The demise of the gadget

[ApK]

Originally Posted by issybird

What the heck else could it be?

There's a crazy little shack beyond the tracks
And ev'rybody calls it the sugar shack
Well, it's just a coffeehouse and it's made out of wood
Espresso coffee tastes mighty good
That's not the reason why I've got to get back
To that sugar shack, whoa baby
To that sugar shack.

--Jimmy Gilmer & Fireballs – Sugar Shack Lyrics

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Here is what one poor misguided person thought.

Spoiler:

Sugar shack? That's from white sugar and adding a maple extract - not 100% pure.

Two people honestly thought that Pure maple syrup was the unprocessed sap.

Apparently they never read "Little House in the Big Wood" or watched the "Franklin and Friends cartoons."

Sometimes the Internet is like a World Expo of Ignorance, isn't it?

Wonder what those people think a sugar bush is?

[Conan46]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

When I set my server up, I wondered how much I'd actually use it, but it turns out that I use it almost daily. I think my brain has just categorized it as an additional music service. Also, Alexa and I will never sort out how she would like me to pronounce "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön" so that she understands it so it's often much faster to play it from the music server.

I intend to eventually get a 128GB micro SD so I can also put my entire collection on my Clip+. Navigating it will be less than optimal but that's what my highly-specific playlists are for.

Some days I miss my iPod Classic so much...

My Alexa devices have ruined me for using the server it is so easy to call up music. But you are right, Alexa is a challenge for some bands/artists. Sometimes you have to do weird pronunciations for her to understand. I almost gave up asking her to play music from the Classic Christian Rock band "Petra". Then one day just for the heck of it I asked her to play "Peeetra" and she got it with the weird pronunciation. Otherwise she played some foreign language radio station.
Loved my Clip. It is in a drawer now but still works. I think it was the only mp3 player I had that played ogg format, and much of my music is ripped to that format.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by Conan46

My Alexa devices have ruined me for using the server it is so easy to call up music. But you are right, Alexa is a challenge for some bands/artists. Sometimes you have to do weird pronunciations for her to understand. I almost gave up asking her to play music from the Classic Christian Rock band "Petra". Then one day just for the heck of it I asked her to play "Peeetra" and she got it with the weird pronunciation. Otherwise she played some foreign language radio station.
Loved my Clip. It is in a drawer now but still works. I think it was the only mp3 player I had that played ogg format, and much of my music is ripped to that format.

My Alexa has ruined me for actually getting up to turn a light on or off. I do use her for Pandora and TuneIn a lot, although I've yet to figure out how she wants "Miled Music" (mee-led) pronounced for any of the MM stations on TuneIn. Mild, mee-led, mill-ed, milled... nothing works. I usually end up opening the app or web interface and launching them from there. She's really good with all my Pandora stations, though. And there's something highly entertaining about exuberantly exclaiming, "Alexa! Thumbs up!"

But to be fair, there is a lot of stuff in my Exotica and Latinesque Lounge genres that I don't even know the correct pronunciation for.

My Clip+ has gotten a lot more use lately since I started using the treadmill. With a 64GB card and Rockbox, it holds just over half my collection, so it's also good for traveling and when I'm in Florida out on the boat. I just plug it into the line-in on the radio we installed last year , seal it in a baggie for protection, and subject everyone to my taste in music.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by ApK

Apparently they never read "Little House in the Big Wood" or watched the "Franklin and Friends cartoons."

Sometimes the Internet is like a World Expo of Ignorance, isn't it?

Wonder what those people think a sugar bush is?

Now to get back on topic so I can share another funny.
I have a gadget or two for cutting french fries. Nice fat ones, not those skinny things sold at a certain fast food chain.

Anyway, it took 3 pages to convince one of those two people that the fast food chain's french fries were not typical American french fries. She thought all french fries had to be pretty much identical to be called french fries because apparently where she is from all "chips" are pretty much uniform. Think fish n chips not American potato chips.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by Conan46

That is another fascinating bit of technology, storage devices and cards. You can put an entire library of books or music or both on something the size of a fingernail. And right now I'm running an entire Linux operating system off of a 64 gb usb stick running on a Chromebook. Storage has gotten inexpensive in the past couple of years.

I bought one of the very early Flash storage cards; a 5 meg Sandisk PCMCIA card. Yes I said meg, not gig. I waited till the 10 meg version came out, which dropped the price of the 5 meg version from $1500 to only $600. I got this to use in my HP 100lx. Sandisk invented the flash memory card and they did it simply because of the 100lx, which at that time was the only device that could use it.

I recently bought a 128 gig micro SD card for $32 so yes I'd say prices have gone down.

Barry

[Conan46]

Originally Posted by barryem

I bought one of the very early Flash storage cards; a 5 meg Sandisk PCMCIA card. Yes I said meg, not gig. I waited till the 10 meg version came out, which dropped the price of the 5 meg version from $1500 to only $600. I got this to use in my HP 100lx. Sandisk invented the flash memory card and they did it simply because of the 100lx, which at that time was the only device that could use it.

I recently bought a 128 gig micro SD card for $32 so yes I'd say prices have gone down.

Barry

Not long ago I was paying about $20 for a 14 gb usb stick. I now pay that for a 64 gb stick. Cloud storage may be driving down prices and some devices dropping external storage altogether may be leading to oversupply and lower prices. Whatever the case it is good for consumers
Edit: BTW that is a great price on the micro sd. I was paying that much for a 32 gb micro sd not long ago.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by ApK

There's a crazy little shack beyond the tracks
And ev'rybody calls it the sugar shack
Well, it's just a coffeehouse and it's made out of wood
Espresso coffee tastes mighty good
That's not the reason why I've got to get back
To that sugar shack, whoa baby
To that sugar shack.

--Jimmy Gilmer & Fireballs – Sugar Shack Lyrics

Okay, I've got a Sugar Shack earworm now.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

Okay, I've got a Sugar Shack earworm now.

It gave me the Love Shack earworm, but at least it got rid of the Schoolhouse rock.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Then please do so. What do you think a gadget is? I wouldn't call an airplane a gadget, so I'm interested in your definition.

Gadgets might be anything.

We normally wouldn't call a match a gadget, but a Ferro Rod is surely one though it hardly looks more complicated.

A multipurpose knife as simple as the old time scout knife would be a gadget, and surely one of those multipurpose Gerber or Swiss knives with 30 extra features including compass, whistle and toothpick are "super gadgets."

And of course the most ubiquitous gadget of the day is the computer, in its many sizes, forms and motifs.

And could we, might we, dare we call a gadget by any other name than a "rose?" (I meant "gadget" of course!)

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

It gave me the Love Shack earworm, but at least it got rid of the Schoolhouse rock.

I hear you can get rid of an earworm by singing Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

I hear you can get rid of an earworm by singing Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.

I used to know someone who swore by the Pink Panther theme for this purpose.

I reckon you could use any tune that you like enough that you won't mind having it as your next earworm

Back on the topic of gadgets - the New Oxford American Dictionary on my Sony reader defines it as "a small mechanical device or tool, esp. an ingenious or novel one". So those upthread who said a gadget should be small were not alone in their definition. When I think "gadget" I tend to think of the kind of kitchen items that get sold in infomercials.

[Alohamora]

My definition of gadget is something​ that fills a need that you didn't even know was a need before you saw/heard of the gadget. I never knew maps weren't good enough until I knew about a navigation GPS. I never knew I needed a Fitbit until I got one. Tape was good enough prior to CDs, CDs were fine until mp3s came along. Who needs a phone and a PDA in one device, remember when the TREO first showed up?

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

I used to know someone who swore by the Pink Panther theme for this purpose.

I reckon you could use any tune that you like enough that you won't mind having it as your next earworm

Back on the topic of gadgets - the New Oxford American Dictionary on my Sony reader defines it as "a small mechanical device or tool, esp. an ingenious or novel one". So those upthread who said a gadget should be small were not alone in their definition. When I think "gadget" I tend to think of the kind of kitchen items that gets sold in infomercials.

Have you been looking in my top file cabinet drawer?
Though the Ronco Veg-o-matic does work great.
Now if you really want to see small kitchen gadgets, go to Wish.com and type kitchen in the search.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The author of the article clearly doesn't get out much.
Kinda typical for his employer.

Coming up with story ideas is probably harder than it sounds. A couple gadgets are going bust...so let's imagine that all of them are.

As a gadget freak for my entire life (now in my 50’s) - I'm amazed at how normal I've become. Everybody has a smartphone now, and fitbits and engages in social media. Gadgets aren't just for geeks anymore.

Heck, my 72yr old mother who NEVER had a personal computer, a Walkman, a palm pilot or an iPod - has an iPad (and now a Kindle Fire 8) and participates on fb, searches medical terms on the internet, shops on Amazon. I've bought her a Bluetooth speaker to go with it for her birthday....shhhh...don't tell her as it won't arrive until tomorrow