Dangerous As Well?

I wrote yesterday about the wonders of technology particularly in the hands of our computer-savvy children. Since then I’ve read a report that tends to confirm what many of us have long suspected, and that is that some technology can be positively dangerous particularly when used on aircraft.

It seems that passengers are forgetting to switch off their mobile phones, laptops, e-readers and other electronic gadgets in such numbers that they may present dangers to the aircraft’s cockpit equipment, and that this is thought to have been factors in several aircraft crashes. Most of these portable devices transit a signal and all emit electromagnetic waves which, so say some experts, could interfere with a plane’s electronics, particularly those on older aircraft which may not be protected against the latest devices.

In one 2003 case in New Zealand, the pilot phoned home, left his mobile switched on and this possibly led to the plane’s navigation equipment giving a false reading which led to the plane flying into the ground short of the runway, killing eight people. In 2007, one Boeing 737 pilot found his navigation equipment failed after takeoff but the problem disappeared when a flight attendant told a passenger to switch off a hand-held GPS device.

Various airlines have carried out tests of the effect mobile gadgets have on aircraft navigation and other cockpit equipment and, because the results have been inconclusive, the jury is still out on the subject. However, the US Federal Aviation Administration forbid the use of gadgets below 10,000 because pilots have less time at lower altitudes to deal with any problem that may arise; and this is a practice followed by other countries.

I have certainly used a laptop in the days when I used to fly and most airlines allow this, though I recall that all forbid the use of mobile phones. Since those days, there have been a raft of new gadgets introduced in the market and, indeed, my new Kindle which I bought only last week is certainly one gadget I’d want to use on board if I were ever to fly again.

Against all this must, of course, weigh the need for safety but whether folk are prepared to give up using their gadgets on planes is quite another thing.
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Ancient Technologies

A chum of mine recently emailed me a video explaining how the Ancient Egyptians were able to sculpt identical statues of Rameses the Great using geometry based on the Pythagorean triangle. It brought to mind the many wonderful technologies that the ancients used, some of which cannot be replicated in these technological times.

The building of the pyramids is one such example. They are a marvel of technology and craftsmanship, especially in the way that the outer casings were fitted so closely together that a knife cannot be inserted between the joints. The same can be said of some of the ancient buildings in other places such as in Macchu Picchu where stone blocks seem to have been almost ‘moulded’ to precisely fit with their neighbours.

The Egyptians were notable for the invention of paper and the decimal system and the development of a phonetic writing system, astronomy, mathematics, glassmaking, mapmaking and many others including advances in medicine. They had, for example, a form of penicillin which they used to treat infections, and their doctors may even have used stethoscopes to listen to the chests of patients (see a photo I took in in the Great Temple of Kom Ombo -www.flickr.com/photos/cruisemac/983687661/). There are those who believe that the Egyptians also had a knowledge of electricity which they used for an early form of electroplating.

Some of the Egyptians’ knowledge of medicine may have been passed down from the prehistoric past. I once visited the small museum of a Turkish archaeological site and was amazed to see the skull of a prehistoric man who had undergone a trepanning operation. Such operations are very delicate and this particular skull clearly showed that the man had survived the operation. Later I learned that such operations have been found in remains from Neolithic times onward. How, I wonder, did very ancient peoples learn to master such things?

When you look around at the wealth and sheer variety of ancient technology, you cannot but wonder at it all.

To quote but a few examples: In China, papermaking, printing, iron-casting, gunpowder and the compass were invented and great strides made in medicine and astronomy. They also invented the suspension bridge and seismometers. Mathematics were arguably developed in India where perfume was perfected along with textile-dying. The Greeks invented differential gears (enabling the construction of analogue computers like the Antikythera Mechanism), the water clock and water organ and Roman technology is famous for its civil engineering, the invention of concrete, the arch and an efficient system of water-management and public bathing (something which, itself is said to have originated in the Indus Valley). The wheel originated from Mesopotamia whose people also perfected metalworking, flood control and water storage. To the Assyrians we owe the invention of the pump and the ‘Baghdad Battery’ which reconstructions demonstrate was a working electrical battery (giving some credence to the theory that the Egyptians had access to electricity in some form).

There are many more examples of ancient technology and skills that could be quoted here, but my main thought - prompted by the emailed video sent to me the other day - was amazement at the number of things that were invented thousands of years ago.

When you consider the inventions made in just the last fifty years, you have to wonder where the world and its technology will be in fifty years time.

I, alas, will not be around to comment upon it.
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Standing In Line

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A while back my local supermarket installed a bank of self-service checkout terminals. Because the number of manned checkout desks were reduced, customers are forced to use these wretched things when the other desks have long queues behind them.

Supposed to reduce queuing, the self-service terminals, in fact, make things much worse. Got a CD or DVD in your shopping? - then call an assistant for help. Got a high-price item with a security tag on it? - call an assistant. Got a bottle of wine? - then call an assistant to verify that you are over 18 years of age. Press a wrong number when you finally get to pop your credit card in the machine and an assistant has to be called to sort things out. And so it goes on.

Try to take your trolley of shopping to an empty check-out desk that is for baskets only and the chances are that you will be sent away by the bored and unhelpful assistant.

It comes as no surprise then that research by the Grocer Magazine has shown that average queuing times for staffed tills at Tesco and Sainsbury's, the retailers with the most self-service checkouts, have increased over the past two years. And a separate survey by the Sunday Telegraph, found that in stores offering a choice between staffed and automated tills, it is often quicker to choose the traditional method.

Technology when it works is fine but, as we know, chaos results when it does not. As for our local supermarket, I’ve given up with the automated checkouts and just stand in line with all the others!
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