The Electronic Thing

[Greg]

I have been thinking (which itself is indicative of a dangerous state of the universe) for a very long time that eventually the only distinction among your...

1. computer
2. wristwatch
3. alarm clock
4. telephone
5. compass
6. GPS receiver
7. network connection
8. electronic organizer
9. television
10. radio
11. stereo
12. camera
13. security system
14. credit cards
15. checkbook
16. library
17. remote controls
18. walkie talkie
19. video game console
20. iPod
21. keys
22. and every other electronic doodad you can think of

... will be form factors and peripherals. Eventually, all these things will merge into a single, small, integrated unit.

B'b'but... what the heck will people call it?

[Miros1]

Some clever name invented by a marketing person.

Name anyone who could have predicted that an electronic music player/storage unit would be called an iPod.

[mikedelaney16]

Maybe they'll come up with a fancy new name. But there are some pretty powerful items listed under the phone category already. Display is still a bit limited at 320 x 240 though.

But yes, I've been having a problem with some phones being called phones for several years now. Of course, they're just like company issued pagers, they fit very neatly into the gap between the elevator and the 25th floor.

The rise and subsequent fall of the electronic leash

[shorty943]

Originally Posted by Greg

I have been thinking (which itself is indicative of a dangerous state of the universe) for a very long time that eventually the only distinction among your...

1. computer
2. wristwatch
3. alarm clock
4. telephone
5. compass
6. GPS receiver
7. network connection
8. electronic organizer
9. television
10. radio
11. stereo
12. camera
13. security system
14. credit cards
15. checkbook
16. library
17. remote controls
18. walkie talkie
19. video game console
20. iPod
21. keys
22. and every other electronic doodad you can think of

... will be form factors and peripherals. Eventually, all these things will merge into a single, small, integrated unit.

B'b'but... what the heck will people call it?

Hmm,

every 4 wheel drive is called a "jeep"

All vacuum cleaners are known as "hoovers" or "oovers".

All dirrigables are called zepelins


They will be called a "Nokia", of course.


News flash.
An Australian "Jeep" driver, has just been caught on radar speed trap. He did the math's, between the two points he was clocked, he would have had to have accelerated up to 15,000 MPH, in under 100 yards. I want that jeep.

[Greg]

Hmm... maybe a "nokie" if it gets stuck with a brand name, which assuredly would become "okie." But I think that is very unlikely. People will adopt some kind of name applicable to the whole class of machines.

The tendency to use popular brand names for things might be more a part of Australian culture than American culture. Over here, Jeep and Hoover are still exclusively brand names.

I don't think the iPod is an example because that, too, is exclusively a brand name for Apple's product.

[Miros1]

Most copiers are called Xerox machines, regardless of manufacturer.
All asprin is called asprin, regardless of manufacturer.
Most facial tissues are called Kleenex, regardlessof manufacturer.

The list is endless...

DuPont actually has an internal memo with suggested substitutions for words like Nylon, Dacron, etc. I saw it while I was working there as a contractor.

[mikedelaney16]

Originally Posted by Greg

The tendency to use popular brand names for things might be more a part of Australian culture than American culture. Over here, Jeep and Hoover are still exclusively brand names.

Vacuum cleaners are colloquially known as Hoovers all over the world. In much the same way PCs were originally all called IBMs. In the British Isles anything resembling a Jeep, Land Rover, Toyota Land Cruiser etc is generally called a Jeep by the average person. It can actually be really difficult to convince some of them that a Nissan Quashqai is not a Jeep unless they own one.

I think I can see these pocket electronics devices becoming known as fonez, PAz and podz.

[mikedelaney16]

Originally Posted by shorty943

News flash.
An Australian "Jeep" driver, has just been caught on radar speed trap. He did the math's, between the two points he was clocked, he would have had to have accelerated up to 15,000 MPH, in under 100 yards. I want that jeep.

A pole mounted traffic camera was recently laser clocked at 15 mph in the UK. The house behind it was traveling at 85 mph. Hand held radar and laser are fallible and should not be admissible in court.

I forget the name the gave to the problem with lasers. It had something to do with the laser traveling along the hood and giving a false reading.

[Greg]

Yup, I've heard the pop legends about how people call things by their brand names. All soft drinks are cokes, too, right? But in actual life, I have never met a person who did this in casual conversation, just lots of people telling me that other people don't know any better.

From the description, the Australian driver was clocked between two points, not measure on radar. Nevertheless, police traffic radars are another source of an endless stream of urban legends, some of them even true!

Considering the gazillions of police radar guns in use today, it's not at all surprising that some of them can be out of calibration. Of course, any radar gun will give you any silly reading you want if you play with its zero point.

For a good time, talk to Scotty about radar guns. He earns his living testifying in court about the accuracy of those things, on behalf of Stalker Radar.

[Miros1]

Name one person who called asprin by its chemical name. Yep, Asprin is a very early brand name for the substance, back before people slapped TM on everything.

[TomP]

They'll probably be called gizmos.

I've got this gizmo and this gizmo and that gizmo over there.

[homerette]

Originally Posted by Miros1

Name one person who called asprin by its chemical name. Yep, Asprin is a very early brand name for the substance, back before people slapped TM on everything.

Acetylsalicytic acid, without benefit or google or anything else!. Which would probably explain why it's probably misspelled.

EDIT: Later googling has provided me with the correct spelling: acetytlsalicylic acid and that the name aspirin was trademarked in 1899.

[Miros1]

Showoff! But do you call it that in casual conversation?

[Greg]

Yup, aspirin is the one example that I know of where a brand name was lost because they failed to protect their trademark; but that only happened in the United States. In Canada, Aspirin is still a trademark owned by Bayer. I don't know about the UK or Europe, though I presume they market the stuff there.

[shorty943]

Sorry folks, been busy again.

Greg, the brand name usage is very much a thing of British culture, we only hear that kind of thing from British Immigrants here.
All small cars are "mini's", etc. Mainly the so called "lower" classes. You know the ones, the "we don't need no education" generation. And they don't even understand they are actually right, because a double negative cancels itself. They sorely do need education.
The Aussie 4WD driver, had just turned from a side street onto a main road, and got clocked by a portable radar unit.
We have also had local passenger buses clocked at over 60 MPH, going up hill, in vehicles that are speed limited to under 50 MPH, electricity supply poles clocked at over the speed limit, you name it. All the same problems, mainly the "rats ring" attitude of an over self promoted public service. The government body concerned, is the authority don't you know, how dare you challenge them, you insolent little taxpayer you.

I think Bayer still have the copyright on the Aspirin name here. Then there is Panadol, for any Paracetamol based product. Even though Panadol is a brand name. For pain I use the original "witches Aspirin", dried bark of one year old Silax Alba, the white willow, is chock a block full of natural Salicylic acid. Aspirin. Make a tea, sweeten with honey, no more headache. I also cultivate the Flanders Field Poppy for the very same reason. It is a pale cousin of the opium poppy, and is a wonderful natural pain reliever, with out the nasty unwanted effects of its bigger Asiatic cousin.

Here, most soft drinks are called by their proper names. As an aside, in my home state, Coca Cola Amatil, are beside themselves. We are the only place in the entire world, where "Coke" is not the number one beverage. Here in South Aussie, our local "Farmers Union Iced Coffee" out sells every thing else on the market. Poor Hokey Cokey Cola people.

What else, oh yes, who invented "googling", and I'm loving it. What idiot thinks adding "ing" to a noun changes it into verb. That seems to be a very Californicated idea.
Google is a corporate name, not a bloody verb. One might do a "google search". But, the act of performing a "google?, what the hell is that? I also detest the Wiki, and I have found a site even worse than that. Never let namespot.com find out you are alive. Like the Wiki, it is freely editable by anyone and therefore rife with lies and misinformation. Our politicians are now not too keen on Wiki. It appears their names are in that "encyclopedia", and any body at all can edit any entry to their hearts content. In my opinion, the Wiki is not at all to be trusted as any kind of authouratative reference, ever. Typical of the younger generation, just a sign of contempt for the accepted norms.
"We know you are right, but, you have to say it in the way we want to hear it", seems to be the mind set of youth today. Sorry kiddies, but any other words will not mean the same thing.

Anyhow, I hope all are well, I have a bus to finish, it's coming along nicely. The main engineering work is now finished, and we start the re-skinning this weekend. Then there is only the frou frou inside to do.

[Greg]

Ah, so it's those pesky limeys again, eh? No wonder they lost they war!
On the other hand, the fact that King George couldn't even sling the lingo might have had some bearing on this.

I'll admit I drink a lot of Coca Cola, but in truth, coffee is still my main drug. I'm not at all surprised that iced coffee would be popular in southern Australia.

Now you have me wondering if the Flanders poppy is a controlled substance up here in the colonies. We have a very strong phramaceutical cartel; but then, we also are responsible for at least 95% of the new drugs invented in the world these days.

I can't guess who first said "Google for it," but I am certainly guilty of having used that term. When I say it, though, I mean to do a Google search. Google's value is diminishing over time but within my experience, it's still the best search engine on the net.


The Wikipedia is a different matter. The quality of articles there varies dramatically, especially depending on the subject matter, and the reliability of the Wikipedia as a whole is in a nose dive as more as more idiots find out that they can screw up the articles. The battle between the trolls and the watchdogs escalates daily.

It's worse than just trolls, though. A great part of the Wikipedia's woes come from an organized effort fomented by one political party in the United States to rewrite every article, even the non-political ones, to support a bias in their favor. It's part of their program to politicize every site on the net. As a result you will find more and more seemingly innocuous aritcles that have been edited and reverted hundreds of times, and more and more reliable authors abandoning the project, including me.

I tried suggesting that the Wikipedia adopt a system of juried articles and assign owners to each, who must approve change requests. That's when I discovered the Wiki Cult. There is a large group of people who gather to stomp on anyone who even hints at such sacrilege. Amusingly, for a whole there was a noticeable overlap between them and those who are rewriting articles with a political bias. They eventually got smart, though. Nowadays most of the editing comes from anonymous people with masked IP addresses. After that, I bid them good luck and refused to invest any more time in it.

Nevertheless, if you check earlier versions of articles in the Wikipedia and can filter out the increasingly annoying political bias, there is still an incredible wealth of information. The science articles are gradually become politicized--junk science gets added in even where it doesn't make sense--and of course all history articles were their first targets, but especially in the arts and hard-core mathematics you will find a lot of neat stuff.

[homerette]

Originally Posted by Miros1

Showoff! But do you call it that in casual conversation?

I can't help it! It's so rare I actually know something, I have to show off!

Actually, I often do refer to drugs by their components rather than their brand names. I don't know why, it may have something to do with me filling the pill box for my grandfather and having to recall that stuff at the doc's office.

I never even used Google until a couple of months ago, but I seem to have adopted the term "googling" right easily. I'm afraid my ignorance is definitely catching up with me much more rapidly these days. Mea culpa.

[shorty943]

Sadly. I also am guilty of the occasional slip.
Just a small example of a greater social problem. Let one thing go by, the next morals go, and then truth in advertising will be lost.
Then who do you trust. MacTrump Corp? All hail the corporation?

I think we have a cousin cartel here. Our business seems to be not at all far behind in the rationalisation and justification stakes. So many medicines are over priced artificially, I know R and D is not cheap. But a lot of R and D seems to be done by the accounts office rather than the boffins. More research done on how to synthesize and patent, rather than produce and help heal.

You probably do the smart thing Homerette, some real horror stories come out when peoples medicines get mixed up. Yuck, Doctors and their medicines scare me.


Greg, the Wiki is still a reasonable quick ready reference, I do tend to follow up thread links though. Just to double check. Pity the fool who attempts to politicise human safety. As my life work has been. Same thing you do mate, life support for humans, in an inhospitable environment.
When it comes to the sciences, I must admit a bias towards the proven, mainstream, applied science background, we both enjoy as engineers in our own fields.
I am fortunate, in being able to claim never to have had a failure. Not one machine I have designed and built to order, has ever failed in any way. I make em strong, alright?
Not pretty, but good, old fashioned, strong and reliable.

[Greg]

Heh. In the spaceship business, "strong" equates to never leaving the launch pad. Rockets are wimpy, generally designed with a 1.4 factor of safety. I kid you not.

That's why water ships are better than space ships; they don't have to operate quite so near their ulimate margins. Can you imagine what people would say if you launched a 5-million-pound water ship to deliver a 30,000-pound payload?

[shorty943]

Originally Posted by Greg

Heh. In the spaceship business, "strong" equates to never leaving the launch pad. Rockets are wimpy, generally designed with a 1.4 factor of safety. I kid you not.

That's why water ships are better than space ships; they don't have to operate quite so near their ulimate margins. Can you imagine what people would say if you launched a 5-million-pound water ship to deliver a 30,000-pound payload?

Suddenly, space is scary.

We operate at a factor of safety of 3. We love our Plimsoll lines, before that we had a factor of safety of, WHAT?, SAFETY? That man there, walk that plank.

Let's see, using rounded figures. 30,000 lb, is only 15 ton. ( sea short ton is 2,000 lbs, makes math easier.) (See shorty dive into the Admiralty Manual of Seamanship) and stop short. After four pages of buoyant volume, centre of gravity, moments of equilibrium, ballast and trim, reserve of buoyancy.
Um, how long is this proposed 5,000,000 lb vessel? multiplied by 2, to give us tonne metres for moment of equilibrium. And that is just the empty hull. Then we have to over engine the hell out of it.

Me need caffeine now.