We were out int' woods today on our mountain bikes. We like to do that given that it's quite difficult to find anywhere decent, (or indeed anywhere at all frankly) to ski locally, living as we do in north west Englandshire.
We were as miles from nowhere as it's possible to be, given our geographically constrained circumstances, when we came upon what seemed to be a family group on a hike. Two older people, grandparents maybe, two 40 something adults, two teenagers and and couple of little ones.
The younger adults and the teenagers were totally oblivious to their surroundings which in passing I may say, were particularly stunning today. Weak winter sun bouncing of a lake and twirling itself around the trees. Beautiful actually, humbling somehow.
Anyway, goodness knows what was so fascinating about the discourse taking place on their hand held devices but two of the generations were walking with bowed heads in monk like trances peering at their respective screens.
I thought that was a shame.
Maybe of course it's just me but I would like to dis-invent these things. We are all heading I fear for being immobile screen prodding blobs.
If you had the power to do so, is there anything you'd like to dis-invent?
:-)
Last edited by: Humph D'Bout on Sun 6 Jan 13 at 18:24
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I'm fairly dependent on the internet but I do think it's at the root of a lot of evils.
Alcohol is another, again I use it a reasonable amount but it does seem to be the cause of many social and medical problems.
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>> Facebook
Don't use it.
>>Television
Has an off switch.
That's two problems solved. :-)
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Inventions are all right on the whole. It's just that people are still in the stone age in some important ways. Heigh-ho...
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I was rammed by a shopping trolley propelled by a woman texting, I would dis-invent devices which text while moving.
She probably texts while driving too.
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I agree about mobile phones. I couldn't do without one now because communication revolves round them, but we managed all right before they came along. And one could enjoy a restaurant meal, a film or a game of snooker without the constant ring tones in the background and the inane babble people seem to need to shout loudly into the things.
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Short range phone jammers would be useful in restaurants and other potential phone free areas. I wonder if you can get a battery powered pocket sized one. :-)
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sun 6 Jan 13 at 19:26
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>> >> Found one-
>> >>
>> >> www.jammer4uk.com/mini-portable-cellphone-jammer-j260a-p-5.html
>>
>> Not legal of course.
>>
I notice last on the list of "People who bought this also bought ..."
was a jammer detector.
So next we need a jammer detector zapper.
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Before the resident Iphone hater chips in I will take his place.
"They had climbed the mountain to get a good signal on the iPhone"
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Fortunately after the freezing fog came down they were able to use their built-in summonafreerescuehelicopter app and be carted home for a champagne welcome by weeping relatives, all for a king's ransom IOU...
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The curse of the Rescue teams around here - all of them, of course, rescued by the glamorous William.
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>> The curse of the Rescue teams around here - all of them, of course, rescued
>> by the glamorous William.
And yet......
Circa 2006 we were staying at Borrowdale YH and walking above Newlands on Causey Pike. Stopped at the shoulder of Rowling End to appreciate view and exchanged greetings with an elderly bloke who corrected me over the sequence of Buttermere fells.
Twenty minutes later we were just below the summit 'knob' when we heard some odd noises. At first we thought it was sheep or other beasts in the valley but turning into the 'gulley' to do the final scramble to the summit we found the elderly bloke shouting for help; fallen and dislocated his shoulder.
Keswick MRT were summoned in minutes by my mobile. Would have taken 40 mins plus to do a sprint descent to the car and nearest phone in Stair or maybe Portinscale.
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>> Keswick MRT were summoned in minutes by my mobile. Would have taken 40 mins plus
>> to do a sprint descent to the car and nearest phone in Stair or maybe
>> Portinscale.
>>
Mobiles have saved lives without a doubt, as in the instance you quote where help can be summoned quickly in the event of an accident. But I would be willing to bet there has been a considerable net loss if you factor in the number of road deaths caused by people phoning and texting behind the wheel.
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Perhaps the answer is a compulsory short range phone jammer in the ECU. Car on, phone doesn't work, so to use it you must stop and switch off.
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Based only on the title of this thread, before I opened it I had composed a reply in my head consisting of "Black berry messenger for teenagers"... Mine are literally constantly staring at their handsets, even when in the company of their friends.
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As a technologist myself I am not sure what I would dis-invent. In some ways I am a little bit biased. I do dislike many aspects of mobile phones, being 30 years old my entire life is now based around mobile phones and mobile internet.
I organise a lot of nights out via Facebook etc, which is all fine until it stops working.
I am thinking I would disinvest mobile internet. I am often finding myself sat in a pub with three other people and every one of us is that there chatting away on facebook. It sort of defeats the entire point on going to the pub!.
I think I am just about old enough for it to have ruined my life, but the younger generation seem to be able to use the internet before they can even walk.
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>>
>> but the younger generation seem to be able to use the internet before they can
>> even walk.
>>
I didn't realise young people could walk.
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The machine gun and nuclear weapons would figure ahead of the mobile phone in my list.
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>> The machine gun and nuclear weapons would figure ahead of the mobile phone in my
>> list.
>>
Oh I dunno. They keep us on out toes.
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How about this for a solution?
tinyurl.com/a73ptpg
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Cruise Control that brakes the car on downhill slopes.
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Fire. It's been downhill ever since.
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>> Cruise Control that brakes the car on downhill slopes.
>>
It doesn't does it? Surely it just reduces the engine speed. It's a pointless device anyway so I'd be happy to see it go.
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>>It's a pointless device
>> anyway so I'd be happy to see it go.
Your wish is my command Effendi, turn off that switch, and POOOOOF, she is gone.
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Only the sane, sensible and righteous.
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Not quite
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah
Nothing complex about it.
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On my LGE, it slows the car to the preset speed by some mechanical means. Seems to me to be a complete waste of energy.
I like cruise control. It makes me a more relaxed bunny.
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Nothing. Even the things that annoy or concern me have some positive side, or are within my power to ignore or opt out of using.
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>> Nothing. Even the things that annoy or concern me have some positive side, or are
>> within my power to ignore or opt out of using.
PFI?
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Warping PFI a bit.
I managed to get credit, loans, credit cards and mortages for the last 30 years without ever getting sold PPI.
I kind of wish I hadn't now so I could claim it back.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 7 Jan 13 at 10:10
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>> I managed to get credit, loans, credit cards and mortages for the last 30 years
>> without ever getting sold PPI.
>>
>> I kind of wish I hadn't now so I could claim it back.
Same here, and the thought has also occurred to me. :-(
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>> >> I kind of wish I hadn't now so I could claim it back.
>>
>> Same here, and the thought has also occurred to me. :-(
>>
Likewise, it would have been a nice little saving scheme and I'd never have noticed the premiums.
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>> Likewise, it would have been a nice little saving scheme and I'd never have noticed
>> the premiums.
Particularly as the compo formula includes 8% interest.
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>>
>> PFI?
>>
Comes under politics which I have opted out of and now ignore.
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Sunday Trading.
I think many families, and general society would be better with one enforced 'day of rest' (nothing to do with religion). And with 24-hour supermarkets and on-line shopping, Sunday trading is surely not essential?
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>>Sunday trading is surely not essential?
I dunno, it gives more time to harassed parents trying to fit everything into their working week.
Isn't it one of those things which self-determines? If enough buyers wish to do it, then it happens. If not, then the shops close because its uneconomical to open.
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>> Sunday Trading.
I agree with that, but I got a bit of a savaging last time I mentioned it.
I don't think it's improved people lives generally at all; though it has to be said that shopping used not to be a recreational activity quite as much as it is now for many.
Multiples now staff mainly with part timers. It works for some of them of course, but it's not a coincidence that service and product knowledge is generally very poor. The full timers can still expect to be rostered at evenings and weekends not of their choosing, and it just isn't a career that most people with a choice would really want. I've worked for a couple of retailers in a head office job, and the obligatory time spent in stores was a dispiriting experience, mainly owing to the poor attitude of part time and temporary staff.
Interesting point on t'internet. It's causing a few problems for the supermarkets, who have pursued growth by opening more space. They are getting to the point where they have too much, and the growth of internet sales is increasing their costs - it costs £15-£20 to pick and deliver an order, more than they can charge for delivery. An efficient way to do it is through a bespoke operation like Ocado, which is a massive investment and challenge in itself, and still leaves them overspaced. Morrisons hasn't ventured into it at all, and is losing share - it will be interesting to see how they deal with that. Meanwhile, maintaining profitability for all of them doesn't look as easy as it did.
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In my livetime I've seen the invention of the mobile phone,internet safer cars etc.I do feel that we have more and more big brother watching us,camara's gatso etc.
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>>In my lifetime I've seen the invention of the..............
Thinking about this, I think I've seen nothing. Sure, the massive, even dramatic, improvement of stuff, but invention?
Computers? Older than me.
Mobile Telephones? Mobile communications are older than me.
Cars? Loads older than me.
Television? Older than me.
Video, DVD, MPEG, etc? All recorded moving pictures, all older than me.
CDs, MP3, DVD, Cassettes? All recorded music, and recorded music is older than me.
I don't think that I have had to deal with a new concept in all of my life.
Whereas my Grandparents had to deal with the invention of concepts that were truly new. Much more difficult.
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>> >>In my lifetime I've seen the invention of the..............
>>
>> Thinking about this, I think I've seen nothing. Sure, the massive, even dramatic, improvement of
>> stuff, but invention?
>>
>> Computers? Older than me.
>> Mobile Telephones? Mobile communications are older than me.
>> Cars? Loads older than me.
>> Television? Older than me.
>> Video, DVD, MPEG, etc? All recorded moving pictures, all older than me.
>> CDs, MP3, DVD, Cassettes? All recorded music, and recorded music is older than me.
>>
>> I don't think that I have had to deal with a new concept in all
>> of my life.
>> Whereas my Grandparents had to deal with the invention of concepts that were truly new.
>> Much more difficult.
Not at all. They may have all been invented before you were born, but they had little affect on your grandparents, where they did on you.
Mobile comms? Services did, your grandparents?. No didnt even have the concept of it. but you have.
Computers? your grandparents never set on eyes on one, no idea of concept, but you have several you use.
Video, DVD Mpeg? The only recorded media they dealt with was 75's 45's and the local picture house, you however actually create and manipulate media, they didn't, its a paradigm shift.
There used to be a generation between invention and social acceptance and exploitation, whats changed now is the speed of invention to general use. Its really very rapid now.
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Well, I don't suppose I really want to dis-invent things but I do become, possibly unreasonably, irritated by so many people wandering about the streets with bowed heads peering at screens. It is of course none of my business what they do and perhaps the facetweeting or whatever it is they are doing is compelling enough to persuade them of its urgency but I can't help being at least dismayed.
When I was a child you still saw some older people with humped backs where they had presumably suffered some childhood ailment. I'm given to suspect that for quite different reasons this new generation of screen prodders may exhibit similar postures in their dotage. If they haven't been run over due to inattention to their actual surroundings as opposed to their virtual worlds that is.
Quite why I care I'm not sure.
Last edited by: Humph D'Bout on Mon 7 Jan 13 at 18:02
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Like NoFM2R, most of this new technology already existed before I was born - many of us. The implementation has improved etc. and things are better but the innovation happened a long time ago.
The Internet derives from the work on ARPANET in the 60s. The technology used to connect computer has changed, the computers are more powerful... but the Internet and the TCP/IP protocol on which we all rely is old.
Now I'd like to think I was one of the first to come up with the idea of a PVR with the ability to pause and rewind live TV :-) When we got the first VCR installed (it had to be 'installed' because we had a cable TV and you needed an extra switch box for channel changes) it was the day the first Space Shuttle landed... and the install guy recorded it and had the astronauts bouncing backwards up the steps as he rewound. I then asked them to rewind something else and everyone looked at me as if I was a bit dim... because this bit was not recorded. Made me feel like a foolish 10 year old (I was about 10 or maybe 11)... but that's what a PVR does today. Should have got the patent.
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>>I don't think that I have had to deal with a new concept in all of my life.
>>Whereas my Grandparents had to deal with the invention of concepts that were truly new. Much more difficult.
>>
I have not had to deal with organ/limb transplants.
I was able to see, behind the scenes, when I worked for the BBC ,some of the very first transatlantic TV transmissions. WoW!
I also worked on some of the first video recorders ( valve driven.)
Yes just another recording thing but now instead of five racks of kit and a console it can sit in your pocket.
Photos stored in a cloud that can be instantly viewed anywhere in the world.
Let my pocket thing look at the bar code of a book and then tell me about it while I am walking the dog.
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As a young adult in the early sixties I spent a couple of weeks working all night in the house containing the Ferranti Mainframe computer in Portland Place opposite the BBC. Nice little Georgian house gutted inside and filled with huge banks of vacuum tubes, humming like an ocean liner with the powerful air conditioning needed to stop the whole thing from overheating. Fluorescent lights, looking at endless lines of binary code, 000101000111000, like that, for errors that had been marked in some way, and correcting them like a literary proofreader. All for a big and boring piece of market research. Kafka land.
That whole houseful of computer couldn't even begin to compete for power (let alone user-friendliness) with this nice little 800 quid laptop of mine, or a 300 quid desktop come to that.
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Or the ARM CPU in most things these days. Like a washing machine or microwave.
My mobile phone will be many times more powerful for instance. Several orders of magnitude more powerful. And orders of magnitude more storage space too. By my reckoning it had about 25KB storage. My phone has 32GB.
AC I assume it was a Pegasus from Ferranti?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferranti_Pegasus
Last edited by: rtj70 on Mon 7 Jan 13 at 18:30
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Don't ask me. I hated the thing and couldn't even begin to understand it. It also seemed to me that the market research powers that were were doing the analysis the hard way. Normally they used IBM punched-card-sorting machines for it. Now that I just about understood! I think they wanted to use some snazzy mathematical process that the IBMs couldn't hack.
Some people were extra keen on computery. Yuppies before their time really. Come to think of it the worst culprit I remember was rich by birth. So in his case it was just insanity.
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Plastic.
Everything is made of the stuff now, I hate it. It breaks, distorts, looks pants and feels horrible. Let's ditch it and plump for aluminium instead.
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I googled the Pegasus. I think the Portland Place one was later and bigger. Quite apart from the black desks with a slot in the top spewing endless sheets of paper with printouts of the lines of binary code, my nightly cross-eyed fate made even less bearable by chainsmoking and drinking coffee out of a machine, I seem to remember reel-to-reel tape about 2 inches across though, running loosely back and forth behind thick clear plastic doors. Some state-of-the-art continuous storage system.
After the paradigm shift brought about by minaturization and capitalist enterprise, and after the Amstrad which had to be booted from its own disk to get it going - but it still had advantages over a typewriter and filing cabinet - I even had a desktop with a 5.25 in. floppy slot with a little catch in front of it as well as a more normal floppy slot. Those big floppies actually were floppy. And more prone to malfunction or partial malfunction than proper floppies. Come to think of it I have some stuff on those that I can't access with this machine or herself's, and I quail from reconnecting the old desktop even if I can find all the wires and crap. It had to be booted repeatedly to get it going even before it was dismantled for a couple of years of dust, damp, neglect and rough treatment.
Is there such a thing as a plug-in 3.5 inch floppy drive? I think this computer will be able to read the floppies, or be made to.
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>> Is there such a thing as a plug-in 3.5 inch floppy drive? I think this
>> computer will be able to read the floppies, or be made to.
There certainly used to be USB 3.5" floppy drives. And indeed there still are:
www.amazon.co.uk/External-USB-Floppy-Drive-Black/dp/B00095KY7U
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Thanks Bromptonaut. I will get one.
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>> enforced day of rest
>>
There's no such thing as enforced rest.
If you want rest, take it. If someone has to impose it, it's not rest.
Rest comes from within.
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I wouldn't disinvent the mobile phone either, but modern telephony has had one more unfortunate consequence.
I came of telephonic age in the late 1980s, when fibre optics and digital switching did away with all those ladies in pencil skirts. People of my parents' generation had learned to speak into a telephone as if ordering Full Astern on the Titanic, but now you could converse at normal volume, and the quality was good enough to convey vocal nuances as well as mere words.
Fast forward twenty years to my modern working world of mobiles and eighteen-way conference calls and guess what? Sound quality has gone back down the pan and we have an office full of people foghorning about what they "don't have visibility of". Progress!
But while we're disinventing, let's bash on the head anything that would let passengers use mobiles in aircraft. A packed A320 is uncomfortable enough already, without someone else's yap in my ear. When people do it on trains, I take notes.
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I ' enjoyed ' a bus ride of about 45 minutes today. When I got on there was a guy on the back seat yapping loudly into a mobile. I was at the front and ,boy, was he loud.
When I got off he was still at it..the same call, I think. Disappointingly, I couldn't understand a word as it seemed to be all in Khazarmenianistani.....or something.
Ted
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If you care about such things, there has been a number of advances recently in the evolution of some sort of "invisibility". At present it's not at visible light wavelengths, only on very tiny scales and so forth.
However, if we are to assume that this leads somewhere and we get a full fledged invisibility device of some sort, cloak or not, in the next few years - why? I can think of a gazillion "bad" things to use it for, but I'm dashed if I can think of any "good" ones.
I expect my imagination is too limited.
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Anyone who could make themselves invisible would be dead within a month.
"I'll drive onto the pavement/drop this roof tile down, there's no one there," etc etc etc.
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Brilliant idea, it could be used on ugly cars like the Kia Soul and many Nissans to make em, eh, disappear.
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Tesco: originally a useful pile-em-high, sell-em-cheap food retailer, but now a greedy, immoral conglomerate still (sadly) growing remorselessly.
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What would you "dis-invent"? - movilogo
