Low Tech Magazine

[ponyboy]

I wasn't sure where to put this. :-)

We don't need any stinking Hi Tech stuff... :-)

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/

[adubar]

That reminds me of when electronic calculators were finally affordable for the average family--something like $300us for a plug in desktop model ?with eight digits( if I remember correctly) --there were no "pocket calculators" then.

We lived oversees and my father worked for an international engineering firm. He would tell me about the competitions his colleagues would have against Taiwanese, Arab and Chinese engineers---the brand-new Texas Instrument Calculator vs. the Abacus. The Abacus won every time. There was even a guy in his immediate team who could beat the guy using the calculator on long problems by using a slide rule.

Then technology "got better" and the calculator my father bought me for high school math several years later could do everything, even had some inbuilt functions specific to Chemistry. The main problem was that it did WAY more than I needed and it burned through batteries. Half the time I couldn?t use it. For the remainder of my math classes, I just used a five dollar calculator for multiplication and division when working with very large numbers and used pencil and paper for everything else.

"Improvements" in Technology are not necessarily so.

-A