Opinion time: What is the most useful invention of the last 50 years? What is the annoying?
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M$7 Answers
It's right at the boundary, but I think I'll go with the invention of the integrated circuit (IC) in 1958-1959. This invention helped the electronics industry move from the vacuum-tube driven technology of the past into the modern era of computing. Today, IC's are are ubiquitous, so it's hard to overstate their usefulness.
Most annoying: Cell Phones
The most annoying could arguably be the cell phone. Although there's a strong case to be made for it's utility, I counter that as far as inventions go, there's always some kind of case to be made for usefulness, otherwise why bother inventing them? Don't get me wrong, either--I love my smartphone. But the potential to annoy helpless bystanders with this technology seems worthy of a nomination for most annoying.
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M$
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M$
And currently, the most-annoying invention of all time as far as I'm concerned is Fixodent. That garbage makes me sick to my stomach, but it's the only adhesive on the market (and I've tried everything that I can find here) that actually keeps my lower dentures where they belong. That'll be fixed later, when the dentist does my hard reliner, but in the meantime I'm either sick to my stomach or can't eat properly because the lower is shifting around and getting bits of food stuck underneath, which just HURTS when I bite down.
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M$
The most annoying invention (to me) was the invention of the reality show. Maybe I'm alone on this one, but every day I hear people discussing those god awful shows. The Hills, Bromance, and all the other popular MTV shows just make me disappointed in humanity. There are any number of other shows that are just awful. And yes, there are a few good ones out there, but taken in its entirety, the reality show genre is just obnoxious.
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M$
The most annoying is the widget. The Guinness brewers invented the widget as a way to emulate draft beer in a can. Because it uses nitrogen it gives beer an inferior, less sharp taste. It is annoying because they stopped selling Guinness in cans other than with the widget, so to get the original Foreign Export Guinness stout you now can only buy bottles. The widget was invented around 1989, twenty years ago.
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M$
Most annoying: Baby Mops
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M$
The computer was invented more than 50 years ago. But the personal computer as shown in your pics could be a candidate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC
It's a very close call to say if it was invented in the last 50 years. It only just makes it, and then with a certain degree of flexibility about the meaning of the word "invented".
The idea was being kicked around in the early 1950s, and a version made from germanium not silicon was demonstrated in 1958 , i.e. 51 years ago. But the first silicon chip, which solved some practical problems with gemanium chips made its debut in 1959, almost exactly 50 years ago.
It was created by Robert Noyce, co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor, the people who put the "Silicon" into Silicon Valley.
We're stretching the "50 years" slightly, but the silicon chip has had such a big impact on the world, I think it's worth doing that.
Without it the world as we know it would not exist. No personal computers, mobile phones, ipods, no internet. Whole branches of science and business would not operate as they do, so a great many other advances would not have happened either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit#Invention
As for the most annoying invention of the last 50 years... well I'm not sure if it can be called an invention, but I guess it's some kind of innovation: Spam.
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M$
I agree with the cell phone thought. Not the phone itself as much as the lack of cell phone etiquitte. I am a salesperson and I could be in the middle of a closing with a customer and they get a phone call, stop talking to me and spend 5 minutes of my time talking to a friend while have to listen. Then there are the people who don't silence their phones in meetings or at the movies!
Nihonjin desu ka? I noticed your nickname, are you a student?