Tag: technology

The Wheel — A History

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Everybody yips about The Wheel as the greatest invention of all time.  What a media whore!  Think about it!  What can you actually do with a wheel?  Not much!  Try it!  Look around for something round, (pie plate, saucer, jar lid, even one of those ancient DVD discs — it doesn’t matter.)  Now, try and find a use for it.  Frankly, once you’ve done Frisbee, you’re pretty much finished.  The fact is, despite the hype, a wheel, by itself, is absolutely useless.  And whoever invented it must have been a dumbass.  Imagine the caveman conversation.

“Hey, Marvin!  What you got there?”
“I call it a wheel.”
“Cool!  What does it do?”
“Watch this!  I just give it a push, and look, it rolls all the way down the hill.”
“Cool!  And — uh?”
“And nothing.  I go down, carry it back up the hill and do it again.”
Serious silence.
“Dude!  We’re like friends and everything, but that is totally stupid.”
“That’s all you know.  The wheel is going to be a big thing, someday.  It’s goin’ be as big as like fire, probably.”
“Man, you gotta stop lickin’ those shiny frogs.”

Here’s the deal.  In order to do anything except roll away, wheels need other wheels.  Plus, they need something to control the spin and some way to attach the spin to something else (i.e. transfer the energy.)  In other words, they need an axle, and that concept it very complicated.  It took prehistoric humans 10,000 years of circular hit and miss just to figure out they could use tree trunks as rollers to move heavy stuff like stones.  And it was another millennium plus before Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II’s two-wheeled chariots kicked the crap out of the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 B.C.  However, it was actually a Roman genius, Vitruvius (who most people have never heard of, BTW) who unleashed the tireless potential of the wheel axle, when he built and used the first vertical waterwheel around the time of Christ.  Eighteen hundred years later, steam turned the wheels axles of the Industrial Revolution, and from there, it didn’t take very long (less than 200 years) for NASA’s Planetary Surface Exploration Device to be doing wheelies on Mars.

So even though the wheel gets all the credit, it’s really the tireless work of the axle that is one of the greatest human achievements of all history.

Stuff We Need — RIGHT NOW!

ideas

Despite the current mess (and everybody squawking about it) we live in the most benevolent society in history.  We have more literacy, less poverty, better health care, better education, better nutrition and easier access to information than at any time since Lucy and her girlfriends decided to take a stroll in Ethiopia, some 3 million years ago.  Unfortunately, we’re not that good at using these benefits to our best advantage – yet.  For example, we wasted tons of money and years of research on Viagra when a little marijuana and some decent porn would have done the trick.  Personally, I think our endless cycle of herbal shampoos, sugar water beverages and bum warmer automobiles has got to stop, and we need to concentrate on things that will really benefit our world.  So, in that vein, here is just some of the stuff we need – RIGHT NOW!

An electronic collar that zaps you if you’ve forgotten something at the grocery store.

A mute button for vegans.  Once a vegan has publically declared their veganness (veganosity?) eight times, they must wear a mute button for the comfort and convenience of the rest of us.

A sexier name for the Covid masks we’re all going to wear.  Might I suggest Cloak of Responsibility?

A universal restraining order against stupid celebrities.  Any celebrity who makes three (3) stupid comments in a calendar month is forbidden from coming within 100 metres of a microphone.

AutoCorrect that knows the difference between “your” and “you’re” and “there,” their” and “they’re” — so I don’t look like a moron when I’m not paying attention.

A written test before anyone is allowed to vote.  Even multiple choice (guess?) would be better than nothing.

Transparent toasters.  So we can at least see what that maniac machine is doing to our bread!

All statues turned into holograms so they can simply be switched off and changed when public perception turns against them.  Unfortunately, pigeons would be denied a place to – uh – sit, but too bad, pigeon lovers — we can’t please everybody!

Skip the Dumbass.  Like Skip the Dishes, but instead of food, this online service will deliver an intelligent person to your doorstep for an enjoyable conversation without a political or social agenda.

Laundry hampers that automatically wash clothes, dryers that fold them and a robot something that puts them away.

A Nobel Prize for Buffoonery.

A junk food that tastes super good but has negative calories so when you binge-eat a bowl of it while you’re binge-watching Netflix, you actually lose weight.

Voice-activated Smart Microwaves (with a cute female name) that remember how you like your frozen stuff nuked.
“Madison, beef and bean burrito.”
“According to your burrito history, you prefer two minutes on High.  Is that correct?”
(You just read that in a computer voice, didn’t you?)

Compulsory therapy for old men who insist on riding those extra noisy-ass motorcycles.

Something (I don’t know what) that gets the last bit of peanut butter out of the bottom of the jar.

And finally:

A secret society where the members memorize history to preserve it until those “culture cancellers” get over themselves — kinda like what the people in Fahrenheit 451 did for books and literature.

 

Young People Are Grim

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For years, I’ve been trying to figure out why young people are so relentlessly grim.  And, I’m not just talking about millennials — the You-Can’t-Have-Any-Ice cream generation.  It’s their children as well, now called Generation Z, as if this is the end of the line for the human species.  These folks — pretty much anyone born after 1980 — spend their days acting like corporate accountants who’ve just had a root canal.  They could give lessons to Puritans, for God’s sake!  And (have you ever noticed?) they always laugh with their teeth clenched – kinda like a Terminator trying to smile.

And there’s no reason for it.  We live at the apex of human achievement.  There’s more good stuff now — and less bad stuff — than at any other time in history.  There should be dancing in the streets.  So, what’s the deal?  Simple: cell phones.  Most young people wander around with a stick up their ass because they know if they step out of line, somebody’s going to video record it, and 20 seconds later they’re going to look like total morons – across the entire planet!  Plus, the Internet never forgets.  Whatever they say or do today, may come back and haunt them, 10 years from now, when social standards change.  This is peer pressure to the Nth degree, and the only way to escape it is keep your head down.  Don’t give the cybermob an excuse to come after you.  In other words, bland is best.

When I was a kid, I did some stupid things. In my generation, we all did. It was part of growing up.  You learned, sometimes painfully, not to be a jackass.  However, there was no permanent record in those days.  My transgressions were shared, laughed at and admonished by a very small group – who (mostly) had my best interests at heart.  Now, time on, they’ve been forgotten, except on rare occasions when old friends get together and play Remember When.  I carry no brand for strangers to judge.

These days, young people don’t live with that luxury.  They’re all sitting under a cyber Sword of Damocles, one upload away from, at best, humiliation and at worst, disgrace and total ruin.  They not only have to fly right, right now; they have to see into the future and measure up, and that has got to be a full time job.  It’s no wonder they’re all trudging along as if somebody just shot their puppy.