latter event came right out of the wild, Reds under every bed McCarthism of the 1950's and 1960's.
So your cynicism is mis-applied here. Scientists are almost never the problem in these matters. It's those ignorant of science, or those who have an agenda, who screw up everything. This is why leaving this to the scientists is generally a good thing to do.
Scientists will indeed ask themselves, "Is it really worth it." We need to allow them to do it on their own.