Maybe some non-device inventions: the staff system; the germ theory of disease; currency without a gold standard; public health; public education
as in musical staves? good one!
Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
91–100 of 583 posts
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#92"simple" is a strong requirement. I don't know how to make anything of most things proposed!!! If we were thrown to the Earth 10000 years ago, we would be able to bootstrap our current tech in less than a century?
10,000 years? I think so. 1,000 years? Maaaaybe.
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#93Someone didn’t think of putting wheels on luggage until relatively recently, in 1987. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/business/05road.html
A few weeks ago I was going through some stuff in our storage unit and found an originally very nice suitcase. It's of no value to me now because it has no wheels.
Imagine how much more difficult air travel would be without the wheels!
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#94Plastic. We're now drowning in a new problem, but plastic and its impact on sanitation (particularly medical sanitation, like disposable needles, which then supports vaccinations) has dramatically improved life quality and length. Losing a child to disease before the age of five is no longer a universal human experience, portrayed in the Robert Frost poem below. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53086/home-buria…
Can I make plastic myself?
Simple ones, sure!
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#95Someone has to say it... Squatty Potty
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#96The IUD.
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#97The incandescent light bulb. "In 1761, Ebenezer Kinnersley demonstrated heating a wire to incandescence." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb
I still don't think LED (or Halogen) house bulbs are anywhere near as good as the classic incandescent bulb. Most LED bulbs give me a headache. Bad LED bulbs cause 'strobing' in my vision which is even worse.
This isn't the LED itself. It's the circuitry running current through the light emitting material. Unlike incandescents and fluorescents where the medium itself smooths out poor signal from the circuitry, LEDs show you the quality of the signal going in.
Then there's the question of whether the color emission mix is designed so that your eye perceives it as an approximation of a blackbody spectrum. That's an issue of matching doping to our biology and one of those things that I think is just about settled in decent quality bulbs.
Once the doping mix and the quality of circuitry is fixed, the incandescent lightbulb is at best an historical curiosity.
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#98Washing machine and dish washer
That's actually a big one because of how much time women would spend on these chores.
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#99Window screens and indoor plumbing are the 2 greatest improvements for our daily lives.
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#100Maybe some non-device inventions: the staff system; the germ theory of disease; currency without a gold standard; public health; public education
as in musical staves? good one!
Musical staves aren't after 1700, though. The five line staff we used today was widespread by the 16th century, and staff notation goes back to the 11th century.