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Technology

Top 10 Gadgets of All Time 304

Posted by Hemos from the yet-another-list dept.
pulski sent in MSNBC's list of the top 10 gadgets of all time. It's a fairly interesting list, although I think some of the more ancient gadgets were overlooked - cutting tools, dams and other fundamentals of civilized life.
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Top 10 Gadgets of All Time More

Top 10 Gadgets of All Time

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  • Gadget NOT EQUAL Tool (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A plow is not a gadget. A good dictionary is a good investment. The American Heritage Dictionary makes it easy by providing comparisons under "tool" (referenced from "gadget").

    I think a neat gadget is a hiker's can opener I have. About 1.2" by 0.5" with a little notch to grab the rim of the can and a tiny, hinged, knive-like gizmo to cut the can top as you lever the thing around the can. Works better than some electric openers I've used. Brilliant!

    BTW, a "gizmo" is characterized by not having any better designation and may be just a part of something else. Both gadgets and tools can have specific names.

  • Slide Rule (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    it takes two straight sticks. you can do insane amounts of rapid calculations sliding them back and forth. used for navagation and construction for 400 years. they went with the astronoughts to the moon! how could they miss that?

  • Re:What "Gadget" means. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    >Is the hand dryer small? No.
    Once again, read the definition... "often small".
    Does "often" mean "always"? I think not.

    >Mechanic? No.
    Does it have a motor?

    >Electronic? No.
    Does it use electricity?

    >Used as a novelty? I don't.
    Do you consider hand dryers a necessity? Most people don't.

  • 10. They're stupid.
    9. They're arbitrary.
    8. They're made by people who have too much time
    on their hands (oops).
    7. They leave out too much.
    6. They include too much.
    5. They make you think you learned something.
    4. They are a way for the listmaker to get off
    on some kind of freaky powertrip.
    3. They remind me of David Letterman, and he really bums me out.
    2. Lists replace actual writing. Listing
    things is not actually writing. It's just...listing.
    1. It's hard to come up with number 1.
  • [Oops, forgot to repond to the following part. Sorry. :)]

    Perhaps things like maternity laws and day care would better qualify under that criteria.

    What criteria? Those are even less like gadgets than birth control is.

    Whoops, I worded that badly. By "criteria," I was referring to the quality of improving the opportunities for working women, not to the Top 25 requirements.

    Maternity laws and day care are nice things, but they're hardly necessary for women to enter the work force. Like birth control, they broaden the choices available to women, but in the absence of birth control, they become quite unworkable. Who's going to grant maternity leave to someone every time they get knocked up, just because they won't use some kind of birth control? Who's going to pay for day care for a dozen or so kids?

    Again, keep in mind that I've been referring to artificial birth control.

    Don't employers by law have to grant maternity leave? As for who's going to pay, that is another question of responsibility. What about options like Natural Family Planning? I once heard a speaker talk about various scientific studies showing the benefits. I asked for some references, but never got them. I wish I had. For me, the jury is still out on its effectiveness, but I'm wondering if anyone here might be able to cite publications.

    --

  • Those little keys are #2 on the list.

    They're just so much more gadgety than those boring old pop-tops! :)

    --

  • So the chemicals would interfere with pregnancy? Wouldn't pregnant women qualify under disability or maternity laws? If not, then we need to take a look at those laws.

    --

  • Did birth control really free half the population to "reliably join the work force?" Why is artificial contraception necessary to hold down a job? Perhaps things like maternity laws and day care would better qualify under that criteria.

    As for sparking the "sexual revolution," what is that, exactly? Really, what does it mean?

    I'm just trying to understand your reasoning.

    --

  • Yes. It's not just a matter of being able to "return" to a job after a pregnancy, but also to be depended on to work straight for years at a time if necessary.

    I don't follow you here. Women can't work straight for years at a time if they have kids? Why? If the answer is that they have to stay home to take care of them, then I ask, where is the father? Why can't dads stay home?

    Perhaps things like maternity laws and day care would better qualify under that criteria.

    These still have to take into account the 6-9 weeks that a woman is physically unable to work for 8 hours a day (for most of them, some don't need to stop).

    Yes, they do need to take that into account. Does pregnancy count as a "disability?" It's an awful, loathsome term for it, but it's the best my small brain can come up with to get the point across. Legally, why is it different than the case of someone who throws out a back?

    Birth control means that, if a woman chooses, she can avoid pregnancy (and therefore forced in-home time) and stay working consistently at a job for an arbitrarily long length of time.

    A woman (and man too, BTW) can always choose to avoid pregnancy. Contraceptives are not necessary to do this.

    As for sparking the "sexual revolution," what is that, exactly? Really, what does it mean?

    It was equality for women. Before the pill, if a one-nite stand occured, it was the women who bore sole responsibility for anything spawned at the time. That is the same, mostly, but after the pill a women could, arguably, protect herself from unwanted pregnancy, and was there fore "free" to explore her sexuality in any way she wished without fear of conception. This kind of thinking, women are free to explore sexuality, was a revolution in this county.

    This seem like more an issue of equal rights and responsibilities than anything else. I still don't see why artificial birth control is necessary to have this.

    --

  • Contraception is a subset of birth control

    Yes, you're right of course. I was being sloppy with my terms. My apologies. My questions were phrased in the context of all artifical means of birth control, contraceptive or not.

    With the industrial revolution, more jobs required long hours away from home, and women (esp. those with children) were largely excluded.

    But why, apart from the ridiculous notion that "the woman's place is in the home?" I think the outcome had more to do with the unwilligness of men to take on childrearing responsibilities.

    But without it, most women of childbearing age would be effectively kept out of most jobs. Birth control (including contraception) vastly increases the jobs available to women.

    What jobs would be unavailable to women? I guess my fundamental question concerns why these jobs are unavailable to moms, but dads have no problem keeping them. Really, what is the difference, and what does artificial birth control have to do with any of it?

    Without some kind of birth control, it's not all that unusual for a woman to have a dozen kids in a lifetime.

    By choice, much, much more often than not.

    This might have been a good thing when most of the kids died in infancy, but if we're going to have nice things like low infant mortality, we're going to have to breed less kids. That means birth control, whether by low-tech methods like abstainance (how many guys are going to applaud that decision?)

    *raises hand*

    I do. It is a 100% guaranteed method. Why this stereotype against men?

    or inventions like pills, condoms, and abortions.

    This is the part I see as unnecessary. I don't think artificial birth control is a miracle answer to the problem of wrong attitudes. If the problem is with men, then we men have to suck it up and realize that we have equal responsibility in this world. No, it won't change overnight, but I think it is changing.

    --

  • 1. Push button.
    2. Rub hands under warm air.
    3. Dry hands on pants.
  • This is a list of the top ten gadgets, not the top ten scientific or engineering breakthroughs. Dams, birth control, the external combustion engine, and the printing press do not qualify.

    This is a list for things like telephones, digital watches, and remote controls.

    Keep that in mind.
  • external combustion engine = steam engine
  • yes that, exactly. Cool!

    --

  • Wow, very good job of not reading what you're commenting on. Geez. "often small", sez the definition. Where does it say anything about carrying anything in your pocket? Hey look, nowhere.

    --

  • I think it's fairly obvious that the author threw it in as filler, for whatever reason, but it brings up the topic for conversation.

    As previous posts have noted, the hand dryer is fairly loud, frighteningly ineffective and inefficient in comparison to paper towels, and spreads bacteria more readily than previously thought--contrary to the sanitary claims that we all have read on the devices.

    So why do we have them? Do we save that much time and money in comparison to all the resources needed refilling the paper towel dispenser and emptying out the trash (picking up the few stray towels that are on the floor?)

    And strangely, if I walk into a nice restaurant, or any other establishment, and they have an elegant bathroom *without* an electric hand dryer, I find myself wondering what's wrong with them. Were they too cheap to buy one? I dare say that if I walk into somoene's home and I see an electric hand dryer on the wall in their private bathroom, I would come to the conclusion that they were worthy of my respect and awe, no matter how annoyed I would be using the damn device.

    While I am on this rant, I have only seen once in my life a soap dispenser that was automatic, only requiring you to pass your hand under to dispense liquid soap. If a bathroom has an automatic faucet, and an automatic hand dryer, why don't they have have an automatic soap dispenser? No longer would we have to touch the lever with crusty liquid soap.

    And finally, do those hand sanitizer things work? I don't know of any product that I use on my hands that creates the urge to wash my hands more than Purell Hand sanitizer. There's something about drying out my hands with grain alcohol and then feeling off-sticky-almost-vaguely-oily that makes me get up and wash my hands with soap and water...which is exactly what I should have done in the first place.
  • Just one more time "Hand Driers?" where is this
    guy from, another planet?

    Where is the incline, which leeds to the screw.
    I think screws are pretty important. Especially
    since most of the devices listed are constructed
    with screws.

    What a screw-ball.
  • Missing are such things as:

    the assembly line
    the laser
    the airfoil


    I don't think these things can qualify as "gadgets". since they helped advanced civilisation to another level
    To add something to the list you have to asked yourself how has it changed society, and what would life be like without it.
  • dude, you forgot "pockets"
    where would we be today without pockets?

  • Hmmm... plough is not bad. I would have picked: the ramp, the lever, and rope as the first three. The wheel is nothing more than a continuous rolling ramp... put an axle on it and it is a continuous lever. The plough is also a form of lever. The threads on a screw are just a ramp wrapped round.
  • But the plow comes first- so that we can put food into that can. It can be argued that food generation and distribution technology is up there with waste collection and relocation technology as the two infrastructures necessary to have a civilization.

    We needed the plow in order to have farmering as a specialization; Without it, there can be NO specialization.

    OK, so if we get decent nanotechnology it all changes, but that will force some kind of a phase change. If hate still exists by then, we're all toast...

    OK, I admit to having been influenced by James Burke's "Connections"...

  • Useful as it is, I don't think zero qualifies as a gadget. I do have the plow on my list. I just named it differently:

    3. Inclined plane.

    Mine was a hurried list. But if the plow deserves an entry of its own, what does one remove? Note that I missed the electric light. Artificial light could be covered under fire (flint and steel). What would you take off to make room for something else?

    Decisions get tough and certainly you can't take off too many of the other items. You absolutely cannot take off the printing press. Don't you think that the telescope should belong as well? How about the steam engine? It's an interesting exercise. All the items on my list have had extreme impact on the growth of mankind. Yet there are others as well. Maybe the list should be longer than ten.

  • The virtues of writing are pretty clear. As for numbers, try and balance you check book in Roman numerals.
  • Most cans of sardines have those little keys attatched. That way, you don't need a plow or a can opener.
  • She touched on the lightbulb, but it's obvious that she doesn't have the extreme technically in-depth knowledge to properly acknowledge the light bulb.

    The premise of the lightbulb was to burn a conductor in a vacuum. The lack of an atmosphere prevents oxidation in bulbs, and the incineration.

    The lightbulb is the father of modern computing. Take a lightbulb and a relay, cross them and you have a vacuum tube. The vacuum tube works very similar to a lightbulb. They both exist in a vacuum and generate heat. When a vacuum tube is excited, electrons pass through it like a transistor. However vacuum tubes are analog and have an infinitely variable throughput.

    An interesting thing about vacuum tubes is that they emit RF radiation, radio. Properly controlled they can be used to broadcast radio. Even today, many radio stations still use a vacuum tube transmitter, called a 'klystron' (sp?) I believe.

    You wouldn't have instant heat microwave popcorn without the vacuum tube either. In microwaves, there is a special vacuum tube called the 'magnatron' which emits microwave energy. This is routed via metal ducting and used to nuke your food.

    The CRT is a direct decendant of the vacuum tube. It's basically a vacuum tube turned on end, with the phospor end being the collector and 1 or more guns being the emitter.

    We wouldn't have radio, television, microwave popcorn, or computers if the lightbulb hadn't been invented.
  • First and foremost, it's a list of Tech in general, not gadgets.

    Secondly, too many of the items, are just an extended/improved version of a previous item. Personally I'd roll Tele-graph/phone/vision, into a more generalized communications category.

    Thirdly, wtf is with the hand drier. Hasn't he noticed that every batroom that is cursed with one of those infernal machines, has snowdrifts of toilet seat covers on the floor, from the ppl that improvised a way around the stupid machine?

  • This would be a great theory, except that it's wrong.

    If you check historical newspapers, you will find that the New York Times [nytimes.com], for example, ushered in the new century on their front page on January 1, 1901. There has never been widespread confusion about the starting day of a new century until now.

    Stephen J. Gould gives this a good treatment in his book Questioning the Millennium [borders.com], which is a pretty good read.

  • You'd need nothing close to an infinite tape to do useful stuff. Do you know how big infinite is? A tape that is googalplex cells in length is just a tiny tiny speck compared to infinite. Actually, it's even smaller than that.

    The Turing machine is theoretical, but it defines a pure form of a computer.

    Where does it say that the gadget needs to be something that you can hold in your hand?
    1. Birth Control
    2. Fellatio
    3. Cunnilingus
    4. Him on top
    5. Her on top
    6. Spooning
    7. Rear-entry
    8. Dildos
    9. Vibrators
    10. Masturbation

    --Jim
  • What about Joannes Gutemberg's gadget, the printing press, without which the diffusion of scientific idea wouldn't have advanced enough for you to read this on glowing phosphors???
    -- ----------------------------------------------
    Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!
  • Well, since one is into lists...
    In approximate order:
    • Bow and arrow
    • Harnessing fire
    • Agriculture
    • Breeding livestock
    • Ore smelting & ceramics
    • Naval implements (ships, sails, compass, astrolabes, locks)
    • The wheel
    • Fortifications
    • Roads (à la Roman empire)
    • The printing press
    The rest (water, steam & electric power) will come naturally...
    -- ----------------------------------------------
    Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!
  • Perhaps, you mean "sextant" (found in www.merriam-webster.com):

    Main Entry: sextant
    Pronunciation: 'seks-t&nt
    Function: noun
    Etymology: New Latin sextant-, sextans sixth part of a circle, from Latin, sixth part, from sextus sixth
    Date: 1628
    : an instrument for measuring angular distances used especially in navigation to observe altitudes of celestial bodies (as in ascertaining latitude and longitude)
  • "And besides that, the guy writing the article wishes us a 'Happy New Millennium'... sorry, one year too early, my friend."

    I've been doing some thinking about this (hey, I was on vacation Ok) and I'm not sure that this year isn't the new millennium.

    The standard argument that I hear is "there was no year 0 so the millennium isn't till 2001" However, even though there was no year 0, when have we always celebrated the new century, decade? 1800, 1900, 1980, 1990. So by the above argument, shouldn't these actually be 1801, 1901, 1981, 1991, etc (after all, a one-off error doesn't just affect the millennium). So really, a year may be "missing" but by a matter of convention this should be the new millennium. Just to take this further, if this is the new century or a new decade but not a new millennium, we'd have to say that a millennium is 10 centries plus 1 year, or 100 decades plus one year - either way its just messy. I think I would rather just have one "missing" year that's not accounted for.

    Any thoughts?
  • Obviously one of the greatest inventions of all time. Sure, it's mundane, low-tech stuff. But it's the single biggest reason that human life expectancy soared during the 20th century. Most people used to die young because of infectious diseases. Such diseases, believe it or not, killed about half of all those who died in the American Civil War. Such casualty rates used to be routine for armies, in the pre-hygiene age.

    But plumbing brought hygiene to everybody in the industrialized world, and even to a great many folks in the Third World. In the process, it's played a major role in the planet's population boom, which is due not to higher birth rates but lower death rates. Dysentery, typhus and cholera just don't go as far as they used to, and plumbing is why.

    Three cheers for flush toilets!

  • A brief history [rochester.edu] of the steam engine.
  • OK, I found an even better page [rochester.edu] that contains Hero's treatise on pneumatics. Has a whole slew of nifty Greek gadgets. Whether any of these gadgets were actually used I have no idea.
  • What about the moist towlette? Not only has it brought about world peace, but it has cleansed thousands upon thousands of "Finger-licking-bad" hands at Kentucky Fried Chicken (at least back when they weren't so cheap as to NOT give out moist towlettes. Certainly this device should be placed right next to the electic hand dryer.

  • I've seen no mention of it yet. Simple, useful,
    and ingenious.

  • Was I the only person that found the inclusion of the electric hand dryer on that list funny? I don't see why you all took it so seriously, especially considering the source...

  • Two very important gadgets. I don't have any special insight into the history of exploration, but I would bet that the Europeans couldn't have conquered so much of the globe without these.

  • Yeah, I've thought about this. The thing is, there's a "new millennium" _every_ year. There's always a period of 1000 years before the current one. And of course the same with decades.

    Now, since we've had so few millennia since we've started counting, we're still fixated on making it start with year 1 AD. But with decades, there's been so damn many of them, we don't really care about making it line up at the beginning. So it's more convenient to count the ones that make the pretty numbers line up.

    --

  • The filters clog with dust, warm air from the dryer rises and warms up the dust, germs breed, and you get a stream of air that is thick with germs onto your wet hands. Luvly!
  • Indeed, it's a poor choice. A much better one would have been the musical condom (US patent # ... I'm too lazy to find it back), soon to be superseded by the TALKING condom (patent pending).
  • Dear Mr. Krakow,

    The definitive top ten gadget list of all time? I don't think so.

    Other than an extreme bias for the past century, your list achieves nothing other than taking up space on a page.

    Three different pairs of items on your list serve identical functions. The transistor is just a vacuum tube which uses quantum mechanics instead of electrical properties. Isn't the telephone just another way to telegraph a person's voice? Radio and television use an identical technology to do basically the same thing.

    Electric hand dryers? I'm incredulous! Aren't these the insidious things found in public washrooms on Interstates and fast food restaurants which use several amps of power to not quite completely dry people's hands? For crissake. You could run an electric chair on that much power! If they work so damned well, why don't people have them in their homes? They don't because they don't. Bah!! Idiocy!

    You didn't work very hard on this list did you Mr. Krakow?

    I hope people use your list as a firestarter at the earliest opportunity.

    Without even exercising my brain cells too much I can come up with a far more representative list. As far as the impact on the history of mankind, here are the gadgets that make up my list.

    Here they are, fast and dirty:

    1. The flint and steel. Light fires just about anywhere. Served mankind for millenia, well before anybody thought of smoking tobacco. There's one in every Zippo cigarette lighter.
    2. The wheel. Reduce friction between sliding surfaces.
    3. The inclined plane. If you use this with the previous item, you can build huge pyramids.
    4. The pulley. A work multiplier. Simple, elegant, useful. Lift big, heavy things.
    5. The aquaduct. Move water from one place to another. Revolutionize agriculture. How else could so many people live in Barstow, California?
    6. Printing press. Anybody ignoring this gadget didn't bother reading their history.
    7. Steam engine. Mankind needed power to think up all the gadgets of the past 250 years.
    8. The telescope. Perfected by Newton and Galileo. Still used in its basic original forms. Does much more than stretch man's vision. A must.
    9. Vacuum tube/transistor. You got this one right. An electric valve either way you call it. It's one gizmo, though, not two.
    10. Digital computer. Latter day Gutenberg.

    That's it. Please comment.

  • They put the transistor and the vacuum tube in the same list. Both of those devices can be used for the same thing. Sure there's differences, but those are just minor details.

    My list, not in any order:

    1) the Turing machine
    2) wheel
    3) fire
    4) reaction engine (rocket)
    5) internal combustion engine
    6) the escapement on clocks
    7) moveable type printing press
    8) vacuum tube
    9) gunpowder
    10) algebra
  • Those little models of the solar system which have all the planets geared so they can all rotate and revolve at the proper relative speeds
    "Orrery [geocities.com]"
  • Indoor plumbing has been in rich people's houses
    in some of the oldest cities dug up.
    But its popularity really picked up when someone
    discoer a u-shaped kink in the pipes would
    prevent smelly backups in rather recent history.
  • I read somewhere (don't remember where, and I don't have a link) that these electric hot air driers actually increase the level of bacteria on a persons hand by 400 percent ! So instead of washing your hands, you're infecting them. Apparently the hot and moist air in these things is the perfect breeding ground...

    And besides that, the guy writing the article wishes us a 'Happy New Millennium'... sorry, one year too early, my friend.

  • so the civilizations of ancient Rome, China, Persia, Inca, etc. and modern civilizations like the British Empire were the size of small city states?

    No, but many if not all of them (Rome and London for sure) had sanitation. I'm not talking elaborate sewage-treatment methods, but some system of canals or ducts or something to keep the sewage away from the drinking water.

    up until the 1900s all civilizations used the same form of waste disposal: dump it in the nearest river.

    That's the same river they drink from and bathe in. That system works for low population densities (most of those ancient empires would have been low-density). But for the empires' urban administrative centers, sanitation becomes vital.
  • Birth control is just what it sounds like - control over whether and when to give birth. It includes such things as abortion and even fertility treatments, which do nothing to prevent (the latter may even encourage) conception.

    Contraception includes only those birth control methods which work by preventing conception. It includes methods like abstainance, chemicals like "the pill", and gadgets like condoms and IUDs.

    Did birth control really free half the population to "reliably join the work force?"

    Depends on which work force. Throughout most of history, women of childbearing age have worked. They have worked whether or not they had young children. The babies and/or children accompanied their mothers as they worked. This tended to keep women out of jobs that required a lot of travel, or long hours without a break, or dangerous (to children if not adults) conditions. With a few exceptions, it was the same work men did. For most men and women, work meant farming. With the industrial revolution, more jobs required long hours away from home, and women (esp. those with children) were largely excluded.

    Why is artificial contraception necessary to hold down a job?

    It's not. But without it, most women of childbearing age would be effectively kept out of most jobs. Exceptions would be women who remain childless, either by choice or by biology. Birth control (including contraception) vastly increases the jobs available to women. And it's all but neccesary for survival in a world where most children survive to adulthood. Without some kind of birth control, it's not all that unusual for a woman to have a dozen kids in a lifetime. This might have been a good thing when most of the kids died in infancy, but if we're going to have nice things like low infant mortality, we're going to have to breed less kids. That means birth control, whether by low-tech methods like abstainance (how many guys are going to applaud that decision?) or inventions like pills, condoms, and abortions.

    Perhaps things like maternity laws and day care would better qualify under that criteria.

    What criteria? Those are even less like gadgets than birth control is. Maternity laws and day care are nice things, but they're hardly necessary for women to enter the work force. Like birth control, they broaden the choices available to women, but in the absence of birth control, they become quite unworkable. Who's going to grant maternity leave to someone every time they get knocked up, just because they won't use some kind of birth control? Who's going to pay for day care for a dozen or so kids?
  • Not just indoor plumbing, but outdoor plumbing as well, was vital for civilization. Without proper waste disposal, civilizations would not advance beyond the size of a smallish city/state before disease brought the whole works crashing down. Proper waste disposal is easy in low-density rural populations (the old open-holer was quite adequate for disposal of small amounts of sewage) but for larger cities it becomes quite a problem. Grand projects - even gadgets - are developed to deal with it.

    Indoor plumbing is one form of this in the same way that the Zippo lighter is one form of portable fire. Sewage sanitation definitely belongs on the top 10 list!
  • What about the sweat shops of the early industrial revolution? They employed, among the lower classes, many women of child-bearing age.

    Yes they did. These women were usually fired immediately if they became pregnant (sometimes even if they got married, pregnant or not). It was assumed that a pregnant woman - not to mention a woman with an infant or young child in tow - would be an unreliable worker, and that a married woman (esp. if she was white) would have her husband to support her and would neither want nor need employment.

    Exceptions were made for (surprise!) minority women, because they tended to work in non-industrial jobs (maids, nannies, farm laborers etc.) that allowed their children to remain with them as they worked.
  • Okay... maybe not.

    The article was about the author's perspective of what was important to him. Not necessarily society. If this is the case, then it stands to reason that the author may be more boring than myself! :)

    It also makes me wonder what I would have done without some things like the combustible engine,
    toilet paper (not until the 1800's... can you belive it?), ramen noodles, and of course, the
    crybaby and wah-wah guitar pedals used by Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend.

    Seriously, though-

    The list in this thread goes to show that indeed, we wouldn't last a nano-second in the 18th century. No wonder we make Luddites sick!

  • The fractional horsepower electric motor. (spurred what is called the second industrial revolution)

    The horse collar. (needed because of a labor shortage caused by the black plague). Advanced the standard of living in Europe immensely.

    The chimney. (Made use of fire indoors possible - made cities practical)

    The moldboard plow. (made planting the US midwest possible)

    The Browning Automatic Rifle. (Invented prior to WWI, was so far in advance of anything else that the Army wouldn't equip soldiers going to Europe with it for fear Germans would copy it. US soldiers instead got crappy French machine gun that jammed and didn't have interchangable parts until Army wised up. The BAR design was still in use essentially unchanged in the Korean War).

    NMR - see inside stuff on several scales; made modern chemistry possible by unambiguously identifying molecular structures. Same principle is used in MRI to view inside people.

    Fourdriner paper machine - makes high volume production of paper cheap. A modern Fourdriner spits out paper 20' wide at 80 miles per hour when fed ground up tree parts suspended in water at back end.

    Concrete - without it Rome would have been impossible.


  • THE

    Static Byte Dwinkelizer!

    Woohoo!

  • If you hate him for posting a link to eToys, you'll probably hate me even more when I note that you can get these for only $6.75 [amazon.com] (!! They are $30 at eToys!!) at Amazon... Or use the 110% price match at eToys to really stick it to the evil toy company!!! We ordered ten for our pre-new year's Armageddon Nerf War at work.
  • Yes the phone has had a big impact on our lives, but it's a fairly recent invention and I see it disappearing quickly.. at least in the analog form we know. In the grand scheme of things, the phone is just a novelty that just lasted a bit longer than the telegraph. I think we will always have something called "the phone," but you won't have a "phone line."
  • Where on this list of the top gadgets is the Transcapacitor? [accpc.com] This is going to change everything.
  • Did birth control really free half the population to "reliably join the work force?"

    Yes. It's not just a matter of being able to "return" to a job after a pregnancy, but also to be depended on to work straight for years at a time if necessary.

    Perhaps things like maternity laws and day care would better qualify under that criteria.

    These still have to take into account the 6-9 weeks that a woman is physically unable to work for 8 hours a day (for most of them, some don't need to stop). Birth control means that, if a woman chooses, she can avoid pregnancy (and therefore forced in-home time) and stay working consistently at a job for an arbitrarily long length of time.

    As for sparking the "sexual revolution," what is that, exactly? Really, what does it mean?

    It was equality for women. Before the pill, if a one-nite stand occured, it was the women who bore sole responsibility for anything spawned at the time. That is the same, mostly, but after the pill a women could, arguably, protect herself from unwanted pregnancy, and was there fore "free" to explore her sexuality in any way she wished without fear of conception. This kind of thinking, women are free to explore sexuality, was a revolution in this county. Especially when one considers the contrast of the straight-laced (and boring as hell, IMHO) nature of the 50s and the hippie, pot-smoking, acid-dropping, free-love, ride that was the 60s. 'Course I wasn't born till '74, so this is all pre-mystory to me...
  • Except that the wheel has an Axle - Log Rollers don't.

    CORRECT. Johnny, tell this man what he has won...

    The great advancement with the wheel was the axle. There were 'rolly' type things before, but it was the axle that made wheels useful.
  • In no order...

    1.) Refridgeration systems
    2.) Toilet/sewage systems
    3.) The Lightbulb

    Those are some of the many things us humans depend on, and deserve recognition for their purpose and for their inventors.

    -PovRayMan
  • Subject says it all.

    Bread is tasty, portable and relatively spoil proof.

    The lever was probably invented before the wheel.
  • Refrigeration granted the ability to ship food products all over the world by rail, road, air, or sea and have them arrive as edible food.

    It also allowed people to store food for longer periods of time.

    And, finally, it led to air conditioners - refrigeration for entire buildings!
  • I'd rather kill an old ceral box (recycling) than look like I dont know how to use the bathroom right.

    Damn straight! Hell, I'd kill a spotted owl and dry my hands on that before I'd use an electric hand drier - they suck!!!

  • Websters definition:

    gadget - an often small mechanical or electronic device with a practical use but often thought of as a novelty.

    How about the TV remote?
  • okay english teacher in me coming out...

    Brand name is definiteky LEGO
    Piece of plastic with holes and dimples: a LEGO piece or ONE LEGO?

    If you open a LEGO box and dump it in a bowl, which of the following would you say.

    a) the bowl contains MUCH lego.
    b) the bowl contains many legos.

    IF LEGO can be counted, then it is a countable noun. Regardless of the brand name, I say that LEGO pieces can be counted. Witness the guides that show how MANY LEGO PIECES you need of each type in each step.

    So, the real issue is not wheter LEGO peices can be counted, but wheter it's more correct to say "I have 6 lego pieces" or "I have 6 LEGOs"

    Personally, I think that common usage wins out for LEGOs.
  • Can't believe he missed duct tape.
    Also add Swiss Army knives (or your favorite variant).

    BitPoet
  • I found several references to this. Here is one study

    ---------------- Hand drying: A study of bacterial types associated with different hand drying methods and with hot air dryers. Redway, K., Knights, B., Bozoky, Z., Theobald, A., and Hardcastle. 1994. London, UK, Applied Ecology Research Group, University of Westminster.

    In a previous study under natural conditions, towels were found to be more efficient in drying the hands that hot air dryers where many people completed drying on clothes etc. Microbiological studies revealed that using towels after washing reduced bacterial counts on the hands by an average of 42% (paper) and 10% (cotton). With hot air dryers, however, counts increased by more than 500%. Bacteria were blown out of dryers whenever they were running.

    In the present study, standard techniques were used to identify and count the bacteria associated with hand washing and drying under natural conditions. Average bacterial counts were again reduced using towels - the most significant decrease being with paper towel. Hot air dryers produced significant increases in all bacteria - -436% rise with some skin and gut bacteria. The presence of gut bacteria is indicative of fecal contamination of the hands.

    In a further study, bacteria were isolated from swabs taken from the air flow nozzle and air inlet of 35 hot air dryers in nine types of locations (including hospitals, eating places, railway stations, public houses, colleges, shops and sports clubs.) Bacteria were relatively numerous in the airflows and on the inlets of 100% of dryers sampled and in 97% of the nozzles. Staphylococci and micrococci (probably from skin and hair) were blown out of all of the dryers sampled for these type of bacteria and 95% showed evidence of the potential pathogen Staphylococcus aureus. At least 6 species of gut bacteria (enterobacteria) were isolated from the air flows of 63% of the dryers, indicating fecal contamination.

    It is concluded that hot air dryers have the potential for depositing pathogenic bacteria onto the hands and body. Bacteria could also be inhaled and are distributed into the general environment whenever dryers are running. It is suggested that the use of hot air dryers should be carefully considered on health grounds, especially in sensitive locations. -------------------- -E

  • Easy one.. Coffee machine.. it's simple, it's handy, it's essential :) and I must admit that the shoe was a pretty decent idea too

    //rdj
  • Kill two birds with one stone. Clear your nasal passages and show your distaste for paper towel-less bathrooms.
    Blow your nose on the electric hand dryer.
    --
  • Sliced bread is the greatest or so I have been told.
  • I personally think that beer is the best thing ever invented.

    --

  • This list was so out of touch with reality and chillingly useless I was surprised A.C. Clarke didn't write it.

    What ever happened to the printing press. Can't see the library from all the stacked books eh?

  • I'd love to meet him and shake his hand. Maybe his hand is lukewarm, clammy, and moist after using the dryer too!

  • Although I think the list should either pick between the transistor or the tube and between the telegraph and telephone she does make a point with the hand dryer.

    Its an amazing device because of its popularity and acceptance into mainstream culture if you consider that it doesn't work. Not at all.

    Its brought back the simple and elegant act of wiping your hands right on your pants. What could be more eco-smart and efficient. Its a deterant to using paper not a hand dryer. Most people change their pants every day so this primitive system remains safe and clean in our age of germs.

    Many 'primitive' cultures wipe a lot more than just their hands onto their clothing and they're better off for it. Someday the big advancement will not be the wearable computer but the Bounty-suit quick picker upper. Only after we've achieved this next evolution in fashion will society aspire to its greatest creation - a wearable computer that cleans and wipes even the filthiest technophile.

    Where's A.C. Clarke when you need him?



  • I have to pity the write of this article, and his obvious passive-aggressive hand washing fetish. Who else would include the electric hand-dryer on a 'Top 10 gadgets of all time' list, omitting both the light bulb AND the electric espresso maker?

    Owner of a caffeine fetish and proud of it.
  • Is that a hand dryer in your back pocket or have you been eating beans for lunch again?

    -=-=-=-=-

  • The wheel was fine for awhile but now it's similar to a sharp rock as a knife - it's outdated and ill-suited to the demands of todays transportation needs. However, we're locked into its use for the time being if only for the way it's held our imagination captive on this front.

    Now don't get me wrong - circles are a very important development in other areas, one of which the author mentioned - as gears, specifically. With the circle came ideas of continuous motion or action as well as higher, non-mechanical ideas (i.e. round earth, time, returning karma, you get the idea.)
  • IMHO paper has to be on that list. It has definitely played a major part in the invention of everything else in the list except the wheel. Electric hand dryer I can live without, paper, hmm...
  • Gadgets are typically things that perform some useful function, but are considered "cool" or "novel". The wheel is an important advance but it's not a gadget in any sense of the word. Electronic organizers are gadgets (although I wouldn't say top 10); those little electronic stud finders you hold up to the wall, that's a gadget. James Bond's laser watch, now THAT'S a gadget.

    --- Dirtside | "Spirituality" is the irrational belief in the supernatural
  • Have you seen this thing? [etoys.com]

    By far, the greatest invention of all time.

    And for all you dufae who complain about the inclusion of the electric hand dryer over the plow, lightbulb, internal combustion engine, or transcapacator...

    ...Anyone who takes this article (or this reply, for that matter) seriously, deserves to. :)
    --

  • The virtues of writing are pretty clear. As for numbers, try and balance you check book in Roman numerals.

    I can't, there's no Zero.

  • Of course, I hate to be a party pooper, but the invention of beer was simply an extension of a natural process that long predates humanity. Basically, fruit is good for you. After a certain amount of time, fruit ferments. This releases the pungent odour of alcohol, and attracts creatures of all kinds to feed and get merrily drunk. Hence at certain times of year birds fly into walls, fruit bats fall out of trees and elephants are definitely to be avoided. The flavour of alcohol is intrinsically attractive to us - and without it, beer is not. (Have you ever tried non-alcoholic beer - yeargghhhh!) In fact, in moderation, alcohol is good for you - 'moderate' or 'social' drinkers live significantly longer than the teatotal. So think on this next time you're down the pub with your mates.

  • Ok fire I can agree with, but the telephone, telegraph, television? Bah! For one week, share a bucket in your living room with family and friends for waste disposal, live without everything except fire on this top ten list, and then tell me: who's your daddy now, television or toilet? Thought so.
  • And all such optical goodies, but especially eyeglasses. I, for one, would be in a bad way without mine, and I bet they originally had a gadgety air to them. Matches: Earlier than the Zippo lighter, and more universal. The ballpoint pen. The definition of "gadget" is definitely a problem -- like the contact lens, it appears to be in the eye of the beholder.
  • I'll say this. Some of these were good (portable fire, telephone) but some were just downright stupid (Cough Electric Hand Dryer Cough). Now, in the event that this was a TRUE gadget list, I might agree with that. But with Portable Fire and Vacuum Tube, the author obviously strayed away from the point a bit and made it more like "The Top 10 Really Handy and Vital Things of all Time" list. Going back to the original gadget list, I'd do this, in no particular order:

    10. Mirror- How handy is this, without it, we'd never truly have a look at ourselves, until many years later with the development of the.....

    9. Camera/Camcorder- Used to capture memories straight from time. Speaking of time....

    8. Clock/Portable Watch- I don't know about you, but I could not live without my watch, used to so diligently tell the time. Simple as that.

    7. Television- I won't change this, TV is pretty cool. I mean, no one can disagree with the fact TV is the old fashioned center of our world before the computer.

    6. Video Game Consoles- Took the TV one step further and made it psuedo interactive. Some say it rots the mind, but in general, people love it and still do as a great alternative to possibly hard to setup computer games.

    5. Those Hand-Held Fan things- Now, who hasn't encountered one of these before? This is truly a gadget keeping you cool at the flip of a switch.

    4. CD/CD Player- Now this was good, an easy way to keep songs, better than bulky 8-tracks/cassettes/whatever, and were more durable and lasted longer. Data for computers could also be stored here and all was good.

    3. Cell Phone- Just like a watch intergrated with a telephone, Cell Phones now enabled you talk to anywhere and anytime you felt like it.

    2. Flashlight- Portable light anymore, poof, you want light you got it. It's all right there.

    1. Hair Dryer- You may disagree, but for me, this one console harnesses electricity, wind, and heat to handle situations of excess moisture. ;P

  • My own top 10 list (Score:3)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <`imipak' `at' `yahoo.com'> on Monday January 03, 2000 @11:34AM (#1409633) Homepage Journal
    I agree with the wheel, but NOT for the reasons given. Ancient man was =quite= capable of hauling 250 tonne granite blocks over hundreds of miles without the benefit of wheels, thank you very much. Mind you, the spinach consumption was quite high. :)

    My top 10 inventions of All Time (in no particular order, historical or preferential):

    1. The Wheel - because it made long-distance transport -practical-. It was already possible, with the log roller, but it was impractical for anything much more than humungous pyramids or giant stone circles. It's much more complex to carry loose grain, or water, that way.
    2. Stone Flaking - because this was the first example of tool designing. Tools had been used for thousands of years, before the idea of flaking was developed, but if the materials didn't suit the job, there wasn't much that could be done beyond looking for other materials. Being able to custom-make things allowed people to escape from searching and spend more time doing. (Microsoft, take note!)
    3. The Footpath - the idea that certain rights of way should be inalienable and irrevocable was one big step towards the development of the concept that people actually posessed rights, regardless of status. In England, this led to the Magna Carta, which inspired the Constitution of America.
    4. Ships - these freed people from a given region or island, and allowed the exploration of new lands and new cultures. Without ships, Ancient Greece could never have become the centre of knowledge for the ancient world, and Egypt could never have developed such an extensive and powerful civilisation.
    5. Writing - The introduction of the concept of encoding thoughts in a sem-permanent form brought about many revolutions in society. Computers, for example, could not exist without it, as there would be no concept of storing data, and thus no means for a computer to obtain information or an algorithm to do something -to- the data, or even return the result. Nor would there be junk mail, the loss of which would bankrupt the logging and recycling industries. (On second thoughts...)
    6. The Jaquard Loom - This handy little device not only revolutionised the entire weaving industry in one fell swoop, it gave rise to the idea of programmable machines. (Clockwork machines that could be programmed had been around for some time, and IIRC were the inspiration for the Jaquard Loom, but it wasn't until the loom had been made that anyone really saw that the concept was actually -useful- for something.) The Jaquard Loom is largely responsible for the way in which early computers operated, including the use of punched cards.
    7. The Watt Engine - This (IIRC) was the first attempt at making a useful steam engine. The Greeks had beaten James Watt by a few thousand years, but they regarded it as an amusing toy, and so the idea was lost. This engine allowed society to develop mobile steam power, and (later) the combustion engine and the jet engine. Further evolution led to Ram Jets and Scram Jets. But they all really follow much the same design idea as the original.
    8. Gunpowder - An infamous invention of the Chinese, but not really used in a destructive way until Europeans got hold of it. After that, the world was never quite the same. (Rumours that this is when the Earth acquired it's 23.5' tilt are denied. :) This has led to the science of explosives, which in turn led to the discovery that nitroglycerine is very good for heart disease. (One assumes that, if the heart knows what's good for it, the brain won't push the button.) It's also led to rocketry, deep-space probes, and practical manned space-flight.
    9. Painting - The ability to express abstract thoughts, again in a semi-permanent way, is probably a cornerstone of how humans evolved philosophy, ethics, mathematics, science and all the other wonderful (and VERY necessary) studies on which complex societies depend. This event may well also be coupled with the evolution of Self-Awareness, without which humans wouldn't be much of anything.
    10. Musical Instruments - The ability to artificically produce a controllable, pre-determined sound that could not be naturally produced is a fundamental key to the imagination, and undoubtably engendered the earliest experiments with Freedom (as in Free Speech), exchanging ideas and stories, which would have grown and evolved in the ideal GPL-style setting. As with all the other things I've said, this would undoubtable have had a huge impact outside the area in which it was originally developed. For example, this would allow the development of -memorable- oral traditions, culture and early spirituality.

  • Gadgets for the gadgets (Score:3)

    by Hrunting ( 2191 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @11:28AM (#1409634) Homepage
    It's not the gadgets that are cool, but the gadgets for the gadgets that really are cool. So, here's my top ten list corollary (roughly following the original list):

    1. Cruise Control

      Face it, we're lazy, and what better way to be lazy then to let some computer control exactly how fast our wheels spin. Not only that, but it's fun to watch people freak out when you pass them with your legs crossed on the dash.

    2. The Fire Extinguisher

      Portable fire was great .. until it landed in the hands of the stupid person, at which point it became a weapon. At this point, luckily, someone invented the fire extinguisher, leading the most common source of damage on a freshman hall, the broken fire bubble.

    3. The Walkie-talkie

      How did I learn Morse Code? I had one of those cheap walkie-talkies with Morse Code on it. It was so much fun pressing that little red button that made the annoying beep, so annoying in fact, that my parents will never let me near anything that makes noise again!

    4. The Modem

      If it wasn't for this little device, Doom and deathmatch would never have become as popular they are, and id Software would never be as close as they are to world domination (move over Redhat)!

    5. The Bug

      All right, technically, this isn't a gadget, but who would've known that an actual moth would've climbed inside one of those mothers and caused so many problems? And now, us IT professionals have yet another excuse to pull the systems offline for, what else, playing deathmatch.

    6. The Walkman

      Leave it to the tiny transistor to allow us to have portable music. Where would America's youth be today without those headphones covering their ears and allowing them to completely drown out the wise words of their elder statesmen? They certainly wouldn't be leading the computing world, now would they?

    7. Cell Phones

      They may not technically be radios, but certainly the idea of wireless communication culminates in those annoying little devices that give some people a reason to drive poorly and others a reason to say that everyone is going to die of brain cancer. Plus, you can play games on some of them now! Can anyone say 'deathmatch'?

    8. The Nintendo

      Whoa Nelly! The Nintendo made console gaming fun again and gave us yet another mindless, brainless activity to do with our televisions.

    9. The Palm Pilot

      Computers are great, but small computers are better, because they can become as portable as cell phones while becoming ten times more useful. The idea that the computer could become as important a tool for everyday life as the pen started with the idea of taking it all with you, and the Palm Pilot embodies that spirit.

    10. Pants

      Again, technically, not a gadget, but really, when you're done with that hand-dryer thingie (which honestly, really never does work), where do you wipe your hands?

      NOTE: This post not for the humor (or humour) impaired.

  • The 1st most important gadget of all time (Score:3)

    by soup ( 6299 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @11:05AM (#1409635) Homepage
    ...has to be a cutting device that is at least 4000 years old.

    It's called the "Plow".

  • Re:The 1st most important gadget of all time (Score:3)

    by rde ( 17364 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @11:07AM (#1409636)
    It's called the "Plow".
    Only for your farmer types. For us city folk, the can opener serves much the same purpose -- providing food -- and has the added advantage of being more portable.

  • Re:Beer (Score:3)

    by Imperator ( 17614 ) <slashdot2.omershenker@net> on Monday January 03, 2000 @12:11PM (#1409637)
    IANA archeologist or historian.

    Actually, you're not far off. One theory wrt agriculture/civilization gaining widespread acceptance is that beer provided the impetus for organized agriculture. Flour can be made with relatively little grain, but fermentation requires significantly more. In addition to the "obvious" benefits of beer, fermentation did much to purify water for drinking. (Remember that sewer systems and water treatment plants are recent inventions.) While these ancient cultures certainly did not understand why beer was allowing them to live longer on average, it certainly provided an important evolutionary advantage to those societies which drank it in favor of water.

  • Re:electric hand dryers? (Score:3)

    by Wah ( 30840 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @11:14AM (#1409638) Homepage Journal
    not to mention the fact that it is easily surpassed in usability (time to dry hands), portability, cost, and just about everything else, by a simple paper towel. Electric hand dryers are a good example of technology gone way too far. Electric HAIR dryers, OTOH (for women) have been a godsend. Now it only takes women 2 hours to get ready, instead of the pre-historic 4.

  • Re:Hmm. The compass and the sexton. (Score:3)

    by Robert Link ( 42853 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @01:02PM (#1409639) Homepage
    I can see where it was useful for church officials to have a sexton to relieve them of the onerous duties of bell ringing and grave digging, I doubt it did much to foster exploration.

    A sextant, on the other hand, is useful for making astronomical observations of the sort used in navigation. If you ever try using a sextant, however, you will realize that it isn't much good without a nautical almanac or similar table of celestial positions. Back in the old days (indeed, prior to the invention of the sextant itself) one produced these using an astrolabe [m-w.com], which was a combination observing device and mechanical calculator. Apart from enabling one to produce accurate tables for navigation, it also allowed observations an calculations accurate enough to show that the planets couldn't possibly be in circular orbits about the earth, thus paving the way for the Copernican revolution and earning it its spot among my personal top 10 list of the best gadgets of all time.


    -r

  • um - the pen .... (Score:3)

    by taniwha ( 70410 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @11:15AM (#1409640) Homepage Journal
    writing and literacy for the masses (I'm talking about the quill here) ...

    But the electric hand drier? they don't even work right. Although I did once see one of those optically trigered ones with a sign "for a word from place 1$ in the slot below" .... it sounded just like him

  • Birth Control (Score:3)

    by Enoch ( 86158 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @11:10AM (#1409641) Homepage
    I can't believe contraception was not on the list. It seems to me that birth control (specifically, the pill and other "drug" methods) freed half of the population to more reliably join the work force along with sparking the sexual revolution. I would think such an impact would qulify this. Of course, it is no electric hand dryer (which I am hoping was added as a pathetic attempt at comedy).

    Jeremy

  • Top 10 . .you can all just . . (Score:3)

    by Money__ ( 87045 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @01:10PM (#1409642)
    1) one, one 'cause you left me.
    2) two two for my family.
    3) three three for my heartache.
    4) four four for my headache.
    5) five five for my lonley.
    6) six six for my sorrow.
    7) seven seven no tomorrow.
    8) eight eight I forget what eight was for.
    9) nine nine cause I've lost god.
    10) ten ten ten ten for everything everything.

    _________________________

  • My God! We've found him! (Score:3)

    by Tim Behrendsen ( 89573 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @11:12AM (#1409643)

    The one person in the world that actually likes hand dryers! Clearly the man should be stuffed and put in a museum somewhere.


    ---

  • Electric Hand Dryer!? (Score:3)

    by harlows_monkeys ( 106428 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @12:23PM (#1409644) Homepage
    Ever try to blow your nose with one of those? A curse on bathroom designers who leave out the paper towels.

  • ronco, erector sets, and remote controls.... (Score:3)

    by bons ( 119581 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @01:50PM (#1409645) Homepage Journal
    1st place and important link of the day: Anything made by Ronco [ronco.com]. The pocket fisherman, inside the shell egg scrambler, the list goes on and on. This is gadget heaven.

    Erector sets [acghs.org] with motor: to heck with Mindstorms. I was building destructor the robot with this thing when I could barely walk. That was a concept ahead of it's time.
    Here's a great quote [eliwhitney.org]: "The first artificial heart constructed at Yale was powered by an Erector Set motor."

    The remote control [ideafinder.com]: Let's face it. We still don't need the dang thing and we couldn't live without it. It fits the definition perfectly.

  • What "Gadget" means. (Score:5)

    by mattdm ( 1931 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @11:25AM (#1409646) Homepage
    A lot of people are missing the point here. The light bulb, the plow, birth control, etc., are important advances, inventions, discoveries, whatever, but they're not necessarily gadgets. According to Merriam-Webster [m-w.com], a gadget is "an often small mechanical or electronic device with a practical use but often thought of as a novelty". In fact, by this definition, a lot of the stuff on this list shouldn't be there -- not the wheel or the transistor, for sure.

    So what does count? The hand dryer, while not one of my top choices, is definitely gadgety. The television and computer and radio have moved out of gadget status, but certainly started that way.

    What else? Digital watches. Palm Pilots. Viewmaster. Gyroscopes. Those little models of the solar system which have all the planets geared so they can all rotate and revolve at the proper relative speeds.

    --

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