Life Observed

I wonder what Victorian engineers would make of today's technology. No doubt they would be impressed by our achievements and by the mystic abilities of small items with bright screens and no moving parts. I wonder if they would be as impressed by the way we discard an item on a whim after a year or two.  We seem to have lost the ability to design a thing of quality with a long life in mind.

Never insult the carpenters and carvers who are working on your choir stalls. You may be immortalised in wood forever. (The others were worse than this one)

So. Would you use a Router to make this Hub ?  Sorry folks, that was a needlessly nerdy joke there.  Overheard on the BBC recently. A sociologist blew her tech credentials when discussing an early valve computer. "It's amazing to think this computer was made in the 1950s, it looks so shiny with its valves and pistons "  Ah, and it was going so well, right up to that last word.

Continuing the tour of Milestones museum, I found this tired old Commodore Pet, and a display of Kodak Instamatic cameras in the faux camera shop. Ah, yes. I did program a Commodore back in 1980. This is the early example with the silly tiny keyboard. And no, I have never owned an Instamatic. Never.

We spent some time in the rather excellent Milesones museum at Basingstoke. They have a set of streets there laid out with buildings and artefacts from different years from the early the twentieth century, together with an area devoted to the 1940s to 1980s. It is always worrying to find everyday objects you have owned and used turning up in museums. There is also a concern that if you are of a certain age and you stay too long, then you may end up as part of the show. PS. They have a pub on the premises. Yes, it really does serve beer. No - not at 1915 prices.

Aah.  Autumn leaves illuminiated by that glorious golden glow that only Sodium can bestow. Remember: How we hated those Sodium lamps when they first appeared. And now: How we yearn for their warm illumination now that the streets are converted to cold white LED lights.