What are some simple advancements that changed an activity?
Like smashing burger patties on the grill?
Or pulling the goalie when the other team has a delayed penalty in hockey?
Humor and serious answers welcome.
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12 Answers
You’re not supposed to smash burgers. :)
Use of movable type greatly changed the publishing industry.
Rifling of musket bores (putting in a groove forcing bullets to spin) greatly improved their accuracy.
Cell phones have made the plots of many classic movies unfathomable. Think of “An Affair to Remember” where they’re supposed to meet on top of the Empire State Building but one of them doesn’t make it. A simple cellphone call would have made all the difference. There are probably scores of films that wouldn’t make sense in the modern world.
I’m thinking of how when I was a teenager, it was so revolutionary that we had VCRs. We would go to a video rental store and pick out a video, and it was very exciting to have those choices. Then the next day, or two days later, we’d have to make sure it was rewound and return it. Now we just look at the streaming sites and have thousands of movies and shows available.
Also, when I was a kid, we’d have to go to the library to do research for a paper or a project in school. That meant a ride to the library, or walking there, and a few hours of looking at reference materials and making notes (on paper). Now, we just google, or as George Bush would say, “we look it up on the Google.”
Road travel used to entail getting the appropriate map, figuring out your route, then driving per the plan. If you encountered any traffic, you were stuck. Nowadays, you enter your destination into Waze and it will route you via the fastest route. Every now and then it will check for traffic and re-route you if needed.
Paying bills? I used to dread having to write all my bills. Writing the check out, then having to address the envelope. Having to go drop it off in the mailbox where it was secure. But then online banking came along not too long after that you could just pay directly on the company’s website. And it’s also seamless now. I get all my bills electronically so I don’t have to worry about them getting lost in the mail. And as soon as they come I just pop on the website and pay it. No more chore of writing bills!
@RocketGuy oh, but see, some of us used to enjoy reading maps and figuring out the scenic route we wanted to take. I do use my Maps app and it’s very handy, but I kind of miss pulling out my Atlas or my local map book and figuring out how to go.
Have you ever gone to AAA and had them generate a TripTik? Tell them point A and point B, and they will tell you what things you can see on the way there. Then they marked up a map for you to use on the way. Not sure if they do that anymore.
@RocketGuy I didn’t know that, but that’s pretty cool. But somehow I doubt that they do that anymore. Plus, half the fun was me looking at the map to figure out my route and then just pretty much stopping anywhere that looked interesting.
Nice! It suggests stops every so often as part of planning, but it doesn’t suggest any hotels, restaurants, or attractions. It’s an interactive map so you need data service if you want to get info for the suggested stop areas. More useful than Google Maps for initial planning.
@RocketGuy When I plan a trip, I go to TripAdvisor and I look at “things to do” in towns I am interested in visiting, and I look at reviews for hotels in the towns. Often, hotel reviews will mention local attractions, and then I’ll look at reviews for those things and plan accordingly. I’ll look at Google Maps and look at the drive times from the hotel to the attraction and from where I’m staying one night to where I’m staying at the next stop.
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