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Some modern inventions we take for granted, but really are tremendously convenient and it'd be a real ball ache if we had to go back.
Online banking, for starters.
mobile phones
The new improved forum. 😉
Sky+
The best invention since gravity.
Digital Camera
The Teasmaid.
internet pron
Cheese?
older inventions too - bicycles and electricity for starters
point of order surely electricity is a discovery not an invention.
I meant modern as in the last 15 years.
electricity maker machines
quite possibly junkyard, how about power sockets, plugs and wires then?
edit: and what tsy said
T'interweb? I know it might have been invented a few years before but only really come to the main in the last 15 years
Sky+The best invention since gravity.
* other TV recorders are available. And are often better.
i was not being arsey there you could have had the battery as well as the stuff you and TSY said. i think molgrips is not allowing it though.
Spotify
no worries, didn't take it arsey ❗ More food for thought. I am trying to think of a modern one but I am a luddite and therefore struggling
Got to be online porn!
No more shuffling in the aisles down your local newsagent 😉
Non stick frying pans or teflon.
If you're going down the online porn route I love the engineering behind some of the machines that are in the videos these days. Tecnichally old but what novel applications.
IPod
Carbon Fibre
Lycra
Erdinger
I think Ipod is the only one you can have there LHS (15years) and I'd say mp3 player rather than ipod.
Erdinger your way out.
The Bic Pen
ipods, imacs, iphones, laptops, online shopping, sky tv, facebook etc.
They're all great. They add excitement/stress/annoyance/frustration/complication etc. to our otherwise simple boring lives.
GPS - yeah I know that the system's been around longer than the arbitrary 15 years, but affordable units for the average joe probably haven't.
And @GrahamS -
- FTFYAnd are [s]often[/s] almost always better.
Internet banking
It always astounds me the number of my clients who are too scared to use internet banking. I always ask for payment through online bank transfer and one of three will still insist on sending a cheque or going into their branch.
When asked why, they tell me there's too many scams around to use internet banking!??! My clients are typically bright young things between the ages of 20 and 35.
bright young things
clearly not.
The wife.
Bicycle
The Dishwasher (no..no not the wife)
The Fire Alarm buzzer thingy, I mean smoke detector
Colour Printers
Memory Sticks
The USB
I always ask for payment through online bank transfer and one of three will still insist on sending a cheque
When asked why, they tell me there's too many scams around to use internet banking!
And these will be the same guys that won't give out a bank a/c no + sort code for you to pay them online because it sounds scary and dangerous and insecure, but are more than happy to send a cheque that has both the same bank a/c no and sort code and more in clear plain human readable text 🙄
Sky+The best invention since gravity.
Except for when they push an update and nuke your schedules/recordings.
* other TV recorders are available. And are often better.
^^ that 🙂
Can't think of modern inventions I like, but online anything is the most dangerous. Spending your money mostly thru the use of right forefinger clicking a plastic rodent (whose tail comes out of its nose rather than its butt). Seems 100% virtual at the time... until the DHL guys turns up.
edit: oh internet proxies etc. Doesn't matter how hard BBC tries to stop non-resident Brits watching Brit TV c/o iplayer or how hard Sony tries to stop people watching Youtube vids with Sony "music"... the Internet is GLOBAL... With a tiny bit of effort, we can all still see it!!!
Except for when they push an update and nuke your schedules/recordings.
I can honestly say that has never, ever happened to me and we have had it for several years now.
Can I also add the Sky+ iPhone app? A great addition to the best invention everereerererer.
Orange Five.
It always astounds me the number of my clients who are too scared to use internet banking.
My dad's missus told us the other day that she has never used an ATM and never plans to - because of all(??) those problems with them not giving out money properly. 😕
Try persuading her to use internet banking!
The best invention since gravity.
Gravity has to be the worse idea ever 😐
Gravity has to be the worse idea ever
I was about to post this.
The number of times I've ended up lying in some kind of heap cursing gravity...
Gravity has to be the worse idea ever
I'm sure millions of people would heartily disagree with you, were it not for the fact they are all floating around in deep space as a result of jumping too hard before Newton invented gravity.
That little bit of cardboard that comes wrapped around takeaway coffee cups. yep, someone patented that, lucky bar steward.
@float - it's called a [url= http://cjewords.blogspot.com/2009/05/zarf.html ]zarf[/url]. Or if you're being particularly pedantic it could also be a [url= http://goeasteurope.about.com/od/russianculture/g/whatispodstakannik.htm ]podstakannik[/url]
thepurist - it's a sleeve or jacket. it's not a podstakannik because it doesn't go under, surely? (don't have Cyrillic loaded on this PC and can't see what it's actually called colloquially in Russian today. Prob something shitty like dzheket)
Personally I like the invention of "no TV", which is the absence of television. Supersedes Sky + etc and is similar in operation to a time machine in that it actually gives you hours of free time in which to do useful things like contributing to STW.
digital music players. remember cassettes in the car unwinding themselves?
konabunny - ah, i'd always thought that a podstakannik was just a tea-zarf. The first time I heard 'zarf' used it was in relation to those crappy brown plastic things for Klix machine cups, and I just generalised it to all things used to keep fingers away from stupendously hot coffee containers.
Consider a minute the impact of these inventions on your life.
Mobile phone: when working I used to go out for the day, phone into the office once to see if there was anything urgent on and get back home at five. With the phone they were forever calling me with urgent non-urgent rubbish to be dealt with pronto and "home time" lost its significance.
E-mail: things were read and generally thrown in the in-tray for a few days till it was convenient to draft a reply the secretary turned into a letter. With e-mail people expect a reply within a few minutes and you have to write the thing nicely yourself. People seem to send e-mails before rather than after engaging their brain. More work, more stress.
Dishwasher: my parents have one which means fishing around in the thing and washing what you need by hand as they don't want to turn it on because of the water and electricity it wastes.
MP3: there's a dusty one on my desk, what should I be using it for?
Internet banking: makes buying things and paying for things easier.
Whilst I've embraced some new technology, a lot of it just irritates and is now ignored. Satelite TV, fibre TV, YouTube, the Net in general I feel have added something to my life but I am thankful I completed most of my career in the days of snailmail and freedom.