Friday, February 18

The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time

This list is awesome! Of these "Top 100 Gadgets of all time," here are my favorites that I've owned (or owned newer models of):

90. MAELZEL METRONOME, 1816
The model pictured still sits on top of the piano at my parents' house, and it was the device that taught me how to keep time from the first time I inquisitively touched the keys. The internal rhythm it developed has served me well, earning me the moniker of "the blackest white guy I know" from one of my African-American friends in high school.

85. HOHNER HARMONICA, 1857
My grandpa got me one of these from one of his various "point-collecting" schemes (he's saved everything from Kool-Aid Points to Frito-Lay Ploids to Marlboro Miles, even though he doesn't smoke) when I was in the eighth grade, and I love knowing how to actually play one of these things.

68. NOKIA 5100 SERIES CELL PHONE, 1998
Awww... my first cellular phone.

65. MATTEL FOOTBALL II, 1978
My parents still have this one! When I was a kid, it kept me occupied in the backseat for many a long car ride. Well, when my sister and I weren't fighting over it, that is.

50. ETCH-A-SKETCH, 1960
I used to play with this thing all the time.

46. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS SPEAK & SPELL, 1978
This could easily be in my personal Top 5 Gadgets. This little computer game thingy taught me so much about spelling (back in the day of whole-language and just before "inventive spelling") that I can credit it, not unduly, with a good portion of the language skills I have today. It had kind of a freaky voice, though...

43. HANDSPRING VISOR, 1999
I actually had the very first model of the Handspring Visor. I am completely attached to mobile computing now, and I love that I can just make notes to myself (or, more likely, play games when I'm bored) wherever I am because of my handheld computer. Of course, I have the much-more-powerful PalmOne Tungsten T2 now...

40. FALCON DUST-OFF, EARLY 1970s
Ha! This stuff is great, but I really don't use it as much as I should.

31. TREK THUMBDRIVE, 1999
The one I have is more advanced than most... instead of containing its own Flash memory chip, it holds SD card media. I use it to transfer files (mostly MP3s) to my handheld, and to carry around important files that I can use on my work and my home computers.

1. APPLE POWERBOOK 100, 1991
I used to swear I'd never turn into an Apple geek, but now I have a G4 Powerbook. I don't care that I've abandoned my roots - OSX is cool!

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The Geek Code desperately needs updating, but in any case here's mine (as of 2010-02-28):

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GIT/MU d+(-) s:+>: a C++> ULXB++++$ L+++ M++ w--() !O !V P+ E---
W+++ N o++ K? PS PE++ Y+ PGP t !5 X- R- tv+@ b++ DI++++ D--- e*++
h--- r+++ y+++ G+
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------


If you really care about knowing what that all means, you either know the code already, or you can get it decoded for you here.