Thread: Technology

I have been able to watch my nephew play in the QISSRL competition in Bundaberg via "Streaming".
It is the Qld Independent Secondary Schools Rugby League comp. Good entertainment with around 40 schools participating. Some good players there!

Re Manual exchanges, we moved from Newbridge to Molong in 1979 and went from a dedicated number (newbridge 43) and underground cables to a party line facilitated by two wires strung on trees and the occasional telephone post that serviced 3 farms. It mostly worked when it wasn't raining. This was all replaced by about mid 1979 by newly laid underground cables and automatic phones, Newbridge was manual by the end of the year.
The exchange at Newbridge had 3 lines to the outside world, sometimes if you wanted to place a call outside of the exchange area you had to dial the exchange and they would call back when they had a free line.
Wanaaring was the last manual exchange in Australia, I used to stay at the pub when servicing the school out there and most times could barely get them to hear what I was saying when booking a room. It went automatic in December 1991 Australian telephony - history - Old Australian Telephones

Regards,
Tote

Originally Posted by V8Ian

Air in tyres! Whatever next? Gears that change themselves?

... and brakes that apply themselves !

And wipers and lights which turn on automatically!

Interestingly, drove into town on Tuesday in thick fog (very, very, rare here). Most cars had lights on, but very few foglights. Around 75% of vehicles had only one headlight, possibly a function of automatic lights that get switched on and off very frequently, or possibly reflecting long service intervals and drivers that don't check anything. The few lightless vehicles (all cars interestingly) possibly were also ones with automatic lights that failed to recognise that bright fog needs lights.

To me many of these “advances” are just fashion.
a round headlight costs what $20? A fancy plastic one $ 200 and it goes opaque after say 6 years.
I still haven’t figured out how a round dial which goes wrong is better than a T bar or how an electric hand brake is better than a simple pull one.
climate control which blows you out of the car on a hot day? Give me a dial.
Keyless ignition? Who cares?
A windscreen with sensors costs multiple times a plain one. I can turn on headlights and wipers when needed.

Originally Posted by PhilipA

To me many of these “advances” are just fashion.
a round headlight costs what $20? A fancy plastic one $ 200 and it goes opaque after say 6 years.
I still haven’t figured out how a round dial which goes wrong is better than a T bar or how an electric hand brake is better than a simple pull one.
climate control which blows you out of the car on a hot day? Give me a dial.
Keyless ignition? Who cares?
A windscreen with sensors costs multiple times a plain one. I can turn on headlights and wipers when needed.

Bit disconnected from the real reasons there...

The fancy plastic light allows better spread of light, as well as aerodynamic design. And doesn’t shard glass everywhere - nor do they break as easy from a stone strike.

Very few dials go wrong.

Electric handbrake allows other functions - drive away, steep hill, auto on (a commonly not done thing amongst many) and emergency stop functions - straight and true from over a 100km/h.

Climate control - set correctly won’t do as you claim. When people get in a hot car and turn the dial to 16 is when it goes pear shaped! It won’t blow colder at 16 than at 21, it just blows more....

Keyless ignition - absolute pleasure - no keys needed, no rattling against the steering column, no lock damage from piles of keys hanging out the barrel.

And finally automatic rain sense windscreens - what, all of $50 more... over the life of the car I will take that.
As for auto on headlights, it’s amazing how many vehicles without their headlights on that I see each week - anything that helps this is worth it.


By the same reckoning; a copper land line, a telegram to send your post or an old 2400baud BBS, no microwaves, hurricane lanterns etc are the pinnacle of technology and should never have advanced beyond as it all got ‘too fashionable’

You’re sitting at some high tech device, why? Because it makes life easier/simpler. Why should this not apply to one of the items we humans spend a significant amount of our time in?

I don't know how well this story fits this thread, but I walked into the local Service NSW office this week to renew my drivers licence. I was asked if I'd like to renew it online, to which I replied that I can't because I have to do an eye test. I was told that the eye test could be arranged then again asked if I would like to renew online. Do I know the Service NSW web-site address? No. Do I have email? Yes. Can I access it here? I think she wanted to email me the address.

Can't I just go to the counter? OK - here's your ticket. One person was waiting and less than a minute later I was called.

Technology for technology's sake!

PS I started as a trainee programmer 50 years ago.