h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As an over 60-year-old, I'm glad the kettle lights up when it's on so I don't forget I was just going to have a cup of tea. The main safety device is the thermostat (are they still bi-metal strips, like we learned about in school?) which switches it off before it boils dry, of course. That has probably saved a lot of lives. The point at which bells and whistles (or flashing lights) start is probably moving as technology becomes more and more integrated in our everyday lives.

It's not that long ago that comedians could make people laugh by looking at their watch when asked what the date was.

I want to know why car stereos now come with remote controls.

I'm not just talking about an 'On' light, TC, this one actually *lights up*. There's a ring of blue LEDs around the base of the kettle itself... a picture would make this a whole lot easier http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wS5dNYuHTuQ/VSmDNtXQYqI/AAAAAAAAHy8/vS35-O4ywyg/s1600/2015-04-11%2B14.43.10.jpg

And the reason this came up in the first place is that I need a new kettle. And the former Mrs Gosho asked me what I want for Christmas. And I said one of those

Ha, that reminds me of the joke about the Citroen 2CV, BG. It has central locking - you can reach all four doors from the driver's seat

(Bear in mind that joke was made at a time when central locking was a new thing, of course).

I figured.


I'm amazed at how many remote controls are now in my life. My ceiling fans and A/Cs have remotes. I get that it's easier to install wireless controls, but there is nothing about either of those that requires remote control. And one of my ceiling fan remotes is needlessly complicated. All a ceiling fan needs controlled is whether or not the light is on, whether or not the fan is on and what speed or direction the fan turns. But mine has some mystery buttons, a clock and a "house". These buttons are on either side of the light On/Off button and when I push one of these accidentally, I hear a series of beeps and don't understand what I just did. Seriously, WTH?

http://www.thediyvillage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Harbor-Breeze-Fan-Remote.png

Oh, and that kettle looks seriously cool.

I really don't know why so many things have to be so bloody complicated these days, and why so many things need bloody (and equally complicated) remotes, nor why they have to beep. I've described in the past how, when I turn on the light above my hob, there's a beep, and the display says 'ON'. You'd think the fact that light came on would be evidence enough that it, well, came on

I don't think I have a single remote control in the whole of Castle Gosho, but then, I don't have a television or any kind of TV recorder. And with remotes in mind I have to refer back to Zager and Evans:

In the year 5555,
Your arms hangin' limp at your sides.
Your legs got nothin' to do,
Some machine's doin' that for you.

Yeah, it is a pretty cool-looking piece of kit. I bet the Japanese scientist (I think it was a Japanese scientist) who devised the blue LED, which I believe was the most difficult of the coloured LEDs to perfect, had no idea it would ever be used to light up boiling water

And as for the digital kettle, well, I'm not sure what was digital about it - I didn't read the description - but I do recall a certain author having a gentle dig at digital watches

I wonder how long it'll be before cellphones have remotes...

They already do. They're called Apple Watches.


I ran into difficulty when I was searching for clock radios recently. I was searching for HD or "digital" radio, meaning it would pick up the digital broadcast signals available now. (My new car stereo is HD and I'm pleasantly surprised of the alternate programming I've found so far, and some is commercial and interruption free.) But my search kept hitting on clocks with "digital tuners", simply meaning that instead of an analog sliding frequency control, the frequency is displayed in LED and it only adjusts in 0.1 MHz or KHz increments.

I also notice when "electric" and "electronic" are confused. I saw something recently that was described as electronic that didn't seem plausible. Something like an "electronic" table top fan or something like that. Unless it works with transistors and such, it ain't "electronic".

You need an iPhone to make an Apple Watch work? Oh. I thought the idea of an Apple Watch was to use it as a phone. Or something.

I don't really keep up with these things (ie anything to do with Apple), you know

Are your Sheeran senses tingling, BG? Cos he (or at least his underwear ) isn't going away any time soon http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-34755744

This is why we can't have nice things http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/cantillon-brewery-climate-change-cooling-belgium-brussels-a6722986.html

And just as it was announced that, finally, Cantillon is going to start shipping beer to Texas

I don't understand the mass hysteria surrounding the idea of driverless cars. Somebody, somewhere must have dreamt it up in the first place and now it's evolved a life of its own. It's one of the stupidest ideas humankind has ever devised, in my opinion. Up there with the charge of the Light Brigade and right turn on red.

But this http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/driverless-autonomous-self-driving-buses-switzerland-sion-world-first-time-a6727016.html couldn't be any worse than some of the drivers I encounter on Cap Metro every day

Driverless cars...

Until some psychotic hacker crashes the system and the 'Great Crash' comes -with a death toll greater than any war in history.

Something utterly forseeable that only a pathological optimist could overlook and only a psychopath would discount or ignore.

Tea towels are kitchen towels; kitchen towels are paper towels.

I don't think I'll ever get the hang of American English

I've had dreams, and occasionally nightmares, about places like these.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34575019
The abandoned buildings of the Eastern bloc

I would so love to introduce the Slapping Hand to that face http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/reddit-user-takes-selfie-while-his-wife-gives-birth-in-the-background-a6729476.html

I love pictures of abandoned places. (It might have something to do with my misanthropic nature.)

I adore these abandoned WWII memorials sprinkled throughout former Yugoslavia.

http://www.cracktwo.com/2011/04/25-abandoned-soviet-monuments-that-look.html

Some of those are truly bizarre. And make me think of Zardoz

I've just seen a bubble car In Texas!