OT: Overly complicated technology that doesn't work

It's Birds Eye Vs McCain in my oven!

This isn't a metaphor about consecutive Windows versions getting buggier is it?

I wish it were - I'm already used to that, and know what precautions to take.

Sylvia.

It's Birds Eye Vs McCain in my oven!

This isn't a metaphor about consecutive Windows versions getting buggier is it?

The reverse is true, consecutive versions of Windows are getting more and more stable.

by removing half of the most useful features.

More stable but less usable. I'd use XP in preference to 7 any day.

Shut up and get back in the kitchen Sylv. Just be grateful your man / a man provided you with an oven

/bigot mode off.... :)

I will rant in the same area but with a different uptake on the problem. I am in my 60s. I saw the development of the integrated circuit, space travel era, color TV, computers, cell phones. I was part of that and as an electronics engineer participated in much of this development. Now days I do not see as much innovation. I fear we have run out of forward thinking minds. Is this generation spoiled and complacent?

Last month I saw an announcement about a great innovation in the bottled water market. They came up with a bottle cap that used 20% less plastic! Two weeks ago a lap top manufacturer promoted their interchangeable color covers! My cell phone can take a picture! Has all of the good stuff already been invented? Now days not many people know how to repair anything, it is a throw away world. I picked up a 60" TV some one threw away because the projection light bulb burned out!

Ten years from now who will be available to design or fix the new technology if we have any. I talked to one of my neighbor kids who is graduating high school in a few weeks. While he was playing a video game I asked him what he was going to do after school. He was not sure but is going to try to get a job a Taco Bell.

This morning I read of a new innovation in IC technology, a 3D transistor the will speed up computer chips and take up less space. Finally something positive. But all in all I am afraid, very afraid of our technological future when the best we can do is create a gas oven that does not work as well as a 70 year old design.

As distinct from an old innovation?

Or perhaps because the previous owner wanted a new widescreen plasma instead, and had no interest in repairing the TV no matter how little it might cost. Though these days it can frequently cost more than an appliance is worth merely to find out how much it will cost to repair. So people don't even bother. When it breaks outside the (derisory) manufacturer's warranty period [*], it gets replaced.

Well, he'll be selling Tacos to my son, who's working on his degree :)

We must be about due for something totally unexpected and world changing. But don't ask me what ;)

Sylvia.

Well spotted, he thought to himself.

The integrated circuit was first patented in 1949, the first space travel was in 1961, the shadow mask colour television was first demonstrated in 1939, the first electronic programmable computer was operational in 1945. That leaves the cell phone as the only innovation that you have seen in your working life and even that was first used in 1973. What "innovations" have you participated in over the last forty years?

You don't see much innovation because what you see as innovations are usually the result of someone taking advantage of the conjunction of old technologies that have matured and can be sold as a "new" product. As an example, have you noticed that everyone near you has recently acquired an iPhone?

=A0I

travel

ys I

king

So, are you agreeing with him or flaming him? Serious question - I can't tell.

If I must choose I suppose it is flaming but it was more intended as "warming"! I certainly don't agree that "this generation [is] spoiled and complacent" when it comes to innovation.

I think that "innovation" is becoming increasingly difficult because everybody is poised to take advantage of even small changes in technology. I believe my iPhone example illustrates the point. Smart phones existed well before the iPhone but it took Apple to package and market the combination of G3 mobile, relatively large touch screens and smart phones to turn the idea into a ubiquitous technology. I think that "Herman" has confused ubiquitous with innovative.

I can see the difference. The cell phone is now an old innovation. It was an innovation when it was created, but now the idea is old. Or do you have so little to contribute the best you can come up with is a picky little spelling flame. Right there, you are part of the problem.

em. =A0I

ce travel

days I

hinking

To quote the US Patent Office - "Everything that can be invented has been invented."

Who got out the wrong side of the bed this morning, then?

Dingo Bob makes an effort, goes a whole day without mentioning anuses once, and that's the thanks he gets?

Further to your silly rant:

I presume you are typing this missive on an electric computer. Your computer has more power than a Cray supercomputer from the 1980s. It has more power than the combined power of all the computers on the planet in the early

Here's a thought for you: Buy a microwave oven and connect it to your petrol generator. Presto: Food.

ter

rol

Trevor, the rant was about innovation. Much of what we see today is not true innovation but more like a repackaging of several old innovations.

an

go

puter

wer

etrol

Brad, can I have a word?