Monday, August 22, 2005

Lost Technologies

How great is this list of C-Net's favorite lost technologies? Hint: #2 is Kozmo.com.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I know it's not high tech but it's still a technology and appropriate for a weekend spent mowing the lawn (yes we do have lawns in Arizona)...

... push mowers and blade clutches. Once upon a time, push mowers only had 2 states- fully on with both engine and blade spinning and fully off with both engine and blade off. That meant when you needed to mow the other side of the driveway or across the sidewalk you had to turn the mower off.

Then came blade clutch where you could disengage the blade without turning off the mower. Pure genius, life became easier, and the world a place of hope and promise.

Then after a gap of some years I acquired a lawn and a mower that came with it. Now with this mower when you release the blade clutch it shuts off the whole engine. What the H**L!!!!

When I went to the store to inquire I was told by the salesman that all mowers now have this feature as a safety precaution- apparaently so people wouldn't be tempted to lift the mower up by the deck and use it as hedge trimmer. Last month I was in New Mexico mowing my Dad's lawn (yes they do have lawns in New Mexico) and used the old mower with the fabulous blade clutch- it was like heaven

It's a technology that has been lost to us, not because of barbarian invasions, the collapse of civilization, or a poor business model. It's been lost because we have to kowtow to the level of morons who use their push mowers as hedge trimmers

If they come for my gas trimmer (there's talk of banning them in Phoenix), they will have to rip it from my cold, dead hands

9:39 AM

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