The late Douglas Adams on technology

[mig]

but your perception of things doesn't stay in those categories as time passes by. they change.

[jb]

I think D. Adams was being sarcastic to a degree. Up to 35ish people feel they generally understand the new tech that is emerging around them. After this it becomes harder to comprehend. People will prefer the tech they were brought up with even though the new technology is by enlarge easier to operate.
My mum always had household appliances that had a button that said on or off; nowadays the appliance invites you to discus the options of not being quite off or maybe being a little on but at some point if you have entered the right password it will get round to washing your undies - unless it feels it has something better to do.

But like cars mentioned above , this years model might not seem a lot different from last year, but go back twenty years and the improvement is vast.
Automatic chokes, central locking and power steering were once optional extras you know.

[Brucey]

the thing about technology is that it give incremental improvements in some respects whilst very often losing fundamental values of various kinds at the same time.

Thus we have launches of new phones and what have you, which give some marginal benefit to the owner by allowing some new way to waste their time. However the phone might be a POS otherwise; e.g. very easily broken, sets itself on fire, and/or with a battery life that makes a mayfly look long-lived. Honestly I'd rather bang nails through soft parts of my anatomy than have such a contraption; what you become when you own one is the minder for a very needy parasitic electronic device. Complete symbiosis is not that far away....

The effect of all this incremental change disguised as 'innovation' (a word so misused and worn out now we probably need a new one) is that folk teem like lemmings to buy the latest trinket and in the meantime the planet is suffering for it because the old ones are simply thrown away; (not that they were built to last either....). The only thing that is suffering worse than that might be the folk that own them, 'virtually' wasting their lives on these things.

Remember tamagochis? Intentionally or otherwise these neatly proved that folk would lavish time and attention on a small electronic device, in return for paltry returns, such is the basic desire for interaction in some folk.

FWIW I never found any problem in operating a car with a manual choke, the central locking has blown up on at least two (expensive) cars I have owned (costing me far more in time and effort than it ever could have saved), ditto electric windows...... and besides which many modern 'conveniences' leave me cold; they are not always 'convenient' at all and appear to be designed by (and presumably for) folk who have brains wired up differently from how folk used to be. How else do you explain devices in which the 'on' button is clearly labelled 'off', or vice versa...?

Some modern technology is brilliant; but most of it is basically pointless, or even harmful in ways its makers couldn't predict.

cheers

[gaz]

I would say that this is more an aphorism, rather than a law.
...
Maybe the inability of the forum to take it as such, but rather analyse it down to the nth degree is more revealing. (Tee hee*)

I never knowingly encountered an aphorism until I was 40, so I find them to be against the natural order of things .

[reohn2]

I would say that this is more an aphorism, rather than a law.
...
Maybe the inability of the forum to take it as such, but rather analyse it down to the nth degree is more revealing. (Tee hee*)

I never knowingly encountered an aphorism until I was 40, so I find them to be against the natural order of things .

Is there a cure?
Antibiotics seem to work wonders these days though in extreme circumstances I s'pose surgery is the only answer
Is there a vaccine?

[mattheus]

I think D. Adams was being sarcastic to a degree.
<snip>
My mum always had household appliances that had a button that said on or off; nowadays the appliance invites you to discus the options of not being quite off or maybe being a little on but at some point if you have entered the right password it will get round to washing your undies - unless it feels it has something better to do.

I think "mischievous" would be a better term, but whatever.

And I think that paragraph about appliances would never have been written without the influence of Douglas

[Mike Sales]

I think D. Adams was being sarcastic to a degree.
<snip>
My mum always had household appliances that had a button that said on or off; nowadays the appliance invites you to discus the options of not being quite off or maybe being a little on but at some point if you have entered the right password it will get round to washing your undies - unless it feels it has something better to do.

I think "mischievous" would be a better term, but whatever.

And I think that paragraph about appliances would never have been written without the influence of Douglas

"Brain the size of a planet and she tells me to wash her knickers."

[jb]

The point is though.
There has been many impressive advances in technology that have quietly and without fuss vastly improved our lives. It's just that it gets swamped and obscured by all the money making trinkets & off chutes that it inevitably spawns.

Look at basic GPS even a die hard map reader like myself can appreciate all the genuine good services it provides, whether it's landing a plane guiding a car or simply allowing strava to function.
And of course making every one lazy map readers.

[landsurfer]

Down tube levers ... reliable accurate gear changing.
STI levers ...reliable accurate gear changing.

Down tube levers ... £14.99
STI levers ... £84.99

The joy of technology ....

[reohn2]

Down tube levers ... reliable accurate gear changing.
STI levers ...reliable accurate gear changing.

Down tube levers ... £14.99
STI levers ... £84.99

The joy of technology ....

But are you comparing apples with apples?
I think not,STI's are brake and gearlevers combined,and to hand,which means you can change gear and brake at the same time without taking a hand off the handlebar,even out of the saddle.
BTW,where do you get your £14.99 DT levers from?

[landsurfer]

BTW,where do you get your £14.99 DT levers from?

SJS Cycles ... https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/gear-shifte ... d-on-pair/

[reohn2]

BTW,where do you get your £14.99 DT levers from?

SJS Cycles ... https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/gear-shifte ... d-on-pair/

Thanks ,that is cheeeaaap!

[jb]

Down tube levers ... reliable accurate gear changing.
STI levers ...reliable accurate gear changing.

Down tube levers ... £14.99
STI levers ... £84.99

The joy of technology ....

Its not until you've been on STI for a good while and then go back to down tube shifters that you realise how much better to use STI's actually are.

Yes, in that dystopian world that the bike bits hoarder dreams of, when spare parts are as rare as hens teeth; down tube shifters will once again have their place in the sun. but until that day...…

[landsurfer]

Its not until you've been on STI for a good while and then go back to down tube shifters that you realise how much better to use STI's actually are.
Yes, in that dystopian world that the bike bits hoarder dreams of, when spare parts are as rare as hens teeth; down tube shifters will once again have their place in the sun. but until that day...…

I've been on STI levers for some years now but have always had a bike with downtube (DT) levers as well.
I find my DT changes are a lot more considered and i will get out of the saddle before changing gears, with the STI's I'll stay seated and effortlessly change gears ... but don't get me started on those devices of Beelzebub ... bar end shifters ...