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92 Comments
- BlogCrawler, on 10/02/2009, -1/+63Bluetooth should in a list "a technology that never works but we keep trying to use it"
- Menlow, on 10/01/2009, -1/+37What about ATMs?
- doctechnical, on 10/02/2009, -0/+35I'm old enough to remember when ATMs were first being rolled out (I used one that had no alphanumeric display or audio capability, guess how it gave you messages?), the banks went on about how these things were going to make banking cheaper because they didn't cost nearly as much as human tellers.
Now we're paying for the privilege if using the blasted things.
I hate banks.
/mojo nixon - Ghostalker, on 10/02/2009, -0/+35Apple is responsible for MP3's taking off? I'm pretty sure it was Napster, which made them easy to find and easier to download.
- DrMilkdad, on 10/02/2009, -1/+34Dugg for calling the internet the greatest achievement in human history.
- gmuslera, on 10/02/2009, -0/+20PCs, Smartphones, netbooks to put 3 easy examples. Look around and you'll see something with big success that in the origin didn't looked so promising.
Sometimes (as with mp3/ipod) something must assemble existing pieces to make it essential for everyone. What will come in the future? Smartphones/netbooks/UMPCs are converging into some sort of unified device that we could probably could call indispensable in a few years.
Ah, and btw, is not bittorrent but p2p the indispensable "app" there. - davdev, on 10/02/2009, -0/+17More importantly Debit cards. I don't use ATM's anywhere near as much, and I almost never have cash on me
- bazzarr, on 10/02/2009, -0/+16I didn't see the Fleshlight coming...
- EddiePotato, on 10/02/2009, -0/+13I give up. How did it give you messages? Did it squirt water at you?
- lorem1000, on 10/02/2009, -2/+14...that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
- EddiePotato, on 10/02/2009, -0/+12Yeah, 20 years of VHS recording did nothing to prepare us for skipping commercials.
IT'S A MIRACLE. - doctechnical, on 10/02/2009, -0/+11Imagine a cylinder with messages written on it. It's translucent and there's a light inside. It sits behind a little glass panel large enough to display one message at a time. It's connected to a solenoid and rachet mechanism. When you approach the ATM it's displaying "Insert card". You put your card in and the light goes out, KACHUNK-KACHUNK-KACHUNK-KACHUNK the wheel spins to a new message and the light comes back on. Now the message is "Enter PIN". And so on, KACHUNK-KACHUNK "Enter withdrawl amount" KACHUNK-KACHUNK "Take money" KACHUNK-KACHUNK "Have a nice day", etc.
It was like a pinball machine, I kid you not. - capheine, on 10/02/2009, -8/+1811. Ranch dressing.
Try to imagine life without it.
...
You are now suicidal. - sporkman, on 10/02/2009, -0/+10Life without the internet... I would be in better shape.
- inactive, on 10/02/2009, -1/+10"The Top 10 Indispensable Technologies That Richard Newstead Never Saw Coming" Fixed, a bunch of these technologies, many people saw comming.
- SkinnerBox, on 10/02/2009, -0/+9#11 - List-based Journalism
- garyi113, on 10/02/2009, -0/+9 washing machines, light bulbs, indoor plumbing, refrigeration, electric house wiring ... are a lot more indispensible than all 10 of those.
- bastardx, on 10/02/2009, -2/+10That is the worst list ever.
- GamerXR72, on 10/02/2009, -0/+6pathouston22's mostly right. Nukes aren't necessary until at least one nation develops them. Then they become necessary for every nation.
They're the genie that can't go back into the bottle. - EddiePotato, on 10/02/2009, -0/+6Wonder who came up with the name "ranch" for a dressing. Kind of conjures essences of cow poop and sweaty armpits if you think about it.
- YanSan, on 10/02/2009, -0/+5i already live life without it. it's great
- rac1234, on 10/03/2009, -0/+5Great, now this guy can't read these comments either.
- pathouston22, on 10/02/2009, -0/+5I would. Nuke wise.
MAD - GamerXR72, on 10/02/2009, -0/+5We could dispense with a lot of those things. Bluetooth, really?
- inactive, on 10/02/2009, -0/+5MPEG Audio Layer 1 .... You mean theres an audio layer 3? OMG!
- Scrappy1850, on 10/02/2009, -1/+5GET BACK TO WORK!
- tetsuo29, on 10/02/2009, -1/+5AAC or MP4 is not a proprietary Apple format.
- doctechnical, on 10/02/2009, -0/+4Answering machines did what caller ID does now - let you know who's calling without having to pick up the phone.
- inactive, on 10/02/2009, -0/+4And if it didnt sense the mono/stereo switch, it would just detect the dead silence, the 2-3 second buffer of dead air that they would cut to commercial with.
I had a Sony VCR that did that, but it didn't always work. - dsn0wman, on 10/03/2009, -0/+4It contains the words "Donkey Porn"
- shadowq8, on 10/02/2009, -1/+5As a kid I always thought ATM's were an infinite source of money, and it used to irritate me why my parents would not get more cash out of the thing.
- inactive, on 10/02/2009, -0/+3bah, saw at lest half of that coming... people should learn how to open their eyes if they want to see....
- richbradshaw, on 10/03/2009, -0/+3It's a different protocol to anything that came before - def is a new technology.
- GeorgeNugwell, on 10/02/2009, -0/+3Wow. I'm never reading an article from Spike again.
- Elset, on 10/02/2009, -0/+3Dugg for hot dvr chick (who is there for no apparent reason other than to get me to digg). Even though DVR is hardly indispensible.
- hughesj919, on 10/02/2009, -0/+3"Without BitTorrent, the MPAA would have been far less likely to have freaked out about sites like The Pirate Bay, simply because the process of downloading large files (like pirated movies, for instance) would take far longer"
uhh, yeah.... - atarijedi, on 10/02/2009, -0/+3Cellphones were around before 1984, and the inventor of the cellphone knew they would become ubiquitous. He also based it off the star trek communicator.
- craznar, on 10/02/2009, -4/+7Nukes and video games - I wouldn't put them in the category of indispensable.
- esc27, on 10/03/2009, -0/+3DVR is an obvious evolution of the VCR, plenty of people saw it coming.
Bluetooth. Any one who had "walkietalkies" as a kid could have predicted this.
MP3. What does that 3 mean? Somehow I doubt the people who used "mp1" and "mp2" were surprised by a third one. - arunforce, on 10/02/2009, -1/+4I don't really consider Bit Torrent a technology, it's more like a product that incorporated existing technologies. However, I'm no BitTorrent expert.
- Mujokan, on 10/02/2009, -0/+3I had a VCR that could skip commercials by noting the change from mono to stereo in Japan about 15 years ago.
- Elranzer, on 10/02/2009, -0/+2I wouldn't list Netbooks as a separate invention than PCs (nor that high up), and "the Internet" is basically the killer app that makes owning a PC a staple of modern life.
- mulligas, on 10/03/2009, -0/+2Blue Tooth and DVR's shouldn't be on the list. I have only a passing familiarity with Bluetooth and DVR isn't a big hit yet.
- Elranzer, on 10/02/2009, -0/+2Somehow I don't doubt a crazy conservative rating nukes so high.
- disraeligears54, on 10/02/2009, -3/+5Dugg for convenient donkey porn reference.
- shadowq8, on 10/02/2009, -0/+2I remember when I had dial up just a few years ago, worst part of my life, downloading 2 4mb porn files on kazza, taking usually 10 minutes a piece, then having the internet disconnect randomly, then having to connect again and hear that awful dial up noise, I hated that.
-fixed that for you. - doctechnical, on 10/02/2009, -0/+2*cough*True Names*cough*
"Who's Lo Tek?"
"Not us, boss." - Napiertt, on 10/03/2009, -0/+2It's a tool. Can be used wisely or stupidly, just like any other tool.
- milkmage, on 10/02/2009, -0/+2there's a special picture, but I guess you'll need to wait until you get home to see it.
- AiR1890, on 10/02/2009, -0/+2I remember when I had dial up just a few years ago, worst part of my life, downloading 2 4mb music files on kazza, taking usually 10 minutes a piece, then having the internet disconnect randomly, then having to connect again and hear that awful dial up noise, I hated that.
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