what do you think the top 5 inventions are?

[macEfan]

i think:

1. the lightbulb
2.the automobile
3.the computer
4.the cell phone
5. the microwave oven

[stubeeef]

1. Printing Press
2. Steam Power &/or Combustion Engine
3. Electricity
4. Telephone
5. Vacumn Tube &/or Solid State

Honorable Mention: penicillin

[katie ta achoo]

1. viol (and all instrumental forms thereafter.. violin, cello, viola.. they're all viols!)
2. What's that thing.. electricity? Yea, that.
3. telecommunication/email
4. Transportation
5. Tofu

Delicious Tofu. I love you. Now, MAKE ME A SAMMICH!

[mkrishnan]

The wheel was pretty tight. :D

[jefhatfield]

1) agriculture
2) printing press
3) radio
4) television

[SamIchi]

The wheel was pretty tight. :D

Haha, indeed

I'd say the computer gotta be up there. Pizza pretty good too.. if that counts.

[mkrishnan]

Pizza pretty good too..

Oh, yes, and low rise pants. Definitely on the top five list. :p

[mad jew]

Things with Velcro on them - endless entertainment. :D

[katie ta achoo]

Oh, yes, and low rise pants. Definitely on the top five list. :p


Low-rise pants + pizza = :eek:

fine separately, but together.. oh no.

/my pants go to my waist
//took 6 hours and 7 stores to find pants that didn't show buttcrack
///I HATE WOMENS CLOTHING!

[jefhatfield]

Low-rise pants + pizza = :eek:

fine separately, but together.. oh no.


they almost always go together

actually, one has to be very thin to pull off low rise jeans...some normal weight people look much fatter with them on and with obesity at its all time high in america, at 64 percent or so, the design is not quite the best

[mac-er]

1. The printing press
2. The Internet
3. Wheel
4. Plumbing
5. Refrigerator

Was electricity really invented? I thought it was discovered.

[dmw007]

Not sure about the top five...but the numero uno invention is definitely the Mac! :D

[dmw007]

Was electricity really invented? I thought it was discovered.

more of a discovery.

[Lacero]

1. The Toilet
2. The Telephone
3. The Transistor
4. The TV
5. The Teleporter (BT-9000) ~ will be invented soon.

[.:*Robot Boy*:.]

1. The transistor
2. The piano (or any other musical instrument, for that matter)
3. The refrigerator
4. Diet Coke
5. The sundial

[rainman::|:|]

too many to pick, but one i'm sure about is nanomachinery... but it'll be a few years before that becomes totally evident :)

electricity has to be in there... agriculture is good... writing was a big one... then probably something by Ronco...

[flyfish29]

Internet

Wheel/Automobile

Fridge (for the next one)
Ice cream

Tivo

[Demon Hunter]

1. Printing Press
2. Steam Power &/or Combustion Engine
3. Electricity
4. Telephone
5. Vacumn Tube &/or Solid State

Honorable Mention: penicillin

Whooooa, too much brain activity. Let's hit the brakes.

1. Women
2. Quake 3 Arena
3. Women
4. Pizza
5. Mac

Honorable mention: Mountain Dew

:D

[Whyren]

1. viol (and all instrumental forms thereafter.. violin, cello, viola.. they're all viols!)

What, no stately baryton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryton)? ;)

[Phat_Pat]

1. me
2. language
3. printing press
4. wheel
5. using electricity to properly power products

[Blue Velvet]

1. Cooking
2. Agriculture
3. Language
4. Writing
5. Eyeglasses

Honorable mentions: Weaving, Animal Husbandry, Tool Making etc.

[portent]

1. Indoor Plumbing & Modern Sanitation Outhouses would suck. Diseases seriously suck.
2. Writing/paper
3. The telegraph (or long-distance communication in general. The Internet works.)
4. Railroads
5. Steel tools.

[katie ta achoo]

What, no stately baryton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryton)? ;)

Gross! No!

:D

[XIII]

1. Silicon chip
2. Combustion engine
3. Phones
4. Wheel
5. Electricity

[portent]

Was electricity really invented? I thought it was discovered.

People of Ben Franklin's generation discovered electricity. People of Thomas Edison's invented it.

[Blue Velvet]

People of Ben Franklin's generation discovered electricity. People of Thomas Edison's invented it.


Not quite:

According to Thales of Miletus, writing circa 600 BCE, a form of electricity was known to the Ancient Greeks, who found that rubbing fur on various substances, such as amber, would cause a particular attraction between the two. The Greeks noted that the amber buttons could attract light objects such as hair, and that if they rubbed the amber for long enough, they could even get a spark to jump. This is the origin of the word "electricity", from the Greek ?lektron = "amber", which came from an old root ?lek- = "shine".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity

If that doesn't count as discovery, then I don't know what does. Benjamin Franklin was a pioneer in discovering practical applications along with some of his earlier contemporaries.

In 1600 the English scientist William Gilbert returned to the subject in De Magnete, and coined the modern Latin word electricus from ???????? (elektron), the Greek word for "amber", which soon gave rise to the English words electric and electricity. He was followed in 1660 by Otto von Guericke, who is regarded as having invented an early electrostatic generator. Other European pioneers were Robert Boyle, who in 1675 stated that electric attraction and repulsion can act across a vacuum; Stephen Gray, who in 1729 classified materials as conductors and insulators; and C. F. Du Fay, who first identified the two types of electricity that would later be called positive and negative. The Leyden jar, a type of capacitor for electrical energy in large quantities, was invented at Leiden University by Pieter van Musschenbroek in 1745. William Watson, experimenting with the Leyden jar, discovered in 1747 that a discharge of static electricity was equivalent to an electric current.

[dops7107]

1. Sliced bread ;)
2. The wheel
3. Agriculture
4. Petrochemicals
5. Refrigeration

[Deepdale]

So many things that revolutionized our modern world, but I'd choose:

electricity
autos and air travel
television
telephone
plumbing

Key honoroary mention to two items in the health and medical field: penicillin and contraception.

Computers and the internet likely rank awfully high with the younger generation (I love 'em, too), but the others seem to have more fundamental status to life as most people in the older demographic might acknowledge. Nevertheless, an interesting question.

[Jaffa Cake]

too many to pick, but one i'm sure about is nanomachinery...Nanotechnology is going to be huge. ;)

[Benjamin]

1. Irrigation/The Farm
2. Language
3. The City
4. Printing Press
5. Wheel

[jefhatfield]

dr dean edell, abc news radio (and others), mentions that a weight loss pill without any bad side effects would grant the inventor a nobel

...and it would rank as the best medical discovery...ever...and i tend to agree having seen a lot of misery working in a hospital

the big and nearly unbeatable killers are heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes and all of them are tied in with obesity, overeating, and high cholesterol in one form or another...and they are often preventable diseases which often rely a lot on our frail human willpower and therefore those diseases beat us most of the time

the bacterial and viral diseases get beat one after another because our modern technology allows us to do so, and because we are not fighting our human, and self destructive bad habits in our eating and lack of exercise

basically, obesity is the last major hurdle in modern medicine and a safe and easy way to fight it is not here yet

[jefhatfield]

one thing i think is ironic is that the first major human invention, and perhaps the most important one so far (agriculture), is tied in with our biggest problem today (imho) of obesity

in our first 100,000 years or so, as hunter-gatherers, we never ate enough to cause any obesity related problems, but now that agriculture has given us a plentiful and relatively inexpensive food source, the human race (including up and coming countries like mexico, china, and india) are increasingly going to be fighting the battle of the bulge...and the diseases which come with it

the body count from stuffing our faces is totally unprecedented and will be worse as time goes on...omg, now i am depressed and i feel like a big mac ;)

[skunk]

Hunting and Gathering has Agriculture beat. Agriculture is such hard work.

[mkrishnan]

Hunting and Gathering has Agriculture beat. Agriculture is such hard work.

As long as you're happy being five feet tall, wearing deerskins, and living to be 45 if you're lucky. :D (I do agree with the link between the model of agrarian culture and some of our problems today, though, FWIW).

[xsedrinam]

The dual identity of Lacero and edesignuk.

[CanadaRAM]

People of Ben Franklin's generation discovered electricity. People of Thomas Edison's invented it.
You have to define what you mean by electricity; "static" charges or controlled transmission. Static discharge was known and used for the past 2600 years or so (Greek, Persian), and reintroduced to western science about 150 years before Franklin by Gilbert (English).

Franklin (American) made some valuable observations and established the principle that electricity was the transfer of a charge from one object to another. But didn't 'discover' it by any stretch.

What about harnessing and using electricity? Given that Alessandro Volta (Italian) built the first battery and described the transmission of electricity between two terminals of differing potential in 1800 and Michael Faraday (English) the first dynamo (generator) around 1831, considerably after Franklin, I would give them the vote.

Nikolai Tesla (Serbian) invented alternating current, and in the USA, Westinghouse Co. owned the patents and Thomas Edison famously waged a bitter battle against the adoption of AC in favor of DC (which his company could make the lion's share of money on). Edison lost.


edit... ah dang it all. BV is much faster than I am...

But I remain fascinated with the myth that Americans and American Industry created the bulk of technological progress in the world.

[jeffy.dee-lux]

ELECTRICITY AIN'T AN INVENTION! That's like saying we invented wood. Sure maybe we discovered that it could be useful, and we discovered how to use it, or invented ways to use it, but both wood and electricity were there long before we started building picket fences and pop up toasters.

okay, here's my list:
-BICYCLE! so sweet. much sweeter than cars, though cars are pretty sweet too. I guess you'd have to give props to all the inventions that made way for bicycles, like wheels, bearings, chain drives, gel seats...
-windows... could you imagine either having no natural light in your house or having big ass holes in the walls during the winter?! sh**, that would suck.
-radio transmission, as in, sending any kind of signals through the air, that's a pretty big deal
-the Wah-Wah pedal, wow chicka wow wow
-Montreal bagels... everybody talks about NY bagels or Toronto bagels without realizing that all bagels outside of montreal are essentially the same thing. Sure some are better than others, but they're all pretty much fat bread with a whole. If ever you visit montreal, look for St Viateur Bagel, REAL Bagel, or Fairmount Bagel, and get 'em fresh. There's a smaller one called DAD's Bagels and they're open 24 hours and also have homemade indian food. Anyways, Montreal Bagels! They're a whole other species, and i live off of them.

[skunk]

Thomas Edison famously waged a bitter battle against the adoption of AC in favor of DC (which his company could make the lion's share of money on). Edison lost.Not really: they named the capital district after his system, after all.

[skunk]

-radio transmission, as in, sending any kind of signals through the air, that's a pretty big dealBy your definition, that isn't an invention either. Quasars, Pulsars, and radioactive minerals show prior art.

[jeffy.dee-lux]

...
-windows... could you imagine either having no natural light in your house or having big ass holes in the walls during the winter?! sh**, that would suck.
...



muahaha, i bet y'all were thinking i was talking about a different windows...

[Aarow]

Nanotechnology is going to be huge. ;)

Haha! Get it. Nanotechnology is going to be Huge?

Lets see. Top 5 for me would be

Chemotherapy (My little brother has leukimia, this stuff works wonders:))
Light (Don't know what I'd do without it, I love light!)
Art (Who doesn't like art? Was art invented?)
Computers (I wouldn't be typing my top 5 inventions list right now if I didn't have one)
Music (Music's pretty cool)

[jeffy.dee-lux]

By your definition, that isn't an invention either. Quasars, Pulsars, and radioactive minerals show prior art.


haha, alright, you got me... how bout the invention of the things that can transmit and receive radio signals?

[xsedrinam]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Al Gore's invention?

[skunk]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Al Gore's invention?Don't you mean inventions?

[killuminati]

Fridge (for the next one)
Ice cream


That's an interesting place to put ice cream. Personally, I prefer mine frozen.

My top 5 unmentioned inventions would be:

1. Hockey
2. Cellphone
3. Airplane
4. Condom
5. iPod

[mkrishnan]

-windows... could you imagine either having no natural light in your house or having big ass holes in the walls during the winter?! sh**, that would suck.

This is conjuring up all kinds of interesting and largely undesired imagery in my mind. :eek:

[skunk]

This is conjuring up all kinds of interesting and largely undesired imagery in my mind. :eek:Thank you. I hadn't noticed.

[minimax]

nuclear fission :cool:

[CanadaRAM]

Originally Posted by jeffy.dee-lux
-windows... could you imagine either having no natural light in your house or having big ass holes in the walls during the winter?! sh**, that would suck.
This is conjuring up all kinds of interesting and largely undesired imagery in my mind. :eek:
I think the original poster is confused; big ass holes in the walls refers more to the lack of indoor plumbing than the lack of windowglass....

[vniow]

Consciousness.

[CanadaRAM]

Consciousness.
Some days I prefer the alternative, however... :p

[noaccess]

This site'll give ya all the answers you need: click here (http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/The_Official_List_of_the_Best_Things_in_Existence)
Satisfied? ;) :D :p

[dcv]

Dunno about my top five inventions but somewhere near the very top of that list would be my ghd ceramic hair straighteners. An absolute godsend.

(sorry, a very girly-girl response)

[Jesus]

1. Wheel
2. Roads
3. Steam petrol and electric engines
4. Boat/car (can't decide)
5. Electricity (& Semi-conductor chips)

[stubeeef]

1. Printing Press
2. Steam Power &/or Combustion Engine
3. Electricity
4. Telephone
5. Vacumn Tube &/or Solid State

Honorable Mention: penicillin

And for my hedonist side

Great single malt scotch
Comfortable shoes
Pillow top mattresses
Fabulous Beer
Vacations
Bonus Checks
Food Delivery
TV Remote Control
Ibuprofen
Panther Football
Sushi
Hammocks
Hot Water (bath and showers) Indoor pumbing and strong flushing toilets
spam
Babysitters

[rdowns]

:)

[skunk]

And for my hedonist side

Great single malt scotch
Comfortable shoes
Pillow top mattresses
Fabulous Beer
Vacations
Bonus Checks
Food Delivery
TV Remote Control
Ibuprofen
Panther Football
Sushi
Hammocks
Hot Water (bath and showers) Indoor pumbing and strong flushing toilets
spam
BabysittersWhich part of "five" don't you understand?
:rolleyes:

[Macaddicttt]

I think one invention that's often overlooked but is really, really important is the washing machine. Think of how much work went into washing clothes before. It was an all-day chore. Now just pop them in the washer, pop them in the dryer, and fold. It must have been one of the most liberating inventions for women.

[Macaddicttt]

1. viol (and all instrumental forms thereafter.. violin, cello, viola.. they're all viols!)


Actually, the violin, cello, viola, aren't directly descended from the viol. They form their own separate instrument family. Oddly enough, the double-bass is a viol, though. Check out the different Wikipedia articles about the viol and violin.

[Les Kern]

i think:

1. the lightbulb
2.the automobile
3.the computer
4.the cell phone
5. the microwave oven

Cell phone? Microwave?
There is no other list needed:
1. Language
2. Printing Press
3. Automobile
4. Wireless
5. TV
6. front-release bras

[eRondeau]

1. Window screens.
2. Nails & screws.
3. Corrective lenses.
4. Standard time.
5. The written word.

[stubeeef]

Which part of "five" don't you understand?
:rolleyes:

Oh yea one of my fav things...Make'n up my own rules when I want to!
:rolleyes:

[Chacala_Nayarit]

Maxwell's equations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell's_equations). Now if that's not geeky! :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/math/574e79fcd783f402f69907b6acbf7cd1.png

Antiseptics, sanitation is a good thing.

[pseudobrit]

Bicycle
Transistor
Airfoil
Printing Press
Roads

Above all, the scientific method.

[Giaguara]

1 internet
2 writing
3 chocolate
4 tea
5 contraceptives

well not necessarily in that order ...

[iGary]

1. Silicon chip
2. Combustion engine
3. Phones
4. Wheel
5. Electricity

Bingo - the integrated circuit. I wanted to see who posted it first.

THE most important invention of last century, bar none.

[Don't panic]

There are really too many to count, but I’ll break down in three classes:

1. Ancient, basic sweeping inventions/dicoveries:

Seafearing
Writing
Agriculture
Metallurgy
Sewing/weaving


Modern inventions:

Transistor
Internal combustion engine
Antibiotics
Electric battery/AC technology
Printing press

"commodities"

photocopier
remote control
music on the radio
espresso
and of course the grapefruit knife (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000VLXGE/sr=1-5/qid=1130195080/ref=sr_1_5/002-5179367-5240061?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance)

[mpw]

...a weight loss pill without any bad side effects...

...and it would rank as the best medical discovery...ever...and i tend to agree having seen a lot of misery working in a hospital

the big and nearly unbeatable killers are heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes and all of them are tied in with obesity, overeating, and high cholesterol in one form or another...and they are often preventable diseases which often rely a lot on our frail human willpower and therefore those diseases beat us most of the time...
I disagree,a weight loss pill would be a terrible idea.

Surely if you give a bunch of fat people a pill that allows them to lose weight there's no incentive to stop stuffing huge amounts of food into their mouths. A weight loss pill with no side effects is a nice idea but wouldn't necessarily combat heart disease etc. that you've mentioned and if I'm right would just make matters worse for many (myself included). How many people would eat more if they didn't have to worry about their weight and what pressure would that put on food supplies?

[Agent Smith]

1. Remote control;
2. Sliced bread;
3. Remote controlled bread-slicer;
4. Mock-ham fried rice (mock-ham made from tofu and REAL Chinese fried rice; I'm eating it right now...)

5. (in all seriousness) Literacy (without which we would have very little of the above posts)...

[xli_ne]

the toothbrush was pretty sweet

[Skareb]

Sliced bread,
The internal combustion motor (including Piston Miller&Otto cycles , Rotary, scoth yoke)
The silicone chip
The atomic bomb
the wheel

Jordan

[macEfan]

Sliced bread,
The internal combustion motor (including Piston Miller&Otto cycles , Rotary, scoth yoke)
The silicone chip
The atomic bomb
the wheel

Jordan

why the atomic bomb?

[puckhead193]

serious - some that weren't mentioned
1. the car, walking is such a pain
2. radio
3. the personal computer
4. cameras - so we can document things
5. condoms/birth control

non-serious
-starbucks
-chocolate
-apple/mac/OS X/ITMS
-navigation -GPS, every car should have it

[Deepdale]

serious - some that weren't mentioned
1. the car, walking is such a pain
2. radio
3. the personal computer
4. cameras - so we can document things
5. condoms/birth control

The car (as "automobile") and computer were covered by the person who started this thread, while #5 came under the earlier category of contraception.

[Apple]

1. The Wheel
2. Lightbulb
3. Telephone
4. McDonalds
5. hot tub

[Lacero]

Surprising no one mentioned sanitation, which was my first choice.

Before the invention of the toilet and sewer systems, mankind lived essentially in filth, dying young of disease and other good stuff. All the later inventions couldn't be possible if people were dying in their early 30s.

All this filth definitely made sex less enjoyable or downright disgusting, so global population increases for all of humanity up to that point was stagnant. Only sanitation and the industrial revolution did we see explosive growth in population and technology.

[anonymous161]

in·ven·tion (n-vnshn)
n.
3. A mental fabrication, especially a falsehood.

Let's see, top five:

1. Normal
2. Intelligent Creationism..er, Design
3. Buying American
4. Freedom
5. Democracy
HM: Equality

[jayscheuerle]

1) wheel
2) lever
3) plow
4) gunpowder
5) God

[jayscheuerle]

People of Ben Franklin's generation discovered electricity. People of Thomas Edison's invented it.

Ben Franklin was the first to make the connection between electricity and lightning (he invented the lightning rod!), though the French were the first to prove his theory (before he did his kite experiment) and thought him a God because of it. He was very highly revered there.

[jefhatfield]

I disagree,a weight loss pill would be a terrible idea.

Surely if you give a bunch of fat people a pill that allows them to lose weight there's no incentive to stop stuffing huge amounts of food into their mouths. A weight loss pill with no side effects is a nice idea but wouldn't necessarily combat heart disease etc. that you've mentioned and if I'm right would just make matters worse for many (myself included). How many people would eat more if they didn't have to worry about their weight and what pressure would that put on food supplies?


good points

there are definitely thin heart disease victims, but taking out obesity from the equation would still have a good overall effect on heart disease

[jayscheuerle]

good points

there are definitely thin heart disease victims, but taking out obesity from the equation would still have a good overall effect on heart disease

So would taking the obese out of the equation! :eek:

[tiny_101]

1. Electricity!
2. The Internet
3. Phones
4. Sushi =P
5. Can't think of another one... :p

[macEfan]

Let's see, top five:

1. Normal
2. Intelligent Creationism..er, Design
3. Buying American
4. Freedom
5. Democracy
HM: Equality

what do you mean by normal?

do you mean perfectly ok, fitting in, etc?

[StarbucksSam]

I could live without a microwave. Tack airplane up there, why don't ya?

[Guitarius]

Toilet Paper
Birkenstocks
Guitar
iBook
Air Conditioning

'Nuff Said.

[mpw]

good points

there are definitely thin heart disease victims, but taking out obesity from the equation would still have a good overall effect on heart disease

I could be wrong but what I meant was that the 'bad stuff' in a McWhopper is still going in and will still surely coat the innards of my arteries even if I'm thin. Or does this wonder drug prevent the absorption of the McWhopper which then begs the question of what else it'll prevent getting into the body, vitamins etc??

Rather than take a drug it’d be better to stop putting McWhoppers into you body, but of course that wouldn’t fly with a consumer society as well as the extra consumption of crap that the consumption of this wonder drug would allow/promote.

[jefhatfield]

I could be wrong but what I meant was that the 'bad stuff' in a McWhopper is still going in and will still surely coat the innards of my arteries even if I'm thin. Or does this wonder drug prevent the absorption of the McWhopper which then begs the question of what else it'll prevent getting into the body, vitamins etc??

Rather than take a drug it’d be better to stop putting McWhoppers into you body, but of course that wouldn’t fly with a consumer society as well as the extra consumption of crap that the consumption of this wonder drug would allow/promote.

please don't mention mcwhopper...it is making me hungry...and i already ate dinner ;)

a male, in the united states, born in 1963 like i was could expect to live to a ripe 67 years old (half of us make it to that point and half don't)

when i first saw that statistic for a late baby boomer like me, i thought it was a little on the low side, but then i found out about things like diabetes, stroke, cancer, and heart disease

going to my 20th high school reunion was a real eye opener

my best friend, 70 pounds overweight, had a heart attack at just age 33 and he likes junk food, obviously more than me

if junk food, smoking, and drinking heavily were not such a big part of our culture (western culture), the life expectancy of my generation would be better for sure

[2nyRiggz]

1. WOMEN!
2. Beer
3. Macs
4. light and all that goes with it
5. Woman!

HM: music is i cant get through a day without it

[rickvanr]

I'm a little late to this one, but no one thinks the abacus was a very important invention? I'd say that, the wheel and fire are the top three.

[jefhatfield]

I'm a little late to this one, but no one thinks the abacus was a very important invention? I'd say that, the wheel and fire are the top three.

for its impact, i believe the abacus was more revolutionary than the modern pc

but i also think that radio and tv were and are more relevant than the pc, and mac, too

but i fix computers for a living part time so i see all the bad things about the darn little buggers, and i was once one of those optomistic/futuristic people who thought the field of accounting and taxation would be demolished due to computers and that shopping malls would be shut down coast to coast due to the computer (with online shopping and the internet), and i thought news organizations would not have to deliver newspapers and magazines anymore, and that telecommuting would close down business for major office building complexes, and so on and so forth :)

[mpw]

...the field of accounting and taxation would be demolished...that shopping malls would be shut down coast to coast...news organizations would not have to deliver newspapers and magazines anymore...telecommuting would close down...business for major office building complexes, and so on and so forth :)
And that you being optimistic? I'd hate to hear you being pessimistic, I think it would be very depressing.

[jefhatfield]

And that you being optimistic? I'd hate to hear you being pessimistic, I think it would be very depressing.

we could all get our news online and save paper

we could shop online and not have to get into our gas guzzling and polluting cars and go to the mall

we could save money and not have to pay accountants to do our taxes and payroll because some "program" could make it easy for the average joe

more people could work from home and be with their families more

...and computer geeks like me can be...he he...masters of the new universe

computers would be, in essence the new "radio" or "tv"

well, so much for future predictions like those which i heard over and over through the decade of the 90s and not seeing them come true...that and i don't think microsoft windows becoming the major platform helped the computer reach its potential either

there could still be a heyday for computers but it was mostly fluff in the end and a lot of people lost money hedging on a more wired and computerized future

[jefhatfield]

...as quoted in many a business magazine

webvan.com...the obvious choice for our most important basic needs

cisco...which at one time in the dot.com era surpassed microsoft in valuation

theman.com...the future of "cool" on the web and the model of dot.coms to come

amazon.com...the future of book and music sales

napster.com...the new leader in the music industry

...and people put their life savings on believing that companies like these would replace the old brick and mortar

[iHateWindows]

1. iMac G5 rev. B
2. 5G 60 GB iPod
3. Steve Jobs
4. Power Mac G5 Quad
5. InvisibleSHIELD

[Abercrombieboy]

1. the wheel
2. electricity
3. the tractor and implements (would be hard to feed everyone if we were still using horse teams.)
4. the automobile
5. the computer